Miguel Mañara

Upon returning to Seville in April 1662, Miguel Mañara sought his path. On December 10, 1662, he was admitted as a member of the Brotherhood of the Holy Charity (Hermandad de la Santa Caridad) of Seville. At that time, the brotherhood's primary mission was to provide a Christian burial for those condemned to death, the drowned, and the indigent abandoned in the streets. In December 1663, he was unanimously elected Brother Superior (Hermano Mayor) of the brotherhood, a position he would hold until his death.

Under his leadership, the work of the Holy Charity experienced extraordinary development. Mañara expanded the brotherhood's mission to care not only for the dead but also for the most miserable among the living. In 1664, after finding a poor man who had died of cold in the street, he decided to rent an old warehouse near the brotherhood's church to open a hospice intended to shelter the homeless, the sick, and pilgrims.

He then undertook the construction of a large hospital (the Hospital de la Caridad) and the completion of the Church of San Jorge (Saint George). To decorate these spaces and convey a strong spiritual message, he called upon the greatest artists of the Sevillian Baroque, notably the painters Bartolomé Esteban Murillo and Juan de Valdés Leal, as well as the sculptor Pedro Roldán. The famous canvases by Valdés Leal, In Ictu Oculi and Finis Gloriae Mundi, commissioned by Mañara, strikingly illustrate the vanity of earthly glories and the equality of all before death.

In 1671, he wrote his famous spiritual treatise, the Discurso de la verdad (Discourse on Truth), a major work of 17th-century Spanish ascetic literature, centered on detachment from the world and preparation for death. In 1675, he also drafted a new Rule (Regla) for the brotherhood, codifying the spirit of poverty and unconditional service to the poor.

The conversion of Miguel Mañara was accompanied by an increasingly radical life of penance and humility. In 1677, he definitively abandoned his palace on Levíes Street to settle into an extremely simple and austere cell within the Hospital of Charity itself, in order to live as closely as possible to the poor, whom he called "our masters and lords." He spent his final years personally caring for the sick, feeding the hungry, and imposing rigorous mortifications upon himself. Feeling his end approaching, he wrote his will on March 17, 1679, in which he expressed his deep contrition for the sins of his youth and requested to be buried under a simple slab at the entrance of the Church of San Jorge, so that all the faithful would walk over him as they entered. He had this famous epitaph inscribed there: "Here lie the bones and ashes of the worst man who ever existed in the world. Pray to God for him." Miguel Mañara passed away holily in Seville on May 9, 1679, at the age of 52, causing immense mourning throughout the city.

From the year following his death, in 1680, the Archbishop of Seville opened a diocesan process for his beatification. However, the cause suffered numerous delays and historical vicissitudes, notably the loss and theft of archival documents by Napoleonic troops during the invasion of Spain at the beginning of the 19th century. At the beginning of the 20th century, the cause was relaunched with vigor under the impetus of Cardinal Marcelo Spínola, Archbishop of Seville and himself a member of the Brotherhood of the Holy Charity. The apostolic process progressed throughout the 20th century. On July 6, 1985, Pope John Paul II signed the decree recognizing the heroic nature of his virtues, thus awarding him the official title of Venerable. To this day, no miracle has yet been officially approved by the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, which explains why the Venerable Miguel Mañara has not yet been beatified. The Brotherhood of the Holy Charity continues to actively promote his cause and to collect testimonies of graces obtained through his intercession.

The spirituality of Miguel Mañara is deeply marked by the Spanish Baroque theology of 'desengaño' (disillusionment or the realization of the vanity of worldly illusions). For Mañara, the contemplation of death and the brevity of earthly life is not a source of despair, but a pressing call to conversion and charitable action. He teaches that the crucified and abandoned Christ hides under the features of the poorest, stating: 'Under these rags is the poor Christ, my God and Lord'.

His most visible legacy is the Hospital of the Holy Charity of Seville, which continues today, more than three centuries after his death, its mission of welcoming and caring for the elderly and the most destitute.

On a cultural and literary level, the figure of Miguel Mañara has been the subject of a persistent confusion with the mythical character of Don Juan. Although the original play by Tirso de Molina, El burlador de Sevilla (1630), was published when Mañara was only three years old, popular legend has assimilated his dissipated youth to that of the famous seducer. In the 19th century, French romantic writers, particularly Prosper Mérimée in his short story The Souls of Purgatory (1834) and Alexandre Dumas in his drama Don Juan de Marana, popularized this connection by creating the hybrid character of 'Don Juan de Maraña', a converted libertine inspired by the life of Mañara. In the 20th century, the poet Oscar Vladislas de Lubicz-Milosz dedicated his mystical play Miguel Mañara to him, and the composer Henri Tomasi adapted it into an opera.