Blessed Anne of Jesus

Anne of Jesus, born Ana de Lobera, was born at Medina del Campo on 25 November 1545, the only daughter of Diego de Lobera and Francisca de Torres. Her father died within months of her birth and her mother when she was nine, and for her first seven years she was deaf and mute. Orphaned and living with her maternal grandmother, she entrusted herself entirely to Our Lady: at ten she made a vow of chastity, at eleven she promised to become a religious in the most austere order she could find and never to seek her own comfort. Pressed toward marriage, she moved at fifteen to her paternal grandmother at Plasencia, where she found a spiritual director in the Jesuit Pedro Rodríguez.

Through him she met Mother Teresa of Jesus, then carrying out her reform, who received her with joy. She took the habit at the Carmel of Ávila and professed at Salamanca, sharing a cell for a time with the foundress. In 1575 Teresa took her as prioress of the new foundation at Beas de Segura, where she first met Father Gracián and Saint John of the Cross.