Martin Mendizabal. Obituary
There was hardly any thanksgiving before a meal in the dining-room or a prayer in Mass that before the final Amen Martin would not make a comment: “what nonsense do we say about God!” “But, Martin –I would tell him every time- why do you pay such careful attention when we say those prayers? Think of something else, and that’s it” “If so, why do they read them? Why do we say them?” he would respond to me.
He could not stand the Gospel of John and his divine, omniscient Christ, or his “feisty Jesus, always arguing with the Jews”. I used to tell him: “But, don’t you think it is great that whoever wrote that Gospel was so free as to reinvent another Jesus, so different from the historical one?” “Nonsense! I like Mark, and it is enough for me”.
A God that feels offended and punishes, that reveals himself or hides, that chooses certain people and rejects others, that sends his son to atone with his death…. drove him out of his mind. Nature was his Bible and his Catechism.
I often heard him saying: “the only interesting thing about religions are its heretics”.
He was a franciscan friar in Arantzazu. Biology teacher, Basque historian and philologist, self-taught, rural parish priest…. and barber. He would sing Mexican and Cuban folk songs, or gracefully dance tangos and chotis as a matter of fact. He never denied a favour to anyone who would ask him whatever. Helping others was his mystic.
He died in Arantzazu on April 15th.
Martin, a special man, good and happy, animated by the spark of life.
Witnesses of daily goodness
Humble doers
of daily goodness
who do not know fame
or popularity in the media,
but who make life
more tender
and human.
Silent witnesses
who brighten the roads
with their anonimous hope,
acting and flavourful.
Goodness overflows
in them naturally
as a spontaneous madness
for this moody world
Their names
are always with us,
although death
deprives us of their physical presence,
because goodness is eternal
and faces you with a smile.
(Toño Martínez. Because of so much good by Friar Martin Mendizabal).
Translated by Mertxe de Renobales Scheifler