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•  "CASA DE MISERICORDIA". JESUS

 

We are located in front of “La Casa de Misericordia” and the tribune.

 

This house still conserves the facade and the stairs that acceded to the interior. Today it is a Healthcare Center, a pioneer in Catalonia. It continues to welcome and take care of the most needy elderly people.

 

If we look to our right, in the wall with arches, we see a window that protects a wooden lattice. It is what we call THE TRIBUNE, which in the days of María Rosa Molas was inside the church, today it´s disappeared to widen the street.

 

We can observe it, accessing the interior of the chapel-room.

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• BOAT BRIDGE

 

We have gone to Tortosa, passing through Ferrerías. And we crossed the Puente de l'Estat to enter the city.

 

Around here Maria Rosa passed over, back then, a bridge of made boats.

 

We stop to observe what the view offers us: cathedral, the  Rastre district, the castle and walls. And in the upper part the hospital "Virgen de la Cinta", located in the area where, in the time of María Rosa, the barracks existed and in times of epidemics it became a Lazareto. We have proof that María Rosa and the sisters from the communities of Tortosa voluntarily volunteered to take care of the sick.

 

We pause for a moment with this image: Availability and commitment without conditions.

 

Those were the feelings of María Rosa: to benefit the poor and the sick, there were no obstacles or difficulties.

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• BISHOPRIC

 

We visited the Bishopric. A charming building where  María Rosa went for all the processing she had to do, especially during the period of the foundation of the Institute.

 

Consultations, petitions, orientations ... a whole range of questions and answers between her -Founder of a Congregation-, and the Chapter Vicar on duty, Ángelo Sancho or Ramón Manero. Then, with Bishop Vilamitjana, great friend and benefactor of the new Institute.

 

Once inside the building, we can climb the gothic ladder, which she stepped on so many  times ...

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• "SANTA CRUZ" HOSPITAL

 

We are in the actual Plaza dels Estudis, in the times of María Rosa, Plaza del Hospital.

 

We are close to the cathedral and the episcopal palace and next to the beautiful Renaissance buildings of the Royal Colleges and the church of Santo Domingo.

 

Currently this building is the headquarters of the Courts of Tortosa. It is the old hospital of Santa Creu. Above the door we can still read the name: "Hospital Sta. Cruz, year 1768".

 

The building is Baroque and was built to serve as a hospital. At the time of the confiscation of Mendizabal, it was the most important hospital in the province of Tarragona, in terms of number of beds.

 

He developed this place until 1906, the year in which it was transferred to “La Casa de Misericordia Jesus”.

 

María Rosa Molas took over from him to control the hospital on April 13, 1852.

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• CENTER OF INTERPRETATION OF THE RENAISSANCE, DOOR OF THE OLD TOWN HALL.

 

Inside the church of Santo Domingo we will see a door, which clearly does not correspond to the place and that is the access door to the building of the old City Hall, from the 19th century. Therefore, from the time of María Rosa Molas.

 

When it was demolished it was conserved and placed in this place that was recovered as the city's historical museum.

 

As we are walking the route of the Mother, once inside the church, we can go through this door to go to the street of La Vall and from here to Moncada street.

 

Before continuing, we stopped at Vall Street, which occupied part of the course of the Rastre stream, now canalized, and which filled its flow when it rained, endangering the neighboring houses. On one of those occasions, it damaged the wall of the hospital that faces this street, and that is now behind us, so that when  there were landslides and they had to vacate the hospital, temporarily transferring the sick to “La Casa de Misericordia de Jesus”.

 

Let us think of all the difficulties that this would entail and how the Sisters would accompany the sick and in the work to make the transfer. We follow her steps, her  life experience, look for all the good in others, never her own interests.  These are her  words: to seek the good of the poor and the glory of God.

 

Through the Calle de la Vall we went to calle Moncada, nº 13, to visit the place of the public school and first school of the Sisters.

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•  MONCADA STREET SCHOOL

 

We are located in front of nº 13, a house with an arch door that preserves the structure of the building of the first school for girls run by María Rosa.

 

Previously the City of Tortosa, seeing the good progress that the House of Mercy had taken, decided to entrust also the Public School for girls, to the Sisters. Soon the prestige of the school grew among the Tortosian society and no vacancies remained. This places us in the year 1851.

 

Later the social changes will also affect the progress of this School, and the Sisters were forced to leave it. It is when they open a school of their own  and that is where we are now.

 

Behind us in the small park we can see the neoclassical door that gave access to the public school.

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• “DE LA ROSA” STREET

 

Throughout the 27 years that María Rosa lived between Jesus and Tortosa, we can image how many people she would have known. Men and women who came into her life, who knew her, who knew her convictions and her plans. They were friends and collaborators of her life´s work, Consolation. They were: Benito Vilamitjana, Juan Gurrera, Bruno Palau, Sebastián León, Mateo Auxachs, and many others.

 

And in this street of the Rose, she met who was her drawing teacher: Ramón Cerveto y Bestratén, painter and sculptor, father of a generation of artists. He had the workshop on this street, at number 7.

 

In this street we can also look for the nº 10 and we will see the building of what was the Consolación school from 1886. In this building we see an urn with the image of the Virgen de la Rosa that presided over one of the main entrances to the city.

 

From here we go again to the bridge of L'Estat to go to ,”La Casa Madre” where we will finish our route.

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• SHALL WE NAVIGATE?

 

Now we stay on land. Although it is an interesting recreational walk and that can bring us closer to the experience of María Rosa and the Sisters who founded in Mora de Ebro.

 

Before crossing the bridge, we observed the pier at the foot of the municipal market and we can imagine the trip of the first Sisters who, with María Rosa, started a trip to Mora de Ebro, for the first boarding school.

 

From this side of the bridge, before crossing the river Ebro, we see on the left, the church of Roser, in whose presbytery there is a mural with the image of María Rosa Molas. The church is open many hours throughout the day, surely we can enter.

 

And if we look up, on the horizon we can admire Monte Caro. With its 1,442 meters in height it is the highest peak in the province of Tarragona.

 

"There is nothing more beautiful on earth than the works of the Creator," said María Rosa.

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• CONVENT OF FRANCISCANOS, CURRENT PARISH OF JESUS

 

We have already returned to Jesus, and upon arriving we can see the tower of the parish church on the left and at the bottom on the right “La Casa Madre”, the end of our journey.

 

The church is part of the whole convent of the Franciscan Fathers. In this building seized by the civil authorities, the hospital of Santa Cruz was moved twice, in the time of the Mother. In 1906 she moved permanently to “Casa de la Misericordia”

We are on the banks of the right channel of the Ebro, inaugurated in 1857, which reminds us of the beginning of the founding period of the Congregation.

 

And we go to “La Casa Madre” by Rose street, in nº 15, we can see a date in the portalada of the house -1859-, carved in pink marble of Tortosa, a year that keeps reminding us of the foundational period.

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• "CASA MADRE" SISTERS OF CONSOLATION

 

This is “La Casa Madre”, which was the dream that María Rosa Molas could not see fulfilled: the availability of a house for the formation of the novices.

 

It was on June 13, 1878 when the first stone was laid and on October 4, 1880, the sisters and novices were installed in the new headquarters.

 

This is “La Casa Madre” that many sisters have known until the new works of 1987, with an interior courtyard surrounded by an artistic cloister, forming a square.

 

Currently “La Casa Madre” hosts the residence of older sisters and the community of sisters who attend and accompany them at this stage of their lives.

 

A part of the house is also dedicated to spirituality, which is available to welcome groups of sisters and others  who come to the House to participate in meetings of formation, renewal or spiritual exercises, as well as various celebrations, congregational celebrations and the profession of sisters.

 

Here we can visit the Museum and the church where is the altarpiece-tomb of Santa María Rosa Molas. Also the missionary museum and the trencadís mosaic mural that, in a visual way, covers the work of Salvation-Consolation.

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. . . . . . . . . 

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And here ends our tour.

 

Thank you for joining us and that María Rosa continues to inspire your path, now  and along the path of daily life.

 

A very warm greeting. Sisters of Consolation.

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