The Children of the Blue Nun
Mary of Agreda awakens to a New World
It was not yet dawn when Maria awoke in her cell. At first she didn’t know where she was. The walls were narrow and she could feel them on either side of her cot with her fingertips. She had awakened with both arms stretched out just like Christ hanging on the Cross. From between her half-opened eyelids she could just make out a small crucifix at her headboard. Stretched thus between the shadows and the early light of dawn, she wondered if she was truly there or if she was still travelling among lands on the other side of the world.
Many a time, Maria de Agreda had awakened thus, without enough understanding of her surroundings. With her arms wide open and her spine outstretched, it seemed to her that she had fallen from the clouds, after yet another night in flight. The hands of the angels had sustained and carried her far away from her cell. She could barely remember what she had seen in the night way off in the Province of New Mexico. Was it perhaps only a dream?
What she did remember were the thick adobe walls of the mission chapel of Isleta del Sur. There in that most holy place she had spoken to one of the Jumanos Indians. But before she could think about it anymore, she heard someone softly rapping at the door and the voice of the Reverend Mother saying: “Hail.” This was the signal that everyone in the convent used to indicate that it was time to get up to pray.
Still trying to remember her nightly visions, she put on her vestments one at a time. First she covered her head with a white wimple. Upon her shoulders she draped the blue mantle worn by the Conceptionist Nuns. Last of all she affixed her black habit to her head, took her rosary in hand and walked out of her cell, barefoot. The cold floor stung her feet like a rattlesnake. She moved in the direction of the convent chapel in silence just like the other nuns who were coming to chant the Dawn Song.
The words and the tone of the Dawn Song eclipsed her memories of the night momentarily: “Let us sing the Dawn Song, for daytime is coming. Let us give thanks, Hail Mary. On this new day, we give thee thanks Oh Almighty God, Lord of all creation.” She was barely aware of the hymn and the praises of the song. Her memory was flying toward those desert lands where the coyotes howled and the scorpions held sway. She would never have thought to find beauty there, but the Virgin Mary had promised her that even in the most abandoned and remote places on Earth, the heart of Jesus reigned.
She was still rather perturbed by these thoughts when suddenly she noticed that the nuns had finished their morning prayers and they had stood up, waiting for the blessing by the Reverend Mother. She placed herself in front of them and observed them calmly, saying in Latin: “In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.” After they had made the necessary reverence toward the altar, they left the chapel, in double file.
When her time came to exit, the Reverend Mother motioned to Maria, saying: “Sister Maria, one moment please,” while she waited for the other nuns to leave before continuing. Tenderly, the Reverend Mother came close to Sister Maria and said to her: “I have been informed, my daughter, that you have been seen leaving your cell and disappearing into the night. Those who have told me this suspect that you are a witch. “How do you answer these accusations?” Sister Maria de Agreda gazed on her, astonished. She had never told anything to anyone about her experiences in the New World, much less, did she know how to answer these accusations.