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In character, Mariano is remembered as active and enterprising, generous, open and communicative, a person of affection, simplicity and kindness, with the smile always on his face.
Although he had a strong temperament, he was incapable of hiding his feelings and the tears.
He had great devotion to the Eucharist and to the Virgin Mary.
His fellow Augustinians in Brazil remember with emotion that moment at which, after having his eyes covered for several days after the removal of cataracts in Belo Horizonte, Brazil he opened them to contemplate a picture of the Mary, the Mother of the Consolation, and cried and wept profusely like a boy.
To speak of Mariano is to remember a messenger of the charity: the friend of children and the poor. In the afternoons he was frequently seen in the streets of San Paolo, visiting the two hundred "Factories of Charity of Santa Rita", of whom he was many years the chaplain, where ladies made sweets and clothing for distribution to the poor.
Many times an unexpected call for his aid resulted in his returning late to the college.
He had great affection for his extended family back in Spain. To them he was an "uncle" par excellence. Plants were another one of his great passions. He spoke with them, and caressed their leaves.
He said that their petals reminded him of the greatness of their Creator. The terrace of the Colegio San Agustín in San Paolo owes much of this his care of the flowers and the birds.
Late in January 1983 he was diagnosed with cancer. Surgery failed to stop its spreading, and he died of it on 5th April 1983.
He was then seventy-seven years of age, and had spent sixty of those years in religious life. He was buried in a tomb in the Agustinian Church of San Paolo São Paulo), Brazil. (See page 2 of the Augnet Photo gallery named Latin America.)
In San Paolo, the Order of Saint Augustine has a day-care centre, a youth centre and a professional school in his honour. The mayor of the city has named a street in his memory.
The Spanish Government, through its General Consulate in Brazil, granted to him the medal, the Great Cross of Isabel the Catholic.
His cause for canonisation (i.e., to be officially declared by the Church to be a saint) formally began on 31st May 1987.
The process advanced to the stage that an early ceremony in the long process took place in San Paolo (São Paulo) on 31st May 1997 in the presence of Cardinal Paulo Evaristo Arns.
The next step was his being declared Blessed at a ceremony on 5th November 2006 in the Church of Saint Augustine, San Paolo, Brazil, the place of his tomb.
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