The Mystical Gesture: Essays on Medieval and Early Modern Spiritual Culture in Honor of Mary E.Giles by Robert Boenig

Author:Robert Boenig [Boenig, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781351786515
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2018-05-08T00:00:00+00:00

Intimacy with Mary’s sorrow was either an introduction to closer contact with Father and Son, or was concordant with it, in Teresa’s experience.

Doña Guiomar de Ulloa

Teresa sought to imitate the Virgin’s perfections. She seemed, in contrast, to have maintained a friendship with Dona Guiomar de Ulloa in spite of the latter’s human limitations. The devout widow, of varying reputation among her Ávilan observers, was an important mediating figure for the small community of women who first occupied the Convent of St. Joseph. References to the noblewoman in letters written to others in later years indicate that Teresa remained faithful to the nuns after circumstances of her life took her away from Ávila.

Doña Guiomar’s well-to-do husband Francisco Dávila died when she was twenty-five, leaving her with four children and the resources to maintain a gracious lifestyle in a palace in Ávila. Opinions of the noblewoman retrieved from contemporary documents by Efrén de la Madre de Dios and Otger Steggink conflict on some points, but the impression emerges that Doña Guiomar was strongheaded, devout and somewhat frivolous. A priest, Juan de Orellana, remembered her as a laughing stock, saying “she was well-known throughout Ávila for her flightiness and lack of judgment.”32 Domingo Báñez’s remark that the noblewoman “has become saintly because her habits [before] didn’t have much to do with sainthood given the generally poor opinion of her stubbornness and expenditures” suggests a change of heart which Frs. Efrén and Steggink believe was due to Teresa’s influence. Pedro de Alcántara, who became Doña Guiomar’s confessor, is also a candidate for having produced her abrupt assumption of humility and poor clothing, given what is known of his views on poverty. At 12,000 inhabitants, Ávila was certainly small enough to gossip about its public figures. Guiomar was said to be “good looking and fond of dressing well” but on the other hand was criticized for going overboard in dressing poorly, carrying her own seating to church and acting so humbly that people commented and even laughed. Her relatives thought her behavior unbecoming to her station.33

Doña Guiomar’s palace was across the street from a community of Jesuits through which she met Teresa. She drew many devout people around her in her home. One frequent participant in spiritual conversations there was the young Jesuit Juan de Prádanos assigned to the household as a confessor for three years. He confessed Teresa for a while, as well. Another was the already-mentioned Franciscan Pedro de Alcántara, whom Doña Guiomar introduced to Teresa, beginning a profound spiritual friendship. According to Jodi Bilinkoff, Doña Guiomar also arranged a meeting between Alcántara, Teresa and Mari Díaz, a peasant woman in her service who was famous for her devotion. Remarks of Teresa’s niece Beatriz de Jesús suggest that women in Ahumada family often visited the noblewoman. Juana de Ahumada, who was Teresa’s sister and Beatriz’s mother, once entered a chapel in the palace when Teresa was at prayer.34 One of Doña Guiomar’s daughters entered St. Joseph’s in Ávila when the noblewoman refused to accept her choice of husband.

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