Mother Juana de la Cruz, 1481–1534: Visionary Sermons (Volume 47) (The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series) [1 ed.] 0866985492, 9780866985499

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whose visionary sermons and ecstatic “body language” fascinated Spaniards from villagers to Charles V. Ronald Surtz and Nora Weinerth provide masterful translations of Juana’s transcribed sermons and Jessica Boon contributes an insightful introduction to the mystic’s life, religious milieu, and theological discourse. This book will be of great interest to scholars and students of religion, gender, and materiality in Spain at the dawn of its Golden Age. Jodi Bilinkoff University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Juana de la Cruz (1481–1534) is a unique figure in the history of the Catholic Church,

M o t her J u a n a d e la C r u z

This superb edition presents to English-readers the extraordinary Mother Juana de la Cruz,

Mother Juana de la Cruz, 1481-1534: Visionary Sermons Ed i t e d b y Jessica A. Boon and Ronald E. Surtz i n t rod ucto ry m aterial and n ot es by Jessica A. Boon t rans lat ed b y Ronald E. Surtz and Nora Weinerth

thanks to her public visionary experiences during which she lost consciousness, while a deep voice, identifying itself as Christ, issued from her, narrating the feasts and pageants taking place in heaven. Juana’s so called “sermons,” collected in a manuscript called Libro del Conorte, form a fascinating window into Castilian religiosity in the early sixteenth theology, mysticism, gender roles, and interreligious interactions. Jessica A. Boon is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at The University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill. She is the author of The Mystical Science of the Soul: Medieval Cognition in Bernardino de Laredo’s Recollection Method.

Visionary Sermons

century. There is much to reap from these sermons concerning Spanish Renaissance culture,

Ronald E. Surtz is Professor of Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Cultures at Princeton University. He is the author of The Guitar of God: Gender, Power, and Authority in the Visionary World of Mother Juana de la Cruz (1481–1534) and Writing Women in Late Medieval and Early Modern Spain: The Mothers of Saint Teresa of Avila. Nora Weinerth is an independent scholar who lives in New York.

The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series, 47





S er ies E dito rs Margaret L. King and Albert Rabil, Jr. S er i es E dito r , en gli s h t e x t s Elizabeth H. Hageman

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The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series, 47

MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ, 1481–1534: VISIONARY SERMONS

The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series, 47

MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE TEXTS AND STUDIES VOLUME 494

The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series

Ser i e S ed i to r S Margaret L. King and Albert Rabil, Jr. Ser i e S ed i to r , e ng l i Sh te x tS Elizabeth H. Hageman

Previous Publications in the Series Madre María Rosa Journey of Five Capuchin Nuns Edited and translated by Sarah E. Owens Volume 1, 2009 Giovan Battista Andreini Love in the Mirror: A Bilingual Edition Edited and translated by Jon R. Snyder Volume 2, 2009 Raymond de Sabanac and Simone Zanacchi Two Women of the Great Schism: The Revelations of Constance de Rabastens by Raymond de Sabanac and Life of the Blessed Ursulina of Parma by Simone Zanacchi Edited and translated by Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski and Bruce L. Venarde Volume 3, 2010 Oliva Sabuco de Nantes Barrera The True Medicine Edited and translated by Gianna Pomata Volume 4, 2010 Louise-Geneviève Gillot de Sainctonge Dramatizing Dido, Circe, and Griselda Edited and translated by Janet Levarie Smarr Volume 5, 2010 Pernette du Guillet Complete Poems: A Bilingual Edition Edited by Karen Simroth James Translated by Marta Rijn Finch Volume 6, 2010

Antonia Pulci Saints’ Lives and Bible Stories for the Stage: A Bilingual Edition Edited by Elissa B. Weaver Translated by James Wyatt Cook Volume 7, 2010 Valeria Miani Celinda, A Tragedy: A Bilingual Edition Edited by Valeria Finucci Translated by Julia Kisacky Annotated by Valeria Finucci and Julia Kisacky Volume 8, 2010 Enchanted Eloquence: Fairy Tales by Seventeenth-Century French Women Writers Edited and translated by Lewis C. Seifert and Domna C. Stanton Volume 9, 2010 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Sophie, Electress of Hanover and Queen Sophie Charlotte of Prussia Leibniz and the Two Sophies: The Philosophical Correspondence Edited and translated by Lloyd Strickland Volume 10, 2011 In Dialogue with the Other Voice in Sixteenth-Century Italy: Literary and Social Contexts for Women’s Writing Edited by Julie D. Campbell and Maria Galli Stampino Volume 11, 2011

The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series

Ser i e S ed i to r S Margaret L. King and Albert Rabil, Jr. Ser i e S ed i to r , e ng l i Sh te x tS Elizabeth H. Hageman

Previous Publications in the Series Sister Giustina Niccolini The Chronicle of Le Murate Edited and translated by Saundra Weddle Volume 12, 2011 Liubov Krichevskaya No Good without Reward: Selected Writings: A Bilingual Edition Edited and translated by Brian James Baer Volume 13, 2011 Elizabeth Cooke Hoby Russell The Writings of an English Sappho Edited by Patricia Phillippy With translations by Jaime Goodrich Volume 14, 2011 Lucrezia Marinella Exhortations to Women and to Others If They Please Edited and translated by Laura Benedetti Volume 15, 2012 Margherita Datini Letters to Francesco Datini Translated by Carolyn James and Antonio Pagliaro Volume 16, 2012 Delarivier Manley and Mary Pix English Women Staging Islam, 1696–1707 Edited and introduced by Bernadette Andrea Volume 17, 2012

Cecilia Del Nacimiento Journeys of a Mystic Soul in Poetry and Prose Introduction and prose translations by Kevin Donnelly Poetry translations by Sandra Sider Volume 18, 2012 Lady Margaret Douglas and Others The Devonshire Manuscript: A Women’s Book of Courtly Poetry Edited and introduced by Elizabeth Heale Volume 19, 2012 Arcangela Tarabotti Letters Familiar and Formal Edited and translated by Meredith K. Ray and Lynn Lara Westwater Volume 20, 2012 Pere Torrellas and Juan de Flores Three Spanish Querelle Texts: Grisel and Mirabella, The Slander against Women, and The Defense of Ladies against Slanderers: A Bilingual Edition and Study Edited and translated by Emily C. Francomano Volume 21, 2013 Barbara Torelli Benedetti Partenia, a Pastoral Play: A Bilingual Edition Edited and translated by Lisa Sampson and Barbara Burgess-Van Aken Volume 22, 2013

The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series

Ser i e S ed i to r S Margaret L. King and Albert Rabil, Jr. Ser i e S ed i to r , e ng l i Sh te x tS Elizabeth H. Hageman

Previous Publications in the Series François Rousset, Jean Liebault, Jacques Guillemeau, Jacques Duval and Louis De Serres Pregnancy and Birth in Early Modern France: Treatises by Caring Physicians and Surgeons (1581–1625) Edited and translated by Valerie WorthStylianou Volume 23, 2013 Mary Astell The Christian Religion, as Professed by a Daughter of the Church of England Edited by Jacqueline Broad Volume 24, 2013 Sophia of Hanover Memoirs (1630–1680) Edited and translated by Sean Ward Volume 25, 2013 Katherine Austen Book M: A London Widow’s Life Writings Edited by Pamela S. Hammons Volume 26, 2013 Anne Killigrew “My Rare Wit Killing Sin”: Poems of a Restoration Courtier Edited by Margaret J. M. Ezell Volume 27, 2013

Tullia d’Aragona and Others The Poems and Letters of Tullia d’Aragona and Others: A Bilingual Edition Edited and translated by Julia L. Hairston Volume 28, 2014 Luisa de Carvajal y Mendoza The Life and Writings of Luisa de Carvajal y Mendoza Edited and translated by Anne J. Cruz Volume 29, 2014 Russian Women Poets of the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries: A Bilingual Edition Edited and translated by Amanda Ewington Volume 30, 2014 Jacques du Bosc L’Honnête Femme: The Respectable Woman in Society and the New Collection of Letters and Responses by Contemporary Women Edited and translated by Sharon Diane Nell and Aurora Wolfgang Volume 31, 2014 Lady Hester Pulter Poems, Emblems, and The Unfortunate Florinda Edited by Alice Eardley Volume 32, 2014

The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series

Se r i e S ed i to r S Margaret L. King and Albert Rabil, Jr. Se r i e S ed i to r , e ng l i Sh te x tS Elizabeth H. Hageman

Previous Publications in the Series Jeanne Flore Tales and Trials of Love, Concerning Venus’s Punishment of Those Who Scorn True Love and Denounce Cupid’s Sovereignity: A Bilingual Edition and Study Edited and translated by Kelly Digby Peebles Poems translated by Marta Rijn Finch Volume 33, 2014 Veronica Gambara Complete Poems: A Bilingual Edition Critical introduction by Molly M. Martin Edited and translated by Molly M. Martin and Paola Ugolini Volume 34, 2014 Catherine de Médicis and Others Portraits of the Queen Mother: Polemics, Panegyrics, Letters Translation and study by Leah L. Chang and Katherine Kong Volume 35, 2014 Françoise Pascal, MarieCatherine Desjardins, Antoinette Deshoulières, and Catherine Durand Challenges to Traditional Authority: Plays by French Women Authors, 1650–1700 Edited and translated by Perry Gethner Volume 36, 2015

Franciszka Urszula Radziwiłłowa Selected Drama and Verse Edited by Patrick John Corness and Barbara Judkowiak Translated by Patrick John Corness Translation Editor Aldona Zwierzyńska-Coldicott Introduction by Barbara Judkowiak Volume 37, 2015 Diodata Malvasia Writings on the Sisters of San Luca and Their Miraculous Madonna Edited and translated by Danielle Callegari and Shannon McHugh Volume 38, 2015 Margaret Van Noort Spiritual Writings of Sister Margaret of the Mother of God (1635–1643) Edited by Cordula van Wyhe Translated by Susan M. Smith Volume 39, 2015 Giovan Francesco Straparola The Pleasant Nights Edited and translated by Suzanne Magnanini Volume 40, 2015 Angélique de Saint-Jean Arnauld D’Andilly Writings of Resistance Edited and translated by John J. Conley, S.J. Volume 41, 2015

The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series

Ser i e S ed i to r S Margaret L. King and Albert Rabil, Jr. Ser i e S ed i to r , e ng l i Sh te x tS Elizabeth H. Hageman

Previous Publications in the Series Francesco Barbaro The Wealth of Wives: A Fifteenth-Century Marriage Manual Edited and translated by Margaret L. King Volume 42, 2015 Jeanne D’Albret Letters from the Queen of Navarre with an Ample Declaration Edited and translated by Kathleen M. Llewellyn, Emily E. Thompson, and Colette H. Winn Volume 43, 2016 Bathsua Makin and Mary More with a reply to More by Robert Whitehall Educating English Daughters: Late Seventeenth-Century Debates Edited by Frances Teague and Margaret J. M. Ezell Associate Editor Jessica Walker Volume 44, 2016

Anna StanisŁawska Orphan Girl: A Transaction, or an Account of the Entire Life of an Orphan Girl by way of Plaintful Threnodies in the year 1685: The Aesop Episode Verse translation, introduction, and commentary by Barry Keane Volume 45, 2016 Alessandra Macinghi Strozzi Letters to Her Sons, 1447–1470 Edited and translated by Judith Bryce Volume 46, 2016

Mother Juana de la Cruz, 1481–1534: Visionary Sermons •

Edited by JESSICA A. BOON and RONALD E. SURTZ Introductory material and notes by JESSICA A. BOON Translated by RONALD E. SURTZ and NORA WEINERTH

Iter Academic Press Toronto, Ontario Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies Tempe, Arizona 2016

Iter Academic Press Tel: 416/978–7074

Email: [email protected]

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Web: www.itergateway.org

Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies Tel: 480/965–5900 Email: [email protected] Fax: 480/965–1681 Web: acmrs.org © 2016 Iter, Inc. and the Arizona Board of Regents for Arizona State University. All rights reserved. Printed in Canada. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Juana de la Cruz, sor, 1481–1534, author. | Boon, Jessica A., 1976– editor. Title: Mother Juana de la Cruz, 1481–1534 : visionary sermons / edited by Jessica A. Boon And Ronald E. Surtz ; introductory material and notes by Jessica A. Boon ; translated by Ronald E. Surtz And Nora Weinerth. Description: Tempe : Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2016. | Series: The other voice in early modern Europe. The Toronto series; 47 | Series: Medieval and Renaissance texts and studies ; VOLUME 494 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2015050508 (print) | LCCN 2015051383 (ebook) | ISBN 9780866985499 (alk. paper) | ISBN 9780866987219 () Subjects: LCSH: Catholic Church--Sermons--Early works to 1800. | Sermons, Spanish--Early works to 1800. Classification: LCC BX1756.J77 S47 2016 (print) | LCC BX1756.J77 (ebook) | DDC 252/.02--dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015050508 Cover illustration: Portrait of Mother Juana, Antonio Daza, Historia, vida y milagros, extasis y reuelaciones de la bienauenturada Virgen Santa Iuana de la Cruz, de la tercera Orden de … San Francisco (Madrid: Luis Sánchez, 1610), frontispiece. Biblioteca Nacional de España. Cover design: Maureen Morin, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries. Typesetting and production: Iter Academic Press.

Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction

xi xiii 1

Preface to the Translation

34

Prologue

35

Sermon 1: Incarnation Introduction Translation

37 40

Sermon 2: Nativity of Jesus Introduction Translation

67 71

Sermon 13: Losing Jesus in Jerusalem Introduction Translation

101 104

Sermon 19: Good Friday Introduction Translation

125 129

Sermon 20: Resurrection Introduction Translation

151 154

Sermon 22: Exaltation of the Holy Cross Introduction Translation

183 186

Postscript by the Translator

215

Bibliography

221

Index

235

List of Illustrations

Cover

Portrait of Mother Juana, Antonio Daza, Historia, vida y milagros, extasis y reuelaciones de la bienauenturada Virgen Santa Iuana de la Cruz, de la tercera Orden de … San Francisco (Madrid: Luis Sánchez, 1610), frontispiece. Biblioteca Nacional de España.

Figure 1

The Annunciation, Borgoña, Juan de (fl.1495–1533). Museo de Santa Cruz, Toledo, Spain.

Figure 2

Virgin and Child, Alonso de Berruguete (1488–1561) (attr. to). Private collection.

Figure 3

Christ among the Doctors, Maestro Bartolomé (formerly attr. to Francisco Gallego), 1480–88. University of Arizona Museum of Art.

Figure 4

Calvary, Diego de Siloe, 1486–92. Chapel of Santa Anna, Cathedral of Burgos.

Figure 5

Detail of Last Judgment, with Jesus pointing to his side wound and the angels holding the arma Christi, Nicolas Florentino, ca. 1445. Old Cathedral, Salamanca.

Figure 6

Medieval cross, with arma Christi. Old Cathedral, Salamanca.

xi

Acknowledgments Jessica A. Boon: Ronald Surtz not only proposed our collaboration on this volume when I was still a graduate student, but waited patiently for me to finish both the dissertation and my first book before bringing this volume to fruition. Once the basic translation was complete, students at Perkins School of Theology (Southern Methodist University) and The University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill have been rapt audiences to Juana’s unique voice, and I have benefited greatly from their excellent analyses and discussions. The anonymous reviewer for the press and our editor, Margaret King, deserve full appreciation for their careful readings. The University Research Council of UNC-Chapel Hill provided a timely grant covering part of the publication subvention. Finally, my thanks to Sarah J. Bloesch, who always celebrates the festive aspects of Juana’s sermons while remaining attuned to their theological implications. Ronald E. Surtz: I would like to acknowledge the Princeton University Committee on Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences for its partial funding for the subvention of this project. Nora Weinerth: I want to thank Ronald Surtz, my Harvard graduate school classmate and friend of the past thirty-five years, for introducing me to Mother Juana, and for inviting me to work on our translation of Libro del Conorte at a most opportune time—when I was recovering from a ruptured cerebral aneurysm. The intellectual exercise was a joy, and the best kind of cognitive therapy.

xiii

Introduction The Other Voice In 1508, Mother Juana de la Cruz (1481–1534) began a thirteen-year preaching career.1 She was then abbess of a third order Franciscan convent in the Castilian village of Cubas, near Toledo. She went into visionary rapture each Sunday for five or more hours, during which periods Christ purportedly used her as a medium to preach to an audience that included at times bishops, army captains, and even the emperor Charles V. Her regal and religious audience heard a low-register voice issue forth from her unconscious, prone body, using the first person to narrate elaborate additions to biblical episodes. The voice then detailed the complex pageants and festivals the rapt Juana was observing in heaven during the many hours she lent her voice to Christ.2 These ecstatic episodes were termed sermones by Juana’s contemporaries, and seventy-two were transcribed in a manuscript called El libro del conorte [The Book of Consolation]. Here begins the book called Conorte, which was made through the voice of the Holy Spirit who spoke through a woman religious as she was enraptured in contemplation. This speech was made in the person of Our Lord Jesus Christ, who is he who enlightens our hearts and is wont to speak in parables and similes.3

1. The surviving manuscripts consist of the visionary sermons in El libro del conorte (Madrid, Real Biblioteca del Monasterio, El Escorial J-II-18, hereafter Conorte; a second copy in Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Congregazione Riti, MS 3074); a “semiautobiography” Vida y fin de la bienabenturada virgen sancta Juana de la Cruz (El Escorial, K-III-13, hereafter, Vida y fin); and a convent record book of devotions and visions, Libro de la casa y monasterio de Nuestra Señora de la Cruz (Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid, MS 9661, hereafter, Libro de la casa). Only the sermons have been published, and references to sermons not translated in this volume cite the sermon by volume, sermon number, section, and page as found in Juana de la Cruz, El Conhorte: Sermones de una mujer; La Santa Juana (1481–1534), ed. Inocente García de Andrés, 2 vols. (Madrid: Fundación Universitaria Española, 1999). We will refer to this work as Conorte in accordance with the title used in the Escorial manuscript, even when referring to pagination from the published edition. 2. Her raptures took the form of “the body as though dead and the eyes closed” [el cuerpo como muerto y los ojos cerrados] (Vida y fin, fol. 27v), the prominent members of the audience are listed on fol. 27v, and the duration of the raptures is described on fol. 28r. 3. “Comienza el libro que es llamado Conhorte, el cual es hecho por boca del Espíritu Santo que hablaba en una religiosa elevada en contemplación, la cual habla se hacía en persona de Nuestro Señor Jesucristo, el cual es el que alumbra los corazones y acostumbra a hablar en figuras” (Conorte I, prologue, 227, translated in this volume, 35).

1

2 Introduction In her lifetime and beyond, Juana was revered as a local saint.4 The life story of “santa Juana” was extensively dramatized and embellished by those involved in compiling her semiautobiography (Vida y fin, co-composed by Juana and several amanuenses), as well as a late-sixteenth-century record book from her convent which includes her visions, a religious play, and devotions practiced by the nuns at Juana’s instigation (Libro de la casa). Further instances of her readership can be found in the marginal annotations of a century’s worth of Franciscan readers of the Conorte manuscript.5 In the seventeenth century, Tirso de Molina and other playwrights staged her life and visions.6 A case for her beatification was opened in 1621 but closed without result a century later for lack of original documentation.7 Little information is available about Juana’s life beyond the three manuscripts that document her sermons and visions, however. Born in 1481, Juana came from a family of modest means.8 Her mother had an affinity for the Marian devotions (devotions to the Virgin) that occurred at the beaterio (house of devout women, beatas) of Santa María de la Cruz, one of about fifty beatarios founded in Castile between the late Middle Ages and the late sixteenth century.9 This particular beaterio had been established in the village of Cubas in response to the 1449 series of Marian apparitions received by a young girl, Inés Martínez.10 4. In the late Middle Ages, “living saints” gained local and sometimes national credence based on their ability to work miracles and foretell historical events. In Italy at the turn of the sixteenth century, such women who had the ear of prominent politicians and ecclesiastics were generally devout laywomen; in Spain, they were more likely to be beatas (semi-religious women) or nuns. Gabriella Zarri, “Living Saints: A Typology of Female Sanctity in the Early Sixteenth Century,” in Women and Religion in Medieval and Renaissance Italy, ed. Daniel Bornstein and Roberto Rusconi (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 219–304; and María del Mar Graña Cid, “En torno a la fenomenología de las santas vivas (algunos ejemplos andaluces, siglos XV–XVI),” in Responsabilidad y diálogo: Homenaje a José Joaquín Alemany Briz, S.J. (1937–2001), ed. Xavier Quinzá Lleó and Gabino Uríbarri Bilbao (Madrid: Comillas, 2002), 415–53, at 448. 5. Both manuscripts of Conorte have a series of marginal annotations recording approbation and periodic censorship that was then disputed. See section three, Author’s Works, below. 6. The most famous play is the trilogy by Tirso de Molina, La Santa Juana, trilogía hagiográfica, 1613–14, ed. Agustín de Campo (Madrid: Editorial Castilla, 1948). Other plays remain unpublished in the modern era, for example, Bernaldo de Quirós, La luna de la sagra y vida de Santa Juana de la Cruz (1644), and José de Cañizares, El prodigio de la sagra, Sor Juana de la Cruz (1723). 7. See note 58 for bibliography. The beatification process was reopened in 1986. 8. Daza identifies her as Juana Vázquez Gutiérrez, born to peasant parents in the village of Azaña (now Numancia) near Toledo, presumably based on Vida y fin, fol. 5v. Antonio Daza, Historia, vida y milagros, éxtasis, y revelaciones de la bienaventurada virgen Sor Juana de la Cruz (Madrid: Luis Sánchez, 1613), fol. 67v. 9. Ángela Muñoz Fernández, Beatas y santas neocastellanas: Ambivalencia de la religión y políticas correctoras del poder (ss XIV–XVII) (Madrid: Comunidad de Madrid, 1994), 21. 10. The documents concerning the apparitions are translated in William A. Christian, Jr., Apparitions in Late Medieval and Renaissance Spain (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981), 57–86.

Introduction 3 Although Juana’s mother died when Juana was five and her father did not share his wife’s piety, Juana selected the same beaterio as her destination when fleeing an arranged marriage, a flight she accomplished by donning men’s clothing to travel safely through the countryside.11 Professing in 1497, she was elected “abbess” in 1509, a year after she began preaching publicly and the year that the beaterio was enclosed under the secular Third Order Franciscans.12 Juana held the post of abbess until her death, except for one year after accusations circulated that she had wasted conventual funds by seeking a papal bull to confirm her privilege to appoint the convent’s chaplain, a post held at the time by her brother. The nun who brought the charges (the assistant superior, elected abbess in Juana’s place) withdrew the accusation on her deathbed. Juana was restored to office, which she held the rest of her life despite suffering severe illnesses that kept her bedridden.13 Buried in the convent after her death in 1534 and disinterred in 1541, her body reputedly remained uncorrupted and sweet-smelling, a sign of sanctity periodi11. A relatively common medieval hagiographical topos, but one affirmed by Juana in the Vida y fin, fols. 10v–12r. For discussion of cross-dressing in saints’ lives, see among others, Vern L. Bullough, “Cross Dressing and Gender Role Change in the Middle Ages,” in Handbook of Medieval Sexuality, ed. Vern L. Bullough and James Brundage (New York: Taylor and Francis, 2000), 223–42. 12. Ronald E. Surtz, The Guitar of God: Gender, Power, and Authority in the Visionary World of Mother Juana de la Cruz (1481–1534) (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990), 3. While Inocente García Andrés provides a useful five-page narrative timeline of Juana’s life, reception, and beatification process (“Introduction,” in El Conhorte, 64–69), the dates for Juana’s profession are clearly almost a decade off, as otherwise she would have fled her arranged marriage at the age of five, whereas fifteen is much more likely. Those around her called her abbess, even though technically the term only applied to the leader of a Benedictine convent. All beaterios were enclosed and integrated into the second or third orders in Castile in the first decades of the sixteenth century, most often due to a growth in numbers. Ángela Muñoz Fernández, Acciones e intenciones de mujeres en la vida religiosa de los siglos XV y XVI (Madrid: Horas y Horas, 1995), 119; and Beatas y santas neocastellanas, 54, 68. For the origins of the Third Order Regular in Castile, see Salvador Cabot Rosselló, “Un marco para el estudio de la tercera orden regular de San Francisco en España,” in El franciscanismo en la península ibérica: Balance y perspectivas; I Congreso internacional, Madrid, 22–27 de septiembre de 2003, ed. Felice Accrocca and María del Mar Graña Cid (Barcelona: Griselda Bonet Girabet, 2005), 349–72. Recently, hispanists have begun examining women’s religious experience during this era, but either for provinces other than Juana’s, or for Clarisan nuns rather than beatas. Most helpful are María del Mar Graña Cid, Religiosas y ciudades: La espiritualidad femenina en la construcción sociopolítica urbana bajomedieval (Córdoba, siglos XIII– XVI) (Cordoba, Spain: Asociación Hispánica de Estudios Franciscanos, 2010); Elizabeth A. Lehfeldt, Religious Women in Golden-Age Spain: The Permeable Cloister (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005); and Susana Molina Domínguez, Conventos de monjas franciscanas en Madrid en la Baja Edad Media, vol. 5, La querella de las mujeres y las fundaciones religiosas femeninas (Madrid: Almudayna, 2011). 13. Interestingly, the accusation intertwines profligacy and nepotism. The dating of this episode is difficult: the papal bulls have problematic dating—either 1514 or 1519—yet Daza’s biography suggests this episode occurred in 1527. See Surtz, Guitar of God, 4, 11 n. 22. For Juana’s visionary assurance about her right to appoint her brother, see Vida y fin, fols. 75v–76v; for her choice to pursue the issue by contacting Rome, see fols. 77v–78r.

4 Introduction cally reaffirmed over decades in the course of local devotion and as part of the official processes of beatification.14 Only a few brief documents survive that mention Mother Juana directly.15 Two are letters from 1510 by Cardinal Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros, first granting and then ratifying the privilege to appoint the chaplain. Such authority was not entirely unique, as Cistercian abbesses had enjoyed similar privileges in earlier centuries and the abbess of Las Huelgas (Burgos) retained such rights up through the nineteenth century; yet to grant it to a newly incorporated Third Order convent was remarkable. The third surviving document testifies to Juana’s local fame as preacher and holy woman, as well as to her own choice to position herself under obedience to the Franciscan order and to the church. In a letter dated 1512, Father Antonio de Pastraña records that a friar had written Juana asking her to be the mother of his child, as he believed that as parents they would produce the next Messiah. Juana responded by denouncing the friar for heresy. Her rejection of the messianic scheme not only indicates her loyalty to the church but also proves that she saw her role as vessel for the divine not in terms of maternity, but rather as mediator for Christ’s voice through the sermons. Given the scant archival record, the principal testimony to Juana’s preaching career is thus the Conorte, which survives in two sixteenth-century manuscript copies and fills 1,250 pages in the first published edition (1999). This extraordinary record of seventy-two instances of a woman’s public teaching is arranged to follow the liturgical year (purportedly that of 1509) like many late medieval sermon compilations.16 Yet contemporary scholars consistently rename Juana’s sermones as visions because the texts do not follow the classic medieval structure for sermons, that is, partitioned into strict subdivisions as in a scholastic dispute.17 This recategorization ignores the broader definition of preaching applied to arenas beyond the church pulpit by medieval authors. To quote the twelfth-century theologian Alain of Lille, “Preaching is the public and open instruction in faith and morals or good conduct.”18 It was certainly much more common for women to evoke visionary experience rather than the charism of preaching, for this rhet14. For discussion of her incorrupt body, see Muñoz Fernández, Acciones e intenciones, 98. 15. These texts are documented and summarized in Surtz, Guitar of God, 4–5. 16. For an overview of genres from late medieval thematic sermons through humanist and CounterReformation sermons, see Thomas Worcester, “The Catholic Sermon,” in Preachers and People in the Reformations and Early Modern Period, ed. Larissa Taylor (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 3–34. 17. The medieval subdivisions included thema, invocatio et prothema, introitus thematis, thematis divisio, partium declaratio et confirmatio, and dilatatio. Félix Herrero Salgado, La oratoria sagrada en los siglos XVI y XVII (Madrid: Fundación Universitaria Española, 1996), 99–100. 18. “Summa de arte praedicatoria,” Patrologia Latina 210, col. 111, quoted in Darleen Pryds, “Proclaiming Sanctity through Proscribed Acts: The Case of Rose of Viterbo,” in Women Preachers and Prophets through Two Millennia of Christianity, ed. Beverly Mayne Kienzle and Pamela J. Walker (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 159–72, at 161.

Introduction 5 oric allowed women to influence a male-dominated church by evoking “direct contact” with “the presence of God” rather than through the mediating presence of a priest.19 Although Juana’s experiences do fulfill the classic understanding of visions, the scholarly reframing of her oral discourses as visions rather than sermons undermines the most distinctive aspect of Juana’s charismatic authority, for it transforms the public performativity of a sermon (and the immediate impact of its liturgical and theological implications) into a traditionally private visionary experience. While the other two manuscripts associated with Juana transcribe numerous visions not conveyed publicly, it is Juana’s many years as a preacher that make her unique in the history of Christianity. Recent work on medieval preaching proposes that women, while prohibited from church pulpits, nevertheless had access to two acknowledged arenas in which they could exercise the charism of preaching, “sacred conversation” and “prophecy.”20 Among enclosed nuns, abbesses regularly interpreted the lectio divina (spiritual readings) provided during refectory meals, termed sacred conversation. Outside the walls of the convent, the prophetic preaching conveyed during ecstasy or rapture of beatas and laywomen reached a more varied audience, including officials of the church and royalty.21 Reputedly first preaching at the request of her guardian angel, Laruel, Juana’s thirteen years spent channeling Jesus’s voice combined the two acceptable forms of medieval female preaching that were usually differentiated by audience (nuns versus laity) and sources of authority (biblical reflection versus divinely induced ecstatic experience).22 In the process, Juana went beyond scriptural interpretation to produce what might be termed “scriptural interpolation,” in which the voice of Jesus provided signifi19. These phrases echo McGinn’s influential 1991 definition of Christian mysticism: “the mystical element in Christianity is that part of its belief and practices that concerns the preparation for, the consciousness of, and the reaction to what can be described as the immediate or direct presence of God.” Bernard McGinn, The Foundations of Mysticism, vol. 1, The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism (New York: Crossroads, 1991), xvii. For a brief overview of the extensive scholarship on medieval women and visionary authority, see Amy Hollywood, “Gender, Agency, and the Divine in Religious Historiography,” Journal of Religion 84, no. 4 (2004): 514–28. 20. Gabriella Zarri, “Places and Gestures of Women’s Preaching in Quattro- and Cinquecento Italy,” in Charisma and Religious Authority: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Preaching, 1200–1500, ed. Katherine L. Jansen and Miri Rubin (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2010), 177–93, at 178. 21. María de Santo Domingo of the neighboring province of Avila was also known for her public, prophetic ecstasies, influential on Cisneros and King Fernando of Aragon. Jodi Bilinkoff, “Establishing Authority: A Peasant Visionary and Her Audience in Early Sixteenth-Century Spain,” Studia Mystica 18 (1997): 36–59. A recent book situates her in the broader European context of women visionaries: Rebeca Sanmartín Bastida, La representación de las místicas: Sor María de Santo Domingo en su contexto europeo (Santander, Spain: Propileo, 2012). 22. For Laruel’s request, see Vida y fin, fol. 20v. Note that the name Laruel seems to be unique to Juana—it is found nowhere in the biblical or imaginative traditions of Christianity, Judaism, or Islam before her.

6 Introduction cant expansions or alterations of known biblical episodes (such as the Fall or the Crucifixion).23 It was the ecstatic aspect of Juana’s preaching that authorized her explication of the biblical narrative, for only Jesus, not a woman, could so radically rewrite scriptural history.24 In addition to renarrating key biblical episodes, the voice of Jesus also provided extensive description of the events occurring in heaven that Juana witnessed while in rapture. In other words, Jesus spoke what Juana saw, transforming her visionary experience into an oral record seemingly authorized through the second person of the Trinity rather than through the abbess. These celestial events were termed figuras (allegorical pageants) whose symbolism Jesus then explicated detail by detail. In most of the sermons, the extensions of the biblical narrative were embedded in the midst of accounts of heavenly festivities occurring on that liturgical feast day; thus the sermons of Conorte are filled with scenarios of lengthy and luxurious meals capped off with games and dancing.25 Jesus explicitly justifies this festive view of the afterlife: “all the entertainments and pleasures and dancing and music and songs that are being performed in heaven are without sin and for the great glory and praise of God.”26 The allegorical pageants not only add a theatrical element to the celebrations, but convey comprehensive information about the afterlife by depicting the everyday life and play of the Trinity, Mary, angels, devils, the beatified, and the damned. This combination of biblical narration and allegorical pageants in Juana’s sermons results in a rich and expansive history of the daily life of the Trinity in the heavenly realm, while elaborating captivating new episodes about the lives of Jesus and various saints when on earth. The sermons of Conorte form a fascinating window into Christian religiosity in the first decades of the sixteenth century in Castile, a window all the more critical for occurring just after the religious unification of the Iberian peninsula 23. It is worth noting that biblical commentary was available in the vernacular during Juana’s preaching career. First Gonzalo García de Santa Maria (1493), then Ambrosio de Montesinos (1512) translated William of Paris’s Postillas super epistolas et evangelia. Ronald E. Surtz, Writing Women in Late Medieval and Early Modern Spain: The Mothers of Saint Teresa of Avila (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995), 14. 24. In the final sermon, Jesus not only affirms that he is speaking through Juana by means of the Holy Spirit, but compares the process to that experienced by Solomon, i.e., the divine inspiration that produced the Song of Songs. Conorte II, 72.25, 1472. Juana defends the elaboration of the biblical narrative several times, see Ronald E. Surtz, “La Madre Juana de la Cruz (1481–1534) y la cuestión de la autoridad religiosa femenina,” Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica 33, no. 2 (1984): 483–91, at 489–90. 25. The centrality of feasting in heavenly life was more often elaborated in vernacular writings than in scholastic theology, as the latter limited heaven to a state of incorporeal bliss or defined it simply as including the orthodox while barring heretics. See the various articles in the collection by Carolyn Muessig and Ad Putter, Envisaging Heaven in the Middle Ages (London: Routledge, 2006). 26. “[L]os juegos y placeres y bailes y danzas y tañeres y canciones que se hacen en el cielo, todo es sin pecado y en gran gloria y alabanza de Dios.” Conorte II, 72.18, 1470.

Introduction 7 and during the first decades of the Inquisition. There is much to reap from these sermons concerning Spanish Renaissance culture, theology, mysticism, gender roles, and interreligious interactions.27 However, the sermons remained unpublished until 1999, while two other manuscripts that collect private visions and information on devotional practices in her convent have never been edited. Only a handful of scholars have worked on Juana extensively; the only ones to publish full books and articles on her in English are the editors of this volume. The purpose of this translation is thus straightforward: to provide initial access to an extraordinary author for readers unfamiliar with Spanish, in the expectation that Juana as preacher, Juana as visionary, Juana as theologian will prove to be of especial interest for the study of Renaissance and Reformation Christianity, given that such studies so often relegate both Spain and the female gender to the sidelines. Ronald E. Surtz and Nora Weinerth have translated six of the seventy-two sermons in Conorte, chosen as representative of Juana’s combination of biblical narrative and allegorical pageantry. All six relate to principal episodes in Jesus’s life and/or to major feast days: no. 1 Incarnation, no. 2 Nativity of Jesus, no. 13 losing Jesus in Jerusalem, no. 19 Good Friday, no. 20 Resurrection, and no. 22 discovery of the Holy Cross. This choice highlights Juana’s contributions to ecclesial thought on some of the most essential liturgical and theological concerns addressed on a regular basis by preachers. Not included are the most titillating sermons, such as the retelling of Genesis 3 to place the blame on the serpent rather than Eve (no. 72) or the nude dance by Mary to prove her virtue (no. 50), which have been extensively summarized in the existing scholarship due to their implications for gender studies.28 The ones provided in this volume are instead representative of the mix of orthodoxy and originality that pervades the majority of Juana’s sermons.

27. “Spanish Renaissance” is a term used by a few scholars, but not with great abundance and with varying time frames, usually mid to late fifteenth century to mid to late sixteenth. It seems useful, however, to use the term primarily for the period between the end of the medieval pluri-religious era in 1492 and the strong movement of Catholic reform after the Council of Trent in 1563, as most of the principal developments characterizing the Italian Renaissance were imported during these seven decades but found themselves cheek by jowl with late medieval religious enthusiasms that would then be curbed by Tridentine decree. In other fields, literature scholars date the shift to Nebrija’s 1492 publication of the first Spanish grammar as the beginning of the influence of humanism, while art historians designate the Spanish Renaissance as the era when Italian influence began competing with HispanoFlemish influence in the early sixteenth century. Otis H. Green, The Literary Mind of Medieval and Renaissance Spain: Essays (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1970), 99–100; Jonathan Brown, Painting in Spain, 1500–1700 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998), 32–33. 28. Surtz opens his monograph on Juana with a chapter, “The Beard and the Apple,” on the Genesis sermon (Guitar of God, 15–35). He focuses on the Nativity of Mary sermon in the chapter on Juana in Writing Women, 104–26.

8 Introduction This introduction addresses several audiences in an effort to make Mother Juana’s sermons accessible to a wide range of scholars. It is our hope that this volume will expand the canon of medieval visionary literature currently centered on England (Julian of Norwich, Margery Kempe, Richard Rolle), Italy (Angela of Foligno, Catherine of Siena), and northern Europe (Mechthild of Magdeburg, Heinrich Suso, Hadewijch of Antwerp, Marguerite Porete) to include these Renaissance Castilian visionary sermons from the 1510s. In addition, this introduction proposes Juana as a preacher and theologian who was particularly creative and productive on topics such as Jesus’s nature, Mariology (theological debates about Mary), and the afterlife. A main theme for exploration is the dual source of Juana’s authority, as identified by the name of her convent, “María de la Cruz” (Mary of the Cross): Juana’s local authority was related to Mary based on both her embodied and visionary engagement with the Virgin, while Juana’s regional and national authority was related to Christomimesis (her embodiment imitating Jesus) due to her channeling of Jesus’s voice through her sermons and her suffering.29 By giving Juana higher visibility among those who study the Spanish “Golden Age” of Christianity, it is hoped that her entire corpus—all seventy-two sermons and the two additional manuscripts concerning her life and visions—will become a critical resource for scholars whose understanding of Spanish “gender and religion” questions usually begins much later with Teresa of Avila rather than with this charismatic woman preacher, Mother Juana. In order to address these various constituencies, this introduction will first examine Spanish Renaissance religion as an era during which Castilians reimagined their Christian identity in a post-pluri-religious society, then consider the specific terrain Juana navigated as author and theologian. The complex production and dissemination history of the three texts attributed to Juana needs careful reconstruction, and only then can the three be mined in tandem to construct a coherent view of her doctrinal and devotional contributions to Renaissance religious thought and practice.

Religion during the Spanish Renaissance: Under the Influence of Cardinal Cisneros Shortly after ending political rule by Muslims internal to the peninsula and requiring that all Jews emigrate or convert in 1492, the monarchs Isabel and Fernando designated the Franciscan friar and newly appointed archbishop of 29. Such a double source of authority mirrors the founding narrative of her convent. During the 1449 apparitional experiences that confirmed Inés Martínez as a Marian seer, Mary both paralyzed Inés’s hand into the form of a cross during the fourth apparition, then during the fifth apparition took a processional cross from Inés and planted it in the ground to indicate where she wanted a church to be built. See documents translated in Christian, Apparitions, 62–63.

Introduction 9 Toledo, Cisneros, to reform the Spanish church.30 He was asked to reconfigure the grassroots reform known as the Villacrecian movement that the Castilian Franciscan order had been undergoing since the 1420s and adapt it to the Spanish church as a whole.31 Cisneros focused on bringing the ideals of the Observants (those who privileged poverty and ascetisicm above study) to all religious orders and clergy, as well as founding a number of beaterios and hermitages to promote sanctity.32 Well-known for his commissioning of the first Polyglot Bible (published 1517–20), in the long term Cisneros’s most effective institutional reform was the establishment of a new theological university, Alcalá de Henares (outside Madrid), for which he developed an innovative curriculum that integrated the separate scholastic theological approaches, Thomism, Scotism, and nominalism.33 Although his concern with education was in the interests of producing a more adequately trained clergy, it seemed to some to run counter to the Villacrecian rejection of education in favor of a focus on spirituality and liturgy. However, Cisneros’s third reforming project contributed significantly to the availability of spiritual resources in the vernacular. Inspired by the Villacrecian 30. As noted in a recent review article, scholarship on the Observant trend in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries is scattered and unsystematic. James D. Mixson, “Religious Life and Observant Reform in the Fifteenth Century,” History Compass 11, no. 3 (2013): 201–14. A recent book on Franciscan missionary spirituality in New Spain provides an important overview of their Spanish background. Steven E. Turley, Franciscan Spirituality and Mission in New Spain, 1524–1599: Conflict beneath the Sycamore Tree (Luke 19:1–10) (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2014), 11–28. Scholarship on the Observants in Spain most often focuses on Cisneros himself. The classic studies are José García Oro, La reforma de los religiosos españoles en tiempo de los reyes católicos (Valladolid: Instituto Isabel la Católica, 1969); Pedro Sáinz Rodríguez, La siembra mística del Cardenal Cisneros y las reformas en la iglesia (Madrid: Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca, 1979); and Erika Rummel, Jiménez de Cisneros: On the Threshold of Spain’s Golden Age (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 1999). 31. Pedro de Villacreces (ca. 1362–1422) inaugurated the internal reform of the Spanish Franciscan order in the 1420s by founding a series of small hermitages known as casas de retiro. The movement’s ideals were circulated through the writings of the friar Lope de Salinas y Salazar, collected in Fidel (de) Lejarza and Angel Uribe, eds., Las reformas en los siglos XIV y XV: Introducción a los orígenes de la Observancia en España, Archivo Ibero-Americano, vol. 17 (Madrid: J. Costa, 1957). 32. The bull Exponi nobis (1495) gave Cisneros the authority to reform existing convents. Molina Domínguez, Conventos de monjas franciscanas, 5, 46. For Cisneros’s establishment of beaterios, see Muñoz Fernández, Beatas y santas neocastellanas, 58. For discussion of the Observants versus the Conventuals and the eventual ascendance of the Observants in Spain, see Turley, Franciscan Spirituality and Mission, 14–15. For discussion of the role of Isabel and Fernando in the reform of Spanish monasticism, see Elizabeth A. Lehfeldt, “Gender, Order, and the Meaning of Monasticism during the Reign of Isabel and Ferdinand,” Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 93 (2002): 145–71. 33. Cisneros termed this approach “the three ways” (las tres vias), and unified them on the principle that if divine truth is unitary, then all three approaches must ultimately reveal the same truth. Melquíades Andrés, La teología española en el siglo XVI, 2 vols. (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1977), 1:35.

10 Introduction emphasis on mental prayer (silent, meditative) rather than standardized vocal prayers typical of monastic devotion, in 1502 Cisneros established a printing press in Alcalá that not only served the needs of the Franciscan Order but also a wide range of readers both monastic and lay.34 This press in particular, and patronage by both Queen Isabel and Cisneros more generally, produced a great number of translations of church fathers and the classics of medieval spirituality from Italy and northern Europe, including women’s visionary texts. With authors ranging from Gregory the Great and Ludolph of Saxony to Angela of Foligno and Catherine of Siena available in the vernacular for the first time, the Cisnerian reform provided access to an extensive range of spiritual models in very short order. The two imported genres that had the most impact on Spanish Christianity post-Reconquest were, on the one hand, the Vita Christi (Life of Christ) tradition, particularly its focus on Passion spirituality, and on the other hand, women’s visionary literature. In all of medieval Europe except Castile, imaginative meditation filling in the visual and visceral details of Jesus’s life and death beyond those given in the Gospels, particularly concerning the extensive torture he suffered throughout Holy Week, reigned supreme in devotional practice.35 Pedro Cátedra and Cynthia Robinson have argued persuasively that focus on Jesus and Mary’s suffering did not gain currency in medieval Castile on the same timeline as the rest of Europe, due in large part to a greater need for instructive or polemical texts aimed at potential converts from Judaism or Islam rather than for devotional texts for practitioners.36 Texts and artwork emphasizing Jesus’s torture and death only began to be translated or commissioned in the mid-fifteenth century and only achieved wide circulation starting in the 1480s, both due to patronage by 34. For the extended devotions both external and internal recommended by Lope de Salinas y Salazar, see “Memorial de la vida y ritos de la Custodia de Santa María de los Menores,” in Las reformas en los siglos XIV y XV, ed. Lejarza and Uribe, 727–29; for discussion, see Jessica A. Boon, The Mystical Science of the Soul: Medieval Cognition in Bernardino de Laredo’s Recollection Mysticism (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012), 34–36. For Cisneros’s printing press, see, among others, Anthony Levi, Renaissance and Reformation: The Intellectual Genesis (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004), 226. For the impact of Cisneros’s printing press on the readings available to women religious, see Elizabeth Teresa Howe, Education and Women in the Early Modern Hispanic World (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2008), 63–64. 35. Even Catalonia had a strong focus on the Passion, as seen in their extensive altarpiece and textual tradition. Judith Berg Sobré, Behind the Altar Table: The Development of the Painted Retable in Spain, 1350–1500 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1989), 133–58, 167–80; and Albert G. Hauf i Valls, “La Vita Christi de Sor Isabel de Villena y la tradición de las Vitae Christi medievales,” in Studia in honorem prof. M. de Riquer II (Barcelona: Quaderns Crema, 1987), 106–64. 36. Pedro M. Cátedra, Poesía de pasión en la Edad Media: El Cancionero de Pero Gómez de Ferrol (Salamanca: Seminario de Estudios Medievales y Renacentistas, 2001), 191–297; Cynthia Robinson, Imagining the Passion in a Multiconfessional Castile: The Virgin, Christ, Devotions, and Images in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2013).

Introduction 11 the Catholic Monarchs and to the impact of the printing press. Several influential devotional poems focusing on the Passion of Christ were composed in the vernacular for Isabel’s court.37 Yet it was with the 1502–3 translation of Ludolph of Saxony’s Vita Christi at the behest of Queen Isabel—but published in Cisnero’s press—that Passion spirituality (e.g., the entire fourth volume of the translation of Ludolph’s work) began to make significant inroads on daily devotional practice in Castile.38 Coming so late in the development of Spanish Christianity, however, vernacular endeavors in Passion spirituality naturally integrated the “new” emphasis on Jesus’s humanity with the long-standing Castilian devotion to the Virgin Mary as premier in battles and conversions (see section 5). As a result of the new interest in Life of Christ treatises fomented by Cisneros’s press, Castilians dedicated to Mary developed a new version of the genre: The Passion of the Son and the Mother, also known as the “Passion of Two.”39 The other genre that proved formative for post-Reconquest Christian spirituality was visionary literature. In addition to publishing translations of Angela of Foligno and Catherine of Siena, Cisneros’s interest in women’s visionary experience was sufficiently important for him to offer it explicit protection, putting him firmly on one side of the long-standing debate as to whether visionary experience was a trustworthy mode of accessing the divine. From Augustine to Jean Gerson to contemporary scholars, the principal concerns have either been the theological impossibility of visions, assuming that an infinite, eternal God cannot be engaged by means of the physical sensory organs of the human body, or the untrustworthiness of visions, since while God could choose to engage the senses, the devil likewise has power to manipulate them.40 Visionaries and their supporters, including 37. Although none can be dated exactly, Iñigo de Mendoza’s Vita Christi, Commendor Roman’s Coplas de la pasión con la resurrección, and Diego de San Pedro’s La passión trobada all had their first editions within a decade of the introduction of printing (1482). For discussion, see Keith Whinnom, “The Supposed Sources of Inspiration of Spanish Fifteenth-Century Narrative Religious Verse,” Symposium 17 (1963): 268–91. 38. On the dissemination of Ludolph’s work, see Carlos Alvar and José Manuel Lucía Megías, “Repertorio de traductores del siglo XV: Segunda veintena,” in Literatura y transgresión: En homenaje al profesor Manuel Ferrer Chivite, ed. Fermín Sierra Martínez (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2004), 89–114, at 99–100. 39. The first treatise on this topic is the Fasciculus myrrhe: El qual trata de la passion de nuestro redemptor Jesu Christo. The first surviving edition dates to 1517, but there are records of a first edition in 1511. For discussion of the genre, see Jessica A. Boon, “The Agony of the Virgin: The Swoons and Crucifixion of Mary in Sixteenth Century Castilian Passion Treatises,” Sixteenth Century Journal 38, no. 1 (2007): 3–26, at 11–19. 40. For Augustine’s influential categorization of types of visionary experience, see Bernard McGinn, “Visions and Critiques of Visions in Thirteenth-Century Mysticism,” in Rending the Veil: Concealment and Secrecy in the History of Religions, ed. Elliot R. Wolfson (New York: Seven Bridges Press, 1999), 87– 113; for a survey of the modern debate, see Hollywood, “Gender, Agency, and the Divine,” 514–28. For discussion of mysticism versus demonic possession in medieval Europe generally, see Nancy Caciola,

12 Introduction theologians, counteracted these two critiques both by pointing to the Incarnation as the divine decision that validated the human senses as appropriate access to the divine, and by requiring visionaries to submit their experiences in writing to be judged on their orthodoxy (God-given) or heterodoxy (manipulation by the devil). In late medieval Castile, the fiery Dominican preacher from Valencia, Vincent Ferrer (1350–1419), had critiqued visions as demonic, and Jean Gerson’s denunciation of them was well known on the peninsula.41 Cisneros, however, shifted away from this critique, though in a manner intended to avoid not instigate debate. Rather than dispute Ferrer directly, he simply published under his own imprimatur the first Castilian translation of Ferrer’s Tratado de la vida espiritual (Treatise on the Spiritual Life, 1510), but omitted the entire chapter that addressed the controversial nature of visions.42 By refusing to make an authoritative critique available in the vernacular to the reading public, he essentially suppressed lay debate over the validity of visionary experience. It is worth noting that women visionaries in Spain, some with a particularly apocalyptic bent, first gained considerable fame in the last two decades of the fifteenth century, much later than elsewhere in Europe.43 Spanish Renaissance clergy commented on the dramatic increase in the spiritual influence of women starting in the late fifteenth century; for example, the anonymous author of the 1537 Excelencias de la fe [Excellences of the Faith] suggested that “holy women who perform miracles” had held great authority in Castile for fifty years, though he himself thought their sanctity highly suspect.44 The most recent comprehensive survey of Spanish religion from 1450 to 1650 likewise identifies the detailed narratives written by Castilian female visionaries as the “vital” link between the late fifteenth-century importation of spiritual works from the North and Italy, and the first Castilian prescriptive guides to mystical contemplation that began to appear in the 1520s.45 Cisneros’s openness toward female visionary and prophetic authorDiscerning Spirits: Divine and Demonic Possession in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003), 207–14; for the sixteenth-century Spanish context, see Moshe Sluhovsky, Believe Not Every Spirit: Possession, Mysticism, and Discernment in Early Modern Catholicism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 137–44. 41. Jean Gerson, “On Distinguishing True from False Revelations,” in Early Works, ed. Brian Patrick McGuire (New York: Paulist Press, 1998), 334–64. 42. Sáinz Rodríguez, La siembra mistica, 43–50. 43. Sharon Faye Koren, “A Christian Means to a Conversa End,” NASHIM: A Journal of Jewish Women’s Studies and Gender Issues 9, no. 1 (2005): 27–61, at 29. 44. Quoted in Jane Tar, “Flying through the Empire: The Visionary Journeys of Early Modern Nuns,” in Women’s Voices and the Politics of the Spanish Empire, ed. Jennifer L. Eich, Jeanne Gillespie, and Lucia G. Harrison (New Orleans: University Press of the South, 2008), 263–302, at 264 n. 5. 45. Eulogio Pacho, Apogeo de la mística cristiana: Historia de la espiritualidad clásica española, 1450– 1650 (Burgos, Spain: Monte Carmelo, 2008), 217. Unfortunately, Pacho often subsumes these writings under Illuminism, the heresy of the alumbrados that inquisitors began to denounce in 1525 (see note

Introduction 13 ity seems to have been a leading cause for the belated (in comparison to the rest of Europe) yet dramatic attention paid to Spanish Renaissance women who claimed divine inspiration for their oral and written reflections.46 Not only did the Cisneros-sponsored translations of Angela of Foligno and Catherine of Siena appear in 1510 and 1512 respectively, but the years 1508–12 saw him intervene directly on behalf of both Juana and the other principal female charismatic visionary of the era, María de Santo Domingo.47 In Juana’s case, Cisneros’s insistence on her privilege to appoint the confessor to her house (by sending two letters on the subject) not only underscores his own commitment to her role but also indicates that not all Castilian prelates were equal proponents of the visionary. Yet Juana, who received vocal support but evidently also had her detractors, was never brought before the Inquisition personally, nor is there evidence that the compilers of the 1559 Index of Prohibited Books censored her writings (see next section). Having a protector such as Cisneros early in her career thus allowed Juana to preach semipublicly and to direct her convent as she saw fit.48 However, Cisneros’s death in 1517 did not end her preaching, nor, apparently, leave her particularly vulnerable to outside criticism concerning her preaching or the compilations of her teachings and sermons.49 In other words, Cisneros’s expansive approach to reinvigorating Catholic devotion in Castile was influential beyond his death. Indeed, it was only fully curtailed in the second half of the six69). Since neither woman he cites was ever accused of Illuminism, Pacho’s rhetoric serves to diminish the women writers’ authority by implicitly associating them with heterodoxy. In Castile, the first generation of original mystical writers were the “recollection mystics” Francisco de Osuna, Bernardino de Laredo, and Bernabé de Palma, writing in the 1520s and 1530s. See note 51 for bibliography. 46. The Spanish scholar Pablo Maroto associates Cisneros’s interest in the apocalyptic with his interest in visionaries, devoting a single chapter to the twin topics of “feminine mysticism and messianic context” [mística femenina y ambiente mesiánico]. Daniel de Pablo Maroto, Espiritualidad española del siglo XVI, Vol. 1: Los Reyes Católicos (Madrid: Editorial de Espiritualidad, 2012), 249–75. The influence of Savonarola on Juana’s contemporary, María de Santo Domingo, goes far to justify this combination (187–88). 47. The translation of Angela of Foligno was published with Cisneros’s coat of arms on the title page (Surtz, Guitar of God, 2). For letters to Cisneros both supporting and critiquing María de Santo Domingo, as well as his reaction, see Mary E. Giles, “The Study,” in The Book of Prayer of Sor María of Santo Domingo: A Study and Translation (Albany: Albany State University of New York Press, 1990), 40–54. 48. Graña Cid takes the intervention around Juana’s authority to appoint the prelate as evidence that she was controversial principally due to her seeming usurpation of sacramental authority, rather than for her theological interventions. María del Mar Graña Cid, “Terciarias franciscanas, apostolado y ministerios: Juana de la Cruz y el sacerdocio femenino,” in El Franciscanismo en la peninsula ibérica. Balance y perspectivas. I Congreso Internacional, Madrid, September 22–27, 2003, ed. María del Mar Graña Cid (Barcelona: Asociación Hispánica de Estudios Franciscanos, 2005), 601–22, at 611. 49. If her preaching began in 1508 and lasted thirteen years, she continued for some four years after his death.

14 Introduction teenth century when Philip II became the first ruler to disseminate the conservative Tridentine decrees of 1563 in his kingdom and to require their enforcement.50 While the 1520s and 1530s have been repeatedly characterized as the origins of the Golden Age of Spanish mysticism due to the appearance of the first prescriptive guides to a form of mystical prayer known as recogimiento (recollection) unique to Spain, these techniques were formulated too late to have any impact on Juana’s ecstatic preaching or her autobiographical reflections on her raptures.51 Rather than continuing to sketch the history of early sixteenth-century Castilian Catholicism, then, it is now time to turn to the specifics of Juana’s career. Throughout the next sections, the various manners in which Juana’s sermons and visions reflect Renaissance Castilian spiritual concerns (for example, the popularity of Marian devotion or the late medieval concern with purgatory) will be a continuing theme.

Author’s Works In 1610, Franciscan friar Antonio de Daza wrote the first official biography of Juana, then reworked it extensively in 1613 after censure by the Inquisition.52 Most Spanish scholars narrate Juana’s life history by combining the brief archival documentation extant, the episodes she provides in her semiautobiography, and Daza’s biography. However, given that Daza added much corroborating detail at the behest of the Inquisition but does not cite his sources, the best information for assessing Juana’s contribution to Renaissance Christianity remains the three manuscripts collecting her sermons, visions, and life history. Yet it is highly problematic to assume that these three manuscripts represent direct access to Juana’s “own” authorial voice, and therefore the question of authorship must be examined with care before turning to Juana’s life “history” in the manuscripts through which she and her contemporaries carefully crafted her persona.

50. For discussion, see Geoffrey Parker, Imprudent King: A New Life of Philip II (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014), 86–88. 51. For a comprehensive overview of recollection (recogimiento) as Spain’s unique contribution to mystical discourse, see Melquíades Andrés, Los recogidos: Nueva visión de la mística española, 1500–1700 (Madrid: Fundación Universitaria Española, 1976); for revisions to his views, see Pacho, Apogeo de la mística. These works can be usefully supplemented with Armando Pego Puigbó, El Renacimiento espiritual: Introducción literaria a los tratados de oración españoles (1520–1566) (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 2004); and Rafael M. Pérez García, La imprenta y la literatura espiritual castellana en la España del Renacimiento, 1470–1560 (Gijón, Spain: Ediciones Trea, 2006). For scholarship in English, see Elizabeth Rhodes, The Unrecognized Precursors of Montemayor’s “Diana” (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1992), chap. 1; and Boon, Mystical Science, introduction. 52. Daza, Historia, vida y milagros. An English translation can be found in The Historie of the Blessed Virgin, Sister Joane (1625), trans. Francis Bell (Ilkley, UK: Scolar Press, 1977).

Introduction 15 While modern understandings of authorship expect that authors personally write and edit the draft that is then published, many “writers” in the Middle Ages produced their texts by dictating to scribes. (Aquinas, famously, employed several scribes at once, each recording a different work.) In addition, public presentations by teachers and preachers were often transcribed by auditors and circulated in manuscript, sometimes but not always after editing by the speaker. Crafting a book that others eventually read required access to the means of production, not necessarily employing them oneself.53 This collective approach to authorship is particularly pertinent to our retrieval of women’s authorial voices, as most of the texts by women authors surviving from the medieval and early modern periods were written or dictated at the behest of their confessors or inquisitors, only circulating after editing and revision by the (male) authorities that solicited them.54 In such cases, authorship also carries a different weight; rather than being an emblem of creativity, composition becomes the ultimate act of obedience, whether to confessors, the Inquisition, or in Juana’s case, toward Christ and her guardian angel who asked her to preach.55 For that matter, the “means of production” of a sermon goes beyond writing implements and vellum or paper to include receptivity to the “sacred performance,” for the genre always presupposed engagement with an audience.56 Juana’s sermons and visions have a particularly complex dissemination history. Unlike Teresa of Avila, who wrote extensively at the behest of her confessors and fellow nuns, it is unlikely that Juana could write, and indeed, the circumstances of being enraptured (and therefore apparently unconscious) while preaching would have made the act of writing impossible. At first prohibited from going into rapture in public and consigned to her cell, starting in 1508 the local prelates permitted her to go into ecstasy before the nuns and an outside audience.57 At this point, several 53. For discussion of women’s literacy—reading, writing, and compositional ability—in the Spanish Golden Age with specific reference to Juana, see Nieves Baranda, “Mujeres y escritura en el siglo de oro: Una relación inestable,” Litterae: Cuadernos sobre Cultura Escrita 3–4 (2003–4): 61–83, at 61–63, 67–68; and Surtz, Writing Women, 5. 54. Co-authorship of women’s autobiographies was common in medieval Europe generally and early modern Spain in particular. For case studies, see John W. Coakley, Women, Men, and Spiritual Power: Female Saints and Their Male Collaborators (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006); for Spain, see Darcy R. Donahue, “Writing Nuns’ Lives: Nuns and Confessors as Auto/biographers,” Journal of Hispanic Philology 13, no. 3 (1989): 230–39. 55. Thus obedience empowers by leading to authorship, a point made by Surtz, Guitar of God, 26. 56. Mary A. Suydam, “Beguine Textuality: Sacred Performances,” in Performance and Transformation: New Approaches to Late Medieval Spirituality, ed. Mary A. Suydam and Joanna E. Ziegler (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999), 169–210, at 196. 57. Vida y fin, fol. 30v. They granted permission when Juana was discovered preaching to a flock of birds that had miraculously filled her cell after she was put in solitary confinement (fol. 31r). This miracle evokes the well-known description of Francis preaching to the birds, expanded by Bonaventure

16 Introduction nuns collaborated to transcribe the sermons. The principal amanuensis, María Evangelista, was supposedly illiterate before miraculously receiving the ability to transcribe the sermons in Conorte.58 In addition to the nuns’ work on the text, the convent’s confessor collaborated in the production of Conorte by taking material collected over a thirteen-year timespan and collating (sometimes combining) the sermons into a collection that covered one liturgical year, putatively that of 1509.59 The two surviving manuscripts of Conorte are organized slightly differently, with the later Vatican copy more closely aligned with the liturgical year than is the Escorial original. Both, however, end the collection with a sermon whose principal intent is to defend the divine inspiration of the sermons.60 Beyond her involvement in Conorte, María Evangelista collaborated with Juana to produce the Vida y fin de la bienabenturada virgen sancta Juana de la Cruz (Life and End of the Blessed Holy Virgin, Juana de la Cruz).61 The text includes first-person narrations of the visions and Marian miracles that began even before Juana’s birth and continued throughout her life, and, if organized by Juana, would certainly represent her understanding of her career trajectory. However, the manuscript also describes Juana’s death and funeral, at which point Juana could no longer have been the author, thus leading some to characterize it as a “semiautobiography.” According to the secondhand testimony provided by nuns from Cubas during the seventeenth-century beatification process, the coninto a series of events during which Francis ministered to animals, including a room full of them. Bonaventure, The Soul’s Journey into God, The Tree of Life, The Life of St. Francis, trans. Ewert H. Cousins (New York: Paulist Press, 1978), chap. 8, esp. 259–60. Thanks is due to the anonymous manuscript reviewer for this reference. 58. This miracle was part of the convent’s tradition concerning Juana, relayed in the witness documents collected at the start of the beatification process in the seventeenth century. Archivo Vaticano, C. de Ritos, MS 3.072–3.076, quoted in García Andrés, “Introduction,” 24. Other women religious — both previous to María Evangelista and among the later disciples of Teresa of Avila — claimed miraculous literacy, either acquaintance with Latin or capacity to write fluently. See Darcy R. Donahue, “Wondrous Words: Miraculous Literacy and Real Literacy in the Convents of Early Modern Spain,” in Women’s Literacy in Early Modern Spain and the New World, ed. Anne J. Cruz and Rosilie Hernandez (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2011), 105–22, at 111–12. The Libro de la casa emphasizes the miraculous nature of the Conorte as book in a different way: it transcribes a nun’s vision of María Evangelista holding the Conorte and receiving Jesus’s approval of it, claiming that the book could cast out demons and calm thunderstorms (fol. 204r). 59. The Escorial manuscript ends with the statement that it was copied out in 1509, while the Vida y fin states that Conorte covers two years (fol. 31r), possibly a reference to the fact that the liturgical year covers two calendar years. Yet the Libro de la casa states that the two years came at the end of the thirteen year preaching period (20r). Likewise, internal references to later historical events indicate that some sermons were preached in the late 1510s, see María Victoria Triviño, ed., Inspiración y ternura: Sermones marianos de la Santa Juana (1481–1534) (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 2006), 22. 60. For discussion, see Surtz, Guitar of God, 27 n. 1. 61. For the full citation, see note 1.

Introduction 17 ventual tradition revered María Evangelista for both taking dictation from Juana (escribir al dictado) and writing down the events she witnessed in Juana’s life and at her death (as an eyewitness, a testigo de vista).62 In other words, the mix of first-person and third-person narratives may be intentional and in response to an angelic directive at a certain moment, if the justification provided by the text is to be believed. Yet the shifts in register in the text could just as easily be a result of compiling various short pieces dictated by Juana at different moments which were later arranged, perhaps by María Evangelista, in an apparent chronological order.63 The notion of authorship is complicated even further in the third manuscript pertaining to Juana, the Libro de la casa y monasterio de Nuestra Señora de la Cruz (Book of the House and Monastery of Our Lady of the Cross), a late sixteenth-century compilation from the Cubas convent.64 The text transcribes some visions found in the Vida y fin, various visions and miracles not attested to in either Conorte or Vida y fin, and devotional traditions presumably initiated by Juana but still practiced nearly a century later, such as the Marian confraternity based within the convent.65 The Libro also includes a play based on the Assumption sermon in Conorte that may have been performed on a regular basis. Unfortunately, the manuscript provides no indication of how the visions and traditions were collected nor whether it was Juana or a follower who dramatized the Assumption sermon.66 In both the Vida y fin and the Libro de la casa, the narrator of the visions and miracles is not consistently Christ, as it is in the sermons. For the most part it is instead the Holy Spirit or Juana’s guardian angel Laruel who describe the pageants or other mystical experiences, such as the nun’s reception of the stigmata, her direct intervention in purgatory, and her reception of a special rosary

62. Sor María Purificación’s testimony for the beatification process, quoted by García Andrés, “Introduction,” 24–25. 63. Bilinkoff reviews a number of cases in which confessors collaborated with women religious to produce the texts of their “lives.” Jodi Bilinkoff, Related Lives: Confessors and Their Female Penitents, 1450–1750 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005), 46–75. In the case of Juana, the episode is unusual for being a collaboration with a woman lower than she was in the convent’s hierarchy rather than a male confessor with more authority. One nun also claimed that the convent’s confessor again took part in editing the manuscript, but most of the witness testimonies indicate that the confessor’s role was limited to permitting the semi-autobiography’s composition after the angel directed her to write it (García Andrés, “Introduction,” 225). 64. For citation, see note 1. 65. Libro de la casa, fols. 40v–42r. See next section for discussion. 66. For discussion of the relationship between the sermon and the play, see Ronald E. Surtz, El libro del conorte (1509) and the Early Castilian Theater (Barcelona: Puvill, 1982).

18 Introduction devotion.67 For that matter, many of the events described are Marian miracles that confirmed Juana as Mary’s delegate within her convent even before she became Christ’s voice to audiences within and without. Thus the authority for Juana’s life narrative rested as much on her relationship with the Virgin as on her role as Christ’s voice or as a result of her interaction with her guardian angel.68 In the end, our access to Juana’s sermons and visions is through a dense web of transcriptions produced by nuns who copied out utterances they ascribed to Jesus, the Holy Spirit, or an angel, some of which were then edited by a priest or recopied in the convent’s records as part of the day to day life of the convent at Cubas. Given these circumstances, designating the author as “Juana” is evidently more a matter of terminological expediency than it is an accurate designation. Nor does the composition history end there, for the reception history as evidenced by the marginal comments throughout the Conorte is as indelibly a part of the collective authority for this manuscript as the first-person narratives found in the Vida y fin. Since the sermon collection was never published, it would be easy to assume that its readership, if any, was limited to the nuns of Cubas; Conorte would then come down to us as a fascinating document that had no discernible effect on its era as a written text, its origins in Juana’s oral charisma as inaccessible as is all historical oral culture. Fortunately, however, a series of Franciscan readers, presumably male, annotated the Escorial manuscript in its margins, providing evidence of an on-going readership and a debate over her authority and theological orthodoxy that was in the most part favorable. The first reader to approve various aspects of her innovative narrations has been tentatively identified as Francisco Ortíz, one of the most prominent Franciscans to be accused and condemned for the heresy of Illuminism (thus dating his reading of the Conorte prior to his arrest and trial in 1534).69 The second reader, probably an in67. For stigmata that lasted three days, see Vida y fin, fol. 39r, and discussion in the “Juana and Jesus” subsection of this introduction. For Juana’s intervention in purgatory, see Vida y fin, fol. 101v. For analysis of the rosary vision, see Stephen Haliczer, Between Exaltation and Infamy: Female Mystics in the Golden Age of Spain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 269–70; further discussion in Ronald E. Surtz, “Las cuentas de Santa Juana: Un ejemplo de adaptación cultural en el Japón del siglo XVII,” in Actas del Tercer Congreso de Hispanistas de Asia (Tokyo: Asociación Asiática de Hispanistas, 1993), 819–27. 68. Marian devotion was often paired with an elaborate angelology, due to the important place the Annunciation had in Mariology. For discussion in the medieval Spanish context, see José Manuel Marín Ureña, “Estelas de los ángeles celestiales en la literatura medieval española,” Lemir: Revista de literatura española medieval y renacimiento 8, no. 2 (2004): 1–8. 69. Illuminism, or the heresy of the alumbrados, was a central focus of Inquisitorial condemnation from the 1520s on, but no clear picture has emerged of its adherents. According to the edict issued against it, the inquisitors were principally concerned with an antisacramental approach and the belief that once mystical unión was achieved, it was a permanent state. Recent scholarship includes Alastair Hamilton, “The Alumbrados: Dejamiento and Its Practitioners,” in A New Companion to Hispanic

Introduction 19 quisitor and possibly Juana’s close relative, left a record that is primarily negative, arguing with some points in the margins, crossing out sections of sermons, and attempting to black out nearly the entire sermon on the Trinity.70 In 1567–68, Father Francisco de Torres, likewise in marginal annotations, vehemently disagreed with the inquisitorial censure, emphasizing the validity of Juana’s voice and the acceptability of her theological discussions as appropriate vernacular renditions of complex theological concepts.71 The introductions provided for each individual sermon throughout this volume will comment on the censored passages to indicate which ideas seemed problematic to a minority of readers, but this general introduction will take up the proposition by Ortíz and Torres that Juana’s preaching was a valid theological exposition in line with Christian thought and tradition. The visions and miraculous experiences described throughout the Vida y fin and the Libro de la casa must be taken seriously, not as representative of biographical “fact,” but rather as cues toward understanding Juana’s manipulation of her public persona and the modes of authority that accrued to her based on her reputed and extraordinary direct connection with both Mary and Jesus.72 Mysticism, ed. Hilaire Kallendorf (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 103–26; Mercedes García-Arenal and Felipe Pereda, “A propósito de los alumbrados: Confesionalidad y disidencia religiosa en el mundo ibérico,” La corónica 41, no. 1 (2012): 109–148. For Ortíz’s biography and trial, see Angela Selke, El santo oficio de la Inquisición: Proceso de Fr. Francisco Ortiz (1529–1532) (Madrid: Ediciones Guadarrama, 1968). 70. The Vatican copy is of use to complete the illegible portions of the Escorial manuscript. In the case of the Trinity sermon (no. 26), the attempt at blacking it out was unsuccessful. For analysis of the Trinity sermon’s theology, and particularly Juana’s unique representation of Jesus as birthing God the Father, see Ronald E. Surtz, “The Privileging of the Feminine in the Trinity Sermon of Mother Juana de la Cruz,” in Women’s Voices and the Politics of the Spanish Empire, ed. Jennifer L. Eich, Jeanne L. Gillespie, and Lucia Harringdon (New Orleans: University Press of the South, 2008), 87–107. 71. For more extensive discussion of the debates recorded in the margins of El Conorte, see Annie Fremaux-Crouzet, “Alegato en favor de ‘las mugeres e idiotas’: Aspectos del franciscanismo feminista en la Glosa de Francisco de Torres a El Conorte (1567–1568) de Juana de la Cruz,” in Homenaje a José Antonio Maravall, Vol. II, ed. María Carmen Iglesias, Carlos Moya, and Luis Rodríguez Zúñiga (Madrid: Centro de Investigaciones Sociologicas, 1985), 99–116. Surtz uses the marginal commentary as a partial key to analysis throughout all his publications on Juana. In this volume, we have noted in the introduction to each sermon which sections were fully or partially censored. The introduction to the modern edition of Conorte transcribes numerous comments from the margins, but it is of note that García de Andrés devotes not a word to the second, hostile reader, instead reiterating at length the (nearly) unqualified approval of the first and third readers as part of his argument for her beatification. García Andrés, “Introduction,” 86–116. 72. While women were denied access to education and to the priesthood throughout medieval and early modern period, they were sometimes hailed as particularly well-suited for direct communion with God due to the lack of formal training. Bynum’s work is pivotal in this regard, see for example Caroline Walker Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 21. Surtz examines a myriad of ways that

20 Introduction

Analysis of the “Conhorte” in Relation to Juana’s Other Writings Juana and Mary Juana’s spectacular life history, exemplified by her visionary connection to the Virgin Mary and by her public mimesis of Jesus’s pain on behalf of those suffering in purgatory, is an essential framework for imagining the audience reception of her sermons, during which Jesus elaborates on the festive life in heaven and in particular on Mary’s role in heaven and on earth. This section will begin as Juana’s Vida y fin did, by examining her designation of the Virgin Mary as miraculous source for and lifelong aid to Juana’s vocation, followed by consideration of the Virgin’s role in the sermon collection as a whole. Medieval Spanish Christian devotion was lived out in a multireligious arena of conflict and coexistence, which contributed to the heightened devotion to the Virgin Mary characteristic of late medieval Iberian piety. During the Christian Reconquest of Iberia from the Muslims, narratives repeatedly cited the Virgin Mary as appearing in battle to aid the Christians. The principal rhetorical move after conquest was carried out in her name as well, as nearly all mosques in reconquered territory were repurposed as Marian churches.73 For that matter, Christian authors interested in converting Jews and Muslims consistently advocated the Virgin Mary as miracleworker and protector of converts.74 By representing Mary’s power and glory with far more frequency than they did the suffering and death of Christ, medieval Castilian authors not only played to the overlap in devotion to the Qur’anic Maryam among Muslims, but also avoided overemphasizing to a Castilian women’s putatively direct connection to the divine provided authority in the transition from the medieval to the early modern period, including both Juana and María de Santo Domingo as case studies (Writing Women, chaps. 4–5). 73. Amy G. Remensnyder, “The Colonization of Sacred Architecture: The Virgin Mary, Mosques, and Temples in Medieval Spain and Early Sixteenth-Century Mexico,” in Monks and Nuns, Saints and Outcasts: Religion in Medieval Society; Essays in Honor of Lester K. Little, ed. Sharon Farmer and Barbara Rosenwein (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000), 189–219. See also her monograph, La Conquistadora: The Virgin Mary at War and Peace in the Old and New Worlds (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). 74. The obverse of Mary’s protection of converts was her reputed persecution of those who resisted conversion. She was repeatedly represented as inflicting physical harm on “intransigent” Jews, or consigning them to hell. For examples, see Gonzalo de Berceo, Los Milagros de Nuestra Señora, in Obras completas II, ed. Brian Dutton (London: Tamesis Books, 1971). For discussion of Mary as converter and punisher of Jews in medieval Europe more broadly, see Miri Rubin, Mother of God: A History of the Virgin Mary (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009), 228–42; Adrienne Williams Boyarin, Miracles of the Virgin in Medieval England: Law and Jewishness in Marian Legends (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2010), 13–41; and in Spain specifically, see Paulino Rodríguez Barral, La imagen del judío en la España medieval: El conflicto entre cristianismo y judaísmo en las artes visuales góticas (Barcelona: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 2009), 12, 57.

Introduction 21 Jewish audience a God who not only died but was made impure by the spilling of his blood.75 The Vida y fin elaborates Juana’s intimate connection with the Virgin Mary as justifying her leading role in her convent.76 According to the semiautobiography, Mary’s support for Juana began before Juana’s birth. The text opens with a description of the Virgin’s distress over the decline of the beaterio founded in honor of the 1449 apparitions. Mary pleaded with God to send someone to the convent to restore its (and consequently Mary’s) former glory. God’s response, according to the Vida y fin, was a remarkable one, as God chose to reassign the gender of the child already coming to term in a local woman’s womb and designate the child as the future savior of the Cubas convent.77 The convent was thus assured of a future strong leader in an abbess who had the strength of will of a man, a miraculous transgendering that effectively subverted gendered spiritual hierarchies.78 As proof, Juana identifies her prominent Adam’s apple to be the mark left by God demonstrating prebirth gender transition.79 In addition to the fact that Juana’s destiny was designated before her birth at the behest of Mary, her life continued to reflect the Virgin’s support. Faced with her young daughter’s dangerous illness, Juana’s mother promised to donate candlewax up to the weight of her child to the Marian house at Cubas; Juana understood herself to stand in special connection with Cubas from then on, and chose it as her destination when she fled an arranged marriage to profess a

75. For the Christian/Muslim dynamic concerning Marian devotion in fifteenth-century Spain, see Robinson, Imagining the Passion. 76. For the full argument of this point, see Jessica A. Boon, “Mother Juana de la Cruz: Marian Visions and Female Preaching,” in A New Companion to Hispanic Mysticism, ed. Hilaire Kallendorf (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 127–48. 77. Vida y fin, fols. 1v–3r. 78. Throughout premodern Christianity, both men and women represented strong spiritual women as “manly” or “virile” in order to explain or justify their authority. See the overview in the classic work by Barbara Newman, From Virile Woman to WomanChrist: Studies in Medieval Religion and Literature (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995). Ahlgren surveys this trend in Golden Age Spain in particular, classifying it as misogynist in its assumptions that only women who operate like men can avoid being deceived by the devil. Gillian T. W. Ahlgren, “Negotiating Sanctity: Holy Women in Sixteenth-Century Spain,” Church History 64, no. 3 (1995): 373–88, at 386. It is of note that Ahlgren ascribes the description of Juana as male to Daza (381), apparently unaware that Juana provided an intricate miracle tale in the Vida y fin (fol. 2v) that positioned her as fully female yet formerly male. 79. An Adam’s apple serves to protect the larynx, thus the male marker on Juana’s body protected the source for Christ’s manipulation of her voice to speak the sermons. It is worth noting that Jesus thereby utilized Juana’s masculinized throat to communicate the revelations, even though the performative impact would have been a version of drag, i.e., a woman speaking with a male divine’s voice.

22 Introduction religious vocation.80 Arriving at the convent door and changing out of the men’s clothing she had donned for safe passage, Juana was greeted initially not by the porter but by the Marian image hanging on the convent door. Speaking through the image, Mary welcomed her and promised her asylum.81 Images were central to Renaissance Castilian Marian fervor: many Marian images were “discovered” as the result of apparitions, or were unearthed after the Reconquest with supernatural proof that they had been hidden for their protection from the Muslims.82 These images famously interacted directly with devotees, for many were reputed to be capable of speech, predicting and advising on important life events such as marriage.83 In Juana’s case, Mary’s image assured her that her flight from marriage toward a religious vocation was appropriate and even welcomed. Not only was Mary’s intervention critical for Juana’s gender assignment and the initial steps of her profession, but Juana’s entire career at the convent was marked by a series of conversations with and visions of the Virgin. Juana functioned as a go-between for the nuns with Mary, relaying their prayers and gifts to the Virgin and in turn assuring the nuns of Mary’s delighted responses.84 Mary visited the convent periodically, sometimes to ratify Juana’s appointment to new responsibilities, at other times to protect the convent as a whole from hardships such as drought.85 Juana in turn used her leadership role to establish a variety of devotions specific to the Virgin, such as promulgating special devotional sequences processing past all the various Marian icons, establishing a Marian confraternity internal to the convent that had living and dead nuns in its membership, and either composing the Assumption Play found in the Libro de la casa or fomenting the devotional attitude that would lead to its production.86 Given that Juana attributes her vocation and success entirely to Mary in Vida y fin and that as a “living saint” Juana’s life experience was considered 80. It was common to donate wicks measured to the length of a specific devotee’s body or candle wax to their weight, “as if quantity of measure were self.” Caroline Walker Bynum, Christian Materiality: An Essay on Religion in Late Medieval Europe (New York: Zone Books, 2011), 99, my emphasis. 81. “Then the holy image spoke saying ‘Welcome to my house, my daughter, you have arrived at just the right time. Enter in happily, as you were created for this’ ” [Entonces la sancta imagen la hablo disiendole ennorabuena seays venida hija a esta mi casa entra en ella alegremente pues para ella fuystes criada] (Vida y fin, fol. 12r). 82. For Marian apparitions in late medieval Spain, see analysis and documentation in Christian, Apparitions, 10–110. For the justification for hiding images, see Muñoz Fernández, Acciones e intenciones, 71. 83. For other, mostly later, examples of talking Marian images, see Luis R. Corteguera, “Talking Images in the Spanish Empire: Vision and Action,” Visual Resources 25, no. 1–2 (2009): 53–68. 84. Libro de la casa, fols. 16v, 22r. 85. Ibid., fols. 24r, 35v. 86. Ibid., fols. 41r, 8r–15r.

Introduction 23 exemplary,87 it is worth pausing over Mary’s role in the sermons, as we find there a Mariology that constructs divine power for Juana’s principal source of authority. For one, Juana defended the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception so popular among Franciscans and Renaissance Iberian women religious, dedicating sermon 70 to the theme.88 In a rather more original episode, Juana also renders Mary as priest, indeed, as the first and greatest, the “Sacerdote Grande.”89 This appellation occurs during one of the festive scenes in heaven in which Mary lifts Jesus in her arms and carries him throughout the crowd of blessed souls, offering him to each in turn. When the people to whom she offers Jesus request to take the Eucharist, Jesus turns into the host, leaving Mary in the position of offering the host to the people.90 Mary’s role as high priest, a term also assigned to Jesus, shows Mary fulfilling the same role as her son, thus validating the reading given above that the Virgin’s intervention in Juana’s life was a particularly powerful form of authority.91 The equality of Mary’s role with that of Jesus is even more evident in the constant references to the Passion throughout the sermons, given their particularly Iberian thematic of the “Passion of Two.” In Juana’s rendition of this new version of Passion devotion, Mary’s role in the sermons is repeatedly iterated as one whose extreme grief at the foot of the cross makes her maternal suffering equal to her son’s sacrifice of physical suffering. Juana’s sermons focus on the socalled Proleptic Passion, a term referring to narratives of Christ’s life in which every event foreshadows the drastic intensification of his pain during his last days on earth (e.g., the circumcision is the first blood he sheds for humanity). Juana’s version is a variation on the tradition in which the sermons provide his mother’s response to every single scenario. In examples translated in this volume, sermon 2 on the Nativity emphasizes multiple times the shivering of the infant that presages 87. Muñoz Fernández, Beatas y santas neocastellanas, 98. 88. In 1489, Beatriz de Silva received a papal bull permitting her to found a monastic order called the Concepcionistas in Castile. For this history, and the interest of other Iberian women religious, including Juana, in this doctrine, see Ángela Muñoz Fernández, “El monacato como espacio de cultura femenina: A propósito de la Inmaculada Concepción de María y la representación de la sexuación feminina,” in Pautas históricas de sociabilidad feminina: Rituales y modelos de representación, ed. Mary Nash, María José de la Pascua, and Gloria Espigado Tocino (Cádiz: Universidad de Cádiz, 1999), 71–89. Juana’s views on the Immaculate Conception are analyzed in Muñoz Fernández, Acciones e intenciones, 184–88; and Surtz, Writing Women, 104–26. 89. Conorte I, 5.5, 364. While not unknown in medieval thought, it is original in a Castilian context. For earlier examples, see Anne L. Clark, “The Priesthood of the Virgin Mary: Gender Trouble in the Twelfth Century,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 18, no. 1 (2002): 5–24. For further analysis of Juana’s priestly role, see Graña Cid, “Terciarias franciscanas,” 601–22. 90. In case the listener were left in doubt about the priestly role attributed to Mary, another scene in the same sermon shows Mary disagreeing with Simeon’s assertion that he was the first priest and asserting instead that she herself had been the first to sacrifice Jesus and offer him to God. Conorte I, 5.10, 369. 91. Juana uses the term sacerdote grande for Jesus in Conorte I, 1.2, 232, translated on p. 41.

24 Introduction his later nudity and suffering, and also describes the angels showing Mary the arma Christi (the instruments of the Passion) to warn her of his future suffering. Sermon 13 on losing Jesus in Jerusalem not only includes a lament by Mary of equal intensity to the traditional one at the foot of the cross, but also equates his disappearance in Jerusalem for three days to the triduum (the three days between death and resurrection).92 This version of imaginative meditation might be usefully renamed the “Proleptic Passion of Two,” as Mary spends each episode of Jesus’s life reacting to the foreshadowed violence of his death. In another application of the Passion tradition, Juana follows the late medieval genre of the “Secret Passion” (a more extensive description of Jesus’s tortures not available in the canonical Gospels but foretold by Old Testament prophecies) that attributed the extensive wounds extending from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head to Jewish violence against Jesus.93 In sermon 19, however, the visionary extends this traditional imputation of violence against Christ to violence against Mary as well, describing her as repeatedly beaten by the Jews.94 Likewise, the roughness of the wood of the cross does not just pierce Jesus’s flesh, but also injures Mary, who repeatedly gets splinters in her lips from kissing the cross where the blood drips down.95 Ultimately, not only did Marian images and visions authorize Juana’s role as abbess in her convent in Cubas, but in the sermons, a Virgin Mary who is parallel in every way to Jesus from priestly function to sacrificial suffering authorizes Juana’s performance of dual gender roles justifying, for example, a low-register voice issuing forth from a female body.96

Juana and Jesus While Juana presents herself in her semiautobiography principally as a Marian devotee, destined for lifelong leadership of a Marian convent, it is equally evident that her authority in her sermons and outside the convent of Cubas was founded on Jesus. Her audience believed that Christ delivered the sermons recorded in Conorte, and the written form is structured to reflect this belief, for the phrase 92. Conorte I, 2, 257–88; 13.17, 534; 13.21, 537. 93. James H. Marrow, Passion Iconography in Northern European Art of the Late Middle Ages and Early Renaissance: A Study of the Transformation of Sacred Metaphor into Descriptive Narrative (Kortrijk, Belgium: Van Ghemmert Publishing Company, 1979), 24–75. 94. Conorte I, 17.31, 641; 19.11, 668. 95. Conorte I, 19.15, 670. 96. One scholar has proposed the term “cristificación mariana” as appropriate to Juana’s elevation of Mary as parallel to Jesus. María del Mar Graña Cid, “Teólogas de una nueva memoria evangélica en el Renacimiento hispano: Jesucristo como defensor de las mujeres (Isabel de Villena y Juana de la Cruz),” in Memoria e comunità femminili: Spagna e Italia, secc. XV–XVII, ed. Gabriella Zarri and Nieves Baranda (Florence: Firenze University Press, 2011), 61–62.

Introduction 25 “Jesus said” occurs repeatedly. The prologue (quoted in the first paragraph of this introduction) likewise insists on Jesus’s voice as the source for the sermons, mediated by the Holy Spirit.97 Most mystics across monotheistic religious traditions claim to be profoundly limited by language, as human linguistic patterns are too finite to approximate the experience of an infinite divinity.98 In Juana’s work, on the other hand, the impossibility of mystical language is not a theme, since it was the divine who provided the language describing her mystical experience, rather than the reverse. And yet, Juana was something more than simply a vessel by which Jesus could communicate with his followers, for Jesus narrated to the audience what Juana was viewing in heaven. This approach in effect privileged Juana’s viewpoint even as it denied her the articulation of her experience, for Juana was present in heaven viewing the pageants and learning newly extended biblical narratives directly from Jesus. Were Juana merely a vessel or a voicebox, Jesus would have narrated only what he saw; instead, Juana’s presence through rapture at heavenly events makes her the authorizing witness to Jesus’s participation in the feasts. As intriguing as this possibility is—that a woman’s presence could lend credence to the events of heavenly history—Juana’s authority still stemmed from Jesus, particularly in relation to her audience who came to the convent to witness her sermons. Yet the ways that she gains authority rests most firmly on her identification with Christ’s suffering body: Juana’s Christic authority extends beyond her vocal chords to encompass her entire body-in-pain as purgatorial substitute, as we will see.99 It is thus necessary to consider the ways Juana’s life experiences, as recorded in the Vida y fin and the Libro de la casa, made her Christomimetic, a frame that in turn justified her continuing for thirteen years as the vessel for his voice. Juana’s vocation would have been doubly associated with Christ’s suffering. As a Third Order Franciscan she was attached to the order whose founder was the first famous stigmatic.100 As a devout woman, she was in the category of people for whom connection to God most often took the form in parallel suffering in the 97. The Prologue is translated on p. 35 of this volume. Note that Juana was not the only person of her era to have recourse to this type of authority—María de Santo Domingo spoke in ecstasy with the voice of Jesus or of Mary, and even voiced both sides of a dialogue between them. See various examples in María de Santo Domingo, Book of Prayer of Sor Maria of Santo Domingo, trans. Giles, 123–200. 98. “Ineffability” has been considered a marker of mystical experience since the first attempt at a definition of mysticism. William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature (1902), ed. Peter J. Gomes (Albany, New York: SUNY Press, 1990), 292–93. For discussion of the problem of mystical language by a contemporary scholar, see Steven T. Katz, “Language, Epistemology, and Mysticism,” in Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis, ed. Steven T. Katz (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), 22–74. 99. The term “body-in-pain” is drawn from Elaine Scarry, The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985). 100. Francis is the only medieval male stigmatic (all others were women). For discussion, see Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast, 200.

26 Introduction flesh, up to and including stigmata, for holy women throughout the Middle Ages drew on their association with flesh (in contrast to males with the spirit) to argue for women’s special connection to the humanity of Christ.101 It is therefore not surprising that Juana received stigmata, wounds not so much inflicted on her as passed directly to her body during Jesus’s appearance in crucified form. According to the semiautobiography, he placed his wounded body in full up against her own: She said, “I saw our Lord Jesus Christ crucified in that place where my holy angel usually brings me. Coming wounded and crucified as he did, he joined himself with me and put his hands against mine and his feet against mine and in such a manner that as soon as he did this I felt in my spirit great pain and agony in my hands and feet. And suddenly I returned to my senses with these marks that you see that had great pain within them.” And so severe she could barely stand it. She had these most marvelous signs and intense pain from Good Friday until Ascension [Assumption] Day.102 Lasting only three days, the wounds were viewed and validated by Juana’s confessor and the other nuns. Later, Juana reported that direct bodily contact with Jesus felt to her like he had imprinted his wounds on her body a second time, leading to a long period of illness and suffering that she interpreted as her own approximation of the Passion.103 Although impermanent, these wounds parallel other influential Franciscan stigmatic accounts. For one, Francis purportedly received the stigmata while looking at a seraph who appeared in the form of a crucifix; the burning love that characterizes seraphim burnt the stigmata into Francis’s body.104 Juana in turn notes that the experience occurred in the location to which her guardian angel 101. This has been extensively discussed by Bynum and the generation of scholars she inspired; see Caroline Walker Bynum, “The Female Body and Religious Practice in the Later Middle Ages,” in Fragmentation and Redemption: Essays on Gender and the Human Body in Medieval Religion (New York: Zone Books, 1991), 181–238. 102. “Diziendo vi a nuestro señor Jesucisto crucificado en aquel lugar donde mi sancto Angel me suele poner y assi llagado y crucificado, como venia se junto conmigo e puso sus manos junto con las mias, e sus pies con los mios, y asi como esto hiço sentir en mi spiritu gran dolor e sentimiento en mis manos, e pies, y a deshora me vi tornada aca en mis sentidos con estas señales que veys con muchos dolores en ellas, y tan recios que casi no los pudo sufrir tuvo estas señales tan maravillosas y crecidas dolores dende el dia del Viernes Sancto, hasta el dia de la Sancta Asuncion” (Vida y fin, fol. 39r). This passage was censured during the beatification process, then defended by a later reader. Surtz, Guitar of God, 78–79. 103. She describes him pressing his hands, knees, and waist to hers, followed by pain as sharp as nails. Vida y fin, fol. 60r. For further discussion, see Graña Cid, “Terciarias franciscanas,” 613–15. 104. David Keck, Angels and Angelology in the Middle Ages (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 143. Note that seraph means “fire,” so burning is the natural action of this angelic order.

Introduction 27 often led her, echoing the Franciscan belief in an angelic medium for Christomimetic experiences. Another Franciscan forebear was Angela of Foligno, whose report of direct contact with Jesus’s wounds in the Memoriale was translated into Castilian in the early years of Juana’s preaching career.105 Juana’s stigmatic marks were not visible for long and therefore did not fully authorize her extensive career as preacher. Nevertheless, they fit Juana within an accepted medieval model of female religious devotion in which her bodily identification with Christ through suffering (rather than as his voice) was not merely a private devotional emphasis, but actually afforded her an authority verging on the sacerdotal. Authority through suffering appears in several guises in Juana’s texts. Careful attention to her extended vision of purgatory indicates that Juana’s imitation of Christ’s suffering enabled her to actively aid souls to leave purgatory in a manner that circumvented priestly control of suffrages for the dead, such as indulgences and masses. According to the Vida y fin, after receiving a vision of purgatory, Juana prayed for the power to take on the sufferings of various souls in order to reduce their time served; her request was not only granted but its instantiation was materially enacted. While bedridden with pain, Juana asked that some stones be heated to warm her chilled limbs. Once placed on her, she heard the stones moaning with the pain of the fire that had warmed them because some had souls trapped inside as part of their purgatorial punishment. Juana immediately sent for more stones and had them arranged on her body so that she could assume their pains as her own. Both the physical weight of the stones and her concern over the souls’ fate led her to experience intensive pain, including enduring the extremes of heat and cold traditionally associated with purgatory.106 (It is of note that Laruel, Juana’s guardian angel, was apparently made guardian of purgatory at her behest; Juana thus had angelic aid during this episode.)107 Other individuals, often visionary women, in the medieval and early modern eras were understood to be “living saints” in part due to their mediation in purgatory.108 The belief that humans could wield this sacred power on behalf of 105. In the fourteenth step, Angela drinks the blood from Jesus’s side wound. She also describes her own Passion in the sixth supplemental step. Angela of Foligno, Complete Works, trans. Paul Lachance (New York: Paulist Press, 1993), 128, 196–202. 106. Vida y fin, fols. 99v–102v. These episodes are the focus of Surtz, Guitar of God, chap. 2. 107. Libro de la vida, fol. 25r. 108. In Castile, Francisca de Jesús likewise mediated on behalf of souls in purgatory in her ecstatic trances from 1514 to 1517, though there is relatively little other information about her. Graña Cid, “En torno,” 422, 441. For the role of purgatory in late medieval Castilian religion, see the recent article by Ángela Muñoz Fernández, “‘Amonestando, alumbrando, y enseñando’: Catolicidad e imaginarios del purgatorio en la Castilla bajomedieval,” La corónica 41, no. 1 (2012): 181–206; for María de Ajofrín’s purgatorial vision, see Muñoz Fernández, Beatas y santas neocastellanas, 127. Dante’s dream voyage through purgatory was translated into Castilian in the fifteenth century, probably by the eminent writer Enrique de Villena. Teresa M. Bargetto-Andrés, ed., Dante’s “Divina Comedia”: Linguistic Study

28 Introduction the souls of the living and the dead doubtless stems from the late medieval emphasis on indulgences that constituted an economic (rather than a visionary or, in Juana’s case, corporeal) intervention in the afterlife.109 Juana herself seemed concerned that indulgences did not work quickly enough to alleviate pain, and that masses paid for by family members on behalf of the deceased were not available to the souls of the orphaned or destitute.110 Surtz argues that Juana’s choice to take on the pain of purgatorial punishment (rather than pay down the debt of sin accrued by those in purgatory by donating money) makes her suffering Christomimetic, rather than purely sacerdotal.111 That Jesus was continually concerned with the workings of purgatory is evidenced in the sermons of the Conorte: several of the allegorical pageants represent in graphic detail the various distasteful fates that befall different types of sinners, at least until Jesus intercedes to save them.112 Although Juana’s divinely granted ability to intervene in the fate of souls was not unique, once conjoined with her experience of stigmata and Jesus’s utilization of her raptured body to transmit sermons, the Christomimesis became nearly complete. Ultimately, the various ways that Juana’s body is patterned on Christ’s body—through stigmata, through suffering for souls—provided her with several levels of authority.113 First, a priestly one, for if Christ’s body supplies the model for a male priesthood, then his interaction with her body, combined with her ability to use her body rather than indulgences to redeem souls, made logical Juana’s and Critical Edition of a Fifteenth-Century Translation Attributed to Enrique de Villena (Newark, DE: Juan de la Cuesta, 2010). For a later Hispanic visionary example, Ursula de Jesús in Peru had multiple experiences aiding souls in purgatory. Nancy van Deusen, ed., The Souls of Purgatory: The Spiritual Diary of an Afro-Peruvian Nun, Ursula de Jesus (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2004). 109. Indulgences for the dead, or bulas de difuntos, were a productive form of income for the Catholic Monarchs. For example, in nearby Toledo, the Dominican monastery printed them extensively. See Miguel F. Gómez Vozmediano and Eugenio Serrano Rodríguez, “Imprenta, dinero y fe: La impresión de bulas en el convento dominico de San Pedro Mártir de Toledo (1483–1600),” Tiempos Modernos: Revista electrónica de Historia Moderna 7, no. 27 (2013): 1–65. There was skepticism about the efficacy of the bulas due to their novelty, as they had only just been introduced in Spain. 110. For the centrality of a “good death” to Golden Age Spanish spirituality and the involvement of living people in negotiating on behalf of their dead loved ones, see Carlos Eire, From Madrid to Purgatory: The Art and Craft of Dying in Sixteenth-Century Spain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). 111. Surtz, Guitar of God, 40. Her purgatorial interventions are also modeled on Francis, as a third vision associated with purgatory involved Francis appearing to Juana and adding three dozen eggs to her bed of stones. Surtz catalogues the medieval designation of both Jesus and Francis as mother hens. 112. E.g., Conorte I, 1.12, 248–51, translated in this volume on pp. 58–61. 113. Juana also experienced Mary as mother and protectress starting in the womb and throughout her vocation, another Christic pattern. Appreciation is due to Sarah J. Bloesch for the insight. For discussion of Mary’s mothering role in heaven throughout Juana’s sermons, see Graña Cid, “Teólogas,” 60–61.

Introduction 29 assumption of other priestly roles such as preaching and appointing chaplains to her convent. Secondly, her authority went beyond that of priests, for her own suffering could save souls, while her visions could ratify dramatic revisions to the biblical narrative. On this level, Juana represented herself both as a prophet and, periodically, a savior who intervened more directly and quickly in purgatorial suffering than any mere priest ever could. Equally important to our understanding of Juana as modeling herself and her body on Jesus, however, are the ways that she in turn renders Christ as female.114 Various medieval thinkers described God or Jesus as having maternal qualities in relationship to creation or to humans in particular.115 Juana, however, represents Jesus as able to relate to women as a woman, just as he related to men as a man. She rests her argument on the fact that Jesus was born without the participation of a human father, and indeed he declares in one sermon that he is actually a girl (niña) as a result: “I, too, am a girl, because I am the child of woman.”116 This startling characterization of Jesus’s gender as rooted in genealogy rather than physiology might be construed as a mere accident of transcription had Juana’s sermons contained no other commentary on the topic; however, there are numerous instances where Juana either equates the genders or bases her argument on spiritual androgyny rather than spiritual gender hierarchies. Whether disassociating the blame for the Fall from Eve, claiming women were created equal to men, or depicting saints with the secondary sex characteristics of both men and women, Juana’s interest in valuing both genders equally flows naturally 114. The Spanish scholar Graña Cid characterizes Juana’s approach as protofeminist due to her focus on Mary’s role in the Incarnation and thus the relevance of the maternal to Jesus’s power, as well her emphasis on Jesus’s gentleness while alive, a presumably feminine quality. María del Mar Graña Cid, “La feminidad de Jesucristo y sus implicaciones eclesiales en la predicación mística de Juana de la Cruz (Sobre la Prerreforma y la Querella de las Mujeres en Castilla),” Estudios eclesiásticos 84, no. 330 (2009): 477–513, at 481, 483, 495. Although the argument may seem essentialist in the ways that it propagates stereotypes of women as weak, it acknowledges the historical circumstances of the Castilian debate over women (querella de mujeres). Modeled on the French querelle des femmes, Spanish intellectuals in the late fifteenth century debated the “proper” role for, and potential of, women in the public sphere, a debate which had particular currency given the accession of Isabel of Castile to the throne. For discussion, see Elizabeth A. Lehfeldt, “Ruling Sexuality: The Political Legitimacy of Isabel of Castile,” Renaissance Quarterly 53, no. 1 (2000): 31–56; and Barbara F. Weissberger, Isabel Rules: Constructing Queenship, Wielding Power (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004), 28–68. 115. While Julian of Norwich is best known for this argument in her Revelations of Divine Love (chaps. 57–62), Caroline Walker Bynum revealed the popularity of this concept among high medieval Cistercian theologians in Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982). 116. In a scene with children killed by Herod during the massacre of the innocents, Jesus speaks to several girls who had been slaughtered by mistake because they were wearing male clothing: “Y también soy niña como vosotras, pues soy hijo de mujer” (Conorte I, 6.25, 401).

30 Introduction from her doubling of Jesus’s gender as both male and female.117 Juana even goes so far as to name the essence of the Trinity as maternal, proposing a Trinitarian image in which the Father is eternally pregnant with the Son, who is likewise eternally pregnant with the Father.118 All these images—whether we consider them to name God as androgynous (neither only male nor only female) or extravagantly gendered (fully male yet fully female)—present a portrait of Jesus that aligns him with Juana’s own experience of gender as an abbess with a prominent Adam’s apple who channeled a male voice while in ecstatic rapture. Juana’s Christomimesis is thus not limited to her hands and side, or even to her full-body experience of being crushed by stones, but also includes her gender performance. In this manner, Juana countered any potential questions about her authority as vessel for Jesus’s preaching not by humbling herself as a mere woman who is overwhelmed by a divine voice, but rather by drawing direct parallels between her embodied, suffering, gender-variant experience and the fully human nature of Christ.

Conclusion: “Visionary Sermons” While the extensive details concerning Mary and Jesus added to the biblical narrative throughout Conorte seem radical in their innovation, another kind of elaboration on biblical “truth” is even more memorable, given that the reception of the sermons was contingent on Jesus, not Juana, as their author. Instead of teaching in brief parables as attested in the Gospels, Jesus’s pedagogical style in the sermons of the Conorte centers on the figuras (allegorical pageants) staged in heaven in celebration of each feast day of the liturgical calendar.119 Nearly every sermon contains at least one theatrical scenario performed by the saints and the blessed; Jesus first describes the scene at length with particular attention to the material and performative details, then provides an extensive explanation of its allegorical 117. Juana’s treatment of Eve is found in the Creation sermon (no. 71), discussed in Surtz, Guitar of God, chap. 15–36. Her claim that women are equal to men is stressed in Conorte I, 3.16, 305, when Jesus asserts that he asked to be born of a woman in order to make it clear that he brought salvation to women as well as men. Surtz characterizes sermon 58 on Francis, in which Jesus asks Francis to bear his breasts in a maternal trope, then asks to marry him, as spiritual androgyny (Guitar of God, 47–50; referencing Conorte II, 58.6, 1245).Whether this doubling invokes androgyny as in-between male and female or provides instead a both/and approach to gender may well depend on the reader. 118. Conorte, sermon 26, fols. 211v–12r (folios not transcribed in the modern edition due to it being blacked out in the manuscript). See note 70 for bibliography on this sermon. 119. Juana refers to these scenarios as figuras. Frequently a term for allegory, image, or symbol, evoking a variety of literary or theological connotations, figura also occasionally has the sense of “miracle” as sign or symbol. We translate the term as “allegorical pageant” when it refers specifically to the plays put on in heaven. We translate it as “symbol,” “sign,” “image,” or “miracle” when its usage appears more generic.

Introduction 31 meaning. The term “pageant” is applicable since the scenario is often presented as appearing suddenly, as though a curtain was drawn up on a backdrop showing, for example, a valley full of sinners or the graves of Jews and Muslims.120 However, these scenes are also often staged in the midst of festivals that include a variety of joyous activities such as feasting, drinking, playing games, and dancing, all occurring at once. Certain moments in the festivities are likewise symbolic or allegorical, such as the detail that Francis’s rank meant he was permitted to sit on Jesus’s lap during the sermon on his feast day, or the extended scene allegorizing Mary’s beauty and purity as a search for the perfect wine pear for Jesus to consume at the feast.121 Quite often, Jesus is described as the source for the food and drink, providing the wine and replete platters directly from his wounds in a clearly Eucharistic analogy.122 Mary Giles terms the entire combination in each sermon—the feasting and the pageants—“heavenly liturgy,” evoking both the performativity of the Mass itself but also reminding modern readers that many Renaissance religious festivals included dancing and feasting, not just solemnities.123 Suydam’s term “sacred performance” (developed to apply to the ecstatic experience of northern European beatas known as Beguines) is equally apt, as she draws the term from studies relating to ritual performance that designated such episodes as transformative for both the performer and the audience.124 Both terms, heavenly liturgy and sacred performance, are of use in thinking through the categorization of the Conorte texts as “visionary sermons.” For one, the two terms direct attention to the public nature and the theatricality (performers, material props) that frame the theological and moral reflections found in each sermon. As opposed to the rather dry and formally organized scholastic sermons, the ones in Conorte are highly dynamic, visual, and dramatic, charged with a visceral emotion in the constant shifts between Jesus’s glorious body as he leads the feasts and his violated body as it displays its wounds even in the midst of heavenly celebrations.125 Michel de Certeau has suggested that mysti120. Conorte I, 1.12, 248–51; 20.33–34, 713, both translated in this volume. Other medieval Spanish works such as El libro de los enxemplos focused on similar images. For discussion, see Marín Ureña, “Estelas de los ángeles,” 5, 58–61, 180. 121. Conorte II, 58.7, 1245; I, 1.10–11, 247–48 translated in this volume, 56–58. 122. Conorte I, 21.21, 740; II, 27.28, 873. 123. Mary E. Giles, “Spanish Visionary Women and the Paradox of Performance,” in Performance and Transformation: New Approaches to Late Medieval Spirituality, ed. Mary A. Suydam and Joanna E. Ziegler (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999), 273–97, at 274, 81–82. 124. Suydam, “Beguine Textuality,” 173–74. 125. I term the continual presence of his wounded body in heaven his “eternal dual nature,” examining this question in Jessica A. Boon, “Christ at Heavenly Play: Christology through Mary’s Eyes in the Sermons of Juana de la Cruz (1481–1534),” Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 102 (2011): 243–56, at 248–54.

32 Introduction cal episodes replete with descriptions of minutia aid the transformation of visions into myths, a kind of divinization through dizzying detail.126 In Juana’s sermons, the celestial scenarios are replete with characters, not only Jesus, Mary, Gabriel, and various specific saints, but also legions of angels who constantly decorate tables and beds for Jesus, honor him with processions, and occasionally fight over the chance to interact directly with Mary.127 For that matter, even the holy cross is animated, most energetically in sermon 22 in which the cross flies through the sky battling the angels with thunderbolts.128 These sermons greatly expand the new Renaissance Castilian interest in the “life of Christ” by extending his life to include his eternal heavenly existence, and by peopling Jesus’s life not just with the disciples or his accusers but also with the beatified and the angels who feast with him in perpetuity. In addition, both heavenly liturgy and sacred performance serve to emphasize transformation (whether transubstantiation specifically or ritual more broadly), a critical aspect for any study of mystical or visionary texts, including sermons. McGinn has long argued that the language of visionary texts is not intended to communicate directly, that is, make the audience understand what the mystic experienced. Rather, it is intended to transform, that is, turn the audience into individuals capable of their own mystical episode, even if that experience is quite distinct from the one the initial mystical text describes.129 If the Conorte texts as visionary sermons are considered as purveyors of liturgical and performative transformation, the unique structure of Jesus speaking through Juana’s ecstatic body is a bold variation on “transformative mystical language.” In her raptures, Juana’s body and vocal cords were transformed into the medium for Jesus’s voice, presenting him for direct engagement much as a priest would present Christ’s body and blood. Meanwhile, Juana’s audience was transformed from an early sixteenth-century congregation into an audience listening to the second person of the Trinity, learning biblical episodes directly from Jesus while discovering, by means of the allegorical pageants, the continuing life (and play) of the Trinity and the heavenly cohort. Recently, Caroline Walker Bynum has strongly urged scholars to move beyond studies of “the body” to begin studies of medieval religious “material126. Michel de Certeau, The Mystic Fable: Volume 1, The Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, trans. Michael B. Smith (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 10. 127. In numerous sermons, the angels serve feasts or bring talámos (wedding beds) to furnish the heavenly court or theatrical event; see for example Conorte I, 20.27, 709, translated in this volume, 174–76. The angels’ fight over Mary is found in Conorte II, 57.3, 1232. 128. Conorte I, 22.27, 767 translated in this volume, 204–7. In fact, the holy cross fulfills Giles’s term “heavenly liturgy” quite literally, for it performs public readings in the style of litanies; see 22.32, 773, translated 210. 129. McGinn, Foundations, I:xvii.

Introduction 33 ity,” on the principle that all created things were understood to be composed of materia (matter), a larger category that connects objects of devotion not only with the bodies of devotees but also with the cosmological matter of the heavens.130 The concern over matter for medieval thinkers centered on matter as “labile” and “changeable” in its capacity for transformation.131 Bynum locates the central concern of many of the theological and devotional attitudes and debates that characterized the Middle Ages as precisely concerned with limiting or controlling transformation.132 Taking Bynum’s view of matter in conjunction with McGinn’s view of mystical language, it seems necessary to consider that the transformative potential of Juana’s visionary sermons lies in their materiality, whether in reference to a holy cross that enters into battle, to a Mary whose grief is rendered physical by the splinters that wound her lips as she kisses the bloody cross, or to a woman who goes into public rapture in order to narrate in a low-register voice the life history of a wounded divinity. The sermons of Juana de la Cruz thus help expand McGinn’s discussion of mystical language to include the potential discursiveness of materiality permeating the oral performance by a living saint as she witnessed visions of heavenly feasts, one whose body became the medium for the integration of the divinity’s celestial life into the daily devotional life of Renaissance Castilian Christians. It is our hope that the translations of a half dozen of the sermons in Conorte will likewise help expand the “canon” of mystical literature, while contributing vital data to scholars analyzing gender and religion, Renaissance theology, and the development of Spanish Christianity at the dawn of the Golden Age.

130. “[M]edieval theorists… understood ‘body’ to mean ‘changeable thing’: gem, tree, log, or cadaver, as well as living human being. Understood in medieval terms, to explore ‘the body’ was to explore stars and statues, blood and resin, as well as pain, perception, and survival” (Bynum, Christian Materiality, 32). 131. Ibid, 24–5. 132. Ibid., 30, 285.

Preface to the Translation RONALD E. SURTZ This translation is the result of a collaborative effort. Nora Weinerth produced a rough version of the six sermons we selected for our anthology. Ronald Surtz extensively revised that translation and attempted to achieve a certain consistency of phraseology and word choice. Jessica Boon in turn tweaked the final product and added most of the notes. Jessica and I had long and, I hope, fruitful discussions about the translation of certain words—figura comes to mind. Mother Juana’s oral style tends to use coordinating, rather than subordinating conjunctions; however, in general, we have resisted the temptation to “edit” her sermons by dividing sentences and eliminating the numerous and’s. So at the risk of causing our high school English teachers to roll over in their graves, we have not hesitated to begin sentences with “And” and to maintain sentences that are borderline run-on. We have also had to recur to the use of parentheses and dashes for the sake of clarity. It is worth recalling that the manuscript of the Conorte is typical of its time in that it has very little punctuation or capitalization. In general, we have followed García Andrés’s modern edition with respect to division into sentences. For the convenience of readers who might want to consult García Andrés’s transcription of the Escorial manuscript of the Conorte, we have followed his division of the sermons into numbered sections, even when it means following his occasional misnumberings. However, we do not follow García Andrés in his punctuation of the Conorte’s dialogue. The modern editor puts into separate paragraphs introductory phrases (“he spoke to her, saying” or “And then the Lord said”) and the direct dialogue they introduce. We have preferred to keep dialogue and introductory phrase together in the same paragraph. We have chosen to call attention to Mother Juana’s knowledge of the Bible by putting biblical quotations or near quotations in italics, translating her words directly but evoking the Douay-Rheims translation of the Vulgate when possible. García Andrés’s modern edition is not entirely accurate, so we have checked it against a microfilm of the Escorial manuscript, correcting occasional misreadings and inserting words or phrases omitted from the transcription. For that reason those of our readers who know Spanish should not be surprised by occasional discrepancies between García Andrés’s edition of the Spanish text and our English translation.

34

Prologue Here begins the book that is called Conorte, which was made through the voice of the Holy Spirit who spoke through a woman religious as she was enraptured in contemplation. This speech was made in the person of Our Lord Jesus Christ, who is he who enlightens our hearts and is wont to speak in parables and similes, fulfilling the word [of God] that is written and prophesied: “I will open my mouth in parables and I will utter things kept hidden since the beginning [of time].”1 Moreover, said book is submitted for correction by Catholic and devout Christians [who are] wise and prudent, learned and mindful of the things of God. And if in this aforementioned book and [any] books that might be copied from it there were anything that does not seem right, the most wise Holy Spirit (that says and does and teaches everything very perfectly) should not be blamed, but rather s/he who wrote it out, because the pen could make a mistake or memory could fail to remember something. And when the Lord was speaking of the things that follow, he spoke thusly: “You, N.,2 have seen such things and pageants which have been performed in the celestial realm and have appeared in the sight of certain creatures and in the presence of God himself.” And this was the way the Lord named his servant, whose proper name was Juana. And sometimes he called her and named her Juanica.3 And the Lord said it in this way because, as he explained, he did not wish to say her complete name of Juana, because he was waiting for her soul to leave its body to see if it would be birthed4 in the birth throes of death, which occurs when the soul is torn out of its flesh. Because at this point if it dies in the Lord, it will have eternal life, and if it does not die in the Lord, it will be in danger. And the Lord kept to himself the secret reason for this thing he said, except [that he said] that he did not wish to give a complete name until the soul was safe in the kingdom of heaven, at which point the Lord will give complete names to his own and give them infinite rewards and joys and delights and gifts and mercies and compassion and adornments and beauty and acts of love. And the explanation was said in this manner: That therefore the soul is birthed when, persevering in virtue, it serves the Lord until the end. If, after the end of its days, it dies in the Lord or in such a way that it is saved, it is called a soul that has been born. And if, by chance, at the hour of death it dies in mortal sin and deserves to be condemned and damned for its sins, it can be said to not have 1. Matthew 13:35. 2. N., indicating a name to be filled in. MS fulana, the equivalent of “so-and-so.” 3. Using the diminutive. 4. Birthed: MS salir a luz. Juana plays for two paragraphs on this phrase’s literal meaning, “coming out into the light.”

35

36 Prologue been born but miscarried and premature, for it did not do good works in order to be saved, and if it began them, they can not be considered “good” because it did not complete them.

Figure 1. The Annunciation (panel), Juan de Borgoña (fl.1495–1533) / Museo de Santa Cruz, Toledo, Spain / Bridgeman Images XJL86524.

Sermon 1: Incarnation Introduction The sermon on the Incarnation elaborates extensively on the framework introduced by Pseudo-Bonaventure in the Meditations on the Life of Christ.5 It begins with a dramatic scenario that rationalizes the time frame of Jesus’s salvific intervention in human history, followed by a lengthy Annunciation scene that leads up to the specifics of how Jesus’s body was shaped in the Virgin’s womb. Jesus focuses principally on Mary’s role in the Incarnation, particularly her purity and immaculacy, conveyed through both theological discussion and allegorical pageantry. Several other allegorical pageants explore the soteriological and devotional consequences of the Incarnation, providing images of the afterlife for sinners and discussing the three advents of Jesus as model for humility, love, and the avoidance of vice. Sections 1–2: A host of angels repeatedly pleads with Jesus to incarnate in order to redeem humanity, yet he puts them off each time due to his foreknowledge that his message will be rejected. The angels finally persuade Jesus that humankind deserves an opportunity to embrace or reject him; his damning judgment will then be based on their actions rather than his foreknowledge. Sections 3–4: The choice of Mary as the mother of God is justified with explanations based both on the maculist and immaculist positions. In accordance with the maculist position, she is described as choosing purity and religious obedience above all else throughout her life, including virginity; the immaculist tradition is evoked by references to her purity at birth and to God having chosen her ab initio, from the beginning.6 Her betrothal to Joseph is portrayed in line with the maculist argument, as he reassured her that he too had made a vow of virginity; their union would have mirrored the “spiritual marriages” sometimes chosen by medieval devotees.7 Sections 5–8:8 God is given a dramatic role in the Annunciation (Luke 1:31–48). God first calls Gabriel before the throne to give him his mission as matchmaker, 5. Pseudo-Bonaventure, Meditations on the Life of Christ: An Illustrated Manuscript of the Fourteenth Century, trans. Isa Ragusa, ed. Isa Ragusa and Rosalie B. Green (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1961), chap. 1, 5–6; chap. 4, 15–18. 6. Rubin, Mother of God, 11–2, 173–74. 7. Dyan Elliot, Spiritual Marriage: Sexual Abstinence in Medieval Wedlock (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995), 179–81. 8. For analysis of these sections in particular, see Jessica A. Boon, “The Glory of the Virgin: The Mariology of the Incarnation in Early Modern Castilian Mystical Sermons,” La corónica 41, no. 1

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38 Introduction to Sermon 1 and then the Trinity accompanies Gabriel to Mary’s house and waits in the wings for Mary to accept the pregnancy.9 Juana provides extensive dialogue between Gabriel and Mary during which Mary initially rejects the Annunciation despite Gabriel’s energetic persuasions. A tense scene ensues, as the angels worry that God has not entered Mary to cause the conception because she is not sufficiently pure [partly censored]. When Gabriel finally persuades Mary that she can both fulfill her vow of virginity and give birth to God, the three persons of the Trinity work together to create the fetus of a tiny, perfect man in her womb, who is described in accordance with scholastic theological terminology as divinity taking on the clothing of human flesh.10 The terms used to depict the formation of the fetus in Mary’s womb are the same terms that medieval authors usually provided to describe ecstatic or out-of-body mystical experiences. Sections 9–11 [mostly censored]: Juana introduces the first figura, allegorical pageant, of the sermon cycle in order to reinforce the previous discussions concerning Mary’s purity. In heaven, Jesus calls out to the angels that he would like to join them in their regular feasting, even though he does not normally partake of food. He specifies that he would like a wine pear and all of the angels seek to provide the best quality fruit possible; Gabriel discovers a tree that produced one extraordinarily large and perfect pear. Jesus chooses this pear, but rather than eating it, he holds it close and chants praises to its purity and beauty. Once the allegory of the pear as the Virgin Mary is revealed, Jesus begins to recite Marian litanies instead.11 Section 12 [partially censored]: In the second allegory provided in the sermon, Jesus describes a stark mountainous vista filled with people in tattered clothes lying on beds or in open graves, sitting on chamber pots, vomiting, or lame and leaning on staffs. Each of the five types are agonized by sin in different ways (the sick in bed leprous with sin, the idolaters dead in graves, those sick with bodily illness or cruelty are on chamber pots, the malicious vomiting lies and deceit, the lame believers not walking the way of the just but leaning on the staff of faith and hope), yet Jesus’s incarnation saves each.

(2012): 35–60, at 42–45. 9. A standard Latin term for Gabriel was paranymphus, translated in multiple vernacular instances as matchmaker. Thanks are due to John Dillon for this information. 10. The notion of Jesus’s body as perfectly formed from the first moment of conception dates back to Peter Lombard’s Sentences. David Biale, Blood and Belief: The Circulation of a Symbol between Jews and Christians (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), 405. 11. Perhaps Mary as a pear intentionally inverts Eve and the apple.

Introduction to Sermon 1 39 Sections 13–15 [censored]: Juana contextualizes the Incarnation as salvific both in relation to the course of divine history and to events of Jesus’s life. She discusses Jesus’s first advent (Incarnation), his second (daily or weekly in the Eucharist), and his final one (Last Judgment). Angels present souls in their care to be judged by Jesus, arguing that constancy in specific responses to the divine (gratitude and humility, love of God, avoiding vice) should outweigh the souls’ other sins. Each of the three types of devotions is allegorized as the flowers, palms, and garments strewn in front of Jesus on Palm Sunday. Sections 16–17: The donkey upon which Jesus rode on Palm Sunday functions as a symbol that returns the sermon to the topic of Mary by its parallel to the traditional four-hooved symbol for Mary, the unicorn that can only be tamed by a pure virgin. Yet the unicorn’s slaughter after being tamed brings the final paragraphs back to the ultimate consequence of the Incarnation, the sacrificial slaughter that Mary will mourn during Holy Week.

Incarnation Which is about the sermons and mysteries that the Lord Almighty God spoke with his sacred mouth and, firstly, we will tell what he said and explained concerning the mystery of the holy Incarnation 1. Once when the Lord was speaking about the mystery of his holy Incarnation, he said that this secret so lofty was manifested to our first parents in order to comfort and console them for their fall, and they revealed it and told it to their children, whereby it was passed down from generation to generation. And seeing the prophets and all the people how long he was taking, the prophets cried out and said, “Oh Lord, when will you come? Let the heavens break open and let he whom the people desire come!” And the generations came and went, and their desire was never fulfilled. And a generation was born weeping and matured weeping and died weeping, and the promised one never arrived. And some wandered naked in the wilderness, performing acts of very great penance until their bodies turned black as magpies, and others wandered crying out and weeping until their eyes were blinded, and others fasted and prayed, saying, “Come now, oh Lord, and do not tarry.” And many prophets spent their time in these prayers and supplications and acts of penance, and the Lord showed them many signs.12 2. And seeing that many people were committing idolatry and worshipping strange gods, who were deceiving people and telling them many lies, and seeing that many others of them were going to hell and that others were very sad and disconsolate, the holy angels went before the most holy Trinity, crying out very earnestly, and said with great love, “Oh Lord, become flesh now and go save the world, for all is being lost.” And the Lord kept silent and did not answer them at all. And a long time and many generations passed, and they pleaded all the time, begging for the Messiah who was promised in the Old Law and by the prophets. And when the angels saw how the Lord Almighty God meted out his justice so often in the world, they pitied the people. And they pleaded again with great earnestness, saying, “Oh Lord, become flesh now, for the people are condemning themselves.” And after a long time the Lord answered them, saying, “What need do I have to go to the world where so many sins and offenses are committed against me?”

12. Signs: MS figuras. See note 119 in the introduction for discussion.

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Sermon 1: Incarnation 41 And the angels answered him, “Oh Lord, do not do it because you have need of them, for you have none, but do it for the need they have of you, which is very great.” And the Lord kept silent and did not answer their request at all at that time, but in those days he commanded the priests who offered the sacrifices to marry and to take, each of them, as wife a virgin woman and maiden who had never been married nor was a widow nor had lost her virginity.13 This meant that he himself, who was the high priest and was going to offer and sacrifice his precious body and blood—which was a greater sacrifice than all the other sacrifices—was to choose for himself a virgin woman and a very pure and chaste maiden from whom he would take human flesh. And after a long time, seeing how people were perishing and condemning themselves because of their blindness to the deceits of Satan, the angels pleaded with the Lord again, saying in a plaintive tone, “Oh true God, become flesh now and go redeem the world, for the condemned—which is to say, those who are in limbo waiting for you to go redeem them—are pleading, and the sick—which is to say, those who are under the Law of the Commandments waiting for you to go give them the Law of Grace—are weeping and crying out to you. And go now, Lord, and bring the dead back to life, which is to say, enlighten those who are blind and dead in their idolatries and abominations.” And the Lord answered them, saying time and again, “I am tempted not to go to the world, seeing the great offenses that are committed in it against me. And how do you expect me to go give them salvation, for they will blaspheme me in exchange? And to go give them life, and they will kill me for it? And to redeem and ransom them, and they will be very ungrateful and unappreciative?” And the angels, hearing the Lord’s response, did not plead with him any more at that time so as not to make him angry or [illegible word], which means that they did not oppose the will of God—which they recognized—concerning the delay of the Incarnation, because to oppose it in such a circumstance would be a sin, which is the sin of saying no to God because it contradicts his will, and such a sin could not be found in the angels. And the Lord explained, saying that he had answered the angels with the above-mentioned words14 in order to indicate that when he became flesh and took on our sicknesses and weaknesses, he brought salvation to the world, curing it of the leprosy and very stinking sickness of its sins. And for this reason people put at the end of their documents “in the year of the Incarnation on a certain date,” which means that when they say “of the holy Incarnation” they already place the salvation of their soul in first place, inasmuch 13. Lost her virginity: MS corrupta, which carries a moral censure and evokes the Fall. 14. Above-mentioned words refers to redeem and ransom in the last sentence of Jesus’s previous answer to the angels.

42 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ as all the souls that were dead because of the sin of the first parents obtained true salvation because of his very salutary Incarnation. And he gave us life when he was born and not only suffered the cruel and bitter Passion, but also began in childhood to suffer very great cold and poverty and hunger and thirst and many other hardships and persecutions and insults and scorn. Because he gave and spent the entirety of the life he lived in this world for the sake of our lives. And thereby he fulfilled what he said in the scriptures, that “there is no greater love than to give one’s life for his friends.”15 And when he suffered the Passion and was resurrected like a strong and conquering lion,16 capturing the captivity that keeps us captive and killing the death that keeps us dead, then he redeemed and rescued us, freeing us from the power of Satan and making us sons and heirs to his holy kingdom. And in this regard the Lord said to the angels that in return for our salvation, we would blaspheme him, because after he became flesh and came into the world very meekly and humbly, they despised and blasphemed him saying that he only pretended to be God and Son of God, and that he sometimes healed the sick by virtue of Beelzebub. And not only did they blaspheme him at that time, said the Lord, but even today they blaspheme him with many heresies and unbelief and evil sects, and we put him to death [again], with him having already suffered the most cruel and dishonorable death ever given to a man. And when someone sins mortally, we put him to death and reopen his wounds, for which reason that person must be redeemed and forgiven again. And the Lord said that after some time had passed and some generations, which were born and came of age and died always weeping and pleading for him, the holy angels went before his divine Majesty again, imploring and saying to him, “Oh Lord, become flesh now and go save the people, for you send them prophets and saints and, since those holy ones are men, they kill them all and do not understand what they say to them, and even they do not understand well what you say to them or the miracles that you command them to perform. And for this reason, go, Lord, for you are God of Gods and Lord of Lords and Cause of Causes and Boon of Boons. And even though they may kill you, since they are so evil and you are the living and true God, you will be resurrected and you will have life everlasting and you will give it to all the people.” And the Lord answered them, saying, “Friends, tell me now, why do you want me to go to the world in order to become a servant, when I am the Lord; and to become poor, when I am rich; and scorned, when I am of great value; and 15. John 15:13. 16. Probably evoking Revelations 5:5. “And one of the ancients said to me: Weep not; behold the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof.” (All biblical citations not given by Juana are provided from the Douay-Rheims translation of the Vulgate).

Sermon 1: Incarnation 43 powerless, when I am powerful; and little, when I am great; and despised, when I should be loved?” And the angels again pleaded with him very insistently, saying, “Lord, since you created the world and wish to suffer it, at least go in order to fill these thrones left empty by the angels who fell, for we have a very great desire to see them filled with men from the earth and we would like them to join our company.” And the Lord said to them, “Truly I tell you that I will not go there just to fill thrones. When I go, only love and charity will take me there as principal cause. And many times I am about to leave the bosom of the Father and I withdraw and I seclude myself once again, fearing, since I am so tender and delicate, the cruel and bitter Passion they will give to me, and all the other torments and pain and suffering that I will have to endure. Because, though impassive,17 I have compassion—in the manner that it is fitting to have it—for that most tender humanity that I must assume, since everything that is to happen is in my sight.” And the angels, having heard the answer that the Lord gave them, kept silent and did not dare to plead with him any more at that time. And after more than a hundred years had passed, the angels pleaded again, saying, “Oh Lord, become flesh now and go save them, for they call out to you with so many tears and lamentations. And if you do not wish to go in order to fill the thrones or to give salvation or life or redemption, at least go so that they do not complain about you and say that they did not have the living and manifest and true God to enlighten them and teach them and admonish them and so that they do not say that they never had a lord who would hire them.18 Go there and hire them, enlighten them and teach them. And if they refuse to mend their ways or be hired, then you can justly condemn and destroy them because they had you and you went to hire them and they did not want to follow you, who are the true God.” And the Lord, having heard such a just request that the angels made of him, answered them with great love, saying, “Verily I tell you, my friends, that you 17. Jesus’s impassivity was the subject of extensive theological debate in the Middle Ages. Scholastic theologians uniformly rejected the suggestion that Jesus was impassive, but the range of suggestions as to how Jesus could have felt pain yet remained divine was extensive. See Kevin Madigan, The Passions of Christ in High-Medieval Thought: An Essay on Christological Development (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 51–62. The discussion was complicated by medical (Galenic) and scholastic theological theories of pain, in which a body/soul continuum meant that pain felt in the soul affected the body and vice versa. See Donald Mowbray, Pain and Suffering in Medieval Theology: Academic Debates at the University of Paris in the Thirteenth Century (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press, 2009), 22. Thus impassibility was logically impossible since physical wounds had spiritual effects. For pain as a marker of Jesus’s humanity throughout the late Middle Ages, see Esther Cohen, The Modulated Scream: Pain in Late Medieval Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010), 168–97; for ascription of impassibility to the martyrs instead of to Jesus, see 198–226. 18. Mother Juana evokes the parable of the owner hiring workers for his vineyard. See Matthew 20:1–16.

44 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ have won me over with that request and it pleases me to become flesh and go to the world, even though I know that they will blaspheme me and kill me and be ungrateful for the redemption I will give to them. I will suffer it all willingly, and I will not let any of this keep me from going and manifesting and revealing myself to all of them, clearly and openly. And then I will hire all of them, the good and the evil, and I will tell them to come to me, for I will pay them for all their labors when I tell and teach them everything that they must do and refrain from doing, and what is evil and what is good, and in what way they are worthy and in what way they sin. And then they will no longer be able to complain that I did not hire and enlighten and admonish and teach them everything that is absolutely true. And therefore, my friends, depart and tell Mary and John19 that I wish to go.” 3. And the angels, hearing the Lord’s answer, greatly rejoiced and said, “Oh true God, explain what you are saying to us and point out those persons to us.” And the angels said this because neither the parents of Our Lady nor those of St. John the Baptist had been born yet. And no matter how much the angels pleaded with the Lord to reveal who those persons were, he refused to answer them further at that time. And they remained thus for more than one hundred years, the angels playing their instruments and singing and thanking him for the hope that he had brought to them. And at this time the parents of Our Lady were born, and she too was born, very pure and very beautiful and unblemished and perfect. And they took her to the temple of God to present her and to offer her up. And while she was there, she prayed to God very fervently that he always keep and protect her chastity and virginity and purity of soul and body. And seeing her actions and wishes and thoughts and greatly rejoicing in them, the angels went before the heavenly Father and said, “Oh Lord, look at Mary from Nazareth, how she loves you and serves you and pleases you. Listen to her prayers and grant her request, which is very just.” And the Father of Light kept silent at times and did not answer them. And seeing how Our Lady was steadfast and even increasing in her virtues and holiness, the angels went back to the heavenly Father and said to him, “Oh Lord, look at Mary, how perfect she is! Truly she is a very perfect creature and seems to be an angel and not a human being, and so excellent in her works that truly she is more perfect than we, which is why we take great pleasure and delight in beholding her.” And the Father answered them, saying, “Leave Mary be, for I am watching over her. And how can you say that she is an angel, for she is a human creature and she is still part of the world and living in the flesh?” 19. Pairing Mary and John references the birth of John the Baptist, son of Zacharias and Mary’s cousin Elizabeth, six months before Jesus. Mary visited Elizabeth while both were pregnant, and John’s leap within Elizabeth’s womb at the approach of Mary is an early acknowledgment of Jesus’ mission (see Luke 1:5–45).

Sermon 1: Incarnation 45 And since at this time they wanted to betroth Our Lady, she was feeling such great anguish that she continually prayed and shed many tears, saying, “Oh Lord God, remember that I am dedicated to you and I have offered my virginity to you and I want to be consecrated to you alone and to no other man.” And the angels, seeing how anguished she was, went before the heavenly Father and said to him, “Lord, do you not see how Mary is weeping? Take pity on her now. And since she wishes to be consecrated to you, do not allow or cause her to be subjected and given to any other man.” And since the Father of Light is so very prudent and secretive, he did not reveal to them what he had planned for Our Lady but rather answered them with affected ignorance, saying, “My friends, what is it that you are asking of me? Do you not know that I did not create man to be alone or woman to be alone? Therefore Mary must be accompanied by a man.” And the heavenly Father said this because Our Lady was to be a companion and betrothed to Joseph, but not so that she would be joined to him carnally in that holy matrimony, but rather accompanied like a father with a very obedient daughter or like a brother with a very meek sister. And the angels, not understanding the words that the Father was saying to them because it was not his holy will to be understood at that moment, even though they are not capable of feeling anguish because they are the heavenly blessed, they desire what is best for humankind and not its distress, with one accord showed their anguish with signs of sadness, especially with regard to such a pure virgin, saying, “Oh Lord, why do you abandon Mary, who loves you so much and would rather be dead than submit to anyone but you? Truly we feel great compassion for her,20 seeing that you want to push her away from you.” And the Father answered them, saying, “Do not concern yourself with Mary because I know what I must accomplish with her.” And the Lord said that when Our Lady the Virgin Mary was in such great anguish—believing that her virginity was already lost and corrupted, since they wanted to marry her off—his divine Majesty allowed her to be betrothed to Joseph, who had made a vow of chastity in his childhood. And after that holy man was betrothed to her, he revealed to her the secret about how he had made a vow never to know a woman even within marriage. When Our Lady learned that secret and the very great blessing that Almighty God had given her, she was overjoyed and she rejoiced in her spirit, saying, “My soul magnifies and exalts and praises the Lord because he has regarded the humility and tears and entreaties of

20. Medieval tradition paralleled Jesus’s passio with Mary’s compassio. See the introduction to this volume, 11, 23, and Sandro Sticca, The Planctus Mariae in the Dramatic Tradition of the Middle Ages, trans. Joseph R. Berrigan (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1988),. Here devotees are meant to feel compassion for the compassionate ideal, directing their gaze toward her rather than her son.

46 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ his handmaid.21 Because when I believed that I was most lost, I find myself most won and submissive to the true and living God, for which reason all generations will call me blessed.”22 And the angels, seeing the great marvel and secret that Our Lord God had hidden and reserved for Our Lady, sang and played their instruments very sweetly before the divine Majesty, giving thanks and saying, “Glory be to God in heaven, and may he be praised and blessed, adored and glorified. And we give you thanks, oh Lord, for your hidden and great secrets, which no one knows or understands or comprehends, except those to whom you wish to reveal and manifest and explain them. Oh Lord, now we know that you love Mary greatly and that you want her for yourself, for she is better than all of us and more pure, which is why you joined together the virginal man with the virginal woman, and the chaste man with the chaste woman, and the pure man with the pure woman, and the holy man with the holy woman, and the angel with the angelic woman, which is why we are very happy, because Mary’s heart’s desire has been fulfilled.” 4. And the heavenly Father, seeing the purity and perfections of Our Lady and being very pleased with her inasmuch as he had chosen her in his mind ab initio,23 spoke with the Son, saying, “See, my Son, how pretty Mary is! And it seems to me as well that I would forgive everyone for her sake.”24 And the Son answered, saying, “But how can you say, my almighty Father, that you would forgive everyone for her sake, for you recently sent much fire from the heavens and flames of sulfur that burned those people that you pleased and as it was your holy will, for the stones and earth and water and all things were burning, and you sent such fire and persecution that it seemed as if you wanted to destroy the world yet again?”25 And the Father spoke again with the Son, saying, “It is true, my Son, that I sent that destruction on those people because they were sinning very abominably, but I tell you that even now I would forgive everyone on account of my love for 21. Luke 1:46–48: “And Mary said: My soul doth magnify the Lord. And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. Because he hath regarded the humility of his handmaid.” 22. Luke 1:48: “For behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.” 23. Ab initio, or “from the beginning,” is a phrase from Ecclesiasticus 24:14 often used to support the theology of the Immaculate Conception. See note 88 in the introduction to this volume. 24. God naming Mary’s beauty as a reason for saving all humanity provides a parallel emphasis on embodiment to the necessity that Jesus experience corporeal death on behalf of the world. The contrast between Mary’s purity and beauty and the ugliness of torture and death that proved Jesus’s humanity is striking. It is of note that although Juana supports the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, the maculate side of the debate argued that Mary’s consistent choice of purity meant that she merited to be chosen among all women. See Rubin, Mother of God, 173–76. 25. Referencing the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Genesis 19:24–25, and the flood, Genesis 6:17.

Sermon 1: Incarnation 47 her. And will you not look upon her, my Son, how chaste and pure and pretty she is, since I created her to be your dwelling and home so you would abide for a while?” And the Son spoke with the Father, saying, “If on account of your love for that virgin you will forgive as much as you say, what would you forgive on account of your love for me?” The Father answered him, saying, “On account of my love for you, my Son, I would forgive much more.” And as soon as the angels and all the people had ceased their pleading, the Son, having great compassion for humankind, wished to come at that time to carry out the redemption. And he looked at the Father to see if he wanted to send him. And since the Son himself is the wisdom of the Father, upon looking to him he knew that it was not his will at that time that he come, and he kept silent and did not say anything to him. And when the hour of our succor and salvation had arrived, the Father of Mercies spoke with his Son, saying, “Will you not answer what I ask you, my Son, whether you are pleased with Mary and whether you like her, for I like her very much?” And the Son answered him, the Holy Spirit speaking through the Father and him, and said, “My almighty Father, I too am also pleased with her and very happy with her beauty.” And the Father spoke to him again very mightily, “Then, my Son, become flesh.” And the Son answered with great compassion, saying, “It pleases me to do so.” And the Holy Spirit answered with great love, saying, “Then let it be done immediately.” 5. And then the entire Trinity spoke with one voice, saying, “Now let Gabriel be summoned and let him come here immediately!” And the messengers went to summon him with splendid instruments and songs, saying, “Come here, come here, for the Majesty is calling you, the Trinity is calling you, the Power is calling you, God on high is calling you!” And Gabriel, hearing that Almighty God was calling him even though he did not know why, obeyed his command at once and walked on his knees for many leagues, bowing down in adoration and submission. And contemplating the distance between the nothingness out of which he was created and the Supreme Good, whom he wished to obey immediately, he said, “Oh high and mighty God! What does Your Majesty command? I worship you, I praise you because you have remembered me.” And as soon as he arrived before the royal throne, he flung himself on the ground and bowed down humbly.

48 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ And the most holy Trinity spoke to him with a very mighty voice, saying, “Come here, Gabriel, be my matchmaker, for I wish you to arrange this marriage and to be the messenger of this very lofty secret that I wish to reveal to you, which is that you go to Mary of Nazareth and greet her on my behalf and tell her to stand by the window, as I wish to go there and become flesh in her and clothe myself in her humanity.” And Gabriel, upon hearing the lofty and wondrous words that Almighty God was saying to him, felt such great joy that he danced and leaped with great happiness, saying, “Oh Lord! She is my companion. It was for her that such a blessing was reserved. When did I become worthy to Your Majesty to have such a creature to watch over, for she is to be the Mother of God, and she is to be a virgin, and she is to be the chaste one and the holy one and the pure one and the queen and the lady and the empress of humankind? Lord, my God, tell me if I am to go alone or if others are to go with me.” And the Lord answered him, saying, “Depart, Gabriel, and summon whomever you would like and take along the angels that you command.” And then glorious St. Gabriel went flying very happily to summon and invite some eminent seraphim, saying to them, “Oh my lord brethren, if you knew the great secret that I come to tell you concerning the very great boon and gift that Almighty God wants to give to humankind, it would make you happy and you would greatly rejoice over it.” And the angels answered, saying, “Tell us, sir, so we may rejoice and give thanks to him for it.” And Gabriel said to them, “Oh my brothers, I can scarcely tell you out of the joy and wonderment I feel. Know that the Lord has remembered his people and wants to redeem them now, for he has told me that he desires and sees fit to go to the earth in order to take on human flesh from the virginal womb of Mary of Nazareth, whom I am guarding. And Almighty God told me that he wanted me to be the messenger and the matchmaker in such an excellent and marvelous wedding. And he commanded me to go and greet her on his behalf, and to tell her that he wants to go there to dwell in her for nine months. So come here with me, for I have permission from His Majesty to bring you along.” And then St. Gabriel descended to earth, taking human shape as a handsome youth and bringing along a multitude of eminent seraphim. And he was in a great rush, gesturing with great joy, waving his arms with much fervor, pointing his finger at Our Lady, and saying, “It is to you, Mary, it is to you I say this, to you, the virgin: God save you! You, the pure one, you are full of grace, the Lord is with you. You, my lady, you have attained very great grace before the supreme God. Oh Mary, oh Lady, I bring you such good and joyous tidings, and I will not tell them to you until you grant me a favor as a reward for such good tidings.”

Sermon 1: Incarnation 49 And Our Lady, struck with wonder and astonishment, answered Gabriel, saying, “Tell me, sir, what it is that I have to grant you, and if it is God’s will, I will grant it to you.” And St. Gabriel answered her, “Yes, my lady, for the heavenly Father has already granted it to me if you, my lady, grant it to me. For this reason, grant it to me, my lady queen, and I will not tell you what it is until after you have bestowed it, nor will I tell you the wondrous and very lofty message I bring.” And with very great humility and fervor for God, Our Lady said to him, “I grant it to you, Sir Gabriel, if it is supreme God’s will that it be granted to you, for I do not wish to do anything without his consent.” And St. Gabriel said to her, “Now, my lady, that you have granted me the favor, I wish to tell you what it is, since you cannot take it back. Know, Queen of Heaven, that when the heavenly Father sent me to come greet you on his behalf, I begged him to make me your most intimate page and never ever leave your side, and that all the things you would command others to do, you should command me to do them rather than anyone else. And since you too have already granted that favor to me, as did the Father of Light who granted it to me, I will now tell and reveal to you the very lofty and remarkable secret and message I am sent to deliver.” And Our Lady answered Gabriel with very deep humility, saying, “Had I known that was the request you wished to ask of me, truly I would not have granted it to you, inasmuch as I should be your servant and you my master. And I am amazed by your greeting to me because I am not worthy of it, but rather I am the tiniest little worm there is on the earth. And although by your voice you seem to me to be a certain Gabriel, by your unwonted radiance and by the strange words you speak to me and your greeting, I think that it is not you.” And Gabriel said to her, “Do not doubt, my lady, that I am the same angel Gabriel who has spoken to you and appeared to you many times before.26 And the new splendor you say I have, it is God’s and not mine, and the strange words and greeting I speak to you, they are also God’s and not mine. This is why, Mary, I say to you, God save you. Behold you shall conceive and bear a son.27 And give your consent to the words I speak to you on behalf of God so you may know that you are full of grace.28 And know, my lady, that it is the heavenly Father’s will to redeem 26. Juana’s assumption that Mary already interacted with angels appears to be a Catalan tradition originating with Eiximenis and expanded by Isabel de Villena. Robinson, Imagining the Passion, 177–78. There is no tradition, oral or textual, in the broader European panorama of Marian devotion that elevates Mary to having regular contact with angels before the Annunciation. My thanks to Miri Rubin for this information. For a review of Mary’s repeated visits with angels after the birth, see Rubin, Mother of God, 305–6. 27. Luke 1:31. 28. Luke 1:28.

50 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ humankind and he wants you to be the intermediary in this. And for this reason he wants to send you his beloved son so that he may become flesh in your virginal womb, since you were created and chosen for this, to be the Mother of God.”29 And Our Lady, confused by Gabriel’s words, blushed with great humility and wonderment, and her beautiful face turned redder than a very delicate rose, and she answered him, saying, “What is it that you are saying, angel of God? How can it be,30 since I have taken a vow of virginity and I have no intention of knowing any man in that way?” And the angel Gabriel spoke to her again, encouraging her and saying, “Do not be afraid, Mary,31 or confused, because the Holy Spirit will come to you and the virtue of the Most High will overshadow you.”32 And the Lord explained, saying that as soon as Gabriel came to greet Our Lady, the most holy Trinity suddenly appeared and was present next to Our Lady, waiting for her to consent and to say yes so it could then enter her and dwell within her. This means that God himself never wants to use force to enter anyone’s heart if they do not consent first and open it willingly.33 And as the angels arrived and saw the Lord Almighty God there in such deep silence and so meek and humble, they were very amazed and said, “What is Almighty God doing here so meek? What is he waiting for?” And other angels stopped playing their instruments and singing and talked among themselves, saying, “What is Almighty God waiting for to enter and become flesh? He must find some fault or wrinkle of sin in his bride for which reason he does not want to enter her, even though we know well that she has none because he created her without blemish.34 And if he considers how submissive she has been with regard to her self-discipline, would he not find her worthy to take as his mother?” And then the angels observed the Lord again, and seeing that he hesitated and not knowing why he did so, they fell to their knees and pleaded with him and said, “Oh Lord, why do you not enter now? What are you waiting for or consider29. “Created for this” underscores the immaculacy position. 30. Luke 1:34. 31. Luke 1:30. 32. Luke 1:35. Note that Juana pairs the reassurance that Mary need not be afraid with the mechanism for how the birth would take place, rather than the Lukan sequence which suggests that it was the approach of Gabriel which caused fear. If, as discussed in note 26, Mary was well acquainted with Gabriel before the Annunciation, it would be more natural for her to fear the topic under discussion rather than the messenger. 33. According to the Siete Partidas at the basis of medieval Spanish marriage law, the bride needed to consent to the union for it to be valid. 34. Without blemish: MS sin macula, echoing (along with the use of the learned form macula) the immaculacy debate.

Sermon 1: Incarnation 51 ing? Do you see some wrinkle of sin or some fault in your bride? The longer you pause to look at her, the more it will seem to you that there is some flaw in her. Enter now, Lord, and do not consider any of that, because if you think about it you will not find as perfect a creature in heaven or on earth.” And Almighty God fell silent and did not answer [any of] the angels’ pleas at all, but rather kept looking at his bride who, said the Lord himself, seemed so fine to him. And he was so pleased with her beauty and chastity and purity and virtue that he greatly delighted in beholding her and in looking at her and seeing her discretion and the prudence with which she answered St. Gabriel and seeing the very deep humility with which she demurred. The more supreme God beheld her, the prettier and more perfect she seemed to him, and he wished to enter her, except that he was waiting for her to consent and to say yes. And since the angels did not know this secret, as God did not wish to reveal himself to them beforehand or to answer their prayers and pleas, they were very anguished…35 And while Almighty God waited for Our Lady to give her consent, the angel Gabriel greatly pressured her, saying to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, or think about anything other than what I am telling you: you are chosen to be the tabernacle of the Holy Spirit, who will enlighten you. For this reason, assent to my words, since the redemption of humankind cannot be accomplished without you.” And Our Lady, very confused, thought in her heart and said, “Oh mighty God, how can this be? I would not want to hinder the redemption of humankind, for they say it cannot be done without me. On the other hand, I cannot consent to conceiving and giving birth because I am consecrated to God. Ever since childhood I have followed a vow of virginity, and I intend never to know a man. How could Almighty God want me to break that vow now?” And as she said these words, she fell face down on the ground, fainting in her senses somewhat from great humility and amazement, and she became completely flushed and distraught. In the ardor of her fear of God and the slight regard and the sense of unworthiness she felt about herself, she became more beautiful than a rose and the most brightly glowing seraphim. And the angel Gabriel, seeing the change in her countenance, encouraged her greatly, saying, “Do not occupy your thoughts, my Lady and Queen of Heaven, with anything other than this that I say to you: You will conceive and give birth to a son and it will be the work of the Holy Spirit. For this reason, believe my words.” And Our Lady, upon hearing that she was to conceive through the Holy Spirit, believed what the angel was saying to her. However, she did not feel worthy to conceive and bear and nurse the Son of God, and therefore she delayed giving her consent, asking the holy angel how her faculties would be capable of giving thanks for such a great blessing and boon. And she said, “How could my womb 35. The next twenty-eight words have been crossed out so as to render the passage illegible.

52 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ be worthy to conceive such a son and my breasts to nurse him and my arms to carry and take care of him and my eyes to behold him, since he is my God and my Creator?” And she said, “Angel of God, I believe and more than believe you, but I do not see myself as worthy or deserving to hear so great a blessing36 and favor as you say the Lord wants to bestow on me. And if I am not even worthy to hear it, how could I be worthy to receive it?” And while Our Lady was speaking and discussing these things with the angel Gabriel, Our Lord said that all the other angels who were there could not hear them, and therefore they were greatly amazed and said among themselves, “Imagine her keeping the Trinity and mighty God waiting here for such a long time!” And this is what the angels said and thought, all of them surrounding and encircling the most holy Trinity, playing their instruments and singing. And because Gabriel brought the message and the commission, he was standing very close to Our Lady, speaking to her in secret. And she, likewise, answered him in secret and in a very meek and soft voice so that the other angels did not hear her. And the holy angel Gabriel, seeing that he could not convince Our Lady to say yes no matter how much he reasoned with her—but instead she continued to be unmoved in her deepest humility and to say that she was not worthy or deserving of such a great blessing—wanted to return to heaven to tell the Lord that she did not want to consent in any way whatsoever. And the Virgin’s not consenting meant that she was so humble that she would have never have presumed of her own accord to wish such an honor for herself without being inspired and encouraged by God and without outside influence. And St. Gabriel could very well have returned to heaven without accomplishing his mission, had the Trinity from within not instructed and moved the Virgin to consent. And therefore when the Lord Almighty God—who was there right next to him, though Gabriel did not see him—saw that the angel was beginning to move his wings to fly off, he spoke to him in a very mighty voice, thereupon revealing himself to him and saying, “Stay, Gabriel. Speak to her again on my behalf, for I am here.”

36. To hear so great a blessing: MS oir tan gran merced. Contemporary theologians would render this as “to receive so great a blessing.” A common tradition in the Middle Ages described the virginal conception of Jesus as occurring when Gabriel spoke, at which point the words (as the Holy Spirit) entering into Mary’s ear actually completed the conception. Early Christian writers posited a sequence—first hearing, then conception—but as the centuries passed, the dual moment melded into one, and was standard in the West from the time of Bernard of Clairvaux on. In other words, “not worthy to hear so great a blessing” is a reference that the blessing entailed an actual physiological change. For a brief overview, see Rubin, Mother of God, 342. For more detail, including the East’s resistance to this assumption, see Leo Steinberg, “ ‘How Shall This Be?’ Reflections on Filippo Lippi’s ‘Annunciation’ in London, Part I,” Artibus et Historiae 8, no. 16 (1987): 25–44, at 26–32.

Sermon 1: Incarnation 53 And by saying this and revealing himself, the Lord indicated to St. Gabriel Mary’s willingness, which God himself increased with the added ornament of grace to say yes. And the glorious angel, very reassured and joyful to see and hear mighty God so close to him, obeyed his command with deep humility and spoke with Our Lady the Virgin Mary again, saying, “I do not know in what manner you will conceive, but what I do know I am telling you: that you will conceive as I said you would and you will always remain a virgin without any corruption, and whoever will be born to you will be holy and the Son of the Most High. For this reason, consent now and do not delay any further the redemption of humankind.” And Our Lady, hearing the words of the angel, was very heartened and joyful, saying, “Although I am not worthy of such a great blessing, since you tell me that I will always be a virgin and whoever will be born to me will be holy, let it be done immediately.” And she knelt and raised her hands to heaven with great ardor and humility, saying, “Behold the handmaiden of the Lord. Be it done to me according to your word and your holy will.”37 And as soon as she finished saying these words, the entire Trinity entered her virginal womb. And the Father entered first to make ready the dwelling of the Son, and then the Son entered to clothe himself in humanity, and then the Holy Spirit entered to form and shape his body. And first the Father searched his memory: how would that holy body be formed? And then came wisdom and discretion, which are the Son, and gave birth to the Word, saying, “This is how it will be done.” And then the Holy Spirit, which is the strength and will of the Father and of the Son, bestirred himself and began to form the small body of a very white and very pure child.38 And it fashioned his eyes, the most beautiful and loving and merciful that there have ever been or will be; and a nose, the most beautiful and finely chiseled that has ever been seen; and a mouth, the sweetest and most pleasing there has ever been or will be; and arms and hands, the most beautiful and delicate that anyone has ever had or will have; and legs and feet, the most well-shaped and beautiful that could be described or imagined.39 And in this 37. Luke 1:38. 38. This description of the Trinity molding the fetus appears to be unique to Juana. For further discussion of this episode, see Boon, “Glory of the Virgin,” 43–45. It may have been inspired by medieval artistic renditions of the Annunciation, in which a miniature Jesus is depicted above the flow of air (Holy Spirit) stretching from Gabriel’s mouth to Mary’s ear, implying that Jesus was already fully formed before the conception. Albert C. Labriola, and George S. Worgul, Jr., “The Holy Spirit in Art: The Theological Bearing of Visual Representation,” CTSA Proceedings 51 (1996): 143–62, at 154. 39. Most authors during the Middle Ages characterized Jesus as the most perfect and beautiful fullgrown man. The descriptions were standardized based on the apocryphal document known as the “Letter of Lentulus,” purporting to be an eyewitness description written by a Roman soldier present at the Crucifixion. For the text, circulated with great frequency in the Middle Ages, see Cora E.

54 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ way he shaped and formed on that sacred body of Our Lord Jesus Christ the most beautiful limbs and facial features that a creature ever had. And, for this reason, it is said that he is the most beautiful above all the sons of men.40 6. And in this way the entirety of the most holy Trinity accomplished this very sacred and wondrous Incarnation, just like a seamstress when she wants to make a shirt,41 for first she thinks about it. And since she has memory and purpose, next come wisdom and discretion, and she says, “in such and such a way it will be made well, and this and that will be needed to make it.” And then she starts to sew the shirt, moving her body and applying all the will and strength that are needed to make it. And this is how the most holy Trinity accomplished this very excellent work: the Father, to whom memory and purpose are attributed, cogitated; and the Son, to whom wisdom and discretion are ascribed, thought and said, “it will be good to do it in this way;” and the Holy Spirit, to whom will and strength are attributed, bestirred himself and sewed that very white and very pure shirt that our Redeemer donned in the virginal womb of Our Lady the Virgin Mary. And this is how the holy Trinity hastened to accomplish the work of our redemption. And the Lord said that the angels, seeing the fulfillment of the wish that they had implored and desired for such a long time, sang and played their instruments very sweetly, giving him many thanks, praising his great mercy and the pity with which he saw fit to perform the task of redeeming us. 7. And from that hour, not only did they praise and thank Almighty God, but they also exalted and praised Our Lady the Virgin Mary, calling her queen and empress and advocate and mother of sinners and of all humankind, and daughter of the Father and mother of the Son and bride of the Holy Spirit and gateway to heaven.42 8. And as soon as Our Lady finished saying “Behold the handmaiden of God,” she was encircled by the Holy Spirit and enraptured and bereft of all sensation.43 Luza, “The Letter of Lentulus Describing Christ,” Yale University Library Gazzette 50 (1975): 91–97. Ascribing such beauty to the fetus evokes the early medieval artistic tradition of the homunculus, in which “mother and child” images presented the infant as a tiny full-grown man in his mother’s lap on the assumption that the divine would not have demeaned himself by becoming a typical, helpless cooing infant. 40. Psalm 45:3. 41. The analogy of the seamstress may be a logical extension of the common Christological proposal known as the habitus theory. “The body and soul were said to cover the Word, just as a piece of clothing covers a person” (Mowbray, Pain and Suffering, 28). 42. For the various roles attributed to Mary—queen, advocate, mother, bride, etc.—see the analysis in Marina Warner, Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and the Cult of the Virgin Mary (New York: Vintage Books, 1976). 43. This description of Mary as herself a visionary implicitly authorizes Juana’s visionary experience.

Sermon 1: Incarnation 55 And she saw secrets and wonders that cannot be described or imagined, inasmuch as she saw the entire most holy Trinity plainly and clearly, and she saw herself seated on the royal throne and exalted as Queen of Heaven and sovereign of the world. And as soon as Our Lady returned to her bodily senses and perceived that she was pregnant, the joy she felt was so great and wondrous that it cannot be understood or described or imagined. And when she felt the child Jesus stir in her womb, her delight and solace were so great that she fell to her knees and brought her hands together to worship him and lowered her head wishing to kiss him. And there inside was the Redeemer himself, playing with the angels and ruling the world and judging souls. And he was as happy and delighted inside there in that sacred dwelling of the virginal womb of Our Lady as in the bosom of the Father. And he was very warm and cozy there and did not wish to leave so quickly, and said, speaking to the Father, “Oh my powerful Father! I am so happy in such a delightful dwelling! May I dwell in it a long time, for I would not want to leave this home to be in the world. And I am very afraid to go out into the cold and to tribulations and persecutions, as I am very tender and delicate, and in this my precious mother’s home I find much love and charity and humility and purity. And all the delights, fragrances, and virtues that can be imagined in heaven and on the earth, I find them in this Blessed Virgin whom you gave me as my dwelling and as mother.”44 9. And the Lord explained, saying that in order to show everyone in his holy kingdom how his glorious mother, Our Lady, is the loftiest and most perfect and flawless of all the creatures in heaven and on earth, his divine Majesty saw fit to tell and command the holy angels to give him a piece of fruit that he craved. And it happened in this manner. While the Lord himself went among the blessed souls—as they held very great feasts and solemn ceremonies and gave him many thanks for having seen fit to become flesh and to be born and to suffer and to be resurrected and to perform such great works and acts of mercy as he does constantly for us sinners—some of the same saints came before him, bowing down and pouring out their cups of perfume, and others danced, and others marched in processions, all of them wishing to serve and please him. And some of the holy angels were scattering many roses and flowers, and others burned very fragrant incense in golden thuribles, and others carried lit 44. Such a scenario of Christ holding court in Mary’s womb may have evoked images of the virgen abridera, statues of Mary seated constructed with a small double door in her torso that could open to reveal scenes from his life or the entire Trinity—much more could be visualized in relation to her womb than a growing fetus. For further information, see Melissa Katz, “Behind Closed Doors: Distributed Bodies, Hidden Interiors, and Corporeal Erasure in Vierge ouvrante Sculpture,” Res: Anthropology and Aesthetics no. 55/56 (2009): 194–221. See also sec. 14 of this sermon for a variation on how Mary’s womb differed from other wombs.

56 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ torches in their hands all full of roses and flowers,45 and others surrounded his royal throne, playing their instruments and singing very sweetly, all of this in praise and exaltation of him and his glorious mother. 10. And when all the citizens of heaven were thus surrounding the Lord himself, they pleaded with him very meekly and said, “Command us, your divine Majesty, to serve and please you in some way.” And since they repeated these words joyfully many times in melodious song, the Lord Almighty God spoke to them in a very sweet and loving voice, saying, “I want you to prepare some refreshment for me, my friends, because truly I feel like eating now.” And when the blessed souls heard the Lord say these words, all of them were amazed and said, “Oh supreme God, for as long as we have been in this your kingdom, we have never heard you say such a thing. For this reason, will Your Majesty tell us what he would be pleased to eat, as there is nothing you could order with your sacred mouth that we would not bring to you, because this your kingdom has all the delicacies and confections and kinds of fruit that could exist in the entire universe.” And the Lord answered them, saying, “You speak the truth, my friends. Is it not wondrous that I have many delicacies and sweets in my holy kingdom, for me and for those who are with me since I created such a diversity of flavors and delicacies in the kingdom of the earth for the pleasure and sustenance of humankind? But I do not want to have anything other than wine pears as refreshment.” And when the holy angels heard the Lord say that he wanted pears, they all rushed off, and each of them brought a very large gold plate full of very fragrant pears covered with very costly embroidered cloths. And the same angels—whose constant job as pages is to obey and see what supreme God will order them to do or request of them in order to serve it to him immediately—went before him, bowing deeply and worshipping him. And as soon as they arrived, each of them knelt and presented his plate of pears to him. And the Lord received them, taking them in his precious hands, smelling them and saying, “These are good, my friend, but I am not satisfied with them. I want better ones.” And then another angel arrived with another plate of pears that were much more fragrant and presented them to the Lord. And likewise he received them, taking them in his sacred hands, and he smelled them, saying, “These are better, but I am still not happy with them. I want even better ones.” And the Lord did this until a multitude of angels had arrived, each one with his plate of pears, and he always answered that he wanted better ones. And when the angels went to look for pears in order to please the Lord, Prince Gabriel went with them, and he reached a tree that had but a single pear, 45. The rose was considered so special in the Middle Ages that it constituted its own category, not subsumed under the category of flower.

Sermon 1: Incarnation 57 which was very large, ripe, fragrant, and dappled with many colors. And he took it and placed it on a golden platter and covered it with very costly napkins in order to bring it to present to the Lord. And as the other angels arrived, each with his plate of carefully chosen pears, St. Gabriel took his plate and went among them, staying toward the back, thinking in his heart and saying, “If Almighty God is pleased with the pears that these lord angels are bringing to him, good, and if not, I am bringing him one here. I know well that he will not be displeased with it, for it is lovely. I will go and offer it to him so that he will not say that the only time he asked us for a piece of fruit, we did not go give him one that he liked.” And when a multitude of angels arrived with their gifts, bowing very humbly and worshipping him, Almighty God looked up with his merciful and wise eyes and said in a very sweet and mighty voice, “Step aside, all of you who come with plates of pears, and let Gabriel through.” And then the Lord himself summoned the glorious angel, saying, “Come here, Gabriel, come here. Come, come quickly and approach me, because I have been waiting for you, and only you bring what I want and desire.” And as soon as the Lord finished saying these words, suddenly a great deal of smoke more fragrant than perfume began to rise from the very same pear that the angel Gabriel had brought, an odor so delightful that it filled all of heaven with its sweetness. And the glorious angel, seeing that the Father was calling him, began flying off in a very great hurry, making grand gestures of joy and adoration. And when he arrived where the Lord was, he flung himself on the ground and worshipped him with utmost reverence, offering him that beautiful pear. And the Lord received it with great joy and took it in his sacred hands, kissing it and embracing it and smelling it and tucking it in his breast, greatly delighting in it, showing it to all the blessed souls and saying, “See everyone, what a lovely and precious and fragrant thing this is! I would not give it to you at any price, for I’m keeping it for myself and it belongs as a jewel around my neck. And let it be said about me, that I chose as among pears.”46 And saying these words, he played with that precious pear and offered it to all to smell, and then he hung it around his sacred neck. 11. And while everyone was watching, they saw that suddenly that very pear was changed into a lovely and excellent lady, the most attractive and beautiful and beloved that anyone could ever describe or imagine, which lady was Our Lady the Virgin Mary. And the Lord took her in his sacred arms, kissing her and embracing her many times, and praising her in front of everyone and saying, You alone, my friend, you alone pleased me. 46. To choose as among pears, MS Escoger como entre peras, is an idiom that means to chose carefully the best for oneself. Mother Juana uses the idiom as the basis for her striking allegorical narrative in praise of the Blessed Virgin. For analysis, see Boon, “Christ at Heavenly Play,” 257–58.

58 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ You alone, my beloved, chosen among thousands. You alone, my queen, inside whom I ruled and dwelled. You alone, the most holy I have found or will ever find. And in this way Almighty God praised all the virtues and excellent qualities that were more completely realized and perfect in her than in all other creatures in heaven and on earth. And the Lord explained, saying that the many pears that the holy angels had presented to him, none of which pleased him except for the one that Gabriel brought, meant that among the many holy and blessed women whose guardian angels brought and presented them to him when he said that he wanted to become incarnate in a woman, there was none who fully pleased him.47 Because if some were virtuous and good, they were not completely perfect. And if others were holy and servants of God, they were not chaste or pure or virgins, as it was his due. And when His Majesty summoned Gabriel and asked him for the pear that he had brought, it meant that although Gabriel had not offered him Our Lady the Virgin Mary, God summoned him and sent him to greet her on his behalf and to say that he wanted her to be the mother and queen inside whom he would rule and the dwelling inside which he would live. 12. And the Lord said that his Divine Majesty also saw fit to show those in his holy kingdom a very great and wondrous allegory in which he explained and demonstrated how he came into this world in order to heal the sick and bring the dead back to life and redeem and ransom captives. And the allegory was performed in this manner. Suddenly, there appeared some very high mountains and very deep valleys in which a multitude of peoples were gathered. And they were all very poor and ragged, and some of those same people were lying in beds and others in graves (except that they were not covered with earth), and others were sitting on chamber pots, groaning very loudly, and others were vomiting and retching, and others were lame and leaning on staffs. The people who were lying in beds represented all the people in the world who were very sick and full of the leprosy of sins before the Lord came to incarnate himself. The Lord healed these sick people with his wondrous Incarnation. Those who were dead and lying in graves (except that they were not covered with earth) represented, the Lord said, the idol-worshippers, who were dead from worshipping vain and deceitful gods, and who had abandoned the Living God and entered the graves of hell. This is parallel to what Christians do when they stop loving God and love riches and pleasure and love one another more than they love God. This love is called idolization inasmuch as their thoughts and desires are 47. Note that the episode interpreted here has not been previously narrated. We only learn in retrospect that the pears represent holy women considered as possible candidates to be the Mother of God.

Sermon 1: Incarnation 59 continually on the object they love. And he came in order to give life to such dead as they with his salutary doctrines and parables, and it was because of them that he said in the holy scriptures that they must leave all things and follow him if they want to have and attain eternal life, which is God himself. And the open graves, uncovered even though dead people lay in them, meant that although the souls of the people who committed the aforementioned sins are dead, they can be raised from the dead and have eternal life if they mend their ways and repent and come to God. And in this regard, in the kingdom of heaven all the people who live on earth are called the redeemable dead, because they can still be saved. And those who were groaning loudly on chamber pots represented those who are sick with bodily illnesses and who are very abhorred by people because they cause disgust and they stink. And merciful God, even though he was very sensitive, did not abhor or despise lepers or the sick even though they smelled bad, but rather he touched their sores with his precious hands and treated them and healed them completely. And the Lord said that we must do the same thing,48 following his example, for this is why he came into the world, to teach us not to loathe or mock or abhor or disdain the old or the sick or the poor, because he did not despise any of them, because in his sight nothing is dirty or foul-smelling or despicable, except for sin. And therefore all those who were cruel and contemptuous in this world and refused to perform acts of charity and mercy for their neighbors when they were sick and in need, will suffer very cruel and bitter punishments and torments in the other world, that is to say, in hell or in purgatory. And they will moan and groan very loudly just like persons who are on chamber pots and in great need and beg for mercy and relief from their sufferings. And they will find no one to give it to them but rather they are answered, “Suffer without pity and find no mercy before God, since you did not have any toward your neighbors. Because it is written: What you did to one of these my least brethren, you did it to me.”49 This is the meaning of those people who were sitting on those chamber pots, groaning loudly. Those who were vomiting and retching badly represented angry and conceited and gossiping and malicious people whose mouths always spit out harmful and hurtful words of falsehood and deceit. Because just as people who vomit do it because they are full of humors50 or from gorging on food, similarly, said the 48. While the classical and medical association of women with the body and men with the spirit is often read as misogynist, late medieval women devotees often used their association with body to their advantage by claiming a greater identification with Jesus’s humanity. Women sought instances to further connect themselves to the vile corruption of human bodies, including ministering to and even drinking pus from the sores of lepers. For further discussion, see Bynum, “Female Body and Religious Practice,” 181–95. 49. Matthew 25:40. 50. The four humors, blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile, were central to medieval Galenic medicine. Proper digestion of food in an environment fully balanced between the four qualities, heat and cold, dryness and moisture, would produce the purest humor, blood. Less balanced environments

60 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ Lord, all those who speak malicious and deceitful words do so because of the great abundance of evil in their hearts. And they will be harshly judged when they go before God, because not only do they harm themselves, but they also harm and offend their neighbors with their evil words. And the Lord did not abandon or hide himself even from such people when he came into the world. And although some Pharisees and scribes invited him to eat and asked him a few things maliciously and deceitfully in order to trap him through words, His Majesty did not fail to go with them and tell and teach them doctrines that were very beneficial and healthful for the humors of their great maliciousness and deceit. And those who were lame and leaned on their staffs represented those who had awaited his coming and believed him, and who were lame, because they did not have a sufficient measure of goodness and virtues, but they did lean firmly on the staff of their faith and the hope that they would see the promised Messiah. And the Lord healed these people from their lameness by coming into this world and revealing himself to them and fulfilling completely the desire and hope and faith they had in him. Likewise, the lame leaning on their staffs represented today’s Christians, who have the staff of the holy Catholic faith and are lame and lacking in good works and virtuous acts and in need of the medicine of confession and communion and penance and contrition in order to be healed and sanctified before the divine presence. And the Lord said that the angels, seeing the kinds of people who were on those mountains and in those valleys and their great poverty and need, went before him, pleading with great charity, saying, “Oh Lord, heavenly physician! Come heal and give eternal life to the sick, come bring the dead back to life and be merciful to those in need who place their hope in you.” And the Lord, hearing the angels’ prayers, answered them saying, “Where do you want me to go, my friends, for none of them will be grateful for any of the good I will do for them?” And the angels pleaded with him again, saying, “Lord, do not consider their ingratitude but rather consider your kindness and charity.” And the Lord, moved by the prayers of the angels that he take pity on those persons, went among them and was present with all of them. And those who wanted and deserved to be healed and returned to life, he healed and gave them new life and saved them. And those who did not want it remained as they were, even though Almighty God went among them and talked to them. And the Lord explained, saying that those mountains and valleys represented the entire universe, which can be said to consist of mountains that are very would produce the other three. The balance between the humors affected the person’s disposition: sanguine, phlegmatic, melancholic, and choleric. A good overview can be found in Nancy Siraisi, Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine: An Introduction to Knowledge and Practice (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), 78–114.

Sermon 1: Incarnation 61 rugged with wickedness and valleys that are very deep with sins. Among which sinners and evildoers came the Lord, persuaded by the prayers and pleas of the angels and the patriarchs and the prophets. And he lived in this world openly and publicly with them all, the good and the evil, and he hired and saved and raised them all from the dead and gave life to those who believed in him and loved him. 13. And he cured and healed sicknesses not only when he walked on the earth but even today he heals all the sick. And they do not thank or serve him in return, but rather they give thanks to earthly physicians, who would not be able to heal or save lives unless he himself, who is the celestial physician and the eternal life, had not restored the sick to life, bestowing grace on them and endowing medicines with the power to do people good. And our Lord and Redeemer Jesus Christ said that we should not remain sleepy and lazy in the sleep of sins and heresies and unbelief, but rather awaken and rise from slumber, for he who is the light and sun of justice has already come to explain obscure things and the parables he invented and the promises he made. Which is why it is not necessary to argue about the most holy Trinity, as he has already come into the world to awaken all the souls who are living in the sleep of sins and to tell them to put on the armor of light,51 that is to say, to believe in the faith of the Trinity and to worship the one living and holy and eternal and true and mighty and triune God. And during Advent the holy Mother Church commemorates two advents: the first advent of the holy Incarnation and the final advent of the Redeemer himself, who will come, not like the first time when he arrived as a child and weeping for our sins, but as a judge, mighty and strong like a conquering and noble lion, to judge the living and the dead.52 And then he will not bother to wait for anyone to confess, but he will say instead, “Be silent, all of you who have committed sins, because I know more about them than what you could ever tell me.” For this reason, this is no longer the time for confession or contrition or repentance, but rather for Depart from me, you cursed ones or Come, ye blessed ones53 because our entire salvation or damnation hinges on a single go or come.” And he says the same thing to all of us who live in the flesh, that is, go flee from sin or come hasten to do good works, for which reason our salvation or damnation always hangs on a go or a come. 14. And all of us people ought to greatly rejoice and give many thanks to God for the first coming of the Savior, he himself said, and remember the time when he was in the virginal womb of Our Lady the Virgin Mary and how she was so luminous and resplendent when she was carrying him enclosed in her precious 51. Romans 13:12. 52. Acts 10:42. 53. Matthew 25:34, 41.

62 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ womb that she shone like a lantern. No creature could see that light except for the angels, who were always with her, attending upon her. 15. And the Lord explained, saying in this regard that the blessed souls commemorated his holy Advent and Incarnation and the welcome he received in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday with very great feasts and ceremonies in his holy kingdom. And it happened like this. Since on the same day that the Lord uttered and explained these things they were holding a very great feast for all those who were grateful, who are all the saints who loved and served him and were thankful for his mercies, a multitude of persons went before His Majesty without his having summoned them. And the Lord spoke to them and asked, “Tell me. Why have you come?” And they answered with utmost humility and reverence, saying, “Oh Lord Our God, we come to serve and worship and thank you, not only for your Advent but also for the second one, which you are accomplishing now by coming and going to the earth so often in the holy sacrament of the altar and into every heart that calls and desires you with love and devotion. And since they fete you on earth and commemorate your first coming, which is your holy Incarnation, and the final one, which is when you will come make the Last Judgment, we want to have a very great feast for the second coming, which you do every day and thus you save many souls and bring them up to you. Because all those who receive you worthily in the holy sacrament of the altar will have eternal life, and all those who receive you in their hearts will be blessed. Therefore, Lord, this your sacred coming ought to be greatly praised and acknowledged.” And the Lord said to them, “And what will you give me, my friends, for coming and going?” And some of those blessed souls went to him with great humility and respect, offering him many roses and flowers and saying, “What do you want us to offer to you, oh Lord? Receive these flowers and roses in thanks for all the gifts we receive from you.” And the Lord received them and gave his benediction to those blessed souls, saying to them, “May you be blessed forever, my friends, for thanking me for the favors and mercies I bestow on you and on all humankind.” And then others from among those blessed peoples arrived before his divine Majesty with great humility and love, and they removed the very rich garments they were wearing and lay them on the ground and offered them to him, saying, “What do you want us to offer to you, oh Lord our God? Accept these garments, because we do not have anything else to offer to you except what you gave us.” And similarly, others arrived from among those blessed peoples and they cut down many trees and scattered them on the ground, saying, “Accept these trees we offer to you, supreme God, and ourselves with them.”

Sermon 1: Incarnation 63 And the Lord received them and gave them his benediction as he had to the first ones. And His Majesty said that after he had accepted the offerings of these three different kinds of peoples and blessed them all and rewarded them greatly and given them accidental beatitude,54 there arrived a multitude of angels of the sort that guard human souls. And each of them arrived before his divine presence with utmost reverence, saying, “Remember the soul entrusted to me, oh Lord, because at such and such a time on such and such a day and such and such a night, it remembered you and wept with compassion for you because of the cold that you suffered when you were a very small child.” And another angel said, “My guarded soul, Lord, is grateful to you because you chose to become flesh and be born a man.” And another angel said, “The soul assigned to me feels great compassion because of the torments and bitter Passion that you suffered.” And thus each of the angels offered the Lord the virtuous acts and good intentions his subjects had had. And the Lord himself accepted it all with great love and charity and answered each of the angels, saying, “I accept that sacrifice and good work, which you say the soul entrusted to you performed. And I bless you in its name and say that particular soul will be forever blessed, and I remember it and do not forget it. Even if I now send it a few afflictions and scourges, it will be freed and consoled after a time and will never see the gates of hell.” In this way the Lord blessed not only the elect who were already in heaven, living and reigning with him, but also the sinners on earth who remember him and his holy Incarnation and everything he suffered in this world in order to redeem and save us. And the Lord explained, saying that those three different kinds of blessed people who brought him three kinds of offerings with great fervor and humility, represented three kinds of virtuous acts and good works that people must perform in order to be saved and to attain eternal life. Those who offered flowers and roses represented people who are grateful for the gifts and favors received from God and thank him for the afflictions, tribulations, and persecutions that he sends them, as well as for the solace. Because just as roses and flowers are things that make the heart happy and bring pleasure and comfort, so do gratitude and patience and joy of heart in insults and tribulations greatly please the Lord and move him to be merciful to such persons in this life, and he gives them very great rewards and recompenses in the kingdom of heaven.

54. Theologians distinguished between the essential beatitude (the eternal happiness of the vision of God) enjoyed by all the heavenly elect and the special joy arising from blessings accidental to beatitude.

64 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ And those who stripped off their very costly garments and lay them on the ground so that the Lord would walk on them55 represented people who are adorned with many good works and virtuous acts. Because just as garments cover the whole body, so good works cover and adorn the whole soul. Those people offer and give the virtuous acts with which they are adorned to God alone, saying that no good deed is theirs nor do they have any reason to be praised, since they are all gifts and favors from God, which he gave them and can take away from them. And with these garments and gratitude and humility they move the Lord to have mercy on such people and to increase the blessings, consolations, and spiritual grace that he has given them. And in the kingdom of heaven they cover and adorn their souls with new wedding garments and splendor and light. And those who offered branches and cut trees that were scattered on the ground represented all the people who for the love of God cut out of themselves all vice and sin and received the verdure of humility and patience and charity and self-abasement and all the other virtues. Because just as the tree branch is always rigid as long as it is not cut and refuses to bend or yield, and when cut from the tree it is humble and despised and allows itself to be tread upon by all those who want to walk on it, so likewise it is with the person who needs to cut off from himself all his vices and sins: he is very rigid and proud and vainglorious, for there is nothing that can control him until after he has cut and removed from the tree of his conscience all the branches of sin. 16. And the Lord said that the above-mentioned virtuous acts represented the things that people offered to him on the day he entered Jerusalem, which things they not only scattered along his path, but also along the path of the donkey upon which he was riding. This means that those of us who live on earth ought to honor and serve not only God, but even the creatures that he made in his image and likeness.56 We must also honor and not despise anyone, no matter how humble and poor he is, but instead believe that they are as worthy of love and mercy before God as we are worthy of abhorrence and punishment. Thus we offer him new verdure of good works and humility. And remembering the humility with which he came to take on human flesh in the virginal womb of Our Lady the Virgin Mary, as meek and humble as the unicorn that goes to the maiden of his 55. The initial description of the vision states that the offerings of clothing were given to Jesus, not placed on the ground. The slippage in this detail between vision and exegesis may be due to the presence of both in Luke 19:35–36, the narrative of Palm Sunday, in which the disciples are described as giving Jesus their garments to make a comfortable seat on the donkey, while other followers laid clothing on the ground as he rode into Jerusalem. 56. Juana conflates Genesis 1:27—humans were created in God’s image (and therefore deserve dominion over other created things)—with the belief that all beings ought to be esteemed because God chose to create them.

Sermon 1: Incarnation 65 own will, drawn to her sweet singing and music playing, and lies in her lap only to be captured and killed.57 And the Lord explained, saying that this is what he did with Our Lady when he wanted to become flesh and come into this world, for he was so pleased and smitten with her beauty, the sweetness of her songs, and her excellent qualities and virtues and prayers, that he was moved to go to her virginal womb and seclude himself in her chaste and pure heartstrings. And as it happens sometimes when they shoot an arrow at the unicorn in order to kill it, they also kill the maiden who holds it in her lap, so likewise it happened to Our Lady, for in order to capture and kill him, they wounded the Virgin who gave birth to him. And such was the cruel and bitter arrow that those who crucified him shot at him, that it pierced the heart of the Virgin who gave birth to him,58 and she died a thousand deaths with every torment they inflicted on him. And like the maiden who places herself in mortal danger when they go to capture the unicorn on account of the healing and benefit that its horn brings to people, so likewise Our Lady placed herself in danger of suffering great anguish and many persecutions for the redemption and salvation of humankind, which was brought about by the holy Incarnation and the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ. With which mysteries and the holy baptism that he received in the river Jordan from the hand of St. John the Baptist, he made all the waters holy and rid them of poison in order to give life to all the faithful souls who believed in him and were baptized. 17. And therefore, this glorious feast of the Incarnation is called in the kingdom of heaven the Feast of Wonders. Because of all the wonders that Almighty God performed, none was greater than his becoming flesh and descending from heaven to earth and God becoming a man and the Lord becoming a servant.

57. The unicorn as symbol of Mary was fairly common. See Warner, Alone of All Her Sex, 200; Rubin, Mother of God, 219, 290. It was believed that the unicorn’s horn had the power to purify poisoned water. 58. This imagery is possible due to the common exegesis of Simeon’s prophecy in Luke 2:34–5 that a sword would pierce Mary’s heart when she was an adult. “And Simeon blessed them, and said to Mary his mother: Behold this child is set for the fall, and for the resurrection of many in Israel, and for a sign which shall be contradicted; And thy own soul a sword shall pierce, that, out of many hearts, thoughts may be revealed.” This prophecy was interpreted as predicting Mary’s pain at the sight of Christ crucified. For an overview of this pan-European tradition, see Carol M. Schuler, “The Seven Sorrows of the Virgin: Popular Culture and Cultic Imagery in Pre-Reformation Europe.” Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art 21, no. 1/2 (1992): 5–28.

Figure 2. Virgin and Child (panel), Alonso de Berruguete (1488–1561) (attr. to) / Private Collection / Peter Willi / Bridgeman Images PWI82815.

Sermon 2: Nativity of Jesus Introduction The opening of this Nativity sermon emphasizes both the miraculous nature of Jesus’s birth without pain and Mary’s very human response to her new son. Most of the sermon, however, is an extended reflection on soteriology—that Jesus had to be born in order to suffer and die and thereby bring salvation—accompanied by apocryphal episodes and allegorical pageants rejecting idol-worship and critiquing the Old Testament Jews. A Trinitarian analogy of three suns fusing included in the midst of the pageants places Mary within the second sun and therefore merges Mary with the Trinity. Sections 1–5: The sermon opens revisiting the conception described in sermon 1 (section 8), but this time as an ecstatic spiritual experience that will occur again in the moment of Nativity. The traditional emphasis on the miracle of Mary avoiding the pains of childbirth is humanized by her constant concern that the baby will not have enough covering to keep it warm. She sends Joseph off to find a pelt to cover him, and it is during his absence that Jesus is born instantaneously while Mary is kneeling.59 She is so awed by the miraculous birth, however, that she leaves Jesus lying naked on the ground out of fear of touching him. The angels rebuke her and eventually place Jesus in Mary’s lap. Sections 6–8: The angels try to shower Jesus and his mother with gifts of beds, cradles, flowers, and other objects of beauty and comfort, but she refuses them all, knowing her son is destined to live in poverty. The angels then foreshadow the Passion by arriving carrying the arma Christi (the instruments of the Passion); Mary interprets the instruments of the Passion as a warning that she ought to take better care of the infant Jesus.60 When the angels clarify that the instruments will wound Jesus in his final days, she is overcome with sadness and begs God to change his destiny. 59. A common way to represent Jesus’s birth in the late Middle Ages, drawing on Bridget of Sweden’s revelation about the Nativity (7:21). For discussion, see Kirsi Stjerna, “Birgitta of Sweden and the Divine Mysteries of Motherhood,” Medieval Feminist Forum 24, no. 1 (1997): 31–37. 60. Late medieval paintings periodically show the angels holding the arma Christi during the Crucifixion or at the Last Judgment; the Berruguete mother and child (figure 2) shows the angels presenting the cross and crown of thorns to the infant on the mother’s lap. Juana is merely transposing this scene to the Nativity, possibly following the Franciscan tradition exemplified, for example in the contemporary dramatist’s choice seen in Gómez Manrique, “La representación del nacimiento de nuestro Señor,” in Teatro castellano de la edad media, ed. Ronald E. Surtz (Madrid: Taurus Ediciones, 1992), 75–86, at 83–85.

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68 Introduction to Sermon 2 Sections 9–11: The shepherds marvel at the bright light that appears and the sudden miraculous flowering of all the trees and flowers about them, and the canticles of the angels instruct the shepherds to rejoice in the Nativity (a retelling of Luke 2:8–20). After hearing an extended version of the angel’s canticle, the shepherds go to Mary’s side, offering to find milk to help feed the infant. Continuing an earlier theme, she instead accepts a pelt to keep him warm. Sections 12–15: The angels reappear with presents, and Mary is again unwilling to receive them and is still upset about Jesus’s future. Her fear and fright serve to introduce an extended soteriological scenario that unfortunately does not console Mary, who is too distracted by her cooing baby to gather its import. The episode begins with a discussion of Jesus’s first cries, “a a a, e e e,” which evoke Adam and Eve, and thereby Jesus’s atoning for original sin. However, it is Jesus’s laughter, not the vowels in his crying, that induce Mary to laugh and to play with him, despite becoming faint from touching divinity every time she embraces him. Sections 16–18: The angels begin to teach Mary why God has chosen to come in the form of a small child, that is, to counteract the depiction of God in the Old Testament as vengeful or as judge, instead showing the God of the Christians as meek, tender, and therefore merciful (a common medieval exegetical tradition). In addition, the angels dispute the Old Testament claim that God will save the Israelites alone. Jesus then confirms the angels’ speeches, communicating both wordlessly and in conversation (even though he is a newborn) with Mary about his divine and human natures. Sections 19–20: Juana presents here a tradition normally included in narratives of the Flight to Egypt, dating back to early apocryphal works such as PseudoMatthew (chapter 23).61 Intended to confirm the miracle of a virgin mother, the scene describes the spontaneous destruction of idols at the moment of Jesus’s birth (which Juana attributes to the devils inside each exploding). Following Peter Comestor, the sermon also describes the collapse of Apollo’s temple and the destruction of the image of a mother and child on its central altar which had been predicted to remain standing until a virgin conceived.62 Sections 21–25: A lengthy allegorical pageant combines the previous themes of soteriology and idols by reenacting on a celestial scale the conversion of “idolworshippers” to veneration of Mary and adoration of her son. In heaven, Jesus 61. The Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, trans. and ed. Alexander Roberts, Sir James Donaldson, and Arthur Cleveland Coxe (1886), The Gnostic Society Library, http://gnosis.org/library/psudomat.htm. 62. For Comestor’s rendition in the Historia Scholastica and its dissemination in the Spanish Marian tradition, see Remensnyder, La Conquistadora, 182–83.

Introduction to Sermon 2 69 changes back into a small child and rests in the arms of Mary. From her arms, he orders the angels to play the roles of idols, becoming like gods; when the angels refuse, Jesus summons the saints who agree to participate. They sit on thrones and receive sacrificial offerings and flowers until the Virgin enters each chamber with her infant son, and everyone begins to adore Jesus instead. Later, the infant Jesus extends his immense hand (a sign of his divinity) and smashes every temple to the saintly idols. This sequence occurs again and again, with the saints and Jesus enjoying the game cycle. Jesus shifts his age (as well as the size of his extremities), appearing at the ages of one, seven, twenty, and thirty-three, all to indicate that his life on earth, though lived on a human level chronologically, was nevertheless eternally divine. Sections 26–27: Two allegorical pageants take place, though both are brief allegories reminiscent of patristic examples rather than the extended festivities usual in the Conorte. The first is a Trinitarian analogy describing three suns coming out of one, then merging into one again.63 This Trinitarian analogy is principally an Eastern orthodox one offered by Gregory Nazianzus and John of Damascus, among others;64 it is appropriate to the Nativity because Voragine’s Golden Legend alludes to a pious legend that one of the signs in the sky at the Nativity consisted of three suns melding into one.65 Juana adds a critical element to the Trinitarian image: a woman appears in the second sun (possibly evoking the woman clothed in the sun from Revelation 12:1), but she is shown staying within it even after the suns merged into one again to symbolize the incarnation of the Trinity in the womb of Mary.66 A second allegory concerning the heavenly signs during the Nativity describes a philosopher, possibly one of the three magi, who converted after recognizing an image in the sky of Jesus in Mary’s arms as the “cause of causes” he had been seeking through philosophical study.

63. Mother Juana also discusses the allegory of the three suns in her Trinity sermon, no. 26. 64. For discussion of the three suns image and translation of relevant texts, see Christopher A. Beeley, “Divine Causality and the Monarchy of God the Father in Gregory of Nazianzus,” Harvard Theological Review 100, no. 2 (2007): 199–214. 65. Chapter 6 of the Golden Legend alludes to the three suns melding into one that, according to a pious legend, appeared in the sky at the Nativity. Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints, trans. William Granger Ryan, 2 vols. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993), vol 1, no. 6, 37–43. 66. The anthropomorphic change of the sun into the appearance of a woman echoes one recorded in thirteenth-century French chronicles, though there is no way to trace direct influence. The peasant girl Alpais had cosmological visions, including one in which three suns turned into one sun and then into a man. Discussed in Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski, “Holy Women in France: A Survey,” in Medieval Holy Women in the Christian Tradition, c. 1100–1500, ed. Alastair Minnis and Rosalynn Voaden (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012), 241–65, at 242–43.

70 Introduction to Sermon 2 Sections 28–29: The Old Testament prophets agitate to be closer in heaven to Jesus, arguing that their scriptures prophesied him first and therefore they are more deserving of intimacy with him than are the New Testament disciples and Christian saints. To end the dispute, Jesus puts on an elaborate pageant, in which the Old Testament prophets work a field, sowing it, and Jesus provides a thread from his clothing that turns all their tools into gold and precious stones to work the field more effectively.67 Jesus then sends the New Testament apostles and martyrs to harvest the field; each sheaf of wheat they cut is marked with an image of the infant Jesus.68 The sermon ends affirming that Jesus came to save all, but that Christians are first among the peoples.

67. Possibly inspired by Leviticus 26:5: “The threshing of your harvest shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time: and you shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land without fear.” 68. Various famous medieval miracles proving transubstantiation in the Eucharist involved the host turning into an infant Jesus. Leah Sinanoglou Marcus, “The Christ Child as Sacrifice: A Medieval Tradition and the Corpus Christi Plays,” Speculum 48, no. 3 (1973): 491–509.

Nativity of Jesus Which is about the holy Nativity of our Savior Jesus Christ 1. Speaking once again about his holy Nativity, the Lord said that since the time had come for him to be born and to come into the world in order to redeem all of humankind, angels came to Our Lady and said to her, “Get ready, Queen of Heaven. Get ready, precious Virgin. Get ready, Lady of the World, because you are now going to give birth to the Son of Eternal God, [who is] your own.” And Our Lady said to the angels, “Oh angels, if you only knew with what joy and happiness I conceived my sacred son! Because as soon as I said Behold the handmaid of the Lord, I immediately felt a strange receptivity in my senses and an exaltation of increased grace in my soul, and I was filled with the Holy Spirit. And I was filled so completely with him that it seemed that he was entering my eyes and my ears and my nostrils and my mouth and my heart and all my senses. And thus at that moment I felt pregnant and I was completely engulfed by the Holy Spirit, inside and out. And I felt such great pleasure and solace and happiness that I could not describe it.” And the angels said to her, “Then rejoice, Queen of Heaven and Our Lady, for you will give birth to him with the same joy and sweetness with which you conceived him.” And Our Lady was very amazed and said to them, “Oh, what a great thing it is not to have to feel any pain like other women!” 2. And the Lord said that in those times when he was about to be born into the world, Caesar Augustus had a decree issued that everyone had to be taxed. And since Joseph was very poor and did not have any means to pay that year, he went to those who were in charge of collecting tributes and pleaded with them to exempt and except him that year. And they answered him with very great cruelty, saying, “We do not want to exempt you or even wait a single day for you, but rather we want you to pay immediately for yourself and for your wife and for what is in her womb.” And when St. Joseph heard the pitiless answer they gave him, he went to Our Lady, very sad and troubled, and told her everything they had said to him. And she comforted him with great prudence and humility and said to him, “Be patient, my lord Joseph, for the love of the Living God.” 3. And so they both left Nazareth and went to Bethlehem. And as they approached Bethlehem, Our Lady, walking along the road in contemplation,69 saw 69. Juana provides the term contemplar. Classically, meditate refers to devotional concentration using words and images, and contemplate to an imageless approach. In that case, meditate might be a closer

71

72 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ how the heavens opened and a host of angels descended, showing the greatest joy and happiness, playing instruments and singing and completely surrounding her. And Our Lady, very amazed by the great secrets she was seeing and hearing, gave many thanks to God and told Joseph about some of what she was seeing. 4. And they kept walking like this until they arrived in Bethlehem. And since all the houses were full of people, they did not find a place to stay and took refuge in a very humble manger. And when the time came for the birth, since there were many angels with Our Lady, saying to her, “Come on, my lady! Come on, oh queen! The Savior and Redeemer and the promised Messiah wishes to be born now,” Our Lady said to Joseph, “Come here, my lord Joseph. Go now through the town and look for something with which to cover and warm the child when he is born, because you know that the time has come and I want to give birth now to the Son of God, my own. Therefore search for at least a bit of fur70 and some fire with which to protect him and to keep him warm, because it is very bleak and exposed here and the child will be very cold when he is born.” 5. And while Joseph went around the town looking for something with which to keep the child warm, Our Lady was left alone, but she was very well accompanied by the angels. And she fell on her knees and lifted her hands to heaven and began to pray and to contemplate, pleading with the Father of Light to give her something to keep his only begotten Son warm. And she said with the deepest humility, “Oh Father of Mercies! I appeal to your great clemency to send me during this delivery all the pain you wish and ordain and it is your holy will to send to me. But I also implore your Divine Majesty to give me something with which to cover and comfort your sweet and beloved Son so he does not perish from the cold. And let all the pain you wish to send to me come my way, because I am ready for all of it.” While Our Lady was thus on her knees and deep in prayer awaiting the holy birth, she was suddenly inflamed and aglow with a great fervor and the grace of the Holy Spirit. And all of a sudden she saw the child already born and lying before her on the ground, except that the angels had picked him up in their hands so he would not be harmed. When Our Lady saw the precious child thus born and lying naked on the ground and that the angels were worshipping him and singing, and when she saw

approximation. However, Juana may well be deploying the term contemplar for its rhetorical value, since it implicitly claims a higher authority for her visions. 70. Although the manuscript reads very clearly miel (honey), we have accepted García Andrés’s emendation to piel (fur).

Sermon 2: Nativity of Jesus 73 the Savior’s whiteness and beauty and radiance and splendor,71 she felt such joy and awe that she was nearly enraptured and entranced in all her senses, wondering how and in what way the infant could have been born without her having felt any pain or distress. And the angels, seeing that Our Lady was worshipping the Savior and in deep contemplation and seeing that the Child Jesus was naked on the ground and shivering with cold for such a long time, took great pity on him because he was so tender and delicate. And they stopped worshipping him and singing and greatly pressed the glorious Virgin, saying, “Stop contemplating, my lady. Get up quickly and pick up the child and cover him up or he will freeze to death.” And Our Lady answered with great humility, saying, “Come closer, you angels of God, and pick him up because I am not worthy of approaching him or of touching him.” And the angels said to her again with great urgency, “Get up, my lady. Get up, precious Virgin, and pick the child up, for you alone are worthy and have been chosen. And you conceived him and carried him in your virginal womb, and now you have given birth to him with the greatest joy and happiness. Therefore, get up and pick the child up, for he is dying and trembling from the cold. And do not let him lie on the ground any longer.” And Our Lady, continuing to delay in her profound humility, did not dare or wish to lift him off the ground until the angels, seeing how the child was shivering and crying because of the cold, took many steps toward him on their knees, burning incense in golden thuribles, worshipping him, and saying, “Forgive us, oh Lord God. We are not doing this out of presumption or disrespect, but rather out of the compassion and the pity we feel for you, seeing you lie on the ground like this, freezing to death and naked, tender and delicate as you are.” And so the angels approached and picked the Child Jesus up from the ground and put him in the Virgin Mary’s lap, saying, “Take him, my lady, and cover him and warm him up, even if only with your breath, so that he gets a little warmth. And wrap him in your robe or at least in your tunic so that he does not freeze to death.” And the glorious Virgin took the sweet child in her arms and began to swaddle him as best she could and gave him her virginal breasts to nurse him. 6. And while she held the Child in her arms nursing him, a host of cherubim and seraphim suddenly descended from heaven, bringing beds with rich 71. In Juana’s description of the infant, claridad may equate to the Latin claritas, a term used by Aquinas in his tripartite definition of “beauty” (integrity, clarity, and proportion) and in the four markers of Christ’s resurrected body and all beatified bodies (clarity, subtlety or penetrability, agility, and impassability). For discussion, see Ann W. Astell, Eating Beauty: The Eucharist and the Spiritual Arts of the Middle Ages (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006), 53–55. Bonaventure, whose works were available in Spanish translation by Juana’s time, followed this four-fold scheme.

74 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ hangings, all decorated with gold and precious stones and covered with roses and flowers. And they offered them to Our Lady with the sweetest songs and melodies, saying, “My lady, Queen of Heaven, accept these beds we bring, not because you need them as do other women who have just given birth, but take them instead to use as a footstool on which to sit and abide in this manger, which is so bleak.” And Our Lady, thanking them, said she was not worthy of such beautiful beds nor did she wish to accept them. And other angels descended, bringing many cradles, and offered them to this very same queen, singing and worshipping the Savior, saying, “My lady, Mother of God, accept these cradles in which to lay and comfort him, because he has come to us now as a very needy child.” And others brought many very luxurious garments for Our Lady and for the Child Jesus. And she did not want to accept any of the things the angels were offering to her, inasmuch as she knew it was the Savior’s will that they be poor like this. And likewise others brought crowns of gold and flowers and roses and precious stones. And they all surrounded Our Lady and wanted to crown her queen and lady of heaven and earth. And Our Lady and the Savior—and no one else—saw all these mysteries and secrets. 7. And the Lord said that all the beds and cradles and garments and the crowns all covered and filled with flowers and roses meant that the true and very precious and fragrant flower that is he himself (recently brought forth at that time) had been born and come into the world. And the roses represented the chastity and the purity of the forever virgin Our Lady, who, after giving birth, was prettier and more beautiful than the most delicate rose. While Our Lady was thus nursing sweet Jesus with the greatest joy, and finding that she had given birth so sweetly and wondrously without any corruption or pain and that she had milk in her breasts for her precious son, she gave him many thanks for it. And the angels scattered many handfuls of roses and flowers on her and on the Child. 8. And amazed and joyous about everything she was seeing, suddenly she saw other angels descend from heaven, who were carrying all the instruments of the Passion that the Savior was to suffer. And the angel who was carrying the cross and the nails was calling out to Our Lady, saying in a very loud and sad and mournful voice, “Mary, Mary, Mary! Look at this cross and these nails and all these instruments of torture and martyrdom we are carrying here. All of them will cause you anguish and suffering.”

Sermon 2: Nativity of Jesus 75 And Our Lady believed that the cross and those nails and instruments of torture were all sent by the heavenly Father for her in case she did not look after and rear with reverence and veneration and solicitousness his only begotten Son to whom she had given birth at that time with the greatest joy and happiness. And with the great love she had for the Son of God, her own, fearing that he would be taken away from her because she was not worthy or deserving of having him in her company to rear and take care of him, she fell on her knees and lifted her hands with the greatest humility and anguish, pleading with the angels and saying with tears in her eyes, “Oh angels of God and princes of the seraphim! You who bring the cross and the nails and all the instruments of torture readied for me, I beg you for the sake of the living God who sends you here to plead with him not to take my sweet and beloved son away from me. He has given me such a precious son that I feel I am the most joyful and happy and blessed woman in the world for having conceived and given birth to him with such great sweetness and wonder and for holding him now at my breast and for nursing him and rearing him. Therefore, I promise the Father of Mercies to change my ways from now on and to serve and rear his only begotten Son with the greatest reverence and solicitude of which I am capable and I know how. Therefore, do not take him away from me because I love him more than I do myself.” And the angel who was carrying the cross answered her with a very sad voice and said to her, “No, Mary, no. This cross and these nails and all these very cruel and bitter instruments of torture that have been shown and revealed to you now are for the lovely and tender son you are holding in your arms, and his body will suffer them all. And seeing him suffer such tortures and wounds and injuries in his tender and delicate flesh, because you love him so much you will suffer all his torments in your soul and they will pierce your heart.”72 And the Lord said that after such bitter and sad words were spoken, the angels disappeared. And the sorrow and grief Our Lady felt were so great, when she considered what her beloved and sweet Son would suffer, that she removed him from her arms and placed him in the manger. And she fell down before him as if she were dead, crying profusely and drained of all strength.73 And from that moment she began to plead with the heavenly Father and her son, the Redeemer himself, to see fit to revoke such a cruel and bitter sentence.

72. Pierce: MS traspasar always evokes Simeon’s prophecy of the sword that would pierce or transfix Mary’s heart. See note 58. 73. In the anonymous Passion treatise, Fasciculus myrrhe: El qual trata de la passion de nuestro redemptor Jesu Christo (Seville: Juan Varela de Salamanca, 1524, first edition, 1511), Mary’s faints were multiplied beyond the traditional faint at the foot of the cross to occur repeatedly throughout Holy Week. In this devotional framework, Mary’s faint at the Nativity anticipates and foreshadows her reaction to Jesus’s Passion. For discussion, see Boon, “Agony of the Virgin,” 11–16.

76 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ 9. And the Spirit of the Lord explained, saying that when he was born, at that moment such great radiance and splendor appeared in that manger that the shepherds who were keeping watch over their flocks by night74 were amazed and said, “They must be building a great fire in that manger because such great radiance is coming from there.” And saying this, suddenly they saw all the fields become very green and florid and fragrant and the trees all full of flowers and the grapevines all full of leaves, except that these things lasted for but a short while. And all the flocks in those parts around Bethlehem—even the herd dogs—had turned their heads and bowed down toward that manger where the Savior had been born. And although the shepherds goaded their flocks to get them to move in one direction or another, the flocks always turned toward where the Savior had been born. And when the shepherds saw the mysteries and wonders and such great signs, they were greatly astonished and said, “There must be a very great event in that manger right now, since the sun and the fields and the grapevines are showing strange signs of joy and we cannot move or budge our flocks from here.” And while the shepherds were thus awed to see such signs, suddenly they saw angels arriving very happy and joyful, singing and playing their instruments very sweetly and saying, “Oh ye shepherds who are keeping watch by night, we announce to you unwonted joy and unwonted blessings. For this reason, glory be to supreme and mighty God in the highest heaven and peace on earth to men of good will, for the Savior and Messiah promised by the Law has been born. Therefore, be glad and rejoice, since the four elements75 and the earth are rejoicing and the sun has shown its light of happiness, letting it be known that the sun of justice has just been born. And since the flocks and dumb animals worship and acknowledge him, you men and rational beings go in haste to acknowledge and worship him. And do not harden your hearts, for we are giving you a sign and telling you that you will find the Child lying in the manger.” And the shepherds thereupon went very joyfully and found him just as the angels had told them. And they entered with the greatest reverence and veneration they could muster and knew how, even though they did not understand what it was to worship. And some, or most of them, entered trembling, recognizing the true God. 10. And after they had worshipped the precious child, they spoke with Our Lady and said to her, “Sister, would you like us to bring you something or some milk for you to make pap for the child, because you probably do not yet have any 74. This section expands on the shepherd episode found in Luke 2:8–20. 75. The four elements are earth, water, air, and fire, also referenced in sermon 20, sec. 17, translated on 164.

Sermon 2: Nativity of Jesus 77 milk, since you are so young and have only just recently given birth? Over there we have she-goats and ewes that have just given birth from which we can bring nice fresh milk.” And the glorious one answered them with great humility and meekness, saying, “May you have unwonted joy and may God bless you! I do not need milk, for I have plenty of milk for my little son.” And one of them arrived and said, “My lady, do you want a small pelt I have here to cover him up because it seems to me that he is freezing to death?” And Our Lady answered him very gratefully, “May you have unwonted joy, brother. May God give unwonted gifts to your soul. I will gladly accept the pelt in order to swaddle my sweet son.” And as soon as the shepherd gave her the little pelt, she swaddled the Savior with it. 11. And the Lord explained, saying that when the angels appeared to the shepherds after they had recognized that there was a very great blessing in that manger and after they had spent some time on their night watch, it meant that when angels are to appear to someone who is to be comforted with spiritual solace or delights, or when someone is to experience some ecstasy or grace, such a soul must first spend the night in prayer and have good thoughts and intentions and good works. And they must not only be good but perfect and fervent in order for God to appear to them and to comfort their souls, for it is written that the brides who stay awake, that is to say, fervent souls who keep vigil with good thoughts, will enter heaven to marry the Bridegroom.76 12. And while Our Lady was thus pleading and praying before the manger, weeping and shedding many tears, saying that she would not leave there or take the child in her arms until the Father granted her plea that the child neither die nor suffer, the angels, seeing the glorious one in such anguish, brought from heaven more beds and more footstools and more furnishings and more bunches of roses and flowers and very valuable and precious jewels for her and for the Child. And they played and sang new melodies and new songs and demonstrated extraordinary signs of joy and happiness around her and the manger. They did all of this to comfort and cheer her and to lessen some of the great anguish she felt, inasmuch as all the joy and happiness she had felt when she saw that the Savior was born (who was so lovely and big that he seemed like a one-year-old child)77 and when she saw the milk in her breasts to nurse him, had turned into such 76. Parable of the seven wise and seven foolish virgins, Matthew 25:1–12. 77. Jesus in the manger appearing to be large as a one-year-old echoes the high medieval artistic tradition in which Jesus was often depicted as a homunculus, a full grown yet miniaturized man, in paintings of Mary and Child. See note 39.

78 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ great sadness and pain and bitter tears as if she had never known or felt any joy or happiness. And therefore she said to the angels when they offered her those precious gifts, “Leave me, angels of God. I accept your compassion, but I do not wish to take or accept anything to comfort or cheer me until the heavenly Father grants that my beloved son need not die. And I will not rise from this spot or stop crying or pleading until he answers my request. And if he wishes and if it is his holy will that I suffer all the torments that he is to suffer, I am willing and ready to accept them.78 And if he does not want me to suffer, at least let my beloved son not feel or suffer any pain or torment or anguish, for even were it to last for the next one hundred thousand years, I will not stop weeping very sorrowfully.” And while the Virgin was thus so sad and troubled, suddenly angels from heaven came to her and said, “Take heart and cheer up, my lady, because the Father of Light sends you word that he will comfort you and your beloved son.” And hearing the Father’s answer, the glorious one79 cheered up somewhat and said, “Since the Father of Mercies says that he will comfort me and my beloved son, I want to be hopeful, for I know well that nothing can console me unless the sentence that has been passed on my precious son is revoked.” 13. And the Child Jesus lay in the manger, swaddled in very coarse garments and crying over the sin of the first man and the first woman, which sin caused him thus to come suffer such great pains and torments.80 And the Lord said that other children are right to be born crying for many reasons. For one, because they are conceived and born in original sin; and for another, because they come into such an evil world where there are more opportunities to sin than to serve God, and where there are more evils and abominations than virtues and more anguish than solace. But he was not crying because of [any] sins he would grow up to commit, but rather out of pity for Adam and Eve and for all humankind. And therefore when he cried, he said “a a a.” And when he laughed or cooed, he always said these first two letters, “a a a, e e e,” inasmuch as Adam, by consenting, and Eve, by eating the bite [of fruit], caused him to descend from heaven to earth to suffer such a cruel and bitter death and Passion in order to redeem our 78. See introduction to this volume for a discussion of the compassio Mariae tradition in medieval Europe and late medieval Castile. 79. La Gloriosa—often an advocation to Mary. 80. In this section, Juana supports an Anselmian rather than Franciscan soteriology by positing that Adam’s sin caused the need for Christ’s incarnation. Scotus and Bonaventure preferred the doctrine that Christ’s incarnation would have occurred regardless of whether Adam had sinned, as a pure act of love on God’s part. Ilia Delio, “Revisiting the Franciscan Doctrine of Christ,” Theological Studies 64, no. 1 (2003): 3–23.

Sermon 2: Nativity of Jesus 79 sins. Adam could very well have made this right if he had wanted, and it would not have been necessary for the Lord to suffer what he suffered to redeem and save us. And we would have been redeemed and saved by the Lord without suffering, if Adam had fought the serpent and allowed himself to be martyred and killed by it, together with our mother Eve, instead of sinning or offending the Most High. Because since the Lord would have permitted it, if Adam had died and if he and Eve had been martyred by the serpent, they would have been resurrected on the third day. And they would have died in our place, and by their resurrection we would all be sanctified.81 And inasmuch as Adam was a man like us and no greater, it would have sufficed if he alone had died and none other, because with his death our death would have become superfluous, for no man or woman would die or be subject to death. But when the earthly paradise was full and people turned thirty-three years of age, then they would immediately proceed and rise to heaven, and the same number of people would be born, so that no one would have to taste or swallow the bitter draught of death, except for Adam. But since he allowed himself to be vanquished by the serpent and by the woman, it was necessary, said the Lord, for him to become flesh and to be born and die in order to atone for such a great evil. 14. And therefore, since God suffered such cruel and bitter torments, it would not be a fitting thing for God to die and taste the very bitter draught of death if human beings did not die and even in great pain and agony. And so when Adam sinned, the Father of Light said, “Since you, my son, are to become man and die in order to atone for this sin, I do not wish nor is it my will that anyone not die or drink this very same draught. And since the Lord is subject to this law, I wish and command that from this hour on all my servants be subject to this law, which they would not have to endure if Adam alone had died, because his death alone would have satisfied me.” And lying in the manger recalling all these things, the Redeemer wept, bemoaning Adam and his sin. And seeing that his glorious Mother was before him for such a long time, weeping with great anguish and bitterness, lamenting loudly and praying fervently to the heavenly Father for him, he took great pity on her because of his great love for her. And he tried (as a child) to comfort her as best he could at the time, because as God he could have done a great deal more if he had wished.

81. This is one of the passages in the sermon that was crossed out by Mother Juana’s anonymous inquisitorial censor. Here, however, the censor also wrote “Number 15” (“N[úmer]o 15”) in the corresponding margin, underscoring the passage’s problematic nature and perhaps keying it to a separate, more detailed critique or commentary.

80 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ 15. And since he was made a child and incapable of speech and unable to communicate, he observed her with a very sweet and charming expression and began to laugh for her and seemed to coo with pleasure. And the glorious Virgin, seeing how her sweet and beloved son was laughing so charmingly, suddenly felt such great joy and happiness that—with his Divine Majesty’s permission—she forgot about the instruments of the Passion that the angels had shown her. But not knowing for certain whether the Father had revoked the sentence, she did not forget to keep begging His Majesty to revoke it, and to consider fleeing with him while he was still a child and guarding him and concealing him constantly so they would not kill him. However, with the great and unaccustomed joy she felt upon seeing him laugh so charmingly as a newborn, she forgot for a while all the sorrow and anguish she had felt. And she took the sacred child in her arms and removed him from the manger with the greatest joy and nursed him. And she swaddled and unswaddled him, playing with him and kissing him and worshipping every limb of his precious and tender body, laying him on top of her head and over her eyes, and offering him her breasts many times and saying, “Take my breasts, my most beloved son, and lie on top of my head and over my eyes. And may you have unwonted joys and happiness, my sweetest son, because you have thus comforted and cheered my soul and my heart with just seeing you laugh so sweetly and charmingly.” And the Lord said that he did the same thing many other times, for when he saw his glorious mother was sad, since he was a child and did not know how to talk, he would turn to her and laugh and coo to comfort and cheer her, the way other children do when they play with their mothers while they nurse them or hold them in their arms. He played these games and laughed so sweetly and charmingly that right away he alleviated whatever anguish and sadness his glorious mother had, and he gave her soul from within additional accidental beatitude. However, Our Lady had not yet been assured by the Father of Light nor did she know whether her beloved son was to die or not. Because although she knew what was prophesied in the holy scriptures, it was not in such detail as it was shown and told to her, for which reason she was hopeful at times and at other times she was anguished. And holding him in her arms, nursing him, seeing how lovely and charming and tender he was, she thought to herself very sorrowfully about how or in what way those instruments of the Passion that the exalted seraphim had shown her would be used. She could not comprehend them, inasmuch as each of the angels bore a distinctive insignia: one had the cross and the nails, another the lance and another the crown of thorns and another the scourges. And in this way they brought all the instruments of the Passion, even the ladder and the shroud in which he would be wrapped in the tomb.82 82. Restoration of a church near Valladolid revealed a cycle of late gothic paintings dated to the 1460s– 70s that include five angels holding the arma Christi as described here. Rather than appearing to Mary,

Sermon 2: Nativity of Jesus 81 And since the instruments and the torments shown to her were so many and of so many kinds, she could not understand or know how or in what way her beloved son would have to suffer them. And therefore every time she swaddled him, seeing all his limbs and features so perfect and delicate, she worshipped him and kissed him all over and cried with great pity and became faint with great wonder and astonishment. And in the meantime she did not dare to regard or behold the Child, lest she be completely enraptured and unable to enjoy him during that time. For this reason, the precious Child had to hearten and comfort her. 16. And seeing that the sacred child came into the world like this, so very small and frail and incapable of speech, for he could not talk or ask for what he needed, Our Lady was very perplexed. And she told the holy angels who were constantly with her, serving her and accompanying her, “Oh angels of God, how could this be? That my beloved son should arrive as a child, almost mute, helpless and poor, with the Jews awaiting him as they await him? And I have even read that the Messiah is to come as a very great and powerful king, wearing a crown and holding the royal scepter in his hand, and that he is to sit upon the throne of David, his father, and reign in Israel and rule over the world from sea to sea and give the promised land to the Jews.”83 And the angels answered her, “My lady, do you not know why the Savior came as such a poor and humble and scorned child? He did this because the world considers God to be cruel and pitiless and that he is a God of vengeance who does not forgive anyone or accept or appreciate love and service.84 And if anyone offends him or approaches his altar without reverence, they say he kills and destroys them at once between the entrance of the temple and the altar. And they complain that he allows and permits those who serve him to be stoned and killed and insulted. And they say he is a powerful and frightful and terrifying and merciless God because but a few days ago he destroyed the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah they are shown to Christ during the Last Judgment. His formal position initially seems to be a Christ in Majesty, but since he is gesturing to his side wound with his pierced hand, he is more likely a Cristo Redentor. For discussion, see Sergio Núnez Morcillo, “La pintura mural del siglo XV en Valladolid: Iglesia parroquial de Fresno el Viejo,” Anales de Historia del Arte, volumen extraordinario (2011): 381–95, at 390–91. For general information, see Santiago Sebastián López, “Los Arma Christi y su transcendencia iconográfica en los siglos XV y XVI,” in Relaciones artísticas entre la Península Ibérica y América, Actas del V Simposio Hispano-Portugués de Historia del Arte, ed. Juan José Martín González (Valladolid: Universidad de Valladolid, 1990), 265–72, at 267. 83. Note that Mother Juana portrays the Blessed Virgin as a reader, presumably of the Bible. In the late Middle Ages St. Anne is depicted teaching Mary to read, and Mary is often shown reading the prophecies of Isaiah at the moment of the Annunciation. 84. Juana’s depiction of God as “vengeful” along with citations from the Old Testament indicates a familiarity with the Christian exegetical tradition that the God of the Israelites was vengeful, while the God of the New Testament was loving.

82 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ with fire from the sky and ordered the earth to swallow up Dathan and Abiram.85 And so that all those who wish to see and recognize it can see and recognize that God is compassionate and merciful and meek and humble and loving and forgiving, he therefore comes made a child, so that all those who wish to can have him and enjoy him and possess him, and so they can see that not only is he kind and compassionate, but also that he can be appeased like a child with the slightest act of service. And just like a child has this quality, which is to not disdain anything that he is given no matter how small it is, so likewise God does not disdain any act of love or service no matter how small it is, if it is done with a pure heart. And if he were to come as a very mighty king, which is what they say and believe, then they would say that he was indeed terrifying and powerful and bloodthirsty. And therefore it was his holy will to come like this, as a very meek and humble and mute child and lamb, who does not yet know how to complain or to speak harshly to anyone who offends him.” 17. “And consider, my lady, that the scriptures and prophecies of the Jews have all come to pass now and they are unable to understand or comprehend them. Because if they have written that the Messiah is to come as a king, bearing the royal crown and scepter, and that he is to sit upon the throne of David, his father, they are telling the truth, for lying here on this hay and covered with wretched clothing, he has the royal crown and scepter, inasmuch as he is God and Son of the true God and he rules and reigns over the heavens and the earth. And if they say that he is to sit upon the throne of David, his father, they are likewise telling the truth, because David prefigures the living God and the heavenly Father may be understood by him. His sacred son will sit upon his throne because he is the true Messiah, and the throne of David is the royal throne of the most holy Trinity. And if they want to take him for the prophet David, they can, because he took the flesh of his lineage and he went around seated in your virginal womb for nine months. And it can be said that he sat upon the throne of David, since he emplaced and enclosed his sacred divinity within the precious humanity he took from you. And if they say that he is to rule from sea to sea, they are also saying what is certain and what is true, because he will reign and rule and judge from sea to sea on that last day, when he will come to judge the living and the dead. And the throne and tribune on which he will then sit will be greater than the entire world from sea to sea. And this also means that he will rule from sea to sea because he will be known and recognized from one end of the earth to the other as the true and mighty God. And he will reign and be known from sea to sea when his holy Catholic faith is preached and spread and believed and exalted. And he will also

85. Numbers 16: 27–33; Psalm 105:17.

Sermon 2: Nativity of Jesus 83 rule from sea to sea when he dwells in full presence86 in all the churches in the holy sacrament of the altar. And not only will he rule from sea to sea when he dwells in all the churches in the world, he will furthermore rule from sea to sea in the hearts and souls of all the faithful Christians in the whole universe. And if they say he is to give the promised land to the Jews, they are not right about this, for he comes not only for the Jews but also for gentiles and pagans and unbelievers and all the generations that want to believe in him and serve and love him. The true promised land that he promised the just is the kingdom of heaven, which he will give to all those who serve and love him, for no other land can truly be called the promised land except for heaven, which is delightful and richly abundant and supplied with many blessings and delights and comforts. And this blessed land where our Lord and your son has seen fit to be born and to live (and everywhere on earth where he may have walked and preached and taught and performed miracles and wonders) can likewise be said to be the promised land, inasmuch as the promise that was made to our ancient ancestors has now been fulfilled in this land. And since the Promised One has already come to this land, in a sense it could be called the promised land. But know, Queen of Heaven, that only the kingdom of heaven is the true promised land, and your only begotten Son will rejoice and rule in it with the just and the just with him. And you see here, my lady, how all the scriptures and prophecies are fulfilled now and will be fulfilled daily. And the Jews will remain blind, for they do not understand this nor will they understand it, except for those who convert and come to this sacred Child, who is the true king of Israel.”87 18. And when the Virgin Mary was thus holding her sweet son in her arms, swaddling him and nursing him, she marveled greatly, remembering that he was the true and mighty God and the Messiah who was promised in the Law and by the prophets and that he came to her like this, obediently putting himself in her hands, so that she would rear him and nurse him and do with him whatever she desired. And the Lord said that his precious mother would say to him with great love and humility, “Oh my most beloved son! How can you come as such a humble and scorned and poor child? The Jews do not expect you to come like this, but rather as a very mighty king who will redeem them and give the promised land to them alone.” And he answered her and spoke within her in the spirit and at other times out loud, saying, “My most beloved mother, I am a very little boy, and I came as 86. The term presencialmente evokes Eucharistic debates over the “real presence” of Christ during transubstantiation. 87. In the medieval imagination, pan-European and especially in Castile, Mary was intimately associated with Jewish conversion. See note 74 in the introduction.

84 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ a meek and humble and loving little lamb to all those who wanted me. Therefore, let everyone come to me, because I came naked and with open arms to receive them, and I am very small and innocent and I am contented and soothed with the slightest little thing. And I, as God and as man, have the qualities of a child, for I do not stay angry for any longer than it takes a person’s soul to be reconciled and make peace with me, and then when they love and cajole me and plead with me, I forget all my anger. And I am by nature very meek and loving and lamblike; this is why no one should be afraid to come to me. And I authorize you, my lady and my mother, to speak and answer for me now while I am very small, and to say all the things that concern me and you and the salvation and spiritual health of the soul, for I am a child. Note that I cannot speak or say anything other than ‘a a a.’ Therefore, let everyone seek me, because I will not reject or scorn anyone.” 19. And the Lord said that the signs and wonders that occurred at his holy Nativity were so great that not only did the angels in the heavens and the shepherds on earth and the flocks and animals and trees and vineyards rejoice, but even the devils who were inside idols perceived and recognized the birth of a new king, who destroyed them and made them leave the statues where they were being worshipped and passing as false and lying gods.88 And despite themselves he made the devils themselves break and smash all the idols or statues in which they were living. And not only were all the idols destroyed at that holy hour when he was born, but the great Temple of Peace was also destroyed and razed, which temple the great idol of the god Apollo had said would last until a virgin conceived and gave birth to a son, which everyone considered to be impossible and very far from natural.89 And seeing such a large and opulent temple and the great buildings that were constantly being constructed inside it, the priests and idol-worshippers said, “How long will this temple last? It is fitting to ask our god Apollo to tell us how long the buildings and rites and riches we constantly present and offer to him, how long are they to last?” And all the priests and elders came together and went before the idol called Apollo and offered him many sacrifices and riches so he would speak and answer them. And they said, “Oh our god! Accept all this we bring to you and answer this one thing we wish to ask of you, which is that you tell us how long this temple of yours is to last, for we are constructing such great buildings within it.”

88. The destruction of idols is attributed to the Flight to Egypt, not the Nativity, in early apocryphal works such as Pseudo-Matthew and the Arabic Gospel. 89. This detail is found in Voragine’s account of the birth of Jesus (Golden Legend I, no. 6, p. 38). Voragine cites Peter Comestor’s Scholastic History.

Sermon 2: Nativity of Jesus 85 And the Divine Majesty permitted the devil to be compelled to tell the truth, and he answered all those who were there, saying, “This my great Temple of Peace will last until a virgin conceives and gives birth to a son.” And when they heard Apollo’s answer, they greatly rejoiced and were very happy, saying, “Oh our god, you have brought us such joy with what you say to us! And according to your answer, this temple is eternal and will exist forever, inasmuch as what you say is an impossible thing, for a virgin will never give birth, but she could conceive. However, a virgin’s giving birth has never happened nor will it ever happen. And just so everyone will see and know that this temple is eternal, we want to make a statue of that virgin with the son she is to give birth to in her arms.” And so they made an image of Our Lady with the Savior in her arms, and they placed it on an altar in order to tell and reveal to all those who wished to know it that the temple would never come to an end.90 And in this way they revealed this and considered it to be an article of faith. And all those who had to swear or attest to something were brought before that image of Our Lady and told, “Do you believe that this virgin is never to conceive or give birth to a son, remaining a virgin and a maiden forever?” And the Lord said that they would say, “Yes, we believe most truly that what you are saying will never happen.” And then the priests would say, “Then place your hand upon this image and swear that just as this virgin will never give birth, what you are saying is also true, under penalty of perjury.” And thus they had at their disposal the image of Our Lady with the Child Jesus in her arms, not to honor or venerate it, but to prove and show that the temple was eternal and would never come to an end. And some of the priests thought to themselves and said, “Since our god says that when the virgin gives birth, this great Temple of Peace will be destroyed, we believe his words are very true. And it could be that this will come to pass at some point, for he said this virgin was to conceive and give birth to this son. This is why it behooves us to commend ourselves to her and to her son, because when the day of the storm arrives and the temple falls down, she and her son will protect us so that we will not perish and be crushed under the temple.” And so some of them prayed and made sacrifices to the image of Our Lady with the Child in her arms, even though she had not yet been born or come into the world at that time. And thus it was afterwards just as they said and believed, for when the temple fell down, all those who had entrusted themselves to Our Lady and to the Savior she held in her arms and who had prayed and made sac-

90. Again drawing on Comestor, Voragine attributes the statue of mother and child to a secret Egyptian cult (Golden Legend I, no. 6, p. 40).

86 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ rifices to her, his Divine Majesty did not allow any of them to perish or to be crushed under the temple. And when some of them saw that people were praying and offering sacrifices to the image of Our Lady, they said with great malice and envy, “For what purpose do you have this statue of this woman with this child in her arms here? For to judge by the way they have already started to worship her and to make sacrifices to her, some day they will make her a goddess and her son a god. Throw her out of this temple now, for there is no need for her, since we all know that this Temple of Peace is to endure and never come to an end.” And so they threw the image of Our Lady out of the temple, God having willed it and ordained it, so that when the temple was destroyed, the statue of Our Lady and the Savior would not be inside, and so that people would not say that the image or statue had not protected or held up the temple so it would not be destroyed, since he was the Messiah and the Virgin was his mother. 20. And the Lord explained, saying that his Divine Majesty saw fit to show an allegorical spectacle to those in his holy kingdom on the very same day of his holy Nativity that he uttered and explained the above-mentioned things, recalling that time when he came into the world and was born and used his great power to knock down and destroy all the idols and false and deceitful gods so that everyone would see and know that there is no other God and no other good and perfect and holy thing except he who is God of Gods and King of Kings and Lord of Lords.91 And anything else that is loved and honored and valued other than he, even if they are fathers and mothers and children and spouses, and even the saints who already live and reign in heaven forever—even though they deserve to be honored and served much more than sinners who live on earth are able to do on their behalf—if people love or serve and value them more than God, it can be said that such people are idolaters and take honor away from God to give it to idols and alien things, because anything that is very much loved and valued more than God can be said to be worshipped. 21. And so the Lord ordered trumpet blasts to proclaim throughout the kingdom of heaven that, since it was time and feasts and commemorations of his holy Nativity were being held on earth, he wished to become a very small child and to be carried in the arms of his glorious mother. And while he was thus changed into a child, he authorized and empowered all those who wished to become gods and to be honored and exalted, to do so.92 And he also ordered and empowered all those who wanted to honor and exalt and worship those who became idols to likewise do so. But although they might 91. Deuteronomy 10:17. 92. Psalm 81:6 (Vulgate numbering) calls humans “gods.”

Sermon 2: Nativity of Jesus 87 worship them, it should not be with worship of latria93 that is due to God alone and to no one else, but they should honor and respect them as they do Our Lady. And the angels, upon hearing the proclamation and the command of the trumpet blasts, all went before the royal throne of the Lord, saying, “Oh most merciful God! In the name of your great compassion and mercy, we beg you not to order us to become idols or to be raised to such great honor and pomp. We will be the servants of those you order to be gods, for we do not want such a great honor because it belongs to the glorious saints, inasmuch as they are men like you and not like us, who are your very insignificant servants.” And the Lord, seeing their great humility, granted them their wish not to become gods. And then he had all his glorious saints summoned and ordered them to become idols in order to honor him and please him and give him pleasure, inasmuch as he wanted to be changed into a very small child at that time. And the saints answered him, offering many excuses and saying that they were not worthy of being exalted or honored, for their only honor and glory was to always suffer insults and scorn out of love for him. And the Redeemer said to them, “Know, my friends, that whether you like it or not, you must do it and obey my command. Whether you like it or not, you must perform a commemoration and remembrance of the time I was born and appeared in the world. At that birth, even though I looked like a very small child, I was so powerful that I destroyed and knocked down all the idols and vain gods. And the great temple they believed would be eternal and everlasting was destroyed at that moment, and everyone who was inside perished and died. Therefore, my friends, obey my command and become idols so that everyone will exalt and honor you like the gods of those times, because I want to play and enjoy myself with you, now that I have become changed into a very small child.” And the blessed saints, seeing that it was God’s will that they serve him in that way, obeyed his command at once. And they drew lots with rich jewels and golden boards, and they raised the banners for whomever God wanted to get the lucky draw, saying, “Happiness and joy and honor and glory to God our Lord and to his servant so-and-so.”94 And then they drew lots again and to whomever it was God’s will to give the lucky draw, they raised the banners for him amid cheers and said the abovementioned words. And in this way they exalted many thousands of the glorious saints, among whom, said the Lord, they exalted St. Peter and St. Paul and St. John the Evangelist and St. John the Baptist and St. Stephen and St. Francis and Moses 93. Latria is the worship due to God alone, while dulia is the reverence due to saints. Mary is due hyperdulia, the highest form of dulia. See also sermon 20, sec. 28–29, translated on 176–78. 94. Mother Juana’s use of the term “raise the banner” (alzar el pendón) recalls that, according to custom, the monarchs of Castile were installed by acclamation, not coronation.

88 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ and Elijah and the prophet David and St. Augustine. The Savior then spoke to the latter, saying, “Come here, my friend Augustine. Now I want to pay you back for what you told me when you were in the world when I asked you how much you loved me. And you answered, among other words, that you loved me so much that if you were God and I were Augustine, you would make me God, which I am, and you would make yourself Augustine, the sinner, which you were.95 And now I want to make you a god and myself a child and a man as you were. And now go all of you and be idols, and let them exalt you and honor you as if you were gods.” And the holy angels went on ahead of all those blessed souls, raising their banners to each of them, saying with the voice of melody and sweet music, “Happiness and joy and glory and honor to our Lord God Almighty and to his servant so-and-so, to whom the luck has fallen to be honored and exalted until God himself commands and ordains otherwise for him.” And thus all those thousands of saints went and each one was seated on a very high and ornate and opulent throne and wedding bed, and around him there were many thousands of angels, playing instruments and singing and making very sweet music. And others offered them many sacrifices and flowers and roses and garments and crowns and jewels, all of them made of gold and pearls and precious stones. And others executed dances both formal and informal and performed entertainments and rejoiced before the throne of each of the glorious saints. And when they were thus so exalted and made great and mighty and crowned, he ordered each of them to invite many virgins and holy martyrs to join them where they were in order to honor them and offer sacrifices to them and to celebrate the feasts. And some of those saints who were thus exalted and turned into idols sent for Our Lady to invite her to go there to honor them and celebrate the feast. And they did this because they knew that she was carrying in her arms the Savior who was changed into a very small child so that she would bring him with her to where they were, because without him they would have neither joy nor happiness nor solace. And Our Lady would go at once with great humility to the dwelling of the saint who invited her, carrying in her arms the Savior thus changed into a child, just like when he was born from her virginal womb. And the Lord said that as soon as Our Lady with him in her arms entered the abode of each of the saints who had become idols, accompanied by many angels and virgins and saints, all of them immediately stopped offering sacrifices and burning incense and pouring perfume and playing instruments and singing in honor of the saints who were being exalted as gods. And they prostrated themselves on the ground performing the worship of latria to Almighty God, who 95. This misattributed quotation was popular in Golden Age Spain.

Sermon 2: Nativity of Jesus 89 had been changed into an infant child. And they offered him all the sacrifices and oblations and they scattered flowers and roses and incense before his divine presence, and poured cups of perfume and offered very sumptuous garments and crowns, and executed both formal and informal dances and sang and played instruments before his divine presence, saying, “Oh Lord, our Almighty God! You alone are God, you alone are holy, you alone are good and just and worthy of being worshipped and honored and exalted and served. Everything that is served and loved outside of you can be said to be idolatry, because all love and honor and glory belong to you alone.96 And cursed be the people who shift their love and desires and attention away from you and place them in transient and mortal things (which can be called evil and deceitful idols because they lead souls to hell). And if people were to love and honor and serve us angels and saints more than you, oh true God, all their love and service would be in vain and fruitless, because not even we are able to protect or help them if you do not give us the grace and power to do it. And they rightly say, oh Lord Our God, that when you do not want us to have it, neither we angels nor the saints have any power.” 22. And when the Redeemer was thus transformed into a very small child in the arms of the Virgin Mary, suddenly he left her arms and climbed onto some tables that were very ornate and opulent and set with food. And as soon as the Savior got up onto the tables, all the food disappeared and he alone remained, walking on the tables, playing with all the saints who were there. And while he was going along like this, transformed into a very small child of about one year of age, suddenly he appeared as a seven-year-old child, because while he was playing with all the saints, he was growing up little by little in the arms of each of them, which brought all the blessed souls the greatest solace and accidental beatitude. And the Lord explained, saying that when all of them stopped doing homage and offering sacrifices to the saints who were exalted as idols and started doing these things for him when he came as a very small child in the arms of his glorious mother, it meant that people of any station or condition, if they truly love and acknowledge God wherever they see him, be it in the Eucharist or in images, will immediately recognize and see that he is the God of Gods and the Lord of Lords, to whom all honor and glory belong and to no one else. And when all the food that was on the tables disappeared after he climbed onto them, it meant that he alone is the true food for souls, for he can satisfy and nourish them with all the foods and flavors and delights people may try to seek. And while the Lord was thus transformed into a very little child carried in the arms of Our Lady, he heard that all over heaven they were holding great feasts. And he saw that on every street and every corner there was a temple complex full of buildings and towers and ramparts that were very high and great and more 96. Paraphrasing the doxology that precedes the Pater Noster.

90 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ dazzling than gold and precious stones. And in each of those temples one of the glorious saints was exalted and seated on a throne that was very high and ornate, and all around very great honors and sacrifices were being offered to him.97 And when the Lord summoned the holy angels who accompanied and served him, he said to them, “Tell me, my friends, what is making so much noise throughout my holy kingdom?” And the angels answered him, having taken off their crowns and prostrated themselves on the ground with very great humility, saying, “Oh Lord our God! You know the answer to your question much better than we can say, but we will answer Your Majesty that it is the feasts and honors for the saints that you, oh Lord, ordered to be exalted as gods.” And the Lord spoke to them again, “How can anyone in heaven and on earth be exalted and honored and served except me, for I am the true God and Lord of all? Because even if some of them are very great and worthy saints, in the end they are not deserving of honor or glory, but rather I, for I gave them the virtues and grace to become saints. And therefore, my mother, take me there, because I am a very small child now and I do not know how to walk, and we will see who is God and mighty and powerful and incomprehensible.” 23. And the Savior, carried in the arms of Our Lady, entered the temples of St. Stephen first and said to them, “Who are these who are acting as if they were gods here?” And those who were being exalted said, “Lord, you ordered us to do it, and it is for the sake of your honor and glory that we are being exalted, receiving sacrifices. However, everything we receive we offer to you and we want it for you, and we offer you our very persons as a sacrifice.” And the Lord said that in order to show and give to understand how great and mighty and powerful he was when he was thus transformed into a child and was born into the world very poor and scorned as when he was enclosed in the Father’s bosom, he said very sweetly to the blessed souls, while playing and enjoying himself with them, “You know very well, my friends, that even though I ordered you to be exalted like this, I benefitted only for as long as it was my will and until I ordered and demanded something else from you.” And saying these words, he raised his hand (which was very tiny since he was a child, yet large and powerful since he was God) and he pulled on one end of the golden cord of the hangings of the wedding bed on which the glorious saint was sitting. And as soon as he pulled, the wedding bed and the temple and the towers and the buildings all came tumbling down through his power and might. And they fell on the very saint who had been turned into a statue and on all those who were serving him and offering sacrifices to him. And they were all pinned down, 97. Late medieval Spanish altarpieces dedicated to a particular saint often depicted them enthroned.

Sermon 2: Nativity of Jesus 91 except that those who are already in heaven are no longer harmed by anything that falls on them any more than a falling house harms the sun, for they flee before the house touches them, inasmuch as they are already sanctified. And all the glorious saints who were in that temple went fleeing like those who fled on that night the Savior was born, the night the idols were knocked down and destroyed and all the people who were in the temples went fleeing with great fear and dread. And when glorious St. John the Evangelist saw the temple he was in begin to fall down, he ran and hid under the skirts of Our Lady.98 And from there he went to the Father of Light and asked for permission to sit again on that throne where he had first been turned into a statue, so that he could enjoy himself and play with the Redeemer and so that the Redeemer would knock him down again, inasmuch as the blessed souls take delight and pleasure when the Lord, playing with them, says or does something to them that leads to scorn and reproof. They value this and are grateful for it and desire it more than if he were to crown them and seat them on his royal throne. And this is because all true humility and favor and holiness are found in heaven. And the Father of Light granted it to him, saying, “It is right to grant and give to my precious evangelist anything and any request he makes, provided it is just and reasonable.” And glorious St. Stephen, seeing that the Lord had toppled him and the temple he was in, hurried over to the Redeemer and fell to his knees, worshipping him with the greatest humility and reverence, and said to him, “Oh mighty and merciful God! I beg your great clemency to grant me a request, which is that now, while you are transformed into a child, you let me be with you and serve you as your page, bringing your little toys to you, and that you strike me with them whenever I give them to you.”99 And the Redeemer granted it to him. And then blessed St. Stephen came and brought along a throng of very well dressed and elegant martyrs so they would serve the Savior and be with him in the manner of very handsome pages. And as soon as the Savior finished knocking down a temple or palace and all the buildings in it, he immediately issued a command and said, “Let it be built again, just as it was before.” And suddenly, they were constructed and rebuilt, more dazzling and beautiful than they were before. 25.100 And the Lord said that when he was going through his holy kingdom, visiting all its palaces and dwellings, suddenly he would appear as a little one98. The Spanish epic tradition borrowed from Muslim culture the custom of using a woman’s skirt (or her tent) as a place of sanctuary. See Alvaro Galmés de Fuentes, La épica románica y la tradición árabe (Madrid: Gredos, 2002), 395–401. St. John’s action also recalls the iconographic tradition of the Madonna of the Cloak who protects sinners under her mantle. 99. The violence in this passage is appropriate to the manner of St. Stephen’s martyrdom by stoning. 100. Note that García Andrés’s section numbering skips number 24.

92 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ year-old child and suddenly as a seven-year-old and as a twenty-year-old young man and as a man of the perfect age of thirty-three. And as he went around like this, visiting all the denizens of heaven, he descended to visit all its lesser inhabitants, who were at its lower levels. And when the glorious saints who were high above, exalted as gods, saw that the Lord had gone down to visit those below, twelve thousand of them descended, among whom was glorious St. Peter. And they went to where the Lord was and said to him, “Oh Lord Our God! We do not wish to be exalted or to have honors or glory, but rather to follow you, who are eternal life and whose words give life and who is joy and solace and true glory for every soul that loves and desires you. And wherever you are not, there is neither glory nor solace. Therefore, oh Lord our God, we want to be very united with you because every delight and sweetness is found in you.” And the Lord spoke to them very kindly and lovingly, saying, “Why have you come, my friends, looking for such a very small child? I have already exalted you and turned you into gods and myself into a very small child in order to reward you and to implement what Augustine said to me, which is that if he were God and I were Augustine, he would make me the God that I am and make himself Augustine, which is who he was. And if you had faith, then whenever you think of me and desire to have me near you, you would see me close to you and enjoy me without anyone seeing it or knowing it. And if I am with each one of you, all those who make sacrifices to you and honor you will think that they are making sacrifices to you, but they are really making them to me. But since you have come, my friends, sit down around me and rest and take pleasure in me because I am your true God and you are my very loyal servants, siblings, and children.” And the Lord explained, saying that when he knocked down from the high thrones on which they had been raised all the saints who were exalted and all those who were making offerings to them, it meant that all people who love and serve transitory and mortal things more than God, he will destroy them and all the things they love excessively, if not in this life then in the next, where good and evil last forever. 26. And likewise, said the Lord, with respect to the meaning of the three suns that appeared on the earth on the day of his holy Nativity, he saw fit to show everyone in his holy kingdom a very beautiful and wondrous allegorical spectacle, which occurred in this manner.101 Suddenly, a very large and bright and dazzling sun appeared. And sometimes the sun was divided and separated, so that it looked like three suns. And all three emerged and emanated from the same substance and the same sun, which meant that although at times the person of the Son is separated, as it happened 101. See notes 64–5 for bibliography.

Sermon 2: Nativity of Jesus 93 when he became flesh and was made man and when he was born and appeared in the world and lived thirty-three years in it, he is always one God and one Lord and one substance and one love. And wherever the person of the Father is, the person of the Son and that of the Holy Spirit are there. And wherever the person of the Son is, the person of the Father and that of the Holy Spirit are there. And wherever the Holy Spirit is, the Father and the Son are there because the one cannot be there without the other, nor can there be any separation or division among the three persons. And when the sun was thus divided so that it seemed to be three, there appeared in the second sun a very beautiful maiden with a child in her arms.102 And when the three suns became one, that precious child was enclosed in the depths and the brightness of that very same sun, and the maiden remained along with the sun and enclosed it all around. This means that when the Savior, who is the second person of the most holy Trinity, became flesh in the virginal womb of Our Lady the Virgin Mary and became man, that very same lady enclosed the entire most holy Trinity. And when the child was enclosed in the brightness of the sun, that maiden was very high and dazzling and nearby and alongside the sun in such a way that it covered her completely. This means that the most holy Trinity also surrounded Our Lady and covered and adorned her with grace and gifts and virtues and exalted her and joined her so close to itself that it made her its daughter and its mother and its bride. This means that when the Savior was born into the world, the entire most holy Trinity came to carry out the work of our redemption, inasmuch as those three suns appeared on earth on the day he was born. 27. And the Lord explained, saying that at that time when he was born into the world, there was a Gentile who was a very great philosopher103 and a learned person, who went around searching for and seeking to know what was the cause of causes. And on the holy night the Savior himself was born his Divine Majesty allowed the philosopher to see in the heavens Our Lady with the Child in her arms. And suddenly at that moment his spirit was enlightened, for that Child who appeared in the heavens in the arms of the Virgin was the cause of causes he had been seeking. And as soon as the philosopher saw the Savior and his precious mother in the heavens, he went hurriedly to a great nobleman who was the viceroy of that city and said to him, speaking by the Holy Spirit, “I am telling you in truth, viceroy, that one has just been born who is a greater lord and more powerful than you.” 102. The maiden appearing in the second sun may evoke the woman clothed in the sun from Revelation 12:1. 103. The magi were often referred to as philosophers.

94 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ And that viceroy of the Gentiles, since he was very powerful throughout the land, became so enraged at the philosopher that he ordered him to be killed immediately and hacked to pieces right there in front of him. And when the philosopher saw that they were about to kill him, he fell to his knees and commended himself to our Lord Jesus Christ, who had just been born at that time, and said, “Since I am to die and they will kill me shortly and without any reason or justification, I commend myself to the cause of causes, which I have been seeking for such a long time. And because I recognized and revealed it, they want to take my life.” And even though the Gentiles had not been given any kind of prophecies at that time, inasmuch as the philosopher commended himself to the cause of causes, who was the newborn true God, the angels went and took that soul and carried it very joyously to the Savior, who was lying in the manger. And they presented it to him, saying with the voice of melody, “Oh Lord, our very mighty and powerful God and newborn infant, accept this first offering we bring to you, which is why you came and descended from heaven to earth. And since in order to redeem and save souls, you became man even though you are God, and you became poor even though you are rich, and you became a servant even though you are the master,104 take this soul now and accept it as yours, since upon his death he commended himself to the cause of causes, which is you.” And the Savior accepted the soul as his and told the angels to take it to limbo where the holy fathers were, for when he would go and descend to redeem and rescue them after suffering the very cruel and bitter Passion, he would also take that soul out and bring it to be joyous with him forever. 28. And on the same day when he uttered and explained these things, while playing with his glorious mother, Our Lady, and with all the apostles and disciples and with many other saints in his holy kingdom, the Lord said that when he was turned into a seven-year-old child, suddenly all the patriarchs and prophets and many other blessed souls of those of the Old Testament came and began to demand the Savior. And they said to those of the New Testament, “Give us the Messiah because he is ours and we are asking for him. And he was promised and prefigured to us, and we wept for him and desired him, and we performed many very great acts of penance for him—we wandered naked in the fields and flagellated ourselves and stabbed ourselves with knives105 and fasted and pleaded night and day. Therefore, we should have and possess him and be united with him more than you.” And those of the New Testament answered, “We will certainly not give you the Messiah because he is ours. And we will prove it to you by and by, inasmuch

104. Proverbs 22:7. 105. Possibly a reference to circumcision.

Sermon 2: Nativity of Jesus 95 as we had him and he came in our times and he was our teacher and we were his disciples and apostles.” And others said, “We were martyred for him and we shed our blood, following his example.” And those he had healed and brought back to life, each one of them said that he had seen him and that he had received a boon from him. And that therefore they could not have the Savior, since he had been present among them and had eaten and drunk with them at the same table many times. And others said, “We were with him at the time of his Passion and saw him and spoke with him after his Resurrection, and we saw him ascend to this highest heaven where we are now.”106 And others said, “We preached and taught the very words and scriptures that he uttered with his sacred mouth.” And others said, “We are Christians and baptized with the water of holy baptism, which he gave us and shed from his sacred side. And we allowed ourselves to be killed rather than to deny his holy Catholic faith. Therefore, the Savior is ours. And he came to us and gave us all his treasures (from the sacraments to indulgences and medicine for our souls) and he even left himself to us as a symbol107 and very healthy nourishment in the holy sacrament of the altar. And with this he meant to show us the great love he had for us, in that he would never leave us. And if you had prefigurations, we had the truth and certainty. And thus we prove to you with all these proofs and many others, if you wish to understand them, that the Savior and Messiah is ours by virtue of justice and reason, and that we should be joined to him more closely than you should.” And the Lord said that when those of the Old Testament saw how those of the New Testament by means of so many proofs and arguments resisted handing him over, they began to create a stir, all in joy and playfulness and praise of God, saying, “If you do not want to give us the Savior willingly, we will seize him by force, for he is ours and we left him to you already earned and presaged and wept for, and he was born of our people. For these reasons, we should have and enjoy and possess him more than you.” And our Lord Jesus Christ, seeing that they were fighting out of love for him, spoke to those of the Old Testament, saying, “What reasons and proofs and signs do you adduce to say and prove that I belong to you more than to those of the New Testament? And since I am the true judge and I must judge and verify everything and all claims, I want you to show me some sign or prefiguration of what you are requesting, and then I will execute justice for you.” 106. In medieval cosmology, there were eleven nested heavens, of which ten rotated around the earth and the eleventh, the Empyrean, was fixed. Thomas Glick, Steven J. Livesey, and Faith Wallis, eds., Medieval Science, Technology, and Medicine: An Encyclopedia (New York: Routledge, 2005), 148. 107. Symbol: MS empresa has the connotation of a physical imprint.

96 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ And the blessed souls from the Old Testament answered, “Oh Lord our God, may your Divine Majesty give us permission to go to our dwellings and palaces. And come with us and we will show you how you are ours more than theirs.” And the Lord said to them, “Go now, my friends. Go back to your dwellings, for I will go later [to be] with you and I will send someone to see what you have done, because I am here now, enjoying myself and taking my pleasure with my mother holy Mary and with all these souls from the New Testament.” And while he was saying these words, suddenly he appeared in all the majesty and might he had on the day he ascended into heaven. And the patriarchs and prophets and all those from the Old Testament, upon hearing the Lord’s answer, rejoiced greatly and went off to their homes with great joy and began to prepare for when the Lord would come to visit them. And they took a great many pearls,108 which represented the tears they had shed waiting for the arrival of the Messiah, and a great many treasures, which represented the sacrifices and prayers and acts of penance they performed to merit the Savior. And they took on the appearance of farmers with golden hoes and goads in their hands. And they went to some very beautiful and large fields and began to dig and sow those pearls and mother of pearl and treasures in great haste, and they said, “Come now, let us plant here all the hardships we suffered and the tears we shed so the Messiah would come and be given to us. And after sowing, very green and fresh plants and very beautiful and fragrant flowers and very sweet and tasty fruits will grow, and many delightful gardens will be created here. And when the Lord comes here, he will see that it was we who presaged him and toiled and dug with the sweat of our brow.” And while they were digging and sowing with great fervor and diligence, suddenly the Savior himself appeared to them transformed into a child of around seven years of age. And he spoke to them with a very sweet and loving voice, saying, “Come here, farmers, you who are digging and planting. Do not labor or tire yourselves doing it all by hand. Rather, take this thread from my robe and place it on those trees and those large precious stones over there. And tell them in my name and by my power to turn into oxen and other animals that are yoked together so you can plow and plant those very large fields. And since I give animals to the people on earth to help them work and carry loads so that they do not have to carry them, it is all the more reason for me to give you some to help you, since you are already in my holy kingdom—even though you do not feel effort or fatigue from what you are doing, but rather very great pleasure and enjoyment.”

108. Literally, grains of mother of pearl (granos de aljófar), believed to have medicinal qualities, according to the first Castilian dictionary, published by Covarrubias in 1611. Sebastián de Covarrubias Orozco, Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española (1611), ed. Felipe C. E. Maldonado and Manuel Camarero, 2nd rev. ed. (Madrid: Editorial Castalia, 1995), fol. 34v.

Sermon 2: Nativity of Jesus 97 And as soon as the Lord gave them a thread from his robe and uttered these words, he disappeared from their sight and they could not see him. And they took the thread and placed it just like the Lord told and ordered them to do it, and it was done and accomplished. And then suddenly all those trees and precious stones were turned into many pairs of oxen and animals that are yoked together, and they were more beautiful and fragrant and dazzling than gold or perfumes. And all their harnesses were more beautiful and dazzling than pearls or precious stones. They plowed and planted with them those very beautiful fields (which is their land), which were more beautiful than gold and crystal. And after they finished plowing and planting, all those oxen and animals turned back into what they had been before, becoming trees and precious stones. And suddenly in those fields a great many trees and flowers and fruits and very green and fresh plants and very delicate and fragrant roses began to grow. And all those blessed souls from the Old Testament rejoiced and were very happy, saying, “Now that these gardens are very green and full of flowers, the Lord will come to take his pleasure and delight in them. And he will see that he should be with us more than with those of the New Testament.” And the Lord said that when he saw that all the gardens had flowered, he sent some angels to question those blessed patriarchs and prophets and to ask them how the field they had planted was coming along or if it was ready for him to go there. And they sent word that his Divine Majesty could come whenever he wished and desired since everything was ready. And the Lord, upon hearing the answer that the angels delivered, summoned all those of the New Testament and said to them, “Now go and take on the appearance of harvesters and carry sickles in your hands and harvest that entire field that those of the Old Testament planted and bring the sheaves to me.” And thereupon all the apostles and disciples and martyrs and confessors and many other blessed souls of the New Testament went and entered the beautiful gardens and in great haste began to harvest with golden sickles that were more dazzling than the sun and brighter than crystal. And while they were harvesting and gathering the sheaves, suddenly they saw the Savior as a very small child in each sheaf. And when those of the Old Testament saw the Savior in the sheaves of those of the New Testament, they defended their gardens and said, “Give us the Lord and Messiah since he was in our plants and in our flowers, which we planted. And now you come to take him without having toiled or plowed. Surely you will not take him because he is ours and he told us he would come here after we had everything prepared.” And those of the New Testament defended their sheaves and said, “We will certainly not give you the Savior since he is ours and he came into our hands. And

98 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ when we entered here, you did not have anything. And we brought him, for he came into our hands and our sheaves.” And those from the Old Testament insisted and began to struggle to take him away from them. And those of the New Testament fled with the Lord, each of them taking him away in his sheaf. And the others chased after them in order to take him away from them. And in this way one group chased after the other until they reached the Father of Light and found the Savior himself also there, seated at his right hand very mighty and triumphant. And they stated their request and the complaint they were pursuing. And Almighty God said to them, “You, my friends, must have patience now, for since I am a just and true judge, I cannot and must not do anything other than that which is just and true. And therefore those of the New Testament ought to be closer and nearer to me because although I was promised to you, I was given to them. And you may have sought me, but they received me. And if you wept for me and desired me, they served me and followed in my footsteps. And if I was prefigured to you, I was clearly manifested to them. Therefore, those who saw the lamb and held him in their hands ought to be closer to him. And now, my friends, go back to your dwellings because I will not abandon you, but rather I will come very soon to comfort and visit you. So make ready for me the roads and dwellings.” And when they heard this answer, those of the Old Testament turned their backs and went away, saying, “Oh Lord, we have become supplicants and not receivers, desirers and not attainers, sowers and not harvesters, and sad and not comforted.” And the Lord, hearing these and many other words they were saying, spoke to them in a very mighty voice and said, “What is this you are saying among yourselves, you men of little faith? Why do you not trust that I can satisfy and comfort you?” And as the Lord was saying these words, suddenly he appeared in the arms of each one of them, and they held him and possessed him and enjoyed him very fully and abundantly. And each of them separately and all of them together held him in their arms and took him to their dwellings and palaces, and they held many feasts and solemn rites for him. And there, among themselves, they commemorated the Incarnation and the Nativity and many other mysteries. And they sowed more flower and rose gardens, and then suddenly they began to grow and to flower. 29. Almighty God saw fit to enact such a great and wondrous allegorical spectacle in order to show everyone in his holy kingdom how great his love is for humankind, especially for Christian people, who nowadays exalt and favor him more than all other generations in heaven as well as on earth. And he gives all his riches and gifts both heavenly and earthly to these blessed people alone. Because

Sermon 2: Nativity of Jesus 99 only Christians have the powers and the treasures of the holy Mother Church and the treasures of God himself and his apostles St. Peter and St. Paul. And only Christians are children of God, heirs of the kingdom of heaven and recipients of rewards and siblings of Jesus Christ, who descended from heaven to earth and became a man like other men in order to redeem and save us. And the Redeemer himself said that even if every soul were to give in exchange for him many thousands of treasures—that is, prayers said with purity of heart and many victories over temptations, and many pearls, which are tears shed for his love—he would not be too costly at any price.

Figure 3. Christ among the Doctors, Maestro Bartolomé, 1480–88. Oil on panel, 60 3/4 x 43 1/2 in. University of Arizona Museum of Art; Gift of Samuel H. Kress Foundation.

Sermon 13: Losing Jesus in Jerusalem Introduction A rare sermon with no heavenly pageant, this is a renarration of Luke 2:41–51, Jesus teaching the rabbis at age thirteen in Jerusalem while Mary and Joseph search frantically for him. It is another installment in the “Proleptic Passion of Two,” in which Mary grieves the loss of her son as intensely and in the same wording that she will grieve his actual suffering and death.109 Juana draws on details from Ludolph’s Vita Christi (chap. 15) for the first part of the sermon, then provides in the second part a unique elaboration of Mary seeking Jesus in the temple while he taught about the Messiah. Sections 2–10: Jesus explains that the episode of losing her son for three days was intended to counteract Mary’s growing confidence about his safety (after returning from the flight to Egypt) by foreshadowing her future grief over the Passion. It also served to earn merit for those members of Jesus’s family who were not alive to weep over his death, such as Joseph or Anne.110 God the Father is profoundly angered by humanity’s indifference toward having a God in their midst, and decides to demonstrate how to seek him. Mary is presented as the ideal model of human devotion, and the Father explains to the angels how she will search for her son. In addition, Jesus describes how he comes into each soul in the form they desire: as infant, husband, brother, etc.111 Sections 11–12: While the Gospel of Luke indicates that both Joseph and Mary hoped to attend Passover in Jerusalem each year, Juana draws on Ludolph in her characterization of the different level of obligation on the husband and the wife. Joseph was required to go, Mary was not (indicating Juana’s awareness that Jewish 109. Every event of Jesus’s life foreshadows his suffering in Holy Week. See the introduction to this volume for discussion, 23. 110. Their multiple visits to Jerusalem also provide a justification for popular pilgrimage routes. 111. Juana briefly evokes the mystical trope of the “birth of the Son in the soul” most famously articulated by Meister Eckhart (originally a patristic trope) but more likely known in Castile through the extensive quotations from Jan van Ruusbroec’s Spiritual Espousals in Heinrich Herp’s Directorium aurem, translated into Spanish in 1516 as Sol de contemplativos. If her paraphrasing is intentional, it implies that this sermon dates to the second half of her preaching career. See James A. Wiseman, “The Birth of the Son in the Soul in the Mystical Theology of Jan van Ruusbroec,” Studia Mystica 14, no. 2–3 (1991): 30–44; and Jean Orcibal, “Les traductions du Spieghel de Henri Herp en italien, portugais et espagnol,” in Dr. L. Reypens-Album (Antwerp: Ruusbroec-Genootschap, 1964), 257–68. For the Marian implications of this theme, see Rosemary Hale, “Imitatio Mariae: Motherhood Motifs in Devotional Memoirs,” Mystics Quarterly 16, no. 4 (1990): 193–203.

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102 Introduction to Sermon 3 women are exempted from positive, time-bound commandments).112 Mary’s trip to Jerusalem therefore depends on receiving her husband’s permission, a detail that Jesus extends into a discussion of proper obedience by wife to husband and by members of religious orders to their prelates, thus turning Mary’s adherence to Jewish law into an ideal of female submission and monastic obedience.113 Sections 13–18: In a unique detail, Jesus does not travel with Mary and Joseph on their original trip to be left behind when they return, but rather makes the trip to Jerusalem on his own. Because Mary and Joseph travel separately in both directions114 and each assumes the other has Jesus in his or her care even while at temple, they do not discover the loss until after returning home. Mary is too frantic to pause to eat before searching for Jesus, even though Joseph is frail and hungry. She first goes to her mother, Anne, then inquires among the local children, all the while lamenting his loss in wording drawn from her iconic lament at the foot of the cross. Sections 19–24: Mary returns to Jerusalem and tries to enter the temple to see if Jesus is there. The Jews initially refuse to open the doors to her as she is a woman and is not permitted to enter the temple to study, but ultimately allow her in to pray. There she hears a high clear voice she recognizes as her son’s, but she is thrown out of the temple rather than being allowed to seek him.115 Jesus teaches the doctors, emending their texts and explaining the commentaries, until he realizes Mary is seeking him. He then puts his audience into a sleep in order to steal away through locked doors, foreshadowing his emergence from the sealed tomb after his resurrection. When he reaches Mary, he asserts his mission as a teacher in the face of her grief over his absence. When the Jews wake up from their sudden sleep, they marvel over his words, a sequence that allows Jesus to provide a thorough description of his teachings. According to their memories, he not only corrected the glosses but claimed close comradeship with the prophets and explained the signs of the coming Messiah, all the while avoiding questions about his own background. He thus taught them without revealing himself.

112. For an overview of the tradition, see Elizabeth Shanks Alexander, “From Whence the Phrase ‘Timebound Positive Commandments’?” Jewish Quarterly Review 97, no. 3 (2007): 317–46. 113. For discussion of the fifteenth-century Castilian debate over the role of women—both misogynist and not—and its impact on religious orders, see Molina Domínguez, Conventos de monjas franciscanas. 114. Ludolph of Saxony, La Vida de Cristo, trans. Emilio del Río, 2 vols. (Madrid: Comillas, 2010), I, 15.5, 145. Citations are to part number, chapter and paragraph numbers, and page numbers. 115. The abusive response foreshadows the Jewish violence against Mary that is a unique addition found in Juana’s Good Friday sermon Conorte I, 19.15, 670-71, translated 137.

Introduction to Sermon 3 103 Sections 25–28: As a result of her experience of losing Jesus in Jerusalem, Mary follows him throughout the rest of his life, particularly during his ministry. This leads to an extension of the Gospel passage in which Jesus recasts kinship as those who follow him rather than family, but Mary’s actions include her in his new definition.116 A scene is interpolated in which Saint Marcella begins to follow Jesus in his ministry; rather than a hagiographical excursus, Marcella’s role in the text seems to be to praise Mary for modeling how to adore Jesus.117 The sermon ends with Jesus justifying the noncanonical additions to the narrative, asserting that he is revealing the additional information to aid in the salvation of souls.

116. Mark 3:31–5; Matthew 12:46–50. 117. Marcella was a Roman widow who founded an early monastic community with other women in the mid-fourth century. She is recorded in history as a mentor to Jerome, whose letters to her survive. For a recent reconstruction of her history, see Andres Cain, The Letters of Jerome: Asceticism, Biblical Exegesis, and the Construction of Christian Authority in Late Antiquity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 68–98.

Losing Jesus in Jerusalem Which is about how our Lord Jesus Christ saw fit to discuss and explain some of the secrets and mysteries concerning his becoming lost and hidden from the eyes of his precious Mother, the Virgin Mary 2.118 Once, when the Lord was speaking about the scriptures that tell how he was lost in Jerusalem and hidden in the temple for three days as a boy of twelve, he said that the Father of Light had decided to send him to become flesh and to be born in the world and to be raised and treated with great compassion by Our Lady the Virgin Mary, his mother. It is written here on earth that his holy birth gave her inexpressible bliss, along with great sorrow—the heavenly Father having sent her angels from heaven to show her all the torments and instruments of the Passion with which her son would be tortured and killed.119 Similarly, when Our Lady felt joy at the death of Herod (who had persecuted her beloved son) and they were already back home in Nazareth, the heavenly Father, who wanted her to feel great pain after each joy,120 said and thought in his understanding and wisdom, “My beloved daughter, holy Mary, is very joyous now with my sacred Son, her own, because she is at home among her relatives and acquaintances, free and safe from the persecution Herod ordered against her beloved Son, my own. However, after this happiness and security, I will give her a great sorrow and fright, which will prefigure and represent another much greater sorrow and torment and grief which she will have to suffer and experience in the future.” 3. And the Father of Mercy said this, our Redeemer Jesus Christ explained, because his getting lost or concealment in the temple in Jerusalem prefigured the very cruel and bitter Passion that he received in that very city. And the anguish and anxiety that Our Lady and St. Joseph and glorious St. Anne and his relatives felt as they went looking for him, weeping and sighing, represented the widowhood and grief, anguish and sorrow, that Our Lady suffered from the time of the Passion until the day of the holy Resurrection and prefigured the extreme orphanhood and sense of loss and sorrow that the holy apostles and the holy women felt in those days when he was tortured and killed and buried. His Majesty said that just as he spent three days hidden and secluded in the temple, away from the eyes of his glorious mother and relatives, so would he be shut away in the tomb for

118. Note that García Andrés begins his numbering of the divisions of this sermon with section 2. 119. See sermon 2, sec 8, translated in this volume on 74–76. 120. This passage evokes the lists of Marian joys and sorrows popular in medieval devotion and influential on the rosary tradition, in which Mary’s responses to the events of Jesus’ life were the subject of sets of five or seven meditations per emotion.

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Sermon 13: Losing Jesus in Jerusalem 105 three days and away from the eyes of the Virgin Mary, his mother, and his holy apostles and disciples. 4. And the heavenly Father, said Jesus Christ our Redeemer, allowed him to hide and absent himself from the eyes of Our Lady and St. Joseph during those three days so that all those who were looking for him, together with Our Lady, would prove themselves worthy by the compassion they felt for her and for him, and by the tears they shed, and by their searching for him with such charity and love, wondering in their hearts and asking themselves how he was or what he could be doing, whether he was in some foreign place where he could not find his mother or any relatives or people who knew him and in whom he could place his hope that they would be charitable and kind to him. And they imagined he was wandering lost and close to tears and sobbing for his glorious mother, looking for her even as she was looking for him, like a lamb who has become separated from its mother who doesn’t realize it has gone astray nor does she know where she left it. And thinking and considering how alone he must have felt, they feared (since Herod had sent people to look for him in order to kill him when he was a child of tender age) that maybe those same people had finally taken action and carried this out, since he was nowhere to be found. And the Lord explained, saying that inasmuch as some of those blessed souls who had looked for him with great compassion and many tears when he was a child and was lost, had passed away and were no longer alive at the time of his most cruel and bitter Passion (such as St. Joseph and St. Anne and a few others who are not specified here), His Majesty wanted them to deserve and earn many merits in the mystery of his being lost, which represented the mystery that would follow, which was the Passion he was to suffer, and to rejoice in their finding him, which represented his holy and glorious Resurrection. 5. Similarly, he wants and it is his will that all we faithful Christians who are living in the world now in these times after his holy Passion and Resurrection prove ourselves worthy by going on pilgrimages and marching in processions and carrying out works of mercy, visiting prisoners and the poor and the sick, and performing such good works with the aim of helping them. 6. And the Lord said that his getting lost was not only a prefiguration of the days he was buried or separated from his glorious mother, but it also prefigured and taught all humanity the lesson that it has lost God even today; we have him among us, and we do not know how to look for him in the way that his sweet and pious mother looked for him in those days. And when the heavenly Father saw that his only begotten Son was in the world, surrounded by humankind, and that no one recognized him or knew how

106 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ to look for him, he was angry and pitied all of humankind, seeing how slow and resistant humankind is to recognize God and to know how to look for him. And in his exalted understanding and wisdom, he thought and spoke to the angels, saying, “Oh my friends! I am so very angry and sad for humanity, seeing that it has God in its midst and yet does not know how to look for him. Because, with my only begotten Son being in the world and having him among them, they also have me, who is the Father, and the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from both. In this way humanity has the entire Trinity for company and fellowship. And because they are blind and evil, they do not know how to look for him in the same way his blessed mother, holy Mary, who gave him birth, would look for him. Because I tell you truthfully, my friends, the same way that she would look for him were she to lose him is the right way for humankind to look for him, as should anyone who loses Jesus because of his or her sins.” 7. “Because it is indeed true that holy Mary conceived and gave birth to my only begotten Son, as a man. However, inasmuch as she is a woman (albeit the most pure and holy and perfect and flawless there ever was or ever will be), she is of human lineage. Therefore, reason and duty say that everyone must love and serve him and each person must perform or wish to perform for him the same acts of charity as did his own mother. Because my beloved son, as a man, is also the son and the father and the relative of every person who keeps his commandments, as well as of she who gave birth to him, everyone in the world is part of humankind and as such is part of him.” 8. “Besides, God’s nature is such that he offers himself as a son to anyone who wants to receive him in his soul, and he will be born in each of the hearts that receives him. And if they want and desire to receive him as a somewhat older child in order to nurse him and feed him at the breast and treat him with compassion, he gives himself in that same manner and form so that the soul may nurse him and feed and rejoice in him. And if the soul wants and desires him as husband and friend and companion or brother, he likewise gives himself to them in that same way so they may enjoy him and taste his sweetness. And if they desire him as father and protector and guardian, he will likewise give himself to them and defend any soul that places itself under his defense and protection.” 9. And, said the Lord, the holy angels, hearing the words of the mighty Father, fell to the ground in worship, thanking him and trembling, and they said with supreme reverence, “Lord, our God and mighty Father, how do you wish and how would it please you that they seek your only begotten Son? And how does Your Majesty want those who have lost or are losing him or will lose him because of their sins to seek him and desire him and weep for him and find him?”

Sermon 13: Losing Jesus in Jerusalem 107 And the Father of Light spoke to the holy angels again, saying, “Do you want me to show you, my friends and my children, how and in what way I desire and it would be right and fitting for humanity to look for God on earth? Wait now, because I will cause and allow that blessed virgin, holy Mary, to lose my sweet Son and hers and to have him hidden from her sight, so you may see and know how she will look for him. And [you will see] the anxiety and anguish and tears and sighs and sobs and remorse, and the recognition and fear of her faults (if by chance there were something in her that could displease God, which cannot be because she is completely pure and perfect) with which she will go and walk the streets and the roads, asking everyone she sees whether they have seen her beloved and sweet son.” 10. And then, said the Lord, the heavenly Father spoke again to Our Lady, even though she could not hear him, and he said to her, “My dove and my friend and my beloved, you are very happy and comforted now in your home and among your relatives and friends and acquaintances, believing that you are very safe and free from the persecution and the death of your beloved Son. But to show you that neither to you (whom I love most, after my only begotten Son), nor to anyone else I love on earth do I give any joy without giving them some great sorrow with it—so they will deserve and earn with it the kingdom of heaven—I want to give you now, my chosen one, a very painful fright, which will prefigure and represent another much greater and more immense sorrow and torment that you will feel and experience in the future with that very son you love so much.” 11. Our Lord and Redeemer Jesus Christ said that inasmuch as the heavenly Father had ordered and allowed him to become lost and hidden and since he is the wisdom of the Father and knew it was the will of the Father that he be hidden in the temple in Jerusalem for those three days and at that age of twelve years. And it was the custom in those days for all men to have the duty and the obligation to go on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the great festival [of Passover]—a pilgrimage and festival that women were not obliged to attend, but if some of them wanted to go on such a pilgrimage out of devotion and of their own free will, it was considered to be good and virtuous. For this reason, when Our Lady the Virgin Mary saw that St. Joseph wanted to go to the solemn feast in Jerusalem, since she was so very devout and contemplative in divine things, she begged him with very great humility and very kind and sweet words, “My lord Joseph, if you wish and order it and are not angered or upset, I should like to go with you on the pilgrimage to the solemn festival in Jerusalem in order to earn the indulgences ordained in the holy temple of God.”121 121. Juana sets the trip to Jerusalem in a late medieval context of pilgrimages and indulgences, a tendency current in both medieval art and devotional practices to imagine the events of the New

108 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ St. Joseph answered her with great good will, saying, “It will please me, Mary, because such a pilgrimage is praiseworthy in a woman.” The Lord explained, saying that when his glorious mother, Our Lady, asked St. Joseph for permission to go on the pilgrimage to the temple of God, had the holy man answered that he did not want her to go there but rather that she should remain secluded and cloistered at home, she would have kept silent, very humbly, and obeyed his wish, not going against his will. This is meant to be an example to women of all conditions: they must humbly and with all regard for goodness obey, of their own will, and be subject to the men in charge of them or under whose authority they are. Married women must obey their husbands, not only in reasonable and fair things but even in things that seem to be somewhat vexatious, outside God’s service (as it happens sometimes when they order their women not to go to Mass or hear sermons or go on pilgrimages, because of their jealousy and evil suspiciousness. And too many times it is unfair and unreasonable and untrue.) And women must obey even such orders, said the Lord, because such men will pay for it when they go before his divine presence. And the women who kept quiet and suffered and obeyed with humility and patience and the desire to serve God will earn many merits in his sight, and it will all count as if they had heard the Mass or the sermon or visited the stations on the pilgrimage route as they wished. 12. And likewise male and female religious must obey their prelates, but they must not only obey willingly everything that is asked of them that is fair and reasonable, but also if a prelate orders a subordinate to stop praying or meditating and go do something he commands, the subordinate must stop praying and go, obeying freely and happily. And then he will double his reward, because God prefers obedience to sacrifice. 13. The Lord said that when he was a child of twelve and saw that St. Joseph and his glorious mother Our Lady wanted to go together to Jerusalem, to the temple, in order to carry out the will of the Father and to explain and clarify some things that were written and prophesied about him (things that the doctors and learned men who discussed and read them could not comprehend or understand or explain, even though some of these things had come to pass), he went on ahead before Our Lady or St. Joseph left the house. And he went to Jerusalem secretly, without anyone knowing it. And he entered the temple, even though its doors were closed. This signifies how he himself entered and came out of the virginal womb of Our Lady the Virgin Mary, her holy virginity and purity and chastity Testament in medieval settings (dress, architecture, prayers, etc). Note that the Latin Vita Christi tradition presented the trip within a Jewish context; for example, Ludolph, Vida de Cristo I, 15.1, 143–44, mentions the sacrifices that would be made at the Temple, then details five Jewish holidays in 15.2, 144.

Sermon 13: Losing Jesus in Jerusalem 109 remaining quite closed and sealed and protected.122 And as soon as he entered the temple, he climbed up to the galleries where the learned men and doctors and students went to argue and read and study. And since Our Lady with a few other women went to Jerusalem by one path, and St. Joseph with the men went by another path and left the house before Our Lady, she thought that the holy Child Jesus had gone ahead and left with St. Joseph. And the holy old man, similarly, thought that the precious child—he himself said—had stayed at home to go with his glorious mother. And in this way each one thinking that he was with the other, they were both negligent, which His Majesty allowed because he had ordained it to be so. And when Our Lady the Virgin Mary went into the temple and did not see her sweet and beloved child, her heart had no respite or calm without him. And on the other hand, she thought in her heart and said, “My beloved child must be with Joseph. May he be well. Since he is male, let him stay there with the men.” And the blessed old man, similarly, when he did not see him around the temple as was customary for the children, his heart could not be completely happy without him, since he knew and recognized him to be God. But he thought to himself and said, “He must be with his mother and she must have him under her mantle where he is safe. He will be better off with her than with me because she will feel sorry for him and she will show him compassion, as she always does.” The Lord said that his glorious mother and St. Joseph struggled with these thoughts from before they left home until they returned to Nazareth, which took one and a half or almost two days. And then they spent another three days searching for him until they found him.123 The holy scriptures mention only three days because on the other two days Our Lady’s heart and the hearts of her relatives and friends were confident and calm, believing that he was in a safe place. This is why the Holy Spirit ordered that the holy scriptures mention only those three days of the bitter torment and sword of sorrow124 that his holy mother and blessed Joseph and their relatives felt and suffered when he was lost. And His Majesty said that when his holy mother and Joseph met up at home, they asked each other where the child was. And since they had not brought him with them, they both felt the greatest pain and torment in their souls. And since it was already late and in their poverty they had not taken any provisions with them nor had they had lunch or breakfast, they were weak and faint. The blessed old man, especially, was weak and about to faint, for one thing, because of the journey, and for another, for not having eaten anything. 122. Jesus’s miraculous arrival at the temple is cited as a parallel to Mary’s perpetual virginity. 123. Luke 2:46. 124. “Sword of sorrow” (cuchillo de dolor) refers to Simeon’s prophecy, see note 58. Likewise, Ludolph equates the pain Mary felt during this episode to Simeon’s prophecy and to the pain she suffered during the Passion (Vida de Cristo I, 15.5, 145).

110 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ This is why, said the Lord, when they realized the child was missing, St. Joseph said to Our Lady the Virgin Mary, “Since the child did not go to the temple with you or with me, maybe he stayed here in Nazareth with our relatives or in the house of his grandmother, who loves him very much. So let’s have a bite to eat and then we will go looking for him.” And the holy old man said this so as not to faint and so as to have the strength to go search for the child for as long as was necessary to find him. But his holy mother, Our Lady, since she had given birth to him and always feared for him from the time he was born, answered the holy old man with very great anguish and stabbing pain in her heart, shedding many tears and saying, “My lord Joseph, if you want to eat, you’re welcome to eat. I would not be able to eat or swallow a bite, having lost the one who loves my soul,125 my son and my God and my Lord. While you eat, I will go by myself and look for him among our relatives.” Our Lord and Redeemer Jesus Christ said that the old man, hearing the words Our Lady was saying, answered with many tears and got up, shaking all over, and said, “You are right, Mary. Wretched is the food we will eat and very bitter, having lost and not having before our eyes such a son and such a Lord. I do not want to eat either. Instead, let’s go both of us to look for him together. And let us not eat or drink or cease walking night and day, looking for him until we find him.” And then they left their house without having had breakfast, crying and sobbing and sighing with great sorrow. 14. And they went to their relatives to see if he was in one of their homes. Our Lady in particular, said the Savior, immediately went to the house of her blessed mother, St. Anne, and said to her with great anguish, “Oh my lady and mother! By chance, is my sweet son here, the one who loves my soul and yours? Could he have stayed in your house when Joseph and I went to Jerusalem, to the temple? I thought he was going with Joseph, and Joseph thought he was going with me. It has been two days since we lost him and have not heard anything about him. My soul wails and a sword of pain has stabbed me in the heart.” And when St. Anne heard Our Lady say that he had not yet appeared, she reacted with great shock and anguish, saying, “Oh my daughter! Have you lost your sweet son and my most cherished grandson? Let me be lost and let my body be lost and let everything I own be lost before he is lost! Is this how you take care 125. “The one who loves my soul” translates al que ama la mi ánima and recurs throughout the rest of the sermon. A difficult phrase to translate, it is perhaps a playful inversion of the repeated phrase from Song of Songs 3:1–4, “one whom my soul loves” (al amado de mi alma). It is notable that Ludolph cites Song 3:2, including this phrase, in his discussion of Mary and Joseph’s return to Jerusalem (Vida de Cristo I, 15.6, 146). See also sermon 20, sec. 7, translated in this volume on 157–58.

Sermon 13: Losing Jesus in Jerusalem 111 of him, my daughter? Let us all go looking for him, and let us not stop night or day until we find him.” The Lord said that glorious St. Anne spoke again and said, “Oh my son and grandson, my Lord and my most beloved and cherished God! Where could you be now? What are you doing and how will you manage, orphaned and out in the cold? You will not find anyone to comfort you or protect you or take pity on you or give you something to eat!” And Our Lady the Virgin Mary, hearing the laments that blessed St. Anne was uttering and feeling anguish in her heart, cried very sorrowfully, saying, “Oh my mother! This is my fault; I am an unhappy and unfortunate mother, cruel and very pitiless, negligent with such a son and such a Lord, so sweet and so worthy of being served and loved and treated with compassion. I am the sorrowful mother who did not deserve and was not worthy to have the son of God or to serve him. I, the one through whose fault and carelessness could not hold on to him or watch over him. Woe to the sorrowful mother who has lost the son of God! Oh my sweet son! Where are you now? Who will have compassion for you and serve and comfort you in your tenderness and gentleness and need? How will you manage, orphaned and lost, without your sorrowful mother? Are you, by chance, among people and persons who will be more cruel and angry with you than comforting and pleasant? Woe to your sad mother who took such poor care of you and now cannot see or comfort you!” The Lord said that while his holy mother was uttering these and many other laments, shedding copious tears, she spoke again to her holy mother St. Anne, saying to her, “Let us go, my mother, all our relatives together. And some will go one way and others will go another way. Let us not cease looking night and day for my longed for son and our God.” 15. And she and St. Joseph and blessed St. Anne and Our Lady’s sisters126 along with other relatives looked for him everywhere in Nazareth. And seeing that they did not find him, Our Lady took the road to Jerusalem and St. Joseph went with her. And, said the Lord, she kept falling to her knees on the ground covered with rocks and stones, so much that blood ran from her delicate knees and they were completely skinned and swollen. And at each place where she prayed and asked the Father for comfort, His Majesty said, the ground became so wet with her tears that the sun could not dry them in a whole day or even longer, and not even the hottest sun on a summer day could have dried them. And every time 126. According to the medieval tradition since Haimo of Halberstadt (d. 853) and transmitted in Voragine, Golden Legend 2, no. 131, p. 150, Anna had three husbands and gave birth to three daughters, all named Mary (known as the Trinubium), i.e., the Virgin Mary, Mary Salomé, and Mary Jacoby. Ludolph mentions that Mary’s sisters visited her after their return from Egypt (Vida de Cristo I, 14.6, 141), the scene just before the loss of Jesus in Jerusalem.

112 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ she got down on her knees to ask the Father for help, besides her many tears and implorations, she said with great anguish, “Oh my mighty Father! Forgive me my negligence and the faults I have committed up to now, and give him to me and show me, just this one time, my beloved son. I will change my ways from now on and I will watch my son with the greatest care and I will never again lose sight of him. And should I ever lose him again, kill me and make me answer for it very grievously and do not forgive me for it ever again.” The Lord said that Our Lady then spoke with the holy angels and said, “Oh angels of God! Show me now where my beloved son is and help me and aid me in my very great need and anguish. Because of my fault and carelessness and negligence, I have lost God’s and my son, and I do not deserve to find him or to know where he is. But this time I beg you to help and comfort me, because if I am ever again as negligent and careless, I myself will pass sentence against me.” 16. And when she reached Jerusalem, she went through all the streets, crying and sighing and sobbing, fainting and losing consciousness, feeling anxiety worse than death, and asking everyone she came across in a broken and sorrowful voice, “Oh my lords and ladies! Have you by chance seen the one who loves my soul, my son and my refuge, for whom my heart is weeping and fainting?” And when the adults could not give her news of him, she asked the very little children she saw along the streets, saying, “Tell me, my friends, if you have seen my son and my Lord.” And the children, in their innocence, seeing her in such anguish, answered her, asking, “Lady, that son you are asking about, what does he look like?” And Our Lady, said the Lord, answered with great sorrow, “My friends, my sweet son is the loveliest and most beautiful ever seen. He is my heart and my joy.”127 And the children, hearing the description that the Virgin gave them, answered, “Lady, we have not seen such a child nor do we know anything about him.” 17. And seeing that there was no trace of him anywhere, she turned to the heavenly Father, wailing and begging him to restore him to her, even though she lost him because of her own faults and shortcomings. And seeing that the heavenly Father did not comfort her at that time, said the Lord, she thought in her heart, constantly shedding many tears, and said, “What if Herod’s men have taken my beloved son and killed him, according to the search orders they had to kill him? (The angel appeared and said we should go back home because Herod was dead. The words of the angel are to be believed, since he would not deceive us.) 127. See sermon 1, note 39, for discussion of the Letter of Lentulus that patterned later descriptions of the adult Jesus as beautiful.

Sermon 13: Losing Jesus in Jerusalem 113 What will I do, a sad mother? Where will I go looking for my longed for son? May my soul languish now and may my days end if I do not find the one who loves my soul, for whom I am dying and perishing. Oh unhappy me! Where will I go, what will I do, who will relieve me of such great anguish? Oh! Will I ever see the one my soul desires? Where will I go to find comfort? Whom will I ask for news of him?” 18. And while Our Lady was wandering with such great anguish and agony, the Lord said that the heavenly Father was watching her from the most exalted realm of heaven. And he spoke to the angels, saying to them, “Look at holy Mary, my friends, how she walks about weeping, looking for the son she has lost. She cannot have any rest or joy without him. And this is the same way, my friends, in which I want and desire all humankind to look for God. This is their great duty, just as it is the duty of his mother who gave birth to him; because my only begotten son has no less spiritual kinship with every person living on earth than he does with his mother, who gave birth to him.”128 And the heavenly Father rejoiced and was glad about this, not because of the suffering and sorrow of Our Lady, but because of the fervor and love and desire with which she looked for him and desired him and loved him. And similarly, said our Savior Jesus Christ, the heavenly Father’s joy at seeing Our Lady so anguished prefigured the joy and happiness God feels when he sees his servants suffer sorrows and anguish and grief (not because of the suffering they endure, but because of the merit that such suffering earns and attains for them in heaven). [It also prefigures] the joy and happiness he [himself] feels when he sees any person who has lost God because of his sins and negligence and looks for him, recognizing his unworthiness and faults, bewailing his wretchedness and sins, and pleading for grace and divine help to find God. 19. And the Lord explained, saying that after his glorious mother, Our Lady, had walked through all the streets of Jerusalem and never found anyone who knew anything about him, she went to the temple, thinking that perhaps she would find him there. And when she reached the temple, she found that the doors were closed. And she turned back very sorrowfully and weeping, and went to the people who had the keys to the temple who had gone home. And she begged them very humbly and sorrowfully to please give her the keys to the temple because she wanted to enter to pray to God and to see and search if by chance a son of hers had remained inside, a son she loved more than herself, because it had been several days that she had not been able to find him. And the people who had the keys to the temple, since they did not recognize her nor did they trust her enough to give them to her, answered her with 128. The possibility of Jesus’s spiritual kinship with all people may be drawn from the medieval tendency to designate Jesus as brother, spouse, and son, both to Mary and to devotees.

114 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ great arrogance and haughtiness, saying, “Of course we will not give you the keys to the temple nor will we lend them to you, but we say this to you: your son did not remain there. Because if we were to find some boy in there, we would give him a good thrashing and throw him out.” The Lord said that his precious mother, seeing how harshly those who held the keys to the Temple were answering her, fell on her knees, weeping and sobbing, and begged them very humbly, saying, “I beg you by the living God, my lords, that if you do not wish to give me the keys to the temple, come with me and open it so I may go inside and pray to God. Because you know that it is written in our law that we must have a designated place for praying and making sacrifices to God so that sacrifices and prayers will be more acceptable to God.”129 And they, seeing her extreme distress and tears, went with her and opened the temple for her so she could pray. And Our Lady, said the Lord, when she found herself inside the temple of God, fell to her knees and prostrated herself on the floor and began to wail very loudly, shedding many tears, which she never wiped away from her merciful eyes. Because her spirit was losing courage and her soul could not bear it any longer, she implored the mighty Father to see fit to comfort her (even though [she believed that] because of her sins, she was not worthy of finding her son). 20. And while she was wailing and in such agony, nearly fainting many times and losing consciousness, looking in every corner of the temple to see if she could see or find the one who loved her soul, God allowed her to hear in the upper galleries the sound of voices as of people who had come together to argue and test the truth of things. Among these deep voices she heard the very lovely and gentle and sweet and graceful voice of a child, who sounded like he was talking and debating and explaining certain things that the learned men were asking him. And his voice among the other voices, said the Redeemer, sounded like the voices of children who help celebrate Mass and recite the Kyries with very high-pitched and charming voices, which resound and sound forth clearly among the voices of the adults, who sing and officiate with deep voices.130 And when Our Lady heard him, said His Majesty, her spirit recognized him, and it seemed to her that it was he by the way he spoke, which is why she was completely unable to leave or go out of the temple, thinking in her heart and saying, “Ah! That sweet voice, how very much it seems to be my beloved son’s! If only I could go up there and see if it is he!”

129. Mary’s argument underscores her knowledge of Jewish law, thus giving her a strong voice. 130. For discussion of the mozos de coro (choirboys) in Spanish liturgy, see Juan Ruiz Jiménez, “From Mozos de Coro to Seises: Boys in the Musical Life of Seville Cathedral in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Century,” in Young Choristers, 650–1700, ed. Susan Boynton and Eric Rice (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell and Brewer, 2008), 86–103.

Sermon 13: Losing Jesus in Jerusalem 115 And although she was eager and desirous to go up there, she did not dare tell the people who were there, afraid that they would not allow it. And as she listened and heard again the voices of the adult men and the Redeemer’s gentle and beautiful voice among theirs, she was very happy and said, “May Almighty God help me! I am sure that there in those galleries I can hear men’s voices, and among them the high voice of a child, which seems to me to be my sweet son’s. This is why I humbly wish to beg these men to allow me to go up there to look for him. Perhaps they will take pity on me and allow me.” And then she stood up and went to those men, her face stained with tears, and she spoke to them very sorrowfully, saying, “I beg you by the living God, my lords, to allow me to climb to those upper chambers where those learned men are debating and talking. Because it seems to me that I can hear among them a delicate voice like a child’s. Perhaps, as luck would have it, it is my longed for son’s, who is there among them. And it has been almost five days since I have seen him and I am dying for him.” The Lord explained, saying that when the men who were guarding the temple heard his holy mother Our Lady say that she wanted to climb up to the galleries, they answered her very harshly and cruelly, saying, “Women are not allowed to go up to the galleries where the learned men have withdrawn and secluded themselves, constantly studying and doing all the things that concern the service of God, and always occupied in such things. Go! Leave the temple! You cannot stay here any longer. We want to lock up and go home. We have waited here long enough, so get going now and leave the temple or else we will throw you out by force and in a way you will regret.” And Our Lady, seeing that she was being thrown out so rudely with shoves and insults (which caused her anguish upon anguish and sorrow upon sorrow), kept silent and bowed down her head with the deepest humility and left the temple, even though her heart remained inside, considering that her beloved, for whom she was dying, remained inside there. The Lord said that Our Lady the Virgin holy Mary saw that those men had locked the temple and left, and she could not find another way to go in. (Inasmuch as it was the custom in those times for doctors and learned men to be constantly in the temple, all day and many times even at night, studying and teaching the things of the Law of God away from the noise of the people, they had made windows and seats in the galleries in such a way that even though they were inside, they would have the doors of the temple shut [from the outside].) She went her way with St. Joseph and walked along the street, more dead than alive, without any encouragement or comfort. And St. Joseph was similarly shaking and crying. 21. And the hour of the Father came and was fulfilled, in which Our Lady and the blessed old man and all the others who went looking for him were comforted and cheered. Our Redeemer Jesus Christ, he himself said, debated and

116 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ examined and explained the prophecies that were written down with their commentaries. And they did not understand them. And he ordered, changed, and amended and corrected many things that were badly glossed. And he ordered one of those doctors to change a gloss he was reading and to put it in another way;131 and the doctor refused to change it in the way he had ordered him, and for this reason—said His Majesty—he became blind and hardened in sin. And even afterwards, because of this and other sins, he was damned and condemned to hell, because he presumed to know more than God and contradicted his truth and refused to obey his very just and holy command. And seeing the pitiful tears and sighs and moans of his holy mother and St. Joseph and all the others who were searching for him with so much love and sorrow, he stopped debating and studying, and made them (all those who were debating with him) fall asleep. And he left the gallery, although everything was closed up and the doors locked with keys. This signified that he would come out of the closed and sealed sepulcher in the same way on the holy day of his glorious Resurrection. 22. And when he was outside of the temple and somewhat near to where Our Lady was walking, she could not see him because her back was to him. His Majesty said that in order for his disconsolate mother to hear him, he signaled to her with a small cough like that of a sweet and loving child. And when the Queen of Heaven heard and recognized him and turned her head and saw him, she felt such great and unutterable joy that her soul fainted with love and happiness and she fell to the ground as if in a swoon.132 And similarly, the holy old man felt such great joy that even though he and the Virgin had not dined for five days nor had they had anything for breakfast except the bread of tears,133 he regained his strength and ran trembling and crying for joy with open arms. And he took him in his arms and clung to him and kissed him with extreme love and reverence, saying very heartfelt and loving words. And the Lord said that when his glorious mother regained consciousness, she stood up very quickly and pulled him to her lap. And clinging to him and kissing him and holding him close to her, she said to him very compassionately and lovingly, “Oh my most cherished and sweet son and my soul’s desire! Where have you been hiding and absent from my eyes? Your father and I have been very sad and sorrowful and anguished, looking for you everywhere.”

131. Maestro Bartolomé’s painting of this scene shows Jewish letrados changing their views and their texts based on Jesus’s teachings (see figure 3). 132. Note that her soul fainted, which produced a bodily fall. Thus fainting is a spiritual response that results in a physical action. 133. “Bread of tears” echoes Psalm 42:3.

Sermon 13: Losing Jesus in Jerusalem 117 His Majesty said that, seeing how his precious mother was complaining a little and her feelings were hurt, he answered not without humility but with a certain might, saying, “My lady, my mother, why were you looking for me and who is my father who, you say, was looking for me? I have no father on earth because my Father is in heaven.134 And I have been carrying out his will and performing his works, and it is his honor and glory and exaltation I have been seeking and striving to attain. So why were you looking for me?” After Our Lady and St. Joseph, said the Redeemer himself, had enjoyed his sweet and loving presence there, they took him with them and went to Nazareth, where all the relatives who were very sorrowfully looking for him here and there were overjoyed and very happy with him. 23. And when the doctors and the learned men woke up from the sleep in which he had left them and did not find him with them, they were somehow saddened for having lost his divine presence and friendly company and sweet speech, and they were very amazed and astonished. Seeing that all the doors were locked from the outside and yet he had disappeared, they said to each other, “Trust verily that this one who appeared to us and spoke to us and explained such exalted and amazing things, looking like such a young child, must be an angel of God who came down from heaven to enlighten and counsel and teach us.135 And now that he has enlightened and taught us all the things we had not understood or realized, he has returned to heaven again from where he came. Because there is no place through which he could have left if he were a child, because all the doors are locked. And this is why he made us fall asleep, so we would not see him fly away and go up to heaven.” And others answered, “Now, did you not see how sweet his words were and how respectful his manner, and how he knew more than all of us together and explained everything, and how he gave us so much grace and strength that in all the days we were with him we did not remember or want or need to eat or drink or sleep or do anything other than always be with him? Would that it pleased Almighty God to have him here with us always, because in all respects he seemed a creature from heaven. And did you see how he said that he remembered the times of this or that prophet? And in this he manifests how he was an angel of God. And did you see the great truths he said in all the things he spoke about?” 134. Contrast with Luke 2:49: “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” The rephrasing possibly echoes Matthew 12:50, where Jesus identifies God as “my Father in heaven,” also paraphrased in section 26 of this sermon on 121. 135. Christian authors such as Eusebius associated the biblical phrase “angel of God” with the second person of the Trinity. Aryeh Kofsky, “Eusebius of Caesarea and the Christian-Jewish Polemic,” in Contra Iudaeos: Ancient and Medieval Polemic between Christians and Jews, ed. Ora Limor and Guy G. Stroumsa (Tübingen: Mohr, 1996), 59–84, at 80. Juana may be conflating this Christian reading of the Old Testament with Jewish belief about the life of Jesus.

118 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ

24. And the Lord explained, saying that those learned men and doctors considered and discussed these and many other things with one another after he disappeared from among them. Because during those days when he was there with them secluded in the temple, he gave them such great grace and strength that neither he nor they ate or drank or slept or felt any fatigue or tiredness or want during those days, but rather such great joy and delight that they never tired of asking him to speak to them and answer their questions and teach them the things he told them about with great gentleness, “Give me such and such a book, for in such and such a place and in such and such a chapter, you will find that such and such a prophecy is written, and it says such and such words, and they have already come to pass in such and such a way. And this how you will see and recognize that the Messiah has already come.” And they again questioned him, said our Redeemer himself Jesus Christ, “Tell us, child, do you know him?” And he answered, “Yes indeed, I know him and his mother very well, and I have eaten and drunk and slept with him many times.” And they asked him, “Tell us where he is or how we will recognize him.” And the Savior answered them, “He is very close to us and yet you do not recognize him.136 And I remember the times of certain prophets who said this and that about him, and everything has already come to pass, although there are other things that will come to pass in the future concerning him.” And they said to him, “How is it possible that you remember those prophets, who you say passed away so many years ago, and yet you are so young that you could not be older than twelve years of age at the most?” And the Lord said, “Yes, I am really telling you the truth. I remember those prophets I have told you about and many others. So give me such and such a book, and you will find that in such and such a place, such and such glosses are written. And although the glosses are already written, they must be replaced and changed and corrected in such and such a way. And you must set down such and such words for such and such reasons, because they are more clear and accurate and true.” And when the doctors took the books and read the glosses, they found that they were just like the Savior had told them, and they changed them immediately. And they were greatly amazed and said to each other, “Do you not see now that he tells the truth and everything he says is right, and the commentaries he expounds and has us write down are clearer and more accurate and truer than our interpretations of the prophecies, which we wrote there?” And some of those doctors and learned men, said the Lord, argued with him again, saying, “Well, we know, child, that this and that is prophesied and said because of this and that.” 136. Echoing John 14:9.

Sermon 13: Losing Jesus in Jerusalem 119 And His Majesty mighty God answered them, “I know for sure that that was not said except by such and such signs and words and prophecies.” It was not the will of the Lord to explain or say here which signs they were because, said His Majesty, it would be necessary to take a very long time to explain them and our weak minds would not be capable of retaining them. And the Lord explained, saying that when the learned men and doctors saw that he surpassed them all and knew and understood more than they, they questioned him, as one does a very prudent and wise man, listening to him with great humility to see what answer he would give them, saying, “Tell us, child, how will we know the Messiah has come or what signs will you give us, since you say he has been born and you know him?” And he answered them very sweetly, saying, “The signs you will see in order to recognize him are these: when the lame walk, and the blind see, and the mute speak, and the deaf hear, and the sick are healed, and the lepers are cleansed, then you will know and see clearly that the Messiah has come.137 And you will see all these signs very soon.” And these signs were manifested when, at the perfect age of man,138 he performed these same miracles and wonders and many more. And the Lord said that some of those learned men lived long enough to see the wonders he had talked about, and believed in him. And they were saved and recognized that he was the same Messiah who had spoken to them in the temple, who they thought was an angel who had disappeared from among them. And the learned men, very amazed, realized [that he was the Messiah], and he took them as disciples. And he did not want to make them apostles because he did not want people to think that it was because of their learning that they were able to speak about him.139 They and all those who were in the temple, arguing with the Redeemer, he himself said, questioned him, saying, “Tell us, child, all that great knowledge and book learning you have, who taught it to you?” And His Majesty answered them, saying, “My father taught me everything, and I learned it from him.” And the learned men, wishing to get to know him in order to include him in their company and honor him—that is how sweet and friendly he seemed to them—asked him, “Tell us, child, whose son are you?” And the Savior answered them, “I am my mother’s son.”

137. In comparison to Matthew 11:5, Juana changes the order of the phrases and substitutes “mutes speak” for “dead will rise again.” 138. Commentaries from Augustine through Lombard and Aquinas explained Ephesians 4:13 as defining the perfect age to be around thirty-three, the age at which Jesus taught and died. 139. If the apostles were better sources for belief in Jesus’s teaching because they were unlearned, this argument supports Juana as a source for revelation, as well.

120 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ And the learned men persevered in their questions, wishing to know him better, and asked, “Then tell us, what is your father’s name?” And the Redeemer answered, “The name of my father is Most Exalted.” And they, thinking it so, said to him, “Then, from what you are saying, you are the son of some king.” And the Lord answered them, “If you say so.”140 The Lord said that in order to find him when they would need him, they asked him, “Tell us, child, where do you live?” And he answered them, in order not to reveal himself at that time, saying, “I live in my mother’s house.” And in this way he answered very truthfully everything they asked about him, although with pregnant and almost innocent words, like a child who does not know what else to say. 25. And His Majesty explained, saying that his holy mother received such a great shock and warning when she lost him that never again, for as long as she lived in this world, did she have another lapse, but rather wherever he went she followed, looking for him. And even when he was a grown man of perfect age and went to preach and teach in the towns and would say to his mother, “My mother, I’m going to such and such a place to preach and I’ll be back soon,” his glorious mother could not suffer it or hold herself back, and she would follow him with the anguish and fervor and love of a very dutiful mother. And not until she saw him and found where he was and enjoyed his divine presence, said the Lord, did she stop looking for him. [This was] in order to give us sinners an example and teach us that if we ever commit a sin or give in to a temptation or weakness, by which the person realizes that he has lost God, he should rather resolve to die than to commit the same or any other sin again. 26. And when his holy mother would go looking for him, she would take along the disciples so they would go with her to look for him. This is why those who did not want to see him or hear his holy words and doctrines or be in his presence so he would not scold them for their sins would say when they would see Our Lady and the disciples who were looking for him or asking after him, “Go, leave! You go. Your mother and your brothers are calling you and looking for you and waiting for you there. Stop preaching and talking already and go out to see what they want from you.” And then, said the Lord, he answered them (knowing their malice and evil intentions and that they were not acting out of pity for him or Our Lady or the disciples, but rather to get him out of their sight), saying, “Tell me now who per140. Mother Juana transposes Mark 15:2 (Jesus’s response to Pilate’s question if he is king of the Jews) to the temple scene.

Sermon 13: Losing Jesus in Jerusalem 121 chance are my mother and my siblings. Know for certain and in truth that my mother and my brothers are all those who carry out the will of my father who is in heaven.”141 With these words, said His Majesty, he wanted to say as much as if he had said, “I am telling you the truth, my friends. Inasmuch as I am a man, I am a son of Adam and part of the human lineage. I am as much the son and brother of each of you and of every person in the world, as I desire and wish for your salvation without having deference to blood relationships, such as I have with my mother and my disciples. But those who do not want to do the will of my Father who is in heaven nor believe or accept my holy doctrines and words and examples, cannot be said to be my mother or my brothers, since they abandon the Father and me and follow the deeds and footsteps of Satan, who did not create them. Because even though all people, by virtue of their creation and descent, are my creatures and my children and mothers and brothers, they would rather follow the thieving and deceitful and very evil wolf Satan, than me.” 27. And the Lord said that Our Lady the Virgin Mary was constantly looking for him and asking everyone she encountered after him, even though she knew he was preaching and teaching the people. Once when he was preaching to a large group of people, she arrived and asked if they had seen her sweet and beloved son. And it so happened that blessed Marcella was there (the scriptures [do not] speak of her)142 who, hearing the question Our Lady was asking, answered her, saying, “My lady, what does he look like, that son you are asking about?” And Our Lady said to her, “My friend, my sweet son is lovely and beautiful above all the sons of men. And his words are sweeter than honeycomb.”143 And when St. Marcella heard the words and the tidings that Our Lady said about the Redeemer—he himself said—she went quickly to where he was in order to see and hear him, since she had heard such wondrous tidings concerning him, not only from the Queen of Heaven but also from other people. And when she saw his features and the substance of His majesty and heard his doctrines and life-giving words, she was unable to control herself nor could her soul endure the great joy and wonderment, and she cried out with great fervor and love and compassion, saying, “Oh blessed be the womb that carried you and the breasts that nursed you!”144 The Lord said that she repeated these words many times with yearning in her heart, shedding many tears. These words, even though she did not explain 141. Matthew 12:48–50. 142. The manuscript does not contain the negative, but the sense of the passage seems to require it. 143. Proverbs 16:24. 144. Juana attributes to Marcella the cry of an unknown woman after Jesus has worked miracles and begun teaching; see Matthew 12:27.

122 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ them, said as much as if she had said, “Oh my Lord Jesus Christ! Who could hurt you or mistreat you, precious and sweet and compassionate and kind as you are? I say, blessed be the womb that carried you and the breasts that nursed you. I say this because you are far more blessed if your mother’s womb is called blessed because of you and because it was your dwelling place. And if I bless your mother’s breasts, I say it because they nursed as blessed and precious and holy and perfect a thing as you. And if your mother is praised and called blessed because of you, how much more worthy are you, Lord, of being loved and praised and blessed and honored and exalted and deserving, not only of your precious mother going to look for you and wanting to contemplate your countenance, but of all the people in the world searching for you and desiring and loving and serving you as she does.” 28. And the Lord explained, saying that he did not speak about this mystery of his holy losing in the temple with the holy evangelists at greater length, nor did they explain all these things and secrets and mysteries in the way he told and explained it in this holy book, first, because they did not see it or know about it in its entirety, the way it was and happened in those times when he was a child; second, because the evangelists themselves did not have the time or the space to write about this mystery and each of the other holy mysteries, except for very little and only briefly about what mattered for the salvation of souls. This is why his divine Majesty decided, said God our Lord Jesus Christ himself, to explain and reveal this mystery now, in our times, so we would see and recognize how much he loves souls and desires their conversion and salvation.

Figure 4. Calvary. Diego de Siloe, 1486–1492. Chapel of Santa Anna, Cathedral of Burgos. Photo: Jessica A. Boon.

Sermon 19: Good Friday Introduction In the liturgical sermon cycle of Conorte, the previous sermon ended with the Last Supper and Gethsemane. Here, Juana skips the trial before the Sanhedrin and Peter’s denial and begins sermon 19 with the Jews asking Pilate for Jesus’s condemnation. The sermon proceeds through the entire Passion narrative through the deposition and entombment, drawing on details from Mark 15, Matthew 27, Luke 23, and John 18–19, as well as the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus and the medieval Passion tradition. The emphasis throughout Juana’s rendition is on Jesus’s graphic physical suffering, Mary’s tormented response, and the culpability of the Jews. While these three foci were typical of the Latin and vernacular Passion traditions in late medieval Europe, Juana’s version reflects the Conorte compilation more broadly by visualizing the participation of the angels in the Passion, as well as Mary’s reactions to the events. Several details that attribute violence against Mary to the Jews specifically were censored by one reader, then defended in the margins by later readers. Sections 2–6: Various medieval Passion traditions attributed active violence to the Jews or suggested that all the torture that the soldiers applied, the Jews committed in their hearts.145 The Gospel scene of the flagellation by the soldiers occurs after the second appearance before Pilate; Juana inserts the scene here after the first appearance before Pilate, in order to have the Jews not only witness the flagellation but directly contribute to it by crowning him with thorns. Jesus is sent to Herod, who had heard of him as a miracle worker but quickly becomes angered by his silence. Herod substitutes his heavy gold crown for the crown of thorns in order to increase Jesus’s pain. Jesus is sent back to Pilate, who again is a voice of reason contrasting with the Jews and Herod, but ultimately accedes to their demands. The Jews then again directly add to the torture by personally handing Jesus his heavy cross, all while making derogatory remarks about Jesus’s status as sorcerer.146

145. Marrow, Passion Iconography, 44–92; and Ludolph, Vida de Cristo II, 62.31, 520. 146. The Gospel of Nicodemus includes both the details of Herod hearing of Jesus as a miracle worker (chap. 1) and the Jews accusing Jesus of sorcery (chaps. 2–3). See Gospel of Nicodemus, trans. and ed. Robert Davidson, Early Christian Writings, http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/gospelnicodemus-roberts.html.

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126 Introduction to Sermon 19 Sections 8–9:147 Following medieval tradition found in Pseudo-Bonaventure among others,148 Mary is kept informed of the events by the disciple John; in this case, he brings the news that Jesus has been sentenced to crucifixion, and then Mary Magdalene arrives with the same notification. Mary Magdalene and the Virgin Mary were often mentioned as staying in the same house while Jesus went to Jerusalem, so Juana’s depiction that the Magdalene brought the news of Jesus’s imminent death to the Virgin instead of being there to receive it is a novel detail that serves to equalize the active roles of women and men in the narrative. Sections 10–13: The extended scene depicting Jesus’s carrying the cross to Calvary features both Mary and Jesus’s tribulations. Mary hurries from her house to catch up with the procession by following the trail of blood drops. Her own falls mirror those of Jesus, yet hers occur not from the physical agony of carrying a cross but from shock at the sight of his blood upon the ground or of his tortured body. The parallel between her road to Calvary and his is emphasized by the fact that the Jews attack each of them, violently preventing Mary from reaching her son on several occasions while also striking Jesus so forcefully as to dislocate bones and tear flesh. Section 14–16: The crucifixion scene in large part follows Pseudo-Bonaventure, who proposed the option of imagining Jesus’s hands nailed to the cross while it was on the ground, dislocating his shoulder in the process, and his feet once it was upright.149 The detail unique to Juana is the roughness of the wood that splintered into Jesus’s back during the nailing; this image then recurs in the scene of Mary’s response to the crucifixion, for in her overwrought state Mary hugs the cross because she cannot reach his body and kisses the rough wood, injuring her lips. The Jews again attack Mary both with their hands and with weapons, and also drag her away from embracing the cross [censored]. In a dead faint, she is carried away by John, who fears that she too will die. Once revived, she returns again to the foot of the cross and is again pierced by the splinters. Sections 17–20: Jesus begins praying, but amidst all the noise, Mary cannot hear him. She begs for him to speak to her instead of to God, but Jesus as the narrator of the sermon justifies his refusal on the grounds that he spoke directly to the thief who needed saving, not to his mother who was already redeemed. The narrator’s explanation ends, and the scene continues, this time with Jesus begging the Father to comfort Mary so that she will not die from her emotional pain. Eventually Jesus utters the traditional “third word,” giving Mary into the care of 147. García Andrés’s numbering skips section number 7. 148. Pseudo-Bonaventure, Meditations on the Life of Christ, chap. 75, 326. 149. Pseudo-Bonaventure, Meditations on the Life of Christ, chap. 78, 334.

Introduction to Sermon 19 127 John and vice versa. However, as in the Bible, he addresses her as woman, not mother, and his impersonality grieves her yet more. After several lamentations, Mary faints abruptly, causing Jesus to weep. The traditional “fourth word” asking why he has been abandoned is then reworked to include the two principal figures by extending his lament to state that both Jesus and his mother are abandoned and even dying. Sections 21–24: In accordance with medieval tradition about the “fifth word,” Jesus’s thirst is given a spiritual reading, suggesting that he thirsts for the salvation of all humanity.150 The commonplace that Jews gave vinegar and gall as a form of torture is greatly heightened in this scene by the description that they forced the sponge and the horn containing the vinegar down his throat [censored]. As a result, instead of calmly declaring the “sixth word” that “it is done,” Jesus pleads for the day to end. The angelic response to his entreaty is the first extensive interpolation of celestial scenes in the midst of imaginative meditation on the narrative of the Passion. Here, the angels try to save Jesus by attempting to take him off the cross, yet all they accomplish is to make his suffering more extensive. They then reprimand the cross for its role in the torture [censored] and God defends it, foreshadowing the fight between the seraphim and the cross that occurs in sermon 22.151 Section 25: Judas’s suicide (Matthew 27:5) is given an interesting twist, for the trees recognize him as a disciple and resist hanging him by having their branches break rather than hold his weight. In this scene, Juana avoids the medieval custom of representing Judas’s death graphically, with his bowels spilling out during death (a tradition that went back to the wording chosen in the Vulgate translation), as well as the tradition that the trees rejected Judas so that Jesus would not met Judas during the harrowing of hell.152 Sections 26–28: In response to the “seventh word” in which Jesus commends his spirit to God, the angels return to the scene, carrying beds and then adorning them with flowers and candles, all to aid in Jesus’s comfort after he died. This heavenly tenderness contrasts sharply with the Jews’ response, who are depicted 150. Ludolph, Vida de Cristo II, 63.43, 560. 151. Sermon 22, sec. 26-28, translated in this volume on 203–7. 152. It is of note that Juana’s version of the trees responding to Judas as a disciple, not an avaricious murderer, is attested to in the Welsh ballad tradition, for example, so it is not entirely unique. Norbert Schnitzler, “Judas’ Death: Some Remarks Concerning the Iconography of Suicide in the Middle Ages,” Medieval History Journal 3, no. 1 (2000): 103–18, at 105–7; Mary Flowers Braswell, “Chaucer’s Palimpsest: Judas Iscariot and the ‘Pardoner’s Tale,’ ” The Chaucer Review 29, no. 3 (1995): 303–10, at 305; and Paul Franklin Baum, “The English Ballad of Judas Iscariot,” PMLA 31, no. 2 (1916): 181–89, at 183.

128 Introduction to Sermon 19 as piercing Jesus’s side. Not only do they take on the role attributed in the Gospels to the soldiers or to Longinus, but the wound is so deep it reaches Jesus’s heart and so wide it could accommodate a person’s face. Both these details reflect medieval devotional responses to the side wound, in which devotees are invited to imagine entering into Jesus’s side wound in order to nest in it and its overflowing love.153 Sections 29–31: The deposition scene revolves entirely around Mary, as she impedes the proper shrouding ritual by holding Jesus in her arms and kissing all his wounds repeatedly. Only when she faints can the others—Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, John, Mary Magdalene, etc.—remove his body from her arms and carry out the ritual. Once Mary is revived from her faint, she goes with them to the tomb, but then enters it and refuses to leave, asking to die with her son. In order to be able to finish the burial, John induces Mary into a second swoon by unwrapping a corner of the shroud to reveal Jesus’s wounds [censored]. Once the body is entombed and she revives, John is able to convince her to act appropriately and leave for home before dark. On the way, they meet the soldiers sent to guard the body, who initially threaten the group with reprisals for honoring a crucified criminal. John again takes the lead in resolving the situation, this time not by trickery but by appeasing the soldiers and appealing to their compassion. The sermon ends urging that Good Friday be treated with at least as much honor as any feast day, that is, by refraining from labor, as it is the greatest feast day of the year.

153. Thomas H. Bestul, Texts of the Passion: Latin Devotional Literature and Medieval Society (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996), 39, 56; and Amy Hollywood, “That Glorious Slit: Irigaray and the Medieval Devotion to Christ’s Side Wound,” in Luce Irigaray and Premodern Culture: Thresholds of History, ed. Theresa Krier and Elizabeth D. Harvey (New York: Routledge, 2005), 105–25.

Good Friday Which is about some of the particulars and mysteries our Lord Jesus Christ revealed about what he suffered on Good Friday 2.154 Speaking once again about his most cruel and bitter Passion, the Lord said that next, on Friday morning, he was taken to the house of Pilate, who wanted to spare his life—according to the more detailed accounts of the holy evangelists. And, with this intention, Pilate asked the Jews some serious questions about their accusations and said to them, “Of what do you accuse this man, for I find no reason to kill him?” And the Jews, His Majesty said, answered, “This man is a traitor and a criminal and a lawbreaker, for he heals the sick on Saturdays.” And Pilate answered, “Is that the sin you accuse him of, healing the sick? Surely that is not a reason to be put to death. Look for some other accusation against him so that he must die, for I find no reason for it.” And again the Jews said, “He commits another crime against the law, which is that he eats without washing his hands and he teaches his disciples to do the same.” And Pilate again said, “As far as that goes, he does not deserve to be put to death, because if he eats without washing his hands, as you say, he disgusts and harms only himself and he does not offend others.155 Look for some other accusation against him so that he must die, for I find no reason for it.” And the wretched [Jews], said the Lord, shouting very loudly said to Pilate, “How can you say that you find no reason for this man to die, since he pretends to be and calls himself a king and contradicts Caesar?” Pilate answered the Jews’ shouts and complaints, saying, “It could well be that he is the king of another country and because of some emergency he happened to pass through here and has fallen into poverty, and that is why he is not dressed like a king.” And the Jews answered him with shouts and howls, saying, “Oh Pilate, why are you saying those things? Surely he is not a king, because we know where he is from and we know his father and mother who are from Nazareth. And his father

154. Note that García Andrés begins his numbering of the divisions of this sermon with section 2. 155. Compare Jesus’s saying in Matthew 15:20: “These are the things that defile a man. But to eat with unwashed hands doth not defile a man.”

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130 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ was a poor old man and a blacksmith156 and his mother is a poor little woman and a weaver.”157 3. And then Pilate, in order to satisfy the Jews in some way, the Lord said, and believing that he could save him by this means, ordered him tied to a column and whipped very cruelly and pitilessly by two executioners so that he would be thoroughly punished and chastised. The lashing, His Majesty said, was so extreme and cruel and unbearable that every blow they gave him tore his delicate flesh and exposed his bones and reached his entrails. And they did not look or pay attention, as they do with other people, to see if they were striking him in the eyes or face or mouth or some other member, but, on the contrary, from the top of his most sacred head to the soles of his sacred feet they left no limb without infinite wounds and gashes from the very cruel whipping they gave him. The lashing, said the Lord, was so extreme and terrible that it felt more like getting pierced with a lance than lashed with a scourge. And every stroke of the whip they gave him made him tremble very violently and twist his mouth and let out the most terrible and pitiful moans.158 4. And after the Jews saw how he was so cruelly beaten, they sought and considered other ways to torment him in order to inflict the most pain and injury. And they agreed among themselves and said, “Since he pretends to be a king, it is fitting for us to crown and adorn his head, just as we have adorned his entire body with lashes, as he deserves.” And the Lord said that they brought and fashioned a crown of thorns and placed it on His Majesty’s most royal head; each thorn, he himself said, was as long as a finger and as hard as an iron nail. 5. And since Pilate intended to save him from death, he sent him to Herod, wounded and injured as he was. And while he was being taken along the streets 156. Although early Greek commentators assumed Joseph’s artisanal trade was as a carpenter, the Latin translation faber was more closely associated with metalwork, and Joseph was considered a blacksmith in most of the Latin West throughout the Middle Ages. For details, see James Bradley, “St Joseph’s Trade and Old English Smiþ,” Leeds Studies in English, n.s. 22 (1991): 21–42. 157. The apocryphal Protoevangelium of James, the primary source for details about Mary’s childhood, describes her as one of seven virgins picked to spin the thread for the temple veil (chap. 10). “Infancy Gospel of James,” in The Infancy Gospels of James and Thomas: With Introduction, Notes, and Original Text Featuring the New Scholars Version Translation, translated by Ronald F. Hock, 33–77 (Santa Rosa, California: Polebridge Press, 1995), 51. 158. Isaiah 1:6 was the source for the full-body injuries, see Marrow, Passion Iconography, 47–9. The debate over whether and how much pain Jesus suffered during his Passion has its roots in Hilary of Poiters’s insistence that he suffered none (to counteract Arian belief), a view that was systematically disputed in medieval scholastic theology. For an overview, see Madigan, Passions of Christ, 51–62.

Sermon 19: Good Friday 131 very hurriedly and cruelly, so much blood ran from his precious and badly injured head that it covered and bathed his entire face, and it blinded him so that he could not see where he was going. And then the Jews, instead of pitying him, took dirty rags from garbage heaps and rubbed his face with the rags, mocking him and telling him that they wanted to wipe away the blood he was shedding.159 And the Lord said that they took him thus to Herod’s house, doing and saying these and many other terrible insults and taunts and offenses. And since Herod wanted so much to see him so that he would perform a few miracles and wonders before him,160 he began to speak with very great guile and deceitfulness, pretending to have affection for him and saying, “Tell me, why are they bringing you like this, so mistreated? Who has wounded you so many times and hurt you so much? Perform a few miracles in front of me of the sort you usually do, and I will have them free you so you will not die, and I will even make you my favorite and a grandee in my palace.” The Lord said that he did not answer this speech with even a single word. And Herod, seeing that His Majesty did not answer him and thinking that he would succeed in making him perform miracles and wonders in his presence, ordered the crown of thorns so cruel that he was wearing on his most sacred head to be removed, as if he wanted to show him compassion and to honor him in some way. And since our Lord Jesus Christ, he himself said, was so wounded and injured, and the thorns, which dug into and cut his sacred head so cruelly, were wounding and injuring and tormenting him, Herod ordered the crown removed. And then Herod took off the gold crown that was on his own head and placed it on the Lord’s, which wounded and hurt him even more, inasmuch as he was badly injured and hurt and his entire head was swollen and his hair was stuck to his throat because of all the blood that was pouring out of him. The Lord said we must imagine and consider how he must have looked with that gold crown, naked and mocked, and in very ragged clothes, wounded and injured all over, and covered with blood from the top of his head to the soles of his feet, and with his clothes stuck to the wounds from the whipping, shaking all over and so weak that he could barely stand. And similarly, we must imagine and consider and take pity on him and think about how much his divine Majesty’s delicate and wounded flesh must have suffered when they stripped him of his 159. Starting in the thirteenth century, authors of Passion treatises made the Jewish contributions to the mocking more and more foul. Casting dung at Jesus’s head was a common detail. Bestul, Texts of the Passion, 89. 160. It was a commonplace that Herod hoped to see Jesus enact miracles. See, for example, Vincent Ferrer’s sermon on the Passion, translated into Castilian in the first half of the fifteenth century and transcribed in Julián Zarco Cuevas, “Sermón de pasión predicado en Murcia por S. Vicente Ferrer,” Ciudad de Dios 148 (1927): 122–47, at 136. It is much rarer that Herod contributed directly to Jesus’s torture, as occurs in the next paragraph.

132 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ clothes and put others on him in order to mock him,161 which opened his wounds over and over, pulling out chunks of his flesh along with his clothing. And His Majesty Almighty God said that when Herod saw that in no way did he want to answer him or to perform any miracles in front of him, despite all the honors and everything he had offered, Herod ordered that the gold crown that he had put on the Lord be taken off and the crown of thorns be put back on and that right then and there they mock the Lord in front of him and strike him many times and beat him and wound him. 6. And he ordered that, thus mocked and tormented and bound, they take him to Pilate, who, when he saw the Lord before him, sincerely wanting to know if he was the Son of God so he could save him from death, took him aside and spoke to him in secret, pleading with him to reveal and tell him the truth and saying that he would save him from death. However, our Lord Jesus Christ, he himself said, did not want to tell or explain it to him in order not to delay the work of our redemption, which had already begun. And the Jews, seeing that Pilate was looking for ways and means to save Christ from death, said to him, shouting with anger, “Crucify, crucify that man! Because if you do not crucify him, then surely you are not a friend of Caesar.” Then Pilate, said the Lord, condemned him to death so that he would not lose Caesar’s friendship, in accordance with the more detailed accounts of the holy evangelists. And as soon as Pilate sentenced him to be crucified, the Jews charged the Lord like rabid dogs162 and lifted the cross (which they had already thoroughly readied) onto his shoulders, and said to him most blasphemously, “Oh sorcerer and wizard, now we have you in our power, as we wished! Now you will pay for everything you have done to us, and you yourself will carry the cross and the instrument of torture on which you will die.” And our Lord Jesus Christ explained, saying that we must consider and think about what the wrongs were that he had committed against them, except for healing their sick and bringing their dead back to life and offering them excellent teachings and parables, preaching and announcing the kingdom of heaven to them and performing many miracles and wonders. And instead of thanking him, they tortured him, and the things that should have made them charitable and merciful toward him, they paid back with very great cruelties. And they answered 161. A common detail in late medieval Latin and vernacular Passion treatises, originally associated with derobing Christ at the crucifixion, then extended to the change of garments between whipping and mocking. See Bestul, Texts of the Passion, 50, 55, 59. 162. Late medieval authors often equated Jesus’s Jewish tormenters with rabid dogs, drawing their imagery from Psalm 21:17, 21–22. For a survey, see James Marrow, “Circumdederunt me canes multi: Christ’s Tormentors in Northern European Art of the Late Middle Ages and Early Renaissance,” Art Bulletin 59, no. 2 (1977): 167–81.

Sermon 19: Good Friday 133 his sweet and loving way of speaking with insults and blasphemies, without any reverence or civility. And instead of loving him for all the things they should have, they loathed him. And what is even worse and what His Majesty complains about the most, is that we ungrateful sinners do the same thing today, for the spiritual gifts and benefits we continually and ceaselessly have received and receive from him, instead of thanks, we pay him back with many insults and blasphemies and abuse and contempt, sins and offenses, cruelties and disavowals of him, oaths made without respect or truthfulness. And we deny him and loathe him and forget him, loving and seeking and esteeming and enjoying other things more than him. 8.163 And the Lord said that when St. John the Evangelist saw that Christ was unquestionably condemned to death on the cross (he had been waiting to see the manner of death to which he would be sentenced) and that they were already taking him away in a great hurry and very cruelly with the cross on his shoulders for him to carry all the way to the place of torment where they would crucify him, he lost all hope that his master would be shown any pity. He left very quickly and sorrowfully, shedding many tears and sobbing and sighing loudly, to tell his sorrowful Mother, the Virgin Mary. And when he went into the house where Our Lady was and saw her, he began to say to her, “Oh my Lady and mother of my God and of my most beloved teacher and cousin! I bring you such sad and bitter news!”164 And Our Lady, seeing that St. John looked so upset and sad and tearful and tired, asked him with the greatest anguish and sorrow and stabbing pain in her heart, “Oh my son John, what news is this you bring me? Tell me if by any chance it is about my beloved son.” And St. John, said the Lord, answered her amid many sobs, saying, “Yes, my lady, yes, it is about your son. So hurry, for this is no time to be shut up in the house but rather to follow and accompany the one who has loved us so much and has kept us such sweet company.” And Our Lady, feeling very faint and confused, said to him, “Oh my son John! Tell me, where is my beloved son and your cousin or where must I go in order to follow and accompany him?” And St. John, said the Redeemer, answered her with great anguish, saying, “Oh my lady, come with me quickly! If you want know where your son is, the trail [of blood] will show you. All the streets and corners and the pavement where they have led him and are leading him are left stained and sprinkled with his precious blood. Oh my lady, run and go quickly because his life, as I see it, will be very short. I cannot tell you the sad news I bring to you because my soul is weeping.” 163. García Andrés’s numbering skips section number 7. 164. Pseudo-Bonaventure suggests that John traveled each day to Mary’s house outside of Jerusalem to report on the events of Holy Week (Meditations on the Life of Christ, chap. 75, 326; chap. 76, 327).

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9. And the Magdalene likewise entered, greatly sobbing and pulling out her hair, saying with great anguish, “Oh my lady, what great sorrow and orphanhood is ours today! We have lost the sweet and friendly company and presence of my beloved and merciful teacher. How could you have abandoned him at such a time? They are taking him now along the streets with great dishonor like a criminal, greatly tormenting him, doing him many wrongs and offences amid trumpet and horn blasts and proclamations of his great dishonor. And if you do not hurry and start walking, you will not find him alive when you get there.” 10. And Our Lady, said the Lord, hearing the weeping of St. John and the Magdalene, drew some courage from their anguished love (even though she was more dead than alive), left the house, and went with St. John and the Magdalene. They took her under their arms and nearly lifted her off the ground, because she was so faint and near losing consciousness that she could not hold herself up or move. And when she saw her beloved son’s trail of blood on the streets, she fell upon it and fainted from the great anguish she felt upon seeing it. And when she recovered, she turned toward St. John and spoke to him with great grief and sorrow, saying, “Oh my nephew, what has happened to my beloved son? I see that the streets are soaked with his blood, and I do not know where they are taking him or if I can see him.” And St. John said to her, “Walk, my lady, walk. The trail will show you where. I cannot tell you because my soul is weeping.” And the Lord said that while his holy mother was weeping most bitterly and lamenting, she fell and fainted again, saying, “Oh my very beloved son! If only my eyes could see you before they kill you, because my soul is dying and longing for you.” 11. And when she caught up with him and saw how wounded and tortured and bloody he was, she pushed her way through the crowd, feeling a deathly anguish, and she clasped him to her, wailing very loudly and shedding profuse tears. And she clung to her son and held him close to her with such deep love and sorrow, and he was so weak, said the Lord, that they both fell to the ground, clinging to each other. And when the Jews saw the mother and son like this, they shoved Our Lady and removed her from there very angrily, striking her many times and hurling many insults at her. 12. And as he went along like this carrying the cross, the wretches165 who were leading him kept tormenting and torturing him in endless ways. Some threw 165. The term malaventurados had earlier designated the Jews, suggesting that this scene attributes these torments to the Jews in particular, not to a more general crowd. Note that the anonymous author

Sermon 19: Good Friday 135 rocks in his path to make him trip on them and fall, so his toenails would be torn off. And others threw the garbage that was on the streets at him and hit him in the face with it. And since it had rained and it was muddy, they deliberately made him pass through gutters and pulled on the rope and made him fall to the ground and tore off chunks of his flesh and flayed his hands and face and got him completely covered with mud. And others attacked him and stuck their fingers into his mouth and dug their fingernails into his gums and scratched off pieces of them. And if they got hold of a finger or a hand, they did not let go until it was dislocated. And some climbed on him and onto the cross, as if they were climbing a harrow, only to wound and hurt him even more. And when they saw that he fell to the ground, those who were on horseback rode over him, the horses trampling him without pity or reverence.166 13. And the Lord said that while he was going along like this carrying the cross—they were leading him, wounded and hurt, and with such great dishonor and contempt, blasting trumpets and mournful horns—the women and children came out of their houses when they heard it, crying and shouting and saying with great compassion, “Who could have done such great acts of cruelty and wrongs to this man, who is indeed a saint of God and has never hurt anybody?” And when the Jews heard them weep and say those words, they turned to the women and children with great anger, scolding them and saying, “Why are you crying at this time? Are you crying for this criminal and sorcerer we have here?” And the women, said the Lord, dissembled and said, “We are not crying for him but for our children and husbands because we do not know what will happen to them. We pray to the most exalted God never to see them [treated] as we do that man, although it is true that he was a very good person and he performed many miracles and wonders.” And the Redeemer, seeing that his very sorrowful mother was following him so anguished and tearful, felt greater grief and torment because of her grief than because of his own sorrow.167 And likewise, said His Majesty, those women of the contemporaneous Fasciculus myrrhe refers to the Jews consistently as malvados or perversos (e.g., chaps. 13–14, fols. 52v–54r). 166. Bonaventure, in his Vitis mistica 20.1, interprets the detail of Jews plucking Jesus’s beard as “the wicked Jews tore his face with their fingernails” (cited in Bestul, Texts of the Passion, 94), here applied to the gums not the face. Some of the artistic depictions of the era include a figure kicking Jesus as he carries the cross or a horse rearing dangerously nearby. 167. The idea that Jesus’s torment increased when he realized his mother was watching him suffer was popular in the early sixteenth century in Castile. See, for example, Francisco de Tenerio and Luis Escobar, Passio duorum [1526] (Seville: Juan Varela de Salamanca, 1539), chap. 19, fol. 39v; chap. 68, fol. 114r; chap. 71, fol. 117v. Discussed in Jessica A. Boon, “Agony of the Virgin,” 16–19.

136 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ had a great deal of compassion for Our Lady, seeing her follow him so sad and grieving. 14. And leading him like this amid many punishments and torments, they reached Mount Calvary with him. And there they roughly stripped his clothes off with great cruelty, opening his wounds again, beating him and giving him countless blows. And they made him lie down naked on the ground on top of the cross, and there they nailed his right hand. And seeing that the other hand did not reach the hole, one of the executioners came and gave him such a hard kick in the back with his knee that it dislocated him all over and made all his bones make cracking sounds.168 And in order to tie the ropes and nail his hand, so as to hurt him even more they pressed their knees into his most sacred face and merciful eyes and fell upon him, striking and wounding him with their lances, spitting on him and nailing him and giving him new kinds of torments. And our Lord and Redeemer Jesus Christ said that to everything they said and did to him, he kept silent and never opened his mouth, like a meek lamb, except to cry and moan very loudly and pitifully because of the punishments and very unbearable torments he was suffering. And after they had nailed his most sacred hands, they raised the cross and put it in the hole or opening they had dug for it in the ground. And since only his hands were nailed, between the heavy weight of his body and the blows they were giving him while he was on the cross, they tore open all his most sacred flesh and veins and he felt very unbearable pain. And when they put the cross into the ground, they stretched him out by his most sacred feet and nailed them with the greatest cruelty. And the Redeemer himself our Lord Jesus Christ said that since the cross was deliberately made to be very harsh and rough, full of snags and splinters, and his most sacred body was wounded all over and broken from the lashes and wounds, the splinters dug into his back and got into his wounds and gashes, which caused him very great pain and suffering. 15. And Our Lady the Virgin Mary, who was there at the foot of the cross, seeing all the torments and punishments they inflicted on him and seeing him suffer such great pain, got on her knees before the Jews with great humility, saying to them, “My brothers and friends, I beg you for Almighty God’s sake to stop tormenting my beloved son and to take me instead and kill me,169 because he is neither guilty nor does he deserve it.” 168. The kick is usually related to Jesus carrying the cross, not the crucifixion. See note 166. 169. In late medieval Passion narratives, both in Latin and Castilian, Mary regularly begs to die instead of her son, or instead of surviving him. For one of the best-known examples, often referred to as the Quis dabit, see Ogier of Locedio (Pseudo-Bernard), “Meditation by Bernard on the Lamentation of

Sermon 19: Good Friday 137 And the wretches answered her, saying, “No, evil sorceress, for just as we can kill your son, we can also kill you if we please. And we will not stop tormenting and killing him because of what you say, for our quarrel is with him, as he has done us much evil. And to add to his sorrow, we will hurt you as much as we can.” And they attacked her and slapped and jabbed and thrashed her with a 170 stick. And, said the Lord, his holy mother suffered all these things with great patience and answered the men with great humility and meekness, saying, “I forgive you for everything you are doing to me, because I would not want nor do I desire anything except that you kill me now.” And when the Jews left her, she approached the cross and clasped it with great anguish, kissing it so often that her lips were flayed from the roughness of the wood.171 Always worshipful in his presence, said the almighty Lord, she raised her arms to see if she could at least reach his feet. And since His Majesty was shedding so much glorious blood and Our Lady was so close by clinging to the cross, the blood fell into her eyes and blinded her, and she fainted from the very great anguish and pain she felt, seeing all the blood that her most beloved and precious son was shedding. And when she regained consciousness, she clasped the cross again, weeping, saying very prudent words of grief. And when the Jews saw that she was clinging to the cross like this, weeping so much, they took her away from there, dragging and kicking her. 16. The Lord said that at that moment St. John the Evangelist arrived and lifted Our Lady up and called to the Magdalene, saying to her, “Come here, my sister, help me remove the Virgin Mary from here. We are already losing the son, who is our God and our master; let us not also become orphans by losing the mother, since she is so sweet and holy and free of sin.” And when they removed Our Lady from there, they fled with her to another place that was somewhat distant from the cross of the Redeemer, so the Jews would not wound and hurt her any more. And St. John felt such great anguish in his soul, seeing the son and the mother suffer and die like this and seeing that he the Blessed Virgin (Meditacio Bernardi de lamentacione beate virginis),” in Texts of the Passion: Latin Devotional Literature and Medieval Society, edited by Thomas Bestul, 165–85 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1996), 117; and Fasciculus myrrhe, chap.17, fol.61r; chap. 18, fol. 65v; chap. 22, fol. 78r. See also Rubin, Mother of God, 253–54. For discussion of the Latin and Castilian texts that describe the Virgin Mary pleading to die with or instead of her son, see Boon, “Agony of the Virgin,” 11–23. 170. Jews were frequently described in miracle tales as attacking images of Mary, and narratives about her assumption often include a Jewish attack on her coffin. The author of the contemporaneous work, Fasciculus myrrhe, asserts that the Jews struck or pushed Mary while she waited outside Pilate’s house and as she followed Jesus along the road to Calvary (chap. 13, fol. 49r; chap. 17, 62v). 171. In art, it is usually Mary Magdalene who kisses the cross, but many laments of Mary describe her as embracing the foot of the cross in a failed attempt to reach up to her son (for example, Ferrer, “Sermón de pasión,” 142).

138 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ could not protect or comfort her and that the Virgin Mary had lost consciousness, that he spoke to her and turned her toward him, saying with great sorrow and urgency, “Wake up, my lady. Wake up and take courage and regain consciousness, for they are coming to kill us, and at this time we can neither protect nor comfort him or ourselves.” And the Lord said that when St. John was in this agony, his divine Majesty allowed the Virgin Mary to regain consciousness. And seeing that St. John was holding her in his arms, she said with great sorrow, “Oh my nephew! What has happened to your master? Look at the condition he is in, and we cannot protect or comfort him, the one who comforted us so often and gave us so many blessings!” And Our Lady, saying these words, fainted once again in the arms of St. John. And when she regained consciousness, she hurried back to where the cross was and our Lord Jesus Christ on it. And she clasped that sorrowful piece of wood, and she pressed her face and her lips to its splinters. And there, said the Redeemer, her soul was crucified as completely as was his body. 17. And while he hung like this on the cross, so wounded and tortured, bathed and covered in blood from the top of his head to the soles of his feet, he did not stop praying to the Father amid all those torments and tears and sobs, crying out and speaking some wondrous words and mysteries, which, said His Majesty, his crucifiers did not listen to nor did they hear what he was saying, what with the all the noise they were making and their loud voices. It was only his holy mother, clinging to the cross, who watched and listened to what he was doing and saying. Hearing him weep so hard and speak such sweet words, her soul could no longer stand it. And she turned to the Jews, saying to them very meekly, “Listen now, my lords. Listen now, my friends. See that my beloved son is speaking and I cannot hear him or understand what he is saying.” And since Our Lady begged them so much to listen, they turned to the Redeemer, mocking him and saying, “Let’s listen to what this sorcerer is saying. We will see if his spells will get him down from the cross.” And the Lord said that when they listened, they heard a few words but did not heed them because they were not worthy of understanding them. Because since his blessed mother heard the way he was speaking to his crucifiers and tormentors, pleading with the Father to forgive them, and the way he said to the thief so compassionately that on that day he would be together with him in paradise,172 her pain increased. And weeping very bitterly, she clung to the cross, saying, “Oh my most beloved son! You speak to the thief, calling him friend and telling him that you will take him with you to your kingdom, and to me, your sorrowful mother who gave birth to you, you do not wish to speak to me or remember me?

172. Luke 23:34, 43.

Sermon 19: Good Friday 139 My beloved, you see and you know how widowed and disconsolate I am without you, my sweet and true God. Speak to me now and listen to me, my dearest son.” And the Lord explained, saying that if he did not speak to or look at his holy and most beloved mother, it was because she was already a saint and she did not need him to convert her or to draw her to him with words of love or affection. However, he wanted to convert and draw the thief to him with kind and loving words, because the thief needed it. And he wanted to be merciful not only to the thief who asked for his mercy, but even for all the others who crucified him, he had mercy and wished to have it if they converted to him and believed in him. 18. And our Lord the Redeemer Jesus Christ said that while his holy mother and St. John were at the foot of the cross crying so bitterly, he took pity on them and raised his eyes to the Father, crying and sobbing very bitterly, and said, “Oh my almighty Father! Since I was given to redeem humankind and I am dying for it now in such great agony and torment, do not wish or permit my beloved mother to die or perish now from anguish and grief, but rather hearten her and comfort her and give her patience and forbearance to endure her grief. She is begging me, Father, to talk to her. What can I say or how can I speak to her? My great agony and torment increase, seeing her as she is, so grief-stricken and exhausted, she and my beloved cousin and these blessed women who are with her,173 accompanying her and grieving for me. My Father, my mother tells me and begs me to talk to her and to remember that she gave birth to me and nursed me. I dare not show her love or call her mother because if I call her mother, knowing the great tenderness and love she feels for me, she will be reminded that I am her son, and seeing my great torment here, she could die on me and expire before I do.” Our Lord and Redeemer Jesus Christ said that after he had pleaded so vehemently with the Father of Light, seeing that his sorrowful mother never stopped weeping and pleading and clinging to the cross, begging him to talk to her and to say something to comfort her and do for her at least what he had done for the thief, he turned to her and looked at her in his great agony and grief, saying to her, “Woman, you who are wailing and saying that you are widowed and unprotected, I am leaving you a son: behold John. And you, John, who are saying that you are orphaned and are weeping: behold your mother. Take care of her, because I am leaving her to you in my place.”174 And His Majesty explained that when his holy mother Our Lady heard him say such sorrowful words and saw that he did not call her mother but woman, as if she were a stranger, she began to weep again. And clasping the cross, she said, “Oh my most beloved son! I gave birth to you, I nursed you, I am your 173. Matthew 27:56 describes many women from Galilee as present at the Crucifixion, including Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joseph. 174. John 18:26–27.

140 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ sad and disconsolate mother. How can you make a stranger of me, calling me woman? What bitter trade-off is this you have made for me, your sorrowful and sad mother, replacing yourself with John, “the Lord with the servant, the master with the disciple,”175 the true Son with the nephew? You know very well, my most beloved son, that I never gave birth to or nursed anyone else but you. My God and my Lord and my son and my Creator, how can you give me the creature instead of the Creator?” The Lord said that Our Lady then turned to glorious St. John, saying to him with great anguish, “Oh my nephew John, you are my son, and you have been given to me to replace my beloved and true son and Lord. It is true, John my son, that although you are kind and handsome and holy, my sweet and beloved son is far kinder and holier and more handsome and perfect, because you are his creature and he is the Creator, you are a servant and he is the Lord, you are a mortal man and he is true God.” And the Lord said that thereupon his grieving mother spoke to him again, saying, “Oh my son! You were more beautiful than John or all the sons of men. How can it be that now you look so disfigured and broken, wounded all over and black-and-blue and bathed in blood?” 19. And, saying these and many other sorrowful words, she fainted at the foot of the cross. And St. John and the Magdalene took her in their arms and revived her, crying many tears with stabbing pains in their hearts and souls, seeing the Savior suffer and die in such a way and seeing his most precious mother pierced through her heart, falling down in a faint so often. And our Lord and Redeemer Jesus Christ said that when he saw his mother like this, more dead than alive because she was seeing him suffer such wrongs and agony, he stopped sobbing and wept quietly in order to not kill her further. But his tears were so abundant that they ran down to the ground, inasmuch as His Majesty’s wounds and injuries were so deep and his pain so unbearable and extreme, that he could not endure them or keep himself from weeping. And when Our Lady the Virgin Mary saw that he was shedding such abundant tears and blood from his merciful eyes and from all his most sacred limbs and his body of majesty that the ground was completely soaked and stained, she stood under the cross to receive it all on her face. And Our Lady was not alone in that her face and person were covered with blood, but so were St. John and the Magdalene, because they got under the cross and clasped it and threw themselves on the ground to kiss the blood that was falling on it.176

175. Ludolph provides this phrasing, attributing it to Augustine (Vida de Cristo II, 63.33, 554). 176. Ludolph cites Augustine for the detail of observers hugging the cross and kissing blood (Vida de Cristo II, 64.10, 573), but places the episode after Jesus’s death, not before. Juana may have shifted the

Sermon 19: Good Friday 141 20. And our Lord and Redeemer Jesus Christ said that seeing that he was about to expire and that his mother was there dying with him and suffering such great pain, he lifted his eyes very sorrowfully to the heavenly Father and began to say in a loud and powerful voice, “Oh my Father! Oh my Father! Why have you abandoned me? I am dying and I see my mother dying and I cannot protect or comfort her at this time.”177 And His Majesty spoke these words so loudly at that moment, so strongly and powerfully, that they resounded and rose to the heavenly Father and even reached the depths of hell and throughout the entire universe. And he repeated them, saying, “My almighty Father! Why have you abandoned me? My mother and I are dying.” And he heard the voice of the heavenly Father, who said to him, “My most beloved son! I have not abandoned you, for I am here with you and this bitter draught of yours will soon be over, and you will be with me in my bosom and majesty, as you have always been.” 21. And when the Redeemer, he himself said, saw that the hour of his ascending to his Father was approaching, he again turned to the Father with the very fervent and charitable wish to plead and pray to the Father for those who had crucified and tortured him, saying, “Oh my almighty Father, even though they have crucified me and wronged and insulted me so much, I have a great thirst for them to be saved.”178 And when His Majesty repeated these words and said “I thirst,” the wretched [Jews] did not understand why he was saying it, but rather thought he wanted to drink. And they said, blaspheming and mocking him, “See, see what he is saying. He is thirsty. The drunkard wants to drink, so let’s give him the drink he deserves.”179 And then they put the sponge with gall and vinegar into his mouth. And the Lord explained, saying that the vile Jews did not avenge themselves sufficiently by giving him that wretched brew with the sponge; they poured gall and vinegar into a horn and attached it to pole and forced it into his mouth all the way down his throat.180 And the gall and vinegar was so strong and bitter, and scene in order to justify rewriting the tradition concerning Jesus’s fourth sentence spoken aloud on cross to include his mother (in the next paragraph). 177. A revision of Mark 15:34, Matthew 27:46, quoting Psalm 22:1. 178. Glossing “I thirst” in relation to salvation was traditional, dating back to Arnold of Bonneval (d. ca. 1156) and repeated by numerous later authors (Bestul, Texts of the Passion, 206 n. 64). For example, Ludolph cites Bernard and Augustine on the subject (Vida de Cristo II, 63.43, 560). 179. In Luke 7:34, Jesus rebukes the devout who value John the Baptist’s asceticism over Jesus’s choice to eat and drink with tax collectors, and deem Jesus a “glutton and drunkard.” 180. From apocryphal writings to Augustine to medieval authors such as Bonaventure, the standard interpretation of this scene proposed that it was a Jew, Stephaton, who provided vinegar and gall on

142 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ the horn was so dirty and thick, that they made him retch so many times that it lightened the weight of his body on the cross. And all the retching split open the wounds in his hands and his feet, enlarging them so much that his body detached itself from the cross and nearly fell to the ground. And the great torment of the retching and the bitterness of the gall and vinegar heightened and increased his pain even more. And when they felt sufficiently avenged and had had their fill of tormenting him, they removed the horn from his mouth, and he stopped retching, said the Lord. And since the cross was full of splinters, they dug into the wounds left by the scourges on his back and they made him scream and moan loudly. And when Our Lady the Virgin Mary saw that he was so tormented and the pathetic relief he got for his thirst and extreme need, she was all torn up inside and she wept very sorrowfully, saying, “Oh my most beloved son! My grief was so great because I was not able to comfort you when you were thirsty and in extreme need, not even with a pitcher of water! I see you suffering. And what have they given you, which will finish killing you and worsen your wounds?” And St. John and the Magdalene and the other women who were there at the foot of the cross were likewise lamenting. 22. And the Lord said that because he was already so tormented and fainting, he pleaded again with the heavenly Father in a very sad and sorrowful voice, “My Father, I have already fulfilled and done all the things for which you sent me into the world. When will this day end? Let it end now. Let this hour come now, my Father, let it come now.” 23. And when His Majesty made these sorrowful pleas, the angels felt great compassion for him and took leave of the heavenly Father and descended, dressed in mourning with chalices in their hands to collect the blood he was shedding.181 And on earth, beating their breasts over the blood that had been shed, they gathered it up in their chalices. And the Redeemer himself said that as soon as the angels went to offer him compassionate aid, the might of the Father threw them aside and diverted them away from the cross by a distance greater than an arrow shot from a crossbow. They contemplated and worshipped him from afar, sobbing very sorrowfully. And a sponge as a way to injure Christ. Note that the emphasis in high medieval art and literature was on the deformed and hideous body of the figure who offered the sponge, indicating his sinful nature. By doubling the scene so that a dirty horn is used after the soft sponge and making the tormentors plural, Juana follows the late medieval tendency to attribute the increased torture to the Jews rather than vilifying Stephaton. William Chester Jordan, “The Erosion of the Stereotype of the Last Tormentor of Christ,” Jewish Quarterly Review n.s. 81, no. 1/2 (1990): 13–44. 181. One of the standard versions of the crucifixion scene in altarpieces and prints shows angels collecting the blood in chalices from each wound.

Sermon 19: Good Friday 143 Christ said to them, sobbing greatly, “Oh you who are looking at me, will you not protect me? Is there no one who can protect and comfort me?” And then the holy angels approached him again with great reverence and compassion and tried to pull him off the cross. And thereupon the Savior, said His Majesty, moaned very loudly, saying, “Leave me, angels of God! Leave me, for you are killing and wounding and hurting me more than I already am.” And the angels, seeing that instead of helping him they were tormenting him even more, implored the Father with great anguish, saying, “Oh Father of mercies, allow us to carry away your only begotten Son and the cross together with him, because we are unable to take him off it. We will lift him up to heaven like this, and there we will pull him off the cross and heal him and tend to him, because he says that here whenever we try to pull him off the cross, we are killing him.” And while they were saying these words, they grasped the cross to take it up to heaven and the Redeemer on it, he himself said. This was even more painful to him and caused him to moan even more loudly, and he said, “Leave me, angels, leave me! You are killing me. Let me finish dying. Do not come near me because you are only hurting me even more.” And the Lord said that when the holy angels saw that no matter how they wanted to help him they wounded and hurt him even more, they turned away from him so they would not hurt and cause him more pain. And then they fought with the cross, insulting it with great vehemence, saying, “Oh cruel cross! Oh dry stick without pity! Oh bitter wood without any virtue! Why are you hurting him so much? Why do you allow him to be upon you? Do you not realize that he is your Creator? Why do you not split apart and break to pieces and let him go? We will catch him and lift him up so he does not fall to the ground, and then we will take him up to heaven on our shoulders and our heads, treating him with kindness, and not the way you treat him. Oh tree [so] ungrateful to the Lord of heaven and earth! We saw many trees break tonight and refuse to allow Judas to hang himself on them because he had walked in Christ’s company and he had embraced him and given him the kiss of peace. And you, cross, dry and cruel wood, you suffer your Creator upon you and you bear him most cruelly, tormenting and punishing him!” 24. And the Lord explained that when the angels were saying these things and many other insults to the cross, they heard the voice of the heavenly Father that said to them, “Be silent, my friends. Do not speak ill of the holy cross, because it is not its fault. Had it been disobedient and not held my beloved son, there would be no lack of others who would. And it would not have hurt my beloved son if I had not so ordered it. And if it had disobeyed me, I would have ordered

144 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ his own mother to be his cross and you angels to be his crucifiers,182 so that the redemption of humankind could be accomplished, even though I love my beloved son as I love myself. But woe to those who are crucifying him! They are not doing it for the redemption or spiritual gain they believe it to be, but rather out of great malice and their hatred for him, who is their God and also their Creator, as I am, for he and I and the Holy Spirit are one single thing and one God, even though I allow him to suffer like this now because of my great love for humankind.183 And since you have insulted the cross without it being at fault, I order you to worship it. From now on, all the faithful will worship it, and even all of you angels will worship it because of the fruit that hangs on it.” And our Redeemer Jesus Christ said that the holy angels, obeying the command of the heavenly Father and feeling the greatest pity for him, went to him on bended knee as he was on the cross. 25. And the holy angels said this against the holy cross because Judas, after betraying Christ to the Jews, realized that he did wrong by selling and handing over to die someone who had been so good to him and merciful with him. And he tossed the money into the temple and took a rope and went to a field where there were many trees. And he flung the rope on one of the trees and tried to hang himself. And thereupon the tree broke off and refused to suffer him, saying, “I will not let you hang yourself on me because you walked in the company of my Creator and gave him the kiss of peace.” And the wretched man, blaspheming and not having faith, went to another tree and flung the rope on it, saying, “Maybe this one will suffer me.” And it too broke off. And thus for several hours he went from tree to tree, and none of them wanted to suffer him. And the Lord said that even though he was suffering the very cruel and bitter Passion, because he was the true God and was always everywhere, he saw how desperate Judas was, trying to hang himself (as he did in the end), and he took pity on him and said, “Oh my friend Judas, if you were to repent now and turn to me, I would forgive everything you have done and are doing now, and I would welcome you as a friend.” And since Judas refused to convert or to put his hope in the Lord’s mercy, His Majesty allowed a tree to suffer him and not to break, so that his evil end would finally come. 26. And our Lord and Redeemer Jesus Christ himself explained that when he was on the cross in such great agony, entrusting his spirit to the Father, saying “My Father, I commend my spirit into your hands as I am about to depart and 182. Many late medieval images show the angels holding the arma Christi; while not inflicting the wounds, they are in possession of the weapons. See figures 2 and 5. 183. Here Juana asserts her grasp of orthodox theology.

Sermon 19: Good Friday 145 leave this world,”184 his most sorrowful mother, who was there and heard him say these words, wept most sorrowfully, saying, “Oh my son, I can see that you are leaving and departing from this world. Do you forget that I, your grieving mother, am left widowed and unprotected? Take me with you, my son, and do not leave me here, thus without protection and comfort.” And a great darkness fell and signs appeared in heaven, as the holy evangelists report. 27. And while everyone was in such great darkness and deep shadows, Our Lady the Virgin Mary and St. John and the Magdalene and the other Marys saw that it was very bright around the cross, from the angels who were present there and were descending, sobbing with grief and sadness. And they saw that the angels themselves brought beds from heaven and very splendid and rich hangings, and they suspended everything in the air around the cross where the Savior was. And they brought many flowers and roses and they lay them on the beds they had placed there. And similarly they brought many torches and lighted white candles and many thuribles with very fragrant and sweet incense, and they lay them around the cross and the beds. And the angels brought these and many other adornments from heaven in order to serve and receive the Redeemer when he finished dying. And neither the Jews nor anyone else saw or heard these secrets and mysteries except for Our Lady the Virgin Mary and her sisters and St. John and the Magdalene.185 And the Lord said that after the darkness passed, all these things disappeared from before their eyes, and they did not see them for any longer than the darkness lasted. 28. And after the darkness passed and the Jews saw that he had expired, as the evangelists report, when they came to break the legs of the thieves,186 believing that he was still alive there where he was, they brought a lance that was used for warfare, which lance was very long and the blade was broad and it had a sharp double-pointed head. And they wounded his sacred side with it. And His Majesty the Redeemer himself said that, since it was so sharp and cruel, it made such a large wound that the width of person’s face would have fit into the gash. They wounded him with such force and cruelty that they inserted the entire blade of the 184. Luke 23:46. 185. This scenario shows an allegorical pageant occurring during the historical narrative on earth, rather than in heaven. 186. Fasciculus myrrhe states that Pilate sent Jews to check on the three crucified men (chap. 27, fols. 84v–85r). Apocryphal texts such as the Gospel of Peter placed far more emphasis on the Jews as Jesus’s torturers, in contrast to John 19:31–37, in which they seem to be concerned with being able to bury Jesus before the Sabbath began. For analysis, see Alan Kirk, “Examining Priorities: Another Look at the Gospel of Peter’s Relationship to the New Testament Gospels,” New Testament Studies 40, no. 4 (1994): 572–95, at 578–83.

146 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ lance and part of the shaft, and they did not pull it out of his body until after they felt and saw and realized that it had gone through him to the other side and split his heart. And when his precious mother Our Lady saw that they had wounded his sacred side and split his heart, the agony she felt was so very great that it doubled and renewed all her grief and deathly anguish. 29. And the Lord said that Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea came in the evening with unguents and the necessary tools to take him down and anoint him and shroud him and in some way to honor and bury his venerable and most sacred body. After they took him down from the cross with great sorrow and effort, they wrapped him in a sheet and began to anoint him, while his most sorrowful mother was in a dead faint and unconscious. And when she regained consciousness and saw him before her, dead and broken, wounded and gashed and so disfigured, and she saw that so much blood ran from his wounds that they could not stanch it nor could it be completely caught and absorbed by all the linen cloths that the blessed Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea brought nor by the Magdalene’s headdress and kerchief and those of the other blessed women, Our Lady began to weep so pitifully, pressing her mouth and eyes and face to his sacred wounds and to his side. In addition to the sorrow and grief glorious St. John and the Magdalene and all the other blessed souls who were there, serving him and weeping over him, felt seeing him die so cruelly and abandoned and wounded and dishonored, Our Lady’s grief doubled and increased theirs even more, seeing her dying like this.187 And the Lord explained that his holy mother Our Lady was so absorbed and affected by his wounds and Passion and death that it got to be late, and neither St. John nor the Magdalene nor the other Marys nor the holy men could remove her or separate her from his most sacred body in order to lay him in the tomb, nor could they take him from her arms in order to shroud him. So when she fainted, before she could regain consciousness, they hurried and shrouded and anointed him, although very sorrowfully and grieving and with tears in their eyes. And when she regained consciousness and saw that he was shrouded and bound up, St. John and the Magdalene begged her not remove his shroud or uncover his wounds again, but that she allow them to take him to his tomb. She allowed this, albeit with great sorrow, and so they carried his most sacred body as best they could, with great sadness and difficulty. And they took his holy mother by the arm or nearly carried her, holding her under her arms because she was unable to stand up or to walk because she was more dead than alive.188 187. Just as Jesus’s agony is greater upon seeing Mary’s reaction, other spectators have their grief increased by seeing her weep. Thus Mary is the focal point of the gazes of both her son and her companions. 188. Rogier Van der Weyden’s iconic Descent from the Cross (c. 1435) shows Mary in a faint, supported under her arms by one of the women, while Jesus’s body is taken off the cross. This contrasts

Sermon 19: Good Friday 147 And our Lord and Redeemer Jesus Christ said that when they arrived at the garden and the place where the tomb was and his holy mother saw that they were going to lay him in it, she clasped him and got into the very tomb,189 sobbing and weeping and saying, “My lords and brothers, cover and close the tomb and leave if you wish, and leave me here inside with my God and my Lord, my Creator and my son, because I gave birth to him and nursed him. And since I cannot protect or help or aid him in his hour of great need and grief and agony of death, I want to serve him now in this very small way by staying here with his most sacred body, keeping him company and weeping with him and over him inside this tomb.” And the Redeemer himself said that when glorious St. John saw that it was late and almost dark and that they could neither leave nor get Our Lady out of the tomb so they could cover and finish burying Jesus’s most sacred body, he thought to himself and resolved, with great sorrow and grief, to uncover his most sacred body or part of it and to show his most cruel wounds to his holy mother so that she, upon seeing him, would faint (as she did at the foot of the cross). And once she fainted, they would be able to cover up and finish burying his precious and most sacred body. And he put this plan into action, pulling on the shroud a little in order to uncover and show some of the most cruel wounds on the most sacred body of our Savior. This, said His Majesty, gave glorious St. John much sorrow, but he did it out of the great pity and concern he felt for Our Lady (he did not want to let her faint, since the Lord himself, when he was on the cross in such agony, had entrusted her to him). And as soon as she saw his exposed wounds, she fainted and collapsed, stricken with stabbing pain. And while his holy mother was fainted and unconscious in this way, they finished burying and covering His Majesty’s venerable body. And the Lord said that when his holy mother regained consciousness and did not find or see him, she began to weep again, but glorious St. John, who loved her so much and watched over her and protected her and wanted to comfort and serve her in any way he could, seeing that his pleas and prayers could not persuade her to get out of the tomb, as if scolding her most worshipfully and prudently, said, “How can it be, my lady, that you who are the prudent one, you the virgin, you the saint, you the humble one, and you the cloistered one who was never wont to leave the house and did not want to see anybody, and now you do not want to leave this field so late in the evening? I beg you, my lady, and beseech you that we leave for the city, because it is too late for you to be out of the house.” And Our Lady the Virgin Mary, hearing the words that St. John was saying to her, recognizing and understanding the reason he was doing it, answered him with descriptions such as the one found in Ludolph, Vida de Cristo II, 65.3, 582, in which she helps bathe and shroud him. A significant proportion of the surviving Castilian Passion art from Juana’s era depicts the deposition as a pietà, with Jesus in Mary’s arms and lap at the foot of the cross. 189. In the Quis dabit (see note 169), Mary asks to be buried with her son (Ogier of Locedio, 183); Juana turns Mary’s plea into an action.

148 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ with great meekness, saying, “It pleases me, my son John, to do what you beg and command me to do.” And then, said the Lord, his holy mother and St. John and all the other blessed ones left the garden and took the road to Jerusalem. 30. As they exited the garden, they encountered the centurion, who was coming to guard the holy tomb with his armed men. And seeing all those people, the soldiers reprimanded them and almost got into a fight with them, saying, “How dare you come and bury this man who was killed as a criminal?190 You will pay for it here and now. We will kill you before you leave here.” And thereupon St John, wanting to avoid the scene he saw coming and seeing that Our Lady could not speak and did not have the strength to do it, got down on his knees before them, saying, “My lords, my brothers! If you had a cousin or a very close relative, even if he were a criminal as you say, would you not at least bury him and accompany him after his shameful death? In the same way, do not be surprised by my coming here to bury my cousin and accompany his mother, who is left widowed and alone and unprotected without him.” The Lord said that when all the centurion’s men saw St. John’s humility and how convincing his reasons were, they answered him (although with arrogance and cruelty) saying, “We are not very surprised by you nor do we blame you, since he was your relative, as you say. But we have a complaint against those other two and are angry and annoyed at them, because, without being relatives of his or having anything to do with him, they have greatly honored him, burying him and giving him one of the tombs, which has us on the point of killing all of you right here.” And St. John spoke to them again, “My lords, they are not at fault for performing an act of charity and do not deserve to be punished. I begged them to help me, because I was alone and poor and could not afford to bury my cousin or give him what I did not have.” And the Lord said that because of the humility and prudence with which glorious St. John spoke to the centurion’s men, his divine Majesty permitted the men to let them leave the garden and be on their way to Jerusalem. And all those soldiers were left guarding his sacred body, as the holy scriptures recount.191 And St. John lodged Our Lady at the cenacle where His Majesty had had his last supper and Passover with his disciples on the Thursday before.

190. While there is debate among New Testament scholars, most agree that Jewish funerary rites included the burial of criminals and that the Roman soldiers would have honored this custom. See Craig A. Evans, “Jewish Burial Traditions and the Resurrection of Jesus,” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 3, no. 2 (2005): 233–48. 191. Matthew 27:65–66.

Sermon 19: Good Friday 149 We must think about that dwelling and that very sad night of Good Friday, said the Redeemer himself, and constantly remind ourselves what comforts and rest his sad and grieving mother must have had, and St. John and the Magdalene and all his other beloved disciples and apostles and blessed women who joined her there to mourn his most cruel and bitter Passion, which he himself suffered and endured in order to redeem and save us. 31. This is why His Majesty said and explained that this day of Good Friday must be held in great reverence, abstaining from work, not sinning, weeping and performing acts of charity, and not even doing needlework or spinning. Because he complained, saying that if the holy mother of the church declares a holy day and forbids all physical labor on the feast day of martyred apostles and notable martyrs,192 all the more reason to do the same on the day of his martyrdom, since he suffered worse torments than all the martyrs together and his martyrdom was more worthy and of greater spiritual profit for the work of our redemption.

192. All Saint’s Day, November 1, was instituted by Gregory IV in the ninth century.

Figure 5. Detail of Last Judgment, with Jesus pointing to his side wound and the angels holding the arma Christi. Nicolas Florentino, ca. 1445, Old Cathedral, Salamanca. Photo credit: Jessica A. Boon.

Sermon 20: Resurrection Introduction Sermon 20 explores Jesus’s full humanity and full divinity during and after the Resurrection, elaborating on John 20:15–29. In terms of his humanity, his wounded body continues to be figured in his post-Resurrection appearances; the Passion narrative and the compassionate responses by Mary, the disciples, and the angels persist even after his death. However, his post-Resurrection role as divine judge is also central, conveyed through several allegorical pageants that dramatize the Last Judgment and draw on Revelation symbolism to convey the fate of nonbelievers. Sections 2–5 [mostly censored]:193 Mary’s intense grief on Holy Saturday is manifested through a miraculous, visionary journey by which she travels from her house into the closed tomb to mourn next to Jesus’s body.194 She unwraps him (breaking with Jewish practice), and through her gaze, every wound already narrated in sermon 19 is reiterated. Her close examination of his side wound models the devotional practice of contemplating and even entering into his wound recommended as part of imaginative meditation for medieval devotees. Sections 6–10: In medieval narratives of the Life of Christ, Jesus appeared first to the Virgin Mary to demonstrate that she was exalted above all others;195 here he sends angels to bring her to the tomb ahead of the other women so that she will be the first to be comforted. He accompanies his mother to her house, then returns to the tomb for the noli me tangere scene with Mary Magdalene. The scene is extended by depicting the Magdalene in the role of the lover in the Song of Songs who rushes off to find her love. Magdalene announces her meeting with Jesus to Peter, John, and the assembled disciples [censored].196 In her hurry, the Magdalene drops her cloak and veil, a unique detail that possibly resulted from conflating the famous Marian relics (the cloak at Aachen and the veil at Chartres) and attributing them to Mary Magdalene instead. 193. For analysis of this scene, see Boon, “Christ at Heavenly Play,” 262–64. 194. This scene echoes a vision of Angela of Foligno in the “fifth supplementary step” of her Memoriale, in which the visionary is transported into the sepulcher. Foligno, Complete Works, 183. 195. E.g., Ludolph, Vida de Cristo II, 70, 620–26; Pseudo-Bonaventure, Meditations on the Life of Christ, chap. 86, 359–60. 196. This scene echoes the first scene in the partially surviving apocryphal Gospel of Mary, in which the Magdalene is depicted as an authority among the disciples, but Peter objects to her leading role. Gospel of Mary, trans. and ed. Lance S. Owens, Gnostic Society Library, http://gnosis.org/library/marygosp.htm.

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152 Introduction to Sermon 20 Sections 11–19: The post-Resurrection appearances include several scenes in which the disciples minister to Jesus’s wounds by bathing them with cold water and reapplying bandages [censored]; Jesus’s pain thus continues to be represented past death. The scene with doubting Thomas is enhanced by his initial refusal to touch the wounds, followed by inserting first three fingers and then his arm up to the elbow, thus touching Jesus’s heart. A noncanonical episode is added in which the guards also witness the Resurrection, but the Jewish elders bribe them to keep the miracle a secret. Jesus continues appearing to the disciples, urging all of them to touch his wounds and see his pain, and they begin guarding the bandages as blood relics [censored]. Sections 20–26: Many late medieval Last Judgment altarpieces depict the dead arising from tombs in the ground; this allegorical pageant presents a similar scenario featuring graves but in this case representing the tombs as a continual part of the afterlife, not just opening during the last days [certain small details censored]. In a valley there are bright tombs representing the saved, and ugly, dark, fetid tombs with mourners beside them. Jesus refuses to ameliorate the condition of those in the dark tombs, as purgatory will enable those souls to be saved later. The pageant evokes late medieval artistic representations of the Last Judgment, with the saved arising from gold and silver tombs and devils emerging from the blackened ones. Sections 27–29: Jesus repeatedly shows his wounds to the inhabitants of heaven in post-Resurrection celestial appearances [censored]. The next allegorical pageant focuses on feasting, as Jesus enters into the heavenly abodes of various saints and finds the tables splendidly laid out, including many cups full of blood relics [the description is censored each time the blood in the cups is described as a mix of blood and water from the side wound based on John 19:34]. Jesus then sits on his throne, termed a tálamo or wedding bed (Song of Songs 3), and invites each saint in turn to sit on his lap. As a result, all the other saints who are dancing around the throne and offering sacrifices end up honoring the saint as well as Jesus, who then provides a short commentary on the difference between latria (worship) due to God and dulia (veneration) due to saints. Sections 30–36: In an extensive pageant featuring the seven-headed beast from Revelation 13:1–2, the fates of the damned are graphically demonstrated. Some Christians lose the battle with the beast, such as those who believed their wealth or lineage gave them permission to sin with impunity, or had great pride. Other Christians succeed in fighting back by hitting the serpent in the eyes with the cross, that is, with faith and the Passion. Further torments are described, namely, Jews and heretics who stand holding books suddenly discover the letters turning

Introduction to Sermon 20 153 into demons that eat their souls. Also present are Muslims, each carrying a bone they think is Muhammad’s leg; the bones also turn into demons.197 The scene ends warning that only devotion to the Passion, Mary, the cross, and the saints can save individuals and their families, and describing the bliss of Jesus’s comfort and love that awaits the devout.

197. Assumptions that Muslims revered the leg bone, or zancarrón, in particular grew out of an antiMuslim legend that described Muhammad’s murder by the family of a Jewish woman he attempted to romance. The family fed him to a herd of pigs, conserving only the left foot, which then became the focus of Muslim devotion. Ignacio Ceballos-Viro, “El romance El Zancarrón de Mahoma y la pervivencia de una leyenda medieval,” in Medievalismo en Extremadura: Actas del XII Congreso Internacional de la AHLM (Cáceres: Universidad de Extremadura, 2008), 305–17, at 306–7. Thanks is due to Ryan Szpiech for bringing my attention to this tradition.

Resurrection Which is about some of the mysteries and wondrous secrets that our Lord Jesus Christ uttered and explained about his glorious and joyful Resurrection, and also about his holy tomb, and revelations concerning his very holy and pious mother, Our Lady the Virgin Mary 2.198 Once when the Lord was talking about his glorious Resurrection, he said that on Holy Saturday, since his glorious mother was so sad and anguished and tearful because of his very cruel death and Passion and because of his separation and absence from her, suddenly she was enraptured, as she often was from the time she was a child. And she was taken in spirit by the holy angels to his holy tomb, and she was placed inside the tomb itself. And she saw his sacred body dripping blood to such a degree that the shroud in which he was wrapped was completely soaked and stiff from the blood that gushed ceaselessly from all the injuries and wounds that had been inflicted upon his precious body. And his precious mother Our Lady very sorrowfully began to untie the cords with which the shroud was bound in order to see the wounds he had suffered the day before. Then, said the Lord, she examined his holy head, and seeing it so wounded and bruised and pierced by the very cruel thorns that had been driven into it, she wept very bitterly and said, “Oh precious head! How can you be so injured and wounded? Oh sad mother who sees such things done to so precious and beautiful a son! How can she go on living?” And likewise she looked at his holy face, which did not have the same beauty and fairness and radiance as before, but instead was disfigured and swollen and full of bruises, his beautiful beard pulled out. And the Lord said that his mother, weeping very sorrowfully, said, “Oh majestic countenance that the angels delighted in regarding and beholding!199 How can you be so ugly and blackened now?” And in this way she looked at all the other terrible and cruel wounds on his sacred body, shedding tears over them with the greatest sorrow. And she especially looked at the five doors or windows in his precious hands and feet and side, which were so large and cruel that they pierced her heart and her soul with a great 198. Note that García Andrés begins his numbering of the divisions of this sermon with section 2. 199. This paraphrase of 1 Peter 1:12 was quite common. For discussion, see Bestul, Texts of the Passion, 28. Plucking (or sometimes even touching) a man’s beard could be a very serious insult in Spain in the Middle Ages. The late twelfth-century Fuero de Cuenca stipulated a fine of 200 maravedis, the same penalty as for castration, for anyone who plucked another man’s beard. See Fuero de Cuenca, ed. Rafael de Ureña y Smenjaud (Madrid, 1936; facsimile edition, Cuenca: Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, 2003), 342–45.

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Sermon 20: Resurrection 155 sword of sorrow. And when she looked at the wound in his holy side and saw that it was so large and cruel that the entire width of her face fit into it,200 she wept very pitifully and said, “Oh my wound and my grief! Oh my son and my torment!” And the Lord said that she looked up to heaven, weeping and sighing and moaning very sorrowfully, saying, “Oh you who are in heaven, help me who is dying because I am faint with grief.” 3. And while she was thus lamenting and weeping inside the tomb, suddenly, said the Lord, she found herself in the house where St. John and the Magdalene and the other apostles and the holy women were. And she was completely soaked with tears, and the floor where she knelt in contemplation was all wet. And Our Lady’s weeping and grief were so extreme that St. John and the Magdalene could not comfort her. 4. And His Majesty said that when the angels saw how much Our Lady was weeping and lamenting, they took great pity on her and went before the heavenly Father and got on their knees with great reverence and respect and said to him, “Oh Lord God almighty Father, we implore you to bring back to life now the strong and powerful lion that was killed and sacrificed like a meek lamb, for the lioness, its mother, is dying and no one can comfort her.” And likewise they went to where the Redeemer was with all the holy fathers he had brought out of limbo201 and said to him, “Oh Lord and Redeemer of the world! Rise from the dead now, for your mother is dying and she is in much pain and anguish because of you.” And others, said the Lord, went to him and said, “Oh Lord, rise from the dead now! The women are also dying, and there is no one who can comfort them. And all your disciples are very sorrowful and sad and lost like a flock without a shepherd.” 5. And His Majesty explained that, like the lion that is born dead and its mother brings it back to life on the third day by roaring over it,202 so the very sad and sorrowful laments and weeping of his precious mother (who is the lioness) and the extreme weeping and sorrow of the disciples and the women who 200. For the size of the lance wound, see sermon 19, sec. 28, translated on 144–45. Franciscan devotees often imagined themselves entering into the wounds of Christ, see note 153. 201. Latin Passion treatises usually narrate the harrowing of hell before the appearance of Jesus to any of the Marys. See, for example, Pseudo-Bonaventure, Meditations on the Life of Christ, chaps. 85–86, 350–60; and Ludolph, Vida de Cristo II, 68.8, 612–13; and 70.1, 620–21. 202. The first chapter of the Physiologus, a popular medieval bestiary, describes the lion as a symbol for Christ and notes that the lion cub is born dead. The lioness guards it for three days until the male arrives and brings it to life by breathing into its face. See Michael J. Curley, Physiologus: A Medieval Book of Nature Lore (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), 3–4.

156 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ followed him made him (who is the strong and powerful and conquering lion) rise from the dead on Sunday before dawn, for he was not to be resurrected until daylight. 6. And when he wished to be resurrected and to comfort his most beloved mother and all the others who were sad and anguished because of him, our Redeemer himself, Jesus Christ, said that it was his will that just as his precious mother suffered the most at his very cruel and bitter Passion, she should be the first to rejoice and the one who rejoiced the most at his glorious and joyous Resurrection. This is why he sent the angels to get her and take her to the tomb where his sacred body was, for he wanted to be resurrected in her presence and to comfort her. The holy angels, said the Lord, thereupon went to get Our Lady and took her to the tomb as he had ordered them.203 And as the holy Resurrection took place before daylight, at that moment there appeared and shone such a great light and radiance in that garden that it seemed to be noon when the sun is brightest and strongest. And suddenly Our Lady the Virgin Mary saw the heavens open and a host of angels come down that completely encircled the tomb. And some of them, kneeling very reverently, untied the cords that were binding the body of our Redeemer Jesus Christ; others unwrapped the shroud in which he was enveloped; and others untied the cloth with which his sacred head was bound up. And then the voice of the heavenly Father was heard that said, “Manifest yourself, my son, in me, and I in you, for it is time for you to manifest yourself.”204 And thereupon Jesus Christ’s soul, together with his divinity, was joined and united with his sacred body, and thereupon he arose and went out of the tomb. And all the angels who were there saw him arise, resurrected in his glorified body, very radiant and one hundred thousand times brighter than the sun. And the Lord said that since his glorious mother Our Lady was at the head of the tomb and saw these exalted mysteries and since she was so eager to see him resurrected, as soon as she saw him arise so mightily, she got on her knees and worshipped him with the greatest reverence and love. Just as she was the first to worship him when he was born of her virginal womb, so likewise did his divine Majesty allow her to be the first to see him at that hour of his glorious Resurrection. And while she was thus kneeling with the greatest reverence and awe, our Lord Jesus Christ, he himself said, looked upon her and regarded her with a very joyful and loving countenance. And he approached her and pulled her up to her feet, since she had been on her knees, and he embraced her and kissed her. And 203. This inverts the scene in Pseudo-Bonaventure’s Meditations on the Life of Christ, when the angels accompany Jesus back from the harrowing of hell as he reenters his body in the tomb (chap. 86, 359). 204. This wording echoes the angels’ repeated pleas in sermon 1 that Jesus incarnate himself.

Sermon 20: Resurrection 157 speaking to her and comforting her with very sweet and loving words, he said to her, “God save you, my blessed mother, sweetest and most beloved. Be comforted and be glad. Behold me resurrected and glorified.” 7. And speaking divine and very exalted and wondrous words, he himself took her by the hand and they both went to the house and cenacle where she and the disciples and the other holy women gather. And all those hosts and heavenly companions that came together there at the holy Resurrection went with them, playing their instruments and singing very sweetly and showing great joy and happiness. And the Lord said that since it was already the Sunday morning of his holy Resurrection, he saw that the Magdalene and his beloved aunts were going to look for him and anoint him and that they were sad and tearful, especially the Magdalene, who was crying out very loudly and weeping very bitterly, saying, “Oh my master and my God and my Lord! Where will I go and what will I do without you?” And since she kept repeating these and many other plaints, Our Lady’s sisters205 told her to weep softly and not to cry out, for they also felt as she did and were in great pain too and deeply grieving, and yet they were not crying out like that. And the Magdalene answered them, saying, “Leave me alone, my ladies. There is nothing else I can do with the extreme pain and grief I feel in my heart and soul.” And the Lord said that when they reached the tomb and saw that the stone had been moved and that the angels were there, they began to weep very bitterly and became very sad. And the angels spoke to them, telling them to be glad and to stop weeping, because the Lord was already resurrected and they could find him there in Galilee, just as he had said and prophesied to them. And the Magdalene, not believing what the angels were saying, left the other Marys and hurried very anxiously to the tomb and stuck her head inside it and began to unfold the shroud and to go through everything that was in the tomb to see if she could find him in there. And when she did not find him, she left very anguished and weeping to look for him in the garden. And while walking like this, very sorrowfully, from one end of the garden to the other, the Lord appeared to her as a gardener and he spoke to her, saying, “Woman, why are you weeping? What is the matter with you and what are you seeking?” And the Magdalene answered him, “I am looking for my master and my Lord, for I left him in the tomb and now I cannot find him. Tell me, my lord, if you have seen him. If you have him, I beg you to give him to me.” And our Lord Jesus Christ, he himself said, opened her eyes and spiritual senses, and revealing himself clearly to her, he spoke to her and said to her, “Oh Mary, you are a typical woman! Calm down and do not be a doubter.”

205. For Mary’s stepsisters who would have given birth to Jesus’s cousins, see note 126.

158 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ And when the Magdalene recognized him, she fell to the ground on account of her great joy and amazement, and kneeling at his feet, worshipping him, and bowing down before him, she implored him very fervently to allow her to kiss his sacred feet, as she was wont to do. And she spoke to him very lovingly and devoutly, saying, “Oh my master and my Lord! It is you, and I never recognized you!” And the Lord said that since the Magdalene fell face down three times, putting her hands together and worshipping him and kissing the ground many times, begging him to allow her to kiss his sacred feet (where she had found so much mercy), he answered her, saying, “You are not to come near me or to touch me, because you did not believe what the angels told you. And because you doubted, you are not worthy to touch these hallowed feet, as I have not yet ascended to my Father. So go tell Peter and John and the other disciples, my friends and brothers, that you have seen me already resurrected and glorified.” And the Magdalene answered, “My Lord and my master! Go see and comfort your precious mother, as she is extremely sad and heartbroken over you.” And His Majesty said to her, “Mary, worry about yourself. Do not worry about my mother, for I know what I have to do. You go and do as I say.” And the Magdalene, hearing the Lord’s answer, stood up very joyfully and hurried along the road, saying very loudly and fervently, “Rejoice with me, all of you who love the Lord, for I have found him who loves my soul!”206 8. The Lord said that since the other two Marys returned very heartbroken and sad, he appeared to them on the road and greeted them, saying to them, “God save you, milady aunts! Why did you doubt and lose faith? Did you not know that I told you I would rise from the dead?” And dropping to their knees and prostrating themselves on the ground, they thereupon worshipped him and said, “Oh Lord our God and most beloved nephew! We already came to look for you and here are the pots of ointments we brought to anoint your precious body.” And His Majesty said to them, “I would rather have your faith than all your ointments, my lady aunts.” 9. And the Lord said that they left very joyfully and happily to inform and tell everyone that they had seen him already resurrected and glorified, and that he had appeared to them on the road and had spoken to them and comforted them, especially the Magdalene, who went very joyously to Our Lady the Virgin Mary and said to her, “Oh my Lady, I bring you such good tidings! I have already found him who loves your soul and mine. Be glad and rejoice, because your precious son and my master is already resurrected!”

206. The quotation of Song of Songs 3:1–4 is attributed to Mary in sermon 13; see note 125.

Sermon 20: Resurrection 159 And Our Lady the Virgin Mary answered her with affected ignorance, not wishing to give away the secret that she had seen and delighted in before anyone else had, “May you have good tidings, my daughter, and more joy for bringing me such good and joyful tidings!” And the Magdalene kept repeating many times, “Oh my Lady! Rejoice and do not be sad or weep any more, because he who loves your soul and mine is now resurrected. And I have already begged him, my Lady, to come to see and comfort you.” And Our Lady, said the Lord, said to the Magdalene, “Run, my child, and beg him to come to see me. And tell Peter and John and all the other disciples that you have seen him risen so they may likewise rejoice and be glad.” And the Magdalene rushed off very joyfully to tell that to Peter and John, saying, “Oh my brothers, be glad and rejoice with me, for I have seen the Lord risen and he told me to come and tell you!” And they asked her, “What are you telling us about the Lord, Mary? Where did you see him? What did he say to you?” She answered them, saying, “Come with me, my friends, I will show you my Jesus and my glory.” And all of them went looking for him in such a hurry that the Magdalene kept tripping and falling. And as she went along with this zeal, she lost her cloak and her headdress and never found them again, nor did she bother to go back to look for them, so great were her love and zeal. 10. And the Lord explained, saying that when the Magdalene lost her cloak and headdress and did not bother to go back to look for them, it signified that when people insulted and mocked her, she never turned her back on him or stopped loving and serving him. And since she was walking so quickly, some people questioned her, asking, “Where are you going, woman? What is the matter with you and why are you weeping?” She answered them with a happy look on her face and speaking very loudly and rapidly, saying, “In truth, I am not weeping, but rather I am very glad and comforted because I have found him who loves my soul.” And likewise some of her relatives went up to her and mocked and insulted her, scolding her and asking her why was she talking such nonsense and doing foolish things. And the Magdalene, ignoring the insulting things they were saying to her, left very quickly and fervently with the disciples to look for the Lord, wishing to see and worship him and to rejoice with him. 11. And the Lord said that he appeared to the two disciples, St. Peter and St. John, and to the Magdalene, and spoke to them with very great love and charity. And he not only appeared to those two, but to the other apostles and disciples

160 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ many other times. Sometimes he appeared just to some and at other times he appeared to them all together, as the holy evangelists relate.207 So when he appeared to all the apostles gathered together behind closed doors (St. Thomas was not with them), showing them his great radiance and presence to gladden them and to comfort them, when they saw him they fell on their knees with great joy and reverence and worshipped him and kissed his sacred feet. And His Majesty said that sometimes he said to them, “Approach gently, my friends, because my wounds are hurting.” And they answered him, saying, “Oh Lord our God, do your wounds still hurt?” And His Majesty said to them, “Yes, my friends, they hurt and they will keep on hurting. And I will have pain everywhere I was wounded and injured until I ascend to the Father.”208 12. And the Lord explained, saying that when his disciples heard him say that all his wounds would hurt him until he ascended to the Father, they were moved to love and pity and said to him, “Lord, what do you want us to do for you or how can we heal you?” And he answered them, saying, “I thank you, my brothers, for the compassion you have for me, but I do not need for you to heal me, since I have power enough to heal myself if I wanted. But take a few handkerchiefs soaked in cold water and place them on my wounds to cool them down because they are burning and consuming me due to the fire of love and charity with which I suffered them in order to redeem humankind.” And then the disciples, feeling very great compassion and pity for him, took a few delicate handkerchiefs and soaked them in cold water, just as he had ordered them, and placed them on his sacred wounds with great love and reverence. And when the disciples removed the handkerchiefs they had placed wet on his most sacred wounds, the handkerchiefs were so fiery hot and burning that they could not hold them in their hands. And the Lord said that when the disciples looked at those handkerchiefs and kissed them with great love and reverence and compassion, they saw on them a little bit of blood that had stuck to the fabric from his precious wounds when they placed the handkerchiefs on them. And they showed that great relic to one another, saying, “Look, my brothers, what a great relic I have from the Lord, who appeared to us and we saw him and spoke to him and he greatly comforted us.” 207. Pseudo-Bonaventure’s Meditations on the Life of Christ devotes a chapter to each appearance (chaps. 87–96, 360–74). 208. Juana elsewhere suggests that Jesus still exhibited his wounds in heaven, alternating between a glorious body and a suffering body. See, for example, sermon 22, sec. 13, translated in this volume, 192. For analysis, see Boon, “Agony of the Virgin,” 253–54.

Sermon 20: Resurrection 161 And as they were looking at those handkerchiefs and saw that little bit of blood on them, they kissed the handkerchiefs many times and placed them on their heads with very great love and fervor and reverence. Suddenly that precious blood disappeared and it turned into the Redeemer our Savior Jesus Christ himself, and they saw that those handkerchiefs were white as snow and very fragrant. And at that moment the disciples were very amazed and astonished to see such a great miracle and wonder.209 13. And the Lord said that since St. Thomas was not there when he appeared to the other disciples, they said to him when he came, “Oh brother Thomas! If only you had been here with us, for we have seen the Lord, resurrected and glorified, and he was here with us and he spoke to us and comforted us greatly.” And St. Thomas answered them, saying, “My brothers, I will not believe that the Lord has been resurrected nor that you have seen him, because I saw him so broken and injured when they lowered him from the cross that I cannot believe he has been resurrected.” St. Peter and St. John, hearing what St. Thomas was saying, were very distressed and said to him, “My brother, do not be a doubter or a disbeliever. And do not condemn yourself because of your own fault.” And St. Peter and St. John pleaded with the other disciples, saying, “My brothers, let us all pray to the Lord Almighty God for our brother Thomas so he does not condemn himself, for Judas condemned himself and he parted company with us because of his own treachery and wickedness.” And they all prayed very fervently and devoutly, saying, “Oh Lord Almighty God! We pray to you so this brother does not condemn himself because of his disbelief, but that you, oh Lord, give him grace and enlighten him so he knows what is certain and true in the same way we believe it and know it to be the truth.” The Lord said that St. Peter spoke to St. Thomas with much fervor and love, “My brother, pray to our Lord Jesus Christ to appear to you as he did to us and to comfort you.” St. Thomas answered them, saying, “I will certainly not pray to someone who is dead and buried, because he cannot help or comfort me.” And all the disciples, very sad and anguished, said to St. Thomas, “My brother, since you are so hardened and disbelieving and refuse to pray to our master Jesus Christ, pray to the Most High to reveal and manifest to you the truth and that which is certain.” And St. Thomas answered them, saying, “I will do it willingly—pray to the living and Almighty God.” 209. From the ninth century on, the Cathedral of Oviedo housed a relic of the sudarium, a cloth or handkerchief purportedly wrapped around the head of Christ after his death to catch the blood. Juana seems to be dramatizing this possibility.

162 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ And St. John said to him, “Brother, if you saw the Lord here now, would you believe him?” And St. Thomas said, “Brother, if I saw him, would I not believe him? I would certainly believe him right away.” And St. John answered, saying, “Then have faith, for I will pray to him so he also appears to you, as he has to us, and so he comforts you.” 14. And while St. Thomas and all the others were praying, waiting for God’s help and mercy, and because it was night they had closed the doors and they did not dare light candles for fear of the Jews,210 suddenly, said the Lord, he appeared to them, so radiant and bright that he lit up the entire palace211 where they were more than the sun and the brightness of the day. And they heard the thundering power and greatness of God and the host of angels that came with him, playing their instruments and singing very sweetly. And St. Thomas, hearing the loud thundering and power of the Lord and seeing his great brightness and radiance, fell to the ground as if he were dead, very afraid and terrified. And he cried out very loudly, saying, “Oh Lord, I believe you and I worship you! I beg you to forgive me and not to destroy me, for I am worse than Judas.” And he repeated these words many times with much sighing and many tears. And the Lord, he himself said, appeared and showed himself to them clearly, greeting them and speaking to them very sweetly and lovingly, saying to them, “Peace be with you.” And then he spoke to St. Thomas, chiding him and saying, “Brother Thomas, you were slow to believe! Since you said that unless you saw me and put your finger into the holes in my hands and feet and your hand into the wound in my side, you would not believe that I was resurrected, come here and give me your hand and put it into my wounds and stop disbelieving or doubting, but have faith instead.” And St. Thomas answered the Lord, trembling and crying very bitterly and saying, “Oh Lord, I believe you already without approaching you or putting my finger or my hand into you.” And His Majesty spoke to him again, saying, “It is too late for that. Give me your hand and put it inside, as you said.” And he took him forcibly by the hand and made him put three fingers into each of the wounds in his sacred hands and feet. And, said the Lord, he could have fit not only three fingers, but his whole hand inside each wound, for that is how large they were. And St. Thomas cried out loudly and moaned very pitifully

210. Interpretations of the closed doors of the house often suggested that the apostles gathered inside for protection against the crowds, here named explicitly as the Jews. 211. Passion texts and images usually depicted the apostles gathered in a house, not a palace.

Sermon 20: Resurrection 163 and wept, saying, “Oh Lord, I am killing you and hurting you. I believe you and I would believe you with just seeing you.” And the Lord answered him, saying, “It is too late for that, Thomas. Give me your hand and put it into my side and do not be a doubter.” And His Majesty took him forcibly by the hand and put it inside the wound in his side, which was so wide and cruel that the Lord himself put his entire hand and arm into it all the way to his elbow and did not stop until his hand reached his heart.212 And St. Thomas wept and trembled, crying out loudly and saying, “Oh my Lord and my God, I believe you! Leave me be, because I am hurting you, for I have already done you more harm than did Longinus when he wounded you with the lance.” And he repeated these words many times, very sorrowfully and remorsefully, because he had doubted and disbelieved. And the Lord spoke to him, saying, “Oh Thomas, did you believe me because you saw me? I say to you that those who believe me without seeing me will be more blessed.” And after he had spoken and comforted them all, suddenly he disappeared, and they were left very joyful and comforted. 15. And the Lord explained, saying that no one should marvel that the apostles and the evangelists did not write about the acts of mercy they performed on his fresh wounds after he was resurrected because they wished to say only what was to the point and in keeping with our faith, which is that God was resurrected and ascended into heaven and he lives and reigns there forever. And not saying anything about the merciful acts they performed for him, which were kissing his wounds and sometimes covering them with clean handkerchiefs soaked in water in order to refresh him, as is done with people who have been wounded and hurt, meant that all those who perform good works and pious acts in order to serve God must keep them secret in order to remove pride from them, for it is unseemly to speak and praise oneself, saying, “I did God a kindness by which I served him.” Whereby were explained all the above mentioned things, especially the mysteries that took place between the time of the holy Resurrection and the Lord’s holy Ascension into heaven. And the Lord said that he often appeared to all his disciples during these forty days, his body glorified and completely healed (and, when he wanted, afflicted with pain). And he comforted them and ate and drank with them, and sometimes he said to them, “My friends, I want to leave now, but I will comfort you again and appear to you more times before I ascend to the Father.” 212. Ludolph states that Jesus’s side wound was big enough for Thomas’s entire hand to enter (Vida de Cristo II, 78.2, 671), but the extremity of reaching in to touch his heart is not part of the Latin tradition.

164 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ And they surrounded him very lovingly and clung to his clothes, saying, “Oh our Lord and most beloved master! Here we are, all of us, clinging to you and surrounding you, and we will not let you go or depart from our company in any way whatsoever; rather, we want you to be constantly with us, as was your custom in the past.” His Majesty said that while all of them were surrounding and encircling him and clinging to his clothes, suddenly he disappeared from among them, so that they could no longer see him. 16. And he explained further, saying that since he was God and he was everywhere and saw and knew the thoughts of St. Thomas and all the others and saw everything they did and said, he did not want to appear to them or comfort them until St. Thomas began to pray and to ask for God’s help, as did the other apostles. This means that when a person is living in sin or with any other temptation and in physical or spiritual distress, if the person himself does not help himself to abandon sin and his obduracy, praying to God for help and mercy, even if Our Lady the Virgin Mary and all the blessed souls in the heavenly court were to pray for him, he would not be comforted or free of sin until the person helped himself and prayed for himself, asking the Lord to comfort and enlighten him and to give him strength. 17. And the Lord said that when the guards who were by his holy tomb saw such great brightness and radiance throughout that field and saw that the earth moved as if with joy (in the same way it showed grief and quaked with sorrow at the time of the Passion), and when they heard the hymns and songs of the angels,213 they were greatly amazed and astonished and could not imagine or recognize what those things and unusual events could be because not only the earth but likewise the heavens and all the elements, as well as the sun and the moon, showed their great gladness and displayed their rays and brightness because of their joy over his glorious Resurrection, just as they had hidden and concealed their rays and brightness at the time of his very sad and sorrowful Passion. And the guards turned toward the tomb and looked to see what those things were. And they saw our Lord Jesus Christ emerge from it, all radiant and beautiful and shining and covered with flowers from the soles of his sacred feet to the top of his very royal and divine head.214 However, said His Majesty, they were not worthy of 213. In Matthew 28:2–4, the guards pass out from fear at the sight of the angels. Juana seems to be melding the scene about the guards with the appearance of the angels to the shepherds in Luke 2:8–14. 214. Various theologians from Hildegard of Bingen to Peter the Venerable to Dante used flowers as a symbol for the resurrected body, as decomposing bodies could germinate seeds. See Caroline Walker Bynum, The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200–1336 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), 162, 177, 185, 302. Ludolph considers them a symbol of the resurrected Christ, the “flower of life with its fruits” (Vida de Cristo II, 69.1, 614). Juana herself describes the

Sermon 20: Resurrection 165 seeing him and they were so very afraid that they did not dare to remain there any longer, but rather they fled to the chief priests and said to them, “Oh my lords! We are amazed and astonished by what we have seen and heard and witnessed.” And the priests questioned them and said, “What is it you have seen and witnessed?” And the guards answered, “While we were guarding the tomb of Jesus the Nazarene, we saw a great radiance and brightness light up the fields everywhere. And we saw him emerge like the sun and throw off a very great radiance and shining rays, and we heard very exalted and sweet songs and melodies all around the tomb itself. And when we looked at the tomb, we saw emerging from it resurrected Jesus the Nazarene whom you killed and crucified. He emerged so radiant and glowing, covered with flowers, and so beautiful and powerful that we were amazed, so much so that we lost consciousness and fell to the ground as if we were dead. And we had no other choice when we regained consciousness and got some courage, but to flee. And therefore everything you did and worked for in order to kill him and conceal his fame is of little use, because he has already been resurrected and we saw him clearly come out of the tomb. And now his fame will grow again and be as it was before.” And the Lord said that when the chief priests and the Pharisees and the elders and the scribes heard the guards say the things they had seen and heard and witnessed, they were disturbed and very angered in their hearts, and they were filled with malice and ill will and hatred. And they said to the guards with great fierceness and rage, “Be quiet, be quiet. Do not say such a thing or else we will kill you too and put you through infinite deaths and torments, as we did to him. And if you keep this quiet, we will give you many riches and make you prosperous.” They kept silent and did not dare or want to tell or reveal this to anyone out of fear and out of greed for money and ephemeral things. And the Lord explained, saying that any persons who deny or hide the truth because of fear or money commit a sin. And they sin even more if they hide or deny the holy Catholic faith or things concerning the honor and glory of God or the salvation and solace and spiritual well-being of their neighbors, as did those who kept his holy Resurrection a secret. And the chief priests and Pharisees and scribes who were talking among themselves said, “If such a thing as this is divulged and spread among the people, all of us are lost and dishonored. Although we believed we killed and finished him off and blotted out his fame and miracles and works and wonders, soon he will be exalted again and draw all the people to him. And so it is to our advantage to warn and threaten the guards who were present and saw him that they must keep quiet and say nothing, even if we need to give them all our possessions.” angels dressing resurrected devotees in flowers to cover up the mourning raiment they had worn while awaiting the Last Judgment (Conorte II, 9.29, 460).

166 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ Then they went to the guards and said, “Be quiet and do not say anything to anyone, and we will give you all our possessions in return, if you want them. And we will say that his disciples stole his body and hid it.215 And we will do what we can so that no memory of him remains. And we will kill with a very cruel and shameful death all those who invoke his name. And in this way we will put an end to this man and his fame and miracles, or else all of us will look like liars and he like the one who is truthful.” 18. And the Lord said that at those times when the chief priests and the scribes were making these pacts, he appeared often to his beloved apostles and disciples and to the blessed women who followed and accompanied him and to whom he appeared before he did to the men, inasmuch as the women loved him more tenderly and went searching for him with great zeal and ardor, wishing and desiring to anoint his most sacred body and to honor and serve him, since they were unable to do so when he was alive at the time of his very cruel and bitter Passion. And this is why the glorious Magdalene said, when she went searching for him in the garden and saw him in disguise, “Tell me, my lord, if you have seen my master and my Lord.” And she said this intending and desiring to find him and to take him, dead as he was, and to carry him in her arms and put him where she could see him and have and enjoy him at all hours and times of the day and the night. His Majesty said that every time he appeared to his disciples, he greeted them wishing them peace, saying as his first words, “Peace be with you, my friends. Behold me resurrected and sanctified. Do not be afraid or doubt or be blind or disbelieving because I suffered the Passion. And behold the scars and holes of the nails and the lance. And do not be afraid, my children and friends, or think that I am a ghost. Touch me and feel me, and you will see that I am made of flesh and bones. You already know, my friends, that when a person is wounded or lanced, even if he survives and heals, pain and blood and suffering and scars remain. As for me, I was so badly wounded and injured and tortured that my wounds are still terrible and large and open and bleeding. And as I have told you, I still feel pain. Therefore, touch me gently because in truth I feel some pain when you touch my feet and my hands. And I wish to be in pain and to feel it, inasmuch as I do not wish nor is it my will to be in complete and perfect health for as long as I am in this world (even though I have already been resurrected and sanctified), until I go and ascend to the highest place in heaven and sit at the right hand of the Father. And even when I am there, my wounds will be fresh and recent for a few 215. In Matthew 27:64, the priests and Pharisees petition Pilate to post a guard, fearing that the disciples will steal the body to increase Jesus’s fame. In the Vita Christi, Ludolph cites Chrysostom, Rabanus, and others in the course of his chapter concerning the guards, the priests, and the reputed robbery of his body (Vida de Cristo II, 74, 648–71).

Sermon 20: Resurrection 167 days, because it is necessary for me to show my wounds and scars to the angels so all of them may see and know that I am the one who suffered and was crucified and killed and wounded by sinners.”216 And the Lord explained, saying that the holy angels who accompanied him and served him and constantly went everywhere with him saw that after he was resurrected and glorified, he walked on earth, sometimes appearing and showing himself, but not to the world because the world did not deserve him, that is to say, he did not show himself to any of the sinners, about whom it could be said that each of them is a whole world of sins and wrongdoings. Instead he appeared to his disciples and friends in order to comfort and gladden them and to show them that it was he who had been killed and resurrected. This was to keep his disciples from complaining or saying that if he was resurrected, they did not know about it or have the chance to witness it, and that if he was such friends with them, he had not appeared to them or let them know about it. So he appeared to them often, showing them affection and comforting and admonishing them with very sweet and loving words, and even warning them to be believers and not to doubt that he was the true and mighty God. 19. Since he bled sometimes from his most sacred wounds, his disciples felt great pity for him and they themselves brought handkerchiefs that were whiter and finer than Dutch linen and sheer silk, and they used them to clean his precious wounds. And they took the handkerchiefs and pieces of silk gauze back to where they had gotten them. And the angels themselves put the handkerchiefs in chalices and vessels more precious than if they had been made of gold and precious pearls. And amid great hymns and songs they carried them, kissing them and placing them on their heads, saying, “Let us take this holy relic of the glorious and precious blood of our God and Creator, and let us put it in the highest place in heaven in great reverence and respect and veneration, and keep it until our Lord Jesus Christ comes and ascends and sits at the right hand of the Father. And then he will take the blood and gather it all unto him.217 And since he says he does not want to be healed or to have full happiness or health until he comes here to be joyful and reign forever, it is not right for us to leave him now without performing acts of mercy for him as long as he is on earth.” 216. Ludolph discusses nine reasons Jesus appeared to the disciples with a wounded body (Vida de Cristo II, 78.5, 674–75). According to another of Juana’s sermons, Jesus actually reexperiences the Crucifixion every Friday; thus his wounds do not disappear a few days after the Resurrection, at least not permanently (Conorte II, 30.4, 898). 217. For a magisterial discussion of blood relics and the theological debates concerning whether the blood that Jesus shed was permanently separated from him or ascended with him, see Caroline Walker Bynum, Wonderful Blood: Theology and Practice in Late Medieval Northern Germany and Beyond (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007), especially chaps. 5 and 8.

168 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ 20. And the Lord explained, saying that on the same day that he uttered and explained the above-mentioned things, the holy angels and all the other glorious male and female saints, remembering and commemorating those times and days when he walked on earth after he was resurrected and glorified, offered him great feasts and solemn ceremonies in his holy kingdom. He revealed himself to the eleven apostles and to the other disciples and holy women, instructing them and teaching them everything they had to do and practice and teach all the others, and always announcing peace to them and greeting them with peace and showing them his wounds and telling them how they hurt and how he did not want to be fully healed or happy or comforted in this world until he had ascended into his holy kingdom in order to set an example to us sinners who live on this earth that we should not want or wish, for as long as we live in this world, to be comforted or to have full and perfect health until we go to the kingdom of heaven, where are found all healing and joy and solace and compassion and pleasures and perfect and fully realized and excellent delights, endless and incomparable. Suddenly all the blessed souls saw in a deep valley a great and wondrous allegory, which represented all the people who had passed on from this life, both the good and the evil, because in heaven they are ever performing allegories of us sinners, for as long as the world will last. And in that valley or field there appeared a great many graves, and some were very radiant and beautiful as if wrought of very fine and pure gold. And others of those graves were very bright and beautiful, as if made of very fine and polished silver. And inside those golden and silvery graves there were people stretched out like corpses and covered with golden and very gossamer silk coverlets, so fine that they were translucent, and those who were lying inside the graves showed through clearly. And on top of those large and beautiful and dazzling graves, near the head of each tomb, there were a few very beautiful and dazzling angels, who were singing and playing instruments very sweetly and charmingly, praising and thanking most exalted God for the very good death and the life those people had had. And the Lord said that while the angels were thus playing their instruments and singing so very beautifully, there wafted from those beautiful graves fragrances that were more delightful and more lovely than sweet-smelling incense or perfume. And as soon as those perfumes rose upward and released such good and sweet fragrance, the angels themselves rejoiced and were glad, and from time to time they blessed the graves and the people who were in them. And a little farther ahead in that same field there were other graves that were very black and ugly and foul smelling and repulsive to see and to behold, and hotly burning fire in monstrous shapes came out of these graves. And people lay stretched out in these graves as if they were dead. These people were very hideous and dark and ugly, and covered with coverlets of copper and fiery and very black iron. And on top of those sad graves there were very hideous and ugly devils that

Sermon 20: Resurrection 169 were repulsive to look upon and that were howling and screaming very frightfully, cursing those dead people, telling them that they and their works and their lives were cursed, so evil and perverse they had been. And all around the gold and silver graves were people as if dressed in mourning and weeping for those deceased who were inside, pleading with God to bring them back from the dead. 21. And the Lord explained, saying that when he descended to all his kingdoms and palaces, seated on a rich and ornate and shining throne, closely surrounded and accompanied by angels and blessed souls who were serving and worshipping him and pouring out many cups of perfumes and scattering a great many roses and flowers, he looked toward that valley or field where those graves were. And he saw that the holy angels were on top of the very same shining and beautiful graves as if made of gold and silver, blessing those dead people and their lives and good works because they had been good in some way and they were worthy to be saved through God’s mercy. And through his mercy, he himself spoke to them with great might and kindness, saying, “What are you angels doing here in this low place and standing on those graves? Why do you not ascend to these heights in order to rejoice with me? It is neither right nor fitting for you to be there in that low place.” And the holy angels answered him with great humility and reverence, saying, “Oh Lord our Almighty God! We worship and bless you and give thanks to your divine mercy, because it has seen fit to remember us and to order us to ascend. However, we are glad to remain here humbly on top of these beautiful graves, blessing those saved souls whose good works so gleamed before Your Majesty.” And the Lord said that when he finished speaking to his holy angels, he went down to that large field, which represented the whole world, and he began to look and peer into the graves that were shining and beautiful and resplendent. 22. And when those who were dressed as if in mourning clothes saw that he was there near the graves, they began to cry out even louder, saying, “Oh Lord our God! We beg you to bring these our dead back to life, for they are our children, our fathers and mothers, and our friends and relatives and siblings.” And His Majesty kept silent, not wishing to bring them back to life.218 This means that when our parents or living people we love die, that is when we beg and want God to bring them back to life, not knowing what we are asking for nor being right to ask it.

218. This passage echoes sermon 1, sec. 2, translated in this volume on 40–44, when Jesus refuses for centuries to incarnate himself out of disillusion given that he is cursed and rejected by many generations of people.

170 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ And the holy angels, seeing that those people were weeping and pleading for their dead, were moved to pity by their tears and begged and said to the Lord with great humility, “Oh mighty God! May your divine mercy hear those who are begging and pleading with you, and if you think it best or if you deem it a reasonable thing and helpful for their salvation, bring their dead back to life.” The Lord said that he answered the holy angels, saying to them, “Oh my friends! I do not wish nor is it my will to bring back to life those who have already been separated from their flesh. Let those who are sleeping in their graves sleep. Do not try to awaken them, because I will wake them when the right time comes. For now let them sleep and rest. Why do you want me to bring them back to life so they go back to sinning and offending me and losing what they won previously? If I were to bring the dead back to life whenever I am begged and importuned, it would not be good for them at all because if they had many sins to pay for and to expiate when they exited the world, they will come with many more sins the next time they die. And if my judgment of them was terrible and very fraught with peril when I judged them at the time of their passing, it will be much more perilous when I judge them again. And if some of them have come to my holy kingdom without having to expiate or pay for their sins in purgatory and are now forever joyful and happy and blessed, if I were to bring them back to life when their relatives beg me to do so, perhaps they would come back later with so many sins that they would have to go to purgatory to expiate them and a great many years would hardly be enough to atone for them. Therefore, my friends, let them sleep and rest with me, for I will take care to awaken them.” 23. And likewise there were people in mourning clothes surrounding the black graves where the demons were, weeping for their dead and begging God to bring them back to life. The Lord said that he did not answer those pleas or pay attention to them, inasmuch as those who were weeping and those who were in those black and ugly and fetid graves accompanied by very ugly and hideous demons, all represented infidels and heretics. And the weeping over the resplendent and beautiful graves, which represented all faithful and good Christians, meant that there are people of every stock and class and age who weep for their dead. 24. And the Lord said that while he was walking in the middle of that field talking with the holy angels, telling them that he did not want to bring those dead back to life, those who were weeping at first began slowly to cheer up and stopped weeping and pleading with him to bring their dead back to life. And they began to laugh and play and feel joy and comfort one another, forgetting those who were in the graves. This means that those of us who live on earth, after we see that people we love have passed from this life and we have buried them, even though we weep

Sermon 20: Resurrection 171 and grieve for a few days or for a short time and we wish those we pray for were brought back to life, afterwards we are wont to forget very quickly the sorrow and anguish we feel for our dead. And we laugh and are happy and rejoice, but not from our acceptance and resignation because God did it and took the departed unto himself for their own spiritual well-being and good. Because if some are condemned and go to hell because of their wrongdoings and crimes, perhaps, if they lived longer, they would commit much worse sins, which would cause them to deserve and suffer a worse hell and suffering and punishments. And if others had few sins to pay for when they died and paid for them quickly in purgatory, perhaps, if they had lived, they would have had and committed such sins afterwards that the punishments of purgatory would not be enough to satisfy their debt and they would go to hell. But when those who remain alive here find solace, it is with the possessions and wealth and inheritances left to them by their dead. 25. For they so delight in the riches and pleasures of the world that they not only forget the sorrow and anguish they feel for the dead, but they do not even bother to carry out the terms of the wills and the bequests stipulated by the dead, nor do they bother to perform suffrages for their souls. This, said the Lord, is a great sin, and they will pay a heavy price for it when they go before his divine presence, inasmuch as they consume and spend and squander the assets and money that they did not work for nor earn. And afterwards they do not want to give even a small part to the dead who left them their possessions, all of it being theirs—even though it is ill gotten sometimes—and the heirs leave them to suffer the greatest punishments and torments in purgatory. 26. And the Lord said that when all the holy angels heard him say that at that moment he did not want to bring those dead back to life until it was the right time, they pleaded with him with great humility and reverence, saying, “Oh Lord, our Almighty God! Since you say that when it is time you will bring the dead back to life, we beg your great clemency to show us how and in what way you will do it.” And His Majesty answered very mightily and with great kindness, saying, “It will please me to show you how and in what way I will awaken on Judgment Day all those who are sleeping in their graves.” And then, said his divine Majesty, he turned toward the graves and spoke in a very powerful and wondrous voice to those who were buried, saying to them, “In my name and in my power and in my virtue I tell you who are asleep and dead to arise immediately and to wake up from the sleep you are now in and to appear here before me.” And as soon as Almighty God, he himself said, finished saying these words, suddenly all those who were in the graves were awakened. And the graves themselves were turned into those who were inside them, and by divine command the

172 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ interred themselves took on their bodies and shapes and occupied those graves. This means that our very bodies are the graves of our souls, for they encase not only our souls but even our desires and thoughts and cares and intellect and faculties. And all the people who were in the golden graves were brought back to life and awakened, which graves represented the faultless life and virtues of people who are servants and friends of God in this world. Because just as gold is much more prized and brighter than all other metals, similarly, the servants of God—their souls now in heaven and their bodies after Judgment Day—are more radiant than gold that has been purified in a furnace. The glow of this gold represents the love and charity they felt toward God and their neighbors while they lived on earth. And those in the silver graves represented the splendor and purity and beauty of the holy Catholic faith that faithful Christians observe and observed while they lived in this world. Because just as silver is very shiny and bright and pleasant to look at to everyone who sees and possesses it, similarly, the holy Catholic faith is something that gladdens the hearts of believers who faithfully and truly observe it and believe it, and it enlightens their souls so they may know and see that it is the certain and good and true faith, without any adulteration or error or deceit. However, even though silver is a very bright and precious thing, gold is much more precious and radiant, so likewise, even though people who observe the holy Catholic faith and believe in it are very much worthy before the divine presence, incomparably greater is the merit and reward that possess those who not only have a very firm and strong and true faith, but, in addition, have very great love and charity and fervor for God and their neighbors and many other kinds of virtues that are necessary for souls and bodies to shine before the divine presence, just like very fine gold. And the people in the ugly and hideous and repulsive graves represented the evil deeds and evil life that infidels led and lead for as long as they live in the flesh. Because of these sins and the darkness of the evil sects and deceitful religions they observe and believe, refusing to observe and believe the holy Catholic faith, which is a very enlightened and true and certain faith in the most holy Trinity, not only their souls but also their bodies will be very much condemned and tormented and consumed with fire and afflicted with pain forever. Suddenly, the good and faithful appeared, all of them clothed and covered in roses and very fresh and delicate and beautiful and fragrant flowers from the top of their heads to the soles of their feet. And those who came out of the black graves all looked very black and as if on fire and ugly and hideous. And the Lord said that just as those black and hideous people appeared before him in his might and virtue and majesty, they all fell with a great and noisy crash into the depths of the chasm and fire and deep darkness and, pursuing them, that pack of demons that had been cursing them while they were in their graves.

Sermon 20: Resurrection 173 And the holy angels who had been on top of the golden and silver graves, giving their benison to the blessed souls who were inside them, said His Majesty, meant that the angels, our guardians, not only watch over us and protect us while we are alive, but even when we are dead they help us and bless our souls when they are in heaven and our bodies when they are in the grave, even though bodies disintegrate there and are eaten by worms. And they do not mind standing on the graves that are in churches and cemeteries, and they bless the faithful people who performed good works in order to be saved. The angels do this to set an example for us sinners that we must and it is a very good thing to go out and pray over the graves of the dead and to sprinkle holy water on them,219 which is spiritually very helpful for them. And the dead rejoice because if they are suffering the punishments of purgatory, the prayers and sprinkling of holy water refresh them and relieve their suffering, and if they are in the glory of heaven, their glory increases and they greatly exalt God, praying very fervently for those who perform good works for them. And the Lord said that if some of the people who had been bad Christians are in hell, all the prayers and alms that are said and offered for them, although they do not help them because it is written that whoever is in hell cannot be saved, such prayers and alms, however, are very helpful for the people who perform such suffrages and for all the other deceased of their family who are on the path of salvation. And His Majesty explained that after those unfortunate souls fell and were cast down, which souls were and are and will be in life and in death forever cursed by demons because of their wrongdoings and the sins they committed, their bodies appeared very ugly and foul smelling and blackened. This means that after the Last Judgment the bodies of all the damned will be much uglier and blackened and foul smelling than they are now in their graves because the ugliness of sins and abominations will not only make their souls ugly, but also their bodies. Because just as they sinned with their souls as well as with their bodies, so will they suffer in body and soul and be ugly forever. And the Lord said that he received those blessed souls who emerged looking beautiful and bright and covered with flowers, which beautiful and bright flowers represented the merits of his sacred Passion. Because every drop of blood that his most holy body shed is a flower and a very fragrant rose that ornaments and adorns every faithful Christian who trusts and believes in him and hopes to be saved and freed and gladdened and consoled through the merits of his Passion. And he took them and raised them up to the highest place in heaven, embracing them and kissing them and crowning them and greatly comforting them and giv219. Late medieval burial practices included the priest sprinkling the body with holy water to ward off demons. Christopher Daniell, Death and Burial in Medieval England, 1066–1550 (New York: Routledge, 1998), 50. Tombs near the font of holy water, while apparently secondary since not near the altar, were prized in late medieval Spain because of the constant libation of holy drops shed while devotees crossed themselves (Eire, From Madrid to Purgatory, 100).

174 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ ing them accidental beatitude and speaking to them very lovingly and with great humility and charity, saying to them in a melodious and joyful voice, “My friends, consider what you have gained by loving me, and consider what those others have lost for not loving or serving me. They are calling out to me and begging me to help and save them and to remove them from the punishments and tortures they are suffering, but my ears are deaf now and not hearing them. And they will die infinite deaths and suffer infinite punishments and tortures and pain, and there will be no one to save and comfort and help them. Therefore, my friends, consider what you have gained by loving me.” And he repeated these words many times, saying, “Consider now, my friends, what you have gained by loving me, for you have earned such great spiritual wealth and delights and solace and glory and repose and riches that you will never ever lose, nor will you ever have, from now on, any more sorrow or grief or sadness or anguish. And you have gained all this, my friends, for loving me.” And saying these words and many others, he took them and offered them to the heavenly Father very joyously and jubilantly, saying, “Accept, my almighty Father, these my friends that I present to you.” And the Father of Light welcomed them with much love and mercy, and the entire most holy Trinity welcomed and crowned them and offered them many feasts and honors and solemn ceremonies. This means that on that last day of frightful judgment, after the wrongdoers and the damned have fallen and been cast down into hell, our Lord Jesus Christ, he himself said, will rise up with all the blessed souls to the highest reaches of heaven amid great joy and demonstrations of affection, adorning and crowning them and arraying them with the very beautiful flowers of the merits of his sacred Passion. 27. And the Lord explained, saying that when the blessed souls in the court of heaven remembered how at the time he walked on earth, appearing to his apostles and disciples after his glorious Resurrection, he showed them his most sacred wounds from which flowed blood and water smelling sweeter than all the fragrances and precious things in the world, which water and blood so wondrous that were flowing meant that not only did he shed his precious blood at the time of his very cruel and bitter Passion, but even after being resurrected and glorified, his most holy eyes and his holy wounds cried tears and drops of blood and water over our sins and wrongdoings and for those who refuse to believe and to love and to feel compassion for what he suffered in order to redeem and save us, and because many people would be so evil that they would be condemned because of their own faults and wrongdoings and would not partake in the great and precious merits of his precious wounds. And so they were ordered to hold more very great feasts and solemn ceremonies for him and to rise up to his divine presence and to

Sermon 20: Resurrection 175 implore him to see fit to come down to their dwellings and palaces in order to give them gifts220 and joys and spiritual nourishment. And our Lord Jesus Christ, he himself said, answered them when they were imploring him, saying to them with great sweetness and love, “It will please me, my friends, to come down to your dwellings and palaces.” And then he descended and left the bosom and majesty of the Father. And as he descended, seated on his wondrous throne, surrounded and encircled by a host of angels and saints and virgins, all of them performing very lovely and ordered dances and playing their instruments and singing very sweetly and charmingly, and laying down their garments and crowns and instruments and the virgins their tambourines and jewels and prostrating themselves on the ground where he would pass. And His Majesty said that when they arrived at the palaces of the blessed souls who had invited him to eat, he found that they had set very richly decorated tables upon which there were very large and beautiful chalices, brighter than gold and pearls and precious stones. These marvelous chalices were filled with the most excellent and fragrant and beautiful roses and flowers and balms,221 which represented or were the drops of blood and water that emanated and flowed from his precious wounds during the forty days when he went about manifesting himself to his people. And His Majesty, seeing those tables so richly supplied and full of such beautiful chalices and precious and holy relics, spoke to those blessed souls, saying to them, “What is this, my friends, that you have in these beautiful chalices, which you value and venerate so greatly?” And the glorious male and female saints answered him very humbly and reverently, prostrating themselves on the ground and saying, “Oh Lord our Almighty God! These holy relics that we hold here in such great veneration are the glorious blood and water that flowed and issued from your holy wounds during the time that you, oh Lord our God, walked on earth revealing yourself to your beloved disciples. Although you collected and received into your most sacred body all that precious water and blood on that most revered day of your holy Ascension,222 still, we have some very precious balms here that only you know what they are, but we consider them as something of yours.” 220. Gifts: MS mercedes. This word choice evokes both God’s gift of grace (see sermon 22, sec. 6, translated in this volume on 189) and royal gifts. 221. Balms translates MS licores which evokes both the Eucharistic context and a medicinal one, as bálsamo is also a synonym according to Alfonso de Palencia’s Universal vocabulario, 1490; see John M. Hill, “Universal vocabulario” de Alfonso de Palencia: Registro de voces españolas internas (Madrid: Real Academia Española, 1957), 107. Rose water and rose oil were common ingredients in pharmacological recipes, indicating that the saints are not only presenting blood relics but also alluding to the common trope of Christ as physician or healer. Thanks to the members of [email protected] for an extensive discussion on this topic. 222. See note 217.

176 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ And the Lord said that he replied very lovingly and sweetly, saying, “Well now, my friends, I agree with you (since you are telling the truth) that I alone know how all things are and how they have come to be. And because you so rightly say that all these precious relics are mine or something of me, you therefore do very well to honor and venerate them, and I will greatly reward you and give you accidental beatitude for it.” And then he sat down on his mighty throne or wedding bed and summoned each of the blessed souls, saying, “Come here, my friend. Approach me and sit on my wedding bed and my throne and in my arms like a very young and cherished child in the arms of his father who loves him very much, and like a wife in the arms of her husband who loves her dearly.” And then, said His Majesty, each of them went to him very humbly and respectfully and prostrated himself on the ground and worshipped him with supreme veneration. And the Lord Almighty God arose and received the glorious saint in his arms and held him or her close to him, saying very sweet and loving words. And the Lord said that since all the glorious angels and saints had surrounded the throne on which he was sitting, dancing and playing instruments and singing very sweetly and charmingly and making him many and various sacrifices and offerings, and since he held the saint so close to him and united with him, when they were worshipping him and making sacrifices to him, they could not do anything other than to worship and offer sacrifices to the very saint he was holding in his arms. 28. Even though those who made offerings and sacrifices placed them before His Majesty, he took them in his most sacred hands and gave them all to whomever he was holding in his arms, saying, “My friend, take these offerings and sacrifices that have been given to me, for I want to give and present all of them to you because I want the biblical passage “may all your brothers worship you” to be fulfilled, which passage is tantamount to saying that all your equals and companions are to obey and honor you at this time, because I have exalted you in my arms and united you with me.” His Majesty does this honor and exaltation of the blessed souls on the feast days of each of his saints or on the feast days of the Lord himself. However, worship called latria223 belongs only to God, he himself said, because only he deserves and is worthy of it (and no other saint or angel or any other creature, heavenly or earthly, even if it is Our Lady the Virgin Mary, who is greater and better than any other pure creature after God himself), inasmuch as the word worship is a common word that fools and clever people alike use continually, and anyone who deeply loves and serves another is said to worship him or her as if he or she were God. 223. See note 93.

Sermon 20: Resurrection 177 And the Lord said that the honor and worship that he gives and orders given to the glorious saints take place on the day of their martyrdom or death because on such days the saint is brought before him and seated next to him on his royal throne and placed in his arms. And there His Majesty orders all the blessed souls in the court of heaven to honor and serve and revere and venerate the saint whose feast is being celebrated on that day, and to venerate and revere and respect the saint as much as they do the Lord himself. And he orders the saint to be thus waited upon with the pomp due to a legitimate son and heir, inasmuch as he treats the blessed souls as do the kings and powerful men on earth who, when they have a son or a daughter they love very much, or a very loyal servant, they order their other servants and other children to honor and obey and revere and exalt the one they wish and so will. Because the king or lord considers himself to be the recipient of all honors and all services rendered to his favorite son or servant, and therefore the king or lord derives as much pleasure from them as if they were proffered to him, which honors and solemn ceremonies offered to the saints, said the Lord, can be considered worship. 29. However, the worship due to him alone is separate and very different and discernible from all other kinds of worship, because the worship that belongs only to God is worship of latria and major and exclusive and fervent and pure worship; it is worship done with the mouth and the eyes and the hands and the heart and the soul and the body and with all the senses and faculties freely and with all desires and deeds and thoughts and concern; it is worship without any trace of malice or doubt of faith; it is worship done with the whole spirit and with truthfulness, a worship done at all hours and all moments of day and night, worship in gratitude for all the gifts and favors that we have continually received and will receive from His Majesty; it is worship in gratitude for all the things he did and created and ordained in heaven as well as on earth and in hell; it is worship in gratitude for all the solace and tribulations and anguish and persecutions we have endured; it is worship most wise and intelligent and wondrous because everyone must and is obligated to worship God in heaven and on earth and in all things he or she sees and hears that God has done and promised. And we must also worship God because of who he is and what he deserves and what he is worth, and because he created us in his image and likeness.224 And we must also worship God in gratitude for all the torments and suffering and the very cruel and bitter Passion he suffered in order to redeem and save us sinners. And the Lord explained, saying that no one should doubt or claim that in heaven as many honors and solemn ceremonies are held for the saints as for God himself, inasmuch as there is no servant so imprudent as one who lives with a king and yet honors and serves the king’s dukes and knights more than the king 224. Genesis 1:26.

178 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ himself, knowing that the king is king, better and greater and more powerful than all the rest of them. Likewise, the blessed souls, seeing and knowing that God is greater and better and more powerful than all others in heaven and on earth, do not honor or serve anyone as much as him, not even the Queen of Heaven herself, Our Lady the holy Virgin Mary. However, just as when the servants and vassals of a king see that he honors and bestows favors on one of his own and holds him very close to himself, all of them honor and serve and please that person in order to please and gladden their lord, likewise the glorious saints in the court of heaven wish to please and gladden and serve God in everything and in every way they can in accordance with God’s will; seeing that God holds one of his favorites in his arms and honors him, the other saints delight and take very great pleasure in also honoring that saint and holding feasts and solemn ceremonies for him and rendering service to him, each one of them saying, “Since my God and Creator and Lord so greatly honors and reveres the blessed soul he holds in his precious arms, that is all the more reason for me to serve and honor and revere that soul. However, no matter how many the honors or how great the service I offer him or her, I wish to give and offer and present and consecrate the greatest and best and truest and most valuable service I can to my Lord Almighty God. And let God offer and give my service to whomever he wishes according to his will.” 30. And the Lord said that when he was sitting on his royal throne, giving each of the blessed souls much solace and accidental beatitude, holding them in his arms very close to him, filling and refreshing them with spiritual nourishment and his own sweetness and delight, suddenly there appeared in a deep valley a crowd of different peoples, all of them dressed in not very beautiful garments that looked like hair shirts. And while all of them were in that valley, as if doing penance, suddenly there appeared in their midst a very hideous and frightening and ugly serpent, which, His Majesty said, was as large and bold as three cities. And it had seven very large and hideous heads—one like a lion’s and another like a bull’s and another like an ass’s and another like a bear’s and another like a dog’s and another like a mule’s and another like a pig’s.225 And along its spine it had countless barbs and spines, all very sharp and long, so much so that on each of them could have been skewered more than two hundred persons squeezed together. And its feet were like the paws of a beast, very large and hideous, and on them there were many claws, which were so long that each of them could have torn apart many people. This serpent was Satan who, as soon as he saw those people, began to snort loudly and bellow and chase them in order to kill them and to swallow them.

225. Revelation 13:1–2 describes a seven-headed beast whose body is part leopard, part bear, part lion, but appears overall as a dragon (usually with seven identical heads).

Sermon 20: Resurrection 179 31. As soon as those people saw such a fierce beast chasing them, some of them, to defend themselves, took up weapons and shields and fought it with great ferocity. And others began to defend themselves from it with punches and with blows and kicks, believing they could protect themselves only with their bodies, without any other weapons. And these two kinds of people, said the Lord, ended up injured and wounded and defeated by the snake, for those who defended themselves from the serpent with weapons and shields represented people who presume that they will be protected and honored and esteemed in this life for their own persons and their wealth and lineage and family and rank and position and the favor they enjoy. And people who presume these things sin mortally, and they are completely deceived and defeated by Satan. And those who fought the serpent without any weapons but with punches and kicks represented the people who are so proud and arrogant and ungrateful in this life that they not only offend and anger God, indulging and giving in to the temptations and deceits and counsel of Satan, but they even turn against God and deny and insult and curse him for the troubles and anguish and hardships he sends them, saying that he is evil and unjust and unreasonable and pitiless and unmerciful in the things he does and ordains and allows to happen to them. And all those people who do and say and think these things, if they do not mend their ways and repent and do penance and have faith in God and stop relying on themselves and on their strength and virtues—which are very few or almost nil—will be doomed and damned and defeated by Satan. 32. And some of the other people who were in the same valley, seeing that the serpent was chasing them in order to destroy and kill them, took images of the crucifix to protect themselves and others took the image of Our Lady holding the Child Jesus in her arms and others took a cross. And in this way they all defended themselves. Those who took up these very precious arms triumphed and fought very courageously and bravely.226 With the very images and the cross they kept striking the serpent in the eyes and smashed them. This means that for any person who wants to defeat Satan and his cunning and deceits, there is nothing that blinds his eyes and confounds him quicker than the holy Catholic faith and the merits of the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ and the example of Our Lady the Virgin Mary, and through that person’s merits and good works and virtues and love and fear of God and through charity and humility and patience. And the Lord said that as soon as the serpent saw that those people were defeating and confounding and blinding it with the image of the Lord and the cross and the image of his precious mother Our Lady, it stopped chasing those it had defeated and wounded, taking them for its own. And when the serpent angrily chased those who were pursuing it, roaring and raging like a lion bent on 226. Bravely: MS varonil, in a manly manner.

180 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ killing and destroying them, it meant that Satan always pursues harder those who strive to serve God and to do good works. And just when the serpent was chasing after those people, suddenly a very large whirlwind of earth and sand arose from the serpent’s footsteps, which were kicking up so much dust that it got into its eyes and blinded it. This means that people are not only able to conquer Satan and blind his eyes with the holy Catholic faith and with the merits of the Passion of our Savior Jesus Christ and with his example, but also with the very temptations that Satan offers; by casting them away and rejecting them and not giving in to them, they smash Satan’s eyes and blind him with the dust of his own footsteps. 33. And the Lord said that were other people in that valley who were holding open books in their hands, books with letters that were greener than grass. And while those people were thus reading and considering those letters, suddenly the letters emerged from the books and turned into very hideous and ugly demons. And the people who were holding the books represented the Jews and the heretics who possess the written words of the holy scriptures, which are very certain and true, and yet they do not understand or believe or recognize them. Instead, they say and understand the opposite, and they sin and do evil deeds. For this reason the greenest and freshest words in the holy scriptures that they have and hold turn into ugly and hideous and cruel demons that eat and swallow and devour them with great fury and cruelty in their souls. These demons represent the sins that Jews and heretics commit continually, sins and heresies that send their souls to hell because the Jews and heretics preferred to put their faith and love and hope in omens and superstitions and false doctrines and doubts in the holy Catholic faith, the faith of Christians, instead of in their God and Creator and in mercy and justice and truth. 34. And also, said His Majesty, there were other people in that same valley, and each of them held in his hand a sort of leg bone, which represented Muhammad’s leg bone. And the people who were Muslims and held the leg bones in their hands found that the leg bones suddenly turned into the most frightful and abominable demons. This means that all the deeds the Muslims do and their fasts and prayers are sins and things of Satan, and they do not help them any more than if they did nothing at all inasmuch as they do not believe in God or love him or know him. But their entire faith and love is for Muhammad and they worship him and they observe their damned and perverse religion and they stop following and believing and observing the holy Catholic faith, the very solid and strong and true faith of the most holy Trinity.227

227. Muslims as heretical Christians who revered Jesus and Mary yet falsely worshipped Muhammad was a common anti-Muslim description in the high Middle Ages that regained currency in the

Sermon 20: Resurrection 181 35. And therefore not one of those people who were in that valley was spared getting wounded and defeated by the terrible and frightful serpent, except for those who defended themselves with the weapons of our Lord Jesus Christ and of Our Lady the Virgin Mary and of the glorious saints and with the holy cross. This means that neither a person nor his family can be safe and free from hell and from the very sharp fangs of Satan, unless they are faithful Christians who, with faith and love and hope, believe and love and serve the Lord Almighty God and put their trust in him and turn to him in the midst of all their troubles and anguish and hardships and who put their trust in and turn to the Virgin Mary and the holy angels and all the inhabitants of the court of heaven, all of whom are very great advocates and protectors of us sinners before the divine presence. 36. And the Lord said that while all those groups of peoples were fighting the serpent, the holy angels spoke to him and said, “Oh Lord our God! Does your divine Majesty not see those people who are there in that deep valley, fighting the ancient serpent?” And His Majesty answered them with great might and justice and love, saying, “I see them, my friends, and I have judged each soul according to what it deserved and how it triumphed and persevered in faith and love and good works. So go there and bring me all those who triumphed and remained steadfast in the battle against temptation and persevered in doing good works until the end.” And thereupon, said the Lord, the holy angels went down to that valley and brought those blessed people before the divine presence with great honor and solemn ceremonies, and playing instruments and singing, and presented them, saying, “Oh Lord Our God, accept these blessed souls who suffered many torments and temptations for the sake of your love and who were tested and more than tested and they were never defeated and they remained with you in all things.” And Supreme God, he himself said, received them and crowned them and clothed and adorned them and embraced and kissed them all and greatly comforted them and gave them accidental beatitude and covered them with the flowers and roses of the merits of his most holy Passion and his most joyful and jubilant Resurrection. And he spoke to them with great love and sweetness, saying, “Rejoice and be jubilant, blessed souls, for if you suffered many hardships for me, I, likewise, suffered many more torments and pain for you. And rejoice and be jubilant, my friends, because I arose to bring back to life and to bring joy to all who believe and love and hope in me.”

sixteenth century. See note 197 and Ryan Szpiech, “Rhetorical Muslims: Islam as Witness in Western Christian Anti-Jewish Polemic,” Al-Qantara 34, no. 1 (2013): 153–85.

Figure 6. Medieval cross, with arma Christi. Old Cathedral, Salamanca. Photo credit: Jessica A. Boon.

Sermon 22: Exaltation of the Holy Cross Introduction For the feast day of May 3rd celebrating the finding of the True Cross by Emperor Constantine’s mother Helen, there was an extensive and multilayered late medieval tradition. The hagiographic renditions of the early fourth-century discovery center the narrative on Judas Cyriacus, a Jew who aids the queen in her search after she threatens him and who ultimately converts to Christianity after the holy wood heals a sick man. By the high Middle Ages, other traditions were added that continued the theme of Jewish conversion, shifting the “finding” into the “exaltation of the holy cross,” based on a sequence of miracle tales about the bleeding of “true cross” relics in response to Jewish and pagan rejection of the symbol.228 Juana, however, does not refer to any of the details of this tradition beyond attributing the discovery to Helen. She is either unfamiliar with the traditions concerning the finding and exaltation of the True Cross, or deliberately shifts attention to devotion to the cross as a material yet vivified object. In her sermon, the holy cross (and sometimes the nails) can speak, fight, and fly in order to demonstrate its power, and its central role in the divine plan for salvation.229 The cross as symbol, both in churches and naturally occurring, is confirmed and lauded throughout the many pageants and processions. Many of the most dramatic details of the personified cross, however, are censored by a later reader. Sections 2–4: Jesus describes a celestial scene in which angels are showering him with perfumes and flowers, and then calls out for the blessed to bring to him all their crosses they bore while suffering on earth. From the first instance, then, the cross is a physical object because it can be carried, but also a symbol of sin and tribulations. Sections 5–12: The saints carrying their crosses form a procession, which Jesus joins dragging his cross as though en route to Calvary. Jesus’s cross has images at 228. For a comprehensive analysis of these traditions covering the fourth through fifteenth centuries, see Barbara Baert, A Heritage of Holy Wood: The Legend of the True Cross in Text and Image (Leiden: Brill, 2004). For discussion of this development in relation to other persecuting traditions, see Anthony Bale, Feeling Persecuted: Christians, Jews, and Images of Violence in the Middle Ages (London: Reaktion Books, 2010), 142–44. For the most popular medieval text on the True Cross to which Juana makes no allusion in this sermon, see Voragine, Golden Legend II, no. 137, 68–73. 229. It is notable that a significant episode in Juana’s visionary life, attested to in both the Vida y fin and the Libro de la casa, occurred when her guardian angel Laruel presented her with a decorated cross that named Jesus “king of the angels.” Vida y fin, fol. 24r; Libro de la casa, fol. 25v.

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184 Introduction to Sermon 22 each cross piece depicting a lion, a lamb, and a dove,230 flagons hanging from each arm, and a serpent at its base.231 This iconography then serves as the basis for an allegorical discussion of the Trinity, the Passion, and the devil. Angels join the procession carrying inscriptions invoking Jesus’s protection for each soul in their care. As Jesus is handed each inscription, they glow brilliantly or turn black, depending on the soul’s status as good Christian, heretic, Jew, or pagan. In response to the blackened inscriptions, the lion image on the holy cross (symbolizing the Father) is abruptly vivified, jumping off the cross and roaring. Jesus feels obliged to protect the souls from the Father’s anger, and appears in his wounded, passionate body. The dialogue between the Father and Son highlights the judgment of the one and the mercy of the other. Sections 13–14: After successfully convincing the Father to have mercy, Jesus reverts to his glorious body, a shift to majesty that is mirrored in the True Cross, which suddenly appears infinitely tall and planted in a beautiful field of flowers. All the apostles and saints proceed to try to pick the cross up to bring it to Jesus, but all fail, returning to heaven without it but still carrying their own individual crosses.232 The allegorical meaning is that all the crosses in the world could never supplant the salvific power of Jesus’s actual cross. Sections 15–16: Next the cross shifts to being just one instrument among the various arma Christi, as both the cross and the nails speak in self-defense that they were not to blame for the injuries committed with them by others. The trope of the speaking cross dates back to gnostic writings such as the Gospel of Peter, enter medieval tradition through the tenth-century Anglo-Saxon Dream of the Rood, and become common in the devotional poetic genre known as the “dispute between Mary and the Cross.”233 The speaking voices of the cross and nails figure extensively in the last third of the sermon; here their initial phrases are supplanted by the voices of Helen and Constantine who clamor for recognition for their part in finding the cross. The two describe how the search brought the True Cross to light and ought to be commemorated extensively, but do not reflect any specific details of the finding. 230. The lion, lamb, and dove were common decorations on Romanesque processional crosses. Thanks to Pamela Patton for this information. 231. The flagons, presumably collecting Jesus’s blood, may evoke the bleeding cross of the Dream of the Rood tradition (verse 19), see note 233. Thanks to Otfried Lieberknecht for this reference. 232. A scene reminiscent of the Arthurian legend in which Arthur’s future greatness is confirmed by his ability to pull the sword out of the stone when no one else could. 233. Gospel of Peter, trans. and ed. Raymond Brown, Early Christian Writings, http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/gospelpeter-brown.html.; R. F. S. Hamer, “Dream of the Rood,” in A Choice of Anglo-Saxon Verse (London: Faber, 1970), 159–71; and Susanna Greer Fein, ed., Moral Love Songs and Laments (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 1998), 87–95.

Introduction to Sermon 22 185 Sections 17–25: Jesus holds a celebration in heaven for Helen, starting by sending the angels throughout the world to collect every cross and cross-shaped object in existence. Jesus’s delight in the variety and richness of the cruciform images justifies the use of church funds to ornament such crosses with jewels and gold. The angels continue collecting various types of crosses, including those at local crossroads and others in hell. Jesus clarifies the importance of the cross by describing it as his bride to which he was joined naked, and as his wedding bed and throne. Another procession ensues, with the angels carrying torches and the multitude of crosses collected in previous sections, but on each an image of Jesus appears. At Jesus’s request, the angels then place the crosses on the foreheads of all the blessed; the crosses give forth blessings and delicacies that satiate the believers. Sections 26–28 [nearly entirely censored]: In an abrupt shift from the collaboration between Jesus and the angels, the seraphim rise up in anger against the True Cross for having been an instrument of torture and death against God. They refuse to worship it, which leads to a celestial battle between the cross that desires its due veneration as part of the salvific process and the angels that reject it as having wounded their Lord. Not only do the cross and the angels hurl insults at each other, but the cross flies across the heavens emitting thunder and lightning to bring the seraphim to heel. The cross strikes the seraphim with blows from its arms every time it catches one in flight, and finally the seraphim submit. The cross celebrates the victory by becoming calm and emitting fragrances and flowers; Jesus justifies the violence that occurred in heaven by saying that he had wanted the seraphim to taste directly the bitterness of the cross. Section 29–39: Another allegorical pageant ensues in which the angels construct buildings full of riches in a desolate valley. But the valley was so dark that its inhabitants were unable to see the opulence surrounding them. First the angels bring light and color and riches to the valley, then Jesus himself brings the True Cross which makes the entire valley dazzlingly beautiful. Once there, at Jesus’s request, the cross (speaking through the nail holes) and the nails themselves give voice to their adoration of God [censored]. He gives first the cross and then the nails a book from which to read three lessons, a liturgical reenactment; once both have done so, Jesus requests that the arma Christi take their place next to him during Judgment Day to aid his decisions [censored].234 Jesus abruptly appears in the valley in his crucified form, and the cross again emits thunder and lightning, but this time with his body still on it [censored]. The violence of the cross in this case is directed against nonbelievers. Jesus again switches back to his glorified body and golden chariots take the blessed souls to heaven. 234. In one episode in the Vida y fin, Jesus describes his speech as issuing forth from the wounds on his body (fol. 126r). Here the weapons substitute for the wounds.

Exaltation of the Holy Cross Which tells how our Lord Jesus Christ uttered and explained the following mysteries and secrets and allegories on the day of the finding of his holy True Cross 2.235 Once when the Lord was speaking on the day of the finding of the holy Cross, he said that on that very day he had descended to all the plazas in his holy kingdom and to all its palaces and dwellings, very mighty and triumphant, and surrounded by a host of angels who were serving and accompanying him and pouring out many cups of perfume and fragrances before him. And they scattered many very fragrant and fresh flowers and roses and burned incense in many golden thuribles and laid out many riches and jewels along where he would pass and played instruments and sang very sweetly around his royal throne on which he was sitting and speaking. And he said in a very sweet and mighty voice: “Let all the martyrs come forth and bring all their crosses before me!” 3. And since His Majesty repeated these words many times, the blessed souls heard his mighty voice, and the apostles and martyrs, both men and women, emerged at once, and all the other blessed souls who out of love for him had lived their lives in poverty and asceticism and tears. And all of them, said His Majesty, were carrying their crosses, which represented the torments and penitences and tribulations and persecutions that they had suffered in this world. And all of them were making obeisance and bowing their heads, offering him their crosses with great reverence. And the Lord said that when he saw the blessed souls arriving like that with their crosses in their hands, he raised his eyes to his celestial Father, giving him thanks for the many men and women saints who were in his holy kingdom, and for the great endurance and strength he had given them so that out of their love for him they could bear those very heavy crosses of penance in this world. 4. And after paying homage to the Father, giving him thanks, he lowered his sacred eyes and looked down at the earth. And he saw how there was such great diversity of intentions among the people and how most were evil and worthy of condemnation [to hell]. And seeing that the time of great abominations and heresies was near and that the time had come and there was a very great need for all those living on earth to pray and to plead in order to appease and forestall the heavenly Father’s great anger at them, since he has very great compassion for our souls, seeing how we are being condemned to hell and are blind in our sins and how, instead of praying, we were blaspheming and offending him, he spoke with the blessed souls, saying to them, “Do you think, my friends, that since you are bearing crosses, I also should have a cross?” 235. Note that García Andrés begins his numbering of the divisions of this sermon with section 2.

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Sermon 22: Exaltation of the Holy Cross 187 And the blessed souls, said the Lord, answered him with great humility and reverence, “Lord, you already have a very large and heavy and harsh cross, that, compared to yours, ours are very small and light. But we beg you, oh Lord our God, do not bring forth your very harsh cross because, since it is so large and heavy, remembering what you suffered on it, we will not be able to keep our hearts from feeling very great sorrow. Because although we are already in your holy kingdom and cannot weep or be sad, the Holy Spirit, who fills and replenishes us, moans inside us with compassion for you and zeal for your honor and your justice, for it is written that the Holy Spirit moans and weeps inside people’s souls. And so he moans within us inasmuch as he makes us express sadness.”236 And the Lord said that, upon hearing such a humble and pious answer from the blessed souls, he spoke to them with great love and sweetness, saying to them, “I thank you, my friends, for the compassion you feel for me for which you will be given additional joys and rewards. But be patient for now and steel your resolve, since, like it or not, I must now bring forth my Cross and offer it to my heavenly Father—both the Cross and myself—for the sake of sinners. And form very orderly processions and raise up your crosses and banners on high and lead the processions and follow me wherever I go.” 5. His Majesty said that as soon as the glorious saints formed the processions, suddenly he appeared, changed and transfigured as he was when he suffered the Passion and as he will be when he comes to judge the world, carrying his Cross. And immediately all those who were there saw him, naked and barefoot and wounded and carrying in his sacred hands the Cross on which he suffered and to which he was nailed. And since it was so large and so heavy and he so tender and delicate, he could not carry it in his hands. And, he himself said, sometimes he put it on his shoulder and walked like that in the midst of the procession with his very large Cross. On it there were the following symbols: on the top part there was a lion, and in the middle of the Cross there was a lamb, and between the lion and the lamb there was a white dove with golden and very dazzling wings.237 And on the two arms of the Cross, where the nails were driven, there were very lovely flagons that were all filled with tinctured and very fragrant water and very sweet and delicious elixirs and very soothing and healing oils. And on the lower part, where the Cross was driven into the ground, there was a sort of golden serpent. And the Lord explained, saying that the Cross was the throne of Almighty God, upon which was represented the divinity of the most holy Trinity and also the humanity and very great humility of the Redeemer.

236. Mother Juana seems to be thinking of Romans 8:26. 237. John 1:29–32 names Jesus as the Lamb of God and represents the Holy Spirit as a dove.

188 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ And the lion that was placed on the top part of the Cross represents the heavenly Father, who is very mighty and strong and fierce.238 And just as the lion has this quality and condition, inasmuch as he is the king and lord of all the animals, that if someone provokes him, he then kills and dismembers the person with very great anger and fury. And if people submit to him, he does not hurt or kill anyone, but instead leaves them alone and gestures as if he were blessing them. And the heavenly Father has this [same] quality, for if anyone gets angry with him or tries to demand something of him with arrogance and anger, he, as King of Kings and Lord of Lords, will in an instant destroy and kill and condemn those who would do this. And if they submit to his mighty hand and if they accept everything that he sees fit to do, he will not only not kill or destroy any of them but will instead give them his grace and blessing. And he will comfort them and give them eternal life, which is the greatest good of all, inasmuch as the heavenly Father has this quality, which is that, in order to be merciful and to soothe his anger, he needs to find faith and love and compassion. And the lamb that was in the middle of the Cross represents our Lord Jesus Christ, he himself said, who, as a man, was obedient to the Father even to his death on the Cross. And for our sins he was sacrificed on the Cross like an innocent lamb, and he never opened his mouth or said a harsh word, no matter how much they tortured him or how many insults and blasphemies they said to him. And the dove that was between the lion and the lamb represents the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father and the Son and is very pure and very pristine and bright and resplendent, inasmuch as it is all love and charity and meekness. And the flagons that were on the arms of the Cross, filled with tinctured and fragrant water and with very sweet and delicious elixirs and with very healing and soothing oils, represented the merits of the sacred Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, whose very fragrant and tinctured waters made us beautiful and cleansed of the stench and ugliness of our sins and were very sweet and delicious elixirs for our souls. Through these merits, when we go to the kingdom of heaven, we will attain seeing God himself, who is divine sweetness and gives himself to us in the holy sacrament as a very delicious and spiritually nourishing food for the souls who know how to delight in him. And the golden serpent that was at the foot of the Cross represented the devil, who is called the “old serpent” that deceived our first parents.239 And the Lord said that it was his will that the serpent be placed and appear there at the foot of the Cross, inasmuch as he had commanded Moses to raise up the bronze serpent on the pole and to place it in the wilderness.240 This means that 238. The lion more often signified Christ than the Father. See note 202. 239. Revelation 20:2 names the devil as the ancient serpent. 240. John 3:14–15.

Sermon 22: Exaltation of the Holy Cross 189 he himself would be placed on the pole of the Cross on Mount Calvary—which was a very lonely and desolate desert for him, and removed from all joy, not only for him, who was in pain and suffering, but also for his glorious mother Our Lady and for all those who loved him greatly—to remedy and to atone for the very great sin that the cursed serpent of the devil made Adam and Eve commit when they raised their hands to pick the fruit that was on the tree. And the Lord said that he humbled himself not only in order to suffer on the tree of the Cross, but also from the time he was born he bowed before all creatures and he was as despised and scorned as is the serpent by all evil people. And just as the serpent drags itself on the ground under everyone’s feet, similarly, at the time of his very cruel and bitter Passion he allowed himself to be trampled by the feet of his crucifiers. And not only was he was trampled and blasphemed during the time he walked on earth, but even today we trample upon him and insult him every time we offend him and sin against his divine Majesty. 6. And the Lord explained, saying that when he was thus walking in the midst of the procession, carrying on his precious shoulder his holy Cross with its images, he placed it among the other crosses that the blessed souls were carrying and he lifted it up higher than the others. And naked and wounded as he was, he went before the Father and began to beseech him with great fervor, saying, “My almighty Father, I beg you to have mercy on all sinners and to grant them grace for the love of me, your only begotten Son. And I offer you these wounds and this cruel and heavy Cross for the sake of all of them. And do not bring them to account for the sins and offenses they commit against you, because I paid for them all on this Cross.” 7. And likewise he spoke with his precious mother, saying, “My greatly beloved mother, help me plead with the Father for humankind.” And he said the same thing to all the male and female saints who were there, also asking them to pray to the Father. When our Redeemer Jesus Christ, he himself said, and his holy mother and all the saints were on their knees beseeching the heavenly Father, suddenly all the angels arrived who were in charge of souls, of Christians as well as of Jews and pagans. And each of the angels carried a banner that was very dazzling and ornate and richly decorated with many jewels, and above each banner there was an inscription in gold letters that said, “Lord God, I beg you to remember my charges, both male and female, whom you gave me to guard from the moment they were engendered in their mother’s womb.” And some of the angels said, “Lord, even if our charges are in hell, remember them at some point.”

190 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ And the Lord said that the angels said “even if they are in hell” because any soul living in mortal sin can be said to be in hell, inasmuch as they are dead for as long as they do not abandon sin or come to spiritual understanding and penance. 8. And the angels offered all the inscriptions they were carrying to the heavenly Father, bowing down and worshipping him. And the heavenly Father motioned to them with his mighty hand that they should not give them to him but rather to the Son. This means that the Father has given [the Son] all the power to judge and save and condemn all those he wishes and it is his will to do so.241 And the angels, seeing that the Father was motioning to them, turned to the Son with great humility and reverence and presented the inscriptions to him. And the Redeemer himself said that when he was about to take them in his sacred hands, suddenly the once golden letters turned blacker than pitch. This happened to all the inscriptions that belonged to Jews and Muslims and pagans, and to those that belonged to heretics and to Christians who are living in mortal sin. And seeing that they were black, he did not want to take them in his hands but rather he let them fall to the ground, as he was greatly disgusted and angered by them. This blackening and ugliness meant that [bad] Christians refuse to abandon sin or come to spiritual understanding or repent for their sins, nor do heretics or infidels want to convert or recognize God and his holy Catholic faith. And the inscriptions of faithful Christians who were in a state of grace had golden letters that constantly gleamed and were very lovely and beautiful. This means that the souls of the just constantly gleam before the divine presence, just like very fine and purified gold. And the Lord explained, saying that when he saw the beauty and brilliance of the inscriptions, although but few were in that state, he took them in his precious hands and received very great pleasure from reading them. 9. And the heavenly Father, seeing the blackness of the inscriptions which represented the great sins and abominations of sinners, allowed the lion that was on the top part of the throne of the Cross, which represented his great might and strength and righteousness, to jump down suddenly and to roar so loudly throughout heaven in such a way that every place it went, it seemed that it wanted to destroy it and make it vanish. This means that the heavenly Father was so angry and irate at the world that he was on the point of wanting to destroy it. 10. And when our Savior Jesus Christ, he himself said, saw that the heavenly Father was so irate against the world and that he wanted to destroy it because of 241. Given the sermon’s focus on Johannine imagery, it is worth noting that John 3:17 asserts that Jesus came to save, not condemn. Juana is thus conflating discussion of the Last Judgment with atonement imagery.

Sermon 22: Exaltation of the Holy Cross 191 the great abominations and evils that existed in it, he felt pity for the souls that he had redeemed and ransomed at such a high price. And he took up his Cross, as naked and wounded as when he suffered on it. And he told his precious Mother Our Lady and all the saints to appeal to the Father with him for the sake of the world, so that the sentence pronounced against it would be revoked. And he got down on his knees before the Father, praying very fervently, saying, “My mighty Father, I beg you to wait for sinners a little longer, for I offer you for them all the torments and insults I suffered and the wounds they inflicted upon me on this Cross. And even, if it were necessary, my Father, and if you commanded me to do it, I would suffer the Passion again.” 11. And the heavenly Father answered him, saying, “My very beloved Son, how can you want me to wait for sinners or to have mercy on them, if they do not believe in you or recognize you? Because you well know, my Son, that no one can come to me without entering through you first, you who are the true door to heaven.242 And whoever does not enter through you is a thief and a robber. Let them believe in you, my Son, and convert to you with all their hearts, for I can see that everyone recognizes they have a God and Creator, but they do not recognize you, my most beloved Son, or believe that you are the Redeemer and Savior of the world, which is why I am very angry at the world, so much so that at times I am moved to destroy it.” Our Lord and Redeemer Jesus Christ said that while he was on his knees, pleading with the heavenly Father in order to calm him down, he said to him with great charity, “Oh my mighty Father! I wish to be the advocate of all of humankind. And consider, oh Lord, my Father, how I am before you, naked and wounded all over. I offer myself to you as a sacrifice, meek as a lamb. And I also offer you all my precious blood that I shed to redeem and save all of humankind. And I beg you, my Father, not to consider their sins but rather to look at me, your only begotten Son, who is begging and pleading with you with such fervor.” And the Father of Light, seeing him so naked, displaying and offering him his sacred wounds and pleading so humbly and lovingly, said to him and answered him with utmost mercy, saying, “My very beloved Son, because of my love for you who asks it of me, I will wait for a while for people to mend their ways and to repent of their sins. And if they do not repent, I leave all justice and vengeance to you.” 242. Meditation on Christ’s Passion as the door to the contemplative life is a common topos, found for example in Bonaventure, “Las tres vias o incendio de amor,” in Obras de San Buenaventura: Edición bilingüe, IV, edited by Bernardo Aperribay, Miguel Oromi and Miguel Oltra (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1963), 102–40, at chap. 3; and Jiménez García de Cisneros, Ejercitatorio de la vida spiritual, edited by R. P. Fausto Curiel (Barcelona: Luis Gili, 1912), book 4, chap. 48.

192 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ 12. And the Lord said that if we want obtain his mercy, we must convert to him with all our hearts and abandon all our vices and sins and hope in his great clemency, for he is our perpetual advocate and pardoner. Because just as people here say at the end of their letters “your perpetual supplicant or servant or chaplain,” he likewise says the same thing to everyone he created and redeemed, “Come to me, all you sinners, for I am your perpetual pardoner.” And likewise, so is Our Lady the Virgin Mary the perpetual advocate of sinners, for she never stops pleading and interceding before the most holy Trinity for all those who commend themselves to her with faith and love and devotion. 13. And His Majesty explained, saying that after he had prayed to the Father, naked and wounded as he was, and obtained mercy for sinners, suddenly he appeared in his own majesty and might and resplendence and brightness and beauty, as he was beforehand. And likewise, his Cross appeared in a very green and flowery meadow. And the Cross itself reached so high that it stretched from heaven to purgatory, and its arms were so wide that they encircled the whole world from one side to the other. And it was completely covered with many very beautiful and fragrant roses and flowers and with very sweet and delicious and delightful fruits. 14. And the Lord said that when his holy Cross was placed in that beautiful and delightful meadow, he summoned the glorious apostles and spoke to them, saying, “Come here, my friends, and go to that green meadow and bring me my holy Cross that is placed there.” And the apostles, obeying his command, went immediately and tried to take the holy Cross and bring it to him. And in no way were they able to pull it up from where it was. And seeing that they were not able to pull it up, they returned, saying with great humility and reverence, “Oh Lord our God! Your holy Cross is so bulky and heavy that in no way are we able to carry it.”243 And likewise, said the Lord, he summoned the martyrs, saying to them, “Go, my friends, and bring me my holy Cross.” They went at once and were not able to pull it up either. And they returned, saying, “Oh true God, your holy Cross is so large that in no way are we able to carry it.” And likewise, he summoned the confessors and said to them, “Go and bring me my holy Cross, which is in that very green and flowering meadow.” And they all went very valiantly, believing that they would be able to bring it. They attempted to pull it up, and in no way were they able to budge it. And they

243. Jesus was consistently depicted as staggering under the weight of the cross in late medieval altarpieces. In addition, so many pieces of the True Cross were venerated around Europe that it must have been assumed to be massive.

Sermon 22: Exaltation of the Holy Cross 193 returned, saying, “Oh Lord, our God, your divine Majesty sent us for the precious Cross, and we were not able to move it at all.” The Lord said that, seeing that none of those he had sent was able to bring it to him, he summoned all the angels and all the saints, male and female, in the heavenly court, and spoke to them with great kindness and sweetness, saying to them, “Go all of you, my friends, and bring me my holy Cross, which is in that beautiful meadow.” And they all went off very joyously to bring the holy Cross. And they tried to take hold of it and to pull it up, all of them together, and they were not able to move it at all. And when they saw that they were not able to carry out His Majesty’s command, they took their own crosses in their hands and returned, saying with the utmost humility and reverence, “Oh Lord our God, behold our crosses, which we offer to you as a sacrifice. Accept them and us, for we are not able to bring or to move your holy Cross.” And our Lord Jesus Christ, he himself said, answered them saying, “Oh people of little fortitude, how is it that you have been unable to bring me my holy Cross? I will go and bring it, since I have more fortitude and power and might and humility and charity than all of you.” And then he descended from the bosom of the Father with great might and splendor, and he took his holy Cross, putting it on his shoulder, and he carried it to the Father. And he offered it for all humankind, pleading with him to take pity on it, for the sake of those roses and flowers that were on it, which represented the merits of his sacred Passion, and for the sake of the fruits, which represented him himself. And the Lord explained, saying that when all the blessed souls in the kingdom of heaven went to get his holy Cross and were not able to bring or move it, it meant that no matter how great the torments and tortures and tribulations and persecutions and temptations that the glorious saints, male and female, suffered, the death and Passion he suffered in order to redeem and save us was even more terrible and cruel and shameful, since he is the most delicate and tender and beautiful of all the sons of men.244 And when he carried his holy Cross and all the blessed souls together were not able to carry it, it meant that only he sufficed to remedy the great harm that the serpent did to everyone’s soul on account of the sin of our first parents, which subjected us all to death. 15. And so that everyone would see how right he is to condemn evil people and how charitable he is to save sinners who put their trust in him, and so that all the peoples would know how cruelly he was tormented, he will come on Judgment Day like a strong and mighty lion, bringing with him his Cross and the nails 244. Psalm 44:3 and 1 Peter 1:12 were the sources for Jesus’s beauty and delicacy (Bestul, Texts of the Passion, 44). See also note 39.

194 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ with the above mentioned symbols and all the instruments of his sacred Passion. Those instruments, said His Majesty, will help him judge and will favor and console and bring joy to good people, and will condemn and torment and frighten and confuse evil people. And all these implements of torture and instruments of the Passion will cry out against evil people and against those who crucified and tortured him. And the Cross, blaming them, will say, “Lord, it was not my fault, for those who wanted to crucify you took hold of me in order to place you on me.”245 And the nails likewise will say, “Lord, it was not our fault, for your tormentors took hold of us in order to drive us into your sacred hands and feet.” And each of the other instruments of the Passion will say something similar, feeling sorrow and pity for him and asking for revenge against those who so cruelly wounded and injured and tormented him. And likewise they will say against evil people who deserve to be condemned, “Lord, since they refused to benefit from the great fruits and riches you gave them when you allowed yourself to be tortured like that out of love for them (considering that you are the true God and able to avoid it, if you did not want anyone to torture you), we ask you to take revenge on them.” And the Lord explained, saying that Judgment Day, which will be very formidable and terrifying, will take place in the Valley of Jehoshaphat,246 that is to say, in this first heaven, which is called in this holy kingdom the Valley of Jehoshaphat because in comparison with the height of the other heavens, this first heaven could be said to be a very low valley. Likewise, he said that, since on this very day of his holy Cross people on earth were commemorating its finding and discovery, the blessed souls who tried to find and look for it, namely, St. Helen and Constantine, her son, came before him and said to him, “Oh Lord our Almighty God! Does your divine Majesty not see how little they commemorate and celebrate our feast day and honor either one of us on earth, even though you have given us such great boons and favors as you did (and continue to give us today), when you saw fit to give us favor and success in finding your precious Cross. And when you wished to bring us to this your holy kingdom, where we enjoy and recognize and possess its very salutary fruit, which is you yourself, our God and Creator. And certainly, oh Lord, we say to you that you celebrate our feast day and honor us more and perform many more solemn 245. Poetic and dramatic traditions of voicing the Cross as a character date back to the Dream of the Rood (tenth-century England). The “dispute between Mary and the cross” genre circulated in individual poems such as Crux dura quid fecisti and was incorporated in Latin Passion treatises such as Ubertino da Casale’s Arbor vitae crucifixae Jesu. For bibliography on the Latin and English tradition, see note 233. There is no study of this tradition on the Iberian peninsula, to our knowledge, nor is there precedent for substituting the seraphim for Mary. 246. Joel 3:1–16 narrates Judgment Day as occurring the Valley of Jehoshaphat, sometimes termed the Valley of Death.

Sermon 22: Exaltation of the Holy Cross 195 ceremonies for us here in this your holy kingdom, for on earth the people who live there perform very few solemn rites for us and scarcely remember us enough to celebrate our feast day and honor us. Therefore, oh Lord, we say to your divine Majesty that we would like and we wish, since we pray constantly for all those who worship and believe in your holy Cross, that they honor and commemorate the two of us on earth a little more than they do now. And furthermore we trust in your great kindness and mercy that you will give an appropriate recompense and reward in this everlasting life and in this very glorious kingdom to all those who celebrate our feast and honor us, or command and direct others to do so.” 16. And our Lord Jesus Christ, he himself said, answered them with great love and sweetness, saying, “Do you not know, my friends, that the entire feast that will be held today is for my holy Cross and for me, for I deserve it and I am more worthy of it than you or anyone else in all of heaven?” And glorious St. Helen and blessed Constantine, kneeling and worshipping very humbly, said to him, “Oh Lord, our Almighty God! We recognize that your divine Majesty speaks the truth, for you alone are worthy and deserving of all honors and celebration. However, we would also like and we think it would be fitting for a small celebration and commemoration to be held for the two of us on the earth.” And His Majesty Almighty God answered them, “Since you, my friends, say that you want some sort of honor or celebration to be held for you on earth, show me some of your reasons or arguments for it.” And glorious St. Helen, seeing that the Father was asking for some of the reasons they had, got down on her knees with great humility and raised her hands, saying, “Oh Lord my God and Creator! There are many reasons for which they ought to celebrate our feast day and to honor me on earth, especially because I and this son of mine labored very hard with all our strength to exalt your holy Catholic faith and to spread and extend it. And we also labored hard and put much effort into seeking and finding your holy Cross. And it was because of us that it was revealed and recognized by all peoples, and because of our teachings it was worshipped and is worshipped today. And because we brought it to light, we were the reason everyone and all of Christianity worshipped and venerated and loved it. Because, before we searched for it and found it, all the peoples of the world considered it to be a very lowly and despicable and abhorrent thing. And we taught or showed people how and in what manner they should worship and cherish and love your holy Cross. Because, since you gave us grace and succor and enlightenment, we love your holy Cross and the things that are involved in loving and serving you and it. And it was because of our counsel that many people stopped worshipping false gods and worship you and your holy Cross. And we told and showed all those who wanted to know it that your sign and symbol was

196 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ the holy Cross and the nails, and that they were what was certain and true and that by which they would be saved and free and comforted.” And blessed Constantine, hearing his mother utter the above-mentioned words and reasons, spoke to his divine Majesty with great humility and reverence, saying, “My most merciful God, the woman is right to request and ask this, and all her words are true.” 17. The Lord said that he answered them very mightily, saying, “Well then, my friends, depart. I will hold and perform for you all the celebrations and solemn ceremonies that they fail to hold for you on earth. However, do you now think that I had but one cross in that world or that I only have one now? Know that I did not nor do I have only one cross but many and infinite crosses, countless and without compare. And if you wish to know how many, let my angels go to the earth and bring me as many symbols of the cross as they can find throughout it, be they small, be they large, and whatever size they may be or wherever they may be, for I wish to hold a feast so solemn that it will be a very long time before such a great and wondrous feast is celebrated in these my kingdoms.” And the Lord said that the holy angels, obeying his divine command, immediately went around the entire earth and looked in every region and corner and place in the world for however many crosses they could find, sculpted or painted, not only the ones on crucifixes and in churches and on altars and in books, or those made of gold or silver or metals that people wear or keep with them, or crosses made of embroidered silk or plaster or carved wood, but also all the symbols of the cross that were formed in the trees and branches and leaves and flowers and pieces of paper that exist in the whole universe, and all the crosses made of sticks or straw or hemp or hair or yarn that they could find on the ground and in all the dung heaps of the entire earth. From one end of the earth to the other and from sea to sea, they did not miss a single bird feather or fishbone of all that God created that had the symbol of the cross or anything else that had the sign of the cross, without their taking to heaven a likeness and image of it made of gold—or of better than gold and precious stones—with great reverence and awe and canticles and solemn rites. And after they had identified and searched for and brought all the images, they presented them before his divine presence, worshipping them and kissing them and placing them on their heads and eyes, and surrounding and covering them with a diversity and variety of riches and roses and flowers and fragrances and beautiful things. 18. This means that Almighty God, he himself said, is greatly pleased and served and considers put to good use all the jewels and riches and paintings that they place on holy crosses and images on earth.247 And he would always like and 247. Here Juana defends the use of opulent materials in the making of images. A few years later, of course, Protestant criticism of this practice would lead to extreme iconoclasm.

Sermon 22: Exaltation of the Holy Cross 197 desire for good things, and the best and most costly and most precious that exist in the universe, to be placed and used on images of his most holy Cross and of himself and of Our Lady the Virgin Mary and of the glorious saints, both male and female. And the Lord said that the holy angels presented to his divine Majesty all the symbols of the cross with great reverence and many acts of worship and humility, which means that he is greatly served and pleased when they worship his holy Cross and exalt it and carry it like a banner during processions as well as during wartime and in other times of need or danger when Christians need to be succored in order to implore God and attain his mercy for the requests they make of him. Inasmuch, said the Lord, as his holy Cross was his friend and banner in this world in everything he did, and he adorned himself with it, constantly suffering many tribulations and persecutions and hardships. And not only was he willing to suffer while he lived in this world, which was his constant cross and torment, but even at the very end of his day’s labor, that is to say, at the time of his very cruel and bitter Passion, he made it his footstool and bed and resting place and even his bride for his wedding. And he was as joined together and as close to it as a husband is to his bride on their wedding day,248 which wedding he did not want to have in any other way but nailed and fastened to the rough wood of the tree of the Cross. And he refused to have any pillows or mattresses other than the nails and the thorns, nor any coverlet other than the very cruel wounds and infinite blood. And the pleasures and solace he saw fit to receive and wished to have while he was thus joined to his bride the Cross, were torments and jeers and insults and scorn and pain and wounds upon wounds and anguish upon anguish. And therefore, since he humbled himself and exalted the Cross to the point that he even wanted to take it as his bride and wanted to be as naked on it as he was when he was born from the virginal womb of his glorious mother, he wishes and it is his will for all of us sinners who live on earth to love and worship the Cross for his sake and to hold it in great esteem and reverence. 20.249 The Lord said that those who worship his holy Cross without love for him and lukewarmly and with little reverence and without faith, sin gravely and anger and offend him greatly, and they condemn their souls, and they will pay for it dearly in the next world. Because the holy Cross is a reminder and a teacher of how to love and to serve him, and it is the reason some people who never remember him except when they see the symbol of his holy Cross serve and worship him. And this is why the Holy Spirit ordained and inspired in the hearts of men the

248. Christ was regularly rendered as a bridegroom throughout the Middle Ages, on earth as the bridegroom to whom nuns dedicated their vows, in heaven as the bridegroom of devout souls and of Mary. Marrying the Cross itself, however, seems to be unique to Mother Juana. 249. Note that García Andrés’s numbering of the sections skips number 19.

198 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ desire for the holy Cross be placed on roads and highways and in churches and on street corners and walls.250 And His Majesty wanted even many more crosses to be placed in all the fields and roads and towns than is usual, so that by seeing this precious symbol, people would be mindful of him and feel compassion for him and at least shed a tear or sob a little out of pity for what he suffered when he was on the Cross, for no reason other than the love and charity and compassion he felt for us sinners. And the Lord said that he was angered by the way in which Christians, who were baptized and marked with the sign of the Cross on their foreheads, have so little reverence for the symbol of the holy Cross that when they see it on the ground, they do not even bow down or bend down to undo the offense or kiss it out of love for him, who humbled himself by carrying it on his shoulders, suffering great pain and torments in order to take on the burden of our sins. Instead, there are some Christians who are so evil and proud and presumptuous that if they find crosses on the ground, they step on them and kick them away, which he takes as an insult and a sign of contempt and which greatly angers him. 21. He sent for the holy angels and had them bring to him all the symbols of the Cross that there were in the whole universe so that the angels themselves and all the other saints in the court of heaven would perform all the worship and honor and veneration that we sinners fail to perform, as they never occupy themselves with anything other than worshipping and praising God in all things. And when the holy angels went before his divine presence to offer him such a great multitude of crosses, his divine Majesty spoke with great love and sweetness, saying, “Do you believe, my friends, that you have now brought me here all the crosses in the world? Truly and certainly I say to you that you have brought me the least of them and very few. Because even if you were to bring me the symbol and likeness of all the crosses that represent my holy and precious Cross, all the heavens and all the earth and all of purgatory and all of hell are filled with an infinite multitude of crosses that are invisible, for no one but I can see or recognize or know them, since I am the one who truly recognizes and knows and scrutinizes all things. Because know that my Cross is a crossroads and encompasses all four corners of the world. And if they place it upright, it also encompasses heaven and hell. And since I who am God and Lord and Creator of all things had a Cross and all manner of crosses, it was not right for any creature—heavenly or earthly or infernal—to be without a cross and infinite crosses.” 250. The boundaries of medieval Iberian towns were often marked by humilladeros, small edifices that sheltered a cross or a sacred image, so devotional images outside the church would have been a common sight. Felipe Pereda has argued that in Castile private devotional images in homes (rather than on roads or in fields) were rare before the advent of the Inquisition in 1482, when owning a devotional image became a proof of orthodoxy. See Felipe Pereda, Las imágenes de la discordia: Política y poética de la imagen sagrada en la España del 400 (Madrid: Marcel Pons, 2007), 82–83.

Sermon 22: Exaltation of the Holy Cross 199 “But what can I say, my friends? Some of the crosses that exist in the world are good, and an infinity of others, or most of them that are in this very world, are evil and abhorrent to me. And similarly all the ones in hell are evil and useless and worthless in my divine sight. And know, my friends, that each insult and tribulation and calumny and false testimony and sickness and pain and heat and cold and fatigue and hunger and thirst and poverty and nakedness that anyone suffers, everything is a cross.” “And each punishment and torment and fire that devils and the condemned to hell and the souls in purgatory suffer, is a cross. And each rebuke and wound or injury and torment and stab wound or prison or any other death or condemnation or danger that a person suffers or has suffered, is a cross. And even every one of the pains and tortures and penances or persecutions and sermonizing and moralizing and catechizing and sacrifices and confessions that everyone in my holy kingdom did and suffered because of their love for me, each is a cross.” “And therefore I say, very rightly so and truthfully, that all of heaven and earth and hell are full of crosses. Because, from me, who is the greatest and best of all, to the smallest child in this my holy kingdom, none entered it without a cross. Because even the child who dies soon after it is born bears a cross in that it suffered when its soul was torn from its body. And even you, the angels, won this glory and this holiness you possess by virtue of the cross of obedience and humility and combat and zeal for my honor and glory.” “And all the people there are in the world, no matter how rich and prosperous and exalted and great they may be, are not without crosses in some ways. And even if evil and corrupt people and sinners bear no crosses other than those of their sins—which earn them perpetual torments and punishments—those crosses are much larger and more frightful and painful to bear and suffer than my crosses that they bear and suffer out of their love for me and for my holy Cross.” “Because good crosses are very much easier and sweeter to bear than evil ones. In other words, the tribulations and penitential acts and anguish and suffering and torments and deaths suffered for my love are very easy and pleasing to bear. Because anyone who loves me, regardless of the great and frightful pains he may suffer, when he remembers what I suffered for him and that he is suffering it for me, his God and Creator, and when he remembers the rewards and guerdons and blessings that await him on account of them, all that he has suffered or must suffer for me seems very little or almost nothing. And in this way my crosses are very sweet and easy to suffer and bear.” “However, the crosses that evil people and sinners bear and have are very hard to bear and to carry inasmuch as nothing is heavier or more onerous than sin. Because the cross of sin weighs the soul down so much and bends and topples it, for it prevents the soul from rising up to think of God or entrusting itself to him or praying to him to have mercy and to forgive it. And such crosses and torments

200 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ can be said to come from the devil, not from me, because even devils have infinite crosses, that is to say, infinite kinds of punishments and torments and fires that they carry inside and outside themselves, that they cannot cast off even if they so wished.” 22. “And therefore, my friends,” said the Lord, “I want and command and it is my will that all the crosses of the blessed souls likewise appear here, and let a very beautiful and dazzling cross appear and be formed from each of the blasphemies and insults and torments and suffering and evil deeds and hardships. And make me a very large and solemn procession with all these my holy crosses that you bring from earth and with those of all the blessed souls who are in my holy kingdom.” And His Majesty explained, saying that as soon as he finished uttering these words, suddenly, by virtue of his strength and power he spoke and it was done. And he gave the command, and it was fulfilled. And infinite thousands of crosses, countless and without compare, appeared there. Because he was told about the slightest word and thought and act and deed that out of love for him each one of those in heaven did and said and carried out and performed, and a cross was made for each. And on each of the crosses that the holy angels carried from earth, besides many other ornaments it bore, it had and there appeared in the middle of it a very large and dazzling and bright sun. And in the middle of this very same sun was a sort of very bright mirror,251 and in this same mirror was a very great and opulent and ornate throne, and he was seated on this very throne and wedding bed.252 And each of the blessed souls took one of those crosses and on each of them His Majesty Almighty God was seated. This means that just as when he was on the Cross and made it into his wedding bed and throne, likewise, being the sun of justice and true God, he is today and will forever be everywhere and in every corner, and in every heart that calls upon him with love and devotion, and in all of heaven and all the earth, and in all the consecrated hosts, and in every place he is called upon and loved and served and worshipped and believed. 23. And the Lord said that after each of the blessed souls had taken up one of those marvelous crosses and after he had trumpets calls resound throughout 251. Since luna can mean both “moon” and “mirror” in Spanish, the metaphor plays on the sun and moon as mirror opposites. 252. Although there is no known tradition of Hildegard of Bingen’s Scivias on the peninsula, this passage evokes her images of the “cosmic egg” (with sun and stars inside) and the “unity and the trinity” in which Jesus is pictured in the middle of several concentric glowing fires. Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias, trans. Mother Columba Hart (New York: Paulist Press, 1990), book 1, vision 3, 91–93; 2.2. 159–61.

Sermon 22: Exaltation of the Holy Cross 201 heaven, all the glorious male and female saints and blessed souls gathered together. And forming very orderly hosts, they began to range themselves in very large and solemn processions, each of them carrying him on the throne of the Cross, enjoying him and taking pleasure and delighting in him. And just as some were marching in the processions, singing and worshipping and bowing down and performing acts of reverence, others were dancing and performing entertainments before the crosses and with the crosses themselves. This means that some people do penance in diverse ways and weep many tears and go on many pilgrimages and visit churches out of love for his Passion and Cross and his sacred wounds. And they worship him always and consider how he was wounded and crucified and racked with pain. And such people earn and merit greatly for it and please His Majesty. And those who were in the front, dancing and playing instruments and singing and indulging in very great entertainments and pleasures, represented those in this world who rejoice and delight and revel in suffering insults and evil and torments and persecutions and temptations and tortures and death. And all their bliss and solace consist of this and their joys and pleasures and delights, said the Lord, consist of meditating upon my Passion and my Cross and me, their crucified God, and they become intoxicated by and spend their entire life in this alone. And everything they think about or do or accomplish that is outside my Passion and my Cross they consider torment and punishment. And so they devote themselves to divine and difficult things the way others devote themselves to dancing and entertainments and pleasure. And of these people it can be said that they are carrying the Cross—and me, their Lord, on it—when they are dancing and having pleasure, because, in the midst of worldly prosperity and honors they feel anguish and sadness, and in adversity and tribulations they feel joy and happiness and delight. And the Lord said that the holy angels who were marching in the processions not only were carrying beautiful crosses in their hands, but him as well on each of them. This meant that all their pleasures were and are and will be in the Cross for those who followed it out of their love for him. Because, just as in this world the Cross was a very great torment for him and he delighted in suffering shamefully on it, today he also delights in and adorns himself and does not feel above making it his wedding bed and his throne at times, and at other times making it a musical instrument he plays,253 and other times a bow with which he 253. A long tradition, from Augustine to Bonaventure to Juana’s contemporary, María de Santo Domingo, used musical instruments as metaphors for Christ’s Passion. For analysis, see Surtz, Guitar of God, 63–86; and Ronald E. Surtz, “The ‘Sweet Melody’ of Christ’s Blood: Musical Images in the Libro de la oración of Sister María de Santo Domingo,” Mystics Quarterly 17, no. 2 (1991): 94–101. Note that it is usually Christ, Christ’s wounds, or the human soul that is the instrument, not the arma Christi.

202 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ shoots,254 and others a tree full of delicacies and fruits and flowers and very beautiful leaves so that all blessed souls may abide under its shade and eat and be sated and delight,255 and at other times making it a judge and savior and condemnor. And similarly the holy angels were bearing lit torches that were very bright and white and dazzling, all of them surrounded with vividly colored and very beautiful and fragrant roses and flowers, which beautiful torches represented him himself, inasmuch as the white wax represented his holy and precious humanity,256 which was lovelier and more pure and beautiful than all the sons of men. And the vividly colored and beautiful flowers and roses that surrounded the torches represented all the wounds and injuries and lashes that he suffered on it—he who is so delicate and tender—and the most sacred blood that completely covered his glorious body. And the dazzling and bright light from the torches, which light and brightness lit up all the heavens, represented his most sacred divinity, which was hidden and enclosed in his sacred humanity. 24. And the Lord explained, saying that after the processions were over and done, he commanded trumpets to summon all the glorious male and female saints and all the other blessed souls who for love of him endured torments and punishments and insults and suffering. And when they were all gathered to the call of the trumpets, he commanded them to bring all the crosses that had appeared, their own and those that represented their suffering and tribulations and merits. And as soon as he had ordered them to be brought, suddenly, because of his own virtue and might and word, said His Majesty, there appeared infinite millions of crosses, which came flying, without anyone bringing or gathering them, on a kind of very dazzling golden chariots, and the crosses themselves were all full of jewels and surrounded with variety and beauty. And he commanded the holy angels to take each of those crosses, which represented every one of the blasphemies and insults and punishments suffered for his love, and to place each cross on the forehead or the head of every blessed soul that was there.257 This means that just as each of those things was a cross 254. Christ as the marksman shooting an arrow invokes the romantic religious lyric that conflated Christ and Cupid. See Barbara Newman, “Love’s Arrows: Christ as Cupid in Late Medieval Art and Devotion,” in The Mind’s Eye: Art and Theological Argument in the Middle Ages, ed. Jeffrey F. Hamburger and Anne-Marie Bouché (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006), 263–86. 255. The cross was sometimes compared to the Tree of Knowledge. For a discussion of the range of tree symbols in Iberian religious devotion, see Cynthia Robinson, “Trees of Love, Trees of Knowledge: Towards a Definition of a Cross-Confessional Current in Late Medieval Iberian Spirituality,” Medieval Encounters 12, no. 3 (2006): 388–435, at 420. 256. The tripartite image of wax, wick, and candle was often used as a metaphor for the Trinity in the late Middle Ages. 257. Juana is making a connection between the cross as a material sign of the burden of venial and mortal sins, and the cross that priests trace in oil on the forehead to remove original sin during baptism.

Sermon 22: Exaltation of the Holy Cross 203 for the soul, so will it receive a reward and many recompenses for each one of them. And the Lord said that when the angels were placing the crosses on the foreheads or heads of the blessed souls, suddenly from the crosses themselves there emerged and emanated infinite beams of light of various colors and fragrances and splendor and infinite kinds of jewels and garments and crowns and adornments—even footwear—with which each of the blessed souls who was there dressed and crowned and shoed and bejeweled itself. And likewise from the same crosses emerged and emanated and flowed many delicacies and flavors and sweetness, from which they ate and were satisfied and became intoxicated. And likewise he also emerged and flowed from each of the crosses, and he held in his arms each of those blessed souls marked on the forehead with the sign of the cross, kissing and embracing and holding each one very close to himself, enjoying its sweetness and dulcitude. 25. And the Lord explained, saying that after all of the blessed souls were rewarded and adorned with the rewards and ornaments of the crosses of their suffering and merits, he again ordered trumpet calls to resound throughout the heavens so that everyone would come to worship his holy Cross and pay homage to it and venerate it, since it had been so worthy and deserving, for it had been his wedding bed and throne and bride. And when they heard his command, all the blessed souls came on their knees with great humility and reverence, pouring out many cups of perfume and giving off great clouds of very fragrant and sweet-smelling incense from their thuribles, and offering many sacrifices, chanting, “Oh Lord our Almighty God! We hear your voice and we worship you and we obey you. And we worship your holy Cross and we love it and we bow down before it, as you command and desire.” 26. And the Lord said that after all the glorious male and female saints and the souls that are in heaven had worshipped his holy Cross, he commanded all nine choirs of angels to come to worship his holy Cross, since he, who was God of Gods and Lord of Lords, had humbled himself to obey it and to die upon it. And it was only right for all his friends and brethren to obey it and for the angels to worship it and to humble themselves before it. When [the angels] heard his command, they all came with great humility and reverence and worshipped the holy Cross, bowing down before it, saying that they were not worthy to worship and honor and venerate it and to bow down before it. And this is what eight angelic choirs did. However, the most exalted choir of the seraphim started to pick a fight with the holy Cross, saying, “Truly, cruel and pitiless and dry wood without any power before our God and Creator and yours, we will not worship you or bow down before you, as you do not deserve it nor are you worthy of it, because we remember the time that, when our Lord Jesus

204 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ Christ was nailed to you, you gave him such cruel and unbearable torments that you never gave him a moment of rest or solace. Therefore we will not worship or obey you in any way whatsoever.” 27. And the Lord explained, saying that when the holy Cross saw that the exalted seraphim refused to worship it, with his permission it spoke through the holes of the nails and said, “Oh Lord Almighty God! You commanded the angels to worship me and eight choirs worshipped me. And the choir of the most exalted seraphim refuses to worship me in any way whatsoever but instead picks fights with me and says that not only will they not worship me but they will not even bow down before me inasmuch as I was so cruel and unkind to you.” And the Lord answered, saying, “My very beloved Cross, tell them and command them on my behalf that I order them to worship and venerate you, for I loved and wanted you so much that I wished to choose and take you to be my bride and beloved and marriage bed.” And the Lord said that thereupon the holy Cross spoke again to the exalted seraphim, saying to them, “Holy angels, God most high wants you to venerate and exalt me, and I tell you and command you on his behalf to worship me.” And the seraphim answered it, “Truly we are very exalted angels and you cannot subjugate us or pressure us to worship you and to bow down before you, for we worship and obey the one and triune true God, who deserves to be worshipped and loved and served and exalted, and deserves for all heavenly and earthly and infernal creatures to humble themselves before his mighty hand. However, you have no reason or justification to be worshipped or loved, inasmuch as you were not only cruel and pitiless with your God and Creator, but by killing him and tormenting and holding him prisoner and captive upon you, you doomed humankind to death and to the Cross. Because since the Creator and Lord and Maker of all things died and refused to enter this his holy kingdom without the Cross and without torment, it was not right or just for his servants and creatures to enter the kingdom of heaven without a cross and very cruel crosses and torments and without suffering a very cruel death with great pain. And for this reason you should not be worshipped, at least not by us seraphim.” And the Lord said that since the seraphim in no way wished to worship his holy Cross, he spoke to it again, saying to it, “My blessed Cross, I command you and I give you the power—with my help and my grace and my strength—to have power over all the seraphim in order to subjugate and humble them before you, since I subjected myself to be obedient to you so that you could do with me, being God and the Creator of all things, whatever you wanted. It is also right that you subjugate my servants, even if they are angels and the most exalted seraphim. Therefore you yourself go to them and make them worship you and bow down before you by force, if they do not wish to do it willingly.”

Sermon 22: Exaltation of the Holy Cross 205 And the Cross, hearing his words and command, began to pursue the seraphim, making a great and thunderous sound and calling out to them very loudly, saying, “Come all of you. Come all of you to worship me and to bow down before me. And if you do not wish to do it willingly, I, who had the power to subdue Almighty God and keep him nailed and bound and dead and wounded and suffering on me, have and will have the power to subdue and torture you and place you beneath me.” And the holy Cross, saying these words and many others, flew through the air, making a thunderous noise like a great rush of water. And the seraphim, when they saw it was making such a thundering noise and that it was uttering such words and that it was giving off a sort of dark fog that darkened their splendor, said the Lord, as soon as they saw it near them they flew higher, thinking that they could flee and escape from it so that it would not catch or capture them underneath it, and they also flew from place to place, saying, “Oh Cross! Leave us be, for we will worship and obey you as long as you do not capture us or subjugate us under you.” And the holy Cross, seeing that the exalted seraphim were flying around and fleeing from it and hiding, went after them with great speed and making a great din, saying, “Do not think that you can escape or be free of me, because just as I had the power to subjugate and torment your God and mine, I will also subjugate and torment you presently.” The Lord said that as soon as the Cross said these words, suddenly it captured a multitude of seraphim under it and struck them with its arms and with its top part and with its base and its shaft. And as soon as it beat and struck them, as his divine Majesty wished and commanded, they felt it and the blows hurt them, and they cried out, saying, “Protect and help us, oh Lord our God, because we could say that we have never experienced such a thing since we fought with Lucifer.”258 And when the holy Cross saw that they were complaining about it and wanted to get out from under it, after striking some of them, it left them and went after the others, searching for them everywhere and in every corner of the heavens where they were hiding. The Lord said that since [the Cross] existed and appeared so large with his divine permission at that time, it gathered under it another host of thousands of seraphim and beat and struck them as it had the first ones. And it shouted loudly, saying, “I am the evil one and the cruel one and the pitiless one and the tormentor of my God and Creator, for I killed and tormented and wounded and injured him very harshly and bitterly. Therefore, since I was cruel and unkind with my God, I want to be the same with you, his servants.”

258. Revelation 12:7–9 details the war between the angels and Lucifer.

206 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ And saying these words, after having wounded and beaten those that it held under it, it left them and chased others and searched for them and captured them under its foot, which was very large, built like a beautiful chariot with wheels made of gold and precious stones. And seeing how they could not escape from it in any way at all, they shouted, saying, “Let us be, blessed Cross, for we worship you and bless you and fear you.” And it, said the Lord, answered them very mightily, “No, that’s not the problem! Since your God and mine did not enter this heavenly kingdom without a cross and without being worthy of it (nor did any of his saints or chosen ones), there is even less reason for you to avoid the Cross or to escape without [carrying] it and without its merits.” And saying these words, it left some and searched for and captured others, saying, “I the evil one, I the pitiless one, I worse than a heretic, who was and am the torturer of all heavenly and earthly creatures, and even of those in hell, I am the strong one and the great one and the powerful one and the terrible one, who subjugates everyone under me. And no matter where the mighty and the lowly may flee, they are always captured under my arms. And even the Son of God, after he became a man and took on human flesh, did not escape or avoid me. And I am the condemnor and the judge or savior of all human beings, after God.” The Lord said that while the holy Cross was going around the heavens so mightily, capturing each of the exalted seraphim—for it did not miss any of them, subjugating them under itself—they called out and pleaded with great fervor and humility, saying, “Oh Lord our Almighty God! We appeal to your divine clemency to free us and protect us from the torments and din and darkness of your holy Cross, just as you freed the prophet Jonah from the belly of the whale, for we are in as great need and darkness at this moment as he was at that time.” And hearing the prayers of the seraphim, he saw that his holy Cross had already subjected them and held them under it. He spoke to them very mightily and lovingly, saying, “It pleases me, my friends, to save and protect you at this time from my Cross, since it has already subjected and placed you under itself. However, do not think that you are to be exempt from the merits and the domination of the Cross, since I am not exempt from its domination and merits.” And the Lord said that he then spoke with the holy Cross, saying to it, “My Cross and my wedding bed and my bride, let my exalted seraphim be, since you have subjugated and humbled them beneath you, and they have worshipped and obeyed you.” And the holy Cross, hearing his voice, became very calm and serene, giving off great brightness and splendor and fragrances and sweetness and a multitude of roses and flowers and beautiful things. And when the exalted seraphim saw that they had escaped from the holy Cross and from its din and darkness and torments, said the Lord, they rejoiced greatly and were very happy. And they went

Sermon 22: Exaltation of the Holy Cross 207 before his divine presence all together and said, “Oh Lord Almighty God! Since we have tasted pain and fear, we appeal to your great clemency to give us the merits and rewards of your Cross, since you gave them to all the other blessed male and female saints and souls who are with you and live and reign now forever.” 28. And he answered them with great love and charity, saying, “It pleases me, my friends, to give you very great rewards and merits and accidental beatitude in addition to those you already have. However, I wished and it was my will that you worship and obey my holy Cross and taste some of its bitterness for three reasons: the first, in order to delight and enjoy myself with you; the second, in order for you to see and recognize and know that no one can enjoy or taste or receive the rewards and sweetness and fruits of my holy Cross, if he does not first taste and receive its bitterness and pain and torments; and the third, so that you would see and know that I am God, mighty and strong in all things, and that I have the power to do and command and accomplish everything I want according to my will. And if I wish, with my voice or a single word from me or a thundering blast from my holy Cross, I will knock down and destroy all of the heavens and the earth and all the things that are in them. And therefore, my friends, approach me all of you, as I will bestow on you an abundance of riches and gifts and blessings.” And the Lord said that as the exalted seraphim approached him, worshipping and burning incense and presenting very great oblations and offerings and homage, he took them in his sacred arms and, merely by touching them, he bestowed upon them unaccustomed beatitude and joys and divine gifts, in addition to those they have, which is more than what all others have in heaven, inasmuch as they are always ablaze and inflamed and burning with divine love and fervor and awe. 29. And after he gave all the blessed souls in the court of heaven the infinite rewards and merits of all their crosses and torments, suddenly, in a very deep and dark valley full of very profound darkness there appeared a multitude of people all dressed in black in something like hair shirts. And looking at such a gloomy valley, he saw that it was full of people who had been stripped of their belongings and turned out of their homes. And seeing them like this, he summoned his holy angels and said to them, “Come here, my friends. Go to that gloomy and desolate valley, and place in it a multitude of riches and jewels. And build many rich and very ornate and opulent buildings and place many garments and precious objects there. However, no matter how many things you leave among them, do not allow them any light, lest those people who are there, even if they walk among them, see them or know that they possess them.”259

259. Juana’s image seems to evoke the Platonic cave in The Republic, 514a–20a.

208 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ And, said the Lord, as soon as the holy angels departed, obeying his holy command, they placed in that valley a multitude of jewels and riches and garments and very large cities and towers and castles and beautifully constructed and decorated and ornate buildings. And those people walked around the cities and buildings and, in the great darkness and shadows, they did not realize where they were walking or going. And they were in the midst of riches and treasures, and they stepped on them, and they did not see them or know what they were. And they handled the pearls and precious stones and garments and did not know whether they were bad or good or whether they were beautiful or ugly or precious or worthless. And His Majesty mighty God explained, saying that when those people had such great riches and treasures in their midst and could not see them because of the great shadows and darkness that were in that valley, it means that the people of the Old Testament had all the prophecies that the prophets (who are symbolized by the angels) had prophesied and uttered and taught them and showed them. However, since some of them were—and are even today—blind260 and obstinate and hardened in sin, they could not interpret or understand or recognize them. And since at that time he had not yet come into the world or been incarnated, they were blind in the darkness and shadows of their sins and their false and deceitful ideas. And even after he came into the world and lived among them, teaching and telling and announcing to them all the glory of heaven and the punishments of hell, they failed to recognize such great and wondrous riches and treasures. Instead they trampled them and did not deserve to have light with which to see them because of their great abominations and evil deeds. And likewise all the people in that very deep valley represented all the people and sinners of this world, who have among them all the treasures and blessings of the kingdom of heaven, because they have the true God, he himself said, and his holy Gospels and scriptures. And they do not know it nor can they see it or recognize it inasmuch as their eyes are blind and full of the cataracts of sins and heresies and greed and carnalities. 30. And the Lord said that when he saw that the people in that valley had such a multitude of treasures and riches and could not see or enjoy them, he was moved to compassion and pity for them. And he summoned the holy apostles and said to them, “Come here, my friends. Go to that valley where there is such a great multitude of people, who have infinite treasures and worldly goods, and [yet] because of the shadows and darkness they have with them, they cannot see

260. The Jew as blind to Christian truth was a common designation from the second century on, popularized particularly by Augustine in his Sermon against the Jews. In artistic representations of Synagoga versus Ecclesia, the allegorized woman of Synagoga usually wore a blindfold.

Sermon 22: Exaltation of the Holy Cross 209 or enjoy them. Give them some light. At least get rid of those great shadows they have so that they may see the worldly goods and treasures that are there.” And the Lord said that the holy apostles went at once and descended to that valley, as he had commanded them, each of them carrying his cross in his hands, in the middle of which very beautiful crosses was the sun of justice. And they went among the people and began to speak to them in a loud voice, saying, “What are you doing here, my friends? Do you not see what you have in your midst? Do you not see that you are walking upon treasures and trampling them and you do not recognize what they are? And do you not see that you are in such beautiful buildings and are not enjoying them?” And the Lord said that when he was saying these and many other lofty and wondrous words, suddenly such dazzling sunlight emerged from the crosses that it lit up that entire valley and removed all the darkness, so colors and paintings and treasures began to be revealed and to appear. And those people, seeing that the darkness was removed and that they could see where they were walking, enjoyed it greatly and were very happy, and a few of them began to help themselves to some of those priceless jewels and treasures. This means that when he went up to heaven and saw that the people were still blind and full of the darkness of sin, he sent or left behind his holy apostles so that they would preach and teach his holy Catholic faith, so lucid and true, and remove all the darkness of heresies and idolatries and evil deeds and deceits. And the Lord explained, saying that when the apostles removed the darkness from that valley with the sun of justice that they bore on their crosses, it meant that it was not they who removed the darkness of sin but rather it was he, who is the Sun of Justice, the true God, who taught them and enlightened them from within about everything they should say and utter and do and teach the others. 31. And when he saw that his apostles had removed—with his grace and succor—the darkness from that valley and that the treasures and riches and buildings were not yet fully evident, moved to great mercy and charity, he himself descended to visit them and to finish enlightening and bring them light and perfection so that they could enjoy the very great riches that were hidden and concealed there. This means that when he sees that sinners convert and repent of their sins and remove from themselves the darkness of heresies and doubts and unbelief and sects and evil religions, and begin to perform acts of penance as counseled and enlightened by the holy apostles and evangelists and by the holy Catholic faith (which faith they left written down and preached often and taught and confirmed by miracles and wonders and martyrdom), he gets such solace from it that, as a recompense and a reward, he gives them himself and all the riches and treasures of the kingdom of heaven, so that in the glory of paradise

210 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ they may have and possess, fully and completely, that which in this world they believed in because of their faith and love and hope and charity. 32. And the Lord said that when he descended to that very deep valley, he descended with great might and accompanied by his angels. And then suddenly it became so bright everywhere that the buildings and treasures looked even more dazzling and beautiful and brightly colored and delightful than they had looked before. And as soon as he sat down on a very large and magnificent throne, he commanded his holy Cross, which he carried before him like a banner, to be placed there beside him. And when those who were in that valley saw how he appeared beautiful and mighty and dazzling and how he had lit up the entire valley for them with his splendor and beauty, His Majesty said, they were glad and rejoiced greatly, seeing such wondrous things and possessing and keeping them for themselves. This means that when souls emerge from the shadows and thickets and darkness of this world and see and enjoy at last his divine presence, they feel such great happiness and joy that they do not remember what they suffered. And they wish they had suffered even more in order to obtain even greater rewards. And the Lord said that as soon as he was seated on his throne and very high dais, he commanded all those who were playing instruments and singing and performing entertainments and enjoying themselves and worshipping to be quiet and remain silent, because he wished to speak and to give orders to someone else. And when they heard his voice, they all stopped and put away their instruments. And then his divine Majesty asked for a book and began to read from it. And after he had read for a short while, he spoke with his holy Cross, saying, “My precious Cross, tell me now. Who are all those who worship you because of their love for me, for I humbled myself in order to be on you until death? Or [who are] those who have contempt for you? And who are those who love or hate you? And who are those who serve and follow you? And who are those who flee from you?” And the holy Cross, said the Lord, answered, because he commanded it and gave it permission, saying, “Oh Lord God and my Creator, you know all things and know full well better than I can tell you who are those who worship me and those who hate me. Let them love and worship you who are worth it and deserve it, for it does not matter to me if they worship me, since I was so cruel and unkind to you.” 33. And our Savior, he himself said, answered, “You were my Cross and my torment while I lived in the world, and I did not wish to have any wedding bed or glory other than you. And so, in the same way, you are to be the one to help me judge on the day of the Last Judgment and to testify that you saw me and held me. And therefore I command you now, in my name and my might and my strength,

Sermon 22: Exaltation of the Holy Cross 211 to take this book and then to read from it and to tell for your part everything you find written in it.” And then the holy Cross, obeying his divine command, took the book and began to read and speak through the holes left by the nails, saying, “In such and such a town and in such and such a city and in such a such a village and in such and such a neighborhood and in such and such a house there are such and such people, men as well as women, old as well as young, and rich as well as poor, and their names are such and such and such and such.261 And they worship me with love and devotion and reverence, and when they see me, they are immediately reminded of you and they have compassion for you and shed tears for the very cruel and bitter Passion and the torments you suffered on me. Therefore, everyone who does these things, honoring and venerating you in me, and me in you—and more you than me—will be blessed forever and will receive great rewards and recompenses from you and from me.” And the Lord said that after the holy Cross finished reading this first lesson, it closed the book and was silent. 34. And when the Lord saw that it stopped reading, he spoke very mightily and powerfully, saying, “My most precious Cross, I who am your holy fruit command and beseech you, in my name, to open the book again and to read the lesson that comes after the one you have read.” And then the holy Cross, obeying him, opened the book again and began to read through the same nail holes, saying in a very loud and powerful voice, “Hear, all of you, the second lesson I wish to read. Know that in such and such a city and in such and such a village and in such and such a kingdom and in such and such a neighborhood there are such and so many houses, in which houses there are such and so many persons, and their names are such and such and such and such, who never worship or love me but instead insult and scorn and blaspheme me— not only me, but you in me and me in you—for which reason they deserve and will deserve to be forever wretched and eternally damned and condemned. And I myself will be their judge and slayer and destroyer and torturer.” And it finished reading the second lesson and closed the book, not wishing to read any more. 35. And the Lord said that he thereupon spoke again with the holy Cross, saying, “My Cross, I command you to read the third lesson that is in that book you have there.” And then it began to read the third lesson, saying, “Hear and know, all of you, that in such and such cities and villages and towns and houses and neighborhoods there are such and so many persons of such and such rank and such and such ages, who worship me in a very lukewarm and negligent and lazy and halfhearted manner and very much without love and fear of their God and Creator—who was placed on me, his tormentor and executioner—which persons sin 261. Note that here “such and such” refers to both genders (MS fulano y fulana).

212 MOTHER JUANA DE LA CRUZ mortally and anger Almighty God. However, wait for them a while to see if they mend their ways and deserve to obtain your forgiveness.” And the Lord said that after the holy Cross had read all three lessons, it closed the book and gave it to him, saying, “My Lord and Creator, I have finished reading. Now you judge and save and condemn and wait for all those who, I know and recognize, it is your holy will to judge and save and condemn or await.” 36. And then His Majesty took the book and gave it to the holy nails, saying to them, “My nails, you who were driven into and pierced my feet and my hands, take this book and read your lesson, as my holy Cross has done.” And the holy nails, said His Majesty, answered him with great humility, saying, “Lord God and our Creator, your holy Cross has already read; its lessons are enough and sufficient.” And our Lord and Redeemer Jesus Christ, he himself said, answered the holy nails, saying, “To you, my nails, I say that since it was you who tortured me and tore my tender and delicate flesh, you must be judges and jury and saviors, together with me, on the day of the Last Judgment. Therefore, take this book at once and read your lesson, as my holy Cross has done.” And then they took the book and read their lesson, saying the same things that the holy Cross had said and read. 37. And when they closed the book, said the Lord, suddenly there appeared in that valley the images and statues of all the people about whom the holy Cross and the nails had read and said that they worshipped it or did not worship it. And as soon as all the people had appeared, suddenly he himself appeared on the Cross, nailed to it with the nails as at the time when he suffered the Passion. And his countenance and his features, said His Majesty, looked very terrible and stern at that moment, like those of a very angry and irate judge. And while he was on the Cross like this, naked and wounded, suddenly it began to get dark throughout that entire valley and many splinters of fire and many flashes of lightning and lightning bolts began to emerge from the Cross. And similarly the Cross itself began to produce very loud and frightening thunder and such great storms that all the blessed souls in the heavenly court were shaking and afraid, as if it were the day of the Last Judgment. And with those thunderbolts and splinters of fire the holy Cross burned all those who refused to worship or venerate it. And the Lord said that, with the great and frightening thunder and storms that the holy Cross was producing, it knocked over and cast down infinite thousands of leagues all those statues and images of the persons who refused to worship or revere it or him. This meant that on the day of the Last Judgment not only will he, who is a great and mighty and powerful judge, pass judgment and condemn evil persons and cast them into the depths of hell, but his holy Cross

Sermon 22: Exaltation of the Holy Cross 213 and the nails will also judge and condemn and destroy and terrify and torment evil persons and sinners. 38. And the Lord explained, saying that after all the images or statues of evil persons were destroyed and cast down, suddenly he appeared, looking very beautiful and dazzling and bedecked, and seated in the middle of the holy Cross itself as if on a very large and wondrous throne. And, similarly, his holy Cross suddenly appeared, looking very beautiful and dazzling and adorned with flowers and covered with jewels and garments and adornments and crowns and very sweet fruits that are delicious to the taste and to eat, which emerged and flowed from him and his holy Cross. Of which great gifts and blessings, said His Majesty, all the blessed souls in the court of heaven had their fill and adorned themselves and ate and were sated and became intoxicated. This means that on the day of the Last Judgment, after evil persons are condemned and plunged into hell, he himself and his holy Cross will bestow very great rewards and recompenses and solace and delights on all the blessed souls. 39. And after he had bestowed the rewards and recompenses of the Cross on all the blessed souls, all those marked with the sign of the cross on their foreheads ascended. This wondrous sign, said the Lord, not only adorned each of their garments and crowns and jewels, but each of those crosses suddenly appeared upon a kind of very large chariot made of gold and precious stones, and he in the middle of the Cross itself.262 And this is how all the glorious male and female saints ascended, each one seated on his [own] wedding bed and chariot with its ornate canopy. And the chariots themselves were flying though the air around his royal throne, all of the blessed souls playing instruments and singing very beautiful and sweet songs and performing many entertainments and rejoicing and worshipping. And the Lord said that this is how all the blessed souls in the court of heaven went around in those chariots throughout the octave of that same feast, receiving great joys and delights and greatly honoring and feting him.

262. Accounts of ascending to heaven in a chariot are based on Ezekiel 1, a common source for both Christian apocalypticism and Jewish (Merkabah) mysticism.

Postscript by the Translator NORA WEINERTH In this postscript I hope that, by tracing my emotional responses to some of the sermons that comprise Libro del Conorte, I can throw some light on a few of the distinctive qualities of Mother Juana’s narrative skill. The idea for this postscript began with a conversation with Ronald Surtz in which I rhapsodically referred to Mother Juana as “a Scheherazade of Scripture.” At that point Ronald invited me to write down my thoughts in a translator’s note. I approached the sermons of Mother Juana with some trepidation, with the skepticism of a nontheist rationalist, an attitude of someone familiar with, yet wary of traditional Spanish religious sentiment. How would the sermons make me feel? More to the point, what if a sermon is a rant about perfidious Christkiller Jews? I’d translate as if it were about any other subject. But what would I feel? After all, what could a possibly semiliterate mid-sixteenth century Spanish woman religious have to offer that would be of value personally to me? Plenty, it turned out.263 Reading—or more exactly, listening to the sermons with my “mind’s ear,” I was often moved. I discovered unexpected skill at storytelling, at evoking powerful emotions—pity, sorrow, horror—emotions that gripping stories arouse. These emotions were tempered with Juana’s wit. I did not expect to chuckle or tear up, as I did at times, nor did I anticipate the inventiveness and literary merits I found. Mostly, I did not expect the vivid scenes she describes to arouse feelings that I believe few nontheist rationalists expect ever to know. That this happened to me attests to the power of Juana’s astonishing narrative art. It invites exploration; but first, some thoughts on translating Mother Juana’s sermons. I translated the sermons as faithfully as I could. I believe in prose translation that is as close to the original as it possibly can be. In translation, as in friendship, self-restraint and tolerance of ambiguity are essential parts of faithfulness. Following the twists and turns of Juana’s language sometimes challenged my idea of faithfulness. I saw that Juana was not self-consciously dictating prose fiction; she told stories in spontaneous, flexible, improvised language. I had to 263. Responses to reading are filtered through the cultural sensibility, language, and life experiences of the reader/translator. Disclosure: I grew up in a Hungarian-speaking, secular Jewish family in a Spanish-speaking Catholic country. With a WW II-traumatized mother, the shadow of twenty centuries of persecution from a militaristic Christian Church fell on my tropical childhood. Still, my sister and I felt the allure that Catholicism has for children. More than once our mother confiscated contraband pins of saints and medals of Our Lady of Coromoto that classmates had given us. To compensate for our disappointment, to affirm and to celebrate our Jewish identity, in time my sister and I each got a Star of David to wear to school. These experiences gave me the interested outsider’s perspective I brought to Juana’s sermons.

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216 Postscript by the Translator resist the temptation to “straighten” her more complicated utterances. Her narrative voice is replete with self-interruptions, filled in with clarifications, asides, and false starts, some leading to dead ends. These appear as embedded fragments in sentences, as they do in anyone’s spoken communication. Sometimes I had to refrain from “rewriting” Juana for the sake of clarity and fluency in English translation. In the paragraphs that follow, I will explore some of the ways in which Juana’s versions of scriptural episodes in a vernacular, familiar, spoken language conjure the immediacy and “witnessing” qualities we can consider theatrical. Reading the sermons, I recalled the idea of “sacred history as the beginnings of prose fiction.”264 This idea applies to Libro de Conorte. Juana’s accounts of Gospel episodes certainly give the impression of being a sort of proto “prose fiction.” Juana uses irony for various literary effects—for example, for imaginatively embellishing scriptural scenes to intensify their effect, and to enliven received “plots” of sacred tradition. Juana’s use of irony also results in making familiar Gospel characters more complex and well-rounded. More natural, less flatly iconic figures inspire identification, shortening the distance between their existence in a quasi-mythic past and the “now” of Juana’s listeners. I use the word irony to mean that characters in the story do not know something that we listeners know (or, for the sake of pleasure, we pretend not to know). For irony in this sense of the word to work, we listeners must collude with Juana in pretend-ignorance. This astute use of irony sustains our interest in narratives we know well. The technique freshens familiar stories, endowing remote iconic scenes with the warmth of intimacy. These effects confer on traditional religious episodes a contemporary quality, which invites identification with the situations Juana describes. She achieves these effects by slowing the forward motion of the story. The change in pace is accomplished sometimes by interpolating a humorous perspective into a traditional religious episode, prolonging it. The slowed storytelling creates a certain amount of dramatic tension. These techniques—a humorous perspective, and slowing the pace of the narrative—are techniques that can be seen in her sermon on the Annunciation. In this sermon humor is used for characterization, and also to create the sort of suspense storytellers use to sustain interest. Here Juana creates an enjoyably suspenseful uncertainty about the outcome of the episode, an outcome we listeners could be expected to know very well. And yet we suspend disbelief, and go along with Juana for the pleasure of it. In the Annunciation sermon, humorous characterization not only enlivens the well-worn Gospel story; it also endows the protagonists with a modern complexity. Juana accentuates Gabriel’s character as a tease. Even more interestingly, she exaggerates the Virgin’s resistance to him—a resistance that in Juana’s account is far more extravagant than could be expected 264. Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative (New York: Basic Books, 1991), 22.

Postscript by the Translator 217 in a traditionally told story. Now Mary’s contrariness expands the episode, and creates excitement. In a sort of minidrama embedded in the narration, Gabriel’s repeated attempts to deliver the Father’s message about the Incarnation are met with Mary’s increasingly stubborn refusal to hear it. There is medieval humor in the impasse between the two. Surely Juana’s listeners knew perfectly well that Gabriel would succeed in his mission to deliver the Father’s message, and that Mary would in the end consent to the Incarnation. Listen to Gabriel: “I will not tell you [the message] until you grant me a boon as reward for my good tidings.” Mary relents, finally lets Gabriel speak—but then: “Had I known that was the request [consenting to the Incarnation] you wished to ask of me, verily I would not have granted it.” Their mutually teasing exchanges delay the action to nearly a standstill. But the slowed pace also makes room for our delighting in the joyously provocative dialogue; Juana even tells us that the two are standing “close to each other.” We know the outcome of the drama; nonetheless we forge an alliance with Juana and go along with the make-believe because there is pleasure to be derived from the suspense (how will Mary receive the Father’s message and simultaneously conceive?265) The delayed resolution of the scene builds narrative tension, which propels forward the movement of the story. Juana’s listeners could be expected to savor every morsel of the give-and-take that most listeners enjoy, then as now, when hearing a juicy story. The ribald, comic touches in the Annunciation story have deep medieval roots; Juana uses this tradition to tell a familiar story in a lively way. Juana’s Annunciation sermon brings to mind early Renaissance paintings that depict Gabriel as a bold youth practically propositioning an astonished Mary. Botticelli’s Annunciation is an example.266 In contrast to the luminous Quattrocento Italian paintings of the Annunciation, early modern Spanish paintings of the event—El Greco’s, Zurbarán’s, Velázquez’s—are sober and dark, far from playful. Juana’s joyful, almost spicy interpretation of the story of the Annunciation shows her using the medieval humorous tradition to enhance a straightforwardly-related gospel episode. Juana’s account of the familiar story enriches it by introducing an element of dramatic tension. Juana’s version also renews and differentiates the protagonists. By bringing out their personalities distinctly, she defamiliarizes the traditional characters, rendering them as vivid and vibrant as recognizable contemporary types. Examples of humor abound. We find it in the Nativity sermon, in Juana’s portrayal of Joseph as a bumbling old man, cowed new husband, and inept father. Notwithstanding the long lineage of this comic image of Joseph, Juana’s account

265. See note 38. 266. In the Uffizi in Florence.

218 Postscript by the Translator weaves the jokes at Joseph’s expense seamlessly into the eternal present of the Nativity, without altering the solemn mood of the scene. Juana’s humorous perspective of the Nativity surprised me. Did it also surprise her listeners? I can only guess that the change in pace was enjoyable. Juana’s humorous portrayal of the Virgin is oddly realistic: Mary is so inflamed with religious ardor that she neglects the Child. The scene evolves along an almost farcical line. Exalted and blissfully oblivious to the cold (after all, we are in December), Mary falls on her knees to contemplate the Child and fervently to pray. Angels, seeing the Child “naked on the ground, shivering with cold”, urge her to pay attention to the newborn: “Stop contemplating, my lady. Get up quickly and pick up the child and cover him up or he will freeze to death.”) Mary, awed by the Child, procrastinates: “Come closer, you angels of God, and pick him up because I am not worthy of approaching him or of touching him.” An angel must keep urging her: “Stand up, precious Virgin, and pick up the Child, for you alone are worthy…” This original, amusing side action involving Mary and the angels exemplifies Juana’s use of irony for dramatic effect. Mary’s near-stupor because she is so overwhelmed by having given birth to the Savior is such that she risks his survival. This is Juana’s invention. In this sermon, the humorous perspective of a dazed Mary quickly dissolves into one of the most poignant scenes in Libro de Conorte. Contemplating her newborn, Mary pleads with God the Father to spare the Child the fate that awaits him. The image of Mary, desperate with fear for her Child, is another of Juana’s inspired embellishments. What first-time mother, looking at her helpless infant, does not tremble for his future, and agonize over the impossibility of her protecting him from the hazards of the world? The image of Mary on her knees, sobbing, imploring the Father to protect the Child from the fate that awaits him, the very fate the Father has in store for him, is an ironic and highly personal innovation. Juana heightens the pathos of the scene by introducing a story element from medieval tradition: an angel displays the instruments of the Passion.267 A novel use of a traditional medieval element underscores Juana’s inventiveness of intense emotional states. The power of Juana’s storytelling reaches its pinnacle for me in an inspired image for which Juana had not prepared us: it occurs when Jesus is on the way to his execution. Mary, told that she could have a last glimpse of her son, rushes out to the street, stumbling and falling at his feet. Jesus stumbles on the Virgin on the ground and, weighed down by the cross, falls on his desolate mother. 267. Possibly interactively recited, they are: a crucifix, a crown of thorns; coins, referring to Christ’s betrayal by Judas; a low pillar, referring to the Flagellation; fetters (chains), also referring to the Flagellation; a lance, used to pierce Christ’s side; a sponge, referring to the vinegar given to a thirsty Christ dying on the cross; a ladder, referring to the Descent from the Cross; and dice, referring to the Roman soldiers who gambled for Christ’s garment. George Ferguson, Signs and Symbols in Christian Art (New York: Oxford University Press, 1954), 164 ff. See figures 2 and 6.

Postscript by the Translator 219 The heartbreaking image of Mother and Son in a pile on the street is not in any of the Gospels, nor is it taken from medieval tradition forged by Crusaders returning from Jerusalem. The particular embellishment of Christ and Mary stumbling and falling evidences, in my view, an immense emotional intelligence. The poignancy of the scene that Juana evokes, made more complex by the disquieting effect of the unexpected, ambiguously humorous perspective of stumbles and falls, makes for such a potent mixture of humor and pathos that it is easy to imagine some of Juana’s listeners in tears. The magic of literary art is in its transformative power; Juana’s evocation of Mary’s radical humanity suffuses all the sermons of which she is part. Surely Juana’s intensely imagined scenes achieved their purpose of consolation and renewal of her listeners’ devotion. I began these pages admitting to apprehensiveness about Libro de Conorte. How would the sermons make me feel? Could I enter Juana’s visionary world sympathetically? This postscript describes my journey in answer to those questions.

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Index Juana’s narrative style, 216–17 in sermon 1, 37–38, 50–54 Annunciation (Juan de Borgoña), 36fig Apollo, 84–85 apostles disciples compared with, 119 grief of, 104–5, 149 in Heaven, 94–95, 184, 186, 192–93, 208–9 Jesus appearing to, 159–60, 162n210, 163–64, 166, 168, 174 arma Christi, 24, 67, 74–75, 84, 104, 184, 193–94, 218n267 in art, 66fig, 67n60, 80–81n82, 150fig, 182fig See also nails; True Cross Assumption Play, 22 audience, for Juana’s preaching, 5 authority Juana’s, 25, 28–29, 54n43 from stigmata, 27, 28 authorship of the Conorte, 35 during the Middle Ages, 15 and Juana’s texts, 17–18

abbesses interpreting spiritual readings, 5 Juana de la Cruz as, 3 accidental beatitude, 63, 80, 89, 174, 176, 178, 181, 207 Adam, 78–79 See also Eve Advent, 61, 62 Alain of Lille, 4 Alcalá de Henares, 9, 10–11 See also Cisneros, Francisco Jiménez de allegorical pageants central to the sermons, 30–31 on fates for sinners, 28, 168–74 on Jesus’s love, 94–99 of sermon, 1, 38 with the True Cross, 185–86, 192–93 the wine pear, 56–58 Angela of Foligno, 11, 13, 27, 151n194 angels and the Annunciation, 48–53 bringing crosses, 195–97, 198–203 bringing gifts, 68, 73–74, 77 and the crucifixion, 127–28, 142–45 fighting, 185, 203–7 on Mary’s search, 106–7, 112 and the Nativity, 67–68, 71–78, 81 pleading with God, 37–39, 40–44, 45, 60, 170–71 and the resurrection, 151, 154, 155–57, 162, 164, 166–68 on sinners, 60–61 and wine pears, 38, 55–58 worshiping Jesus, 55–56, 72–73, 169, 176 worshiping the cross, 202–3 See also arma Christi; Gabriel (angel); guardian angels Annunciation in art, 36fig, 217

baptism, 95 beaterios, 2, 3n12, 9 Beatriz de Silva, 23n88 birth of Jesus, 72–73 blasphemy against Jesus, 41, 42, 44, 132–33, 186, 188–89, 211 represented by crosses, 202–3 Boon, J. A., 31n125 Borgoña, Juan de, 36fig Bynum, C. W., 32–33 Calvary (Diego de Siloe), 124fig Castile, 10–11, 12, 13–14, 20–21 Cátedra, P., 10 235

236 Index Catherine of Siena, 11, 13 censorship and Conorte, 2n5, 19 in the Exaltation of the Holy Cross sermon, 185 in the Good Friday sermon, 127–28 in the Incarnation sermon, 38–39, 51 in the Nativity sermon, 79n81 in the Resurrection sermon, 151, 152 Certeau, M. de, 31–32 Christ among the Doctors (Maestro Bartolomé), 100fig, 116n131 Christomimesis, 8, 25–26, 27, 28, 30 Cisneros, Francisco Jiménez de, 4, 8–10, 13–14 See also Alcalá de Henares cold associated with purgatory, 27 infant Jesus and, 63, 67, 68, 72–73 composition, as obedience, 15 conception, of Jesus, 52n36, 53 Conorte censorship of, 19, 38–39 introduced, 1 Jesus delivering the sermons in, 17, 24–25 marginal notations, 18–19 miraculous nature of, 16n58 production of, 16, 17n63, 18 sermon styles, 30–32, 216–17, 218 structure, 4, 16 as visionary sermons, 32–33 writing of, 35 See also individual sermons Constantine, 183, 184–85, 194–95 conversions of Jews, 10–11, 83, 183 the magi, 69–70 of sinners, 209–10 crosses in art, 124fig, 182fig

collected by the angels, 196–97, 198–200 disrespect for, 198 representing blasphemy, 202–3 representing blessings, 202–3 as symbols, 183–84, 186–87, 197, 198–200 See also True Cross crucifixion in art, 124fig foretold, 74–75 Juana’s account of, 26 in sermon 19, 126–27, 136–45 Daza, Antonio, 2n8, 14, 21n78 death, God’s decrees on, 79 Dillon, John, 38n9 disciples following Mary, 120 Jesus appears to, 152, 159–64, 166–67, 168 learned men as, 119 donkey, ridden by Jesus, 39 dual gender roles, Juana having, 21, 24 dulia, 87n93, 152 See also latria El libro del conorte. See Conorte Escorial manuscript, 16n59, 18, 19n70, 34 Eucharist, 23, 31, 62, 70n68, 95 Evangelista, María, 16, 17 Eve, 78 See also Adam Exaltation of the Holy Cross, 183–85 fainting, Mary, 51, 75n73, 140, 142, 146–47 faith against Satan, 166–67, 179–81 represented in graves, 170, 172–73 feast days in sermons, 7, 30–31, 38, 55, 65 Feast of Wonders, 65 See also Incarnation Ferrer, Vincent, 12, 131n160

Index 237 figuras defined, 6 See also allegorical pageants flagellation, 125, 130 Flight to Egypt, 68 Flood, 46 flowers, 164–65n214, 172, 173 See also roses Franciscans accounts of stigmata, 25n100, 26–27 reform, 9 wounds of Jesus, 27, 31, 128, 155n200 Gabriel (angel), 47–53 See also wine pears García de Andrés, Inocente, 3n12, 17n63, 19n71, 34 gender, 21, 22, 29–30 Gerson, Jean, 11, 12 Giles, M., 31 God angry with humankind, 105–6 as cruel, 81–82 on death, 79 depicted as meek, 68, 82 and the Incarnation, 40–42 on Mary’s search, 106–7, 113 nature of, 29, 106–7 recognizing, 89 Trinity, 47–48, 50 worshiping, 177–78 Good Friday, 149 Good Friday Sermon censorship of, 127–28 summarized, 125–28 good thoughts, importance of, 77 good works, 63, 77, 105, 169, 173 Gospel of Nicodemus, 125 Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, 68, 84n88 Graña Cid, M., 13n48, 29n114 grief, of Mary anticipating the Passion, 75, 77–78 guardian angels, 26–27, 39, 63, 173, 189–90

See also angels; Laruel heavenly festivities, 6, 152, 174–77 Herod, 104, 105, 125, 130–32 Herp, Heinrich, 101n111 Hildegard of Bingen, 200n252 homunculus depictions of Jesus, 53–54n39, 77n77 humility of angels, 170, 171, 190, 197, 199, 203, 206 of apostles, 192–93 called for, 64–65, 108, 179 of doctors, 119 of Jesus, 37, 64, 83–84, 117, 174, 187, 193 of Mary, 49–53, 55, 72–74, 83, 115, 136, 137 of nails, 212 Saint Helen’s, 195 of Saint John, 148 of worshipers, 39, 62 idol-worship, 58–59 converted, 68–69, 85–86 idols, destroyed, 68–69, 84–85, 86–87 imagery, of the Virgin Mary, 22, 24 Immaculate Conception, doctrine of, 23, 46n24, 50n34 Incarnation commemorated, 61, 62–64 pleading for Jesus to, 37, 40–44 prophets on, 40 salvific nature of, 39 Incarnation sermon censorship of, 38–39, 51 summarized, 37–39 indulgences circumventing, 27 economic nature of, 28 Infancy Gospels of James and Thomas, 130n157 influence of Cisneros, 13–14

238 Index of women visionaries, 12–13, 12n45 Jesus age shifting, 69, 89, 91–92 being cold, 63, 72–73 being pleased with Mary, 47 birth of, 67 blasphemy against, 41, 42, 44, 132–33, 186, 188–89, 211 comforting Mary, 79–81 conception, 52n36 curing the sick, 61 death of, 144–45 depicted as a king, 82 described in Heaven, 31–32 and the doctors, 100fig, 108, 115–16, 117–20 and the Incarnation, 37, 41–44 as an infant, 68, 79–82 lost, 104–7, 108–9 maternal qualities of, 29 as narrator of the sermons, 4, 5, 6, 17, 24–25 as priest, 41 perfectly formed body of, 38, 53–54, 77 on purgatory, 28 represented as a woman, 29, 30 seen as beautiful, 53–54n39, 72–73 seen by the guards, 164–66 speaking through Juana, 5–6, 21n79 suffering, 42, 43n17, 126–28, 130–31, 134–36, 138, 141–43 trial of, 129–30 whipped, 125, 130 in the womb, 55 wounds of, 130–32, 136, 142, 145–46, 151, 152, 160, 162–63, 166–67, 174–75 See also humility Jews blindness of, 207–9 converting, 20–21, 183

fates of, 152–53, 180 and violence, 24, 125, 126, 127–28, 130–32, 134–37, 145–46 Jiménez de Cisneros, Francisco. See Cisneros, Francisco Jiménez de Joseph, 107–8, 130 in Jerusalem, 115–16 marriage to Mary, 45–46 poverty, 71 Joseph of Arimathea, 146 Juana de la Cruz Adam’s apple, 21, 30 authority of, 8, 24–25 beatification process of, 16n58, 26n102 bible knowledge, 34 Cisneros’ support of, 13 death, 3–4 family, 2–3 interceding in purgatory, 27, 28 miracles associated with, 15n57, 16, 17–18 patterning of the Christ on, 28, 30 physical description, 21 preaching, 5, 15 presence at heavenly events, 25 priestly roles of, 28–29 religious life, 3–4 sainthood, 2 Santa María de la Cruz and, 21–23 stigmata, 26, 28 suffering of, 27, 30 Virgin Mary and, 21–22 visionary experiences, 1, 6, 26, 28n111, 183n229 Juana’s sermons dating, 16n59 dissemination of, 15–16 narrative style of, 30–32, 216–17, 218 publishing history of, 7 transcriptions, 16 translating, 215–19 Juanica, nickname for Juana, 35 Judas Iscariot, 127, 143, 144

Index 239 Judgment Day, 193–94 Julian of Norwich, 29n115 laments, of Mary, 24, 79, 102, 111, 134 Laruel, 5, 5n22, 17–18, 27, 183n229 Last Judgment, 212–13 in allegory, 168–74, 190–91 in art, 150fig, 152 Last Judgment (Nicolas Florentio), 150fig latria, 87, 152, 176–77 See also dulia lectio divina, 5 Letter of Lentulus, 53–54n39 Libro de la casa, 1n1, 17, 19 Lieberknecht, O., 184n231 lions, as symbols of Jesus, 155–56 living saints, 2n4, 22, 27 Ludolph of Saxony on flowers, 164–65n214, 167n216 on the guards, 166n215 on Jesus’s wounds, 163–64n212 Mary and Joseph in Jerusalem, 109n124, 110n125 on Mary’s sisters, 111n126 on the Passion, 140–41n175–76, 141n178, 146–47n188, 155n201 in Spanish Christianity, 10, 11, 101 magi, converting, 69–70, 93–94 manuscripts Escorial, 1n1, 16n59, 18, 34 Vatican, 1n1, 16, 19n70 Mariology, 8, 18n68, 22, 24, 49n26, 104, 151 See also Virgin Mary marriage, between Mary and Joseph, 45–46 Martínez, Inés, 2, 8n29 Mary Magdalene, 126, 134, 137n171, 146, 151, 157–58, 166 masculine nature, needed to be a strong leader, 21 matter, transformable, 33 McGinn, B., 5n19, 32–33

Medieval Cross, 182fig medieval visionary literature, in northern Europe, 8 Meditations on the Life of Christ (Pseudo-Bonaventure). See Pseudo-Bonaventure miracles associated with Juana, 15n57, 16, 17–18 Marian, 18 Molina, Tirso de, 2 Muslims, 20, 22, 91n98, 153, 180–81, 190 mystical language, 32–33 nails speaking, 184–85, 194, 212 See also arma Christi Nativity sermon angels in, 67–68 censorship of, 79n81 Juana’s narrative style, 218 Mary’s role in, 23–24 shepherds, 68 summarized, 67–70 nature of God, 29, 106–7 New Testament demands from apostles and saints, 94–95, 97–98 in a Medieval setting, 107–8n121 See also Old Testament Nicodemus, 146 obedience, 102, 108 Old Testament, 94, 95–96, 98, 207–9 See also New Testament original sin, 78 Ortíz, Francisco, 18, 19 Pablo Maroto, Daniel de, 13n46 Pacho, Eulogio, 12–13n45 Palm Sunday, Heavenly feasts, 62–63 Passion of Christ, and the arma Christi, 67, 74–75, 80–81n82

240 Index depictions, 10–11, 124fig, 146–47n188 importance to Christians, 10–11, 149, 152, 173, 179–80, 201 prefigured, 23–24, 42, 67, 75–76, 101, 102, 104–5, 107, 109 summarized, 125–28 Passion of the Son and the Mother, 11, 23 Passion of the Two, 11, 23 Pastrana, Antonio de, 4 Patton, P., 184n230 Pedro de Villacreces, 9n31 Pereda, F., 198n250 Peter Comestor, 68 Pilate, 125, 129–30, 132 pilgrimages, 105, 107, 201 Poiter, Hilary, 130n158 poverty and destiny, 67, 74 and Jesus, 81 Mary and Joseph living in, 71 prayer, importance of, 77 preaching defined, 4–5 by Juana, 15 printing press, established by Cisneros, 10, 11 Proleptic Passion, 23–24, 101 prophecy, and women, 5, 12–13 Pseudo-Bonaventure Annunciation, 37–38 on the Crucifixion, 126, 133n64, 135n166 on the Resurrection, 151n195, 155n201, 156n203, 160n207 purgatory Francisca de Jesús and, 27n108 Juana’s ability to intercede in, 27, 28 Laruel and, 27 recogimiento, 14 relics, 152–53, 160–61, 167, 175 See also True Cross

resurrection, 156–57 Resurrection sermon censorship of, 151, 152 summarized, 151–53 Robinson, C., 10 roses, 55–56, 74 See also flowers Rubin, M., 49n26 Sacerdote Grande Jesus termed as, 23n91 Mary termed as, 23 sacred conversation, 5 Saint Anne, 102, 104, 110–11 Saint Francis, 25n100, 26, 28n111 Saint Helen, 183, 184–85, 194–95 See also True Cross Saint John the Baptist, 44 Saint John the Evangelist connected with Mary, 44, 139–40 as an idol, 91 on the Passion, 133, 137–38, 147–49 and the Resurrection, 161–62 Saint Marcella, 103, 121–22 Saint Paul, 99 Saint Peter, 99, 161 Saint Stephen, 91 Saint Thomas, 161–63 saints, in place of idols, 86–91 Santa María de la Cruz, 2–3, 8, 21 Santo Domingo, María de, 5n21, 13, 25n97, 201n253 Satan as a beast, 178–81 people following, 41, 42, 121 represented as serpent on the cross, 188–89 scriptural interpolation, as performed by Juana, 5–6 Secret Passion, 19, 24 sermon 1 censorship of, 38–39, 51 Mary’s role in, 37 Mary’s virginity, 44–47, 48 summarized, 37–39

Index 241 sermon 2 angels in, 67–68 censorship of, 79n81 Mary’s role in, 23–24 shepherds, 68 summarized, 67–70 sermon 13 dating, 101n111 Mary’s role in, 24 summarized, 101–3 sermon 19 censorship of, 127–28 summarized, 125–28 sermon 20 censorship of, 151, 152 summarized, 151–53 sermon 22 censorship of, 185 summarized, 183–85 sermones, reframed as visions, 4–5 shepherds, at the Nativity, 76–77 sin idol-worship, 58–59 Incarnation curing, 41 represented as crosses, 198–200 represented as disease, 58 See also sinners sinners in allegory, 38, 168–74, 190–91 cruel and contemptuous, 59 fighting Satan, 178–81 idol-worshipers, 58–59 Jews compared to, 133 lacking in good works, 60 malicious and angry, 59–60 repenting, 59, 192 See also sin Sodom and Gommorah, destruction of, 46, 81–82 souls, birth and death of, 35–36 Spanish Renaissance, 7n27, 12 spiritual kinship, of Jesus, 106–7, 113, 121 spiritual marriages, Mary and Joseph mirroring, 37

splinters from the cross, 24, 33, 126, 136, 137 stigmatics Angela of Foligno as, 27 Juana as, 26, 28 Saint Francis as, 25n100, 26 women as, 25–26 suffering authority through, 27 endured by Juana, 27, 30 See also Christomimesis Surtz, R., 6n24, 19n71, 30n117, 215 Suydam, M. A., 31 Szpiech, R., 153n197 talámos. See wedding beds Téllez, Gabriel. See Molina, Tirso de Temple Jesus at, 108–9, 115–16 Mary at, 113–15 Teresa of Avila, 8, 15, 16n58 theological debates over the Conorte, 18–19 Torres, Francisco de, 19 transformation, limiting, 32–33 Tratado de la vida espiritual (Treatise on the Spiritual Life, 1510) (Ferrer), 12 trial of Jesus, 129–30 Trinity analogy of, 69, 92–93 referring to God, 47–48, 50 symbolized by candles, 202n256 True Cross in allegory, 184, 192–93 described, 187–89, 192 described by Jesus, 185 discovery of, 194–96 speaking, 194, 204–6, 210–12 traditions surrounding, 183 See also arma Christi unicorns, as symbol of Mary, 39, 65 Van der Weyden, Rogier, 146–47n188

242 Index Vatican manuscript, 16, 19n70 Vázquez Gutiérrez, Juana. See Juana de la Cruz Vida y fin, 1n1, 16, 19, 26, 27 Villacrecian movement, 9–10 Virgin and Child (Alonso de Berruguete), 66fig Virgin Mary beauty of, 46, 50–51, 57, 65, 74 birth of, 44 comforted by Jesus, 79–81 consenting to God, 51–53 devotion to, 22 and the Eucharist, 23 fearing Jesus, 67 following Jesus, 120 giving birth, 71 grief, 75, 77–78, 133–34, 136–38, 139–40, 146–47, 154–55 humility, 49–53, 72–74, 83, 115, 136, 137 imagery of, 22, 24 and the Incarnation, 41 and John, 44, 147–48 marriage to Joseph, 45–46 in medieval Castile, 20–21 as mother of God, 37 and the Passion, 126–27, 133–34, 135, 136–38 persecuting those who resisted conversion, 20n74 on pilgrimage, 107–8 as a priest, 23, 24 as protector of converts, 20 searching for Jesus, 105–6, 109–17 seen as equal to Jesus, 24 sisters of, 111, 158 as source of Juana’s authority, 23 splinters from the cross, 24, 33, 126, 137 supporting Juana, 21–23 at the tomb of Jesus, 128, 146–47, 151, 154–55, 156 and unicorns, 39, 65

violence against, 24, 115, 134, 136–37 visionary experiences, 5–55, 71–73, 151, 154–55 vow of virginity, 37, 38, 44–45, 50 watched over by Gabriel, 48–53 a weaver, 130 wine pear representation, 38, 56–58 worshiped, 85–86 See also Mariology virginity, 37, 38, 41, 44–45, 50 visionary experiences of Mary, 54–55, 71–73, 151, 154–55 private nature of, 5 theological debate over, 11–12 women evoking, 4–5, 11 visionary literature, and post-Reconquest Christianity, 11, 32 visionary sermons, 32–33 visions, reframing the sermones as, 4–5 Vita Christi (Life of Christ) tradition, 10, 11, 155n201 Vita Christi (Ludolph of Saxony), 11, 101, 102n114, 107–8n121, 125n145, 127n150, 140–41n175– 76, 141n178, 146–47n188, 151n195, 155n201 See also Ludolph of Saxony wedding beds and angels, 32n127 and crosses, 185, 200–203, 206, 210–11 and Jesus, 152, 176 and saints, 88, 90, 213 wine pears, 38, 56–58 women authorial voices of, 15 connected to the divine, 19n72 identifying with Jesus’s humanity, 59n48 and prophecy, 5, 12–13 and sacred conversation, 5

Index 243 as stigmatics, 25–26 and visionary experiences, 4–5, 11 visionary literature of, 10