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Conchita,
A Mother´s Spiritual Diary
(excerpts)
By Ven. Conchita Cabrera de Armida,
Edited by M.M. Philipon, O.P.
The writings which Conchita received from Jesus inspire the charism of the Love Crucified Community. -Fr. Jordi
Conchita (1862 – 1937) Mexican / wife, mother and mystic / inspired five religious associations approved by the Church, including a Congregation of priests.
A Mother´s Spiritual Diary edited by Marie-Michel Philipon, O.P. Download! (English or Spanish)
DIARY edited by Philipon, excerpts
Pg 153 audio
Novena
Spiritual Maternity of Conchita Spirituality of the Cross -
cidec.org.mx
Pictures of Conchita Pictures of places related to Ven. Conchita.
Liturgy for Conchita's anniversary
Spanish includes songs
Conchita's writings set to music in Spanish
"Give me souls who Love me in suffering"
p. 154
“Give Me souls who love Me in suffering, who find their joy on the Cross. My Heart thirsts for such a love, an unselfish love, an expiatory, crucified love, a sound love such as it may be said no longer exists on earth. Yet it is the only true love, the love which saves, purifies, and the love I require through My commandments. All other apparent loves do not satisfy Me; all other love is vain, artificial, often culpable, save the love which I have just shown you.”
"I will be the altar upon which You offer Yourself"
Conchita tells Jesus: "I will be the altar upon which You offer Yourself - a victim in union with You and with all other priests - transforming myself into Yourself through suffering and through love, through purity and humility and above all, through loving passion for Your divine Father, so as to be able to say with my heart burning with celestial fire: 'This is My Body; this is My Blood.'"
In His Interior Sufferings
pgs 122 -123
On this subject there are countless texts. Without doubt, every form of Christian spirituality is marked by the seal of the Cross, but God reveals to Conchita the peculiar way she is to imitate Christ: above all, in the inner sufferings of His soul, that is, in His interior Crucifixion. It is here we have a new aspect which will mark with a special seal the entire spirituality of the Cross.
"I wish that above all, there be honored the interior sufferings of My Heart, sufferings undergone from My Incarnation to the Cross and which are mystically prolonged in My Eucharist. These sufferings are still unsuspected by the world. None the less I declare to you that, from the first moment of my Incarnation, the Cross already planted in My Heart, overburdened Me and the thorns penetrated it. The blow struck by the lance might have been some solace causing to gush from My Side a volcano of love and of suffering but I did not consent to that until after My death. I only receive ingratitude. That is why My Heart overflowing with tenderness will ever feel the thorns of the Cross. In heaven, as God, I cannot suffer. To find this Cross which above did not exist, I descended into this world and became man. As God-Man, I could suffer infinitely to pay the price of the salvation of so many souls. During My life, I never desired anything except the Cross, and ever the Cross, wanting to show the world That which is the sole wealth and happiness on earth, the currency which will buy an eternal happiness.
"By the Apostolate of the Cross will be venerated the interior sufferings of My Heart symbolically represented by the Cross, the thorns, and a spear. I draw hearts to the Cross. In these houses, in this "oasis"
will be honored this ocean of interior sufferings today known to but very few. There, they will take My thorns and with them pierce their own hearts. They will lighten the weight of the Cross which burdens My Heart, themselves becoming living Crosses. Their lives will remain wholly secluded in the interior of the Cross of My Heart, venerating, alleviating, making their own these interior sufferings which, for thirty-three years, never left Me for a single moment. Here is the ideal of the Contemplatives of the Cross."I only remained on the Cross of Calvary for three hours, but on the interior Cross of My Heart, my whole life. The monasteries (Oasis) will venerate both of them but especially my Interior Cross which symbolizes these pains and these inner sufferings, so incomprehensible, which constantly oppress my soul. These sufferings remained hidden during My life. I smiled, I labored. Only My Mother was aware of this martyrdom which crushed My loving Heart. My external Passion lasted but a few hours. It was like a gentle dew, a comfort for the other Passion, terribly cruel, which tortured ceaselessly My soul!"
(Diary, Sept. 25, 1894).St. Thomas Aquinas taught the same doctrine: the interior and redemptive sufferings of Christ's soul were incomparably more painful than the physical pain of the Crucified of Golgotha. The intensity of the inner and hidden sufferings of Christ's soul, in view of the expiation of all the sins of men, is measured by His infinite love. Rightly, then, a Teresa of Avila, as did Conchita, professed an exceptional devotion to Christ's agony in Gethsemane "My Heart is filled with sorrow to the point of death" (Mk 4:34). It is in Christ's soul our destiny is carried out.
Primacy of Love
pgs. 153-154
"Love is the soul of every life of prayer and of every good work. If they are not accompanied by love, all of men's works are dead. Love is the fire which inflames everything. When a soul possesses this holy love, it revives in it faith and hope and urges it on to the practice of all the moral virtues.
"The soul which loves Me runs along the paths of perfection unconcerned about the thorns it trods on. It then comes to fly without hindrance from the thousands of obstacles it meets. It overcomes them by the interior ardor of a living faith and a holy hope. The theological virtues have their seat and their development in love. Charity communicates to them life and brings them up to heaven. The world has no idea of the grandeur of these three theological virtues which are founded on divine love.
"Some souls do not love Me. That is why they are lost. Among the souls who love Me and call themselves Mine, how few there are who give Me their whole heart! Almost always I receive but a part of their heart. All of it, so rarely! Nevertheless I want them to love Me `with all their heart, with all their soul, with all their strength!' The human heart turns partly toward creatures, toward the world, toward self. Self-love for the greatest part fills it. It lives and breathes only for that. I demand a love which surpasses everything. I have imposed this precept on them to render men happy and to save them. Despite this, how few, I repeat, are the souls who carry out My sovereign will to perfection! I wish them well and they resist. I present them with a treasure and they despise it. I give them life and they run to death. To love and to sacrifice oneself, therein is the eternal felicity in heaven.
"To overcome vices and to practice virtues, it is necessary to sacrifice oneself, but do so with love. The soul which does this, loves Me wholeheartedly and I will be its eternal recompense. Give Me a love like this, give Me souls who love Me in suffering, who find their joy on the Cross. My Heart thirsts for such a love. I want a pure love, an unselfish love, an expiatory, crucified love, a sound love such as it may be said no longer exists on earth. Yet it is the only true love, the love which saves, purifies and the love I require through My commandments. All other apparent loves do not satisfy Me; all other love is vain, artificial, often culpable, save the love which I have just shown you.
"Love Me as I have loved you, in My interior Cross, after the very first moment of My Incarnation. Love Me in suffering and in sacrifice out of love. Love Me for I am God and solely to please Me. It is toward this love I aspire, the love I desire. Happy the soul possessing it.... I promise that on this earth, that soul will begin to taste of the delights of heaven" (Diary, Sept. 11, 1900).
Jesus said: "Pray this way. With the certainty of my real presence which will help you much.
You should listen to me always ready to understand what I tell you.
Humble yourself infinitely when you pray.
Trust in me for I am for I am your strength in your weakness.
Be empty to be filled, and in infinite solitude.
Be recollected and pure before my presence, at the fire of my Holy Spirit"
One With ME
(Conchita’s Diary, p. 124)
"I want you to be truly one with Me. I wish you to be like a very clear mirror in which is reproduced the image of your Jesus Crucified. I wish you to reflect Me in you, such as I was on the Cross. On your part, abandon yourself simply to receive in you My image. I wish you to be as I am: crowned with thorns, scourged, nailed to the Cross, in desolation, pierced, abandoned… Meditate one by one all these things and be My living portrait in order that My Father find in you His pleasure and pour out His graces on sinners" (Diary, April 6, 1895).
Desolation
A few months before her death
I have seen my life like something that passed by like a cherished memory that has vanished like an unconscious deceit and in a hopeless solitude, without support, without consolation, as if feeling my way, and without even knowing if I love or don't love, if I have a heart or not, in the midst of a stress that is at times desperately despairing, painfully despairing.
I have felt abandoned between Heaven and Earth.
I have tasted a hellish bitterness.
I have suffered the horrible punishment of indifference towards all goodness, even for the Tabernacle, for Jesus, for Heaven itself!
My soul has asphyxiated, as if drowned in the World's atmosphere, without being able to breathe anything that is divine.
I have suffered an emptiness, My God!, such a deep emptiness, so profound, without anything to reach for, upon which I can sustain myself, as if between Heaven and Earth, my soul wanting to hold on to Jesus and without being able to do so.
I have spent months without knowing if I have received the Holy Eucharist, having just done so, without knowing whether or not I prayed, having prayed, etc. etc.
I have felt the horrible sensation of an abyss between Jesus and my soul, an emptiness that cannot be disengaged, and wanting to find Him, hiding from me, and nearly touching Him, running away from me. But I have been crying because I have only directed my coldness towards goodness, towards Him, ¡my God!
I have come to believe that I don't love Him, however, a gigantic sensibility that has grown within me screams at me that I do, and only his name, and even just a thought of him touches my soul, and moves it to tears.
As you know, my Father (Mons. Luis Ma. Martínez), this is the current state of my soul and I am here at your side ready to believe and obey you.
Regarding Jesus, I only want whatever He desires; I wouldn't want to force Him even if my soul agonizes. I feel very honored that my poor self, might save, might console some priest that is in need of it. I have given Jesus that which is mine, so that with that which is His, it saves those dear souls and unites them more to Him.
I enter these exercises, (the last days of her life, about the Perfect Joy) with a holy indifference, without any regard for myself whatsoever. The only thing I wish to search for is that I may not be at fault, since I do not want to perturb in the slightest that Heart of Jesus which is all delicacy and gentleness.
I am willing with all my heart and will, for Him to speak or not to speak, to feel His presence or not to feel it, whatever He wishes. It is tremendously painful to have God and not to feel God's presence;
But, is not pain my path?
I am going to hold on to the theological virtues, the only bridge that brings me closer to God.
Sorrowful Mother, Mother of the helpless, help me! I want to please Jesus and that my delights or my torments be all for the glory of the Father (CC 65,166-170, 3rd of October, 1936).