verano

Rosa Ruiz Aragoneses, rmi.

Tonet, having a bowl of hot milk, leaning on the wooden table in the family kitchen, just before leaving for school. It’s cold. His mother has already prepared the brown cloth coat and a wool cap. It’s cold. And the bowl smokes gently, warming up his throat and  stomach.

This is my first memory (imagined, of course). Do not ask me why, because I have no idea…

Maybe because I was in school age, an age similar to the Claret child. When I was studying at the Claret school in Segovia, I began to listen to his life story, his wanderings, his missionary impulse. Or maybe because I have always been impressed by the “great” deeds of worthy men and women who were able to make the world a little better in their path…. And, at the same time, I have never believed in supermen and superwomen without personal everyday life history, without “grandeur” in the small moments of each day.

Claret is a good example of this for me. I was struck by that simple man, with a gentle but severe gesture at the same time; close and tender, and at the same time distant in his manners, his bishop garments, his scenes in the Court. Much, much later, I discovered that what I perceived being a child at school, opening my eyes and my heart, was something that some other people also had seen:

“Great soul, born as to match contrasts; He could be humble of origin and glorious in the eyes of the world; Small of body, but of a giant spirit; Of modest appearance, but most capable of imposing respect even on the great ones of the earth; Strong of character, but with the soft sweetness of someone who knows how to control himself by  austerity and penance; Always in the presence of God even in the midst of his prodigious external activity; Slandered and admired, praised and persecuted. And among so many wonders, like  a soft light that illuminates everything, his devotion to the Mother of God “(Pius XII, Speech addressed to the pilgrims in the canonization, May 8, 1950).

I was astonished by Claret. To my child’s eyes, he was certainly a giant. I wanted to be like him. Tender, compassionate, firm … And on a year during my EGB (Basic General Education) long time ago, I participated in a writing contest on the life of Claret. Do not ask me why, because I do not know, but all that came out was about Tonet, from his walks to Fusimaña smelling thyme and fresh air, his moments of silence in the bed thinking about so many that would be lost and would suffer and they would not be happy … All that I wrote began with that bowl of very hot milk and a child who was forming from a very young age a strong heart, a settled head, a dazzling creativity, a praiseworthy work capacity.

Maybe because I also have loved imagination, since I was a child, silence, work … (what we definitely do not have in common is the his little pleasure  for sleep …). I also had to choose between continuing on the familiar “looms” with a more than possible good future or launch myself to “weave” with others, passionate for the mission of Jesus. Claret taught me, from my young age, that there is no Claret without Tonet. And even today I continue to visualize and entrust myself to this simple, good-natured, good-hearted child, with much more devotion and recollection than to the Archbishop Claret, as he himself remembers with shame.

It was a long time later, at the end of my university life, when I met the Claretians. And with them, a woman who captivated me: M. Antonia Paris. How come I had never heard of her? It turned out that there was a woman with the temper, the delicacy, the judgment and disproportion of Claret himself! Catalan like him, contemporaries, both stubborn and both people of God … Together they founded the congregation of Claretian Missionaries of which I am a member today. How much strength and how much light the two together! How to understand Claret without Paris, without their relation in Cuba, without their crossed letters? I learned to love Claret more, to excuse his little fixations, his difficulty in relating to women (“that merchandise”), his modesty or lack of courage to recognize the nuns he himself had founded – the Claretian women – with greater clarity (not so much for him as for those who may come later …)

And I thought that Tonet, the one who suffered when his friends laughed at the elders of the town, who walked praying the Rosary with his sister picking flowers, who suffered with any suffering of others … That Tonet, would not call women merchandise … Life, sometimes, takes us and leaves its footprints on us… But let’s never stop being Tonet.

And now, no doubt, I appreciate Claret more. More and better. I also want my own process, as good and as bad as anyone else’s, like Tonet’s. I love more and better my Congregation and the Claretian Family, so diverse. I am immensely grateful that Claret is part of me even in my earliest memories. I appreciate the deep and powerful insight that M. Paris provides to see a more complete Claret. I thank God for this founding “couple”, who does so much good to the church. And they do so much good to me. What a pity that sometimes they try to separate them from one side or the other side, as if together one of the two would dwindle, when it is actually the opposite!

By the way, I won that writing contest on Claret. But I won a lot more … I have had the great luck to grow up with Claret since I was little … and I pray that God let me keep growing with him and like him. I won that Claret found me and touched my heart, and with him so many people, and Mª Antonia Paris, and the Congregation where I had the opportunity to find myself more with Jesus (the most important encounter of my life) and the Word of God and the Church and the missionary bravery and the soft light of Mary Immaculate, and so many encounters …

Thank you Tonet. Thanks for that bowl of shared milk.

Rosa Ruiz Aragoneses, rmi,

Claretian Missionary

I was born in Segovia, on August 7, 1973. I am the eldest of five siblings. I entered the Congregation in 1996, after graduating in Arts (Psychology). I took my first profession in 1996 and the perpetual vows in 2005.

I graduated in Ecclesiastical Studies in July 2002, choosing the Incarnation as the transversal theme for my Dissertation. Later, in 2011 I did a Master in Dogmatic Theology, with a Dissertation on: “The growth in the Humanity of Christ as a salvific category. St. Irenaeus “.

I have always moved in the apostolic field of youth ministry, vocational-spiritual accompaniment and education.

From January 2012 to June 2016 I have been part of the provincial government (vicar and prefect of the apostolate), also coordinating the Educational Ownership Team.

Since September, I dedicate myself to the study of the Doctorate in dogmatic theology. I teach classes in Christology and Eschatology at the ITVR (Madrid) and various retreats, talks or training workshops.