CELEBRATING THE GLORIOUS SAINT ÁGUEDA WHEN WOMEN RULE IN ZAMARRAMALA. TODAY YOU HAVE TO BECOME A LITTLE ZAMARRIEGO

 

Santa Águeda 1938 my father's knees froze in Teruel

 

When the weather changed, Silvino's knees hurt. Son, son, Teruel, he told me and he went to Teruel to defend the seminary. At 23 below zero. It was the day of Saint Agatha and during the 79 years that Lieutenant Parra lived he ordered a mass and placed a candle on the altar of the Sicilian saint to whom a jealous praetor named Quinciano ordered his breasts to be cut into slices.

Jealousy is terrible. Ágata, beautiful name, was sentenced to a dungeon. The apostle Saint Peter came down from heaven to visit her and returned the bottles to the place where they were, a story that is difficult to believe, but saints are saints and they have thaumaturgic powers. Oh cruel Quincino, in this way you cut off the breasts from which you suckled, they say he said and the tyrant lowered his head. Immediately afterwards he ordered her throat to be beheaded, and there is the glorious Saint Agatha, giving name to so many churches and blessing from the altars consecrated to her devotion throughout Christendom, the parturients, the menstruating women, the nursing nurses, the nursing mothers.

Saint Luke performs a song to the births: Beatus venter qui te portavit et ubera qui tu suxisti, the evangelist tells us, blessed is the womb that carried you and the breasts that you suckled. Or the mother who gave birth to you is alive.

  That woman's cry has a long history because redemption has to do with conception. Sex, don't be scared, fools is part of the Christian life and my father's knees froze on the Teruel front.

Since then he was a little lame. In the seminar he fought with a knife. Attackers and defenders were Spanish and, of course, nothing needs to be said about this.

The battle was hand to hand, with a fixed bayonet. The entire battery succumbed to the attack of the reds. Silvino, however, was able to tell it thanks to the intercession of the glorious Saint Agatha. On winter afternoons when we sat by the kitchen fire, the veteran, everyone loved Sergeant Parra, he told me the events he had experienced and names of towns jumped out in his memory: Alfambra, Guadalviar, Caudé, Concud, Mansueto, the cemetery of Teruel and that artillery officer who, under enemy fire, tried to cover the retreat of his men by crossing the Plaza del Torico without defiling at full speed.

The last faggot, they say he said, and there he was left paralyzed by the shot of a paco stationed in the tower of the church of Santa Emerenciana.

Once the fierce fight was over, on February 21, 38, it was reconquered by the nationals. The force came in, but my father Silvino's legs were stiff and semi-frozen for the rest of his life. Teruel, son, Teruel. The great battle.

I will never forget the day of the festival of Saint Águeda when the women rule in Zamarramala