Ursula Micaela Morata

Ursula Micaela Morata
Sister Ursula Micaela Morata
Venerable
Born	21 October 1628 Cartagena, Spain
Died	9 January 1703 Alicante, Spain
Venerated in	Roman Catholic Church
Feast	–

Ursula Micaela Morata (Cartagena, Spain, 21 October 1628 - Alicante, Spain, 9 January 1703) was a nun, mystic, and founder of the convent of the Capuchin Poor Clares in Alicante, Spain.

Born into a well-to-do family, Morata was the youngest of thirteen brothers and sisters. Her father, Marco Aurelio Morata e Iscaya, was an Italian knight from Savoy. Her mother, Juana Garibaldo, from Madrid, was also of Italian ancestry. They died within three days of each other in 1632, when Morata was three years old. She was left in the care of her elder sister, Sebastiana. When she was four years old, she had her first mystical experience during an attack of smallpox that brought her to the brink of death. In her own words,

Thus began her spiritual apprenticeship, in which she acquired the dominant ideas of the time as regards prayer, fasting and mortification, receiving through these practices other mystical experiences.

Thanks to her sister, she learned to read and to write, an uncommon practice at the time, especially for women.

In 1647, she took her religious vows in the convent of the Capuchin Poor Clares of Murcia, adopting the name Micaela.

When plague ravaged Murcia in 1648, Sister Ursula Micaela nursed the sick. In 1651 and 1653 the river Segura overflowed, forcing the community of nuns to abandon their convent and take refuge on Monte de los Ermitas. During this period, Sister Ursula Micaela experienced the dark night of the soul, a stage of spiritual crisis described by many mystics. In 1652, she was ordered by her confessor to write her autobiography.