Cesarita, the First Mexican Foundress
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CESARITA, THE FIRST MEXICAN FOUNDRESS
PREFACE
The following is a brief history of Cesarita, the first native Mexican foundress. The institution which she founded in order to serve Christ, the Church and Society as a whole was the Mexican Sisters of Saint Joseph. We hope that this small book may act as an appetizer to stimulate a desire to find out more about Cesarita. For those who are indeed curious to know more, three books published in the last few years should prove useful: Subir a Jerusalén, a volume of 1568 pages providing a comprehensive account of Cesarita’s life; shorter in length, there is a historical compendium of the life, mission and spirit of Cesarita entitled Al Estilo de Cristo; finally there is a third book, Sígueme, which examines the charism of Cesarita and gives an account of the Plan for following Christ which she received from on high and of which she became both the teacher and the model. I should point out to the reader at this point that the present work can provide only a very abbreviated biography of Cesarita, a Mexican woman totally dedicated to Christ who brought glory to the Church and to her country in the manner of the great European founders.
1. In Aguascalientes
Situated in the central area of Mexico is the city of Aguascalientes, capital of the state of the same name. At the time of Cesarita’s birth in 1829 its population numbered some 15,000 largely peaceful, religious and hard-working inhabitants. Up to the War of Independence (1810-1821) it was a region of gold, silver, tin and lead mining. The name Aguascalientes has its origin in the thermal springs which are a feature of the surrounding area. This city was the birthplace of Cesarita’s parents, José María Ruiz de Esparza in 1798 and María Bruna Dávalos y Rincón Gallardo in 1809, both of Spanish descent. Her father studied law at the University of Guadalajara, and practised as a lawyer, notary and judge. Her mother’s family was very wealthy. Cesarita was born on Thursday 27th August 1829. Cesarita’s mother always told her that she was born on Thursday 27th August 1829, although according to her certificate of baptism she was born on the 28th. She was born premature and almost did not survive. It took three years for the physical and mental signs of this early handicap to disappear, but she was left with no resulting trauma. Only her lungs were permanently affected, but she had an outstanding intelligence and her strength of will became firmer by the day. Because of her weakness at birth, her mother bestowed much more care on her than on her other fourteen children, of only six of whom there is any record: María Josefa (1826), Justo Pastor, later known as Juan Hernández (1827), Ignacia (1831), Juliana, later a Sister of Charity of St Vincent de Paul (1836), José María (1837) and Refugio. María Bruna showed a natural maternal concern for her children’s well-being and was anxious for them to inherit her own refined upbringing and her ethical and spiritual principles. In this regard Cesarita was her greatest success. The two mainstays of her religious education were an abhorrence of sin, which offends God, and a belief in the power of prayer to bring one closer to God and to uplift the soul. She took a particular concern in bringing up her daughters, believing them to be in most need of affection, especially Cesarita, who bore a close physical resemblance to her but who was destined to surpass her in her spiritual attainments. In physical terms Cesarita was certainly beautiful. She was a good height with a rosy oval face, broad smooth forehead, blue eyes, thick eyebrows, delicately lined and arched, and a soft intelligent expression. She had a small mouth enhanced by thin lips, a gently curved chin, and her hands were small, white, slender and nicely shaped. Her prettiest and most striking feature was her lovely light brown hair which she took a great deal of pains over when she was young, but later wore in “alamar” style with two interwoven plaits tied up at the back of her head.
2. What can be done with a gold ring and an Infant Jesus
With her mother, brothers and sisters, Cesarita followed her father wherever his work as a judge and notary took him. They moved to Zacatecas and then Sombrerete from 1830 to 1833, followed by ten years in Durango between 1833 and 1843, after which they returned to Zacatecas for three years from 1844 to 1847. In that year Cesarita went to San Luis Potosí, where she took up permanent residence for the following 22 years until April 1869. María Bruna looked upon her daughter as a mirror image of herself and allowed her to enhance her beauty by wearing a few adornments, although Cesarita does not reveal what they consisted of, merely indicating that she liked her hair to look good. She knew that it made her look lovely. But those who sought to win her affections, her heart or her hand in marriage were given short shrift. Her mother, like a look-out on the wall, was vigilant over the honour of her daughters, keeping a careful watch on their friendships and visitors, their demeanour and their fashions, in accordance with the strict standards of upbringing prevailing at the time. When she was 17, Cesarita gave up the few simple adornments she had used up to then in favour of a plain hair style which was intended to disguise her feminine charms. She was like a beautiful flower which was bursting forth, nurtured by the private prayer taught her by her mother. St Francis de Sales was a major formative influence with his two classic works Introduction to the Devout Life and A Treatise of the Love of God. It is not clear how a book by Lorenzo Scupoli entitled Spiritual Combat came into her hands, but it filled her with doubts which she was able to overcome only with her mother’s help. Thanks to her private prayers to God, her conviction that the Lord was ever-present and her readiness to live her life in a spirit of self-sacrifice, she was able to break all ties with the 3 world and put her thoughts in order. So sincere were her prayers that she was in effect offering her whole being to Jesus. It was not a case of her suffering rejection by the world and by men, but rather of her herself retiring from the world of her own volition. In 1847 her father exchanged his post as Judge of Zacatecas for that of Judge of San Luis Potosí, which entailed their moving to the latter city. Knowing Cesarita as he did, her father gave her an Infant Jesus as a present. Lucio Dávalos, her uncle on her mother’s side and her godfather, gave a gold ring to her and to each of her four sisters as an encouragement to get married. The first of them to take the hint seriously was Cesarita, albeit in an unexpected way. She thus found herself in possession of a gold ring and an Infant Jesus. This was a felicitous way of showing her where the husband destined for her was to be found and she latched on to the idea immediately. She had a tiny ring made for the Infant Jesus’s little finger, with the letter ‘C’ for Cesarita engraved on the inside. She already had the letters ‘J’ for Jesus and ‘C’ for Cesarita engraved on her own ring. She informed the Superior of the Franciscans, Father Ignacio Sampayo, who was her spiritual director, of all this, and he approved of his young protegée’s decision. They set a date for the betrothal, which would take place on Thursday 12 October 1848, the feast of the Virgin of the Pilar, the Patron Saint of Spain and Spanish America. That afternoon Cesarita put on her best clothes. She was dressed in white with a white mantilla made of Brussels lace, a white collar and white ankle boots. She put the two rings away in her small jewellery box, took the Infant Jesus, for whom she had made a little white dress, and walked with him in her arms to the church of San Francisco, which was opposite her house. Father Sampayo was waiting for her in the large sacristy: “He blessed the afore-mentioned ring, put it on my finger and announced that I was now betrothed to the Infant Jesus. At that moment I made a spiritual communion and began to believe fervently that my Holy Mother and my Father St Joseph were my sponsors, as I had so besought them to be. I put a tiny ring on the Infant Jesus bearing the initial ‘C’.” Cesarita was 19 years old. Not even St Catherine of Siena’s betrothal to Jesus could have been lovelier. From that day on she cared for that Child like a husband, bestowing dresses, flowers, lights and perfumes upon Him. She constantly promised Him her heart, kissed the ring and demonstrated her devotion with a hundred spiritual communions a day. All she lived for was to please Him and to show her love for Him in all her actions. When the bells of the church of San Francisco rang for evening prayers, Cesarita kneeled down at her Child’s feet and after giving Him some kisses, said her private prayers. Every year she sat up with him during Christmas night. Throughout her life He was always with her on her travels. She never physically left His side even at the hour of her death.
3. A father deceived and led astray
Cesarita offered herself completely to Jesus, committing herself to do whatever He asked of her for as long as she lived, and she was totally sincere in this.
3 Her father was fulfilling his ambitions as a judge and lawyer in San Luis Potosí. However, he decided that he wanted to become much richer and started to become less conscientious about carrying out his family responsibilities. Both his wife and his children were witness to this. Cesarita did not breathe a word about her mother’s suffering, but finally on Friday 18th April 1856 her mother died. For José María, Cesarita and the other brothers and sisters, it was as though the sun had been eclipsed. Her father groped around like a blind man and went completely off the rails. The responsibility for running the household fell upon Cesarita. This was the decision of her father, not only because he was aware of her domestic attributes, but also because he did not want to impose upon Justa or Refugio who were now going out with their respective boyfriends Manuel Carbón and Juan Vega. Cesarita has kept silent about her father’s unfortunate reaction, which was badly received by all his children. He was being pursued by a woman known throughout San Luis Potosí as “La Durangueña”, no doubt because she came from Durango. Her name was on everyone’s lips. Nobody could understand how a judge of all people could fall into her clutches. His children withheld their approval of the relationship, not so much because they had any objection to remarriage as such but because they knew her for the harpy she was. At the time all this was happening in April 1858, he was about to celebrate his 60th birthday and she was considerably younger. The very fact that as soon as María Cruz, ‘La Durangueña’, entered through the front door, the two most religious of his daughters, Cesarita and Juliana, immediately left the house certainly provides food for thought. Did they leave because of their rejection of such sinful cohabitation or in order not to live under the same roof as a woman whose reputation throughout the city was so besmirched? Or else, was it ‘La Durangueña’ herself who threw them out because she could not bear the presence of two such good-living daughters as witnesses to her dreadful conduct. On 22nd April 1858 Cesarita and Juliana set out for Mexico City accompanied by Doña Teresa Pimentel, whom they addressed as aunt. As soon as the Dávalos Rincón Gallardo learnt that the three women were on their way, they wrote to Doña Teresa proffering polite excuses why they were unable to receive them. They must have known about Sr. Ruiz de Esparza’s escapades and the family’s fall in social status since María Bruna’s death. At this juncture God decided on a change of course for Cesarita as she was on her way to Mexico City with a view to entering the convent of the Franciscan Conceptionists. That was not to be her mission and they returned to San Luis Potosí. A few weeks later Juliana reached the capital and on the 8th September 1858 was received in the Novitiate of the Daughters of Charity. Meanwhile, ‘La Durangueña’ managed to inveigle José María into signing over to her the money and property he had acquired over the years. 5 4. I was now alone
Now Cesarita was left at the mercy of the elements. Like Jesus she had nowhere she could call home. Between May and November 1858 she stayed with her brother José María on the Hacienda La Quemada where he worked. These were sad months during which she was deeply preoccupied with her father, but all the time God was purifying her and preparing her for her mission. Here she could do more thinking than in the convent in Mexico City: “I would go off alone into the countryside taking books with me to read, pray and meditate”. Doña Josefa Salazar took her back to San Luis Potosí to a house of lay sisters called Salesas, though they were not Salesians. They put her up for free and she was able to continue her meditations there, staying from November 1858 to July 1859. She read and reread the Bible and L’Abbé Gaumé’s Catéchisme de Persévérance. Reading became almost an addiction for her, especially the Holy Gospels. This woman who was so retiring and meditative was still unaware of all that that her Infant Jesus had in store for her. These years up to August 1872 were decisive in preparing her to be a foundress. All those months totally devoted to prayer and contemplation in the midst of suffering provide her with the grounding to make her worthy of Jesus making her His envoy on earth. At no time does that Infant Jesus leave her side, nor she His. She has carried Him everywhere with her to witness her struggles, her tears and her longest and most deeply felt prayers.
5. Father’s sad end
One day in July 1859 she received an urgent call. Her father was all alone. La Durangueña had just abandoned him, leaving him at home incapacitated. It had not taken this cunning woman long to get hold of José María’s money and nearly all his property. When there was nothing more she could extract or steal from him, she quietly left, unconcerned about his paralysis. Cesarita set off in the clothes she stood up in to be at her father’s side. There are no words to describe the reunion and how father and daughter now gazed upon each other. Regardless of what had happened in the past, she prepared to give him the affection and care denied him by the “other woman”. Like the priest and the Levite in the parable of the Good Samaritan, her other sisters Justa, Ignacia and Refugio did not go near him. Cesarita’s health was slowly destroyed by her constant difficulties, endless work, loss of sleep, financial worries, her brothers’ and sisters’ lack of understanding and her utter loneliness. On top of all this, her brother José María’s wife, Guadalupe Palafox, died leaving a four-year old orphan boy for whom Justa, despite having no children, refused to be responsible. As a result, Cesarita took him in for the ten short months he lived. Although her four brothers shunned her father, they were unable to resist the lure of the few assets he was left with, such as the Hacienda de Guadalupe which he had not been in a position to sign over to ‘La Durangueña’ as it was not registered in his name. Now they rose up as one in order to try to obtain their father’s money despite their refusal to have anything to
5 do with looking after him. They showed absolutely no appreciation of Cesarita’s sacrifices and far from recompensing her, they completely ignored her. Even José María himself was unappreciative of his nurse, making no attempt to alter his will to improve his provision for Cesarita, regardless of the fact that she was a spinster or that she was sacrificing her life day and night on his behalf. The brothers united to confront their father, threatening to take him to court if he spent their mother’s assets, which it looked as though he might find himself obliged to do, for he had squandered his wealth on ‘La Durangueña’ and he was left with insufficient income to live on. After lengthy negotiation, his sons undertook to pay the rent on a house for him to live in up to a maximum of eight to ten pesos per month, plus an additional four reales a day for his food. However, not one of the four brothers remembered Cesarita who had been looking after her father twenty-four hours a day without receiving a penny. Cesarita had acted as nurse to her father both before ‘La Durangueña’ came upon the scene as well as after she had gone, but her brothers did not want to know. Their only concern was to be first in receiving their inheritance. Don José María died at 10.00 pm on Thursday 25th April 1861 in his 63rd year, just as his native city of Aguascalientes was erupting with merriment for the celebrations for the feast of St Mark. Like so many others, he was reluctant to spend very much on his burial and was interred in a cemetery on the outskirts of San Luis Potosí in a common grave. However, before dying he did receive all the sacraments.
6. More family disillusionment in San Luis Potosí
When it came to the reading of her father’s will, Cesarita’s three brothers-in-law did their best to get blood out of a stone. Cesarita was able to understand her father’s shabby behaviour, seeing him for what he was, an indecisive, wavering man who had been left alone and emotionally blind by his first wife’s death. When all was said and done, he was her father and she was able to throw a cloak over his moral bankruptcy. To see the three brothers-in-law using all means at their disposal to grasp every penny, it was as if they had married José María’s daughters not for themselves but for the inheritance that they expected them to provide them with. When they learnt that her father had left debts of 1000 pesos, they turned their backs. They were not interested in inheriting the consequences of the deceased’s dubious financial dealings, with the result that Cesarita, poor, sick, without a home of her own, dependent on charity for the roof over her head, with no job and no prospects, was obliged to shoulder the debts and the interest accruing from them. It took her nine years to pay them off. All this happened in San Luis Potosí. Cesarita was taken in by her sister Refugio, who was married to Juan Vega and had two children Pepita and Miguel. Neither Juan, a man of some social standing, nor her brothers were prepared to give her a loan to set up a corner shop. She had to rely on people outside the family to advance her the money, and then on condition not only that she paid interest on the loan but also provided them with some 7 services. She was in effect working for her creditors. The chocolates, toffees, sweets and flowers which she sold yielded little profit. She remained tied to the shop hour after hour from dawn to dusk for six years from 1863 to 1869, until finally, tired and disillusioned, she felt she had no alternative but to give it up. Her brothers had criticised her for lowering herself by taking a shop, but they had made no attempt to assist her. Cesarita never missed the first mass every day at the local church. While she was staying in their house, Juan and Refugio made her look after their two small children Pepita and Miguel in return for putting her up for nothing. Cesarita accompanied Refugio and Juan on their trip to Tula de Tamaulipas, where Refugio fell victim to typhus fever and died on 1st April 1863. The following year saw the death of Juan in San Luis Potosí. The parents had entrusted Cesarita with caring for their children, but left no provision for any remuneration for her. They left everything to the two children, with nothing for the stand-in mother who administered her nephews’ inheritance without taking a penny for herself. The two children were to become a very heavy cross for her to bear.
7. After many twists and turns she achieves her goal, entering the Hospital de San Andres in Mexico City
It is not known how, but Cesarita’s brother Justo (Juan E. Hernández) found out about her penurious and lonely plight. He was unable to return to San Luis Potosí because he had left owing money to his father and therefore subsequently to his brothers, as well as to a number of firms in the city. However, he now had a good job and devoted his time to writing historical works about Mexican Independence. He had settled down and was living with his wife Andrea Herrera and their three children Anselma, Bruno and Vicente at no. 17 Rinconada de San Diego. Justo invited Cesarita to go and live with him in Mexico City with Pepita and Miguel, and so she moved there on 27th April 1869. With this gesture Justo was unwittingly steering his sister towards the final stage prior to her mission. Cesarita, who by now was physically exhausted, set off forever grateful to God for bringing her Justo’s love. His benevolence certainly served to show up the callousness of his brother José María and his sisters Justa and Ignacia. At long last she had found human and brotherly affection. However, Cesarita’s happiness was destined to be short-lived. Pepita and Miguel did not get on with their three young cousins and the constant quarrels left Cesarita with no alternative but to leave Justo’s house on 13th November 1869 to earn her own living. She took a job as a maid to six medical students at the university who had come from San Luis Potosí to finish their studies. None of this was to the liking of either Justo or Juliana, the Daughter of Charity. Cesarita carried on as long as she could, but she finally succumbed to illness in April 1871. Sister Juliana, who had been keeping an eye on her since her arrival in Mexico City, went to her assistance on the orders of her Mother Superior and obtained a place for her at the Hospital de San Andrés, where she attended to the sick. Pepita and Miguel were taken into the care of schools run by the Sisters of Charity.
7 Cesarita did not know where she was going. She thought that that was where she would end her days. Her lungs were worn out. She was just one more pauper there, but she did have the loving protection of Sister Juliana. She was 41 years of age but looked older. Her path had taken many unexpected turns but like Christ, she had finally arrived in triumph at the goal marked out by Him.
8. Her residence at the Hospital de San Andrés in Mexico City
The Hospital was for Cesarita what the desert was for Jesus during His forty days. Without realizing it, she was already preparing for her apostolic mission. She devoted herself to prayer, returned to her life of contemplation and once again felt herself in the permanent presence of God, her watchword being “God is watching me”. She resumed her spiritual communions and her acts of love and humility. Above all she wished to please her Infant Jesus through her suffering, offering herself with all her love as a sacrifice for whatever God wanted of her. What could He want of Her, incapacitated as she was by her lung disease? Her Infant Jesus had not yet given her any indication of this. She would get up in mid-morning and invariably opted to go to the surgical ward to be with the patients who were dying there, so that she could help them to die a Christian death. The Daughters of Charity in the Hospital de San Andrés had in 1866 founded the Association of Daughters of Mary based on the one established at their Paris headquarters for young laundry girls and other servants. Cesarita saw her horizons opening up. She felt that the Virgin Mary had always wanted her as a Daughter and now she was going to be one officially. She started to prepare herself and her lonely heart soon found the love of her celestial Mother. Around her neck she wore the medallion of Our Lady which hung down on her chest. She would soon be known everywhere by this medallion hanging from its blue ribbon. Thenceforth she would call her “My loving Mother” and we believe Our Lady called her “My loving daughter”. The last thing she expected as she spent her days at the Hospital was for Jesus, represented in the person of Father José María Vilaseca, to come by and heal her like the paralytic at the pool of Bethesda.
9. The great apostle Father José María Vilaseca, 1831-1910
Father José María Vilaseca was a Spanish priest, born in 1831 in Igualada in the province of Barcelona. Aged 18 he joined the Vincentians, and on the 2nd April 1853 he donned his missionary’s cassock and was sent to Mexico. He was ordained as a priest on the 20th December 1856 and in 1860 was appointed Rector of the Vincentian Seminary in Monterrey. Two years later he contracted an illness which left him at death’s door and he received the last sacraments. This critical juncture in his life was to transform him spiritually and apostolically. He was a marvellous director of spiritual exercises. In 1865 he began to devote himself to popular 9 missions in which he proved to be a consummate teacher, the fruits of his work being seen in countless conversions. By 1870 he was back in Mexico City, working tirelessly on the publication of books, treatises and journals, on the spiritual direction of the Daughters of Charity and a whole variety of other people, as well as preaching the Divine Word and trying to raise moral standards of behaviour generally. This giant of the Church in Mexico founded two religious institutes: the Missionaries of St Joseph and, with the help of Cesarita, the Josephine Sisters. Father Vilaseca was one of the great apostolic figures, though he is unfortunately not very well known. Thanks to him, the glorious Patriarch St Joseph found an admirable and tireless messenger for the Mexican nation. He was the original driving force behind the seminaries and teaching establishments for priests, a glorious achievement deserving of historical recognition. Anxious for progress in the evangelization of the natives, he led his Sons and Daughters into the Tarahumara, Tabasco, Chiapas, Nayarit and Zacatecas. No history of the Mexican Church in the last three decades of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th would be complete if it did not include the many varied apostolic achievements of Father Vilaseca, whose sphere of influence extended throughout the Republic and reached out to every type of citizen. If any testimony is required of his qualities as a wise and saintly spiritual Director, one need only refer to Carmen, daughter of the eminent politician Manuel Romero Rubio and wife of Porfirio Diaz, President of Mexico for many years, and, of course, to Cesarita, whose supernatural gifts he recognized, guiding her wisely and with Josephine charism along the unfamiliar paths leading to the heights of transformation into Christ. A valiant soldier of Christ, he did not allow himself to be defeated even by the masonic government of Mexico, which pursued him and forced him into exile. He was a consummate orator, an expert in spiritual theology and a shining example of asceticism. After a life of signal achievement and many sufferings, he was received into the bosom of his God on the 3 rd April 1910. Work is now proceeding on his canonization.
10. The Infant Jesus reveals to Cesarita her charism as a foundress
Father Vilaseca was chaplain at the Hospital de San Andrés. He knew of Cesarita through commendatory reports made on her by Sister Juliana and at meetings of the directors of the Daughters of Mary, but, he had never spoken to her. However, on St Joseph’s Day, the 19th March 1872, he sent her a spiritual message via Sister Juliana: pray to St Joseph that he give you good health in order that you may devote yourself to God. She did not understand him. Father Vilaseca did not know that Cesarita had been devoting her life to her Infant Jesus since 12th October 1848. Her Infant Jesus was beginning to speak to her and, inspired by Him, she embarked on some short Spiritual Exercises lasting from the 24th to 26th August, in
9 preparation for celebrating her 43rd birthday the following day. They were three days of prayer, rapture and devotion. The Infant Jesus gave her an insight into the two concepts which he embodied: as Jesus, His divine nature, and as a child, His human nature, which God had assumed without surrendering His divinity. In other words, this represented the greatest extent to which God could humble Himself for there was no lower level to which He could descend on the scale of rational beings. Her Infant Jesus metamorphosed before her eyes to show her, as though in a video, the whole humbling story of His life “from the initial act of humility in which He took on the mantle of humanity until His gloriously triumphant ascent to heaven”, to quote Cesarita. The Infant Jesus appeared to her in this way so that she could trace each and every one of His steps. Cesarita always had this marvellous supernatural video before her. Her Infant Jesus had revealed to her her charism for being a foundress through the humiliation which He Himself experienced during his life on earth. Beside the Heart of Jesus, the sponsors of her betrothal in 1848, her Holy Mother and her Father St Joseph, still remained as witnesses to the event, Cesarita was anointed and enriched with the spirituality of her charism as a Foundress. From now on she knew who the Christ was whom she had to follow and what He was like.
11. How can this be done?
Father Vilaseca knew nothing of this charismatic communication. On the 27th August 1872 he summoned Cesarita, through Sister Juliana, to the entrance-hall of the Sisters’ house, where he congratulated her on her 43rd birthday and revealed to her his plan for them to found the Congregation of the Daughters of Mary and St Joseph. Cesarita responded as Our Lady did to the Archangel: how can this be done if I am an uneducated 43 year old and an invalid? Father Vilaseca assured her that this was the will of God, whereupon she replied: “Since it is the will of God, it is mine too”. He explained to her that God wanted him to have as his companion on his apostolic mission, not a young, healthy, knowledgeable woman, but one who was infirm. St Paul preached that “God chooses the weak of the world in order to confound the strong” (I Cor 1,27). “ From that moment”, according to Father Vilaseca, “the good Lord blessed her with such grace and favour by virtue of her divine mission that a woman who had been confined to her bed for most of the time now miraculously had fresh life breathed into her and was able to set to work to found the Josephine Sisters”. In the eyes of his fellow human beings Father Vilaseca might appear to have been extremely unwise. How could he choose as his associate a sick woman? Who in their right mind would even think of embarking on such a foundation at a time when the Mexican Church was being oppressed by the government of Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada, who had endorsed the anticlerical measures included in the 1857 Reform Laws by embodying them in the Constitution? 11 Nonetheless, Father Vilaseca’s charismatic intuition transcended human judgment and he saw Cesarita as the one chosen by God to be the Foundress: “I heard a divine voice in my heart, inspiring complete security in me with the words: she is the one”. Like the paralytic in the pool when he heard the voice of Christ, Cesarita rose from her humble bed bathed in the light and strength with which Christ infused her.
12. The new Congregation does not please the devil
On Sunday 22nd September 1872 Cesarita left her bed in the Hospital de San Andrés and was taken by Sister María Alvarez and Sister Marina Luna, both Sisters of Charity, to a humble little house at no. 2 calle de San Felipe de Jesús in Mexico City (today no. 72 calle Regina, between calles 5 de Febrero and Pino Suárez). It had two rooms, five beds and a kitchen. She was received by four Daughters of Mary who lived there and ran a small school from the house. They invited the three visitors to have some chongos with atole. Father Vilaseca and Sister Juliana were not present. Nobody had told Cesarita that beneath those worm-eaten floorboards prowled a horned viper, a species of long poisonous snake. When she was in bed, “I heard the horrible hissing of an animal around my head and face”. It came out from under the floorboards every night when the lamps were put out and would lie hidden when they went to prayers at four in the morning. After eight days they could not put up with the snake any longer and moved to the calle de San Ramón. This was the devil’s way of demonstrating his dislike for the Project and his determination to fight it, thus providing the new Josephine Sisters with clear proof that they had embarked on a Work of God. When a group of Josephine Sisters visited the Archbishop of Mexico, Pelagio Antonio Labastida, on the 19th October 1872, he gave them and their new Congregation his blessing. The Prelate returned the visit on the 28th February of the following year, celebrating communion with them and delivering a sermon of encouragement. By this time they were living at no. 3 calle de la Pulquería de Palacio (today no. 74 calle de Corregidora), where they had moved on the previous 12th December. In the space of three months they had lived in three different houses. The devil was to continue harassing them in countless ways, never allowing them to live in peace during Cesarita’s lifetime.
13. The first great test: the founder is imprisoned and exiled from Mexico on 20th May 1873 until 15th January 1875
The first Josephine Sisters laboured under crushing poverty and had to work tirelessly to keep their heads above the water. However, the most telling blow delivered by the enemies of Christ was the persecution of the founder. The government presided over by Lerdo de Tejada never forgave him for his book “Seven Solemn Refutations of Protestantism and Freemasonry”, nor for his preaching and his apostolic works. During the night of 20th May 1873 he was taken by surprise and captured while his seminarists were all fast asleep, and imprisoned at Belén.
11 From prison Father Vilaseca wrote a letter to Cesarita in which he set out rules for the Congregation. He was due to be put on a ship at Veracruz bound for an unknown destination, but on the appointed night the government envoy accompanying him was late returning from an evening out and they missed the train. Shortly afterwards a saint of a woman slipped a bribe of 14,000 pesos and Father Vilaseca was released on 3rd June together with 19 other foreign priests. However, that bunch of freemasons had no difficulty in availing themselves of Article 33 of the Mexican Constitution and at 11.00 on the night of the 15th October Father Vilaseca was taken to Veracruz, from there to be exiled to France. Cesarita ran the Congregation on her own until he returned fifteen months later on 15th January 1875. The Congregation could easily have disappeared given the circumstances during that time of religious persecution, but the foundress managed to hold out with the support of her Infant Jesus. It was during those difficult days that one of the Josephine Sisters, Sister Soledad Vega, first saw Cesarita levitating in an ecstatic trance.
14. The foundations
Thanks to the good offices of Carmen Romero, soon to become the wife of President Porfirio Díaz, Father Vilaseca was able to return to Mexico. He arrived full of zeal for exalting the glory of God and threw himself into the work of extending the Josephine Sisters. When he arrived at the house in calle de la Pulquería de Palacio, he found only Cesarita accompanied by seven Sisters. From now on he was in charge and would make the decisions. Within a few days, on 8th February 1875, he founded a small college in Tacuba, but was forced to close it on 14th August of the same year. Father Vilaseca was perhaps taking on more than he could handle. On 5th April 1875 he opened a small school in Huajuapan de León, (Oaxaca), but had to close it in 1876. Again on 8th September 1875 he agreed to the establishment of a shelter for prostitutes in Callejón de Veas in Mexico City, but on 6th January 1880 he closed it down. The Josephine Sisters went to Puebla to open a large college there in November 1875, but Father Vilaseca’s enemies forced him to give it up in April 1882. They took over a college and a small hospital in San Andrés Chalchicomula (today Ciudad Serdán) in Puebla, only for them to abandon them in November 1878. Much to the annoyance of the Vincentians, on 10th March 1876 Father Vilaseca rented the former headquarters of the Daughters of Charity, who had been evicted by the government in January 1875. Here, in Plaza de Villamil, they ran a thriving college which ranked amongst the best ones existing at the time. This was where Mother Cesarita lived and where she died in April 1884. In 1886 the Archbishop arranged for them to move to no. 7 calle de San Juan de Letrán in Mexico City. They opened another two houses in 1879, one in the Analco district of Puebla, which closed three years later, and the other in Huichapan (Hidalgo), which survived for many years. 13 In 1881 they came to Tlaxco (Tlaxcala), where they educated and trained young orphan girls for many years. Mother Cesarita was feeling the strain of being involved with so many foundations, which were often set up with inadequate preparation. If she had had her way, the new ventures would have been undertaken on a more gradual scale commensurate with the training of the Josephine Sisters. She bore the brunt of it but always obeyed Father Vilaseca even though she could see that all this was leading to a weakening of the Institute.
15. March 1875-August 1877: the determination to remove the founder
Cesarita could never have imagined the supreme test which she was to undergo during those two and a half years from March 1875 to August 1877. The Superiors of the Vincentians, to which Father Vilaseca belonged, presented him with the impossible dilemma of having to choose between his Josephine Sisters or his Congregation. It is true that the Constitutions prohibited Vincentians from founding or being in full- time attendance on Institutes for women, with the exception of the Daughters of Charity. However, Father Vilaseca had embarked on the work with the permission of his Provincial, Father Juan Masnou. When he returned to Mexico in January 1875, he arrived with forebodings, having heard while in Paris of the dissenting stance being taken by his General at the time, Father Eugenio Boré, and his new Provincial, the Mexican Father Agustín Torres. Both of them repeatedly warned Father Vilaseca that he was going down the wrong road, until finally he was forced to leave the Josephine Sisters in the hands of the diocesan priest nominated by Archbishop Labastida. Furthermore, in a letter dated 17th December 1876, Father Boré called upon him to give a vow of obedience: “I beg you, Father, in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, to sever all relations with that Community”. Finding himself thus forced into a corner by the Vincentians, Father Vilaseca left the Congregation on 25th January 1877. The Founder’s actions were justified by his ecclesiastic courage and the clarity of his theology of obedience and of his ecclesiology, as well as by the functionality of a religious institute which ought not always to keep to the letter, but sometimes to the spirit of its rules, having to sacrifice its members in the interests of the Church when necessary. Founders are chosen and inspired by Christ for the good of the Church. Founders come to depend on their Lord and God. Father Vilaseca ought not to discharge and send home the dozens of Josephine Sisters who had devoted themselves to God and the Church. The very thought of seeing the Congregation, which was clearly a work of God, broken up by the Vincentian Superiors brought Mother Cesarita close to death’s door. She just could not comprehend how those who were most duty-bound to strengthen and defend the Church could be so intent on weakening it. Because Archbishop Labastida refused to dispense with Father Vilaseca’s services, he decided to accept the Josephine Sisters into his diocese.
13 16. The foundress dismissed
Cesarita realized that once the shepherd is wounded, the sheep scatter. The Congregation would break up in the absence of Father Vilaseca whom God had chosen as its founder. However, she saved it by offering herself as the sacrificial victim. “ In God’s works I think there must always be a victim. In his greatest work, the Redemption, the victim was Our Lord Jesus Christ. In our work on the salvation of souls in the Josephine Sisters that grace rightly falls to me”. With Mary and Joseph as witnesses, she offered herself as the sacrificial victim on the night of 28th January 1877 and again the following day at mass. In fact, it almost came to pass that the Lord received her physically, for she came close to death’s door with pneumonia, from which she miraculously recovered on the 4th February. However, her sacrifice brought with it another moral consequence. Father Vilaseca, having been almost brought down by his Congregation, was to sink even further into trouble and at the same time provoke a grave crisis for the Josephine Sisters. Once Mother Cesarita had fallen ill, he was apt to believe everything he heard about her. Perhaps imagining that she would not pull through, in March 1877 he replaced her as Superior General with Rosalía López, who had only belonged to the community for four months and five days, while appointing Refugio Gallardo as Mother Superior of the Congregation’s headquarters. The Congregation started to fall apart, pervaded by disorder and neglect. Several Sisters left and numbers at this once great Mexico City college were falling for all to see. Seven months later in October 1877, Father Vilaseca felt he had no alternative but to reinstate the Foundress in her post. Assailed on all sides, the Congregation was scarcely able to stay afloat and now, incomprehensibly, another mighty battle was looming between the two founders.
17. Charism put at risk
The Congregation proceeded to receive a number of heavy blows. Father Vilaseca accepted Antonio Plancarte’s proposal to amalgamate the Daughters of Mary Immaculate of Guadalupe with the Josephine Sisters. When God inspires two founders, with their respective Congregations, He grants them different charisms in order that each might imitate Him in their own separate ways. Father Vilaseca saw his opportunity to apply his apostolic zeal by merging the two houses of the Guadalupan Sisters in Jacona. How would his apostolic works proceed from now on? As soon as Father Plancarte got to know Father Vilaseca at close hand, he realized that they were two very different spirits and that in order to save his Institute he would have to move it to the Capital for it to be under the protection of his uncle, the Archbishop of Mexico. But perhaps Father Vilaseca and he had the same thought, that is to say that once the latter’s Congregation was extended through the various foundations and the many additional Josephine Sisters who would be incorporated, its apostolic successes would increase. 15 With less devious motives, Father Vilaseca agreed that they should go to Rome to ask for Pope Leo XIII’s blessing for the amalgamation. It was an ill-advised venture in various respects, including the legal one. They arrived in Rome empty-handed and without any clear agreement on what form any contract should take. They were ignorant of how these things were done in Rome and as a result they only succeeded in getting angry. Cesarita became extremely anxious when she learnt of all this, for she could foresee what might happen, namely the destruction of the Institute unless St Joseph could remedy the situation. Nevertheless, she was prepared to accept whatever outcome God decided: “If it is His holy will, everything will be all right; if not, everything will turn out badly”. In the event, everything turned out badly and all this mystic suffering destroyed her health. With Father Vilaseca away on his trip to Rome with Father Plancarte from 24th October 1882 until the middle of May the following year, Cesarita found herself once more at the head of the Congregation. During his absence, she was like one of those harbour lighthouses rising sturdily in the midst of the waves crashing all around. She was soon adept at recognizing wolves in sheep’s clothing and at escaping their clutches.
18. Her Vocation put to the test
Father Vilaseca came back from Rome very upset by the setbacks suffered on that unsuccessful trip. He was scarcely aware that his Congregation had almost foundered through the actions of false friends, but Cesarita saved it with her wisdom and good sense as well as by her prayers in which she offered herself as the sacrificial victim. Now was the time when the Founder thought he had to show his opponents the effectiveness of his Josephine Sisters. Once more he dismissed Cesarita, replacing her with Antonia Corral, a brash 40 year old from Puebla, who took Cesarita’s place at dinner on the evening of 12th October 1883 and, in front of her, sang grace. Father Vilaseca had not informed Mother Cesarita of the decision he had taken. Nonetheless, in order to avoid problems, Cesarita asked permission to retire to a small room elsewhere in the house, as though withdrawing to her wilderness. Through her faith she felt able to give her unconditional support to the Founder. With the permission of Antonia Corral, she continued to see any of the Josephine Sisters who wished to consult her on spiritual matters. She advised them all to give Antonia their loving obedience, herself setting an example by kissing the footprints left by Antonia on the ground. She forgave and excused those who had insulted and ill-treated her. She exercised patience and asked for nothing even though her shoes were falling to pieces and her underwear worn-out. This painful situation presented her with a severe test of her vocation, but she was so devoted to this that she could not live without it. Missing the responsibility of looking after her daughters, she believed it her obligation to look after the salvation of her niece Pepita, the young orphaned daughter of her sister Refugio.
15 After consulting two priests, she was left even more bewildered. However, when she was on her way to see the Archbishop to raise the matter with him, she ran into Father Antonio Plancarte, who promised to grant Pepita his protection. Thanks to him, the problem was happily resolved and her vocation was saved.
19. A faithful disciple of Jesus
Cesarita stands out in history as a perfect follower of Jesus. “As soon as she knew the meaning of being a virgin”, declared Father Vilaseca “she opened her lips to make a vow of virginity”. This she had done with all due solemnity on 12th October 1848, at the age of 19, when Father Ignacio Sampayo had given his blessing to her betrothal to the Infant Jesus. Her commitment to live with Him always, to love only Him and to be entirely His was the affirmation of her virginity at her betrothal. Her purity was extraordinary. Her face exuded an angelic purity. Even on her travels, the Infant Jesus never left her side. She was constantly moved by the thought that her Infant Jesus was materially poor but at the same time infinitely rich. After her mother died, she began to experience material poverty as well as a poverty which is even greater, that of the heart. She always worked like the most poverty-stricken of working women. She was not ashamed to open a small shop. Later, as Foundress, she gave everything she had to her daughters. She worked late into the night on so many occasions. She had to ask Father Vilaseca for a peso to pay a porter or to post a letter. Poverty for her embraced the whole world. Her aim would be: “Not to seek anything for myself, not even clothes or food; not to aspire to be in such and such a house or such and such a post, or to occupy such and such a position, whether it be first or last; I try to let everything be immaterial to me”. She reached supreme heights of obedience: “When I devoted myself to God”, she confessed, “the first thing I sacrificed to Him was my own will”. Few foundresses have kept their vow of obedience so perfectly. Father Vilaseca gave orders to Cesarita as an absolute superior. He was the one who commanded and assigned, the one who specified even the smallest details. She was always able to respect his wishes although, as Foundress, she did present him with her point of view, even if he rarely accepted it. As a woman, she knew and understood the Josephine Sisters better than he did. The wealth of experience which she had acquired throughout her difficult life together with the inspiration she drew from the Holy Spirit, lent wisdom to her advice and her warnings. She honoured and respected Father Vilaseca, placing him on the pedestal to which she considered he was entitled as Founder. However, Cesarita was put to the test by the Founder in a way that perhaps no other Foundress has been, dismissed twice by him from her position as Superior General and finally forgotten by him during her final illness and at her death. In the classic votive offerings Cesarita offered her Infant Jesus total abnegation on her own part, thus observing the Josephine charism as taught in the Constitutions as well as the vow of love according to which perfection should always be striven for in everything. Although Father Vilaseca would not allow her to declare this outright, Cesarita practised it always from the day of her virginal betrothal to her Infant Jesus. 17 Cesarita worked with all her strength to transform herself into Him, and indeed she did succeed wonderfully well in becoming a true wife and disciple of Jesus.
20. Her two watchwords: “God is watching me” and “Sacrificing myself”
Jesus knew why His Father was sending him to earth: to bring us His word and to save us from sin through His death on the cross. Likewise, Cesarita understood her mission on earth from the moment on the 27th August 1872 when her Infant Jesus, by showing her the video of His life, made her realize, the boundless capacity for humiliation of her Spouse. She was determined not to fall short of Him. She had been practising for this since she was a young girl. The two paths she followed were always those of her two watchwords “God is watching me” and “Sacrificing myself”. Like Jesus, she always felt she was in the presence of her Father, offering herself to Him. For Cesarita the great day when her Infant Jesus was born could be regarded as “Jesus’s supreme day of humiliation”, because from being the eternal God he became mortal man. So how would she describe the humiliations of the Calvary? Her Infant Jesus led her along narrow tracks and dark paths, driving her to imitate him. However, he did place at her side as Director the great Father Vilaseca, who with his safe hands, never wavering, never retreating, did not allow her to stray from the Gethsemane which he had so often re-created and sustained for her. Cesarita could feel the lacerations of that terrible and continuous Gethsemane in her body, in her heart and in her soul. There were moments and days which were very hard, but she was still able to say to her God: “I give you thanks, my God, for humiliating me… Grant me the graces which I need in order to suffer worthily and silently the life of martyrdom which through your goodness I am leading”. She was always accompanied by her God. She was always on the altar of sacrifice. She followed Jesus’s example in all things.
21. An uncommon, unearthly relationship between St Joseph and Cesarita as father and daughter
“My devotion to my Father St Joseph began when I was born”. María Bruna instilled this devotion in her heart. Few saints and even fewer founders have rushed like truly loving sons and daughters to the arms of St Joseph with the affection and perseverance shown by Cesarita, while few saints and even fewer foundresses have felt the fond kiss and embrace of their Father St Joseph in their hearts and souls in the way that Cesarita did. This would appear to be one of the principal lessons which Cesarita has passed on to Christians and religious men and women of future centuries. St Joseph fulfilled for her the role of teacher, educator, director, advocate, protector, defender and loving friend, in other words a true father. Cesarita pondered long and hard on St Joseph’s responsibility for Jesus and Our Lady, his mother. It was God Himself who entrusted them to him and he carried out his mission to the satisfaction of his God. When Jesus was a boy and a young man, he needed St Joseph,
17 who loved him as though he were indeed his natural son. He could not have loved him and looked after him better even if he had been, and he did so with all his strength and all his heart, as well as with the power and love of the Holy Spirit. Cesarita saw her own reflection in her Infant Jesus, feeling that she was similarly loved and looked after by St Joseph. She felt that as he was her father, she was his daughter. It was true spiritual filiation and paternity, of which clear and certain proof is to be found in Cesarita’s life and spirituality. On the momentous day when, at the age of 19, she was betrothed to Christ, St Joseph was the notary and the sponsor. Nobody had suggested she did this; she was following her heart as a daughter. When her Infant Jesus showed her the path of humiliation which he had trodden throughout his life, encouraging her to emulate him and imparting his charism to her and the Congregation which she was to found, he did so while actually present as a witness and sponsor. St Joseph would always keep her mindful of her Josephine mission and would defend it for her from its worst enemies as though it were his own mission and vocation with Jesus and Mary. Only days before the beginning of the self-sacrifice which Cesarita was ready to endure for the sake of her Congregation, just as Christ had done for the sake of all mankind, she chose her dear father and mother, Joseph and Mary, as her intercessors before God. St Joseph’s devotion to the Infant Jesus came consciously and voluntarily and was unconditional and for life. His daughter Cesarita would acquire this same grace for herself. It was now that St Joseph demonstrated the interest he took in his daughter while Cesarita showed the enormous confidence which she put in St Joseph. She turned constantly to him for help and he always responded to her pleas. Thanks to St Joseph, Cesarita was able to absorb and apply all the Josephine charism which the Infant Jesus transmitted to her for herself and her Josephine Sisters. With her vocation as a Josephine and a Foundress sorely tested and her name and reputation brought low, having been dismissed twice from her position as Superior General, and now living as a recluse which she would until the end of her days, she prophesied to Father Vilaseca that at the moment of her death, St Joseph would come to her defence and reveal to him the falseness of the arguments laid against her. What did Cesarita say to him just before she died; what did Father Vilaseca see; what did she give him to understand? He always kept this secret to himself. However, the fact is that as soon as Cesarita died, his behaviour suddenly changed. In his funeral oration he bestowed on her the highest praise that a member of a religious institute can receive on earth. He acknowledged that she was a Foundress and a saint. The two pamphlets which she wrote in St Joseph’s honour are glowing tributes to her love for him and her mystical experience as a Josephine sister: “The Office of the Heart of St Joseph”, which she wrote in October 1877, and “The Exercise of Purest Love for my Father St Joseph”, which she wrote on 31st March 1884 only a few days before her death, having practised the exercise for a long time on the instructions of her confessor. 19 St Joseph received her in his arms and presented her to his Lord Jesus.
22. Cesarita’s prayer representing her love for the Eucharist and the Mother of God
The secret of Cesarita’s holiness lies in her two watchwords which we quoted earlier: “God is watching me” and “Offering myself in sacrifice”, which reflect the constant presence of God and her efforts to please Him and avoid giving Him any cause for displeasure. Through prayer Cesarita was able to live each day according to the wishes of her Infant Jesus. She was always praying, and in many different ways which came straight from her heart. She recounts how, as early as the age of nineteen, she was experiencing heart-felt emotions, performing acts of love and contrition and reciting many ejaculatory prayers and spiritual communions. In her mental prayers she followed the method of St Francis de Sales. Her ejaculatory prayers came to typify her spirituality, as did her loving filial relationship with St Joseph, who responded with the true love of a father. These prayers, full of love and humility, rose to heaven like pure incense. She would say hundreds of these prayers during the day, all of them straight from the heart. She derived total satisfaction from her spiritual communion, and she longed for sacramental union with her Infant Jesus. As she grew older, she practised spiritual communion more frequently. In her short final illness, these spiritual communions afforded her the great consolation which she was denied in the viaticum, as well as the company of her Beloved. Sacramental communion filled her with joy. In those days, when the consumption of water, liquids and solids was forbidden from the previous midnight onwards, this must have involved tremendous self-sacrifice during her journeys and her illnesses. “I cannot live without receiving Holy Communion”, she confessed. By the end she had divided the 24 hours of the day into two halves, revolving around the communion. “ All the spiritual communions which I perform, from the time when I receive Sacramental Holy Communion until three o’clock in the afternoon, are offered in thanks, while those which I take from three o’clock until I receive communion are offered as preparation”. One of the Josephine Sisters remarked: “She spends every spare moment worshipping the Blessed Sacrament”. Her ultimate ideal while she lived on earth was to be permanently united with her transsubstantiated Spouse. She had copied out for herself in a small exercise-book a number of spiritual communions in verse, which were full of longing, love and gratitude. Her love for the Virgin Mary shone out gracefully from her life. She called her “my loving Mother”, three words which contain a wealth of theological and mystical significance. The Virgin Mary was her Mother and as such had complete possession over her. Cesarita found in her all the virtues which she needed so much in her long periods of solitude and suffering, above all tenderness. The Virgin was a constant provider of the mystic life which
19 her God wanted her to have. She loved her with all her heart; she felt she was ever-present, and it was to her that she commended her betrothal to the Infant Jesus, her charism as a Foundress and the immense grace she had been given through her self-sacrifice on behalf of her Institution. Her loving Mother constantly carried her in her arms just as Cesarita carried her own Son, the Infant Jesus given her by her father, in her arms and in her heart.
23. Cesarita, a great apostle of Christ
Cesarita was an apostle in every sense, both by virtue of her contemplative life and as an active apostle in the field. Whereas Jesus lived thirty years as a private individual and only three as a preacher, Cesarita carried out her apostolate for forty-one out of her fifty-four years and eight months while resident either in a house or in the Hospital, and only worked directly out in the field for twelve years. Services rendered on behalf of the Saviour can be direct or indirect. The Mother of Jesus did not preach, nor did St Teresa of Lisieux, the Patron Saint of Missions. Similarly Cesarita spent the greater part of her life without saying very much, but she was always accompanied by her Infant Jesus to whom she offered up her sorrows, joys and labours. She established fifteen foundations, of which not one would have failed had it been for her efforts alone. She trained her Josephine apostles, gave classes in the colleges and spoke to the girls’ parents, offering them all the help she could. She devoted particular attention to young orphan girls and also prostitutes. The prodigious scope of her monumental apostolate emerges even more strikingly when one considers how she accepted the limitations imposed on her by Father Vilaseca, just as Jesus had admitted that he never went beyond the limits of what his Father told him to say and do. Cesarita suffered indescribably, but she knew that that was what God wanted and therefore the more she suffered the more she was helping Jesus in His mission of redemption. Once she had retired from her duties and returned to private life, she admitted with great perspicacity: “I am certain I am now working harder than ever before, harder than if I were working with the charity and fervour of St Paul”. It is the work of love, desire, pain, all in unison with Jesus, which brings redemption and salvation. She was ready to give everything for the sake of her Congregation. She wrote to Father Vilaseca: “I believe that through God’s mercy I am going to earn as much merit as if I were saving the souls which God had assigned to me”. It is not only direct action which brings salvation. Sacrifice accepted through obedience is indeed salvific. In Christ’s Body everything, both large and small, has a purpose: tears, smiles, a glass of water, a tender word, a painful humiliation, a disagreeable act of obedience. Cesarita did all this.
24. The suffering and death of Cesarita, 24th April 1884
Cesarita spent her days deep in prayer, in the throes of a terrible suffering born of the neglect and abandonment in which she found herself. Her health was progressing normally and her mind had never been more lucid, but her heart was suffering and her beautiful eyes 21 were closed in devotion while her lips murmured ejaculatory prayers all day long, from which she derived immense comfort. Her Infant Jesus whispered to her that he was coming to fetch her. But she was determined to carry on writing the history of her Congregation. She persevered with her loving self-sacrifice which was total. Suddenly on the 20th April 1884 she became seriously ill. Antonia Corral, the Superior General, did not realize the gravity of the situation and it was only after the Mistress of Novices visited her that they notified Pepita, her beloved niece, who then sent for the doctor. He diagnosed severe pneumonia and declared that there was no hope for her. On the 24th, when Father Vilaseca had finished saying mass, they told him that Cesarita was dying, whereupon he went up to see her. What did Cesarita say to him? What did he see? Father Vilaseca always declined to throw any light on these questions. Shortly afterwards, in his presence, these last wishes, as expressed by her to her dear Father St Joseph, were observed: “May my last words be: Jesus, Joseph and Mary, I place my soul in your hands and in that terrible hour may I see with my bodily eyes your three Divine Persons. I beg and implore you now that when that moment comes, you grant me the grace for me to carry out fervent acts of such deep faith, boundless hope and loving charity that I might rise up from my bed of pain to attain eternal glory”. At six o’clock on the morning of the 24th April 1884, a Thursday, which was also the day on which she was born, she left earthly Mexico and soared to heaven with the blessing of Father Vilaseca. There could be no other priest to present her to her Lord and God but he, whose masterly hand had fashioned in her the figure of Christ humiliated. Nobody could understand how the boys and girls arriving that morning for College knew to bring white flowers for her. Who could have told them? Cesarita’s funeral took place at ten o’clock in the morning of the same day in the Chapel of the Congregation’s Headquarters. Father Vilaseca brought his seminarists and delivered a homily full of eulogies for her. Father Vilaseca’s final note appended to Mother Cesarita’s autobiography describes how “the following day, the 25th, her body was transported to the Municipal Cemetery, accompanied by her religious daughters, college girls and also the Missionaries of St Joseph”. In a laudable gesture Father Vilaseca arranged for the inscription on her tombstone to include a reference to her roles as Foundress and General Superior of the Daughters of Mary and St Joseph: “However owing to force of circumstances, this had to be removed at the last minute in case it compromised her daughters, and so only the bare minimum was engraved on the stone in order to identify the precious treasure beneath without any risk of compromising anybody”.
21 After nine days of mourning her daughters in outlying houses wrote a number of letters expressing their veneration, love and recognition of her holiness. Cesarita was the Foundress and Mother of the Josephine Sisters, a disciple and apostle of Christ, a teacher and an example to all, a saint distinguished by heroic virtues.
Epilogue
The full and faithful story of Cesarita has been published. It is now known how she succeeded in transforming herself into Christ, into that Infant Jesus, which she always had before her on her table and in the forefront of her mind and of her heart. In the various countries where her Josephine Sisters work, that is to say, Mexico, the USA, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Angola and Italy, she is invoked and imitated as she becomes ever more widely known. That grain of corn buried in the Josephine Sisters has today been transformed into a wonderful golden ear of corn in the Church. After many vicissitudes, Cesarita’s remains are today preserved in the chapel of the Headquarters of the Josephine Sisters situated at no. 336, calle Cóndor, in the district of Las Aguilas in Mexico City. The cause for her canonization was presented on 20th June 1994 and we are hopeful that the Church will one day soon recognize her virtues and canonize her.
A Brief Chronology of Cesarita
1798, 12th July. Birth of José María Ruiz de Esparza, father of Cesarita, in Aguascalientes. 1809, 6th October. Birth of María Bruna Dávalos, mother of Cesarita, in Aguascalientes. 1825, 30th July. Marriage of Cesarita’s parents, José María and María Bruna, in Aguascalientes. 1829, 27th August. Birth of Cesarita in Aguascalientes, her parents’ fourth child. The family moves to Zacatecas. The family moves to Sombrerete. 1833-1843. The family spend ten years in Durango. They go back to live in Zacatecas. 1847-1869. Cesarita lives in San Luis Potosí. 1848, 12th October. The mystical betrothal of Cesarita to the Infant Jesus with the blessing of the Franciscan Father Ignacio Sampayo. 1856, 18th April. Death of Doña Bruna in San Luis Potosí. 1858, April. Cesarita journeys to Mexico City with her sister Juliana, but the Dávalos refuse to receive them and so they return to San Luis Potosí. 23 1858, May-November. Cesarita retires to the solitude of the Hacienda La Quemada. Cesarita spends the period from November 1858 to July 1859 at the house of the so-called Salesian lay sisters in San Luis Potosí. 1859, July. She returns to her father’s house once ‘La Durangueña’ has fled after stripping him of a large part of his wealth and leaving him paralyzed. 1861, 25th April. Death of her father in San Luis Potosí. 1863-1869, Cesarita runs a corner shop in order to earn a living. 1869, 27th April. She goes to Mexico City to stay with her brother Justo (Juan Hernández), who has agreed to take her in. 1869, 13th November. She leaves Justo’s house in order to go and look after some medical students from San Luis Potosí. 1871, April. Her sister Juliana takes her to the Hospital de San Andrés in Mexico City. 1871, 4th June. She is received into the Association of Daughters of Mary and joins the governing body. 1872, 24th-26th August. Father Vilaseca tells her of his wish for them to found together the Josephine Sisters. When she expresses her doubts about her health, education and age, Father Vilaseca tells her in the name of God that it is God’s will, to which she responds “In that case it is mine also”. 1872, 22nd September. Mother Cesarita embarks on the foundation of the Josephine Sisters. 1873, 20th May. Father Vilaseca is imprisoned. 1873, 15th October. Father Vilaseca leaves Mexico to go into exile. 1875, 15th January. Father Vilaseca is able to return to Mexico thanks to Carmen Romero Rubio, the future wife of Porfirio Díaz. Four foundations are opened outside the capital. 1875, 10th November. Cesarita opens a large college in Puebla. 1876, 10th March. Cesarita opens another large college in Mexico City. 1876, 17th December. The General of the Vincentians orders Father Vilaseca to take a vow of obedience and leave the Josephine Sisters. 1877, 29th January. Cesarita offers herself to Christ in self-sacrifice in order to save the Congregation. 1877, 29th January-4th February. Cesarita almost dies for the sake of her Congregation, but is saved as if by a miracle. 1877, 9th March. Cesarita is relieved of her duties in the Congregation. 1877, October. She is restored to her post by Father Vilaseca.
23 1882, 24th October. Father Vilaseca and Antonio Plancarte travel to Rome to arrange the amalgamation of their respective religious institutes. 1883, May. The two Founders fail in their mission and Father Vilaseca returns to Mexico. 1883, 12th October. Cesarita is once again relieved of her duties. 1884, 24th April. Cesarita dies in the arms of Father Vilaseca, her spiritual director. 1994, 20th June. Cardinal Ernesto Corripio Ahumada, Archbishop of Mexico, launches the process to have Cesarita canonized.
PRAYER
Oh merciful Father! you granted your servant Cesárea Ruiz de Esparza y Dávalos the grace to live in intimate union with you. You fashioned her into a faithful spouse of Christ and a devoted daughter of Mary and Joseph. We ask that, in obedience to your Spirit, we may grow, as she did, in love for Jesus and for our brothers and sisters. Grant us through her intercession [here the petition is made]. We ask this with the hope to see her raised to the altars as a model of the simplicity and humility that were practised in Nazareth.