"Viva Cristo Rey!" by Cameron
Hi! In this blogpost, I wanted to tell you about a certain Mexican saint, whose name is St. Jose Sanchez del Rio. He is one of my favorite saints and a great courageous role model that I want to model, for reasons stated in this blogpost. His upcoming feast day is February 10th.
Jose was born to a Catholic Mexican family in 1913, in
the beautiful town of Sahuayo, Mexico. But when he was about twelve years old,
the Cristero war broke out. The war was between Mexican Catholics and The
Federales, who made many laws that closed down churches and whatnot.
At about age fourteen, Jose felt a calling to join the
Cristeros, even though they only recruited sixteen years and up. He told his
mother, because his older brothers had just left. He said that he wanted to
fight for Jesus, and that “winning Heaven has never been so easy.” And after
writing some letters, he was allowed to join as a bugler until he was sixteen.
He did other miscellaneous jobs around the camp, such as cleaning boots and
rifles, cooking, and, of course, bugling.
Sometime later, he went out to battle to bugle, but after an
important soldier’s horse got shot out from under him, he gave the soldier his,
then shot at the enemy until he ran out of ammunition. Then the enemy captured
him and put him in prison. Many times, they told him to renounce his faith with
the threat of death, but St. Jose didn’t care.
He would say “Vivo Cristo Rey y Virgin de Guadalupe!” (Which
translates from Spanish to English “Long Live Christ the King and the Virgin of
Guadalupe), which actually angered them more. To try to break his spirit, they
made him watch the hanging of a fellow Cristero, who **spoiler alert** actually
wasn’t dead when the they cut him down, so he lived, and was called “Lazarus”.
(*Skip this part if you’re squeamish) Eventually, they decided
to kill him by torture, so they cut the bottom of his feet and had him walk around
the cemetery, all the while trying to get him to say “death to Christ the king”
and stuff like that, but he adamantly refused. Then they cut his hands and body
with machetes, and made him dig his own grave. Then they shot him into the
grave, and just like that, he became a martyr.
Soon after, miracles were being reported from people who
invoked his name. Later, after being beatified by the late Pope Benedict, Jose
was canonized a Saint by Pope Francis in 2016. St. Jose is an amazing person to
me that showed me how to be courageous and to see who we should really be
fighting for, and that life is but a journey, hopefully to Heaven.
I highly recommend the St. Jose “Vision Book”, which sparked
my interest in all of this. There is also a movie called “For Greater Glory”,
which I was too young to see when we watched it last, because of the disturbing
content. But we hope to find a way to watch it again this year to celebrate his
feast day (on February 10). I hope that you enjoyed this blogpost, and that you
may read the book and/or watch the movie in order to grow closer to Jesus through
the saints!
Thanks for reading and God bless,
Cameron
