‘Love is the great key’: Meet Servants of God Tomás and Paquita Alvira
The Dicastery for the Causes of the Saints received official biographies of Tomás and Paquita Alvira, advancing their joint beatification cause. The couple, a Spanish married pair from Aragón who endured the Civil War, are celebrated as models of Christian married life. Their cause is one of few modern joint beatification cases, similar to other couples beatified by John Paul II. The article includes an interview with postulator Fr. José Carlos Martín de la Hoz, discussing their lives and the progress of the cause. The Alviras had nine children, and their story illustrates faith, perseverance, and family devotion amid wartime hardship.
about 2 months ago
Tomás and Paquita Alvira, a Spanish couple remembered for their deep marital love, family life and Christian example, have advanced to the Roman phase of their joint beatification cause. Their official biographies were submitted to the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints after 14 years of work, but the cause still requires recognition of heroic virtue and, eventually, an approved miracle. 1
Tomás Alvira Alvira and Francisca “Paquita” Domínguez Susín met in Aragón in the 1930s. Tomás was a science teacher preparing to pursue a secondary-school teaching position, while Paquita worked as a schoolteacher in Huesca province. 1
The Spanish Civil War separated them for three years, placing them in opposing zones of the divided country. After the war ended in 1939, Tomás found Paquita again and eventually obtained a teaching position at Madrid’s Instituto Ramiro de Maeztu, as well as work with the Higher Council for Scientific Research. 1
They married and had nine children, although their eldest died at age five. Paquita left her teaching career after marriage to raise the children and manage the household, while Tomás continued teaching and later helped establish secondary schools in different parts of Spain. 1
The Alviras’ cause is being presented as a cause of marriage rather than as two entirely separate causes. According to the postulator, Father José Carlos Martín de la Hoz, the process examines each person’s individual practice of Christian virtues while also considering how those virtues were lived through their marital love. 1
The diocesan investigations for Tomás and Paquita were completed separately, with the documentation sealed and delivered to the dicastery. The postulator personally carried the materials to Rome, together with certifications from the diocesan officials responsible for the process. 1
The next step is for the dicastery’s historical experts, theologians, canonists and bishops to determine whether both lived the Christian virtues to a heroic degree. A decree of heroic virtue would be required before the cause could proceed to the miracle phase. 1
In a joint marital cause, reported favors are associated with the couple rather than assigned separately to the husband or wife. The Alviras’ prayer card therefore depicts them together, and the postulator is working to extend devotion to them internationally while awaiting a possible miracle attributed to their intercession. 1
The Alviras’ children remembered a home marked by affection, encouragement and faith. Their children described Paquita as tender, warm and humble, while Tomás was remembered for making others feel personally valued, including his students. 1
Father Martín de la Hoz recalled Tomás teaching him to recognize God’s creation through the microscopic beauty of a mineral specimen. He said Tomás’ affection for students was not merely emotional warmth but also an effort to broaden their horizons and help them grow. 1
All eight children who reached adulthood became numeraries of Opus Dei, including one who became a priest. The postulator emphasized that the significance of the family’s example lies not in the children’s particular vocation, but in the parents’ faithful marriage and the freedom with which each child responded to his or her own vocation. 1
The Alviras’ spiritual life was shaped by the spirituality of Opus Dei and by the idea that ordinary work, family duties and daily activities could become means of sanctification. Their practice centered on making the day an offering to God, with the Mass as the “center and root” of their interior life. 1
Their children remembered attending Sunday Mass together, followed by a special family breakfast. They also saw their parents attend daily Mass, pray, read the Gospel and recite the Rosary together after dinner. 1
Paquita’s approach to prayer was described as practical and gradual. After attending a retreat as a mother of several children, she resolved to begin with five minutes of mental prayer, reflecting an effort to integrate spiritual practices into the demands of family life. 1
The couple’s example also influenced how they corrected one another. Rather than using sweeping criticism, they reportedly combined affection with specific and constructive advice, often beginning with kisses or embraces so that correction was received within an atmosphere of love and hope. 1
Tomás was among the early married members of Opus Dei, known as supernumeraries. At an early formation gathering, he and other participants reportedly came to understand the importance of marital love and the family as central to their Christian vocation. 1
The family’s relationship with Opus Dei was presented as reinforcing, rather than replacing, their responsibilities as spouses and parents. The priority of a married member was described as love within the family, with professional work and social responsibilities ordered around that commitment. 1
The Alviras also sought to form their children in responsible freedom and generosity. They gradually entrusted them with greater personal and financial independence, presenting this as a way to cultivate detachment from material possessions and a willingness to serve God and others. 1
The couple experienced several major hardships: separation during the Civil War, the death of their eldest child, Tomás’ cancer and Paquita’s two years of widowhood. Their spiritual approach treated these events as part of the Christian path, while emphasizing that daily sacrifices and patient charity prepared them for more serious trials. 1
Those familiar with them especially recall that they remained visibly in love into old age. Their mutual attentiveness, affection and shared habits were cited as signs of a marriage that had retained its warmth and closeness over decades. 1
Devotion to the couple has spread through prayer cards, bulletins, videos and personal testimony, with reported favors coming from Latin America and other parts of the world. The requests most commonly associated with their intercession concern romantic relationships, family reconciliation, children returning to the faith and renewed harmony between spouses. 1*
Investigate Catholic doctrine on married couples’ beatification
The Catholic Church teaches that marriage is a genuine path to holiness. Married couples are not required to pursue sanctity by abandoning family life; rather, they are sanctified through faithful marital love, parenthood, and the duties of their state in life.
The sacrament of Matrimony is described as a “specific source and original means of sanctification” for Christian spouses and families. Christ’s grace accompanies the couple throughout their lives, enabling them to grow in faith, hope, and charity through mutual self-giving and family responsibilities.
The spouses therefore assist one another in salvation:
“They help each other to attain to holiness in their married life and in the rearing and education of their children.”
This sanctification is not merely individual. Marriage creates a shared Christian vocation in which the spouses cooperate in each other’s spiritual growth and form what the Church calls a “domestic Church.”
The principal elements of this vocation include:
The Church consequently recognizes that holiness can be lived within ordinary married and family life, not only through religious vows, priesthood, celibacy, or martyrdom.
Yes. The Church can investigate and beatify spouses together when their holiness is genuinely manifested in their common married and family life. The clearest precedent in the sources is Luigi Beltrame Quattrocchi and Maria Corsini, beatified by Pope John Paul II on 21 October 2001.
Their beatification was presented as the first beatification of a married couple. The Church recognized not simply that each had been holy independently, but that their fidelity and heroic virtue were evident specifically in their life as spouses and parents.
John Paul II described this as confirmation that:
“The path of holiness lived together as a couple is possible, beautiful, extraordinarily fruitful, and fundamental for the good of the family, the Church and society.”
Their marriage thus became part of the evidence of their sanctity. Their relationship was understood as a sacramental sign of Christ’s love for the Church, rather than as an obstacle to individual holiness.
A crucial distinction is necessary: the Church beatifies persons, not marriage as an abstract institution.
Each spouse must be shown to have lived a Christian life marked by heroic virtue or martyrdom. The Church’s procedural instruction states that a cause concerns a Catholic who has acquired a reputation for holiness by living the Christian virtues heroically, or a reputation for martyrdom by giving his or her life for Christ.
Accordingly:
The couple’s mutual love can therefore be both the means by which they grew in holiness and the concrete setting in which their heroic virtue became visible.
The sources do not establish a separate sacramental or theological state called “couple beatification.” Rather, the ordinary causes of beatification are applied to two persons whose lives are closely connected.
The instruction Sanctorum Mater allows one inquiry concerning several Servants of God in a specific circumstance: alleged martyrs killed during the same persecution and in the same place. In such a case, one person is designated as head of the group and the others as companions.
For a married couple recognized for heroic virtue, however, the significance lies principally in their shared vocation, not in an automatic juridical grouping. The Church must still establish the sanctity of each person.
“Heroic virtue” does not mean that the person performed spectacular deeds constantly. It refers to a stable and exceptional readiness to act virtuously for supernatural motives, even when doing so involves serious difficulty or sacrifice.
In marriage, such virtue may appear through:
The ordinary character of these duties does not make them spiritually insignificant. On the contrary, the Church teaches that spouses can transform their whole family life into a “spiritual sacrifice” offered to God.
Beatification and canonization are related but distinct.
According to the Church’s explanation of the rites:
Thus, a beatified married couple may be publicly venerated according to the permissions established by the Church, but beatification does not yet mean that universal liturgical veneration has been granted.
The Church’s investigation seeks moral certainty regarding heroic virtue or martyrdom. The procedural and evidentiary requirements belong to the canonical process and should not be confused with the sacramental grace of Matrimony itself.
The beatification of a married couple expresses several important Catholic teachings:
Catholic doctrine fully allows for the beatification of married couples. Marriage itself is a sacramental path of sanctification, and spouses may become holy through their mutual fidelity, family responsibilities, sacrifice, prayer, and service. Yet the Church does not beatify a marriage automatically or treat the couple as one undifferentiated person: each spouse must be shown to have lived Christian virtue heroically or to have suffered martyrdom.
The case of Luigi Beltrame Quattrocchi and Maria Corsini demonstrates that a couple may be recognized together when their heroic Christian life was authentically expressed through their marriage and parenthood.