About Blessed Margarita María López de Maturana

"Leonor and I were like two bodies in one soul; we just did not know how to separate, and our mutual understanding reached the unbelievable." (Mo. Margarita)

They were born in Bilbao, on July 25, 1884 and lived in a family of modest means where their faith grew strong. They attended school run by the Congregation of the Daughter of the Cross. When they were eight years old, their older sister Lola took over the care of their education.

The twins, although very much alike, had different characters: Leonor was joyful and spontaneous; Pilar (Mother Margarita's baptismal name) was more serious and reflective.

In 1901, at the age of sixteen, she was sent to the Mercedarian convent of Vera Cruz in Bérriz as a boarding student, where she discovered her vocation. In 1903, her twin, Leonor, entered the Novitiate of the Carmelites Sisters of Charity in Vitoria, Spain, while she took the habit as a novice at the cloister of the Mercedarian Monastery in Berriz. She changed her name to Margarita Maria and spent her early years as a cloistered nun and educator. 

This was the start of a journey that would take her and her companions to the ends of the earth, spreading a message of hope; a journey that continues today.

Margarita Maria was a cloistered nun and teacher in the Convent School. However, very soon the desire to be a Missionary surged within her: she wanted to make Jesus known, to promote a way of understanding the relationships between people that was based on the respect for human dignity, no matter the origin, sex, or religion.

Her enthusiasm rubbed off on her companions. In 1926, permission was granted ad experementum to begin missionary life. Therefore, the first expedition set out for China, and after that, other ones for the Mariana Islands (1927), the Caroline Islands, and Japan (1928).

A New Institute: On May 23, 1930, the monastery was officially transformed into the Mercedarian Missionaries of Bérriz, a Missionary Institute. 

Margarita Maria was elected the first Superior General in 1931. 

She personally undertook extensive missionary trips to the South Pacific and traveled around the world twice to oversee the sisters' work.

Illness: She suffered from a severe duodenal ulcer that eventually developed into fatal stomach cancer.

She died on July 23, 1934, in San Sebastián, Spain, just two days before her 50th birthday.

The transcendence and importance of her work, rooted in a life of following Jesus, led to her Beatification that took place on  October 22, 2006, by Pope Benedict XVI, in the Cathedral of Bilbao.