THE FAVOURITE DAUGHTER OF TERESA OF JESUS MARY OF SAINT JOSEPH by Carlos Ros

Author:Carlos Ros [Ros, Carlos]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Letras de Autor
Published: 2018-11-04T23:00:00+00:00

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“Let's just say, the spectacle that the Discalced friars gave in Lisbon was not very Teresian”, Efren Montalva commented. 6 And he did not refer to the collective behaviour in the Lisbon Chapter. He alluded to the curiosity of the friars who were visiting the abbess of the Annunciation to admire her wounds. They all wanted to have blood stained cloths to take to their convents in Spain. Mary of Saint Joseph was not deceived, as we have already said. Neither was Saint John of the Cross. Friar Augustin of the kings, provincial of Seville, was invited to visit the nun with the wounds, of whom so many prodigies are told. John of the Cross contested:

“Why go to see a lie? People, you will see how the Lord uncovers it”.

Gratian was not deceived either, so much so that his life was put in peril by the Antonists (followers of the pretender for the throne, Don Antony, prior of Ocrato) when a letter from Gratian to Mary of the Visitation came into his hands, in which he warned her of the things that were said about her and the harm that could be done if she did not shy away from talking. 7

Another two years passed before they discovered the deception.

The friars had finished the Chapter in Lisbon, returning to their land, waiting for the arrival of Doria, the new provincial. Gratian was forced to “leave by night on an extraordinary route to Castille to avoid being killed by the Antonists”. 8

Ambrose Mariano had collected from the Fathers who came to Lisbon, a series of warnings and government notes to be dealt with in Chapter. As it closed in anticipation of the arrival of Doria, these papers were piled up in the prior's cell.

Nicolas Doria disembarked in Barcelona at the end of September and convoked the capitulars in Pastrana on 17 th October to continue the provincial Chapter which had been interrupted in Lisbon. Mariano, before leaving for Castille, left the Prioress of San Alberto a basket full of these papers to classify and send them.

“Between them, perhaps”, recounted Mary of Saint Joseph, “I found a memorial of a certain religious, one of those who are now in government, where he pointed out more than thirty things that should be changed in the Constitutions of the nuns, which would destroy them, especially those that our Holy Mother had tried to keep and desired to remain perpetual”.

Mary of Saint Joseph's eyes were opened and she saw the danger to the inheritance of Mother Teresa. She began to meditate upon what could happen if the Constitutions inherited from Mother Teresa were mutilated in this way and she concluded that everything could be lost if the nuns were in the hands of friars who thought this way and had the power to change things.

Her exclamation could not be more certain for a woman:

“Our friars cannot live without inventing new things”. 9

And she,

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