María de las Maravillas de Jesús,íadelasMaravillasdeJesú OCD (born María de las Maravillas Pidal Chico de Guzmán; 4 November 1891 - 11 December 1974), in some contexts known as Maravillas de Jesús, was a Spanish Discalced Carmelite. She founded several houses of her order and even set one up in India after serving a brief exile with other Carmelites due to the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War.
Pope John Paul II canonized her during his apostolic visit in Madrid in 2003.
Life
María de las Maravillas Pidal Chico de Guzman was born as the last of four children in Madrid on 4 November 1891 and was baptized on 12 November in the local parish church of San Sebastian. She was known as "Mavi" as a child. Her father was Luis Pidal i Mon (†1913), the second Marquis of Pidal, and her mother was Cristina Chico de Guzman i Munoz. Her father was the first Minister of Development and was later the national ambassador to the pontifical see. Her maternal grandmother would tell her the lives of the saints and in 1896 she made a private vow to remain chaste in an effort to follow the example of Saint Agnes. Her grandmother died at the beginning of 1914 after her father died in late 1913. In 1903 she took the Jesuit priest Juan Francisco Lopez as her spiritual director and he remained as such until she entered the order.
María received her confirmation in 1896 and later received her first communion in 1902. In autumn 1918, she and her mother went for a walk and María's mother gave her the blessing to become a nun. María entered the Discalced Carmelites in Madrid at El Escorial on 12 October 1919, where she took the religious name María de las Maravillas de Jesús ("Mary of the marvels of Jesus"). She made her first profession on 7 May 1920. In 1923 she decided to found a convent in Getafe at the Cerro de los Angeles near the monument erected in the geographical center of Spain. The Bishop of Madrid was enthusiastic about the idea and on 19 May 1924 she and three nuns of El Escorial settled for a brief period of time in a house at Getafe while awaiting the building of a convent. On 30 May 1924 she made her solemn profession there at El Escorial and in June 1926 was appointed as the prioress of the convent of El Cerro in Madrid which opened on 31 October 1926. On 15 September 1932 the Bishop of Vijayapuram asked her to found a Carmelite convent and on 11 September 1933 eight nuns went there to establish it. She herself would have gone but her superiors did not allow for her to leave.
The religious persecution that started in 1931 saw her spend countless hours each night in reflection and both requested and obtained permission from Pope Pius XI for them to leave their group in order to give up their lives if the time came to defend the sacred image should it be violated. On 1 May 1936 an armed band tried to attack the convent by scaling the walls and the Communist mayor warned her (she received him in the parlor) that she and the others should flee lest something terrible happen to them. On 22 July 1936 the nuns were expelled from their convent and were welcomed by the Ursulines in Getafe where the Carmelites were monitored under house arrest. She then fled to an apartment on Calle Claudio Coello in Madrid where she spent fourteen months. In September 1937 she was able to leave Madrid with her group and - going through to Lourdes in France (arriving there on 16 September 1937) - later re-entered Spain to settle in Las Batuecas in Salamanca on 28 September 1937 which had been purchased before the war. There - at the request of the Bishop of Coria-Cáceres - she founded a new convent. In March 1939 she returned to the Cerro de los Angeles to restore the convent there and would go on to found houses at Toledo in 1960 and at Málaga in 1964.
The nun founded several convents which included one at Mancera de Abajo in Salamanca in 1944 and in Duruelo at Ávila in 1947 as well as at Arenas de San Pedro in Avila in 1954 and at San Calixto in the Cordoba mountains in 1956. One was also founded at Aravaca in Madrid in 1958 and at La Aldehuela in Madrid in 1961 where she was elected as the prioress and lived there until her death. She also founded a convent in Kottayam in India in 1933. In 1972 she founded the "Association of Saint Teresa". She was confined to her bed for rest after suffering from a bout of pneumonia on Good Friday in 1967.