The Beatitudes are, without a doubt, the most perfect synthesis of the Gospel and the most successful expression of its scale of values. In them is contained, and expressed with depth of poetry, the truth that Christ came to reveal Himself to the world. A truth that profoundly liberates man. A truth that matures the person in his humanity. A truth that is, in short, love.
Only he who learns to love, matures integrally. Man made in the image and likeness of a God who is Love; it is the only foundation on which a balanced and happy personality can be built. But the lesson of love is difficult to learn. Selfishness, the root of all major sins, which is only personal gain or possession and domination of others at times, tends to clothe with the mantle of dedication and openness to others; therefore, the beatitudes, in conveying the message of a truth founded on love, dwell on the nuances that make love – truth. And they come to tell us that love is such if it is interwoven with the gift of self and possessions, service to others, the strength to die to self and create community with others, justice according to God’s original plan for man and society, preferential dedication to those most in need, generosity and clean intentions, and great interior and exterior peace. This message of truth like love and from the love of truth, is, however, prophetic by its very nature and creates divisions and struggles that all the more stronger and violent, the more a society is founded on consumerism, lust for power, legalized injustice or other multiple forms of personal and even structural selfishness. Freedom always has a price. And the price to pay for evangelical freedom, for truth and justice for man and society, is persecution. The eighth beatitude, compilation and conclusion of the other seven, is very clear: Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven, blessed are you when they insult you, persecute you, and with lies do all evil against you for my sake. Wherever the Church is coherent with its message, it is rejected or persecuted. And it is so much more rejected or persecuted the greater its coherence. The forms of persecution are, however, many and varied. There are more underhanded persecutions, and not for that reason less harmful, that try to win the silence of the Church with offers and benefits. Those who act in this way know that it is better for them to have a perverted Church than a persecuted one. There are others, carried out with silk glove that does not martyrize the Church, but silence her and corner her in the sacristies. And there are others, such as that suffered in Spain during the civil war, which are truly bloody. These different types of persecution, a permanent sign of the proclamation of the Kingdom, accompany the Church in her daily pilgrimage through the world. And the Congregation of Capuchin Tertiary Sisters of the Church and citizen in very diverse cultures and nations has also experienced in different times and countries the risk of announcing Christ and collaborating in the construction of the civilization of love: What happened in Spain in 1936 is for the Capuchin Tertiary Sisters was a very important expression of their prophetic dynamism, but it’s not only this, of course, nor, the last one. China – a missionary adventure.
Not many years have passed, and the Father Founder himself opened wide this door to his daughters. The Lord sent him a sign and he, a man of faith, knew how to interpret it at once. In 1903, without anyone knowing anything, a young Colombian lady, a person of good position arrived in Masamagrell. She needed to escape from home for the call of the Lord to be a Capuchin Tertiary Sister. This fact, together with the request that the Capuchins of Guajira had been making to the sisters to go there, was enough for the Congregation, encouraged by its Founder, to decide to travel different parts of the world, announcing Christ where He was not yet known. In 1905, the first missionaries left for Colombia. Years later, it was Venezuela’s turn. And in 1929 the Capuchin Tertiary Sisters began their missionary opening to China. The circumstances of this new trip gave it the characteristics of a true adventure. The sisters, chosen among the volunteers, were, as Father Amigó wanted, «healthy and strong in body, constant and solid in faith», they had a great spirit of love, abnegation and sacrifice, but they were going to a country of which they did not know the idiosyncrasy, the culture and the language. On November 3, 1929, the first chosen ones left Masamagrell. They went to the poorest mission in China, located in the province of Kansu, the largest and westernmost of the country. As the missionaries of that time did, they bid farewell with a «see you in heaven«. Father Amigó, in his old age, could not hold back his tears. He knew he would never see them again. During the five years he lived he always had a special affection for his «chinitas». And when he received news from them when he was about to die, he still found the strength to applaud with feebleness and enthusiasm at the same time.
On January 27, 1949, the last Capuchin Tertiary Sisters missionaries in China were forced to leave the country. Their hearts, however, remained forever in that field of evangelization, witness of so many labors and joys. They did not shed their blood for Christ, but they suffered in their own flesh the consequences of a persecution unleashed once again against the Christian faith.
This defiance of dangers and difficulties, lived with radicality by the sisters during the cholera of 1885, during the Spanish war of 1936, or during the missionary adventure in China, has continued to emerge later when the gravity of the circumstances has required an extreme witness of love. The case of Armero (Colombia) is a good proof of this. Armero, founded in the Province of Tolima in 1895. The Capuchin Tertiary Sisters were neighbors of the town since 1956 when the bishop of Ibagué invited them to settle there on the sole condition that they were saints. In 1985, the Holy Family College had already reached its true maturity. Without excessively increasing the number of students, without losing the family atmosphere that characterized it from its beginnings, it had been extending its educational and evangelizing action beyond its classrooms, entering into the family environment of its students and inserting itself into the overall pastoral ministry of the Parish The sisters who ran the College had received that year 1985 with a special joy. It was the first centenary of the foundation of the Congregation. The people of Armero, like so many others around the world, were ready to joyfully join in the jubilee celebration of their beloved sisters. But shortly after the beginning of the year, dark omens began to hover over the population. The Nevado del Ruiz, the sleeping lion for a long time, began to show signs of wanting to wake up from its lethargy. And Armero, like other towns in the area, began to live a long nightmare. When in April, the Provincial Superior visited the sisters, the situation was already very worrying, the volcano was continually spewing ash that covered the houses and streets of the town with a gloomy layer and forced the inhabitants to protect themselves with handkerchiefs in their mouths when going outside. The Provincial, seeing the danger the sisters were in, asked them: «Do you know that you are in danger of death, what you are going to do?
The community, composed of Sisters Bertalina Marín Arboleda, Julia Alba Saldarriaga Ángel, Emma Jaramillo Zuluaga, Marleny Gómez Montoya and Nora Engrith Ramírez Salazar (novice), responded unanimously we will die with the people…. And if we are left alive, we will welcome in our house all those who have housing problems… this house is very big. The Sister Provincial, however, seeing the novice very weak, said to her: Norita, when you go on vacation, you will have to stay in Medellin, you look very pale. But the young woman insisted: Let me finish the year here. I am happy. I feel that the Lord is asking me to stay here. On November 13, at nightfall, disaster struck. The floodwaters from the sudden melting of the volcano’s continuous snows swept through the village. The next day, the radio and the press gave the news of the tragedy as follows: Armero is like a sea…. Armero has disappeared. Nothing is left of Armero. The houses are buried… Thousands and thousands of people have died under the mud. Two of the sisters, the superior Bertalina and the novice Nora Engrith, were buried forever in the great cemetery that Armero has become. A third, Julia Alba, died thirteen days later in Bogota, victim of the wounds and suffering caused by the avalanche. As in 1885, the year of the foundation of the Congregation, also now, in the celebration of the first Centenary, three sisters sealed with their blood their testimony of love for God in their brothers and sisters. But the case of Armero is not the last testimony of love to the extreme that the recent history of the Capuchin Tertiary sisters offers us. Two years had not yet passed since that catastrophe, when the Congregation was “marked red” once again in the person of Sister Inés Arango, born in Medellín (Colombia). Her great ideal, since she was a child, was to be a missionary in Africa or Asia. She would have liked to leave for the missions as soon as she was professed, but her time had not yet arrived on God’s clock. She would have to wait twenty years and spend her first period of religious life dedicated to teaching in her native country. In 1977 her missionary dream finally came true. The Capuchin Tertiary Sisters had accepted a missionary work in the jungle of Aguarico (Ecuador) and Sister Inés was among the group of foundresses. It was March 9, 1977. Her first destination was Shushufindí. Shortly after, in August of the same year, Inés was in charge of a mission in Rocafuerte, which from then on would be for her the referential center of all her missionary activity in the surrounding indigenous tribes. Here she met the Capuchin Father Alejandro Labaka, with whom she felt identified from the first moment and with whom she had a deep and sincere friendship. Both of them preferred the minorities: the Sionas, the Secoyas, the Quichuas, the Shuaras and, particularly, the Huaorani. Alejandro and Agnes, in their dream of proclaiming Christ, demanded more and more of each other. They are aware that a true proclamation of the Gospel must respect the indigenous culture by assuming its values. And to know these values, it is necessary to be fully inserted in their life. In 1985, Sister Inés asked and obtained permission to go and live for a while among the Huaorani. The experience was very positive and Inés repeated it on other occasions. Every day her missionary spirit is stronger and more committed. She is living a spiritual maturity that amazes those who know her. In 1987 the III Latin American Missionary Congress took place in Bogota. After the Congress, Inés quickly returned to Rocafuerte, comforted by the words of encouragement and the blessing of the Superior General, Sr. Ma. Elena Echavarren. She has obtained permission and is eager to set out as soon as possible on a journey to the Tagaeri, the last unexplored redoubt of the Huaorani. On the eve of the trip, she said goodbye: Laura, I am leaving for the Tagaeri. Laura asks her: «Are you afraid, what if they kill you? -Ah, don’t worry, I’ll die happy. -Really, Inés, aren’t you afraid? No, because if I die, I die as the Lord asks me to die. In her letter she wrote: «If I die, I die happy, and I hope no one knows anything about me, I’m not looking for a name or fame, God knows…» Always with everyone, Inés.
Undoubtedly, within the history of martyrdom the best crown for Rosario, Serafina and Francisca, our blessed martyrs is and will be, without a doubt, to feel and be surrounded by the sisters who in Masamagrell and Benaguacil preceded them in 1885 with their testimony of love and by those others who, later, in China, Armero and Aguarico have contributed to make the history of the Capuchin Tertiary Sisters a poem of strength and tenderness, bringing to life the motto of: Love, Abnegation and Sacrifice.
Sr. Sylvia Yolanda Muñoz Muñoz, tc
