JesÚs, Úrsula de

1604
1666

Úrsula de Jesús, a mystic who spent most of her life in the Convent of Saint Clare in Lima, Peru, gained a reputation for sanctity that only a few achieved during the seventeenth century. Even more unusual is that in 1647 the Catholic confessor of this humble, black religious servant (donada) ordered her to record her religious experiences, which she did until several years before her death.

As a young slave, Úrsula and her mother resided with their owner, Gerónima de los Ríos, and in 1617 she entered the Convent of Saint Clare to serve her owner's niece. Founded in 1605, this convent attracted scores of elite women aspiring to become nuns of the black veil (the highest rank) or the more modest white veil. However, the only possibility for women of color to become "nuns" was by taking simple vows of obedience and enclosure as donadas, or religious servants, who would then continue to serve individual nuns and perform communal labor.

For twenty-eight years Úrsula was one of hundreds of slaves and servants whose exhausting daily work regime afforded no time to seriously contemplate religious matters. However, according to a religious biography (vida) of Úrsula written in 1686, a brush with death in 1642 transformed her life. Úrsula then gained a greater sense of purpose, she beseeched God to instruct her in spiritual matters, and the nuns began referring to her as a "servant of God." By 1645 a nun of the black veil purchased Úrsula's freedom, and she then took her vows as a donada.

From 1647 until her death in 1666, Úrsula's spiritual abilities, and particularly her ability to intercede on behalf of souls trapped in purgatory—a punitive domain where Catholics believed sins were purged before the soul entered heaven—continued to grow. Over two decades Úrsula became intimately familiar with the interior worlds of dead souls communicating with her in the belief that her prayers might alleviate their suffering in purgatory. In her diary she recorded the "visits" from priests revealing their sundry peccadilloes, nuns mourning their impudent conduct, or slaves and servants recounting the excessive work they had endured. For Úrsula, saving souls in purgatory presented an opportunity to perform charitable labor and to gain an authority that, under other circumstances, might evade her.

In fact, after Úrsula had prayed ardently to ensure their safe passage from purgatory, many transfigured souls appeared to thank her before ascending to heaven. Once, in a vision, the slave María Bran appeared to Úrsula dressed in an ecclesiastical garment and wearing a crown of flowers, and assured Úrsula that blacks and donadas went to heaven. The fact that a slave would occupy a space in the lofty heights of purgatory—and then enter heaven—reveals Úrsula's (and perhaps, others') conception of purgatory as a space where social justice prevailed.

Near the end of her life Úrsula was told that, because of her efforts to help others, she too would be granted direct and safe passage to heaven. When she died in 1666, the Saint Clare nuns deeply mourned her passing and a number of high secular and ecclesiastical authorities attended her funeral. The nuns commissioned an artist to paint her portrait, and an anonymous friar wrote her vida, based largely upon her diary.

Úrsula's text is the only extant seventeenth-century spiritual autobiography written by a woman of color in Latin America. In her fifty-seven-folio diary, she recorded her innermost thoughts, which she wrote or dictated to several scribes in both the first and third person. The text is filled with repetitious narrative, vivid imagery, and above all, incredibly rich dialogues with celestial figures ranging from her guardian angel disguised as a friar, to Christ, Mary, and God.

Although Úrsula never gained the recognition that Saint Rosa of Lima (1586–1617) achieved in seventeenth-century Peru, she served as a model for other humble women to emulate. To this day, the memory of Úrsula lives on among the Saint Clare nuns in Lima, who continue to recount tales of her miracles and the fervent desire of this remarkable mystic to placate others.

See also Catholicism in the Americas; Egipcíaca, Rosa

Bibliography

Jesús, Úrsula de. The Souls of Purgatory: The Spiritual Diary of a Seventeenth-Century Afro-Peruvian Mystic, Úrsula de Jesús. Translated and edited by Nancy E. van Deusen. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2004.

van Deusen, Nancy E. "Ursula de Jesús: A Seventeenth-Century Afro-Peruvian Mystic." In The Human Tradition in Colonial Latin America, edited by Kenneth J. Andrien. Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 2002.

Wood, Alice L. "Religious Women of Color in Seventeenth-Century Lima: Estefanía de San Joseph and Ursula de Jesu Christo." In Beyond Bondage: Free Women of Color in the Americas, edited by David Barry Gaspar and Darlene Clark Hine. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004.

nancy e. van deusen (2005)