A Spanish laywoman and a nun, closer to the altars

Pope Francis has authorized the publication of the decrees on the heroic virtues of the Spanish Ascensión Sacramento Sánchez Sánchez and Sister Vicenta Guilarte Alonso, who from today are considered venerable, a prior step to beatification.

Ascensión was born in the town of Sonseca, Toledo (Spain), on Corpus Christi Day 1911. The seventh of ten children, she grew up in a materially well-off and very religious family. At age 18, her reading of the life of Saint Teresa of the Child Jesus, who had recently been canonized, transformed her life and led her to strive to evangelize through Catholic Action, becoming one of the leaders of her in her region.

During the Spanish Civil War, he lost two brothers and witnessed the looting and violence perpetrated by militiamen who, out of hatred for the Catholic faith, murdered thousands of priests, desecrated the graves of nuns, destroyed numerous churches and prevented freedom. of cult.

Moved to Santander, in the north of Spain, to live with a sister, she met the priest Doroteo Hernández, who founded the Evangelical Crusade on December 8, 1937, a charisma supported by the Bishop of Santander in 1940, a few months after concluding the war.

That year she was sent to Madrid to manage a house to house released women from different social, cultural and political backgrounds. In 1946, she fell ill with typhoid fever, after having pronounced her final vows, she died on August 18 at the age of 35.

His path to perfecting the virtues was marked by two particular moments: the reading of the Life of Saint Teresa of the Child Jesus and the outbreak of war in Spain. Above all, she understood the deep sense of faith that she had cultivated since childhood and began to give her best to others, initially committing to spread the Gospel in the society of her time through her activity in Catholic Action and, more later, collaborating intensely with the Evangelical Crusade. Her reputation for holiness spread after her death, thanks to the Secular Institute of the Evangelical Crusade.

From Spain to Brazil, along the path of humility

Sister Vicenta Guilarte Alonso was born in 1879 in a small town in the province of Burgos (Spain) and grew up in a very Christian family. Orphaned by her father and mother at an early age, at the age of 17 she went to live with a priest uncle in Burgos before entering the convent of the Daughters of Jesus, dedicated to the education of youth. After making her religious profession in 1909, she remained in Salamanca for two years and was then sent, along with five sisters, to Brazil to found a community.

They settled in Pirenópolis, where he learned Portuguese and developed his mission among the poor local population with a lack of educational instruction. In 1927 she was transferred to Leopoldina, in the state of Minas Gerais, where, despite having played the role of vice superior, she was entrusted with the role of doorkeeper and sacristan, which she accepted with great humility. In this role she won the affection of all the visitors, who were received with serenity and availability. She thus spent the rest of her life until her death in 1960, after a fractured femur.

What stands out from his life is that he lived charity in all circumstances, as well as obedience to a heroic degree and his ability to sincerely forgive offenses and not hold grudges.