In a time when the words «holiness» and «priesthood» seem to be lacking, the figure of Blessed Marcelo Spínola (1835-1906) shines with a deeply relevant light. Archbishop of Seville, cardinal for a few brief days, and founder of the Slaves of the Divine Heart, the humble aristocrat Marcelo Spínola y Maestre, lawyer, bore witness to a radically Eucharistic priesthood, humbly charitable and apostolically fruitful. That is why he was beatified by St. John Paul II in 1987.
Eucharist and Priesthood: The Love of the Heart of Jesus
The spirituality of Marcelo Spínola is centered on the Heart of Christ, the source of all his pastoral action and his unlimited self-giving. It was in the Eucharistic school of the Divine Heart that he learned to live the priesthood as a total gift of himself. From the long hours of adoration before the tabernacle to the tireless dedication to the confessional, Spínola embodied that mystery which for him was not an abstract theological concept but concrete life: the Eucharist is the heart of the Christian world and the center of priestly life. This vision led him to a passionate charity: visiting the sick, aiding the poor, catechizing, and accompanying with a patience and tenderness that only flow from one who has spent hours before the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament.
The book El bien a manos llenas
The biography Blessed Marcelo Spínola: El bien a manos llenas, by the priest and theologian Alberto José González Chaves (Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 2005), faithfully and deeply captures this vital and spiritual testimony. The work, published in the BAC Biographies collection, offers the reader not only the essential facts of a splendid life, but the spiritual key that explains it: Spínola was a man of the altar and the Eucharist above all. Monsignor González Chaves, in nearly 300 pages of profound and well-documented text, clearly traces this spiritual profile. The book fits into the best tradition of Catholic hagiography, accessible to the educated reader as well as to those seeking spiritual inspiration rather than scholarly study. The author emphasizes the centrality of the Eucharist in Christian life, presents the priesthood as a total gift of one’s own life to God and souls, and charity as a concrete and everyday gesture, offering the contemporary reader a mirror for their own spiritual life. The book not only presents facts and dates, but a spiritual reading that dialogues with the current situation, inviting priests and laity to rediscover the beauty, joy, and radicality of the priesthood, in an inevitably Eucharistic key. Spínola teaches that holiness is within reach of those who allow themselves to be molded by the Heart of Christ, and that the priesthood is, above all, a mystery of love given in service to the Church.
The prologue by his namesake and counterpart, Cardinal Marcelo González Martín, is, like everything of his, a treasure of reflection: it presents Spínola as a model priest in a time marked by epochal challenges. According to Don Marcelo, the blessed Spínola was not a half-hearted priest but a «priest in full body», capable of embodying in every gesture the real presence of Christ in the consecrated Host.
Toward a reprint… on the occasion of an imminent canonization!
With hope placed in the upcoming canonization of Blessed Marcelo Spínola, who well deserves it for the holiness of his life and the transparency of his Eucharistic example, it would be desirable for El bien a manos llenas to be widely disseminated. An updated reprint would offer a new generation of believers the light of Spínola’s priestly heart, helping to rediscover the centrality of the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus and the greatness of the priesthood in a world that needs saints.