SERVANTS FROM THE SAME TOWN

 

 

How many places in the world today have three young people being considered for canonization- all from the same city? The Archdiocese of Paraná began the diocesan phase of its Servants of God Carlos R. Yarez and Victor Schiavoni (see past two Blogs) and  MARIA CRUZ LOPEZ  who was not only born in Paraná, Argentina (1986) but died of the same disease as the two young men.

The daughter of Daniel López and Noemí Johnston, she was the eldest in a family of four children, with parents committed to the faith. She was a young woman with a missionary soul and a joyful, peaceful outlook.

María Cruz stood out for her immense, serene smile and her concern for helping others. She also drew, sang, and played the keyboard. She was dedicated to her studies and her friends and she lived her youth with joy.

 At 14, she encouraged the formation of the Claretian Missionary Movement "Prejumicla" at the San Francisco Javier Chapel. There, she demonstrated her great missionary spirit, motivating others, visiting homes, and committing herself to the families she visited. She later continued in Catholic Action, combining these two charisms until her death.

In her senior year of high school, she was diagnosed with leukemia.  At first she was upset, but she accepted her illness with great fortitude and peace, giving strength to her family and friends. In the face of great pain, she always knew how to bear it with a smile and the confidence that God had not abandoned her.

This attitude of dedication and service motivated her high school class to transform itself under the motto "All for Maria Cruz." Her classmates joined in prayer, worship, visits, letters, and campaigns to help her. There was a tremendous spiritual force surrounding her illness and a tremendous attraction of grace.

In her family, school, parish groups, friends, and  university she left traces that deeply impacted those who knew her. María Cruz was an example of the importance of surrendering ourselves completely to God and accepting His will in our lives. Despite facing an illness that sapped her strength, she maintained her spirit of service and trust in God, praying for others and encouraging prayer. 

Her biographers recount that María Cruz “accepted the test as God's will and decided to offer her illness, especially for the unity of her class (she had been sharing the last years of high school with a difficult, disunited class, with many behavioral problems), also for her family and for the priests. As the weeks passed, after beginning treatment, her diagnosis worsened: she suffered from hepatosplenic lymphoma, a rare and more serious oncological disease.

Even while hospitalized, she remained faithful to her spirit of service, thinking about how to help those also hospitalized and accompanying everyone in prayer.  And without knowing it, her own  prayer and closeness to God awoke ithe Spirit in othes who prayed especially for her.

In 2005, she received a bone marrow transplant and gradually resumed her activities. She began a new apostolate to support children with leukemia and their families at the San Roque Maternal and Child Hospital in Paraná. 

The bone marrow transplant did not help her overcome the disease, which would reappear later that year. Her parents say that despite the grueling, exhausting, and painful nature of the previous treatment, they never saw or heard her complain. 

 Maria died June 2, 2006 at 4:30 p.m., with a smile on her lips.  

All three young people lived in the same time frame, in the same city and one wonders if they knew one another? No matter,  this country of Pope Francis prodcued three exceptional young people, dedicating their lives to Christ and dying of the same disease, knowing how to offer their sufferings in union with Him.