Blessed Concepción Cabrera de Armida

Concepción Cabrera de Armida (December 8, 1862 – March 3, 1937) was a Mexican Catholic mystic and writer. She is also referred to as María Concepción Cabrera Arias de Armida, sometimes as Conchita Cabrera de Armida or Conchita Cabrera Arias de Armida, and often simply as "Conchita". She was beatified in Mexico City on 4 May 2019, as the first Mexican laywoman to receive this recognition. She was born to Octaviano Cabrera Lacavex and Clara Arias Rivera, who had a respectable but not lavish family life. Although she recalled having frequently disobeyed her parents as a child, she showed a special love for the Holy Eucharist from an early age. In 1884, she married Francisco Armida, with whom she had nine children between 1885 and 1899. In 1901, when she was 39 years old, her husband died and she had to care for her children, the youngest of whom was two years old. Her life as a widow was not made any easier by the fact that the Mexican Revolution raged from 1910 to 1921, taking the lives of 900,000 of Mexico's population of 15 million. Yet her writings reflect an amazing tranquility amid the chaos that surrounded her. As a mystic, she reported that she heard God telling her: "Ask me for a long suffering life and to write a lot... That's your mission on earth". She never claimed direct visions of Jesus and Mary but spoke of Jesus through her prayers and meditations. Her spiritual life started before the death of her husband. In 1894, she took "spiritual nuptials" and in 1896 wrote in her diary: "In truth, after I touched God and had an imperfect notion of His Being, I wanted to prostrate myself, my forehead and my heart, in the dust and never get up again." During her life her writings were examined by the Catholic Church in Mexico and even during her pilgrimage to Rome in 1913 during which she had an audience with Pope Pius X. Church authorities looked favorably upon her writings.