The year 2014 was coming to an end when the Augustinian Recollect Nuns presented us with a very important publication: The Complete Works of their Foundress, Mariana de San José, who died in Madrid in 1638. All the writings of Mother Mariana filled up an impressive volume of almost 1,800 pages and for the first time it was edited with critical interest.
Presentation
Four months later, this volume of the Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos (Library of Christian Authors) (Serie Maior 115) is already in the hands of the Augustinian Recollect Nuns all over the world and the time for its official presentation in public has come. The event will take place next 14th of May, Thursday, in the Real Monasterio de la Encarnación of Madrid, of which Mother Mariana was the Foundress and Prioress, and where her remains rest.
The ceremony will start at 6 p.m. or 18 hours under the Presidency of Cardinal Ricardo Blázque, Archbishop of Valladolid and President of the Bishops’ Conference of Spain. And Monsignor Eusebio Hernández, OAR, Bishop of Tarazona (Zaragoza), will sit at his side. And accompanying them will be the Prior General of the Order of the Augustinian Recollects, Fray Miguel Miró, as well as Mother Eva María Oiz Ezcura, President of Federation of the Augus-tinian Recollects Nuns of Spain. The main intervention is reserved for the author of the edition and the highest authority on Mother Mariana, the Recollect Fr. Jesús Diez Rastrilla.
Pocket Edition of the Biography
Fr. Diez Rastrilla spent thirty years in the revision of the manuscripts and in the annota-tions of the texts. This explains the very considerable size of the volume; how much more when the editor believed that it was necessary to complete his work with an extensive biography of 180 pages.
It is obvious that a work that is so technical and voluminous is not intended for general public; it is only for specialists in specific fields of spirituality and literature, or for admirers that Mother may have, among whom occupying the forefront are her daughters and the members of the Augustinian Recollect Family. But for the ordinary Christian or for a cultivated person without further specifications, there is a need for a more simple written work.
It is what has appeared as the number 2 of the Collection Lámparas ardientes. Although it has almost one hundred (100) pages, this is a nice and easy to use booklet, in it the visual elements, the color and the photography are predominant. The author is Fr. Jesus Diez himself who, without giving so much details as in the Obras completas, has not left anything that could be of interest for the average reader.
In 1996 Fr. Diez had already published another biography of Mother Mariana. The actual is more up-to-date, better focused and much more pleasantly presented. And like in the previous one, in this he dedicates twenty-three (23) pages to the best texts of Mother, in such a way that the reader could appreciate the literary quality and spirituality of these writings of the classical period.
No matter that this booklet may have appeared with a delay of two months in relation to the “fat book”, it can be said with every reason that it serves as its appetizer and that with it, Fr. Diez Rastrilla completes his work. And indeed it will be served as an appetizer, in the act of the presentation of the Obras completas, next 14th of May.