October 7th Blessed José Llosá Balaguer

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October 7th Blessed José Llosá Balaguer

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José Llosá was born on August 23, 1901 in Benaguasil (Valencia) and his parents were Antonio and Francisca. He learned his first letters in his hometown and, when he was twelve, he entered the apostolic school run by the Capuchin tertiaries in the convent of Our Lady of Monte Sión in Torrent, Valencia.

In the novitiate house of San José, in Godella (Valencia), he took the religious habit on October 15, 1917. And two years later, on the same date, he made his first religious vows. He perpetually professed on September 15, 1925.

He completed his priestly studies but, not considering himself worthy of the priesthood, he never entered the priesthood, always exercising his ministry in Madrid, in whose fraternity of the Caldeiro Foundation House he was surprised by religious persecution.

Equipped with the corresponding safe conduct, Fray José Llosá moved first to Meliana, and then to his hometown, but, given the insecurity of the moment, he chose to take refuge in a mansion in the Valencian neighborhood of Velluters, located very close to the Torres de Quart. On the night of October 1, 1936, he was arrested and taken to the Civil Government, first, and then imprisoned in the city's cell prison.

Casually informed that the next day they would come for him to kill him, he spent the afternoon of that day talking with another priest, also a prisoner, about spiritual things and in confessing, expressing his acceptance of martyrdom, his forgiveness of his enemies and his great devotion to Jesus and Mary. At dawn on October 7, 1936, he was taken from prison and executed in his hometown. His mortal remains rest in the Communion Chapel of Benaguasil.

With a somewhat timid and pusillanimous temperament, but very well gifted by nature for the art of music and singing, Fray José Llosá received a careful cultural, religious and moral education. He was a cultivated and sensitive religious man, a lover of his land and his family, extremely cordial and with a great spirit of dedication in his ministry of reforming lost youth.

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Devotion to the souls in Purgatory contains in itself all the works of mercy, which supernaturalized by a spirit of faith, should merit us Heaven. de Sales
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