Juana de la Cruz. The nun who discovered God beyond gender

Text by Kevin CA Elphick taken from the book Trans and Genderqueer Subjects in Medieval Hagiography, Amsterdam University Press (Netherlands), 2021. Freely translated by the volunteers of the Gionata Project.

Interest in Mother Juana de la Cruz (1481-1534) has grown in recent decades, especially after the publication of her sermons, edited by Inocente García de Andrés in 1999, and the reopening of her cause for canonization by the Vatican in 2015. In the midst of the inquisitorial era, a woman who preached from the pulpit represented an exception in itself. But Juana went further: her theological reflection and her very life were crossed by a surprising awareness of gender fluidity, which today we could define as queer.

His biography and his writings show a constant tension between the limit and the transcendence, between the masculine and the feminine, between the imposed order and the freedom of the Spirit. In this essay, Elphick analyzes the Vida and the sermon on the Annunciation, highlighting how Juana, despite being part of the mysticism and Franciscan tradition, develops a theology of this kind capable of speaking also to the present.

The truth of a sacred identity

Mother Juana de la Cruz offers a medieval model of extraordinary modernity for today's LGBTQ+ people. Her life was an act of radical fidelity to the deepest truth of her being, which she recognized as a reflection of the face of God. Within herself, Juana harmonized male and female elements, and from this fusion she gave rise to an experience of the divine that challenged all dualism.

In his sermons, he invited those who listened to him to discover God in their own gender experience, whatever it was. She spoke of a God who manifests himself both in the body of a woman and in the body of a man, and who reveals himself in fluid images: God, the saints, the Virgin and Christ take on faces and languages ​​in her that do not conform to gender expectations.

Juana even said that she was "re-created" by God at the moment of conception, transformed from male to female at the behest of the Virgin Mary. He pointed to his own “Adam's apple” as a visible sign of this miracle: the symbol of a voice that was at the same time his and that of Christ.

A preacher between two worlds

Juana was born in 1481 to a peasant family in Numancia, between Madrid and Toledo. Against the conventions of her time, she became famous as a preacher. Her words resonated far beyond Spain: the sisters of her order brought her relics and her fame to the Americas. Having entered a Franciscan convent as a young woman, she took the name Juana de la Cruz and, over time, became abbess.

For centuries she was venerated as the Santa Juana, but only recently has theological research highlighted the depth of her thinking on gender. In the seventy-two sermons collected in El Conhorte (ancient spanish term for “comfort”), Juana speaks with a free and prophetic voice, capable of grasping in The gospel a promise of equality between men and women that anticipates our contemporary reflections by centuries.

A theology of equality

At the basis of his vision is the belief that, through baptism, men and women are "made equal in grace and cleansed from sin." The reference is clear: "All of you who were baptized into Christ have put on christ... There is no longer male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3,26-28).

Juana connects this equality to the mystery of the Incarnation: “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Christ, he writes, is “new man, new law, new thing created on earth”. In the Spanish language, the word “cosa” is feminine, and this grammatical nuance is not accidental. For Juana, the new creation is also feminine: the sign of a God who embraces both genders and transforms them.

In a powerful passage, God the Father speaks to the Son with a series of statements in the feminine form: “I, ancient God, I, You and the Holy Spirit are one thing, one majesty, one Trinity, one essence”. The repetition of one imprints a linguistic rhythm that feminizes the divinity itself, bringing into language what Juana preaches in theology: the full inclusion of the feminine in God.

The soul, the spirit and the threshold of the genre

Juana overturns the categories of her time. For her, the soul and the spirit have no gender: "Man is distinguished from woman by the body; as for the soul, they are equal and companions. If the woman has a soul called feminine, the man also has a soul with the same name; and vice versa, both have a living and eternal spirit."

In his theology, the spirit and the soul coexist, mix and complement each other. Neither is exclusive to one gender, because both belong to the very mystery of God. True holiness, for Juana, is the ability to live in this border zone — in that liminality which means, in Latin, “threshold”. [ … ]

Crossing thresholds

Juana really lived on that threshold. To escape an imposed marriage, she disguised herself as a man, took a sword, and walked alone two leagues to the convent where she would find her calling. Her story fits into that of the so-called "transvestite saints", women who, in the medieval centuries, dressed in men's clothing to follow their calling.

He probably knew the legend of Santa Paula Barbada, who prayed to God to make her unrecognizable to escape the attentions of a violent man and miraculously found herself with a beard. And it is not difficult to imagine that she was also familiar with the story of Joan of Arc — “Juana,” in Spanish — who, like her, took up a sword to defend her vocation.

These stories, well known in the spanish culture of the time, offered models of sanctity that broke gender norms. [ … ]

The franciscan trace

Even more, Juana found her inspiration in the Franciscan tradition, where gender fluidity is more widespread than you might think. Saint Clare ran away from home dressed as a man to reach Francis, who tonsured her and gave her a dress identical to that of the friars. Saint Francis himself, often unable to adapt to the male roles of his time, wrote to his companion Leo: "I speak to you, my son, like a mother."

In the Legenda Maior (1260-1263), Saint Bonaventure describes Francis as a figure who embodies both genders: he conceives and gives birth to spiritual children, presents himself to the pope as “a poor but beautiful woman” who fathers children for King Jesus, and sees the Trinity in the form of three poor women. Francesco is, at the same time, husband and wife, father and mother. [ … ]

Juana knew these lyrics. In her Vida it is said that The Little Flowers of Saint Francis were read to her, where Blessed John of La Verna prays and discovers Jesus as a Mother who, like a woman, sometimes withholds milk to stimulate her child's desire. When Christ finally appears to him, John prostrates himself, kisses Jesus' feet and hands, and then embraces him to his chest. [ … ]

It is an intimacy that intertwines the language of the Song of Songs and that of maternal tenderness. In this story, Juana would have found a profound consonance: John experiences Jesus as a mother and lover, while he himself takes on both feminine and masculine traits. God, therefore, not only welcomes but transforms, making people similar to himself, beyond gender.

A God beyond gender

Through these readings, Juana inherits a vision of God who transforms and recreates people in his image, giving them traits of the opposite gender and taking them beyond any binary definition. In this context, his own mystical experience and his theological language are better understood.

According to La Vida, her story begins already at conception: God was creating a male, but the Virgin Mary intercedes for him to be born female, because she will be the one to reform a convent dedicated to Mary herself. God agrees and leaves the "Adam's apple" as a sign on his body. [ … ]

Years later, praying before an image of Saint Veronica, Juana saw the saint's face transform into that of Christ, who told her: "I will marry you and lead you to religious life." Then the image returned to its original appearance. It is a vision of extraordinary theological intensity: the divine face changes gender, passing from feminine to masculine and back to feminine.

The fugitive and the Madonna

After that vision, Juana decided to run away from home. She dressed as a man and set out “not as a weak woman, but as a strong and resolute man.” Arriving at the monastery, she prayed still dressed as a man, then changed and knelt before a statue of the Virgin above the door of the convent.

"The statue spoke to her - says La Vida - saying: 'My daughter, welcome to my home. Enter with joy, because for this reason God created you, and I entrust you with the care of this house'." Juana feared that the community would not welcome her, but Our Lady reassured her: "Do not be afraid, because my Son will make sure that they receive you."

He entered the convent, wore the habit of Saint Francis and found his place.
[ … ] The disguise, the escape and the voice of the Virgin were not only biographical events, but symbols of a spiritual journey: Juana, passing from one gender to another, discovered her true identity in God.

The voice and the word

Having become Abbess, juana preached for thirteen Years. his sermons, organized according to the liturgical calendar, addressed the themes of the incarnation, grace, divine motherhood and the mutability of gender roles.

In the Sermon on the Incarnation, he states that God reveals himself in body and word, not to destroy difference, but to transfigure it. The Incarnation, for Juana, is the gesture with which God crosses the threshold of gender, making masculine and feminine parts of a single reality: the love that generates life.

*Kevin CA Elphick is an American theologian and researcher, scholar of Franciscan mysticism, female spirituality and the history of queer holiness in the Christian tradition.

Original text: Juana de la Cruz: Gender-Transcendent Prophetess