Saints celebrated on the 9th of June
VENERABLE MARINA ESCOBAR, VIRGIN
Venerable Marina Escobar was the founder of a special (strict) congregation of Brigittine Sisters. Her blessed death took place at Valladolid (Vallisoletum) in A.D. 1633.
In 1554, she was born in Valladolid, the daughter of a lawyer named Jacob Escobar. At thirty-three, by the grace of God, she began to live firmly in Christ.
Once she prayed to God: "My Lord, I want to love you with all my heart, and even if I knew that you would throw me into hell and damn me, I still wanted to love you and serve you with all my strength just because you are who you are and you deserve infinite love because of your goodness."
Tested in the fiery furnace of suffering, she recognised the depths of the soul and its secrets. In this way she was able to become the reformer of the Order of Brigittines - although almost constantly ill - and eventually received Pope Urban VIII's confirmation of her reformed branch. Marina's community was called "of the Recollection". She had written deep into her soul what the Lord had once said to her: "The faults of those who truly love me will be consumed in the fire of love, like chaff in an infinite flame, and only the ashes remain: humility and self-knowledge, under which the glowing coals of divine love are preserved."
For the last 30 years of her life she was bedridden and in great pain. She often used to say that her soul was like a little bird tied by a thread to her foot; it always flutters upwards, longing for the eternal God. Her last hours were very difficult; she suffered so badly that at last she began to wail aloud. At length these unbearable pains ceased altogether, and she became enraptured. So she died, at the age of eighty, on July 9, 1633. Huge crowds attended her funeral. Stolz* lists her as "Saint Marina."
*A hagiography source used by the authors
Stadler's Complete Encyclopedia of Saints - Sources and Abbreviations
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