BL. MIGUEL PRO, PRIEST AND MARTYR - 23 NOVEMBER

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN NOVEMBER

Saints celebrated on the 23rd of November 

WELCOME!

BLESSED MIGUEL PRO, PRIEST AND MARTYR

Blessed Miguel Pro, whose full name was Jose Ramon Miguel Agustin, was born into a mining family on January 13, 1891, in Guadalupe, Zacatecas. He was the third of eleven children, four of whom had died as infants or young children. From a young age, he was called "Cocol" as a nickname. Two of his sisters joined a convent. He entered the Jesuit novitiate at El Llano on August 15, 1911.

HE STUDIED IN MEXICO UNTIL 1914

Blessed Miguel studied in Mexico until 1914 when a massive wave of governmental anti-Catholicism forced the novitiate to dissolve and the Jesuits to flee to Los Gatos, California, in the United States. He then went to study in Granada, Spain (1915–19), and from 1919 to 1922 taught in Nicaragua.

HE WAS ORDAINED A PRIEST

For his theological studies Blessed Miguel was sent to Enghien, Belgium, where the French Jesuits (also in exile) had their faculty of Theology. There he was ordained a priest on August 31, 1925. He wrote: "... After the ceremony the new priests gave their first blessing to their parents. I went to my room, laid out all the photographs of my family on the table, and then blessed them from the bottom of my heart."

HE WAS ABLE TO WIN THEM OVER AND PREACH THE GOSPEL TO THEM

His first assignment as a priest was to work with the miners of Charleroi, Belgium. Despite the socialist, communist, and anarchist tendencies of the workers, he was able to win them over and preach the Gospel to them. 

HE RETURNED TO MEXICO

In summer 1926 - his studies in Europe completed - Blessed Miguel returned to Mexico. On the way he visited Lourdes where he celebrated Mass and visited the grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes.

Blessed Miguel arrived at Veracruz on July 8, 1926.  On his return Pro served a Church which was forced to go "underground." He celebrated the Eucharist clandestinely and ministered the other sacraments to small groups of Catholics. In October 1926, a warrant for his arrest was issued. He was arrested and released from prison the next day, but kept under surveillance. 

HE WAS KEPT UNDER SURVEILLANCE

A failed attempt to assassinate Alvaro Obregon, which only wounded him, in November 1927, provided the state with a pretext for arresting Blessed Miguel again, this time with his brothers Humberto and Roberto. A young engineer who confessed his part in the assassination testified that the Pro brothers were not involved. Miguel and his brothers were taken to the Detective Inspector's Office in Mexico City.

BL. MIGUEL WAS EXECUTED WITHOUT TRIAL

On November 23, 1927, Blessed Miguel was executed without trial. President Calles gave orders to have him executed for the assassination attempt. Calles had the execution meticulously photographed, and the newspapers throughout the country carried photos on the front page the following day. 

HIS PASSIONATE LOVE FOR JESUS

At Miguel's beatification in St Peter's Square on September 25, 1988, Pope John Paul II said:

Neither suffering nor serious illness, nor the exhausting ministerial activity, frequently carried out in difficult and dangerous circumstances, could stifle the radiating and contagious joy which he brought to his life for Christ and which nothing could take away. Indeed, the deepest root of self-sacrificing surrender for the lowly was his passionate love for Jesus Christ and his ardent desire to be conformed to him, even unto death. 

Information from Wikipedia - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_Pro

PRAYER:

Grant, we beseech you, almighty God, that we who know how courageously your holy martyr Miguel confessed the faith, may experience his goodness as he intercedes for us with you. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.