Úrsula de Jesús
1604-1666 17th century
What the one who serves can see, and was never once asked about.
Who was Úrsula de Jesús?
Born a slave in Lima, given at thirteen to the Poor Clare convent of Santa Clara to serve a nun: twenty-eight years of laundry, cooking and errands, with not a moment of her own. A nun paid for her freedom in 1645; she stayed in the house as a donada, black-veiled without being a nun, and her confessor had her keep a journal from 1650. In it she sets down her visions, her irritations, and what she thinks of how black women are treated behind those walls.
In their own words
So many were the chokings that came upon me: one and another sent for me to cook them this, to make them that, and then the convent, which is enough to take up everything; and as I go about longing to go where the Lord is, these things take from me the little time I have left. It was a most toilsome day for me.
That the body should work. He always worked. That when I was working standing, I should think of when they held him standing, when he suffered; that when I worked sitting, I should think of when they sat him on that little bench. I do not know what this is; God knows.
Whoever did not imitate our lord Jesus Christ in some of his virtues could not be his son nor his disciple: his humility, his meekness, his patience, his obedience, his poverty.