Blessed Juana de la Cruz

Juana Vázquez Gutiérrez was born probably on 3 May 1481 at Villa de Azaña, today Numancia de la Sagra near Toledo. Repeated illnesses in infancy led her mother to place her under the protection of Santa María de la Cruz, and she was healed. After her mother's death in 1488 she lived with her grandmother and an aunt, who formed her in faith and prayer. Drawn to consecrated life, she asked to enter a monastery, but her youth and her father's opposition prevented it, and in 1494, hoping to turn her from the thought of consecration, he sent her to an uncle at Illescas and promised her in marriage to a local nobleman. Firm in her resolve, she fled the house for the monastery of Santa María de la Cruz at Cubas de la Sagra, where a group of women of the Franciscan Third Order lived in prayer, penance and shared goods, and despite her frail health and lack of a dowry she was received.

She professed on 3 May 1497 as Juana de la Cruz. In community she was marked by an intense spiritual life, culminating in mystical espousals and in the stigmata, which appeared on Good Friday 1508 and recurred weekly; she bore these experiences with humility, avoiding publicity.