BLESSED MARIA CECILIA CENDOYA ARAQUISTAIN
In the Christian home of Antonio and Isabel, little Maria Felicitas was born on January 10, 1910, in Azpeitia (Guipúzcoa). Lively and playful, she grew up happily with her sisters. Her parents instilled in the hearts of their four daughters the holy fear of God and a solid piety. For work reasons, the family moved to Azcoitia.
At the age of seven she received her first Communion. From that date on, her fervour increased. Eucharistic life held special delights for her. She helped as much as she could in the parish and visited Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament every afternoon. She is very good, but she has a strong temper and when she tells her mother that she wants to be a nun, she hears this response: – You are a nun with that temper…? From that moment on she changes and seems different. Her mother is then convinced of the authenticity of her vocation.
Determined and cheerful, at the age of 20 she crosses the threshold of the First Monastery of the Visitation of Madrid, on October 9, 1930. Sister Maria Cecilia is the name she receives in religious life. Her lively temperament contrasts with her kind, humble, calm and silent character. From the beginning she suffers all the consequences of religious persecution: riots, votes, burning of churches and convents, dispersion of her Community, etc. A few months after her entry into the monastery, the teacher seeing that the postulant is frightened, asks her if she wants to go back home, and return when the situation improves. But she immediately responds with vivacity in her poor and pleasant Spanish: “No, no, my sister, I would rather cut off the head!”
During these years, she has many opportunities to go with her family, but for love of Jesus and her vocation she never accepts their proposals and always says with determination that she does not want to leave for anything in the world. She makes her solemn vows on September 27, 1935 and has the joy of seeing herself surrounded by all her loved ones. She is radiant with joy.
We have had the opportunity to follow the events of the seven nuns of the Visitation of Madrid: Sunset of November 17, in González Longoria street in Madrid – ReL (religionenlibertad.com)
Morning of November 19, in López de Hoyos street in Madrid – ReL (religionenlibertad.com)
I AM A RELIGIOUS
Around 7 pm on November 18, she is taken to death along with her Sisters. A sudden stop of the truck that is taking them indicates the place designated for their execution. Shots are fired and all of them are barbarically shot except for her. Because Maria Cecilia, nervous, starts running. Soon she meets some guards and gives herself up saying: “-I am a nun.” The next morning she is taken to one of the worst improvised prisons, the unfortunately famous “checas”. About twelve women are detained there. The floor is full of water, there is only one bench for everyone… It is very cold. When Sister Mª Cecilia comes in, she stays in a corner. Then a young woman approaches her and asks her affectionately. She quickly answers: “-I am a nun.”
As she inspires confidence, she tells her everything that happened: “-There were seven nuns in an apartment here in Madrid, we are Salesians, they came for us, they put us in a car and took us to a dark place where there were bars, it was like a vacant lot, but I don’t know where it is because I don’t know Madrid. I got out of the car holding the hand of another Sister, we were the last two, and when I noticed that she was falling dead, I don’t know what happened to me, I ran away and I didn’t know what I was doing.”
She encourages her fellow inmates to suffer for God, she edifies them all with her patience and union with the divine will, they always see her praying, always in prayer… Little by little they call the detainees to testify. Some are released, others are shot. Sister Mª Cecilia sadly says goodbye to them. She is afraid of being alone. She assures them that when her turn comes she will not hide that she is a nun. And she is aware of what that statement means at that precise moment. In fact, a red mark appears next to her signature in the statement she makes in prison. It is the sign of those condemned to death.
The young woman she spoke to, when saying goodbye, gave her the address of her house, so that when she left she could go there, but the days went by and nothing was known about Sister Cecilia. On the outskirts of Madrid, at the walls of the Vallecas cemetery, in the early hours of November 23, her body is found.
Blessed Mª Cecilia has shed all her blood for love of Christ. Her unwavering fidelity has allowed her to achieve at 26 years of age the martyrdom she so longed for.
A CROSS PIERCED BY A BULLET
The word soon spread that the seven Salesian sisters had been killed, but where and how? No one could say for sure, and the current circumstances demanded prudence; so Their relatives tried to find out with great caution. From 1939, the end of the civil war, until 1942, events would unfold in this way. The Community returned from Oronoz (Navarra) to Madrid, and began to find out the circumstances of the martyrdom, at the same time as repairs were undertaken to the Monastery, devastated by fire and looting. They were informed of the martyrdom of the sisters, located the bodies of six of the Sisters in the cemetery of Nuestra Señora de la Almudena, verifying their authenticity from photographs that were in the cemeteries, and arranged for the transfer of four of them to the Crypt of the Monastery on June 14, 1940. It was necessary to visually identify the bodies under oath, without touching anything.
The sisters Mª Gabriela, Teresa María, Mª Engracia and Mª. Inés were identified without a doubt. However, although they were sure that the other two bodies were those of Sisters Josefa Mª and Mª Ángela, their faces were so disfigured by the shots that, with great pain, they did not dare to take the oath and their remains were buried, with their names, in the Almudena cemetery until they were transferred to the Valle de los Caídos.
The disappearance of Sister Mª Cecilia caused great consternation. Only people who were with her in the prison cell knew about it, but they could not provide any more information about her subsequent fate. In 1941, a lady came to the Monastery accompanying her niece, who wanted to be a nun. When the superior entered the parlor, the lady looked at the cross she wore on her chest and said in admiration, “Oh!… I have seen one like that cross in the Municipal Court of Vallecas.” She said that, while searching for the body of her husband, who disappeared in 1936, she found him and identified him by the objects he was carrying. There she saw a cross pierced by a bullet and it remained clearly engraved in her mind, she was sure it was the same. Thanks to this providential information, the body of the seventh sister was located on October 4, 1941, in the Vallecas cemetery.
Source: Madrugada del 23 de noviembre, en el cementerio de Vallecas – ReL