She confronted none other than
the viceroy and the bishop of Buenos
Aires in times when women were relegated and the options were to be
a wife or a nun
.
She came to be called a
witch, a fanatic and crazy
and she was even greeted with stones when she entered the capital of the viceroyalty of the Río de La Plata.
The life of who this Sunday will be proclaimed by Pope Francis as
the first holy woman born, sanctified and died on what would become Argentine soil
, María Antonia de Paz y Figueroa, popularly known as
Mama Antula
, was a mixture of rebellion and courage.
Rebellion and courage that he showed to carry out his
formidable religious work
, hand in hand with the promotion of human dignity that, among the tens of thousands of men and women that he encompassed,
included several of the protagonists of the May Revolution
.
Mama Antula (Antonia in Quichua) was the furthest thing from a submissive nun, locked in a convent, without prejudice to the holiness that the Church considers can be achieved within four walls.
In fact, she was not a nun, but
a consecrated laywoman
who took vows of chastity and poverty, but not obedience.
And that after the expulsion of the Jesuits from the territories of the Spanish colony by King Charles III,
he decided to continue organizing the famous
Ignatian spiritual exercises in the north, then in Buenos Aires and, finally, in Uruguay, when the mere mention of The followers of Ignatius of Loyola were a bad word for the Spanish authorities and the Church itself.
Mama Antula was born in 1730 in the town of Silípica, in Santiago del Estero, to a wealthy family of encomenderos, receiving, in addition to Christian training,
the best education
.
However, at 15 she decided to go live with the Jesuits to
help the most dispossessed
.
She took the name María Antonia de San José.
It was there that she learned to organize spiritual exercises, until, in 1767, Charles III expelled the Jesuits and then Pope Clement XIV
suppressed the order itself
.
But Mama Antula, at 38 years old, decided to move forward, although not obviously with the Jesuit priests,
achieving what seemed impossible
: that the bishop of the governorate of Tucumán, which covered several northern provinces, authorized her.
An image of Mama Antula.
AP Photo / Natacha Pisarenko
Captivated by her charisma, she managed to get many women to accompany her in her mission.
Her first exercise house was in her homeland
.
“All social classes participated in her house, from the viceroys to the slaves, everyone shared the same space and the same food,” say Nunzia Locatelli and Cintia Suárez, students of the saint's life for years,
authors of “Mama Antula: the first healthy one in Argentina
. ”
“The great ladies served the peasant women, something unthinkable for that time when the classes did not mix and even walked along different paths,” they point out.
And they complete: “This achievement made her
the precursor of human rights in Argentina
.”
Walking barefoot, with the cloak of the Jesuit priests, she took the exercises to Salta, Jujuy, Tucumán, Catamarca, La Rioja and Córdoba.
His next objective - after having walked 4,000 kilometers - was Buenos Aires.
But the reception there was not good at all.
With a group of women accompanying her, all looking ragged,
her entry was accompanied by mockery and stones that hurt them
.
After taking refuge in the Church of La Piedad, in the Monserrat neighborhood - where her remains currently rest - it took her months until the viceroy and the bishop authorized the exercises, which included angry discussions.
But, finally, the success of the attendance at his exercises was resounding.
In 1788, seventy thousand people had already participated, including
members of the First Junta such as Cornelio Saavedra, Manuel Alberti and Mariano Moreno
.
Towards the end of his life, with the help of wealthy families, he managed to have
“La Santa Casa de Ejercicios”
built , located on Independencia and Lima avenues, next to 9 de Julio,
the oldest colonial building in the city
.
According to Catholic belief,
several supernatural situations
are attributed to Mama Antula , such as being in the same place twice (bilocation), having visions about the future - she anticipated the English Invasions - or multiplying the food she distributed among the poor.
And she became a person of consultation for many personalities of the time, who appreciated - along with her religious commitment -
her conception of freedom as an essential right of every person
.
Her death occurred on March 7, 1799.
The cause for canonization began in 1905
and inexplicably its processing was delayed until in 2010 she was declared venerable after it was determined that she had lived the Christian virtues to a heroic degree.
She subtracted the verification of a miracle from God through her intercession so that she would be declared blessed.
It was about the healing of a nun in 1904 who suffered from generalized sepsis, for which she was beatified in 2016. Finally, a second miracle was established, the healing in 2017 of a man from Santa Fe with a stroke, for which she will be canonized this Sunday .
ACE