ALICIA CALDERON
Associated Press

GUADALAJARA, Mexico - Guadalupe Garcia was known as being strict, religious and always available to talk.

She kept a room by the front door of the hospital she helped found so that she could make sure the nurses were arriving on time.

On Sunday, Madre Lupita, as she is known in Mexico, will be beatified by Pope John Paul II. Beatification is the last formal step before sainthood.

Madre Lupita was born in 1878 in Guadalajara, a provincial capital in western Mexico, and died in 1963 in the Santa Margarita Hospital she helped found when she was 23-years-old. Her religious order has 22 foundations in Mexico, Peru, Iceland, Greece and Italy.

Her friend, Mother Josefina Lopez, said she was always "very neat, very quiet and always talking to anyone who needed her."

"They only judged her when it came time to pay the hospital bill," she said.

Her room has been turned into a makeshift shrine, and includes her books, locks of her hair and a wax statue in her likeness. In another room, people leave letters, photos and other objects in thanks of the many miracles Madre Lupita is credited with performing.

For her beatification ceremony, the pope has recognized a miracle Abraham Arceo says Madre Lupita is responsible for. He has told church officials he was miraculously cured of severe pancreatitis after praying to Madre Lupita for help.

Guadalajara doesn't plan major activities for Sunday's ceremony. But the Roman Catholic Church is collecting money to build a church in the nun's name.

A Mass will be celebrated in her honor on May 15 here in Guadalajara.