Last October, the digital and print editions of the book The Troubadour of Christ: Friar Julián Moreno, Augustinian Recollect Martyr were presented. The editor of that first selection, Marciano Santervás, an Augustinian Recollect, now presents in digital format the remainder of the known poetic works of the blessed martyr, who died in Motril in 1936 and was the nephew of the also saintly Augustinian Recollect, Saint Ezequiel Moreno.
Julián Benigno Moreno Moreno (1871-1936) was born in Alfaro (La Rioja, Spain). As an Augustinian Recollect friar, he served in communities and ministries in the Philippines, Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, Brazil, and Spain, until he was martyred in Motril (Granada) on July 25, 1936, along with his entire community. Saint John Paul II beatified them in 1999.
From a very young age he was attracted to versification and gave free rein to his poetic and literary inspiration, to which he added his life experience in so many places, climates, landscapes, cultures and traditions.
These poems had never been published together before; they were held in the General Archive of the Augustinian Recollects in Rome. Marciano Santervás undertook the publication of that first selection of 57 poems, but in the prologue to The Troubadour of Christ, he noted the need to safeguard the remaining poems in a subsequent publication. This is the one now presented.
There is a very high probability that more poems are scattered throughout archives and periodicals that are now difficult to access. In fact, there are enormous gaps in the timeline of the poems collected in the General Archive, which only contains writings from his early formative years, his time in Venezuela, and a few others from his later stays at the convents of training in Spain.
The new publication contains 69 poems, twelve more than the 57 in The Troubadour of Christ, but it occupies one hundred more pages since several poems are considerably longer, some exceeding one thousand verses.
The editor has organized the poems by thematic groupings and has added, where he has deemed it appropriate, some introductions, annotations and comments to facilitate a more comprehensive and delightful reading.
The ultimate goal is for the reader to approach Blessed Julián Moreno from his perspective as a “troubadour of Christ,” savor the beauty of his creations, and admire the skill for versifying with which this Augustinian Recollect poet and martyr was endowed.
