Local parish, valley pilgrims celebrate canonization of “Josélito”

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Father Peter Stanley holds up relic of St. José Sánchez Del Rio, which is at Immaculate Conception Parish in Taft. Photo below, Father Peter Stanley (left of St. José) and Father Rene Angel, join youth of their parishes in paying tribute to the new saint who was martyred at age 14.

Jerry Niño for South Texas Catholic

 

 

On Oct. 16, 40 Altar servers and parents from Resurrection Catholic Church in Alamo, Texas drove up 169 miles to Immaculate Conception Church in Taft to join local devotees of St. José Sánchez Del Rio, the child martyr whom Pope Francis canonized that day. The Rio Grande Valley pilgrims came bearing generous and beautiful gifts of a Chalice and a Paten for the parish of Immaculate Conception.

St. José Sánchez Del Rio—known as Josélito—was born in Sahuayo de Morelos, México in 1913. During the 1924-28 religious persecution by Mexican President Plutarco Elías Calles, Josélito became a Cristero, fighting against the anti-Catholic legislation. 

At that time, Mexican laws banned religious orders, deprived the Church of property rights and denied priests civil liberties, including the right to trial by jury and the right to vote. As the restrictions on religious liberty increased, Catholics were fined and imprisoned for teaching Church doctrine, wearing clerical attire, meeting together after their convents were disbanded, promoting religious life or holding religious services in non-church locations. 

The Mexican Federal Army executed Josélito on Feb. 10, 1928. He was 14-years-old. According to witness accounts, soldiers cut off the soles of his feet and forced him to walk barefoot to his grave. Although he was tortured, he refused to renounce his Catholic faith. Moments before he was killed, the teen shouted, “Viva Cristo Rey!” (“Long live Christ the King!”). 

When people find themselves weary from the troubles of life, they can find inspiration in the heroism of one of the Church’s new saints, said Cardinal Alberto Suarez Inda of Morelia, México. From its inception, “the history of the Church is the history of a martyr Church,” the cardinal said. 

Still, the cardinal continued, “many of us don’t have the grace of a bloody martyrdom.” However, we are called “to be heroic everyday, in ordinary life, and this calls us to not falter, to not be carried away by some trend, but to stand firm in the faith when there are more subtle persecutions.” 

Altar servers from Resurrection Church in Alamo, Texas present a Chalice and a Paten to the parish of Immaculate Conception in Taft. They were among a group of 40 altar servers and parents that made the pilgrimage from Alamo to Taft. Jerry Niño for South Texas Catholic

On Jan. 21, Pope Francis approved the miraculous cure of a baby with brain damage through the intercession Josélito completing the final step for the teen’s path to sainthood. Doctors said Ximena Guadalupe Magallón Gálvez, who was just a few weeks old in September 2008 when her parents took her to Sahuayo, had “no hope of survival” due to a myriad of health problems including brain damage caused by a stroke.

“I put my baby in God’s hands and the intercession of Josélito and at that moment she opened her eyes and smiled,” Ximena’s mother said.

The doctors could not explain what had happened. They took Ximena to do a CT scan and an encephalogram and were surprised to see that 80 percent of her brain had recovered. When they examined her the next day, her brain had become completely healthy again. 

While not part of the canonization process, Mary Ann González had a total hysterectomy in 2012 and the biopsy results were not what she and her family had been praying for. “I was diagnosed with stage two uterine cancer,” the lifelong parishioner at Immaculate Conception in Taft said. “Before leaving for more surgery with a gynecological oncologist in San Antonio, I saw a movie that encouraged and inspired me. Actually, it ended up changing everything.”

The movie, “For Greater Glory,” depicted the true story of the Cristero War in México during the 1920s. During the movie, González learned about Josélito. “I knew immediately after seeing the movie Blessed José would watch out for me. I asked him for courage to go through my surgery,” González said. “I also made a promise to him that if I were to come out of the surgery successfully, I would do everything in my power to share his story with more people.”

González had the surgery in San Antonio and the news was a complete surprise. Tissue samples taken during surgery revealed chemotherapy was not needed because there was no longer any evidence of cancer. This prompted her to seek a relic of Josélito from México and in March 2013 Immaculate Conception Parish celebrated the arrival of the relic.

The canonization of St. José was a special occasion for the parish in the Diocese of Corpus Christi, located in the small town of Taft. Father Peter Stanley, parochial administrator at Immaculate Conception, called for a two-day celebration honoring the canonization of St. José.  

On Saturday, Oct. 15, the Blessed Pierre Giorgio Youth Group held a dinner and a movie under the stars where “For Greater Glory” was shown. The following day—the day of St. José’s canonization—a Mass was celebrated at which the group from Resurrection Church, led by Father Rene Angel, joined the Immaculate Conception parish community.  

Cardinal Suarez pointed to the story of the young saint as an example of Christian courage. “José Sanchez del Rio, who in a courageous, generous and determined way, preferred to die for Christ, longed for martyrdom as a grace; and now that Pope Francis is canonizing him today, we can certainly recognize that we have a great intercessor and a great example for youth,” he said. 

Seeing heaven, as an opportunity, and refusing to turn back are a witness to all Catholics that “what is truly worth most in life, more than money, is the treasure of our faith,” Cardinal Suarez said. The cardinal encouraged the faithful not to grow weary from routine, or a worldly spirit, or ideological colonization. 

“We need to react and be truly faithful to Jesus in virtue, in an attitude of trust in God and also in facing all those obstacles presented to the Christian life in today’s world in whatever time or environment,” he said.