CARMELITA CONTRERAS
"They're coming! ... they're
coming!" - shouted, in the height of horror, on January 13, 1928, in the afternoon,
in the alleys of Huejuquilla, an important population of the State of Jalisco,
limits of Zacatecas, a humble, disheveled woman, and with all the signs of
having made a long walk along the paths that come down from the neighboring
mountain. "But who's coming?" Asked some peaceful residents of the
town, who met her in the alley. - They! ... They! ... the bandits! ... the
callistas! They are already at the San Antonio hacienda and they say they are
coming to Huejuquilla. . . that Vargas brings them ... and that they come to
make a "lesson" ... Ay! Holy Mary of Guadalupe! ... what shall we do?
... ¡Oh, they come to kill us all! . . . I escaped from the hacienda without
being seen. . . to warn them. . .
¡Oh! They are coming! And
they are fed up... fed up! It is quite a troop... and they are
furious, because down there, in Los Altos, the Cristeros have given them good
luck... And they, since they cannot take revenge there, have come to the
other end of the State, and they say that we are also Cristeros, and that we
have to pay them. What will we do?... And between convulsive sobs she
continued like crazy, running through the streets of the town.
The neighbors came out to the doors of
their houses to the shouts that the poor woman gave, and aware of the event and
the threat, some of the men said: "Let's go to the mountains, as many as
we can." They are looking for the Cristeros, those
"guachos" and that the town is empty... Let them go looking for
them where they are... What do they not dare?... But we are not going
to let ourselves be killed like sheep...
—I have a pistol, said one, and I
another; and I a shotgun, and I another, and we our field machetes. . . We will
defend ourselves, some of the neighbors shouted. "But what are ten or
twelve against the hundreds of rifles that the" guachos "bring? ...
No, it's crazy," exclaimed the most prudent and respected of the
population. find anyone, you will go somewhere else and we will come back ...
"But what it is, I'm not going," shouted the man with the shotgun,
"... they won't say that there are no men in Huejuquilla ... Even if it's
some of them. ¡I will throw them down... Bandits! "" Well, those who
want and have weapons, let them stay, but when the park runs out ... to the
mountains with us ... Don't be crazy. The rest of us, let's go, with the women
and children ... Bring food for two or three days,blankets and what they can
carry. . . Soon. . . soon let's go!
And they all scattered
throughout the town and soon left their homes, loaded with the most essential
items, and set out on the mountain path. Only a dozen brave remained, ambushed
behind the windows of the houses or on the rooftops and so weakly armed that no
one would stop calling them reckless, if it were not for the Catholic modesty
of the Jalisco, who was moved so many times revealed in the terrible
persecution. The news reached the house inhabited by an excellent and pious
woman, Miss Carmelita Robles, accompanied by other good girls, who, more than
her servants, can be considered as her disciples in virtue, all daughters of
Mary without actually forming a religious congregation.
When the suspension of the services on
July 31, 1926, and the withdrawal of the priest who ministered in the little
church of the town, he requested with great urgency that his house be chosen
for oratory, that it substitute as a private house, the Church and in it The
Sacred Deposit of the Blessed Sacrament would be kept, and Holy Mass would be
celebrated, to which, as visits to the house, all the people of the town could
attend.He achieved his attempt and in the best room of his dwelling, that
oratory was put, and It was to see the decorum, cleanliness and adornment with
which he always maintained it.
Carmelita was the president of the
group of the Popular Union of Jalisco established in Huejuquilla, and president
of the Daughters of Mary and of every pious organization that existed in
Huejuquilla. Her cheerful and kind character, her clear talent and her
Christian courage highlighted her great and solid virtues, and made her an idol
of the neighbors, who respected her, obeyed her and followed her excellent
advice, like faithful children of a woman. good mother. Many times Carmelita
had argued with the chief of the population the so-called Colonel Juan Vargas,
a demon-possessed socialist, and a knobby at all times, always defeating him;
defeats that the rogue concealed or believed to conceal, with great mocking
laughter.
Carmelita, upon learning about the
exodus of her neighbors, openly declared that she did not leave her house.
"I have the Blessed Sacrament in my oratory, and I am not going to leave
him alone.” …"We'll take him with us, Carmelita." I believe that in
this case we can do it, even if the priest is not there. . . -No and no. Nor do
I leave the oratory. . . And I will do everything possible so that they do not
desecrate the church ... If God wants them to kill us, as we have not committed
any crime, ¡and just because we are Catholics ... we will be martyrs like so
many other Mexicans have already been! God's will. . .! "Well, we won't
leave her alone," Miss Ignacia, Ramona, Gregoria, Carolina, and Guadalupe
Ibarra, daughters of the absent one at the time, Don Melquíades Ibarra, said to
one of them, who lived in the house next to Carmelita's."Neither do
we," said the other girls in the house, Margarita Victorio, Concepción
Ruiz, and Hilaria Madera. "Vargas respects me, and perhaps I can prevent
many atrocities," Carmelita finished. And that's how that group of brave
and pious women also stayed in Huejuquilla, that afternoon of January 13.
On the morning of the 14th, as
announced by the woman, Vargas, with Colonel Mendoza, and the politicians from
the village of Mezquitic, Jesús Ocampo, Apolonio González, and Eliseo Robles,
in front of seven hundred men in the troop, entered, hurling blasphemies. and
with the screams of true demoniacs, in Huejuquilla.
As no one answered them, surprised by
the case, they went out to the outskirts where they thought the men would have
barricaded themselves.
Loneliness everywhere!
But in the little ranch of Los Arroyos,
they found a poor old man of more than sixty years - Don Juan Ramírez - who had
not fled, and incontinent, after having asked him if he was a Catholic, to his
affirmative answer they shot him with savage screams. Near the Tepetates gate,
they entered a small house and there they found another neighbor, Pedro Ochoa,
who had not fled.
- ¿Are you Catholic, for which reason?
-They Asked. -— ¡Yes, I am! Replied the brave man. —Well here; and they riddled
him with bullets. And as they did not find others, furiously they burned all
the houses of the ranches and devastated everything in their path. They
returned to Huejuquilla on the afternoon of the 15th and went to Carmelita's
house, where they found those good women, whom Mrs. Isabel Jaime, mother of the
Ibarra ladies, had joined in prayer in the oratory of the house…Carmelita,
anticipating what was to happen, at two thirty in the afternoon, that Sunday,
along with the other young ladies, she consumed the Sacred Deposit. She ordered
several of her companions throughout the morning to go home, and with those who
remained with her she prepared, praying, to wait for the events. With the
federals and Vargas, who entered the house, another colonel, a certain Mendoza,
seemed to have even greater authority than Vargas, and ordered all those girls
to leave the house, and that some of the soldiers go in search of the others
who had withdrawn, but could not find them, because Carmelita had ordered them
to hide well.
Meanwhile the soldiers dedicated
themselves to looting the house, and one of those rascals found a clothed image
of the Lord "Divine Prisoner" and taking off his wig and tunic he put
them on and left shouting amid the laughter and blasphemies of his companions:
- Worship Christ the King! ... - Fool!
Other villains had forced the door of
the Little Church of San Antonio, and filled the empty tabernacle with filth,
and did the same in a crystal urn, which contained another image of Jesus
Christ called in the town "the Lord of the injuries of the Passion.
".
These men are the genuine
representatives of the Mexican Revolution, of which some boast so much!
But how can it be thought that there
was something good, in a Revolution made by such savages?
The few Catholics ambushed, of which I
have already mentioned, believed that the moment had come to defend holy things
from such desecration, and some shots were fired from various parts of the
population, of which not a single one was lost.
Panic then seized the wicked. They
believed that the Cristeros had set a trap for them, and that they had entered
the houses that they had previously found empty, without them noticing ... It
was not even their minds, that the shooters would scarcely reach a dozen and
poorly armed !No!... They were without a doubt the Cristeros! Let's go!...
Carmelita had parked at the door of her
house, and before they would pass by her corpse, than to allow her to take out
only one of the girls her companions, because she well knew what awaited them...
But the brave (?) Colonel Mendoza gave
the order for her to be lashed and dragged out onto the street ... The other
young women were pushed out as well... They wanted to mount them all on
the haunches of their horses, but those brave women resisted...
Then they threw a rope around their
necks and on foot they hurriedly took them to a place called "Las
Cuevas", a kilometer from the town.
With Carmelita were Concepción Ruiz,
Hilaria Madera, Ignacia, María Ramona, Guadalupe, Gregoria and Carolina
Ibarra; Margarita Victoria and Doña Isabel Jaime Vda. of Ibarra, who
followed her daughters Ignacia and Ramona, ready to kill her rather than allow
any villainy to be committed with them.
That same day, the 15th, they were
taken to the San Antonio ranch, 8 kilometers from Huejuquilla; But to go faster
for fear of being chased by the ghost Cristeros, they were made to ride there
on two donkeys. Throughout the entire journey, Carmelita did not cease to
exhort her companions to remain firm in their faith, and offer their sufferings
to Christ the King, for the salvation of Mexico.
On Monday the 16th, they were mounted
again, but without having given them a piece of bread and a sip of water since
their departure from Huejuquilla, they were taken to another ranchería called
"La Soledad." There they were lowered to rest a little. Carmelita
could no longer stand. Taking her by the arm, they threw her on a table, where
sleep overcame her for about five or ten minutes. New order to continue on the
road, and to put the exhausted women back on the donkeys, to take them to
Mezquitic, where they arrived at 11 at night. Carmelita was crying in silence,
and one of her closest companions told her that she was crying because the
absence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament was very hard on her. Yet she made
efforts to cheer herself up and encourage her companions. They sometimes prayed
the Office of the Immaculate Virgin Mary in choir;then that heroic woman,
drawing strength from weakness, would read aloud to them Fabiola's book by
Cardinal Wiseman that she had managed to take with her. . . On Tuesday the 17th
they had everything in Mezquitic; and Mendoza and Vargas began to want to
discuss religious matters as usual, and as always, Carmelita confronted them by
giving them an ordago roll. Well then, the word of Jesus Christ was fulfilled:
"When you are brought to court, do not think before what you have to say;
the Spirit of God will speak for you." But so much fatigue finally put an
end to the physical strength of that holy lady. .and Mendoza and Vargas began
to want to discuss religious matters as usual, and as always, Carmelita
confronted them by giving them an ordago roll. Well then, the word of Jesus
Christ was fulfilled: "When you are brought to court, do not think before
what you have to say; the Spirit of God will speak for you." But so much
fatigue finally put an end to the physical strength of that holy lady and
Mendoza and Vargas began to want to discuss religious matters as usual, and as
always, Carmelita confronted them by giving them an ordago roll. Well then, the
word of Jesus Christ was fulfilled: "When you are brought to court, do not
think before what you have to say; the Spirit of God will speak for you."
But so much fatigue finally put an end to the physical strength of that holy lady…
At night he could no longer pray out
loud... kneeling and in silence she followed inwardly the prayers of her
faint companions ...
Then a poor soldadera approached with a
child that had just been born and Carmelita, making a supreme effort, baptized
the child... At eleven o'clock at night the soldiers entered the room of
the house where they had locked up the brave martyrs, and they were ordered to
leave three by three, because they were going to continue on their way. In
vain Carmelita begged those brutes to get them all out together... At last
there were four left in the room: three girls and Carmelita ... the three,
pushed by the soldiers, left in turn.
And Carmelita?...
No one ever saw her again... Various
assumptions have been made about his undoubted murder. ¿In it, it is said,
Vargas must have intervened, because a man who was never able to receive a
promotion for his military exploits, after the Mezquitic tragedy, was promoted,
¿perhaps as a prize for murder... Have there not been some promotions among
revolutionaries due to the same cause? One of the girls reports that,
while going through the dark ravine of Mezquitic, she heard two soldiers
talking to each other: "But what a barbarian!" Why did you put
dirt in the woman's mouth? —Well, because she didn't want to die...!
The girls were released a few days
later. The sacred remains of Carmelita have been searched in vain... They
have not been found so far...
But hope is not lost of finding them
one day, when the process of their beatification is attempted...
When will that be?
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