The visionary Amparo Cuevas was born on March 13, 1931 in the village of
El Pesebre, municipality of Penascosa, province of Albacete in Spain.
Along with husband Nicasio Barderas Bravo they have seven children between
24 and 36. When she first began experiencing communication with Our Lord
her children were between 10 24 and needed more attention. Amparo does not
have a formal education and hardly knows how to read and write. She was
the perfect candidate to become a humble messenger.
Both Amparo and Nicasio suffered from poor health. He worked the soil and
served as part-time watchman and gate-keeper at the same house Amparo was
employed as a cleaning woman. During a pilgrimage to Lourdes, she was
healed of a severe heart ailment.
Amparo's life was one of extreme poverty, sacrifice, and hard work. This
background enabled her to prepare well for a life of prayer, sacrifice and
penance which the Blessed Mother was going to entrust to her in her
messages and private revelations to her for her own spiritual development.
Her early childhood was marked with tragedy after her own mother died, for
her stepmother kept her locked in a room for long hours at a time. Though
she did not know how to pray as a child, she invoked the Blessed Mother
with filial devotion, and Our Lady responded in kind. From as long as she
could remember Amparo always felt a compassionate love toward her neighbor.
Yet, her spirituality was surface in the early years for though she
acknowledged the existence of a Supreme Being, Amparo was unconcerned about
carrying out her religious responsibilities.
However, toward the middle of November in 1980, Amparo had a religious
experience, which would affect her entire life as we all as her
relationship with God. She heard a voice, which told her: "Pray for the
peace of the world and the conversion of sinners. Love one another. You
are going to receive trials of suffering." Indeed, Amparo began to bleed
in her forehead and hands, feeling sharp pains. She cried out in fright:
"Well, what is this!?!" Our Lord, nailed to the cross, then appeared to
her and said: "My daughter, this is the Passion of Christ. You have to
endure it completely." Amparo answered, "I will not refuse it." Jesus
nodded. "If you do not refuse it for a few seconds, how much would I spend
entire hours on the cross dying for the same people who were crucifying Me?
You can save many souls with your suffering."
Jesus then asked Amparo if she would accept and she responded, "With your
help, Lord, I will endure it." Thus, in this brief communication from
Jesus, Amparo heard two words which she would hear again and again during
the course of the next fourteen years in which she would receive messages:
PRAYER and SUFFERING (which includes sacrifice and penance). These two
words would be the cornerstone of her mission to save souls.
From that moment on, Amparo became a different person. She learned the
importance of and the value of the virtue of humility, which would be
stressed in Mary's messages to her. Amparo was instructed to seek
opportunities to show that humility. Our Lady would ask her to kiss the
ground "for the conversion of sinners", "for consecrated souls", "for the
salvation of humanity", "for the souls in purgatory", etc. Slowly Amparo
began to develop spirituality and her life became more intense in the
practice of virtues such as humility, charity, faith, and others.
Next installment: part three - Mystical Gifts and the Chalice of Suffering .