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Famous Texas missionary dies in Mexico City
On this day in 1726, Antonio Margil de Jesús, early missionary to Texas,
died in Mexico City. Margil was born in Valencia, Spain, in 1657. Even
as a boy he referred to himself as "Nothingness Itself," a title he
consistently used in adulthood. He become a Franciscan in 1673. At the
age of twenty-five he received Holy Orders and soon accepted the
challenge of missionary work in New Spain. He arrived at Veracruz in
1683. In New Spain Margil was assigned to the missionary College of
Santa Cruz de Querétaro, and spent several years as a missionary in
Yucatán, Costa Rica, and Guatemala. Margil also traveled in early 1707
to Zacatecas to found and preside over the missionary College of Nuestra
Señora de Guadalupe de Zacatecas. He was to have accompanied the Domingo
Ramón expedition of 1716, charged with setting up Franciscan missions in
East Texas. However, illness prevented his arrival in East Texas until
after the founding of the first four missions. In 1717 Margil supervised
the founding of Nuestra Señora de los Dolores de los Ais and San Miguel
de Linares de los Adaes, which with the previously established Nuestra
Señora de Guadalupe completed the missions under the control of the
Zacatecan Franciscans. In February 1720 Margil founded at San Antonio
the most successful of all Texas missions, San José y San Miguel de
Aguayo.In 1722 he was recalled to Mexico to serve again as guardián
of the college he had founded. At the conclusion of his three-year term,
Margil resumed missionary work in Mexico until his death. Arguably the
most famous missionary to serve in Texas, Antonio Margil de Jesús
remains under consideration for sainthood by the Vatican.
- Links to Related Handbook of Texas Online Articles
- MARGIL DE JESUS, ANTONIO
- COLLEGE OF NUESTRA SENORA DE GUADALUPE DE ZACATECAS
- FRANCISCANS
- COLLEGE OF SANTA CRUZ DE QUERETARO
- SAN JOSE Y SAN MIGUEL DE AGUAYO MISSION
- Other Texas Day by Day Articles for This Date
- New British diplomat arrives in Texas (1842)
- Oilman gives Paisano Ranch to UT (1966)
- Feminist folk artist born in Laredo (1902)
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