Flora Cantábrica

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Sister Angela de la Cruz

The «Zapaterita»

In order to get some financial resources, and thus be able to help her family, at the age of 12 or 13 she became an apprentice in the shoe-making workshop of Mrs. Antonia Maldonado, in what was then Calle del Huevo. Her owner, Dona Antonia, was a pious person, and she used to finish the job, every afternoon, with the recitation of the rosary. Angela, the «shoemaker» always stood out for her commitment and ability to do the job she was entrusted with. But God had other plans for her

Her religiosity and spirituality were precocious. At 15 years old, she slept on a table over the bed. Despite her fragility, she fasted and wore sackcloth (in the form of a crown of thorns under her hair). In the shoe workshop every Friday she deprived herself of her food and gave it to the poor. Kneeling in front of her companions, she begged them for some bread so she could add to her alms.

One afternoon, in the workshop, in the room where they prayed the rosary, she was found kneeling in prayer, ecstatic, miraculously suspended above the floor. Doña Antonia asked the other operators not to interrupt this moment and to continue her task. The next day she brought this extraordinary event to the attention of her confessor, Father José Torres Padilla, who expressed his desire to meet Angelita.

Vocation

Father Torres was a key figure in consolidating the vocation and directing Angelita’s spiritual life. From the first moment he discovered her qualities and encouraged her to continue the apostolate with the poor. At the age of 16, she Angelita already frequented visits to the poor and sick. Among them she found a very serious woman, with tumors and sores on her breasts from the milk retained in them. A surgical intervention could save her, and her Angelita tried to convince her of it, but the woman refused. Without thinking twice, she Angelita sucked the sores from her and extracted the pus from her. The sick woman was healed after this heroic action, although she was reprimanded by Father Torres because her recklessness could have cost her health

Until she was 19 years old, she combined family life with her parents, work in the shoe workshop and a life dedicated to prayer and care for the poor and needy. In this climate of spiritual intensity, her religious vocation emerged. At the age of 19, she thought of entering a convent as a layman. Father Torres provided him with a letter of recommendation for the superior of the Discalced Carmelites. However, her physical frailty, they thought, could not withstand the hard physical labors of the lay sisters … and she was not admitted.

In 1869, when she was 23 years old, Angelita entered the Hospital de las Hijas de la Caridad in Seville as a postulant, shortly after Father Torres left for Rome, as a consultant to the Vatican I Council. postulancy and took the habit of a novice. But her health began to suffer, suffering from continuous vomiting. She is sent to Cuenca, and from there to Valencia, in an attempt to improve her health with the change of scenery, but she remains fragile, without recovering, and unable to continue this religious life.

Get poor with the poor

Angelita returned to Seville with the discouragement of not being able to materialize her religious vocation. Father Torres would not return until 1870, and upon his return, he was appointed canon of the cathedral. With this position he was able to continue his acts of extreme generosity with the most disadvantaged. Angelita recovered – she said that it was thanks to the «grandmother» feeding her some «little soldiers from pavia», fried cod and flour – and in 1871, on All Saints’ Day, she wrote down her intention to live her life. religious vocation in the world, since she had failed trying to be confined in a convent.

She will write: “Today, November 1, 1871, I, María de los Ángeles Guerrero, at the feet of Jesus Christ crucified, make a resolution to live according to the evangelical counsels… to imitate the hidden life of Jesus on the outside; and inside to live crucified with Jesus. » In 1873 she asked Father Torres for permission to sign as Angela de la Cruz, a surname that she would accompany him forever from then on.

Among his thoughts was «to become poor with the poor to attract them to Christ», constituting a religious Institute that «voluntarily embraces and for love of God and the poor and the penalties of poverty.» We are before the seed of his vocation and of his great work. Father Torres asked him to put these thoughts in writing. After working in the workshop, every night, he was punctually shaping the project that he longed to institute. Spelling mistakes he made up for with simple, spontaneous language, direct from the soul.

In 1875, on the day of the Immaculate Conception, he asked Father Torres for permission to make perpetual vows. In this way, and with the consent of her confessor and spiritual guide, she was consecrated to God. Her project was not yet mature, and Father Torres once again asked her to continue writing the founding project of the Company of the Cross.

Angela was aware that a life of austerity and consecration to the poor would be rigorous and difficult to carry out for the sisters who were part of the project. She thought that such difficulties would be mitigated by placing a figure of the Virgin in the center of her future convent, «our beloved Queen on an altar, on a throne of glory, radiant with beauty.» On the way to her house, after her work in her workshop, the Blessed Virgin appeared to her, suspended in the air, beautiful, serving as a consolation for all her concerns. Her «kind and beautiful» face was the final answer that Angela needed.

Some of her writings describe her intentions for the project that is about to be created. Angela would like the sisters to be “detached from everything, even from themselves, without having more land or clothes other than what they are wearing, and this of alms… so that the heart can not attach itself to anything. Hidden and unknown, and without any appearance that makes them more particular than the others, that they form a community of an extraordinary life for their penance, their obedience and their mortification in everything

Start of the Company of the Cross

In 1875, Angela definitely left the shoe workshop and focused on his new project. Her first travel companions were Josefa de la Peña, who used to accompany Angela on visits to the poor, Juana María de Castro (the future sister Sacramento) and Juana Magadón, who bring great enthusiasm, selfless work and the few assets of the they have for the Company of the Cross in the making. Father Torres confers on Angela the title of Elder Sister, a title that she renounces and transfers to the Virgin Mary. They rent a small room on Calle San Luis number 13, where they settle and begin their journey as a community.

On August 2, 1875, the first four Sisters of the Cross, after hearing mass in Santa Paula and communing with Father Torres, began their first day. They are poorly dressed, in pairs, in silence, as will be the norm from that moment on. They visit the poor to bring them small gifts. They are having a small inaugural party for the Company. That same night, when they arrive at the room on Calle San Luis, the pantry is empty. Thus, fasting, and thanking God for their first day, they sleep radiant with happiness on humble mats.

In the following months they hardly collect money to subsist and continue helping the poor and sick. After many efforts and the help, among others, of today Blessed Don Marcelo Espínola, who would later become Bishop of Coria and Cardinal Archbishop of Seville, they move to a small house on Calle Hombre de Piedra number 8. With more space than in the primitive location, the sisters establish the essential infrastructure to consolidate their work. At Christmas, by order of Cardinal Lastra, the sisters begin to wear the simple habit devised by Sister Angela, a sign of her consecration to the cause of the poor: brown cloth, with scapular, Franciscan cord, white headdress and canvas espadrilles.

Consolidation of the Institute

On April 5, 1876, Cardinal Lastra approved the Institute. That same year, from Rome, the authorization arrived for the celebration of Holy Mass and the reservation of the Eucharist in the chapel of the convent on Hombre de Piedra street, and in all the future houses of the Company.

Little by little Seville is getting to know them. They aroused at that time, as they continue to do today, the affection and admiration of all for their simple life full of love for the poor. On the occasion of the smallpox epidemic of 1876 (which coincided with the feared floods of the Guadalquivir River) his testimonial work was immense, and it would remain forever engraved in the memory of all Sevillians. They extended their work of assistance (not initially foreseen in the statutes of the Company) in caring for and picking up orphaned girls of the sick they helped. That year with the daughter of a worker – who she had asked them, before she died, not to abandon her – they began their first internship experience. Encarnacion, the fourth child taken in by the sisters, healed from vomiting of blood, being veiled in her sleep for a whole night by Sister Angela. In time, she would enter the Institute with the name of Sister Angeles, because of her affection for her founder.

In 1878 Father Torres Padilla passed away as holy as he lived. But God does not abandon Sister Angela. Father José Álvarez Delgado, spiritual son and disciple of Father Torres, succeeded him as director of the Company. He lived the spirituality of the sisters intensely, with great dedication and enthusiasm, and until his death he wore the scapular of Brother of the Cross under his cassock. It was in 1878, during a mass for Father Álvarez, when Sister Angela pronounced her perpetual vows. It would also be Father Álvarez who would write, based on Sister Angela’s writings, the Constitutions of the Sisters of the Cross, which were approved by Archbishop Lluch. In some spiritual exercises for the sisters, Sister Angela wrote: “The first poor one, me”. It was the message that he wanted to transmit to the Institute, and which he did not cease to emphasize throughout his life, especially to the novice sisters: “Poor in fact and of desire we must be at the foot of the cross, to serve in your Institute… eat of vigil, and sometimes what others have left over … like poor beggars; sleeping on boards, traveling in third gear, not sparing ourselves from any material work inside and outside the convent, however humiliating and heavy it may be… and carrying all this with joy, offering it to God ”.

In 1880, Father Marcelo Espínola was appointed auxiliary bishop. His work will be of great support to the Sisters of the Cross. In 1881 they moved to a new house at 12 Cervantes Street, thanks to the help of many benefactors, including Archbishop Lluch. That same year, Sister Angela was named Mother General (instead of Elder Sister), although everyone continued to call her «Mother».

In

1882 Father Álvarez Delgado and Archbishop Lluch die. The Company is temporarily without a director. In 1883 Monsignor Spínola appointed Father José Rodríguez Soto as the new spiritual director of the Sisters, a position he held for 24 years. He is told that he proved the virtue of Sister Angela, whom he admired so much, on various occasions, treating her severely. Sister Angela always followed the direction of Father Rodríguez Soto with his characteristic humility. In those days, Sister Angela proposed to place a special chair, between the Sisters, and on it, a picture of the Virgin, whom she always considered the true Superior of the Company. This Virgin of the Chair, since then presided over the meetings inside the House, and as she passed her, her sisters placed a loving kiss on her.

In 1887 they moved to the definitive house on Calle Alcázares (today Santa Ángela de la Cruz). It was an old palace house owned by the Marquis of San Gil. It was obtained thanks to thousands of donations, among them that of Doña Emilia Riquelme, who was the founder of the Missionaries of the Blessed Sacrament and Mary Immaculate. When her family recriminated such a large donation to her sisters, she replied: “Don’t worry. I have not lost anything. I have deposited it in a bank that does not fail ”. In 1890 Archbishop Sanz y Forés asked the Sisters to review the Constitutions to adapt them to the new norms of canon law. With the help of Father Soto, the new Constitutions were sent to Rome to request pontifical approval. As the approval was delayed, in 1894 Sister Angela traveled to Rome to encourage the process, but she was unable to achieve it either. From her trip to Rome, her fascination stands out, just as her letters collect, for the figure of the holy beggar,

Saint Benedict José Labre, who spent his whole life as a “beggar among beggars”. That same year, Monsignor Marcelo Spínola was appointed Archbishop of Seville, which was celebrated with joy among the Sisters of the Cross, for his bond and commitment to the Institute. New houses were opening in Villafranca (Badajoz), Arjones, Zalamea de la Serena and Fuentes de Andalucía. In 1897 the Infanta María Luisa Fernanda de Borbón y Borbón died in the palace of San Telmo. She was shrouded and buried in the Escorial with the habit of the Sisters of the Cross, due to her personal bond and friendship with Sister Angela.

On one occasion, the boarding school ran out of bread other than that of the refectory for the community dinner. Sister Saint Augustine, a cook, ran to find Sister Angela at the Oratory, to tell her. Sister Angela smiles. There is no need to worry. She keeps praying. After a while they receive a visit from the court in the Plaza de la Encarnación announcing that they could go and collect a basket of bread as alms for the sisters. The loaves had multiplied for the girls in the Institute. The precariousness of its economy suffered on many occasions, and the day to day became difficult. Unless extraordinary things happened, like when they received a 250-pesetas bill from the baker, and they had no money to pay it. Sister Angela, on that occasion, begged the baker to collect the bill again a little later. After a while, an envelope with alms was received anonymously at the gate, an alms of exactly 250 pesetas to pay the baker’s bill.

Final approval

In 1898, Pope Leo XIII signed the «Decree of Praise», by which the Institute of the Sisters of the Cross began the path to be definitively approved by the Holy See. This approval did not come until June 1904 and was ratified by Pope Pius X, his successor. The pontifical conformity with the Statutes, however, had abolished the position of director, so that, since the death of Father Rodríguez Soto in 1906, Sister Angela was left alone at the head of the Company. She was 61 years old at that time, and her work had to multiply, as did her correspondence with her different houses. More than 5,000 of those letters that Sister Angela wrote are preserved. On many occasions they are authentic spiritual guides for the sisters. In 1908 the final approval of the Constitutions arrived.