In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Venerable Mary of Jesus of Ágreda who lived from 1602 to 1665 tells us a historical event
that happened in the evangelization of the North American Indians, accepted even by North
American historians, some of whom want her to be named patron saint of Texas.
This evangelization was carried out by bilocation while she was in her convent in Ágreda and
occurred between 1620 and 1631, in the North American territories of the State of New Mexico
and part of the current States of Texas, Colorado and Arizona.
The Franciscan fathers, from the year 1608 to the year 1616, had baptized some 10,000
Indians, but in the following years, due to the evangelization of Mother Mary of Jesus,
among other factors, and also due to the increase in missionaries, the conversions reached 500,000.
An extraordinary harvest, especially if we consider the vast distances and the opposition
of many rebellious Indians.
In the year 1622, a mission of 26 Franciscans led by Father Alonso de Benavides left to
evangelize the territories of New Mexico.
There were the tribes of the Apaches, Navajos, Comanches and many others, who previously,
had killed some religious and were considered savages and bloodthirsty with the whites;
but the religious found themselves with the pleasant surprise that they came to beg them
to go to their lands to administer baptism and the other sacraments.
They spoke of The Blue Lady alluding to her blue cape, for she had prepared and evangelized them.
Fathers Juan de Salas and Diego López accompanied them to their lands and were recognized by
the pagans as men sent by God.
They came to baptize up to 10,000 in a single day.
Father Alonso de Benavides, faced with these miraculous events, decided to travel to Spain
from Mexico to inform his Superiors of the widely known and particular things, as he
says, that were happening in the Mission.
He arrived in Spain on August 1st, 1630 and, before meeting Venerable Mary of Jesus of
Ágreda, he wrote a Memorial of the events, which was printed in Madrid that same year
and which he delivered to King Philip IV of Spain and the Council of the Indies and the
General of his Order, Father Bernardino of Siena.
In this first Memorial of Father Benavides of the year 1630, it is said: Father Juan
de Salas, speaking to that crowd of ten thousand men or more, asked them if they wanted baptism.
They answered to all the captains that for this they had come there and for this they
had called the fathers.
The father said: I would like each and every one to give a certain signal and that each
one, from his position, raise his arm to express his desire for baptism.
All raised their arms and with great clamor exclaimed that they wanted to be baptized.
What moved our priests the most was that the mothers, who had their children at their chests,
raised their little arms high.
The two priests, Juan de Salas and Diego López, stayed with them for a few days, preaching
the word of God and the necessary things they should believe, and teaching them Christian
prayers, while the crowd listened avidly.
Meanwhile, ambassadors arrived from the other neighboring towns insisting that they also
go to their towns and saying that the Servant of God also appeared among them and preached.
Before saying goodbye, the two fathers recommended to them that each day they approach the cross
and devoutly recite the prayers learned.
Then, the supreme chief of the Indians said
“Father, until now we are like deer and
wild animals, but you have a lot of power before God.
There are many sick among us, cure them before your departure.
There were many sick people and, from three in the afternoon, throughout the night, until
ten o'clock the next day, they continually brought in the blind, the lame, the paralyzed.
And the priests, standing one on one side and the other on the other side, with the
sign of the cross and reading the Gospel of Mark chapter 16 and the prayer “Obsecro te”
they were instantly cured.
Blessed be God who, through His poor servants, has worked so many miracles.
The priests were stunned.
And that people took so much devotion to the holy cross that, since then, each one of them
placed it on top of their tent or cabin and had it with them all the time.
Father Benavides went to visit Venerable Mary of Jesus of Ágreda with the authorization
of the Father General so the Servant of God could tell the whole truth out of obedience.
He wrote his second Memorial about the events in America in May 1631, after speaking with
the Servant of God several times.
In this Memorial, he included a letter, dated May 15th, 1631, written by Venerable Mary
of Jesus of Ágreda herself, confirming what Father Benavides said in this second Memorial.
Let us listen to what Father Alonso de Benavides tells us I write here part of the wonders
that the divine Majesty has worked and is working in the conversions of New Mexico by
ministry and instruction of Venerable Mother Mary of Jesus of Ágreda, abbess of her convent
of our seraphic Father Saint Francis of Assisi, in protection and government of the holy province
of Burgos in the town of Ágreda.
Venerable Mother Mary of Jesus of Ágreda herself manifested the wonders to me and told
them alone in the confessional to me, Father Alonso de Benavides, of the Order of our Father
Saint Francis of Assisi, and by order of our Reverend Father General, I came to this town
with his letter to Venerable Mother Mary of Jesus, in which he ordered me to carry this
out because of everything I have seen and experienced there in New Mexico.
The Jumano Indians had come to ask Father Juan de Salas to come and baptize them; some
years before they had already asked for this every year.
Asking them what reason they had for asking so insistently for baptism, the Jumano Indians
said that a woman who looked like a portrait of Mother Luisa de Carrion, but younger and
more beautiful, was preaching to them in their land, and told them to come and call the priests
of Saint Francis of Assisi to go and baptize them; and she reprimanded them for being lazy
because they did not come.
Father Francis declared in the Logroño Spanish Inquisition on May 19th, 1635: He spoke with
the witness and secretly examined Venerable Mary of Jesus of Ágreda as his Superior about
things to evangelize in the USA from 1620 to 1631 in the territories of Texas, Colorado,
Arizona and New Mexico.
She declared how true it was as she had told this witness.
Venerable Mary of Jesus of Ágreda had been taken to these kingdoms very frequently in
the preceding years by the hand of the angels, and this used to happen every day and, sometimes
twice a day, according to the need that she knew.
And during the time that Venerable Mary of Jesus of Ágreda was taken to that kingdom
of the Indians, she was never missed in the convent, particularly when she was Prelate,
because an angel replaced her, taking her form, by doing and ordering what she had to do.
Later, when the servant of God came, the angel usually warned her what he had done in her
name and for her, so she would not forget or do it again.
And as proof of what was said, this witness remembers that on three different occasions,
while apparently talking to the servant of God, the conversation was interrupted in a
short time, less than half of a Hail Mary.
The witness perceived when he was speaking with the servant of God some difference in
the way of speaking or in the tone and a greater difference in the subject of the conversation,
because after talking for almost an hour with whom he understood to be Venerable Mother
Mary of Jesus of Ágreda, she began to greet him as someone who had arrived there again.
Out of admiration, this witness asked her with a command of obedience to tell her what
was the reason for beginning to greet him after such a long time that he had been with her,
and she replied that at that point she was arriving and that her guardian angel was
in her place, and that thus she was ignorant of what they had spoken of up until then.
This witness replied, how had the angel not informed her, as on other occasions, of what
he had spoken and said in her name, the servant of God replied that this was the privilege
of the Prelates, because the angel undoubtedly understood that she had been absent and he
in her place, and for this reason, the angel had not warned her.
On two other occasions the same thing or something similar happened to him, finding out that
instead of Venerable Mary of Jesus of Ágreda it was her guardian angel.
On another occasion it is remembered that, while the nuns were sweeping in Community,
this witness came to give a paper to Venerable Mary of Jesus of Ágreda, who was sweeping
with the others.
This witness, having come and talked with her for a while in the parlor and having told
her about the paper, shortly afterwards, he recognized the same change as in the first
case described before.
Venerable Mary of Jesus of Ágreda, in the middle of the conversation, told this witness
how her guardian angel had given her that paper.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.