One year after the canonization of Santa Mama Antula, the first Holy Woman who lived in the territory that Argentina occupies today, the archbishop of Santiago del Estero and Cardinal Primado de Argentina, Vicente Bokalic, reflected with a grateful memory for that day.
Remembering the moment when Pope Francis proclaimed the Decree of Canonization of María Antonia de San José and the portrait of the new saint was displayed in one of the main columns of the Basilica of San Pedro, Cardinal Bokalic said: “How much joy , how much admiration, gratitude, emotion and many more feelings. ”
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“This gift from God will remain in the memory of every church, because Maria Antonia de San José is not only from Santiago, but our Antula Mama is universal,” he said.
Fill the hearts of God’s love to transform society
Remembering the figure of Santa Mama Antula, the purple stressed that “his life and his mission transcends the limits of the Church.”
“His mission reflected his charity for the sanctification of others and for the salvation of souls. He wanted to fill the hearts with love of God to transform the society of that moment according to the Gospel, a mission that continues to inspire and motivate in these new times, so different from those. ”
More than 200 years after passing through this land, the archbishop considered that his example “continues to give light, attracting and promoting today what she lived with passion in her time.” As proof of this, he mentioned the knowledge and devotion so extended by the Holy in many communities in Argentina.
“It is an immense joy to see her reflected in an image, a picture or simply a stamps in very distant places of Santiago,” he acknowledged, stressing that “María Antonia de San José is getting into the heart of our believing and Christian people.”
Missionary jealous at the service of the Gospel
The Cardinal also stressed that Mama Antula has been appointed, by decree of the Dicasteria of the Divine Cult and the discipline of the Sacraments, Argentine Patroness of the Missions, and also received the Honoris Causa Doctorate from the National University of Santiago del Estero.
“More and more are the areas that seek to know her to adopt her as a patron saint, inspiring, model of Jesus’ missionary disciple,” he valued.
“The work of this extraordinary woman, ‘jealous missionary at the service of the Gospel’ transcended the ecclesial field. Since his status as a secular woman, knowledgeable of Ignatian spirituality, calling for conversion and offering spiritual exercises, made many citizens yeast of a more just, more human, more fraternal society, ”he acknowledged.
His passion for the evangelizing mission, he said, “encouraged every day, his dreams, initiatives and realizations, his projects, his existence in conditions not conducive to such a company,” finding the strength in the Lord to overcome the obstacles and thus reach the holiness to which all the faithful are called.
The purple stressed that Mama Antula, “touched” by Jesus thanks to spiritual exercises, “in a context marked by material and moral misery, worn out in the first person, in the midst of a thousand difficulties, so that many others could live their same experience”.
Who was Santa Mama Antula?
Santa María Antonia de Paz and Figueroa, known as Mama Antula, was born in 1730 in Santiago del Estero. He worked from a young age with the Jesuits collaborating in the organization of spiritual exercises. Then he left to Buenos Aires, where he dedicated himself for 20 years to preach the message of Christ.
In 1795 he founded the Holy House of Spiritual Exercises in Buenos Aires, which still fulfills his mission under the care of the Daughters of Divine Salvador. He died on March 7, 1799 at that residence. His remains rest in the Church Our Lady of Piedad in Buenos Aires.
The miracle that allowed its beatification was approved on March 4, 2016. This consisted of the inexplicable recovery, in 1904, of the religious María Rosa Vanina, of the daughters of the divine Savior. The religious suffered from acute cholecystitis with septic shock, and doctors had predicted a safe death.
Julieta Villar
I am a journalist, a graduate in Communication from the National University of La Matanza in Argentina. I have work experience in non -governmental organizations. Since 2016 I dedicate myself to Catholic journalism, first in the Argentine Catholic Information Agency (AICA) and, since 2022, as a correspondent for ACI Press for Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Bolivia.