21 APRIL - OUR MOTHER OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION (SPAIN)

 Beatrice de Silva was born of Portuguese parents at Ceuta and manifested a special attachment to our Immaculate Mother very early in life. 

    At the court of the king of Castile she was presented and cast into prison by a jealous queen, but by the visible intervention of the Immaculate Queen of heaven, 

    she was released and justified with great honor. Then she left the court and went to Toledo. On the journey St. Francis and St. Anthony appeared to her and announced 

    that she would be the founder of a new order. At Toledo, Beatrice repaired a convent of Cistercian nuns and remained there for almost 40 years. 

    She did not put on the religious garb; nevertheless, she was a model of religious perfection. A few years earlier the Blessed Virgin had showed Beatrice in a vision that 

    she should wear a habit consisting of a white tunic and scapular with a light blue mantle. 

    This was the origin of the Order of the Immaculate Conception or the Conceptionist Poor Clares.




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