Ascensión Nicol y Goñi

Bl. Ascensión Nicol y Goñi, O.P.
Born	14 March 1868 Tafalla, Navarre, Spain
Died	24 February 1940 Peru
Honored in	Roman Catholic Church
Beatified	May 14, 2005, St. Peter's Basilica, Rome by Pope Benedict XVI

Blessed María Ascensión Nicol y Goñi, O.P., (14 March 1868 – 24 February 1940) was a Spanish Roman Catholic Religious Sister of the Third Order of St. Dominic, having previously been a cloistered nun of the Dominican Second Order. She co-founded and was the first Prioress General of the Congregation of Dominican Missionary Sisters of the Rosary, which she helped to found in Peru.

Background

She was born Florentina Nicol y Goñi on 14 March 1868 in Tafalla, Navarre, in Spain, the youngest of four children.

Florentina was educated at Saint Rose of Lima Dominican boarding school in Huesca, where she was first introduced to the religious life, which raised questions in her mind about her future. Returning home for a year to reflect on her choices, she later returned to the monastery and became a nun of the Dominican Second Order in 1885, taking the name "Mary Ascension of the Sacred Heart". She became a teacher at that school in 1886 and served in that capacity for the next 27 years. Under the anti-clerical laws promulgated in the early 20th century, however, in 1913 the Spanish government took over the school and expelled the Sisters.

Deprived of their traditional service, the nuns decided to act on a proposal they had long considered, namely, missionary service, about which they had learned from the periodicals issued by various missionary congregations. They wrote to ecclesiastical authorities in both America and the Philippines, seeking a field where they could help the poorest of the poor. The response came from Friar Ramón Zubieta, O.P., who was the head of the Dominican missions in the Philippines. He had just been appointed by the Holy See as the Apostolic Vicar of a new Vicariate in the remote Andean mountains of Peru. The friar had traveled to Rome for his consecration as a bishop. After his stay in Rome, he stopped in Huesca to speak with the Sisters to see if he would be able to get some of the community to help in his new responsibility. Five of the nuns who volunteered for this mission were chosen, with Mother Ascension chosen to lead them.

New horizons

The five nuns left Huesca during November 1913, accompanied by the bishop and three other friars who were to serve his territory, landing in Peru at the Port of Callao on 30 December 1913. When they arrived in Lima, they were given hospitality by the Dominican nuns of the Convent at the Shrine of Our Lady of the Patronage (Portuguese: Patrocinio), of which they took possession the following year. After a two-year period of cultural acclimation and preparation for the mission, Mother Ascension set off in 1915 with two other nuns for their final destination in the mountain forests. After a journey of 24 days crossing the Andes to a region where white women had never before travelled, the nuns arrived in Puerto Maldonado, a small village in the Amazon basin, situated between two large rivers, the Madre de Dios and the Tambopata, along which all communication took place.

Within three days of their arrival, the nuns began teaching the girls of the region and started the construction of a school. Soon girls from the indigenous Baraya tribe starting coming from the forest to receive the education they offered. Mother Ascension made it clear that they would be welcome in their classrooms. This was despite the hostility of the white plantation workers who formed the population of the town.

The lack of any organized health care led the poor and the sick to come to the nuns for care. The Sisters responded to this need, caring for them in their own convent, when necessary. They began to visit the sick in their homes, and provide whatever rudimentary care they could. Eventually, the Sisters would expand into medical care as a new apostolate. This pattern was repeated as other communities of Sisters were established in the region.

Establishing the Congregation

In 1917, the Catholic Church established a new Code of Canon Law, which was the first organized juridical codification of the regulations for many aspects of the Church's life and functioning. One of the effects was reinforcing the separation of cloistered communities. These new regulations would have severely hampered the work the nuns were undertaking. At the suggestion of the Master General of the Dominican Order, the nuns, under the auspices of Bishop Zubieta, decided to separate from the monastic community from which they had come and to form a new and independent Congregation of Religious Sisters of the Dominican Third Order.

The new Congregation was formally established on 5 October 1918 at the Convent of Our Lady of the Patronage in Lima. Mother Ascension was elected as the first Prioress General of the Congregation, and served in that office the rest of her life. She died in Lima on 24 February 1940. Today the Congregation has 785 missionaries in 21 nations, with its Motherhouse in Madrid, Spain.^[1]

Beatification

The formal process for the canonization of Mother Ascension was opened in Pamplona, Spain, in September 1962. Pope John Paul II declared her Venerable in 2003. The following year a miracle was declared to have taken place through her intercession, due to which Pope Benedict XVI authorized the process to proceed. Thus, on 15 May 2005, in St. Peter's Square, Mother Ascension was declared Blessed in a ceremony presided over by Cardinal José Saraiva Martins, C.M.F..

References

1. ^ Agenzia Fides [1]

External links

• Catholic Forum "Blessed Florentina Nicol Goñi" [2]
• Agenzia Fides "Mother Ascensión Nicol Goñi" [3]

Persondata
Name	Nicol y Goni, Mother Ascension
Alternative names
Short description	Religious Sister & Foundress
Date of birth	14 March 1868
Place of birth	Tafalla, Spain
Date of death	24 February 1940
Place of death