El Manso Escorial: A very special relocation

As General Team we have been accompanying a very special process of rehabilitation and renovation of the spaces of our beloved Manso Escorial, that Vedruna House, where all of us who are part of the Family feel “at home”.

The restructuring project is situated within a broader framework that includes our memory from our origins, history and spirituality. Also, to offer spaces and times of formation in the Vedruna Charism.

In this process, already started since the project was dreamed and shaped, a moment of special relevance and that we want to highlight, has been the transfer of the urn of Santa Joaquina and the stained glass windows of the Manso.

Mabel Burgell, ccv, who, together with the community and others, was present at this event, to share about it.

This is how the transfer of the urn of our Joaquina took place.

On May 8 and 9, 2024, we have lived in the Manso Escorial some very special days. The upcoming restoration and updating of our foundational house, “unique” for its past as the home of Joaquina de Vedruna and as the cradle of the Institute founded by her, of which so many have been part for almost two hundred years, required a delicate transfer: that of the stained glass windows of the chapel and that of the urn containing the mortal remains of our Foundress.

These works, as you know, have as their main objective the need to put the Manso in tune with the new times, highlighting, in updated terms and forms, the figure, charism, spirituality, teaching, witness and work of Joaquina de Vedruna.

The Manso Escorial de Vic, as the matrix and cradle of the universal work of this pioneer woman, must offer those who visit it an itinerary whose language and forms are in tune with those of the new generations, so that this unique heritage of the Congregation may be an instrument for transmitting concerns and life, and not merely an informative space, although it is also an informative space.

On the 8th, therefore, the windows were removed from the chapel and duly packed and stored until their next replacement.

And on the 9th, the delicate and careful removal of the urn containing the mortal remains of Joaquina, a task in charge -as on the previous day- of a company specialized in the transfer of works of art. A delicate and laborious task, which required a whole morning, before the expectation and the excited gaze of the Sisters -and not only Sisters- who were present.

At 3:00 p.m., the precious urn was worthily deposited in the small chapel of the house which, on the opposite side of the garden of the Manso, was built during the generalate of Sr. Felisa Aragón (r.e.p.d.) to host the Novitiate of Catalonia and later became the residence of the so-called “Inter Community” due to the intercontinental origin of the Sisters who formed it. For the past few months, this house has been home to the Manso community which, before Joaquina, has also had to “leave” the foundational house.

Rest assured that, together with this beloved presence of Joaquina, the community of the Manso will continue to be the gaze, the memory, the heart and the prayer of the whole Vedruna family before our common Mother, the echo of whose voice will continue to tell us:

“I never forget you, we do not part neither with the spirit, nor with the will, because you are all in my arms, and I continually beseech the Lord for you all”.

(Ep. 96)

AMÉN!