Knowledge, a full mind, made a companion in the empty wilds when the friars went forth from their clay citadels to preach among the Indians far east or west of the river. They might be accompanied by a dozen soldiers “more,” as a Father President said, “for the pious sentiment of not abandoning such a sacred enterprise than for protection or defense, which would have been very limited considering the large number of people they were to meet, all as skilful at arms as they were tenacious in their wars.” The friars, he said, “know much hardship in crossing the river each time their ministering demands it, since the river is very swift and subject to bad floods.” But all was endurable in the natural world for the sake of that which came to pass in the spirits of those whom they sought in simplicity and love. An Indian cacique came to a father missioner bringing him a marvelously tanned buffalo hide. Unfolding it, the friar saw a painting that showed a green sun and a gray moon, and above them each a cross.
“What does this painting mean?” he asked, and the cacique replied,
“Father, until now we have not known other benefactors greater than the sun and the moon. They light us and warm us, and make our plants produce and the flowers germinate. Thus because of so many benefits we have worshipped them as the arbiters of our lives. But since we heard you tell us who God is who created the sun and the moon, in order that you may know that we now worship only God, I had these crosses, which are the emblem of God, painted above the sun and the moon.”
And there were other simple evidences of the new reach of spirit and understanding. If once the Indians were creatures of blind destiny denied by fear the state of the responsible individual, they now had an instrument of self-knowledge and mercy and they used it serious as children. “When they come to confession,” wrote a pastor, “they bring their sins, well studied, on a knotted string, indicating the sins by the knots.…”
Again, encouragement of their efforts seemed to come in “a very special manner” to the laboring friars in 1629. Its awesome source was in itself enough to overwhelm them with a renewal of the humility that was their spiritual food. One day in the church at the ancient pueblo of San Felipe on the west shore of the river below a dark mesa, Father Fray Cristóbal Quirós was busy baptizing a large group of Indians. He was an old man, though his tonsure was not gray, and his long face had a ruddy complexion. The stone baptismal font stood at the rear of the nave to the right of the main door. Many Indians crowded into the door but hung back in diffidence from taking their proper places. The throng grew. The old priest would have them come forward to help him expedite the ceremonies. They hardly moved until suddenly there was a surge in the crowd and each row turned around to see who pushed. Even the people in the last row turned around, for they had felt the push harder than anybody. When all saw that no one was behind the rearmost people, who yet were thrust forward by an invisible force, they laughed out loud, and continued to push those ahead of them until all were in their places and old Fray Cristóbal was satisfied. Though mysterious and amusing, the incident by itself would not have seemed significant. But other interesting events followed.
On July 22, 1629, at the pueblo mission of Isleta fifty Humanos Indians appeared on what had been for several summers an annual excursion. They invariably brought the same request. Would not the fathers come to their country east of the river over the waste of plains, and convert them to the Christian faith? Summer after summer the request was received with a stir of interest. It was odd that those people should come from so far away, already aware of Christianity. Yet each year the fathers had to deny them what they asked for, because so much work for so few priests was already called for in the river kingdom. The Humanos presently would go away unsatisfied. It was sad for all. They were so persistent. They were so ignorant and so hopeful.
A few days later in July, 1629, the first supply train in four years drew into view through the glassy curtain of the river heat, and with it arrived thirty friars. They brought letters and news from Spain, and fresh supplies of food, and holy oil for the tin chrismatories, and many other supplies, and reinforcement in their persons for the field forces of the missions. And they brought an interesting assignment from Don Francisco Manzo y Zúñiga, the new archbishop of Mexico. It was a professional matter, and the newly arrived religious settled down with their hosts to discuss it fully.
It seemed that for the past several years, there was much talk in Spain of how the Reverend Mother Superior of the Discalced Nuns of the order of Saint Francis at Agreda, on the borders of Castile and Aragón, had been miraculously transported over and over again from Spain to New Mexico to preach the Catholic doctrine to the savage Indians. Her name was Mother María de Jesús, though in the gossip that aroused such interest everywhere she was more commonly mentioned as María de Agreda. Her whole family were widely known for their unusual piety. On a single day in 1619, she and her mother entered a convent, and her father and two brothers took their first vows as Franciscan friars. She became abbess of her convent in Agreda at the age of twenty-five. Her leadership was exemplary, and under her rule the convent became fervent and prosperous. People said she was planning to write an extraordinary book, to be called “The Mystical City of God, A Divine History of the Virgin Mother of Christ.” In it she was to give detailed accounts of her puzzling visits to other kingdoms, including Spain’s farthest colony on the Rio del Norte. How could it be? She never left Agreda, yet was able at the same time to be in a far corner of the earth. The Bishop of Viseo in Spain heard of her aetherial journeys. Learned theologians spoke of “bilocation,” a miraculous faculty with subtle distinctions as to whether it was the physical body that was transported, or the spiritual essence, which then projected the image of its body’s likeness. María de Agreda spoke of being transported to the Orient, and to New Mexico, which she visited as often as four times in one day. She gave descriptions of her visits—how she spoke to the Indians in their own tongue, though at home in Spain she could not speak a word of theirs; how she was lifted and taken by angels; how the people needed instruction and of what kinds of country and customs would be found by the missioners when at last they went among them. The whole affair was fascinating, even though as usual in newly reported supernatural matters the Church preserved an official skepticism pending further investigation. News of the marvellous mother superior came to Mexico, and the Archbishop now wished to know whether in the country of the Rio del Norte there had been any evidence of her visits, or “flights,” as they were spoken of.
The pueblo friars looked at one another and racked their brains. To men of their fervid belief, whose very canon of faith proclaimed the possibility of the miraculous, it was an exalting thought that they and their works may have been visited by Divine Favor through the occasional presence of the zealous nun. And yet nobody could recall out of the dangers and labors of every day a bit of evidence that she had indeed been with them. If only they might see her, speak with her, ask her what of the river kingdom she had observed, to test her knowledge! The matter must be deeply looked into. What had the Archbishop written? The Father President Alonso de Benavides had the paper in his own hands: “… do hereby urgently recommend this inquiry to the reverend custodian and fathers” of New Mexico “in order that they may carry it out with the solicitude, faith and devotion as the case demands, and that they duly inform us concerning its results, so that they may be verified in legal form.” The whole thing deeply stirred the religious New Mexicans. They had never before heard of Mother María de Jesús, or suspected the existence of her influence.
But a thought struck them. What of the pathetic trudging visits, summer after summer, of the Humanos people from far over the plains? Why had they come back faithfully after so many discouragements? Was it possible—who could dare hope so—was it even likely that they had been inspired by someone from far away? The fifty Humanos petitioners were still lingering in the pueblo of Isleta before setting out in disappointment once again for their homeland. The pastor of Isleta, Fray Estevan de Perea, sent for a group of their spokesmen. They came where he and the other friars now sat in the common room of the convento.
Why, asked the pastor, had the Humanos come year after year to ask with such insistency for baptism?
The Indians pointed to a painting that hung on the wall of the refectory. It was a portrait of a famous old nun, Mother Luísa de Carrión, in the full habiliments of her order.
“A woman in