Concepción Cabrera de Armida

María Concepción Cabrera Arias was born in San Luis Potosí, Mexico, on 8 December 1862, the seventh of twelve children of Octaviano Cabrera and Clara Arias. Her family belonged to a respectable social class and was fervently Christian; from childhood her parents taught her to recite the Rosary daily. Two days after birth she was baptized by a priest uncle. Still a child she received Confirmation, and in 1872 her First Communion on the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception.

After a very rudimentary schooling, at thirteen she began to keep company with her future husband, Francisco Armida. Their engagement lasted about nine years, during which she continued a life of prayer and the pursuit of Christian perfection. Because of her marked spirituality she was authorized to receive the Eucharist three times a week, and soon daily. From early years she felt drawn to asceticism and reparation, which she practiced with a cilice and other instruments of penance. An apostolic spirit gradually arose in her: she taught catechism to the children of the family's workers and also taught them to read and write. Young as she was she showed a gift for writing; in 1878 she produced her first work, Historia de una muy pacifica família.

On 8 November 1884 she married Francisco. Together they formed a home marked by Marian devotion and the Christian education of their children in the practice of virtue. Nine children were born; two, Carlos and Pedro, died in early childhood. Their son Manuel later entered the Society of Jesus, and their daughter Concepción entered the religious congregation her mother inspired, taking the name Teresa of Mary Immaculate.

In August 1889 María Concepción made her first spiritual exercises and discovered what would be her role in the Church: "Your mission is to save souls." Later this mission took the form of the cry that filled her life—"Jesus, Savior of men, save them!"—and led her to live so that the Lord might pour out his Spirit and all might be saved. Growing ever deeper in interior life, she received special graces such as spiritual marriage and the experience of mystical incarnation. She understood the spiritual life as Trinitarian life, configuration with Christ, and life in the Holy Spirit, the unfolding of the gifts received in Baptism.

On 17 September 1901, after seventeen years of marriage, Francisco died in Mexico City, where the family had moved from San Luis Potosí. Left a widow, Conchita devoted herself to the apostolate and the proclamation of the Gospel. With the bishop's permission she promoted institutions and religious congregations known as the Works of the Cross: the Alliance of Love with the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Apostleship of the Cross, the Congregation of the Religious of the Cross of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Fraternity of Christ the Priest, and, in cooperation with Venerable Fr. Félix de Jesús Rougier, the Missionaries of the Holy Spirit (1914). She lived through the turmoil of the Mexican Revolution with remarkable interior peace, caring for her children—the youngest only two when she was widowed—while remaining a model wife and mother whose first concern was their human and spiritual growth.

Her extensive literary activity includes devotional works and accounts of her spiritual development and mystical experiences, written in obedience to her directors. Her manuscripts fill 158 volumes; forty-six works have been published. In her spiritual diary, the Cuenta de Conciencia, she recounts forty years of interior life. These writings breathe passionate devotion to Christ and the desire that he be loved and known. She never claimed direct visions of Jesus and Mary, yet spoke of him through prayer and meditation; Church authorities in Mexico and during her 1913 pilgrimage to Rome, where she was received by Pope Pius X, looked favorably on her writings. Of herself she wrote that she carried three strong lives: family life with its many sorrows, the life of the Works of the Cross with its crushing weight, and the interior life, the heaviest of all—and she blessed God for everything.

She died on 3 March 1937 after receiving the sacraments, surrounded by a reputation for holiness, assisted by her surviving children and by many religious of the institutes she had inspired. Numerous faithful, religious, and priests attended her funeral. She was buried in the Spanish cemetery in the crypt of the Religious of the Cross of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. On 15 May 1974 her remains were transferred to the crypt of the chapel at El Altillo in Mexico City. Saint John Paul II declared her Venerable on 20 December 1999. A miracle attributed to her intercession was recognized, and she was beatified on 4 May 2019 in Mexico City at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the first Mexican laywoman so honored. Cardinal Becciu summarized the heart of her mysticism: to bring Jesus to all and to give her life for the salvation of souls and of the Church.

May Blessed Conchita obtain for us a share in her thirst to save souls, and let us imitate today her fidelity as spouse, mother, and widow who chose God as absolute Love in the ordinary duties of family life.

CONGREGATION FOR THE CAUSES OF SAINTS

MEXICAN

Beatification and Canonization

of the Ven. Servant of God María de la Concepción Cabrera, widow of Armida

Lay Faithful and Mother of a Family (1862-1937)

________________-

On the Miracle

The Venerable Servant of God Concepción Cabrera de Armida was born in San Luis Potosí, Mexico, on December 8, 1862. She received a very elementary school education and at just thirteen years of age began seeing her future husband, Francisco Armida, whom she married in 1884 and with whom she had nine children. Familiarly known as \"Conchita,\" she was a model wife and mother. After seventeen years of married life, she was left a widow. The Servant of God grew in the interior life, immersing herself ever more deeply in the contemplation of the Most Blessed Trinity, and received certain special graces from the Lord: her numerous manuscripts, among other things, testify to the depth of her spiritual journey. She was guided by several spiritual directors and, with the required diocesan approvals, founded and inspired the \"Works of the Cross\": the \"Apostolate of the Cross,\" the \"Religious of the Cross of the Sacred Heart of Jesus,\" the \"Covenant of Love with the Sacred Heart of Jesus,\" and the \"Priestly Fraternity.\" In 1914, she cooperated with the Venerable Fr. Félix de Jesús Rougier in founding the Missionaries of the Holy Spirit. She died on March 3, 1937, in the odor of sanctity, after a painful illness, assisted by her surviving children and many religious men and women of the Institutes she inspired. She was declared Venerable on December 20, 1999, by Saint John Paul II.

In view of her beatification, the Postulation of the Cause submitted to the judgment of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints the alleged miraculous healing of a man. This event took place in Monterrey, Mexico, in 2008. As early as 1993, this gentleman had begun experiencing cramps, muscle contractures with an inability to walk, and pain in his left leg and arm. He underwent hospital interventions, but with entirely insufficient results. Indeed, beginning in 2003, his condition worsened significantly, and in 2005 it deteriorated irreversibly, with pain becoming so frequent that it led to frequent hospitalizations for functional issues.

Meanwhile, the patient's wife, through a friend, learned about the Venerable. The friend, in turn, took a photo of the sick man to the Religious of the Cross and brought the patient a biography of Conchita, along with a holy card and a small relic. They addressed their prayers to her, asking for the gift of healing. On the afternoon of May 22, 2008, there was an unexpected remission of spasticity in the left extremities, an absence of contractures, the disappearance of flexion joint deformities in the hands, and movements and postures that were unthinkable until shortly before. The following morning, the patient was moving freely about the room without any limitations. The pain and cramps had also disappeared. Two days later, the patient was discharged in good health.

The chronological coincidence and connection between the invocation of the Ven. Servant of God and the healing of that man—who subsequently enjoyed good health and was able to manage a normal relational life—appear evident.

Regarding this healing, considered miraculous, the Diocesan Inquiry was conducted from March 11, 2011, to May 14, 2015, at the Ecclesiastical Curia of Monterrey. Its juridical validity was recognized by this Congregation for the Causes of Saints by a decree dated April 15, 2016. The Medical Consultations of the Dicastery, in the session of November 23, 2017, recognized that the healing was rapid, complete, and lasting, and inexplicable in the light of current medical knowledge. On March 1, 2018, the Particular Congress of Theological Consultors took place with a positive outcome. On June 5, 2018, the Cardinal and Bishop Fathers gathered in an Ordinary Session presided over by me, Cardinal Angelo Amato.

And in both Assemblies, whether of the Consultors or of the Cardinals and Bishops, an affirmative response was given to the proposed doubt as to whether a miracle had been divinely wrought.

An accurate report on all these matters having finally been made to the Supreme Pontiff Francis by the undersigned Cardinal Prefect, His Holiness, accepting and ratifying the votes of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, declared today: It is established concerning the miracle worked by God through the intercession of the Venerable Mary of the Conception Cabrera, widow Armida, a lay faithful and mother of a family, namely of a certain man afflicted with "disease from hyperexcitability of the peripheral nerve with severe functional limitation and severe contractures."

Moreover, the Supreme Pontiff ordered that this decree be made public and recorded in the acts of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

Given at Rome, on the 8th day of June in the year of our Lord 2018.

Angelo Card. Amato, S.D.B.

Prefect

✠ Marcello Bartolucci

Titular Archbishop of Mevania

Secretary

_________________________________

CONGREGATION FOR THE CAUSES OF SAINTS

MEXICAN

Beatification and Canonization

of the Venerable Servant of God

Mary of the Conception Cabrera, widow Armida

Lay Faithful

and Mother of a Family

(1862-1937)

____________

On the Miracle

The Venerable Servant of God Mary of the Conception Cabrera, widow Armida, was born in the Mexican town commonly called San Luis Potosí on the 8th day of December in the year 1862. Her scholastic education progressed little beyond the rudiments; when she reached her thirteenth year of age, she began to frequent the future husband Francis Armida, whom she married in 1884 and by whom she bore nine children. Commonly called "Conchita," she was a model of a wife and mother. After seventeen years of married life, she lost her husband and lived in widowhood. The Servant of God grew in the interior life and applied herself more and more to the contemplation of the Most Holy Trinity, obtaining certain singular graces from the Lord; moreover, her many manuscripts show the depth of her spiritual journey. She had certain spiritual directors and, with diocesan approval, founded and promoted various societies, such as the "Works of the Cross," the "Apostolate of the Cross," the "Religious of the Cross of the Sacred Heart of Jesus," the "Covenant of Love with the Heart of Jesus," and the "Priestly Fraternity." In 1914, together with the Venerable Father Félix de Jesús Rougier, she dedicated her work to the foundation of the Missionaries of the Holy Spirit. On the 3rd day of March in the year 1937, she died crowned with the fame of sanctity after a most painful illness, attended by many of her still-living children and by many religious men and women of the institutes inspired by her. On the 20th day of December in the year 1999, Saint John Paul II declared her Venerable.

Regarding the beatification, the Postulation of the Cause submitted to the judgment of this Congregation for the Causes of Saints a remarkable healing of a man which had occurred in the year 2008 in the city of Monterrey in the Mexican nation.

Already from the year 1993, this man began to experience spasms, muscular contractions along with an inability to walk, and he also experienced pains in his leg and in his left arm. He frequently had to go to hospitals to receive treatment, but with almost no effect upon his health. Indeed, from the year 2003 his conditions changed significantly for the worse, and irreversibly in 2005, so that on account of acute pains he had to go to hospitals very frequently due to difficulties in natural bodily functions.

Meanwhile, the sick man's wife, through the intervention of a certain friend, came to know about the Venerable. The friend gave the Religious Women of the Cross a photograph of the sick man and also gave her a book about Conchita's life with a small picture and a relic of the same. Therefore, they directed their prayer to the said Venerable to obtain healing. On the evening of May 22, 2008, it was granted to witness an unexpected remission of the spasms of the limbs of the left side, the absence of contractions, the disappearance of the deformities of the limbs in flexion, and all bodily movements and states which shortly before were deemed inconceivable. On the morning of the following day, the man was moving about his room without impediments. The pains and spasms had also disappeared. Two days later, the man was discharged from the hospital in good health.

Regarding this healing, considered miraculous, the Diocesan Inquiry was held by the ecclesiastical Curia of Monterrey from March 11, 2011, to May 14, 2015, the juridical validity of which was approved by this Congregation for the Causes of Saints by a decree dated April 15, 2016. The Medical Consultors of this Dicastery, in a session held on November 23, 2017, declared that the healing was rapid, complete, lasting, and inexplicable according to the laws of science. On March 1, 2018, with a positive outcome, the Particular Congress of Theological Consultors was held. Furthermore, on June 5, 2018, the Cardinal and Bishop Fathers gathered, with myself, Angelo Cardinal Amato, presiding. In both assemblies—whether of the Consultors or of the Cardinals and Bishops—upon posing the doubt as to whether a miracle worked by God was established, an affirmative response was given.

Finally, after an accurate report on all these matters was made to the Supreme Pontiff Francis by the undersigned Cardinal Prefect, His Holiness, accepting and ratifying the votes of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, declared today: It is established concerning the miracle worked by God through the intercession of the Venerable Servant of God María de la Concepción Cabrera, widow of Armida, lay faithful and mother of a family, namely concerning the rapid, complete, and lasting healing of a man from "disease of hyperexcitability of the peripheral nerve with severe functional limitation and severe contractures."

The Supreme Pontiff ordered that this decree be made public and recorded in the acts of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

Given in Rome, on the 8th day of June in the year of our Lord 2018.

Angelo Card. Amato, S.D.B.

Prefect

✠ Marcello Bartolucci

Titular Archbishop of Mevania

Secretary

Mass for the beatification of María Concepción Cabrera

(Mexico City, Mexico, May 4, 2019)

Homily of Card. Giovanni Angelo Becciu

\"So that, rooted and founded in charity, you may be able to [...] know the love of Christ which surpasses all knowledge\" (Eph 3:17-19).

Dear brothers and sisters,

With these words, which we heard in the second reading, Saint Paul exhorts the Christians of Ephesus to generously open their hearts to the love of Christ, the only one capable of giving full meaning to our whole life. The Apostle's invitation was fully accepted by María Concepción Cabrera, familiarly called Conchita; a wonderful figure in her different angles as a wife, mother, widow, inspirer of religious institutes and apostolic initiatives. The beauty and strength of her testimony consist in having chosen, since adolescence, to consecrate herself to absolute Love: God. Choosing God as absolute Love means embracing His will, which manifested itself immediately and clearly to Conchita: you will be a wife and mother! As for Mary, the mother of Jesus, for Conchita too happiness consisted not in following her own inspirations, however holy, but in conforming to God's plan for her. She therefore accepted to live her experience as a wife and mother with total dedication. She accepted the responsibility of continuous fidelity, of a maternity that was renewed nine times, of a task as an educator of children that would be exhausting, but beautiful. She showed herself concerned with their human and above all spiritual growth: a maternal solicitude for each of them; a true model of a mother, ready to encourage their positive sides and correct their defects.

The continuous aspiration of her existence was to live \"in\" this world, but not to live \"of\" this world. Rooted \"in the love of Christ which surpasses all knowledge,\" she would revive her mission as mother and wife. Animated by deep faith and boundless charity, on the one hand she would embark on a long ascetical and mystical itinerary, on the other she would let herself be consumed by an indefatigable zeal which, together with her fervent creative imagination, would lead her to give rise to new families of consecrated life in the Church.

Love for God. She spoke of God in a convincing way and naturally, so as to reveal her ardent love for Him. From her youth she strove to transmit the faith to others, also through her writings. Living in her was the desire to conform totally to the will of God. Therefore, she nourished her faith with intense and constant prayer, her true spiritual strength, to which she also dedicated part of the night, with interminable hours of adoration before the Blessed Sacrament. She habitually had the awareness of being in the presence of the Lord, for this reason she lived in a constant interior attitude of prayer. Union with God was also characterized by a profound experience of mystical union with Christ, from which a generous spiritual maternity toward souls sprang forth.

From her love for God was born the continuous torment of loving her neighbor, spreading everywhere the message of Christ's love. Her heart burned with an extraordinary maternal solicitude for those who found themselves in conditions of need and fragility. There was no problem she did not try to solve, there was no indigence she did not try to relieve. Incessant was her solicitude for the poor: she wanted to be poor among the poor, adapting herself to them even in external appearance to share their hardship of life and thus better relieve them. She also devoted herself generously to the spiritual works of mercy: she visited the sick and the dying, giving them spiritual advice.

Blessed María Concepción Cabrera, a unique case in the history of religious foundations, inspired and promoted five Institutes, defined as the \"works of the Cross\": two religious congregations and three apostolic works, without assuming either the role of founder or, even less, the office and powers of superior general. They are: the Apostolate of the Cross, the Religious of the Cross and of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Covenant of Love with the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Apostolic League, the Missionaries of the Holy Spirit. To these works must be added the Crusade of Victim Souls.

"Whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for my sake will find it" (Mt 16:25). This phrase from the Gospel remained impressed in the mind of the blessed and found full application in her life. The flourishing of her works cannot be explained except in the logic of the Gospel, which transforms every apparent death of self into life. She gave rise to the "works of the Cross" through her spiritual writings, but above all through the testimony of her life: she took up her cross every day to follow Jesus. And what crosses! Only after sixteen years of marriage she lost her husband, a loss for which she experienced such great suffering that it made her exclaim: "I felt the divine scalpel in my soul... During those days, I would go near the tabernacle to draw support and strength from it." But her suffering became even greater with the death of as many as four children. Yet each time, in the face of grief, she did not lose her serenity, nor did she lose her trust in God; she looked upon the Crucifix and, as a "faithful echo of the Sorrowful Mother," she learned to offer up her pain by presenting it to the Father for the good of the world and for the Church. She was aware that every pain, small or great, had already been lived by Jesus on the cross, and in Him she could find strength and meaning. Our blessed clearly understood the science of the cross. It requires that upon the Calvary of suffering, present in the humanity of every age, there be the crosses of those who voluntarily unite themselves to the sacrifice of Christ.

Her strong apostolic desire was to save souls, to convert sinners for whose salvation she offered her voluntary sufferings. But her greatest concern, which constituted almost an "obsession," was for the holiness of priests, for whom she prayed and sacrificed herself. How necessary and how timely is this mission! In these recent times, the Church has lived through turbulent and harrowing moments because of the scandals of bishops, priests, and religious who have deformed her face and undermined her credibility. Faced with this painful scenario, some of the faithful have begun to lose trust in the Church, while others have struck her, increasing her wounds. But the right attitude is the one taught to us by the new blessed: to support with spiritual closeness and prayer all those who live their vocation every day in fidelity and self-abnegation. This concerns the vast majority of consecrated persons who offer a clear testimony of faith and love. This does not exempt us from the duty to combat abuses and scandals of every kind, urging those who err to awaken from a hypocritical and perverse life. As the Holy Father Francis reminded us: "The strength of any institution does not lie in being composed of perfect men, but in its willingness to continuously purify itself; in its ability to humbly recognize mistakes and correct them; in its ability to rise again from falls" (Address to the Roman Curia, December 21, 2018).

The difficult and painful moments that led her to be configured ever more to Christ on the cross did not make her lose her natural joviality. This was an index of her total communion with God, whose fatherhood she experienced concretely. Her house was full of joy and liveliness: simplicity, gentleness, and affability were the principal traits of her character. "Mother always smiled," her children testify. Marked by a love for the will of God, she was open with a serene soul to whatever the Lord disposed in joy and in sorrow. We find ourselves before a woman of strong personality, endowed with exceptional qualities, both human and Christian. A woman of prayer and apostolic zeal who, anticipating her times, found within herself the moral strength to establish herself as a leader in the social field and in the ecclesial environment. She knew how to achieve a magnificent synthesis of contemplation and action: the Gospel figures of Martha and Mary are found fused and synchronized in the existence of the new blessed. She presents herself to us today, especially to women, as a model of apostolic life: she prays and acts, she has her mind fixed on heaven and her eyes turned to earth; she adores and exalts the greatness of God and attends to the miseries and needs of men.

May the Church in Mexico know how to imitate her prophetic gaze and her heart open to her brothers and sisters, with a generous apostolic work that finds its root in the Christian faith, the sublime moral and cultural heritage of this Nation. Through her intercession, may she help us to listen to the pleading voices today of those who experience spiritual or material poverty, and to respond to it with that "fantasy of charity" which distinguishes the faithful disciples of the Gospel. For this we implore her: Blessed María Concepción Cabrera, pray for us!