She was born in Madrid (Spain) on November 4, 1891, being the youngest of four siblings. She was baptized eight days later in the parish of San Sebastián with the name of María Maravillas Pidal y Chico de Guzmán.
His father was Mr. Luis Pidal and his mother Mrs. Cristina Chico de Guzmán, Marqueses de Pidal. His father was first the Minister of Public Works and later, the Spanish ambassador to the Holy See.
He received a select education and at the same time, of deep Catholic religiosity, for which he always maintained a desire to serve God and men from poverty and humility. His deep love for the Lord made him decide on May 30, 1913, when he was only twenty-one years old, to make a perpetual vow of chastity in the intimacy of his heart and, with it, confirm his desire to become a Carmelite.
The desire to love the Lord madly and reciprocate with excesses the infinite love of Christ, led him to enter the Carmel del Escorial (Madrid) on October 12, 1919. He took the habit in 1920 and made his first profession in 1921. He had great devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
From his long vigils before the Tabernacle in the convent of El Escorial, he was inspired to found a Carmel in El Cerro de los Ángeles, where a monument to the Sacred Heart had been erected in 1919 and the nation had been consecrated to Him. On May 19, 1924, Sister Maravillas and three nuns from the convent of El Escorial temporarily settled in a house in Getafe, to closely follow the development of the convent works. On May 30, 1924, she made her solemn profession, and in June 1926 she was appointed Prioress of the Community of the convent of El Cerro (Madrid), which was inaugurated on October 31, 1926.
With the arrival of the Civil War in Spain (1936), the Carmelites are forced to leave the convent, arriving in Las Batuecas (Salamanca), where they founded a new Carmel. After the war (1939) they return to Cerro de los Ángeles. Thank God, vocations are increasing and, with them, foundations of new Carmels arise both in Spain and abroad:
Kottayam (India), Mancera, Duruelo, Cabrera, Arenas de San Pedro, San Calixto, Aravaca, Montemar and La Aldehuela, among others.
His great charity made him always interested in the problems of others and he made an effort to solve them. Since the closure of La Aldehuela he founded a school for poor children, and had a neighborhood built with numerous houses and a church.
Santa Maravillas died in the Carmelo de la Aldehuela on December 11, 1974.
She was beatified in Rome by Saint John Paul II on May 10, 1998 and canonized by the same Pope on May 3, 2003 in Madrid.