Mexican Karismata: The Baroque Vocation of Francisca de los Angeles, 1674-1744 (review)

Ellen Gunnarsdóttir offers a history of colonial spiritual and secular life in New Spain accessible to scholars and students of numerous disciplines and general lay readers. She first presents Querétaro, Mexico, as a colonial frontier settled by indigenous peoples and Spaniards, Creoles, and mestizos whose cultural practices were heavily influenced by European and High Baroque religiosity. The city's secular customs included communal participation in religious rites and encouraged piety and a spiritual life, especially of its Iberian and Creole daughters. This secular and religious convergence is exemplified by the relatively consistent support for the mystic and visionary life and evangelical works of the Creole/mestiza Francisca de los Ángeles, a Franciscan tertiary and highly regarded spiritual daughter of the Propaganda Fide. The author's subsequent construction of the holy woman's biography, separated according to distinct periods in Francisca's life, is based on the Mexican beata's extensive correspondence archived in its entirety by her Franciscan protectors; Ellen Gunnarsdóttir also incorporates key conventual and monastic documents, inquisitional proceedings, and other related historical documents.

The author reveals how daily routines, structured by religious and secular activities that integrated representatives of both spheres and popular and elite cultures, illustrate elements of European High Baroque. She illustrates the importance of religious women and their spiritual life for Querétaro by focusing on the Convent of Santa Clara de Jesús, an institution inhabited by nuns reputed as saintly figures including, among others, Antonia de San Jacinto and María de la Presentación. Finally, she analyzes the social interactions between lay people and female religious figures to highlight the cultural practices that made the city an ideal venue for the development of radical and heretical female practitioners and of traditional and conservative pious leaders. Indeed, she asserts, the city's setting and spiritual/social practices served as a key training ground for zealous inquisitors of the Holy Inquisition.

Francisca de los Ángeles was a significant albeit contradictory figure whose labeling as a saintly figure or heretic derived from her early ecstatic and visionary spiritual life, social ambitions, religious associations, and politicized relations with her multiple confessors, especially the elected guardian of the Santa Cruz Convent, Friar Antonio Margil de Jesús. For instance, in order to establish her credibility, Margil required a series of public ordeals of self-humiliation and penance. Moreover, Francisca's epistolary and known assertions of her bilocation to Coahuila and Texas and successful evangelization of several communities were not proven by later investigations—leading to two inquisitional proceedings. Yet Queretano society protected Francisca and supported the founding and consequent maintenance of the Beaterio de Santa Rosa, a formidable task that demanded she balance social and community duties with her private religious practices. The book ends by highlighting the prosperity and importance of the Beaterio de Santa Rosa under reformist Bourbon rule.

The author vividly recreates colonial Querétaro and establishes the importance of its religious daughters in the spiritual and social life of this important city as well as the spiritual and cultural credibility of Francisca de los Ángeles, a mystic, visionary and founder of an influential female lay religious institution. It is informative, well documented, and a valuable contribution to colonial Mexican studies.