A young 17th-century Spanish nun and mystic is said to have experienced visions that transported her to New Spain, where she inspired many native tribes to convert to Catholicism.
María de Jesús de Ágreda — known as the “Lady in Blue” or the “Blue Nun” — allegedly had several apparitions from 1620 to 1623 that allowed her to bilocate from her monastery in rural Spain to what is now the American Southwest.
The apparitions mainly occurred along the northern stretch of the 1,600-mile-long Camino Real de Tierra Adentro. The Spanish royal road connected Mexico City to just north of Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Martha Vera, the Honorary Consul of Spain in El Paso, studies Sor María and has translated many of her works.
Vera said Sor María began experiencing those apparitions following a divine intervention with God where he showed her the New World.
“To her, it meant that she needed to evangelize (the Natives) and prepare them for baptism,” Vera said. “She starts to go into prayer and into a trance … and here, the Natives saw her.”
Vera said Sor María drew the attention of holy men who questioned her apparitions.
“In that time, women did not read or write, and she did both,” Vera said. “Women were not theologians, and they felt that she was crossing the line into theology.”
Vera is translating a series of books written by Sor María. The Mystical City of God consists of eight books that detail the life of the virgin mother of God.
See a video of Vera singing during a recital of "The Lady in blue" in Ágreda below:
