MEXICAN MARTYRS

 

Today we celebrate ST. CRISTOBAL (Christopher)  MAGALLANES JARA,and his companions.  He was  a priest and martyr  who was killed without trial on the way to say Mass during the Cristero War after the trumped-up charge of inciting rebellion.

With the mess in Mexico today, I think he is a good intercessor for his people. He was  canonized by Pope St. John Paul II on May 21, 2000.

St. Cristóbal was ordained at the age of 30 at Santa Teresa in Guadalajara in 1899 and served as chaplain of the School of Arts and Works of the Holy Spirit in Guadalajara. He was then designated as the parish priest for his home town of Totatiche, where he helped found schools and carpentry shops and assisted in planning for hydrological works, including the dam of La Candelaria. He took special interest in the evangelization of the local indigenous Huichol people and was instrumental in the foundation of the mission in the indigenous town of Azqueltán.

When government decrees closed the seminary in Guadalajara in 1914, he offered to open a clandestine seminary in his parish. In July 1915, he opened the Auxiliary Seminary of Totatiche, which achieved a student body of 17 students by the following year and was recognized by the Archbishop of Guadalajara, José Francisco Orozco y Jiménez, who appointed a precept and two professors to the seminary.

St. Magallanes wrote and preached against armed rebellion, but was falsely accused of promoting the Cristero Rebellion in the area. Arrested on May 21, 1927, while en route to celebrate Mass at a farm, he gave away his few remaining possessions to his executioners, gave them absolution, and without a trial, he was killed four days later with Agustín Caloca in Colotlán, Jalisco.

His last words to his executioners were "I die innocent, and ask God that my blood may serve to unite my Mexican brethren." He was succeeded as parish priest of Totatiche by José Pilar Quezada Valdés, who went on to become the first bishop of the Archdiocese of Acapulco.

 

Also a martyr who lived and died for his people was ST AGUSTIN CALOCA CORTES, who was born in San Juan Bautista del Teúl, Zacatecas, on the ranch of La Presa. His parents, Eduwiges and María Plutarca Cortés Caloca, were simple peasants.

 He began his clerical studies at the Guadalajara Seminary, but in 1914 this campus was closed due to the anticlericalism of the Carrancista leaders. He then went to the Auxiliary Seminary of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Totatiche established by  (St) Cristóbal Magallanes Jara. In 1919 he re-entered the Guadalajara Seminary to study Theology. He was ordained on August 5, 1923, in the Cathedral Church of Guadalajara.

 At the request of St. Cristobal, Agustin was assigned as a parish priest and as prefect of the auxiliary seminary. In December 1926 he had to flee with eleven fifth year students to Cocoatzco, where he remained until April 1927.

 

In May, he arrived at the seminary to announce that Mexican government soldiers were approaching Totatiche. He ordered the students to abandon the seminary and disperse among the town's population. After helping the students escape, he was taken prisoner and transferred to a jail in Colotlán where he was reunited with St. Magallanes. He was offered his freedom by a military officer on account of his young age, but St. Agustin refused unless freedom was also granted toSt. Cristobal.

His last words before execution by the  firing squad were, "We live for God and for Him we die."