The mystery of faith …

… Ursula de Jesus and the fortress of patience – The Lamp Magazine. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

… her visions do not allow her to accept the racism and dehumanization which were the basis of her oppression. One of the first visions she describes showed her a black woman who had been enslaved in the convent, María Bran. Ursula sees her in purgatory, dressed in a priest’s alb and crowned in flowers, “her face a resplendent black.” The woman says that “[s]he was very thankful to God, who with His divine providence had taken her from her land and brought her down such difficult and rugged roads in order to become a Christian and be saved.” But the Christianity taught to slaves has left Ursula with an urgent, heartbreaking question: “I asked whether black women went to heaven[.]” María Bran says yes, God’s mercy will save black women who give Him thanks. Later Ursula writes, “Although He raised us as different nations, the will of blacks and whites is the same. In memory, understanding, and will, they are all one. Had He not created them all in His image and likeness and redeemed them with His blood?”