THE GREAT DECISION

Her first religious experiences, in an environment full of Christian spirit showed a soul made to live intensively from the divine. At the age of 4 the famous bishop Monsignor Yepes confirmed her, he was Saint Theresa's biographer. At the age of 6, she took the First Holy Communion, and when she was 8 she took the vow of chastity secretly. At the age of 12 she wanted to be admitted to the discalced Carmelites in Tarazona. When she was 13 her two brothers became Franciscans. It was at the time when her parents took an astonishing decision for the inhabitants from Agreda: transforming their home into a Franciscan convent. Catalina Arana had had a vision in which she was told to become a nun and transform her home into a convent. She went to take advice from her confessor, who lived in the Franciscan convent outside the town. With incredible surprise, they happened to meet in a place that it is still pointed out within the current Convent walls, her own confessor was eager to talk to her about the vision that he had also had about the foundation wanted by God. That event had all the characteristics of divine origin.

It only lacked to convince her husband Francis Coronel to give his permission. The whole town got to know the projects and took side in favour or against the initiative. His wife persuaded Francis, and the foundation took place. Their sons were Franciscans; the father became a lay Franciscan. The three women remained, the mother and the two daughters, to carry out the foundational plan.

Catalina Arana and her daughters decided that the religious family, they wanted to trust the new foundation, would be the Franciscan contemplative order, dedicated

to the Immaculate Conception, in the strict discalced branch. To open the planned monastery and proceed to the canonical establishment, three nuns came from the convent in Burgos and initiated the aspirant into the spirit of Saint Catherine of Silva. The presence of the three religious from Burgos in Agreda lasted four months. Finished the formation period of the first nuns, they came back to their monastery of origin. To enhance the importance to the monastery, the new professed nuns called a group of three religious from the monastery of Knight of Grace in Madrid. At the end of four years they also came back to Madrid. The monastery from Agreda had with enough elements to carry out the complete observance of the discalced Franciscan life. The same day that the Coronel-Arana´s home turned into a convent (13.1.1619), Mary Coronel took the habit, changing her Christian name into Sister Mary of Jesus.

Translated into English from the book: Ven. María de Jesús de Ágreda, concepcionista. P.Antonio María Artola, C.P. Monasterio de la Concepción, Ágreda, 1996.

Convent revolving window