Blessed Laura Vicuña

Blessed Laura Vicuña was a Chilean girl, a pupil of the Salesian Sisters at Junín de los Andes in Argentina. She died at the age of twelve, after offering her life to God for her mother’s conversion. The Roman Martyrology commemorates her on January 22, the day of her death.

She was born on April 5, 1891, in Santiago, Chile. Her parents were José Domingo Vicuña, a soldier, and Mercedes Pino. After a political upheaval the family had to leave the capital and took refuge in Temuco. There her father died when Laura was two years old. Her mother was left with two daughters, Laura and Julia Amanda, and without means of support.

Mercedes left with her daughters for Argentina, for the territory of Neuquén. They settled in the village of Quilquihué, where the mother entered the service of a landowner, Manuel Mora, and began to live with him without being married. In 1900 Laura and her sister were sent to the boarding school run at Junín de los Andes by the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, the Salesian Sisters. There Laura prepared for her First Holy Communion and for Confirmation. She was remembered as the most generous and kindest girl in the whole school.

At the age of ten, following the example of Dominic Savio, she made three resolutions: to love God and serve him all her life, to die rather than offend him by sin, and to do all she could so that he might be known and loved. She longed to become a Salesian Sister, but she was refused admission because of the situation in which her mother was living. In 1902, with the consent of her confessor, the Salesian Father Crestanello, she privately made vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.

Listening to the explanations of the catechism, Laura understood how dangerous her mother’s situation was. When she heard in the Gospel that true love gives its life for those it loves, she offered her own life to God for her mother’s salvation. Mora’s house became a threat to Laura herself as well. Mora harassed her, and when she firmly resisted him, he attacked her and beat her severely.

Worn out by illness, Laura quickly grew weaker. The Eucharist and the hope of her mother’s conversion gave her strength. On the last day of her life, a few hours before she died, she called her mother to her and confided that almost two years earlier she had offered her life for her. She asked whether before dying she would have the joy of seeing her return to God. Deeply shaken, her mother promised to repent and to go to confession, and she kept her word. Laura died on January 22, 1904, at Junín de los Andes.

The inscription on her tomb says that she was the Eucharistic flower of Junín de los Andes and that her life was a poem of purity, sacrifice, and filial love. Today her body rests in the chapel of the Salesian Sisters in Bahía Blanca, Argentina. Pope John Paul II beatified her on September 3, 1988, at Colle Don Bosco near Turin, on the centenary of the death of Saint John Bosco. He called her the glory of Argentina and Chile and wished that she might teach everyone that with the help of grace evil can be overcome.