Last Saturday, May 7, the beatification of the nun, María Agustina Rivas Lopez, affectionately known as Aguchita, was celebrated in the jungle community of La Florida in the province of Chanchamayo, in Peru. Sister Maria Agustina was murdered out of hatred for the faith by members of the terrorist group “Sendero Luminoso” in 1990.
The beatification mass was celebrated by the Venezuelan Cardinal Baltazar Porras Cardoso, envoy of Pope Francis, who mentioned that in the case of Aguchita, “the martyrdom was not an improvisation, but the final holocaust of love for her vocation.” He also indicated that the life of the new Blessed Maria Agustina “signified a very simple and profoundly Christian life, rooted in a mystical experience, which is an example for the present generation. She is an example showing us what we can do as believers: promoting the good of our neighbor with joy, hope, and with an authentic sense of mercy “for what she” as a good shepherdess she gave her life for her sheep “.
Our sisters from the community in Ayacucho has particiapted, as part of the delegation from this town led by Monsignor Salvador Piñero, in this great celebration. Moreover, our sisters Natalia Garro and Paola Orjeda joined this beatification of Aguchita from Lima. The sisters were able to visit the place of her martyrdom and the place where the new blessed served during her last three years in the Amazon of Peru. Two of our sisters here shared their experience of participating in this event:
“It was a great gift to be there. It was a very special grace to be able to go as a community. To celebrate the holiness of Aguchita as one Church. It helped me to discover and to exhalt the goddness in my sisters, the action of God in each of the servants. It was an experience that renewed my apostolic zeal. It made me to want to live even more in simplicity, intense love and self-giving.” (Sister Janeth Cárdenas)
In this new time that God permitted me to live in mission, it was a gift to be able to go to Mother Aguchita’s beatification. She taught me that “death is not improvised”; rather, it is something to be built up day after day and that my union with God has to go much deeper in order to be able to irradiate Him to others.” (Sister Dulce Romero)