On September 23, 1977, Maura Degollado Guízar was writing to her priest son: “My dearest little son, I would like to tell you many little things that I carry in my heart, but my hand doesn’t help me, I only tell you that I love you very much, and that when you are alone or tired and sad, open your little eyes and you will see that I am by your side with Jesus, I feel it that way and I seek you that way and you will feel great consolation”.
For the Legionaries of Christ, Mamá Maurita was a model of holiness, her canonization cause is ongoing, she is a servant of god and, according to her biography, she was “always a good woman and she is remembered because she knew how to do it for everyone. Her charity toward her neighbor was inexhaustible, in words and deeds. She put her heart into the poor and the sick, lepers and the dying. She cared for and helped everyone spiritually, morally, and materially with alms and visits, because she saw Christ in all of them. She always spoke well and murmuring was strictly forbidden in her presence”.
For the women of the movement, Maurita was a model of holiness, invited to imitate her virtues. Prayer cards and novenas, everything to pray for the intercession of the servant of god (on purpose the lowercase). Even the now-defunct site maurita.org, the electronic altar to honor the little mother, gathered the miracles performed through the intercession of the sweet mother.
The faithful of that movement entrusted themselves to her, sure of her intercession. On December 25, it will be 49 years since her death, surrounded by the angelic halo and the certainty that she went up to heaven on the day of the birth of Our Lord… the same day on which, they say, Mamá Maurita was inspired to represent her twelve children as docile little sheep, bringing them close to contemplate the Child in the manger, according to their behavior: “During Advent, each of her children was represented by a little lamb, which approached or moved away from the manger depending on how they behaved.
On Christmas, she prepared the nativity with great affection. She knitted the little clothes with which she would adorn the image of the Baby Jesus, she sang to him, hugged him, kissed him… She enthroned the image of the Sacred Heart in her home and room. The oil lamp never went out nor were there wilted flowers at the feet of the Sacred Heart”, it could be read on the aforementioned site maurita.org
Surely her priest son would be closer to the child Jesus, it makes sense, he was the consecrated one, the founder, the one in charge of extending the Kingdom through a Legion, the great pedagogue, they once called him that for attracting youth; a founder who would eventually be called to holiness after dying for influencing the life of the Church thanks to the creation of a religious congregation that now struggles and suffers trying to catch its breath in gasps, when scandals keep bursting forth.
Why not? Perhaps Maurita, in her zeal and maternal love, in her prayers, meditations, and mystical ecstasies, already saw her little son rubbing shoulders with the saints of the Church, with Francis and Ignatius, with John Bosco and Philip of Jesus, with the Cristero martyrs linked to her family’s history. Yes, the kind Maurita, the model for every Legionary and consecrated person, was the other mother, besides Mary, who had begotten in her womb a chosen man, the elect, the anointed.
And Maurita advised the Legionaries and visited them house by house, she accompanied her son, not the simple priest, but the General Director, “our father and founder” to attend to the needs of a congregation that was rising like foam, everything was fine, everything spoke of God’s blessings and the presence of his Spirit. They were good times.
The images of her life are a testimony of how proud she was of her son, well-groomed, well-dressed and handsome, clad in his clerical armor. The little mother hugs him and in her eyes one can read the thought: “This is my beloved son, listen to him…” He came and went, he prostrated himself before the tabernacle, surely asking Jesus for the holiness of his Legionary and all those who had believed in him. And just as he prostrated himself before the mystery, others prostrated themselves before her, archbishops, bishops and cardinals, laymen and laywomen, sons and daughters with faith that perhaps bordered on fanaticism What an honor, what pride to kiss the hand of the progenitor!
Mamá Maurita died. Those who know say that she was buried in Cotija, in a place where, years later, the remains of her priest son would occupy the same tomb… after all, the holy mother offering the last resting place to her son who died unrepentant, accused of the most abominable perversions, crimes and degradations that overflowed onto his Legion. She interceded for others, but she could not perform the greatest miracle, the one needed by the Legionaries in these times of progressive extinction caused by the founder, her dear little son.
Oh, Mamá Maurita! Did your beautiful and edifying advice serve? Your priest son turned out to be more wolf than shepherd; your son, whom you loved so much and brought close to Jesus, deceived, defrauded, and committed crimes. Oh, Mamá Maurita! How good that you are already resting. If you were alive, where would you place your priest son’s little sheep? Would you have moved it away from Jesus’ manger? Would it be close to the Devil’s cave?