Legend and history blend in saints\u2019 lives, and America\u2019s Sister Blandina Segale is no exception. Her Wild West ministry and encounter with Billy the Kid mean she has been hailed as \u201cThe Fastest Nun in the West\u201d in a 1960s Western that stretches the truth a bit.<\/p>\n
But perhaps it captures something important. The Western story genre was beloved the world over, from Poland\u2019s Solidarity movement en la d\u00e9cada de 1980<\/a> al cine peruano hoy<\/a> por una sencilla raz\u00f3n: su enfoque en un \u00fanico h\u00e9roe que libera a un pueblo en peligro se basa en la misma historia convincente que cuentan los Evangelios.<\/p>\n En retrospectiva, Blandina parec\u00eda destinada desde su nacimiento a ser una hero\u00edna del Oeste.<\/strong><\/p>\n Though she grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, Blandina was born in 1850 in Cicagna, Italy, not far from the locations where Sergio Leone would later make \u201cSpaghetti Westerns\u201d such as El bueno, el malo y el feo.<\/em> Debe su nombre a Santa Blandina, una m\u00e1rtir de los primeros cristianos que fue ejecutada por bestias salvajes y a la que popularmente se representa siendo arrojada por un toro.<\/p>\n Blandina\u2019s connections with Mother Seton start at birth, too. Cicagna is 100 miles up the coast from Livorno, Italy, where New Yorker Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton fell in love with the Catholic faith after seeking healing for her husband there in 1803. As a widow, Elizabeth entered the Church and founded the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph\u2019s in Emmitsburg, Maryland. Sisters from her community founded the religious house in Cincinnati that Blandina entered at age 16, after it had become an independent congregation.<\/p>\n Desde all\u00ed, la Hermana Blandina se dirigi\u00f3 al oeste, destinada a la ciudad fronteriza de Trinidad, Colorado.<\/p>\n Blandina tiene todas las caracter\u00edsticas de un h\u00e9roe de pel\u00edcula del Oeste. Primero: El misterioso solitario.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cThe original western hero,\u201d says Emily Barrosse\u2019s textbook El arte de ver pel\u00edculas<\/em>, \u201cis a mysterious loner. \u2026 He can act as a capable leader or alone, as the situation requires. As a loner, he stands apart from the community but believes in and fights to preserve its values. His lack of community ties (he usually has no job, no ranch or possessions, no wife or family) gives him the freedom and flexibility for full-time heroics.\u201d<\/p>\n This is how a professed religious sister landing in Trinidad, Colorado, must have looked \u2014 a woman whose vow of celibacy meant no husband or children, and whose religious habit showed her allegiance to a higher law.<\/p>\n Para llegar a Trinidad hab\u00eda que utilizar los primeros ferrocarriles y recorrer duras carreteras a trav\u00e9s de llanuras deshabitadas hasta las colinas rocosas cercanas a lo que hoy es el Parque Estatal de Spanish Peaks, en el sur de Colorado.<\/p>\n En sus memorias, Al final del Camino de Santa Fe, <\/em>Sister Blandina gives the no-nonsense message she preached to those seeking to get rich in Trinidad\u2019s mines. \u201cProgress will come, I do not doubt, but spiritual death will also come. And \u2018what doth it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Second, the textbook Western hero is \u201cIntelligent and resourceful,\u201d but also \u201ckind, honest, firm, and consistent in his dealings with others, never devious, cruel, or petty.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Sister Blandina\u2019s resourcefulness in Trinidad meant giving local children an education without much funding. When Blandina saw the barely adequate shelter being used as a schoolhouse, she decided to fix it herself. She climbed up on the roof of the building of the schoolhouse and began prying the tile shingles off with a crowbar.<\/p>\n \u201cFor the love of God, Sister, what are you doing?\u201d asked a wealthy woman in town. This woman then helped supply construction workers and supplies for the renovation of the schoolhouse.<\/p>\n Seeing how Sister Blandina got this done, Denver Bishop Joseph Machebeuf said, \u201cNow I see how you manage to build without money!\u201d<\/p>\n Third, the textbook Western hero never stays long. \u201cPeace makes him restless,\u201d says the book. \u201cWith order restored, he moves on to discover another troubled community<\/strong>.\"<\/p>\n It was in Trinidad that Blandina reportedly met Billy the Kid, and saved the\u00a0life of one of his gang members by treating his bullet wound. She also opposed lynchings, stressing the need for formal justice.<\/p>\n Pero un a\u00f1o despu\u00e9s de aterrizar en Trinidad, las Hermanas de la Caridad enviaron a Sor Blandina 200 millas al sur, a Santa Fe, Nuevo M\u00e9xico. Continuar\u00eda regresando a Trinidad, y tambi\u00e9n fundar\u00eda una escuela en Albuquerque que sigue en pie hoy en d\u00eda.<\/p>\n Fourth, in each place, a Western hero\u2019s \u201cpersonal code emphasizes human dignity, courage, justice, fair play, equality (the rights of the underdog), and respect for women.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Blandina llev\u00f3 la justicia a cada lugar con su caracter\u00edstica severidad y caridad, luchando por los derechos de los inmigrantes mexicanos y de los nativos americanos de Nuevo M\u00e9xico.<\/p>\n En cuanto a defender a las mujeres, cuando regres\u00f3 a Trinidad a\u00f1os m\u00e1s tarde, despu\u00e9s de que las fuerzas anticat\u00f3licas hubieran ganado terreno en Colorado, Blandina fue informada de que el sistema escolar hab\u00eda instituido un c\u00f3digo de vestimenta que prohib\u00eda a las religiosas vestidas ense\u00f1ar.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Constitution of the United States gives me the same privilege to wear this mode of dress as it gives you to wear your trousers. Good-bye,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Fifth, the textbook Western hero, \u201cEven-tempered and peaceable by nature,\u201d nonetheless \u201cdoes not seek violent solutions but responds with violent action when the situation demands it.\u201d In Santa Fe, Blandina once confronted the family of two men who were trying to swindle Mexican immigrants out of land, telling their mother, \u201cYour sons are trying to steal land and call it lawful,\u201d and threatening to bring the law. \u201cThere is a Vigilance Committee which will be highly pleased to meet them. The committee always carries a rope for just such emergencies as your sons are trying to create.\u201d<\/p>\n For her, faith was the cure for what ailed immigrants and American Indians. \u201cMoney will not do it \u2014 nor Government Indian Schools either. A truly Christian life, combined with personal sacrifice prolonged into years, will accomplish what millions will not do,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Construy\u00f3 un orfanato y un hospital en el Oeste antes de regresar a Cincinnati en 1894, donde sigui\u00f3 ense\u00f1ando durante a\u00f1os. Muri\u00f3 en 1941 a los 91 a\u00f1os.<\/p>\n Las presentaciones de su historia en la CBS proporcionan a la hermana Blandina maravillosos chistes del Oeste que encajan tanto con la hermana de la vida real como con el h\u00e9roe del Oeste de manual.<\/p>\n \u201cTrue religion cannot exist without true justice,\u201d the TV version of Sister Blandina tells the sheriff who is afraid to stop a lynch mob. \u201cOne man in Nazareth faced a mob,\u201d she adds. \u201cFear is like a disease, and I can\u2019t afford to catch it from you.\u201d<\/p>\n In the end, Sister Blandina\u2019s story points to the original mysterious loner who brought justice to a lawless place.<\/strong><\/p>\n Sister Blandina\u2019s cause for canonization was opened in 2014, to determine if her story is a model of Jesus Christ\u2019s, who early Christians thought would come again from the East to set things right. He is the original Western hero, as expressed in a poem by an unknown author that Elizabeth Ann Seton sent to her spiritual director in 1819.<\/p>\n Seca tus l\u00e1grimas Rosalie; Jesucristo es el verdadero h\u00e9roe que dio esperanza a Santa Isabel Ana Seton y a Sor Blandina; \u00c9l puede hacer lo mismo por nosotros.<\/p>\n TOM HOOPES<\/strong>,\u00a0autor m\u00e1s reciente de El Rosario de San Juan Pablo II, es escritor residente en el Benedictine College de Kansas, donde imparte clases. Es anfitri\u00f3n de La extraordinaria Stor<\/a>y podcast sobre la vida de Cristo. Su libro Lo que dijo realmente el Papa Francisco<\/a> ya est\u00e1 disponible en Audible<\/a>. Antiguo reportero en la zona de Washington, D.C., fue secretario de prensa del Presidente del Comit\u00e9 de Medios y Arbitrios de la C\u00e1mara de Representantes de los Estados Unidos y pas\u00f3 10 a\u00f1os como editor del peri\u00f3dico National Catholic Register y de la revista Faith & Family. Su trabajo aparece con frecuencia en el Register, Aleteia y Catholic Digest. Vive en Atchison, Kansas, con su esposa, April, y tiene nueve hijos.<\/em><\/p>\n
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n\u00a1Mira! Aquel sol
\nSe hunde en la ola occidental
\nSu curso se ejecuta:
\nPero cuando la noche ha huido,
\nLo ver\u00e1s, glorioso, derramado
\nSus rayos de oro sobre tu cabeza,
\nComienza un nuevo curso.<\/em><\/p>\n