Concepción Cabrera de Armida
| |
| Born | 8 December 1862, San Luis Potosí, Mexico |
|---|---|
| Died | 3 March 1937, Mexico City, Mexico |
| State of life | Married and widowed lay faithful; mother; founder |
| Church or tradition | Latin Church; Archdiocese of Mexico |
| Ecclesial status | Blessed; beatified on 4 May 2019 |
| Recognition | Heroic virtues in 1999; beatification in 2019 |
Concepción Cabrera de Armida was a Mexican wife, mother of nine, widow, spiritual writer, and lay apostle whose prayer inspired the ecclesial family known as the Works of the Cross.[1]
Overview
Concepción Cabrera de Armida (December 8, 1862 – March 3, 1937) was a Mexican Catholic mystic and writer.[2][3]
She is also referred to as María Concepción Cabrera Arias de Armida, sometimes as Conchita Cabrera de Armida or Conchita Cabrera Arias de Armida, and often simply as "Conchita".
She was beatified in Mexico City on 4 May 2019, as the first Mexican laywoman to receive this recognition.[4]
Life
She was born to Octaviano Cabrera Lacavex and Clara Arias Rivera, who had a respectable but not lavish family life. Although she recalled having frequently disobeyed her parents as a child, she showed a special love for the Holy Eucharist from an early age.
In 1884, she married Francisco Armida, with whom she had nine children between 1885 and 1899. In 1901, when she was 39 years old, her husband died and she had to care for her children,[5] the youngest of whom was two years old. Her life as a widow was not made any easier by the fact that the Mexican Revolution raged from 1910 to 1921, taking the lives of 900,000 of Mexico's population of 15 million. Yet her writings reflect an amazing tranquility amid the chaos that surrounded her.
As a mystic, she reported that she heard God telling her: "Ask me for a long suffering life and to write a lot... That's your mission on earth".[5] She never claimed direct visions of Jesus and Mary but spoke of Jesus through her prayers and meditations.
Her spiritual life started before the death of her husband. In 1894, she took "spiritual nuptials" and in 1896 wrote in her diary: "In truth, after I touched God and had an imperfect notion of His Being, I wanted to prostrate myself, my forehead and my heart, in the dust and never get up again."[6]
During her life her writings were examined by the Catholic Church in Mexico and even during her pilgrimage to Rome in 1913 during which she had an audience with Pope Pius X. Church authorities looked favorably upon her writings.[5]
Her writings were widely distributed and inspired the establishment of the "Works of the Cross" in Mexico:
- Apostleship of the Cross founded in 1895,
- Congregation of the Sisters of the Cross of the Sacred Heart of Jesus founded in 1897,
- Covenant of Love with the Heart of Jesus founded in 1909,
- The Fraternity of Christ the Priest founded in 1912, and
- The Congregation of the Missionaries of the Holy Spirit founded in 1914.
These works continue today.
Origins and formation
Concepción Cabrera Arias married Francisco Armida García in 1884 and became the mother of nine children. Known familiarly as Conchita, she cultivated prayer and frequent participation in the sacraments without regarding household work, pregnancy, childrearing, and marriage as obstacles to union with God. Widowed in 1901, she continued to direct her family while producing an extensive spiritual diary and corresponding with priests and bishops who discerned her experiences.
Vocation and service
Cabrera de Armida helped inspire five related Works of the Cross: the Apostleship of the Cross, the Sisters of the Cross of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Covenant of Love with the Heart of Jesus, the Priestly Fraternity, and the Missionaries of the Holy Spirit. Her spirituality contemplated Christ as priest and victim and encouraged prayer for the holiness of priests, while her own canonical state always remained lay and, for most of her adult life, marital or widowed.[7]
Christian witness
Her life is a major modern witness to the baptismal vocation within family responsibilities. She did not found her apostolate by abandoning motherhood for an imitation of religious life; she carried grief, finances, education, and the ordinary claims of children and grandchildren into a demanding life of prayer. That integration gives theological weight to her writings beyond the extraordinary experiences they sometimes describe.
Private revelations attributed to Cabrera de Armida require the distinctions taught by the Catholic Church. Beatification judges her life and heroic virtues and permits a limited cult; it neither adds to public revelation nor makes every sentence in a vast private diary an act of the Magisterium. Her texts are best read under ecclesial guidance, with their Christological, Eucharistic, and priestly themes ordered to Scripture and the Church's faith.
Ecclesial recognition
Cause and present status
The Archdiocese of Mexico introduced her cause in 1959. Saint John Paul II recognized her heroic virtues on 20 December 1999, and Pope Francis authorized a decree concerning a miracle in 2018. Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu presided at the beatification in the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe on 4 May 2019. Older sources calling her Venerable reflect an earlier stage; her exact current status is Blessed.
Liturgical and devotional scope
The apostolic letter of beatification authorizes Cabrera de Armida's public veneration in specified places and communities, with 3 March assigned as her liturgical observance where approved. Beatification does not establish universal public cult or insert her into the General Roman Calendar. Members of the Works of the Cross and other faithful may seek her intercession while awaiting any future judgment concerning canonization.[8]
Writings
Her children report that they hardly ever saw her in the process of writing, but her religious writings and meditations total over 60,000 handwritten pages. The length of her religious writings thus approaches that of Saint Thomas Aquinas.
As a writer, she often aimed to show her readers how to love the Catholic Church:
To love the Church is not to criticize her, not to destroy her, not to try to change her essential structures, not to reduce her to humanism, horizontalism and to the simple service of a human liberation. To love the Church is to cooperate with the work of Redemption by the Cross and in this way obtain the grace of the Holy Spirit come to renew the face of this poor earth, conducting it to its consummation in the design of the Father's immense love.
In Seasons of the Soul she viewed the maturation of spiritual life as an ongoing process through the various seasons until the soul has fulfilled its purpose on earth. It discusses how the Holy Spirit is at work gradually transforming the soul through its seasons in the image and likeness of Jesus.
The book A Mother's Letters reflects the fact that she was not a cloistered mystic but a busy mother with nine children and a widow during a turbulent time in Mexico's political history. The letters provide a glimpse of her warm, human side as she communicates with her family.
Her other books include: To My Priests, Holy Hours, Before the Altar, You Belong to the Church and Irresistibly Drawn to the Eucharist.
"I Am": Eucharistic Meditations on the Gospel
"I Am": Eucharistic Meditations on the Gospel is a book of meditations written in 1912 by Conchita, the result of meditations during Eucharistic adoration. It aims to clarify the words with which Jesus defines Who He is in a variety of statements beginning with the words "I am". The book thus aims to lead the reader to a better understanding of the mystery of Jesus Christ. These 31 meditations were originally published in 2001.
Death
Conchita died on March 3, 1937, at the age of 74 and is buried at the Church of San José del Altillo in Mexico City. She had lived a multifaceted life, being a mother, a widow, a mystic and a writer. Of herself she wrote:
I carry within me three lives, all very strong: family life with its multiple sorrows of a thousand kinds, that is, the life of a mother; the life of the Works of the Cross with all its sorrows and weight, which at times crushes me until I have no strength left; and the life of the spirit or interior life, which is the heaviest of all, with its highs and lows, its tempests and struggles, its light and darkness. Blessed be God for everything!
Beatification
Her beatification process was started in 1959 by the Archbishop of Mexico City, at which time about 200 volumes of her writings were submitted to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints to be assessed. Pope John Paul II declared her as Venerable on December 20, 1999, and he began the process of beatification.
Pope Francis confirmed a miracle attributed to her intercession on 8 June 2018, thus paving the way for her to be formally beatified, and Cabrera was beatified on 4 May 2019 in a ceremony which was held in Mexico City, at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe.[9]
Sources and external links
- Spanish Wikipedia
- Conchita: A Mother's Spiritual Diary
- Work of the Cross
- Blessed Concepcion Cabrera
- I Am: Eucharistic Meditations on the Gospel
- Seasons of the Soul
- Video about Cabrera de Armida at Museum House
- "I Am" at AlbaHouse
References
- Back to citation Beatification of Concepción Cabrera de Armida — Holy See bulletin for the 4 May 2019 beatification in Mexico City, including the papal representative's account of her witness.
- Back to citation Saints of North America by Vincent J. O'Malley 2004 ISBN 1-931709-52-1 pages 115-117
- Back to citation Michael Freze, 1993, Voices, Visions, and Apparitions, OSV Publishing ISBN 0-87973-454-X page 246
- Back to citation YouTube, a Google company. YouTube. Archived from the original on July 25, 2023; Castillo, Elia (4 May 2019). "Concepción Cabrera: primera laica mexicana en ser beata" [Concepción Cabrera: The first Mexican laywoman to be beatified]. Milenio (in Spanish); "Beatifican a Concepción Cabrera, la primera laica mexicana que llega a los altares" [Concepción Cabrera, the first Mexican laywoman to reach the altars, is beatified]. ACI Prensa (in Spanish). 4 May 2019. Retrieved 2023-07-20.
- Back to citation occurrence 5.0 Back to citation occurrence 5.1 Back to citation occurrence 5.2 Ellsberg, Robert (2016-07-07). Blessed Among Us: Day by Day with Saintly Witnesses. Liturgical Press. p. 128. ISBN 978-0-8146-4745-5.
- Back to citation Philipon, O.P., Marie-Michel, ed. (1978). Conchita: A Mother's Spiritual Diary (PDF). Society of St. Paul. Printed edition: p. 44; PDF edition: p. 42. ISBN 978-0-8189-0578-0.
- Back to citation The Works of the Cross and their foundress — Official Missionaries of the Holy Spirit account of Cabrera de Armida and the five Works of the Cross.
- Back to citation Apostolic letter for Cabrera de Armida's beatification — Official Acta Apostolicae Sedis publication of the beatification formula, title, date, and authorized observance.
- Back to citation YouTube, a Google company. YouTube. Archived from the original on July 25, 2023; "Beatifican a Concepción Cabrera, la primera laica mexicana que llega a los altares" [Concepción Cabrera, the first Mexican laywoman to reach the altars, is beatified]. ACI Prensa (in Spanish). 4 May 2019. Retrieved 2023-07-20; Castillo, Elia (4 May 2019). "Concepción Cabrera: primera laica mexicana en ser beata" [Concepción Cabrera: The first Mexican laywoman to be beatified]. Milenio (in Spanish).