Children of the Blue Nun
Chapter XXIA: When she dies, Sister María appears in many places
The vengeful devils had fled en masse all the way down to the very gates of the netherworld. There, they regrouped in order to try to figure out just how they might attack Sister María at the first possible opportunity.
In the meantime, Sister María was lying still in her coffin, thinking about just how the world keeps on turning even after death, insensitive to those who no longer enjoy its bounty.
Sister María started thinking about St. Lawrence, the deacon of Rome, who had been burned alive on a gridiron after he had refused to hand over the earthly treasures to the prefect of Rome. Instead, Lawrence turned over to him the heavenly “treasures” – which were the ostracized, the mistreated and the beaten-down of the world.
Lying thus in silence, she began to ponder the miracle that occurs in the transition between death and eternal life. She began to compose a hymn to the saint. Alone now, she whispered to herself: “Send us wind, more wind, St. Lawrence of the golden bars.”
She paused for a moment and soon she remembered the story of his death in God:
“Once upon a time in Rome, near the sacred, hillside dome, a cruel prefect was installed and St. Lawrence thence he called: He demanded all the gold, which the church in trust did hold, and he told Lawrence forth to hand it; Lawrence feigned to understand it. So instead of bringing treasure in great piles without measure, he brought forth from all the highways lepers ostracized in byways.
“‘These despised folk are the riches brought to tables from their niches, offered here before the godhead,’ is what Lawrence to him had said. The cruel prefect sweared and thundered and filled St. Lawrence with dire wonders – because of the jokes on the prefect he played, Lawrence was condemned to death and flayed.
“Quickly he was immolated. Laid on flames where he was fated, on the gridiron he was roasted til he was so very toasted. From the flames they all could hear it, the great joy that was his spirit. ‘For the blind my life, endanger. For the poor I face great dangers. For the lame and mute forsaken, those whose very lives are shaken. As a witness for their trials, my own life demands denials. This, my body, soft and slender is now cooked so very tender, my own heart is done like clover. You may all now turn me over.’ And his soul from its own pyre rose to meet his God afire, praying for God’s love unfurled for the poor upon the earth.”
Even as she sang the praise of St. Lawrence, without leaving ever her coffin, Sister María felt that her life was being repeated in many places. She could see those far-off lands that she had visited hundreds of times in the New World. Her spirit appeared to the penitent brothers in their chapter houses in the Southwest. She could see herself conversing with the Jumano Indians in the mission church of Isleta Pueblo.
She gazed fondly at the places visited by her spiritual children: Sister Blandina Segal, Sister Francis Xavier Cabrini, Sister Katharine Drexel, Father Eusebius Kino and the wounded priest Junípero Serra. She saw herself flying over the great deserts, blessing all the tribes with the sign of the Holy Cross which was the Zia symbol.
The moment that Sister María passed away, many of her devotees reported miracles from all corners of the world. Christians near death were either healed of their afflictions or they died in the arms of St. Joseph of the Happy Death, according to the will of God. The afflicted of body and soul received comfort, and the souls in Purgatory felt a fresh balm of hope waft over them.
In her coffin, Sister María smiled because she knew that this action was not her doing, but rather it was the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God herself who was using María’s death to manifest her own glory by means of the Blue Nun.
Prior chapters of this historical fiction story, written by Taos historian and linguist Larry Torres, are available in Spanish and English at taosnews.com.