The Valencian woman the Pope called, moved by her faith, dies at the degenerative disease she suffered from as a child

María José Solaz Viana

, a Valencian woman who was called by

"moved by her faith in the face of the degenerative disease she had suffered from since she was a child", has died at 46 years of age in her hometown, Caudete de las Fuentes ( Valencia).

As explained by the Archdiocese of Valencia in a statement,

two years ago after hearing her testimony through a letter from her that the former parish priest of Caudete de las Fuentes, Ricardo Fogués, sent to the Vatican. .

The parish priest had invited María José to write a letter to the Pope so that he would send it to him at an audience he planned to attend.

She dictated it to him, since he could not write, and he attended the audience with the Pope on September 21, 2018, together with the Archbishop of Valencia, Cardinal

, as well as members of the Episcopal Council and the Priestly Convictor.

After the audience held, when the parish priest greeted the Pontiff, he spoke to him about María José and

.

The Pope blessed her and asked her to pass the blessing on to her and her family.

Afterwards, the priest delivered the letter from María José to Monsignor Georg Gänswein, prefect of the Pontifical Household.

A few days after that meeting, Pope Francis called María José's house, spoke for several minutes with her mother, María Luisa, and

.

The Pontiff, in turn, told Maria Luisa that he had read his daughter's letter, which had moved him and turned out to be "very beautiful";

and that her testimony had done her "a lot of good."

At the time of the Pope's call, María José's illness was already in a very advanced state.

She had been diagnosed with eight years of age, as

, a degenerative disease that was reducing her nervous system and the muscles of her entire body.

In an interview she gave to the diocesan weekly 'Paraula' ten years ago, she herself said that

on her own was the one she received the sacrament of Confirmation, when she was

old.

After that day, he had to use a wheelchair and over the years, another of an electric type, which he could only drive autonomously for some time.

With 25 years of age, his degree of motor disability was already one hundred percent and in recent years the advance of the disease meant that he could hardly see, hear and speak.

On November 16, he died in Caudete de las Fuentes.

WRITTEN A WAY OF THE CROSS

María José left a written work of hers that has been gradually spreading also in different Valencian towns.

It is a question of a Stations of the Cross carried out by herself a decade ago at the suggestion of the priest Salvador Romero and which has been read in various Valencian parishes on Good Friday as well as in the French sanctuary of Lourdes.

During the last months of his life, according to the Archbishopric, the current priest of Caudete de las Fuentes, Celestino Aló, was present and was also able to observe the strength of the faith of María José.

When she went to her house to bring her the viaticum, the parishioner was

but for a moment, upon receiving communion, "she regained her energy."

The priest administered it with a small fragment in a teaspoon of water and was surprised to see María José's reaction.

"His mouth suddenly opened with incredible force, as if nothing was happening," he explained.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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