Blessed Concepción Cabrera de Armida (Conchita)

Who was Blessed Concepción Cabrera de Armida?

Blessed Concepción Cabrera de Armida, known everywhere as Conchita, was a wife, a mother of nine and a widow who never entered a convent and still became one of the great mystics of modern times. From her family home she inspired five religious works, filled 158 volumes of manuscripts, and offered her life for the holiness of priests. We keep her feast on March 3.

She was born María Concepción Cabrera Arias in San Luis Potosí, Mexico, on December 8, 1862, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, the seventh of twelve children. Her schooling was basic. At thirteen she began to be courted by Francisco Armida, and after a long engagement of about nine years they married on November 8, 1884.

Wife and mother

Conchita and Francisco had nine children. Two sons, Carlos and Pedro, died in early childhood. Manuel became a Jesuit priest, and her daughter Concepción entered the Religious of the Cross her mother inspired, taking the name Teresa of Mary Immaculate. Her children later testified, the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints records, that "la mamma sorrideva sempre," their mother was always smiling.

Francisco died in Mexico City on September 17, 1901, after about seventeen years of marriage. Conchita was left a widow with young children to raise.

At her beatification Cardinal Angelo Becciu said that her strength came from silent prayer and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, even in a house full of children. She lived "in" the world but not "of" the world, and in her, he said, Martha and Mary were joined.

"Your mission is to save souls"

During her first spiritual retreat in August 1889, Conchita understood her mission, which the Dicastery's summary of her life gives in these words: "Your mission is to save souls." Her motto became "Jesus, Savior of men, save them!"

From that conviction grew what are called the Works of the Cross. Vatican News lists them with their dates:

1. The Apostolate of the Cross (1894)
2. The Religious of the Cross of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (1897), contemplative sisters
3. The Covenant of Love with the Sacred Heart (1909)
4. The Fraternity of Christ the Priest (1912)
5. The Missionaries of the Holy Spirit (1914), founded with the French priest Félix de Jesús Rougier

She founded none of them as a nun. She was the laywoman whose prayer and spiritual writing gave them their spirit, working with bishops and priests who gave them their form.

Her writings and her offering for priests

Her manuscripts fill 158 volumes, and 46 works were published. The center of them is her Cuenta de Conciencia, an account of her soul she kept for about forty years for her spiritual directors. In it she describes the graces she called a spiritual marriage and a "mystical incarnation," and the offering of her life for the Church and especially for priests. Cardinal Becciu said she understood "the science of the Cross," and called her an example for priests of every age.

Her death and the miracle

Conchita died on March 3, 1937, after receiving the sacraments, with a reputation for holiness already spread through Mexico. She was buried in the crypt of the Religious of the Cross in the Spanish cemetery, and on May 15, 1974, her remains were moved to the crypt of the chapel at El Altillo in Mexico City. Pope John Paul II declared her Venerable on December 20, 1999.

• Approved: a man in Monterrey had suffered since 1993 from a disease of the peripheral nerves, which worsened sharply in 2003 and 2005 and left him with severe spasms and contractures. His wife heard about Conchita through a friend, who brought his photo to the Religious of the Cross; the sisters prayed for him, and he received her biography, a holy card and a small relic. On the afternoon of May 22, 2008, the spasms and contractures disappeared. The next morning he moved freely, and two days later he went home well. The Vatican's medical board found the cure rapid, complete, lasting and unexplained, and Pope Francis approved the miracle on June 8, 2018.

She was beatified in Mexico City on May 4, 2019.

Symbols of Blessed Conchita in art

Conchita lived in the age of photography, and her images are drawn from her photographs: a smiling woman with a dark rebozo over her hair.

• The Cross of the Apostolate: the emblem of the Works of the Cross, usually shown as a large cross with a heart at its center and the dove of the Holy Spirit above.
• The dove: the Holy Spirit, to whom the Missionaries of the Holy Spirit are dedicated.
• Rebozo: the Mexican shawl she wore, a sign of an ordinary wife and mother.

Feast day, relics and prayer

We keep her feast on March 3. Her tomb is at El Altillo in Coyoacán, Mexico City, and her relics are venerated in parishes in other parts of Mexico. See also the feast day calendar and Our Lady of Guadalupe.

There is no traditional prayer to Blessed Conchita in wide use. Let us ask her, the mother who never stopped smiling, to pray for our families and our priests, and to teach us to offer our ordinary days to God as she did: "Jesus, Savior of men, save them!"

Where the relics of Blessed Concepción Cabrera de Armida are kept: see them on the relics map →