On Sunday, May 7, the Redemptorist Family celebrated the Eucharist of thanksgiving for the new blessed from Granada, Conchita Barrecheguren, in the Shrine of Our Mother of Perpetual Help in Granada. Fr. Zdzislaw Francis Stanula, CSsR, Vicar General, presided over the celebration and delivered the homily.
Here are some reflections from the homily, which Fr. Stanula dedicated to Blessed Conchita:
Conchita’s life was very short, but this time was enough for her to become and build herself as a believing and committed Christian woman.
She thought she was called to religious life and wanted to become a Carmelite – like her favourite St. Therese of Lisieux, but illness prevented her from making this choice of life. God proposed another path of holiness for Conchita. She would later say that her vocation consisted in “being sick”. She did not reject this cross; she did not rebel; she did not hate it; she accepted it as Jesus did – your will be done, not mine.
Conchita knew how to transform her suffering into an offering of love and became a witness of the courageous hope that only God can offer.
She could be the patron saint of the seriously and terminally ill. Conchita teaches us to accept the burden of the cross of a serious illness and to carry this cross to the end with faith and trust.
The Eucharist of thanksgiving to God occurred on Sunday the 7th at noon in the Shrine of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. In this Shrine, a chapel has been set up to welcome the Blessed, where the faithful and devotees can pray before her and continue to ask for her intercession.
Next Saturday, May 13, on the anniversary of the day the young woman was called to the Father’s House and was born for Heaven in 1927, the liturgical memorial of Conchita Barrecheguren will be celebrated for the first time.
Scala News, photos by Fr. J. Sok CSsR
