Mary of Jesus of Ágreda

Mary of Jesus of Ágreda was a Franciscan abbess and spiritual writer, known especially for her extensive correspondence with King Philip IV of Spain and reports of her bilocation between Spain and its colonies in New Spain. She was a noted mystic of her era.

A member of the Order of the Immaculate Conception, also known as Conceptionists, Mary of Jesus wrote 14 books, including a series of revelations about the life of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Her bilocation activity is said to have occurred between her cloistered monastery in rural Spain and the Jumano Indians of central New Mexico and West Texas, as well as Tucson, and inspired many Franciscan missionaries in the New World. In popular culture since the 17th century, she has been dubbed the Lady in Blue and the Blue Nun, after the color of her order's habit.

She was born María Coronel y de Arana, the daughter of Francisco Coronel, a converso of Jewish descent , and Catalina de Arana, in Ágreda, a town located in the Province of Soria. The couple had 11 children, of whom only four survived into adulthood: Francisco, José, María and Jerónima. Maria later described her mother as the more lively of the two, though both were very fervent in their faith. The family had close ties with the Franciscan friars of the Friary of San Julián, which lay on the outskirts of the town. Either the mother would go to the friary with her children for Mass and confession, or the friars would visit the family home. Nonetheless, Mary later recalled that, as a very young child, she felt her parents were very hard on her.

Less than ten years after her death, Mary of Jesus was declared Venerable by Pope Clement X, in honor of her "heroic life of virtue". Although the process of beatification was opened in 1673, it has not as yet been completed.

Various misinterpretations of Mary's writings led to the Mystical City of God being placed on the Church's Index Librorum Prohibitorum in August 1681, due to a faulty French translation published in 1678. The placement on the list of forbidden books proved temporary.

The tradition of the apostle St James and the shrine of El Pilar, reputed to be the first church dedicated to Mary, was given by Our Lady in an apparition to Sister Mary Agreda recorded in The Mystical City of God, and is credited with instigating the rebuilding of the fire-damaged Cathedral Basilica in Zaragoza in the Baroque style in 1681 by Charles II, King of Spain, completed and rededicated in 1686.