On the 17th century, she has been born again for a new existence dedicated to the practice of goodness. She was born in 1651 in a small town called San Miguel Nepantla; 80 km from Mexico City. Her name was Juana de Asbaje Y Ramirez de Santillana, from a Spanish father and indigenous mother.
Source: "A Veneranda Joanna de Ângelis", from Celeste Santos and Divaldo Pereira Franco, Edited by LEAL.
Her mother was born in Yecapixtla. Her grandfather owned property in Amecameca and Juana spent her early years living with her mother on his hacienda, Panoaya. By the age of 3, she was already fascinated with the way letters looked like; she used to see her sister learning to read and write. She then deceived the teacher and said that her mother had asked her to be taught how to read and writer. The teacher was used to the child’s precociousness decided to start teaching her. She then learned how to read and write at the age of three.
Juana was a gifted child who hid in the hacienda chapel to read her grandfather's books from the adjoining library, something forbidden to girls. Juana de Asbaje started to create verses by the age of 5. She could do accounts at this time.
By the age of 6, Juana was fluent in Spanish. She was able to sew and do other tasks at home, which were quite common at the time. At age of eight she composed a poem on the holy sacrament. She found out there was a University in Mexico and felt excited with the idea of learning more and more in the future. She talked to her dad, who she shared her dreams for the future. Dom Manuel, her dad, laughed and said:
-"You will only be able to do that if you disguise yourself as a male student. Only rich boys can study in that University." Juana was quite surprised with this information, ran to her mother and asked her permission to start dressing up as a man from now, since she couldn’t even imagine the possibility of staying out of the University.
By the age of 12 she lad already learned Latin in 20 lessons; plus Portuguese, on her own. By adolescence, she had mastered Greek logic, and at age thirteen she was teaching Latin to young children. She also learned Nahuatl, and she wrote some short poems in that language.
In 1662, she came under the tutelage of the Vicereine Leonor Carreto, wife of Viceroy Antonio Sebastián de Toledo. The viceroy Marquis de Mancera, wishing to test her learning and intelligence (she being then seventeen years old), invited several theologians, jurists, philosophers, and poets to a meeting, during which she had to answer, unprepared, many questions, and explain several difficult points on various scientific and literary subjects. The manner in which she acquitted herself astonished all present, and greatly increased her reputation. She was 15 at that time. Her literary accomplishments soon made her famous throughout Mexico.
She was much admired in the vice-royal court for her beauty, and refused several proposals of marriage. Her willingness to learn was much greater than illusion of vice-royal court. She wanted to dedicate more time to her studies and penetrate deeply into her inner world, searching for the Divine. She was anxious to understand God through its Creation.
In 1667, she entered the Convent of the Discalced Carmelites of St. Joseph, but remained there only briefly. In 1669, she entered the Convent of the Order of St. Jérôme, where she would remain until her death. She was able to devote herself to literature and science at this Convent. She then changed her name to Soror Juana Inés de La Cruz.
In Sor Juana's time, the convent was the only refuge in which a female could properly attend to education of her mind, spirit, body and soul. She was surrounded by books, musical and scientific instruments at the convent. She would study and write poems, dramas, novels, literature in general. She was often visited by European and American intellectuals who wanted to exchange knowledge and experiences with her.
The beautiful monk was well-know and admired by everyone. Her writers were not just popular with Religious scholars, but amongst University students and teachers from different places. She was known as the "Monk from the Library". (...)
She defended women’s rights to be intelligent, to be capable of teaching and preaching freely. (...)
In 1695, Mexico City was plagued by an epidemic. Sor Juana Ines' fellow sisters were afflicted with the terrible disease; Juana helped not just her fellow sisters but also the majority of the city’s population who got affected by the plague. She died due to this illness by the age of 44.