The Augustinian Recollect Martín Legarra Tellechea (1910-1985) was a direct witness of several great events of the 20th century. He developed his ministerial service with optimism, sympathy and communication skills. His life as a missionary, educator and bishop could have served as a movie script.
Martín decides to stay in Panama City. He was offered the address of an university center, from the diocesan seminary… But he rejects it because he wants to avoid any position involving excessive public exposure or tension.
Installed in the Saint Augustine High School, he is appointed vicar of religious of the Archdiocese of Panama and appears weekly on the television broadcast of the Eucharist. On November 1, 1975, he participated in “one of the most happy moments in my life”: the beatification of Brother Ezekiel Moreno in Rome, by whom he felt deep veneration since he was a child.
At the end of 1975 he took charge together with a recoleto parochial vicar of the Parish of San Francisco de La Caleta: “On the very shore of the sea, the sea breeze softens the heat. The setting is of great beauty, which combines the typical of the towns, with its square or park in front of the church and then, in front of the rectory, a silent street, in twilight thanks to some gigantic and leafy trees brought from Africa. All this turns the place into an oasis of silence and peace”.
In La Caleta enjoy a close and familiar atmosphere with the faithful. privilege of new to those who do not have the freedom to reach him, the sick and the elderly. By phone or in the office, people of all classes of life seek his advice and opinion.
In the Episcopal Conference he contributes his capacity for mediation and for find the positive in any circumstance. “Whenever a matter is became indigestible and came to a standstill, he knew how to show the bright and hopeful aspect”, wrote the Claretian bishop Jesús Serrano (1902-1997).
Since the spring of 1977 he has been the spokesman for the media and a little later the in charge of Consecrated Life, with an important role in drafting the statutes of the FEPAR (Panamanian Federation of Religious).
The first volume of his book De mi acontecer misionero is published. Messages to the rear guard (Stvdivm, Madrid, 1976, 464 pages), compilation of letters sent to the monasteries of the Augustinian Recollects Sisters. Although he feared it was censored by the Government, the Ministry of Education sent 400 copies for schools across the country. It was prefaced by Francisco Galende (†2022), an Augustinian (OSA) who he accompanies the Guaymies in Tole (Panama).
The second volume came out in 1983 and was published in Costa Rica, financed by a group of friends as a gift for their priestly golden wedding anniversary and with a prologue of Francisco Herrero, professor at the Santa María La Antigua University of Panama. These letters are already written from La Caleta.
The third volume is published by Avgvstinvs, the publishing house of the Augustinian Recollects, in Madrid in 1986. He is posthumous, with his last letters, from Christmas 1983, and it is prefaced by Monsignor Agustín Ganuza, his successor in Bocas.
With the book, his projection is expanded, with press conferences, conferences, speeches and commitments that have taken him these years through the United States, Germany, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Peru or Argentina.
But it is the daily parish activity and the usual relations with the media which fills you with more joy and motivation. He seeks closeness with journalists so that they highlight the positive values of the Church’s message to society. He denounces the situation of the excluded, the indigenous, the peasants, the impoverished. The official parties silence his interventions, the opposition airs them.
In 1978, during the drafting process of the Puebla Document (III General Conference of the Latin American Episcopate), Martín seeks to prevent distort, soften or blur the challenging proposals of the document of Medellin. He disseminates with all his efforts throughout Panama the proposals of the document that finally comes to light.
The last quarter of 1979 has the opportunity to take a new tour of the world. He first arrives in Spain, as a delegate from Panama to the Congress Mariano de Zaragoza; then he visits up to 25 Augustinian Recollect monasteries contemplatives and many other houses of his Order, especially the seminaries.
The next step is in Rome, where he participates in the Ecumenical Congress. And in November 27 he returns to the Philippines to speak at the Missionary Congress International. He meets many brothers after so many years of absence. He also has the opportunity to visit the Recollect Houses in Taiwan and Guam.
He returns satisfied: “I am happy and glad I made the trip… I almost, almost make you want to sing the Nunc dimittis”, in reference to the song of Simeon in the gospel (Luke 2,29-32), which the Church uses in the last prayer of the day and which can be taken as a happy farewell.
The first 80 in Central America are “a volcano in action”, in the words of Martin. He lives with astonishment and sadness the murder of Oscar Romero, whom much knew, and presides over his funeral in Panama. He is in charge of relations with the press after the meeting of more than 30 bishops and provincial priors who are analyzing in Panama the situation and offer the view of it.
In 1981 he had the opportunity to visit the two missions of the Augustinian Recollects. in the Brazilian Amazon: Marajo (Pará) and Labrea (Amazonas). This last one will qualify as “the most difficult” of all that he has come to know.
On February 25, 1982, he acquired Panamanian nationality in an act to which attended by President Arístides Royo and the Minister of Justice, Jorge E. Ritter, who writes him a personal greeting: “Congratulations, monsignor; you gave already the right to what you had in your heart for a long time”.
Another moment of great joy and significance will be his priestly golden wedding anniversary. John Paul II in Panama, on March 5, gives him a congratulatory scroll; authorities, civic groups, pastoral agents, men and women religious, schools, parishioners, all are interested in the celebration and congratulate him.
On March 19, he celebrates the festival with great affection from the people and the company of the Recollect Provincial Priors of the Province of Our Lady of Consolation and of Saint Nicholas of Tolentine and the Colombian Recollect bishops Arturo Salazar (1921-2009, Pasto) and Rubén Buitrago (1921-1991, Zipaquira). The Panamanian capital gave him the keys to the city and named him a meritorious son. He says:
“Exceptional moment to contemplate in retrospect the paths through which our Father God takes his own… I do not have on my lips or in my heart another feeling more alive than that of gratitude to God, the recognition the brothers, the affection for all. It has been something so extraordinarily happy, without shadows or bitterness, that it seemed to me that I lived a bit of Heaven in advance what awaits us and towards which we are going”.
After participating in the episcopal ordination of the Augustinian Recollect David Arias (1929- 2019) as auxiliary bishop of Newark (New Jersey, United States) he addresses Spain to celebrate his jubilee with the nuns, with the religious and with his family (in the Augustinian Recollect Nuns in Pamplona).
In 1984 he is relieved of the spokesperson of the Episcopal Conference. Deals with the electoral fraud and the inauguration of Nicolás Ardito Barletta. A car shows up in La Caleta to go “bless some new barracks.” He sees the trap and refuses to ride: the photo of Bishop Legarra blessing the military and creating a sense of normality and support to turn off the feeling of fraud.
A piece of news from the Philippines represents a new oasis of joy. To celebrate the end of the first year of the new Universidad San José Recoletos de Cebu, the culmination of progress of the school that Martín had founded, decided to grant him an honorary doctorate and preside over the graduation ceremony.
The journey is long and heavy, at 75 years old, with stops of several days on the route: he goes from Panama to Los Angeles (California, United States), with a visit to the Recollects; go on to Osaka, Kyoto and Hiroshima, in Japan, hosted by the Institute of Missions foreign; and arrives in the Philippines. He visited all the Recollect houses of formation and he feels the optimism for the future that radiates from the Philippine Vicariate, fourteen years before be converted into a province.
On March 23, 1985, at the Recollect Coliseum on the Basak campus of the Universidad San José Recoletos de Cebu, in front of some 7,000 people, he chairs the first university graduation and gave the speech “Educate for peace”.
“How did I feel? If a screen had reflected my thoughts, it would have been a zigzag of memories and feelings. I thought of many others than with me they should have been at that time.”
The return trip to Panama was more direct, lasting one day, via Honolulu. (Hawaii) and Los Angeles (California). He was waiting for what, really, would be the last great trip of his life, which would have nothing to do with ships or planes.
NEXT PAGE: 12. A Week of Easter
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Introduction
- 1. An open mind to the unknown
- 2. Martin and religious life
- 3. Philippines, learning and new responsibilities
- 4. Even more open to the world
- 5. Chronicler of the greatest nightmare
- 6. Martin, educator
- 7. Martin, educator of religious
- 8. Martín is reunited with Spain
- 9. Martin in Bocas del Toro
- 10. Martin in Veraguas
- 11. Bishop emeritus, not retired
- 12. A Week of Easter