When we talk about Sr. Inés Arango, we spontaneously talk also about Bishop Alejandro Labaka and that is because their lives have been united forever in our memory and in our hearts, since they gave up their life for the love of their brothers, on July 21st, 1987.
Otherwise, Inés, had been unnoticed in the simple daily tasks, like anyone of us, her sisters, in the Aguarico mission or in any other of the 34 countries in which we live. Anyhow, in the people hearts had remained , the mark and testimony of her life as a woman of faith, joyful, committed to Jesus Christ in her community and for the most in need people, courageous and determined to live coherently with what she was believing… and something more.
One day someone asked me which is the best thing we can be said about Inés? I answered, without hesitation, that she gave up her life. The surrender of one’s life is not a matter of a specific moment, but it is true that sometimes it happens as it occurred to Inés… “the critical moment of giving up the life”. Giving up life is rather a «long moment«, a long way lasting the whole existence, until the moment when it is given up completely and without reservation.
Therefore, when we approach Inés’ life, it is good to think about her “root”, support, source, nourishing, and relief … all that stands «behind» her person and fashions it.
Inés was born in «the city of eternal spring», in Medellín (Colombia), in the year 1937. She had the great luck of being born into a believing and deeply religious family. From her parents and siblings, she learned by osmosis, the values of believing, praying, serving the neighbor …They were freely living their faith in the everyday life and in the simplest things and she made her own this same attitude throughout her whole life. From them she inherited also vitality, energy, genius and a sense of the unusual, aspects allowing her to face with a great freedom, the difficult moments of her existence.
Among mischiefs and adolescent rebellions, Ines was growing in faith. We know that, first of all, the seed of faith must be sown and then it will germinate and bear fruit … may be an abundant fruit. Because of that, it is important that the Word be announced to us… through the word and the testimony of life… and also listening without silencing our concerns, desires, and yearnings. Some of that happened in Inés’ life.
Let us approach her life to verify what was resounding in her «inside» and was the engine of her existence, the deepest reason moving her to live a total dedication and to act risky and that was sustaining her whole life. The missionary concern experienced in her family, in the parish, in the school … was an abundant seed in the person of Inés, a seed sown in a fertile and good soil. And, actually Inés, from her very early age, did not silence her concerns. She always warmed up her desire and knew how to nourish it amid difficulties and sufferings.
And also the Capuchin Tertiary Sisters left their mark on Inés; in her daily experience with the group of girls in the boarding school in Yarumal, she noticed how they were living the Franciscan and in addition Capuchin style of life, enriched with the «charisma», and «special touch l” received from their founder, Luis Amigó. This «special touch» was nothing else than an unconditional dedication to the least ones, to those to whom no one goes …living in the simplicity and joy of fraternal charity … nourished by the Word of God and the Eucharist… unconditional committed, out of love for Jesus Christ incarnate and made one of us, born of Mary, out of love for Jesus Christ the Good Shepherd seeking those who are lost, out of love for Jesus Christ who gave his life for us, dying on the cross and rising again and all that, according to the style of the Holy Family, living in fraternity, available and dedicated. The Capuchin Tertiary Sisters, who came from Spain to Colombia to be missionaries … We know that Inés was repeating that many times! And being already a Capuchin Tertiary Sister she was reclaiming the missionary commitment among us, sisters of her Congregation.
We can imagine Inés in this environment. Undoubtedly, in her dreaming heart, there were decisive moments of missionary seeding. Inés’s dreams will turn, little by little, into wishes and, at the end, her wishes into reality.
Let us go back to the life of Inés to see how she was daily listening to the deep music filling her with an evangelizing vigor and was able to discover what was before her, how she was discovering that life is meaningful only if it is offered and, furthermore, holding the Gospel in her hand and at the whisper of our Charism.
The Capuchin Tertiary Sisters, according to the expressed wish of our Founder, received this task: «to be the trainees of the Good Shepherd, looking for the lost sheep». In today’s language, it means to live in favor of the “least ones”, of the disinherited of the earth and that is a call to be a courageous woman ready to give up her life if necessary.
Inés faithfully lived so. She learned to receive as a GIFT this charismatic experience which marked her forever and also as a TASK and a duty that no one could accomplish on her place. Inés was a very receptive and determined woman, dreaming and critical, happy and cheerful. The «music» that Inés was listening in her inmost as well as all that was happening to her brothers, the Huaorani, were tending her heart, more and more, towards the “last ones”.
On these days of the month of July, being fulfilled on the 21st, the 34th anniversary of her life given up together with the Capuchin Bishop Alejandro Labaka, we are invited to participate in the events that the Vicariate of Aguarico organizes every year in memory of Alejandro and Inés and especially in the 15th Walk, that this year will be virtual and physical. We can follow it through the website: www.alejandroeines.org.
Let us celebrate also the commitment of our sister Inés reading again her biography “Clay and vessel in the wounded jungle” available in the congregational website in PDF format. Let us spread her story among young people and let us see in her a fulfilled experience of our missionary dedication to the most disadvantaged people. Let us also put her as our intercessor and let us pray for her beatification.
May Inés and Alejandro, disciples and missionaries dedicated to the heart of the Ecuadorian jungle, be for us a breath of fresh air, a whisper of the Gospel, a fraternal rumor, an evangelizing fire …
Hna. Isabel Valdizán Valledor, Tc