Blessed JOSÉ OLALLO VALDÉS

 

Born in 1820, on Saturday, 12 February, in Havana (Cuba).

Died in Puerto Principe, Camagüey (Cuba) in 1889.

As a one month-old foundling, he was cared for in the Havana home for abandoned infants, and apart from his date of birth and the fact that he had not been baptised, nothing else was known about him. Nothing is known about the source of his vocation, but while still a youth, he came into contact with the Brothers of St John of God who had been present in the St John of God Hospital in Havana since 1603, and he was fascinated by their charism of Hospitality at the service of the sick. He then joined the Order.

In 1835 we find the young José Olalla as a member of the Community of the Brothers of St John of God in the city of Puerto Príncipe (which changed its name to Camagüey in 1903), where he embarked on another stage of his life and where, in 1851, a serious cholera epidemic broke out, and he became involved in the practice of hospitality, first as a Senior Nurse and then, in 1856, as the Community Superior while continuing to care for the sick and needy.

And there, beset by all manner of difficulties, he was to remain for 54 years practising Hospitality, 13 of which he spent alone due to the reduction in the numbers of Cuban Brothers and the return of the Spanish Brothers to Spain.

Blessed José Olallo was known by all for his dedication and charity, day and night, to the sick, the poor, slaves, etc., and as the senior nurse in the hospital, he also attended to the patients' sores, wounds and other problems.

Consumed by his love of God and his neighbour, and with a huge workload, he died in a small room in the same hospital from an aneurysm of the abdominal aorta, on the eve of the liturgical Feast of St John of God, his beloved Founder whom he always endeavoured to emulate, to celebrate with him the crown of the just. His funeral was a triumphant occasion paid for by the people who had always seen in him the figure of the Good Samaritan, leaning over all to soothe their human miseries. Everyone who testified on his behalf described him as "a just and holy man, a paragon of virtue, the father of the poor, the apostle of charity, and a genuine witness to Christian charity".

Over the years, he gradually faded from the memory of his confrères who were no longer present in Cuba, but he always remained vividly present to the Cuban people who had never forgotten him, and who, on the centenary of his death on 7 March 1989, took the initiative to press the bishop, Mgr Adolfo Rodríguez, and the Superior General at the time, Brother Brian O'Donnell, to introduce the process of beatification and canonisation.

His remains lie in the church adjacent to his former hospital.

Beatified at Camagüey by an Apostolic Letter of Benedict XVI on 29 November 2008.

His liturgical Feast Day is 12 February.