Josep Manyanet i Vives

Josep Manyanet i Vives was born on 7 January 1833 in Tremp, in the Pallars Jussà area of the Catalan Pyrenees, in the province of Lleida, Spain. He was raised in a Catholic family and discerned a priestly vocation in youth. He completed seminary formation for the Diocese of Urgell and was ordained a priest on 9 April 1859 by Bishop Josep Caixal i Estradé. In the following years he served in pastoral assignments in that diocese and in the education and spiritual direction of seminarians and the faithful. Already in this period he placed the Holy Family of Nazareth at the center of his spirituality, presenting Jesus, Mary, and Joseph as the living rule of Christian homes and of the Christian education of children.

The social and religious conditions of nineteenth-century Spain, including pressures on Catholic schooling and on family life, shaped his later work. On 19 March 1864, the feast of Saint Joseph, he founded the Congregation of the Sons of the Holy Family (Hijos de la Sagrada Familia Jesús, María y José), composed of priests and brothers. Their purpose was to give a solid Christian education to children and young people and to help families imitate the household of Nazareth. Ten years later, in 1874, he founded the Missionary Daughters of the Holy Family of Nazareth, a congregation of women committed to a similar apostolate among girls and families. He devoted himself to the internal organization of both institutes, to the opening of schools, and to the composition of constitutions and spiritual texts.

Manyanet was a leading promoter of Holy Family devotion in Catalonia. He encouraged the erection of a church in Barcelona dedicated to Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. That current of piety is historically connected with the later Basilica of the Sagrada Família, begun in 1882 through the Association of Devotees of Saint Joseph; Catholic tradition regards Manyanet as an apostle and spiritual precursor of that temple. He taught that Nazareth is a school in which the Church learns the Gospel in ordinary life. In his final years he suffered a severe, prolonged illness, including chronic open wounds, which he accepted in a spirit of faith and union with the Passion.

He died in Barcelona on 17 December 1901. His body was buried in the city and his remains were later enshrined in the chapel of the mother house of the Sons of the Holy Family in Barcelona. A canonical process examined his life and reputation for holiness. Pope John Paul II beatified him on 25 November 1984 and canonized him on 16 May 2004 in Saint Peter's Square in Rome, proposing him as a model of priestly life and as a witness to the sanctity and educational mission of the family. His liturgical feast is celebrated on 17 December. The congregations he founded continue their work in education and family ministry, and he is remembered in the Catholic Church as a nineteenth-century apostle of the Holy Family.