Spiritual Writings of Sister Margaret of the Mother of God (1635–1643) by Margaret van Noort (review)

This book contains a collection of writings by Sister Margaret (Magriet van Noort, 1587–1646), a lay Discalced Carmelite nun in Brussels. Born to a lower middle class family, she spent much of her childhood traveling throughout the Low Countries with her mother and six siblings, following her father's military campaigns as a soldier in the Eighty Years' War. Although the family lived a nomadic life of penury, her devout mother raised her children in the Catholic Church, in whose rituals Margaret took a particular interest. At the age of twenty, she entered the Teresian monastery in Brussels. Because her father had died, and because of her low societal standing, she was unable to enter as a choir nun, but instead served as a lay sister, whose primary duties were in the kitchen and infirmary.

According to her writings, Margaret's daily life was punctuated by frequent visions and mystical experiences, in which she saw and heard Jesus, Mary, and the saints, as well as demons and other forces of darkness. Her deep religiosity and feelings of personal insufficiency manifested themselves in a life of extreme devotion and penitential fervor, wherein she imposed mortifications upon herself that went well beyond those mandated by the religious authorities in her life. Indeed, she reports that she created for herself penitential rituals so extreme that her father confessor insisted that she stop (85).

Most of the documents in this collection were originally gathered by Margaret's father confessor, Gracián de la Cruz. They include an autobiography that Margaret wrote at his command in 1635 (a Vida pro mandato), which provides a description of her childhood and early years in the convent. The two documents that follow were composed in 1636 and 1637, also at the behest of Gracián. These documents, similar to diaries, contain descriptions of Margaret's day-to-day life and religious experiences. The three texts bear witness to her maturation from a young laywoman adjusting to life in the cloister, to an experienced lay nun who served as the spiritual advisor to many of her Carmelite sisters, even those who were socially superior to her. In addition, the collection contains a 1643 medical self-report, in which Margaret describes in great detail her frequent illnesses and physical pains. The report connects her suffering overtly to her religious practice and beliefs, and reveals a rare personal account of the lived realities of illness in this period. The final text included is an undated devotional text, perhaps written when she renewed her vows.

Margaret's own writings are followed by a series of appendices, including one describing her final illnesses and death, and several testimonies to her sanctity, likely solicited by her confessor Gracián in the hope that she would one day achieve beatification. The final appendix contains letters that cast light on the dissemination of Margaret's writings, and some of the editorial changes they underwent in that process. Taken together, the documents provide unusually rich insight into the life of this mystical visionary figure and the world in which she lived.

One of the great strengths of this volume is the editorial apparatus that supports it. In all, the book contains sixty-five pages of introductory analysis, covering topics related to the historical milieu in which Margaret lived and wrote, the linguistic background of her writings, and the history of their many translations. Margaret composed her writings in Spanish, although it was not her native tongue; they were later translated into French and Dutch and enjoyed a wide circulation from the very beginning. Susan M. Smith's "Translator's Note" (61–64) goes far beyond recounting individual word choices or problematic omissions in the text. Rather, Smith provides several broader insights into the challenges of...