Addressing participants in a conference on Venerable Mary of Jesus of Ágreda, OIC (1602-1665), Pope Francis paid tribute to the nun, best known for her Mystical City of God. The Pontifical International Marian Academy organized the conference.
The first lesson that Venerable Mary of Jesus offers the Church, said Pope Francis, “relates to silence, the attitude of listening, to welcome the voice of the Beloved, the eternal Word of the Father, in the heart.”
He continued, “The second lesson is the mystic, that is, a relationship with God that is born from this attitude of listening, from this incarnate reading of the Sacred Scripture. An experience, we might say, ecstatic, but by ‘ecstasy’ we mean coming out of ourselves, coming out of our comforts, out of the selfish ego that always tries to dominate us.”
“The third lesson is mission,” he added. “Mother Ágreda and the Conceptionist religious sisters, who were the first cloistered nuns to arrive in America … give us the proof of this missionary spirit in contemplative life, which Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus would later highlight.”