Bio

 

Juana de la Cruz Vázquez Gutiérrez (not the same person as Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz), was born Juana Vázquez y Gutiérrez was born in the Spanish town now known as Numancia de la Sagra. Her first mystical experience occurred when she was only 4 years old when she fell off a horse and a vision of Mary and her Guardian Angel appeared to heal her.Her parents were wealthy farmers, but her mother died when she was only 7 years old. She decided then to join the convent of Santa María de la Cruz de La Sagra, Franciscan Tertiaries. Her mother had wanted her to join because of a promise she made while pregnant with her. 

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After moving to live with her aunt and uncle, where she was betrothed to a local knight, she dressed as a man to escape from home. She escaped to the convent where she had become a tertiary, and begged her father to allow her to join as a fully-professed religious sister. She was able to join the next year, and took the name Juana de la Cruz. 

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For 38 years, she spent her time at the convent spreading ideas about guardian angels and the rosary, and in 1506, when she was 25, she became unable to speak for 6 months. She saw this as a time of purification before starting to formally preach in 1608. Since she had joined the convent, Juana had experienced visions and ecstasies, but in this year, she also received the stigmata for a short period. Though she was uneducated in her youth, she displayed such wisdom, and even the ability to speak in other languages. Her gift of preaching was so apparent that the Church authorities even gave her permission to preach (which was not allowed for women religious at the time) and notable contemporaries described her speeches as moving, easy to understand, and delightful. Her leadership helped establish her convent into a monastery, and she was elected abbess. Soon, a local church nearby was made to be in service to the sisters, reducing the status of the priest who had been serving there. This caused such a scandal that Juana went directly to the Pope to seek approval. 

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Nobility, high-standing church authorities, and important leaders of the day all sought out Juana for spiritual guidance. She also expanded her group to two new locations and developed a program for teaching young girls. Among some of her most important, groundbreaking ideas, Juana preached on Christ coming to us through any person, gender equity, the necessity of Mary’s consent, a vision of God as seamstress (and performing other traditionally female tasks), and much more. Part of the controversy around her comes from her imagery consistently defying traditionally-held gender norms, constantly referencing God as mother hen, as being pregnant and having a womb with which to birth Christ, and having a vision of an image St. Veronica’s face turning into Jesus’, just to name a few. Much of this may come from her own gender not falling along the binary lines, believing that God had changed her gender while she was still in the womb. She was being formed into a man she said, when St. Mary intervened, asking for a woman who would reform a convent dedicated to her. Juana often pointed to her prominent Adam’s apple and low voice as proof of this. Her ability to pass as a man when running away from home was also encouraged, she said, by her guardian angel. 

Juana was victim to much jealousy and had to defend her position many times, even to another sister who spread rumors about her and had her removed. The new abbess, falling ill shortly after, admitted her lies, and Juana was reinstated.

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An illness paralyzed her in 1524, but even this could not stop Juana from preaching. She called herself God’s guitar, allowing God’s voice to speak through her. She died on her 53rd birthday. 

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72 of her sermons were collected and inspired much of the Spanish mystic movement that came after her, looked up to by saints such as Teresa of Avila. Though so many devoted followers of her sprung up and called for her canonization immediately after her death, there was a rule in places at the time that only saints that had been dead 100 years or more could be canonized. In addition to this, her previous canonization attempts were all cut short when authorities read and became uncomfortable with some of Juana’s more explicitly sexual references and images of God and Heaven, and her genderfluid theological posits. She was largely forgotten in the literary world until a piece was published about her in 1986. In November 2024, Pope Francis finally beatified Mother Juana.

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