Monument to Diego Cera. Las PIñas, Philippines.

The Augustinian Recollect Diego Cera (Graus, Huesca, Spain, 1762 — Manila, Philippines, 1832) is a good representative of the social-evangelizing work of the Augustinian Recollects in the Philippines. His contributions to universal culture have reached our days. In this IV Centenary (1621-2021) of the Province of San Nicolás de Tolentino, his life “always on mission” and his dedication to the Filipino people encourage the missionaries of the present and the future.

Graus is the capital of the Ribagorza region, northeast of Huesca, in Aragon, Spain. Today it has little more than 3,000 inhabitants and the peculiarity of preserving the Aragonese language in its Bajorribagorzana or Grausino variant. Its Parish of Saint Michael belongs to the Diocese of Barbastro, whose headquarters are 31 kilometers from the town.

Today it could be an example of that rural and empty Spain that has received little attention from the rest of urban and cosmopolitan society, with problems of depopulation, lack of public investment, infrastructure and public services.

One of the streets of Graus bears the name of Fray Diego Cera. It is in an urbanization far from the historic center, surrounding the Baltazar Grecian Secondary Education Institute. It is no less a nod to the figure of the recollect religious, for whom wisdom and science were a fundamental part of his life project.

There is another urban road in the world dedicated to the Recollect missionary: Diego Cera Avenue in Las Piñas, in Greater Manila, which passes over the Pulang Lupa and Zapote bridges and in front of the San José parish church. Both bridges and the temple are the work of Cera.

Little Graus and huge Manila are united by someone who brought together the best of both worlds, so distant and different. The missionaries sowed —and it bore fruit— love for the Gospel, for science, for progress, for the community as a living space of solidarity, and for human dignity.

Diego was born on July 26, 1762, the son of Joaquín Cera and Francisca Badía. So far, the news we have about this family: we do not know how many there were or what they did. Parish books have not resisted the multiple wars that took place in this border area between Spain and France throughout the 18th and 19th centuries.

We do know that before becoming an Augustinian Recollect, he had already been an organist and organ builder. He made his novitiate in the convent of Barcelona and on January 30, 1787, he professed under the religious name of Fray Diego Cera de la Virgen del Carmen. He was ordained a priest in the convent of Benabarre (Huesca) and by August 1790 he resides in Zaragoza.

While Cera was in Zaragoza, Provincial Commissioner Manuel de Jesús María visited the community. Under this position was the religious of the missionary Province of the Philippines of the Augustinian Recollects, called San Nicolás de Tolentino, who from time to time visited the convents of the other Provinces (Aragón, Andalucía and Castilla) looking for volunteers for the Philippine mission.

Cera affirms his missionary vocation at 28 years of age. This implied moving from his Province of Nuestra Señora del Pilar to that of San Nicolás de Tolentino and normally traveling to Asia without ever returning, as was the case with Fray Diego.

It was the 25th Recollect mission to the Philippines, led by the vice-commissioner Fray Mauro de San Agustín. On October 15, 1790, Diego left Zaragoza for Cádiz. An official of this port left a written description of our friar: “average size, blue eyes, brown hair and no beard.”

On December 3, on the ship El Águila, thirteen Recollects left for Veracruz, in Mexico, where they arrived on January 30, 1791, after 58 days of crossing the Atlantic. In the Hospicio de San Nicolás de Tolentino in Mexico City they wait for a year for the next galleon. In Acapulco they embarked on the San Andrés in February 1792, with a stopover in the Marianas—where two of their companions stayed to support the mission in Guam—and they arrived in Manila on June 5.

At almost 30 years of age, Diego begins an authentic new missionary life.

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