Beatification cause for Carmelite nun opened in Spain

Valencia, Spain, Oct 19, 2011 / 12:05 pm

Archbishop Carlos Osoro of Valencia has opened the beatification cause of a Carmelite nun from the Spanish town of Ontinyent.

The opening of the cause of Maria Carmen Crespo Roig took place Oct. 15 at the Monastery of the Most Precious Blood, where she spent 65 years. A diocesan tribunal will now collect information on whether she lived a life of virtue to “a heroic degree.”
 
Once the diocesan phase is concluded, the testimonies will be sent to the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints in Rome, where they will be studied before an official declaration is made.
 
Her life

Sister Maria Carmen Crespo Roig, or Teresa of the Incarnation, was born in Beniarres, Spain on March 25, 1912. “From a young age she was very involved in the life of her parish and worked tirelessly in its activities and movements,” the Archdiocese of Valencia said.
 
During the Spanish Civil War in 1936, she risked her life to help priests and nuns who were in need of assistance. In 1941, she entered the Carmelite convent at Ontinyent, “where she lived for the Church and the salvation of souls” until her death on Feb. 4, 2006.
 
“Day after day, during her 93 years of life and 65 years as a religious, Maria Carmen Crespo learned to offer her joys and sufferings to God in good spirits.” As a Carmelite, “she was an example to her religious sisters and to those she met with and were her friends,” the archdiocese said.
 
She also patiently bore her sufferings, as she was of frail health from a young age.  At the end of her life, she suffered both from a stroke that left her unable to move and from cancer.
 
Speedy process

Her cause, opened just five years after her death, has been one of the fastest in the Archdiocese of Valencia, thanks to the efforts of her own religious community.  The recognition of her holiness quickly passed beyond the walls of the convent to the entire world, and many invoke her intercession, the archdiocese stated.