Tenth anniversary of the Canonization of Pedro Poveda

Poveda: light, strength and wisdom to orientate life

The celebration of the tenth anniversary of the canonization of Pedro Poveda offers us a new opportunity to bring to mind and to thank the holy fruits that, as Poveda used to say, allow us to recognize the men and women of God that pass through life doing good. And it is also an opportunity to listen anew the call to sanctity today and to respond with our lives. How I wish that it could be said of us, members of the TA, that these ten years have constituted the vital itinerary of holiness that the world needs today. “So that free from fear (…) we may serve the Lord in holiness and justice all the days of our lives” (Lk1, 75)

Poveda offered in his time, with simplicity but with much truth, audacity and capacity for historic commitment, a form of lay holiness characterized by the radicalism without fissures in the following of Jesus and by the acceptance, search and commitment with all that is beautiful, good, just and true of the cultures and their truly human achievements. A fullness of humanity filled with God, the only holy (Mc 10 17-30)

St. Pedro Poveda, priest, founder and martyr, is today a universal saint, patrimony of the whole Church. His figure and charism are for all, they reach beyond the TA founded by him. This is a motive of great joy for us all, because it strengthens our ecclesial consciousness and impels us to the joyous commitment of serving and extending this charism that has proved to be able to form lives truly human and truly holy.

During these years we have seen with much joy how Pedro Poveda becomes a teacher for many young people and above all a witness of the joy of following Jesus, of letting the Spirit lead and live history searching the realization of the Kingdom at his service.

We have also seen how men and women of all ages, condition and origin, find in Poveda light, strength and wisdom to give direction to their lives according to the faith in a world that is each day more complex. The figure of Poveda, the more we know it _ and during these years we have been able to better approach his written work, already partially translated to other languages_ the more it amazes and attracts us. His proposal of a Christian life that is a onetime demanding and accessible, daring and discrete, purposeful and dialoguing, active without showing, faithful and dynamic, tolerant and of clear convictions.

A man of peace that suffered a violent death, as did other followers of the Master, witnesses of Jesus until the end. He confessed his faith with his own life. These are strong pages of human history, firm and peaceful expression that there is “something” that is worth more than life (your love is more valuable than life, Psalm 63) and that there is a love that overcomes death. The history of Christianity counts on the luminous witnesses whose testimony is worth more than thousands of words.

The Teresian Association has just celebrated its first centenary (1911- 2011), whose motto we all remember: From memory to commitment, grateful memory, renewed commitment. The last assemblies have pointed out for us the two ways in which today, in a world both beautiful and wounded by grave injustices, we wish, free from fear, to serve the Lord in holiness and justice: a greater evangelizing impact of all our presences and a clear option for brotherhood. We know his is only possible when God’s love urges us. May the celebration of this tenth anniversary bring a new impulse in this direction.

Maite Uribe, President of the TA, Rome, Italy

Pedro Poveda a Saint for today

It is now ten years since the canonization of St. Pedro Poveda by the Pope John Paul II. On may 4th 2003 thousands of citizens from all over the world assisted in Madrid at this event of great ecclesial and social significance.

When the Church proclaims the sainthood of a person that person is placed closer to the men and women of today. When the Church pronounces the name of a person to be canonized, a bell of hope is heard in different parts of the world proclaiming that they, the saints, are near and that their lives can be imitated. In this way the life of Pedro Poveda, a man of contrasts: austere and tolerant, energetic and vulnerable, daring and peaceful, thoroughly human and totally God’s. His dialoguing and peaceful attitude shows a way of walking along with others in today’s world so controversial. To bring the Gospel to life was his great dream: at the plazas, on the asphalt streets, among people, where he always enjoyed being. The proclamation of Pedro Poveda as saint brings closer to our contemporaries his peculiar form of sowing hope, the utopist horizon, eventually,  of being salt for the XXI century.

Marisa Rodriguez Abancens, Madrid, Spain

That grace sustained me in my faith

“Much peace, much courage and much prayer full of trust, that the hour of God will arrive” (Padre Poveda to Victoria Grau, October 6 1925 cited in CPH 662)

To have witnessed the hour in which the Church publicly recognized the martyrdom and the sanctity of Fr. Poveda’s life was and continuous to be, after ten years from that event, a grace and a commitment.

The strongest experience lived during those days was to participate with vibrant emotion in the veneration of Poveda’s remains with so many faithful in the Chapel of Santa Maria de Los Negrales.

Hundreds of lay people, priests and religious from Spain and the world, waiting in long lines to approach the alter, where the remains of Poveda rest, to give thanks, to implore or receive graces… was an unforgettable event. Songs, prayers, silences were constantly intertwined in that place where we had grown accustomed to venerate his presence in a private and silent manner. To witness and to participate in that step for the TA, for the Church and for myself was an extraordinary grace.

To be a witness and a participant in that event didn’t leave me indifferent. That grace sustained me for years in my faith, renewed my surrender and moved me to respond to his legacy “You will be the Work” (Poveda, 1915): Yes, father, “We shall continue the Work” (J. Segovia, 1936)

Mariana Facciola, Buenos Aires, Argentina

That day break in the Institute Pedro Poveda

It was autumn in Buenos Aires, it was cold and very early, we were equipped with blankets, mates and surrounded by children like bunches in our hands we gathered together since five in the morning at the Institute Pedro Poveda, with ardent fire in our hearts!!!

In Madrid, everything was a feast, and the direct phone calls connections helped us to feel closer… while in the auditorium some of us were commenting on the gifts of “Pedro”, as the children say, and the testimonial value of dying as a priest in the midst of the XX century, and to die on account of his believes, but above all to die on account of his way of life.

What did the children see, ten years ago, that early morning? In other countries some celebrated a Eucharist, or showed the picture of Poveda as a well known and dear person very close to them and applauded. No doubt all understood in their hearts that it was a festivity of Poveda’s family and that it was one of those unique opportunities in life in which getting up at the crack of dawn was worthwhile!! The figure of Pedro grew from that moment on, as well as his legacy for all of us… My youngest child then nine months old and baptized in the Chapel of the School, walks today through the classrooms of the Primary Level along with a Pedro that is a Saint, a close friend, an example of witnessing and commitment. A twentieth century man has still something to tell us in this moment of renewal of the Universal Church.  And why is it so?  Because Pedro Poveda did not live in vain, that is why “Pedro” he is not antiquated. (Javier Quesada is the father of Maria Paz, Tomas and Nachito).

Javier Quesada, Buenos Aires, Argentina