May 12 is a deeply significant date for the Daughters of Jesus and the entire Mother Candida Family. We remember the day when Mother Candida and Antoñita were proclaimed blessed, recognizing in their lives an imprint of God that continues to illuminate our path today.
It was 30 years ago in Rome, in St. Peter’s Square, on May 12, 1996, when they were beatified together by His Holiness Pope John Paul II. On that day the Church publicly recognized something that was already life: the Gospel incarnated in two concrete women, in two real stories, in two ways of loving in the way of Jesus.
That day was, above all, the confirmation of something that is still relevant today: when a life is given with truth, trust and determination, God makes all things new.
Mother Candida, a simple and deeply trusting woman, responded to God’s call with an interior clarity that marked her whole life: “I am only for God. Her journey was not without difficulties, uncertainties and limits, but her determination led her to begin a work that continues to give life today in so many places around the world.
Next to her, Antoñita – young, simple, full of desire for God – reminds us that there is no age to live the Gospel radically. Her short life was, however, profoundly fruitful.
We celebrated a “pearl wedding
Thirty years later, we are celebrating a “pearl wedding anniversary” just at this time of reception and incarnation of Det CGXIX. And it is not by chance. The pearl is not born perfect, nor quickly, nor all at once: it is gestated slowly, in the hidden, in the midst of fragility, when a wound is transformed into beauty. Isn’t that, in the end, our charism of M. Candida? Candida?
The life of Mother Candida and Antoñita reminds us that God acts in this way: in the small, in the everyday, in what seems insignificant… but lived with radicality. A simple woman who dared to say: “the world is too small for my desires”.
A young woman who, at only 21 years of age, gave herself “It is necessary to reach the summit. If you do it, do it in its entirety”.
Two different lives, one fire.
Today, that fire does not belong only to the Daughters of Jesus. Today, that fire has many faces.
This anniversary – almost spontaneously, in various parts of the world – became a day especially celebrated by the lay men and women of the charismatic family. It was a day affectionately and pleasantly remembered by so many educators, young people, families, former students… who, with the same spirit, make this way of looking, of educating, of accompanying, of believing, come alive.
Thus, the charism remains… a living current. It was born to respond to a concrete world – marked by exclusion, especially of the most vulnerable and of women in education – but it remains profoundly current.
Today it continues to ask questions and to question us:
- Who is left out today?
- Where are we called to educate, accompany and care?
- What does it mean, in 2026, to “do everything for the greater glory of God and the good of the people”?
Celebrating this 30th anniversary is not just about looking back with gratitude. It is to look inward with truth… and forward with boldness.
Because perhaps the most important question is not what they did. But rather: What are we doing with the charisma and the gifts we have received?
An open invitation
Thirty years later, the invitation is still open: to let this charism continue to take shape in us, in our decisions, in our presences, in our ways of being in the world… even in digital spaces, where so many searches for meaning are played out today.
May Mother Candida and Antoñita inspire us to live with a determined, available and trusting heart. May their example encourage us to take concrete steps, not to put off what is important, to respond generously to what God is awakening in us.
