ICIAR, one among the
“LEGION OF SMALL SOULS”

By: Santiago Arellano Librada, hnssc
(Sacerdote y Director Espiritual de Icíar)

Iciar Ganuza is one among the “legion of small souls, instruments and victims of the Merciful Love of God, object of the desires and hopes of St. Therese of Lisieux.”  Fr. Orlandis, founder of the Schola Cordis Iesu, said that Iciar was “down to earth, deeply convinced of her lack of strength and bravery.” God little by little gave her “an intimate understanding of the genuine devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus,” He filled her with a zeal “for saving souls,” and He taught her to put “all of her trust in the Sacred Heart of Jesus” for her apostolic work. All of this took place because of the Mercy of the Heart of Christ who wins the hearts of those He so desires and works marvels in the souls of those who know they are weak and trust in His Love. Thus, to speak about Iciar is to sing the Mercies of the Lord.

Iciar was born January 18, 1983, in a Christian family, a family that belonged to Schola Cordis Iesu, anxious to transmit the treasure that they had received from Fr. Orlandis. She introduced herself to Benedict XVI in a letter that she wrote to the Holy Father on June 26, 2006:

“Holy Father, my name is Iciar and I am a 23 year old, Spanish young woman... I am a member of a large family; I am the sixth of twelve children. My family is the greatest gift that God has given me because they have transmitted to me my faith and my love for Mary, the Sacred Heart and the Church. I belong to the group Schola Cordis Iesu, of the Prayer Apostolate…Holy Father… Every day I pray for you and for the Church in my daily offering of the Prayer Apostolate and my Rosary. Thank you very much, Affectionately, Iciar Ganuza Canals.”

Iciar died on October 4, 2007, after a year and a half’s fight with cancer.

HER LAST DAYS

The last days of Iciar’s life in this world were a sign of the action of God in her life. Charity was tangible. A week before her death, September 25, she was very weak, she spoke very slowly and was constantly shivering. She had just been told she had few days left and I asked her: “Do you want me to say something to the people who are praying for you?” She answered: “No, I think I have all my work done. My brother Antonio thanked all of those who were praying for me in JRC (Jóvenes por el Reino de Cristo: Young People for the Kingdom of Christ). Later on, you can say to them: Iciar has gone, she wanted to say good-bye to everyone and thank you for your prayers but it was impossible, so she told me to thank you all for everything, and that from heaven she will pray for you.”

    The last novena we prayed, asking for strength and her cure, was to Bl. Pius IX. That same day she joked around saying: “Pius IX has had a lot of chances of curing me, but it hasn’t happened…my case is clear.” Later on she said in a serious tone: “How can I prepare myself for this?” The answer was that all of those months of prayer and the sacraments had already been a preparation. She only had to think about what she was going to say to Jesus and Mary when she met up with them in heaven. She said: “Of course, of course.” -Are you calm? “Yes, I am very calm. I offer everything up. I say my daily offering several times a day; I pray the three o’clock prayer (the Divine Mercy Chaplet) and the rosary. I would like to be more affectionate towards the Lord, our Lady, my family, the doctors and nurses, and towards the people that come to visit me…” At that moment she broke into tears, seeing that she couldn’t because she was physically worn out.  This showed her desire for the Love of God that she was already living and the love of neighbor that was manifest. When someone came to visit her she tried to smile, to make light of her situation, and to forget about herself. She would say: “My sickness is going to end quickly, I just think about those poor people who are suffering like this for twenty years!”

On October 1, feast day of St. Therese of Lisieux, I asked her: Are you alright? -“Yes, if it weren’t for this fatigue. I’m okay, I’m at peace.” She went to confession that same day, conscientiously and with great peace, and she received Communion in the clinic.

She didn’t want to make anyone suffer. Days before she had said: “I want to go to heaven, but I think about Julen (her boyfriend) and my family, seeing them suffer is what makes me suffer the most.  I try not to cry in front of them so that they don’t suffer so much. I keep on asking the Lord to cure me, even though I am convinced that He wants me up there.”  She noted the pain that her death was to cause her family, and thus her joy can be understood when on Monday, October 1, she said: “This is so great! Miguel (my brother) told me that he was happy that I am going to heaven. He told me yesterday in a conversation we had.”
The next day, feast of the Guardian Angels, I asked her, “Do you want me to hear your confession?” She smiled and said, “It is always a good idea, isn’t it? I confess everyday now.” She confessed conscientiously and at the end she fixed her eyes on the crucifix, she pointed to it and said, “Look, how pious” -Do you look at it often? “Yes,” she said. -Does it help you? “Yes, a lot.” -You are going to receive the sacrament of anointing of the sick. She said, “It’s the third time,” as if to say that the third time’s a charm. Later on she said, “I don’t know how much time I have left.” -Don’t worry, whatever God’s wants, He is with you. Surrounded by her family members she received the anointing of the sick, afterwards we prayed an Our Father and a Hail Mary. Then she received Communion, conscious that It is heaven in advance, and repeated, “I love you, Jesus,” “Thank you, Jesus,” “Help me, Jesus,” “I offer you my life, Jesus.” (…)
  
With the large crucifix in her room, towards which she so often looked, she received the Papal Blessing with a plenary indulgence. Beforehand she kissed the crucifix, first Christ’s feet and then His face. After the blessing, she kissed Him again on the face. These would be her last conscious gestures that we could see, as little by little she lost consciousness. That afternoon, Iciar, physically restless, no longer responded with words or gestures, although it seemed that she understood. With her eyes half-open but without fixing her gaze anywhere, she listened to the songs to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and to our Lady, the litanies and prayers that her family and friends recited. She spent the whole day, October 3, like this until 4:00 am on October 4, when her soul went to meet her Merciful Christ.

A NORMAL GIRL

Those of you who have know Iciar know that she was a very normal girl, friendly, good, joyful, with a sense of humor, intelligent, serious about her history studies and with a great faith that she received from her family and that little by little grew in her. Yet at the same time she was not exempt from the temptations and vanities of this world of ours, with defects and miseries. She had always been conscious of her weakness. She used to say: “I’m not a saint, I’ve done stupid things in my lifetime.” At the beginning of her illness, she would say to the doctors that if they could prick her with the needle just once instead of twice that they should do it; and she complained when the test results took a long time… completely normal. In a conversation with a friend on a chat room, during the last months of her life, she was asked to speak about sanctity.
-Friend: “I know… holiness is most important, Iciar, but you could teach us so much about the Divine Mercy if the Lord keeps you here with us… I wonder if it hurts you for me to say these things to you.”
-Iciar: “Maybe it is better that we not talk about these things because you are going to think that I am holy and I am just a pain, the only difference is that I think more. A lot of times these kinds of conversations lead to vanity. And that is what you talk to your spiritual director about.”
When on May 28, she was given the bad news that there was no cure because the tumor in her lung was growing and had extended to her brain, she said: “I’m at peace, I accept whatever God wants... a lot of times that song about what St. Therese said, comes to my mind, the one that says: What is pleasing to God in my little soul is that I love my smallness and my poverty, it’s the blind trust that I have in His Mercy.” She asked them to play that song often. It was a comfort for her soul.

When she heard about the effects of her suffering and prayers on a lot of people who were in turn offering things up for her and who, although they normally never prayed, were praying novenas for her, she was pleased but at the same time she said: How embarrassing! Everybody praying for me. As if I were the protagonist!” We told her that God was the one who received the good in all of this. She was glad and said: “Oh, in that case, it’s fine.” (...)

Once she said, “I don’t consider myself to be the kind of person that could have a miracle happen to them because I was afraid to offer myself up to the Lord, when I felt that strong embrace of God in Lisieux.”

GOD WORKS HIS MASTERPIECE IN ICIAR

At nineteen years of age, Iciar began to feel a great desire for all of those around her to come to know and love the Lord more, she prayed and offered herself up for them. With this concern for the salvation of those whom God had put by her side, she went on the pilgrimage to Cologne, to the encounter with the Pope. On her way back, the pilgrimage passed through Lisieux where St. Therese had lived and died. Iciar was very closely linked to this saint, to her teachings and her life (providentially she died in the octave of the feast of St. Therese, after having lived 24 years like her). She entered into the Basilica and offered herself to God, praying the Act of oblation to the Merciful Love. “In order to live in one single act of perfect Love, I offer myself as a victim of holocaust to your merciful Love, asking You to consume me incessantly, allowing the waves of infinite tenderness shut up within You to overflow into my soul, and that thus I may become a martyr of Your Love, O my God!” (St. Therese, June 9, 1895)

Afterwards she received a very strong consolation that gave a supernatural meaning to her offering. A week before her death, someone asked her if she still remembered what happened in Lisieux. She replied, “I remember perfectly, the Lord inflamed me interiorly, with a very intense flame, giving me a lot of peace. I remember that when I felt it, I thought that God was going to ask for something great from me. I was very happy and I said yes to Him. Afterwards, I became afraid and I asked Him for time. He gave me time, two years... I don’t regret having offered myself.”
Shortly after having received this grace she became afraid and, although she repeated over and over, “I’m not my own, I am yours, do with what is yours however you wish,” she was scared to death and overwhelmed at the thought that this offering of her life could mean that she might have to leave her boyfriend, her family and become a religious sister. She was in this situation for a long time, without peace, until May 2006 when they diagnosed her with cancer. At that moment she said, “Before, I wasn’t at peace and now I have such an immense interior peace and joy because I am sure that I am doing what God wants.” God was asking her to detach herself from her boyfriend and her family, but in another way. When she understood what was God’s will, she accepted it with the strength that comes from God.

GOD GAVE HER STRENGTH

When her illness was far advanced, she said, “They say that in difficult moments God holds you in His arms, but I’m so happy that it’s like He is taking me around in a car and telling me jokes… What a silly thing I just said, you will have to forgive me, but it’s late.” (E-mail written on June 16, 2007, at 12:56 am, she couldn’t sleep). The peace that she had in the face of everything happening to her, especially in her last days, was clear evidence of the gift of Fortitude that she possessed. She transmitted this fortitude and peace to all of those who came near her.

GOD FILLED HER WITH
TRUST IN HIM

One day, talking about her tumor and the metastasis in her lungs, she said, “Before I knew about metastasis, I trusted in modern medicine, but now, I can only trust in God. On the other hand, God is the one who has given me such a happy life… that is why He has to understand that it is hard for me to give it up and that is why I ask Him for my life not to end this way, that I may continue to be with my family and have a future with my boyfriend Julen,… Nonetheless, I have offered myself up for whatever God wants.” (June 16, 2006 at 4:00 pm)

GOD HELPED HER
ACCEPT HIS WILL

Little by little her will was more united to the Lord’s will. In the National Youth Encounter in Pamplona, she said, “I would usually be with you all working as a volunteer... but God has asked something else from me: [...]a tumor, cancer.” In February of that year, she wrote a letter to the young people that were going on a pilgrimage to Fatima saying: “Please pray for me to our Blessed Mother, our Lady of Fatima, so that I may be cured and be able to visit her one day with all of you or that she may help me to be strong and receive me in Heaven.”

Talking to some of her closest friends, who were praying for her, about how she was doing, she said on June 1, 2007: “As you can see, we are fighting with all of the means that the Lord has put in our hands, but above all we continue to trust in His Mercy. Heaven, a long illness or healing, whatever He provides will be the best. Now more than ever we have totally abandoned ourselves in His Heart.” On August 30, she said in a conversation, “If God cures me, I want to be a saint and do things for Him and for others, but if He doesn’t cure me and it’s time for me to go to heaven, I will pray for all of you from up there.”

GOD TAUGHT HER TO OFFER HERSELF UP WITH HIM

Jesus united her to Him: “A lot of times I just look at the cross that is in my room and it helps me.” In the presence of this cross that she had with her in each change of room, everything recovered its meaning. She received the strength from the cross to say, “Each shot, every time I have a pinched nerve in my leg...I offer it up for someone or for some intention.” (Iciar, June 16, 2006)

On August 5, 2006, knowing that the cancer had metastasized to her lungs, she spoke in front of hundreds of young people in the Cathedral of Pamplona: “We have to realize that we are very lucky to have faith, because this is what gives us hope to reach heaven. We must understand that we are just passing by here and that we must live looking toward heaven. This will help you to live your illness [just like any other cross that you might have to bear]. I thank God for having given me faith and I thank my family for transmitting it to me. (...)
“Jesus saved us on the Cross, we too can offer up our sufferings, I offer up a lot of things. People ask me to pray for this thing and that, and I offer up my sufferings for them and God listens to you. It is amazing that God, who can do all things, wants us to be instruments, we who are so insignificant, so useless, to offer up any little thing...” (she began to cry here) “and you can see that it works. God takes these offerings and performs little miracles. People that I have prayed for, atheist friends from the university have lit a candle before our Lady, or people that didn’t even know how to pray are praying, there is so much to pray for.”
“I ask the Lord to heal me, I don’t want it to seem like I want to die, I want to be healed and I ask Him and our Lady with tears… There are also moments of trial when one says, God loves me and He lets this happen to me?... But you have to understand that God sends us those hard times for our own good and although we don’t understand… we must trust the Lord! I have never doubted His Love, I have always had everything I could want. I have had good friends, a good family, a good boyfriend, I have never lacked anything…and it is not fair to be sure of God’s love in the good times, and not in the bad times. I suppose that He understands that we doubt in the hard times, but we have to trust. Our Lady helps us and the Lord gives us strength day by day, He helps us.” (August 5, 2006)

HE MADE HER AN APOSTLE IN WORD
AND SUFFERING

   In the letter that she wrote to the young people that were on a pilgrimage to Fatima she said, “I will offer my illness for each and everyone of you these days, so that you discover the Love that Christ and Mary have for us. That is what gives me strength everyday to keep on fighting and it is what will hold you up when moments of suffering come.”

Iciar loved the Blessed Virgin Mary. Her family had always prayed the rosary together, she wore the scapular of our Lady of Mt. Carmel and she liked to go on pilgrimages to Marian shrines: Iciar, Lourdes, Fatima, etc. Sad about not being able to go with them this time, she encouraged them: “Don’t cease to look at Mary, take advantage of these days to discover her for the first time, or once again. She will lead you to Jesus and when you come home try to maintain what you have lived there, praying a little each day and trying to avoid those things that distance you from the Lord and that steal the Peace and Joy that only God can give you.” (February 2007)

Not thinking at all about herself, she worries about the faith of those who are praying for her: “I am worried about the people that don’t have very much faith and that are praying for me and doing novenas so that I may have strength and be cured. I am happy that they are doing all that, but I wonder if it will be counterproductive and they will stop praying if I am not cured. They don’t realize that even if I am not cured, God is giving me a lot of strength to bear all of this, and that is what they are asking for and it’s a great miracle that the Lord is performing for me.” (May 28, 2007)

We have seen the fruit of Iciar’s offering during these months and we continue to see them today, especially fruits of sanctity and interior growth. A lot of those who have seen the self-donation of Iciar have received interior graces and are not afraid anymore of truly giving themselves. What we have seen in Iciar speaks to all of us about the action of God in a little soul that forgets about itself in order to trust in Him and that is able to live in peace and to convert into an offering of love what is seen in the world as a tragedy.

Iciar is a fruit of the Merciful Grace of the Heart of Christ and she shows us that by becoming little, humble and trusting in God, we can all reach Holiness and a Love full of Charity. Hopefully today we can all become one of those “small souls, instruments and victims of the Merciful Love of God” who, conscious of their “poverty” and with “a blind hope in His Mercy,” full of Love for the Lord, may be able to say what Iciar said so many times: “I am not mine, I am yours, do with what is yours however you like.” He will be with us everyday, giving us His Strength and His Peace and we will be able to sing full of joy, here and in heaven: “Oh give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; for his mercy endures forever!”

©HM Magazine No. 143 July/August 2008