The comparison (see previous blog) of Hinduism and Catholicism brought to mind what I had just read in John Kessell’s Kiva, Cross, and Crown, about the Pecos Indians of New Mexico. The Spanish tried various ways to convert the Indians to Christianity, but the friars despaired about the superficiality of the conversion. Indians said their prayers and came to church, but also continued their dances and mysterious goings on in the kivas.
On top of all this, the archbishop of Mexico City wrote a letter to the Franciscan friars telling them that a a Spanish Franciscan nun, María de Jesús Ágrada (1602-1665) had been miraculously transported to New Mexico to preach to the heathen Indians. The archbishop asked the friars to investigate.
My curiosity was piqued. One friar, who eventually visited her, said he was convinced by her descriptions of New Mexico – although there were ulterior motives for his interest in her.
Wikipedia explains about Sor María:
She is credited in her book Mystical City of God (Spanish: Mistica Ciudad de Dios, Vida de la Virgen María) with receiving directly from the Blessed Virgin Mary a lengthy revelation, consisting of 8 books (6 volumes), about the terrestrial and heavenly life of Blessed Mary and her relationship with the Triune God, the doings and Mysteries performed by Jesus as God–Man in flesh and in Spirit, with extensive detail, in a narrative that covers the New Testament time line but accompanied with doctrines given by the Holy Mother on how to acquire true sanctity.
Our Authoress Receiving Dictation
She is credited by having contributed in the evangelization of what is known today as Texas, New Mexico and Arizona by supernaturally appearing to early tribes in the region before official evangelization missions had even begun for that location, in what has been cataloged as bilocation as she never left the convent she resided for the time being,[2] which adds to other supernatural, and documented phenomena accompanying her history, as levitation during praying, and uncorrupted body even to this day, more than 300 hundred years after her death.
From an Authentic Seventeenth Century Photograph
Philip IV was, of course, the descendant of Joanna the Mad. The Hapsburgs had a certain problem with inbreeding.
Wikipedia also claims:
Giacomo Casanova mentions being compelled to read María de Ágreda’s book, Mystical City of God, during his imprisonment in the Venice prison “i Piombi” as a means of the clergy to psychologically torture the prisoners. He called it the work of an “overheated imagination of a devout, melancholy, Spanish virgin locked up in a Convent.” In it, Casanova argues that a captive’s mind can get inflamed with such aberrant ideas to the point of madness, which was purportedly the purpose of having been given the book to read.
Cruel and unusual punishment.
Clerical response to Sor María was mixed. Pope Clement X declared her Venerable and the process for her canonization was opened in 1673, but has been stalled ever since. For a while her Mystical City of God was put on the Index of Prohibited Books in 1681 (no doubt to the relief of prisoners like Casanova).
If clerics sometimes have made grumpy statements about women it should be remembered that they are the recipients of numerous claims from visionaries (almost all women) to have messages from God. Some learned theologian has to read through all the visions, which may recount what Archangel Gabriel said to the Archangel Michael and what Mary had to say to that, to see if the visionary had snuck in the doctrine of redemptive transmigration or claimed that she was the fourth person of the Trinity.
Nor is this ancient history. A few years ago, in a certain city with which I am familiar, a seeresss claimed to be a stigmatic, to waltz with Jesus in heaven, etc. She gathered followers who had to wear special aprons. She announced that her guardian angel was 10 feet tall, taller than other people’s guardian angels, and that her followers should stand around him, wearing their special aprons, and look up at him and sing his favorite song, “Baby Face.”
I am not making this up – and some poor priest, who would rather be studying Scotus’ epistemology or at least playing golf, had to investigate it.
I am from this area in New Mexico where she appeared and the local natives still have an annual procession to the place where she originally appeared. She is known as the Blue Lady of the Manzanos and her spot is marked by a shrine beneath a tall pine tree at the top of a high hill.
I don’t mean to be picky but you need to correct the word “peripetetic” to “peripatetic” or my Webster’s Dictionary is all wrong! BTW I live in Torreon, NM a few miles from the shrine to the Blue Lady. Every year we process to the spot and offer a rosary and kneel there at the exact spot where she appeared. The people of our village once spoke the Nahuatl language (Aztec) because our ancient pueblo ancestors were related to the Aztecs. The same language that Saint Juan Diego heard the Virgin of Guadalupe (Tonantzin) was the same tongue which the Blue Lady spoke to our Tiwa forefathers. According to Fray Juan Benavides, my ancestors were warned to flee across the Abo Mountain Pass to Isleta Pueblo where they would survive the coming Pueblo Revolt and later protect and lead the Spanish colonists to safety, South to Guadalupe del Paso (El Paso, TX). A lot of my people still confuse the “Blue Nun” with the Virgin of Guadalupe and so the shrine is often called “El Pino de Virgin”.
I’ve been to Albuquerque three times and have celebrated Masses there. The renowned pastor of St. Thomas Aquinas Church in Rio Rancho, Msgr. Raun, when I asked him about the credibility of this phenomenon, told me that the priests of the Archdiocese believe it is true, particularly because Ven. María of Agreda’s spiritual director in Spain had testified to the facts of Agreda’s numerous bilocations to the New Mexico area.
“If clerics sometimes have made grumpy statements about women..” If? Really?
Time to reread Aquinas, Augustine, and the rest.
AW
Facinating info Jacobo,
Our Lady’s appearances all seem to be accompanied by maternal warnings.
One wonders why we have not read those which have surely warned Bishops and priests about the actions of pederasty.Especially since EVERY living mother with normal maternal instincts warns her children about taking candy from and going with strangers.
I know there were several of these prophetic warnings published. The little LaSalette pamphlet approved by the Bishop of Lecce and the Marie Julle JaHenney prophecies approved by the Bishop of Nantes, but both have been largely discredited and/or supressed by the majority of Bishops .
The Salinas Pueblos on the East side of the Manzano Mountains have been called “the cities that died of fear”. There were at least 15 major pueblos documented and today there is:
1)Tajique-which means “holly-wood” in Nahuatl.
2)Chilili-which is a Lucero/Chavez land grant.
3) Torreon-where my family lives.
4)Quarai-meaning place of the bear.
5)Manzano-where the old apple orchard planted by the Franciscan friars still thrives.
6)Estancia-fed by a sacred spring, now has a small lake called Lake Arthur.
7)Punta de Agua-an ancient ruin.Perhaps these were the fabled 7 cities of Cibola. There is a ruins nearby called Gran Quivera.
The very first pueblo church named after the Virgin of Guadalupe was at Zuni and the second was at Guadalupe del Paso. The Piro/Tiwa pueblos of the Manzanos fled across the Abo Pass, heeding the warning of the “Blue Lady”.
Soon afterwards, Apache, Commanche and Navajo bands raided their pueblos. By 1680 the whole province of Nuevo Mexico was ablaze with the Pueblo Revolt when every priest was martyred and every Church was razed. If it were not for the “Blue Lady’s” warning, the colonists and their pueblo allies at Isleta Pueblo would have not survived. Today, the pueblo at Tortugas near Las Cruces and the Tigua Pueblos of El Paso are still alive and thriving. My ancestors are mixed Pueblo and Spanish stock and they resettled the pueblo at Torreon in the 1830s. The memory of the Blue Lady is still strong and every year the whole village of Torreon and most of Manzano walk in procession, singing hymns of gratitude.
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When I read Fray Alonso de Beanvides’s Memoria of 1630 , I was reminded of my youth,growing up in the Azores at Lajes Air Force Base. Fray Benavides was the Franciscan Custodian of the New Mexico Missions and a native of the Azores. He was born on Sao Miguel Island in the Azores in 1578. A Portuguese Franciscan, after leaving New Mexico, he was later appointed Bishop of Goa, India. The simple peasants and survivors of the Pueblo Revolt never dared to come back to their Salinas area pueblos. They settled instead at Guadalupe del Paso, Texas and Las Tortugas near Las Cruces, New Mexico. In 1827 a few mixed pueblo/spanish descendants tried to resettle Manzano and later Tajique, Torreon and Chilili. The people here are very devout Catholics and they provided shelter and aid for some of the Navajos (their former enemies), who were escaping from Bosque Redondo, their concentration camp on the Pecos River, in the 1860s.
I believe the Mission at Quarai named La Purissima Conception was dedicated to the Virgin of Guadalupe. When Our Lady Of Guadalupe spoke to Saint Juan Diego in
Nahuatl she identified herself as “the Immaculate Conception”. The Franciscans were even wearing blue habits in her honor. Blessed Maria de Agreda was from the Immaculate Conception convent and she wore a blue Franciscan habit. To this day the older Indian pueblos and Spanish/Mexican residents still paint at least one of their windows or doors a blue color. In Estancia and the other Manzano Mountain towns some still follow that ancient custom and the oldest building in Estancia is the Blue Ribbon Cafe/Bar which was an old hotel with blue trim and still owned by the original Ortiz family, whose ancestors came this New Mexico’s Estancia Valley from Spain with Coronado and DeVargas in the
16th Century.
If all the local parishoners and the hierarchy of the Santa Fe clergy believe that Venerable Maria de Agreda appeared, then this sacred event should be celebrated! It is truly ironic that the first missions dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe and her Immaculate Conception were in New Mexico and Texas! The Indians accepted her immediately! The Gauchupines (pure blooded Spaniards) of Mexico, ultra race and class conscious elites, called her “the Indian Madonna” or “La Morena” (ther dark one). After the Revolution in 1821, the indigenous natives were all equally called Mexican citizens. Their patroness and Mother was then ,Guadalupe. In Sante Fe the Gauchupines still have a shrine for Our Lady called La Conquistadora, a pure white skinned Virgin Mary. At the outskirts of Santa Fe on Agua Fria Road they erected the Guadalupe Church for the natives. In New Mexico we are proud to have been the first people to recognize and honor the Virgin of Guadalupe and her loyal messenger, Ven. Maria de Agreda!