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  • María of Ágreda: Mystical Lady in Blue by Marilyn H. Fedewa
  • Katie MacLean
María of Ágreda: Mystical Lady in Blue. By Marilyn H. Fedewa. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. 2009. Pp. xviii, 337. $39.95. ISBN 978-0-8263-4643-8.)

María of Ágreda (1602–65) has been a figure of interest since the early-seventeenth century. If one takes into account her three greatest claims to fame—her reported bilocations to what is now the American Southwest, her controversial biography of the Virgin Mary, and her decades as friend and adviser to King Philip IV of Spain—it is surprising she is not better known. Although this Spanish nun lived during a period of intense religious fervor, her growing notoriety was mired in suspicion and controversy due to the debate over the immaculate conception of [End Page 359] Mary that divided theologians until it became accepted doctrine in the nineteenth century. María of Ágreda’s biography of the Virgin was periodically prohibited in the interceding period. At the same time, her spiritual journeys to the New World and close relationship to the pivotal reign of Philip IV make her an important figure in Spanish history, women’s studies, and Catholicism in the Americas.

Marilyn H. Fedewa has written a new biography of the famous Conceptionist abbess. Since both scholarly and popular writings on her in English are few, Fedewa incorporates all the nun’s numerous roles as nun, abbess, mystic, missionary, writer, and adviser in a “life and times” narrative that seeks to bridge the gap between the cloistered mystic of baroque Spain and a twenty-first-century reading public. The book’s seven parts focus on different periods of the nun’s life, beginning with her family and childhood and then covering her early religious vocation and mystical experiences, her missionary yearnings and spiritual journeys, the inspiration for and composition of the Mystical City of God, her brushes with the Inquisition, and finally her epistolary relationship with the Spanish king. Numerous photos, maps, and other visuals provide a sense of the concrete for what has often described in esoteric terms. The intention is not to offer a scholarly analysis (theological or otherwise) of María’s many writings. Instead, Fedewa uses María’s texts and many other supporting materials to flesh out a nuanced portrait of María of Ágreda.

María’s harsh asceticism and frequent trances challenged the credulity even of her contemporaries who were witnesses to a flowering of both ecstatic experiences and militant religiosity in the midst of a global colonial expansion. Fedewa does not negate these phenomena by attempting to “diagnose” the nun or her witnesses. The author re-examines the nun’s own explanations to diffuse some of the more outlandish interpretations, while preserving mystical experiences within the realm of the possible. The question of “is it real?” is frequently posed and often left to the reader to decide according to his or her spiritual leanings. Although this strategy may not satisfy the academic, it is engaging for a broader reading public.

Fedewa does not linger overly long on the more spectacular and notorious experiences of María’s youth. The author’s interest is quickly drawn to events that more clearly showcased María’s abilities to navigate what had by that time become a rather perilous religious landscape. María claimed to be merely the scribe and the Virgin herself the true author of Mystical City of God, since the work is entirely the product of her many mystical conversations with the Queen of Heaven. Her ability to balance the imperatives of her visions and the misgivings of her inquisitors served her well in her dealings with the Spanish monarch. Fedewa spends ample time on María’s role as adviser to the king in spiritual as well as earthly matters. Philip IV did not always rise to the many challenges that plagued his reign. Fedewa, through the hundreds of letters exchanged between the king and the nun from Ágreda, illustrates how María transformed her inferior position and humility into a discourse of moral and spiritual authority in an effort to...

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