All of them suffered, all of them were capable of being in two places at the same time and being seen in both places by numerous witnesses. Perhaps the most famous bilocations today are those of Sor María Jesús de Ágreda, who is credited with the Christianization of New Mexico and which the writer Javier Sierra took care of presenting to the world in his novel La Dama Azul. But time has also eaten away at some names that are not so famous but that without a place were the main actors in verified facts and without explanation.
Let’s go back to the year 1596 when Mother Sor Isabel de la Columna was in bed suffering from a great malaise that little by little was destroying her body. Sensing that the time had come to give her soul to God, she asked her confessor to be able to receive Holy Communion, but he, the confessor, denied her that sacred act alleging that she was so ill that she would possibly throw the Holy Form on the ground.
Hours passed and some days of that unpleasant humiliation and being the day of Saint Andrew, Sister Isabel de la Columna asked her sisters to withdraw a little and to keep quiet so she could listen to mass.
The surprised nuns did what they were asked, despite the fact that in that dark room there were no masses or anything like that. And after her stillness and calm, the sick nun began to mutter the prayers of the mass and made the gesture of having taken the Holy Form.
After a few minutes, she raised her hand and indicated her convent sisters to approach her and asked with a smile on her face after taking a small sip of water; Has the form passed? At that moment she opened her mouth revealing a piece of it.
The nuns, surprised by this extraordinary event, waited for the religious to arrive and they explained that despite having counted all the Forms before communion, the priest had missed one, which was none other than the one that Sister Isabel had inexplicably taken.
In other texts, they assure that many were able to physically see Sister Isabel de la Columna receiving the Holy Form in mass at the same time that many other witnesses assured that she remained lying in her bed throughout the day.
stigmatized
Wounds, signs, marks… All of them governed by traditional Christian iconography on the vision of the crucifixion of Christ. A supernatural origin or a gift from God? In any case, they almost always coincide in people with an extreme Christian devotion.
Throughout history there have been many cases of stigmatization such as the stigmata of Saint Francis of Assisi, or those of Blessed María de Oignies, but… who knows the case of the stigmatized Ana la Pobre? Let’s get to know the fascinating and mystical story of this great servant of God.
Ana was orphaned very young and is left in the hands of a midwife. She immediately gave symptoms of Christian spirituality and these symptoms were accompanied by long and deep ecstasies. At the age of fourteen her matron died and to her regret at eighteen she got married. Her coexistence with her husband soon turned into hell, seeing herself in a short time on the street, stripped of all sustenance to continue living with dignity, and with nothing to feed the two daughters she had had. with her ugly husband.
While he was begging in the street and with the hunger that only those who have lived through it know, he took the last crust of bread that he had left and thanked the Lord for that miserable food and at that moment a miracle made that crust of bread turn into big, tasty loaves. When verifying the prodigy, she looked at the sky and she stayed for a long time suffering an ecstasy like the ones she had already suffered when she was a child. After her ecstasy he told her daughters that her lord had entrusted him with some of her secrets and had blessed him with the gift of healing her.
With time and her husband having already passed away, she took the habit of the barefoot Trinitarians and a year later she began to feel severe pain in her hands, feet and left side, these pains being stronger on Fridays of each week.
The relationship she had with animals was also prodigious, with which she was able to communicate mentally and more than once her acquaintances witnessed how some horses stopped in front of her and knelt while she touched them with the stigmata of her hands. .
She died very old on July 21, 1617. Some writings say, such as those left by Fray Alejandro de la Madre de Dios in the third Chronicle on the Barefoot Trinitarians, that her lifeless body was left flexible and pink in color and that the sores on her His hands disappeared and from there where blood flowed before, now flowed a soft and pleasant smell of fresh roses. Her funeral was massive and the streets of Seville were filled with people eager to be able to touch or at least get close to the nun. She was buried in the Church of the Discalced Trinitarian Fathers.
Of illustrious lineage is our next stigmatized, Sister María de la Corona, since Saavedra appears in her surname, taken by her father Fernán Arias de Saavedra, Señor del Viso.
At just six years old, she entered the Madre de Dios Convent in Seville as an intern, eventually becoming the Prioress of the Convent. But she was not just any prioress. You will see, apparently Sister Maria liked to submerge herself in almost frozen water when she needed a scourge and so she did it on December 25 with a horrible cold. Also, and it is not well known whether by divine grace or misfortune, God rewarded her for her great scourges with the gift of prophecy, and thus she herself set a day and hour for her death. And since the grace of God knew little of her and she consoled him for nothing by prophesying her death or immersing herself in icy waters, she asked her lord to be able to feel in her own flesh the martyrdom of the crucifixion. Well said and done, marching one of stigmas.
On January 13, 1564, the poor and sorrowful Sor María de la Corona passed away and as she would have liked, her sores bled even after death.
prophets
Do not think that the only prophet of this land was María de la Corona, but that there were prophets and prophecies to give and take and as it is received in these Guides, we propose that you know a sample of them.
Despite being called Francisco Xavier, this prophet was a native of Seville and his full name was Francisco Xavier González and he was born in 1711. He was a religious Mínimo, and that is not that he was not very religious, but rather that the Mínimos were called that in the first decades Hermits of San Francisco de Asís, was established by San Francisco de Paula in Italy in the fifteenth century. His name is taken from his disposition to humility, considering the Minims to themselves as the “least of all religious”.
Fray Francisco Xavier was an extremely humble person, once leading his humility to hide a Papal Bull of Pius VI, for which he was named Vicar General. He also stood out as a scholar in theology, in whose doctoral career, he was also known as a consultant in various subjects, one of which was known for his ramblings on the phenomena of earthquakes, phenomena even in those years of a diabolical nature. But Francisco Xavier would not be in this Guide if he did not have a point of exacerbated mysticism that made him stand out from the others. And it is that this friar was completely extravagant, first his underwear lasted 30 years (poor washerwoman), his mortifications were so exaggerated that on more than one occasion, his own superiors had to ask him for moderation in them. The Cross that he wore on his chest was made of small sharp spikes and his belt was a bramble branch. And to put an end to so much suffering, before putting on his shoes, he placed some cherry bones, which caused more damage with each step.
So much submission to the Most High served him to be rewarded with two great virtues, the first; penetration of spirits and the second; the gift of prophecy. Of the latter, his successes in time were notable, such as some serious illnesses, the occasional accident and of course, he also predicted his own death for February 29, 1784. By the way, he was completely right .
Some names also stood out for their prophetic gifts, such as Sor Jerónima del Espíritu Santo, born in Seville on September 30, 1599, and one of the founders of the Mercenarias Descalzas convent. This one, she predicted the death of King Carlos II twelve years before it happened, coinciding with the place and the events, and when she was deceased. She also predicted the lack of succession of the Hapsburg lineage.
Another known for her prophetic gifts was Leona Petronila, better known by the name of Catalina de San Josef, who from a very young age endured paralysis in her limbs and speech. With great devotion and Faith, she gradually managed to redeem herself from all her evils, exchanging them for the strange faculty of prophecy. The first thing she prophesied was the death of her own father, Don León de Palacios, which she announced five days before the death of her father. Having already taken the robes and with a great reputation for purity and chastity, which he regulated with a harsh hair shirt, he prophesied the death of a young man in very good health and in just five days he fell ill and in a year he died exactly as Leona predicted.
She died very old with a reputation as a Saint in 1776 and was buried in the Convent of Regina Angelorum.
Although it is true that most of the mystics who prophesied something did so with their own death, something that should not be very difficult in some situations, either due to illness or age. Another more surprising case is that of Ana María del Santísimo, who, at the age of 31, first predicted that she would suffer from seven serious illnesses and then predicted her death with a date and time.