On August 7, 1937, the Vitoria artillery park, located 200 meters from the Visitation Monastery of Santa María, burst into flames. Miraculously, “the community was unharmed.” In gratitude, the Sisters collected from the garden two other explosives without detonating and turned them into vases that adorned for years the image of the Sacred Heart of the antechoir.
Sister María Angélica attends me from a building that, against all odds, still stands in the center of Vitoria. According to the Sister, on August 7, 1937, an arsenal near the monastery of the Visitation of Santa Maria burst into flames. “It was 200 meters away and the projectiles began to jump everywhere,” says the religious, recalling the testimony of two sisters who lived through the fire.
“A young lieutenant came to warn them and the sisters took refuge in the laundry, near the porter, in case they had to make an emergency exit,” explains the Sister. While the bombs dropped right and left, the sisters began to pray. And it seems to work. “Yes, there was broken glass and damage, but the community was unharmed,” she says.
Finally, when the noise stopped, the sisters left the room and saw the impossible; a howitzer hung, just above them, from a ceiling ribbon. Something that the religious account, taking away its importance: «It is normal, the sisters were praying and all the miracles that could be imagined happened».
In gratitude for that episode that they consider miraculous, the religious gathered from the garden two other explosives without detonating and turned them into vases that adorned the image of the Sacred Heart of the antechoir for years.
An international community
The fire of the Vitoria artillery park is just one more of the survival stories of these sisters. As Sister María Angélica acknowledges, at the end of the 1990s they almost died out: «We became very little, between eight and twelve». Now, instead, there are 22 sisters. The oldest is 88 years and the youngest only 29. She is one of the last incorporations that the convent has had and with which they have recovered from the lack of vocations.
«It is all the fruit of prayer», considers the Sister, who remembers how in the wake of the Jubilee of the year 2000 «the first two sisters» came from Peru. “They were so fervent that, with their prayer, they made many more come.” And shortly thereafter, with the incorporation of Kenyans and Peruvians, the Vitoria isters became “an international community.”
Traditionally, nuns have done laundry, chasuble making and embroidery . However, following the floods that Peru suffered in 2017, they also make sweets. “The sisters who are from there told us what was happening and we wanted to help children who cannot afford school or are sick.”
Thus, through the sale of what they call muffins and solidarity donuts, a part of the profits go to maintain the cloisterd monastery that the Sisters have in Lima and different schools dependent on this community. “We have established a very strong bond of friendship and it is a joy when there is a graduation and they send us the photo of a student with his toga and his notes,” concludes the religious.
Rodrigo Moreno Quicios https://alfayomega.es/196528/un-monasterio-salvado-de-las-bombas