The decree is presented with an expression of Esperanza, that contains her entire life program: “To love all the souls because they are the treasure of Christ, redeemed by his precious blood, his inexpressible sufferings and death on the cross”.
It then goes to outline the principal biographical features of this missionary born in Monteagudo, Navarre, Spain in 1890. Her first years and life at the heart of the Christian family. Her entry to the Monastery de la Encarnacion in Madrid, of the Augustinian recollect sisters, where she will spend the novitiate and pronounce her vows. In the mother monastery of the female Recollection, Esperanza “was a model of faithfulness to the contemplative vocation and witness of deep devotion to the Eucharist and of grateful obedience to the daily observance of the communitarian life”.
Mother Esperanza Ayerbe in China
The decree dedicates long paragraphs to describe the experiences of Esperanza in China. Her voluntary offering to collaborate with the Augustinian recollects in the mission of Kweitehfu – the present Shangqiu. Her arrival in China, in May 1931. Her enormous work, and of her companions; “the formation of catequists of Cristo Rey, the Sunday school in the slum areas and in the neighboring villages, the helpful love with the sick, the care of the poor, those in prison and the needy youth. She loved them all because she saw in them Jesus”.
It describes how she had to leave China in order to establish a formation house in Spain for future missionaries. And how the Second World War directed her to Latin America: mainly in Colombia and Venezuela. The growth felt here led her to ask for a recognition of the institute as a separate congregation, which happened on January 18, 1947. Mother Esperanza Ayerbe came to be the first superior general of the Augustinian Recollect Missionaries until, for health reasons, had to tender her resignation in 1962.
Mother Esperanza Ayerbe died on May 23 1967, and her process of beatification started in the Ecclesiastical Curia of Pamplona, Spain on December 6 1991. Its been twenty five years that the recognition of her heroic virtues were given by the Supreme Pontiff. She was given then the title of ‘Venerable’ which hopefully she will deserve that of the ‘Blessed” if the Lord works in her favor to grant a miracle thru her intercession.