Blessed Concepción Cabrera de Armida was a mother, a widow, a mystic, and a writer from Mexico. She is commonly known and loved by all as “Conchita,” and is the spiritual mother of several apostolates of The Family of the Cross. Because of the depth of her writings, Blessed Conchita is recognized as a great mystic of the 20th century.
The Childhood of Bl. Concepción Cabrera de Armida
Blessed Conchita was born on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception in San Luis Potosí, Mexico to Octaviano Cabrera Lacavex and Clara Arias Rivera, their seventh child. Her parents owned a farm, and she grew up to become a great equestrian. Blessed Conchita was given supernatural graces as a child. She was very attracted to God at a young age, and she was known by others throughout her life for her purity, humility, and willingness to sacrifice. Blessed Conchita remembers Baby Jesus coming into her room to play with her as a child. She also experienced the devil coming into her room disguised as a grotesque creature. She later wrote that she never feared this because her guardian angel protected her.
When she was still only a young child, Blessed Conchita grew a tremendous devotion to Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. This was recognized by all who knew her, and so she was allowed to receive her First Holy Communion at an earlier age. When Blessed Conchita became a teen, she made her debut into society at her quinceañera.
Blessed Conchita Loved Eucharistic Adoration
Blessed Conchita once prayed before the Blessed Sacrament, “Lord, I feel so incapable of loving you; therefore, I want to marry. Give me many children so that they can love you more than I.” She was a pretty young lady, who began to attend dances and socialize. At one of these dances she met her future husband, Francisco de Armida.
Getting Married
Before getting married, Blessed Conchita asked her fiancée if he would mind it if she wanted to receive Communion daily. He agreed to this. They got married on November 8, 1884, when Blessed Conchita was 22 years old. Together they had 9 children, two of which entered religious life. She had a very happy marriage. She and Francisco had two girls and seven boys.
Consecrating Her Children to Mary
Blessed Conchita consecrated each of them to Our Lady, “I give them entirely to you as your children. You know that I am not capable of raising them. I understand too little of what it means to be a mother. But you…you know it.” Manuel, their third child, became a Jesuit priest. Concepción, their fourth, joined the order of the Religious Sisters of the Cross of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Four children got married: Francisco, Ignacio, Salvador and Guadalupe. The other three died holy deaths at an early age: Carlos at age 6, Pablo at age 18, and Pedrito, the youngest, at age 3.
Death of Her Beloved Husband
After 17 years of marriage, her husband Francisco died in 1901. Before Francisco passed on, Blessed Conchita had already begun to write. In 1894, Jesus started giving Blessed Conchita apparitions of the Holy Cross while she was praying before Him in Eucharistic Adoration. She first saw the Holy Spirit appear to her surrounded by a great light; then she saw a cross with a heart on it. The heart was beating and it was human, but glorified. This Heart was surrounded by a holy fire. She saw a small cross on the pulsating heart. Jesus showed Conchita that her mission was to save souls, and one of the ways she could do so was by offering up her daily crosses and sufferings. Blessed Conchita was chosen to serve God in different ways, but her primary method was always through her prayers and writings. During her lifetime, she wrote over 60,000 handwritten pages of religious writings that she kept in 66 separate manuscripts.
Mexican Revolution and Cristero War
Blessed Conchita lived during both the Mexican Revolution and the Cristero War that followed it. The Mexican government persecuted Catholics for almost two decades from 1910 until the 1930s. Many seminaries and convents were forced closed. During the Cristero War many Catholics rebelled against the government’s anticlericalism. Blessed Conchita wrote about her experiences during this time in her diary. She had a special charism. Like the Virgin Mary, she acted as a spiritual mother who intercedes for souls, especially priests and religious. This suffering greatly grieved her heart, and she took it to prayer, trusting always in Jesus.
Love for the Priesthood, Her Son’s Vocation
God gave Blessed Conchita a special charism for priests, this is likely because God knew that her son would become a priest one day. Blessed Conchita’s son Manuel was born in the exact hour that a beloved priest they knew died. She said, “Upon hearing the news, I prayed to God that my son could replace him at the altar.” When Manuel learned to talk, they began to pray together for the grace of a vocation to the priesthood. He renewed this prayer at his first Holy Communion and when he turned 17, he joined the Society of Jesus. Manuel was ordained to the priesthood in Barcelona, on July 31, 1922. Blessed Conchita woke up in the middle of the night to pray for him during his ordination.
On May 17, 1932, she wrote to her son, “I cannot imagine a priest who is not Jesus, even less so in the Society of Jesus. I pray that your transformation into Christ, through celebrating Holy Mass, may help you to become Jesus day and night.”
Foundress of Apostolates
Blessed Conchita founded several apostolates of The Family of the Cross: the Apostolate of the Cross in 1895; the Congregation of Sisters of the Cross of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, in 1897; the Covenant of Love with the Heart of Jesus, in 1909; and the Congregation of Missionaries of the Holy Spirit in 1914. Blessed Conchita built many relationships with bishops and priests in her lifetime.
She was obedient to her spiritual directors who advised her to keep a spiritual diary for over 40 years, and she lived her vocation to serve and help others with a maternal love like that of the Virgin Mary. She had a deep desire to pray for the sanctification of priests and Blessed Conchita wrote much about this mission in her writings. “I feel that my mission is being a mother.” Blessed Conchita died on March 3, 1937 at the age of 75.
Blessed Conchita, pray for us!
Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us!
Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!