This is a summary of the news published on the website of the Vedruna Province of Europe. It can be read in full on their website:
Asturias celebrates the Bicentenary and 130 years of Vedruna presence in the Principality
The Vedruna Bicentenary was celebrated in Asturias, specifically at the San Rafael School in Villaviciosa, in an intense festive day, which included a procession through the streets of the city and a Eucharist presided by Archbishop Jesús Sanz Montes.
The director of the center, Estela Miranda, opened the ceremony stating: “Today is a day brimming with gratitude and hope”, and recalled that the story began two centuries ago, when St. Joaquina de Vedruna heard the call of the Good Jesus “to love without measure, to care for life with tenderness and to place her heart in the hands of God”.
“Joaquina was not a woman of great speeches, but of simple and profound gestures. She knew how to discover in the face of the Good Jesus the presence of a love that impelled her to serve the little ones, to educate with passion and to care for the sick with delicacy”.
The celebration of the Bicentenary coincided with the 130th anniversary of the school and with the farewell of the last Vedruna community in Asturias, which explains the numerous expressions of affection. Precisely, the director stressed: “In our school, San Rafael, the sisters have left an indelible mark over 130 years”, recalling also the work in the Miyar Somonte Residence and the “pedagogy of love” characteristic of the Vedruna charism.
According to the Archdiocese of Oviedo, the first sisters arrived first in Infiesto in 1893 to open a school and, two years later, in Villaviciosa, where they opened the San Rafael school. Throughout their history in Asturias, in addition to education, they promoted social projects such as the Miyar-Somonte residence. Although today there is no Vedruna community in Villaviciosa, the Congregation preserves deep “Maliayan traces”, a nickname in which the ancient medieval name of this Asturian region (Maliayo) survives. Not only because of the institutions, but also because of the 29 Vedruna vocations born in the town, many of whom took their mission to Africa, North America and Latin America, spreading the legacy of Joaquina with an Asturian accent.
