- Capuchin, Founder and Bishop

In 1954, year of the Definition of the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception, JOSE MARIA was born in Massamagrell, Valencia (Spain), who upon taking on the Capuchin habit was called FRAY LUIS OF MASSAMAGRELL.

His parents were DON GASPAR Y CHULVI AND DOÑA GENEVEVA FERRER Y DOSET: parents with great faith who knew how to give their children good example of Christian life and conscientious education on the values of the Gospel.

He was born and raised in a convulsed period of the Spanish Republic, in which grave events occured such as the suppression of religious orders and the confiscation of their goods. It was a period marked with great instability, an effect of national decline and internal struggle It was neither a tranquil nor a promising time. Nevertheless, inspite of the turbulent marks in which the personality of JOSE MARIA AMIGO developed, he passed a relatively pleasant and joyful infancy.

While still a child, he went to the Catholic Academy of Valencia, where he recieved the rudiments of a solid literary education. His formation continued as a day-pupil at the Conciliar Seminary of the city where he took up Humanities.

Since his childhood, JOSE MARIA gave signs of openness to the will of God and generosity in relating with others. He actively worked on his self-formation. In order to acquire greater maturity in faith and to dedicate his free time to God and others, be joined at first the Congregation of St. Philip Neri, afterwards the School of Christ and finaly the Third Order Franciscan Secular.

At first LUIS AMIGO wanted to join the Carthusians, but through the wise advices of his spiritual director he discovered afterwards that it is God's will for him to be a Capuchin. In 1874, he directed his steps toward the convent of the Friars Minor at the outskirts of Bayonne, France (as was already said, there was a suppression of Religious Orders in Spain), where he made his first religious profession on April 12, 1875.

He returned to Spain when the fredom to re-open the convents was granted by the government, and at Montehano (Santander) he was ordaind a priest on the 29th of March 1879.

He dedicated himself with much ardor to popular preaching and the organization of the Third Order Franciscan Secular. His voice called together thousands of esthusiastic persons with an admirable spirit conversion. The attention, care and moralization of the prisoners was one of the worries of LUIS AMIGO, a work which he had been doing since his youth when he attended to, catechised and entertained the prisoners in Valencia. One greatest concern of his apostolic spirit was the Christian education of the young ones.

At a very young age he was charged with great responsibilities in the Capuchin Order: Vice Master of Novices, Local Superior, Definitor and Provincial Superior.

Luis Amigó completely in love with the ideal of Secular Franciscanism, makes it the column of his spiritually. His contact with this tertiary spiritually made him a mystic of divine reparation through a merciful work on which two Congregations of Capuchin Tertiary Sisters of the Holy Family and the Capuchin Tertiary Fathers and Brothers of our Lady of Sorrows are based. They are born as a ripe fruit of his apostolate among the secular tertiaries.

On June 9, 1907, he recieved the Episcopal Consecration in Madrid. He fulfilled his mission as a Bisop in Diocese of Solsona and of Segorbe. In both diocese the pastoral ministry of LUIS AMIGO was marked by his dedication and service symbolized by his episcopal siogan "ANIMAN MEAM PONO PRO OVIVUS MEIS" that made him ready to give his life even to each one of his diocesans.

He died on October 1, 1934 at 80 years of age in Godella, Valencia, in the mother house of the Capuchin Tertiaries. Three days after, his remains were buried in his natal town Masamagrell at the pantheon of the church of his children, where they still lie until the present.

In time, his tomb has been converted to a place of pilgrimage for his followers and the admirers of the amigonian work. From the tomb he loves, guides and vigils over his children with the gentleness that he acquired from Francis and the maternal heart of the Virgin Mary.



- Spiritual Figure and Message

Every authentic prophet is a symbol and a message: symbol and message of God, a column of history and a servant of the people. Exactly what LUIS AMIGO Y FERRER had been: Capuchin, Founder and Bishop, symbol and message of life profundly anchored on God, of a clear insight on the signs of the times and of intuition on his brother's clamour.

To try to draw with light strokes the spiritual personality of a man of God is arduous and difficult. The most solid nucleus of Fr. Luis' teaching is the justification and salvation through faith in the dead and resurrcted Christ. If, on the other hand, we seek to put in few words his charism and mission for the service of the Church, the best description would be REDEEMING CHARISM.

He had drank from the rich personality of St. Francis of Assisi, someone that powerfully caught his attention: his concern for marginalized and his pedagogy in order to lead back to the right path those who are astray. The image of the Saint f Assisi approaching and kissing a leper and taming with affection the wolf of Gubbio left in him a deep impression.

As a good son of the Seraph of Assisi and in imitation of the attitude of Good Shepperd, his spirituality evolves around a merciful and redeeming christocentrism and a sorrowful Mariology, of Mary at the foot of the Cross, that develops into a well-defined apostolic vision: the Christian educaiotn of the youth deviated from the way of truth and goodness.

To bring back the lost sheep to the sheep-fold of the Good Sheperd was the Episcopal Slogan of LUIS AMIGO: "I GIVE MY LIFE FOR MY SHEEP" and GIVING OF LIFE was left to us, his children in the last Testament for his two Congregations:

"YOU WHOM HE CALLS TO BECOME THE SHEPERDS OF HIS FLOCK, MUST BE THE ONES TO GO AFTER THE STRAY SHEEP TO BRING IT BACK TO THE SHEEP-FOLD OF THE GOOD SHEPERD. AND DO NOT FEAR TO LOSE YOUR LIFE IN THE PRECIPICE AND RUINS IN WHICH MANY TIMES YOU NEED TO GO INTO IN ORDER TO SAVE THE LOST SHEEP." (OCLA 1813)

Luis Amigó doscovered that the collaboration which God asked from him to the Mystery of Redemption must be accomplished with the two basic activities that distinguished the redemptive work of Christ: ,ERCIFUL LOVE AND THE CROSS.

He became a PROPHET OF MERCY to the most needy: prisoners, aged sick, orphans, astrayed young ones- because he made his own the teaching of the Master, ""I have not come to save the just but the sinners" and dedicated himself "to search for those who are lost".

Luis Amigó listened to the Word of God with extraordinary faith and converted it, with a prophetic mind, with enchanting and attractive simplicity and purity of heart, into a committed interpretation of the Gospel. This generated a supernatural transparency in his conduct which gave the impression of an existence that is completely sustained by the hand of God. A consequence of this was an extreme coherence between practice and theory in him.

His was a transparent existence in which throbbed a rich and prodigal humanity together with a profound faith as a vital pledge and as a mission that is open to the reality of every man. His healthy spirit, with "an innate inclination towards virtue", which he acknowledged as a gift from God, made his life an unceasing march towards good, always attentive to Divine appealings and always awaits opportunities for real and serious initiatives. In his duties as a religious, as a preacher, as superior, as bishop and above all as founder of the two Congregations, we discover a very catching harmony between his fondnees to retreat, to reposed contemplation, to conventual observance on one hand, and on the other an apostolic dynamism of great creativity and concreteness. All of these without the desire to monopolize or be praised, with the gentle security that he who is guided from above need not interest himself with personal success or failure, for only the gory of God pushes him. Without wanting it, the flight of Francis of Assisi comes to mind.

The life of LUIS AMIGO was an existence of profound communion with the Lord, nourished by grace and sustained by prayer. In studying his heroic virtues, one of the Theologians said, "We stand before a giant of spiritual life, a model and prototype of religious, priests, bishops and founders".

Seduced by God's love to love the "marginalized youth" in a society that had not taken into awareness this problem, he intuitively went forward to offer the solutions.

He knew how to fit simplicity and strength harmoniously, balancing between prudence and audacity.

His Charism and Mission are profoundly ecclesial and enjoy perennial existence.

His mortal life is extinguished, but his spirit lives in the AMIGONIAN FAMILY, called by Divine vocation to the redemption of the poor and needy brothers.