What time? What a title this little chapter has. The City of the Kings. Year of Our Lord 1582.

Well, should we hand out handkerchiefs first? Handkerchief? Should we hand out handkerchiefs?

Everything was ready for the foundation of Burgos. A wealthy widow, Doña Catalina de Tolosa, who had two Carmelite daughters, had obtained a license from the city council, and the new convent could be opened in her own house. She had already installed grills, built a small bell tower, and established the enclosure area for the first nuns. The archbishop, for his part, had promised to give his authorization after speaking very favorably of the Discalced.

After all, this was don Cristóbal Vela, son of don Blasco Núñez Vela, the first viceroy of Peru, with whom the Ahumada and Cepeda brothers had fought at Iñakito. In addition, an uncle of his, don Francisco Vela y Núñez, had been Teresa's godfather and the two families owned neighboring houses in Ávila. Thus, the Archbishop of Burgos and the mother were not only connected by memories and affinities, but they were also relatives.

Since what happened in Segovia, Teresa did not want to set out to found a monastery without written authorization. But in this case, what was there to fear? Only the torrential rains that had broken out, the January cold, the muddy or flooded roads, her poor health. She was so ill that she was about to delegate the task to the prioress of Palencia, Inés de Jesús, but her divine counselor prevented her. "Do not pay attention to that cold," the Lord told her. "I am the true warmth. The devil is using all his strength to prevent this foundation. Use all your strength for my sake so that it is done, and do not fail to go in person, because great good will come from it."

Father Provincial Jerónimo Gracián de la Madre de Dios and the future prioress Tomasina Bautista had just arrived from Alba de Tormes, and Mother had to recommend to the Provincial that they not travel together, since Father Gracián, always naive, had not thought that a friar and a nun, going from inn to inn along the roads, might give rise to gossip. She never tired of advising him with motherly concern, but then she would be moved: "The Father Provincial wanted to go with us to watch over my health, since the weather was so harsh and I was so old and sick. It seems that my life means something to them."

The main characters of this expedition were therefore Mother Teresa and Father Gracián, accompanied by Friar Pedro de la Purificación, who had just arrived from Granada, Tomasina Bautista, Inés de la Cruz, Catalina de Jesús, a lay sister, a lay brother (this one is not named), Ana de San Bartolomé, and Teresita, the Mother’s niece. The founders always bring their nephews and nieces from everywhere. This does not include the muleteers, the servants, the mule boys, and a small escort of laypeople. The carts left Ávila at dawn on January 2, 1582.

They stopped in Valladolid to pick up another nun, Catalina de la Asunción, one of the daughters of Doña Catalina de Tolosa. Her sisters in religion and the prioress María Bautista loved her so much that they did not want to let her go. The mother then, with her heavenly shrewdness, spoke of taking another nun who was indispensable to the community, which made them resign themselves to losing Catalina.

From Ávila to Medina del Campo, it had only stopped raining when it snowed, and from Medina to Valladolid both the sky and the earth were dripping with water. The mother arrived with the onset of paralysis that made her shiver and impaired her speech. An open sore in her throat made her spit blood and prevented her from eating solid food. The doctors determined that if she did not leave immediately, later it would not be possible to move her.

Thus, forgetting her condition, she left Valladolid in the midst of a downpour. In Palencia, she was welcomed with garlands and banners. The city that revered her received her triumphantly. The crowd gathered in front of the monastery was so large that she could barely get out of the carriage and reach the cloister. The cloister seemed like a corner of paradise, with little illuminated altars, flowers, and hymns. But there is no paradise on earth that lasts long. Moreover, the mother was getting worse, which did not prevent her from setting out again after two days, under a real deluge.

It was an incredible boldness to travel in such weather. A servant, stationed as a lookout, returned saying that the roads were impassable. Such news did not deter Mother Teresa, for she had decided to obey His Majesty above all else. Had He not said to her, when she doubted about moving to Burgos, "What do you fear?" No one in Castile remembered rains and floods like these. Along the Carrión and the Arlanzón, the muleteers, helped by the friars, strove to get the carts out of the mud, while the Carmelites, in their sandals, splashed in the puddles.

High up on a cliff above the river, Mother Teresa saw how one of the carts ahead was about to fall into the void. One of the servants managed to stop it by bracing his body and, with God's help, one of the wheels. The nuns riding in the cart, convinced that human strength alone would not have sufficed, saw in him an angel rather than a man. The nuns were always so kind! After this incident, the mother insisted on going at the front herself to avoid exposing others.

That afternoon, to recover from the fright and fatigue, they found nothing but an inn so poor that it did not even have beds. The next day they had to cross the Arlanzón by some makeshift walkways that replaced the bridges swept away by the flood. The innkeeper, extremely alarmed, begged the most stubborn of the saints to wait a few days until the current became less violent, but Teresa had decided to continue the journey, and that poor man could do nothing but guide them to a less dangerous spot.

When the caravan arrived at the riverbank, all that could be seen was a vast sheet of water over which the wooden pontoon bridges were barely distinguishable. They were so narrow that at the slightest deviation, at the smallest surge of water, carts, mules, friars, nuns, and servants could easily be swept into the river. But had not the founding mother said that they must live without fear of anything, neither of death nor of the events of life? Thus, the Discalced nuns asked the Discalced friars for a solution and requested the mother’s blessing, which she gave cheerfully: "Come, my daughters! What greater good could you hope for here than to be martyrs for love of Our Lord?"

The carriage in which Teresa was traveling ventured out first, after the mother made her companions promise that they would return to the inn if she drowned. But God had told her, “When have I ever failed you?” and He did not fail her this time. Those who were on the shore saw how her carriage rocked and was left hanging at the edge of the current. The mother jumped out with water up to her knees, but since she was not very agile, she injured herself. Her cry, as always, was a call to God, though this time it was a complaint: “Lord, with so many troubles, and now this?” The voice answered her, “Teresa, this is how I treat my friends.” To which she replied, “Ah Lord, that is why you have so few!”

With time to reflect, she might have said the same thing as when Fray Juan de la Cruz was imprisoned: "God treats His friends terribly. In truth, He does them no injustice, since He acted the same way with His Son." The idea was the same, and the Lord, who had endowed His daughter with such a sharp wit, would not be angered by such a slight variation. So He got her out of trouble, and her carriage, along with the others, where seven Carmelites were praying the Creed at the top of their lungs, reached the other shore trembling but safe and sound. Everyone was happy because, once across the river, it was enjoyable to talk about it.

No less than twenty-four days after their departure from Ávila, on January 26 at nightfall, they arrived in Burgos. After visiting the church of the Augustinians to venerate the miraculous crucified Christ so greatly revered by Father Gracián, the group entered the city, whose streets seemed like torrents. So as not to arouse too much curiosity near the king’s orchard, the eight Carmelites furtively went to the house of Doña Catalina de Tolosa. Soaked to the bone and utterly exhausted, they were finally able to dry themselves by a good wood fire.

Jerónimo Gracián and the friars went to stay at the house of Doctor Manso, canon of the cathedral, who was also a good theologian and a great preacher. The mother would have liked Gracián to go immediately to ask the archbishop for permission to expose the Blessed Sacrament and celebrate Mass the next day, but a new torrential rain made it impossible. That same afternoon, the mother suffered a fainting spell and repeated vomiting that further irritated her throat. After a night of suffering, she woke up so paralyzed that she was unable even to lift her head.

She had to handle her affairs lying on the other side of the parlor grille, covered with a black veil. How much remained to be done! His Most Illustrious Lordship, Don Cristóbal Vela, Archbishop of Burgos, had informed Father Jerónimo Gracián de la Madre de Dios that he had asked Mother Teresa of Jesus to come to negotiate the matter of the foundation with him, not to come to found and even less to bring nuns. Such negotiations were to be conducted slowly and with prudence. Of course, there was absolutely no question of allowing Mass to be celebrated in a secular house. The archbishops of Burgos and the people of Burgos have always been very particular.

On the other hand, what need did Burgos have for reforming nuns? All the religious sisters there were already reformed, and Mother Teresa could return the way she had come. Well, the roads and the weather were in no condition for her to go back. The provincial father, more Paul-like than ever and apparently with his head in the clouds, informed her of what had happened without any emotion. The mother, who knew how to keep her feet on the ground, thought that the devil was beginning his tricks.

The negotiations lasted three months. His illustrious lordship, like a weather vane, would say one thing and then contradict himself. History is the teacher of life. He promised to grant the license and then denied it. The mother did not want to force things. She advised prudence, to give time to time, and when Gracián finally returned to pass through the door of the Archbishop’s Palace, located near the immense cathedral, Don Cristóbal Vela would feign surprise and say, “What? Still here? I thought you would have left.”

One day, out of excessive zeal, he refused: "The house is damp and I cannot allow the deprivations that those poor daughters would have to endure in a convent without income." On another occasion, taking advantage of his gentleness, they begged him to permit the celebration of holy mass at Doña Catalina’s house. It is so hard for them to have to mix with people that it is painful to see how their tears wet even the floor. But then the illustrious archbishop suddenly showed himself to be firm and said: "All the better! In this way, they give an edifying example."

What did she have against the Discalced? The mother asked herself. "So much resistance from the archbishop, and I truly believe he wants it, there must be some mystery." She tried hard to figure it out. She says she remembers very well what happened in Ávila when the first monastery was founded. But she did not tell anyone who she suspected was reminding her, because someone was refreshing the archbishop's memory. The time had come for her to take matters into her own hands. She took advantage of a day when she felt a little better to go visit him, trusting in the skill God had given her for negotiation. Her strength was returning at just the right time. Don Cristóbal Vela treated her with great kindness and spoke with her for several hours, as old friends and neighbors do.

She evoked the little square of Santo Domingo, their mutual friends, the events that united the two families, the death of Antonio, Teresa’s brother, under the banner of Garzobispo’s father, the murder in Peru of Don Francisco, Teresa’s uncle and godfather. The mother, moving from memory to memory, presented her request with all diplomacy, without being bothersome, until finally, as if in passing, she let slip: “My poor daughters so wish that I obtain your lordship’s permission, that they have offered God to practice self-discipline for as long as I remain here.”

But the archbishop was unmoved. “Very well, then, they may discipline themselves as much as they like, for I have no intention of granting the permission.” And his lordship stood up, thus ending the interview. This did not prevent that man of ice from feeling great admiration for his fellow countrywoman. “I thought I was listening to St. Paul himself,” he would later say to his family.

How impatiently they awaited the mother's return at Doña Catalina's house. She had a hard time calming everyone down, all upset by the archbishop's actions, and she did not allow anyone to criticize him in her presence. "He is a saint and he must have his reasons." Fray Pedro de la Purificación would admire her more for that divine gift of patience than for her lofty prayer, visions, ecstasies, and raptures. He was amazed to find a kind of childlike innocence in such an elderly woman who had accomplished so much. This did not stop Dr. Manso from saying that he would have preferred to debate all the theologians in Spain rather than argue with this nun who did not know Latin.

Although he had forbidden her to receive Communion and prided himself on not being seduced by her reputation for holiness, Teresa continued to confess almost daily with Friar Pedro, which greatly annoyed him. "Jesus, Mother," he scolded her. "Leave it. You do not sin. One would have to search in your childhood tantrums to find any matter for absolution. I do not want to hear your confession." To this, she gravely replied, "Do not be stingy with riches that are not your own. Your reverences lose nothing by this. It is God who bestows on us special graces through the sacraments of which you are the ministers."

Fray Pedro de la Purificación liked to vividly recount his conversations with Mother Teresa. One day, a newly married lady visited her in Burgos. She was beautiful and very elegantly dressed. Among other things, she wore some fine pearls and two or three valuable diamonds, well placed, which adorned her greatly. After the lady had left the monastery, she asked me, "Tell me, Father Fray Pedro, did you see Doña So-and-so?" "Yes, Mother, why do you ask?" "Don't you think she is beautiful and attractive, and that she was wearing good jewels?" "Do not notice so much, Mother, but everyone says she is beautiful and well-presented." She was prudent, King Peter. "Those diamonds would be better on the child Jesus, because in my view, everything of this life seems ugly to me." She took hold of my cloak and, leading me aside into a corridor, began to speak a thousand things about God, and among others

Believe me, Father, that after our Lord Jesus Christ granted me the grace of visiting me and of showing Himself to me together with the Eternal Father and the Holy Spirit in such a divine form, with so much beauty and splendor, from that moment I have Him so present before the eyes of my soul that nothing here satisfies me. Everything seems ugly and worthless to me, and nothing brings me joy except, with my soul, seeing the souls that are clothed in the gifts of Christ. That is why I told you that that servant of God did not appear beautiful to me. Holy and a woman, jewels, ornaments, heaven, spontaneous affection in her expression, grace and fervor. That is how she was.

In the midst of such serious concerns about everyday problems and her conversations with confessors and doctors, the joy and affection of Doña Catalina's children, Lésme, Beatriz, and Elena, whom Teresa called "my little chubby one," distracted her somewhat. She also had great support in Tomasina Bautista, a healthy and robust woman, exemplary in prayer and penance, who worked until exhaustion and would have exhausted the other nuns if the mother had not been there to prevent it. It seems that one day she even forbade Mother Tomasina and the nuns from drinking coffee. But it also seems that this was for very good reason.

The heaviest burden for the founding mother was her beloved son Jerónimo Gracián. From reckless optimism, he went through discouragement to the denial of all hope. The archbishop finally agreed to authorize the founding of the convent under two conditions. First, it had to be established in a house acquired as property. Second, it had to have sufficient income to support the community.

Gracián continued lamenting. Where could he find an adequate house for sale in Burgos? And even if one existed, how could he pay for it? And the income, where could he get it from? The problems repeat themselves; they are the same. The archbishop seemed to him more strict than ever, imposing conditions he knew were prohibitive, so Gracián began to talk about leaving everything to the mother and her daughters.

"For Teresa of Jesus to leave, to give up, would have been the first time." This meant they did not know her, nor understood the voice that whispered to her: "Now, Teresa, be strong." So she had Father Gracián leave alone, which left her freer for the struggle and unburdened. For the struggle was harsh. Right away, she had to leave the house of Doña Catarina, whose confessors threatened to deny her absolution if the nuns did not leave. But where could they go in a hostile city? With great effort, they managed to secure two tiny attic rooms at the top of the Hospital of the Conception. They were given these rooms because in Burgos it was believed that souls from purgatory visited them, and, even so, under such conditions that Mother Teresa found it amusing. The members of the brotherhood thought, "We would have taken over the hospital," which was quite out of the question.

One relief was that from the top of a gallery they could follow the Mass for the sick without walking through the streets. But who was it that secretly made so much opposition in Burgos to eight poor barefoot nuns? Was it perhaps known that the daughters of Doña Catalina had decided to pay with their own money for the house that the archbishop demanded? Perhaps it was also no secret that the generous widow, who was already supporting the Carmelites as if they were her own daughters, was willing to provide income for the future monastery. For in her will, which was made by Doña Catalina before she spoke of this foundation, she had decided to bequeath all her fortune to the Jesuit college of Burgos.

It is not that the Society of Jesus was decidedly hostile to the Discalced Carmelites, no. Teresa herself never tired of proclaiming how much she owed them. But perhaps her work as a founder was gaining a scope that overshadowed certain ambitions. Had the dispute over the vocation of Father de Salazar left some traces of resentment and envy? Be that as it may, Teresa found an already established enmity in Burgos, all because of these dark interests. "They do not want people to think of their order and ours as one," she says and adds, "What a notion!" In other words, what an absurd idea!

We will leave it here. There are still Carmelites in Burgos, aren't there? Yes. A convent that when... The same one, right? Of course, that building doesn't have anything left. The building is in the same place, but it is completely different, as you would expect. Anyway. Very well, children. How history repeats itself, doesn't it! Everything is the same. What a concert the birds are giving! How beautiful! Very good!

Padre Alfonso Gálvez