María Vela y Cueto: Autobiography and Letters of a Spanish Nun ed. by Susan Diane Laningham (review)

The tireless work of many scholars has significantly broadened the availability of writings by early modern nuns; Santa Teresa of Ávila no longer stands alone in this respect. This English translation of María Vela y Cueto's autobiography and selected letters joins the ranks of a growing collection of recently published works that focus on the lives of nuns such as Ana de San Bartolomé, Mother Juana de la Cruz, and Sister Margaret of the Mother of God. Susan Diane Laningham's concise historical contextualization and Jane Tar's lucid translation together form an exemplar for how the works of early modern Spanish nuns should be presented to students and advanced scholars alike.

Vela commenced her novitiate in the Cistercian convent of Santa Ana in Ávila, Spain, in 1576. Vela wanted to become a saint and she knew how to model herself after other early modern women who were canonized, or who, like Santa Teresa, were in the process of canonization. One path to beatification for early modern nuns was to document their holiness through writing. Thus, Vela's self-conscious vida, or life, serves as an application for sainthood, yet despite the vida's rhetorical finesse, she did not achieve her goal then, or since.

Laningham's crisp prose elucidates the Counter-Reformation context within which Vela wrote. The introduction explains how orthodoxy and reform movements coexisted in Spain, as the number of traditional orders increased despite Protestantism's constant attacks on the cloistering of nuns and the vows of celibacy taken by male and female religious. Laningham carefully details how a distinctly Iberian style of mysticism, including oral and written accounts of supraliminal encounters with Christ, was celebrated and feared in an environment where the Inquisition suppressed heterodoxy, but also granted approval to those who passed its scrutiny. The exorcism of demons is another example of how reform could support orthodoxy. Because the Catholic Church prohibited the lay exorcisms popular in the medieval period, instead assigning the ritual to priests as yet another of their many exclusive privileges, it simultaneously substantiated the reality of demonic possession by elevating exorcisms to a level akin to an "eighth sacrament" (41). This seemingly paradoxical situation, in which individuals' adherence to dogma came under close surveillance and alternative forms of piety were cautiously celebrated, provided the context within which Vela lived and wrote. As Laningham asserts, a "well-crafted vida could be the first step toward making a saint out of a misunderstood, beleaguered misfit" (48). In short, if Vela wanted to become a saint she would have to act, confess, and write like one even if it meant she would harm herself physically, mentally, and, in terms of the Inquisition, professionally. Like so many modern aspiring artists, Vela sought the limelight, paid her dues, and molded herself in the shape of her famous predecessors. Her goal, therefore, was to follow in the footsteps of the early modern nun-saints before her.

Vela's vida discusses the spiritual turmoil from which the Virgin and Christ saved her when she was finally able to take communion without collapsing. "[T]his was," she explained, "because of the intercession of the Most Holy Virgin… the Lord had embraced me in order to free me from the devil's power … and he said to me: I will receive you. … I replied that I was nothing and could do nothing, and I asked his Majesty to tell me what he wanted of me" (138). Here Vela describes communicating directly with God and then employs the humility topos to position herself as appropriately subservient. Her vida contains many similar examples in which she chronicles the messages she received from Christ and the ways in which the devil tested her resolve. Vela's resilience in the face of mental, physical, and spiritual anguish underscores her determination...