Bahá’í World/Volume 20/Juan Sánchez Martinez
 | The text below this notice was generated by a computer, it still needs to be checked for errors and corrected. If you would like to help, view the original document by clicking the PDF scans along the right side of the page. Click the edit button at the top of this page (notepad and pencil icon) or press Alt+Shift+E to begin making changes. When you are done press "Save changes" at the bottom of the page. |
JUAN SANCHEZ MARTINEZ
1916—1987
Juan Sénchez was born in Puente Tocinos, Murcia, Spain, on 15 March 1916 in the bosom of a humble Catholic family. His father, Antonio Sénchez, was an affable baker. His mother, Rosario Martinez, dedicated her life to looking after her 10 children. Due to their poverty, Juan never went to school. He started to work making fishing rods when he was still only a small boy. With the start of the Spanish Civil War in July of 1936, Juan, who was then 20, was enlisted into the ranks of the Republicans, who dominated the eastern side of the country. For nearly three years his eyes continually witnessed scenes of cruelty and barbarism, in a blood-stained scene where brothers fought between themselves in a ferocious Whirlwind of senseless hate. The misery of the war left an everlasting painful
l Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu ’l—Baha (Haifa: Bahá’í World Centre, 1978), p 71.
THE BAHA’t WORLD
impression on young Juan’s soul. It was normal to see him, until he died, remembering with grief and a melancholy air his experiences in that conflict.
Freed, by a miracle, from the claws of the war (in his battalion no more than five soldiers survived), he returned home to find that his father was imprisoned and his mother and brothers hardly surviving the hunger. Even though his father soon came out of prison, the poverty. of the family lasted for a long time. To worsen the situation, Juan was called up to fulfil his military service and was sent to the Spanish Sahara, a destiny which would unite him in later years with another radically different one.
After three years of service he returned to Mfircia where he married Josefa Cuenca Baeza on 31 March 1943. Their marriage, solid until the end, slowly became enriched with the birth of their four children: Antonio, J osé, Carmen and Rosario.
Adverse circumstances led Juan Sénchez and his family to Sabadell, a city very close to Barcelona. It was there at the end of 1960 that they heard for the first time of the Bahá’í Faith. To begin with, Juan was hesitant, and attended the first meeting with doubt, encouraged by his wife and one of his daughters. However, soon his heart was burning with love for Bahá’u’lláh. This love changed his whole life. He became a restless lover of the Court of his Lord, and a brave soldier of a spiritual army.
The declaration of Faith by Juan Sénchez took place on 5 February 1961. Along With him, his inseparable Wife Josefa and his daughter Carmen acknowledged the Cause. The spiritual career which started at that moment lasted 25 years, until his death. When Juan Sénchez accepted Baha’u’llah, he declared that for him there would be nothing more important in his life. His later services were a constant testimony of this statement.
Among all his activities, one stands out from the rest: his determination to fulfil one of the most difficult goals that the Universal House of Justice had offered the Spanish
IN MEMORIAM
Bahá’í community during the Nine Year Plan—pioneering to the Spanish Sahara. With no prospects of work, previous experience of pioneering, or possession of exceptional aptitudes, Juan, as a lover who would not admit cold calculations in such sacred questions, challenged friends and strangers and, in a show of courage, decided to accomplish this objective. It is interesting to see that the day he decided to become a pioneer, his son Antonio, moved by his father’s example, recognized the truth of the Faith.
Juan’s services in the Spanish Sahara lasted for nine months, from May 1966 until January 1967. He taught the Faith in the cities of Villa Cisneros and Rio de Oro, and managed, despite the extreme difficulty of the area, to attract one soul to the Cause. When he returned from the Sahara he could frequently be heard to say: “Only a pioneer knows what others have suffered on the path of Baha’u’llah”.
Juan was always an example of tenacity and steadfastness in the teaching field. A detail which shows this is the nickname he was given by the people that knew him; they called him “the book man” because he always took a Bahá’í book with him to help with his teaching. It was this eagerness to teach the Cause which pushed him, even though he had never been to school, to study in depth the Bahá’í literature. He was a lover of the books Some Answered Questions and Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era. It is no exaggeration to say that he knew them nearly by heart.
His pioneering spirit and his capacity to serve the Cause became evident in the sheer number of his journeys: between August 1967 and January 1968 he was in Valencia; in October of that year he went to Casteja (Navarra); in 1969 he pioneered to \{illacarlos, on the island of Menorca (Balearic Islands), where he taught the Faith for two years; he returned to Sabadell; and in 1973 he spent seven months teaching on the island of Ibiza.
Only illness could cut short his constant pioneering activity. In 1985, cancer forced
881
Juan Sdnchez Martinez
Juan Sénchez to remain closed in his home for over one year. During this time his main grief was not being able to fulfil his sacred duty of teaching. Every day Juan said to his dear wife, “Fina, today I haven’t gone outside, I haven’t spoken to anybody about the Fait .”
I will never forget the angelic expression which covered his face the last time I saw him. Lying in bed, he looked at me with an indescribable tenderness and serenity. His eyes revealed the depth of his devotion and loyalty. Days later, his luminous expression slowly extinguished. He died on 27 April 1987.
Of Juan remains a small compendium of poems entitled God is Love, written after his acknowledgement of the new Revelation. They are songs of love to the Manifestation of God, shining j ewels of purity and detachment, reflections of a sensitive and attracted heart. One of them, maybe his best known poem, “Canticles to Bahá’u’lláh” reca11s his pass through this ephemeral plane:
I walk on pathways and lanes like
a wandering peregrine proclaiming unity.
882
Through Villages and towns, talking with their people with honesty and humility, of the very intense Message that Bahá’u’lláh offers us. To unite all of the nations with a common Faith, a new society where rich and poor, can become united, singing together canticles to Baha’u’llah.
NAVID MOHABBAT (Navid Muhabbati)