Marina de Escobar

Marina de Escobar (8 February 1554 – 9 June 1633) was a beata, or Spanish Catholic holy woman of the Counter-Reformation era not belonging to an enclosed religious order. She founded a modified branch of the Brigittine Order, although she died before she herself could join it.

Venerable
Marina de Escobar
Devotional painting of Christ dressed as a Jesuit, speaking to Marina de Escobar
Personal
Born(1554-02-08)8 February 1554
Valladolid, Spain
Died9 June 1633(1633-06-09) (aged 79)
Valladolid, Spain
ReligionCatholic
Parents
  • Iago de Escobar (father)
  • Margaret Montana (mother)

A mystic and visionary, Marina gathered a local following during her lifetime, and was popularly venerated in her home city of Valladolid. Her confessor, Luis de Ponte, collected and prepared her accounts of her spiritual experiences; after a lengthy investigation by the Spanish Inquisition, these were published, and Marina was declared Venerable.

Life

Childhood

Marina was born in Valladolid, Spain, on 8 February 1554.[1] Her father, Iago de Escobar, was a professor of civil and canon law, a lawyer in the Royal Chancellery of Granada, and, for a time, governor of Osuna; her mother was Margaret Montana, daughter of the Emperor Charles V's physician.[2][3] Marina was their fourth daughter; her parents had hoped for a boy.[3]

Between the ages of one and nine, Marina lived with her grandmother.[4] After she returned to living with her parents, her father criticized her for taking care with her appearance and for insufficient asceticism.[4] About this time, Marina made friends with another young girl, who influenced her away from the intense devotion her family cultivated.[3] Her father, displeased, chose her a confessor who pushed her towards greater austerity.[4]

Starting from the age of fourteen, Marina suffered from a severe illness, which some modern biographers suggest may have been schizophrenia.[3][4] She experienced depression and dissociation, as well as frequent visions.[4]

Adult life

Marina repeatedly evinced interest in joining a religious order, beginning as early as 1568, when she met Teresa of Avila. Teresa discouraged Marina's ambition to join one of her discalced Carmelite convents, reportedly saying: "Come now, daughter, you don’t have to be a nun since God wants you for great things from the corner of your house."[3][5] Later, in 1604, Marina spoke to Mariana de San José about her desire to join Mariana's Augustinian convent, but was unable to do so due to her health.[3] In a 1621 vision, Marina reported that Ignatius of Loyola appeared to her, telling her that he adopted her as a member of the Society of Jesus and clothing her in the habit of the order.[6]

In fact, although she devoted her life to religion, making a vow of chastity and taking frequent communion, Marina remained in her family home in Valladolid for most of her life.[3] There she gathered around her a circle of friends and followers, including another local mystic, Luisa Carvajal y Mendoza.[7] She became popularly known as a holy woman, and corresponded with large numbers of people throughout Spain.[3]

In 1603, Marina moved into an apartment owned by her family, accompanied by two servants.[8][3] There, although bedridden after a 1603 accident, she gradually accumulated a group of about twenty women, engaged in making clothing for the poor and teaching the younger girls.[8][9][3] In 1615, a vision of Bridget of Sweden instructed Marina to found a branch of the Brigittine order, which Marina called the Recollects.[10][8] Marina prepared a modified Rule for her convent, which was approved by Urban VIII.[10][5] While she died before finishing this project, it was continued after her death by Mariana de San José,[8] and the convent opened in 1637.[3]

Marina's funeral, in 1633, was widely attended, and she was honored by an elaborate funeral procession.[3] The cause for her beatification was opened on 29 December 1691.[11]

Spirituality

Like her parents, Marina generally turned to the local Jesuits for spiritual advice.[8][3] The most prominent among her advisors were the brothers Andrés and Luis de Ponte; others included Miguel de Oreña (rector of the Colegio de San Ambrosio), Antonio de Leon, and Balthazar Alvarez.[2][3]

Antonio de Leon encouraged Marina to practice recogimiento, a form of mental prayer associated with the Franciscan order, while discouraging her from becoming involved with related practices associated with the heretical Alumbrados.[3] Luis de Ponte shared with her his devotion to the Sacred Heart.[12]

Marina experienced visions of saints including Bridget of Sweden, Gertrude the Great, Matilda of Ringelheim, Ignatius of Loyola, Bernard of Clairvaux, Saint Dominic, Francis of Assisi, and the Virgin Mary,[1][3] as well as of people she had known personally before their death, such as her five-year-old niece Maria Hermandez.[13] While sometimes comforting, her visions were often harsh and demanding, such as one in which Christ had her guardian angel beat her as punishment.[4]

Writings

Marina, whose health made it difficult for her to write, dictated accounts of her visions to the de Ponte brothers and to a secretary.[8] Luis de Ponte organized the writings and prepared them for publication.[8] The collected writings were brought before the Spanish Inquisition under suspicion of heresy; it was suggested that Marina might be exhibiting alumbradismo or Quietism, and that her visions might not have been authentic.[8] As a result of this controversy, the causes for beatification of both Marina and Luis de Ponte were delayed for decades.[8] Jean Tanner, a Jesuit priest in Prague, published two influential works arguing for Marina's orthodoxy.[8]

The compiled edition of Marina's life and writings was eventually published at Madrid in 1664; a continuation by Pinto Ramírez followed in 1673.[8] It was translated into Latin by M. Hanel, S.J., and published again at Prague in 1672–1688, and in an enlarged edition at Naples 1690. A German translation in four volumes appeared in 1861.[14] Although often published in one large volume, the work is divided into six books, on the following topics:[14]

  1. God's guidance
  2. The mysteries of redemption
  3. The Trinity
  4. Guardian angels and the Virgin Mary
  5. Helping souls in purgatory and on earth
  6. Marina's own sufferings

Other topics discussed include the practice of daily communion, mystic espousals, internal stigmata, and various saints.[14] Edward Graham, in the Catholic Encyclopedia, describes the writing as "free and flowing", and Marina's style as displaying "simplicity and naïve frankness".[14] On the other hand, de Ponte describes Marina's writing as "wordy and sloppy; she repeats something several times in order to make herself understood, and with too many words."[7]

References
  1. Pourrat, Pierre (1927). Christian Spirituality: Latter developments, pt. 1. From the Renaissance to Jansenism. P.J. Kenedey. pp. 213–214. Retrieved 4 October 2023.
  2. Graham, Edward. "Ven. Marina de Escobar." The Catholic Encyclopedia Vol. 5. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909. 10 Jun. 2013
  3. Lehfeldt, Elizabeth A. (5 July 2017). Religious Women in Golden Age Spain: The Permeable Cloister. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-351-90455-1. Retrieved 4 October 2023.
  4. Haliczer, Stephen (2002). Between Exaltation and Infamy: Female Mystics in the Golden Age of Spain. Oxford University Press. pp. 154–155. ISBN 978-0-19-514863-3. Retrieved 6 October 2023.
  5. Weber, Alison (10 March 2016). Devout Laywomen in the Early Modern World. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-15162-3. Retrieved 7 October 2023.
  6. Rose, Stewart (1891). St. Ignatius Loyola and the Early Jesuits. Burns and Oates. p. 433. ISBN 978-0-524-07169-4.
  7. Redworth, Glyn (21 April 2011). The She-Apostle: The Extraordinary Life and Death of Luisa de Carvajal. OUP Oxford. ISBN 978-0-19-161987-8. Retrieved 7 October 2023.
  8. Manning, Patricia W. (2021). "Publications by Jesuits". An Overview of the Pre-suppression Society of Jesus in Spain. Brill: 90–113. doi:10.1163/j.ctv1sr6hbh.19.
  9. Reboiras, Fernando Domínguez, "Escobar, Marina de", Religion Past and Present 2011 ISBN 9789004146662
  10. The Month. Simpkin, Marshall, and Company. 1888. pp. 474–475. Retrieved 7 October 2023.
  11. Index ac status causarum beatificationis servorum dei et canonizationis beatorum (in Latin). Typis polyglottis vaticanis. January 1953. p. 170.
  12. Warren, Nancy Bradley (2010). The Embodied Word: Female Spiritualities, Contested Orthodoxies, and English Religious Cultures, 1350-1700. University of Notre Dame Press. p. 285. ISBN 978-0-268-04420-6. Retrieved 8 October 2023.
  13. FURNISS, John (1861). The Sunday School Or Catechism. Richardson. p. 35. Retrieved 8 October 2023.
  14. Edward P. Graham (1913). "Ven. Marina de Escobar" . In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Ven. Marina de Escobar". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.

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