ESCOBAR, MARINA de, Venerable. — Mystic of the Bridgettine Order, one of the most significant figures of Catholic Spain in the early 17th century; born in Valladolid on 8 Feb. 1554, died there on 9 July 1633. Of high intelligence, she received a noble education. Her life was marked by a flowering of mystical experiences, revelations, and divine illuminations which served as an effective means of her spiritual perfection. For over thirty years she was guided by Fr. Luigi La Puente, S.J., who esteemed her as a saint and compared her to St. Catherine of Siena and St. Teresa of Avila.
At his suggestion she wrote down the revelations that are read in full in her biographies. She contributed to the reform of the Bridgettine Order in Spain, establishing in her native city a monastery of recollection, for which she drew up particular constitutions, partly derived from St. Bridget, revised by La Puente and approved by Urban VIII. She exercised great influence over her contemporaries through her example, her writings (letters), and her spoken word, urging them to the love of God. She spent her last thirty years bedridden. She was buried in the church of the Jesuit College in Valladolid.
The revelations of the Venerable Marina de Escobar have received no formal approval from the Church. Her confessor, La Puente, in the single-volume life in six books (published by Fr. Cachupin, provincial of the Society of Jesus), based on the writings she entrusted to him, faithfully recorded her revelations concerning the mysteries of the Trinity and the way to ascend to it through the path of the Cross, on the Madonna, the Angels, and St. Joseph (there is a brief notarial formula which the Venerable Marina recited on days of greater suffering, limited to the consideration of the mysteries of the Nativity, Presentation, and Assumption), on the souls in Purgatory, and on the salvation of her neighbour.