The fame of holiness accompanied Poveda in his life and after his death.  Here are some revealing testimonies:

“Whenever I had the opportunity to talk with Fr. Poveda I always appreciated his modesty, his humility, his fineness, his charity and his affable manner that revealed a rare degree of virtue and the signs of an intense interior life” (Juan Aponte, priest, Astorga city, 10/24/1936)

“I had a very intimate relationship with Poveda.  He was devout, simple and humble and possessed a thorough knowledge of the Spanish educational problems, with a great zeal and tactfulness in his actions… He was a saintly man, the kind to undertake great and very difficult works of apostolate”. (Enrique Herrera Oria, SJ.)

“My vision of Don Pedro is that of a man that is all education, goodness, simplicity, of few words, most devout, holy”. (Baldomero Jiménez Duque, October 1947)

Pedro Poveda prayed with a listening heart and committed his life, without reservations, to a love that renounces self at the disposal of God’s will and his Kingdom:  “Lord, that I may think what you want me to think; that I may wish what you want me to wish; that I may speak what you want me to speak; that I may act as you want me to act.  This is my only aspiration” (1933, personal notes)

In the difficult year of 1905, when events turned against his person, praying before Our Lady of Grace he decides to leave Guadix, and in his prayer he waits in silence because “It’s better to sacrifice oneself for others, to surrender, out of love, all one has”

And in 1915, when the Teresian Work was developing without difficulty, he wrote without a trace of bitterness:  “I have been the topic of gossip at gatherings; I have been ridiculed”

Contemplating the life of Christ, Don Pedro grasps the meaning of the type of renunciation that Jesus demands from those who desire to become his disciples, and comprehends that which very few comprehend:  “Lord, that I may not have any other need but to love you”

Pedro Poveda knew he was breaking ground in the Church for a new type of charisma, and understood his life in the light of the mission entrusted by God:  to show through deeds that “science can go hand in hand with a holy life”; the importance of the educator, the potentialities of women, the role of laity in the Church… All these things were done in a humble and tolerant manner, but at the same time, with audacity and solidarity.

A mission whose key element is the Incarnation of the Word:

“The Incarnation of the Word well understood, the person of Christ, his nature and life, offer for those who understand, the sure norm to become saints with the most genuine sanctity, while being at the same time human with true humanism” (1916)

This is the authentic formulation of his charisma, of the gift he received from God for the Church and for the world, a gift received by one who, very early in his life, had recognized himself as an “instrument” in the Lord’s hands.  This perception of the person of Christ as key factor in a life fully human and all God’s constitutes the core of his spirituality and of the charisma of the association of the faithful founded by him, the Teresian Association.

Poveda understood his life only in terms of the mission received from God for the Church. What is of importance about Don Pedro are not his heroic actions but his firm determination to obey, without counting the cost, what he understood to be the will of God.  His own mother said of him:  “I don’t know whether my son is a saint or not, but what I do know is that he has suffered like a saint”. 

His desire to follow Jesus to the point of surrendering his life if need be, as he had manifested on some occasions, progressively generated in him the spirituality of a true martyr.  The concrete circumstance, the religious persecution that took place in Spain in 1936, was the occasion that gave evidence to what had been gestated in his interior life.  He was detained on July 27^th.  He immediately revealed his identity:  “I am a priest of Jesus Christ”.  On the following morning his body was found pierced by bullets.

The life and the death of this man of God under girds what he wrote in 1925:  “The men and women of God are unmistakable.  They are not recognized because they are brilliant, nor because they shine off, nor by their human strength, but by their holy fruits”.

The Teresian Association introduced his Cause of Canonization in 1955.  On October 10^th, 1993, was beatified by Pope John Paul II. He was canonized on May 4^th, 2003, when the Pope visited Spain.

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