Marh 2011: a spiritual stone

The works continue on the Sagrada Família, the central towers rising and expanding the cloister to the sacristy. Also being completed elements of the interior, as the windows. But during the month of March, the most unique stone that has become is not material stone: it is a spiritual stone. This is the remains of Father Gil Parés, first pastor of the Crypt, since it was erected as parish ownership, and close friend of Gaudí, to the extent that the architect was appointed executor of his will. Father Parés had been a catechist in the Sagrada Família and after ecclesiastical studies and ordained priest, lived in the house that Gaudi built for the chaplain of the crypt, annexed to his study. During the religious persecution of 1936, he was killed like priest, together with those who tried to hide from their pursuers. Recently opened his beatification as a martyr, on March 11, 2011 his remains were moved from the cemetery to the Crypt. Lie in the chapel of Christ, the symmetrical to that of the Virgin of Carmen, where lie the remains of Gaudí. Both friends, architect and priest, back together in his beloved Crypt of the Sagrada Família, as spiritual foundations of the building alive. The ceremony was presided by the Cardinal-Archbishop Martínez Sistach, who said that Pope Benedict XVI, at the end of the recent dedication to the cult of the basilica, had referred to Father Gil Parés in the Angelus on the Nativity Façade. The cardinal added that “Father Gil took a day his life in conformity with his faith. And the grain of wheat has borne fruit. The martyrs are the great witnesses of the Christian life.”