A few days ago the news of the approval of the heroic virtues of the Discalced Carmelite friar Juan de Jesús María (1564-1615), known as "the Calagurritano", son of the doctor Diego de San Pedro and the Navarrese Ana de Ustárroz, was made public. His personality stands out for having been a writer, author of a biography of Saint Teresa, postulator of the cause of beatification of the same saint, formator, preacher and poet. He was also the one who took the Teresian Carmel from Spain to Italy, where he became superior general between 1611 and 1614, promoting the expansion of the Order throughout northern Europe.

From these lines we are going to deal with unknown aspects of his relationship with Navarre, fundamentally for three reasons. In the first place, for being the son of a woman from Tafalla, descendant of Judeo-converts. Secondly, for having spent part of his adolescence in Tafalla. Finally, for having taken the determination to become a discalced Carmelite friar, following in the wake of the son of Tafalla, confidant and favorite disciple of St. John of the Cross, Father Innocent of St. Andrew (Lacarra Lopez).

The written sources, up to practically our days, presented Friar Juan's mother, Ana de Ustárroz, as belonging to an outstanding lineage from Roncal. Nothing could have been further from the truth. As it happened with Saint Teresa herself, an attempt was made to hide the Jewish past of her genealogy, even the punishment of her ancestors. 

The aforementioned Ana de Ustárroz was the great-granddaughter of Salomón Leví, a merchant and businessman well introduced in the court of the kings of Navarre and very well related to the nobility and elites. We know that he made a loan to the princess of Navarre (1464) and that he was general lessor of the tables, sacas and tolls of the kingdom. His business did not go well and he ended up in jail, seeing his goods auctioned. His sons changed the surname Leví for the Ustárroz, as a result of the expulsion of the Jews from Navarre, in 1498, when their kings Juan Catalina decided to follow the example of the Catholic Monarchs.

The son of Salomon and great-grandfather of Fray Juan was Juan de Ustárroz (1470-1533), who lived through sad events in his childhood and adolescence, especially the imprisonment of his father, the confiscation of the family property and the expulsion of the Jews. He married Juana de Montemayor, a relative of the convert Gabriel de Montemayor, around 1490. 

Juan's son and grandfather of the Carmelite was Juan de Ustárroz Montemayor, born around 1500, who married Isabel Español around 1518 and died in 1548 after a hectic business life, related to his official document as a tailor and other commercial activities. From the marriage of Juan and Isabel several children were born, among them Ana, the mother of our protagonist, who grew up in the home of her aunt Teresa Español, married to Jerónimo López.

At the end of the summer of 1576, the regiment of Tafalla offered high school program Diego de San Pedro, father of the Carmelite, to serve the town as a doctor. The conditions he was offered were much more advantageous than those he had in Calahorra, where he had practiced his profession since the middle of the 16th century, at the service of the cathedral chapter and the hospital. 

In Tafalla, Juan de San Pedro y Ustárroz would complete his training with Miguel de Caparroso, the then teacher of the Estudi. The young man came very well prepared, with a well assimilated learning in the prestigious Estudio de Gramática de Calahorra, where Humanism shone, represented by Juan Basilio Santoro, writer, connoisseur and translator of Greek and Latin and great writer who, after being widowed and having important offers from Philip II, preferred to stay and live in Calahorra, where he became a canon of the cathedral.

From Tafalla he went to Alcalá in 1579, when he was fifteen years old, to study Arts and Philosophy. He was enrolled in the academic years 1579-1580, 1580-1581 and 1581-1582. His choice was due to the prestige of the university, as one of his uncles, Sancho Ustárroz Español, had studied there and graduated from high school program, before going to France to obtain the licentiate degree. 

In Alcala lived in the high school of the Discalced Carmelites of St. Cyril, founded in 1570, coinciding with the stay of St. Teresa in Pastrana and with the financial aid of the Prince of Eboli. In that context he was able to recreate the experience in Calahorra years before, where a Teresian atmosphere was breathed, to know the dean of the cathedral, Gaspar Ortuño, the saint and wanted to materialize, very early, a foundation of the children of the saint.

In that university environment he was captured by the example of the Discalced and, particularly, by Fray Inocencio de San Andrés. The Complutense city lived with admiration the presence of those friars, who marched through its streets silent, modest, with the look leave, bare feet, poor and dark habit, with the white cloak on the shoulders. The Chapter of separation of the Calzados and Descalzos took place in Alcalá, in March 1581. St. John of the Cross, prior of Baeza, together with the Navarrese friar Innocent of St. Andrew, attended the Chapter.

At the end of 1582, the young student, who as a child heard about Teresa and as an adolescent knew St. John of the Cross, entered the novitiate in Pastrana. The following year, in January 1583, he made his profession. His father, the physician Diego de San Pedro, died shortly afterwards, in the spring of that same year. A few months later, the young Carmelite, ill, came to Tafalla to convalesce at his parents' house, in October 1583, in the company of the aforementioned friar Inocencio, who took the opportunity to collect some mandates in favor of the order that had bequest the doctor and high school program Diego de San Pedro.

I end these lines evoking the years of research in Rome, Pastrana, Madrid, Montecompatri and Calahorra about Fray Juan de Jesús María, which allowed me to know and deal very closely with very special people who taught me a lot: Father Tomás Álvarez (†), the best specialist on the saint of Avila; Father Ildefonso Moriones, intelligent postulator of the Discalced Carmelites, Father G. Strina (†), enthusiast, publisher and supporter of Fray Juan de Jesús María and to Sr. Anne de Barsy, promoter of numerous programs of study that have been worthwhile, because the cause of beatification of the Carmelite from Navarre-Rioja has taken a very special step.