The great familial decision
Lienzo familia Coronel-Arana, por Valentín Zubiaurre, 1892
On 1615 her parents took an astonishing decision for the inhabitants from Agreda: transforming their home into a Franciscan Conceptionist convent. All this happened in a singular way: Catalina Arana had had a vision in which she was told to become a nun and transform her home into a convent. She went to take advice from her confessor, who lived in the Franciscan convent outside the town. With incredible surprise, they happened to meet in a place that it is still pointed out within the current Convent walls, her own confessor was eager to talk to her about the vision that he had also had about the foundation wanted by God. That event had all the characteristics of divine origin.
There were troubles in the family nucleus, and also in the neighborhood, in which such dream was considered as a hurt against the marriage. But finally the project got the triumph; and on May 1st, 1618 it was signed the agreement in which the Coronel-Arana family donated their assets for the new foundation. She and her two daughters would remain in the familial house converted to convent; the family’s head would enter to the Franciscan Order; the two sons had already opted for the Franciscan religious life.
Catalina Arana and her daughters decided that the religious family, they wanted to trust the new foundation, would be the Franciscan contemplative order, dedicated to the Immaculate Conception, in the strict discalced branch. On December 8 of 1618, it was celebrated the first mass at the improved monastery, and on January 13 of 1618 Mary Coronel, her daughter Geronima and her mother Catalina took the habit. This day Mary changed her Christian name into Sor Mary of Jesus. Her father Francisco Corornel entered to the Franciscan convent of Nalda.
To open the planned monastery and proceed to the canonical establishment, three concepcionist nuns came from the convent of St. Louis in Burgos that initiated to the aspirants into the spirit of Saint Beatriz of Silva. The presence of the three nuns from Burgos in Agreda lasted four months. Finished the formation period of the first nuns, they came back to their monastery of origin.
To enhance the importance to the monastery, the new professed nuns called to another group of three religious from the monastery of Knight of Grace in Madrid. At the end of four years they also came back to Madrid.
The monastery from Agreda had with enough elements to carry out the complete observance of the discalced Conceptionist Franciscan life.
