Maria of -greda's exceptional attributes spread from her cloistered convent in seventeenth-century -greda (Spain) to the court in Madrid and beyond. Without leaving her village, the abbess impacted the kingdom, her church, and the New World. Based upon her transcendent visionary experiences, Sor Maria chronicled the life of Mary, mother of Jesus of Nazareth, in Mystical City of God, a work the Spanish Inquisition temporarily condemned. In America, reports emerged that she had miraculously appeared to Jumano Native Americansùa feat corroborated by witnesses in Spain, Texas, and New Mexico, where she is known as the legendary "Lady in Blue." Today Sor Maria is lauded in Spain as one of the most influential women in its history and in the United States as an inspiring pioneer.<BR><BR> Fedewa's biography of this spirited abbess integrates voluminous autobiographical, historical, and literary sources published by and about Maria of -greda.<BR><BR>"Marilyn Fedewa has written a stirring portrait of Maria of -greda, a brilliant...remarkable player in major spiritual and secular events of [her] age."ùKENNETH A. BRIGGS, former religion editor for the New York Times<BR><BR> "A fascinating biography of an extraordinary woman told from the perspective of her 17th-century Spanish religious culture."ùCLARK A. COLAHAN, author of Visions of Sor Maria de Agreda: Writing Knowledge and Power