The “Grave-Diggers of Mercy” are celebrating the 50th anniversary of their foundation this year: they are the only religious congregation in the world dedicated exclusively to the burial of the dead and to praying for them. The burial of the dead and the prayer for the living and the dead was begun by a group of religious in the cemetery of Guadix (Granada) in 1953. Now, fifty years on, only nine Brothers remain, divided into two communities, one at Guadix, the other at Logroño. The congregation’s founder, fra José María de Jesús Crucificado, is still alive. It was he who began this particular experience of religious life, which rapidly spread, but only in Spain. In a document written for the jubilee of the congregation, fra José María writes that “the idea came to me at Córdoba, with the intention of founding a new religious family dedicated to cemeteries”. For the members of the order, “death is not the end, but only the beginning: that’s why they call it life-in-death”, says the communiqué in which they explain their mission. The superior general of the congregation, Alberto Agustín Sany, recalls: “During these years we have tried to be the salt and light of the Risen Christ, in a period in which so many people walk in darkness and think that everything finishes here in this world”.
