Lansing author, expert on mystical nun, off to see pope

WASHINGTON — When Pope Francis steps outside the U.S. Capitol on Thursday, Marilyn Fedewa of Lansing will get her first glimpse of a man she hopes will move toward sainthood a 17th-Century nun whose own visits to America were nothing short of miraculous.

If, that is, you can believe she made them at all.

Fedewa, 69, is a writer and expert on Maria of Agreda, who was a Spanish abbess, adviser to King Philip IV and the author of “Mystical City of God,” a four-volume tome dedicated to the life of Mary, mother of Jesus, that inspired clergy, missionaries and laity for hundreds of years.

But Maria’s story has a twist: A series of hundreds of mystical episodes in which she reported visiting the American Southwest and preaching to American Indians without ever leaving her convent, stories that coincided with reports out of the Jumano Tribe in Texas that they had received religious instruction from a mysterious “Lady in Blue.”

“She had never had her story told in a credible way,” said Fedewa, whose 2009 “Maria of Agreda: Mystical Lady in Blue” was an attempt to present her in the most balanced way possible after earlier works seemed dismissive of Maria’s ecstatic episodes, despite investigations by church officials, as well as the Inquisition, which did not repudiate them.

“There has never really been a balanced approach,” said Fedewa, who, with a laugh, acknowledges the difficulty of accepting the episodes but who believes, after researching her life and writings, that Maria experienced what she said.

"The more I researched her, the more I went into the untranslated letters, the untranslated testimony to the Inquisition, I felt her view had credibility. … I really felt her sincerity," she said.

Fedewa is coming to Washington as the guest of U.S. Rep. Mike Bishop, R-Rochester.

She won’t be in the House chamber when Pope Francis speaks to Congress on Thursday morning but outside on the west front of the U.S. Capitol, where thousands of invited guests will watch his remarks. After Francis speaks inside, he is expected to step out onto the west front and speak a short time as well.

Fedewa isn’t coming to Washington with an eye toward meeting or lobbying Francis but to see someone for whom she has enormous respect. But as an American representative at a two-day meeting next month in Rome of an international society dedicated to the teaching of Jesus' mother, she, along with others, are hoping for an audience with Francis.

Maria was a constant believer in Mary's saintliness and that her conception was immaculate — which wasn't accepted as church doctrine until the mid-1800s — making Maria an important figure in the history of what's known as "mariology."

There remains an effort in place to push Maria of Agreda, who was named a "venerable" of the church within 10 years of her death, toward beatification and canonization but there are hurdles, too, including long-standing theological qualms about parts of “Mystical City of God,” though her supporters say those have been all but settled.

Her influence was even noted in the writings of Junipero Serra, the 18th-Century Spanish missionary to be canonized by Francis this week. Fedewa was consulted by the authors of a recent work on Serra, and her book part of its bibliography. Maria's tome, after all, was an inspiration to Spanish missionaries to the New World.

But for all that, Fedewa’s trip to Washington is all about Francis, who she says speaks to her in a personal way, with an inclusive, ecumenical approach she believes her favorite subject would appreciate.

“I feel like Maria of Agreda would love him,” she said. “She had a famous phrase, that … ‘to dilate the heart’ was the absolute key to spirituality. … That is at the heart of all the spiritual traditions.”

“I would say (to Francis) to keep going forward,” Fedewa said. “He has a beautiful approach and a beautiful mission and I know he will.”

Contact Todd Spangler: 703-854-8947 or tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @tsspangler.