SAINT
HENRY DE OSSÓ
"LIVE JESUS. ALL FOR JESUS!"
"The Lord granted me a good
soul"
Henry De
Ossó said so about himself in some brief autobiographical annotations, written
rapidly and by obedience, when he still was very young. And he was right
upon telling it. God gave him a good soul, a good heart, good parents…
and Henry knew how to invest the gifts he received. He did not have
an easy life, but he knew how to surpass the adversities in his
adolescence; Once a priest, he carried ahead his apostolic works despite all obstacles,
all the envies, slanders and injustices on the part of the representatives of
the Church, even through his maturity and his death. Hence he became
fortified in his faith. He put hope
only in God and started to offer love to everyone, even to his own
critics. That is how saints are forged.
During
the 55 years of his life, he was a teacher and catechist and, above all, a
priest. A diocesan priest compromised with his time and with his nearby
environment, but projected always toward the entire world, that almost remained
small compared to his passion to extend the knowledge and love of
Jesus. He had a teacher of apostolic and spiritual life: Teresa of
Jesus. We would almost be able to say that a part of the great Saint of
Ávila was embodied in Henry De Ossó and instilled his spirit of prayer, his
love for Jesus and, as a consequence of both, the multitude of apostolic works
that he carried out during his life.
Childhood and Vocation.
Henry
De Ossó and Cervelló was born in Vinebre, a tiny town of the province of
Tarragona, Spain, situated on the edges of the largest river of the Iberian
peninsula: the Ebro, that shapes a
little the inhabitants of its environment, above all in the neighborhood of its
estuary, as Vinebre. Henry was born into a good Catholic family and said
that he had: "Good parents and holy grandfathers".
When
he turned 14 years old, his mother died of cholera and he felt desolated.
She had told him frequently: "My son, how happy I would be if you
were a priest". But by then he answered invariably: "No, I
would like to be a teacher". Little time later, his father sent him
to Reus, to work in the most important store of fabrics of the city.
While he was selling behind the counter, Henry kept on thinking about other possibilities
for his life. One day he left letters of farewell and walked up the
road to the Monastery of Montserrat. There, before our Lady of Monserrat,
the Moreneta, he decided his future: "I found my vocation… I promise
myself to Jesus forever, to be his minister, his apostle, his missionary of
peace and love".
In
Montserrat, some days later, his brother found him and acted as the mediator
between him and his father so that his father allowed him to go to the Seminar
of Tortosa.
Seminarian and Priest.
In
1854, in Spain, all those who wanted to serve Jesus encountered many
obstacles. The seminars were not the right environment to study and to
get well prepared spiritually and theologically. Henry lived in the house
of Mosén Alabart, a priest of the Diocese. He had one confessor in the
cathedral, with whom he talked to frequently. He studied with dedication
under the guardianship of Domine Sena, who taught him Latin and things that
were a lot more important: he started
to learn about Saint Teresa of Jesus. In 1856 he began to study Liberal Arts.
In the last reports, the grades of Henry in Philosophy and Theology always
appeared with the qualification of "Summa Cum Laude". Besides,
Henry drew quite well, sculpted beautiful figurines in wood with a simple knife
and sang with a very nice voice. As if that were not enough, he
participated in the Conferences of San Vincent De Paul, with all the
obligations incurred: weekly
meeting, monthly retreat, and visit to the poor each week; thus he got in touch
with the most wretched people of Tortosa.
During
the summer vacations he went to Vinebre, to the beautiful house of his
father. There he prayed, helped in the agricultural tasks, and during the
time when people used to dedicate to the siesta, he gathered in the extensive,
roomy and very fresh basement, all the kids of the town to teach them
Catechism. Afterwards he took them for a walk by the outskirts of the
town in the afternoon. It was not strange to see all the kids running
behind him and waiting anxiously for his arrival to the town, each summer.
Upon
finishing the three years of Philosophy, his superiors and his family wanted
him to pursue his studies at the Seminar of Barcelona. He was
registered there in 1860-61 to study Physics and Chemistry and was the disciple
of an exceptional professor: Doctor
Jaime Arbós. Henry and Arbós became good friends and Henry was his
adjunct for a while. His family wanted him to be outstanding and to climb
the hierarchy of the academic honors, but Henry only worried to be well
prepared to be a priest for Jesus.
Over
the summer he transferred to Benicasim, a coastal town of the nearby province
of Castellón, where his uncles lived. There, he recovered the energy spent
during the trip. From Benicasim he went up to the nearby mountains of the
Desert of the Palms, where the Carmelite Fathers had their convent. With
the Carmelite community he got back the strength of the spirit, and spent long
days of prayer and reflection in the hermitage of St. Teresa, situated in one
of the summits where the sea could be seen far away and the horizon seemed as
enlarged as his apostolic dreams. He repeated this experience often
during his lifetime.
In
September of 1861, he returned to Tortosa as the student of Theology, at the
seminar. Some months later, the new bishop, Don Benito Vilamitjana
and Vila found out that Henry de Ossó was not like other seminarians and had
great expectations for him. Nevertheless, a few years later the panorama
changed drastically with the slanders and the cross.
Three
years later he returned to Barcelona, to study at the seminar, this time as an
intern, for the third year of Theology. The seminar was well
directed by the Jesuits who were looking for good collaborators. Henry
admired the rector, Father Fermín Coast, but above all, Father Joaquín
Forn, a wise, prestigious, good professor and good spiritual father; Henry
trusted him. Henry was outstanding while he studied the three courses of
Theology in Barcelona. The same thing could be said regarding his
moral behavior and his discipline. This phase was important in his life
due to the consolidation of the lifetime lasting friendship
with Sardá and Salvany, Andrés Martorell, Casanovas, Manuel Sunday and Sun,
Juan Baptist Altés…
In
1866, when he finished his studies in Barcelona, bishop Vilamitjana called him
back to the Tortosa Seminary and he was assigned to its faculty. In
Tortosa, he became subdeacon in May 26th. He became a professor of Physics for other seminarians. At
the same time he continued his studies of Theology that he finished with the
highest grades. He also passed the exams in Barcelona, in the lay university
where he acquired the degree of Bachelor in Arts.
Finally,
on September 21 of 1867, in Tortosa, he was ordained to the priesthood by
bishop Vilamitjana. And on October 6, in Montserrat, he
celebrated his first mass. Thereupon he
became a priest forever.
Priest in Tortosa
In
September of 1868, the revolution called by some "The Septembrina",
and by other "The Glorious one" broke out. Queen Isabel II had to
be exiled to France. The triumphant army, clearly anticlerical, put new
norms in the country. The seminar of Tortosa was confiscated and closed,
and the seminarians were sent home to their families. Henry
spent the whole year in Vinebre. When turbulence was over, in
Tortosa, the consequences of the revolution were noticeable, above all with the
children who were "like sheep without shepherd". They imitated what they had heard and seen
during a year without religion. Hence the catechesis became a need. Henry had to find catechists and give them
the adequate formation. The bishop assigned Henry as general director of
the catechesis of the diocese. The success of his efforts was glamorous.
The same children who had sung before "Live the national sovereignty”, sang
thereupon "Hail Mary" along the streets of Tortosa; within a few
months the catechetical centers had an enrollment of 1,200 children. Ossó
was a good strategist, he knew that children were those who better could
convince the parents – "to conquer men through children" -. He
created an association for the teaching of the Catholic doctrine, that he
directed, motivated and planned himself. He formed teams with
other priests, seminarians and lay people. They all began their
catechesis with the words that would be forever a "leit motiv" in the
apostolate of Henry: LIVE JESUS.
We begin with some young seminarians a very holy deed and, a
few days later, we have an enrollment of five hundred boys and girls. Everything keeps moving forward, and by the
time we say good bye to go on vacations the enrollment increases to eight
hundred.
For the following course, from 1870 to 1871, the attendance augmented,
because we were better organized; as the eight groups of catechists paid a
visit to San Joseph to consecrate their heart to help children, we ended up
with more than 1,200 catechists.(1)
The unique flawless secret to obtain a social restoration in
our days was cultivating innocence, by making children grow in the knowledge of
God and the love of the Religion. These
children, oh priests, that you neglect and watch with indifference today,
wandered in the streets and listened only to blasphemies and perverted doctrines;
these who saw scandalous examples, will be someday family parents. They
will rule and govern a city, a town or perhaps a whole nation: and if they were educated in the fear of God,
they would love the Religion and its ministers, they would educate their
children piously, and they would expand the practice of Religion.(2)
It
turns out to be extremely demanding to summarize in chronological order, the
apostolic work of the priest Ossó. His abundant and simultaneous actions
prevent us from summarizing it in a few pages.
In
1870 Henry founded The Pious Association of the Immaculate Conception
for the rural youths. In 1871 he started a weekly newspaper called
The Friend of the Town, in opposition to the anticlerical one called The
Man. In October of 1872 the first number of the Monthly
Magazine "Saint Teresa of Jesus" was published. Henry founded and directed it during
his lifetime. The Society of St. Teresa kept on publishing it after his
death, changing the name to “Magazine Jesus
Maestro" until 2005. In 1872 Osso also published The
Practical Guide of the Catechist, The Spirit of St. Teresa and a Novena to St.
Joseph.
Year 1873 is one of his most
fulfilled ones. He founded The
Association of aughters of Immaculate
Mary and Teresa of Jesus, to form women like Mary who would read and would be
imbued with the spirituality of Teresa of Jesus. Those women would be the ones
who could mold the image of Christ in the mind and heart of new generations. Ossó
was confident that women would be effective agents for the transformation and
the regeneration of the society. The Association spread like fire in
Catalonia, Valencia and Aragon, and after only a few months there were
already 700 members.
-----------------------------------------------[1]
(1)Practical Guide of the Catechist, EEO I, page 30
(2) Practical Guide of the Catechist, EEO I, page 81
In
July of 1874 he signed the dedication of his masterpiece: Fifteen
Minutes of Prayer to teach people how to pray. During his lifetime
there were 15 editions, and at present it has reached edition number 58.
In 1875 he published a small book of meditation for children entitled Live
Jesus.
Year
1876 is key in the life of Henry de Ossó. A visit, the previous year, to
the places where Teresa of Jesus lived and died, put his interminable
creativity in action. In March
he
signed the decrees of Brotherhood Josefina, in order "to carry men
to Christ". Simultaneously he wrote the Little Flock of Baby
Jesus.
On
April 2, a Sunday of Passion then, he felt the strong inspiration to found the
Society of Saint Teresa of Jesus committed to extend the knowledge and love of Jesus
throughout the world through prayer, education and sacrifice. That same
year, nine young women from the Association of Immaculate Mary and Teresa of
Jesus, committed to start on the road traced by the Father
Founder. The Society expanded quickly in Spain, Portugal, America and
Algiers, during Henry’s life. Subsequently it continues giving fruits of
holiness in the world.
In
1877 Henry de Ossó directed a crowded pilgrimage to the birthplace of St. Teresa, Avila. More than 4,000
pilgrims visited it. They also went to
Alba de Tormes. In Salamanca, with other teresians, he established the
basis of the Universal Brotherhood of St. Teresa. A few days
afterwards, in Montserrat, he wrote the project of the Missionaries of
Saint Teresa of Jesus, published in 1882.
In
1879 the first Sisters of the Society of Saint Teresa pronounced their
vows. Henry dedicated himself thoroughly to the formation of those
women expected by him to transform the world. He went back and forth from
Tortosa to Tarragona, where was the first community. But at the same
time, he preached, and gave spiritual exercises to the youths in different
towns. He continued to take care of the several associations and wrote
incessantly for the Magazine Saint Teresa of Jesus.
He travelled to Portugal and to Orán to expand the Society there. He
prepared, with some ecclesiastical personalities of Spain, the Third Centennial
of the Death of Saint Teresa.
The
unstoppable activity of Henry de Ossó had its source in his fascination with
Jesus and in the teaching of Teresa of Jesus.
How many times I have asked myself: What is happening in my interior? What is that I feel in my heart? Where does
this irresistible, never felt and vehement strength come from, that motivates
me to know and to follow the way of the virtue, that tightens me to the strong
column of prayer? Where does that force
come from that makes me feel propelled to profess more passion to everything
that is beautiful and great in our country, and true national religious jewel? What is this? From where does it spring? And after some meditation, I answer to myself: All is work of the Avila Virgin (3).
----------------------------------------------
(3)RT nº 38 (1875) page 35
The daily prayer, the spiritual exercises each summer, the
days of spiritual rest in his Monastery of Montserrat… are for him interminable
source of interior wealth, of God love, that he had experimented, lived
and expressed in his apostolic works for the growth of the Kingdom. Only
from that prayerful side can be explained his incessant activity and his
spiritual depth.
Carrying the Cross …
Life never is easy. In the
life of the chosen by God the cross used to appear invariably. For sure
because "the disciple is not better that his teacher". Henry De
Ossó experimented the cross during seventeen long years, and in fact he
died crucified.
The
history began on October 12th, 1877, with the opening of the convent of
Discalced Carmelites in Tortosa at the
request of Henry De Ossó. The lot was given by a lady to Henry and other
priests who were friends of his; the convent has been built with charity
collected mainly through the Magazine Saint Teresa of Jesus and
through the donations requested by Ossó. The following year, in 1878,
next to the convent, the corner stone was laid for what will be the Society of
Saint Teresa, with great happiness on the part of all: the bishop, the priests,
friends, the Discalced Carmelites…
On
October 12th, in 1879, exactly a year later, the Sisters of the Society
took possession of the building, still in construction, and they began to live
in it. The next day, the Discalced Carmelites appealed to the Court of
Tortosa for the "serious damages that the Society of St. Teresa made to
them". A long judicial lawsuit started and lasted even after the
death of Henry de Ossó.
What
has happened? And what happened later? The reason and the
experience showed that many people changed their affections, and are impressionable in their
conclusions… Others had negative feelings like envy and sorrow caused by the
triumphs of others, they desired to occupy the first places, or to be the most
appreciated… Some were cowards and bent in front of the influence of the
powerful. Others preferred to be notorious… a few dishonest cheated, hid,
and falsified documents and did anything so that their interests prevailed
instead of the justice.
All
this ended with several lawsuits that Henry de Ossó had to endure during the
last sixteen years of his life. It
started first in the diocese of Tortosa, then in the Metropolitan Court of
Tarragona, later in the Supreme Court of Madrid and, finally in the Court of
Rome.
The
Carmelites, some of his own friends, and even the bishop accused him to
appropriate what did not belong to him: the very extensive lot where was
located the Monastery of the Carmelites, the first home of the Society of Saint
Teresa with its novitiate.
Ossó
defended himself again and again against the allegations, not because he was
stubborn but because he believed that he had to defend what was not his: the right to build on that lot (he personally
had not wanted to build at that time) and the dowries of the Sisters of the
Society used for the construction of the building. The plaintiffs had in
their hand the power and used it badly: they were infuriated with Henry personally and also with the
Society of St. Teresa with a grudge that was visible in the words used in many
occasions and in unfair actions, such as the closings of the Society of St.
Teresa and its novitiate for two years. Bishop Vilamitjana, an old
friend, who had blessed always the apostolic works of Henry became his
enemy. He even destroyed fraudulently the favorable verdict emitted by
the Metropolitan Court of Tarragona changing it for an unfavorable one.
Subsequently, some documents where Henry's good faith was proven disappeared
mysteriously before reaching the Vatican Court. They were placed somewhere
that they could be found only almost a century later. The lawyers who
defended Henry De Ossó advised him to put the lawsuit in the hands of the civil
justice for a better chance to win it. He never did that. He could
not put in evidence the flaws of the Church that he loved with all his heart.
Then another more
painful cross: The Society of St.
Teresa of Jesus for whom he gave everything, wanted to be autonomous and, as it
was not well prepared yet, it ended up turning against its own Founder.
Henry
De Ossó had some sentences that were not mere sentences, but truths that he
lived by while the cross weighed on his back: "Those are obstacles
that good people encountered" and "No adversity will damage us if we
are not wicked". He did not experiment the iniquity, but a great
pain together with an enormous interior peace. He was rejected and
condemned by what he loved most: the
Church. He was estranged by what those who owed him their life and a lot
more: The Society of St. Teresa.
In 1896
he died. He had written a lot more during those years. Besides the
articles in the magazine St Teresa of
Jesus, he wrote: Seven Sundays
of Devotion to St. Joseph, St. Teresa’s Month, Novena to St. Teresa of Jesús,
Constitutions, Interim Plan Study and
other writings for the Society of ST. Teresa of Jesus, Triduo in tribute to
Saint Teresa of Jesus, On the 15th of Each Month, in homage to
St. Teresa, Rules for the Daughters of Mary and St. Teresa, Treasure Chest
for Children, devocionario, Three Little Flowers to Our Lady of Monserrat,
Catechism of Workers and Rich, extracted
from the Encyclical of León XIII De Opificum Conditione, Devoto Josefino, Ramillete del Cristiano, A
Month in the School of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Rules of the Little Flock of
the Child Jesus, Seven Dwellings in the Heart of Jesus, Tribute to St. Francis de Sales, Mary to the Heart of
her Children, The Spirit of St.Teresa de Jesús, Novena to the Holy Spirit.
The list is not complete because
some booklets are not enumerated.
Weary
physically and spiritually, but never defeated, Henry made a fervent retreat in
his favorite place of solitude, the Franciscan Monastery of Sancti Spiritus in
Gilet (Valencia), in the month of January of 1896. In his head and in his
heart there were still thousands of projects to undertake to make alive the
slogan that were at the center of all his works: "Live Jesus.
All for Jesus!" He already had given himself totally to Jesus, but
he did not know. The TOTALITY became reality in the night of
January 27. He just had an in-depth confession with one of the Franciscan
Fathers. Before withdrawing to rest he had commented: "What a
beautiful sky, Brother! If outside it is like this, what will be inside”?
A few hours later, he passed away.
He was
buried in the Franciscan cemetery, as one of the friars, without any belongings,
without anything. The next day the Sisters of the Society of St. Teresa arrived,
upon being informed of the news.
His body remained in Gilet until 1908, then his remains were transferred
to the chapel of the novitiate of the Society of St. Teresa of Jesus in
Tortosa, Spain.
After
a long process of beatification and canonization, in which at last the proven
documents of his absolute integrity, his abnegation, his faith to the Church
appeared almost miraculously, Henry de Ossó and Cervelló is declared SAINT by Pope
John Paul II, in Madrid, June 16,
1993. “Blessed is the man
who fears Our Lord”
Pilar Rodríguez Briz, stj