Biographical Outline
Marta was born in Coruña, Spain on the 1st of March, 1969. She was baptized soon after with the name Marta Maria de los Ángeles. The family moved to Burgos in the December of 1970 for work reasons.
During her primary education she obtained good grades in the school of “Jesús María”. When she was eight years old she received her First Communion on June 19, 1977. She was a very lively young girl and developed some sporting hobbies like roller skating, running track, swimming etc. She was especially good in tennis, winning several trophies. When she was fourteen she received the sacrament of Confirmation in what is now known as St. Joseph’s Parish. She started to attend the Arlanza Club, together with her older sister. In the club, a priest from Opus Dei gave spiritual direction. There she would participate in recreational and formative activities and learn how to play the guitar. (Explanatory note: this club was a center of prayer and study. Marta went to study and to pray there every day from 4 pm to 9:30 pm. In Spain the Opus Dei centers are familiarly called Clubs of Opus Dei.)
On finishing her primary studies she asked her parents if she could go to a public school called “Comuneros de Castilla”. In 1983 she started her secondary studies (BUP) there. These studies were like a bridge between primary school and university. She got on well with all of her classmates who mainly came from poor backgrounds. As before, she obtained good grades. In her second year of BUP she also took classes in the school of languages.
According to what her mother tells us, Marta was spontaneous, very affectionate and attentive. Her best friend assures us that she was very noble, full of hope and willing to help and encourage others. When she and her best friend were 17, they both left the Arlanza Club. In her still immature way of thinking, Marta felt that the Opus Dei center was directing her in a preventive fashion and she preferred learning from her own experience of life. She began to decrease her religious practices. She conserved, however a restlessness that after time led her to seek and desire God in a different way; but first she had to pass through a crisis.
In the winter of 1988 she started to go out with a third year veterinary student, for the space of three or four months. He was a pleasant and handsome young man. The relationship came to an end because of an experience of weakness before a sporadic incident, of which Marta repented enormously. They say that the second conversion is that of the affections. Around the same time she finished the difficult forth term of English in the school of languages and in the summer she went to a seaside town in England to improve her speech. Here she learned how to speak fluently.
In October she enrolled in the Complutense University of Madrid and studied Journalism, image and sound. She reflected before making this choice, but she wanted full freedom in the choice of her career and was set on becoming a famous journalist. She adapted well to the Spanish capital and obtained very good grades in her studies. During these first two years of university she tried not to stand out, although her faith was not completely dormant. She surrounded herself by a group of friends who appreciate her frankness, good humor and strong personality.
In the summer of her second year of university (1990), she discovered that in the parish where she went to Sunday Mass a group of Neocatechumenals had organized a trip to Taizé. Marta mentioned it to her parents and took part in the trip, along with her guitar. In Taizé Marta discovered new aspects of her faith. According to what her mother tells us, she returned from the trip profoundly touched by the Lord. We know of this touch of grace because of a letter that Marta wrote to one of her roommates in the residence of Madrid: “When you discover something important in your life and you become aware of things that are fundamental and which had before passed by unnoticed, you basically feel good, at peace…”
What is certain is that Marta wanted a thorough confession. Back in the city, she approached a nearby parish but for some reason she did not receive the absolution. Due to her spontaneity, could it have been that what held the priest back was something to do with Taize? Or perhaps there was a misunderstanding of terms which led the priest to think that she did not have the right attitude? This incident produced in Marta a difficult problem of conscience. What she most desired was to be at peace. Due to her character, she suffered a lot when her sincerity and openness of heart was not corresponded to.
A short time later, while playing table tennis at the house of friends, she told them her situation amongst tears. She thought that God had abandoned her. One of her companions said, “God loves you no matter what you have done” and told her of her own experience with her parents, explaining that God is even better than our own parents on earth. A few days later that same family was expecting a visit from a priest of the Neocatechumenal movement and the two girls of the family invited Marta to join them in their house in the country, located near Burgos.
After the meal the priest had to return to the city and he offered Marta the possibility of a lift. During the trip, Marta started telling him, with her usual frankness, what was troubling her inside. The priest listened with attention and, not wanting her to suffer any longer, gave her the absolution. As soon as she got out of the car she went to look for her friends and asked them if she could join the Neocatechumenal communities. She also wanted to know the “Way” because “she wanted to give everything to God in thanksgiving.”
From that moment on she started a determined Christian life. Now, more then being a famous journalist, she just wanted to do good deeds. Her spontaneity was slowly transformed into a brave witness.
In September of 1990 the wedding of her older sister took place. Among those invited were a group of young people who all worked in activities to evangelize the youth in the Catholic circle of workers with the well-known Jesuit, Fr. Carlos Conde. With one of these young men, Marta started an exemplary love. It was evident that they placed God in the center of their relationship.
Faced with the new semester she returned to Madrid enthusiastic and full of faith. She had such a high spirit that during the school year of 1990- 1991, she finished with good grades both the 3rd and 4th course of Journalism. While in Madrid she contacted the Neocatechumenal communities of the parish of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel. One of her older acquaintances whom she met in the communities, relates that she was very impressed by a comment made by Marta. It amazed her to see that a 21-year-old was saddened by the sight of people at Christmas, laden down with shopping bags, not discovering the true meaning of the holiday. From January to February Marta and her friends attended catechesis on Monday and Thursday evening from 8:30 to 9:30. Afterwards they would return home laughing and jumping.
Marta began an active lay apostolate. She no longer minded expressing her convictions in public. The group of professors who gave her class had diverse ideologies. From the frequent conversations that Marta’s parents had with her over the phone, they discovered that many times in class Marta demonstrated an uncommon bravery. She would publicly reveal to the professor her disagreement with vulgar commentaries or phrases, political suggestions or ideas that went against Christian thinking and had nothing to do with the subject as such. On one occasion she even felt the uncomfortable obligation to appeal to the rector with her complaint. She did not find any difficulty in studying and for that reason was able to skip the fourth year and get ahead in some of the subjects of the fifth year.
According to her friends, Marta was a joyful and happy girl. She was pleasant, dynamic, strong–willed, open and a good communicator. Her elegance caught one’s attention and her voice was like that of Barbara Streisand.
She decided to transfer to Burgos, taking into account the fact that she had managed to get ahead in her studies. There she would be nearer to her boyfriend and she would save money. Marta tried to always be active. Within the field of journalism she continued her intellectual and pratice studies.. One of her practice studies was to cover the cycling race around Burgos with the sports broadcaster of “Radio Popular.”
Some of Marta’s articles appeared in the press during this period. She defended life, supported peace, wrote against drugs and always emphasized Christian values. During this time she was also chosen to be the presenter of a fashion show which aimed at positively improving female dress. On Satuarday evening she would normally go to her parish church. She would listen to the Word of God in the Neocatechumenal community and play the guitar to accompany the songs at Mass.
Her boyfriend wrote in the editorial of his magazine a few days after she was murdered: “Marta triumphed wherever she went: everybody wanted to be with her, to talk to her, to know how she was and she, although profoundly loving towards her family and friends, always had her eyes fixed on God. Her last notes, her articles, (‘if only we could realize what is really important in our lives’) are only the tip of the ice-burg of the greatness of her soul.”
Her boyfriend did not belong to the Neocatechumenals but she would bring him to the celebrations. “He was very attracted by the life that he saw there”. On asking him why he stopped going out with Marta around October, his response was that he did not have a logical explanation. “Maybe it was a moment in which I was stressed out by other things. It was possibly due to providence. It was as if someone had taken away all the affection that I had so that I could better cope with what happened.”
In the last months of her life, Marta followed a very ordered schedule. In the morning (until December) she worked. Afterwards, from 4 o’clock to 8:30 she would go and study in the Arlanza Club. The following half hour she would spend in prayer, usually on her knees, before the tabernacle in the small chapel there.
After this, she normally would talk with the girl in charge of the club, revealing her ideas, goals and worries. She told her that when she was in conversation with the Lord, she would plead Him to let her know what His will for her was. In a Mass with the Neocatechumenal communities she had already stood up to offer herself as an itinerant.
Her confidant tried to encourage her with professional projects, “but for her everything had changed, it didn’t interest her anymore. It was clear that God had stripped her of everything: studies, boyfriend, projects…etc. In my opinion her way of acting was that of one who had found God but kept searching for Him more and more profoundly. During the last months of her life she kept attending the Neocatechumenal Way. She felt very united to this group and thought that it was there where she had to help others…She was a woman with a profound interior life which was evident in her attitude… She determinately searched for God and at the same time gave herself to others.”
On one occasion a priest who had been her religion teacher in high school, asked her about how her plans to be a famous journalist were going. She responded: “Right now, I only have God in my head.”
She was very attentive and affectionate. On Christmas Eve 1991, Marta arrived at the club dressed in a tail coat. She spent forty five minutes entertaining the childrean and making them laugh. Afterwards, she went with her friends. For her last celebration of the Three Wise Men, which is the feast of the Epiphany on January 6th, she bought with great enthusiasm a guitar for her 11 year old sister. She was always willing to keep people company and that same evening, the girl in charge of the club had to remain there and Marta came to be with her. They watched a video about the encounter of John Paul II with university students. Marta was very impressed and decided to go to Rome for the next encounter which would take place in Holy week.
She started to prepare herself intensely for the exams in February. At the same time she began to notice that someone was following her and she expressed her fears. On the 21st of January, feast day of St. Agnes, she prolonged her conversation with her friend until 9:40 PM. “She had a feeling something was going to happen and I took importance away from the isssue” by telling her a story from the life of St. Teresa. Before leaving to go home, they went to the chapel to say good-bye to the Lord, “we genuflected before the Blessed Sacrament and she left.” Before going out the door Marta asked for her books and notes to be left on the table because the following morning she planned on coming back there to hear Mass, receive Communion and afterwards continue studying.
Marta’s parents were surprised that it was ten o’clock and she had still not come home. It was snowing and a young fellow who was a friend of her family offered to give her a ride home in his car. He left her in front of her porch. The key was broken and around the tenth hour the neighbor on the second floor heard a heart-rending scream. Five days later the body of Marta was found, about five kilometers outside the city.
According to the forensic report she died in the early morning of the 22 of January, 1992. She had a lot of bruises and scratches, hand marks around her neck and above all 14 wounds inflicted by a sharp weapon on the left hand side of her chest, one of them in the centre of her heart. The report and the sentence repeat that this happened because she tried to defend herself from being raped. The man charged with the crime had already been judged on four occasions for abuse and rape, but not homicide, as the victims had all yielded to his pretensions.
The facts suggest that the young student of journalism, Marta Maria de los Angeles, has left us a beautiful example of a life lived in gratefulness towards the love and mercy of God as well as the testimony of her courageous death in defense of virtue.
Saturnino López Santidrián