Introduction

On December 18, the Public Proclamation of the Decree of Martyrdom wasdelivered at the Vatican for Fr. Juan María de la Cruz Garcia Mendez, SCJ.This was the final step prior to his beatification, which tookplace on March 11, in St. Peter’s Square.Fr. Juan is one of a group of Spanish martyrs who wasbeatified that day, and the first member of the Priests of the Sacred Heart to be known as “Blessed.” 

“Having a confrere who has reached officially approved holiness should not be a cause for vanity, but rather, one of thanksgiving for this special grace of the Sacred Heart,” wrote Fr. Virginio Bressanelli, SCJ superior general. “We can see it as a present that for us is crowning this year of Jubilee, the Holy Door of the new millennium.It is a gift that inspires in us a feeling of gratitude and praise toward the Lord.

“It is also a moment of grace.May it revive in the whole Dehonian Family, and particularly among SCJs, a consciousness of the universal call to holiness and the need to place at the center of our lives that strong and solid spirituality which characterizes our SCJ vocation.This is the common heritage left us by Fr. Dehon, the very foundation of all we can ever do for the ‘reign of the heart of Jesus in souls and society.’”

The following is a biography on Fr. Juan, written by Fr. Evaristo Martínez de Alegria, SCJ, a member of our Spanish Province.It has been translated into English from its original Spanish.

One of the Many Stories of Saints

The town of Avila is surrounded by great blocks of granite, rising like careworn hands held up to the sky. It is a land of very hot summers and pitiless winters. These are the lands of old Castile, the cradle of “songs and saints,” with St. Theresa of Jesus and St. John of the Cross as models. It is also a land of many Christian families –– workers and cattle farmers –– people who have converted themselves into a living Gospel and have become God’s gift to His Church.

Fr. Juan was born in San Esteban de los Patos (Avila) on September 25, 1891. He was the first of 15 children and at his baptism he received the name of his father, Mariano. 

His family looked after the local church.Because there was no priest in the little community,his father, after a day of working in the fields, led novenas and rosary readings.It came as no surprise when the father’s eldest, the boy called Marianito, felt called to the priesthood at the age of 10. 

In the seminary he was known for his many talents and for his profound humility.And no matter how hard he worked, “he was very jovial, he had fun with everyone without ever breaking the harmony that existed among his companions. He was a little saint,” said a fellow student.

Yet in following his vocation, he worried that his work as a parish priest would distance him from his desire to achieve greater intimacy and dialogue with the Lord.Considering religious life, he contacted the Dominican Fathers of Saint Thomas of Avila.But due to health problems, he was unable to stay with the Dominicans.

A Good Priest in Tough Villages

On March 18, 1916, he was ordained to the diocesan priesthood in Avila. His first years of ordained ministry were to the small villages of his province. His parishioners were poor, but rich in Christian roots.

His first ministry was in Hernansancho. He based his pastoral work on a presence, humble and simple, of prayer and adoration of the Holy Sacrament. He worked long hours to arouse the desire in his parishioners for faith and worship, for confession and devotion to the Eucharist and to Mary.He encouraged his parishioners to always work out of a model of charity and service.

Parish priests in his day generally survived on the generosity of the faithful.But as noted, the parishes Fr. Juan ministered at were very poor and so he decided that he wouldn’t pass around the collection basket, or ask specifically for donations.When asked why, he said that “It would be something like turning the church into the branch of a bank,” remembered a parishioner.

His door was always open ––day and night –– for the needy, the sick, anyone who had need of him.

Horizons of the Spirit

Fr. Juan took great joy in his ministry as a parish priest, but he still felt called to religious life.A priest friend of his commented that “he was an exemplary priest... but on several occasions he told me: ‘I am content, but I confess that I am living outside my center. Parish life weighs on me. And, on the other hand, my state of health gives me so much trouble that if it were not for obedience I would have already taken another path: my irresistible inclination is towards the religious life.’”

His search took him to the diocese of Vitoria (1921-1922), where he was chaplain to the Hermanos de las Escuelas Cristianas (Brothers of the Christian Schools) in Nanclares de Oca. While there, he asked his bishop if he could enter the Order of the Discalced Carmelites. His request was granted and he started his novitiate in Larrea (Vizcaya).

But once again his health betrayed him. He could not stand up to the demands of a life which, at that time, was very ascetic, very hard, but which he desired to embrace: the intimate life of the contemplative.

Again leaving his quest for religious life, he returned to Avila and to parish ministry among the poor.Fr. Juan had a deep love for and devotion to the Eucharist. For this reason, he took advantage of every opportunity to go to the sacristies of the churches in the villages through which he passed.

When in Madrid, he often went to the church of the Religiosas Reparadoras (Sisters of Reparation). During one such visit, he met Fr. William Zicke, SCJ, one of the founding members of the Spanish Province of the Priests of the Sacred Heart. They struck up a friendship and Fr. Juan told him of his desire, of the unquietness of heart which gave him no rest, of not being able to succeed in reaching the place to which God was calling him. Fr. Zicke spoke to him of the SCJ congregation and of its founder, Fr. Leo Dehon.Fr. Juan saw in the SCJs what he was looking for and on October 31, 1926, he made his religious profession in “a spirit of love, oblation, and reparation.”

In professing his vows, he took the religious namebywhich he is now known: “Juan Maria de la Cruz.”The name honored his two great loves: Holy Mary and Saint John of the Cross, who like himself was from Avila.

In Search of Bread With Great Love...

His first assignment as an SCJwas at the seminary in Puente, where he taught, while also helping out at a local parish.

Students during this period remember him as a man of piety and fervor. If they were looking for Fr. Juan he could be often be found in his room or the chapel. The Masses he celebrated always risked wearying his young and restless acolytes and on many occasions, like St. Philip Neri, he invited them to leave him alone with the Lord. In his mute dialogue of adoration and love he found what is only felt by those who deeply live the mystery of the Love enclosed in the Eucharist.

The seminary was blessed with many students, but they lived in extreme poverty. Fr. William knew Fr. Juan very well and thought that he was the right person to travel the roads of Navarra and Pais Vasco in search of collaboration and economic aid. Fr. William also hoped that a network of friends could be created to help serve the seminary, as well as the many missions which were in desperate situations because of the war.

Fr. Juan agreed to take on the task of fund raising, a ministry much different than the interior life he sought.But he worked hard to maintain the religious aspect of his vocation.“In order that a life of such hustle and bustle, so full of distractions, did not damage his life as a religious and as one who is in union with God, he first of all drew up a plan of life, or a special set of rules,” said one of his fellow SCJs.“And, in order that everything should be subject to holy obedience, he presented it to his superior, asking that it be sealed with his signature of approval.”

Footprints Which Lead To God

In his fund raising travels, Fr. Juan made a strong impression on those he met. There was a humility about him, and always a strong sense of prayer.Many felt that he had the tenderness of the heart of Christ.

“He never lost his fervor on these journeys,” said a close friend.“On the contrary, he took advantage of every opportunity to perform his apostolate by spreading devotion to true and perpetual Adoration of the Holy Sacrament...

“He always kept his initial fervor. Because of this he went to impossible lengths to take part in the retreats his community had on the first Friday of the month, where he was able to keep his superiors informed of what he was doing. It can be said that this Servant of God was providential for the congregation. Any free time he had from his search for aid was spent in quiet moments before the Lord and in carrying out his devotional exercises.”

Through the Shadow of the 

Valley He Leads Me

In the 1930s, increasing unrest in Spain led to a civil war, during which one of the proclaimed enemies of the people was the Church. Anarchists, socialists, communists, business leaders, the military, intellectuals and anti-clerical leaders blamed the Church for many of the evils of society.It became commonplace to attack and ridicule the Church and especially those who were a part of it.But Fr. Juan continued his visits, even as civil unrest led to war in 1936.

On one of Fr. Juan’s journeys he had the opportunity to visit his family.A sister-in-law recalls that “One time when he was talking to me, his mother and my husband, he prophesied the coming revolution and manifested the desire to die as a martyr. He said to my husband ‘Oh Victor, how happy a person must be when he has the luck to shed his blood for Our Lord!’”

And then circumstances which reveal the guiding hand of God moved Fr. Juan to the region of Cuenca.

The Sanctuary of Garaballa lies in the mountain range of Cuenca. After it had been abandoned by the Trinitarian Fathers, the sanctuary was given to the SCJs to use as the seat of their future novitiate and as a place where they could go when they needed to rest and relax.

In July, 1936, Fr. Juan went to Cuenca to improve his fragile health and to take a break from his tasks and journeys. He enjoyed the tranquillity and the calm of this place.But civil unrest was not far away. 

“At the beginning, the people of the village, although crude and uneducated in things of religion, did not behave badly with the new arrivals,” said Fr. Juan.“But, in conformity with the way things were going that year, they began to show themselves always cooler and increasingly indifferent until, after the second elections in May [1936], they became openly hostile, except for some rare occasions.”

Let Us Go Up Into Jerusalem

On July 18, the Alzamiento Nacional (National Uprising) took place, unleashing the Civil War.The superior of Garaballa, advised by friends, called his religious together and told them that in order to save their lives they had to leave immediately, each going in a different direction.

Fr. Juan was to go to Valencia. He took off his habit and dressed in a large, secondhand jacket. That is why he was known as “Fr. Chaquet” (Fr. Big-Jacket), and that is later, what his fellow prisoners called him.

Why Valencia? It was because he did not know anyone there so thought he could easily pass unnoticed in the “priest hunt.”And it really did become like a “hunt;” for it was pitiless and cruel. In August, a total of 2,077 priests were murdered in Spain, including ten bishops. “In the provinces under our power, the Church no longer exists,” said leaders of the unrest.“Spain has gone far beyond the work of the Soviets, because the Church in Spain has now been annihilated.”

In Valencia, 327 of the 1,200 diocesan priests were murdered. Without having foreseen it, Fr. Juan had gone to seek shelter in the place of greatest danger. One of his companions relates:

“I met him in 1936 and I know the sentiments of this Servant of God. He was prepared to accept what God asked of him for the salvation of the country. He had a blind faith in the triumph of the cause of God, even if he had to suffer great punishment for social sins. His enthusiasm and his faith were communicated to all those who were close to him, giving them courage before the great dangers which they were going to have to endure.”

Having seen much destruction already, Fr. Juan was no longer able to hide his anger when he saw a pile of sacred objectsbeing burned in front of the church of Santos Juanes in Valencia.

“Between Brambles and Thorns”

Others saw the shabbily dressed man, just one of the many fugitives seeking a job in the town at the end of July, 1936.He approached the commotion in front of the church, standing among the people to see what was going on.Fr. Juan finally protested, saying that the rebels had gone too far.His concerns led him to jail.

“I knew of him for this reason: they told me that a short time before a priest had been brought in because he had protested publicly against the burning of the church of Santos Juanes,” said a lawyer who had also been jailed at the time. “This pricked my curiosity and I wanted to find out directly from him, because it was very difficult for me to believe that anyone would have the courage to take on such dramatic consequences.

“I actually got to question him, and he said that upon seeing the burning of the objects and then the church, he couldn’t help but say, ‘How dreadful! What a crime! What sacrilege!’

“On hearing these words, one of those who was taking part in the burning, or at least was glad to watch it, said to him: ‘You’re “old-fashioned.”’

“This is an expression equivalent to ‘You’re a man of the right or a traditionalist.’ To which the Servant of God replied:‘I am a priest.’

“And that is why they proceeded to arrest him.”

While in prison,he wrote to the superior general, Fr. Joseph Lawrence Phillipe. He wanted to send good wishes for the general’s name day, and he wanted to inform him of his detention.

“Reverend Father,” he wrote, “they have kept me here for about three weeks because I uttered some phrases of protest for the horrendous spectacle of churches being burned and profaned. Blessed be God! May His will be done in everything! I am very joyful to be able to suffer something for Him who suffered so much for me, poor sinner that I am.”

The day before he had written to the mayor of Garaballa:

“Since the first day I came to Valencia, I have been kept in the town’s prison with many other priests, religious and lay people. But, thanks to God, I am at peace and resigned to that which Divine Providence may wish to do with me. I am in cell 476, fourth gallery.”

With No Palm Sunday

Fr. Juan, or rather Fr. Chaquet at this time, did not pass unnoticed. Direct witnesses give us a very precise idea of how, during his detention, this Servant of God was faithful to his priesthood and to the practices of the religious life, which he made a point of continuing during the painful days of his imprisonment.When his remains were exhumed, an agenda was found in his pocket.Shot with holes and marked with Fr. Juan’s blood, it retains the schedule he had written down to use as a daily program; the “schedule which I follow in prison and in which all the prescribed acts for our Rule appear,” he wrote.He did not let himself be conditioned by the bitter reality of prison and the tragic foreknowledge of his death. 

We know that he did absolutely nothing to hide his identity as a priest. He was clearly aware that he was not in prison for his political ideas, but for his priesthood, and he knew that it was for this that he was going to be shot. Plainly, simply and courageously during the short time of his imprisonment, he started to reveal to his fellow prisoners the fact that he was a religious and a priest. They felt that he was gambling his life away.

A fellow prisoner remembers Fr. Juan standing in the prison courtyard, leading the rosary in a loud voice “and since we were always being watched by armed guards who insulted us and threatened us, someone asked him not to pray so as not to provoke them. But he said that nothing could have been better than to die praying, and so we continued with our prayers...

“I remember having seen him every day in the prison yard praying with his breviary for at least an hour or an hour-and-a-half. He was seen praying so often that somebody said: ‘One day Fr. Chaquet will be shot down like a baby bird.’”

It might be thought that he was doing this as a kind of challenge, or that it was a form of insolence, but as one of his fellow prisoners, also a priest, said:

“I have never had any information that he attempted any action to regain his liberty, and I am convinced with regard to the supposition that he would have done nothing that was incompatible with his being a priest. In his stay in prison he did nothing insolent or provocative which could justify his death.”

And another witness of those days said:

“He carried out his ministry with those who asked for it. He encouraged the people but did so in combination with a moderation which was an inherent characteristic of his priestly character. It can absolutely be said that he never made one gesture which could be considered as being insolent, it was rather quite the contrary.”

Fr. Juan’s cellmate remembers that “He always behaved like a completely worthy priest. If he found himself in the yard and heard the hours rung he recited prayers with whomever happened to be there. There were some who saw him doing that on several occasions. There were also times when I myself saw him praying in the cell. I never saw him behave discourteously with anyone.”

Witnesses in the Heat of the Night

Fr. Tomos Vega, a Redemptorist, was imprisoned at the same time as Fr. Juan.Remembering him, he wrote that, “I had the good fortune to meet him and speak with him soon after coming to the prison. He edified us all from the first day with his piety and devotion. We read the breviary together during the first month of imprisonment, when we had three hours of recreation in the morning and three in the afternoon. We were in the yard where the prisoners of the 4th gallery took their exercises: he, Fr. Recaredo de los Rios (his companion in the beatification ceremony) and another prisoner; the latter was a Salesian and was also martyred. It was not difficult to observe the great religious fervor with which he prayed. He frequently fell on his knees in the middle of the yard, in spite of the fact that there was no lack of people who advised him to suspend these outward signs of devotion because of the circumstances. He responded that he did not have to observe any human regulations; and that now, more than ever, he only had to confess to Christ. He said that he had to imitate the martyrs of the first century who, praying on their knees, prepared themselves for martyrdom.

“Toward 11 a.m. we met with a good sized group of prisoners: we recited the Litanies of the Saints together, and on feast days we recited and read the Holy Mass in public (in prison we did not have the good fortune to actually celebrate Mass). Fr. Juanito, as we used to call him, never missed these mornings.

“In the evening, each priest used to meet with a handful of prisoners to recite the Holy Rosary. Fr. Juanito selected his group and not only went through the Rosary with them but also recited other prayers and did spiritual readings with them. When the collective praying had finished he used to go from group to group and put new heart into everyone, imbuing them with the virtue and love of God. He was genuinely zealous.

“One day, when we went down to the yard, he said that he had obtained a great joy: that morning he had received Jesus in the Holy Sacrament. A teacher from the seminary had come into jail on one of those days and had brought the Holy Sacrament with him.

“After we had been in prison for a month they shut us up in our cells and only let us go out into the yard by sections: one hour in the morning and another in the afternoon. I was on a different floor than his and so I could not accompany him. But he had already left us all with a deep impression of his immense sanctity and virtue.

“A few days later we heard that he had left the prison: we did not know that he had left us for martyrdom. He was one of the first of those of the Prison of Valencia to give his life for God and for Spain. Blessed is he who achieves martyrdom. Blessed is his congregation which today feels glorified by such a supreme martyr!”

He Was Happy to Suffer for Jesus

When Fr. Dehon founded his congregation, he called it “Oblates of the Sacred Heart.” Fr. Juan Maria de la Cruz was to celebrate the fulfillment of his vocation as an Oblate by giving up his life on August 23, 1936. His life as an SCJ religious had much that was similar to the road which a certain Jesus had trod 2,000 years before.

And now, let us think of that night of August 23, 1936. In the fields of Silla, on a farm called El Sario, in a place known as La Coma, God was about to accept the full oblation of Fr. Juan. The place could be compared to that olive grove which Jesus knew in Gethsemane. The only witnesses of what was about to happen were the stars of a summer night, the other nine companions who would be murdered, the headlights of the trucks which lit up the irrigation ditch, and the wall along which, in a ritual which was repeated so many hundreds of times that it was considered classical, the victims were lined up and shot after having been previously tormented. 

Let it be his superior in Garaballa, who was also imprisoned in Valencia shortly after Fr. Juan (previous to which he had already suffered the same situation in Mexico during the persecution of Calles), to tell us of the finding of the remains of Fr. Juan:

“I presented myself to the municipal judge asking if, on August 23, 1936, 10 prisoners had been executed in the district of Silla. The reply was affirmative and he added that he was called to take charge of 10 corpses which were found on the road to Madrid, within the territory of Silla, and were moved by the executioners themselves to the municipal cemetery. He told me more. He had intended to take photographs of the corpses but refrained out of fear. I wanted to be absolutely sure and so I described what Fr. Juan looked like and the fact that he was shabbily dressed. The judge told me that he was certain that Fr. Juan had been executed on the date indicated. He added that when the grave-digger buried his corpse all the executioners were in agreement that it was the body of a priest and that, as far as they were concerned, the bodies were all priests.”

Fr. Belda, another witness, adds:

“I should like to add that I myself was one of the few witnesses of the exhumation and that a demonstration and confirmation of its validity can be claimed because on his remains were found his first profession cross, the scapular of the congregation with two bullet holes in it, and a diary, also pierced by several bullets, in which was written the hours he followed in prison and all the acts prescribed by our Rule.”

A Saint for Today?

Throughout this account we have emphasized Fr. Juan’s style and manner of living, showing how the halo and the fame of“saint” was being sketched in around his humble figure.

His aim was to serve God, according to the design which was being revealed to him all through his life. This led him to his definitive choice of service in the religious life, in a congregation which, by its plan and charism, corresponded to his lively and ardent desire for “love, immolation and reparation.”

Two characteristics distinguish his faith and his love: devotion to the Eucharist and devotion to the most Holy Virgin. On one hand his vocation to the religious life among the SCJs found its appropriate context in his love for eucharistic adoration and for reparation. On the other hand, we know that during his journeys as a fund raiser “if there was any religious function being celebrated and there was no preacher, especially during the feasts of the Most Holy Virgin, he, at the request of the community (at which he usually lodged), volunteered his services. And it often happened that, even without any preparation, he inspired those who heard him and he was greatly admired by all. Sometimes, when people mentioned his expertise at speaking in the pulpit, he said that when you love the Virgin Mary very much you do not need great preparation. In Rome he is remembered for his love of Most Holy Mary. There, even without knowing Italian, he spoke and preached about her,” said an SCJ.

A Sacramentine Father who met him when Fr. Juan stayed with his community recalled “that Fr. Juan was a priest of whom –– according to the well known phrase of St. Paul –– one could say that he was not himself, but it was Christ who lived in him.”

It was Christ who lived in him, who was preparing him to bear witness to the truth and ascend the hill with the cross, walking a path which any man from these parts might take in the surroundings of Silla, in order to be crucified like the Master, outside the city. Not in the light of day but in the light of those headlights which, between the olive trees, cast his enlarged shadow on the wall.