Antonio Margil de Jesús

Antonio Margil de Jesús was born on August 18, 1657, in Valencia, Spain, and entered the Franciscan Order at sixteen. After ordination he volunteered for the Americas, arriving at Vera Cruz on June 6, 1683. He spent his first years at the College of Santa Cruz de Querétaro, working missions throughout Yucatan, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Guatemala — labors so far-reaching that he was called the Apostle of Guatemala. Throughout all of it he walked without sandals, fasted daily, abstained from meat and fish entirely, and practiced rigorous bodily penance, earning the nickname 'the Flying Friar' from astonished witnesses who credited miraculous speed to his journeys. In 1706 he became the first guardian of the College of Guadalupe de Zacatecas, a newly founded missionary college that gave him a base for the great northern expeditions ahead. When Domingo Ramón led a Spanish entrada into East Texas in 1716, Margil went with him. Within two years he founded three missions: Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe among the Nacogdoche, Nuestra Señora de los Dolores among the Eyeish, and Mission San Miguel de Linares among the Adai — the last of which sheltered what was likely the first Christian church on the soil of present-day Louisiana. In 1719 Margil founded Mission San José y San Miguel de Aguayo near present-day San Antonio. The mission grew into the most architecturally accomplished of all the Texas foundations; its carved limestone façade, completed decades after his death, reflects the institutional energy he set in motion. He signed every letter 'La Misma Nada' — Nothingness Itself — a characteristic act of self-effacement from a man who had nevertheless built a chain of missions spanning two countries. Margil died in Mexico City on August 6, 1726, after more than forty years of unbroken missionary labor. His cause for canonization was formally opened in 1769. Pope Gregory XVI, examining the record of his heroic virtues, declared him Venerable in 1836. He remains venerated across Texas and Central America, his cause still open, his missions still standing.