Madre Castillo

1671-1742 18th century

Making of bitterness a nest you can live in.

Who was Madre Castillo?

A Poor Clare of the royal convent of Santa Clara in Tunja, New Granada, she was three times abbess there, after serving as novice mistress, sacristan, portress and infirmarian. Her confessors ordered her to write: she left an autobiography and nearly two hundred Afectos espirituales, the great mystical writing of colonial Spanish America. What she speaks of most is dryness, abandonment and night.

In their own words

In the bitterest bitterness I shall have peace, and in bitterness I shall dwell; I shall make of it a nest of rest, and in this nest of my own I shall die to myself, to live and live again by your warmth, which is refused to no one, which looks on what is lowly, and raises the poor from the dunghill.

Afectos espirituales, Afecto 1, translated from the Spanish by the Manna team

I forgot to eat my bread of sorrow, and my strength dried up like a potsherd. I climbed to heaven leaning on feet of clay, and when your truth struck them, I went down to the abyss of my confusion and my misery.

Afectos espirituales, Afecto 1 (translated from the Spanish by the Manna team)

What do the darknesses of the night matter, when you are my glory, my light in my darkness? This night is my illumination.

Afectos espirituales, Afecto 8 (translated from the Spanish by the Manna team)

And so I ask you, my father, since with Our Lord's favour I have overcome myself so far and passed through so many tribulations in writing this and giving you an account of my whole life, to look well at it, and at the steps my soul is taking, so that it may not be lost.

Su Vida, ch. XLI (translated from the Spanish by the Manna team)