Sor Ascensión de San José
was born on May 9, 1861, and she was baptized on the 12th, in the parish church of Santa María la Mayor de Huéscar, then belonging to the archbishopric of Toledo and the province of Granada.
She received the name of Isabel Ascension.
Her parents were called Andrés and Josefa Sánchez Romero.
They owned a country house (cortijo), between the towns of Huéscar and Orce. It was a family of wealthy farmers, very good Christians, who gave their eight children, three boys and five girls, a careful education, especially a religious one.
Isabel Ascension was the penultimate [voorlaatste] of all of them. Half a year after receiving baptism, she also received her confirmation on November 11, 1861, in the parish church of Santa María, in the town of Orce.
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She was able to begin her novitiate at the Dominican convent in Huéscar around May 1884, in which month she was 23 years old.
From the time she took her habit, to her baptismal names Isabel Ascension she added ´San José´. In this way her name would be written from now on, although familiarly and for short they commonly called her ´Sor San José´.
Her biographer claims that she entered and lived as a ´religious of obedience´. This meant that she did not follow the community in everything, i.e. in regard to the entire choral celebration. Sisters of obedience all had to learn some kind of work and engage in it.
She professed in early October 1885.
She was helpful to everyone...
kind, patient, balanced, youthful, humble, long-suffering, supportive, very simple, very happy and pleasant. She liked to be with the young sisters, her whole life unfolded in an environment of childlike simplicity and innocence that enchanted everyone. One never tired of her presence and company, she didn't get heavy. On the contrary, if she wasn't there, they missed her.
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She found her strength in the presence of God...
expressly through the recitation of the rosary, which she did with all due respect.
For many years she was known among her peers for her prudence and silence. In the scruples that she suffered, she manifested an absolute conformity to the disposition of the superior and an enviable path of peace. She was always as submissive as a child.
She suffered diseases with great patience and even joy, always hiding the fact that sometimes she had to put up with sores [zweren] that went from head to toe. She suffered with great patience and love.
She kept in her heart what she heard in talks and readings.
They were distributed among relatives and charitable people.
The convent was looted.
Sor San José was welcomed at the home of a niece.
Her prioress continued to care for her as well.
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She was arrested on February 16, after the men broke into the house that evening, because the persecutors considered it enough of a crime that she wore a crucifix around her neck.
She was nearing her 76th birthday.
In the dungeons of her town hall, she was beaten at times, and ordered to renounce her faith and blaspheme, since her captors believed that it would amuse them to see a nun at her age do this. But she refused to give in, and her captors decided to kill her, alongside several others which included her nephew Florencio.
The soldiers decided to take them in a van in the morning to a local cemetery, and brutally threw the aged nun in the van which she had been unable to get into by herself due to her age.
Sánchez, who never stopped praying throughout the ordeal, was the last one killed on 17 February 1937. Her captors decided not to shoot her like the rest, and instead beat her to death with a rock. Her last words were recorded as ´Long live Christ the King!´
Her relics remained buried in the burial place of the Huéscar cemetery.
They later moved to a niche donated by the city council on December 6, 1958.
Her transfer to the Dominican monastic cemetery in Huéscar took place on May 25, 1973.
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