After Centuries of Waiting
There has been a great demand for this book for a long time, not for years or for decades, but for centuries, ever since Luis Muños, in 1645, published the first collection of works of “the Prioress of Incarnation.” It then became evident that the nun who had captivated two kings, Philip III and Philip IV, was worthy of fame not only as the foundress of the Augustinian Recollect nuns, but also as a mystical writer of merit. And it was clear that her spiriitual experience and her holiness were the key to everything else in her life and in her writings.
During the past forty years, the life and writings of this outstanding figure of the seventeenth century, have newly caught the attention of researchers, and for decades scholars have been attempting to identify and explain the texts of her spiritual writings and her abundant correspondence. But only now the publication of the Complete Works of Mother Mariana of Saint Joseph (1568-1638) has come to be a reality.
The Author, the Publishing House, and the Work
The author who has been dedicating himself intensely to this work is Jesús Diez Rastrilla, an Augustinian Recollect professor of theology for the past forty years and an avid scholar of the life and works of Mother Mariana for at least the last thirty years. All this time, with the help and support of the Federation of Augustinian Recollect Nuns of Spain, he has visited more than forty archives in search of documents related to her life and to the first foundations of the Recollect nuns. He was a member of several commissions working on the process for the beatification and canonization of Mother Mariana (Madrid, 1996) and on the drafting of the positio for the same cause, which was approved by the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints (Rome, 2007).
This thick volume of 1,724 pages, crowns the work of Father Diez as an outstanding contribution to the history of both literature and spirituality in the Spanish language. It is a contribution of the Augustinian Recollect Nuns of Spain as well, who are presenting the book to the public. The volume will, without a doubt, enjoy a broad distribution, as it is published by the renowned Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos (Library of Christian Authors), Major Series 115. The publishing house is held in high esteem by the Spanish Government, which has awarded it the title Civil Order of Alfonso X the Wise.
During the Year of Consecrated Life and the Centenary of Saint Teresa
The publication is particularly opportune at this time, as it occurs during the Year of Consecrated Life and the Year of Saint Teresa, celebrating the fifth centenary of the birth of Saint Teresa of Jesus.
Mother Mariana of Saint Joseph was the foundress of a new way of life, the feminine branch of the Augustinian Recollection. One way or another, she managed to found some thirty monasteries in Spain, which have remained in existence through the centuries. The forty-five communities of Augustinian Recollect nuns in existence today, with their more than four hundred nuns, recognize Mother Mariana as their mother and model. They consider the Complete Works as a Christmas gift that they have always hoped for.
It is also particularly appropriate that the publication occurs during the Year of Saint Teresa because Mother Mariana carried on in an outstanding way the spirit of the Saint of Avila. We might say that Teresa’s star is prolonged in Mariana. Mariana was born in Alba de Tormes, Salamanca, fourteen years before Teresa died there. Mariana mentions in her Life that her mother took her as a little girl to meet Teresa, and Teresa blessed her. That blessing was for Mariana a strong support for her life that would always be characterized by her imitation of the great Reformer. The publication of the Complete Works will not be the least of the tributes paid to Saint Teresa during this Fifth Centenary.