Dr. Mariano Mullerat I Soldevila was a Spanish doctor and a good Catholic husband, father of seven children and mayor of the town of Arbeca where he tended to the sick and cared for the poor for free. He would encourage the homebound and the dying to receive the Sacraments frequently and when elected mayor erected a large image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in a place of honor in the City Hall.
But when the anti-Catholic "Second Republic" came into power, churches were burned and faithful priests and lay folks were summarily executed. Thus did government soldiers arrive at Dr. Mullerat’s office in August of 1936 and throw him in the back of a truck.
Along the route to his place of execution the truck was stopped by a desperate mother whose child was ill. The child was brought to the truck, where the doctor examined the boy, wrote a prescription and reassured his mother that he would recover. It was then that the Doctor noticed a deep cut on the leg of one of the soldiers. His last act as a doctor was to bandage and medicate a wound on the body of one of his executioners.
Along the route to his place of execution the truck was stopped by a desperate mother whose child was ill. The child was brought to the truck, where the doctor examined the boy, wrote a prescription and reassured his mother that he would recover. It was then that the Doctor noticed a deep cut on the leg of one of the soldiers. His last act as a doctor was to bandage and medicate a wound on the body of one of his executioners.
Later, his wife, Dolores, was told that Dr. Mullerat’s last words were “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”
Blessed Mariano Mullerat I Soldevia, pray for us!
