On December 11, 1555, our Venerable Ana de San Agustín was born in Valladolid (Spain). After a childhood, spent in the acquisition and practice of solid Christian virtues that the Child Jesus, whose apparitions he frequently enjoyed, was sowing in the heart of his beloved Spouse, the same Divine Child called her to the Order of his Mother with these words: “This must be your vocation”.
The Venerable took some time to bring the heavenly call to fruition; and her great fervors even cooled down, until, one Palm Sunday, while she was attending the divine offices, she saw an image of Christ fixing its eyes on her, at the same time as it said to her: “You are all leaving me”; words that completely changed her heart and turned her eyes into two sources of tears.
Most faithful to the grace of God, she left the world, entering the Convent of Discalced Carmelites in Malagón, where she dressed in the habit of Discalced on May 3, 1577, at the age of twenty-one, professing on May 4 of the following year.
In this new state their virtues rose in point and acquired new enhancements. Appointed by God as the companion of Saint Teresa in the foundation of Villanueva de la Jara, they left with other nuns for that town, where they arrived on February 21, 1580. It was here that, as in a wide and vast field, they spread out more and more. the heroic virtues that that virginal heart treasured. All the virtues, charismas and celestial gifts seem to be fighting each other to take possession and reign in her seraphic chest; which is why it is very difficult to highlight overachievers where everyone was admirable and highly advantaged. However, a very lively and trusting faith and a very intense and burning love of God and neighbor shine in a very particular way in the Venerable Mother Ana de San Agustín. It will suffice to recall, as regards the first, those words of his that, when asked how he behaved towards God in order to oblige him to grant him what he was asking for, he replied: “Having great faith. I do not get tired with His Majesty in asking him many times the same thing, because from the first plea I put all my faith, and with that you can quickly negotiate.”
As for the second, it is worth all the urgency to recall that event, which occurred on a certain night of Holy Week, when, upon finding Mother Ana de San Agustín in her cell and seeing Christ in a corner of her, very wounded and sorrowful, he asked him, with style and tenderness that only saints can use and feel: “Lord! how are you here like this?” To which Jesus Christ replied: “Look how men treat me: here I come to rest with you.”
In this continuous exercise of all the virtues, the many years of her religious life passed, gifted by God with gifts from heaven, admired by the angels, revered by locals and strangers, and acclaimed by the people as a saint, until the time came for her precious death, which occurred on December 11, 1624.
Once the process of his beatification was initiated, interrupted by the fateful vicissitudes of the times, his virtues were declared heroic by the Holiness of Pius VI on December 15, 1776.
The body of the Venerable Mother Ana de San Agustín lies incorrupt in the convent church.
There is a book about the Venerable Mother Ana de San Agustín, for sale for €12 in the Convent of the Discalced Carmelites. It can also be purchased at many bookstores or even on Amazon.
Title: “La Venerable de la Mancha. Life of Ana de San Agustín”.
Author: Vicente Martínez-Blat, OCD
Pages: 292
Publisher: Edibesa
ISBN: 978-84-8407-867-8