The Children of the Blue Nun
Chapter XXIB: The Virgin Mary proclaims Sister María ‘incorrupt’
For various hours after her death, a crowd of devotees had gathered to hold vigil over her while they prayed for Sister María.
Many little lights from their candles lit up the night sky as they mourned for her. Now that Sister María had gone on to a better life, the nuns’ desperation to see her knew no bounds. The nuns of the convent found themselves in the position of having to hire a deputy to be near her coffin in order to maintain discipline, respect and order.
But, just where could the beloved nun be? Her body was lying in the coffin, but the reports from the many who saw her from so many places in Europe put the Holy Mother in a conundrum.
The Magisterium feared that the most devout among them might want to proclaim her saint and demand her immediate canonization. Much of what Sister María had written about the Virgin couldn’t be proved other than by the words in her manuscript. Many decades would have to go by before they could proclaim the infallible dogmas: the Immaculate Conception of Mary, Mary’s perpetual virginity and Mary’s motherhood as the mother of the Living God.
They still had to come to a decision about her dormition along with her assumption and her coronation as queen of heaven.
While Sister María Agreda de Jesús was resting, the Virgin Mary spoke unto her even though she had been dead for three days.
“I shall allow thy body to remain in an incorruptible state for many centuries that it may serve as a sign that all that I have told thee in my autobiography is just and right. Someday thou shalt be recognized as ‘The Incorrupt Saint.’ Thy body shall receive great honor as a relic of what it means to love me.
“In the fullness of time when the moment had come for me to join my son, Jesus, He himself came down from heaven at the first instance of my dormition to gather me up in his arms as much in soul as in body. I had already requested that my spiritual children be permitted to witness my transfiguration. Thus it was that the Apostles, scattered in all corners of the world, were present with me, impelled by the Holy Spirit.
“The first of them who came from the Island of Patmos and prostrated himself at my feet was the youngest of my children, St. John the Evangelist. His brother St. James the Elder had already died; he was beheaded and buried in Compostela, but not even that kept him from coming also.
“St. Peter came from Rome and he knelt by my headboard. St. Thomas came all the way from India where he had been proclaiming my praises. St. Phillip came from France. Saints Bartholomew and Matthias came from Armenia and Greece.
“St. James the Younger came from Jerusalem. From Persia came saints Simon and Jude Thaddeus. St. Matthew presented himself from Ethiopia. All were witnesses to my assumption.”
With each revelation from the Virgin, Sister María Agreda de Jesús was filled more and more with joy. “Oh how I would loved to have been present among the angels, the patriarchs, the martyrs, the saints and the virgins when God the Father, God and Son, and God the Holy Spirit crowned the Virgin as queen of heaven!”
That supreme ecstasy coursed through her body and filled her every vein and artery with a heavenly delight.
Since the very beginning, the veneration of her body was a cause for great concern among the convent nuns. Her devotees were anxious to touch her and to take relics of her hair, her habit and they had their own rosaries touched to the body of the venerable one.
Sister María Agreda de Jesús only smiled at rest, certain that her veneration was a devotion to the Virgin Mary.