Catholic Schools’ Week (January 26-February 1 in 2020) as a designated celebration did not exist in Mother Margarita’s tenure as an educator. Had it been, however, she would have been at the forefront in celebrating. . .
Mother Margarita gave over twenty years of her life to education. She began teaching in 1906 at the Vera Cruz School for girls in Berriz and was later Principal from 1923 to 1927.
She was, of course, an outstanding educator, but more than that, she cared about the destiny of each of her pupils. She once wrote to her twin sister Leonor: “These girls are my life—to love them and to do them the greatest possible good. I like to educate them individually, personally. May Our Lord give me some of His zeal and self-denial so that I can form each of them in Christ’s image.”
God did give her this zeal. She never complained that the girls were too lazy, worldly, unmanageable or impossible to understand. She loved them just the way they were. Her motto was: “Love finds a solution to all problems.”
Mother Margarita knew that education was more than just academia. Though the girls may have complained that they had too much to study, they also had plenty of time to play croquet and the piano, as well as plan pageants about princes and princesses.
In these years in which Mother Margarita taught, her love of her educational mission helped her to define her liberating missionary vocation. Mother Margarita carried out the evangelizing education mission for the liberation of the whole person—a liberation which enabled her pupils to fully develop in all their dimensions as persons.
For Mother Margarita, the work of education was a participation in the mission of Jesus who was sent and as a true work of evangelization in which we make present “the memory of Jesus,”
who commissioned us to, “Go and . . .make them disciples. (Mt. 29:19)
Today, the Mercedarian Missionaries of Berriz uphold Mother Margarita’s Educational Vision. They believe that the mission of Education and the witness of their lives can contribute to the formation of persons capable of creating a better world: more human, just, peaceful, fraternal and happy. A world closer to the plan of God for humanity.
The Mercedarian Educational Plan states, “The effort of education and the commitment that it demands when it is more than mere professionalism, that is, when we ‘live’ education as an evangelizing mission . . . is the field where we make present the redeeming love of Christ, that love which saves/liberates. This is our way of concretizing the Fourth Vow—the way to be WOMEN FOR OTHERS, TO THE POINT OF GIVING OUR LIVES FOR THEM.”
In an up-coming issue: Where the MMB minister in Education Today
