Bl Anne of St Bartholomew – June 7 – Carmelite Saints

Summary:

Anne of Saint Bartholomew was born Ana García y Manzanas in Almendral, a village in Castile, Spain. At the age of 21, she joined the newly founded Discalced Carmelite monastery in Avila and became a companion to Saint Teresa of Ávila. In St. Teresa of Avila’s later years, Anne was her close friend and aide, and the saint died in Anne’s arms in 1582. Anne led the establishment of new monasteries in France and the Netherlands. She sometimes struggled with her superiors as she set about founding new convents and holding her position as a prioress, while later settling in the Spanish Netherlands, where she opened a house and remained there until she died. Anne wrote about the foundation and origin of Teresa’s reform in Spain and France, including the Defense of the Teresian Inheritance. She also wrote her own autobiography, Spiritual Treatises, Conferences and Meditations, as well as numerous letters, of which 665 are still extant. She died at Antwerp in 1626. Bl. Anne’s heroic virtue received confirmation from Pope Clement XII on June 29, 1735, who titled her as Venerable, while Pope Benedict XV beatified her on May 6, 1917.

History:

Ana García y Manzanas was born on October 1, 1549, in El Almendral, Castile (Spain), the youngest of seven children of Ferdinand García and Maria Mancanas. Her parents, devout Christians and well-to-do landowners, ministered to the poor every Sunday before Mass; her mother cared for the sick with great compassion. Ana was baptized on the day of her birth in the church of His Holiness the Savior. She was raised with her three brothers and three sisters to be close to God. The household attended Daily Mass and recited the Holy Rosary together. Her parents instructed their children in Catholic doctrine and encouraged them to care for the poor who were welcomed into their home.

Ana experienced mystical phenomena throughout her life. At the age of three, she saw Heaven open above her, with Our Lord Jesus Christ, radiant in glory, gazing upon her and igniting ardent desires in her heart to love and serve Him. From then on, Ana’s life overflowed with extraordinary manifestations. She received frequent apparitions of the Child Jesus, who always appeared to match her age. These encounters cultivated a lifelong awareness of God’s sanctity and grandeur. Accustomed to valuing supernatural realities, Ana felt a powerful attraction to Heaven and a deep aversion to sin.

Ferdinand García confided the spiritual care of his children to a priest who gave them a daily lesson in Christian doctrine. Ana learned to read in Spanish, but she was not taught to write.

Ana found prayer effortless. Even as a child, she cherished Jesus and sensed His closeness, seeking to please Him. She conversed with Our Lady, St. Joseph, and the Saints, asking them daily to keep her free from sin. She also enjoyed playing with other girls, especially her cousin Francesca García, who later became a Carmelite.

As a child, Ana admired paintings of the Lord’s Passion and sought to share in His suffering, even in small ways, by giving food to beggars. She walked barefoot on stony paths, offering her pain to the Lord. She later remarked:

“I will say here, for the glory of our Lord, that He always gave me consolations when I did good to my neighbor, when the occasion presented itself, and when I aided them in their need. I inconvenienced myself, it is true, on these occasions, but I found, instead of an inconvenience, it was a real consolation. It is to the good Master I owe it, and it has remained so with me until this day. May His holy Name be blessed!”

Ana was just nine years old when her mother died in 1558. The next year, she lost her father to a plague that swept through Castile. She later described this period as her "deepest affliction." Her eldest brother and sister assumed parental duties. Although Ana and her siblings remained in the family home, their material circumstances deteriorated. While her brothers worked in the fields, Ana tended the family flocks. Before long, Jesus comforted her with His presence, accompanying her in her duties as a shepherdess.

When she reached the proper age, her older siblings urged her to marry and introduced her to her brother-in-law’s brother. Already resolved to dedicate herself to God in religious life, she refused. Her older brothers challenged her resolve by assigning her strenuous fieldwork, hoping to change her mind. They doubted her ability to endure monastic austerity and assumed she would leave the convent, bringing the family dishonor.

Ana experienced visions and apparitions that strengthened her resolve to pursue her dream. However, one day, she saw a giant demon, which terrified her. She fell ill with nothing that could cure her. Concerned, her relatives took her to a hermitage dedicated to St. Bartholomew. Upon arrival, Ana became paralyzed, but once inside, she recovered fully on August 24, 1570, St. Bartholomew’s feast day. Notably, St. Joseph’s Convent, the first Discalced Carmelite convent, was also founded on August 24.

Following her cure, Ana received her siblings’ consent to enter religious life. In a dream, Our Lord showed her that she should enter the convent of the Discalced Carmelites of Avila, founded in 1562 by St. Teresa. St. Teresa, dissatisfied with the easygoing life at the Monastery of the Incarnation, established the convent of St. Joseph to return to the primitive Rule of Carmel. She emphasized prayer, solitude, and silence.

It was to this Carmelite convent that Ana’s eldest brother, Hernando, brought her, and she even recognized it when she first saw it. But she had to await permission from the superior, and Ana was forced to return to El Almendral for several months.

On November 2, 1570, Ana entered the Discalced Carmelites as a lay sister, unable to read the Latin prayers required of choir nuns. She took the habit as Sr. Anne of St. Bartholomew, in gratitude for her cure. She became the first Discalced Carmelite lay Sister St. Teresa of Ávila accepted. Yet trials, common to those God seeks to perfect, marked her novitiate: the presence of Our Lord she felt since girlhood vanished. This trial endured throughout her novitiate.

Anne’s first meeting with St. Teresa occurred when she was still a novice, in July 1571. When St. Teresa first saw her, she showed such contentment that it was as if she had been waiting for a soul so attuned to hers. After analyzing the novice for some moments, she embraced her warmly and had Anne placed in her personal service. For three years, Anne benefited from St. Teresa’s guidance, admiring her superior’s boldness, mastery of discernment, and devotion.

Anne made her religious vows on August 15, 1572. St. Teresa respected Anne highly and assigned her many responsibilities. Sr. Anne of St. Bartholomew served as porter, cook, nurse, and infirmarian. In this capacity, she blended a profound interior life with tireless care for the community, cheerfully shouldering the most burdensome tasks.

When St. Teresa left for Seville in 1574, Anne could not accompany her due to illness. Feeling useless intensified Anne's desire to dedicate herself entirely to God. She remained violently ill until 1577. Upon St. Teresa’s return towards the end of July 1577, St. Teresa called Anne to her side, restored her courage, and then ordered her to go and feed the sick. Anne, who was in a critical state, obeyed, and Christ comforted her. She immediately felt better.

When Teresa broke her arm on Christmas Eve, 1577, Anne became her nurse and secretary. From that moment on, they became inseparable. Teresa urged Anne to join the choir nuns, but Anne begged to remain a lay sister, explaining that she could not read Latin, which was required for the Divine Office, and that she preferred to serve the community practically rather than take on administrative burdens. Teresa accepted Anne's wish but accurately predicted she would eventually join the choir nuns.

Planning new monasteries, Anne and Teresa traveled together on four arduous journeys, despite Mother Teresa’s ailments. The first journey lasted from June to November 1579: they went to Medina, Valladolid, Alba de Tormes, and Salamanca before returning to Ávila. In Salamanca, in accordance with Mother Teresa’s wishes, Anne acted as her secretary as Teresa was often too tired or too ill to write herself, but she was able to dictate her letters. Anne had still not learned to write, so Teresa gave her two lines of her own handwriting and told her to learn. In one afternoon, Anne persevered and, obeying St. Teresa’s directive, she learned to write. All of St. Teresa’s letters from the last few years of her life were dictated to Anne, who also wrote an autobiography in which she gives a moving testimony of St. Teresa’s last days.

The second journey lasted from November of the same year to July 1580: they visited the community of Malagón and set up the new foundation of Villanueva de la Jara. During the third trip, from August 1580 to September 1581, they went to Medina and Valladolid, after which they set up foundations in Palencia and Soria.

The fourth journey, from January to October 1582, ended with Mother Teresa’s last monastery foundation in Burgos. Teresa was very ill. Soon after the opening of the monastery, a nearby river flooded their house, and the nuns narrowly escaped death.

On July 26, they set out for Ávila. There, Fr. Anthony of Jesus ordered them to go to Alba de Tormes, where they arrived on September 20, 1582. Two weeks later, St. Teresa was on her deathbed. Sensing her last moment approaching, she confessed, received the Viaticum, and then called for Anne. Anne said, “As soon as she saw me, she began to laugh; and she showed me so much thanks and love that she took me in her hands and put her head in my arms; and that’s how she remained, clasped in my arms until she expired, and I was deader than the saint herself.”

After St. Teresa’s death, Anne returned to Ávila. Mother Mary of St Jerome, a cousin of St. Teresa, was elected prioress. Anne became a reference point for those who wished to better know the Teresian soul and her epic feat. And it soon became evident how much that faithful witness had allowed herself to be shaped by her superior and assimilated her spirit.

Nine years later, in 1591, Mother Mary of St Jerome was elected prioress in Madrid for three years; she took Sr. Anne of St. Bartholomew with her. True to her calling to serve, Anne did her utmost to give joy and support to all the sisters, bringing a spirit of peace to the community in Madrid. The two nuns returned to Ávila in September 1594. But they soon left for another foundation in Ocaña, where they stayed for three years.

In 1601, Bl. Mary of the Incarnation began to read the writings of St. Teresa in France. An apparition of St. Teresa led her to realize she was called to found a Carmelite convent in France. To make sure that this new Carmel would be in tune with the spirit of the saint, the decision was made to turn to Spain to find nuns who had known the foundress. The necessary arrangements were made over several years, but not without many difficulties, especially as relations between France and Spain were very strained. In addition, the Carmelite Fathers were reluctant to let the Sisters leave, and it took the intervention of the Apostolic Nuncio to overcome the Father General’s refusal.

Finally, in October 1604, Anne was one of six Carmelite nuns sent to France to spread St Teresa’s reform, along with Bl. Anne of Jesus, Isabel of the Angels, Beatrice of the Conception, Eleonor of St Bernard, and Isabel of St Paul.

At the French monastery in Pontoise, Anne was forced, under obedience, to accept the black veil of a choir nun to become prioress. Her priorship at Pontoise was from January to September 1605. Anne devoted herself completely to the teaching of the Teresian charism, in particular, the practice of silence. Bl. Anne stated that “silence is precious; by keeping silence and knowing how to listen to God, the soul grows in wisdom, and God teaches it what it cannot learn from men.”

On October 5 of the following year, she was chosen to become prioress of the community in Paris, where she remained until April 1608. On May 18, 1608, she was sent to Tours in order to found a Carmelite convent. The social and religious situation in that city differed from that in Paris. Many Protestants resented the arrival of the Carmelite nuns and spoke ill of them. However, Mother Anne succeeded in reversing the situation: she gained respect and even secured a few conversions. She remained there until 1611.

Her time as prioress of these various communities brought her great trials, not the least of which were differences with her superiors. At the end of her last term, she was to return to Paris, though she was warned not to in a vision. And so, at the suggestion of the Carmelites in the Netherlands and with the authorization of the Father General, she left for Antwerp, in Flanders (Belgium), which was under Spanish rule at the time. On November 6, 1612, the foundation took place. Three years later, the small community relocated to its permanent convent.

When Mother Anne arrived, Flanders still enjoyed peace. The “Eighty Years’ War” (1568–1648), an insurrection by a section of the Dutch population, especially Protestants, against the Catholic King of Spain and sovereign of the Netherlands, had been suspended by a 12-year truce in 1609. When the truce came to an end, hostilities resumed. Anne’s reputation for sanctity became so widespread that many soldiers, before leaving for the war front, came to ask her for some object of hers, to use it as a relic and an assurance of God’s protection. God spared one soldier from death who carried in his breast pocket a paper bearing her writing. A bullet passed through the thick cloth of his uniform, but was stopped by the fine sheet of paper!

Furthermore, on two occasions, in 1622 and 1624, when the city was about to be seized by enemy troops, the prayers of Mother Anne miraculously saved it. This intervention won her the gratitude and esteem of the local people. Isabella Clara Eugenia, daughter of Philip II, who was at that time governing the Low Countries, stated: “I fear nothing concerning the Castle of Antwerp or this city, for I am more assured by the prayers of Mother Anne of St. Bartholomew than by any number of armies that I could have there.”

Anne wrote extensively after Teresa’s death, leaving behind memories that combined biographical details and insights into the spirit that permeated her foundations.  She had the joy of seeing Teresa beatified in 1614 and canonized in 1622. Anne wrote about the foundation and origin of Teresa’s reform in Spain and France, including the Defense of the Teresian Inheritance.  She also wrote her own autobiography, Spiritual Treatises, Conferences, and meditations, as well as numerous letters, of which 665 survive.

During the last two years of her life, Mother Anne suffered from several illnesses. On February 7, 1626, four months before her death, she had a vision of the Most Holy Trinity. She died in Antwerp on June 7, 1626, the Feast of the Holy Trinity. Mother Anne was seventy-six years old. Throughout her life, Bl. Anne sought to fulfill God’s Will and humbly submitted to it even in difficult circumstances. Anne was greatly loved by the people of Antwerp, and after her death, many miracles were attributed to her intercession. Her spiritual writings and letters are preserved in Antwerp and Paris.

Bl. Anne of St. Bartholomew was declared Venerable in 1735 by Pope Clement XII after he confirmed that she lived a life of heroic virtue.  She was beatified by Pope Benedict XV in Saint Peter’s Basilica on May 6, 1917. The feast day of Bl. Anne of St. Bartholomew is celebrated by the Carmelite Order on June 7.

Prayer:

Father,
rewarder of the humble,
you blessed your servant Anne of Saint Bartholomew
with outstanding charity and patience.
May her prayers help us, and her example inspire us,
to carry our cross
and be faithful in loving you,
and others for your sake.

We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
God, forever and ever.