CENTRAL DOSSIER
THE MEMORY OF OUR MARTYRS
Evaristo Martínez de Alegria, scj
The First Steps in the Gaze of the Church and the Congregation
Perhaps it is asking too much to ask you to take another look at the figure of Fr. Juan, considering that he is already a familiar figure to you. However, there are many things which can be said about him, information which will add color to a personality already rich and well known. For the large majority he belongs to those good and holy religious about whom much was heard and said many years ago, particularly around the 60s, when the process of canonization started in Spain (1959). We were all convinced - so it appears from our magazines - that both Fr. Dehon and Fr. Prévot would have preceded everyone else on the road towards the altars in spite of the difficulties of their processes; difficulties which both Fr. Ceresoli and the lawyers, the “famous lawyers”, have made efforts to overcome.
It should not be forgotten that these were other times on the ecclesial, theological and devotional level. They were times which at least seemed more peaceful, not only in the Church, led by Pope Pacelli, but also in the Congregation itself, which, during the long Generalate of Fr. Govaart, had lived through the sufferings of the Second World War, as well as the expansion and affirmation of the Institute.
For us it was first and foremost the epoch of the missions. This occurred both by means of our Dutch, Belgian, French and Italian brethren, and by the consolidation of the Congregation itself in Europe, Brazil and the United States. These events, occurring under the leadership of the brief Generalates of Frs. Lellig and De Palma, brought the Institute to the point of crossing the threshold of an unexpected Council and enduring the consequences of crisis and renewal in the Congregation and in the Church.
The Saints and Making the Council Contemporary
In step with the times - as well as with the social, political and intellectual changes - the critical roots and contestation regarding the saints also started to appear in the Church and in the religious Institutes. This happened in a particular way throughout the more developed countries of the North, such as Germany, France and Holland - countries which had brought the great theologians of the moment to the Council as “experts”. At times discussed, forbidden or controlled by the Holy Office, the worship of the saints was to suffer while trying to find its place in ecclesiology.
At the same time, as it had happened at the Council of Trent, the worship of the saints was to be a question which needed to be resolved. One had to wait for the great wave of the Second Vatican Council, which, with the Council Constitution Lumen Gentium on the Church, and the Sacrosantum Concilium on the Liturgy, was to renew the concept of worshiping the saints and attempt to put it into a certain order.
In the updated liturgical calendar not only Sunday and the liturgical hours were emphasized once again but also the centrality of Christ the Lord who died for us but who rose again and lives. This was a reality which was to influence the very architecture of the new churches and chapels. Now the center would belong to the altar and to the ambo, to the Eucharist and to the Word, and would be presided over by the victorious Cross, empty or still with the figure of the suffering Christ dead for our sins. In the old churches, loaded with centuries and devotions of all kinds, there was sometimes too much or too little cleaning done.
For the most part, in the new architecture all that array of saints, on the altars or in the niches of the walls, has disappeared; even the Madonna has had some difficulty in finding a place. However, before this change there were so many of them and with so many different attributes.
Trying to Take the Right Step in the Church of Today
The saints, along with the veneration and worship of saints, have remained at the grassroots level of the Christian people, even for those who live their life far from a living, working and witnessing faith. Perhaps, as we speak, our saints are coming back into their own, as are many other things in the Church - existing, as it does, in that everyday world where there are swings of the pendulum.
Our sanctuaries are places of prayer, of conversion and of meeting for many of the faithful. These are people who are bound to the sacred, or who have that feeling of being face to face with the awe and fascination of meeting with the sacred. As scholars of religion affirm, this reality has involved and attracted mankind in all peoples of the earth since the beginning of humanity.
We know that the Church, at this moment, is showing an interest in the ministry of the sanctuaries and places of pilgrimage. Meetings, documents, animation and pastoral service are now being dealt with very carefully by bishops and by priests. To the continual movement of our Christians, who are now living more or less everywhere, these sanctuaries and places of pilgrimage offer themselves, also to those living in this culture of free-time, as places of prayer, of reflection and, perhaps, of opportunities for the rediscovery of one’s own Christian roots, to which John Paul II has referred so often.
The Saints in the Life of the People of God
Perhaps, in rediscovering this “sensus fidei” - that is, the sensation that was felt by the People of God who first drew close to being witnesses to the faith - we will understand what was felt by those martyrs of the first centuries, and later by the confessors: bishops, priests, monks, etc. And when we achieve this, we will be able to understand what the beatification of one of our people, Fr. Juan Maria de la Cruz, concretely means to us; being, as he was, not so far from our human, Christian, religious and pastoral experiences, nor from our times, nor from our Dehonian religious charism. That is why his figure can speak to us and question our way of living the Dehonian charism and ministry. This is possible even though he is almost 70 years away from us in time, and even further from us with regard to the profound changes of modern living.
Setting a Christian in the role of martyr and beatifying him means nothing on the part of the Church if not that the Servant of God - because of his practice of virtue to a heroic degree, his reputation for holiness and his “bonus odor Christi” - deserves to be venerated. Beatification implies that the Servant of God may be called “Blessed” and that in his honor, on his dies natalis, Mass and the Office is celebrated. This institution did not exist in the Church until the 16th century. Today, because of the way in which it is done, it can often lead to confusion in the life of the Church, as indeed Canonization does.
Dying for faith in Christ, as in the case of martyrdom, is what defines and confirms total love for the Lord. No one loves more than he who gives his life for the Loved One. And this is the ultimate reason for which the martyr deserves to be remembered, venerated and imitated by his brethren in the faith. This is valid also with regard to beatification on a particular level, that is, on the level of the martyr’s own religious Community or of the particular Church where the martyr lived and bore witness with his blood; showing his love for the faith and for the Church also by pardoning his torturers. A prostitute was sanctified as a martyr for these same motives.
What is Holiness? A Small Pathway
In order to succeed in expressing what perfection, holiness, is it is necessary to direct one’s eyes towards a model of life that is different from the human life, in other words towards a perfect life. For us, this is the divine life, the life of God Himself, which by definition is holy and commands us to be, like Him, holy and perfect. One can make their holiness present among us in direct relation to the degree that one participates in the very life of God. This, at rock bottom, cannot be defined. Indeed, neither can the very existence of God, whom the Holy Scriptures, in the New Testament, through the mouth of St. John, was to define with “God is love”. Whereas, in the book of Exodus, in the Old Testament, He reveals Himself to Moses with the words “I am who I am”.
The life of the saints, on the level of vital experience, rather than being a way of entering into the infinity of indefinable mysteries and mystic experiences, was to be a journey in the love of Him. This journey continued to the point of being immersed in Him and of becoming, with Him, a witness to this love among the brethren. Perhaps this may be the meaning of the affirmation in our Rule of Life where we are advised to be “prophets of love and servants of reconciliation”: of love, of mercy, of tenderness, of compassion, of the very Heart of God, as it is manifested to us in the pierced Heart of Jesus.
The Incarnate God and Man Made Divine
And God became man: the divine participated in the human, that is what we call the Incarnation. And this fact has made it possible for man to arrive at being God, to share in divinity. To human life is given the possibility of uniting with and participating in the divine life. This is an event which is directed, moved and actuated by the Spirit of God. Man, by himself, would never be capable of succeeding in doing everything which the Incarnation has created in man’s being.
Holiness is man’s response, through the Holy Spirit, to the initiative of the Incarnation. As Irenaeus of Lyons said in the second century: “God became man so that man might become God”. One can also recall many liturgical texts of the Christmas season, as well as the magnificent homilies of St. Leo the Great in the Liturgy of the Hours.
That Which Make Holiness Possible
Not believing in the saints presupposes not believing in these theological reflections: not accepting that between God and man there exists a continuity, not accepting that man has the possibility of gathering the divine life within himself. That would be saying that Luther was right in claiming that man was irremediably marked by sin, and that he bears this reality from his birth until his death.
In the world of Luther, in the Protestant churches, there is no place for the saints as they are considered by the Catholic Church - even though there was no lack of doubts about them in the first years of the reformation. Today these martyrs and saints are considered great figures in the faith and worthy to be remembered in the life of the individual Christian communities, but they are not recognized as having the power of intercession.
We Catholics believe that we are all saints and that we are all called to holiness in love from the very moment of our baptism. That is, we believe that by receiving the grace of the sacrament, through which the Christian becomes a new creature in Jesus Christ, we are called upon to maintain it as something which is living and active. Even children, in their own way and according to their own experience, can offer not only the witness of martyrdom but also a Christian progress and surprising mystical experiences, as happened to that Roman baby, Nennolina, who died at the age of seven and was buried in the Basilica of the Holy Cross. She was a child known and admired by Pius XI himself, and she was written about by our own Fr. Giradi years ago.
John Paul II With Us
In his Apostolic Letter Novo Millennio Ineunte, dated at the Epiphany of 2001, the Pope writes: “This lively sense of repentance, however, has not prevented us from giving glory to the Lord for what He has done in every century, and in particular during the century which we have just left behind, by granting His Church a great host of saints and martyrs. For some of them the Jubilee year has been the year of their beatification or canonization. Holiness, whether ascribed to Popes well known by history, or to humble lay and religious figures, from one continent on the globe to another, has emerged more clearly as the dimension which best expresses the mystery of the Church. Holiness, a message that convinces without the need for words, is the living reflection of the face of Christ.
“On the occasion of the Holy Year much has also been done to gather together the precious memories of the witnesses to the faith in the 20th century. Together with the representatives of the other Churches and Ecclesial Communities, we commemorated them on May 7, 2000 in the evocative setting of the Colosseum, the symbol of the ancient persecutions. This is a heritage which must not be lost; we should always be thankful for it and we should renew our resolve to imitate it” (7).
Fr. Juan Arrives Among our Saints
Fr. Juan has come to knock on our doors. As I mentioned before, he has had a long journey of silence both in the ecclesiastical environment and in our Institute. This journey has been a little less silent among our people in Spain, where Fr. Antonio Aguilera, - vice-postulator from 1959, when the Process of Canonization began, up to the present day - by means of a simple and humble four page magazine, “Corazón Ardente” (Burning Heart), (old fashioned to our eyes and one of those that one pays no attention to when they arrive in our houses), succeeded in keeping up and sustaining the devotion to and the memory of this true priest, religious and Dehonian.
It was he - the Lord uses men for His purposes - who was to carry the burning torch, like the lights our families carry to the graves of our dear ones, and to keep alive the memory and the reputation for holiness of this our new Blessed. Fr. Bressanelli makes this very clear in sincerely thanking Fr. Aguilera in his letter regarding the then imminent beatification. And, in fact, once the last steps of the canonical procedure for the Congregation for the Causes of Saints had been achieved, the decree “super Martyrio” was signed on December 18, 2000.
Some Questions Regarding the Future of Our Causes
Allow me to say, and this is an almost obligatory parenthesis, that if we want to carry ahead the Causes which are close to our heart, that of Fr. Dehon and of Fr. Prévot, (and those more recent ones presented to Rome by Frs. Longo and Martino Capelli), we lack only that sign - call it a miracle - which is currently, unfortunately, required in order to move ahead; even though the vote of the theologians in the Positio and the Decree “super virtutibus e fama sanctitatis” have already been achieved.
We are all in agreement that it would be more interesting, and more consistent with the tradition of the Church of the first centuries, to consider, examine and accurately study the actual life, lived in the practice of heroic virtues, as well as the reputation for holiness. We also agree that one should take the commitment to encourage the devotion to our “saints” more seriously. Much has been done during these last years to promote an increased knowledge of the figure and the personality of Fr. Dehon: writings, letters, thoughts, charism - (Fr. Prévot, unfortunately, is becoming an unknown among us). We have, however, done very little to promote devotion to Fr. Dehon. This is a personal opinion which I feel can be confirmed by looking at our publications, in particular those distributed to our benefactors, where the prayer for beatification or for the obtaining of grace through the intercession of various saints hardly every appears, except when it concerns the well loved man from Andria: “Pope John”.
The Cause for Fr. Longo and Fr. Capelli, now in the Roman phase, is proceeding; however, more or less the same thing seems to be happening. In this regard we could question the interest of the Province and of the Congregation itself. In the age of internet, perhaps there could be a solution to make these brethren of ours known. I do not know if on our site in the Spanish Province there is something on Fr. Juan, but I do not think so.
Here is what they sometimes say in the Congregation: When we are asked about the state of our Causes and we let them know that all we need now are the miracles, the answer is always “Either you do not have faith in your saints as intercessors, or you are not making the faithful around you pray to them, or the Lord has other plans”.
Even Fr. Juan, in his life as a mendicant and vocational animator, left some sign of grace among the people: such as the cure, in 1934 in Pamplona, of a baby who would have had to have an operation on her throat but who, in his presence and through his prayers, was cured.
The little magazine of the vice-postulation in Madrid has, for many years, told us of these facts which are regarded as extraordinary - at least for those who have lived them. They speak to us clearly of the reputation for holiness and of the intercessions of these “friends of God”, as the saints and, even more, the martyrs are considered.
The Saints Recognized By the Church and For the Church
In the Square of St. Peter’s, on March 11th, together with 232 others, also one of our brethren, Fr. Juan Maria de la Cruz, was inscribed in the roll of those who are ‘blessed’. As happens with this kind of beatification, the event aroused great admiration and the awakening of interest in our old and sleepy Christian communities where they bore witness with their life and blood to their total love for God and their brethren. In addition, however, there will probably be socio-political criticism on the part of many others who think that this beatification is not opportune, either for society or for the so-called official Church itself - inspired, unfortunately, not by the Gospel but by the principle that one must not get involved in politics in order not to disturb the interests of the politicians who are currently in power.
There are still people who question the value of so many solemn affirmations of Christian and Catholic life at a time when we are being faced with ecumenism. Their doubts exist in spite of the fact that it has been made clear to all the Christian Churches and communities that we cannot forget any of those victims, who belonged to all confessions, of the great Christian holocaust of the 20th century; in spite of the fact that their sacrifices were remembered during that great day of celebrating the memory of the witnesses to the faith held at the Colosseum in the month of May 2000.
In the prologue to the Spanish Edition of the Dictionary of the Saints, after making reference to what has been said about the evolution of the worship of the saints in the second half of the 20th century, the writer continues with: “Today, in our time, we have reached a situation of balance in which the saint appears as a person who is close to us, with a friendly face, one who, with their example reflects the mystery and invites us to share in the Passion of Christ”.
However, it is also said that “there are too many beatifications happening today”. This expression, although it may seem a bit strange, has not been taken from the media; it was pronounced by John Paul II himself in 1994: “This, in addition to reflecting reality, which, thanks to God, is as it is, corresponds to the express desire of Vatican II. The Gospel is spread so widely in the world and the roots of its message are so deep that, justly, the great number of beatifications vigorously manifests the action of the Holy Spirit and the vitality which springs from Him in the field which is the most essential for the Church, that of Holiness” (Observatore Romano, Spanish Weekly Edition, June 20, 1994; Cf. Leopardi, Riccardi, Zarri: Diccionario de los Santos (Dictionary of the Saints)....)I, 13. San Pablo, Madrid 2000.
And we, in a particular way, must rejoice in the Lord, not only for the beatification of our Fr. Juan but also for this great array of blesseds and saints who have been proclaimed by John Paul II. As it is said in the Apocalypse: “Ex omni popolo, tribu, et lingua et natione”, that is, from the humble layman to married couples, to religious, presbyters, bishops and the Popes themselves. One and the same holiness is manifested in the great rainbow of those who receive the Spirit within the Church: the People of God.
The saints are not strange people, distant from our human, Christian experiences, nor, on many occasions, from our consecrated or religious life - one need only consider the road followed by our Fr. Juan.
Following his path through the years, from 1891 to 1936, we realize how full of travails it must have been. We understand this the more we learn about him, the closer we draw to his person and his family, to the religious, social and political environment in which he lived as a boy and humble peasant, to the time in which he became a priest, a religious and, in the end, a martyr for Christ.
A first glance at the cold facts of human, historical and religious chronology, may leave us, if not indifferent, certainly with the idea of a good man, a priest, a religious, like those who belonged to the first Dehonians, those who lived close to Fr. Dehon and who, with their extreme generosity, have remained models of life for us. With the passing of years these people remain in the oblivion for the new generations who do not seem to be very attached to their roots and to their own history as a family, meaning the Dehonian Family of course. We need, for the “Study Center” (and for this more staff will be needed), to go more deeply into those studies which, from time to time, can offer us so many surprises about our Dehonian charism, to go more deeply into that history which has so far been handed down to us but is not discussed very much and is not very well known. Fr. Dehon himself, when he was writing his memoirs (Souvenirs) in 1912, summarized his life and the foundation and wrote of this while asserting that young people, even then, did not know the history of their origins.
From the Ground Floor to the First Steps
San Esteban de los Patos, where our Fr. Juan was born, is a small village, poor in its agricultural subsistence eked out on arid land. It is a place where the granite soon comes to the surface; where the great frosts, snowfalls and winds, coming from the nearby mountain chains, make life, work and the future difficult. This is especially true for those families who remain attached to those lands and traditions and to their traditional religious life. It is a place where there is no lack of prayers, of families who say the Rosary together, of Sunday rest and of all the age-old devotional practices. Since it was a village without a priest, the family of Fr. Juan looked after the old church and were careful to keep everything in order, such as preparing for novenas, prayers and services at the altar.
He was raised in the environment produced by a numerous family (fifteen, of whom most died in early childhood, as happened in many families of the region at that time and place), and it was here that the first call towards the service of the Lord began to flower; this is what his relatives report, and these are the reports collected by Fr. Zicke in the biography which he wrote shortly after the death of Fr. Juan. It is a biography, like those of Fr. Dehon or Fr. Prévot. This was very useful to Fr. Zicke and he used it to let his young novices know about the human and religious personality of our “first Fathers”. Subsequently, rereading the Positio of Fr. Andrea, I myself remembered and understood many things, the importance of which I had not previously understood.
Let us consider the witness of one of his brothers: “When he was six or seven years old his grandfather used to take him along with him, and when they had to stop in some village he loved to tell those families that were his friends: ‘If you haven’t heard Mass, Mariano, my grandson, will sing it for you’. And in fact, with grace and seriousness, he sang in such a way that all those present remained astonished... He remembered the prayers extremely well and he used to teach his young companions whatever he had himself learned”. It must not be forgotten that there was no parish priest in the village and not all of those families belonged to the “old Christians”, that is, the so-called Apostolic and Roman Catholics who boasted of their ancestral origins, uncontaminated by the Muslims (the Moors) and the Hebrews (the Jews).
A First Boost up the Steps
It was to be the parish priest who lived in a nearby village, Mingorria, who perhaps, on seeing in him a young boy with a good nature, who was drawn to the things of the Church, dedicated himself to preparing the youth for entry into the seminary. Family, priest, environment: all favored the response to a call like the one made to Samuel, whose story he would have heard more than once and even studied in Sacred History lessons in school.
So far his story is not unlike others we have known, the times and vocational histories sound very similar, perhaps even to our own. Everything fell together following a normal progress: a boy, fond of playing, who liked to wander throughout the village, a boy who would catch birds and put them in a cage - he was good at that too, as some of his friends remembered years later in their accounts of him.
Since he was the oldest child, he often accompanied his father when he went to do his farm work and to look after the animals. Afterwards, when he was a seminarian, he had to return to his home two times because his father was ill and needed him to work in his place.
Up the Steps to the Seminary
And, in the eyes of men, just as “normal” were to be his years in the seminary, in the walled city of Avila, cradle of St. Teresa. In the Province, at Fontiveros, not very far from the villages where Fr. Juan lived his life, is to be found the place where St. John of the Cross was born. St. Teresa and St. John of the Cross: two models of holiness from among the many saints born in that land called “Tierra de cantos y de santos” <“Land of Songs and Saints”>; (We could also call it land of granite boulders everywhere you look). It is, in fact, from St. John of the Cross that our Fr. Juan wished to take his name in religion, adding to it that of Maria. All through his life he had a great devotion to Mary, one which began when he was very young, and was lived with so much fervor when he was a seminarian; it become an important part of his preaching and life as minister and parish priest, remaining close to his heart all during his time as a religious.
There remains a letter of greeting to the Madonna, on the feast of the Holy Name of Mary, written September 12, 1926, one month before his First Profession, after ten years of his being a priest and many other years of pastoral ministry. The letter is still beautiful, in spite of the very emotional language he used to celebrate a true and deeply felt filial devotion. It might seem old fashioned to us today, but it is not so far from the Totus Tuus of Pope John Paul II, or the words used to address Mary by Blessed Grignon di Monfort, which he perhaps knew (Cf. Corazón Ardiente (Burning Heart) 1971, n. 51).
The School reports with his marks, which we still have, tell us that he was a good student and that he was gifted for his studies. One of the teachers who was new in the subject she was teaching him, declared that Mariano (his baptismal name) sometimes got her into difficulty with his questions.
In the spiritual notes of the seminary, and in particular concerning the exercises for the sub-deaconate and deaconate, he appears as a normal person with regard to the way in which he handled the problems of commitment to his studies, his academic and spiritual formation, his sense of punctuality and his service to his companions. He dedicated himself to his future ministerial work, willing to go anyplace the bishop wished to send him. What stands out, especially in his writings, was his availability to God and to His will as it was expressed through his Superiors. It is also apparent that he was consistent with his pius practices, which were numerous, and that he did so without neglecting his devotion to the Madonna or his visits to the Lord three times a day, staying there, he was to say, for at least seven minutes: “I shall go into the chapel at least three times a day and I shall try to make it a good visit, staying there for at least seven minutes”.
A day the village still considers memorable is the one in which he, as a seminarian, was so “hungry” for the eucharistic food that he traveled for almost an entire day, going from one village to another, in order to take communion; he continued until sunset, fasting, as was then prescribed, in order to receive the true “Bread of Life”.
In his program of life as a seminarian, he adds: “The virtue which I must live most deeply this year will be the total donation of my will to the will of God, resigning myself to everything which the Lord wants of me, and I will do my best so that my will may be also His” (CA. 1961, n. 10).
In the Joy of the Father
As a child, and later as a seminarian, a priest and a religious he was a joyful man: amusing, friendly, knowing those little games that amiable people play; this is how as was remembered by his schoolmates, his companions in the seminary, the altar boys and all our religious who knew him as a seminarian in Puente la Reina. He was not a permanent resident there due to his work of soliciting funds and promoting vocations. When he came back for his monthly retreat, rest periods, etc. the young students gathered round him to hear about his apostolic travels, to hear his little jokes, to learn songs and many other things. However, when he had to stand in for some professor, he was unable to keep them under control. Since he was so close to the students they looked upon him as their “guardian angel”: when they faced those days of great poverty in the seminary he went out of his way to make it possible for them to play “frontón” (a game consisting of hitting a ball against a wall). This was an amusement in which he, so they say, was one of the better players.
Following the Footsteps of Christ
In the spiritual exercises for the deaconate, before his ordination as a priest, an event which was not far off, there appear many indications which show us that he wanted to live his pastoral ministry in the lost little villages of his dioceses in the light of Christ: “The Crucifix will be my prayer book... from now on I offer you all the labors and tribulations, both interior and exterior, which may come upon me during the whole of my life. I beseech you to accept them, Lord, as a humble offering of my poor heart”. And perhaps it was after a lecture on confession that he added what was to be his form of behavior as a priest in a parish ministry, emphasized by so many witnesses: “It is necessary to be in the confessional as early as possible every day, and to be constant. Preference must be given to mankind. Much affability and sweetness. Never get angry with the boys. Affection which is totally special. Disagree with those who say that they don’t hear confessions before Communion. Be prudent in questions and don’t offend anyone when asking for explanations” (CA 1970, n. 44).
When Fr. Juan wrote of the Crucifix, my prayer book, one can imagine the scene of his home, and also of his cell as a religious: wearing the old cross of his Profession - a heart of silver on a wooden cross - which was to appear on his remains when they were exhumed in Silla in 1940. This cross and the scapular of the Congregation, pierced by bullets, is now being conserved at Puente la Reina.
The cross ruled over his life as an image and as reality. In the various villages where he lived it always occupied his poor parish office. As one of his seminarians recounts: “Don Mariano’s room was like many others in our houses: it was near the entrance, white washed, it had a barred window and a wooden ceiling and was situated under the roof, where the extreme cold of winter and the extreme heat of summer entered. It was only a few square meters and nearby, under an arch with no door, there was his bed and an old cupboard. He was a poor priest among poor peasants. Christ was enthroned on the table and nearby there were prayer books, as well as some other books on theology and on morality”. Don Mariano was anxious to always be prepared and informed on these subjects, as our Fathers from Puente la Reina tell us. It is here that his knowledge shone through, when the study of individual tracts and discussions on cases of morality and dogma were compulsory. By his feet there was a place for the brazier, because the cold arrived very early and there were no comforts in these villages where even the electric light had not yet been introduced (1916-25).
He was sought out by large and small, men, women and girls, with great care. Some of his relatives were also in this group and there was never any lack of children... Lastly, his neighbors heard him getting up in the morning, too early, to pray, to go to Church and adore the Lord in the Sacrament. He would sometimes place his head upon the altar, as his parishioners remember, or he would be there waiting for them to come for confession and Mass or for the other rituals held at special times, like the devotion of the Via Crucis before going to work.
The Saints Mature Under the Influence of the Spirit
It was clear what Don Mariano’s journey was to be: “One can never sufficiently calculate how necessary and important holiness is for the life of a priest. A priest may have all the abilities imaginable, but if he lacks holiness he will be a useless and dangerous man; a holy priest, even if he does not have many other qualities, will manage to do marvels... If I am to be a priest, I must be holy”, he notes shortly before being ordained, “and this consists of always searching for the glory of God, to whom a priest is consecrated forever” (CA 1968, n. 39).
It is well known to us all, and all those who knew him have affirmed, how Don Mariano sought and lived the glory of God during the twenty years of his life as a priest, in his pastoral ministry and in his religious life. One could attest that the key words of his life, till the moment of his death, were “the zeal of thy House consumes me”.
It wasn’t only in the moment of his witness - before the burning church of “Los Santos Juanes”, or being an example in the prison, before his companions and militant republicans, always under the threat of being “killed like a little bird” - that he put into practice what he had written about during his Loyola “Spiritual Exercises”. In fact, in those notes, we find a spiritual path which is consistent with the oblation he had professed in 1926. It is a spirituality he had learned under the guidance of Fr. Goebels, a German trained in the school of Fr. Prévot. Fr. Goebels knew much about being a victim and about the total giving of self; he was co-founder of the Italian Province and he was later sent to Spain in order to help Fr. Zicke.
Fr. Juan was to remember years later, in the midst of the hard work of begging for funds, what he had written in his notes; and for all of us it is a most beautiful example of oblation, written by one who, from the time he was a seminarian, wanted to become a brother or a monk in order to lead a life of retreat, prayer and work. How difficult it must have been for him when these attempts were not successful because of his bad health; and it was obvious that for him the path of God was not among the Dominicans or the Carmelites either, nor with the Trappists, where he went after he had been with us. Instead, he was sent by his spiritual director and Superior to beg for funds and to seek collaborators for the poor seminary of Puente la Rein; he was to go looking in the villages and also in the cities of Pais Vasco and Navarra. At that time this is where one could find the spiritual reserve of Spain, a country which, during those years, was so deeply entrenched in social, religious and civil strife. As we know, this situation culminated in the fratricidal conflict of the Civil War (1936-1939), an anticipation of the Second World War: its confrontation, through aid and armed collaboration, was between the same kind of ideologically opposed enemies.
I Will Fear No Evil, For Thou Art With Me
Being a spiritually prepared person, he had written many years before what his program was to be: “God gives more work to those whom He loves more, as St. Teresa demonstrated. I must get used to the idea that I will often find myself sad, discouraged, with tedium at my back, full of bitterness, maybe full of scruples, fears, temptations, without interior sweetness, as I have found on many occasions. However, in spite of all that, I have decided, with the help of your grace, my God, to follow you as I have promised. I trust in you, my God, I trust in you, my Mother!
“In the midst of all these labors I will console myself by thinking that it is here that virtues are purified and one loves the Lord. And so, when the thought of despair appears in my mind, I will smile and direct my gaze towards the Lord with all my trust” (CA 1969, n. 43).
In truth this work was not easy for Fr. Juan, as is recounted in the letters, unknown until today, written to the Fr. General, at that time Fr. Philippe. In them he manifests his hardship over the task which had been assigned to him, so different from his personal expectations of the religious life: “I beg you, Most Reverend Father, to provide for my spiritual needs by sending me to a place which is more suited to recollection and solitude, far from the secular, where I can find spiritual peace if possible and can obtain interior life in holy union with God; and this at least for a time: one or two years, or whatever you will concede. Would the novitiate of Albisola be a good place for this? Could I not perhaps in some way help the Father who is Master of the novices, and perhaps also dedicate myself to study? Could some Italian Father not come to Spain?” (From the General Archives, Letters to the Fr. General, Fr. Lorenzo Philippe. Puente la Reina, July 26, 1928).
We do not know the Fr. General’s reply, but we do know that of Fr. Juan, from Novelda, where he wrote while he was doing his spiritual exercises: “I place everything into the hand of God, our Lord, and into the hand of obedience. Deus providebit. Ante omnia et super omnia, one must love deeply and serve faithfully our most abundant Lord, and after that one does His most holy will. Certainly the reasons I have for begging from you the grace I spoke about are serious reasons (seu de momento), and also follow the advice of my confessor. May God be blessed. Fiat voluntas tua” (sic). (General Archives, ibid, Novelda, September 1928; the text appears as it was written by Fr. Juan).
He is always our Fr. Juan, a man who is right for the Heart of Christ; he too repeats His Ecce venio!...
A year later, in thanking Fr. Philippe for allowing him to make his perpetual vows, he comments on the spiritual state of his life: “I take up my pen to show, with all my respect to Your Reverence, that on the 31st of last month (October) I had the immense joy, so long awaited, of consecrating myself to God, our Lord, to the Most Holy Heart of Jesus definitively and forever, through my perpetual vows. As I said in my previous letter from Vitoria, I was still uncertain of the will of God on this point, but after having consulted the Lord and His Most Holy Mother, and seeing the positive opinion of the spiritual director, and also of my Superiors, in the end I let myself go into the hands of Providence, being certain that the Lord will inspire my Superiors to order what is most suitable for me, and also for my style of life and for everything else; and I am absolutely sure that through holy obedience I will overcome all the difficulties which oppose my being made holy. All my trust is to be found in the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary” (General Archives, Ibid, Puente la Reina, November 16, 1929).
His difficulties concerning his work - so different from his expectations when he entered to become part of our Congregation - seem to have disappeared, or rather to have been accepted in that spirit of oblation with which he made his perpetual vows. Thus, he can write in the same letter: “Thanks to God I am very content, because it seems that Our Lord is placing many vocations of good and sincere young men in our hands during this recent period. Now we have 21 of them, and we must have trust that if Our Lord God gives us vocations He will also offer us the means to let them develop...” (General Archives, ibid, Puente la Reina, November 16, 1929).
And to show again how the way and the steps, although hard, are becoming easier, he was to write another letter to the Fr. General, undated and from an unknown place: “Thanks be to God (although every now and then I still have some interior turbulence), I continue to be happy and with great confidence in the Lord and in the Madonna. Your letter consoled me and cheered me up a great deal”. He added greetings for Fr. Roberto (probably Bramsiepe, his guide in Rome and companion during his first period in Spain), Frs. Gelasio, Suardi, Bossio, “and all that venerable community. I am glad that Brother Zappi is better”.
The Love of His Name Reassures Me
It is very difficult to understand the figure of Fr. Juan without a life of prayer, of adoration and of union with the Lord, and without a true experience of love. There are precise notes, some written by himself, first and foremost in his spiritual notes, which reveal a man in constant prayer. They show us a man in communion with “his” saints (St. Joseph and St. Ignatius), with Michael, Gabriel and Raphael (whom he sees as “angels” sent to him, and his guardian angel), and a man with a great devotion to the Sacred Hearts, to the Holy Spirit and to the many, by now habitual, pius practices: the Rosary, the Angelus, the Little Office, “the Most Holy”, the Carmine scapular - which was to appear with his remains -, the memory of the dead, etc.; all things which he noted down as not to be forgotten in his Loyola ‘Exercises’ (Cf. CA 1973, n. 57).
We also know his time table, the one he followed when he was traveling between the villages and cities of Northern Spain (the one most spoken about is the one he used during his imprisonment). We know how everything was regulated in accordance with the practices of his community on the level of prayer, regulations and the usual acts of piety; and we know how he, an early bird, managed to perform them without lacking his well deserved moments of rest, needed because of his unstable health and the weariness of that hard ministry.
Also in his program, as a worthy son of Fr. Dehon and as one who was attentive to the distressing realities of Spain at that time, he made time every morning to read the newspapers. Adoration occupied a principal place and also, as is shown in the testimonies of his fellow religious brothers and of the nuns, he dedicated many hours to silent prayer before the Most Holy Sacrament when he was not on his rounds begging for money or performing his apostolic commitments, which he accepted with great good will, particularly when they referred to the Madonna.
In the Footsteps of the Men of God
Man of God and man of men. Only the Lord knows, and many persons now dead, what the radiance of holiness was which shone around Fr. Juan. Everyone has expressed their witness to his holiness. It is interesting to point out that it was not only lay people, but his own companions and students who, with their recollections of him, have borne witness, since his death and also before, to that reputation for holiness which precedes the official recognition of the Church.
I think that Fr. Juan lived very deeply our spirit of oblation and also that of reparation, which he experienced as a consolation. This can be seen in his writings on the exercises in Rome, in 1927, in an extract which we will later have for the second reading of the Office of the Hours, written in the language of the times: “My delights are in being with the sons of men”. But, in spite of this, Fr. Juan observes that the majority turned their backs on Him, some because they were ungodly, some for lack of faith, for indifference or out of forgetfulness. Most of them did not want to stay with the Lord, they did not contemplate Him, they did not sympathize with Him and they did not even love Him. This love however is the first part of reparation, the (divine) reparation to Jesus, in imitation of that Mary who ‘chose the better part’.
And then he lets us see the (human) reparation of charity, that which involves commitment to mankind in many ways (Cf. CA 1974, n. 63).
It is not by chance that the people of Puente la Reina tell us that when the mothers, on a Sunday, asked their children which Mass they had attended and, if the celebrant was Fr. Juan, what the subject of the sermon was, the reply was always the same: “Merciful love”.
Eucharistic adoration: a new practice, which at that time was beginning to take its first steps and which Fr. Juan promoted enthusiastically in his apostolic travels: “I continue to live the same life, traveling and traveling. Holy obedience is what gives me strength and inspires my trust. Also, I am greatly consoled and encouraged by the propaganda, which I have been spreading through lectures and booklets for over a year, regarding the perpetual and universal Adoration of the Most Holy Sacrament and the Works of Merciful Love, since all this enters fully into the spirit of love and reparation of our dear Institute”. And he adds: “Later on, when we can, if God wills, enjoy tranquility in Spain, we shall find a way to establish our beloved, Holy Union ‘Adveniat Regnum tuum’. Now it does not seem opportune to add new institutions, indeed the real perpetual and universal Adoration of the Most Holy Sacrament is very similar to our own” (General Archives, ibid, Puente la Reina, November 16, 1929).
The few witnesses alive today still say that our Father Juan, if followed closely, has an appealing and admirable personality. He was a man who fascinated. One of our people was so marveled at finding him silent and immobile for such a long time in his room that, out of curiosity, he approached and saw him praying with the Crucifix in his hands... “My book” as he had written many years before. Take the case of the little altar boys in the parishes at Puente la Reina who did not understand anything about Fr. Juan’s long celebration of the Mass and, because of the length of his Masses, affectionately called him “The eternal Father”. He used to invite them either to sit down or to go away during his long dialogue with the Lord. His was a permanent dialogue with the Lord and that is why everyone knew where to find him, both at home or in the religious communities where he stayed during his travels: he was either in his cell or in the chapel.
On the other hand he was affectionate, intimate, even pleasing and amusing in his daily behavior with his companions and his pupils, as also with people in general. He showed this by means of his way of living each day for the day and by the way in which he, in some way, brought the same sentiments of Christ Jesus to all those who knew him. He was able to do this without letting anyone forget that he was a priest, or a true religious brother, one of the “Germans”, as we used to be known at Puente la Reina, and as we still are known today among the older generation.
Though I walk Through the Valley of the Shadow
In those years of hardship, Fr. Juan, through his work of begging for funds and promoting vocations, was able to see from up close the birth and the personal and environmental development of the martyr’s attitude among the people of the Church. This was true especially after the proclamation of the Second Republic (April 14, 1931), when the violence and abuse against the Church, against its buildings and against its people exploded everywhere; when legislation became openly anti-clerical, setting off many murders, fires and expulsions; when it happened even more with the uprising of the Asturie, in October 1934, where some towns even reached the point of people having priest flesh “on sale”!
Several times he himself proclaimed his desire to be a martyr when he heard about episodes of violence or of martyrdom in Spain or in the missions, declaring with holy envy that those who suffered for the name of the Lord were blessed. He made these declarations to the families he visited or to his own family in 1936, when his mother was present.
And we know from many witnesses that martyrdom was the basis of many of his reflections on the community level. This was particularly so, as his Superior, Fr. Lorenzo Cantò, tells us, in Garaballa during the days before July 18, 1936, when the so-called “National Uprising” took place. This was an event which kept Spain divided for over three years. It caused almost a million deaths, producing all the moral and material wounds of a Civil War which even today, 70 years later, reemerge every now and then.
One of his companions wrote: “I lived with Fr. Juan in 1936 and I know the feelings of this Servant of God, ready to accept what God intended for the salvation of his country. He had a blind faith in the triumph of the cause of God, although he knew the country had to suffer a great punishment for social sins. He transmitted his faith and his enthusiasm to whomever came near him, encouraging them before the great dangers which were going to come”.
The Last Steps in Love and Joy
When put before the test, his witness is clear and open: “I am a priest”. This is what he declared when he asked the reason for his attitude against the fire in the church of “Santos Juanes” on July 23, 1936. He was apparently a fugitive, he did not even look like a peasant who could have passed unobserved.
A lawyer, a fellow prisoner, was to testify at his trial that he had wanted to know him because “it was very difficult for me to understand that there was someone so courageous or so ingenious as to risk such dramatic consequences”. Evidently he did not know the interior strength of Fr. Chaquetón (Fr. Jacket), or Fr. Juanito, as he was called in the Model Prison of Valencia during the month of his imprisonment. Nor did he know of the fact that for all his life, and in a particular way during those last years, the words of the Psalm had been flesh of his flesh “The Zeal of thy house consumes me”.
The quality of this man of faith, who drives his love to the point of total donation for the Kingdom of God in the hope of living in the Lord with all the Saints, is demonstrated in the greeting card for Msgr. Lorenzo Philippe which he wrote from prison: “They are keeping me here, Reverend Father, imprisoned for three weeks because I uttered a few words of protest about the horrid spectacle of the churches being burned and profaned. May God be blessed, may His will be done in everything. I am very happy to be able to suffer something for He who suffered so much for me, a poor sinner”.
Another witness, a Redemptorist, also a fellow prisoner, in 1940, in a beautiful letter evokes the figure of Fr. Juan, his way of living and making his priesthood present in those conditions of imprisonment, remembering how he used to admonish them: “Now more than ever one must confess one’s belief in Christ and must imitate the martyrs of the first centuries who, on their knees and praying, prepared themselves for martyrdom...”. And he finished his long letter by writing “Blessed is he who has received the palm of martyrdom! Blessed is the Congregation which is glorified today because of such a splendid martyr!”
In 1927 Fr. Juan visited Rome. Our brethren, who had accompanied him around the city and had shown him the catacombs, said how difficult it was to make him come out of those monuments where the memory of the martyrs was so present. A presentiment? The journey of the Spirit has many roads for the life of a priest and religious...
A little notebook with the prison timetable adjusted to religious practice, stained with blood and pierced by a bullet, the scapular of the Congregation, pierced by 2 bullets, and a medal of the Madonna with a message requesting the bearer be buried in a holy place: these are the mute and eloquent witnesses of our Christian martyr, priest, religious, Dehonian, immolated and offered with Christ to the Father for the salvation of the world. They are signs which stay with the remains buried in the apostolic school of which he was and continues to be the “Guardian Angel”.
The last moments of that last night, August 23, 1936, are unknown to us. The butchers, in the last periods of persecution against the Church, have never wanted witnesses to their brutality, indeed they always tried to hide their way of acting, even declaring that they were punishing “crimes against the state”. But to us it is clear that they were fighting against the Church and against its ministers and against Christians themselves, whom the Church was later to recognize as martyrs. This was to be done in a particular way after Paul VI, since even the Spanish bishops clearly saw the opportuneness of these beatifications in a Spain still divided by the old wounds of the war between victors and vanquished.
Even one of the directors of the then emerging and solid Communist party, José Díaz, was to say with conviction: “In those provinces where we are in power, the Church no longer exists. Spain has overtaken, by a long way, the work of the Soviets: the Church in Spain has been annihilated”. When the bishops wrote the famous collective pastoral in July 1937, among members of the clergy and religious at least 6,500 had been murdered!
The Saints with Names, among the Multitude that Nobody can Number
The times have arrived in which all these witnesses to the faith, innumerable in the 20th century, also have the right to be remembered. They must be remembered not only as part of the history of faith and Christian courage, always to be remembered and imitated, but also as faithful whose heroic witness to the faith has been recognized by the Church. They are worthy to be imitated and we must feel them near us, acting as our intercessors and friends before God, helping us with our spiritual and material needs. And, in a particular way, they will help us fulfill His holy will and live in the hands of God every day and in all circumstances, even heroic ones: doing as they did, living as they lived.
The saints are a gift of God to the Church, and a present which the Church itself offers to God of its best children. They are a gift for the whole Church, not only for individual Churches, Congregations, etc. And they are there before Him, singing, blessing, glorifying the Lamb which was also immolated for us.
If the Church, in defining itself, has recovered the image of the family - as was said in the Synod for the Church in Africa - it would be even more interesting to emphasize these elder brothers of ours, in faith and in love, in the great family of the children of God to which we all belong.
Together in the Eternal Dwellings
I shall conclude with the words of Fr. Dehon, who will be so happy in glory beside Fr. Juan, a man who spent his life living his charism of oblation for the glory of God so well that he lived it to the point of giving his life. “I see the angels and saints putting the prayers of the Church, together with their own prayers, into their celestial censers; and, since I have asked for the intercession of all the saints today, there is an infinite amount of clouds of incense which will rise towards God and in which my prayers and praises will be united with those of the saints in endless efficacy”.
Then Fr. Dehon continued his meditation for the feast of All Saints in his work “The Year With the Sacred Heart” - at the third point he speaks to us of the Saints of the Sacred Heart, known to all of us, and at the end he comments: “Yes, there are privileges for the Saints of the Sacred Heart. Today I greet them with tenderness and ask them to remember me in a very special way”.
Now there is a new blessed among us to be added to the list which he enumerates: Fr. Juan, the Congregation’s proto-martyr.
And, as Fr. Dehon indicated to us in his resolutions: “To the Heart of Jesus my praises, to all the saints my best wishes. To everyone my humble prayers. To the Saints of the Sacred Heart, to the Saints of love and reparation, a special visit, with the prayer and the commitment to imitate them”.
Final point
I would like to finish with an article from the Cronaca di Puente la Reina (Puente la Reina Chronicle) of August 23, 1937, on the anniversary of the death of Fr. Juan. This will help us to understand the “reputation for holiness” and the environment of exaltation which was felt by all: “This date will remain eternally imprinted in the furthest depths of the heart of the Apostolic School. We are celebrating, in fact, the first anniversary of the death and martyrdom, in the prison of Valencia, of one who was an irreplaceable support, a living example of religious life, Fr. Juan Maria de la Cruz García Méndez. Last year, during the summer, he went to the novitiate in Cuenca to recuperate because of his poor health. A few days after his arrival the glorious ‘uprising’ broke out which was to liberate Spain from the Communist claws. As a measure of protection Fr. Juan went to Valencia, where he was arrested and imprisoned, and a few days later he was taken to his death as an excellent victim of treacherous lead and of his own zeal. In reality the reason for his imprisonment was this: while a Marxist fury set about burning a religious building, Fr. Juan by chance passed that way and, moved by his zeal for the rights of God, protested courageously against the sacrilegious misdeeds which the mob, drunk with religious hatred, were performing. And this courageous confession of his way of seeing things earned him the palm of martyrdom. Honor to the proto-martyr of our very dear Congregation!” (Cronaca I, 1937, 77-78).
Another note from the Cronaca, on the second anniversary of his death, also recalls this “Guardian Angel”: “Today, on Fr. Juan’s anniversary, we have received, in a providential manner, 1000 pesetas. Laus Deo! and many thanks to the proto-martyr of our dearly loved Spanish Congregation!” (Cronaca I, 1938, 93). He was continuing to beg for funds even in Paradise.