According to him, she told him of things in Texas and about the world of the Jumanos that only one who had been there could have known. Such claims resulted in the custodian of the Franciscans in New Mexico, Father Alonso de Benavides, traveling all the way to Ágreda in Spain to interview Maria to verify her authenticity. Castaneda – not to be confused with the one who wrote about the Teachings of Don Juan – said that Maria preached in Spanish but the Jumanos understood her in their tongue, and when they spoke in their tongue, she understood them in Spanish. The respected religious historian Carlos E. Historians Donald Chipman and Denise Joseph wrote that the Jumanos said Maria came to them “like light at sunset… she was a kind and gentle person who spoke ‘sweet’ words to them that they could understand…” The priests immediately baptized 2,000 Jumanos, they say, because of Maria de Ágredas. They traveled to the region that is today San Angelo and found that many of the Jumano said she had indeed come to them many times over the years. How could this be? The head cleric in New Mexico, Esteban de Perea, asked two priests to go home with the Jumanos to verify these claims about the Lady in Blue. They certainly knew of no nuns who had attempted missionary work there. The priests were stunned because they had no missions or missionaries in that part of what is today West Texas. They, as the legend goes, pointed to a painting of a nun in the mission and said, “She is like her, but younger.” She had instructed them to go west to find holy men who could teach them more about the faith and baptize them. When asked how they knew of him, the men said that the Lady in Blue had come to them and taught them the gospel. The first proof is offered in the story of 50 Jumano Indians appearing on their own at the San Antonio de la Isleta Mission near present-day Albuquerque, asking the Franciscan priests to teach them about Jesus. And according to legend, the Jumano Indians of the time confirmed that the Woman in Blue, as they called her, had come among them.
She did this for about ten years, from the time she was 18, to 29. She said she first appeared to the Jumano tribes of present day Texas in the 1620s. Through meditation she could appear to God’s children in faraway lands and teach them about Jesus. Yet for her it was a glorious time: she said God had given her a divine gift. Her sisters worried about her frequent fasting, frail health, and life of extreme deprivation.
Now a nun, she spent more time than ever alone in prayer. The habit of her order was a dark cobalt blue.
In four years, this all came to pass.Īt 18, Maria took her vows and became Maria de Jesus – Mary of Jesus de Ágreda. Her father would join a local monastery, following in the footsteps of his sons who were already friars. She and her daughter would both become nuns. Before that could be arranged, though, Maria’s mother had a vision in which God instructed her to convert their mansion into a convent. When she was 12, her parents finally blessed her wish to join the Discalced Carmelite Nuns of Tarazona. When she was ten, she already wanted to join a convent. Barely beyond her toddler years, Maria showed an unusual devotion to a life of prayer and piety. She was a lovely child born to Catholic parents of noble rank. Our story begins in 1602 when Maria was born in the pueblito de Ágreda. She never in her life traveled beyond her tiny village in Spain, yet she stirred religious fervor from the Concho River to the headwaters of the Rio Grande. One of the most important figures in Texas’ religious history never set foot in Texas at all.
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