Jerónima de la Fuente

Sor Jerónima de la Fuente, signed. u. dated Diego Velazquez 1620

Jeronima de la Fuente, Madre or Sor , also de la Asunción , (born May 9, 1554 or 1555 in Toledo , † October 22, 1630 in Manila ) was a Spanish Franciscan and the founder and first abbess of the Santa Clara monastery in Intramuros , Manila, Philippines . She was the first woman to serve in pastoral work in the Philippines. In 1734 she was beatified.

life and work

Youth and religious life

At the age of 14, Jerónima met Saint Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582) in her hometown of Toledo; Since she was drawn to the life of St. Clare , she entered the Franciscan convent of Santa Isabel la Real de Toledo on August 15, 1570 , where two of her aunts were already nuns. There she became a novice master . Because of her reputation, she was even visited by Queen Margaret of Austria , who, as a sponsor of several orders and a supporter of those in need, felt herself attracted to religious life.

On his visit to travel in Spain attended the religious Provincial of the Dominicans , Fray Diego de Soria , prior to taking office as Bishop of Nuevo Segovia , Nicaragua , in 1599 his sister, who is also the monastery of Santa Isabel la Real de Toledo nun was and convinced them of Necessity to establish a religious establishment in Asia. When Jerónima learned of the Order's intention to found a convent in Manila, Philippines, she immediately applied for travel permits, but had to fight for approval from the authorities in Madrid and Manila for another eleven years . However, she was determined to found the first women's monastery in Asia.

The trip to Manila

In April 1620, at the age of 66 - more than 50 of which she had only spent in the monastery - she left Toledo for Seville , together with six, later eight other "Poor Clares " - the other name given to the female branch of the mendicant order .

The portrait from 1620

• There, the then hardly known, later court painter Diego Velázquez made the portrait of her in two versions between June 1 and 20, 1620, which shows a resolute elderly woman who resolutely embraces the cross with her right hand as if to strike it in an emergency, she is holding a book in her left hand, probably a psalms - or book of hours . The upper inscription reads in Latin: BONUM EST PRESTOLARI CUM SILENTIO SALUTARE DEI "It is good to wait for God's salvation in silence". The inscription below, later written in Spanish, says: "This is the exact portrait of Mother Jerónima de la Fuente, nun of the Santa Isabel de los Reyes convent in Toledo, founder and first abbess of the Santa Clara de la Concepción convent, the first Franciscan order of Manila in the Philippines She left the monastery on Tuesday, April 28, 1620 at the age of 66. Mother Ana de Cristo and Mother Leonor of San Francisco and the novice Juana of San Antonio left the monastery with their company . You distinguished yourself as outstanding personalities for the accomplishment of such a great task. "

Via Cadiz to Mexico

From Seville it went to Cádiz , the Spanish port of departure for all American trips. In September the group reached Mexico City , where they stayed for half a year; there two other nuns joined them.

From Acapulco to the Philippines with the Manilia galleon

On Ash Wednesday of 1621 the group left Mexico for Acapulco and climbed on April 21. the San Andrés , a so-called Manila galleon , the annual Spanish merchant ship that connected Manila in the Philippines with Acapulco in Mexico and that from 1565 to 1821 (for more than 250 years) the only regular shipping connection between Asia and the New World represented.

One of the nuns died on the journey with the Mariana Islands , the rest of them reached Intramuros , the Spanish inner city or old town of Manila, in August 1621. The journey from Toledo to the destination, about which the nuns kept a diary, took a year, three months and lasted nine days.

Founding of a monastery, religious activity

In the Philippines, Jerónima developed a lively pastoral activity at the head of the Santa Clara Monastery. Given her persuasiveness, the local authorities feared that she would seize power over the European female population and withdraw too many young women from married life. She appealed to the king against the order to limit the number of new admissions - and received his approval. She also successfully fought against a relaxation of the strict rules of the order given the tropical conditions. She was the only female prelate in the Philippine colonial church.

The acceptance of locals into the monastery turned out to be difficult because the monastery was primarily intended for "pious women and daughters of conquistadors who cannot marry appropriately". d. H. for Spanish women. Even a local princess had to be turned away, also under pressure from the authorities, while Japanese and Chinese women could be admitted; Jerónima reacted by stopping admission to the actual monastery and relocating to a third order ( tertiary ), which was not subject to the same strict rules and seclusion.

It was only after her death and under all sorts of caution that the nuns succeeded in accepting the first native, "brown" nun as a member of the order, Sor Martha de San Bernardo , who was considered a "Castilian among the Indians" because of her extensive assimilation and her noble descent. Since the reservations of the Spanish community of Manilas were too great, Sor Martha had to move to Macau , Portugal , where - while Jerónima was still alive - it was decided to found a branch monastery (Portugal was linked to Spain in personal union from 1580 to 1640 ). The ordination of Sor Martha took place on board the ship at sea; she became the first Filipino nun and missionary. Only towards the end of the Spanish era were native nuns allowed again. Mestizos , Spanish-native mixed race, have been admitted since 1697.

The monastery of the "Poor Clares" became - although officially committed to poverty - the richest women's convent with large land holdings on the islands; that the nuns kept slave children to serve and even bequeathed them, was not yet common at the time of Jerónima.

Writings, death

In addition to her autobiography, Jerónima de la Fuente wrote several other writings and poems.

After her death, her bones were reburied several times. You are in a new monastery in Quezon City today . The beatification process, started in 1630, ended with the beatification in 1734.

character

Jerónima inspired numerous women with her determined character and her courageous intervention in the politics and religious conflicts of her environment. Her grave temporarily became a much-visited place of pilgrimage.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ El Galeón, p. 152; Magdalena S. Sánchez (ed.): Spanish women in the golden age. Images and realities. Westport: Greenwood 1996. (Contributions in Women's Studies 155). P. 98
2. ↑ Santiago, To love p. 63 f.
3. ↑ In the meantime an embassy from Japan had even arrived in Spain - on the way via Manila - with the aim of diplomatic and trade relations ( Hasekura Tsunenaga , 1614); Santiago, To love, p. 64
4. ↑ El Galeón, p. 152
5. ↑ Immersion in Christ's suffering on the cross was a main meditation concern of the Clarissess; El Galeón, p. 152
6. ↑ Excellent reproduction in large format in López-Rey, Velazquez, vol. 1, p. 32 (face in large format) and vol. 2, pp. 48–49 (full screen)
7. ↑ López-Rey, Vol. 2, pp. 48-49
8. ↑ Many women practiced the tradition of the beatas ("blessed"), female mystics in Spain who did not live under the protection of monastery walls; Schwerhoff, Inquisition, p. 74
9. ↑ Santiago, To love, p. 73

literature

• José López-Rey: Velazquez. 2 vols. Cologne: Taschen 1996. Vol. 1: Maler der Maler . Vol. 2: Catalog Raisonné. Catalog raisonné .
• Pedro Ruano, OFM: Mother Jeronima de la Asunción (1555-1630). Poor Clare's First Woman Missionary to the Philippines. A biography . Quezon City: St. Clara 1999. 96 pp.
• El Galeon de Manila . [Exhibition catalog]. Hospital de los Venerables, Seville. Museo Franz Mayer , México, DF Museo Histórico de Acapulco- Fuerte de San Diego, Acapulco. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte, Madrid. O. O.: Aldeasa 2000. pp. 152-153.
• Luciano PR Santiago: To love and to suffer. The development of the religious congregations for women in the Spanish Philippines, 1565-1898 . Quezon City: Ateneo 2005.