Quill and Cross in the Borderlands: Sor María de Ágreda and the Lady in Blue, 1628 to the Present by Anna M. Nogar (review)

The Conceptionist nun and noted mystic María de Jesús de Ágreda (1602–65) regularly corresponded with King Philip IV of Spain, serving as his spiritual director and personal/political counselor for twenty-two years. When she was twenty-five, her conventual sisters elected her abbess of the Convent of St. Clare in Ágreda, a position she occupied for all but three years of her religious life, and her experiences motivated her to compose various missives addressing conventual administrative obligations and spiritual guidance concerns. Sor María de Jesús also wrote spiritual and mystical works, including fourteen published books. Her most notable work is her mystical biography of the Virgin Mary, entitled Mística ciudad de Dios [Mystical City of God], which she asserted had been dictated to her by the saint herself. The book was published posthumously and received both high praise and harsh criticism. Pope Innocent XI prohibited the book in 1681 yet lifted his ban shortly after; the Spanish Inquisition assessed both its placement on and removal from the Index of Prohibited Books at least twice; and in 1685 the Supreme Council of the Spanish Inquisition asserted that "it was worthy of being read and that it in no way intended to deceive its readers" (56). After Sor María's death in 1665, the Franciscan order immediately initiated the process to open a causa (case) for sainthood, and within ten years the Franciscans received approval for the first stage: the declaration of Venerability. The process for beatification was begun but faltered due to, among other reasons, disbelief as to whether María de Jesús was the true author of La mística ciudad de Dios; unresolved and ongoing theological debates in Rome and Spain between the Franciscans, Dominicans, and Jesuits about the work's Conceptionist content; and doubts about the ability of any woman to write authoritative mystical and spiritual texts. Further reservations were raised about her vita and other documents, in large part because they referred to perhaps the most intriguing element of her mystical life: spiritual raptures that led to her five hundred bilocations from her cell in northern Spain to areas we now identify as eastern New Mexico and western Texas. While "present" in those regions, Sor Maria along with her biographer, spiritual director, and other religious writers asserted, or in some cases denied, that she successfully catechized large populations of American peoples, among them the Jumanos and Quivairas, and promised the catechumens that priests would be sent to baptize them. Franciscan friars and other missionaries who subsequently traveled to evangelize residents living in the northern frontiers of New Spain marveled at the neophytes' knowledge of Christian beliefs and behavior, an awareness they themselves attributed to teachings by the "Lady in Blue." The next hundred years brought an ever-increasing devotion to Sor María de Jesús and her writings in Spain, its colonies, and Europe. It also saw a notable adherence by New Spain missionaries to Sor María's protomissionary ideas and conduct, and a pervasive and general belief in the original or modified versions of the miracle narrative of the Lady in Blue. Nonetheless, Pope Clement XIV declared her case for canonization as perpetually silent in April 1773.

This official silence, however, did not lead to her abandonment or obscurity over the next three centuries by either religious or secular communities. Spanish and New Spain residents continued to read Sor María's writings and to imitate her as a model of spiritual perfection and proper religious life. During the colonial era, her companions in missionary work admired her authority, taught her works, and incorporated her ideas and practices in their educational and evangelical efforts. Others found themselves inspired by the miracle narrative of the Lady in Blue. Its social significance and...