Martin Legarra (1910-1985), Augustinian Recollect.

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.

In 1938, Brother Leoncio Reta was elected Prior General of the Augustinian Recollects. As he was at that time prior of the Province of Saint Nicholas of Tolentine, he was succeeded as Prior Provincial by Friar Ricardo Jarauta, who appointed Martín as secretary of the Province, a task that he enthusiastically assumes.

The secretary makes governance work smooth. He accompanies the prior Provincial, takes minutes of its meetings and manages its agenda; he collects reports and statistics and establishes in writing the deliberations of the Council, the decision-making body between Chapters. Finally, he is the one who sends and receives official communications and custody of the provincial archive. As a public and private information center, collects, orders and registers everything that, with his signature, attests.

He also has an important human task: he promotes interpersonal and intercommunal relationships, makes religious feel more family despite geographical distances, age or task. He strengthens communion with the communication. The Constitutions at that time described him as an “angel of peace” that promotes détente in differences between superiors and subjects.

The priors provincial have the obligation to visit all the communities during the time of his mandate. The secretary usually accompanies him. By then the Province of Saint Nicholas of Tolentine has houses in the Philippines, China, Spain, England, Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago. As a man from the mountains of Navarra who gets seasick on boats will spend many weeks by the Pacific, the Indian or the Atlantic.

In 1938 provincial and secretary visit China. They leave Manila for Hong Kong, continue to Shanghai and then to Kweiteh, today Shangqiu, in Henan. On his way through Shanghai he describes with astonishment: “My eyes were as if numbed when observing how a truck traveled the city at dawn collecting the bodies of the deceased at night due to cold and hunger in the streets and sidewalks”.

China is the scene of two simultaneous wars, one civil and one with Japan. They achieve to encourage their brothers. Fray Martín does not hide his admiration: “Everything speaks to me of missionaries, of their courage, of their heroism, of the sufferings they have to bear, of the solitude in which they find themselves lost”. The anguish and the violence do not supersede the joys and hopes of the Recoletos in China. So, Provincial and secretary witness the ordination of the first Augustinian Recollect Chinese, Friar José She.

After leaving China, Martín will witness imperial and nationalist Japan. See with his eyes the country he had visited with his imagination as a child following Saint Francisco Javier: Nagasaki, Kobe, Yokkaichi, Yokohama, Tokyo.

They continue towards Honolulu (Hawaii) and San Francisco (California) and by land they cross United States: San Francisco, Los Angeles, Marfa (Texas) and New Orleans; They embark to Havana and, from there, to Panama, where they remain for three days in the capital before embarking in Colón to Venezuela, his destination.

They visit the Recollect communities in Venezuela and Trinidad. he draws attention from Fray Martín the important presence of the Recollects in the Venezuelan press. On May 15 they leave for England. Visit the new ministries of the Province in Devon: Ivybridge, Honiton, Seaton, Ottery Saint Mary.

The trip continues, via Paris and Turin, to Rome, where Martín is moved by his visit Fides Agency to learn about its resources, programs and professionals who they carry them out. After the negotiations that took them to Rome, via Ventimiglia and Lourdes, arrive in Spain on June 19, 1939.

Eight years later, Martín finds his native country malnourished and destroyed after the war recently ended, many religious are still scattered. The Province of Saint Nicholas of Tolentine has not yet been deployed in the country and has only four houses: Monteagudo and Marcilla in Navarra, San Millán de la Cogolla in La Rioja and Zaragoza in Aragon.

The outbreak of World War II forces them to stay until October 15, 1939, when they left for Manila from Barcelona by a long route: Genoa, Venice, Brindisi, Port Said, Suez, Aden, Bombay, Colombo, Singapore and Manila. Further Seventy religious are on the boat, twelve of them Recollects.

Starting in February 1940, Martín had the opportunity to see all the houses of the Philippines, when making the official visit to Negros, Siquijor, Cebu and Bohol.

In the Chapter of 1940, Fray Pedro García de Galdiano was elected prior provincial, who again entrusted to Martín the secretariat of the Province. That Chapter too marks the beginning of the educational apostolate. Martín graduated in Pedagogy from the University Saint Thomas of Manila (Dominicans), he collaborates in the very precarious school of Saint Sebastián and is named representative of the recollects centers in Catholic Education Association.

In 1941 the first three schools were opened: San Carlos (Negros, Philippines); Saint Sebastián (Manila, Philippines) and Caracas (Venezuela). But the outbreak in December of the Pacific War slows down the initiative in the Philippines, converted into a zone of War. The missionaries will live until February 1945 between bombings, occupations, scarcity, uncertainty and lack of communication with the rest of the Order.

NEXT PAGE: 5. Chronicler of the greatest nightmare

TABLE OF CONTENTS

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR