Last Sunday, October 20, Jesús Mauleón Heredia, priest, poet and friend, passed away. Better said: good priest, good poet and good friend, companion for many years in the committee of essay de Río Arga. Jesús, who was born in Arróniz in 1936, entered in 1948 in the seminar of Comillas, to do the programs of study that would prepare him to be ordained priest. Later he moved to Innsbruck, where he completed the programs of study of Theology; and then to Munich, where he studied German Studies for two years. From that period remains his collection of poems, La luna del emigrante (The Moon of the Emigrant), of B social significance.

After his priestly ordination (1963), he returned to Navarra and graduated in Philosophy and Letters, while continuing his pastoral work, as parish priest of Navaz, Unzu, Ollacarizqueta and Garciriáin, where he has left excellent memories. A man of deep culture, a true humanist of serene gesture and wise words, gifted with good humor, Mauleón was a professor of literature for many years at seminar, and between 1982 and 1994 he was in charge of the Press Office of the Archbishopric of Pamplona. A regular partner radio and press contributor, he was co-founder and director (between 1983 and 1987) of Río Arga and co-founder and vice-president of Ateneo Navarro/Nafar Ateneoa. In 1984 he was awarded the award San Fermín Journalism Award by the Pamplona City Council.

In his literary facet, he is the author of books of narrative, poetry and spirituality. The main themes of his writings are God, time and death (true "universals of feeling", in Machadian expression), together with the mother, childhood, love, friendship, old age, illness and suffering. And, indeed, the serene acceptance of his illness and his death - Christian and transcendently understood as a joyful meeting with the divinity - came to constitute his best and final poem. In the last e-mail he wrote me, last August 5, he said: "I am in the extension of my party. Eight or ten months ago my doctors predicted a possible imminent end. But, at 87 years old and with lung cancer, I am still alive. And in peace and contentment. I have had no excruciating pain. I have had a lot of discomfort and limitations. [Everything is in God's plan, who has given us so much so far.

His narrative production includes El tío de Jaimerena (1980), award Navarra de Novela Corta, and Osasuna se traduce la salud (1985), semifinalist of award Nadal 1984, among other titles. As a poet, Mauleón was part of what Florencio Martínez Ruiz called the "new mester de clerecía", referring to several socially committed priest-poets. His collections of poems were collected in the volume Obra poética (1954-2005), published in 2005 by the Government of Navarra, and now you can read the recently published Antología poética (1968-2024). His works on spirituality are also included.

On Sunday Jesus left us, he left his earthly existence, but he remains - and will remain - alive in our memory. To put it in his own words, taken from his composition "Poeta" (dated October 2017, included in Pero estás en mi aliento), he has already died in words, yes, but he has left "with them / to read my verses to God and the stars." Undoubtedly that is so. D. E. P. Jesús, the good priest, the good poet, the good and dear friend.