Gaspar Bruner de Lebrija—Nuestra Señora de las Lágrimas

Gaspar Bruner de Lebrija’s relationship with Nuestra Señora de las Lágrimas began as a land donation and became the church’s principal protection against demolition. In 1687 he gave the land on condition that a weekly Mass be celebrated for his soul; the resulting privilege, later sustained by a Thursday service, makes family memory a practical force in the present conflict over the church’s survival.

The Donation and Its Memorial

Gaspar Bruner de Lebrija belonged to the family whose generations would be buried in a private crypt at the church. The entrance was concealed beside the main altar, and the family’s connection to the building was visible above ground as well: Duque Cornejo carved a kneeling image of Gaspar, together with a figure representing his wife. The church’s architect was Pedro Romero, who also worked for the Duke of Medina-Sidonia.

Gaspar donated a plot of his property in 1687 for the church to be built, stipulating that Mass be said for his soul once a week. His son, Guzmán Bruner, paid for the completion of the altarpiece bearing his parents’ effigies and brought the Virgin’s image to the church in 1711. The building thus carries the family’s history not only in the crypt and sculptures but in an obligation repeated through worship.

The Privilege and the Threat of Demolition

The donation’s condition acquired force as an old privilege, sanctioned by the pope in the same year. The Archbishop of Seville explains that the church retains its fueros as long as a Thursday Mass is celebrated for Gaspar’s soul. In the present day, this clause makes secularization—a prerequisite for demolition—difficult. The Archbishop has sought the suspension of Father Ferro from his office, but the procedure is slow; the conflict is therefore shaped both by church discipline and by the inherited condition attached to the land.

The choice of Thursday is linked to the day Gaspar died. In one account the death is dated to 1709, while the land donation and papal sanction are placed in 1687. Macarena explains that the weekly Mass must be held at eight in the morning. The rule is not merely a distant historical detail: it sets the terms on which opponents of the parish can seek an opening to demolish it.

A Repeated Mass Under Watch

Father Ferro does not merely meet the weekly requirement: he celebrates Mass every day at eight in the morning, except on Sundays and holy days, when he celebrates twice. His regular practice makes the Thursday obligation secure in one sense, yet the church’s opponents continue to scrutinize it. Macarena describes an emissary of the Archbishop and a notary paid by Pencho Gavira sitting in the last pew each Thursday, both waiting for an irregularity or oversight.

This surveillance exposes the double character of the privilege. It protects the church only so long as the condition is properly performed; the ritual is at once remembrance and a point of vulnerability. Macarena fears that, with Father Óscar removed from the parish, someone may try to act against Father Ferro. For her, the possibility that any priest might fail to say the Mass, or omit its required formula, makes the church’s fate seem to depend on a small act of observance.

Family Memory and the Present Conflict

The Bruner family’s connection to the church persists despite its decline. Macarena identifies herself as part of a vanishing class and describes her own struggle as one against time and forgetting. Her defense of Nuestra Señora de las Lágrimas is bound to the family name and to the memory of Carlota Bruner, whose love for Captain Xaloc was thwarted when her father intercepted their correspondence. After years of receiving no answer to the letters she sent, Carlota lost her reason, waited at a window overlooking the river, and did not recognize Xaloc when he returned.

That story gives the family’s church a second kind of memorial function. The Mass preserves Gaspar’s name through repetition, while Macarena’s defense of the building seeks to preserve the histories attached to it from disappearing altogether. The church is also physically damaged and its restoration has stalled for lack of funds, but Gris Marsala argues that its structure remains solid and that its neglect is being used to justify demolition. The contrast between the continuing ritual and the threatened fabric of the building makes the old endowment a present-tense contest over who can determine what deserves to endure.