Flying, Fighting, and Forgiving. The Materiality of the Living Cross in the Visionary Sermons of Juana de la Cruz

Abstract

Juana de la Cruz (1481-1534), abbess of a beaterio turned Clarisan convent, was known as a «living saint» for her Marian visions and for the weekly sermones during which Jesus reportedly spoke through her enraptured body to extend the biblical narratives and describe celestial festivities. Juana’s Passion spirituality led her to contemplate the materiality of the arma Christi; in particular, the physicality of the cross as splintery yet living wood influenced Juana’s images of the cross as at once instrument of torture leading to death, while also as triumphant, animate, and even violent. In her visionary sermons, Juana takes the animate materiality of this «holy matter» to its logical extreme, presenting the cross as able to mutate, feed others, enact the liturgy, and subdue the seraphim in a heavenly battle, all actions that helped justify the ultimate action of the living cross participating in the Last Judgment.

Keywords

• Holy matter
• Living saint
• Arma Christi
• Female visionaries
• Imaginative theology
• Passion