Preamble

These phenomena are grouped under the three orders of intellectual, emotional, and body.

We describe the multiple aspects of mystical life; later we will discuss the causes.

In the first volume, we studied the mysteries of the Contemplation, which is like the substance, the centre and the end of mystical life.

In this one, we propose to enumerate and group the mystical phenomena distinct from the Contemplation.

These supernatural phenomena, of which man is the subject, appear in his soul and body.

The soul is a showy activity: it sees and acts;

She sees to act, from which it results as two principles of life, one of which is intended to feed the second and to enlighten her by showing her its end.

The body consists of a set of organs that connect the soul with intelligence and action with the outside world.

Intellectual life, emotional life, organic life form the three aspects of human life.

God's supernatural and mystical action on man is directed primarily and ultimately to the will, to provoke it and subject it to the ineffable union of charity. But, in accordance with the order that governs every reasonable nature, this action goes first through intelligence, and again goes back to it through the luminous rejailing of love. And then, one and the other, the intellectual movement and the emotional movement, obeying the law that binds the soul to the body, exerts glorious radiance on the organs, as in their turn the senses send to the soul, from the outside, countless influences.

However, depending on whether the action has its focus and its main seat in the mind, heart or body, the facts are classified and characterized by this predominant aspect.

All mystical phenomena can therefore be classified under one of these three forms: intellectual life, moral life and sensitive life. This classification, we must not forget, has nothing rigorous or exclusive, since most of these facts have simultaneous or successive resounding in all three orders.

Chapter I

The Visions — Of Visions in General

Various points of view from which the phenomena of the intellectual order are grouped. — Visions; their notion. — Three species: the body vision, the imaginary vision, the intellectual vision. — These three kinds of visions, far from excluding, are often mellitus together. — Their respective excellence. — The degree of holiness they assume in the subject that receives them. — Conduct to be held in visions. — They constitute true miracles.

[. — We place in the category of intellectual facts those who appear and are circumscribed in the circle of thought. One could give them the common name of visions, since intelligence is at the bottom only the eye of the soul, and the act of the eye is vision. However, since this expression is reserved in mystical terms to designate the supernatural manifestations of an object by presence or by representation, this special and traditional meaning must be respected.

18. Tuox. 14. P., q. 67. to. 1. Dicendum quod de aliquo nomine duplicater convenit loqui; uno modo secundum primam ejus taxem; alio modo

secundum usum nominis. Sicut patet in nomine visionis, quod primo impositum est ad significandum actus sensus visus, sed propter dignitatem

& Visions

The intellectual life also takes the form of hearing, which has given the thinking faculty the name of understanding, and the object of thought, that of speech.

Most mystical communications are accomplished by visions or words.

Visions and words that reveal naturally unknown facts are revelations.

Finally, in addition to these ordinary forms of mystical life, it still occurs in the mind, through supernatural infusion, of lights and mental facilities for the sciences and the arts, which hold prodigy.

The study of the mystical phenomena of the intellectual order will embrace all these points of view: Visions, Words, Revelations and Infuse Aptitudes.

This first chapter and the following will be devoted to Visions: Serious and thorny matter on which it is important that spiritual directors be fully informed, in order to also keep themselves in mind, and against systematic denials, and against excessive credulity.

IL.—There is a supernatural vision when a person or something that, in the circumstances given, cannot be seen naturally, appears in the eyes of the soul or body in their own reality or in an image that represents them.

The vision can therefore be defined: the supernatural manifestation of a being by true presence or by representation!.

and certitudinum hujus sensus, extensum cest hoc nomen secundum usum loquentium ad omnem cognitionem aliorum sensuum... And ulterius etiam ad cognitionem intellectus, secundum illud Matth. v, 8: Beali mundo rope, phoniam ipsi Deum emptybund.

1 Voss, Direct, Myst. 1. 2, 2. P., c. 1, p. 349: Visio supernaturalis vel extraordinaria est intuituus objecti cujusdam a Deo nobis singulari modo présentati.

Schram! seems to narrow the field of vision too narrowly, admitting only celestial or divine objects. As soon as any object, naturally absent or invisible, reveals itself, in reality or in figure, in the eyes of the soul or body, by virtue of a manifestation or representation that is outside the laws of nature, there is vision.

Some mystics, among them the pious Cardinal Bona?, distinguish between vision and appearance. According to this author, there would appear when we see an unknown figure; and vision, when the mind has the intelligence of what it sees. Generally these two words are taken one for the other, and, if one had to distinguish between them, it seems that the appearance is best related to the thing manifested, and the vision to the subject that contemplates it.

IT. — The different kinds of vision are reduced to the classification adopted by St Augustine in the twelfth and last book, all devoted to this subject, of his literal Commentary ‘on Genesis. According to the holy doctor #, visions are bodily, spiritual or intellectual, depending on whether they are addressed to the eyes of the body, to imagination or to pure intelligence. To the expression of spirit, clearly explained by St Augustine, the imaginary one has been substituted.

1 Theol. myst. 8 494, t. 2, p. 197: Is autem visio cognitio nobis indebita quae fae cum presentatione celestium seu divinorum.

2 From Discr. spir. ©. 15, n. 2, p. 283: Observandum is quod liket visio et apparitio pro una et eadem re accipi soleant, aliqua tamen inter utramque distinctio reperitur. Nam appartitio dicitur cum nostris obtutibus sola related species se ingerit, sed si quis appareat ignoramus; cum vero externæ apparitioni ejus intelligentia conjuncta est, tune visio calllatur.

8 De Gen. ad litt. 1. 42, c. 7, n. 16. Hæc sunt tria genera visionum...... Primum ergo called corporatemus, quia per corpus percipitur, and corporis sensibus exhibitor. Secundum, spiritual: quidquid enim corpus non est, and tamen aliquid est, jam recte dicitur spiritus; and utique non est corpus quamwvis corporori similis sit, imago absentis corporis, necile ipse obtutus quo cernitur. Intellectual vero tertium, ab intellectu.

There would be some intemerity to sway from a division generally followed, according to Schram!, and, after Alvarez de Paz?, with complete unanimity, by the Fathers and theologians.

IV. — Far from excluding, these kinds of visions may exist together and have the same object, but considered in three different points of view: in the external vision, as a body; in the imaginary, as a sensitive representation; in the intellectual, as a truth heard.

According to St Augustine, the body vision presupposes the other two; the imaginary vision presupposes the intellectual; only, the intellectual remains without the first two. In front of an external appearance, his image forms in the mind, and at the same time the hearing grasps the pure truth of the object manifested, which makes a triple vision: the first, the body; the second, the imaginary; the third, the intellectual. The holy doctor, who seems to us here to yield to his penchant for the antithesis and to bring them closer-

1 Theol. myst. $ 494, schol. 1, t. 2, p. 197: Juxta S. Augustinum, S. Isidorum, S. Thomam, Rich. Victor., S. Bonaventuram and communicate SS. Patres a Theologos, visiones dividuntur 1° in corporeas seu sensibiles, quae visus corporei ministrerio contingunt; 2° in inraginarias aut spiraluales, ut aut aut August., queæ fiunt per species seu figuras et imaginés rerum in phantasia existées, quod in vigilia vel in somno evene potest; 3° in intellectuals, quae sunt clarissima rerum divinarum manifestio, quae in solo intellectu absque figuris and imaginibus perficitur.

2 De grad. contemplative. D. 3, c. 10,t. 6 p. 587: Tria esse apparitionum genera, corporeum, imaginarium ct intcllectuale, apud omnes tum Patres, tum Theologos, certum est.

3 From Genes. to liter. 1.192, c. 11, n. 22, p. 581. Corporalis sane visio nulli horum generi præsidet, sed: quod per eam senttur, li spirituali tanquam præsidenti nuntiatur. Nam cum aliquid oculis cernitur, continuo fa imago ejus in spiritu, sed non dignoscitur faeta. nisi cum ablatis oculis ab eo quod per oculos viebamus, imaginem cjns invencrimus. And squidem spiritus irrationalis is, velut specoris, special use oculi nuntiant. If autem anima rationalis is, etiam intellectui nuntiatur who and spiritui præsidet, ut, sicut illud quod hauserunt oculi, atque id spiritui, ut ejus illie imago firet, nuntiaverunt, alicujus rei signum est, aut intelligatur continuo quid significet, aut quaeratur; quoniam nec intelligi, nec requiri nisi officio lied potest.

It is not a question of the fact that we are not going to be able to take a decision on the matter, but rather of the fact that we are not going to be able to do so. This king of Babylon sees a hand that writes on the wall the end of divine justice: this is the bodily vision. The shape of the mysterious characters is fixed in his mind; it is the imaginary vision that succeeds the previous one. The intellectual vision is in the explanation that the prophet Daniel will bring.

Hence St Augustine concludes that the body vision relates to the imagination, and this one, to the intellectual!.

Interpretation is more subtle than true, and it will confuse the natural exercise of thought with supernatural vision. Thus, when the unmistakable Balthasar sees the mysterious hand plotting the terrible sentence, he makes himself a supernatural bodily vision; but the image of the characters that is grave in the mind is more than a natural act of imagination or memory. Similarly the explanation he receives of these signs, through Daniel's mtermediary, is for this prince only a mere act of intelligence. There are indeed 1c1 two supernatural visions: the first, body, which addresses the king of Babylon; the second, intellectual, in the prophet Daniel, but, in relation to the subject, one is independent of the other.

These visions can therefore be linked, as they may not be. A remarkable example of the supernatural vision in the three forms in the same subject, although the last object is different, is found in the Magi?: a star appears to them appreciably; they receive at the same time the meaning of this external sign, and, after having recognized and worshipped the Child God, they are warned, during

1 De Genes. ad liter. 1. 19 c. 12, n. 24 p. 582: His itaque hujusmidi rebus diligenter considerratis, satis apparet corporalem visionem referri ad spiritalem, eamdemque spiritalem referri ad intellectualem.

- What? Matth. n.

their sleep, to return to their country by another way.

That the body vision and the imaginary vision usually need, to be heard, a corresponding intellectual vision, cannot be challenged; but if the first two occur in naturally known and sufficiently explicit forms, the intelligence of these manifestations will not constitute a phenomenon of supernatural order.

V. — If the three visions are brought closer together to assign them an order of dignity and excellence, the intellectual is placed first, and the one that occurs in the imagination is higher than that which is purely external.

The mystical authors, following St Augustine, agreed to put the three visions in this order.

This hierarchy takes on the objects and effects of these different visions.

The world of material realities is inferior in perfection and dignity to the ideal world which serves as its type, and the purely intelligible world, considered by the only aspect of truth which is the first attribute of being, is superior to any other world and to any other aspect. That is why St Thomas? joins this reason, that the intellectual vision-

1 From Gen. ad litt. 12, c. 24 n. 51, p. 604: Habent utique ordinem suum, and is aliud alio præstantius. Præstantior is enim visio spiritalis quam corporalis, and rursus præstantior intcllectualis quam spiritalis. Corporalis enim sine spiritali esse non potest.. At vero spiritalis visio etiam sine corporali proudi potest.. Item spiritalis visio indiget intelletuali ut dijudicetur; intelletualisautem ista spiritali inferiore non indiget; ac per hoc spiritali corporalis, intelletuali autem utraque subjecta est.

2 Sum. 2. 2., q. 174, a. 2: Manifestum is autem quod manifestitio divinæ veritatis quae fai per nudam contemplationem ipsius veritatis potior est quam illa quae fai sub similitudine corporalium rerum; magis enim appropinquat ad visionem patriæ secundum quam in essentia Dei veritas conspicitur. And inde is quod prophetia per quam aliqua supernaturalis veritas conspicitor secundum intellectualem visionem, is dignior quam illa in qua veritas

supernaturalis manifestur per similitudinem cororalium rerum secundum imaginariam visionem.

tuelle approaches the glorious vision of the homeland, where one will contemplate without veil all truth, in the divine essence.

Grading in objects of these visions naturally determines another proportional one, in the eflets they produce. In itself, through the effects of grace that accompany them, imaginary vision prevails over the body, and intellectual vision over the other two.

What we have just said about the relative perfection of the three kinds of visions taken in general, does not prevent such sensitive vision from being higher than any other, imaginary or even intellectual, because of the superminence of the object, the brightness of the light. Thus the actual appearance of the Saviour who is at the gates of Damascus, Saul, the future apostle of the Gentiles ", seems to us more precious and greater than the imaginary vision? by which the Lord sends the disciple Anania to the persecutor transformed into an election vessel.

Let us also note, with Scaramelli?, that when visions mix and complement each other, there is one that is the main one, and that this role is not always devoted to intellectual vision, which it can just as well suit material and imaginary visions. When Moses, for example, saw the burning bush of the desert, and received in his mind the meaning of this mysterious flame, the sensitive and outer appearance formed the main object, and the inner illumination subordinated to this symbol, the secondary object. And as the act draws its perfection from its main form, and not from what is accessory to it, it follows

1 Act. 1x, 3 and 2nd.

2 Ibid. 10: And dixit ad illum in visu Dominus.

8 Diret. Mist. Tratt. 2, c. 17, n. 194, p. 119: Nelle visione miste, alle volte la visione intellettuale à la principale, e la visione immaginaria è accesseria.... Altre volte poi la visione immaginaria à la principale, ce l ́intellettuale à secondaria. Prupiamo l'esempio da quella visione ch的ebbe Mosè nel deserto, quando vacuum il roveto intatto a aunt flame divoratrici, etc.

the fact that, in visions, the superiority of one species over another should not be speculated by absolute principles on the relative perfection of the different orders of knowledge, but by the nature and circumstances of each particular apparition.

The general principle remains no less; intellectual visions occupy the first place; imaginary visions the second, and bodily visions the last.

VI. — This principle becomes a practical rule when it comes to appreciating the perfection of the subject to whom God bestows these favors. The illuminations of the intellectual order, higher of their nature, go, as by normal destination, to the most perfect; the sensitive apparitions, which are at the bottom of the scale, are suitable for the least perfect; and the imaginary visions, which hold the middle, naturally find their place between the extremes, and must be those which accommodate best to all degrees!.

But how should these extremes and intermediaries be heard? It is important to explain clearly here to avoid any inaccurate, excessive conclusion.

We said that mystical life referred regularly to the highest state of spiritual ascension, to the one-way path, but was not entirely excluded from the lower degrees. This doctrine is based on solid foundations: we will not contradict it.

1 Purzrpp. To SS. THIRD. Theol. myst. P. 2,Tr. 3, D. 4, a. 1,t. 2, p. 397: Hæ tres species visionum celestium, quamvis in qualibet via contingant, nam and incipientibus non solum corporca, sed etiam imaginaria et intelelctualis visio rerum coeælestium communictur, and similiter proficientibus ac perfectis; frequentius tamen accidit quod visio communicata incipientibus in via purgativa sit corporea; visio communicata proficientibus in via illuminativa sit imaginaria, ct visio communicata perfectis in via unit sit intelectualis, ut sic perfectio visionis perfectioni viæ and stati personæ congruat; certum est enim quod visio corporea est infima, visio imaginaria est media, and visio intellectualis is suprema, non solum quoad modum

ipsius visionis magis aut minus materialem, imaginatio namque is minus materialis visu corporeo, and intellectus is penitus immaterialis.

Fr. Scaramelli, faithfully reproduced by his abbreviators!, poses in principle that the body vision is the proper beginnings?, that the imaginary vision is the part of those who begin and those who progress in spiritual life, although. one and the other are granted, by exception, to the most advanced; that, only, the intellectual vision is the lot of the perfects."

This doctrine on the relative perfection of the three visions is not unique to the Italian author we have just quoted. Joseph Lopez Ezquerra *, from whom he borrows, says of these same visions that they are commonly looked at by

mystics as the regular part of beginners and progressers.

These assertions, thus extended, may be subject to some corrective measures.

From the admission of all, intellectual vision generally occurs only in the high peaks of mystical life, and it is only rarely and iransitically that it is granted to the lower states of perfection.

1 Voss, Direct. Myst. 1. 2, P. 2, c. 1, to. 1, p. 359. — at. 2, p. 373. — to. 3 p. 382.

P. Serapouin. Prince of Theol. Myst., n. 376, p. 323; n. 398, p. 338.

C. VBRHAEGE, Theol. Myst. Manual, 1. 2, ©. 1, 8 1, p. 258. — & 2, p. 372. — $3, p. 280.

2 Diret. Mist. Tratt. 4, @ 3, n. 30, p. 263: The visioni corporee sono favorite propriet dei principalianti, che incommunciano a camminare nella via dello spiritto. Non voglio già dire con questo che Iddio talvolta per suoi fini particolari non faccia tali grazie anche a persone molto avrantagiate nella perfezione, etc.

3 Jhid. v. 7, n. 102, p. 286. The visioni immaginari... sono propriete dei principalianti e dei proficienti, che non sono ancor bene purgati, benchè molet volte si concedana da Dio per suoi fini particolari ai perfetti.

Four Direts. Myst. Tratt. 4, c. 5, n. 417, p. 292. The visioni intellettuali sono proprie di quelli che si trovano già in isto di perfezione. Ciô non ostante, pospono qualehe volta concedersi ai meno perfetti..

& Eucern. myst. Tract. 5, C. 3, n. 49, p. 88: Hæ imaginariæ visiones regulariter eveniunt vel incipientibus vel proficientibus nondum bene purgatis, ut communiter tenent Mystæ.

Another point also out of dispute is that the appearances of the body, according to the expression of Alvarez de Paz!, do not belong to true holiness. We can have these visions and not be holy, as we can be holy and not have one. If they brought holiness by themselves, Balaam and his donkey, according to the pleasant remark of Saint Bonaventure, would have been holy, since both had also the vision of the angel. They meet in the good and in the wicked, with this difference however that they become suspicious and must be put on account of the lying spirit, if they address themselves frequently and without any vestige of conversion to sinners obstinate in evil.

Let us add that the demon frequently resorts to these kinds of manifestations, either because he exercises a greater empire over material objects than over souls, or because these prestiges are better suited to tempting the flesh.

This is why, when these apparitions occur, we must not rush to see the testimony of a virtuous insignia.

These concessions made, here are some reservations.

The assertion that restricts the appearances sensitive to the beginnings of spiritual life seems to us to have little historical basis.

1 De grad. contempl. 1. 5, P. 3, c. 11, p. 590: Sciat ille hac apparitionem visibilem esse omnium infimam et illusioni diaboli magis expositam. Is quidem omnium infima ex eo quod sensibus exterioribus percipitur who imagination and intelligentia longe sunt imperfectiores; nisi strong huic visioni Corporali visio intelelectualis adjungatur..... Sciat etiam has apparitiones ad veram sanctitatem non spectare, quia eas habens propter illas non is sanctior, and illis carens, propterea quod sibi non suppetunt, no is imperfectior. Dantur hae occulto et justo judicio Domini tum bonis, tum malis. Nam and Pharao and Balaam visum vidrunt, and Nebuchadnezzar and Balthasar, and alii multi, and propter haec inseta visa meliores non fasti sunt.

2 De Profect. religios. 1.9, c. 76,n. 3,t. 12 p. 434: Item (in hoc convenient), quod nec faciunt sanctum nec ostensible; alioquin Balaam (Num. xx, 25), sanctus esset, and ejus asina, quae vidit Angelum.

To question only Scripture, the most remarkable external apparitions mentioned in it are addressed to Abraham t and Jacob?, Moses *, Tobias # and his family, the Blessed Virgin Mary *, Zechariah 5, St. Peter *. Will it be said that these characters, including the most holy Mother of the Saviour, were still in the labors of purgative life, when they saw angels dressed in human form or other sensitive wonders?

It is true, Scripture tells some facts of mated visions.

In many other cases, such as the Sodomites &, Balaam *, Balthazar *, Heliodorus, and in many others, the high virtue of which is not clearly indicated enough to be said to be perfect, for example, Agar #, the family of Loth, Gideon*, Samson's father and mother. The ecclesiastical and hagiographic history reproduces the same facts and in the same proportions, namely: the greater number of body apparitions for the benefit of the saints, some made to sinners who amend or harden; others in subjects whose degree of virtue it would be difficult to specify.

This is even more true and easier demonstration, applied to imaginary visions.

These inner illuminations by sensitive images are transient and accidental acts, or periodic states of prayer.

In the second case, it is contemplation; and the usual contemplation supposes that the soul that enjoys it has gone through the passive trials we have spoken of; heroic struggles, where the soul depletes, silluminates and reaches, otherwise

1 Gen. xvm. — 2 Gen. xxx. — 3 Exod. 1. — 4 Lib. Tobiæ. — 3 Luke. 1, 26. — 6 Luke. x, 41. — 7 Act. xu, 7. — 8 Gen. xix. — 9 Nam. xx. — 10 Daniel, v. — 11]I Mach. m. — 12 Gen. xx, 7. — 13 Gen. xix. — 14 Jud. vi, 12. — — 15 Jud. xx, 3.

at the highest peaks, at least at the first avenues of the one-way path.

Passing phenomena can occur independently of passive purifications; and, therefore, in souls that are not yet purified, either from the filth of mortal sin, or from the impetuousness of sensual passions, or from the stains of venial sin and voluntary imperfections, i.e.: in sinners themselves, in those who begin, in those who progress in spiritual ways. But apart from contemplative prayer, it is mainly to the more perfect souls that God grants these kinds of favors.

In evidence, the only way to open the Bible is to open up the Bible.

Laban!, Pharaoh?, Nebuchadnezzar, have had imaginary visions; but these visions are otherwise numerous and brilliant among the holy biblical characters Abraham *, Jacob, Joseph, most of the holy prophets, Judas Machhabaeus; and, in the New Testament: the glorious Saint Joseph #, the Magi?, the prince of the apostles #?, Saint John #, Saint Paul #, Saint Ananie of Damascus.

The lives of the saints overabund in fact of this kind, and, for an imaginary apparition granted to the weak and imperfect, he meets one hundred in souls illustrated by their holiness. Let us read the writings in which the Brigittes, Gertrudes, Teresus, Marguerite-Maries, Marys of Agréda, narrate the supernatural communications they received from heaven, and we will see how often God reveals himself in this human form of imagination, not only in the first trials, but until the climax of spiritual life.

1 Gen. xxx1, 24. — ©? Gen. xui. — 3 Daniel, n.— 4% Gen. xv, 1 and 12. — 8 Gen. xxvim, 12; xxxr, 11. — 6 Gen. xxxvu, 5, 9. — 7 IT Mach. xv, 2. — 8 Matt. 1, 20; xx, 43, 19. — 9 Matt. n, 12. — 19 Ace. x, 18. — WU Apocalyp. passim. — 1? Act. 1x, 10. — 13 Act. xv1, 9; xvin, 9.

What to conclude from these facts, except that imaginary visions, and even external visions, though of all the least perfect, remain insignificant graces, which God sometimes grants to sinners to convert; less rarely to those who take the first steps in virtue, in order to excite them to struggle and walk with courage; more often to those who are in progress, to hasten their course; but in a normal way to the clean souls who are introduced and advanced into the mystical ways, which are therefore already entered into the unitary state.

These conclusions, in agreement with the facts, fully reflect the nature of these phenomena. These are real miracles in the order of sanctification, and they thus constitute reported rewards or exceptional favors, which suppose the soul already coming out of the vulgar paths and walking towards the high peaks. Caution, however, requires a great reserve in particular decisions, because, once again, these kinds of wonders can be produced by God in sinners or beginnings; and, more to be feared, they can be the work of the lying angel, or pure illusions of the clean spirit.

VIT. — A question naturally arises here: what conduct should be held in the presence of these apparitions of which the demon may be the author?

Alvarez de Paz‘, who formulates on this point the common opinion of mystics, wants to be paid tribute to them

1 De grad. contempl. 1. 5, P. 3, c. 10,t.6, p. 592: Primo Christum sihi apparentm, vel virginem Mariam, vel aliquem ex Sanctis aut Angelis, reverenter and vote suscipiat, and congrua adoratione vel cultu se illi submittat. Nam, quamwvis ille esset diabolus, nullum est in hac adore periculum, ex quo ipse non diabolum adorat nec veneratur, sed Christi aut Sanctorum imaginem sibi ostensam: quae adoratio non in diabolum fertur, sed in Christum représentatum terminatur. Se etiam ad Domini and Sanc{orum amorem afficiat, and quid bonus and use sibi dictatur, quisque sit finished illius revelationis, waitat.

The objects they represent are: God and Jesus Christ, worship; the Most Holy Virgin and the saints, worship that suits them. Even then, he adds, that the demon would be the author of these representations, the honours that are given to them come back, not to this spirit of lies, but to the realities that they express. Saint Thomas! wants the reservation to be formulated, the vision to be truly divine.

It is not doubtful, at least, that one should not abstain, even when there is suspicion of evil deception, from irreverence towards these holy images. Saint Teresis, to whom inexperienced confessors had imposed in time contrary conduct, strongly blames any demonstration of contempt in these encounters, and wants his daughters not to obey those who would counsel or order similar practices. The reasons for this are compelling.

"In the thought that Our Lord is doing you these great favors," she said to them? "You will strive to satisfy him best and always have his face before your eyes. This made a learned man say that if the demon, who is a skilled painter, represented him in his life an image of the Saviour, he would not be angry; that he would serve him to give life to his devotion, and to fight the enemy with his own weapons. Although a painter is a bad man, he added, we must not let respect for the painting that he draws, if our property is there. That's why he found bad the advice given by some to welcome visions with signs of mockery, because wherever we see it, we have to revere the image

1 In 3 Sent. Dist. 9, q. 1, a. 2: Dicendum quod non potest diabolus, in specie Christi apparens, sine peeccato adorari, nisi sit conditio actu explicita; not enim sufficit solo habitu.

2 Intl. Chât., 6° Dem., ch. 9.

of our King. In this he was right; for even among men, if one person cherished another, she could not see without pain that she was outraged; how much more must we respect the image of Our Lord crucified, or any other who represents him to us! I like to repeat here what I said elsewhere on this point, because I knew a very distressed person who was ordered to use this remedy. I don't know who could have imagined it: it's only good to torment a soul to whom the confessor gives such advice and who thinks he is lost if he does not conform. Mine is that, if you are given it, you humbly represent these reasons, and you do not follow it."

However, when it is evident that the appearance is a lie of Satan, we must refrain from any act of veneration, and repulse it with indignation and contempt!

Saint Philip of Neri?, to whom God had communicated to a remarkable degree the gift of discerning spirits, repeatedly gave the advice to spit on apparitions that he knew came from lying angel. This is in particular what happened to one of his disciples, François-Marie de Ferrare. One night he thought he saw the very Holy Virgin, all shining with light, and in the morning he told the Father about this vision. "What you have seen is not the

1 Bixsrecpits, Confession. Malefic. Præl. 12 p. 79. Dubium his esse potest utrum angelus Satanæ transfigurans se in speciem sive formam Christi, absque peccato posit adorari?.. Dicendum: Who exists veladvertit esse dæmonem sub forma Christi et adorat, committit crimen idololatriæ, quia sawns et prudens adorat dæmonem, and ipsi tributit cultum divinum, quod est pessimum scelus idololatriæ.

3 JEROME BARNAñBEI, BB. 26 Maiii, t. 19, p. 587, n. 376. Sequenti nocte sese illi iterum ostendit mentita virgo, ipse vero, præcepti memo, in 0s ejus expiuit; quo facto, umbratilis larva statim evanuit. Nec ita multo post in oratione perseveranti, vera Dei Mater appeared: cumque ille in cam expuree tentaret: Exposed, have Virgo, so buddies; conantic lingua and palatum adeo exsiccata sunt, ut saliva omnino caruerit. Tum vero Deipara: Optimism, inquis, Patris consilio paruisti, hominemque reliquite incredibili gaudio delibutum.

"Mother of God," said the blessed, "but a wicked "devil; therefore, if the apparition comes back, spit "on him." The next night, the false virgin appeared again, and the faithful disciple executed on time what had been commanded. To this sign of contempt the deceptive vision ssevanouit. At some point, while this brother was praying, the Mother of God appeared to him in reality, and as he once again tried to spit: "Scream, if you can," she said. He made vain efforts to draw from his tongue and palace the smallest drop of saliva. The Blessed Virgin then said to her: "You did well to obey the Father's counsel;" and she disappeared, leaving her servant flooded with heavenly consolations.

VIT. — These apparitions, we have just said, constitute real miracles, as well as the teaching, with St.Thomas, the common of the Doctors?. According to the established order, our world must remain in the shadows of faith; therefore, according to the laws of nature, God does not manifest himself significantly, and the righteous who enjoy bliss only appear among their traveling brothers to meet extraordinary purposes of divine Providence. This made St Augustine say that martyrs could only assist the living by the effect of God's power, and not by a proper and natural virtue. This must also be seen in the context of the

1 BENEDICT. XIV, Deserv. Dei Beatif, etc., 1. 4, P. 1, c. 32, n. 72, t. 4 p. 239: (Apparitionem inter miracula esse recensendam) communis hæc Scriptorum opinio, duce S. Thoma.

2 S. Thomas, Sum. 1 P., q. 89, a. 8, ad 2: Hoc quod mortui vitinibus apparent qualityrcumque, vel contingit per specialem Dei dispensationer: ut animæ mortuorum rebus vitrium intersint, et est inter divina miracula computandum; vel hujusmodi apparitiones fiunt per operations Angelorum bonorum vel malorum, etiam ignorantibus mortuis.

$ Of cura gerenda pro mortuis, c. 19: Ideo polius intelligendum est, per divinam potentiam Martyres vivorum rebus intersunt, quoniam defuneti per naturam propriom vivorum rebusesse non possunt.

tending angelic apparitions. The law that separates the two worlds is general and applies to God, our Lord, glorious souls and heavenly spirits. In itself, the work produced can be natural; but, in comparison to us, it is a miracle, since it contradicts this law of nature that does not allow man to establish direct and conscious contact with superior beings other than by faith and prayer. So when God, the angels or the saints reveal themselves to us, in mental or external vision, as natural as their action, we are no longer in the regular and constant course of nature.

However, the miracle varies according to the different visions. The appearance of the body does not present anything wonderful in the subject that receives it: it sees, it hears, it touches, by a natural exercise of its senses; the miracle is all in the outer manifestation of an object that does not regularly belong to our world. In the intellectual vision, on the contrary, the prodigy is in the very act of knowledge and. in the faculty that accomplishes it: the object may not doubt that it is the term of a supernatural perception. For the imaginary vision, it seems miraculous by this double aspect: the subject exercises his inner senses there with elements or at least under conditions which rennet him from his natural sphere: on the other hand, the external agent who impresses the imagination, although he acts, in itself, in a manner consistent with his nature, nevertheless establishes with the subject of the vision a relationship which is not in the normal and common course of Providence, relaion which must therefore be regarded as miraculous.

Chapter II

Of Corporeal Vision

What it consists of, and if it is addressed to all the senses. — Two ways of occurrence: by a prestigious action on the organs, or by the real and truly external appearance of an organized or fantastic body. — Precautions not to confuse body vision with imaginary vision.

I. — Body vision is the supernatural manifestation, and in a sensitive form, of an object external to the eyes of the body. It therefore carries these two conditions: a real impression of the sense of sight, in which it offers nothing but natural; and an impression by an object which is not naturally found in the visual ray of the seeing subject, and therefore appears there only by virtue of a miracle. The whole supernatural vision is in this last point.

Some authors, among which we will cite Saint Bonaventure! and Cardinal Bona?, extend the body visions to all the sensitive impressions that affect organs other than sight. This interpretation responds to the

1 De Profectu Religions. 1. Two, that. 76, t. 12 p. 434: Ad hanc potest referri quorumlibet sensuum experientia, ut auditus et gustus, odoratus et tactus, quia visus pro quolibet sensu poni potest.

2 Discreet. 1. 145, n. 4 p. 285: Corporeæ {viewed) nomenitur tam illi quae visus quam quam quae aliorum sensuum ministerio fit. Nomen quippe visionis primo impositum est ad actum visus significandum, ad omnem quoque aliorum sensuum functionem, propter ejus certitudinem et dignitatem extensum est.

common feeling, which describes as a vision any external wonder by which God warns man of his supernatural intervention. We do not believe, however, that we should follow it. The matter we are dealing with is complicated enough so that we do not mingle sufficiently distinct elements. We will point out the impressions that strike the ouie, at the place where we will deal with supernatural words, and those of taste and smell, when these are mystical phenomena in organic life.

But we would gladly qualify as bodily appearances the concussion produced on the sense of tact by external objects that would hide from sight. When, for example, Heliodorus! was flogged by the angels in the temple of Jerusalem, at the time when he was ready to plunder its treasure, it can be said that there was a true appearance there, even though the heavenly executors would have accused their presence only by the blows they had taken over the desecrator.

IL. — The supernatural phenomenon of body vision can occur in two ways: by virtue of an immediate action, exercised by an external agent on the senses, to affect them in the manner of the ambient bodies, without there being any reality outside corresponding to the organic impression; or by the true intervention of a body that strikes the retina and determines the physical phenomenon of vision.

We cannot discover any metaphysical repulsiveness for God, angels or even demons to act on the organs, absolutely as a real body would do, under the common conditions of sensation and perception?. However this operation purely sensation-

LIL Machab. m. 2? WELL, PAZ, DE grad. Contemplative. 1. 5, P. 3, c. 10, p. 593: Sciendum est alio etiam modo has apparitiones exteriores ficri possesse, scilicet per

, assuming it is distinct from the imaginary vision, would irouble the normal order of nature; and, exercised above all on several at the same time, it is better suited to the disturbing and false habits of the demon, than to divine and angelic intervention!

When the vision presents, what is the common law, a real body, this body is natural and organized, if it is a living human person that appears, or falsified and composed for the circumstance.

We will examine later whether these apparitions are personal; and therefore, when it comes to Jesus Christ and his most holy Mother, or to living men, if they are there with their true body. = When there is no organized body, either because those who are naturally clothed do not appear in person, or because the beings who manifest themselves lack them, like pure spirits* and holy souls, the fantastic bodies that are open to the eyes are formed with the help of external elements assembled and arranged for this end. *

immutationcm sensuum nostrorum. Ita scilicet ut Angelus apparens nullum corpus assume, sed solum oculum vicentis immutet ct similitudinem aliquam inferat rei quam videri vult.

1 Suarez, De Angelis, 1. 4, ©. 33, n. 14, p. 540: Quamwvis autem hoc interdum contingat, nihilominus, quamwvis autem hoc, quamwvis autem contingat, nihilominus, quammwvis, quammms in corpore assumepto ab omnibus indifferenter emptyur, fere evidens indicium est non esse visionem tantum imaginariam, sed exterius sensibilem. Neque etiam est verisimile solum firei per ludificationem sensuum externorum, quia hujusmodi pr'æstigiæ non fiunt sine sine sensuum perturbatione, quae non semper fit nec cum fundamento aflirmari potest semper ita firei, quamvis negandum non sit, aliquado firei possess, ut Richardus supra late exponit.

2 SCHRAM, $497, sch. 1, t. 2, p. 206: Angeli boni, live representant principaliter Deum, live dum ses solos visibiles reddunt, corpus aliquo modo vere tale ab ipsis concetum assumeunt.

3 SUARE, De Angelis, 1. 4, c. 34, n. 5,t. 2, p. 512: Communis igitur et vera sententia est, illa corpora constare ex matcria clementali, seu inferiorum rerum gencrabilium ct corruptibilum, quia illa saltem necessaria et sufficit. Dicunt etiam communiter Theolologie manc materiam sumi ex aere præintant seu circumstante in illo loco in quo tale corpus formatur.

Speaking of the appearances of demons and damnations, we will tell how they compose their COrpS, and what elements they use.

Whatever their destination, the principles that fascinate them or move them, these bodies are not organized in the manner of the human body informed by the soul. They are simple instruments and masks with which spiritual power manifests its presence and action. It is in no way necessary for these bodies, which have the appearances of life, to be constituted alive, an operation which moreover exceeds the angelic power?; nor even that they receive the inner structure of the human deer, whether they have flesh and bones.

HT. -— It is understandable how easy it is to be delusional and to take for an outward appearance what is only in imagination. How can we get to the certainty that the vision is body, and that its object really exists?

A first precaution is to check the testimony of the eyes by that of the other senses, mainly by that of tact. But this control is often impracticable, because the objects of vision are not suitable for these experiments. And, if they lend it, it would not be decisive, abso- Jument speaking: for imagination can mislead a

1 S. Tomas, Sum. 1 P., q. 51, a. 2, ad 2: Corpus assumeptum unitur Angelo, non quidem ut formæ neque solum ut motori, sed sicut motori représentato per corpus mobile assumedum.

- What? Suarez, Angelis, 1. 4, ©. 35, n. 4 p. 544: Poterit ergo Angelus simile corpus assume, and illud ita movere, ut and visui, and auditui, and tactui vibrum esse vividatur. Respondo in primis non possesse Angelum naturali virtute tale corpus formare.

3 Suarez, 1bid. n. 3. Nihilominus dicendum is corpora quae Angeli assumed sub species humana, non habere organizationem corporis humani, etiam quoad dispositions accidentals singulorum membrorum, ut carnis, ossium, etc.

sense, and even delusionalize them all, by pleasure or by a great exaltation.

However these kinds of illusions cannot be long-lasting; if therefore the appearance perseveres a notable time and undergoes the test of mutual control of the senses, it must be held as objective and body,

The most effective sign is that the apparition occurs before many and in the eyes of all indistinctly?, as it happened at the manifestation of the Cross before the army of Constantine, at the descent of the two angels to Sodom, and in the mission of the angel Raphael to the young Tobia. This is the remark of Saint Thomas, who serves to establish that angels sometimes take true bodies.

However, if the public and common manifestation of many is proof of the external objectivity of the vision, the opposite is not a peremptory reason to challenge it; for an appearance that remains invisible to the

1 Boxa. From Discr. spir. c. 19, n. 6 p. 300. Vera item corporis assumeio illa censeri debet quae tactus percipitur, ut cum Abraham angelorum pedes humana forma apparentium lavit; cum ipsi Loth manu apprehensum e civitate comburenda eduxerunt; cum Jacob tota nocte cum uno ex illis luctatus est. Multis quoque experimentis compertum est dæmones interdum mulicribus improbos esse. Viris item sanctis frequently appeared non per præstigias et deceptiones, sed in assumeptis corporibus, etc.

2 ScurAM, $510,t. 1. 2, p. 231: If visio vel apparitio ab omnibus præsentibus indifferententer percipiatur, fere evidens signum is visionem seu apparitionem esse exterius sensibilem, seu cororalem.

8 Sum. 1. P. q. 51, a. 2: Quidam dinerunt angelos nunquam corpora assumee, sed omnia quae in Scripturis divinis leguntur de apparitionibus angelorum contigisse in visione prophetie, hoc est, secundum imaginaireem. Sed hoc repugnat intentioni Scripturæ. Illustr enim quod imaginaria visione vidtur est in sola imaginée vicentis; unde non vidtur indifferenter ab omnibus. Scriptura enim divina sic introducit interdum angelos apparent ut communiter ab omnibus emptyenteur; sicut angeli apparent Abrahæ, visi sunt ab eo, et a tota familia cjus, et a Loth, et a civibus Sodomorum. Similiter angelus that appeared to Tobiæ ab omnibus emptybathur. Ex quo manifestum fit hujusmodi contigisse secundum corpoream visionem qua emptyur id quod positum is extra emptyem; unde ab omnibus emptyi potest. Tali cnim visione non vietur nisi corpus.

Many, and only a few, can be seen, however, external and real.

This is the teaching of theologians and mystics, especially Cardinal Bona', and after him of Benedict XIV*?. One and the other allege in support the appearance of Our Lord to Saint Paul on the way to Damascus: "Those who accompanied him, it is said in the book of Acresf, were amazed, hearing only one voice and seeing no one." Saul himself perceives the Saviour present only from the look of the spirit. It would therefore not be necessary to

not to rush away from a vision any character of objectivity, on the pretext that the person who attests to it would have been alone, among many, to see and hear. Wisdom demands, as the learned pontiff "of which we have just invoked authority, that he be assured of the good faith and correctness of mind of the witness, and that he decide, according to the circumstances of the account, whether the vision has been external or only imaginary. For, that she may be sensitive to one another, without being for the other, he

1 De Discreet. spirit. c. 19, n. 6 p. 308. Asserit S. Thomas, quod imaginariam appearanceem ille solus percipit ad quem fit; externam autem and corporalem omnes percipiunt, quod enim extra vicentem positum est, omnes empty posunt.. No is tamen hec nota infallibilis: Paulo squidem corporaliter appeared Christus, turned by the same name that comilabantur cum eo stabant stupefacti, audiens quidem callem, neminem autem emptyes. Idque propriom est corpori glorioso ut se uni manifeste posit, subtracta reliquis præsentia sua, quamvis nullum obstaculum interponatur.

2 De servorum Dei beatif. etc., 1. 4, P. 1, c. 32, n. 5, p. 240.

3 Act. 1x, 7.

4 Servor. Dei beatif, etc. 1. 4, P. 1, c. 32, n. 145, P. 240: Loquendo de illis, qui de sibi factis apparitionibus testantur, sæpe contingit ut, coram aliis sint factæ, sed unus viderrit, alii autem non viderint, unus callem audiverit, alii non audiverint, and hinc oritur dubitatio an asserenti se vidisse aut audivisse fides demenda sit, eo quod alii non viderint aut audiverint... Ex quibus proinde infertur, si probata sit fides ejus qui sibi factam refert apparitionem, esto ea contigerit, dum esset cum aliis et alii non viderint, ex hoc firmum deduci non pose argumentum adversus apparitionis veritatem, quia potuit esse imaginaria, aut quia, si corporalis leaks, Deus facere potuit, ut unus videret, cæteri autem non viderint, quit quia, si corporalis leaks, deus facere potuit, ut unus videret, cæteri autem non viderint, quia appeared.

There is no serious reason to doubt it. For this reason, it is sufficient that the agent who operates the vision outside prevents or diverts the natural radiation from the object manifested. Such effects certainly do not exceed the power of God, nor the virtue of angels, nor, at least for misappropriation, that of the demon; and they are part of the privileges of glorified bodies which may appear or disappear at the will of souls."

Here, as in most of the circumstances in which the supernatural is at stake, it is important not to rush to conclude that it is impossible, but to weigh carefully all the elements and to pronounce after all.

1 SuAREz of Angelis, 1. 4, c. 33, n. 13 and 14, t. 2, p. 540: In hoc tamen advertere interdum possesses Angelum exterius appears alicui visibiliter, ita ut per oculos corporis ab ipso conspiciatur, and nihilominus quod ab illis circumstantibus non vivacatur.....

Chapter III

Of Imaginative Vision

What it is, and how it differs from natural imaginations. — Its short duration. — It often occurs during the time of sleep. — When it arrives the day before, it does not always take away the alienation of the senses. — It is representative or symbolic. — The elements that contribute to its formation.

I. — Imaginary vision is a sensitive representation, entirely circumscribed within the limits of imagination, and which presents itself supernaturally to the mind with as much vivacity and clarity as the physical realities themselves!

Between the visions representative of the mystical order and the purely natural imaginary facts, there is this difference that these are derived from the spontaneous work of the mind, born of previous thoughts, or at least respond to a expectation or desire, and faint with attention; while these occur suddenly, without preparation or feeling, and disappear likewise, some effort that is made to prolong them.

These visions, when they come from God, still have

- What? S, Croix, Montée du Carmel, 1. %, c. 16, p. 184, by ALFRED Giczy: Here we mean by imaginary vision all the objects that the imagination can supernaturally receive in any resemblance, figure or appearance whatsoever, and this, in a way more perfect and distinct than by means of the senses..

for character to dwell deeply in the mind. However, this memory can erase at times, in times of drought and spiritual aridities, and even disappear completely ©.

In addition to the imprint they mark in memory, real visions are still distinguished from natural hallucinations by the grace effects that follow them, as we will often have the opportunity to notice.

Moreover, contrary to what is happening in the voluntary imaginations that one considers and that one prolongs at his will, the imaginary supernatural visions only manifest to the extent that it pleases God to

assign them. Holy Teresis { and the other mystics observe that

1 St. TERÈSE, His Life, c. 28: 11 It is true that what is seen is then forgotten; yet this majesty and beauty remain so printed in the soul, that there is no way to lose its memory, except that Our Lord wants the soul to be subjected to a trial which I must speak of and in which it is subjected to a drought, to such a frightening loneliness, that it loses even the thought of God.

2 Josepx Lopez EZQUERRA, Lucern. myst. Tract. 5, c. 5, n. 40, p. 88: Hæc imaginis impressio tantum durat, quantum ad optatum Dei performem deservit (quidquid sentient alii): quia hoc passim conspicitur et docet experientia, et suadet ratio; quia nihil in prædictis animabus disponit divina providentia, quin ad earum profectum reducatur. Ergo tantum durabit performed and memoria visionis, quantum ad profectum animæ necessarium sit.

83 St. TÉRÈSE, His Life, c. 28. The soul, after this vision, is all changed; always it is in a sweet intoxication: it feels a new love of God that ignites it to a very high degree.

4 His Life, c. 29. When it pleases Our Lord to show us this image, we cannot see it in the way it represents us and in the degree it wants, without it being in our power to take away from it, nor to add to it, to fix or to turn away our gaze, and if we want to consider something in particular, the vision immediately ceases.

Our Lord gave me this grace in the space of two and a half years almost usually... While he was speaking to me and contemplating this sovereign beauty and the gentleness with which this beautiful and divine mouth uttered these words (although sometimes he does not leave to show rigour), whatever desire I have, at this moment, to notice the color and the greatness of his eyes, so that I may speak of it, I have never deserved this grace, and all my industries to succeed in it have been useless: all my efforts have been used only to make the vision disappear completely.

try vainly to see more clearly and fix certain aspects of the vision. These efforts almost always result in no more than stopping or absorbing the appearance.

IT. — This appearance elsewhere is of very short duration. Holy Térèse! says that she passes in a blink of an eye and like a flash; it is a shooting star.

The authors provide two reasons for the brevity of these visions.

The first is the vivacity of their radiance?, which is such that the organism could not long support the tremors and transports of the soul under the blows of its rapture.

Holy. Teresis, to whom these kinds of favors were like families, speaking of the admirable light in which Our Lord revealed to him the divine beauty of his humanity, "this light," she wrote, "infinitely surpasses the light here below, and by its rays that flood the gleaming eye of the soul, those of the sun lose so much their luster, that it would not only open their eyes to look at them... This light is a day without night, always shining, always luminous, without anything being able to obsessive. At last it is such that the most penetrating mind could not, in all its life, form an idea of it. God shows it so suddenly that if it were necessary to see only the eyes open, it would not be a pleasure. But it doesn't matter whether they're open or iron-

1 Int. Chât., 6° Dem. v. 9. And although it happens so quickly that it can be compared to a flash, this glorious image remains so strongly printed in the imagination, that it seems impossible for it to erase.

2 Josepn Lopez EzquerRA, Luke, myst. Tr. 5, ©. 5, n. 41, p. 88. Lumen veræ visionis tantum excedit potentiæ capacitatem, quod ad ejus receptionem anima immutatur and countermiscit propter novitatem et efficaciam luminis, and modum intimæ, velocissimæ et vivaæ représentationis quam manifesto cognoscit vires naturæ superare; propterea nullautés potest eam diu intueri et irreverberatis oculis conspicere, alioquin non vera visio infusa erit, sed profunda et proprio imaginatio.

8 His Life, ch. 28. &

_ 30 = visions

When Our Lord wants us to see, willingly, badly willed, we must see. There is no distraction, no resistance, no care, no diligence that can prevent it. I know this through a good experience."

The second alleged reason is that the imaginary vision usually succeeds the intellectual vision. When it pleases God to give the intelligence of the sensitive appearance, the soul will soon remain more captivated by the sense of vision than by the vision itself, and it thus passes from the sensitive contemplation to the purely intellectual contemplation.

Saint Térèse! affirms that "these two kinds of visions always come together". The saint speaks in this place of the supernatural manifestations of Jesus Christ through imagination, which usually bring with them the light that reveals its meaning to the intelligence. But imaginary visions often occur without any simultaneous or subsequent intervention of intellectual vision, either that the first of these visions suffice itself, or that it remains enigmatic and unexplained, or that it receives a later interpretation.

The last hypothesis is often realized in miraculous dreams, God showing to some symbolic images, and giving others the intellectual view of what they express.

III. — Imaginary visions occur, indeed, during sleep or in the state of sleep.

There are some who distinguish between dreams and dreams. Dreams are the divagations of the mind during sleep; dreams would designate intentional and supernatural manifestations. In any case, we cannot dispute

1 His Life, c. 28: These two kinds of visions always come together: thus, through the eyes of the soul, one sees the excellence, beauty and glory of the most holy humanity; and by the other one knows that there is a God, that he is powerful, that he can do everything, that he commands everything, that he governs everything, and that his love fills everything.

the reality of visions in the form of dreams. ‘ These visions can be intellectual, and this was probably the one where King Solomon asked and obtained from God the gift of wisdom? The common law is that visions that occur during sleep are rather imaginary. In general, when Scripture speaks of apparitions made during the night, or of divine communications made in vision, these manifestations can be considered imaginary.

Cardinal Bona * demonstrates, through all sorts of authorities, the existence of imaginary visions in the time of sleep. He cites more than twelve passages from Scripture where dreams were the expression of God's wills and the prophetic announcement of wonderful events. Just remember the two famous dreams of Pharaoh # and Nebuchadnezzar‘, the first interpreted by Joseph, the second by Daniel. This learned author goes so far as to claim that God is best communicated to man during sleep, and the reasons he brings are worthy of attention.

"There are various causes," he said, "for which there are more appearances and revelations when we sleep than when we watch. During the day before, the soul is usually absorbed and distracted by the multiplicity of care and business, by various thoughts, removed from itself, agitated by tumultuous movements that prevent it from seeing and discerning what is good and right. When you sleep, on the contrary, you are free from all worry and trouble, you are present and attentive to yourself, and everything that offers to the inner faculties.

1 Suarez, of Religion.). 2, c. 13, n. 18, t. 13, p. 554: Veritas autem catholica est, haec somnia and a Deo and a dæmone immitti possesse.

? [ Reg. mm.

$ Of Discreet. Spirit., C. 16.

+ Gen. xux.

$ Dan.

8 De Discr. sp. c. 46, n. 3 p. 289: Cur vero in somnis plumes quam in vigilia appearance and revelations flant, diversæ sunt causæ. Etc.

We see it without difficulty, we judge it healthy.

"In addition, in the day before, we do not fail to reason and discuss everything that comes to mind or imagination, and, if something seems to disagree with reason, to reject it. In sleep, one is rather passive than active, more prompt and more able to receive divine operations: instead of discussing the reasons one has to believe, one simply believes.

"It must be accompanied by the silence of the night, the rest of the external senses and the quiet cessation of all external things that can entertain and release attention, which means that the objects that then appear make deeper and lasting impressions in the mind. And because the images sent from God always have the virtue to mean something, man, during the drowsiness of his external senses and in the absence of any extrinsic obstacle, is more effectively instructed of the meaning of these images, although, thus asleep, he is not able to discern how he could see these things and hear them."

Alvarez de Paz!, to whom the considerations we have just quoted have been borrowed almost textually, adds others, among them the following, which does not seem to be disdaining, namely: that this supernatural communication brings forth the power of God, who can speak to man and intimate his wills at a time when, plunged into sleep, forgetful of all things and of himself, his faculties seem bound and unable to understand anything.

For this reason, which is true in its substance, to have all the scope that it seems to be given, it would be necessary for God alone to have the power to speak to man during

1 De grad. contempl. P. 3,c. 11,t. 6 p. 598: Quarta, ut Deus suam in hominem potostatem manifestet. Nam homo hominem nisi vigilantem, audiettem and waitem docere non potest. Deus autem altissimus sleeping-

tem and somno indulgencem, and sui ac omnium oblitum docet, and suum imperium in facultates nostras: quamodocumque impediantur, ostendit.

that he sleeps, which is not: for we will see, and the author whom we quote expressly teaches, that the devil can accomplish this kind of wonders.

Dreams may be viewed as supernatural and divine visions, when they present nothing but suitable and make a deep and lasting impression on the mind that brings good; but this kind of supernatural is difficult to establish legally. The insistence of the same vision, on several occasions, can still serve as a sign for miraculous intervention.

But dreams must be held to be supernatural when they announce events to come above any human previsian, and these events are realized as they were foretold. Thus, when Jacob's children found their brother Joseph master of Egypt, and they paid him their respects, it became clear to them that the dreams which he had told them in his childhood, and which were foretelling his future greatness, came from God.

It is the same when many people, without prior concert, without knowing each other, have an identical vision that interests the glory of God, as happened to Pope Libere and to the two godly spouses who founded in Rome the church of St.Marie of the Snows, later called the Basilica of St. Mary of Majeure. The Mother of God appeared to them all the same night, and warned them that at the place of Mount Esquilin where the snow had just fallen, they had to raise a church in his honor!.

1 Brev. Wheel. 5 August, 5° leg.: Nonis igitur Augusti, quo tempore in Urbe maximi calores esse solent, noctu nix partem collis Exquilini contenxit. Qua nocte Dei Mater separatim Joannem et conjugem in somnes admunuit, ut quem locum nive compersum viderrint, in eo ecclesiam ædificarent, quae Mariæ Virginis nomine dedicaretur: se itavel ab ipsis heredem institui. Quod Joannes ad Liberium Pontificem detulit, which idem per somnium sibi contigisse asserts.

IV. — The imaginary vision that occurs on the previous day may occur with or without ecstasy.

On the first point, unanimity is complete. From the admission of all, the most favorable time for these visions, whose images of the mind are all fresh, is that where the exercise of external senses is suspended, or by physiological and natural sleep, or by the supernatural sleep of ecstasy.

But can the vision through mental images be accomplished outside of ecstasy, or does it inevitably lead to the alienation of senses?

Here the deal is no longer the same.

Saint Augustine seems to make the suspension of external senses a condition of the spiritual vision realized in the imagination!. However, 1l attached some corrections to his thinking. The essential thing, according to him, is that we distinguish the imaginary appearance from the real perception of existing bodies, and that we recognize the supernatural character of this spiritual vision, no matter what it occurs during sleep, during the day before or in ecstasy?

Perhaps the angelic doctor is more precise: "When prophetic revelation, " he says, "takes place in imaginary forms, "there is a need for the abstraction of meanings, so that this fantastic appearance is not brought back to what feels outside. But the abstraction of the senses, adds-

1 From Gen. ad lité. 1. 19 c. 19, p. 583: Sed cum vigilantes neque mente a sensibus corporis alienata, in visione corporali sumus, discernimus ab ea visionem spiritalem qua corpora absentia imaginaliter cogitamus... Ab his omnibus ita discernimus illa corboralia quae viemus et in quibus præsentibus sunt sensus corporis nostri, ut non dubitemus haec esse corpora, illas vero imaginées corporum.

2 De Gen. ad litt. 1. 12, c. 12 p. 584. Verum hoc interest, quod eas a præsentibus verisk corporibus constanti affectione discernunt. If autem aliquid significant, sive sorbentibus exhibitur, sive vigilantibus, cum and oculis empty præsentia corpora et absentium imaginées cernunt spirita tanquam oculis præsto sint, sive illa quae ettasis dicitur alienato prorsus animo à sensibus corporis, mirus modus est.

3 Sum., 2. 2., q. 173, a. 3.

It is sometimes perfect, and then the hornme no longer perceives anything through them; and sometimes imperfect, with the senses still exerting on the outer objects, not however in such a way as to fully discern what is perceived from the outside with what is imaginaryly seen."

Bona, who enjoys such a high reputation for wisdom among mystics, states clearly in one place ‘that there is alienation of meanings in imaginary visions; but elsewhere?, he assumes that these kinds of visions can be performed when man is in full possession of himself and in the use of his senses.

The authors of two books recently published in Belgium make fewer reservations, and keep in mind that the imaginary vision never goes without ignoring the meanings.

"The imaginary vision," said Fr. Seraphim *, always asks the alienation of the external senses, so that the person does not confuse what strikes his senses with what he sees in his imaginative power."—"Imaginary visions," said Fr. Verhaege {, always suppose the alienation of the senses in the person who receives them; otherwise she would easily confuse what she sees from the eyes of the body with what she contemplates from those of the soul.»

The alleged reason does not seem decisive. For the body vision can be seen, as we have said, by the control of other senses, or by the multitude of those who see, or by external effects that the imagination

1 De Discr. spir. c. 17, n. 3 p. 293: Agnoscimus quidem in visionibus imaginariis, ut supra ostensum est, abstractionem a sensibus.

3 Ibid. c. 16, n. 1, p. 287: In explicatis visionibus imaginariis, quae, homini vigilanti cum sui composing est, vel eidem in ecstasi constituto et a sensibus avulso accedere solent, magnorum virorum auctoritate in superiori capiie usi sumus; nunc eadem adhibenda est in iis exponendis, quae sommeentibus somniantibus interdum contingunt.

3 Principles of Theol. myst., n. 397, p. 338. 4 Theol. Myst. Manual, p. 272.

cannot realize. Similarly, the imaginary appearance will be recognized as such, if it remains as lively, even after it has closed its eyes, or if there is no trace of the external effects it seemed to produce {. Most often, it is true, these precautions are unrealizable; but what follows-11l? Only one thing, admitted from all mystics, is that it is not always easy to decide whether the vision was real or only imaginary. *

Moreover, the assertion itself that there is no imaginary vision without abstraction of the senses is expressly contradicted by the most serious and competent authorities.

"This vision," said Alvarez de Paz, "comes to man in sleep and sleep; and, in the state of watch, both when he is master of himself and when he is out of his senses, as in ecstasy or delight." And later *: "Man can therefore receive the imaginary vision in four different ways: first, awakened and without abstraction of the senses; second, raised to

1 ScaRaM, $511, t. 2, p. 233: Quino visio vel apparitio, sive in vigilia live in somno, internal contingit, sine omni objecto exterius in sensus externos occurrente, vel si etiam exterius in sensum externum proui vidtur, totum tamen in sensu externo præstigiosum est, imaginaria censenda est.

2 Joan. To Jesu Maria, De Orat. contemplative. Tract. de Rapt. n. 10, t. 2, p. 605: India fit, quod, quando abstractio vel alienatio a sensibus imperfecta est, not easy discerni quat id quod quis tantum imaginatur ab eo quod exterius vidtur. Quod magistros et doctores spirituales notare oportet, ut prudenter de hisce rebus judicent.

3 De grad. contemplative. 1. 5, P. 3, c. 11, t. 6 p. 593: Accidit autem hæc visio imaginaria homini in vigilia, et in somno; and in vigilia, vel cum is sui composure, vel cum in ecstasi aut raptu est ab usu sensuum externorum avulsus. Accidit etiam in vigilia, cum anima pie Deo intendens ad id inspiciendum erigitur, quod Deus illi, vel in se existi, vel a sensibus externis abstractæ revelare disposuit.

4 Ibid., p. 596. Quadruplicate ergo homo apparitionem imaginariam potest habere. First vigilans and abstract abstraction a sensibus.. Secundo, positus in ecstasi; and tertio,"constitutus in raptu qui vehementior est... At so quarto modo apparitio imaginaria fiat, nimirum in sleepis, ete.

Ixtase; thirdly, carried away by rapture; fourthly, in sleep."

Benedict XIV! reports and approves this remark of Cardinal Laurea, that visions are not always united with ecstasy.

Philip of the Most Holy Trinity #, speaking of the imaginary apparitions of the Saviour, observes that they almost always determine ecstasy in the soul that contemplates them; but he adds * that these kinds of visions are not all as sublime, and that there are less perfect ones than those where the humanity of Jesus Christ is revealed.

The statements of this Carmelite religious are based on the account that his mother seraphic, Saint Terèse, makes of his own experiences. She assures, in fact, that when Our Lord grants to a soul the inner vision of his holy and resplendent humanity, "it falls almost every time into ecstasy, its lowness being unable to sustain a view that inspires so much fear." 4.

If the most dazzling appearances, provided they are of short duration, may not delight the use of the external senses, especially those which do not have so much brightness and make on the mind a less vivid impression.

1 De servorum Dei beatif. 1. 3, c. 50, n. 1, p. 358: Visiones non semper ecstasi esse conjunctas bene animadversum fuchet a Cardin. de Laurea in sæpe citato opusc. de Oratione, c. 8.

3 Sum. Theol. myst. P. 2, Tr. 3, D. 4,a.92,t. 2, p. 404. Unde fere sencper in hac sublimi communicatione, rapitur anima in estasim.

3 Jbid., p. 405: Certum est quod non semper est æque perfecta, nec tam viva visio imaginaria, qualis superior descripta est; superior enim descripta purissimæ sanctæ Matri Teresiæ tanquam pignus amoris Christi in eam specialis, and in suorum Jaborum præmium fuchet concessa. Pluribusautem animabus non ia puris, nec sic bene meritis, visiones imaginariæ non tanti preti nec sic sublimes conceduntur; nec semper sunt humanitatis Christi, sed aliquado sunt vel angelorum, vel alicujuus sancti, quibus paulatim ad majores disponuntur, and posted dispositæ ad illas elevantur.

4 Interesting Ch., 6° Dem., c. 9: Casi todas las veces que Dios hace esta merced à el alma, se queda en arobamiento, que no pueda su PAIE sufrir tan espantosa vista. — Cf. His life, ch. 28.

"38 visions

All these testimonies allow us to conclude that the exercise of senses combines with imaginary visions and allows us to explain without difficulty how these apparitions sometimes seem to be located outside, among the objects that we continue to perceive from the eyes of the body.

V. — The imaginary vision is simply representative or symbolic.

It is representative, when it offers a faithful or at least sufficiently similar image of the object that it recalls. It is symbolic or enigmatic, when it n'a with the reality that it expresses that a positive relationship, whose meaning, when it is known, is indicated by human or sacred traditions, or by a special revelation.

The appearance of St. Bruno to the count of Sicily, Roger, while this prince was asleep, to warn of the danger of his days, was representative. " The one where Patriarch Joseph saw in a dream the sun, the moon and the stars coming in turn to worship, was only symbolic.

Symbolic visions are numerous in our holy books. The dream in which Jacob * saw a ladder that went from earth to heaven, and angels that went down and up; the dreams {which presage his future greatness to Joseph; those of the two servants of Pharaoh ÿ, Pharaoh himself $, Nebuchadnezzar *; many prophetic visions of Jeremiah, D. Ezekiel, Daniel, D. Hosea, and other prophets, especially those of St. John in Revelation, were but mysterious emblems by which God revealed his wills, promises, or threats.

This form of divine communication is never interrupted in the Church, and the history of holy souls presents countless features of it. Who knows the dream of

1 BB. 6 Oct., t. 51, p. 662, n. 637. — 3 Gen. xxxvn, 9. — 3 Gen. xxvin, 12. — 4 Gen. xxxvn. — % Gen. xz, 9-19. — 6 Gen. xzi. — 7 Dan. u, 26-45. — 1Y.

Saint Perpetuation on the eve of his martyrdom ‘? The visions of Saint Gérardesque, of the third order of the Camaldules, are so high, so full of images and mysteries, that his historian * compares them to the scenes of the Apocalypse.

The most frequent symbolic revelations concern the joys of heaven, the fights and privileges of virtue, the divine industries of the love of Jesus Christ for men. The stay of the blessed is shown in a thousand different forms, which make it heard the splendor, abundance, happiness, security. Light, singing, greenery, flowers and perfumes, the most beautiful things on earth, become images of the sky. Saint Norbert * appeared, immediately after his death, to one of his religious, first in his human form, but soon transformed into a beautiful lily of admirable whiteness, which the angels collected with their hands and carried to the heavenly abode.

Saint Elizabeth of Sconauge * saw a ladder whose foot rested on a wheel always in motion, and whose top reached to heaven, very beautiful, but slipping on its base and arduous to climb, which meant to it the purpose, the work and the perils of Christian life.

One day delighted in ecstasy, and contemplating the divine Virgin holding her inanimate Son between her arms, Saint Madeleine de Pazzi saw the wounds of the Saviour as many fiery furnaces where men were classified, according to the diversity of their virtues. The wound of the feet was a first

1 Act. martyr. — ® BB. 29 May, t. 20, p. 163 et seq.

8 NicepnOR. BB., Vita S. ANPREÆ SALI. Coroll. ad 28 maïi, t. 19, p. 18", a. 16 Jun., t. 21, p. 844, n. 16.

S EcxBERT. Schonaug. Vita S. Elisabeth, n. 48. Mign., Patr. laë., t. 195, Col. 445, n. 48 et seq.: Salam vidi supra rotam stantem, quae tantæ celsitudinis erat, ut cacumen ejus coelos penetrare vietratetur, etc.

6V. Cepar, BB. 95 maïii, t. 19, p. 296, n. 219: Dixit: Plagas pedum, manuum atque lateris quartet ardent esse fornaces, etc.

Where iron was thrown to amollier, that is, sinners whose hardened heart would wait by the tears of sincere contrition, and become flexible and docile under the hand of God. The wound of the left hand was the furnace where the stones, under the action of fire, turn into lime; it is that of the converted sinners who build up the Church of God, such as Saint Paul and Saint Madedeleine, whose conversion contributed so greatly to the building up of the first faithful. In the third, placed in the right hand, formed the glass, symbol of the virgins, who make the ornament and beauty of the mystical body of Jesus Christ. The plague on the sacred side is the furnace which receives, burns and liquefies gold, image of perfect charity, and which designates holy souls united to the Word by faith and love,

Blessed Baptistine Varani!, of the order of St. Claire, read her name written in the heart of Jesus in large and beautiful capital letters of gold.

God reveals himself, sometimes outside old age and majesty, sometimes under the image of strong and beautiful youth, sometimes by the brightness of light or the infiniteness of immensity?. Jesus Christ loves to appear under the gentle emblem of the Lamb. * The saints show themselves in sheaves of flames and bright globes, to express the light that surrounds them and the love that consumes them.

Temperance and chastity appear at St Gregory of Nazianze, in his teens, under the figure of two virgins of incomparable modesty and of an all-heavenly beauty 4. The alms, as a virgin crowned with olive branches, rejoices and caresses the most famous of

1 BB. 31 Maii, t. 20, p. 478, n. 29: O quam belle apparebant in rubenti corde tuo litteræ aureæ, capitals antiquæ, isthæc expresses: Ego diligo, Camilla. (Name of B. before entering religion.)

2 Fr. SyLvEsTR., BB. 18 Jun. B.V.A. Osannæ Mantuane, t. 24 p. 579, n. 65,

3 EcxBEerT. Schonaug. Vita S. Elisabeth, n. 31, col. 137, n. 31. 4 S. GREG, NAZIANZ. Carm., 45, v. 229-985.

His favourites, Saint John the Chaplain!. Saint Laurent Justinien, barely nineteen years old, sees in a vision Wisdom offering to become his wife and guide?.

This is the form in which God revealed to Saint Hildegarde the glory and pain of the Church. "In the year of the Lord 4170," she wrote to the abbot of Kircheim, "I saw an image of a beautiful beauty. (was a woman figure, so beautiful that man's mind cannot conceive a similar ideal. As his feet touched the earth, his head was lost in the light of heaven. The youth shone on his face, and his sparkling eye looked up. His garment was a white silk robe, which was covered with precious stones, and where the emerald, the sapphire, and the onyx married pleasantly. But a cloud of dust came to disturb the purity of his features; an enemy hand came to tear his robe; his coat lost its brightness; his feet lost their way in the fogs. Her voice was mixed with the storm, and she said: "City, darken yourselves, for the purity of my features and the beauty of my face have been defiled. Cry, O earth, the garment of my glory is laced. Abîmes, tremble; my steps have been lost in the fogs. While the foxes have their dens, while the birds of the sky have their nests, I have no one who comforts me, no one who supports me; the stick on which I could have pressed my staggering steps is broken in my hand 4."

We wouldn't end if we wanted to enumerate the emblematic forms by which the supernatural world

1 LEONSE, BB. 93 Jan., t. 3 p. 114, n. 11.

3 S. LAURENT. Just a little bit. Fasciculus amoris, ©. 16, fol. cLxxxIv.

3 Epistol. 59, Werneri de Kircheim, Patr. lat., t. 197, col. 269: Vidi, vigilans corpore et animo, pulcherrimam imaginem, muliebrem foram habentem, quaæ electissima in suavitate et charissima in deliciis, tantæ pulchritudinis erat, ut eam mens nequaquam comprehendere valeret, and Cujus stura a terra usque ad coelum pertingebat, etc.

4 Trad. de M. Ricmaun, Saint Hildegarde, his life and his works; 1st 1876, p. 132. + 10 2*

reveals itself to man. By attaching ourselves to this historical point of view, we would come out of our subject; and, after having told, if possible, everything that has been done, we would be unable to say what will be done, since everything is positive in these emblems, and that they can multiply to infinity. Let us continue our task, by seeking with the help of what elements are realized in the mind the imaginary representations.

VI. — Saint Augustine! teaches that imaginary visions are carried out in a spiritual light of their own, and attributes its execution to the heavenly spirits. But how do they do it? The Holy Doctor declares that this is a difficult thing to conceive and even more difficult to express. Do they communicate their own thoughts to us, or do they make the vision appear in our own mind?

All the authors admit, together with St Augustine, divine enlightenment, in which part the apparition is realized?. The difficulty is to assign the elements that contribute to its formation. For Pélucider and to solve it, one must distinguish the three conditions in which inaginary vision can occur.

The supernaturally manifested object appears in the imagination under already known outsides, or under features that correspond to the usual images of the mind, or under a

1 De Gen. ad litt.1. 12, c. 30, p. 613: Sicut autem in ista luce corporea est cælum quod super terras suspicimus, unde luminaria clarent et sidera, quae corpora longe sunt meliora terrests: sic in illo genere spiritali in quo empostur corporum similitudes luce quadam incorporali ac sua, sunt quaedam excellentia et merito divina, quae demonstrant Angeli miris modis; utrum visa sua faeili quadam et præpotenti junctione vel comixtione etiam nostra esse faientes, ans scientes nescio quomodo nostram in spiritu nostro informre visionem, difiicilis perceptu, et difficilior dictu res est.

- What? WELL, PAZ, DE grad. Contemplative. 1. 5, P. 3, c. 11,1. 6 p. 594: Semper autem vel lux naturalis a superiori natura, nempe a Deco vel Angelo, comfortatur, vel nova lux superioris ordinis secundum rei revelatæ demandiam immittituur.

new form that has nothing from previous perceptions!. The souls of purgatory often present themselves to their friends with the sad figure of the body that they animated. Our Lord sometimes shows himself as we imagine, according to the Gospel descriptions or the paintings that represent him. Other times, according to most contemplatives, its forms and beauty go beyond what we can conceive.

The first case is a simple fact of memory; the second, a phenomenon of imagination. The supernatural of one and the other consists in the instantaneity of the evocation outside of any human cause capable of producing it, and in the heavenly clarity that accompanies it. God, by extranatural action, excites and coordinates in the mind the ideas that respond to the objects that he wants to manifest.

As for the visions that are nothing in common with the notions acquired, it is obviously necessary, assuming such, to admit the supernatural appearance of new ideas in relation to these sublime novelties. On how these superhuman ideas are given to man, different interpretations according to the diversity of theories concerning the nature and origin of our knowledge.

Supporters of Aristotelian doctrines see in

1 Pazæp. To SS. TRIN. Theol. myst. P. 9, Tr. 1, D. 4, a. 2,t. 2, p. 405: Hoc modo contingit visio imaginaria. If sit alicujus objecti prius in seipso visi, species ejus acquisita divinitus excitatur ad illud representativeandum in ordine ad performed supernatural intentos in Deo media tali visione: puta, si quis prius cororaliter vidit S. Mr. N. Teresiam adhuc in carne mortali vitem, ct post ejus mortem in visione imaginaria ipsam intuetur. Si vero sitalicujus objecti, non quidem in seipso corporaliter visi, sed visi in aliquo sibi simili, vel per partes, tunc imaginatione coordinanteur species acquisitæ, quibus divinitus coordinatis ipsum objectum adæquate représentatur: puta si quis viderit aliquem virum sanctum, et alibi viderit martyrium alterius, si Deus voluerit illi nescienti quidquam de novo prædicti sancti martyrio ipsum martyrem représentare in visione imaginaria, coordinat illas species quasi partial ad hoc totum totum représentandum. Sed si visio sit alicujus objecti nunquam visi, vel si debeat esse tam perfeeta, quealis est illa superius descriptiona, tune debet species objecti in imaginativee divinitus infundi.

These notions, which the intellect could extract from impressions coming from outside, new species created for the circumstance and supernaturally injected into the mind by the ministry of angels!.

Those who profess, following Plato and Saint Augustine?, that our ideas are not mental forms, but that they have an objective reality, that our mind contemplates them, that it does not do them, these must resort to a whole other interpretation more in relation to their theory. Harmonious mixture of sensitivity and intelligence, the imagination, according to them, is the faculty that under a sensitive but purely inner impression, analogous to that which material things determine in the organs, perceives and combines the eternal ideas of the bodies, with their infinitely multiple forms; ideas awakened in us, or rather, — for they are not a part of us,

1 ScHrAM, Theol, myst. 8,502, sch. 2, t. 2, p. 216: Visio simplex imaginaria duobus modis proui potest: 1° imaginable vel species per sensus externos haustas, ita Deo available and ordinante, ut id referant quod ipse intensit; 2° novas species, Deo formante, per quas illustrator intellectum ad cognoscendum and penetrandum quod illæ représentant. And whoa Deus hoc communiter per Angelos fait, Angeli homines illustrire dicuntur quatenés licatet per se phantasmata non imprimant; movent tantum humores and spiritus vitals, quibus commotis, phantasia ad operandum excitatur and per illam intellectus ordinate and convenienter ad distinct cognoscendum movetur. 46: Ideas Plato primus calledlasse perhibetur; non tamen si hoc nomen, antequam ipse institutet non erat; ideo vel res ipsæ non erant quas ideas vocavit, vel a nullo erant intellectæ... Nam no is verisimile sapientes, aut nullos fuisse ante Platonem, aut istas quas Plato, ut dictum est, ideas vocat, quaecumque res sint, non intellexisse, siquidem tanta in eis vis constituitur, ut nisi his intellectis sapiens esse nemo posit. Sunt namque ideæ principales formæ quaedam vel rationes rerum stabiles atque incommutabiles, quae ipsæ formatæ non suht, ac per hoc æternæ ac semper eodem modo sese habentes, quae in divina intelligentia continentalur. And cum ipsæ neuque oriantur, neuque interesting, secundum eas tamen formari dictur omne quod oriri et interire potest, and omne quod oritur et interit. Anima vero negatur eas intueri possess, nisi rationalis, ea sui parte qua excellit, id est, ipsa mente atque ratione, quasi quadam faie vel oculo suo interiore atque intelligibili.

— expressed in the light of the spirit, in the encounter with the external realities which reach our senses. But, beyond the multitude of images that appear in the full day of our consciousness under the exciting sensation, God conceives countless of them, of which he can at his own discretion and without the sensitive tremor that regularly precedes the play of imagination, bringing into the human visual ray at least part, but not all; for this totality, confounding itself with the very fruitfulness of God, as he conceives and can realize the bodies, exceeds all finite capacity. The field is broad enough to provide all imaginable representations, and must suffice for man, since it is sufficient for God.

Perhaps the experimental notions that man acquires of matter feed the most supernatural sensitive manifestations; for at last we know what makes the essentials of the bodies and the various ways in which they affect our senses. By wonderful combinations that disconcert our conceptions, these elements are likely to take on all forms, and can, under the brightness of divine light, cast a resplendent which nothing in nature-can give us the idea.

Chapter IV

Of Intellectual Vision

His notion. — How is it distinguished from the natural conceptions of understanding, — and from visions either bodily or imaginary. — It occurs in the states of ecstasy, watchfulness and sleep. — Its two elements: the first is the object manifested: the intellectual knowledge of the object presupposes that it is present in mind. — Does Gette encounter be made by means of mental images, or by immediate perception? What one sees is often inexpressible. — The second element: supernatural light. — His three degrees. — His full certainty, and his exclusively divine origin. — His nature.

I. — Intellectual vision is a supernatural knowledge that occurs through a simple view of intellectuality, without any impression or sensitive image!

This vision is thus taking place in this part of the mind where things appear that do not have body or shape.

1 WATCH Paz, De grad. contempl., c. 12, t. 6 p. 598. Is aulem visio intelletualis manifestissima quaedam rerum divinarum aut celestium ostensio, quae soli intellectui inspiceienda objicuntur.

Josepn Lopez EzQuERRA, Luc. Myst. Tr. 5, c. 7, n. 60, p. 91: Hæc visio intelletualis is: Quaedam altissima notitia passive intellectui donata, vel per species acquisitas, vel nove a Deo productas; sed a solo Deo immediate absque sensuum et imaginais medio applictas intellectui. Ita docent communicate Mystici.

BoxA, De Discrete. spir. ©. 18, n. 1, p. 298: Is igitur visio intellectualis clarissima rerum divinarum manifestio, quae in solo intellectu absque figuris and imaginibus perfcitur. — Item. SCHRAM, Theol. myst., $505, t. 2, p. 220.

Scaramelli, Dirett. Mist. Tr. 4, C. 8, n. 1403, p. 286: Questa visione dunque consists in una notizia dell-intelletto, certa e chiara di qualche oggetto, senza alcuna forma, e figura o immaginazione che lo rappresenti, senza alcuna attuale dependentenza dalla fantasy.

and where matter itself only shows itself by the aspect of being. The supersensitive objects of their nature, such as God, the angel and the soul, and those also who are stretched out and strike our senses, when one considers in them only the truth, the mind contemplates them independently of any sensitive representation, either external or internal; and this operation is said intellectual, because it is due entirely to the ability to apprehend the beings by their purely intelligible side. Whether simple or compound, infinite or bounded, substances or modes: as perceptible by the spirit, they present themselves in a common aspect, that of being and truth. And this is why these kinds of visions are excellently spiritual!; for in this regard man does not distüing himself from the pure spirit, since he no longer sees images that are addressed, as a body, to the sensitivity, but by a simple glance of the intelligence.

So God and the creature, spirits and bodies, substances, facts and truths, in a word, everything that exists and can assert, can be the object of the intellectual vision?

IT. — If the vision we are talking about here had no other character than that of understanding the pure truth, it would not differ from the natural and rational knowledge: the supernatural which distinguishes it bursts out in plasieurs manners.

1 Paupp. To SS. Train. Theol. myst. P. 9, Tr. 2, D.5.a. 3,t. 2p. 409: Fertia species visionis rerum celestium is intellectualis, quia fit in intellectu, which is suprema animæ potentia cognoscitiva, pure spiritualis. Unde visio intelletualis is pure spiritualis.

2 Box, De Discr. spir. €. 18, n. 5, p. 301. Intellectual vision, tam res Corporeæ quam incorporeæ videri posunt. And first quidem Deus, and singularæ personæ Sanctissimæ Trinitatis: deinde Christus, B. Virgo, Angeli and. Sancti, tum multæ veritates de quibus anima educator, sive ad fidem spectent, sive ad mores: res denique omnes materiales, lieet absent, quae sunt in coelo et in terra.

It is first of all by its object, which is usually above the scope of our understanding, although it can absolutely be found in its radius; and in the latter case, the splendors which surround it bring it out of the conditions of natural vision. This light, which never fails, is overabundant and surpasses the most obvious claritys of reason; it is sudden, immediate, and has nothing to do with the work and the slowness of reasoning.

Duration is also a distinctive sign. While the natural conceptions, for deep though they may be, soon fade away, the mystical intellectual visions persevere for a long time, whole days, weeks, months, and up to years*; this must be understood above all by the deep impression that these kinds of manifestations leave in memory, and by the frequency with which God renews them, as soon as the soul to whom he grants these insignia returns in itself. The venerable Mary of Agréda speaks in her MYSTICAL CITY of several mysteries which were revealed to her intellectually, and which remained "almost continuously present" to her mind. Saint Térèse, reporting an intellectual apparition of Our Lord, "I knew very clearly," she said, "that he was always on my right side, that he saw all that I did, and as long as I gathered or was not extremely distracted, I did not

1 Voss, Compend. SCARAMELLI, 1. 2, C. 1, to. 3 p. 389: Non cito vanescunt sicut visiones imaginariæ, new brevi transeant, sed hebdomadas, and menses imo integros, etiam annos durare posunt.. Neutiquam ergo miretur director animam inveniendo quaæ, per menses et annos integros, vel Christi, vel B. V. Mariæ vel alicujus Sancti intellectualem habeat visionem.

2 Ste TÉRESE, Ché. int., 6° Dem., c. 8. I still know that this person (it is for himself that she speaks) was alarmed at the duration of this. favor, because intellectual visions, instead of passing quickly as imaginary, last several days and sometimes more than a year.

3 Q P., 1]. 1, ch. 2, n. 91.

4 His Life, ch. 27.

He could not know that he was close to me," and elsewhere, also speaking of intellectual vision, she points out as "very useful, because, although she is passing in a moment, she remains deeply engraved in the mind." The best rule is that which Our Lord himself gave to the saint?, after she had told her confessor that these visions passed quickly: "There is a difference between these (intellectual) visions and those that appear in the eyes of the soul under images; there can be no certain rule in these graces, because sometimes it is appropriate that it be in one way, and sometimes in another."

The effects of grace, which follow these visions, make it even more certain to recognize divine intervention. The light that fills Fasmé, the love that makes her tremble, the peace she enjoys, her momentum towards eternal things, her disgust for all that is not God, are as many testimonies as he has made in her a illumination alien to nature*.

HT. — I) is not difficult to indicate theoretically the differences that distinguish the imtellectual knowledge from the phenomena of imagination or bodily perception; but in practice it may be difficult to decide the character of the completed manifestations. According to Benedict XIV4, one can list among the visions of the intellectual order cases where it is undoubted that God appeared and spoke,

1 Chät. int., 6th Dem., c. 10.

2 Additions to His Life.

8 Purripr. To SS. TRI. P. 2, Tr. 2, D. 4.4. 3,t. 2, p. 411. Hujus visionis sunt plurimi ac pretiosi: quiet animae, lie illuminatio, gaudium gloriosum, suavitas, puritas, amor Dei, humilitas, inclinationatio seu elevatio spiritus in Deum. Who omnes performed aliquando magis, aliquando minus percipiontur; quandoque singuli æqualiter, quandoque inæqualiter, prout Deus voluerit, and juxta diversam animæ dispositionem.

4 Servorum Dei beatif. 1. 3, c. 50, n. 3 p. 359: Inter exempla intelletualis visionis, enumeratei debent visiones omnes et apparitiones in quibus certum est Deum locutum fuisse et apprendisse, et incertum an externa forma visus et humana voce locutus fuisse dicatur.

but uncertain in what way; no doubt because man being, by his nature, more strongly grasped by the emotions of sensitivity than by the mere views of the mind, if consciousness deposits with certainty on the fact of knowledge and silences itself on the sensitive impression, it is to be assumed that this impression did not take place, and that knowledge was consumed entirely in the understanding.

Tostat, the illustrious Spanish commentator, makes another no less important remark concerning the interpretation of prophetic revelations. He poses! as a general rule that Scripture signals an intellectual appearance every time she uses this formula, so often repeated in the Prophets: "This is what the Lord says: Hæc says Dominus."

In essence, the general rule that assigns the essential difference between visions is based on the nature and diversity of the faculties to which they are directed. External organs and imagination can perceive nothing but in body form, were pure spirits. On the contrary, in the eyes of understanding everything becomes spiritual, everything, even what is more corporeal*.

One question concerns scholastics, namely: whether intellectual vision can take place without the imagination entering into exercise. Is it true that the sympathy between intelligence and imagination is so intimate, that one of the

1 In Exod. c. x, t. 2, p. 109: Aliquis whencunque Propheta says: Hæc dicit Dominus..., illa quaet dicit cognovit sola elevatione intellectus per lamen supernaturale.

2 S. Lrouonrr, Prax. confess. n. 139, p. 187: Hæc visionum species, teste sancta Teresia, tota est spiritualis, nullam enim in ea partem habent sensus neque externi, neque interni, qui sunt imaginativa et phantasia. Notandum quod neuque oculis, neuque phantasia potest anima res sibi représentatas, nisi in apparentia corporea, etiamsi est essantiæ spirituales. E contra, beneficio intellectus res cernuntur tanquam spirituales,

etiamsi fuerint materials; vel, ut melius dicam, noscuntur, non-vacantur; sed noscuntur longe melius quam si oculis identifier.

These faculties cannot act without the other!. Whatever the philosophical point of view, which is of little interest to Mystics, all theologians agree that, supernaturally, the mind can be raised to the contemplation of pure intelligible without any cooperation of sensitivity?. That's enough for us.

IV.—Intellectual vision occurs in ecstasy or outside of ecstasy, but rarely in time of sleep; in this state, it is rather in the form of bodily images that divine communications are made. However, as soon as the vision is performed without a sensitive representation, whether during the night before or during sleep, it can be considered as a pure vision of understanding. This may have been the vision where Solomon received the gift of wisdom for the government of his people, and the mysterious sleep of the first man in the earthly paradise. It must be admitted that the soul of Jesus Christ Our Lord never lost sight of the Divinity, even while his body was asleep; and it is fitting to think that the same was true of his holy Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary #.

1 Suarez, from Religion. 1. 2, c. 14, n.3, p. 187: Dicendum est primo, naturaliter proui non pose ut homo in hac vita rapiatur ad veram Dei contemplationem per intellectum, nihil omnino cooperando per sensum, neque externum, neque internum. — Ita D. Thomas, 2. 2., q. 174, a. 2, ad 4; and ibi Cajet., estque communis senticia.

2 Jbid. n. 4: Nibilominus fatentur omnes theologique non implicare contradictionera elevari mentem hominis in hac vita ad hoc genus contemplationis, in quo intelligente contemplatetur sine illius sensus cooperatione. Ratio a priori est, quia haec necessitas cooperationis phantasiæ, dum intellectus noster operatur, no est tam essentialis vel intrinseca, ut repugnet impediri divina virtute, et confortari intellectum hominis ad operandum sine ullius sensus interni vel externi cooperatione.

3 Cornec. In Rabbit. Comm. in. 1. II Reg. mr., 5.

4 Suarez, from Relig. 1. 2, c. 19, n. 5, t. 14, p. 200: Exemplum clarisimum bujus rei est anima Christi Domini operantis per scientiarh infusam, up to singularis et excellens participatio fut in Beatissima Virgine, ut pie credimus...... Denique addit D. Thom. 13, de Verit. art. 2, ad 9, talem escapesse contemplationem Adæ in sopore à Deo illi immisso, quando voluit ex costa ejus Evam formare, quem soporem escapesse cum perfecta cognitione et intel-

D2 visions

V.—Whether it occurs during sleep or sleep, under the rapture of ecstasy or in the full possession of the senses, the intellectual vision includes a twofold element: the manifested object and the light that illuminates.

We have already said, anything that can fall under the eye of the mind can also become a matter of intellectual vision. But, among these objects, some are in the sphere of reason, others are above. According to the scholastics, the vision of the former takes place with the help of the acquired species, and the miracle then consists in the extranatural application that is made of these pre-existing ideas, and even better still in divine light that floods the soul. For suprarational vision, they require a miraculous immission in the spirit of new species, in relation to the mysteries to be revealed, except perhaps for a certain vision of God, which would be direct and without any intermediary. As for the object represented by these ideas or species, they ensure that it is sometimes present, sometimes absent.

These interpretations, logically in harmony with Aristotelian doctrine concerning our knowledge, are not necessary.

One point that initially seems unquestionable is that

ligentia mysteriorum Dei in 3 part. q. 1, a. 3in How. latius dixi cum D. Thoma, ibi ad 5, and 2: 2., q. 2, a. 7, and Hicron. ad Ephes. 5; August. 9. Genes. ad litt. v. 19; Tertull. lib. de Anima, c. 4, and aliis quos ibi retuli. Imo sent D. Thom. in loco de Verit., cum August., 1. 12, by Gen. ad litt., hunce modum contemplationis pure intelletualis interdum communicatori aliis sanctis cum perfecta intelligentia and judicio circa ea quae revelantur.

1 Pricpp. To SS. Tin. P. 2, Tr. 2, D. 4, a. 3,t. 2, p. 411: Hæc visio intelletualis diverso contingit medio, sicut supra dictum est. In infimo sui graduated, did per species acquired, in intellectu præexistentes, divinitus tamen applicitas cum reali aliquiando préæsentia rei visæ. In sublimiori graduated, did per species novas divinitus infusas, cum eadem aliquando reali presentia. In supremo graduated compossibili cum fide, vidétur proui in ipso Deo, non tamen clare viso, ut multi docent pe and in addducta S. Mr. N. doctrina emptyur indicari.

the intellectual vision carries with it the actual manifestation of the object that it reveals. When this object is a fact, it is a fact that is seen; when it is a truth, it is a truth; when it is a body, it is a body; when it is an angel, it is an angel; when it is God, it is God. The truth shows itself here in its simple nudity; and it is precisely in this, according to Saint Thomas, that intellectual vision prevails over imaginary and bodily visions. "The immutable Truth," said St Augustine?, "spokes by itself, in an ineffable way, to the most intimate of the reasonable creature; or it speaks by the mutable creature: to our mind, by spiritual images; to the ear of the body, by sensitive voices." The three orders of supernatural manifestations are there, and in the first, which formulates the intellectual vision, — there is no need here to distinguish between vision and speechÿ, — the truth is revealed and speaks for itself, as St Augustine expresses itself: IPSAM.

Cardinal Bona‘ sums up the distinctive features of the intellectual vision: "It is accomplished in the upper part of the mind, that is, in the understanding, not as he reasons, but as he sees and sees.

1 Sum. 2. 2. q. 174, a. 2: Manifestum is autem quod manifestitio divinæ veritatis quae fai per nudam contemplationem ïipsius veritatis, potior est quan illa quae fai sub similitudine corporalium rerum; magis enim appropinquat ad visionem patriæ, secundum quam in essentia Dei veritas conspicitur. And inde is quod prophetia per quam aliqua supernaturalis veritas conspicitur secundum intellectualem visionem, is dignior quam illa in qua veritas supernaturalis manifestur per similitudinem corporalium rerum, secundum imaginariam visionem.

2 De civit. Dei, 1. 16, c. 6 p. 296. Aut enim veritas incommutabilis per se ipsam ineffabiliter loquitur rationalis creaturæ liegbus, aut per mutabilem creaturam loquitur, sive spiritualibus imaginibus nostro spiritui, sive corporalibus vocibus corporis sensui.

3 , DE grad. contemplative. 1.5, P. 3, c. 12, t. 6 p. 599: Nec moveat quod de locutione, non de visione (Augustinus) loquitur: quoniam utriusque visionis scilicet et locutionis intelletualis, eadem ratio est.

4 De discr. spirit. c. 18, n. 1: Hæc visio proud dicitur in apice lied,

videlicet in intellectu, non quatenés ratiocinatur, sed sicut simpliciti intuitu res sibi objectas videt and contemplatur.

contemplates from a simple view the things presented to him."

Ï is therefore a true encounter between the manifest reality and the spirit that contemplates it. Does this encounter involve direct intuition, or does it involve intermediate representations? The question is freely debated between philosophers, theologians and mystics themselves, and we do not have to decide in this way.

‘1 The Jesuit scholar Balthazar Corder or Corderius, in his annotations on St. Denis, poses himself at the place of MYSTICAL WARAGE (c. V), where the Areopagit deals with the connaissence of God, the question below, and indicates the contradictory solutions that it has received.

QUÆSTIO MYSTICA. An mens humana in visione ac contemplatione mysticæ theologiae videat seu intelligent vere et objective ipsummet Deum? Quod si ita, an vacuum ipsum intuitive, an abstractive: atque insaper, an habeat de Deo conceptum distinctum ac propriom, vel quidditativum, an solum confusum ac generalem?

Quod in contemplatione tam theologiae assertivæ seu proprioæ dictatoræ (de qua tractat sanctus Dionysius libro DE prvinis NomiNiBus), quam theologiae negativæ seu mysticæ (de qua jam in hoc libro actum est), Deus vere et objective intelligatur, hoc modo vietur probari possess.

Primum, quia in omni intellecte actuali, reali et vera, est aliquod verum et reale objectum; sed utraque ista Dei cognitio est vera, réalis et actualité intellectio Dei; ergo habet verum ce reale objectum circa quod versatur, et cui infigitur ac intendit; alioquin esset apprehensio vana, phantastica et frivola. Hoc ergo objectum reale vel is ens creatum, aut increatum. Si sit increatum, habet propositum; sin creatum, omnes illæ cognitiones seu contemplationes sunt falsæ, cum nullum ens creatum proprie dicatur, prædicetur aut verificetur de superblaisssimo infinitæ excellentiæ Deo.

Præterea, cum, verbi gratia, dico, Deus is ens omnifarie perfectum, seu perfectionaliter infinitum, Deus is actus purus, Deus is universorum creator; istæ ct consimiles proposees sunt veræ atque catholicæ, ac proprie dictatoræ;, non metaphoricæ, aut symbolicæ seu translativæ. In omnibusautem his apprehendo æternum and inereatum objectum de quo solo verificantur, ct illud aliquo modo intelligo et agnosco; ergo et illud intueor, cum istud intelligente sit mentaliter intueri. Unde et distinctum ac propriom de hoc objecto conceptum apprehendo, formo ac habeo qui de alio nullo verificatur, et ad Dei essentialia pertinet, in quo nullum est accudens.

Similiter in propositionibus mysticæ theologiae, etc......

In contrarium vero hujus arguitur. Primum si in præfatis eogniitionibus Deus sit immediatum proximumque objectum, immediate inspiciemus ac cognoscemus eum quiddiative, and intuebimur essentiam ejus ut in se ipsa

When on which side is logic. But we must accept that the term of intellectual vision is truly present, or that knowledge is more than a fantasy where certainty seeks a basis in vain.

That is why the mystics, following St Augustine, hold these kinds of visions essentially true; For what is seen and heard here is the very reality, and it is impossible to see and hear what is

is, quod proui non possesse express docet sanctus Dyonisius in EPISToLA Ab Carcx, etc.

Verum his denuo otart emptytur uedan verba on um Patrum aliorum, ut S. Gregorii, who in libro DraLocortu has: "Animæ empincenti creatorem, angusta is omnis creatura. Quamlibet enim parum de luce Creatoris aspexerit, breve fit ei omne quod creatum est; quia ipse luce intimæ visionis lie laxatur sinus, tantumque exanditur in Deo, ut superior existat mundo." S. Hieronymus item in REGULA sua fatetur se sæpius per hebdomadas raptum fuisse, increatamque lucem, id est ipsam superbeatissimam Trinitatem, conspexisse. And multi sanctorum muloties in hac vita rapti fuerunt in divitias gloriæ Dei, and in abyssum lucis immensæ absorpti. Unde et gloriosus Pater Bernardus in Der juxta sublimem suam experientiam scripsit: "Quidquid, et..."

Amplius manc difficultytatem tangit Joannes de Gerson in tractatu suo : fc.... s + à.

Cæterum an notitia illa sit lim experimentalis i in ‘affiu supremo deitati per amorem unito, an vero posit diici etiam intelelctualis, non quidem intuitiva, sed abetratetiva. et non solum connotativa, sed absoluta, consideratione et inquisitione dignissimum.

Habet utraque pars suos elevatsissimos defensores. Sunt enim, which exponents sanctum Dionysium primum tenent; sunt item alii qui ultra prædictam experimentalem seu experimentativam de Deo notitiam, dicunt etiam haberi possesse intellectivam per conceptum propriom absolute esse divini, quamvis non intuuitivum, si imperfectio ab ipso removeatur et abstrahatur. Same as vita, bonitate, sapientia, potentia, and consimilibus prædicitis perfectionalibus dicunt.

Ad secundam manc partem flecti emptyur sanctus Augustinus pluribus locis, præsertim in libro De TrinrrATE, docens hoc modo nos ferri in bonum absolutum. Sanctus quoque Bonaventura in suo Irinerario, capite sexto, idem insinuat. Unde vietur, quod abstracta ab ipso esse omni potentialitate, dependentia, privatise and alia omni imperfection ac fininate, resultet conceptus Dei absolutetus ac proprus, etc. (Migne, Patr. gr.,t. Three, collar. 4049-1054.)

1 De Genesi ad litt., 1. 42, ©. 25, p. 607: In illis intellectualibus visis non fallitur anima: aut enim intelligit, and verum est; aut if no is, non intelligit.

Not. In other visions, only one thing is certain, namely: that one sees such sensitive, external or imaginary form; but these representations may be games of the imagination and deceit of the demon, or symbols whose meaning must be sought. In the intellectual order, such contempts are not possible. Here, as Saint Bonaventure observes, speaking on the subject that is before us, it is the truth that one meets and possesses, or rather one grasps the truth in the very things that one sees, one enters into the truth, as Saint Aelred expresses himself, Abbé of Riéval, pointed out by Bona* as a faithful disciple of St Augustine.

Those who admit that our present knowledge, even intellectual, is not accomplished without the help of mental species, explain the appearances that exceed the natural reach of the mind by a divine infusion of new and superior species. Their oppressors believe in solving the problem, saying that if the revealed object exceeds the capacity of the seeing subject, God must first extend this capacity; that it enhances in fact by the grace of faith, which is regularly obscured and veiled in this life, and which becomes in heaven the light of glory; that between the darknesss of faith and the full day of glory, they should be able to do so.

1 Profectu religios. 1. 2, c. 76, t. 19, p. 434: Istæ omnes (imaginariæ visiones) agree simul in hoc... quod quandoque veræ sunt ut per eas erudiuntur aliqui; et quandoque deceptoriæ, quod aliqui per eas deluduntur... Alia visio is intellectualis qua, illuminatus oculus luce veritatis, pure ipsam veritatem in se contemplatur; vel intelligit in visione imaginaria veritatem quae in illa significatur.. Ipsæ enim imaginarium vel corporalium visionum figuræ, etiam cum veræ sunt secundum spiritualem significantiam, non sunt veræ secundum rei existiam, etc.

2 Serm. 3 of Oneribus. Migne, Patr. lat., t. 195, Col. 368: Intellectualis autem visio est qua, non dico vera à falsis discernuntur, sed qua in ipsis veris veritas ipsa conspicitur.. (Col. 370) Intellectuali in ipsam veritatem mens inducitur.

8 De Discreet. spir. v. 18, n. 3 p. 300: Sequitur Augustinum doctrinæ ejus sectator Aelredus, Abbas Rievallis.

place the mystical illuminations involved, which, without coming out of the shadow or the test, make a beginning of blissful clarity and enjoyment!.

VI. — When the object of the intellectual vision is not equivalent or comparable in the natural world, this vision becomes inexpressible in human language.

This was the vision that raised St Paul up? to the third heaven, and which he himself said that it is not in the power of man to speak of it.

Saint Angèle de Foligno makes the same debbing. "One day I was in prayer," she said, "I saw God speaking to me. But if you ask me what I live, I answer that I live in God, and I cannot say anything else, except that I live fullness and clarity, from which I felt such a vivid outpouring in me, that I could not explain it. It is in vain that I would seek a comparison to represent her." And further on: "I saw a stable and permanent thing that is so inexplicable to me, that I can't say anything about it, except that it was all good, and that my soul was in an inexhaustible joy, without me knowing whether it was in the body or out of the body."

Saint Térèse experienced the same impotence, as she tells us in her life, about the first intellectual vision she was favored for. In vain, she, who spoke so easily of the things of God, tried to translate to her confessor what she had seen. "I used a variety of comparisons," she said, "to try to

1 Bona, ibid. v. 18, n. 5, p. 301. Media est haec visio inter obscuram quae habetur in via per fidem, et claram in patriarchia per lumen, recedens a prioris obscuritatate, sed a posterioris clariatem non perveniens.

2 II Cor. xx, 4: Quoniam raptus is in Paradisum and audivit arcana verba quae non lilet homini loqui.

3 ARNAUD, BB. 4 Jan., c. 3n. 58,t. 1, p. 194.

4 Jbid., n. 66, p. 196.

8 His Life, ch. 27.

make it sound: but it seems that there are few who have something to do with this kind of vision."

Thus, the impotence to translate divine communications, far from infirmating their existence, is evidence of their sublimitity.

VII. — On the way in which the object appears in mind, mystics distinguish the indistinct vision and the distinct vision! The first attests that the presence of the object, leaving it out of all detail. This seems to have been the vision Saint Teresus speaks of in chapter xxvii of his life: "On the day of the feast of the glorious Saint Peter, written, being in prayer, I saw, or to say better (for I saw nothing, neither of the eyes of the body, nor of those of the soul), I felt my Savior near me, and I saw that it was He who spoke to me. As I was completely unaware that there might be similar visions, I conceived a great fear in the beginning, and I was only crying. To the truth, as soon as his goodness spoke to me one word to reassure me, I remained, as usual, calm, content and without any fear. Jesus Christ seemed to me to walk always beside me; and since it was not an imaginary vision, I did not see in what form; but I knew very clearly that he was always on my right side, that he saw all that I did; and as long as I gathered myself, or was not.

1 Voss, Compend. Scaramelli, 1. 2, D. 2, c. 1, a. 3 p. 379: Hujusmodi visiones sunt aut indistinctæ aut distinctæ. Sunt indistinctæ quando anima per certam ac clarisimam divinitus infusam notitiam, ita ut nullo modo dubitari posit, Redemptorem suum, B. V. Mariam, vel aliud quid corporate objectum præsens videt, aut sibi vicinum sentit, quin ejus staturam, figuram, and singular ejus parties dignoscat. Talis leaks visio S. Teresiæ in historia vitae suæ relata.—Sunt distinetæ quando anima non solum præsentiam alicujus objecti empty and sentit, sed etiam membra, pulchritudinem and alias parties and qualitys ejus inducbie and maxima cum claritate cognoscit, quin ullam corum videat imaginem vel realem vel phantasticam. Visiones distinetæ indistinctis perfectiores sunt.

not extremely distracted, I could not ignore that he was near me."

The distinct, more perfect visions reveal particular aspects, as it pleases God to show them.

VIIL. — The second element that characterizes intellectual vision is the splendor that surrounds the object manifested and makes it appear in the eyes of the soul. All mystical authors claim that this view of understanding occurs and is consumed in the light of an incomparable light, which has the main character of showing everything in a divine way, and, as Saint Teresis says, "to make known how all things see themselves in God, and how they are in him."

"We call intellectual vision," said St. Aelred?, "of which we have already invoked the testimony, that where the soul, rising above all that is body, above all images and bodily similarities, rests in the very light of truth, in which are true and truly exist all past, present and future things."

And soon after, the same author, reporting the intellectual vision of a holy nun whom he seems to have known, points to the characters of the light he has just spoken of. "He came to him one day," he said, "as she was going to

1 Cdt. in£., 6th Dem., c. 10.

3? Serm. Two from Oneribus. Migne, t. 195, Col. 370: Intellectuali in ipsam veritatem mens inducitur. Nam intellectualem illam dicimus visionem qua mens, omne corpus omnesque Corporeas imaginées ac similitudines transcendones, in ipsa luce veritatis requiescit; in qua vera et vere sunt omnia præterita, préæsentia et futura, nec alter futura quam præterita.

3 Ibid., Col. 371: Accidit aliquando, ut cum amore solito orationi incumberet, mira quaedam suavitas superveniens omnes animi motus, omnes cogitationum excursus, omnes insper spirituales, quos ciréa amicos habebat, extinxerit affectionus: moxque anima ejus, quasi oncribus quae in

mundo sunt valedicens, rapitur supra se, and ab ineffabili quadam and incomprehensibili luce excepta, nihil aliud viebat, nisi quod est and quod omnium

In her usual love, to feel penetrated by a wonderful sweetness, where all the movements of her mind, all the fluctuations of her mind, all the spiritual affections she felt for her friends were extinguished; and her soul immediately, as saying goodbye to all that weighed upon her in this world, was delighted above herself, and plunged into an ineffable and incomprehensible light; she saw nothing else, except that she is, and that she is the being of all things. This light was not bodily or the image of a body; it did not stretch out or spread out, so that it would appear everywhere; it was not contained in any kind, and it contained all things; and this was a wonderful and ineffable way, so that the being contained all that is, and the truth all that is true. Within this light, the pious virgin began to no longer know according to the flesh Jesus Christ himself, whom she had known until then only according to the flesh, because the Savior Jesus was no more than a spirit before his eyes, he had brought into the truth itself."

IX. — However, this illumination is not always accomplished to the same extent, and although this graduation was born of its perfect application only in relation to the knowledge of God, three degrees of evidence can be admitted for intellectual visions in general.

In the first, the light reveals only the truth and the presence of the things manifested; in the second, the light casts on them its rays with a vivacity and a radiance that allow the soul to penetrate into their depths;

East esse. Only lux illa corporea leaks, aut aliqua corporis similitudo, nect distendebatur, nect difundebatur, ita ut ubique vidretur; nec ipsa tenebatur and tenebat omnia; and hoc miro and ineffabili modo, sicut esse tenet quidguid est, veritas quidquid verum est. Hac igitur luce perfusa, ipsum Christum quem prius noverat secundum carnem, coepit jam secundum carnem non nose, quia spiritus ante faciem ejus Christus Jesus in ipsam eam indixerat veritatem.

The intellectual vision 6l

In the third, it is the very splendor of the sky. The first degree is compared to the dubious lights of dusk, and the resulting knowledge is called the dark vision; the second is compared to the light of dawn, and produces the light vision; the third is compared to the fullness of the midday, and responds to the glorious vision!.

These three degrees themselves are nothing constant and uniform: in each, light can diversify to the infinite, expand and restrict itself, put on the most varied shades.

By drawing closer to all this what we have said about the. more or less clarity in the manifestation of the object, it is easy to recognize that the indistinct vision responds to the dark vision, and the distinct vision, to the one we have just called lumimeuse*? and glorious.

X.—In some proportion it radiates, the proper light is to bring with it certainty. This is at least what Saint Teresus attests: "This vision, " she says, " prints such a clear knowledge that it seems to exclude the possibility of doubt. The Lord wants her to be so serious in the understanding, that one can no more doubt than what one sees, and much less; for for for what strikes our eyes sometimes happens to us.

1 WATCH Paz, De grad. contemplative. 1. 5, P. 3, c. 14, t. 6 p. 610: Sciendum est altissimæ visionis ac perfectissimæ contemplationis Dei tres esse graduated, alterum obseurum, alterum omnino clarum, tertium medium. Primus potest comparari crepuseulo, quando lux dubia est, nec satis dignoscitur an nox abeat et dies accedat. Secundus comparatur auroræ quando lux manifeste est ac initium diei, sed lux modica et majoris perfectionis indiga. Tertius compareur meridiei, quando lux is clarissima and omnino perfecta.

2 SCHRAM, Theol. Myst. 8 505, Sch. #4, p. 222: Visio intelletualis potest proui vel negative et obscurée, quando anima non vividt in qua forma sit objectum: vividt tamen in qua non sit....; vel positive et clare, quando anima videt aut potius experimentaliter sentit objecti formam sub modo spirituali: qui uterque modus ad dues illos grados contemplationis, claæ,

and in nebula reu caligine, revocari potest. 3 His Life, ch. 27.

doubt whether this is not an illusion. Here, doubt may well arise at the first moment; but there is also a firm certainty that this doubt has no basis."

To the inseparable certainty of this light is still attached the feeling of its origin and identity; from where it follows that God alone is its principle, and therefore that intellectual vision is exclusively its work. This is also evident from the very nature of this operation, for God alone can reach those depths where the gaze of the mind opens.

"In my opinion," said Saint Terèse! "that is where the demon finds the least disaccess, for the reasons that here is: if they are not good, it is I who must deceive me. This vision and language are something so spiritual, that there is no movement in the powers of soul® or in the senses where the demon can find himself taken..."

The mystics, in fact, generally agree that the intellectual vision, assuming it as such, surpasses any power other than that of God, and that it is immune to any evil illusion?, by the reason that the demon can only act on man through the senses, and that the very nature of this vision is to have nothing sensitive #.

However, Saint Liguori dares to ensure that she is

1 His Life, ch. 27.

2 SCHRAM, 50%, sch. 2, t. 2, p. 221. In visione intellectuali solus Deus est causa principalis, name vero Angelus, nect bonus, nec malus, nequidem mediate.

3 Boxx. Discreet. spir. c. 18, n. 5, p. 301: Omnes etiam in hoc eonveniunt quod hec visio ab illusionibus immunis est.

# , C. 12 p. 605: Hinc autem observation quod in hac visione, si mere intellectualis est, nulla potest illusio daemonis intercedere, quin nee bonus Angelus potest ad eam cooperari. And whoa in his ut asensu and imaginatione non pendent, nihil omnino aliqua creatura potest: hinc est quod nec mens in illis posit «x dæmone illudi.

5 Praxis confess. n. 140, p. 188.: Advertendem tamen his is quod visiones istas tam Deus quam diabolus potest operari, quod est intelligentum

free, no more than the other kinds of visions, from all evil intervention and deception; but it is wrong that he invokes on this subject the testimony of St John of the Cross. The latter teaches!, to the truth, that the demon can mingle with intellectual visions and "fake them, by using the imagination, in which he represents objects present or absent in a spiritual light"; but he does not say in any way that his action never reaches intellect in the operation which is his own. All that Satan is able to do by his natural virtue is, by overexciting the organism, and especially the brain, to determine a state of extraordinary lucidity, which man will take for a divine manifestation. We will return to this subject when we deal with the evil influences on matter and on man.

It is no less important, since the spirit of lies simulates intellectual visions by the finesse of its prestige, to be careful against illusions, and to resort rather to effects than intrinsic notes, in order to recognize more surely their true character and permanence. * Indeed, says St John of the Cross, there is a great difference between the visions that the evil spirit produces and those of which God is the author, and between the effects of each other. The visions of the demon throw the soul into the aridity and drought during the prayer. etiam of intellectualibus, ut vialtur Innuere S. Joannes a Eruce, contra id quod sentit cardin. Petruccius.

1 Mount Carmel, 1. 2, c. 24 p. 117.

2 Prixpe. To SS. Tan. P. 2, Tr. 3, D. 4, a. 3 p. 411. Quamvis haec visio intelletualis tutior appareat ac magis a illusione daemonis immunis, potest tamen a daemone fingi. Potest autem hujusmodi fictio contingere per hoc quod dæmon phantasmata coordinando, media imaginationis operatione excitat intellectum ad aliquid consideration tam distinct, ut viendere dicatur; hoc modo credunt aliqui doctores quod dæmon Christo Domino ostendit omnia regna mundi and gloriam eorum. Sed talis visio a dæmone

feta multum differt a vera and contrarios prædictis habet performed. 3 Mount Carmel, 1. 2, c. 24 p. 417.

They lead her to self-esteem, to be willing to receive these visions, to make a lot of them. They leave him no desire for Christian humility or any tenderness of divine love. Moreover, they do not impriminate in the soul with mildness and consolation, like the visions of God; they do not remain there for long, and even they quickly sever, is not that the esteem that the soul actually excites to remember and preserve them; but then it does not feel the good effects that divine visions have accustomed to produce."

Finally, regardless of the effects, or rather, when to the goodness of the effects joins an invincible persuasion that it is God who appears and speaks, as it happened to Saint Teresus!, we must no longer doubt that the inner illumination is due to the presence and the radiation of the divine light.

XI. — But this divine light that enlightens every intellectual vision, what is its nature, and is it identical to the bottom in the various degrees that we have reported?

Alvarez de Paz? first of all states that neither the natural light of reason nor that of faith can suffice for this supernatural illumination, to any degree that is

1 Int., 6° Dem., c. 8: Although he was wanted to be inspired by great fears, he was often unable to doubt the presence of Our Lord, especially when he said to him: "Don't be afraid, it's me." These words had such strength that she could not conceive of any doubt at that time.

2 De grad. contemplation. c. 12 p. 604: Quod vero attint ad lumen, certum est nec lumen naturale, nec lumen fidei ceases sufficians. Non illud, quia minimal naturalia transcendit; hic autem aliquid supernatural and divinium aut quoal substantiam aut quoad modum intelligitur. Non ctiam istud, quod ad solar notionem ordinariam rerum supernaturalium obscurous and ex auCtoritate dictis datum est. Imo nc aliquaando sufficians erit donum sapientiae, quod, licet cum aliis donis valde fidem perficiate, non tamen ad tam sublimia et cum tanta claritate et modo tam inseto cognoscenda extended. Datur ergo ad hoc quaedam lux, quae, aut est, aut reducitur ad lumen propheticum; cum qua men sublevata ita perfecte res divinas inspicit, ut vieatur status hujus mortalitatis expedere.

supposes it, and that there is obviously a miraculous intervention here that surpasses the forces of nature and the common order of grace. The gift of wisdom, to which many relate these visions, does not seem to him to be at the height of the most sublime; these at least would be due, according to the same author, to a prophetic light that introduces the soul into the abim secrets of divine things.

From the admission of all, gifts of wisdom and intelligence are sufficient for ordinary visions. Many even believe that they can explain everything by an extraordinary infusion of these two gifts of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps the highest of these visions are by means of free graces, mainly through wisdom and prophecy 3. Finally the glorious vision, if it meets here below, — and we have said elsewhere * that it is sometimes granted in a transitional way to the travelling man, — would be due to an anticipated and partial irradiation of the light of glory #.

We will reconcile these and other statements.

1 ScaRAMELLI, Dirett. Mist. Tr. 4, c. 8, n. 106, p. 288: Sebbene non mancano altri Autori che vogliano non richiederssi alla formazione di debt visioni luce maggiore di quella che puû recare alle nostre lie il dono della sapienza e dell-intelletto.

2 Pair. To SS. Trix. P. 2, Tr. 3, D. 3. to. 4t. 2, p. 376: Dona quippe Spiritus sancti, quamvis supernaturalia, sunt tamen justis ordinaria, and eorum radiatio in justis perfectis non rara; unde opus fuchet quod aliquado Dominus singularibus quibusdam amicis altius aliquod and extraordinarium lumen communicanteret, quo perfectius veritates Dei revelatas penetrarent; quod lumen dicitur altius, quia clarius est in manifesto, et efficacius in penetrando.

3 Part One, c. 22, p. 353.

4 Priurpp. To SS. Trin. Jbid., a. 5, p. 383: Dictum est quod contemplatatio supernaturalis, alivando etiam in hac vita, pertingit ad claram et quidditativam Dei visionem, quamwvis cito transeuntem, ut concessimus B. semper Virgini Mariæ, Moysi prophetæ, apostolo Paulo, and aliis paucis. Hæc autem clara et quidditativa Dei visio, seu cito transiens, seu semper in æter-. hum permanens, esse non potest absque lumina gloriæ, per modum transeuntis cujusdam virtutis his participato, ibi vero per modum habitus perfecti concesso.

When we discuss the causes of mystical phenomena and the way in which God operates them. All these aspects of supernatural life are multiple and ascending manifestations of divine grace, from the holy but unconscious energies of faith and charity, to the full development of the beatific vision.

Chapter V

The Objects of Supernatural Vision — I. God

Enumeration of the objects of the supernatural vision. — Body Appearances of God in the unity of His nature; their various forms.— Sensitive manifestations of the Trinity and of each of the three Persons. — Does God intervene personally or only by the ministry of angels? — Imaginary visions of God One and Trinity. — Are they personal or impersonal? — Intellectual revelation of God, in the unity of His nature and the variety of His attributes, — and of the very mystery of the Trinity. — The three dark, luminous and glorious visions of God.

[. — The objects we know necessarily come back to these two: God and the creatures. In the first place among creatures, or rather between God and the creature, as holding one and the other, is the Savior Jesus. Immediately thereafter, at the top of the created beings, radiates the blessed figure of the Blessed Virgin Mary; then come the angels and saints of heaven, the souls of purgatory, demons and damned, living men, unreasonable or inanimate creatures.

Let us examine whether these different objects can appear in vision, body vision, imagination, intellectual.

God first.

IT. — God is one by nature and triple in people. _ Can he reveal himself by this double aspect and under the three

external, representative and intellectual forms? We answer each of these questions in the affirmative.

First, God can manifest himself and has often manifested himself in bodily vision as One and as Trinity. Not without doubt that God has nothing material in himself, but he can, through special action on matter and on the senses, present to man sensitive forms to indicate his wills and purposes. Among Catholics, as Suarez says, "this point is beyond controversy.

The Old Testament contains a large number of external and sensitive manifestations where God appears in the unity of his nature. He revealed himself in this way to Adam and Eve?, Cain 5, Noah, Abraham, Hagar 5, Loth?, Isaac, Jacob, *, Moses, Joshua, * and also to Samson's parents, since, after the angel's disappearance in the name of God, Manué and his wife cried out: "We will die, for we have seen God. "

Ges theophanias are carried out in various forms. In the earthly paradise, God warned Adam and Eve of his presence with a light and refreshing breath, according to the interpretation many have given to these words of Genesis #: "By hearing the voice of the Lord their God, walking in Eden at the evening breeze, Adam and his companion hid themselves;" according to others, among whom

1 SuAREz of Angelis, 1. 6, c. 20, n. 2, p. 766. At vero de apparitione Dei nulla potest esse quaestio inter Catholicos, cum sit in Scriptura express definita et a Patribus constantr tradita. Hoc igitur tanquam certum statusendum est Deum sæpissime appreciisse hominibus sub forma visibili, secluso Incarnationis mysterio.

2 Gen. mt, 9. — 8 Gen. 1v,3. — 4 Gen. vi, vu, vin. — 的 Gen. x, 7; — XVII, 4; — XVI, 4. — 6 Gen. xvi, 13. — 7 Gen. x1x, 18-21. — 8 Gen. xx VI, 2. 9 Gen. xxxu, 29; xxxv, 9. — 10 Exod. 1v, 2. — 1 Josue, mi, IV, V, VII, VIN. — 12 Judic. vi. — 18 Judic. xm, 22. Morte moriemur, quia vidimus Deum. And cum audent callem Domini Dei deambulantis in paradise, ad auram post meridiem, abscondit se Adam et uxor ejus.

Saint Augustine!It was in the human form that God spoke to the first man. There is no doubt that he did not show himself in this form to Abraham, and it is generally the one he wears in his sensitive manifestations? He reveals himself to Moses by the flame of the bush that burns without burning himself; to the Hebrews in the wilderness by the cloud # turn dark and luminous; and, at the top of Sinai, by the smoke, the sound of the trumpets, and the shrapnel of thunder.

Tyrey notes that God never showed himself under the appearances of the woman, although he absolutely can 6, nor under the traits of the child.

IIT.—Neither is it doubtful that God can be shown to be materially by the aspect of the trinity of His Persons. The collective manifestation of the three divine Persons occurs at the baptism of Jesus Christ: while the Incarnate Word is in the waters of the Jordan, the Holy Spirit rests on his dove-shaped head, and the Father, from heaven, makes these words heard: "You are my beloved Son, in whom I have put my complacencies." A similar demonstration is carried out on the Tabor, at the transfiguration of the Saviour. * The Father makes his voice sound there to proclaim again the divinity of his Son, and according to

1 From Trinit. 1. 2, c. 17, p. 241. Quomodo enim posit ad litteram intelligenti talis Dei deambulatio et collocutio nisi in specie humana, non video. Neque enim diici potest vocem solam factam ubi deambulasse dictus est Deus, aut eum qui deambulat in loco non fusse visibilem, cum et Adam dicat quod se absconderit a faie Dei.

2 Tyreus, De appendit. visibilité, 1.1, c. 4n. 6 p. 140. Una humana forma est, qua se Deus specandum exhibituit.

3 Exod. 1v, 2. — 4 Exod. x, 36. — $ Exod. xix, 3, 16.

6 Of apparent visibility, 1. 1, ec. 5, n. 9, p. 144: Sed tamen quemadmodum demonstravimus Deum aliquando sub visibili forma populisse; ita, quandiu aliis rationibus non persuadebimur, semper sub virili, and nunquam sub foeæminea appeared dicemus.

7 Ibid, c.6,n.14, p. 149: Ex dictis concludeddimus admodum here, duplicated,

senis, inquam, atque virili.. sub pueruli visum numquam. 8 Luke ut, 21-22. — 9 Matt. xvu, 5.

the interpretation of St Augustine, St Thomas, Suarez, and the Church herself in the office that celebrates this mystery, the Holy Spirit is represented in it by the luminous cloud that surrounds Man-God and his disciples.

Augustine sees a sensitive revelation of the Trinity in the three angels who present themselves to Abraham at the grave of Mambre 6, and the Church promotes this interpretation in her liturgy, when she thus comments on this vision of the father of the believers: "He saw three of them, and worshiped One 7."

Apart from the manifestations that we have just indicated, we do not know of any other ones, either in Scripture or in history, where the three divine Persons appear simultaneously in a bodily form.

If one considers these adorable Persons separately, each one's share is not equal. The Scripture provides us with only one manifestation of the Father to be added to the three that we have reported: it is narrated by St John, to the place of his Gospel # where he relates that to this prayer of Our Lord: "My Father, glorify your name,"

1 Ad Evodium. Epist. 169, n. 7 p. 366: Nam ipsa (columba) quoque, sicut nubes illa lucida quae operauit in monte una cum Tribes discipulis Salvatorem, vel potius sicut ille ignis qui eumdem Spiritum sanctum demonstravit, etc.

2 Sum. 1 P., q. 43, a. 7, ad 6: And ideo specialiter debuit ficri missio visibilis Spiritus sancti ad Christum... In transfiguration vero, sub specie nubis lucidæ ad ostendendam exuberantim doctrinæ.

8 From Trin. 1.12, c.6, n. 3,t. 1, p. 814: Secundum signum sub quo legitur Spiritus appeared leaking nubes lucida in die transfigurationis.

4 Brev. Row. 6 Aug. Resp. 2: In splendenti nube, Spiritus sanctus visus est.

Trinit.. 2, c. 49 and 20, p. 244 and 245: Sub ilice autem Mambre tres viros vidit, quibus et invitatis hospitioque susceptis, and epulantibus ministravit. Sie tamen Scriptura illam rem gestam narrare coepit, ut non dicat: Visi sunt ei tres viri, sed «Visus est ei Dominus»... Cum vero tres viri visi sunt, nec quisquam in eis vel forma, vel ætate, vel potestate, major cæteris dictus est, cur non hic accipiamus visibiliter insinuatam per creaturam visibilem Trinitatis æqualitatem, atque in tribes personis unam eamdemque substantiam?

6 Gen. xvi.

7 BREv. Rom. Dom. Quinquag. Resp. 2: Tres vidit, and unum adoravit.

8 Joan. x, 28.

The objects of the vision: god your

a voice answered from heaven: "I have glorified him, and I will glorify him again!"

So God the Father rarely shows himself, and among the apparitions gathered in the Holy Books, only one, the least authentic from the point of view of interpretation, the one of the angels who visit Abraham, is addressed to the eyes; the other three are only atrial. This rarity of the facts is consistent with the teaching of the doctors, mainly the oldest, about the Father, to whom they attribute invisibility? This doctrine, however, was not absolute 5, and Suarez * abstinent as a fool to deny that it is possible or suitable for the Father to appear visibly.

The Word appeared in the flesh, and forms, as clothed in our humanity, the theandric individuality of Christ. We will study apart from the supernatural apparitions of Man-God; we currently consider only the second Person of Augustus Trinity.

This divine Person has often manifested itself in multiple forms. In the early Christian centuries, it was a common teaching that the Son of God had been the true author of the theophany of the Old Testament, thus sifting and learning, according to the original thought of

1 S. Aucusr. de Trin. 2, c. 18, p. 243: And ubi sonuit: And clarificavi, and iterum clarificabo, nonnisi Patris personam fatemur.

3 Kiae, Manual of the Christ Dogma. 2 p., c. 2,t. 1, p. 254.

3 GinouLuiacc, Hist. of the Cat. Dogma. 1. 8, c. 40, 11, 42, t. 2.

4 From Angelis, 1. 6, c. 21 n. 7 p. 783: From apparitionibus autem Patris, nihil dicendum superest, quia in novo Testamento non invenimus peculiarem visionem, per ocularem visionem primæ personæ, sed tantum illas dues auriculares, quas retulimus, and tertiam quam refert Joannes, c. 12, ut sent Augustinus {. 2, contra Maximin, v. ult. Quod autem in particularibus revelationibus Pater simul cum Filio incarnato aliquado visibiliter appreparrit sanctis hominibus, sicut ex certis historiis assertare non possumus, ita neque id temere negare audemus, quia res non solum possibilis, sed etiam fabilis est, et dona divinæ gratiæ innumerabilia sunt, et rationes divinæ provideentiæ in eis distributendis non sunt comprehensibiles.

Tertullian ‘, to converse with men. Later, while abandoning the old opinion in what it had exclusive for the other persons of the Trinity, the Fathers and theologians constantly applied themselves to bring to light the primordial and distinctive ability of the Word, a substantial image of the divine essence and eternal archetype of things, to the external manifestations of the divinity? and, as Suarez observes, * the apparitions in a personal human form seem to be coming to him by right, because of his future hypostatic union with the flesh: merciful trials which prepared men for the mystery of the Incarnation

Of these early manifestations in the flesh, two are attributed mainly to him by Christian exegesis. One is that of the man who fights until the dawn of the day against the patriarch Jacob, image and personification of the

1 Adversus Marcionem. 1.3, €. 9, p. 485: Ideoque et ipse cum Angelis tunc apud Abraham in veritate quidem carnis appeared, sed nondum natæ, quia nondum moriturae; sed et discentis jam inter homines conversari.

2 S. Tao. 3 P. q. 3, a. 8. Convenientissimum leaks personam Filii incarnari. First party ex parte unionis; agree enim ea quate sunt similia uniuntur. Ipsiusautem personæ Filii, which is Verbum Dei, attenditur uno quidem modo communis convenientia ad totam creaturam; quia verbum artificis, id est, conceptus ejus, est similitudo exemplaris eorum quae ab artificis flunt. Unde Verbum Dei, quod est æternus conceptus ejus, est similitudo exemplaris totius creaturæ.

8 From Angelis, 1. 6, c. 20, n. 18, p. 772: Hæc specialis repæsentatio in persona Verbi est familima, quando non tantum nuda persona Filii ut divina, sed ut humana et incarnata, seu incarnanda repæsentabatur. Quia tunc easy intelligitur possess personam Filii representari secundum aliquid sibi propriom.

4 S. Leox. Epist. 31, ad Pulcheriam, Migne, Pat. lat. t. 54, col. 791: Potuerat quippe omnipotentia Filii Dei sic ad docendos justificandosque homines appearere, quomodo et Patriarchis et Prophetis in specie carnis appeared, cum aut luctamen initiit, aut sermonem conseruit, cumve officia hospitalitatis non abnu, vel etiam appositum cibum sumpsit. Sed illæ imaginées hujus hominis providing clues, cujus veritatem ex precedentium Patrum sturp sumendam meanings mysticæ nuntiabant.

5 Gen. xxxu, 24, 30.

Jewish people ‘; the other one is that of this young man who protects Daniel's companions in the furnace, and who appears to King Nebuchadnezzar like the Son of God.

In the Old Testament, at least with certainty, there is no separate appearance of the Holy Spirit; it is with great reinforcement of interpretations that one manages to point out some of them as being able to relate to the third person of the Trinity:.

The New Testament, in addition to the two that we have related in speaking of simultaneous manifestations, contains another, famous among all, that of Pentecost, where the Holy Spirit revealed his presence in the double form of a violent wind that shaken the house of the cenacle, and of tongues of fire that divided themselves on the apostles."

These wonders have been renewed more than once.

Saint John Chrysostom 5 seems to imply that since the baptism of Our Lord, the Holy Spirit has no longer manifested himself under the symbol of the dove. Strange thing, a pious tradition collected and transmitted by ancient authors, and which the Bollandists dare not reject, says that a white dove, representing the Spirit-

1 CoRnEL. a Lapid. ir Gen. v. xxx, 22: Symbolice, haec lucta figurabat status Israelitarum usque ad adventum Christi, qui talis leak, quod ob eorum peccata, Deus sæpe ab eis recedere voluit, and dudum recessisset, neither Jacob up likes, ut Moses, David, Elias, Isaias and alii eum retinue.

- What? Daniel, mr., 92: Ecce video quartet viros solutos et ambulantes in medio ignis.. et species quarti similis filio Dei.

8 SuaAREz, De Angelis, ibid., n. 22, p. 773: Quod altem alivando sola persona Spiritus sancti appeared, non satis ostendi potest ex antiquis apparitionibus, etc. (Suarez then cites the apparitions that are attributed to the Holy Spirit.)

4 Act No. 3 and 4.

5 In Matth. m, brevis enarratio, t. 1, p. 59. Quod si et in specie columbæ Spiritus sanctus appeared, scientum est non columbæ illum quemadmodum Dei Filius hominis assumepsisse naturam. Unde and Evangelista, not in columbæ natura dixit, sed specie. Ea propter, nec unquam omnino posta in hac ipsa, qua modo figura conspectus est.

6 BB. From S. J. Chrys., 14 Sept., t. 44, p. 448, n. 231.

Saint and the effusions of his grace descended on St John Chrysostom himself, while he received the ordination of the priesthood from the hands of St Flavian d'Antioch.

The same fact is reported by his friend Basil the Great, by the brother of this saint, Gregory of Nyssa. ‘ The deacon of Eden, Ephrem, who came to Cappadocia to see and hear the illustrious bishop of Caesarea, saw, when entering the congregation of the faithful where he spoke, a dazzling dove, resting on his right shoulder, which seemed to suggest to his ear all that he preached to the people.

This appearance is frequently repeated in the history of the samts. It is mentioned in the acts of Saint Ananie and his companions martyred under Diocletian?, in the lives of Saint Gregory the Great*, of Saint Samson, Bishop of Dol in Brittany, Saint Mildride *, Abbess of England, Saint Gregory VII, Saint Hugues of Cluny?, sixth abbot of this monastery, Saint Raynier of Pisa #, solitary in great honor in Tuscany, Saint John of Matha *, founder of the Order of Merci, Blessed Humiliane Cerchi *, widow, of the Third Order of Saint Francis, Saint Placide ', Cistercian religious, the

1 De Vita S. Patris Ephraem Syri. Migne, Patr. gr., t. 46, col. 834: Conspexit refulgentem columbam humero ipsius insidentem dextero verbaque sapientiæ subministratem, atque ipsum ea populo depromentem. Ex ea quidem ardua ac veneranda columba instructus ille, sancti hujus Patris cognoverat peregrinationem eumque esse Ephræm illum Syrum.

2 BB. 25 febr., t. 6 p. 499, n. 16. Spiritus enim sanctus in figura columbæ descenderat in medio ignis, etiam vicentibus populis, and cum ipsis erat sanclis.

8 Vita S; Gregor. M. auctore PauLo Dracono, n. 28. Patrol. lat.,t.76,c.57.

4 BB. 5 Aug., t. 33, p. 583, n. 44.

5 CapGRAV. BB. 13 Jul., t. 30, p. 492, n. 7.

6 Paul Berri. BB. 25 Mayi, t. 19, p. 116, n. 24.

7 BB. 6 Jun.,t. 21, p. 684, n. 153.

8 BENINCASA. BB. 17 Jun., t. 24 p. 354, n. 37.

9 RIBADENEIRA, Life of the Saints, 17 Dec., t. 12 p. 239.

10 Vrr. Corton. BB. 149 Mayi, t. 17, D. 389, n. 44.

11 P. CELANo. BB, 12 Jun.,t. 23, p. 407, n. 9.

Blessed Helen!, of the third order of the Hermits of Saint Augustine, and of several other servants and servants of God. We cannot reproduce all the details of these interesting stories. Here are only a few features.

Surius and the cardinal of Aily?report, in the life of Saint Peter Celestin, that the Blessed, after spending five years on Mount Morron, seeing that the woods surrounding his home were being cut down, fled to the Magella mountain, in a deep cave, badly defended against the insults of the air. His two companions, afraid of the appearance and inconveniences of the place, withdrew first, but soon came back, not being able to live far from their model and their master. God blesses this new sojourn. For, among other wonders, a mysterious dove appeared and remained for three years in the midst of the solitary, always taking its food at the place where it later raised an altar in honor of the Holy Spirit. The many graces that the divine Paraclete gave in the sequel to those who came to call upon him in this place were a testimony of the wonder of which he consecrated the memory.

Saint Térèse * tells of herself that, on the eve of Pentecost, while she was meditating on the presence of the Holy Spirit in her soul, she saw a dove flying over her head: "It was very different from those of the herebas, for instead of feathers, its wings seemed to be formed of mother-of-pearl scales that cast a sharp splendor; it was also larger than an ordinary dove. It seems to me, she adds, that I heard the noise she was making with her

1 Simon. BB. 23 a.m., t. 12 p. 255, n. 6.

2 BB. 49 Mayi, t. 47, p. 489, n. 12: Multisautem ac mirabilibus signis Spiritus sanctus declare voluit quod locum illum tanquam speciale sibi babitaculum elegerit. Primum siquidem, cum Fratres ibi habitare coeperunt, quaædam columba appeared queæ semper cibum capere viebatur i in eo loco in quo posta altere oratorii situatum est.

3 His Life, ch. 38.

She stirred them about the space of a Ave Maria." And then entering into a delight, she stopped seeing this divine dove."She saw it again on the head of a religious in Santo Domingo, with even brighter wings, and it was said that this Father should attract many souls to God.

The Holy Spirit also manifests itself, as at Pentecost, in the form of fire and light; and one can see as many apparitions of this divine Spirit in the luminous globes that descend on the Saints, in the flames that surround them at the hour of prayer, in the phenomena of the same nature as we will tell about the supernatural radiation.

It is also easy to find there the cloud that covered the Savior and the three apostles on the Tabor.

One reads a precise fact of this kind in the life of Saint Donstain, Archbishop of Canterbury?. As he distributed the bread of life to his people, a cloud suddenly wrapped up the place where the august mysteries were being fulfilled; and a dove came to rest on the holy bishop until the end of the sacrifice: a vivid testimony that the Holy Spirit gave to the pontiff of his predilection and assistance.

IV.—It is a difficult question to solve if, apart from the Incarnation, these sensitive apparitions of God and the people of the adorable Trinity are personal, or if they stove through the ministry of angels.

For the apparitions made under the old law, the most common feeling, or rather the common feeling

3 His Life, ch. 38. Three Osbers. BB. 19 Mayi, t. 47, p. 369, n. 41. 3 Benepicr. XIV, Servor. Dei Beatif. 3, c. 50, n. 4: Dei apparitiones in veteri lege, juxta communiorem Theologorum sentiam, non fuerunt personales, sed impersonales, uti loquuntur; nec enim Deus ipse appeared corporate a assumepto, sed id effecit per Angelos qui suam personam sustinuerunt.

4 Boxa, Discreet. Spir. c, 19, n. 3 p. 305: Quaecumque leguntur divinæ

scholastics is that they were impersonal, and due entirely to the intervention of angels, who presented themselves, spoke and acted in the name of God.

The Fathers are much less explicit. Saint Augustine, who is used to invoke in this matter, is very undecided, as can be seen by reading his books on the Trinity. Most simply take the affirmations of Scripture and hear them, in addition to one place, true theophaniest. The oldest, among them Saint Justin, Saint Îrenée, Tertullian, Saint Hilaire?, attribute to the Son's only person all the apparitions of the Old Testament. The general assertion of theologians therefore does not impose itself absolutely, and, even from the most determined admission, it encounters contradictors?.

Suarez did not ignore these differences; he saw two opinions: one, which admits that these visions are produced immediately by God; the other, which attributes them to the heavenly spirits; and, although he declares this last common among the scholastics and, further, which he describes as very true, the illustrious theologian distinguishes between the two.

Live events Theophaniæ, per Angelos factæ sunt, eorumque mini- Sterio ad Patres nostros dimanarunt. Summa in hoc veterum Patrum concordia, nec discrepant ab eorum senticia principles Scholasticorum.

1 See Puic. VANDENBROEK, doc. Dissert. theol. de Theophaniis sub vetere Testamento.

2 See GnouzuiAc, Hist. du dogma chrét., 4th p., 1. 8, c. 10 et seq., t. 9, p. 292.

3 SCHRAM, $496, sch. 1,t. 2, p. 202.

4 From Angelis, 1. 6, c. 20, n. 25, p. 764: In hoc ergo puncto prior senticia est, hujusmodi apparitiones divinas sine interventu Angelorum a solo Deo factas esse. Hæe senticia solet attribute illis antiquis Patribus, etc.

6 Jbid., n. 28: Secunda senticia is Deum nunquam appeared ante incarnationem in corpore immediate and per se assumepto ab ipso Deo, vel aliqua divina persona, sed mediante aliquo angelo. Hæc is communis sensia scholasticorum.

6 Jbid., n. 29: And quamvis haec sententiia quidem quam jam attulimus, atque multorum doctoral spectatorum virorum auctoritate comprobavimus, verissima est; duas tamen parties included, not parum difficile, ne neque adeo evidenter certas quin nonnullos scrupulos moveant. Quarum una is

In this assertion, two parts: the first, indefinite, namely, that the apparitions of God spoken of in the Old Testament were not made "all" immediately by God; the second, universal and exclusive, that under the old law "none" of these manifestations was the direct work of God, but that they are due to the intervention of angels: the first part seems to him more well-founded and more certain than the second.

The last point of view, with all the exclusion it entails, is in fact highly questionable. When angels are expressly designated by the sacred author, as fulfilling a role in the name of God, it is obviously these heavenly messengers that appear, not even God. In cases where it is doubtful whether it is about God or an angel, whether it is inclined to be an angel, it is still conceived, by virtue of this principle that in fact supernatural one has to be content to assert what is sufficient. But when Scripture declares that God appeared, without mentioning any angelic intervention, why then would it not be said that a manifestation actually and immediately accomplished by God, unless these kinds of condescending are shown contrary to reason or faith; demonstration which we believe was not made?

The common opinion on the impersonal character of the theophany extends, with some reservations, to that of the New Testament!'. All of them put the appearance of the Word in the flesh out of question, and hold it to be absolutely immediate and personal. Some are watching.

indefinita, scilicet: non omnes apparitiones Dei factas esse per se et immediate ab ipso, absque Angelorum ministerio. Alia is universalis, nimirum in veteri Testamento nunquam Deum visibility hominibus appeared, nisi mediis Angelis ministerialibus. Prior ergo pars eertior est.

1 Suarez, De Angelis. 6, ©. 21 n. 12 p. 784: Nihilominus tamen dicendum est omnes has Dei apparitiones in novo Testamento per Angelos factas esse. Estque communis senticia theologorum.

as a privilege of the law of grace that God appears by himself to men. Others?, even among those who admit a general law of providence according to which angels would be charged with these divine manifestations, except some, mainly those of the Father and the Holy Spirit on the person of the Incarnate Word.

In fact, it is difficult to see what these distinctions between ancient theophanyes and the news are based on; and among them, some are so expressly affirmed by such or such divine person that, without violence to the sacred text, they cannot be counted as inferior and intermediate beings. Thus, when this voice sounds at the baptism of Our Lord: "This is my Son, in whom I have put my complacency," whether it was the angels who waved the air, or whether the sounds were the effect of a direct action of God, it was always the Father who spoke. Similarly, when the evangelists say that the Holy Spirit descended on Christ, in the Jordan, in the form of a dove, whether this dove was real and alive, as St Thomas wishes?, or, as others claim, purely fantastic; whether it was formed immediately by God or by his angels,...it must be maintained that it is the Holy Spirit in person who

1 Suarez, De Angelis, 1. 6, c. 12, n. 9 and 10, p. 783: Aliqui enim opinantur esse veluti peculiare privilegium legis gratiæ ut in ea Deus per seipsum hominibus appears soleat.

2 SuAREz, Tbid., n. 11, p. 84: Ideoque conveniens videtur ut postquam Verbum per seipsum and immediate induced corpus, aliæ etiam personæ sub aliquibus sensibilibus signis visibilitate se ostentante immediate ac per seipsas. Maxime vero quando apparitio aliarum personarum super Christum incarnatum fiebat, sicut columba super ipsum descendit and vox Patris super ipsum audita est, quia non decebat h&æc proude per Angelos super Christum.

8 Sum. 3 P., q. 39, a. 7: And quia Spiritus sanctus dicitur Spiritus veritatis (Joan. xvi), ideo etiam ipse veram columbam formavit in qua apperet, liquet non assumeet and ipsam in unitatem personæ.

4 S. Ausros. From Sacram. 1.1, c. 5: Descendit Spiritus sanctus in specie, not in veritate columbæ.

revealed under these sensitive appearances. No matter: who does it; it does not change the personality that wears it. The Holy Humanity of Our Lord is the common work of the Trinity, and nevertheless it is the person of the Word who owns it and makes it his own by the hypostatic bond. Without going as far as the intimacy of this union which, in fact, is only suitable for the Son, why could God and the people of the Augustus Trinity not put on in a special way external forms and symbols that would manifest their presence?

But this presence, in what way would it be when God is everywhere and the three Persons are inseparable from the divine essence?

The Angelic Doctor!, dealing with divine missions, answers that there are two ways of being present: to come to a place where one was not yet, that is the first; to appear, but in a new fashion, at a point where one was already, that is the second. The divine substance and its three adorable Persons are necessarily everywhere he meets a being; but where they are by essence, they can take on an aspect they did not have. This new aspect explains all God's appearances in the world. It constitutes the divine mission for the two persons who proceed, i.e. for the Son and the Holy Spirit: invisible mission, if it is grace; visible mission when the intervention is performed under a bodily appearance. The person of the Father, reporting only on his own, and consequently not likely to be sent, may appear, but of his own movement and not by virtue of a mission?.

1S, THom. 1 P., q. 43, a. 4. Ostenditur etiam habitudo ad termium ad quem mittitur, ut aliquo modo ibi esse incipiat, vel quia prius ibi omnino non erat quo mittitur, vel incipiat ibi aliquo modo esse quo prius non erat. 2 Jbid., 1 P., q. 43, a. 4.

In short, God's apparitions, in the unity of his nature or as Trinity, are reduced to giving man, by a sensitive sign, a positive and special witness of his presence and wills.

As for the material execution of this revealing sign, it can be admitted, if it is desired, with the School, that the angels will help to produce it, although this may be complicating the mechanism of creation and providence. Would it not be simpler to say, with St Augustine!, that every creature being the common work of the Trinity: and the voice of the Father in Tabor, and the flesh of the Son in the Incarnation, and the dove of the Holy Spirit in the Jordan, and so of all the other theophanyes, were realized by the simultaneous and indivisible cooperation of the three divine Persons.

V. — We said that God could also appear, and as One, and as Trinity, in imaginary visions.

When revealed during sleep, these manifestations can generally be considered purely representative. Similarly, when it is said that God has shown himself in vision?, or even in the time of the night, it is almost always imaginary visions, unless, however, the account gives us to hear something else, such as, for example, when the voice of the Lord awakens the young Samuel three times, to entrust him with his purposes of righteousness over the high priest Heli and his children f.

The imaginary revelations where God appears with the character of his unity are in large numbers in Scripture

1 Epist. 169. Evodio, n. 6 p. 365: Ita nullam esse creaturam qua vel solus Pater, vel solus Filius, vel solus Spiritus sanctus demostretur, quam non simul Trinitas operatur, quae inseparabiliter operaur: ac per hoc nec callem Patris, nec animam et carnem Filii nec columbam Spiritus sancti, esse factam, nisi eadem cooperante Trinitate.

2 Gen. xv, 1. Factus is sermo Domini ad Abram per visionem.

3 Num. x, 6. — Dan. vu, 2.7. — Act. xvux, 9. — 4 I Reg. mr.

and in the lives of the Saints. They meet several times in the history of Abraham!, Isaac?, and Jacob*; and more often in the prophets, to whom God made his greatness, mercy, and righteousness heard by mental representations: Isaiah* sees him in his temple and on his throne, surrounded by seraphim who worship his majesty and sing his glory; Jeremiah feels his hand touching his lips to give him the grace and prophetic mission; Ezekiel © Seen on his mysterious chariot, image of the Church.

These symbolic manifestations are carried out in the most varied forms. God discovers himself to the blessed Osanne of Mantua, sometimes under the majestic features of an old man, sometimes as a young man in the brilliance of strength and beauty, sometimes by a kind of luminous immensity where the mind does not grasp a limit and cannot decide whether it is in the presence of one or more, i.e. whether it is the divine unity that reveals itself or the Trinity.

The Trinity, in fact, also manifests itself in the symbols of imaginary vision, as the revelations of the Blessed Osanne herself and those of several other holy souls attest.

Blessed Marguerite-Marie Alacoque is a remarkable example of this. "Our Lord," she says, "continuing his graces, I received

1 Gen. xv, 1, 12; xx, 3. — 2 Gen. xxv1, 24. — 3 Gen. xxvmt, 12-16; xxxI, A1. — 4 Is. vi. — S Jerem. 1, 9. — 6 Ezech. 11, 1.

T F. Sycvesr. BB. 18 Jun., t. 24, ©. 1, p. 562. Nunc senilem Deus maximus gerebat aspectum, modo juvenis triginta aut circiter annos nati speciem affercbat, aliquado in immensum ex aucto splendore unus aut pres essent deprehendi haud potrat. Nunquam tamen humana, sed spirituali tantummodo presentia emptycastur indutus.

8 BB. 18 Jun., t. 24, c. 1, p. 573, n. 69: Ab iis conspicua luce vallatis, aliud splendidissimum jubar in modum flammæ prodibat, quod in unum cum sene and teen viebatur coire naturam, ita ut alter ab altero

secerni haudquaquam owns. $ His Life, by herself, t. 2, p. 384.

This incomparable fact that it seemed to me, during a failure that had taken me, that the three People of the adorable Trinity came to me and made me feel great consolations. But not being able to explain to me what happened then [I will say nothing], except that it seemed to me that the eternal Father, presenting me with a large cross, all inherited from thorns, accompanied by all the other instruments of the Passion, said to me: "Behold, my daughter, I make you the same present as to my beloved Son.""And I, my Lord Jesus Christ, said to me, "I will tie you to it as I have been attached to it, and I will keep you faithful in company with it." The third of these adorable Persons tells me "that He, who was only love, would consume me there by purifying me." My soul remained in peace and unconceivable joy, for the impression that these divine People made there has never been erased. They were represented to me in the form of three young men dressed in white, all shining with light, of the same age, greatness and beauty."

We do not know in Scripture such a collective representation of the three divine Persons; but, in Daniel's famous vision, on the four great empires to which the Church of Jesus Christ follows, one sees the Father, whom the prophet calls the Old of Days, and the Incarnate Word, which he expressly calls the Son of Man. "As I looked," he said, "the thrones were set up, and the Old One sat down. His garment was white in the snow; his head's hair looked like the purest wool; his throne was burning, and his wheels were throwing flames. A river of fire came out from before his face; it was served by a million ministers, and millions of others stood before him. Finally, in this night vision, I saw the

1 Daniel, see, 9-14. Trad. de H. Laurens, Morc. selected from the Bible, p. 322.

Son of man who came upon the clouds of heaven. He went up to the Ancient of the days and was presented to him; he received power, glory, and kingship from him, to be served by all the peoples of every tribe, of every tongue, with power that was to be eternal and indestructible, and an empire that should never fall."

Divine Wisdom, which is personified in the Word, appears under the lovely figure of a virgin to St. Laurent Justinian, still floating between the world and God, at the age when the impressions of the flesh have all their power. "O beloved young man," she said to him, looking at him with a face where beauty and goodness were shining, "why spread your heart and seek peace in the multitude of things that pass by? The peace that thou pursuest, it is I that giveth it; and thy desires shall be fulfilled, I promise thee, if thou wilt accept me as wife." And the young man asking him for his name, race and titles: "I am, she replied, the Wisdom of God, who, in order to repair humanity, clothed human nature.""I promised him my faith," continued St. Laurent Justinian, "for it is by himself that we keep this account," and after giving me the kiss of peace, I saw her move away, radiating with joy."

Blessed Henri Suso, of the order of Santo Domingo, had been fond of a holy passion for Wisdom since his teens, and his heart was simmered with the admirable descriptions of it made by the Sacred Books. By hearing these words? «Wisdom is more beautiful than the sun, more

1 Fasciculus amoris, c. 16, fe cxxxxiv, b: Eram and ego aliquando vestri similis, quarens anxio æstuantique desiderio pacem in extrinsecis, nec inveni. Tandem divina præventus gratia, dum sic laborarem, speciosissima quaedam sole splendior, balsamoque suavior mihi apparerere dignata est, cujus nemen omnino ignorabam. Hæc namque propius accessens, venezto vultu placidoque affatu inquire: O juvenis in me diligende, cur effundis cor tuum,

spacemque sectando variaris per multa? etc. 3 Sap., see, 29.

high that the stars, and, if they compare it to the light, it will prevail; I loved it and sought it from my youth; I asked to have him as his wife, and I became the admirer of his beauty," he was determined, like the Wise, to make him his wife, to dedicate himself to his service and to his love. But, this Wisdom that dispenses all goods to those who love, is it God or a human being, a man or a woman, the symbol of science or that of trick; what is it at last? This problem stirred the spirit of this blessed lover: "Oh!" he said to himself, "if I could see her once and talk to her!" Wisdom fulfilled her pious desires. She appeared to him, far above his head, supported by a pillar of cloud, sitting on an ivory throne, shining like the morning star, or rather like the sun in all its brightness. His crown was eternity; his garment, his bliss; his language, his sweetness; his kisses, the satiety of all good. It seemed at once close and distant, sublime and humble, obvious and hidden, simple, familiar and yet incomprehensible; higher than the heights of the heavens and deeper than the abime, it reached from beginning to end with force, and had all things with suavity. She was first a gracious girl, and soon her face became that of a very handsome young man; then she was a very skilled mistress in all kinds of art, kind to all. Finally, turning to her favourite, and smiling at her with as much grace as with majesty, she addressed these sweet words to her: "My son, give me your heart." And he, then, rushed to his feet to make him most in love and humble thanksgiving!.

1 Surius, BB. 95 Jan., t. 3 p. 269, n. 10. Jam omnino certum atque statum is mihi sapientiam sponsæ loco assume, up amori and servitio me mancipare. Atque utilam, a, vel semel illius vivendi and alloquendi

Copia præberetur! Quae aut quelis is quee tam mira to be ready, tot ac tanta pollicetur? Estne Deus aut homo, vir an femina, scientia vel astutia,

The Holy Spirit also reveals himself in imaginary vision, usually under the symbols consecrated to him, fire and dove. These kinds of apparitions meet more than once in the life of Saint Elizabeth of Sconauge. We shall quote only the following trait, which she tells us herself.

One day at Pentecost, before the celebration of the holy mysteries, she entered into ecstasy and saw, assembled in the Upper Room, the disciples and the Saviour's Mother: suddenly a flame descends from heaven with a rapid movement and rests on each one of them, and they immediately rise and go out, joy on the face and confidence in the soul, to announce to the people the word of God. After this vision, it returns to itself and finds itself in the words of the Office: "The Holy Spirit, coming out of the eternal throne, has invisiblely penetrated the hearts of the apostles." As soon as the Mass begins, it falls into ecstasy, and sees as a very bright ray of light that extends from the sky to the altar, and, in the middle, the beautiful dove that she used to see, carrying to her beak something red, like a flame of fire. The mysterious dove rests first, with its wings extended, on the head of the priest and drops on him like a drop of what she held in her mouth; it does likewise on each of the ministers, then she stops on the altar. "Then," continues the pious virgin, "I come back from my ecstasy, and I begged our mistress to recommend to the sisters a repetition of fervour, in the hope of what would happen. In fact, the Mass ended, at the

aut quid tandem is? Dum his flagraret desideriis.. tali schemate viendam se illi præébuit, etc.

1 Ecsert. BB. 17 Jun., t. 24 p. 514, n. 60: In die Pentecostas ante celebrationem Missæ, cum essem in extasi, vidi rursus discipulos congregatos... Cumque inchoaretur officium Missæ, rursus in ecstasim veni: and vidi quasi fulgidissimum radium lucis, de eeolo usque ad altare porrectum. And venit per medium ejus columba speciosa quam viendere soleo, ferens in ore quiddam rubrum quasi flamamam ignis, grandiusculum quam solebat.

When we went to communion, I was taken over by ecstasy, and, while the sisters received the divine Eucharist, I saw the same dove flying over them, and distributing to each of the mysterious flame."

In the testimony of Nicephorus, the monk John saw in a dream the Holy Spirit conveying his inspiration to Saint Simeon ‘the Younger, in the form of a honeycomb expressed on his head.

VI. — As with external apparitions, the most general feeling is that imaginary visions are due to the intervention of angels, and that, on the part of God, they are impersonal?

The comments and reservations that we have already made come back to Jci. Is there a peremptory reason or argument that forces us to admit that God does not really interfere in imaginary visions where he reveals himself, and that all these representations are therefore impersonal? The persuasion of most of the souls favored by these graces, as God is the true author, seems to have as much weight as the theories that contradict it. Whether angels can contribute to these effects, or even produce them, it would be wrong to contest it; and when this intervention is authentically attested, there would be recklessness and inconvenience to oppose denials or even to raise doubts. But to establish in principle that these kinds of visions are always carried out by the ministry of blessed spirits, is that not to say too much? It is above all too much to assert, in our opinion,

1 BB. 24 Maii,t. 148, p. 322. Narrabatque quomodo nocte illa per somnium divina quaedam virtus oblatea sibi fusset, quae dextera expressum e favo mel éffundebat ac Simeonem multiplicate sawntia informat, etc.

+ Scaram, 8 503, sch. 1, t. 2, p. 218: Quotas in S. Scriptura vel alibi dicitur Deus invisibilitarie imaginarie appreciésis, intelligendum est hoc factum fuisse a Deo, ministerio FABPAQEE ANDRE nomine Dei intervenientium.

to deny the mental theophanyes any personal character, and any real presence on the part of God or of the divine Persons; for God and the People of the adorable Trinity can manifest themselves both in imaginary symbols and in external representations. And it does not matter, as we have already pointed out, that the material of the vision, if one can express in this way, either the work of the Creator or his angels; this does not prevent God, one or trinity, from being present under those appearances that are carried out in his name.

VIT. — Sensitive visions are preferable to man's nature, but intellectual vision is more in harmony with God's nature; it is therefore understandable that for God, all being and spirit, the best way to reveal oneself is to address directly to the intelligence without going through the senses.

Thus he communicated with Moses: "The Lord," said the Scripture, "talked to Moses face to face, as a man has accustomed to speaking to his friend."A language which must not be understood external visions or 1 maginar, which God himself seems to exclude from the privileged portion of his servant. This is, at least, the common interpretation given to these words of the Names *: "If there is a prophet of the Lord among you, I will appear to him in a vision or I will speak to him in a dream; but this is not the case of Moses, my most faithful servant in all my house; for I speak to him mouth to mouth; and it is openly, and not by riddles and figures, that he sees the Lord."

The new law has often seen these divine communications happen again. Several authors believe that they were granted to Augustine and Monique during this interview.

1 Exod. xxum, 11. — 2 x, 6, 7.

sublime narrated by the holy doctor in the book of his Con-FESSIONS.

"The day came near," he said, "where my mother was going out of this life, and this day being known to you, Lord, "we were not aware of it.""I believe it so, by the secret conduct of your wisdom, that we were alone, she and I, leaning on a window that was on the garden of the house where we were staying, in this city of Ostia, where, outside of the tumult of the world, we were able, after the fatigues of a long journey, to take the sea. So, being alone, we talked with ineffable sweetness, and forgetting the past to think only about the future, we wondered between ourselves, in the presence of the Truth which is you, what will be, in eternity, the life of the Saints, this life which no eye has seen, that no ear has heard, and that the heart of man has not felt. And we aspired from the lips of the soul to these sublime springs of your fountain, from the fountain of life that is in you, that, by being watered as much as we were able, we might, in a way, reach through our thoughts to such a great thing.

"Now, as we spoke thus and sighed towards this blessed life, we reached little, by a full leap of heart; but soon, moaning and always attached by remembrance to these firstfruits of the spirit, we had to return to the sound of our lips, to the word which has a beginning and an end."

This leap from the heart, this momentary suspension of the spirit on the eternal and immutable truth, over the noise of creatures and images of the senses, seems to indicate a supernatural and purely intellectual interview between the soul and God*.

1 Confess. 1. 9, c. 10, p. 215. 2 See Boxa. Discreet. spir. ©. 18, n. 3 p. 299.— SCHRAM, $506, t. 2, p. 223.

Let us still hear St.Madeleine de Pazzi describe a similar vision.

"Was it in my body or out of my body, I was ignorant," she said, "but I saw God, being to himself his glory, loving himself, knowing himself thoroughly, and understanding himself infinitely; loving his creatures with a very pure and boundless love, and, in the union of an indivisible Trinity, surviving one God, infinite in love, and a sovereign, incomprehensible and inscrutable goodness. Thus established in God, I no longer had any feeling of myself, and I saw myself only in God, not that my gaze was on myself, but on God alone, as much as this intuition is allowed to the creature prepared and inflamed by love, but still clothed with mortal flesh. I remained almost an hour in this contemplation, as I could judge by it when I found my senses."

In these admirable communications, God reveals one aspect of himself and another: the brightness of his light, his majesty and his suavity?, his infinity and his power *, his resplendent beauty", his goodness, his source

1 V. Puccini. BB. 25 Maii, t. 19, p. 184, n. 22. Nesciebam,, inquite, vivane an mortua, extra an intra corpus essem; sed solum vidébam Deum, in seipso gloriosum, seipsum amare, seipsum intimate cognoscere solumque seipsum infinite comprehendere; amare autem creaturas purissimo et infinito amore; atque in unione unius individuelleæ Trinitatis, unum sojournee Deum amoris infinti, summæ, incomprehensibilisis et inscrutabilis bonitatis.

2 B. Mantua Osaxxe. BB. 18 Jun., t. 24 p. 621, n. 99. Magisque fruebar claritate, suavitate and majestate æterna quam antea unquam. Ut autem porro dicam qualitym et quantitatem istius incirconscripti luminis, id imposibile prorsus est.

3 The B. ANGEL OF FozicxO. BB. 4 Jan., t. 4 p. 495, n. 614. Ego volo tibi ostendere de potentia mea. And statim fuerunt aperti oculi animæ meæ et viebam plenitudinem Dei in qua comprehendebam totum mundum..., and viebam potentiam Dei excedera omnia et implere omnia. And dixit mihi: Ostendi tibi aliquid de potentia mea.

4 Ibid., p. 194, n. 58: Vidi summam pulchritudinem continentalem omne

bonum, and omnes sancti stabant ante illam pulcherrimam majestatem" ad khudandum eam.

of all good; his truth! the principle of all truth, and his perfect justice; his eternity?, his immensity, his immutability: in a word, the various attributes that characterize his being and distinguish him from all that is created and finished.

VITE. — Not only does God manifest his attributes and the splendour of his being, 1l still reveals to some privileged souls the mystery of the trinity of his people. These communications are generally reserved for the most perfect ones and crown the divine favors in the mystical order, as we have said in speaking of spiritual marriage.

Saint Teresus*? tells of herself that, reciting one day the symbol of Saint Athanasius, where the dogma of the Trinity is so clearly stated, he was given to understand how one God remains in three people, so clearly that she remained at once extremely surprised and comforted, and that it served him a great deal to know God and his wonders.

Saint Julien of Mount Cornillon, to whom is due the institution of the solemn feast of the Blessed Sacrament, received the same knowledge of the Trinity, at the time when she recited the doxology of a hymn of the divine office, consecrated to the common invocation of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. She saw the Trinity in Unity, and Unity in the Trinity; the Trinity in the property of Persons, Unity in the simplicity of substance, essence and the

1 St. TERÈSE, His Life, c. 40. This Truth, which was then to be revealed to me, is in itself truth; it is without beginning and without end, and all other truths depend on this Truth, as all other love of this Love, and all the other greatness of this Greatness.

- What? The B. ANGELS OF F. BB. 4 Jan., t. 1, p. 195, n. 65. Una tamen vice elevata leaks anima and emptybat quod istud quod ego quarebam non habebat initium nec finem....; emptybat Dei potentiam inenarrabilem, and emptybat Dei voluntatem, and justitiam, ef bonitatem.

3 His Life, ch. 39. re

# BB. 5 April, t. 10, p. 449, n. 20. Contemplabatur igitur mundi cordis

oculis Trinitatem in Unitate, and Unitatem in Trinitate: Trinitatem in Personarum owner, Unitatem in simpliciti substantia, essentialia and natura,

nature; how the Divinity, multiple in its Persons, loses nothing of the simplicity of its substance, its essence, its nature.

Each of the three divine Persons can manifest themselves separately. However, the appearance of the Father alone is very rare, if she has ever met. The other two Persons are more frequently revealed in the eyes of the mind; but, as we have said in describing the ceremonial of mystical weddings, it is mainly the Word that appears in this way, in its capacity as husband of souls. Near to death, and about to gather to this heavenly Spouse, Saint Angel of Foligno! saw him in an anticipated vision of glory, but so clearly, she said, that she understood what the eternal Word is, and all that this word, the Word, which has deigned to be a sign for us. And the Word, passing itself into her, giving her in all her being a delicious feeling of her presence by a divine touch and an ineffable embrace, said to her: "Come, my beloved, my loving wife, for all the Saints are waiting in joy. I will not entrust you to the angels or to the other blessed ones to bring you in; it is I, myself in person, who will come to gather you and raise up to me; for you have gained my heart and earned all my complacency."

IX.—These manifestations of God are more or less distinct, as we observed in speaking of the intellectual vision in general, and what we have

1 BB. 4 Jan., t. 1, p. 234, n. 259: And tunc ostendit mihi ipsum sponsum Verbum æternum, ita quod modo intelligento quid is Verbum, and quid is dicere Verbum, scilicet Verbum quod voluit incarnari pro me; and ipsum Verbum transitum fecit per me, and totam me tetigit, and amplexatus is me and dixit mihi: Veni, dilecta mea, sponsa amata cum vera dilectee; veni, quia omnes sancti expectant te cum lætitia. Dixit etiam mihi: Ego non committam te Angelis nec aliis sanctis ut te deducant, sed ego personaliter veniam pro {e, and assume te ad me; you enim mihi fata are conveniens, and grata meæ majestati.

says of the three degrees that meet in this vision, does not get along and applies fully only when it comes to God.

So we rise to this divine knowledge in three ways, or three gradual ascensions! The first, which the Mystics have called the dark or caliginous vision, consists of an overabundant clarity that invades the soul and seems to hide from it God, even by revealing it to him; and this, because it shows it, less in itself than by comparison with creatures, which, accumulated on one another with their multitude and perfection of nature and grace, do not approach the splendor of the infinite Being that floods all of its light, sustains and penetrates all of its virtue, without revealing itself, if not as incomprehensible and inscrutable greatness depth?

This is this negative notion of God, so exalted by St. Denis, and after him by all the Mystics, as the most direct way to raise up to God, is at the same time full of shadow and light; whose light falls upon the incomprehensible infiniteness and immeasurable perfection of the divine being revealed in the light of the spirit with the brightness of the evidence; and the shadow, upon those very depths where God hides his essence, and whose creation of intelligence cannot probe the abimes.

"Trinity that surpasses everything," exclaims the Areopagitus in the

1 Voss, Compend. Scaramelli, 1]. 2, D. 2, c. 1, a. 3 p. 375: Primo videri potest visione intellectuali Deus ipse, ejus unitas naturæ and trinitas personarum, et hoc triplici modo; primo quidem per visionem et caligine; secundo, per visionem claram et manifestem, nondum tamen intuuitivam, et tertio, per visionem intuuitivam, sine ullo medio et absque omni velamine a faie ad faciem.

- What? Go on, De grad. Contemple. 1. 5, P. 3, c. 13, t. 6 p. 606: Is ergo visio intelletualis Dei in Caligine cognitio illa, qua, transcursis omnibus creaturis, and relictis omnibus similitudinibus mysteriorum etiam supernaturalium, in Deum, ut incomprehensibilem, and nobis incogitabilem, and

Ferimur inintelligibilim, and eo quasi pelago infinitæ essentiæ quam ignoramus, penitus absorbermur.

vocation that opens his MYSTICAL THEOLOGY!, you who are infinitely holy and sovereignly good inspirator of the divine Wisdom of Christians, lead us to this height, the most unknown, the most luminous, the most sublime of mystical oracles, where the simple, absolute and immutable mysteries of theology are discovered in the darkness more than luminous of a silence that reveals all the secrets: darkness that makes shine, within the thick dark, uncomparable light, and, under shadows where one touches nothing, where one can see nothing, dazzle and fills the Intellects of beautiful splendors."

It must be noted that this negative knowledge of God is not the result of a successive work of elimination, but it consists of a unique and simple look, by which the mind plunges and gets lost in the infinite ocean of divine perfections; and this whole view relates to the infinite study, incomprehensibility and unfathomable depth of God. We seem to see in him that what he is not; and then it is that we have understood best what he is?.

"So the soul sees God in the darkness," said Bona, "when, rising above all creatures and similarities, she carries herself in God himself, as an unknown and unintelligible to all created eyes; and what she does,

1 Theol. myst. c. 1. Migne, Pat. gr., t. Three, collar. 998.

2 WANT PAZ, De grad. contemplative. 1.5, P. 3, c. 13, p. 606: Hæc itaque visio non est aliqua considerationatio inductiva hominis a Deo perfectiones creatas subtrahentis elaborata; sed inspectio quaedam simplex et veluti improvisa, et souca intellectui contemplatantis immissa, Ea inspicitur Deus ut id quod non est, et tamen maxime cognoscitur secundum id quod est. Quia, dum nihil limitatum and endum apprehenditur, in quoddam ens illimitatum and infinitum, eujus essentia, and substantia, and modus sine modo nescitur, intellectus pure inspiciens raptatur. Nihil emptys, sed id quod totum is and extra quod nihil is, sibi voidum, and amore ampletenstem sibi proponi cognoscit. Igitur non vividendo vividet, and vividondo non vividet; quia velut quamdam obscatiatem and quamdam nebulam, omnem lucem estiogentem apprehendit. Unde non videt, quia obscuras non videtur; and videt, quia immenss

lux quasi tenebris cooperta conspicitur. 3 Discreet, breath. c. 18, n. 6 p. 302.

rather sees what it is not that it is; discovering in these mysterious darkness an immense perfection that infinitely surpasses all wisdom, all power, all goodness, all beauty, and all that one can conceive. In this vision, to which she rises, not by her own virtue, but by a simple and unanticipated gaze which God gives to her of himself, the soul, ceasing to be to her by the momentum of admiration and love, is absorbed, as in a deep sea, in the immensity of this God whom she sees, seeing her impotence to see him."

The second way, for God, to manifest itself, is a kind of middle between darkness and full light!. God shows himself, not by veil of negation, but by a positive aspect of himself, revealing either all of his attributes or only a few in particular, or the very mystery of his essence, that is, the trinity of people in the unity of nature, but not yet with the fullness of glory. This second kind of vision, compared to the previous one, can be called clear and luminous.

But it would be only darkness itself, close to the third, which discovers God in its essence and the divine claritys that the theologians have called the light of glory. It is the facial vision, final and beatific, which illuminates and delights the saints of heaven, where God is contemplated face to face, without veil, without reserve; while in the first one encounters him and asserts him more than one sees him, and in the second one feels him, tastes him and possesses him rather than one sees him?.

1 Boxa. Discreetly. 18, n. 7 p. 302: Secundus modus divinæ visionis est, cum expulsis tenebris quas posuit Deus latibulum suum, and disjecta caligine ac dissatis nubibus, Deus ipse vietur, non quidem in sua claritate and in splendore meridiei, sed veluti in aurora, cum lux dubia and modica est.

2 SLAVE PAZ, C. 14, p. 610. Id autem evenit quando caligo disjicitur, and obscuritas dissipatur, and Deus superbnedictus, liquet non in sua claritate

and majestate, tamen in quodam gustu experimentali sentitur, and magis attritatione, ut ita dicam, quam inspectione vietur.

It is not doubtful, the facts we have reported prove it abundantly, that souls called to mystical life cannot receive and frequently received the supernatural manifestation of God through the first two ways, the dark vision and the luminous vision. Is it the same with the glorious vision? Has it been granted to any living man? and if it is ever given, is it as an exceptional and transitory favor, or as a regular state of contemplation? Difficult questions, already discussed in the first part of this book.

1T.1, chap. 22.

Chapter VI

The Objects of Supernatural Vision — II. Jesus Christ

Appearances of the Saviour before his ascension. — Body Appearances since he ascended to heaven in his state of glory, — as he was on earth, — child, — infirm, poor and pilgrim. — The Eucharist is the ordinary scene of these manifestations. — Imaginary visions and the various forms in which the Saviour reveals himself. — Intellectual visions. — Jesus Christ appears personally in intellectual visions. — The various opinions on the personal character of the Appa-

— The reason for the excessive feeling of the Scholastics on this point. — Imaginary visions clles-memes may be personal.

I. — The vision most often given to holy souls is that of the Saviour Jesus: to challenge him would betray a complete ignorance of the apostolic accounts and annals of the saints. To explain the various forms of this vision by examples drawn from historical sources, as we are going to do, is to show enough certainty. But again, the personal or impersonal nature of these visions seems to be difficult: the solution may be less difficult after the facts have been presented. Let's start with the facts.

There is no need to seek it in the life of the Saviour, except for what the Gospel of John's exultation tells us.

Baptist still in the womb of her mother Elizabeth, and of the prophetic exclamations of this holy woman in the sight of the Blessed Virgin Mary, no supernatural manifestation of Jesus Christ is known before her glorious life; and those we have just reported are less apparitions than intimate revelations!

After his resurrection, Our Lord appeared to Mary Magdalene under the traits of the gardener?, to the disciples of Emmaus *, outside a traveler; to his apostles, as he had lived with them before his Passion; and without doubt in the brightness of his glory, to his holy Mother, to whom his first apparition # had come from right.

Since his ascension, Jesus Christ has revealed himself and revealed himself in bodily, imaginary and intellectual visions; and, in each of these forms, in the most diverse aspects and states.

Let us first examine the variety of body appearances.

IL. — Our Lord has manifested himself more than once as he is in heaven, with his glorious flesh and all gleaming light.

Thus he had to appear to the Blessed Virgin, on the day of her assumption, by introducing him into her glory; for it is a pious feeling and often expressed by the doc-

1 Suarez, De Angelis, 1. 6, c. 21 n. 15, p. 785: Quatuor autem modis seu temporibus appeared Christus homo: duo namque considerari posunt in vita mortali, and alii duo in immortali seu gloriosa. Prior in vita mortali leak post Incarnationem, quando in utero matris latuit. Alius flee in eadem vita mortali a nativitate usque ad mortem. Tertius leak in vita gloriosa post resurrectionem, antequam ad coelos ascenderet. Quartus esse potest post ascentem in cælum quamdiu ad dexteram Dei Patris sedet usque ad diem judicii. Circa tres priores nihil fere dicendum occurrit, quod ad præsens instituum pertineat.

2 Joan. xx, 15. — 3 Luke. xxv, 18.

4 SuaAREz, Myst. Vitæ Christi, Disp. 49, sect. 1, n. 2, t. 49, p. 876: Absque ulla dubitatione credendum is Christum post resurrectionem primal omnium matri suæ appeared.

Christian leaders who celebrated this mystery!, that the Incarnate Word came, with the angels and the saints, to meet his Mother Bemus: "Trimp more pompous," said St. Peter Damien?, "than the Redeemer, since He, in ascending to heaven, had only the procession of angels, while Mary had that of his Son and of the whole heavenly court."

This was also the vision of the first martyrs, St Stephen, when #, filled with the Holy Spirit and looking to heaven, he cried out: "I see the heavens open, and the Son of man at the right hand of God." If the Jews did not see this lovely spectacle, it is, said with a pleasant subtlety St Augustine #, that envy prevented them from seeing: Not empty, who was invidious.

The interpretation that explains this account of ACTS of an external vision is not universally accepted, we know. Several ° hear a mental vision, imaginary according to some, according to other intellectuals. He

1 Suarez, Myst. Christ. Disp. 51, sect. 4, n. 6 p. 986: And ita sentiunt sancti Patres who specializes mysterio loquuntur. God enim Christum celesti circumfusum curia ad matrem descends.

2 S. FIERRE DA. Serm. 40 of Assumpt. p. 91. Invenies occursum hujus pompæ non mediocriter digniorem. Soli quippe Angeli Redemptori occrerere potuerunt. Matri vero coelorum palatia penetranti Filius ipse, cum tota curia tam Angelorum quam justorum, solemniter occurrens, evexit ad beatæ consistorium sessionis.

3 See Act, 55.

4 Serm. 116, 3 in solemn. Steph. Martyr., n. 2, p. 134.

5 Lori. /n Act. Apost. vu, 55, p. 339. Lyranus refert opinionem aliquorum dicentium quod Stephanus visione mentali vividrit etiam Divinitatem, sicut Paulus in raptu in tertium coelum. Refellit istud, quia, cum Paulus hoc vidit, sensuum usum tum non habebat, quemadmodum Stephanus, who dum videbat, claims empty. Secundam sententiam ponit, esfesse visionem imaginariam, ita ut formaverit Deus in Stephani imaginative species idoneas ad repæsentandum Deum et hominem Christum... Attamen in tertio loco mavult fuss duntaxat corporalem solius Christi visionem, quiniam textus expresses intendisse oculos in cæœlum et vidisse, etc. Equidem, non dubito Stephanum mente non esuffesse alienatum, sed présentem percepisse intelligendo quaæ offerebantur: oblate vero esse ipsis oculis corporis ejus vera, non ficta objecta, etc.:

This is why we have to decide what kind of vision we are dealing with.

IT. — The Saviour still shows himself as he was on earth during his mortal life, clothed in his clothes, in the attitude of modesty, mildness and goodness that charmed men. It is thus likely that he appeared to St Peter leaving Rome to escape the fury of Nero. As a result of the faithful' authorities, and after generous resistance, the prince of the apostles had finally resolved to flee the theatre of persecution. But he had barely crossed, in the first shadows of the night, one of the gates. of the city, which he saw Christ coming to meet him and heading towards the places from which he went away. He throws himself at his feet and says: "Where are you going, Lord?" And the Lord to answer him: "I come to Rome to be there a second time crucified." Peter understood, and, immediately returning to his steps, he returned to the city, and he suffered, as a faithful and courageous disciple, the martyrdom of the cross?

The Christians of Rome raised in the continuation an oratory out of the Appian way, at the place where the apostle had met his Savior, and called him Domine, quo vadis, i.e.: Sezgneur, where are you going? to consecrate this pious tradition, of which the learned Tillemont has demonstrated authenticity, and that Suarez * declares a fully established point of history.

Many saints, the venerable Mother Agnes in particular ÿ, have often had these visions.

1 S. PIERRE DAMIEX, Serm. 62 of S. Steph. p. 149: Non mediocris stupor involvit me, utrum primitius flos martyrum corporeis an incorporeis oculis ista prospexerit..... Nihil audeo temere definire, vel ex abrucho præcipitare sensiam, cum definitivam super hujusmodi regulam me non legerim invenisse.

2 BB. 29 Jun., Act. S. Petri, t. 27 p. 390, n. 41.

Note 39, ad Vitam S. Petri.

4 In 3 P. Disp. 51, sect. 4, n. 2, p. 984: Ex historia probatissima Christum aliquando appeared Petro Roma discedenti, eique in via Appia octurrisse, etc.

$ LANTAGES, Life of the Ven. Mother Agnes of Jesus, 3 Part., c. 5, t. 9,

IV. — Jesus Christ loves to reveal himself in the child's traits, to recall the mysteries of his childhood, and to invite the souls whom he visits to a holy familiarity.

A bourgeois who gave hospitality to Saint Anthony of Padua, having looked through the window of the room where the saint was contemplating, saw him holding between his arms a child of admirable beauty and grace, whom the servant of God did not tire of contemplating, hugging and covering with kisses. St.Antoine, warned by the divine Child that his host saw him, called him after having given himself up to a long contemplation, and made him promise not to reveal anything, in his lifetime, of all that he had seen. From there came the practice of representing Saint Anthony of Padua holding the Child Jesus between his arms.

These charming apparitions of the Child Jesus are quite frequent in the history of the purest and most loving souls. The lives of Saint Catherine of Bologna, the Blessed Humilian Cerchi, * the Blessed Julienne of Cateldo, * present some delicious examples. But nothing equals what Blessed Osanne of Manioue tells herself.

She was barely six years old when Jesus appeared to her,

p. 124. Our Lord Jesus Christ appeared to him visibly, clothed in a long dress of colour drawing on the purple: he had long hair and red hair; this was also the colour of his beard; the wounds of his feet and hands shone like the rays of the sun... She heard a voice at the bottom of her heart, saying: "It is your Husband," and then another, the very one of this Beloved, who says to her, "Do not be afraid, I am your husband, and I am faithful to my wives. You see me in the form "that I had when I lived in the world, etc."

1 BB. 13 Jun., t. 23, p. 220, n. 24.

3 J. Grasser, BB. 9 mart., t. 8, p. 57, n. 47.

3 Vir. Corton. BB. 19 Maiii, t. 17, p. 396, n. 46.

4 BB. 1 second, t. 41, p. 315.

S H. Yesver, BB. 18 Jun., t. 24 p. 606, n. 17: Ecce appeared mihi... parvulus, inquam, Jesus, lucidus super solem, gratiosus totus and præ nive candidus. Oculi ejus omnino juvendi erant, and reniden bones, etc.

little child, brighter than the sun, exhaling all the perfumes, delighting in splendor, clear, kind, graceful, whiter than snow. Her eyes had all the charms, and her lips were just smiling. His blond hair, drawing on the brilliant color of gold, was surmounted by a very sharp crown of thorns; he carried on his shoulder a large cross, larger than himself. The little virgin looked with admiration and with a look where her soul was smitten by this resplendent face, at the same time of a gentle modesty, of divine majesty, of incomparable beauty. And the Child Jesus, staring at her with tender eyes and drawing her soul to him by the radiance of her beauty, addressed these sweet words to her: "My daughter, with a beloved soul, I am the son of the Virgin Mary, and your Creator. I have always loved the little ones; I have them and will them with me, because they have no malice, and all in them is clean; that is why I am pleased to dwell with these little ones, pure and innocent, and I have made them my company. I take the virgins from their early childhood, and, wanting them to be my immaculate wives, I always keep them in holy purity. As soon as they push this cry to me: O good Jesus! I answer immediately, and I am there to help them." Those sweet words: O good Jesus, entered deeply into the heart of the little virgin; she was constantly returning to her lips, and her ordinary exclamation was: O Jesus!

More than once the divine Child will appear to this kind saint to make it an accomplished image of himself. When Our Lord comes to her in the form of an old man, it will be to predict to her that someone close to her will come to an end and die.

t H. Urver, BB. 18 Jun., t. 24 p. 582, n. 417: Pulcherrimum quemdam senem obvium habuït... Whenever special more sese obviam obtulites Christus, evidens fled amittendi aliejus necessarii signum. Nam simul ac

V. — Jesus loves poverty and pain too much to have not appeared in the form of the poor and the infirm.

Saint John of God meets one day in the square a man half dead. He loaded him on his shoulders, carried him according to his custom to the hospital, stretched out on a bed, and then he began, as he did to all others, to wash his feet. But when he bows down to kiss them, he sees to him a luminous and resplendent wound that makes him recognize the crucified Redeemer; and, raising his eyes on his divine face, he hears from his mouth these words: "John, it is to me that is done all the good that the poor receive in my name; it is I who extend my hand to the alms that they are given; I who am clothed in their clothes; I whom you wash your feet every time you render this service to a poor or sick person." He says and disappears, leaving the soul of his servant in extreme admiration for such a favor, and filling the house with such great clarity, that the sick jump from their Hit, crying: Fire! Fire! until the Blessed comes to calm them, ensuring that the fire is already extinguished!.

Saint John Columbini?, who founded the order of the Jesuates in Italy, still being in the bond of marriage, meets one day an infecting and disgusting leper, takes him on his shoulders, bowing sometimes one of his hands, sometimes the other. Far from feeling any bad smell or repulsiveness, he experiences ineffable joy and love transports. Arriving in his house, 1l puts the poor leper in a bath, washes his ulcers, and drinks with delights of this filthy water in appearance. Then he carries his treasure

ipsum vidit, moriturum consanguineum coeælesti illustata lumina, intellexit, id quod eventus probavit.

1 ANT. GOVEA, BB. 8 mart., t. 7 p. 839, n. 26.

2 BB. 31 Jul., t. 34, p. 374 and 375, n. 66-77.

in his wife's bed; for he had long been used to lying on aisles. His wife, first indignant and intriguing, calls against these excesses of charity; but, at reflection, and under the action of an inner grace, returning to more human senses, she enters, during the absence of her husband, into the room where the leper lay, and behold, she aspires an exquisite smell, as she had never felt. She understands as soon as something supernatural and divine happens there, reproaches her hardness, melts in tears, and dares to advance to this mysterious sick person, she runs to warn her husband. When they returned, the divine leper had disappeared, leaving the places he had just left embalmed with heavenly perfumes.

We are silent about the many traits we have collected in the history of the Saints: we must limit ourselves; but let us be allowed to report again a charming fact from which we borrow the account to the Life of the venerable Mother Agnes de Langeac, by M. de Lantages!.

"The Son of God himself, in his own person and in the form of a pilgrims, came to her, one day when she finished her prayer in the church of Our Lady, in this chapel of the Holy Crucifix where God pleased to fill her with special consolations. As he asked for alms of good grace: "My friend," said Agnes, "I have nothing." From what this divine pilgrims, whom she did not know under this figure, left him: "At least if you can't do body alms, do spiritual alms, and say almighty for me a Ave Maria." This way of speaking marked the authority of the One who was before her. Agnès immediately began, with a voice loud and animated of devotion and charity together, to say the Ave Maria, that the

1 Life of the Ven. Mother Agnes, 1. P., ch. 14, t. 4 p. 172.

And when she spoke it, he fainted, or rather, said the author of the Admirable Life, squeaked in the depths of her soul; for suddenly she felt so violent a fire of divine love light in her heart, that she thought she died of it. She did not later seek to know from her angel what this pilgrim was, as she was not curious about extraordinary and hidden things." This pilgrimage, the author has already said, was the Son of God himself, the Savior Jesus.

VI. — The ordinary theatre of these manifestations is the adorable sacrament of the Eucharist, the host and the chalice, the altar and the tabernacle. The blood has been seen to escape from the host as from the body of a victim; the Holy Victim herself has been seen in the attitude of crucification and death; it has been seen in all the brightness of beauty and glory, as a child, a young man, a man as he appeared on the earth, passing from the altar or from the hands of the priest in souls, attesting his presence by a particular flavor that attaches to the host, and brings in the soul an incredible suavity!, or as a delicious flame burning the mouth and burning the heart?; and in other forms yet.

We cannot discuss the details of these wonders. They abound in the lives of the saints, especially in those of Saint Philip of Néri*, of St Pascal Baylon!, of the Blessed Angel of Foligno, of St Colettef, of St Julienne of Mount Cornillon, of the Venerable Ida

1 ANAUD, BB. 4 Jan. Vita B. Ang. Fulgin., t. 1, p. 205, n. 118. 2 Life of the Ven. Mother Agnes, t. 2, p. 350.

8 a.m. BARNAB. BB. 26 Mayi, t. 19.

4 XIMENEES, BB. 17 Maiii, t. 17.

5 ARNAUD, BB. #4 Jan., t. 1.

6 Er. De Jus, BB. 6 mart., t. 7.

7 BB. 5 April, t. 10.

of Eouvain', of St.Catherma of Siena?, of St.Teresis and of an infinity of other ®.

VII. — The Saviour thus manifests himself in outward and bodily apparitions; but 1l is even more often revealed in imaginary visions to souls raised to contemplation.

The story of Saint Paul, narrated in the book of ACTS, contains two visions of this nature. For the first time, Jesus Christ appears to this apostle in vision, and tells him to strengthen him against the stubbornness of the Jews of Corinth and in his resolution to preach the gospel to the Gentiles: "Do not be afraid, but speak, and keep quiet, for I am with you."5 Later, after the tribulations that were brought upon him in Jerusalem, the Lord presented himself again to Paul during the night, and said to him: "Ouch courage, for since you have borne witness in Jerusalem, you must also bear witness to me in Rome." There is no doubt that these apparitions made during the night, and in vision, according to the expression of the text, are not those we have called imaginary.

These are also the scenes of Revelation, where the Sauvour reveals himself to Saint John, especially in this first vision where, "in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks, the sacred writer sees someone who looked like the Son of man, clothed in a long robe, and girded under the chest of a golden belt; the head and the hair white as the whitest wool and as the snow; the eyes shining like a flame of fire, the feet like brass in the furnace, and his voice, in the voice of the great waters; having on his right hand seven stars, and

1 BB. 13 April, t. 11.

3 Additions to His Life.

4 See. Gorres, Mystique, 1. 3, e. 11, t. To, p. 401, ed. in-12. $ Act. xvin, 9 and 10. — 6 Act. xxx, 11. — 7 Apoc. 1, 10 and sq.

In his mouth a sharp two-edged sword; the face shining like the sun in his strength, and seeing the evangelist prostrate before him in the fear of death, said to him, "Don't be afraid, I am the first and the last. I live and have been dead, and behold, I am alive in the ages of the ages; and I have the keys to death and hell." Further on, it is in the form of the lamb that the Victim of Calvary appears to him, Lamb always in the attitude of immolation, to whom are addressed the adorations and praises of heaven to ascend from him to the Holy Trinity, and in whom begin and consume the joys and beatitudes of the eternal weddings?

The forms of Our Lord, in these mental representations, are innumerable. All those we have indicated are there, and many more. He appears as a child to a large number of holy souls, especially to Marguerite-Marie of the Blessed Sacrament ÿ, a Carmelite nun, who inaugurated the pious devotion to the holy childhood of the Savior; under the outside of the poor, to Saint Martin, in the presence of his angels, to whom he tells, showing them half the chlamyd given the day before by this future thaumaturge of Gauls to a poor beggar half naked: "It was Martin the catechumene who covered me with this garment; "like a sweet lamb to Saint John, we have just said; to Saint Elizabeth of the

4 Rev. v,5-13. — 2 Rev. xx1, 2, 9.

3 Life of the Venerable Marguerite of the Blessed Sacrament, founder of the association of the Holy Childhood of Jesus, by M. Louis does Cissey, 3rd ed., passim.

4 Supic. SevVER. From Vita B. Martini, n. 3. Migne, Patr. lat., t. 20, col. 462: Nocte igitur insecuta, cum se sopori dedisset, vidit Christum chlamydis suæ, qua pauperem texerat, parte vestrum. Intueri diligently Dominum, vestemque quam dederat jubetur agnoseere. Mox ad Angelorum circumstantium multitudinem, audit Jesum clara voce dicentem: Martinus adhuc catechumenus hac me jacket contexit.

5 Rev. v, 6.

Sconauge!; to Saint Lutgarde*, who receives him on his chest and can apply his mouth on his mouth; to Saint Francis d'Assisi *, under the appearances of a crucified Seraphim who gives him the sacred stigmas.

It is mainly in these kinds of visions that he reveals himself partially, showing sometimes his hands and wounds, sometimes his adorable face, sometimes his open side and his inflamed heart. We have on these assertions the precious testimony of Saint Teresus, who devotes the xxvin and xxix chapters of her life to describing this kind of visions, of all those that she received, the most frequent.

"It was one day in prayer," she wrote*, "it pleased Our Lord to show me his divine hands; the beauty was so great, that I did not have any words to express it. I was afraid, as I am always, when Our Lord begins to give me some supernatural grace. A few days later, I saw his divine figure, and I remained completely absorbed. I could not understand why this adorable Saviour, who later had to appear to me as a whole, was gradually showing himself. I have understood since then that it was to conform to my natural weakness. May his goodness be blessed forever! So much glory gathered together, a creature so vile and so despicable could not have sustained it; this compassionate Savior knew it,

1 EoserT, BB. 18 Jun., t. 24 p. 508, n. 31: Vidi ante thronum Dei Agnum stantem valde amabilem, and habentem crucem auream quasi dorso infixam.

3 THom. CANTIPRATANUS, BB. 16 Jun., t. 24 p.194, n. 19: Christus in species Agni super pectus suum se tali modo locaret, ut unum pedum super humerum ejus dexterum, alium super sinistrum, and os suum ori illius imponeret, and sic sugendo de pectore illius mirabilis melodiæ suavitatem extraheret.

3 S. BonavenT. Legend. S. Francisci, c. 18.

# Life of B. Marguerite-Marie, written by herself, t. 2, p. 381: This sacred Heart was represented to me as a bright sun with a brilliant smoker, whose burning rays gave lead to my heart.

— And alibi passim. 5 His Life, ch. 28.

And that's why he had it gradually... One day of Saint Paul, during Mass, this very holy Humanity presented itself to me as a whole, as it is portrayed risen, with an inconceivable beauty and majesty.... Although this vision is sensitive, I did not see it, nor any other, from the eyes of the body, but only from the eyes of the soul."

"For two and a half years," continues Saint Terèse, "God has very often favored me with this vision; for more than three years it has been less ordinary... Our Lord almost always stood before me in the state of his resurrection, and likewise in the Holy Host. Sometimes, to comfort me, when I was in tribulation, he showed me his wounds: sometimes I appeared in the cross, in the garden, more rarely crowned with thorns; or carrying his cross; and I repeat, for the necessities of my soul or those of other persons; but, in any way that it appeared, his flesh was always glorified."

The most ordinary representation is that of the mysteries of the life and death of the Saviour. St. Elizabeth of Sconauge? viewed in turn the scenes of the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Circumcision, the Epiphany, the Presentation to the Temple, and especially those of the Passion. The same revelations reproduce more or less explicit and numerous in the Brigitte?, the Angèle de Foligno #, the Madeleine de Pazzi*, the Osanne de Mantouef, the Marie d'Oignies?, the AREUEAE-Mane Alacoque*,

1 His Life, ch. 29.

2 EoBerT, BB. 18 Jun., t. 24 p. 511, 516.

3 Revelations.

4 ARNAUD, BB. 4 Jan., p. 1. 200-203.

V$. Puccmnt, BB. 25 Maii, t. 49, p. 220 et seq.

6 a.m. Urver, BB. 18 Jun.; t. 24 p. 645: Anima mea flees in Hierusalem, and vidit de passu in passum omnia mysteria passionis Christi.

7 Jacques DE Virry, BB. 23 Jun., t. 25, p. 567.

8 Life and works of B. Mr Marie Alacoque, t.1,p: 47, 63.88; t. 2, p.349, 497.

the Agnes of Langeac!. It is narrated from Saint Alban*, the first martyr of England, that being still pagan, he saw in a dream unfolded before his eyes the scenes of the Passion of the Redeemer, his Death, His Resurrection, His Ascension and His triumph, and that soon after being instructed by an apostle of the Gospel, Saint Amphibals, he received baptism and gloriously confessed the name of Jesus Christ.

All these visions express the mercy of the Savior Jesus for men. But there is one of which Saint Denis has kept our memory, and which seems to us a nonparella proof of the compassionate and inexhaustible tenderness of Man-God towards sinners. The reader will be grateful to quote it here, as it was told by the Areopagit in his letter to Demophilus.

"One day," he wrote, "that I was in Crete, I received the houspitahté with Saint Carpus, a man more than not an eminently proper to divine contemplation, by the extreme clarity of his soul. He never approached the Augustine celebration of mysteries without before, in the pious prayers of his preparation, some gentle vision was manifested to him. But he told me that once he had conceived a great sadness of what an unfaithful had diverted from the Church to atheism a man who was still celebrating his hilaries, that is, the joyful days that followed

1 LANTAGES, Life of V. Mr. Agnes, t. 2, c. 13 and 14.

3 WiLceLm. Alban. BB. 92 Jun., t. 25, p. 430, n. 6 and 7: Albano vero in solario quiescenti, miranda quaedam nocte illa divinitus ostentantntur. Ecce de coelis homo veniebat, quem apprehendens innumera hominum multitudo diversa expendit in eum genera tormentorum. Manus vinculis constringuntur, flagellis corpus atteritur, per transversum ligni robur manus expanduntur, etc. His auditions B. Amphibalus sentiens cor ejus visitatum a Domino... statimque Crucem Domini quam secum habebat proferens, a: Ecce in boc signo buddies manifest dignoscere quid visio tua nocturna velit, quid portendat. Homo namque veniens de supernis Domiaus meus. est Jesus Christus.: 8, ad Demoph., $6. Migne, t. Two, collar. 4098.

baptism. He was to pray for both, inspired by goodness; with the help of the Saviour God, convert one, and overcome the other by goodness; not to cease, throughout life and every day, to call upon their reason to bring them to the divine light, to clarify all their doubts, and, by the force of truth, to force them out of their misguidedness. But, strangely, until then, he died in this man, violently seized with bitter indignation, he lay down and fell asleep under the blow of this emotion, for it was evening.

"About midnight, when he used to wake up to praise God, he rose up, having tasted only a light and often interrupted sleep, still in trouble. Nevertheless, entering into commerce with God, he engages in unfaithful sorrow, he gets angry, he says that it is unfair to let ungodly men live through the ways of the Lord. And saying that, he exhorts God to end without mercy by a lightning strike on the days of these two men at once. At these words, he suddenly believes that he saw the house where he was first shaken, and then divided into two by the dot, then a sharp flame sparkle at his will, which from the top of the sky, through the seemingly pierced at day, descended to him; finally, the sky entered open, and at the bottom of the firmament Jesus, in the midst of a multitude of angels, in human form.

"Carpus, rising his eyes, contemplates this spectacle, which strikes him astonishment. Then, as he kissed them, he saw the ground excavated into a vast and dark abhorrent, and those men whom he had cursed stood in front of him, in the mouth of the abyss, trembling, the unhappy, falling there at every moment; for their feet already slide. From the bosom of the abyss crawl serpents towards them, who cling to their uncertain feet, sometimes spraining, Islands press, pull them; and sometimes, teeth or tail,

they tear or caress them, trying by all means to drag them into the precipice. And all around, men, in concert with the snakes, assail, shake, push these unfortunates, which appear at the point of kiln, half of the will, half of the strength, forced and at the same time seduced by evil. Carpus rejoices at what he sees at his feet, and forgets the spectacle that is above his head. He squeaks and is angry that these two men are not already rushed; he himself works to their fall, and his powerless efforts add to his anger and imprecations.

"At last he lifts his eyes, and he sees in heaven what he had already discovered; only Jesus, moved with compassion on what is happening at the edge of the labime, leaves his heavenly throne, descends to these men and gives them his hand with kindness, while the angels, also coming to their aid, support them, who on one side, who on another.

"And Jesus said to Carpus: "With your already raised hand "smacks only me; I am ready to suffer again "for the salvation of men, and that would be dear to me, except "the crime of other men. See if you like "to stay with the snakes in the abyss, that's what- "to fuck with God and the angels so good and so friends of the "men."

"This is what I have described, with the persuasion that it is the truth," said St. Denis the Areopagit. Te

VIIL. — Finally, Our Lord also manifests himself in intellectual vision!

One can admit, with St Augustine? and several au-

1 SLAVE PAZ,. 5. P. 3, C. 12 p. 600: Hac ergo visione intellectuali vidétur Christus Dominus ab anima contemplative.

2 Enarrat. in Psalm. 67, c. 36, p. 298. Cum ei persecutori dictum coelo essay: Willow, Willow, quid me persequeris, adempto lumina oculorum carnalium, responsebat Domino quem spiritu viebat.

that it appeared in this way to St Paul, on the way to Damascus, and later also in the temple, when he renews to him the mission to carry the Gospel to the Gentiles; and it is likely from one or the other vision that the Apostle speaks, when he tells the Corinthians that he was delighted to the third heaven?, what everyone hears from an intellectual vision.

In her many and admirable intellectual visions, the Blessed Angel of Foligno contemplated, not only the attributes of divine nature and the splendors of the Augustus Trinity, but also the God made man, who drew his soul with ineffable tenderness, until he sometimes said: "You are myself, and I am yourself." She saw her eyes and her face so soft turned towards her soul, to attract and embrace her with immense love to.

Sainte Terèse knew these visions of Our Lord through the simple glance of the spirit, and she described them to us with his ordinary lucidity, to chapter xxvii of his life and to the sixth dwelling of the INTERIOR CHATEAU. Here's how she expresses herself in this last place #:

"While we do not think of a special favor, even though it has never come in the thought of meriting it, it happens that we feel near ourselves Jesus Christ Our Lord, although we see it neither from the eyes of the body nor from the eyes of the soul. This vision is called intellectual, I don't know.

1 SLAVE PAZ, 1. 5, P. 3, c. 42, p. 601: Hujus generis leaks visio Pauli qua in itinere Damaci, Christum Dominum vocantem and increpantem aspexit. — See. Lorin, in Act. 1x, 3, p. 399.

2 II Cor. xn, 4 et seq.: Scio hominem... raptum hujusmodi usque ad tertium cælum, etc.

8 ARNAUD, BB. 4 Jan., t. 1, p. 197, n. 77: In separation vero ab illo bono jam dicto, video Deum hominem and betrays animam cum mansuetudine, ut dicat aliquado: You're ego, and ego sum tu. And video illos oculos and illam faciem tuam placabilem ut amplexetur and attrahat animam meam cum immensa arctitudine.

4 Cdr. interested, 5th Dem., c. 8.

Why? I know a person to whom God made this grace, with others whom I will bring back in the future, and who in the beginnings was in great pain, because, seeing nothing, she could not understand what it was. However she was so sure that it was Our Lord who showed himself so, that she could not doubt it. Then she understood clearly that it was Our Lord who often spoke to her in the way I said, while, before receiving this favor, although she heard the words, she did not know who was speaking to her."

This vision of Saint Teresus, because it is such that it is, is one that we have called indistinct. The Saviour still manifests himself with a clarity that not only attests to his presence, but reveals some aspect of himself. ‘ These were the visions that we mentioned of St Paul and Blessed Angelus of Foligno: we refrain from citing other examples, to repeat the question which comes again here of the personal or impersonal character of these visions.

IX. — In accordance with the solutions already given, the intellectual visions assuming the actual manifestation of the object, this apparition is always personal; therefore, in these kinds of visions, Our Lord is truly and personally present to the soul that contemplates him. Moreover, these manifestations, as we have just said, are indistinct or they are clear, depending on whether they only attest to the presence of the Saviour or which they show to the open some aspect of his being. In the

4 , P. 3, C. 19, p. 601 and 602: Duobus ergo modis Christus Salvator noster (and idem dictum sit de B. Virgine aut de alio saneto\ visione intellectuali videtur. First of all, it is obscure and almost confused. Cum anima nullam imaginem, nullamque aut faiei, aut staturee corporis figuram viens, eum prope se, vel ad latus dextrum, vel intus in corde esse cognoscit majori certitudine quam si corporeis oculis videret.... Secundo appartet

Christus Salvator noster animæ contemplatanti per visionem intellectualem clare and distinct, ita ut quasi intuitive vacuumatur.

First, unless we challenge the very truth of the vision, we must admit that Jesus Christ is actually present. In the second case, it would be strange if the Saviour were less present, when clearly seen, than when one simply had the knowledge and the certainty of his presence, without distinguishing anything in him from distinct and precise. It would logically follow from this distinction, that one never sees more than when one sees the least, and that Jesus Christ is closer to us when he gives us the certainty of his presence than when he reveals something distinctly to us from himself. One must have the mind obsessed with preconceived ideas, to come to such dissonant conclusions, without opening one's eyes.

X. — As for imaginary and bodily visions, the difficulty is quite different.

In comparison to the last, Suarez brings all interpretations back to one of the next three. According to the first!, Jesus Christ, since his Ascension, never came down from heaven, if not to appear sacramentally under the Eucharistic species. In this opinion, Christ's apparitions, reported by the Scriptures and tradition, must be considered merely imaginary, or performed by extrinsic and impersonal representations. Suarez was able to discover no Catholic doctor who expressly supports this interpretation, and he believes it difficult to defend it in relation to the Saviour's apparitions to St Paul on the way to Damascus,

In 3 P.,q. 48,a. 4. — D. 51, sect. &, n. 3,t. 49, p. 985. In ac re tres invenio esse possesse dikendi modos: Primus is, ex quo Christus ad coelos.ascendit, nunquam deseruisse, neque in terris in proprioa accvisibili specie appartisse, sed solummodo sacramentali, sub speciebus panis et vini... Non invenio hunce dicendi modum express traditum ab aliquo doctore catholico, nec mihi emptyur possesses convenient defendi, præsertim propter ea quaæ Seriptura tradit de apparitione fatta Paulo, and ea quae Sancti referunt de apparitione fata Petro; and multum etiam urgent queæ de Beata Virgine tradidimus.

St Peter at the gates of Rome, to the Most Holy Virgin on the Day of the Assumption: apparitions that he holds for some. Saint Terèse!, however, seems to be in favour of this first opinion; but it is based, less on the revelations that it would have received, than on the conclusions that it draws from it.

After the second *, which Suarez describes as probable, Our Lord would sometimes have come out of heaven to appear for a very short time on earth, and immediately go back to the sojourn of glory. Based on this principle that a body cannot be simultaneously in several places, it affirms that when Our Lord is on earth, he is not at the same time in heaven; and since the presence of Man-God is, after the sight of God, the best part of the stay of the blessed, it is understood that absence can only be of short duration. This sentiment is attributed to Saint Thomas and several other renowned theologians.

Note, however, that while the Angelic Doctor expressly teaches that glorious Jesus Christ has come down sometimes bodily into the world, he does not explain on the point raised by the scholastics, namely: if he is absent from heaven during this earthly apparition;

1 Additions to his Life. I understood by certain things that Our Lord tells me that, since he ascended to heaven, he has never come down to earth to communicate to men, except in the Most Holy Sacrament of the altar.

2 SuAREz, In 3 P., q. 48, a. 4. — D. 51, sect. 4, n. 4. Secundus dicendi modus is Christum post ascentem suam ïinterdum and descends in terras, and a celesti loco ad breve lempus secedisse. Hanc sensiam docet express D. Thomas, and Cajet., and alii recentiores; quae sententia probabilis est.

8 Sum. 3 P., q. 57, a. 6, ad 3: Dicendum quod Christus semel ascendens in coelum adeptus est sibi et nobis in perpetuum jus et dignitatem mansionis celestis: cui tamen dignitati non derogat, si ex aliqua dispensatione Christus quandoque cororaliter in terram descendat, vel ut ostendat

se omnibus, sicut in judicio vel ut ostendat se alicui specialiter, sicut Paulo, ut habetur Act. 1x. And only credat hoc factum escapes Christo

This conclusion, it is true, is in conformity with the principles which he professes elsewhere!.

The third interpretation? admits that Our Lord, since his ascension, has appeared from time to time on earth, personally and bodyly, without for this reason stopping being with the blessed. Suarez holds it as probable, and says that it was followed by John Mair or Major, and adopted by the apologists who had to support the real presence of Our Lord in the Eucharist against the heretics of the 19th century.

After this presentation, Suarez simply and absolutely believes that Our Lord has sometimes descended from heaven on earth; but he dares to decide whether in these apparitions the Saviour comes out of heaven to go to earth, or whether he is present in both places at once.

It is well known that the scholastics singularly repugnate the prodigy of the multilocation, and that, for this reason, they reject or restrict to as few as possible the actual appearances of glorified Jesus Christ. Suarez only points out as undisputed that the three visions

ibi cororaliter presente, sed aliqualiter apparente, contrarium appartet per hoc quod ipse Aptolus dicit I Cor. xv, 8, ad confirmandam resurrectionis fidem: Novel omnium, tanquam abortivo, visus est and mihi. Quæ quidem visio veritatem resurrectionis non probaret, nisi ipsum verum Christi corpus visum fumesset ab eo.

13 P., q. 76, a. 8.

2 SUAREZ, ISN 3 P.,q. 48, a. 4. — D. 51, sect. 4, n. 5: Tertius modus discendi est, Christum ex quo in coelum ascendit, nunquam celestem locum deseruisse, and tamen interdum in territs visibilitisse per veram ac realem préæsentiam sui corporis, existndo, nimirum, simul in duobus locis, modo, ut aiunt, quantitativo and circumscriptivo. Ita sentit ex scholasticis Joannes Major in 4 dist. 40, q. 4, and idem libenter amplectuntur qui his temporibus contra hereticos pro presentia reali Christi Domini in Eucharistia pugnant. And is opinio probabilis.

3 Suarez, tbid., n. 6 p. 986: Ex iis ergo tribes dicendi modis, illum unum simpliciter atque absolute verum existimo, Christum scilicet, post ascensionem, aliquando in terra fuisse; an vero tune cælo abfucrit nectne, inecrtum mihi est, and strong aliquando simul leaks in utroque loco.

of which we have spoken. Cardinal Bona {except that the apparition made to St Paul, too expressly affirmed as personal by Scripture to allow it to be heard differently, and Scaramelli? goes so far as to say that the constant and uniform opinion of the holy Fathers is, that, with the exception of the case of St Paul, the Redeemer has never come down from heaven but to clothe the Eucharistic species.

As far as the Fathers are concerned, this assertion seems highly questionable. Most tell the facts referred to here in terms which, far from invalidating the real presence of Our Lord, seem to attest expressly. If we except St.Gregoire?, who seems favorable to the later sentiment generally adopted by theologians, we do not know in the patristic period any doctor who formally challenged the personal character of Christ's apparitions. We do not deny that there is one; but, we believe we know enough of the Fathers' writings to dare to affirm, the feeling that the Italian author imputes them is not common among them.

The scholastic theologians are even more severe when it comes to apparitions that are so frequently performed, as we have said, in the mystery of the Eucharist. Those who ignore any personal character to the sensitive visions of Jesus Christ, are cons-

1 Discreet. spir. c. 49, n. 4 p. 306: Nec ulli dubium esse potest quin etiam post gloriosam in cælum ascentem personaliter appeared Paulo. Cæteras apparitiones per Angelos factas esse, sicut de sua Apocalypsi testatur Joannes, credendum est: ne only enim sine Scripturæ et Ecclesiae auctoritate personales Christi apparitiones astruendæ sunt.

2 Dir. Mist. Tr. 4, c. 2, n. 22, p.260. No parse che cid si posa in modo alcuno sostenere, perchè à costante ed uniforme l'opinion of SS. Padri, che, eccettuata la famosa apparizione a S. Paolo, not sia May il Redentore sceso dal cielo, fuorchè nella santissima Eucaristia.

Three Morals. 1. 28 c. 4, n. 2 % and 2 %. Migne,t. 76, Col. 447.

They're with themselves, refusing to admit it here. But the very ones who are less exclusive, dispute that the manifestations that are taking place around the Sacrament of the altar are real and personal.

St. Thomas ‘ formally pronounces himself for the negative. Distinguishing between the rapid and special appearances, and those seen by many for a considerable time, he explains the former by a miraculous impression on the eyes of the visionaries, and the others by an objective modification of the sacramental species. In the latter case, there are some who think, continues the Holy Doctor, that Jesus Christ becomes physically present; but he does not taste this conclusion. In his opinion, the whole miracle then consists in a change that reaches only accidents, which, instead of presenting bread and wine, offer the appearances of flesh, blood, and others that meet in these visions; e-mails These appearances are no more the true body of the Saviour than the ordinary accidents of bread and wine.

Suarez treats the issue in the same way, and declares that this is the common opinion among theologians?.

t Sum. 3 P., q. 76, a. 8: Duplicate contingit talis apparitio, quandoque in hoc sacramento miraculose vidtur caro, aut sanguis, aut etiam aliquis puer. Quantoque enim contingit ex parte vicentium, quorum oculi immutur tali immutatione, ac si expresseur empirerent exterius carnem vel vel sangum, vel puerum, nulla tamen immutatione facta ex parte Sacramenti.. Quannoque vero contingit talis apparitio non per solem immutationem vicentium, sed specie quae vienderur realiter exterius existe, and special quidem viender esse quando sub tali specie ab omnibus viender, and not ad horam, sed per longum tempus ita permanet; and in hoc casu quidam dicunt quod est proprio species corporis Christi. Sed hoc emptyur esse inconveniens, primo quidem quia corpus Christi non potest in propria speeie videri nisi in uno loco in quo definitive contintur. Unde eum videatur in propria specie et adoretur in coelis, sub propria specie non vietur in hoc Sacramento... And ideo dicendum is quod, manentibus dimensionibus quae prius fuerant, fai miraculose quaedam immutatio waxa alia accidentia, puta figuram and colorem, and alia hujusmodi, ut vieatur caro, vel sanguis, aut etiam puer.

2 From Kucharistia, Disp. 55, sect. 2, n. 2, t. 21, p. 265: Ita D. Thomas and commune theologist.

St Thomas adds further that if the body of Jesus Christ appeared miraculously in a form other than that of bread and wine, the priest who offers the divine sacrifice should not consume the holy species, unless they had returned to their first summer. Suarez? makes the same remark, and quotes Pascase's testimony on such a fact.

XI. — Let us simply say, what puts scholastic theologians into torture is to have to multiply the presence of the Saviour with his natural body, something incompatible with the Aristotelian notions on space and on bodies; or to bring him out of heaven, from the society of the blessed, in favor of a traveling soul here below, which seems exorbitant and unreasonable to right. All this discomfort is therefore caused by the concern to align the facts with preconceived systems. Is it not the opposite course of action that should be followed? The facts are what they are; it is to philosophy to conform to them and to interpret them without destroying them, and not to the facts to loosen up, to disappear even, to please a philosophy.

More accurate and brighter notions of the nature of the body and of the expanse can easily conclude that Jesus Christ can be physically present in several places at once. These notions, we could the

1 Sum. 3 P., q. 82, a. 4, ad 3.

2 Disp. 55, sect. 4, n. 2, p. 269, t. 21.

8 Pæiurpe. To SS. Sort. P.2, Tr. 3, D. 4,a.1,t.92, p. 401: Dictum is quod rarius in propria persona Christus Dominus apparet (and idem dicendum est de B. Virgine and aliis sanctis, so strong sunt in coelo cum proprio corpore, quando vere addtant ei cui corporaliter apparent) quia, secundum veram D. Thomæ doctrinam idem corpus non potest esse in pluribus locis cum propriorum dimensionum extensione: et aliunde vietur inconveniens asserere quod toties Christus colum corporaliter deserat, quoties hic apparet in terres. Unde merito dicitur quod, quando vult alicui similim communicant favorem, Angelum mittit, qui, Christum ipsum repsæsentans, in hac visione vices illius gerit. L

to give if this was the place; we confine ourselves, in theological and peaceful work, to maintaining the facts and to pointing out the false or problematic assertions that are put forward to alter or contradict them.

First, we assume that heaven is a precise, determined place: we answer that this is a questionable assertion; for we can admit that heaven is everywhere where a soul has the clear sight of God and the beatific love that results from it.

The principle is that the same body cannot simultaneously occupy two points of the space distant from one another. We answer, with Suarez', that multilocation is possible; that it expounds without effort the affirmations of Scripture concerning the apparitions of Jesus Christ, that it is a witness given to his majesty, to the sovereignty of his glory, to his goodness toward men; and,

- even better than with Suarez, we respond by showing an age-old, daily actuation, a thousand and a thousand times repeated of this prodigy: Our Lord present under the Eucharistic veils in as many points as there are consecrated hosties and that there are points in each host: one ceases to be Catholic when one rejects this fact of multilocation. If Jesus Christ is condemned to go out of heaven to act as a presence elsewhere, it will be necessary to say, or that the Eucharist is consumed and resides in heaven, or that the whole heaven is in the Eucharist, or that the Savior is no longer in heaven since he is in the Eucharist. We cut short these dissonant alternatives by admitting that it is

1 In 3 P. S. Thom., q. 58, a. 4. Disp. 514, sect. 4, n. 5, t. 19, p. 986: Quod supponit, nimirum possesse esse idem corpus in duobus locis secundum modum quantitatis, omnino verum atque indubitatum mihi est. If autem hoc possibile est, fabilius explicantur et conciliantur omnia Scripturæ testimonia, asserendo ila factum esse; quin potius, and ad majorem Christi majestatem et auctoritalem spectat, ut a suo loco et sede sua non récedat; and tamen benignitatis et charitatis ergo interdum amicos invisat, presentiaque reficiat.

both in heaven and in the Eucharist, in the thousand places where this divine Sacrament is located.

One thing surprises us all, is to see the reality of the Saviour's apparitions around the Eucharist, or rather in the Eucharist itself. Our Lord is present here under these appearances, — it is a dogma of our faith, — warning us of his presence by the surviving species of bread and wine; and it is there that it is forbidden, by Aristotle, to actually occur in a form different from that of bread and wine, even in the form of its own glorious body, or in other things even less inconceivable than that of the Eucharistic species.

No doubt a miracle is needed here; for under the present conditions freely established by God and to which he can therefore derogate, the bodies do not simultaneously occupy several separate points from space; but when it comes to appearances, is it not already in the miracle? We recite and object that there is not only a miracle, but a great and very great miracle, which must be used only at the last end. To this is easy to answer, first, that whatever great miracle is, please the Saviour to accomplish in his purposes of mercy and love over souls, there is no point in protesting or contradicting, either by formal negations, or by interpretations that suppress the best part of the miracle; secondly, that one exaggerate the prodigy itself, because of the incompatibility it presents with the notions of the School on the bodies and on space; in essence, the contingent law of the Uniloca-

1 SuAREz, ibid., p. 986. Hæc autem sententia eo moderamine intelligenda is not easy refereemur Christum frequenter uti hoc miraculo, atque omnes apparitiones queæ reruntur in historiiis, ejusce generis esse. No

enim sunt multiplicatanda tam ingentia miracula, quando alii modi fabiliores sufliciunt.

This is in line with gravity and the other laws that govern the material world.

All of these considerations make us look contrary to the opinion of the scholastics. Unless there are serious indications that the scene is due to the intervention of angels, we are inclined to believe that the body appearances of the Savior are truly and personally accomplished by the Savior himself.

Is that to say that angels have no part in the material formation of the outward appearances of Jesus Christ? We do not claim it absolutely, although it seems simpler and more reasonable to admit, with Suarez!, that the true and personal appearances of Our Lord must be imputed to him.

XII. — And imaginary visions, what shall we say?

In themselves, these visions of the Saviour are nothing personal, since they are consumed in the spirit; but we can ask ourselves by whom they are produced, by God, by Jesus Christ himself, or by the angels?

The last hypothesis is generally accepted*?. However, here again, we do not see any repulsiveness for Our Lord to determine these kinds of visions by immediate action which constitutes a true presence. To challenge this power in the Incarnate Word in itself would be more than a temerity; and to challenge it because of the difficulties of multilocation is to reproduce objections to which we believe we have sufficiently answered.

What impels us towards this solution is, on the one hand, the persuasion where are the holy souls who have Joui of these

1 From Angelis, 1. 6, c. 21 n. 20, p. 787. Quidquid vero sit de particularibus exemplis, regula generalis est, quoties Christus personaliter appeared, not per angelos, sed per seipsum appeared.

2 Suarez, De Angelis, 1.6, ©. 21 n. 21, p. 787: Eadem ratio is of appearance imaginaria: nam fit per angelos moventes animal spiritus and applicants phantasmata. — Item Scaram, $503, sch. 1, t. 2, p. 218.

favors, to have seen Jesus Christ in these various forms; and from the other, the declaration of the theologians and masters of spiritual life, that they can, and, according to others, that they must render to Our Lord, in these visions, the worship that is due to his person. When St John, in Revelation, * throws himself at the feet of an angel to worship, believing that the voice he has just heard is that of the divine Mediator, angel lifts him up and says to him: "Do not do this; I am a servant like you and like your brothers who have the testimony of Jesus: worship God. "The angels, whom they say to hold the place of Our Lord in visions, should do the same; or should we not, at least, decree that these tributes fall to falsehood, and that it is appropriate to abstain?

1 Rev. xix, 10,

Chapter VII

The Objects of Supernatural Vision — III. The Blessed Virgin Mary

Most pilgrimages in honour of the Most Holy Virgin have as legend some appearance. — Special manifestations to almost all founders or reformers of religious orders. — Favourites granted to some privileged saints. — Various forms of these apparitions. — Their personal character.

I. — Below the Incarnate Word, but at the top of the celestial hierarchies, shines the Virgin Mary.

May the Blessed Mother of the Saviour appear as a bodily, imaginary and intellectual vision, all the authors are unanimous in recognizing it, and the history of the saints presents countless testimonies of it.

Most of the pilgrimages established in his honour have as their legend an apparition of the Mother of God. We can quote Our Lady of Pilar or Pilgrim, in Zaragoza, Spain; Our Lady of Light, near Lisbon, Portugal; Notre-Dame des Anges, in Puy, France; Notre-Dame des Ermites, Switzerland; Our Lady of the Snows in Rome. Our century is perhaps the richest in such wonders: in a few years,

1 See Hamon, Notre-Dame de France, 6 vol. in-8°. — P. Pome, the Triple Crown of the B. Mother of God, t. 1.

We had the appearances of the Salette, Lourdes, Pontmain, and others that we refrain from designating in order not to prejudge the decision of the competent authority.

II. — It is rare that Blessed Virgin does not intervene in the holy institutions that illustrate and fertilize the Church. It has appeared to almost all founders or reformers of religious orders, either to tell them their mission and prepare them for it, to encourage them to continue it or to reward their glorious work.

Let us mention a few examples among so many others that we regret not being able to mention here.

In the same night!, the Mother of God shows herself soft and radiant with light to St Peter Nolasque, St Raymond of Pegnafort and James I, king of Aragon, and makes them known that they will be pleasing to her divine Son and to herself, by founding an order to redeem the captives of the Turk servitude. This was the origin of the order of Our Lady of Merci.

Saint Felix of Valois, who founded, with Saint John of Matha, the order of the Most Holy Trinity for the redemption of the captives, was on the part of the Most Holy Virgin the object of the most insignia of favors, among which the most remarkable are the following two, which he received at the end of his life.

_ On the eve of the Nativity of Our Lady, the brother charged with this som having forgotten, by a special arrangement of God, to ring mornings, the Holy One, who was watching, according to his custom, and who was warning the hour, descended to the choir at midnight. Upon entering, he saw in the middle the Blessed Virgin clothed with a garment where the cross of order shone, and around her also the same vet angels. As soon as he came in, the Mother of God, whose face projected an admiral

1 Vita and canonizatio S. Raym. de Pennafort, ex BuoLLa Clement. VIII, ©. 2, n. 2. — BB. 7 Jan.,t. 1, p. 409.

The service began, and the angels continued with heavenly harmony. Felix mixed his voice at these concerts, and his soul filled with joy and the holy desires of heaven. When the vision had disappeared, he remained on his face such a splendour that he could not hide the cause from his religious, and he told them about it to animate them again in virtue. It was like the docks of the sky. At some point, an angel came to warn of his next death, This nanny seemed to give him strength first, by the joy she gave him. But soon he felt near his end, and realized that God's promise would be fulfilled. Only one regret was left to her, to leave her orphaned children; but on the last day of her life, the divine Virgin appeared to her and said to her: "I will be their mother."

One day St.Dominic? extended his watch in the church, according to his custom, heaven opened to his eyes, and he saw the Son of God sitting at the right hand of his Father, rising up in his anger to strike all sinners of the earth and exterminate all the ungodly. His appearance was frightening and his hand waved against the world three swords: from the moon he cut down the heads of the proud; he plunged the other into the bowels of the avares, and with the third he pierced the flesh of the voluptuous. No one was trying to bend his indignation, when the sweet Virgin, her

1 BREY. Ro., 20 Nov. vi lect. — RIBADENEYRA, Lives of Saints, 20 Nov.

2 BB. 4 Oct., t. 50, p. 605, n. 318: More autem solito nocte in Eelesia vigil Dominicus, sedentem ad Patris dexteram Filium exsurgere in vaira sua, vidit, ut interficieret omnes peccatores terrae.. Cujus iræ dum nemo possesse resiste, oecurrit Virgo Mater, and pedes amplectans ejus rogavit ut carret eis quos redemerat; and justitiam misericordia temperaret.. Habeæ scrvum fidelem, quem mittes in mundum, ut verba tua annunciet eis, and converlentur ad te omnium Salvatoremn. Alium quaque habeo servum quem ei dabo adjutorem, ut similiter operater. — Filius dixit: Ecce placatns sucepi faciem tuam. Verumtamen ostende mihi quos velis ad tantum offi-

cum destiny. Tunc Domina Mater obtulit beatum Dominium Domino Jesu Christo.Obtulit quoque sanctum Franciscum.

Mother, presents herself to him, and embraces his feet, he urges him to spare those whom he himself has redeemed, and to temper justice with mercy. "Do you not see, saith the Son, all the insults that are made unto me? Will my justice leave so many unpunished crimes?""You who know everything," replied the divine Mother, "you know that mercy is the way by which you will bring them back to you. I have a faithful servant whom you shall send into the world to tell them your word, and they shall return to you, the Saviour of all men. I have yet another one that I will give him for help, and that will work likewise."Your gentle face soothes my anger," the Saviour said, "but show me the workers whom you offer for this great work." Then the Virgin Mary presented herself in turn to her Son Saint Dominique and Saint Francis, and the Lord Jesus said to his Mother on cha-. cun d ́eux: "Let him do with zeal and fidelity what you have said." St.Dominic carefully looked at this companion, whom he had not seen until then, during the vision. The next day, he meets him in a church, recognizes him, throws himself at his neck, covers him with holy kisses, hugs him, saying: "You are my companion; you will walk with me; keep us together, and no one will prevail against us." And then he told him the vision he had had.

"The kiss of Dominique and Francis has been passed from generation to generation on the lips of their posterity," said Fr. Thecordary ‘. A young friendship still unites the Preacher Brothers with the Minor Brothers... They spread together in the world as they spread and intertwine the joyful branches of two trunks of age and strength; they acquired and shared the affection of the

1 Life of S. Dominique, ch. 7 p. 355.

as two twin brothers rest on the bosom of their only mother."

This unique and common mother is the Virgin Mary, the first teacher and constant protector of these two great religious families.

From the age of five or six, Blessed Jeanne of Valois had a memorable appearance, which suggested to her the institution of which she was to enrich the Church. " As she asked with a tender devotion to the Mother of God to make known to her what she might do more pleasantly to her heart, Mary daigned to appear to her, and addressed these prophetic words to her: "Jane, my beloved daughter, before you come out of this life, you will establish in my honour a religion that will be a great subject of joy to my Son and to me." It was to be the order of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, or of the Annunciation.

Sainte Terèse, the famous reformer of Carmel, received from the Most Holy Virgin, whom she looked upon as her mother, the most insignia of favors. From the beginning of the reform, she had a vision that strengthened her courage and confidence. The divine Mother appeared to her, accompanied by her glorious husband Saint Joseph, that the saint honored a particular worship. They put on it with a dazzling dress of whiteness and light, and hung a very beautiful gold necklace on his neck, where a high-priced cross hung. "This gold and these stones were so different from what we see here, that there is no comparison to be made, and the imagination cannot conceive anything like it. It was also impossible to understand what tissue was

1 Ex Process. BB. 4 febr., t. 4, p. 582, n. 1. Quintum jam agens annum continuis ac ferventissimis Deiparam, quam singulari cultu et amore prosequebatur, precibus rogabat, ut qua in re gratisimum ei præstare possesse

obsequium, patefacere sibi dignaretur: quae mox responsee ei viebatur quod Religionem honori suo consecrandam aliquado esset fundatura....

.430 phenom. of the intellectual order: visions

this dress, and give any idea of its whiteness; next to it, one can say that all that is brighter in nature is black as soot. The beauty of Our Lady, St.Terèse continues, ‘was comparable, although I did not notice anything special in her features; I only saw that all of her face was lovely. She was dressed in white, with a wonderful splendour that rejoiced Ja saw, instead of dazzling. For the glorious Saint Joseph, I did not see him so clearly, although I knew him well that he was there, as in those visions of which I spoke, where it is only known that the object is present. As for Notre-Dame, she appears to me in all the flower of youth. After they had spent a few moments with me, giving in my soul a happiness that she had not yet felt and that she would never have wanted to leave, I saw them ascending to heaven with a multitude of angels."

The first year that Terèse was prioress of the monastery of the Incarnation of Avila, his first care, as reported by Ribéra, was to place in the choir, on the seat reserved for the prioress, a beautiful statue of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, and to put in her hands the keys of the house. One evening, during the singing of the Salve, she saw the Mother of God, surrounded by a multitude of angels, going down to the stall of the Prioress, putting herself in the place of the statue, which disappeared in the eyes of the saint, then turning to her and telling her: "You have had a happy thought of meddling in this place; I will be present at the praises which the nuns of this monastery will sing in honor of my Son, and I will offer them to him."

Even today, among the Carmelites of Avila, we see,

1 His Life, ch. 33. 2 Life of Saint Teresis. 3.Ste TÉRÈSE, Additions to her Life.

Holding in his hands the keys of the monastery, this statue of Notre-Dame du Mont-Carmel, to which Seraphic Terèse referred the title and the honors of superiority.

"Another day it was Saint Teresus who spoke, while after Complies we were all in the choir, our Mairess appeared to me in a very great glory and clothed in a white coat, under which it seemed to shelter us all; and I understood to what high degree of glory the Lord was to raise the nuns of this house."

At the time of building the seminary of Saint Sulpice, Mr. Olier* went, according to his custom, in the company of M. de Bretonvilliers, to consult with the Most Holy Virgin, at Notre-Dame de Paris, and to submit her plan. The Mother of God made her appear, holding in her hands the model of the building that he had to build. "Monday, 22 March," reports he himself, "having gone to Notre-Dame to submit to him the enterprise of our building and to know if it would have been pleasant, "it pleased this divine Mistress, in her ordinary goodness, to appear to us, carrying in her hands the model of the building that she gave me to take charge of it. I dared not accept, being very unworthy and not having enough to undertake it. I begged her to put him in the hands of him who was with me; but her goodness showed me that she wanted him to be taken by me to execute him."

HI. — It would be sweet to us, if time and our purpose allowed us, to be able to tell here, we will not say all the manifestations of the Blessed Virgin Mary: they are innumerable; but some of the most pointed, made by this divine Mother to certain privileged souls: to the Angelic Stanislas Kostka, for example; to Blessed Réginald, companion of St.Dominic;

1 His Life, ch. 36.? FAILLON, Life of Mr. Olier, 3 parts, 1. 2, t. 2, p. 57.

to Mary of Agréda, who, alone, received more favors than many other saints of the most favored together, if one must add faith to her MystiQue CITY or to the Life of the Most Holy Virgin, written in a way under the dictation of the Most Holy Virgin herself. Let us at least be allowed to quote some features of the life of Mother Agnes of Jesus: they will suffice to make heard the holy familiarities that Mary grants to the souls who honor and love.

"By the very deep respect that Mother Agnes has always had for the greatness, for holiness, for the sovereignty of the Queen of the universe," said the historian of this admirable virgin, "she has never been qualified as her very humble slave; but it will appear, by what we are about to report, that the Mother of Mercy often treated her as her dear daughter.

"Almost every time this humble and loving slave of Mary threw her eyes at the side of the holy place where her divine Mistress lived (the angelic church of Puy), and where she had received so many graces, she saw at the same time a star, much brighter than the others, above the bell tower. And once, among other things, she saw at the same time the Most Holy Virgin in the midst of the air, clothed in blue, having the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown composed of twelve stars.

"Some other time, being in the room of her prioress, and looking with her ordinary feelings through a window that was on the side of this beloved place, she began to consider some of the incomparable favors of the Mother of God, and suddenly she felt pierced the heart of a trait of divine love, so violently, that she fell to the ground as dead.

1 Of Lantages, Life of the Ven. Mother Agnes of Jesus, new edition, by M. Lucor, 3 P., ©. 16, t. 2, p. 368 et seq.

"This holy wound held her ill for more than fifteen days, during which she experienced a very hot pain, which she endured throughout the body, was a part of the purgatory's sorrows. She was comforted in this disease by a visit she had to make her great and good Maitress...

"The consolation that such a great favor had caused to this admirable sick person was changed, from the very day, into a great pain of mind, when, accounting to his confessor of what had happened in this apparition, he testified to her, to morüfier, that he did not believe anything: "For, "what appearance," he said to her, "that the Queen of Angels of the "Cende from heaven to enter a place as dirty as "your room, and want to visit a creature "as miserable as you are?" She was greatly disturbed by this speech, renewing her great fears that she had often been deceived. The Queen of Peace was unable to suffer her servant for a long time in this concern. She sent him an angel, who assured him that it was truly the Blessed Virgin who had appeared to him, and the same one she carried so deeply engraved in her heart.

"The Most Holy Virgin appeared again to her beloved Agnes one day of her Immaculate Conception, after midnight prayer, in a very compelling way. This Queen of heaven, holding a crown of roses, said to her: "See, my daughter, the beautiful crown that the thorns of your afliclions formed; I want to give it to you." At this word, the humble Agnes withdrew a little, and prostrate, more mindful than body: "My dearest Mother," she replied, "I don't want it, please. Hey! what did I endure to earn crowns?" The Mother of God urged her for a while to accept it, saying to her several times: "Take, my daughter." But she persisted in her refusal with such cordial humility, that her divine Mistress vous-

He testified that she had approved it; for when she disappeared, she left the room and the surrounding places so filled with the smell of the roses of paradise, that the nuns, all the next day, continually felt in the monastery a fragrance of roses, quite otherwise sweet than the one who sexhales the most exquisite flowers of the earth. "When she told me this vision," said Fr. Panasière, I say to him: "Since the Blessed Virgin urged you so much to take this crown, you had to take it.""I, Father, have crowns!" said Agnes, "I don't want it. I'm too miserable to deserve such rewards. What work have I done to remove such crowns, and especially from such hands?"

"It would take a whole volume to report all the favors our virgin of the Queen of Heaven received," said, finishing this chapter, the author we quote. This true Mother of Mercy visited her, blessed her, comforted her in her afflictions, caressed her in her jubilations, healed her in her diseases, reassured her in her fears, protected her in her dangers, and gave her witness of a very special choice at all times."

These favors, granted to the venerable prioress of Langeac, meet in a multitude of other saints; but we must stop these sweet accounts, to come to the various forms in which these delicious manifestations are carried out, and to examine their personal character.

IV. — When these visions are of intellectual order, sometimes Mary appears to the eyes of the spirit in the beauty that the blessed admire, sometimes she reveals her prerogatives, such as her status as Queen of heaven and earth, the power of her intercession, or the various mysteries of her mortal and glorious life: her immaculate conception, her birth, her divine matermté, her purification at the temple;

His compassion at Calvary, his assumption and other circumstances of his life, death and triumph. The revelations made to Mary of Agréda seem to have been, for the most part, of this kind.

These mysteries can also be seen in imaginary visions. There are many examples among contemplatives, among others, in Saint Elizabeth of Sconauge, the Blessed Osanne of Mantua?, the venerable Mary of Oignies5. These mental manifestations generally represent the Augustus Virgin in the brightness of glory, shining with light, as the Holy Teresus saw in the apparitions we have reported, or under the outsides of modesty and gentleness that she had on earth. Most often she holds the child Jesus between her arms, to remind her of what makes her greatness and power. It was also seen in the pure form of the dove #, under the shape of a brilliant star, and under other emblems that express the purity, the fullness of grace, the sweet sovereignty of his empire.

Body appearances can take on all these appearances.

V. — Are these manifestations of the Most Holy Virgin Mary personal or simply imputative?

We have already said that the intellectual vision carries with it the presence of the object perceived by the mind, under penalty of digging between the real world and the mental world an abyss that no effort of logic can pass.

For the outward apparitions, what we have said about Our Lord applies entirely to his most holy Mother. Under the influence of an agreed concept of

4 EGBERT, BB. 18 Jun., t. 24 p. 508 and sq.

2 hours. Open, BB. 18 Jun., t. 24, D. 642.

3 Jacques De Vrrey, BB. 23 Jun., t. 25, p. 567.

# BB. 5 Jun. Vita B. Meinwerci ep. Paderborn, t. 21, p. 529, n. 77. 5 LANTAGES, Life of the Ven. Mother Agnes, t. 2, p. 368.

space, most scholastics do not think that a body can be found simultaneously in two different places, and they rightly believe that Mary should not desert the heavenly court at all, and deprive the elect of her presence. Suarez! admits the absolute possibility of multilocation, even for the Blessed Virgin, but he sees it as an unparalleled miracle that must be used only in the absence of any other explanation. We repeat, these are scruples and exaggerations that we do not have to share. Bilocation is a miracle like any other; and, if it is a great miracle, such facilities can be given to the Mother of God in behalf of her friends. We saw Mother Agnes greatly attriterate when her confessor Jui said, with the purpose of humiliating her, that there was no appearance that the Queen of Angels had descended from heaven to visit such a cheap creature, and this divine Queen sent an angel to her faithful servant to assure her that it was she who had appeared to her. This persuasion is that of all holy souls honored with these favors, and their testimony seems decisive. And this persuasion extends to the very imaginary visions, as well as attests to the homages which one hastened to render to the Mother of God in these kinds of encounters, it seems logical to conclude to us that the real presence of the very Holy Virgin Up in these mental representations.

Assuming them true, it remains to decide how to carry out these personal manifestations of the Virgin Mary.

In the external visions, Mary appears with her own

1 From Angelis, 1. 6, c. 21 n. 23, p. 787. Illæautem apparitiones regulariter non fiunt a propries personis eorum qui apparere vodentur per seipsos. Quia si sanctus qui apparet est in coelo in corpore et animo, ut Virgo sanclissima, necessarium non est, nec decescent, ut frequenter coelestem locum deserat et ad terram descendat. Quodautem simul in utroque sit loco, magnum cest miraculum, quod sine magno fundamento asserts not convenient.

body or in a foreign representative form. In the first case, it is this glorious body that manifests itself in the same way that Our Lord showed his disciples after his resurrection. In the second, it can be admitted, in accordance with the traditional interpretation, that angels contribute to the formation of these external appearances, which they provide by the combination of material elements the veils of which the Blessed Virgin envelops and by which she accuses her presence, although it seems just as natural to attribute these external forms to the Most Holy Virgin herself, exercising, to the point where the vision is operated, the action of space which would produce, if it were real, the body whose appearance it appears; just as Our Lord, in the Eucharist, makes succeed The action of his own body at the action of the bread and wine that have disappeared. Demons can achieve such effects: why would they be forbidden to the Queen of the World?

A similar action on imagination would also explain mental representations: No doubt, the excited images in the sensitive part of the soul will not be the very person of the Virgin Mary more than the outward appearances under which she manifests herself; but both, if one supposes them due to an immediate and personal action on his part, attest to her presence. It does not reveal itself, it is true, as it is; but in reality it is there, and that is enough for the apparition to be said personal.

Chapter VIII

The Objects of Supernatural Vision — IV. The Angels

The angels manifest themselves in intellectual vision, — imaginary, — corperelle. — Nature and form of the bodies they are wearing. — The circumstances in which they show themselves. — 1 They appear at the altar during the sanctific sacrifice and distribute the Holy Eucharist. — They warn God's friends of the hour of death, attend their last moments, and carry their souls to heaven. — They visibly fight the enemies of God and his saints, and pry their help in battles. — What angels are likely to carry out these missions? — The three named in Scripture: Michael, Gabwiel, and Raphael. — Guardian Angels, — Their Ordinary Intervention. — New Guardian Angels given to a few souls.

I. — Christian theology makes the greatest contribution to angels in supernatural apparitions. These heavenly spirits are God's messengers, and most extraordinary interventions in the world of creatures are accomplished through their ministry. The facts are innumerable, and they cannot, as a whole, be revoked in doubt by anyone who has some tincture, even the lightest, of religious history.

It is first and foremost indisputable that they can be the subject of an intellectual vision. This kind of vision is even the most proportionate, and, indeed, the only connatural

to the immateriality of these pure spirits. If, in fact, it occurs less often than the other two, it is because they are better suited to the sensitive nature of man, to whom these manifestations are addressed. However, there is more than one example. The Savior Jesus and his most holy Mother rarely appear without this escort of angels. Saint Térèse, in an apparition that we have reported, lives around the Blessed Virgin a multitude of "heavenly spirits, not in a sensitive form, but by a simple look at the spirit, because, she tells us, "Ja vision was intellectual."

He. — After intellectual revelation, the most accommodated to the nature of angels is the one that is accomplished in imagination. As long as they only take on ideal forms in our mind, it seems that they do not yet lose their quality of pure spirits.

The mysterious scale® shown to Jacob during his sleep, and along which the angels of God ascended and descended, is the first and most memorable example expressly mentioned in the Scripture of imaginary apparition accomplished by the angels; but he is not the only one. More than once we see the heavenly spirits come there to annone the divine wills to men, either during their sleep, as to lie # fleeing the anger of Jezebel, falling asleep discouraged in the desert and awakened twice by an angel; either in mere vision, as happens to several prophets, especially Daniel {, Zacharias, St John in Revelation f, and several other Persians; to St Joseph? four times warned by an angel of the Lord's purposes, to the centurion Cornelius 8, to St Paul?,

4 Additions to His Life. — 2 Gen. xxvim, 12. — 3 II Reg. mx, 5. — 4 Dænid, wine, 16; 1x, 21; x, 89, a — © Zachar.1, 18, 19. — 6 Apoc. passim. — 7 Matt. 1, 20; nm, 13, 19, 22. — 8 Act. x, 3. — 9 Act. xxvu, 93.

The facts of this kind do not count in the history of the Saints: that it is sufficient to report the following two.

Blessed Colette ‘ once had a vision similar to that of the patriarch Jacob. The inhabitants of a noble house made large alms to the community: the saint and her companions responded with fervent prayers. And the humble servant of God saw once, in the middle of the night, a great light shining upon this house, and a multitude of angels who defended it against the incursions of evil spirits; then a golden ladder going from this house to heaven, and the angels who ascended and descended, presenting to God the prayers of the Blessed and the alms which these benefactors made to her and her nuns. Colette called one of her sisters to show her this sweet vision; but she could not see her until her holy mother had asked for this grace for her.

While St. Thomas of Aquinas?, barely twenty years old, was confined in a dungeon by the tyranny of his brothers who pretended to divert him from religious life, a creature of a perfidious beauty was introduced into his prison, having all the audacity of evil, with the hideous mission to overcome, by all means, the constancy of magnanim. young man. But he, who had already sworn to

1 Er. De Juuiers, BB. 6 mart., t. 7 p. 559, n. 88: Postimodum vidit scalam auream situatam super eamdem domum coelum coelum tangentem, and Angelos ascendentes et descendentes per eam, who Deo presentabant orationses devotas humilis ancellæ suæ, necnon pulchras eleemosynas et alia beneficia caritatis, quaæ prælibati benefactores quotidie deferebant.

2 Gilc. DE Tuoco, BB. 7 Mart., p. 659, n. 11. Miserunt ad ipsum solum existem in camera... puellam pulcherrimam cultu meretricio personatam, queæ ipsum aspectu, tactus, ludis and quibus possess aliis modis aliceret ad peccandum. Titione juvenculam cum indignatione de camera expulit..., cum lacrymis a Deo petivit orando perpetuæ virginitatis cingulum... Ecce ad eum duo Angeli coelitus missi sunt: qui asserentes eum a Deo exauditum et de pugna tam difficili obtinuisse triummphum, stringenetes ipsum hinc et inde, in renibus.

having no other wife than the divine Wisdom, as soon as he saw this suppôt of the demon, though moved first in his senses of a previously unknown disorder, sarma of a lion, and, full of noble anger, chased the infamous out of his cell. Then, from this lion marking a cross on the wall, he bows down and asks God with tears the grace of perpetual virginity. While he was mixing his tears with his prayer, he fell asleep, and during his sleep he saw two angels coming down from heaven, attaching a mysterious belt to his kidneys, saying to him: "From God, we gird you, as you have asked, with the cord of chastity, that no effort of the devil can overcome from now on; what human virtue cannot deserve, divine goodness grants you as a pure gift." From that moment on, the Angelic Doctor will no longer experience the revolts of the flesh.

IT. — Whatever the nature of the pure spirits may appear to be material forms, angels have often manifested themselves under these outsides to men, and the fact is so constant, that there would be a brazen insignia to contest it.

In the Old Testament, the heavenly messengers appear in human form to a multitude of characters: Abraham, Lot?, Jacob, Balaam ‘, Joshua, Gideon 5, David, Tobie ® and many others.

In the New Testament, it is the angel Gabriel° who presents himself visibly to the Blessed Virgin Mary to announce to her the mystery of the Incarnation; the same angel predicts to Zacharias ‘° the birth of John the Baptist; the angels serve the Savior in the desert!; they appear to the

1 Gen. xviu, 2 et seq. — xx, 11. — 2 Gen. xIx, 1. — Gen. xxxti, 24. — # Num. xxn, 31. — 5 Jos. v,13. — 6 Jud. vi, 12. — 7 IL Reg. xxiv, 17. — 8 Tob. v-xu. — 9 Luke. 1, 28. — 10 Luke. x, 11. — 11 Matt. 1v, 11. — Mark. 1, 13.

Saints women after the resurrection; he is an angel? who delivers the apostles and orders them to preach Jesus Christ in the temple; an angel still, who brings Peter out of his prison and accompanies him through the streets, to the gates of Jerusalem.

In the face of these testimonies as many as formal, Suarez # does not hesitate to conclude that this truth has the very certainty of faith. History confirms these scripture stories with new narratives. The Bollandists point out more than a hundred examples of these by dealing with St. Michael and the other angels °

IV.—Angels therefore take up bodily ies, and warn men of their presence by striking their senses. The common feeling f of theologians is that they consist of bodies with the ambient air of places where they appear, and give them the form they want by a suitable arrangement and condensation. Thus is St Thomas, expressed. However, these heavenly spirits, as the same doctor expressly teaches, and

1 Matth. xxvmi, 3. — Luke xxiv, 4. — Joan. XX, 42. — 2 Act. y, 49. — 8 Act. xu, 7.

4 From Angelis, 1. k,C. 33, n. 3 p. 536: Itaque veritas haec de fide certa est, nec in illa generatim sumpta, dubitatio aut difficultas occurrit.

5 BB. 29 Sept., t. 48, p. 38-124.

6 Suarez, De Angelis, 1. 4, c. 34, n. 5, p. 542. Communis igitur et vera sententia est, illa corpora constare ex materia elementari, seu inferiorum rerum generabilium et corruptibilum, quia illa saltem necessaria est, et sufficit. Dicunt enim communiter Theolologie manc materiam sumi ex aere præintant, seu fumeumstante in loco illo in quo tale corpus formateur.

7 Sum. 4 P., q. 51, a. 2, ad 3. Dicendum quod liket aer in sua raritate manens non retineat figuram neque colorem; quaudo tamen condensatur, and figurari and colorari potest, sicut patet in nubibus. And sic Angeli assumeunt corporate ex aere, condensando ipsum virtute divhra, quantum necessa is ad corporis assumendi formationem.

8 Jbid., a. 3: Dicendum quod quaedam opera vitium habent, aliquid commun cum aliis operabus, ut locutio quae est opus vititis convenit ‘cum aliis sonis inanimaterum, in quantum est sonus; and progressio cum aliis motibus, in quantum cest motus. Quantum ergo ad id qued est com- -mune utrisk operibus, posunt opera vitae profi a Angelis per corpora suppta; nonautem quantum ad id quod est propriom vitium.

he as a whole of the School, does not inform the bodies they take in in the way of living bodies: They move them, but don't animate them.

The forms by which they make themselves visible are diverse. Ordinary!, it is the human figure in its most beautiful and pure expression: the child with his grace and candour, the young man shining with strength, nobility and beauty. Most often they have wings, as is seen in Scripture, and as Christian levends testify, to mean the sublimitity of their contemplation and the promptness with which they carry out God's messages. It is believed that the majestic old man who approached Saint Justin and determined his conversion to Christianity, showing him in divine prophecies the wisdom that this philosopher pursued with greed, was one of those heavenly spirits ©. I appeared outside poverty to many of God's servants famous for their love for the poor, to Saint Isves #, for example, to the venerable Mary of Maillies#, to St Philip of Neriÿ. They are still revealed in the appearance of luminous globes, splendid flames f. In general, the appearances they borrow express grace, agility, strength, purity, light, love. Rarely they appear in the form of animals, and when this happens, it is by resorting to the most noble and graceful types,

1 Boxa, De Discr. spir. ©. 49, n. 7 p. 308: Formis quaque discrepantant Angelorum et daemonum apparitiones: Amgelis solet unica esse, nempe humana.

2 THLemonT, in S. Just. a. 4, t. 2. — BB. 29 Sept.,t. 48, p. 90, n. 39%.

3 Vila and Mirac Process. BB. 19 May, t. 17, p. 555, n. 44.

4 Vita and Mérac Process. BB. 28 mart., t. 9, p. 736, n. 13. N

5 J. BarxaBet, BB. 96 mañi, t. 49, p. 564, n. 248: Angelus specie pauperis ei sese -abjicit.

6 BB. 20 Sept., De & Michuel et onmibus Angelis, 1. 48, p. 81, n. 348.

7 Suarez, De Angelis, 1. 4, c. 84, n. 3 p. 541. Angek communicate non apparent nisi sub specie homimis, vel alicujus animalis perfecti.

those of lamb {, dove or similar?.

V. — The heavenly messengers are at God's command, and God sends them according to his purposes of love, mercy, and righteousness upon men. They appear around the Word incarnate in Bethlehem, in the desert, in Gethsemane. They assist man in the smallest details of life#. To list all the circumstances in which they intervene is impossible. We will only mention the most ordinary.

In general, they preach and execute the divine wills, help those who call them or call upon help from above; they advise, comfort and recreate.

We have seen that they form the ordinary escort of the Savior and the Virgin Mary in their apparitions.

VI. — They surround the altar and often make themselves visible to the priest or holy souls during the action of the sacrifice. St. Chrysostom, in the report of St.Nil's contemporary and disciple, saw these blessed spirits surrounding the church, especially during the time of sacrifice; and in his Joy he confided it to his friends. As soon as the priest began the divine oblation, the blessed Powers descended, he said, from heaven, clothed in splendid ornaments; and, bare feet, attentive eyes, inclined face, they surrounded the altar in the attitude of adoration, immobile and silent, until the consumption of the dreadful mysteries; then, spreading in the sacred enclosure, they were invisible-

1 DE Lantages, Life of the Ven. Mother Agnes of Jesus, t. 2, p. 387.

2 BB. 1 June, t. 21, p. 149, n. 21. — 2 June, Tbid., p. 219, n. 8.

8 See LANTAGES, Life of the Ven. Mother Agnes of Jesus, 3rd p., c. 17, t. 2,

p. 386. — Niceruor. Vita S. Andreæ Soli. BB. Corollar. ad 28 Mayi, t. 19, p. 28 n. 52 et seq. Nic. Oper. 1. 2, Epist. 294, Anaslasio. Migne, Patr. gr., t. 79, col. 346: Aiebat etenim ille, statim atque priestdos sacram incipiret oblationem, plerasque de repente ex beatis Potestatibus de coelo descendentes, and splendidissimis quibusdam vestibus circumamictas, nudo pede, intentis oculis et demissa facia, altare waxumeuntes, cum veneratione, and multa quiete, and silentio usque ad terbilis mysterii consummationem attende.

the bishops, priests and deacons while distributing to the faithful the body and blood of the Saviour.

From the day of his ordination until his death, Saint Samson! de Dol never sang Mass without seeing at his side the angels, who more than once broke with their hands the Eucharistic species. Blessed Boniface, bishop of Lausanne, was frequently attended by two angels. While St. Oswald#, bishop of York, still being only a simple priest, once said Mass, the poor man who served suddenly saw, at the time of offering, a man of a majestic and heavenly aspect, holding in his hands a small piece of bread of extreme whiteness, which he raised up to his head with great respect, and which gradually took extraordinary proportions. Seized of terror, he fled out of the church; but from time to time he entered the door to see what was happening at the altar: the mysterious assistant answered all prayers, and served the holy priest until the end of the sacrifice. Saint Catherine of Bologna # heard one day the angels repeat the SANCTUS of the priest at Mass, with a suavity that delights her in ecstasy.

An angelic appearance often repeated is that

1 BB. 28 Jul., t. 33, p. 583, n. 4%: Ab eo die quando presbyter leak usque ad felicem sum finem, quando Missam cantabat, Angeli semper Dei sancti ministeri altaris ac sacricii apud ipsum vidébantur, oblationemque cum suis manibus, illo solo empty, frequencer fringebant.

2 BB. 19 febr., t. 6 p. 157, n. 23. Unde sæpe ostensum est quod Angeli Dei adjuvarent eum.

3 BB. 28 febr., t. 6 p. 761, n. 21. Quadam die, dum sanctus post Evangelium, oculis in celum erectis, orationem præmitteret, vidit minister ejus reverendi vultus personam candidissimum panem, sed quantitate modicum, inter manus quas usque ad caput suum porrectas habebat, digno cum honor tenentem... Audivit Angelum ad singula responseem et obsequium ei deferentem.

4 BB. 9 mart., t. 8, p.38, n. 8: Die quadam, dum sacricio altaris quam dicimus Missam, interesset, et sacerdos SANCTUS, SANCTUS proferret, audivit ipsa repentes idem verbum coeælesti cantu Angelos, cujus tanta futt suavitas, ut pene de ipsius corpore egressa sit.

Is tn cap ne dés te

where these blessed spirits bring holy communion to fervent souls, eager for this heavenly bread.

The holy soldier Zozime ‘, martyred in Pisidia under Trajan, after suffering horrific torture, had been in his prison for three days without having tasted any food, when he saw two children, or rather two angels, one of whom carried the bread of the Eucharist, and the other a vase full of water: They said to him, "Take the gift that God has sent you." The martyr took the food that was offered to him, then thanking: "I bless you, Lord," he exclaimed, "because you have had mercy on your servant, and you have not forsaken me, but have filled yourselves with your heavenly food. I will praise and celebrate your glory and magnificence forever." When the day came, the president ordered that the martyr be brought before his court. Lozime appeared, with a joyful face and no sign of fatigue, which cast the judge and the executioners into the stupor, who expected to find him exhausted by the torments and by the farm.

St Stanislas Kostka? received the same favor for the first time during a serious illness which he made in Vienna in the house of a Lutheran: two angels brought him the Saint Viatic, whom he vainly asked of men. Another time, between Augsburg and Dilingual, having entered a church on his way, to hear the Mass and to pray there, he soon realized that he was in a Protestant temple. He felt an extreme pain to see the holy mysteries desecrated

1 BB. 19 Jun., t. 20, p. 678, n. 7: Cum vero tres dies præteriientt, and Zozimus cibum non gustasset, duo pueri venerunt in carcerem, quorum uaus panem, alter vas aquaæ portabat, and martyri tenerunt: Accipe manc margaritam (qua Christiani significabant particulam Eucharisticam. sacro blood perfusam, ad fidelium communionem)\, a Domino Deo tuo ad te missam.

- What? CepaRI, Life of the B. Stanislas Kostka, n. 4 p. 45, and n. 7 p. 27.

by the heretics, and he made the most touching complaints to God. As he complained with a great abundance of tears, he saw a troupe of angels coming to him; one of them, who held the Eucharist in his hands, approached him with an air full of majesty, communed him, and left him filled with Joy in the possession of Jesus Christ. The Church! recalls these wonders in the legend of the saint and to the secret of the Mass which she authorizes in her honor.

The saints who thus received the divine Eucharist through the ministry of heavenly spirits are in large numbers. Among many others, we can add to the names already mentioned those of Saint Bonaventure?, of the venerable Idaÿ, Cistercian religious, of Saint Agnes of Montepulciano‘, of the Blessed Veronica of Binascos, of the venerable Mother Agnes of Jesus 6.

Sometimes angels escort the holy souls when they receive Our Lord or carry him with them. Blessed Lutgarde, having difficulty walking because of her weakness, was supported by two angels, who led her to the altar and brought her back to her place. The Holy Penitent Eudoce®, from Samaria, martyred

1 Brev. Rom. Pro aliq. locis. 13 Nov., Lect. 5.

- What? BB. 44 Jul., t. 30, p. 807, n. 28.

3 Huues pe FLORE, BB: 13 April, t. 11, p. 164, n. 20.

4 RaymunD. CPUAN. BB. 20 April, t. 11, p. 795, n. 26.

$ sin. DE ISOLANIS, BB. 13 Jan., t. 2, p. 206, n. 3.

6 De Lantages, {re P., c. 41, t. 4 p. 121 et seq.

7 THom. CANTIPRATAN. 16 Jun., t. 24 p. 203, n. 39: Cumque euntem ad altare nullus eam in subsidium debilis corporis sutentaret, manifesto viderunt aliquae quibus videre datum est, dues eam Angelos mediam tenere and ad altare deducere.

8 BB. 1 st., t. 7, p. 49, n. 44. Antequam traderet ultro se lupis agna Christi, brevi mora impetrata prodeundi, oceurrit in sacram ædem, rescrataque illic arcula in qua divinum donum reliquiarum sancti corporis Christi servabatur, inde particulam acceptam sinu recondit; and sic statim. cum militaribus abiit. Iter autem ipsis per illunem noctem facientibus, præ-.

In Ileliopolis under Trajan, before surrendering to the satellites that came to arrest him, hides in her womb a piece of the divine Eucharist, and immediately she sees an angel walking before her, in the form of a young man dressed in white, carrying in his hands a torch whose 1 light lighteth the steps of martyrdom in the deep darkness of the night, without the soldiers seeing neither the light nor the guide.

VII. — Ün other office than angels frequently render to God's friends cst to warn them of their next death. We have already pointed out this fact, in the previous chapter, by speaking of the appearance of Blessed Vicrge Mary to Saint Felix of Valois a few days before her death. He is also reported from Saint Simeon Stylite the Jeunc, Saint Maximus? martyr, Saint Guedas to, Abbé de Ruy in Brittany, Saint Aldegonde # and many others.

More frequently, they assist the saints at the hour of death, making their presence visible, to support them in this last struggle and to add to the impatience of their desires.

Saint Vincent, the illustrious martyr of Zaragoza, after ibat Eudociæ ephecbus candidateus facem ferens: nec DURE um nec lucem vicentibus satellitibus.

1 BB. 24 Maiii, t. 18, p. 396, n. 248: Agebat igitur S. Simeon jam quintum supra septuagesimum ætatis suæ annum... cum a familiari Angelo certior factus appropriquantis sibi vitae exitus.

3 BB. 2 Jan., tt. 1, p. 94, n. 26: Noli timere, crastina die viebis mirabilia.

3 BB. 29 Jan., t. 3 p. 578, n. 29: Appearance here in somnis Angelus Domini dictates: Audi and intelligent.. And ecce octava ab hodierna die, soluti sarcina carnis emptybunt spiritales oculi tui quod semper ab infantia desiderasti; viebis etenim in majestate sua desideratam faciem Domini Dei tui.

4 BB. 30 Jan., t. 3 p. 652: Alloquitur illam Angelus in visu hortans ut se préæparet exire obviam Christo tempusque like exeundi denuntiat.

6 Act. Martyr. n. 8, p. 394: Sicque solitudo horribilis Angelorum relevatur frequentia: quorum caterva vallatus Martyr egregius, venerando fovebatur obsequio, and mulcebatur alloquio. Agnosis, concern, Vincenti invi-

Ctissime, pro Cujus nomine fideliter decertasti, ete. Dantur hinc laudes Deo and resonant organo vocis angelicæ modulata suavitas procul diffinditor.

Unheard of tortures supported with a magnificent soul force, is thrown, the stocks in the feet, into a dark cachot sown with broken pots, which tear his wounds and revive their pain. But suddenly the darkness of this prison dissipates, a heavenly light fills it, the obstacles break. These sharp headlets turn into smelly flowers, which make the martyr a delicious layer. A multitude of angels surround him, talk to him, congratulate him on his victory. "Recognize, to an invisible victor, they say to him, The One for whom you have so valiantly fought; He himself, who made him victorious in the midst of torment, holds in his hand the crown of glory which he prepared for you. The struggle is over, and the hour will ring where, taking away this burden of death, you will be gathered at the choir of the Blessed." And all, joining their voices in a single concert of praises, make these dark vaults sound with the most melodious accents.

The martyrs who were supported in their struggles by God's angels are in large numbers. The forty legionaries of Sebastia, celebrated by Saint Basil!; Saint Agnes of Rome, who was it by Saint Ambrose?; Saint Constance, bishop of Perugia, and an infinity of others received this heavenly assistance.

The servants of God, who, without giving their blood to Jesus Christ, nevertheless deserved the same favor, are even more numerous. Among so many names, we will mention only that of St.Antoine. His historian, the illustrious Athanase, tells us that at the time his soul was going to

1 S. Basic. Hom. 19 in SS. Quadrag. Martyrs, n.7. Migne, t. 31, col. 519.

25. Ausr. BB. 21 Jan., t. 2, p. 716, n. 8.

8 BB. 29 Jan., t. 3 p. 544, n. 43.

4 Vila S. Antonii, n. 92 (Versio Evagrii). Migne, t. 26, col. 971: Verba finierat, et osculantibus se discipulis, extendens paululum pedes, mortem lætus aspexit: ita ut, ex hilaritate vultus ejus, Angelorum qui ad perferendam animam ejus descendant, presentia nosceretur; hos intuens, tanquam amicos videret, animam exhalavit.

The face of this great patriarch of the cenobites lighted up with a sweet light, and his eyes rested, with the joy that one feels to see friends, on the angels descended to gather his soul and carry it to heaven.

Conducting and placing pure souls in God's bosom is the principal service of the heavenly spirits, and that is why they appear so frequently at the death of the predestined. In the same Life of the Great Solitary, St.Athanasius ‘ reports that a Day of Anthony, sitting at the top of the mountain, suddenly looked up; he saw an unknown soul rising up to the heavenly dwellings, and the angels, joyful, come to meet him. When he prayed, he asked God to let him know what this blessed was, and immediately a voice was heard and told him that it was the soul of the monk Ammon, who had just died in the desert of Nitrie. In St Jerome's report, Antoine still had the same spectacle when he saw Paul's soul, the first hermit, flying to heaven, shining white, in the midst of angelic phalanges, choirs of the Drophetes and apostles.

Harmonious songs usually accompany these heavenly apparitions, and have transformed more than once the funeral of the saints into manifestations of joy and triumph. This was the case at the funeral of St.Martin, according to his first two historians, Sulpice Severe* and Gregory of Tours #. The same thing from several people

1 Vita S. Anton, n. 60, pass. 930: Cum sederet in monte, and oculos soudio tetendisset in coelum, vidit nescio quam animam, lætantibus in ejus occursum Angelis, ad coelum pergere. Vox ad eum facta est, inquiens istam esse Ammonis monachi anima qui Nitriæ morabatur.

2 Vita S. Pauli primi eremitæ, n. 14. Migne, t. 93, col. 27. Vidit inter Angelorum catervas, and inter prophetarum et apostolorum choros niveo candore Paulum fulgentem in sublime conscendere.

8 Epist. 3 ad Bassulam. Migne, t. 20, col. 184. Hæc igitur beati viri corpus usque ad locum sepulchri hymnis canora colestibus turba prosequitur.... Martinus hymnis colestibus honoratur.

4 From Mirac. S. Martini, 1. 14.0. 5. Migne, t. 71, col. 919: O beatum

servants and servants of God, among others of Saint Nicholas of Myre', Saint Walfrid?, first abbot of the monastery of Mont-Vert in Tuscany, Saint Laurent Justinien *, Saint Romule #, Blessed Colette $, venerable Mary of Maillies 5.

VIII. — Angels sometimes appear to visibly protect the holy causes and to suppress the audacity of the wicked. The Scriptures contain memorable examples. The angel of the Lord strikes in one night the army of the king of Assyria Sennacherib 7. An angel stops Balaam's donkey and threatens this greedy prophet with the sword he holds in his hand. Heliodore * is castigated by angels as he tries to sequester treasures from the temple.

The heavenly militia also intervenes in battles for God's friends and righteousness. Judas Machhabea fought with his own hordes of Timothy. At the height of the mushroom, the enemies of the Jews saw five warriors descend from heaven, mounted on horses, in a noble and proud attitude, who supported and led worshipers of the true God. Two of them stand around Machhabea and protect him from their weapons; the others cast strokes and lightnings against his enemies, who, struck blindly and in complete disarray, fall in front of them. In another meeting, "when Machhabea and her soldiers were leaving Jerusalem to go virum, in cujus transitu Sanctorum canit numerus, Angelorum exultat. Chorus, omniumc celestium Virtutum occurrit exercitus..; quem Michael assumes cum Angelis.

1 Brev. Rom. 6 Dec., Lect. 6. Instant dead, suspicians in celum, cum Angelos sibi occurrentes intueretur..., in celestem patriarch migrating.

2 AnDrEAS, Abb. Montis Viridis. BB. 15 febr., t. 5, p. 846, n. 8.

# GREG. Max. Dialog.. 4, ©. 15. — Migne, t. 77, col. 345.

Petrus in VALLBus, BB. 6 mart., t. 7 p. 579, n. 196, 200.

6 Proceedings of Viri. and Mirac. BB. 28 mart., t. 9, D. 745, n. 8.

7 IV Reg. xIx, 35. — 8 Num. xx, 22. — 9 He Mach. m, 95 and 96. 10 [I Mach. x, 29, 30. — 11 He Mach. xr, 6, 8.

To meet the army of Lysias, a man on horseback, dressed in a white garment, with golden weapons and a spear in his hand, suddenly appeared, walking before them, as if to excite them in battle.

Benadab, king of Syria, angry to see his war tricks discovered to the king of Israel by Elisha, made the city of Dothar, where the prophet was, known by his troops during the night. At dawn, the servant of God's man comes, trembling, to teach him that the Syrian army, with its horses and chariots, surrounds the ramparts. "Be fearless," says Elisha, "there are more people with us than there are with them." Then, praying: "Lord," said he, "open his eyes to him so that he may see." And the Lord opened his eyes to this servant, and saw the mountain full of horses and chariots of fire, which were all around Elisha 1.

Christian legends abound in similar accounts, and they probably gave rise in Portugal, France and other countries to the institution of orders of chivalry under the patronage of Saint Michael, prince of the heavenly militia? A fact of unquestionable authenticity is the assistance that the angels gave to Saint Wenceslas, Duke of Bohemia, in a singular fight against Radislas, Prince of Gurcine, as can be seen in the Roman Breviary, at the feast of this saint. It is similarly reported in the life of the Emperor St.Henri that he saw more than once the angel of the Lord and the martyrs his protectors fighting for him at the first battle front.

IX. — What angels appear to men in this way?

1 IV Reg. vi, 15-17. — 2 BB. 99 Sept., t. 48, p. 86-89, n. 372 et seq. 8 98 Sept., Lect. 6. 4 BRev. Rom. 15 Jul., Lect. 5.

The authors share two views. The first argues that a part of the angels is never relegated to the lower creatures, and attributes this function to the smallest orders of the heavenly hierarchy. It divides the blessed spirits into two parts: the assistants, who never come out of front of God, and the ministers, who intervene in the material and human world. According to Saint Gregory the Great, the last two orders are sent only, the Angels for common missions, and the Archangels for the greatest. St. Thomas? thinks that the last five orders can be deputies, and that the first four, namely: the Seraphim, the Cherubim, the Thrones and the Dominations, are not employed in this office. Suarez * and several other theologians make this reservation only for the three orders of the first hierarchy. In this sense, the superior angels, or remain alien to, or exercise, any outside intervention only through the lower angels. This is the first opinion with its various nuances.

The second admits that all angels indistinctly are

1 Homile. 34 in Evang. n. 8. Migne, t. 76, 1240: Græca etenim lingua, Angeli nuntii, Archangeli vero summi nuntii vocantur... Hi autem which minima nuntiant, Angeli; who vero summa annunciant, Archangeli vocantur. Hinc is enim quod ad Mariam virginem non quilibet Angelus, sed Gabriel archangelus mittitur.

2 Sum. 1. P., q. 112, a. 2: And ideo simpliciter dicendum is cum Dionysio (De cel. yesterday. c. 5), quod superiores Angeli nunquam ad exterius ministerium mittuntur.

Ibid., to. 4: Ideo Angeli illorum ordinum ad exterius ministerium mittuntur, ex quorum nominibus aliqua executio datur intelligi: in nomineautem Dominationum non importatur aliqua executio, sed sola dispositio and imperium de exsequendis; sed in nominibus inferiorum ordinum inteiligitur aliqua executio.

to De Angelis, 1.6, c. 21 n. 24 p. 788: Juxta doctrinam superius datam, easy responsei potest imprimis apparitiones semper proudi per minister Angelos, not per assisted, quia non apparent nect corpora sumunt, nisi mittantur, ut per se clarum est; non mittuntur autem qui assisttunt, sed tantum qui ministrant. — And 1. 6, c. 9, n. 24 p. 682.

of mission. According to Fr. Petau!, who reports the testimonies, this feeling is much more common among the holy Fathers, and 1 l''acclaims himself for this reason and also. because of these words of the Apostle to the Hebrews: "Are they not all spirits destined to serve, and sent to minister to those who are to receive the inheritance of salvation?" This learned author still relies on the example of the Word, superior to all angelic hierarchies, and yet sent and descended to the flesh of man. The angels who are sent do not for this reason lose the clear vision of God, and do not cease to be assistants in his presence, as the angel Raphael said of himself; * or it should be concluded, that the guardian angels are exiled from heaven all the time that they exercise their guardianship with souls, contrary to what Our Lord says in the Gospel: "I tell you, the angels of these little children see the face of my Father in heaven all the time."5

For all these reasons, the second opinion seems preferable to the first.

X. — Of the angels who appeared to men, Scripture no. 3 designates only three by a proper name: Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, names that express the special virtue of these heavenly spirits or the missions that they have

1 Theologic. dogmat.,. 2, ©. 6, n. 3,t. 4 p. 22: Alii ex adverso contcndunt, Angelos omnes, quocumque censentur ordine mitti a Deo et mandatea sibi ministeria capessere. Quod imprimis traditum ab Apostolo videtur, who ad Hebræos scribes (1, 14): Nonne omnes, inquite, sunt administratorii spiritus, in ministerium missi propter eos qui haredilatem capiunt salutis? Quæ mihi sentemia anteponenda vietur alteri, propter and Apostoli locum illum, and veterum de eo judicium atque consensum, and Scripturæ alia testimonia, queæ eodem relevant.

2 Toë. xn, 15: Ego sum Raphael Angelus, unus ex septem who adstamus ante Dominum.

8 Matth. xvnx, 10.

have fulfilled ‘. We know that Michel or Michaël means: Who is like God? The war cry of the leader of the faithful phalanges against Lucifer and his cursed legions; that Gabriel means the strength or the Fort of God, that is, the messenger of the great purposes where God deploys his power; that Raphael, or Remedy of God, recalls the healings performed by the angel who accompanied the young Tobie.

Some particular revelations, whose authenticity or authority are questionable, mention other names of angel. In interviews, for example, which we were kept from Blessed Humility?, this saint tells that two angels were in charge of her guard, whose names she had learned from the mouth of St John the Evangelist. One, from the ordinary choir of angels, who had been his guardian since his birth, was called Sapiel; the other, who was a cherub, and whom she had received at the age of thirty, was named Emmanuel. In the fourth book of Ezra, one is mentioned of the angel Uriel * and of the Archangel Jeremiah #; but it is known that this book is apocryphal and does not deserve a debt, even from the historical point of view. It is a constant tradition in the Church that the three angels who

1 S. GREG. Mr. Hom. in Evangelist. 34, n.9, t. 76. Migne, pass. 1251: Michael namque, who's Deus? Gabriel autem, Fortitudo Dei; Raphael vero dicitur Medicina Dei.

2 BB. Appendix ad diem 92 mayi, t. 20, p. 816, n. 3: Angelos coeli omnes diligo, sed duo sunt mihi deliciæ gaudii. Meus illos Dominus mihi dedit pro custodia, ut protecting me ab omni gravedine...; and utrumque scio vocare nomine, Joannis Evangelistæ gratia. Unus de choro Angelorum qui Christianis in custodiam dati sunt in ista vita... And nomen suum tali ostenditur ratione, quod sapientiam divinam habet; and vocatus is Angelus Sapiel... Ipse namque mecum stetit a principalio, cum fufue nata, in præsenti vita. Alius is Cherubim, who sex alas habet.. Illius is nomen suum, adorable callatum, majoris altitudinis; nam Angelus Emmanuel ipse nuncupatur, ore Joannis Evangelistæ... Iste namque Angelus a meo Domino mihi fuchet datus, post triginta annos meæ ætatis.

8 rv, 1. And answer ad me Angelus, who missus is ad me, cui nomen Uriel. And answer ad ea Jeremiel archangelus.

are named in Scripture are the only ones whose names are known. A council! held in Rome, 745, under Pope Zacharias, rejects this prayer composed by an impostor named Adelbert: "I offer you my vows: and my supplications, angel Uriel, angel Raguël, angel Tubuel, angel Michel, angel Inias, angel Tubuas, angel Sabaoc, angel Simiel;" and the reason claimed by the Fathers of this council is that, with the exception of the name of Michael, all the others designate demons rather than good angels, of which only three are named by Scripture and tradition, namely: Michel, Gabriel and Raphael. This is less a decision of law than a question of fact and history; for nothing prevents other angels, in addition to those already appointed, from receiving names that express their missions.

The angel Raphael is mentioned in Scripture only at the free of Tobias; but he intervenes quite frequently in the revelations and acts of the Saints. He helps Saint John of God to load a poor sick man on his shoulders, and leads him into the darkness of the night to the hospital. Another time, he distributes bread to the poor outside the same saint?. It serves as a guide and support to Saint

1 LaB.t. 6. 1561: Habeo orationem quamdam quam sibi Aldebertus componere nisus is...: Precor yours, and conjuro yours, and beg me ad vos, angele Uriel, angele Raguel, angele Tubuel, angele Michael, angele Inias, angele Tubuas, angele Sabaoc, angele Simiel. — Dum vero haec oratio sacrilega usque in finem perlecta esset, Zacharias sanctissimus ac beatissimus papa dixit: What ad haec, sanctissimi fratres, respondetis? Sanctissimi episcopy and venerabiles presbyteri responseunt: Quid aliud agentum est, nisi ut omnia quae nobis relecta sunt igni concretur, auctores vero eorum anathematis vinculo percellantur? Non enim nomina Angelorum, præter nomen Michaelis, sed nomina dæmonum sunt, queæ in suis orationibus invocavit ad præstandum auxilium sibi. Our autem, ut a vestro sancto apostolatu edocemur, and divina tradit auctoritas, nor quam trium Angelorum nomina cognosecimus, id is Michael, Gabriel, Raphael.

Two ANTONs. GOVEA, BB. 8 mart., t. 7, n. 22 and 23: Respond Joannes, totum a Deo esse agnosco; verum amabo te, frater, quis sis et unde significa. Archangelus, inquite ille, Raphael, tuæ tuorumque sociorum custodiæ divi-

Françoise Romaine! and Saint Baront?, in their famous visions of hell, purgatory and heaven.

Gabriel is the angel of the Incarnation. It is he who reveals to Daniel® the succession of empires and sets with the last precision the date of the coming of the Messiah in the famous prophecy of seventy weeks. He appeared twice in the Gospel, to predict to Zacharias the birth of the forerunner, and to announce to the Blessed Virgin Mary the mystery of her virgin motherhood. He is attributed several other Bible apparitions, but with the help of interpretations that seem to us to be unsubstantiated. It also intervenes more than once in private revelations ÿ.

Although Saint Michael is appointed several times in Scripture f, in reality there is only one appariion made in the name of this archangel. It is described in chapter x11 of Revelation, when St John sees a great battle going on in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting the dragon and his fellow rebels; the dragon defeated and cast down to the earth, where he becomes the seducer of man, the devil or Satan. However some interpreters attribute to St. Michael a certain

nitus deputatus.. Diebus exinde nonnullis præteritis, cum solicitus Pater pauperibus suis cibos varetur, panis defuit, qui cunctis suffceret; moxque Raphael archangelus adfuit, multis qui présentes adstabant conspicuus, codem quo Joannes habitu canistrum panibus plenum adferens.

1 Marriorri, BB. 9 mart., t. 8, p. 165, n. 47: Erat autem illa societas, ut sibi postmodum ostensum leaks, angelus Raphael.

2 BB. Visio S. Baronti., 25 mart., t. 9, p. 568: Adfuit mihi in adjutorium S. Raphael archangelus, in leads claritatis fulgidus.

3 Daniel. vi, 3-25; 1x, 21. Ecce vir Gabriel, quem videram in visione a principalipo, cito volans, tetigit me.

4 Luke. 1, 11, 16.

EcINAarp, Transl. SS. Marcellini and Petri, BB. 2 Jun., t. 21, p. 189, n. 48.

— -MARIE, Lifes and memorable actions of the Saints and Blesseds of the Order of Saint-Dominique, t. 1, p. 266.

6 Daniel. x, 13, 21; xu, 1. — Epist. cath. Judæ, 9.

T Apoc. xu, 7-9. And factum prælium magnum in coelo: Michael and Angeli ejus præliabantur cum dracone.

number of angelic apparitions, both old and new? Testament, where this archangel is not expressly designated.

It is certain at least that he has manifested himself several times in Christian ages. The Greeks have their legends and solemnities on these apparitions*, the most famous of which is Chones, former Colossus, in Phrygia. In Oceident, the facts are even more numerous and more precise. Some saints are mentioned honored with this favor, among others Saint Martin de Tours#, St Wilfrid, Bishop of York, Blessed Ferdinand!, Prince of Portugal, the glorious Pucella of Orleans, Joan of Arc, to whom the defeated English will pay dearly for her visions.

There are other apparitions whose memory, consecrated by festivals and monuments, has the character of greater authenticity. This was the one that founded, around the year 708, the so famous pilgrimage of Mont Saint-Michel in Normandy. Saint Aubert, bishop of Avranches, miraculously warned, three times, during his sleep, to consecrate on the rock of the Tomb a church in honor of the glorious archangel, hastened to erect this pious sanctuary, around which soon a monastery and a small village were erected. But of all the apparitions of

1 BB. 29 Sept., t. 48, p. 16, n. 64, p. 17, n. 70, p. 18, n. 73, etc.

2 P. Girx, Lives of the Saints, 29 Sept., ed. m-folio, t. 2, p. 1200.

3 BB. 29 Sept., t. 48, p. 38 et seq., n. 185.

4 Greek. Tur. From Mirac. S. Martin. 1. 1, c. 5, t. 71, col. 919.

ÿ Bepa, Hist. eccles. sect. 3, c. 19. Migne, Patr. lat., t. 95, col. 268.

6 J. Come on, BB. 5 Jun., t. 21, p. 575, n. 99.

7 Trial. t. 1, p. 73: Quod flees Michael quem vidit ante oculos suos.. Ego vidi cos oculis meis corporalibus æque bene sicut ego video yours; and quando recedebant a me plorabam, and bene voluissem quod me secum deportas. — See. H. WaLLox, Jeanne d'Arc, t. 4, D. 86.

8 BB. 29 Sept. Apparilio in mounts Tumba, t. 48, p. 77, n. 5, 7: Quodam tempore, cum religiosissimus and Deo amabilis urhis antists, Autbertus nomine, sopori sese dedisset, admonitus est angelica revelatione, ut jam dicti summitate loci sancti compreteret in honor archangeli ædem.

Saint Michael, the most famous is that which was done under Pope Gélase I, about 495, at Mount Gargan, today Mount Saint Angel, in the Italian province of Puglia. To keep the memory of this wonderful fact alive, the Church established a feast that is celebrated throughout the Christian world on the eighth day of May.

Here is a brief account of this memorable event. A shepherd who was feeding his flock on Mount Gargan, who wanted to bring out a bull from a cave that had taken refuge there, set off an arrow on him; but when he had come to the goal, the arrow, which was swifter than the wind, returned to herself and wounded him who had thrown it. This prodigy struck astonishment and frightened those who witnessed it, and the noise soon spread in the city of Siponto, at the foot of the mountain. The bishop was warned, who, suspecting some secret plan of Providence, ordered a three-day fast, to ask Heaven to clearly manifest its wills. On the third day, the archangel St. Michael appeared to the bishop in the time of the night, and told him that the place where the miracle was performed was under his protection, that he should be consecrated to divine worship, in his honour and in that of the angels. The pontiff went with his people to the designated place. There they found a spacious, temple-shaped cave, in which they only had to set up an altar to celebrate the holy mysteries. The people around them flocked to this new sanctuary in crowds, constantly making the praises of God and his glorious Archangel sound. Miracles? and the help of pilgrims soon made him famous throughout the earth.

1 BB. 29 Sept., t. 48, p. 61.

Brevrar. Row. Eight maii, lect. 5 and 6: Post triduum, Michael archangelus episcopum monet, eoque indico demonstrasse velle ibi cultum Deo in sui and Angelorum memoriam adhiberi.

2 BB. 29 Sept., t. 48, p. 63, n. 272.

XI. — As guardian angels are God's representatives and mediators to souls, most angelic apparitions are their work. At least, in a multitude of cases, they are expressly referred to as the authors of these supernatural manifestations.

The angel of the martyr saint Quick! appeared to him in his childhood, and said to him: "I was given to be your guardian until the end of your life: ask the Lord whatever you want, and you will be heard." Saint Francis of Rome lived in a holy familiarity with his guardian angel, as the Church recalls in the prayer of his office?. These facts are found in the lives of Blessed Marguerite of Cortona*, Mary of Oignies #, Saint Lidwine, Saint Rose of Limaf, Saint Anub?, Hermit, Blessed Dalmacef, Dominican, and so many others, whose only enumeration would take entire pages.

One of the most memorable facts of this kind is that which is reported to the Acts of Saint Cecilia, and of which the Church

1 BB. 15 Jun., t. 23, p. 499, n. 1. Appears autem Angelus Domini infantulo, comfortans eum, and has ei: Datus, inquis, tibi sum custos, ut custodiam te usque in diem exitus tui, and omnia quae petieris a Domino dabundur tibi.

2 Brev. Rom. 9 Mart. Deus, who B. Franciscam famulam tuam inter caetera gratiæ tuæ dona, familiari Angeli consuetudine decorasti, etc.

3 BB. 22 febr., t. 6 p. 308, n. 24: Post hec acquires Angelus Margaritæ custodiæ deputatus, and dixit ei multa verba bona, etc.

4 JacQues de Vitry, BB. 93 Jun., t. 25, p. 555, n. 35: Familiari enim Angelo, sibique ad custodiam deputato, velut Abbati proprio eam oportebat obedire.

5 J. BruGMAN, BB. 14 April, t. 11, p. 318, n. 66: In omnibus vero sanctæ obedientia filia, studebat Angelo ductori suo parere. Illo quide precedente, ibat; illo stante, stabat; llo redeunte, redebat.

6 LEONARD HANSEN, BB. 26 Aug., t. 39, p. 940, n. 200: Rosa Angelum suum non modo custodem, sed et congerronem, habuïit amicissimum......; inde virgini cum suo Angelo tam domestica fiducia ac necessitudo, ut illo soleret uti veredario, quotiescumque ad horam consuetam Sponsus non comparbat.

7 BB. 16 Jun., t. 21, p. 632, n. 5: Una semper mihi adfuit Angelus.

8 Brev. Dominican. 24 Sept., Lect. 5: Propter familiarem cum Angelo consuctudinem, Frater cum Angelo loquens decebatur.

3 BB. 14 April, t. 11, p. 204 et seq.

reproduces the account in the office of this kind and illustrious martyr!.

Cecile, a large family of Rome, and a Christian from his childhood, had dedicated his virginity to Jesus Christ. However, his parenis, against his will, gave it in marriage to a young man of noble lineage, named Valerian. On the evening of the wedding, she spoke to her husband: "Valerian, I am in the care of an angel who protects my virginity; do not try to harm it, if you do not want to draw the wrath of Heaven upon you." He was afraid, and he replied that he would believe his words, if he saw with his eyes the angel whom she spoke to him. The Christian virgin replied that it was necessary for him to grow into Jesus Christ and be baptized. Stunning to see the heavenly spirit, Valerian went to ask Pope Saint Urbain for baptism, and returned to his wife. He found her in prayer and saw her angel beside her, bursting with light and holding in her hands two crowns intertwined with roses and lilies. He offered one to everyone, saying, "Keep with great purity of heart and body those garlands that I bring you from God's paradise. You will recognize it by this sign, that these flowers will never wilt or lose their sweet smell, and that those only will be able to see them who, like you, will love chastity. And you, Valerian, because you have consented to the invitation of purity, the Christ Son of God sends me to tell you that he is ready to answer all your prayers." Valerian bowed humbly to the earth, and replied that his greatest desire was to see his only brother Tiburce converted to faith. The angel assured him that God would give him this grace, and disappeared in their eyes.

Tiburce came incontinent, and smelling the perfume that shews.

1 BRev. Rom, 22 Nov. lect. 4 and 5.

milk of the crown which adorned the head of Cecile, asked where came, in a season when the flowers had passed, this heavenly smell which was embalming. The blessed husbands then told him of the grace God had bestowed upon them, and urged him to open his eyes to the light and to share their happiness. Tiburce, too, wanted to see the angel; he asked for baptism, and obtained the same favor. Cecile and the two brothers soon received the most precious crown of martyrdom and glory.

The venerable mother Agnes de Langeac also had with her guardian angel the most admirable relations,

that his pious historian has described us with simplicity.

Nice. Let's judge by a few features gleaned here and there.

"It was especially her holy guardian whom she saw," said M. de Lantages!, "an angel with whom she had almost perpetual communication, and from whom she received all kinds of help at all times. He taught, 1l

the Fiona, he comforted her, he served her with affection

We can't admire enough.

"Many times, when she had forgotten something, this charitable guardian remembered it; and she was accustomed to speaking to him for it simply.

"As she was always greatly gathered in God, she sometimes didn't hear the bell ringing at the door when she was underdoor; and then her angel said to her: "We call at the door." Still, having not yes the sign of the divine office, he warned. And as one evening she was to sound for the retreat of the sisters, being all absorbed in God, her angel led her and put the cord of the bell in her hand."

It wasn't only in the cloister that the mother

1 Life of the Ven. Mother Agnes, 3° P., c. 17, p. Next 388 ct.

Agnes enjoys this favor; being still in the world and several years before becoming a religious, she had with her angel this holy familiarity.

"When she came out of the house, she could go wherever it was necessary, without having to think about where she was going, the paths that led to it, or anything else outside. It was that as soon as she went out to get to some place, at the same time she saw a small white bird flying in front of her, similar to a butterfly, which served as a guide to the place she intended. Otherwise she had misled herself, as a result of the holy drunkenness, where she was delighted.

"This extraordinary favor, which lasted for eight years, was certainly done by the ministry of his angel, who took the form of this little bird!"

XII. — We will add one last trait on the angel of Mother Agnes of Jesus. At the death of this great servant of God, his angel became M. Olier, founder of the seminary of Saint-Sulpice. It's Mr. Olier himself who teaches us in his autograph memories.

"There," writes 1l, "that an angel melts upon me from the top of the cell, with the speed and power of an eagle that melts upon His prey, and surrounds with his wings, greater than ever that it was necessary to defend me.

"This angel who was given to me by special kindness, and whose gratitude I cannot give to God enough, is a Seraphim, as it is believed in words that Sister Agnes said before her death. I remember that, passing through the streets of Paris, shortly afterwards, where there was a great world, it seemed to me that I saw the other angels paying him great homage and respect. But the day I learned the news of this

Mother Agnes, 1r° P., c. 6, t. 1, p. 51,

I went before the Blessed Sacrament to make my complaints to Our Lord.... I even addressed to her in the Blessed Sacrament, since the saints are present there... This holy soul, who had great compassion for the least of my sorrows, told me these words, which departed from the tabernacle, and which I heard as in my heart: "I left you my angel..." Since that time I have felt great respect in my soul when I invoke this angel, and I cannot invoke him or honor him, or render any duty to God for him, that it seems to me absolutely that it is not mine.

"This angel," M. Olier in 1647, more than twelve years after the death of Mother Agnes, is not my guardian angel, since this one, who has been with me since the baptism, tells me about the other, in the day when it was given to me: Honor this angel who is now given to you; he is one of the greatest who was given to a creature on earth. It is that of the charge and not of the person; and his wings so wide made me hear that he would cover several others that would be with me: as since that time the company of the holy ecclesiastical ones whom God gave me felt assistance, living in his care and receiving a thousand protections!"

Is it reported similarly from St. Francis? Romaine that she received a second guardian angel, in human form, taken from the fourth choir, that is, from the order of the Powers, whose outside announced virtue and glory, and who by his presence alone put the demons to flight. The

1 Excerpt from the Life of the Ven. Mother Agnes, Edict of M. L'abbé Lucot, 3rd P., c. 42, t. 2, p. 274 et seq.

2 J. Marrorri, BB. 9 mart., t. 8 p., 447, visio 66: Accedit quod anno Domini 1436, in solemnitate festi S. Benedicti, benignissimus Dominus omnium gratiarum Donator, magnificando suam ancillam mirabilius solito, sibi convenient unum Angelum alium quarti chori, scilicet unum ex Potestatibus; iste vero Angelus sibi fuchet concessus in forma humana.

Blessed Catherine of Racconigi! also had two angels, one of whom was a Seraphim.

Here we must suspend these interesting stories: where would we go if we wanted to reproduce everything?

1 -MARIE, Life of the SS. and BB. Daughters of the Order of Saint Dominique, t. 1, p. 417.

Chapter IX

The Objects of Supernatural Vision — V. The Blessed

The saints rarely appear in intellectual vision. — Frequency of imaginary visions, — and bodily visions. — The causes and circumstances that determine them. — Their various forms. — Are these apparitions personally accomplished by the Blessings, or, in their name, by the Angels?

Ï. — The saints of heaven frequently manifest themselves to the traveling men, their brothers, to comfort them in the bitterness of exile and to support them in their journey to the homeland. The Doctors are unanimous in recognizing the possibility and existence of these apparitions; and history, moreover, presents so many examples, that it takes the grossest ignorance or the bias taken of lincredulity to revoke them in doubt.

Blessed ones can be revealed in intellectual visions, as we have said in speaking of such manifestations. However, according to the learned pontiff Benedict XIV!, they rarely appear in this way, but rather in sensitive vision, either mental or bodily.

1 Serv. Dei beatific. 1. & P. 1, c. 39, n. 11, t. 4 p. 239:.. Sive appartitio fucrit intelletualis, quae raro contingit, sive corporalis, quae usu frequenti esse consuev, etc.

IL. — Generally, as we have already said, when the manifestation takes place during sleep or in ecstasy, and it takes sensitive forms, it must be regarded as imaginary.

This was the famous dream of Judas Machabeet. He saw the high priest Onias extending his hands and praying for all the people. Jewish. Then, beside him, appeared an old man venerable, full of glory and majesty, whom Onias showed him, saying: "This is the friend of his brothers and of the people of Israel; it is Jeremiah, the prophet of God, who prays much for the people and for the whole holy city." And Jeremiah stretched out his hand, and gave Judas a golden sword, saying, "Take this holy sword as a gift of God, with which you will overthrow the enemies of my people Israel."

These facts are multiplied infinitely in the annals of holiness. a,

Sometimes it is the multitude of the elect that reveals itself in the vastness of the heavens, as Saint Elizabeth of Sconauge tells of herself. In the midst of infinite light, and around the throne of God, she saw the triumphant heavenlys, arranged according to their dignity and merits. In the first row the apostles were shining, decorated with palms and radiant crowns, and bearing the signs of their victory on the forehead. To their right stood the glorious army of martyrs, then the multitude of saints who did not shed their blood for Jesus Christ; to the left, the sacred order of virgins, decorated with the insignia of martyrdom; after them, the crowd of mere virgins and holy women, and all

1 HE Mach. xv, 12-16.

2 Eosert, BB. 18 Jun., t. 24 p. 508, n. 29: Avocado a corpore, rapta sum in ectasim.. and vidi lucem longe excellentiorem lla quam empirere consueveram, and multa millia sanctorum in ea. Stabant autem in circuitu Majestatis magnæ, secundum hujusmodi ordinem dispositi, cte.

around, in a light circle, the countless choirs of angels.

At the age of twelve, the Osanne de Mantua's benediction had a similar vision. Introduced into the heavenly city by the apostle Saint Paul and by a majestic vicar, whom she knew to be Simeon, the one who received in his arms the Child Jesus on the day of his presentation at the temple, she admires the number and splendor of her happy inhabitants, some dressed in white robes, others ornaments of purple and fire, all in the supreme drunkenness of joy. This spectacle ignites her heart with such love, which she would have wished not to return to the earth. After ardent prayers and divine answers that relent in the depths of his soul, the Almighty said to him: "I have desired, my beloved daughter, to show you the glory of virgins and martyrs, that the memory of this incomparable bliss may preserve you from all defilement, and make you faithful and diligent in my service." The pious virgin prostrated herself as a sign of thanksgiving; after which her two guides, Paul and Simeon, took her back to the gates of the blessed city.

One day of All Saints, a great multitude of saints appeared in vision to the Blessed Lutgarde, and the Holy Spirit revealed to him that it was filled with the spirit and grace of all these faithful servants.

As she approached her feast, each saint warned Mary of Ognies, and when the day came, he visited her with a multitude

1 Fr SILVESTRE, BB. 18 Jun., t. 24 p. 573, n. 71. Innumera beatorum multitudo eam viebatur urbem incomolere: quorum quidam candidissimo ornatu instructi erant, cæteri rubricata atque igne micantia indumenta gestabant; universi tamen non mediocre gaudium, sed summam lætitiam præ ferebant....

2 THoM. CANTIPRATAN. BB. 16 Jun., t. 24 p. 201, n. 29: Tempore quodam, cum fesum omnium Sanctorum ageretur, in ipso festo piæ Lutgardi multitudo maxima Sanctorum per visionem appeared; and quod omnium spiritu, and omnium gratia plena esset, ei sanctus Spiritus revelavit.

other blessed ones, occupying his mind with heavenly thoughts and desires!.

We pass under silence the special apparitions: the examples are endlessly multiplied in the Lives of the Saints."IE."Body visions are neither less frequent nor less indisputable.

In the Old Testament, we find Samuel's evocation, which many interpreters consider to have been a true outward appearance. * In the New, Moses and Elijah appear on the Tabor next to the transfigured Saviour. Elijah did not have to take a foreign body, since according to tradition he is still alive, as well as Enoch; but Moses had to form a body with external elements, and clothe it for the occasion?

In the Lives of the Saints, these kinds of wonders are not counted. Let us just report two between so many others.

The apostle Saint Peter appears under the traits of a DE babard to the glorious martyrdom Agathe, in his prison, to heal her from the wounds and cruel amputations that her executioners have inflicted on her. The virgin prick refuses.

1 Jacques De Viry, BB. 23 Jun., t. 25, p. 567, n. 89: Quando autem alicujus Sancti dies festus imminebat, Sanctus ille fesum suum ei annunciabat; and in die suo ad illam veniens cum sociorum celestium multitudine, eam visitabat; ita quod cum Sancto illo per totum diem spiritus ejus cum gaudio quiesceret.

3 D. Calleet, Dissert. on Samuel's app. to Saul. Bible of Fri, in-40, t. 4 p. 84.

3 S. THon. 3 P., q. 45, a. 3, ad 2: No is sic nteligendon: quasi anima Moysi suum corpus resumpserit, sed quod anima ejus appeared per aliquod corpus supptum, sicut angeli apparent. Elias autem appeared in proprio corpore, non quidem de coelo empyreo allato, sed de ii a eminenti loco quo fuerat in curru igneo raptus.

4 BB. 4 febr., t. 4 p. 623, n.9 and 10: Dixit ad eam ille senior: And quare no permittis ut curem te? Agatha replied: Quia habeo salvatorem Dominum Jesum Christum, who verbo curat omnia and sermo ejus solus restaurat universa: hic, si vult, potest me salvam facere. Tunc subridens senior

first to receive no relief from a man's hand; she expects salvation and remedy only from the Saviour Jesus. But the old man smiling: "It is he," he said, "who sends me to you; I am his apostle, and know that in his name you will be healed." And immediately he disappeared. The saint falls on her knees to thank Our Lord for the help he sends to her, and her prayer is barely over, that she sees no more wounds on her body.

Saint Augustine! reports, not, as he says, on uncertain rumours, but after very reliable testimonies, that the martyr Saint Felix appeared to the inhabitants of Nole, while this city was besieged by the Barbarians. The holy doctor claims this example to show that the happy citizens of heaven are interested in the things of the earth, and that they respond with their blessings to the prayers addressed to them.

IV. — It is difficult to list the causes that determine these visits from holy souls.

Most often it is to answer the supplications that they are addressed.

Saint Lucia, whose acts are reproduced in the office that the Church devotes to this virgin, had come to the tomb of St. Agathe to plead the healing of her mother Eutychi, who had been suffering for four years from a disease that resisted to all

dixit: And I ipse mised ad te; nam and ego Apostolus ejus sum; and in nomine ejus scias te esse salvandam.

1 De cura gerenda pro mortuis, ©. 19, p. 621: Non enim solis beneficiorum effectibus, verum etiam ipsis hominum aspectibus confessorem appeared Felicem, cujus inquilinatum pie diligis, cum a barbaris Nola oppugnaretur, audivimus, non incertis rumoribus, sed testibus certis.

- What? BREv. Ro. 13 Dec. (Ant. Laud.) Orante sancta Lucia, appeared ei beata Agatha, and consolabatur ancillam Christ. Soror mea, Lucia, virgo Deo devota, whoa me petis, etc.?

(Rep. 1.): Lucia virgo, quid a me petis quod ipsa potoris præstare continuo matri tuæ? — Cf. BB. 5 Feb. Miracula S. Agathe, t. 4 p. 651, n. 3.

care and all remedies. During her prayer she fell asleep, and lived in a dream, in the midst of a troupe of angels, Saint Agathe, all shining with diamonds and precious stones, who said to her with a laughing face: "Lucie, my sister, virgin of the Lord, why ask me what you can get to your mother immediately? Your faith has earned him health, and because you have prepared in your virginal purity a home acceptable to God, you will make the city of Syracuse famous, as I myself illustrated in Jesus Christ that of Catania." Lucie awakened to these words, turning to Eutychie, prostrated like her daughter before the remains of the glorious martyrdom: "My mother," she exclaimed, "you are healed." So, taking advantage of the good provisions of such a miracle, she obtained that her mother no longer thought of any earthly union for her, and that their goods would be distributed to the poor. It was the prelude to martyrdom. Declared to the Prefect Paschase, we know how persistent he was before his executioners, and by what PHOMES God preserved his virginity from infamy.

Since it is mainly on the occasion of their holidays that the Blessed are invoked, it is also usual in these days that they reveal themselves. Saint Térèse!. tells of herself that at the feast of Saint Claire, at the moment of communion, this saint appeared to her all brilliantly beautiful, and encouraged him to continue the work of reform: The saints whom the Church honors showed themselves in turn, on the day of their solemnity, to the Blessed Véronique de Binasco?, and had with it ineffable interviews. For a whole year, they took her from the mistakes she had made.

1 His Life, ch. 33.

2 Isodore de Isolanis, BB. 13 Jan., p. 183, 1. 2, c. 31: Veronica per yes solemnia toto anno præterlabentia colestes Sanctorum colluctiones pro-

méruit... lis quidem diebus qui sanctis pluribus dicati sunt, una virgini divæ illæ mentes apprebant colloquiumbanturque dulcius. Inch.

but soon she thought only to sing the mercys of the Lord, who had forgiven him everything. In the days when she honored several saints at once, all appeared to her and poured out in her soul a repetition of joy and heavenly desires.

More than once also the saints warn their friends of the earth of their entry into the glory and the beatitude of which they are drunk!

St Peter of Alcantara shows himself, at the moment when he has just returned the last sigh, to Saint Teresus and tells him that he is going to rest ©. Saint Teresus* appears to many, all radiant with glory, the very night she dies. Saint Anthony of Padua ‘visits dying one of his friends, and tells him that he leaves his poor donkey (he spoke of his body) in Padua, and that he goes to the homeland. This friend first thought that the Blessed went to Portugal, the place of his birth; but the news of his death soon came to him, and gave him the meaning of vision. Saint Charles Borromee presents himself to many people, at the time of his death, leaving to all an impression of grace and joy.

Shortly after his death, Saint Louis de Gonzague ©

1 Benepicr. XIV, Deserv. Beagent dei. 1. 4, P. 1, c. 32, n. 5, p. 237: Innumera sunt apparitionum exempla quibus Sancti se æternam consecutos esfesse felicitatem ostenderunt.

2 St. TÉRESE, His Life, ch. 27.

3 BB. 15 Oct., t. 55, p. 363, n. 1110: Eadem nocte qua ad coelum migravit virgo Teresia, appeared gloriosa diversis personis, præsertim Matri Catharinæ de Jesu.

4 BB. 13 Jun., t. 23, p. 224, n. 38...: Cum ergo Abbas sic solus moraretur, eadem hora qua ohiit (S. Antonius) famulus Domini ad eum solus ingrediens, post mutuam salutationem benevolam, vir sanctus adjecit: Ecce, dominating Abbas, quod, relicto asello meo Paduæ, vado ad patriarch feaster, etc.

$# GiusANO, Life of S. Charles Borromée, 1. 7, c. 14. Lyon, 1685, p. 636.

Cepari, BB. 21 Jun., t. 25, p. 903, n. 320: O quantam gloriam possidet

Aloysius, Ignatii filius! Nunquam sane id credidissem, nisi meus mihi monstrasset Jesus.

In the brilliance of bliss, to Saint Maric- Madeleine de Pazzi, who exclaims in his ecstasy itself: "Oh, what a glory Louis, son of Ignatius! I would never have believed, if my Jesus had not shown it to me."

The saints announce yet more the hour of death to their friends, and join the angels in gathering their souls and carrying them to heaven.

Saint Francis of Assisi appeared to Blessed Guy of Cortone, one of his seventy-two chosen disciples, and said to him: "The time has come, my son, to receive the reward of your labors; in three days I shall return to the hour of nun, to lead you into heaven." And he disappeared by blessing him. Guy rose up immediately, and went and told his confessor what he had just seen and heard; and then, retreating into his cell, he waited, in continuous contemplation and with heavenly joy, for the return of the holy patriarch. On the third day, he began to feel sick, called his brothers and asked for forgiveness, received the last sacraments in their presence, and when the last prayers were over, at the very hour of none, he was heard crying out with the accent of love: "This is Saint Francis my father; get up all of you and let us go to meet him." And when he cried out, he fell asleep in the Lord.

Blessed ones also have their favourites, and it is especially to these privileged clients that they love to manifest themselves. [There would be charming things to tell about this sweet trade of prayers and blessings, about this

1 BB. 12 Jun. t. 23, p. 100, n. 10 and 11: Appearance Franciscus and dixit: Adest, fili mi, tempus quo te oportet cum Fratits tuis recipire tuorum laborum mercedem: scito igitur quia tertio abhinc die ad horam Nonæ, veniam, ete. Cum Sacramentis omnibus esset munitus.., ipsa hora Nonæ die xn juniii, exclamare magno cum affectionu coepit: Eccum S. Franciscum meum; assurgite omnes and ohviam ei procedamus: atque haec dicens obdormivit in Domino.

familiarity between the saints of heaven and those of the earth.

Saint Catherine of Siena was given by Our Lord as mistress and adviser to Saint Rose of Lima. So she often appeared to her, and the celestial rays that escaped from her glorified face, reflecting on that of the Peruvian virgin, had created striking similarities between one and the other, to the point that the inhabitants of Lima called Rose another Catherine of Siena.

The venerable and very beloved Mother Agnes de Langeac seems to us to have equalled, if not surpassed, in this kind of favors, the most privileged.

"Mother Agnes," said her pious historian?, "was of those souls who dwell in the spirit in heaven, and truly have their most ordinary conversation there. In particular, she had come to know and had an admirably close friendship with several holy wives of Jesus Christ, whose life was chaotic and served as a model for her. First, having as her special patroness the very illustrious virgin and martyr Saint Agnes as her baptism, she had special feelings of veneration, love and trust for her. So this great saint did not fail to be truly her patron saint to God, and to favor her in various ways... Several times she honored him with her visits. And she did so willingly, that once on the eve of her feast, she was with her all day, appearing to her wherever she was. Saint Térèse, Saint Catherine of Siena, Saint Madeleine, Saint Dominique, Saint Francis, were no less of his friends and frequently visited. But its most expensive

1 LEONARD HANSEN, BB. 26 Aug., t. 39, p. 940, n. 199: Hinc apud Limenses suos, Rosa vulgariter altera Catharina Senensis calledlabatur.

- What? DE Laxraces, Life of the Ven. Mother Agnes of Jesus, 3rd P., ©. 18, t. 2. p. 401.

patroness was Saint Cecile, who did not fail to support and console her in the great sorrows that came to her."

V. — The forms by which the saints manifest themselves to men are diverse, as well as to God, Our Lord, His divine Mother and angels.

They often appear with the outside that they have been known on earth, as we have seen in St.Antoine of Padua, or as it is customary to paint and represent them. They also appear wearing insignia of their dignity or profession, with the clothes and ornaments of the bishop, the priest, the levitet, the religious. Saint John the Evangelized revealed himself more than once under the symbol that characterizes him, a luminous eagle. Often they have crowns on their heads and palms in their hands, mainly virgins and martyrs, as well as the higher recorded visions of Saint Elisabeth of Sconauge and Blessed Osanne of Mantua. Always their physiognomy breathes something pure, heavenly, and leaves a suave emanation of virtue and holiness.

In general, they show themselves in the light, which serves them as clothing. That's why they are usually represented as bright whiteness®. The Saviour's face, say the evangelists® describing his glorious

1 BB. 25 Maii, t. 19, p. 116, n. 25. — 13 Jun., t. 23, p. 249, n. 56.

2 BB. 25 Mayi, t. 19, p. 56, n. 18. — 16 Maii, t. 20, p. 770, n. 33.

3 BB. 26 Aug., T., 39, p. 776, n. 65.

# EoserT, Viéa S. Elisabeth Schonaug. BB. 18 Jun., t. 24 p. 508, n. 8.

5 BB. Vita S. Teresiæ, 15 Oct., t. 55, p. 373, n. 1159.

6 TH. IN CANTIMPRE, Vita S. Lutgardis, BB. 17 Jun., t. 25, p. 194, n. 15.

7 See above the visions of Saint Elizabeth of Sconauge and the Blessed Osanne of Mantua, n. 2.

8 S. Hreronys. Vita S. Pauli primi erem. Migne, t. 23, Col. 27: Vidit (Antonius) inter angelorum catervas, inter prophetarum and apostolorum

choros, niveo candore Paulum fulgentem in sublime conscendere. 9 Matth. xvn, 2. — Luke. 1x, 28.

transfiguration, shines like the sun, and his clothes become as white as snow. These apparitions are still being made in the form of inflamed globes, as is said of Saint Germain de Capua‘, Saint Chantal? and many others; or in the form of brilliant stars, as is reported from the martyrs of Lerins *, St Francis d'Assisi ‘, St Rose de Lima 5: Light and fire admirably express the clarity and ardour of the blessed.

Another symbol, singularly loved by the saints, is that of the dove. Among the glorified souls that have. appeared in this way, either at the time of death or in other meetings, we will cite Saint Blaise $ bishop

1 S. GREG. Mr. Dialog. 1. 2, c. 35. Migne, t. 66, Col. 198. Who venerabilis

Pater (Benedictus), dum intentam oculorum aciem in hoc splendore coruscæ lucis infigeret, vidit Germani Capuani episcopy animam in sphæra ignea ab Angelis ferri. - £ ABELLY, Life of S. Vincent de Paul,1.2,c.7,t. 2, p. 22. "We, Vincent de Paul..., certify that a reliable person, who I assure her that she would rather die than lie (he speaks of himself)... having had news of the end of the disease ‘of our deceased, went on her knees to pray for God for her, and the first thought that came to her in mind was to make an act of contrition of the sins she had committed and that she usually committed; and immediately after that, he appeared to her a small globe, like fire, rising from the earth and going to join in the upper part of the air to another larger globe and and the two, reduced into one, rose up higher, entered and spread to another globe infinitely greater and brighter than the others, and it was told inwardly that this first globe was the soul of our worthy Mother, the second of our blessed Father, and the other the divine essence; that the soul of our worthy Mother had gathered to that of our blessed Father, and the two to God their sovereign principle."

3 Surius, 12 Aug.: Videntes. sociorum animas in aere sicut stellas fulgentes, cum Angelis glorifying.

4 BB. 4 Oct., t. 50, p. 668, n. 646: Vidit illam gloriosam animam, carne solutam, in stellæ grandis and radientis effigy.

6 LEONARD HANSEN. BB. 26 Aug., t. 39, p. 1017, n. 1484: Sub specie stellæ, probatæ perfectionis matronæ, in visu appeared.

6 BB. 3 febr., t. 4 p. 357, n. 4. Who autem ejus morti adfuerunt, conspexcrunt velut candidam et lucentem columbam ex ore ejus in coelum evolantem.

of Sebastius and martyr, Saint Felix of Trier!, Saint Gurvalle* Bishop of Saint Malo, the holy abbot Spes of which Gregory the Great speaks in his DIALOGUES *, Saint Scolastique *, sister of Saint Benedict, Saint Agrippine martyre, Saint Olive of Palermo 5, Saint Teresus?.

What proves how supernatural the miracle is is that, in most cases, the symbolic bird differs from an ordinary dove in its greatness, its brightness, its colour and in many other ways. Let us judge by what is reported from St. Lidwine®. She appeared, after her death, to her confessor, in the form of a beautiful dove, whose beak and neck had the glitter of gold, whose feet were bright red, silver-coloured wings, and all the rest of the white body as snow.

We have also seen the blessed take on the appearances of poverty, that of a certain flower, whose brightness or

1 BB. 26 mart., t. 9, p. 623, n. 10: Tum ex conspectu omnium quasi columba aurea ore illius exire and ipsum coelum visa is penetrare.

2 BB. 6 Jun., t. 21, p. 729, n. 46: Sanctissima ejus anima, in columbæ specie, a discipulis visa is conscendisse.

3 Dialog.. 4, c. 10. Migne, t. 77, col. 336: Omnes vero fratres qui aderant ex ore ejus exisse columbam viderunt, quae mox aperto tecto oratorii egressa, aspicicientibus fratris, penetravit coelum. Cujus idcirco animam in columbæ specie appeared credendum est.

4 S. Greek. Mr. Dialog. 1. 9, c. 34. Migne, t. 66, col.196: Elevatis in celum oculis vidit (Benedictus) ejusdem sooris suæ animam de corpore egressam, in columbæ specie coeli secreta penetrare.

8 BB. 93 Jun., t. 25, p. 395, ode 72: Panoplia crucis obarmata, velut aurea columba Agarenos, propugnaculum tuum noctu agressos, delevisti, fideles conservans ab eorum immanitate Martyr.

5 Ocr. CaseTax. BB. 10 Jun., t. 22, p. 294, n. 9: Ejus anima in specie candidæ columbæ, corpore egressa, inspectantibus universis, Angelorum manu, cum hymnis and canticis, recepta est in coelum.

7 BB. 15 Oct., t. 55, p. 363, n. 1109: Alia vero monialis, ipso mortis momento, vidit quasi columbam albam ex ore virginis prodeuntem.

8 J. BRuGMAX, BB. 44 April, t. 41, p. 357, n. 278: Confessor ejus, cum jaceret in stratu suo nocte, vidit apertis oculis illam beatam animam, in specie nitidissimæ columbæ, cujuss collum cum rostro totum aureum videbatur, pedes ejus rubicundi and corusci, pennæ vero alarum deargentatæ, Corpus vero reliquum as valid nivis candidum.

9 BB. 20 mart. Transi. S. Cuthberti, t. 9, p. 127, n. 2 and 3: Adfuit inte-

the perfume expressed the character of their virtue, the lily!, for example, image of perfect purity, and yet others that we renounce to enumerate and describe, so as not to distance ourselves from our suJet.

VI. — Are these various apparitions personally performed by the saints, or made in their name by the angels?

Saint Augustine asks himself this question in his book , and seems to imply that these Visions could be made by angels, perhaps even without the knowledge of the dead. "If the deceased intervene at their will in the world of the living, do you think," said Monique's grateful son, "that my godly mother, who during her life pursued me through the earth and the seas, could spend a night without speaking to me?" However the holy doctor summarising his appreciation, dares to pronounce himself, and declares the problem above his strength?.

rim peregrino habitu quidam obnixe eleemosynam postulans, etc. Quod vero nomen meum interrogatas, sernum Dei Cuthbertum scito me nominari.

1 BB. Vita S. Norbert. 6 Jun., t. 21, p. 844, n. 116: Appearance in proprio specie stans coram eo; sed statim effigies ipsius hominis mutabatur in florem miri candoris in modum floris liliii, quem Angeli suscipientes ad æthera deferebant.

- What? De cura gerenda pro Mortuis, c. 16, p. 117: Cur non istas operations angelicas credimus, per dispensationem providentiæ bene utentis et bonis et malis, secundum inscrutabilem altitudinem judiciorum suorum?.. Ut accepiat pane quisque quod dicam. If rebus vitium interest animæ mortuorum, and ipsæ our quando eas vidmus allocerentur in somnis; ut de aliis taceam, me ipsum pia mater nulla nocte desertet, quae terra marique secuta est ut mecum vivret. Absit enim, ut facta sit vita feliciore crudelis, usque adeo ut quando aliquid angit cor meum, nec sadem filium consoletur, quem dilexit unice, quem numquam voluit moestum empty.

8 Jbid., c. 20, p. 622: Quanquam ista quaestio vires intelligentiæ meæ vincit, quemadmodum opitulentur Martyres iis quos per eos certum est adjuvari; utrum ipsi per se ipsos adsint uno tempore, tam diversis locis, et tanta inter se longinquitate discretis.....; an ipsis in loco amme meritis congruo, ab omni mortalium conversatione remotis, and tamen generaliter orantibus pro indigentiis suppicantum..., Deus omnipotens, qui ubique præsens, nec concretus nobis, nec remotus a nobis, exaudiens Martyrum pres, per angelica ministère usquequaque diffusea, præbeat hominibus ista solatia, quibus in hujus vitae misria judicat esse præbenda... Res hec altior est quam

The Angelic Doctor is less hesitant. He recognizes that souls can come out of heaven and even from hell, to appear to the living!, with this difference between the damned and the saints, that they appear when they want to, although always in accordance with the provisions of Providence?, while these reveal themselves only on the order or permission of God. However, he did not conclude that all these apparitions were personal in nature without distinction, several, according to him, being due to the intervention of angels ÿ.

The theologians quite commonly admit that the apparitions of the saints are impersonal, with rare exceptions, and that they are usually performed by guardian angels; but, it must be recognized, the agreement is

ut a posit attingi, and abstrusior quam ut a me valeat perscrutari; and ideo quid horum duorum sit, an vero fortassis utrumque sit, ut aliquando fiant per ipsam préæsentiam Martyrum, aliquado per angelos suscipientes personam Martyrum, definire non audeo; mallem a scientibus ista perquerrere.

1 Suppl. q. 69, a. 3: Secundum dispositionem divinæ providentiæ, ali-. Quando animæ separatæ a suis receptaculis egressæ, conspectibus hominum préæsentantur.. Sed hoc interest inter sanctos et damnatos, quod sancti, cum voluerint, apparent possunt vitidibus, non autem damnati.

2 Suppl. 69, ad 1: Nec tamen sequitur quod etiamsi mortui possint, ut volunt, vitentibus appear, toties appearing quoties apparent in carne live; quia separati a carne, vel omnino conformantur divinæ voluntati, ita quod non liceat eis nisi quod secundum divinam dispositionem congruere intuentur, etc.

3 Jbid., ad 3: Dicendum quod quamwvis aliquando animæ sanctorum vel damnatorum presentialiter adsint ubi apparent, non tamen credendum is special semper accedere. Aliquando enim hujusmodi apparitiones fiunt, vel in sleependo, vel in vigilando, operatione honorum vel malorum spirituum, ad: instructionem vel deceptionem vitrium.

# Voss, Dir. Myst., compend. Scaaramelli, 1. 2, P. 9, ©. Four, to. 1, p. 357: Appearances denique beatarum animarum in purgatorio languentium and Sanctorum in terra adhuc vitrium, per Angelorum fiori ministerium, communis SS. Patrum is senticia, liquet quidam etiam eas per propriom personam, Deo omnipotent adjuvant, proud solere putant.

ë ScirAM, Theol. mysl. $499, sch. 1, t. 2, p. 122. Ex his cum P. Reguera (TR. myst. t. 2, p. 589, n. 101) concludedere license, SS appearances. Deiparæ, aliorumque Sanctorum communiter tantum esse impersonales, et per Angeli, frequencer Angeli custodis, substitutionem, nisi forte ex speciali privilegio in proprio persona fiant.

less complete on this point than on the manifestations of God, Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary.

"Some," said Cardinal Bona ‘summarizing the different opinions, "think, with Saint Bonaventure, that the righteous can go out for a time from the place where they are, but that the damned can never go out. Others agree with St Thomas that the damned can do so to correct the living and to give them terror. Some believe that souls can take back their own bodies and move them as if they were re-animating, which others expressly reject. There are some who say that souls can take air and form a body; others deny that they can, yet do not give certain reasons to prove that this is repugnant to the natural forces of the soul."

To consider only the point of view we are currently dealing with, namely the personal character of these apparitions, we are fully appreciative of Cardinal Bona's last reflection on the inadequacy of the reasons for trying to challenge it. In essence, blessed souls are, in relation to matter, under the same conditions as angelic spirits. So if these can appear personally, either in imaginary vision or in body vision, why would it be forbidden for souls freed from the flesh? Suarez? insinuates this reason that perhaps it is not appropriate to give the souls of the righteous an equal empire over the elements that possess the elements of the

1 From disc. spir. ©. 19, n. 8, p. 310: Quaestiones sunt in utramque partem in scholis agitatæ, etc.

- What? From Angelis, 1. 6, c. 21 n. 93, p. 787: Illæ autem apparitiones regulariter non fiunt a propriet personis eorum qui apparererere vocentur per seipsos... Si autem solum in anima sanctus qui apparet in coelo est, fortasse non potest, naturaliter saltem, corpus assumee angelico more, nec oportet ut supernaturalis virtus ad hoc ei conferatur: cum ad status animarum, cura vel administrationatio externarum rerum, queæ in mundo fiunt, non pertineat. Tales ergo apparitiones ministerio Angelorum fiunt.

Angels; very Just restriction, heard from the whole world, whose government was entrusted rather to angels than to elected ones. But if it were men, and above all men who were believers and sanctified, we would be inclined to do the part of the blessed, at least as wide as that of the pure spirits.

What is beyond dispute is that men render more duties and address more invocations to the saints than to angels: why this, if not because they are convinced that their brothers and fellow citizens of glory are interested in them and are able to help them, as much and more than angels? Another persuasion that we have already more than once opposed to scholastic interpretations is that of most people who receive these visions, and who have no doubt that they have not seen and heard any saint in person, and not a heavenly messenger holding their place.

VIL. — Bona has already made known to us the diversity of opinions concerning the nature of the bodies that holy souls are held in order to appear to men. Some claim that they unite with the elements of their flesh, and move them as if they were still animating them. It is more natural to think that they take, like angels, foreign bodies formed, for the occasion, with ambient elements. For, if the soul again informs its own flesh, it would amount to a resurrection, which no one claims; and, if there is no question of vital union, why does the soul have to its body rather than to another?

This becomes even more plausible when the manifestiation is accomplished, not in a human form, but by someone of the symbols we have indicated, or by others whom God chooses at his will.

Chapter X

The Objects of Supernatural Vision — VI. The Souls in Purgatory

Visions of Purgatory granted to several holy souls. — Special Appearances made to the living. — Once delivered, these souls no longer return, except to give thanks. — The forms in which they manifest themselves. — Are they appearing in person or represented by angels? — They do not inform the bodies in such a way as to make them alive, unless there is a resurrection. A very authentic history of a similar resurrection.

[. — These kinds of apparitions are not rare. God allows it for the relief of those souls who come to excite our compassion!, and also to make us hear to ourselves how terrible are the rigors of his righteousness against the faults that we write lightly?.

Saint Gregory *, in his DIALOGUES which charmed and built his contemporaries and which the posterity did not tire of reading, reports several examples of which one can, one is true, contest the full authenticity, but which,

1 S. Taomas, Suppl. q. 69, a. 3: Permittuntur vitinibus appears..., ad suffragia expetenda, quantum ad illos that in purgatorio detinentur.

- What? Bona, Discreet. 19, n. 8, p. 309: So purgant, divinam quoque justitiam prædicant and implorant oper, ut nostris adjuti suffragiis istius a poenis liberentur.

3 Dialog. 1. 4, c. 40 and 55.

in the mouth of the holy doctor, prove at least that he believed in the possibility and existence of these facts; and by this point of view his testimony is worthless than a narrative.

There is no shortage of stories: they are overabundant in the history of the saints. Still the suffering Church has implored the votes of the Church of the earth. This trade full of sadness, but also full of instructions, is for one source of unbreakable relief, and for the other a powerful excitement to holiness.

The vision of purgatory has been given to several holy souls, usually imaginary, sometimes bodily, rarely intellectual, although this latter form still meets! from time to time.

Blessed Catherine of Ricci descended in spirit to purgatory, every night on Sundays; and there, the guardian angels of the souls that were purified there showed her the pitiful state of each one of them, in order to excite her commissation in their favour.

Blessed Lidwine * entered this atonement place during her ravishing, and saw the souls subjected to terrible torture, surrounded by flames rising to tremendous heights. Once, her angel, showing her a soul, asked her if she would not help her. "Yes, I want it," she replied. "You must pass through these flames to do so." And, simmering immediately, she releases this soul that

1 Joseph Lopez EZQUERRA, Luc. myst. Tract. 4, n. 81, p. 66: Aliquando autem fit per verba externa sensibus corporalibus, vel internæ imaginati, vel intellectui, respective per species impressas and infusas.

2 -MARIE, the memorable lives and actions of the SS. and BB. Daughters of the glorious Patriarch S. Dominique. Paris, 1636, t. 1, p. 525. — P. Hvac. BAYONNE, Life of Saint Catherine of Ricci, ch. 16, t. 1, p. 286.

3 J. BruGmax, BB. 14 April, t. 11, p. 336, n. 161-172: Tempore namque nocturno, rapta in spiritu ad loca poenarum, viebat animas contorqueri; ignem quoque sæpissime flamemiferum in altitudine maxima circumferri mira compassione prospectabat, etc.

ascend, giving thanks, to eternal joys. On another occasion, she passes through a dark, horrible gulf, where a rushing torrent rushes its waters with a dreadful fracturing, to deliver the soul of a priest whom death had surprised before he had fully satisfied God's righteousness, and who had been in this place of torment for twelve years. In most of these visits, the angel who serves as an eye informs him of a soul specially recommended for his prayers, and urges him to hasten his deliverance through his atonement and prayers.

An angel also leads the Blessed Osanne of Mantua! through these dark abyss. There she sees the unfortunate ones who are filled with sadness, who cry and groan lamentably. This spectacle teares its entrails and makes such a vivid impression on it that it cannot understand the recklessness of those who speak lightly of purgatory and send back their penance until then.

The Blessed Véronique de Binasco and Saint Francis Romaine* receive quite similar visions, with the same impressions of terror.

On the day when the Church prays for all the fallen faithful, Saint Elisabeth of Sconauge # sees, at the bottom of a valley that inspires horror, unfortunate souls in the torment of fire, tormented by ruthless executioners who harass and desolate them.

1 BB.t. 24 p. 628, n. 145: Postea mihi demonstratus is infernus and purgatorium... In purgatorio autem tam magna tormenta sunt, ut nulla creatura deberet illum unquam desirere, eo scilicet modo quo id faiunt aliqui, peniteentiam sibi in purgatorio auturantes.

2 IsoLaniIs Isipore, BB. 13 Jan., t. 2, p. 186, n. 16.

3 Marriorni. BB. 9 mart., t. 8, p. -175, n. 86.

4 Ecsert. BB. 18 Jun., t. 24 p. 410, n. 41: In die quo, secundum Ecclesiae morem, Fidelium defunctorum communis memoria agebatur, in tempore divini sacricii, vidi quasi versus Austrum montem excelsum valde, and juxta illum vallem profundam horribilem nimis: erat enim plena atris

Ignibus. Ilic tortores spiritus innumerabiles vidi et animas potestati illorum traditas, etc.

IT. — More often than not, it is the suffering souls themselves who address the living and demand their intercession. Many thus appeared to the Blessed Marguerite of Cortona; and when the handmaid of God came out of this world, a great multitude were delivered to her prayer, and marched her to her entry into glory.*

The souls of the deceased frequently implored the pity of Denis the Chartreux, great servant of God, whom a high contemplation and his writings concerning this matter made the ecstatic Doctor nickname. One day he was asked whether these poor souls often appeared to him: "Oh, yes," he replied, "a hundred and a hundred times." And Loër‘, one of his historians, reports in detail several of these apparitions.

Saint Catherine of Siena offers herself to satisfy God's justice for the faults that her father would have to atone for after death; and at the very hour when he makes the last sigh, she is seized with a pain of entrails which read more or less alive until the end of her life. In return, his father's soul appeared to him assiduously to thank her and to make her the most useful revelations.

1 F. Juncra, BB. 22 febr., t. 6. p. 345, n. 209: Divina permissione animæ defunctorum de suis receptaculis accedentes, ipsius suffragium cum instantia postulabant.

2 Ibid., p. 362, n. 281. Cum gaudie transire debebat ad Christum, cum animarum non modicum læta turma ei donanda and penice Purgatorii liberanda...

3 Loer, BB. 12 mart., t. 8, p. 248, n. 17. Of spiritibus defunctis hoc generaliter tenendum est, sæpissime Dionysio hos appeared, quaesisse etiam pænarum remedia.. Interrogatus aliquindo... an sæpenumero anima illi appeared defunctorum, reply: Etiam; imo centies atque centies.

4 Jbid., cap. & totum.

5 CAPOUE RAVMOND, BB. 30 April, t. 12 p. 916, n. 221 and 222: Tandem post multa virgo subjunxit: If no potest hec gratia proudi nisi servetur aliqualis justitia, fiat tunc illa justitia super me, quia pro genitore meo parata sum omnem pœnam, quam tua decrevit bonitas, sustinare. Quod Dominus annuens, etc... Illius anima egrediente de corpore, in eodem instanti apprehenderunt virginem dolores iliaci, qui nunquam usque ad terminum vitae discesserunt, etc.

It was also through voluntary atonement that Blessed Marguerite-Marie Alacoque lightened and delivered the souls of purgatory. She tells! herself that, once disciplined for this purpose, as she exceeded what had been permitted to her, these souls immediately surrounded her, complaining about what she was hitting on them.

"Another time," she said further? "As I was before the holy cries on the day of his feast, suddenly he stood before me like a person on fire, whose ardour penetrated me so hard that it seemed to me that I was burning with her. The pitiful state where she made me see that she was purgatory made me shed plenty of tears. She tells me that she was this Benedictine religious who had received my confession once, and that he had commanded me to make holy communion, in behalf of which God had allowed her to address me to give her relief in her sorrows. He asked me, for three months, all that I could do and suffer; what he promised after asking permission from my superior, 1 he told me that the subject of his great suffering was first that he had preferred his own interest to the glory of God, by too much attachment to his reputation; the second was the lack of charity towards his brothers; the third, the natural affection he had had for the creatures, and the too many testimonies he had given them in the spiritual talks, which was very unpleasant to God.

"But," she adds, "it would be very difficult for me to express what I had to suffer during those three months. For he didn't leave me, and to the side where he was, he seemed to me to see him all on fire, but with so much pain, that I was

1 Life and works, t. 2. Her Life, by herself, p. 378. 2 Jbid., p. 17.

forced to moan and cry almost continuously. And my superior, touched with compassion, ordered good penances, especially disciplines... And after three months I saw him in a very different way: all filled with joy and glory, he would enjoy his eternal happiness; and when he thanked me, he told me that he would protect me before God. I had become ill, and as my suffering ceased with his, I was soon healed."

IIE. — When souls have obtained the help they ask, they do not come back, except to thank their liberators. A soul freed by the prayers of Saint Oswald appears to him, announces his deliverance, and gives him thanks. The venerable Mary of Maillies? receives several testimonies of gratitude.

That if, after ordering restitutions and asking for certain prayers or sacrifices, they continue to be important, even though these prescriptions have been faithfully fulfilled, it is, according to Bona, the mark of a bad spirit.

IV. — These souls always appear in an attitude that excites compassion, sometimes in the traits they had from their lifetime or to their death, with a sad face, supplicating eyes, in mourning clothes, with the expression of extreme pain; sometimes, as a clarity, a cloud, a shadow, a fantastic figure of any kind, accompanied by a sign or a word that makes them recognize them.

1 CAPGRAVE, BB. 928 febr., t. 6 p. 760, n. 14. And ecce nocte quadam, Episcopo orationibus insisti idem defunctus visibilitate appeared.. Veni, have, gratias agere. Quo dicto non comparative.

3 Process. information. BB. 28 mart., t. 9, p. 751, n. 38. Defuncta Theophania de Stella... dictæ Dominæ appearedrat in spiritu and gratiarum actions sibi retulerate, eo quia precum interventu ipsius Dominæ fuerat salvata.

3 Discrete. 19, n. 9, p. 311: Quæ in purgatorio sunt, nonnisi ut suffragia petant ad nos mitti solent; quibus acquittis, non redeunt, nisi forte ut gratias agant: quod si aliquid restitui mandent certasque preces and

sacrificialia postulent, atque iis peractis adhuc molestæ sunt, mali spiritus indicium est.

Born!. Other times, they accuse their presence by moaning, sobbing, sighing, breathing, complaining accents. Often they appear surrounded by flames, in the hands of demons who are trying to torment them?. Sometimes they make harsh criticisms of those who should help them.

Another kind of revelation is made by invisible blows received by the living, by sounds of voice, by sneezes they hear, by feelings they feel at the time of the death of their friends. These facts are too many for us to remove them in doubt: the only difficulty is to establish their relationship with the world of atonement. But when these manifestations coincide with the death of loved ones, and they cease after they have offered to God prayers and reparations, is it not reasonable to see signs in them that these souls warn of their distress?

1 Voss, Direct. Myst. Compend. SCARAMELLI, 1. 2, P.2,c. 1,a.1,n.5, p. 365: Animee in purgatorio patientes quom apparent, varis modis se empendas præstant, semper tamen ita ut comparationem in emptytibus excite. Sæpe sub meæstis speciebus, ardentibus flamemis circumfusæ; modo in formis quas corpora earum vel in vita, vel post mortem habuerunt, modo etiam sub figuris lucis, flammae, nubis, umbraæ and aliarum rerum apparent, ita tamen ut a emptytibus aut signo quodam aut verbo cognoscantur.

2 Isolanis Isibore, Life of B. Veronica of Binasco. BB. 13 Jan., t. 2, p. 186, n. 16: Diversus quidem damnatorum and purgatorii viebatur locus, sed nulla inter pénas remoteia. Same ignis erat, idem tortores.

3 Life of B. Marguerite-Marie Alacoque, by his contemporary, t. 4 p. 304: "Once," she said, "having seen a long-dead nun in a dream, she told me that she was suffering a lot in purgatory...; obedience having made her withdraw for rest, I was not soon in bed that it seemed to me to have her close to me, telling me these words: "Here you are in your bed, well at your ease, look at me, lying in a bed of flames, where I suffer intolerable evils."

4 Tyraeus, De spril. appart. ©. 12, n. 1, p. 41: Duobus modis defunetorum spiritus hominum rebus adesse possunt. Aut enim signis quibusdam præsentiam suam testantur tantum, aut etiam cognoscendos are exhibited. Præsentiæ indicia sunt verbra quae quae quaqueque infligunt, tristis gemitus, sternutatio, mannum complosio; tumultus excitati, and his similia. Cognoscendos show off quando formas sui in sensibus nostris relinquunt.

They can still excite the committration of the living in another more intimate and no less effective way, which consists of presenting themselves to the mind as a kind of supplicating obsession. When this knowledge is not sensitive, it must be concluded that it is intellectual{. However, if it only evokes a memory or a simple thought, there is no appearance itself, but only a mental excitement that, by determining in an extranatural way the memory or the thought of a suffering soul, invites to pray for its relief and deliverance.

To these signs, we will recognize the poor souls of purgatory. But one case must be mentioned where the appearance should be considered suspicious: it is when a scandalous sinner, unexpectedly surprised by death, comes to implore the prayers of the living to be delivered from purgatory. The demon is interested in making believe that one can live in the greatest disorders until death, and yet escape from hell. However, even in these encounters, it is not forbidden to think that the soul that appears has repented, and that it is in the flames of temporary atonement, nor, consequently, to intercede for it; but it is necessary to observe the greatest reserve on these kinds of visions and on the debt that is given to them?.

1 Voss, Direct. Myst. Compend. Scaramellr, you know. 2, P. 9, c. 4, a. 1, p. 365: Multoties modo spirituali sese manifestant. Sic contingit ut in pia anima viva defuncti cujusdam excitetur memoria; ut anima ingenti certitudine cognoseat se se semper habere committee quomque eat, quin sciat quisnam sit, id quod sine terrore and turbatione nunquam accidit.

2 Jbid., n. 5, p. 366: Notet tamen director, quod si quis appareat, de cujus salute ob peccaminosam vitam et improvisam mortem valde dubitare licatet, et se in purgatorio esse dicat; magna sit causa suspiandi ne talis apparitio provenijat a diabolo, qui hoc modo speccatoribus falsam bene moriendi spem inspirare sole, ut in speccatis am obstinent. Quamobrem præcipiat ut discipulus suus hujusmodi visiones tanquam suspectas de falsitate rejiciat, and nemini unquam patefaciat: quom ex tali manifestation nihil boni, multum autem mali oriri posit. Preces tamen pro illo inferici non impediat quominus fundantur.

V. — Several theologians ‘believe that the apparitions we are talking about are generally impersonal and realized by angels, especially guardian angels, whom God leaves with these unfortunate souls to support them in their painful purification. Others, Tyre? for example, look at them as personal. In short, there are many dissents on this point. "Do they appear in their own bodies or in feigned and borrowed bodies," said Cardinal Bona*, speaking and of blessed souls and suffering souls; "and, admitting that it is with foreign bodies, can they form them by their natural power, or do they need the help of angels; and do they intervene in person, or are they represented by the heavenly spirits? These are problematically agitated issues in schools."

The reader already knows in what sense our mind is tilting. When there is actually appearance, whether intellectual, imaginary or bodily, it seems quite free to resort to angels, since souls can be the immediate object of these visions. Apart from the theological explanation contradicting the common belief of the faithful, there is a special difficulty here. Sometimes guardian angels have shown their clients, in the flames of purgatory, to holy souls admitted to contemplate this. 1 Scuram, Theol. Myst. S 500, schol. t. 2, p. 214. Apparitio hec animarum purgantium communiter fit per sanctos Angelos, maxime custodes, in

assumeptis corporibus on pro defunctis clientibus expectents, and sunt miraculosæ.

3 Spirit. Appears. c. 42, n. 18, p. 43: Credimus vero frequencius eos corporibus, in quibus conspiciuntur, adesse, igne purgatorio expurgantur.

3 Discreet. spirit. ©. 19, n. 8, p. 309: An vero in proprietis corporibus appareant an in fictis aut assumeptis; et si in assumeptis, an ea posint naturali virtute componere, an ope Angelorum in his formalis indigeant:

an ipsæ per se apparent, an Angeli eas représentent; quaestiones sunt in utramque partem scholis agitatæ,

as we said of Blessed Catherine of Ricci. It is not the guardian angel who then represents the suffering soul, unless to add to the first hypothesis the hypothesis even more gratuitous that he fulfills at the same time a double role. Whether it's the same or another, how do we not see that these theories strangely complicate the play of the supernatural world, and that they result in making the angel a sort of ministerial factitum in the service of spirits and bodies?

We will, however, make a reservation. When the manifestations are confined to a memory, to a thought, to a feeling, to an inner or external sign, which leads the mind to the person, but which does not accuse personal presence by itself, one can admit that these warnings arrive to the living through the angels; however, even then, nothing prevents one from believing that there is immediate intervention by souls who demand the vote.

VI. — In relation to the bodies that they take up in the external apparitions, it is likely that they are composed by these souls themselves, with subtle elements that lend themselves to these kinds of representations, as we washed out speaking of angels and blessed ones. Assuming that they take back their own bodies, it is certain that they only move them, but do not remind them to life, unless there is a real resurrection.

The story of St Stanislas, bishop of Krakow, presents a remarkable example of a momentary resurrection accomplished by a soul of purgatory, which seems to be equivalent to an apparition. We quote this fact all the more readily, since it seems to us to fulfil all the conditions of truthfulness and historical certainty. It is reported by several Polish writers, inscribed in substance

to the Roman Breviary, and reported without any restriction by the Bollandist scholars. The publicity and the resounding that is supposed to be his is such that anyone who would have tried to imagine them to pleasure could have escaped the brilliant denials, denied that however exist nowhere*. This fact, here it is in its most brief version.

King Boleslas reigned in Poland and outraged his peoples by infamous overflows. Like another John the Baptist, the holy bishop whom we have appointed addressed him with respect but severe reverences. The prince conceived a deep hatred of it, and sought only an opportunity to smite against this unwelcome censor. The prelate had bought for his church, and duly paid to a gentleman named Peter, who soon died, a land that nephews expected to inherit. Driven by Boleslas's bad dispositions towards the saint, these greedy heirs quoted him, after three years of quiet possession, in the king's court, as having property belonging to them. The threats intimidated the witnesses, not one of whom was a no-sa testifying in favour of the accused. Abandoned by men, God's servant turned to the very source of righteousness. He asked for a period of three days, after which he undertook to bring as a witness the same one from whom he had bought the estate, and who had received the prize. He was given a laugh at the suspension requested.

The saint spent this time in fasting, tears and

1 7 May, 5th lesson.

2 Loxcix Duaoso, Act. S. Stanislai. BB. 7 May, t. 15, p. 217, n. 78: Quae autem de resurrectione trien tinali Petri militaris a me narrantur, non in obseuro gesta sunt, sed in publico, sed in propatulo, et in magnæ multitudinis, tam Ecclesiasticorum quam sæcularium qui haec nobis tradederunt, virorum conspectu; testibus etiam solemnibus et omni exceptione majoribus, dum viri sancti canonizationis tractaretur negotium, apud examinatorses explanata, universaque Polonica Ecclesia huic adstipulatur veritati

Prayer. On the third day, he dressed himself in his papal clothes, and accompanied by his clergy and an innumerable people, he came to the place where the dead were buried. There he commanded that the body should be uncovered, completely defiled and almost made to dust; then, after a fiery invocation to the God of righteousness, he commanded the death, in the name of the very Holy Trinity, to rise up and come and testify the truth before his judges. At the same moment the dead rose alive, and as he had known before his trepas. The spectators had questions about what is happening in eternity; he simply replied that he had not come to reveal the secrets of the other life, but only to act as a witness.

Stanislas took him by the hand and led him first to the church, at the foot of the altar, to give thanks to God, and then to the council that was to judge his cause. This witness, whom the men did not think of corrupting or ittimidating: laid down that he had indeed sold to the bishop, who had paid the agreed price, the land whose property was being challenged, and took over his nephews and the king himself from their criminal prosecution. This testimony had to be given.

The resurrected man's mission was over. St Stanislas asked him whether he wanted to prolong his life on earth, or whether he wanted any other favor. Peter replied that, although he had been purgatory for three years, he knew too much of the dangers and uncertainties of life to be tempted to repeat it; he only requested a grace, it was that the bishop obtained him by his prayers his complete deliverance, or at least his relief. The pontiff promised to intercede for him. So he was taken back to his rest. There he lay again in his sepulchre, and made the soul in the eyes of a great multitude!

1 BB. 7 May, t. 15, p. 199, n. 7-9: Jubetur titulum exhibition ruis pos- Il 9

The life of Saint Macaire! of Egypt presents several cases of similar interpellations made to the dead, and to which the dead answered; but after they had satisfied his question, the holy abbot, without in any way informing them of their condition, told them these words: "Now sleep in peace until Christ resurrects you."

sesi. Provocat ille ad testimonia, sed nemo audet, Rege prohibitente, Tunc sanctus Pontifex, omni auxilio humano ac testimonio destitutus, in manc callem meæstus prorumpit..: In nomine Jesu Christi, recipio me ab hinc tertio die, ipsum Petrum vibum, testem veritatis et æquitatis causæ meæ, ad hoc tribunal adducturum... Petrum deinde, in nomine ejusdem Dei omnipotentis compellat: Exi, inquis, foras, Petre, ac sepultæ a vivis veritati, mortuus de sepulchro perhibe testimonium. Prodit ille trien tinalis mortuus.. Ego sum, inquite, ille Petrus, qui testimonium veritatis redditurus, ex quietis sedibus venio huc. Huic ego rus meum justo pretio vendi, and addixi. Regem deinde acnepotes increpat.. Abducit ab judicio suum testem Antistes, quarit ex illo nunquid, vel penitentiæ causa, vitam velit prorogare. Quod cum ille negasset, jam scilicet se majorem partem pœnarum in purgatorio exsolvisse, nec iterum periculis and procedures mundi ac peccati, se commitere velle, confidere se precibus sancti Dei a reliquiis pæœnarum liberatum iri; deducit illum ad locum quietis: quem ubi primum attigit, expiravit. 1 Vitæ Patrum. Migne, Patr. gr., t. 34, col. 47-146.

Chapter XI

The Objects of Supernatural Vision — VII. The Demons

Glory struggles of the saints against Satan. — Saint Anthony. — Saint Guthlac. — Various circumstances in which demons appear: to frighten and re-enter repentant souls, — to disconcerte holy resolutions, — to prevent healthy influences, institutions and reforms; to inspire, without their knowledge and against their will, the horror of sin, and finally to disturb the soul at the hour of death. — Demons appear in intellectual, imaginary, and bodily visions. — Where do they take the bodies they take? — They often borrow the traits of Satan. — Saint Anthony. — Saint Guthlac. — Various circumstances in which demons appear: to frighten and re-enter repentant souls, — to disconcerte holy resolutions, — to prevent healthy influences, institutions and reforms; to inspire, without their knowledge and against their will, the horror of sin, finally to disturb the soul at the hour of death. — They are transformed into angels of light and outside the most appropriate ones to mislead. — Most often they resort to beastly forms, preferably the most abject. — Other ways of wanifesting their presence: projectiles and vcarm. — Summary by Bona.

I. — The first appearance of this kind opens the history of our misfortunes. Who knows that the fallen angel approached and seduced our mother, in the form of a snake? Since the original fall, these manifestations have been repeated a thousand and a thousand times in the world of man. We will talk later, by dealing with magic, about the sensitive trade of demons with the unfortunate who bind themselves to them by a more or less declared pact. At the present time, we only want to report the assaults on the righteous by these evil spirits. There are few saints who have had to fight against these evil ghosts, sometimes hideous and bubbling-

tables, sometimes seductive and lascivious. Whatever their form and nature, the aim is the same: to pervert souls by pride, voluptuousness or fear.

God allows Satan's violence for the cleansing of the elect and the shame of this angel of darkness. It is a magnificent spectacle that the saints present in these terrible battles delivered to their virtue, from Job, stripped of everything, reduced to the last misery, persecuted by his friends, but always invincible, until the humble parish priest of Ars, as a victim, during the parsimonous hours of his sleep, to the strangest vexations, and however not yielding anything of his oraisons or his austeritys. Saint Anthony is famous among all in this kind of fighting. Athanasus, the illustrious doctor of the Church, has traced these glorious struggles to us, and his stories deserve an entire claim, for he had to collect them from the very mouth of the great solitaire, his confidant and his friend.

IL.—Antoine's first victory was an idea against the demon of the flesh. After! having appeared to him, for long nights, under the seductive traits of a woman, ct vainly put into play all the images of voluptuousness, the filthy spirit is discovered outside of a black and horrible slave; and, grinning teeth, rolling with rage in the dust: "I have deceived many of them," he said. "There are many of them that I have overthrown! I have come to make you suffer the same fate; but I could not do anything about you!""Who are you?" asked the holy young man."I am, he replied, "Pami of the carnal enjoyments; my mission is to tempt youth, and I am called the spirit Genication. How much did you want to live modestly,

158. In Vila S. Anton n. 5 ct 6. Migne, t. 26, col. 847, 850. Sustinebat miser diabolus vel mulieris foram noctu indiere, feminæque gestus imitari, Antonium uüt deciper et... Scissors. Antonio: Who are you? Who are you? Tum ille..: Spiritus fornicationis vocor... Hæc prima flees Antonii contra diabolum victoria.

were dedicated to continence, and yet my artifices have shaken the constancy! But by you, I am defeated." Antoine, raising his soul to God, gave him thanks; then, calling upon the infamous spirit: "Beloved, therefore, thou deserveest nothing but contempt; from now on thou shalt not inspire me any more fear: the Lord is my friend, and with his help I despise all my enemies." These proud words put the tempter on the run; but the struggle had to be renewed.

In order to go more freely to the contemplation of the eternal things, the servant of God withdrew from the city, and locked himself in a tomb, whose door he opened only to a friend, who brought him from time to time a bread, his only food. The demon, fearing that this deserted place would soon be filled with pious ascetics following Antoine, killed him one night with a whole legion of infernal spirits, and struck him, covered him with wounds and left him half dead. The next day, when he had come, he found him lying on the ground and almost inanimate. He loaded him on his shoulders and carried him into the church of a nearby village, where he was given care to remind life. At about midnight, Antoine regained his senses a little, and, seeing everyone sleeping by his side, except for the friend who had trans-

1 S. ATHAN. Vita S. Antontii, n. 8-13, Col. 854 et seq. Sic itaque sese coarctans Antonius ad sepulchra procul vico sita contulit...... ingessus quoddam sepulchrum, and clausa ab eo Janua, solus remanebat intus. Quod cum non ferret inimicus.., tot ei plagas inflixit, ut præ nimiis cruciatibus, mutus humi jaceret... + Sequenti die, adventurous familiarization ille..., and almost exstinctum, sublatum detulit, in proximi vici Dominium... Circa vero mediam noctem, ad se reverseus Antonius, atque exergefactus.; familiarem illum qui solus vigilabat nutu accivit, rogavitque ut nemine ' excitato, se denuo tolleret, atque ad sepulchra deportaret....

In promptu enim diabolo varias ad imalitiam industriale formas. Noctu itaque tantum excitavere streptum, ut totus concuti vidéretur locus, and quasi-ruptis quartor casæ parietibus irrumpere dæmones visi sunt..., futque statim Jocus spectris repletus, leonum, ursorum, leopardorum, taurorum, serpentum, aspidum, scorpionum atque luporum... Multis igitur tentatis, stridebant dentibus in eum, quod sese potius illuderent quam illum.

He took him there, and made him sign to postpone him to his first retirement.

There, lying on the ground, for his wounds did not allow him to stand on his feet or on his knees, he began to pray. Then he lifted up his voice, and thus challenged the demons; "Anthony is still here: he does not flee your blows; you may strike him, but nothing will separate him from Christ's charity. When all your armies camp before me, my heart is without alarms."

To these unexpected provocations, Satan reunites his pack and arouses it to more atrocious fury; but this time, God forbids them to touch his servant. At least they try to scare off by screaming and ghosts. At night, they invade the retreat of the solitary with a terrible sound that shakes the walls from all sides: in an instant, this place is filled with ghosts, reptiles and ferocious beasts; lions, bears, leopards, bulls, wolves mingle with snakes, aspics, scorpions. Everyone moves in their own way. The lion roars and seems ready to sting; the bull mukes and presents its threatening horns; the snake crawls and whistles; the voracious wolf is ready to tear its prey. Unable to see all these apparitions, Antoine laughs at so many useless efforts: "If you had any power," he said to the evil spirits, "only one would be enough; you come in so many numbers that you may be afraid; all these hideous forms of cruel beasts are a clear sign of your weakness. If you can do something, then move forward; if you can't do anything, why do you have so much trouble? Faith in Jesus and the sign of his cross are an inexpugable bulwark."

The Lord, who attended, Unseen, to this battle, manifested

1 S. ATHAN. Vita S. Antonii, n. 10, Col. 850: Dominus vero neque tunc certaminis Antonii oblitus, ad opem ferendam ad ad opem ferendam. Sublatis itaque oculis, tectum vidit quasi apertum ac lucis radium ad se descende. Dæmo-

Then his presence. The sky seemed to open, and a ray of light, descending on the face of the valiant athlete, put the demons on the run. Antoine suddenly found himself healed of all his wounds, and felt his soul filled with heavenly consolations: "Where were you then, Lord," he exclaimed, "and why didn't you show up earlier?" And a voice was heard: "I was here, Antoine, near you, spectator of this struggle. Since you have fought valiantly, I will forever be your support, and I will make your name famous throughout the earth."

After these triumphs, Antoine sank into the desert to live there with the cenobites. The filthy spirits followed and harassed him in any way and in all forms. Later, when he became the father of a multitude of lonely men, he told them about Satan's tricks and audacity to protect and strengthen them. He will teach them ‘ to dispel, through acts of faith and by the blessed sign of the cross, these vain prestiges, the various ghosts of women, beasts, reptiles, gigantic bodies, armed troops, which demons present to seduce or to frighten. ISl will remind them that the coming of the Saviour has reduced these enemies to impotence, and how the very prince of darkness made him a day of it.

"Once," he said to them, "I heard a man knocking on my door, and having gone out to see who it was, I saw a man of a prodigious size: "Who are you?" I told him. He said to me: "I am Satan.""What are you doing here?""I come to know," he said, "why are the monks and all the others?"

nesque statim evanuere, et protinus remoire corporis dolores, domiciliumque integrum appeared.. Visum quod apparebat his verbis compellavit: Ubi eras?.. Tum vox illi emissa: Hic eram, a, Antoni, etc.

1 S. Aran. Vila S. Antonii, n. 23, Col. 878: Sed ne only illorum phantasiæ nobis sunt pertimescendæ; nihil enim cum sint, sovio evanescunt; if maxime fide and signo crucis ses qui mise.

"Why do you harm them?" "If they have trouble, it is not for me that they should take it," he said, "but to themselves; for my strength has been broken. They did not read these prophetic words: "The enemy's weapons are never broken, and you ruined his cities?" There is no more one trait left to me; I have no city or place to myself. Christians are everywhere, and the monks came to fight me in the desert, which was my last asylum. Let them therefore warn themselves against themselves, and let them cease their evildoers, who have abhorred against me."You are always lying," I said to him; "but this time you say true in spite of yourself, "Yes, Jesus Christ, coming into this world, has destroyed your power and has stripped you of all honour." By hearing the name of the Saviour, the ghost faints *»

HT. — We do not know any more. Horror and more beautiful at the same time, on the fury of demons and the Courage of the servants of God, than that which is described in the life of another anarchorite, Saint Guthlac, first monk at the monastery of Reppington, in AANBIAIETESS and then withdrawn in the island of Croyland.

One night, while the pious hermit was watching, according to his

1 S. ATHAN. Vitæ S. Antonit, n. 41, col. 903.

2 Fires, BB. 11 April, t. 11, p. 42, n. 19: In souto teterrimis immundorum spirituum catervis totam celam suam impleri conspexit. Subeuntibüs enim ab undique illis porta patebat; coelo terraque erumpentes, spatium totius aeris fuscis nubibus tegebant. Erant enim aspectu uggies, forma terribiles, capitibus magnis, collis longis, macilenta faie, lurido vultu, squalida barba, auribus hispidis, fronte torva, trucibus oculis, ore foetido, dentibus equinis, gutture flammivomo, faucibus toris, labro lato, vocibus horrisonis, comis combusti, buccula crassa, pectore ardoo, femoribus scabris, genibus nodosis, cruribus uncis, talo tumido, plantis aversis,ore patulo, clamoribus raucisonis: ita enim immensis vagitibus horrescere audiebantur, ut totam pene a colo in ter ram Here clangisonis botibus implerent.

. Nec mora, irrival ingruentes domum ac castalam, dicto citius virum præfatum, membris ligatis, extra cellulam suam duxerunt, and addu-

As a custom, and as he went to prayer, he suddenly saw a multitude of spectra invade his cell, deafening from all parts to rushed waves, and in an instant making in the air, around him, like a thick cloud. They had a fierce appearance, terrifying forms, huge heads, long necks, dissipated and livid figures, a disgusting beard, hairy ears, threatening foreheads, fierce eyes, fetid breath, rough and noisy voices!, thick lips, horse teeth, gossip that vomited the flame, calcined hair, a braided chest, rough legs, bowy knees, crouched and overturned feet, callous heels. From their blissful mouths escaped dreadful sighing, which made the air sound in the distance. [They snuck down on the solitary, and, after having bound the limbs to him, they pull him out of his cell, and plunge him into the muddy waters of a nearby pond; then they drag him and tear his body through the asperities and brushes that border this marsh. After that, they stop for a while, but it's to sum the saint to have to leave his desert. The man of God, whose heart remains firm in the midst of these trials, answers them with this verse of the psalm: "The Lord is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken."

Their fury repeats; they flagel their victim with chains of iron, without succeeding in defeating his constancy. They take it to the top of the air, and, coming together to new troops from the north, they go towards the dark abyss that form their domain, and they suspend the invincible athletic on the languishing gulfs of hell. The most horrific show is taking place in his eyes. Torrents of fire and flames bubbling in these proctum in atræ paludis coenosis laticibus immerserunt: deinde asportäntes eum per paludis asperrima loca, inter densissima veprium vimina, dilaceratis membrorum compagibus, trahebant, ete.

Sulphur whirlpools mix with a hail rain, which makes the flames of flames a colder place. Ardent demons travel through these dark caves in all directions and exert all kinds of torture upon the souls of sinners. This view penetrates the holy anachoret of an unspeakable horror, and makes him forget all the torments that he has suffered.

In order to put the peak to his horror, the hideous spectra that surround him then shouted to him all together, in a terrible concert: "We have the power to plunge you into the abyss and to make you suffer all these torments. This is the fire that your crimes have set on; you will become his prey! Here you are on fire; you will go down there!"

In the midst of these threats, Guthlac responded to all these calls: "Woe to you, son of darkness, the race of Cain, ashes and smoke! If you have the power to rush me, here I am: why do you stick to vain and lying bravades?"

At the height of rage, the cursed angels seem this time determined to accomplish their sinister purpose, when Saint Bartholomew, who had taken anachorete under his protection, appears all bursting with light, in an immense splendor, which suddenly illuminates these dark regions. While Blessed Guthlac tressal of Joy to this unexpected help, we see the evil spirits, unable to support the heavenly clarity, trembling, trembling, running wild. But the apostle reminds them, and orders them to report in his cell, without any shaking, without harming him, the servant of God on whom they have

1 Fires, BB. 41 April, p. 42, n. 19. S. Bartholomæus catervis satellite jubet, ut illum in locum suum cum magna quietudine, sine ulla offensionis molestia reduceent. Nec mora, præceptis apostolicis obtemperantes. dicto citius jussa facessunt.

ossed to carry hands. They must obey. As they split the space, not with violence, but with a suavity contrary to their nature, harmonious songs were heard, and heavenly voices, celebrating the courage and fidelity of the saints, sang these words: "They will go from virtues to virtues!"—In the first light of dawn, Guthlac found himself in his loneliness, blessing the Savior Jesus, who had sustained him with his grace.

IV. — IT is certain circumstances, in Christian life, when Satan redoubles his efforts and exerts all his audacity to shake souls who are or who go to God.

The first is that of conversion, mainly of a brilliant conversion, which presages great holiness. The Blessed Marguerite of Cortone, miraculously led in front of the rotten corpse of the accomplice of her disorders, immediately suspends her licentious life, devotes herself to tears and penance, and after having obtained from Heaven the assurance of her forgiveness, presents herself to the paternal house, where she hopes to find asylum and protection. His father, driven by a hard marâtre, refused to receive her. As she laments, and, not knowing how to become, implores the providence of God upon her soul, the father of lie suggests to her that such abandonment allows her to give free rein to her inclinations, and that her rare beauty will attract her all the favors of the world. When he sees her admitted in the third order of Saint Francis, delivered to the most austere practices of mortification, favored by visions and d ́extases, then he shows himself to be discovered under various appearances, of a woman, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, of a man, a man, a man, a man, a man, of a man, of a man, a man, a man, of a man, of a man, a man, a man, a man, a man, a man, a man of a man, a man, a man, a man, a man, a man, a man, a man, a man, a man, a man, a man, a man, a man, a man, a man, a man, a man, a man, a man, a man, a man of a man, a man, a man, a man, a man, a man, a man, a man, a man, a man, a man, a man, a man, a man, a man, a man, a man,

1 JuxcraA BEvacx. BB. 22 febr., t. 6 p. 305, n. 2. Ille namque serpens antiquus, a patre tuo te cernens expulsam, in ejus opprobrium tuumque casum occasione patenter assumea de corporali tua specie juventutis, tuum cor indicebat præsumere, suadendo quod excusabiliter, ut abjecta, peccare valebas, and ubicumque stares et ire velles, a magnis etiam carnalibus dominis amareris, propter corporis speciem.

snakes, different beasts, seeking by all the middle Islands to frighten and deceive her, reminding her of her miseries, threatening her to tear her violently out of her cell and drag her into hell, trying to persuade her that she is in illusion, that she will not persevere; that, by her extraordinary jeunes and macerations, she loses her body and soul?. Finally, as all these violences remain unfulfilled, it changes tactics, and blows the vain glory and grievous complacency. He enters his cell one night while she was praying, and he constantly tells him how great is his reputation of holiness outside, that men and women in crowds are anxious to see and touch her by devotion, that she is now confirmed in grace and that she will rejoice in heaven with an ineffable glory. But the humble penitent begins to mourn his sins, ironing them and enumerating them with shouts and sobs, soaking in confusion that casts out the infamous tempter. *

V. — He is still acting in a sensitive way to prevent the holy resolutions that must give God great glory, as it became to the venerable Mother Agnes, when she was about to arrive at this monastery in Langeac, where she was about to make the heavenly gifts of grace shine.

1 JuNcTA BEVAGN. BB. 22 febr., t. 6 p. 309, n. 29: Sæpissime cellam ejus intrare coepit, and in diversarum effigies rerum se transfigurans, nunc se specie mulieris, nunc hominis, nunc serpentum, nunc quadrupedum animalium ipsius aspectui præsentabat.

2 1bid., n. 49. What ergo hic acti will bet? Cur i in bac cella includeda pertis simul corpus et animam?

8 Jbid., p. 314, n. 59: Cujus humilitatem superbus ille hostis ferre non valens, cellam ejus intravit nocturno tempore, dum oraret: et narrare non cessans in quanta nominis fama excreverat, quam magna multitodo virorum et mulierum ipsam præ devotione empirere et tangere cupiebat... Statim sua coepit deflere vita, et suis, ut potuit, culpis per ordinem recitatis, vocibus clamosis, superbum satellitem qui tentabat de vana gloria. prostrando devicit.

"In the sight of Langeac, her good angel pointed out to her the new monastery where she was going to lock up for her whole life, and said to her: "Here's your house!" After this favor of the good angel, the evil angel wanted to give our virgin the last assault. It was as she passed on a stone bridge, which was at the entrance of the city, that this unfortunate, appearing to her in a monstrous form, stopped him violently, and proposed to her that black thought that she should throw herself into the river and drown herself, rather than go to jail in a cloister where she would be captive for the rest of her days. [1 would even say that he wanted to rush Agnes there. His holy angel running her in this encounter, there was a battle between him and the evil spirit, which was defeated, and let the bride of the Son of God enter into peace in Langeac!"

Throughout her novitiate, she was still plagued by Satan's vexations, which made it impossible for her to stay in the cloister. A few hours before his profession, the enemy gave him his last assault, which was the most brutal of all.

"The damn monster of hell, who God had forbidden from beating her after his profession, took that time to make him feel his fury for the last time. For more than four years, 1 had beaten this holy girl two or three times a week, and with a terrible repetition of rage, as was said, at the approaches of his profession. Sometimes it happened to Sister Agnes to stay there, all bloody with these blows. On that day, feeling her power escaping her, Satan used it so cruelly, that she fell to the ground, 'and, as she dragged herself, hid herself under her bed. The confessor having given communion to the sick superior, and asking what was being done.

1 DE Lantages, Life of V. Mother Agnes, 1st P., ch. 19, n. 17, t. 4 p. 260.

Agnes, he was taken to his room. He was surprised to find there lying on the floor and under the bed, in the posture of a dead person... When the hour had come, two nuns came to get her, and by supporting her under her arms, led her into the choir. She heard a first Mass, during which she secretly made her vows, after the elevation, according to the custom which was then in the convent, before making them in public; and then she received Holy Communion. And it was at this happy moment that inner peace and consolation were restored to her, and this terrible storm was finished, which she had been beaten so hard and so long."

VI. — When the demon presses into a soul a glorious and fruitful destiny, that he dreads from his zeal some salutary institution in the Church, his hatred of good and his jealousy do not allow him to remain in rest; and God, to add to the merits of his servants and to purify their virtue, seems outwardly to abandon them to his fury, while within his grace sustains them and makes them victorious. Most of the founders and restaurateurs of the religious families were subjected to these trials, from St.Antoine, the father of the cenobites, in the East, whose fighting we have recounted, and St.Benoît* the teacher and regulator of monastic life in the West, to St.Colette and St.Térèse, one of whom reformed the order of St.Claire, and the other that of Carmel. The Blessed Marguerite-Marie Alacoque, by whom Our Lord was to reveal to the world the devotion to her sacred Heart, was warned by her divine Spouse, as she himself taught us, "that Satan had de-

1 Of LANTAGES, Life of Ven. Mother Agnes, 1st P., ch. 7, n.2, p. 384.

2 S. Greek. Mr. Dialog. 1. 2, c. 1, 2, 10. Migne, Patr. lat., t. 66, Col. 130 et seq.

3 Er. Jews. BB. mart., t. 7 p. 571 et seq., n. 153 et seq. 4 His Life, ch. 31.

"He was commanded to experience contradictions, humiliations, temptations and derelicts in the crucible, as gold in the furnace, and that he had permitted him to do everything, in the reserve of Vimpurity." And the demon used much of the license given to him.

It also sometimes appears, through the effect of a special grace, to inspire the horror of sin and the salutary fear of damnation. The Blessed Villane of Florence?, of the third order of Santo Domingo, after being adorned with much research to please the world, looks in her mirror; instead of her figure, she sees that of a horrible demon; she changes mirror, the vision remains the same. She then understands God's warning, and dedicates herself for the rest of her life to all the rigors of penance.

But it is mainly at the decisive time of death that jealous angel tries to seduce or frighten. At the point of expiry, St. Martin sees near his bed: "What are you doing here, you cruel beast?" he said to him; "unfortunate, you will find nothing in me that belongs to you!" And by saying these words, he gave his soul back to God®.

VII. — Demons may appear intellectually; but it is then God who shows them rather than they

1 His Life, written by herself, t. 2, p. 390: I soon heard the threats of my persecutor. For having presented himself to me in the form of a dreadful More, with eyes gleaming like two coals, and grinning my teeth against, he said to me: "Cursed that you are, I will attra- "perai, and if I can once hold you in my power, I will do well to "feel what I know how to do, I will harm you everywhere."

- What? -MARIE, Lifes and Memorable Actions, etc., t. 2, p. 594.

3 Suuric. SERVE. Epist. ad Bassulam. Migne, t. 20, col. 183: Diabolum vidit prope attende. Quid hic, inquite, astas, cruenta bestia? nihil in me, funeste, repries. Abrahæ me sinus recipiet. Cum hac ergo voce animam coelo reddidit.

4 St. Térèse, His Life, ch. 31. I have rarely seen him in any sensitive figure; but usually as happens in the intellectual vision, where, without any form, it is clear that someone is present.

do not reveal themselves. Imaginary visions are much more common, and do not exceed the power of these fallen angels. It is warned that the appearance is of a similar nature, when the patient is alone in seeing, which he sees without the help of the external senses, during sleep or in a state of exaltation which puts him out of his own self.

Body visions are no less frequent. As we have said by faithful spirits, evils take sensitive forms in relation to their perfidious purposes and their degraded nature. Suarez! observes that the former form the bodies to which they unite the finest and purest materials of the upper regions, while the latter, by punishment or depravity, go to the low, humid, filthy and infected places. Sometimes they use bodies of men and animals, and choose the bodies of the damned?: God would not allow them to touch the bodies of blessed souls.

Saint Gilduin* or Gédouin, canon of Dol in Brittany, met a demon one day dressed in a human form, who had put himself at the service of a poor boatman, in the poir of losing him. But the man had the pious habit of never starting that he would not have made the sign of the cross on himself and on his boat, and he was making

1 From Angelis, 1. 4, c. 34, n. 7 p. 543: And hac etiam materia, verisimile

is ab Angelis sanctis sumi ex puricribus corporibus, quae in superioti parte aeris inveniuntur, à dæmonibus vero ex locis territs humidioribus, et fortasse immundis ac coenosis, quia, in pénam suæ malitiæ et pravæ intentionis, aliud eis non permitiitur. - In Brnsrecpius, Tract. de Confessionibus te Prælud. 12 p. 19: Tradunt quoque Doctores, quod daemones nonnunquam se présentant in corporibus mortuorum, sed non. bonorum, in quibus Spiritus sanctus sibi præparavit habitaculum. Quoniam Deus, in cujus manibus LPOrE Sanctorum sunt, id daemonibus non permittit.

BB. 97 jañ., t: 3, p. 407,n. 40 and 11: Protinus eum jussit vocari. Sanctus and ad 5th adduci... Fatere (inquite), jam cuntis audientibus, and nomen falla-. ciæ tuæ, and causam tam diutturnæ in hoc loco remorationis.

even at the beginning of all his actions, which bound the power of the evil spirit. Gilduin exposed him and forced him to declare where he had taken the body under which he was hiding. He replied that it was the one of a villain whose soul he had taken to hell. Then the saint commanded him, by the name of Jesus Christ, to abandon immediately the vile instrument of his tricks, which he did with a horrific cry. We hastened to dig a pit and to sink this cursed body in it.

VIII. — Demons often borrow the traits of man; but these human appearances are usually deformed, hideous, or at least betrayed by some sign of bestiality the evil spirit that arouses them. They are hairy, have horns, claws, feet or tails of animals! The voice is raucous and cavernous, the colour is black or dark; * which makes the authors who report these manifestations say that the demon appeared in the form of a black man, an Ethiopian, a Maure. The whole attitude breathes fury or fornication.

IX. — It is also true that Satan becomes an angel of light, according to the expression of the Apostle; that he knows how to put on deceptive exteriors whose fascinate beauty, whose modesty and modesty seduce; that he presents himself as Our Lord glorious or suffering, of the Blessed Virgin Mary, of angels and saints, or under others, according to the purposes and inventions of his malice.

- 1 Bmsrecoics, De Confess. Malefic. Prælud. 12 p. 83: Aliic malefici fatentur esse facile cognoscere diabolum e manibus vel pedibus. It is not difficult, discernere ex membris et corporis constitutione quando consortes eriminis sintin persona, vel représentatione, in cursu et tractatibus. 2 BB. 18 febr., t. 6 p. 117, n. 12: Monachus quidam... ad extreme veniens, viebat nigerrimos spiritus in se crudeliter et indesinenter spicula spargere. - 8 BB. 7 mart., Vita S. Thomæ Agq.,t. 7 p. 674, n. 56. Fuit visus in forma Æthiopis..., and Magister eum signo Crucis opposito, and. etiam clamando fugavit, - -

He appears in the form of the Saviour to the martyr saint Potit, "who, warned by his angel, invites the tempter to pray with him, but the superb spirit cannot bow or bow his knee, and is exposed to this sign. He is also trying to surprise the great Saint Martin?. He comes to him in a magnificent apparatus, all bursting with gold and stonework, the diadem on the head, the serene forehead and the radiant face. The pious bishop is first surprised and remains silent: "Recognize," said Satan, "the one before you; I am Christ." And as the saint always remained silent: "Martin, repeats the lying spirit, why doubt when you see? "No," replied the servant of God, who was inwardly warned of prestige; "the Lord Jesus did not announce that he should appear with purple and diadem; I will not recognize my Savior except outside his Passion and the sacred stigmas of the cross." To these words the ghost sevanonate; but to the infection which he left behind, it was easy to recognize the disgusting spirit.

His tricks were more successful, as Grégoire de Tours reports, * on Saint Second, deacon, companion of Saint Friard, honored one and the other in the diocese of Nantes, where they lived alone. [1 also managed to deceive for five years the Blessed Catherine of Bologna, * who had unruly defied him, showing himself to be the only one who had ever seen him.

1 BB. 13 Jan., t. 2, p. 37, n. 6 and 7 Diabolus dixit: Not empty quia ego sum Christus, and dolui super lacrymas killed and veni ad te. S. Potitus dixit: If you're Christus, oremus. And waitens calcanea ejus, terram non tangebant, etc.

2 SuLpic. SEVER. From Vila B. Martini, n. 25. Migne, t. 20, col. 174. Ad hanc ille callem statim ut fumus evanu, and celulam tanto fetore complete-

lives, ut indupbia indicia relinqueret diabolum flees. Hoc ita gestum ut supra retulimus ex ipsius Martini ore cognovi, ne quis stronge existimet fabulosum. 10, n. 2. Migne, Patr. lat., t. 71, col. 1056 and 1057. # J. GRASSET, BB. 9 mart., t. 8 p. *49 et seq., n. 10-25. Quare volens illi Deus nimiam sui fiduciam infringere ac ostendere, adversarium esse illa

she under the traits of Jesus Christ crucified and Blessed Virgin her Mother, and making complicated and impossible injunctions to her, who threw her into great perplexity and put her soul in great danger of being lost.

Generally, these illusions are rare among the saints, or are hardly only momentary; but they are frequent and disastrous in many presumptuous souls and eager for extraordinary emotions.

After trying vainly to interrupt or disturb the prayer of St.Oswald!, with horrific noises and cries, with the roaring of the lion, with the whistle of the serpent, with the bereavement of the sheep, Satan transforms himself into a luminous angel in his eyes. The man of God swarms with the sign of the cross, knowing well that he will not irritate the spirit of light and that he will run away the spirit of darkness. Indeed, at this sign, the tempter sevanoizes like a futile smoke.

One night, Saint John of God? meets, spread out on the public square, a poor singular, who had almost nothing of the human form. It was a monstrous mass,

multo callidiorem, permissit, ut subtilissima eam fraud aggrederetur, videlicet ut illi sub habitu et forma Virginis Mariæ ostenderet...., sub forma Christi cruci affixi illi præsto leaks... Finito quod narravimus inferno certamine, quod in annos circiter quinque protractum est, etc.

1 BB. 28 febr., t. 6 p. 758, n. 3: At ille, fidei scuto protectus, non magis ad fremitum leonis, vel sibilum serpentis, quam ad balatum ovis exterritus est. Quod dæmon advertens disappeared; sed in angelum lucis e vestigio transfiguratus eidem Sancto appeared. Sed vir Dei signo Crucis is equiped, sawns exinde angelum non irritandum, Angelum autem tenebrarum eminus efugandum. And factum is ita. Nam malignus tentator, viso Crucis signaculo, velut fumus ab oculis evanual.

3? ANTON. GOVEA, BB. 8 mart., t. 7 p. 842, n. 44: Nocte quadam ejectum in platea pauperem reperiens, nihil insolitam foram obstupuit, quae brachiis cruribusque ultra humani corporis rationem teres et longa, monstrum fatiebat; maxime cum depile caput rubedo insolens coloraret.. Nulla erat Joanni mora, imponit dorso, leve alias pro Christo onus. Sed paucos cum eo graduated confecerat, quando nullum amplus commovere potuit; haesitque in vestigio, erumpente undique sudore defluens, and, Salvet me, inquite voce elata, dulce nomen Jesu! Non tulit nominis auditi virtutem, which tam gravis Joanni incumbebat similatus egenus, horribilique cum stridore requirement.

with large arms and legs, a completely stripped head and a strange color. But nothing was able to inspire the horror of the servant of Jesus Christ, as soon as He the poor PERQNNE... He is 100 to The Thou shalt answer this one, provided that one beareth me upon his shoulders, for I cannot stand upon my feet, ye see him." John does not hesitate; he charges on his back the so-called poor. But he has barely taken a few steps, which he denies can move more forward; he runs in sweat, he stumbles, he is as if crushed: "May the sweet name of Jesus be in my help!" he exclaimed aloud. A:This blessed name, the impostor disappears by making EAIERARE a horrible pre cement. The

Sometimes he takes the outsides of familiar persomnes: other times, he presents himself in unknown traits, following other laws in his impostures only those that seem to him most suitable to ensure its success. One day, Saint Anthony of Padua, saw him entering the church where he was preaching a demon under the appearance of a letter, which gave a letter to a lady of assistance telling him that her son had just been murdered. The saint, who knew supernaturally and the messenger and the contents of the letter, satisfied the mother, saying: "Be without worry, your son. is alive; he who comes in is the devil.In person, he came only to trouble my preaching." The sudden disappearance of the character Demon at ‘ L instant even the truth of the fact:

.1 BB. 13 Jun., t. 93, p. 220, n. 26: Antiquus hostis, in specie cursoris intrans, detulit litteras cuidam dominæ...... and in illis litteris continebatur, quod dictus filius suus. fuerat giridatus. Tunc S. Antonius, who nihil de illo corporalibus auribus audierat, dixit statim: Non timeas, domina, quia filius tuus vivit, and is sanus, and insolutis revertetur: and isist who modo -venit-diabolus est, that special fecit ut prædicationem turbaret. And siatim ille velut fumus evanu.

Bona! notes that female figures are suspicious, unless it is the Blessed Virgin Mary or some known saints; and this is especially true when this vision is addressed to men.

X. — Demons most often manifest themselves in beastly forms, and among animals, those who inspi-

They are the preferred instruments of these avil angels.

In the first place is the snake, whose sinuosities and venom faithfully express perfidy and malice. The fetid violence and smell of the goat deserve the same preference. The lower demons often appear in the form of swine, and also in the form of toads and frogs, as seen in Revelation: "And I saw," said Saint John, "from the mouth of the dragon, and from the mouth of the beast, and from the mouth of the false prophet, come forth three unclean spirits, in the form of frogs; they are the Apocus of demons that make wonders."

In the end, the appearances of the perverse angel are innumerable, and all Jui's bestial forms are permitted, except, say most of the mystics #, those of the dove and lamb, specially reserved for the Holy Spirit, our Lord and the saints; and again, according to some, that of the sheep, whose divine Shepherd has made the model of faithful souls; but this latter one, according to some,

1 Discreet. spirit. c. 19, n. 9, p. 311: Suspecta quaque habenda quaelibet apparitio sub specie mulieris, nisi B. Virginis and Sanctarum sit.

4 Binsrecius, From confession. Malefic. Prælud. 12 p. 78: Dæmon plerumque appears and in forma hirc...; hireus enim is animal mento and earthy cornibus, truculentum capite, and suo tempore satis foetidum, quibus proprietatibus mores dæmonum and maleficorum designant.

3 Rev. xvi, 13 and 14.

- 4 Well, discreet. Spirit. c. 19, n. 7 p. 308.

_ L BINSFELDIUS, De confession. malefic. Prælud. 12 p. 78: Id tamen observatum is to quibusdam quod non appareat daemones unquam effigeem ovium

inducisse, cum Christo Domino placuerit se pastorem et familiam suam oves nominare.

This is contradicted by the facts; for the devil has presented himself several times in this way, especially to Saint Oswald, in the vision we have already spoken of, and to Saint Francis Romaine!

He shows himself to St Stanislas Kotska?, under the exterior of a horrible dog ready to sneeze upon him; to the Blessed Christine of Stommeln, in that of a spider, for the distraction of the prayer; to St Agnes of Monte-Pulciano *, as ravens; to St John of God, in owl; to St Elizabeth of Sconaugef, under the appearances of the dog, the bull, of a flock of goats; to the Blessed Welcome Bojani? and to St Colette f, in those of the fox, dragon, reptile, toads, ants, slugs. We saw that, to frighten Saint Anthony, the infernal legion was transfigured into lions, wolves, bears, leopards, and an infinite number of other animals. He

4 Marriorri, BB. 9 mart., t. 8 p.,161, n. 33: Septem maligni spiritus invidentes ejus voluntati cum Deo unitæ, ad eam accesserunt in forma pecudum albarum ostendendo eidem magnam mansuetudinem, etc.

2 BREv. Rom. Pro aliq. loc. 13 Nov., Lect. 5: Cum dæmonem horrendi canis specie insilientem, signo crucis ter fugasset, etc.

8 BB. 22 Jun., t. 15, p. 274, n. 65: In oratione mea semper venit dæmon in specie araneæ, impediens me quantum potuit.

4 CAPOUE RAYMOND, BB. 20 April, t. 11, p. 791, n. 6... Prævidebant enim illi maligni spiritus, which tunc corvorum similitudinem prætendebant.

ANTON. Govea, BB. 8 mart., t. 7 p. 842, n. 43: In forma noctuae visus is dæmon.

6 EcBEerT, BB. 18 Jun., t. 24 p. 505, n. 15-17: Semel in specie canis teterrimi..., se mihi obtulit in specie tauri magni and horrendi..., exibat inde grex caprarum turpissimus.

7 -MARIE, the Lives of Saints and REMIEURES of the Order of Saint Dominique, t. 1, p. 263.

8 Er. JULIERS, B.B. 6 mart., t. 7 p. 571, n. 154-156: Invaserunt in vulpium vulpium apparent. Quadam vice sibi appeared in figura cujusdam maligai and horribilis draconis.. Inter caeteras bestias, quas moleste viebat, plus dedignabathur aspicere reptilia venenosa, velut serpentes, bufones, araneas, and similia; and propter hoc maligni spiritus, talis displientiæ non ignari, in illorum fortis seu figuris cum suis complicibus se sibi demonstrabant.... Hosts immundi in figuris illarum scilicet formicrum, eam frequencer persequi conabantur,

It is not impossible for demons to use live animals for their violence, which they would submit to some kind of possession; but, more generally, the appearance is purely fantastic.

Besides the known forms, they consist of monstrous forms, which hold man, bird, beast. These kinds of metamorphoses, as Bona! notes, are suitable only for demons.

XI. — Without showing themselves to the eyes, they are still manifested in various external signs, such as words, screams, blows, sounds of all kinds, sometimes by the external upheavals they produce, the movement and translation of certain material objects, by the projectiles they throw at those they want to molest.

Saint Roman?, founder of the monasteries of Mount Jura, and Saint Lupicin, his relative and his emulation of virtue, had withdrawn in deep loneliness, to give to it the meditation of eternal truths. But as soon as they kneeled down to pray, the demons rained upon them a hail of stones, which caused them many and burning wounds. Still in the inexperience of age and struggle, the two loners took the party to distance themselves. In a nearby village where they stopped, a woman asked them where they were coming from. They answered, not without confusion, that they would abandon the wilderness where they would have wanted

1 Discrete. 19, n. 9, p. 311: Forma bruti vel monstri nonnisi diabolo fits.

2 Greek. Tur. Vitæ Patr. v. 4, n. 1 and 2. Migne, t. 71, col. 1012: Lapidibus urgere eos dæmones per dies singulos, non desinebant, and quotiescumque genu ad orandum Dominum flexent, statim imber lapidum super eosdem, jacientibus dæmonis, deruebat.. At illa has: Oportuerat yours, o viri Dei, contra insidias diaboli viriliter dimicare, nect formidare ejus inimicitias.... Regressi sunt ad eremum. Quibus venientibus iterum eos insidiae dæmonis lapidibus cæperunt urgere: sed persistentes in oratione, obtinuerunt a Domini misericordia, ut remota temptatione, liberi ad illum divini cultus famulatum expeditic perseverarent,

and told of the abuse they had suffered. Then this Christian woman, reproaching them for their pusillanimity: "Men of God," she said to them, "it was necessary to oppose more manlyness and constancy to this enemy, who has been defeated so many times by the soldiers of Jesus Christ." He was saddened and ashamed to be reminded of his courage by a woman, and he returned to the desert. They have barely arrived there, let the same rain of stones begin again; but, with patience and prayer, they finally got to be delivered from this cruel importunity.

If one wants to have an idea of the vacarm and the upheavals that the demons can make to strike with terror, one must read the life of the holy priest of Ars. We shall quote only the following passage: "Ordinaryly, at midnight, three great blows against the door of the presbytery warned the priest of Ars of the presence of his enemy; and, depending on whether his sleep was deep or light, other more or less harsh blows followed by approaching. After having had the entertainment of a terrible tintamarre in the stairs, the demon entered; he took himself to the curtains and shook them furiously, as if he would have wanted to tear them off. The poor patient could not understand that he remained a torch. It often happened that the evil spirit struck like someone who wanted to enter; a moment after, without the door being opened, it was in the room, stirring the chairs, disturbing the furniture, furying everywhere, apologizing to the priest with a mocking voice: "Vianney! Vianney!" and adding to his name outrageous threats and qualifications: "We'll eat truffles, we'll have good, we'll have good! we'll hold you! we'll hold you!" At other times, without bothering to go up, he was hailing him in the middle of the court, and after long voicing, he imitated a cavalry charge or the sound of an army on the march. At once he was shoving nails into the floor,

At times, he split wood, planed boards, sawed panels, like a carpenter who was busy in the house; or he would go all night, and he seemed to M. Vianney that he was going to find his ceiling in the morning sifted with holes; or he was beating the general on the table, on the fireplace, and mainly on the water pot, seeking preferably the most sound objects.

"Sometimes the parish priest of Ars heard in the lower room, below him, leaping like a great escaped horse rising up to the ceiling and falling heavily from the four irons on the tile; other times, it was as if a gendarme, wearing large boots, would have made his heels resound on the slabs of the staircase; again, it was the sound of a large flock of sheep passing over his head: impossible to sleep with this monotonous trampling. One night that Mr. Vianney was more worried than usual, he said: "My God, I willingly sacrifice you a few hours of sleep for the conversion of sinners." Immediately the infernal flock went, silence came, and the poor priest was able to rest for a moment. We have all these details of. Mr. Vianney himself."

XIE. — Bona? sums up as he follows the different ways in which demons manifest themselves.

"Like good angels, evil spirits often take on bodies, and more frequently they deceive the

1 ALPRED MONNIN, from Curé d'Ars, 1. 3, c. 2, 9th ed., t. 1, p. 396.

3 From discr. spir. ©. 19, n. 7 p. 308: Formis quaque discrepantant angelorum and daemonum apparitions. Angelis solet unica esse, nempe humana; dæmonibus multiplex, vel hominis, vel bestiarum; a columbæ tamen vel agni specie abstinent, tum quia mystice Spiritum sanctum and Christum designant, tum quod haec animalia, felle carentia, truculentis Satanæ moribus non convenient. Nec solas brutorum formas, sed and alias ignotas atque monstrosas effing, ut earthing. Experientia quoque observatoire mortuorum interdum assumee corpora, sed reproborum, etc.

2148 phenom. of the intellectual order: visions

by their prestige. But what angels do for our salvation, they only undertake for our loss and damnation. The forms in which both appear are no less different. Angels usually use only the human form; but demons use various forms, either of men or of beasts. They nevertheless abstain from those of the dove and the lamb, both because they are mystical symbols of the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ, that because these animals, having no gall, do not suit Satan's ordinary violence. Not only do they resort to the likeness of the brutes, they still pretend to be unknown and monstrous ghosts, in order to inspire terror. It is also constant by experience that they sometimes take dead bodies, but they are those of the reproved; for it is not credible that they could thus use the bodies of those on whose soul they have no power. They are also transformed into people who live; they present to the eyes or to the imagination spectators, simulacs and images of things or people; and, as the poems tell of Protée, they take all forms to deceive and lose the poor mortals. But we must firmly believe that demons, as St Augustine assures us, can only deploy their natural forces according to God's permission, most of which are hidden, but none of which is unjust."

Chapter XII

The Objects of Supernatural Vision — VIII. The Damned

The dead children in original sin. — Various visions of hell. — Appearances of the damned to the living. — The forms to which they can be recognized.

[. — Two categories of damnation are distinguished: those who die with the only original stain, and those who are reproved for their own and present sins.

Touching the first, Thyreus! makes this remark, reproduced by most mystics, among others by Bona!, Benedict XIV *, Schram ‘ and Scaramelli®, that, although there is no absolute repugnance in this, by the fact they never appear, and this author assigns this double

1 Appearance. spirit. c. 11, n. 22, p. 37: Damnatorum spirituum duo genera possumus constitue: quidam sunt qui præter poenam damni, etiam experimentur poenam sensus; quidam, ut infantium non renatorum solam damni sustinent. Hos hominum colloquiis sese miscere compertum is nemini; possess, if Is that omnia potest ita jubeat, nemo dubitat; verisimile tamen putamus Deum id nunquam vel rarissime jubere, and ipsos id nunquam expetere, ut qui nullum ex hac re ipsi fructum capere, nec aliis, nisi raro admodum afferre posunt.

2 De discr. spir. c. 19, n.8, p. 310.

8 In serv. Dei Beatif., 1. 4, P.1, c. 32, n. 3 p. 236.

4 Theol. myst. 8,501, schol. 2, t. 2, p. 215.

Five Diret. Mist. Tratt. 4, c. 2, n. 18, p. 259.

reason, that they cannot receive any help from us, and that they themselves do not offer us any exciting virtue. It is true, we do not know the active appearance of these souls; but there are several visions where this part of hell is revealed. It is narrated from Blessed Catherine of Ricci that she went down several times to the limbs, that she saw there the multitude of dead little children with the original stain, and that at this sight her heart was bursting out in witness of love and gratitude for the grace of the baptism that God had given her. Saint Francis Romaine, Blessed Peter Pétron, the Chartreux of Siena, and others, had similar visions.

I). — As for the damned, the theologians, following the Anige de l'École, Saint Thomas!, s

1 -MARIE, the memorable Lives and deeds of the holy and blessed daughters of the first and third order of the glorious patriarch S. Dominique, 1. 2, c. 2.1. 1, p. 529.

2 Marnorri, BB. 9 mart., t. 8 p. 50: Post hec vidit unum angelum modicum inferius existem, prop introitum inferni: who Angelus erat ad angulum qui limbus calllatur.., in quo loco sunt deputati parvi pueri mortui sine baptismo, nullam aliam pénam hacentes nisi obscuritatem. In quo limbi loco sunt very mansiones, etc.

3 BARTHOLOM. SENENS. BB. 29 May, t. 20, p. 212, n. 69: From limbo item

beatus Pater locutus est, quem pueri incomlunt sacri baptismis experts; qui, quamvis nulla premantur molestia, nisi quod Dei perpetuo carent aspectu; attam, infernos stridores exaudiunt, ditask tartari despectant acerbitates. And quiniam hujusmodi deprivant malis, præclare secum acti existimant, and grates propterea Deo sine fine agunt. + 4 Sum. Suppl. 69, a. 3: Dicendum quod aliquem exire de inferno vel de paradiso potest intelligi duplicater: uno modo, ita quod simpliciter inde exeat, ut jam locus ejus non sit paradisus neque infernus; and sic nullus inferno vel paradiso finaliter deputatus, inde exire potest. Alio modo potest intelligenti, ut exeant, inde ad tempus, and in hoc distinctionndum est, quid eis tonveniat secundum legem naturæ, and quid eis conveniat secundum ordinem divinæ providentiæ.. Secundum ergo naturalem cursum animæ separatæ, propriois receptacilis deputatæ, a conversatione vitium penitus segregantur.. Sed secundum dispositionem providentiæ aliquando animæ separatæ a suis receptacilis egressæ conspectibus hominum préæsentantur.. And special etiam credi potest, quod aliquando damnatis contingat quod, ad erudideem hominum and terrarem, permittuntur vitinibus appear.

they can manifest themselves to the living. The facts, moreover, are so mullified, that it would be unreasonable to dismiss them all in doubt and question their possibility; it would also be outrageous for reason and history.

.These demonstrations are of two kinds. In some, the living see from their eyes hell and its victims; in others, the reproved themselves visit and call upon the living.

The holy souls who have had the vision of hell are in large numbers.

"As one day in oralson," says Térèse!, "I found myself in an instant, without knowing how, transported to hell. I understood that God wanted me to see the place that the demons had prepared for it, and that I had deserved by my sins. It lasted very little; but when I would still live for several years, I don't think it was ever possible for me to lose my memory.

"The entrance seemed like a narrow and long alley, but without exit, or as an extremely low, dark, narrow oven. The soil was an filthy, pestilential smell, and filled with venomous reptiles. At the end of this stalemate was a hollow practiced in Isla wall, in the way of a niche, where I saw myself closed closely. Everything that had struck my sight so far, and of which I have made only a weak painting, was delicious, in comparison to what I felt in this dungeon. No word can give any idea of this torment. I felt in my soul a fire of which, for lack of terms, I cannot describe nature, and at the same time my body was in the grip of tolerable pains. I have endured very cruel suffering in my life, and, according to doctors,

1 His life, chi. 32.

the greatest that can be endured here below; such as the removal of all the nerves, at the time when I lost the use of my limbs, and many other evils, some of which were caused to me by the devil, as I have already said, all this nevertheless is nothing, compared to what I was suffering then; and what was at the top of it was the sight that these tortures would be endless, that they would never cease.

"But these tortures are nothing in their turn near the agony of the soul. It is a embrace, an anguish, a heartbreak so sensitive; it is at the same time so desperate and so desolating sadness that I do not know how to express it. To say that it is as if you were continually being taken out of your soul, it is little, for it is then another that seems to take away life; but here it is the soul itself that breaks into pieces. No, I will never be able to find expression to paint this inner fire, this despair, which fills up so much pain and torment. I didn't see who made me endure them, but I felt burned and like chopping in a thousand pieces; and, I fear not to say, the torment of torments, it is this inner fire and despair. Once in such a horrible place, where all hope of consolation is banished, one cannot sit down or lie down, and the place itself is lacking for this, although I was there as in a hole made in the wall, because these dreadful walls press themselves with their weight. There everything stifles you; there you; there is no light; there is a thick darkness covering everything; and yet, something incomprehensible, though there is no clarity, you see in it everything that can be the most painful in sight.

"It was not good for Our Lord to give me a greater knowledge of hell; he has shown me, since then, more horrifying punishments, inflicted on certain vices, and which seemed more horrific to me in sight;

But as I did not feel the pain, my fear was less than in this first vision; this divine Master wanted me to experience these torments and affliction in mind as truly as if the body had suffered them... I was so frightened, that now again, writing this, after almost six years, my blood ices in my veins."

_ Another vision of hell, no less remarkable, is that of Saint Francis Roman. It is too wide for us to exhibit in its entirety: these are only the main features.

At the entrance is this inscription, which recalls that of the Dante: "Here is hell, where there is no more hope, no release, no rest." The abime is divided into three houses, which scale the tortures and make them proportionate to the errors committed. Everywhere darkness, stench, inexpressible torments. A horrible dragon, which extends its monstrous folds to the bottom of the abyss, presents at the opening its blissful mouth, from which escape, as well as its eyes and ears, a dark fire and infectious vapors!.

In the center sat Satan; but his head ascended to the top, and his feet descended to the last depths. He extends his arms as a sign of authority over this dark empire. Its head carries, as crowns, an immense branch of deer, whose branches are as many as torches; its face inspires terror and casts an unclean flame in the distance. It is bound with fiery chains to this dignominy throne and terror. The demons, his subordinates, train and rush, with the fri-

1 MarrTiorti, BB. 9 mart., t. 8 p., 165, n. 46-48: Narrabat itaque quod in principalipo introitus hujus loci vierat quasdam literas scriptas sic dicentes: Iste is loci infernalis, sine spe and interval, ubi nulla is required. Ipsa

vero emptybat, audiebat, and feltbat infinitam terbilitatem, and fled ita cxtra se, cum tanto timore quantum imaginari non potest, etc.

The unfortunate ones whom they have brought into their traps, who bring some into his presence to be judged, and, from this horrible court, other demons lead them to the place where their eternal torture will be consumed.

Each sin has its special punishment, which the saint describes in a detail that we cannot reproduce. She has seen and is trying to tell what blasphemers, renegades, magicians, excommunicated, homicides, traitors, proud, envious, greedy, usurers and thieves, perjures and detractors, those who have been hateful and violent, those who have given themselves to the good one, to vain adornments, to the various excesses of lust, to the trainings of play and dance. Then come the various conditions of life: the denatured children, the scandalous parents, the unfaithful spouses, the mad virgins, the deregulated widows, the bad judges, the preachers who alter the truth or detain it, the cowardly and interested confessors, the prevaricators, the simoniac clerics, the religious who violate chastity, the doctors, the pharmacists, the hoteliers who are unfaithful to their duties; all these unfortunates suffer torments in relation to the prevarications they have committed! -

In a vision that we have already spoken of, Blessed Osanne de Mantua successively travels the sky, purgaiory and hell. What she sees in these last abysss, the lamentations and howlings that escapes from the

1 MarTiorni, BB. 9 Mart., p. 的166, n. 51-77.

3 Fr. SyLvestr. BB. 18 Jun., t. 24 p. 573, n. 70: Postremo alio devenit, ubi densissimis tenebris innumeri tenebantur; qui ineffabiles luctus atque miserrimas ex oculis cientes lacrymas, ejulatus ad coelum usque tollebant. Eorum miseriæ et infelicitati accedebat quod, crudelissimorum dæmonum opera; atroces occlusæ animæ flammas subdued. Compatiebatur illis admo-

dum pientissima puella voluissetque aliquam has firm; sed nullus erat veniæ locus.

He is a man of fear and inexpressible pity.

A serious author, who carefully collected the wonders attributed to Saint Bernardin of Siena, and to whom the Bollandists "grant all dues," reports that an eleven-year-old child, named Blaise, from the land of Nocera in Italy, was led after his death, by Blessed Bernardin, through hell, the limbs, purgatory and heaven; and that, after this interesting journey, his soul entered his body at the very moment when the funeral ceremony was being held. Not only did he describe the different kinds of tortures he had seen of his will, but he identified by their names several people whom he had recognized in those braces, and others whom his guide had appointed him?

We are silent about other visions of this kind, such as those of Saint Petron, Saint Obice, and Saint Baront, and many particular visiohs, where it is only a question of one or more reproved souls that one sees immersed in the abime, as happens, for example, to Saint Mary Magdalene of Pazzi and Saint Teresus, to come to the apparitions by which the damned themselves reveal themselves to the living.

IL. — These demonstrations are rarer than those of the

1 BB. Appendix ad diem 20 Mayi, t. 20, p. 808, n. 35.

2 TERRINCA, BB. ibid., n. 36-38: Hora transitus sui, appeared ei Bernardinus, quem aliquando cum aliis pueris and parentibus laudaverat; apprehensaque manu ejus dextera (ita sibi viebatur): Ne timeas, inquite, forti animo esto, and quaecumque emptied, diligently observed; quae audieris, memoriæ committe.. Ostendit ei damnatorum turmas, and conditions singulorum, nectnon tortorum tortorum diversitatem. Multos sibi Blasius novit, alios a ductore suo didicit ex nomine.. India Sanctus Blasium duxit in sinum parvulorum absque baptismo decedentium, etc.

3 BARTHOLOM. SENENS. BB. 29 Maiii, t. 20, p. 211, n. 68.

4 BB. 4 febr., t. 4 p. 579, n. 5.

8 BB. 25 mart., t. 9, p. 570 and 571.

6 Vnc. Piece. BB. 95 maïi, t. 19, p. 204, n. 103.

1 His Life, ch. 88.

demons, angels and saints. Many, however, are cited, and they occur quite frequently, sometimes in one form or another.

A man who had made himself a habit of violating marital faith came one day to find the venerable Nicholas of the Rock ‘ in his loneliness, and began to question him with the affected demonstrations of religion and piety. The holy hermit, who knew by supernatural light the state of his soul, led him along the river, and when they were on the banks: "You will see," he said, "what, in the other life, is the state of those who give themselves up to unclean and adulterous loves." At the same moment two dreadful spectra came out of the waters, burning like iron in the furnace, and throwing around them a whirlwind of burning flames. On the surface of the waters, they rushed one to another in furious embrace; then, rising together, they fought fiercely. But soon an invisible force rushed them into the torrent. Thus they rose up several times, pushing terrible words, and were also plunged back into the waters, until they finally disappeared. This spectacle glamoured the unfortunate adultery of such fear, which he felt faint. The solitary pious supported him and urged him to repair the messes of his life by penance, which he did in fact.

A brighter appearance is the one that determined, it is said, the retreat of St Bruno to the desert and the foundation of the Order of the Chartreux. This fact, it is true, has been challenged by several writers of the last two sicles, especially by Launoi, one of the most famous champions of the

1 P. Hucox. BB. 22 mart., t. 9, p. 412, n. 50: Nicolaus ad impureum hominem conversus: Hic ego, inquite, tibi demonstrabo quis, in altera vita, sit eorum statuses, which, dum vive, impureis ac adultrinis amoribus sese

- I'm not going anywhere. - I'm going to go. Quo dicto, extemplo umbræ duæ teterrimæ (arum fort pellicum, quibus dum vient, turpiter inseverat\ ex aquis emerserunt, etc.

A narrow and inconsequential Jansenist critic, who, after dogmatically suppressing the forces of nature, made himself a mission to invalidate, in practice, the wonderful grace. We refer these disputes to the Bollandist scholars, "who bring them back and discuss them hard along, and dare to conclude neither for nor against the authenticity of this account. The claim that the chroniclers of the Order of the Chartreux and most historians of St Bruno have constantly given him, allows us to reproduce it.

It is thus said that a doctor from the University of Paris, called, according to some, Raymond Diocres, who enjoyed a great reputation of doctrine and virtue, having died as a result of a short illness, the whole school, teachers and students, gathers around his coffin for the funeral ceremony. At the time when one was leaving the deceased's house to go to the church, others say in the church itself and while singing the office of the

1 S. Brunone, 16 Oct., t. 51, p. 538-595. — n.ult. 4014. Anne interim reipsa luctuosa historia, sive publice, sive inter privatos domus defuncti parietes accidisse statatur, locum unquam habuerit, sanctumque nostrum in eremum impulerit, studioso lecttori ex omnibus quae jam fuse de ea disputata sunt, dijudicandum relinquo, non sufficientibus, ut mihi equidem apparet, ratiohibus supra adductis, ut illam, vel certo veram, vel certo falsam pronuntiem.

2 See F.A. LEFEBvRE, S. Bruno and the Order of the Chartreux, t. 1, p. Ga. — Paris, 1883.

8 BB. 16 Oct., t. 51, p. 539, n. 199 and 200: Anno Dominicæ Incarnationis MLXXXIL... Quidam doctor præcipuus, and vita, ut viebatur, fama, atque doctrina, and scientia inter omnes doctores Parisienses excellently honoratus andmirability gratiosus, gravi and ultima infirmitate præventus, non diu decumbente, diem clausit extreme... Cum reverendi viri feretrum in quo funus jacebat, vellent elevare ad ecclesiam deferendum, soudio, cunetis stupentibus, qui mortuus viebatur et erat, elevato capite, resedit in feretro, and, omnibus audientibus, alta and terribili voce clamabat: "Justo Dei "judicio accusatus sum," and, special dicto, caput deposuit and decubuit mortuus sicut prius. Sicut prius elevato capite dolorosa and terribili voce intonuit: "Justo Dei judicio judicatus sum."... Tertio altissimo et mæstissimo clamore personuit: "Justo Dei judicio condemnatus sum."... Ea temperature ibi magister Bruno, etc.

The dead man raised his head out of the beer, and he was heard shouting with a lamentable voice: "I am accused of the righteous judgment of God!" At this unexpected cry, the assembly dispersed, and the funeral was postponed the next day. The next day, the ceremony began again with more assistance; but, as the day before, and under the same circumstances, the deceased again raised his head, and with a more frightening voice 1 exclaimed: "I am judged by God's righteous judgment." The fear repeats, and the funeral ceremony is overtaken again. The next day, we try to take it back, in the middle of an innumerable contest of people. For the third time, the dead man puts his head up in his coffin, and with a grim and resounding voice he makes these words heard: "I am condemned by God's righteous judgment." This horrific scene cast terror into souls, and Bruno, who witnessed it, immediately took and inspired six of his friends the resolve to leave everything and sink into loneliness, to prepare for God's terrible judgments.

= Another less frightening line. A prelate unworthy of his character, and to whom Denis the Chartreux had sent strong but vain reverences on the disorder of his morals and his mad expenses, came to die. The religious saint, whose counsel had been so badly received, prayed, however, for the rest of his soul, when he suddenly saw the unfortunate, all surrounded by flames, the bowels devoured by an anthill of serpents and toads, escorted by two great and black ghosts, saying to him, "This is your master, the one for whom you pray!"

1 Loer. BB. 12 mart., t. 8, p. 248, n. 16: Hunc... vidit a duobus teterrimis giganteæ formæ spiritibus ante se adductum, ac ardentibus flammis circumsecumum, qui tenerunt: Ecce pro quo oras dominus tuus. Intuens

We shall not speak of the damned who have come to life, and have told their sentence and the beginning of their torment. These facts, moreover very rare, but of which we find some examples in the authors, among others in Saint Gregory the Great, Saint Sulpicus-Severus, and here and there in the Bollandists, are simple resurrections and not supernatural apparitions as we examine them here.

IV. — When God permits the reproved to manifest themselves, for the instruction or terror of the living, it is under the outside that characterizes them. The figure of beasts or monsters is only suitable for demons, Cardinal Bona # notes; for damned ones, they always take a form that allows them to be recognized. They have, however, in common with the cursed angels, violence, rage and despair, roaring, grunts, grinning, shouting, tumultuous noises, unarticulated voices, blasphemy, imprecations, insults; and also, because this is their common sensible punishment, fire and flame, repulsive ugliness and fetid smell. As special signs of the damned, we can add the acts of passions and vices that have been the cause of their damnation, such as stealing money or other objects, drinking and eating with excess, displaying the license and immorality, threatening with anger.

illum Dionysius diligently, vidit waxa bellem and genitalia ejus immensum agmen serpentum and buffonum, which corrodebant miserum.

1 Dialog. 1. 3, c. 36. Migne, t. 77, col. 384.

2 From Vita B. Martini, n. 7. Migne, t. 20, col. 164.

8 S. Arnulphi, 18 Jul., t. 31 p. 404, n. 9 and 10.

4 Discreet. spir. c. 16, n. 9, p. 311. Forma bruti vel monstri nonnisi diabolo convenit; animæ enim separatæ, tametsi damnatorum sint, cum Deo permittente vitibibus apparent, eam foram assumeunt ex qua posint cognosci. Rugitus,; grunnitus, stridores, clamores, tumultus, inarticulate voces, blasphemiae, imprecationes, cunvitia, vel dæmonum, vel damnatorum sunt.

Chapter XIII

The Objects of Supernatural Vision — IX. The Living

Certainty and diversity of these facts.—Intellectual visions with the object of the living.—Imaginary visions.—Body visions: the instant and successive translations.—Bilocations: Saint Francis of Assisi in the chapter of Arles.—Saint Anthony of Padua at the same time at the cathedral of Montpellier and in his convent.—Supernatural peregrinations of Saint Lidwine.—Saint Francis Xavier at the same time on the ship and on the boat in distress.—Mysterious journeys of Saint Martin of Porres, without he ever leaving Lima.—Blessed Angelo of Acri giving himself the discipline in his room, while he appears to a sick person. — Saint Joseph de Copertino, without leaving his convent, attends the death of a friend and his own mother. — Mary of Agréda, always present to his community, converted by her preaching an Indian tribe from New Mexico. — Appearance of Mother Agnes de Langeac to M. Olier, as she is seen dead in her monastery. — Saint Alphonse de Liguori assists Pope Clement XIV dying, without ceasing to be in Arienzo. — psychic state during the two-locations. — Explanation of the phenomenon: angelic substitution, — Body duplication and spiritual duplication, — The soul separated from the body. — Reality of the double presence in body and soul.

I. — The supernatural appearances of living to living are demonstrated facts that impose upon mystics and historians. But as the facts are constant, so many interpretations of which they are subject are questionable. In order to make everything clear in this discussion, a

of the most interesting of the mystic, let us distinguish precisely the different aspects of the prodigy.

Two of them are mainly important here: subjective vision and external appearance. When the vision is intellectual or imaginary, the wonderful, as we have said elsewhere, is less in perceived reality than in the seeing subject. The one of the sensitive vision, on the contrary, is whole in the very object that appears. The difficulty therefore concentrates on this double point of view, vision and appearance, hearing the vision of the act of knowledge that is accomplished in the subject, and the appearance of the known outer object.

I. — The cases of intellectual visions by which God shows to holy souls living persons and the current situations that interest them, are in large numbers.

On the day and at the hour when the Christian army, under the leadership of Don Juan d'Autérie, won the memorable naval victory of Lepante over the Turks, Saint Pius V' kept business with the pontifical treasurer Bartholomew Bussotti in the presence of several prelates of his house, when all at the same time rose up, headed towards the window, opened and, with eyes in heaven, remained for a few moments in the immobileness of contemplation; then turning, and still absorbed: "Let's not talk about business anymore," he said, looking at Bussotti; "this is not the time! Give thanks to God; our army is now winning victory over the Turks." The assistants withdrew greatly astonished, and when they left, they saw the pontiff already prostrated.

1 ANT. GABUTIUS. BB. 5 Maii, t. 14, p. 691, n. 294 and 295: Dignus is habitus cui Deus, licet tantis locorum intervallis, in Vaticano videlicet, suis in cubculis agenti, eadem die and hora qua pugnatum est, victoriam divinitus indicarit.. Bussottum intuitus: No is, inquis, nunc tempus negotiandi. Vade ergo, and Deo Domino gratias age: nam classis nostra, cum Turcica congressa, hac ipsa hora victoriam retulit.

before his oratory, blessing God for the visible protection he had just given to Christian weapons.

Blessed Angelo, a Capuchin religious, prayed in his cell of Acri, Italy, at the time when Prince Eugene triumphed over Turks in Belgrade. He was carried in spirit on the battlefield, and there he witnessed all the adventures of the battle. "He saw the Most Holy Virgin animating our traupes, and the capital of Serbia fall into the power of Christians. Full of joy at this show, he comes out of his cell screaming: "Let us rejoice, let us rejoice, brothers; good news! Ring the bells! Prince Eugene defeated the army of the unbelievers; Belgrade is ours; we rejoice; live the holy faith!" The religious and all who were at the convent noted the hour and the circumstances of this event; some time later, letters from Vienna came to confirm all that the Blessed had announced."

It is usually through intellectual visions that God shows the state of souls, revealing sometimes their graces and holiness, sometimes their sins and their resistances, as seen in the life of Saint Philip of Neri, Saint Teresa, * Saint Mary Magdalene of Pazzi, and many others.

IIT. — Imaginary visions where the living reveal themselves are no less frequent. This was probably the vision where Ezekiel, raised between heaven and earth and led in spirit to Jerusalem, saw the abominations that were committed in the temple of the Lord. There is also a double and charming example in Saint Francis de Sales and Saint Chantal.

1 Lives of the Saints, ed. by Abbé Darras, 30 Oct., t. 40, p. 467.

2 ANT. GALLONIO, B.B. 26 Maiii, t. 19, p. 498, n. 146.

3 His Life, ch. 38.

% Vince. Pucomi, BB. 25 Mayi, t. 19, p. 203, n. 99 et seq. ÿ Ezech., see.

One morning, being in Bourbilly, she (Holy Chantal) crossed the fields on horseback, praying to Our Lord to make known to him who was to lead her, for this thought was leaving her more. She passed by a great way, on the edges of a wood; suddenly she saw at the bottom of a small hill and a little distance a man whose features she had never seen, and who had the resemblance of a bishop. He had a black bra, a rock and a hat in his head. His face was angelic and breathed only from the sky. While Mme. de Chantal was looking at him with all intent, she heard a voice that said to her: "This is the beloved guide of God and of men, in whose hands you must rest your conscience." She vainly sought who could be this holy character; she had not seen him anywhere. But she felt full of joy, and she doubted that she should meet him soon.

"At about that time Saint Francis de Sales, being in prayer in the castle of Sales, was delighted in ecstasy, and saw a young widow whose name he did not know and whose face he had never seen. He did not know what this vision meant, when suddenly the veil of the future arose, and he saw as the herd of a congregation. religious whose young widow was the mother, and of whom he would himself be the teacher."

The two founding saints of the Order of the Visitation were to meet for the first time and recognize themselves two or three years later, in Dijon, DENOSRR ES the Lent that the Blessed Preached.

When the imaginary vision has as its object living people, it is difficult to admit, as we have done for angels and blessed ones, the personal presence of the objects represented. How the living act-

1 Boucaup, History of Saint Chantal, c. 4t. 1, p. 97. 10°

Are they relativizing the imagination of the subject? And if they were actually present, why multiply miracles and not reveal themselves in the ordinary way? Moreover, in these kinds of encounters, the living often do not know that they were the object of a vision; there is no indication that Saint Francis of Sales and Saint Chantal suspected, before their reciprocal communications, that they had been shown one to the other in supernatural vision. Yet they can also be instructed, though absent, by revelation, as reported, for example, by Saint Severin, Apostle of the Norics!

In any case of knowledge, the simplest explanation is to assume that God miraculously makes this image appear in the mind; or, if one wishes, that the representation is aroused by an angel, by the angel of the person represented, by the angel of the person seen, or by another.

What is told of St Bruno and Roger, Count of Sicily, confirms this interpretation. This lord, who had taken Bruno and his brothers under his protection, was to be indignantly betrayed, under the walls of Capua, of which he was seated, by a Greek officer attached to his service with a corps of troops of his nation, when during his sleep he saw the appearance of an old venerable man, the clothes torn, the face bathed in tears, in which he seemed to recognize the features of the solitary saint of Calabria. When he asked him for the cause of his tears: "I weep," the old man replied, "on the souls of Christians, and on yours in particular. Get up without delay, run to arms, and with the help of God save yourselves and your soldiers." Struck with terror, the count wakes up, takes up his arms, calls his people, builds on traitors, tries

Evrpus, BB. & 8 Jan. t. 1, p. 493, n. 37.

vainly to take refuge in the city, and thus escape the danger that threatens it. Shortly afterwards, he came to visit the religious in their solitude, and told them about his vision. Bruno humbly apologized and declared that it was not he who had appeared to the Count, but the angel of God who looked after the princes in time of war!

IV. — The body vision, as we have already noted, does not offer anything wonderful from the subject which perceives it: Balthazar saw the hand that wrote the divine sentence, by a natural exercise of the eyes of his body and in the same way that he had just seen on the feast table the sacred vessels taken from the temple of Jerusalem; all the wonder here is in the outward appearance, but this wonder presents exceptional difficulties, when it staged living beings.

It is accomplished by translation or multilocation.

The translation is miraculous, when you move from one place to another without complying with the natural laws of locomotion. Elijah, carried away by the hand of God before the chariot of Ahab?, and rising up to heaven on a whirlwind of fire, the deacon Philip, suddenly carried by the spirit of God into the city of Azot, after he had instructed and baptized on the way from Jerusalem to Gaza the eunuch of Queen Candace, are memorable examples of these supernatural translations. At present we consider the wonderful transfer from the point of view of appearance, i.e. as a more or less prolonged manifestation at a point of space where it appears by miracle, and where it disappears as well.

1 Francisc. In PuTtEo, BB. 6 Oct., t. 51, p. 719, n. 56 and 57. Adstit cubili. meo quidam senex reverendi vultus, vestibus scissis, non valens lacrymas continere.. Hic mihi per totum viebatur veluti si essay per omnia venerabilis pater Bruno. Cui reverendo viro visionem retuli.. Who humiliate himself assuruct non ipsum esfuisse quem vidisse credidi, sed Dei angelum, qui adstat principibus tempore belli.

2 [IE Reg. xvur, 46. — 3 [V Reg, n. 11, — * Act. vi. 39. 40.

Thus the prophet Habakkuk was carried away, by the hand of an angel, from Judea to Babylon. Daniel had been in the lions' den for six days, when at that time Habakkuk went to the field to bring bread and a stew to the reapers, which he had prepared for them. The angel of the Lord said to him: "Take this food to Daniel, who is in Babylon, in the den of lions." Habacuc replied: "Lord, I have never seen Babylon and I do not know where this pit is." Then the angel took him from the top of the head, and holding him by the hair, carried him with the agility of a spirit unto Babylon, upon the opener even of the pit. And Habacuc cried aloud: "Daniel, servant of God, take the meal that he sent you." Daniel answered with this prayer: "O God! you have remembered me, and you have not forsaken those who love you." And, rising, he ate. After that, the angel of the Lord immediately returned Habacuc to the place where he had taken him.

Saint Teresis reports that St Peter of Alcantara appeared to him, a year before his death, although they were separated from one another from a distance of several leagues; but she does not say whether it was by simple translation or by bilocation. Saint Philip of Néri* showed himself in the same way and on several occasions, during his lifetime.

St. Anthony of Padua in one night the journey of

1 Dan. x1v, 30-38.

2 His Life, ch. 27.

3 Yesterday. BARNA8. BB. 26 Mayi, t. 19, p. 603, n. 479: Illustrated præterea Philippo singulariter a Domino impertitum est, ut multis etiam absentibus, cum. intermortales essay, visibility specie sese ostenderet.

4 BB. 143 Jun., t. 23, p. 201, n. 12: Eadem nocte, magno miraculo, Ulysbonam perctus est, and proxima luce ad judicem se contulit rogans ut insontes e vinculis dimissos pateretur abier domum. Illo modis omnibus recusant, petiit cadaver perempti pueri ad se adferri. Quo allato, juice surgere puerum and dicere num a parentibus ipsius occisus. Ille surgens, dixit ejus cædis illos prorsus consociés non esse; atque ita discedendi est

Padua in Italy, in Lisbon, Portugal, and returned from Lisbon to Padua the following night. This is what occasion.

Two Lisboners had each other a life-threatening hatred. One of them, having met the son of his enemy in the square in the evening, cruelly massacred him, and, in favour of the darkness, came to bury his body in a garden next to his house, belonging to the parents of the Blessed. Justice informed, searched the murderer's house, and from there, passing to the surrounding places, finally discovered the victim's corpse. The suspicions were directed against Antoine's father, who was arrested - with all his family. The saint, supernaturally instructed of everything, asked the keeper for permission to leave, and that same night he was in Lisbon. In the first light of the day, he went to the judge, and begged him to release the innocent he held in the irons. The judge replied with an absolute refusal. Then the servant of God asks for the child's body to be brought to him, and when he was laid at his feet, he adjures the dead to stand up and say whether his parents really tried his life. The child rises immediately, and declares that they have nothing to do with his death. On this evidence, the accused are released. The Blessed spent the whole day with them, and the next morning he was back in Padua.

The translation is instantaneous or successive, depending on whether one moves from one place to another without touching the intermediaries that separate them, or whether one crosses these environments with varying speed.

_ Scholastics dispute that it is possible to go from one point to another without suffering the environments that make their distance, and therefore the possibility of translating the same

Illis fatta potestas. Mansit toto illo die cum parentibus suis vir. et mane, angelico ministerio, Paduam reductus est.

Instantly. Suarez!, dealing with the agility of glorious bodies, says that almost all theologians agree to deny this possibility, even for glory; more importantly, under the conditions of mortality. He dares, however, to declare probable the sentiment reproved by the multitude, and it seems, by weighing the reasons by which he justifies this qualifier, that he could do it more generous. On the one hand, he took for granted enough that the Fathers, among others St Augustine, St. Lawrence Justinian, St.Anselm, attributed to the glorious bodies the power to move instantly in the manner of the spirits; and on the other hand, the instantaneity of the translation seemed to him to assume the freeing of distances ÿ, for this peremptory reason that the passage of the circles, if it were obligatory, would logically carry as many successive moments as there would be points to cross. The immediate conclusion, which sees it, is that unless we give up the common teaching of the Fathers, we must look at the present law of the milieus as a contingent condition that can be lifted by miracle in the present life, and totally suppressed in glorious life.

1 De Mysteriis Christi, Disp. 48, sect. 4, n. 12, t. 19, p. 862: Qua in re invenie fere omnes Theologos negantes corporibus beatis hanc potostatem.

2 Jbid., Disp. 48. sect. 4, n. 13. Nihilominus tamen probabiliter sustineri potest datum esse beato hanc vim, ut transire posit ab extremo ad extremum sine medio. Quia sancti Patres, ‘de agilitate corporis gloriosi tractantes, hanc ei vim tribere emptyur. Dicunt enim corpus beati in momento et absque retardatione, eo entertainere quo impetus spiritus direxerit. Ita loquitur Laurentius Justinianus...; Augustinus... and Anselmus dicunt corpora gloriosa futura Angelis æqualia velocitate; sed is probabile (in the Treaty of Angels, t. 2, p. 503, 1. 4, c. 21. Suarez affirming the insitaneneile of their translations, says: Hæc assertio... valde communis est), Angelos naturali virtute possesse transire ab extremo ad extremum, non contingendo medium; ergo eadem velocitas, ex senticia horum Patrum, communitur per gloriam corpori beato.

8 Jbid., n. 11. Quærere igitur an posit corpus beati moveri in instanti, aihil aliud est quam quarere an posit transire ab extremo ad extremum sine medio,

This way of reasoning we enjoy all the more, as it admirably fits with the notion that we have of space, a simple and luminous notion, including the absence of scholastics throws the scholastics into inextricable difficulties, whenever they touch upon the question of extent. But nowhere is their embarrassment as great as when it comes to bilocations, as we will see by studying these kinds of appearances.

Successive translation does not give rise to any difficulty or controversy. It is sufficient to note that it is usually accomplished by the ministry of angels; sometimes however it is due to a kind of supernatural attraction: it is Jesus Christ himself who walks before and leads after him by an ineffable charm; it is still the Most Holy Virgin Mary or someone of the blessed; other times it is a luminous cross or a heavenly clarity that precedes, enlightens and fascinates.

V. — There is a two-location or multi-location where the same person simultaneously occupies two or more places. A large number of appearances of living to living seem to be in this case. Here again, more than anywhere else, we will let historians speak.

Saint Bonaventure reports the following in his ‘legend' of St Francis.

"The Blessed could not attend in person to the chapters that were held in the provinces; but by the regulations that he had prescribed, the ardour of his prayers and the effectiveness of his blessing, he was always present in spirit. Sometimes even, by the all-powerful virtue of

1 Leg. S. Francisc., c. 4, t. 14, p. 306: Frater probatæ virtutis, Monaldus nomine, ad ostium capituli, divina commonitione, respiens, vidit corporeis oculis beatum Franciscum, in aere sublevatum, extensus velut in cruce manibus benedicentem fratres.. Postmodum id, non solum per evidentia signa, verum etiam per ejusdem sancti patris verba exteriori leak attestation compertum.

God, he appeared visibly among his children. While the excellent preacher Antoine (of Padua), the glorious confessor of Christ, spoke before his brothers gathered in chapter at Arles (1226), on the title of the cross: JESUS OF NAZARETH, KING OF THE JUIFS; one of them, named Monald, religious of a proven virtue, yielding to a secret inspiration. of God, looked to the door of the hall, and saw from the eyes of the body Blessed Francis, gliding in the air, with his hands stretched out into the cross and blessed-. The spiritual joy that filled the hearts of all the brothers was a sensitive testimony to their father's real presence, and the fact became even more certain by the admission that St Francis himself made it."

: VI. — A similar prodigy of Saint Anthony of Padua* is told. He preached in Montpellier Cathedral on Easter Day 1295, when, at the beginning of his speech, he remembered that he had a ceremony to do in the monastery church, and that he had not appointed anyone to replace him. It was the practice among the religious that the great solemnities, two of the first, sang the Alleluia at the Conventual Mass, and it was he, this time, who was to fulfill this office. Afflicted with the disorder that his absence was to cause in the choir, the holy man interrupted immediately, covered his head with his cap, bowed as if to sleep on the pulpit's desk, and remained for a long time in this attitude, to the great astonishment of all attendance, who believed him indisposed or in ecstasy. Meanwhile, he sang Allehuia in front of all his brothers, in the middle of the choir. When the song was finished, he regained his senses, discovered his head and continued the sermon he had interrupted.

4 BB. 43 Jun.,t. 93, p. 218, n. 8: Vir Dei eadem hora visus est in ecclesia

Fratrum cantare Alleluia, per longam horam, corpore in pulpito coram tanta multitudine persistente.. Officioque præmisso diligenter completo, in se illico rediens, prædicationem quam coeæperat fuchet egregie prosecutus.

VIT. — Holy Lidwine!, nailed to his bed by the most extraordinary diseases, however, made wonderful pilgrimages in the Holy Land, in Rome, to various places where the relics of the saints were honored; and this, not sometimes only, but almost every night, for nearly twenty-four years. She knew a great number of churches and monasteries, religious people she had never seen otherwise. So that it could not be doubted that these journeys were real, his body often kept unrefusable traces. By kissing the cross and the wounds of the Saviour along the painful path, his levures remained ulcerated; in a slippery passage she gave herself a sprain to the right foot, of which she suffered for several days; passing through brushy, 1 he was injured; and upon his return he had to pull out of his hand the epimum which was buried in it. During these miraculous excursions, his body remained on his bed as dead and insensitive to all external excitement.

She got her confessor?, who admired these wonders and perhaps had some difficulty in believing it, the grace of a similar delight, and he confessed himself that he had visited the holy places with her.

VIIT. — "Saint Francis Xavier was returning from Japan to the

1 J. BRuGMAN. BB. 14 a.m., t. 11, p. 280 and 281, n. 47-53: Ad diversa etiam loca orbis terrarum rapiebatur, loca videlicet Terraæ sanctæ, Urbis Romæ, and alia pura loca sacra et monasteria, ut reliquias Sanctorum illic constitutas devotionis affectionu visitaret; nec solum unum, aut dues vel tres, sed fere viginti quatuor annos, and quasi omni nocte, in his raptibus continuavit... And cum spiritus ejus adædicta loca raperctur, corpus quasi mortuum and exanime remanebat in lectulo, adeo quod, si quis illud tetigisset, ipsa non sensisset... Aliquado reversed, ab illis osculis Dominicæ crucis aut vulnerum ejus, in labiis suis impressa queædam ulcera reportaret.

2 J. BRuGMAN. BB. 24 a.m., Vita posterior, t. 11, p. 338, n. 173: Suo etenim confessori who super hoc admirer similim raptus a Domino gratiam impetravit, ut etiam, secluso confessionis sigillo, escapes cum ea in locis illis non erubuerit confiteri.

Indies on a Portuguese ship. On the high seas, the crew was attacked by a terrible storm, during which the boat, mounted by five Portuguese and ten Indians, both slaves and sailors, was detached from the ship. Among those unfortunate were two Mohammedans who refused to become Christians. Their fate touched the admirable apostle. [He gathered in himself, implored the protection of God, and, feeling answered immediately, 1 said to the captain, Edward de Gama, who was in great sadness: "Be not grieved, my brother; before three days the daughter shall come and find the mother." The saint did not cease, during this time, to exhort the crew to trust and to pray with admirable fervour. He spent a whole day, from seven o'clock in the morning to the lying soleil, kneeling in one of the ship's chambers, praying with sighs and tears. We went up to the moon several times to see if we could see the unfortunate boat; but we never saw anything coming, and the pilot declared that we were waiting in vain, and that there was danger of delaying the march.

Xavier, without regard to the pilot's report, urged the master to lower the sail, giving the boat time to return to the ship. The holy man's authority prevailed over the pilot's reasons; the antenna was lowered and almost three hours stopped. But finally the passengers got tired, unable to suffer any more the ship's swing, and everyone cried: Sailing! The Father reproached them for their impatience, and seized himself of the antenna to prevent the sailors from spreading the sails, and, leaning his head upon it, burst into sighs and sobbings, and poured out a torrent of weeping. He rose up shortly after, and held his eyes fastened to heaven, still bathed in tears: "Jesus, my Lord and my God," he said in a pathetic tone, "I am calling on you, by the Suf-

Your sacred Passion, to have mercy on those poor people who come to us through so many perils!" He then turned back as he was, and remained leaning on the antenna without saying a word for a while, as if he had been asleep.

Then a child, sitting at the foot of the mast, suddenly exclaimed: "Miracle! Miracle! Here's the boat!" Everyone slammed into the child's cry, and the boat was actually seen at a musket range. It was only exclaims and shouts of Joy, as she approached the ship. Most, however, fell at Xavier's feet, and, grateful for the unworthy sinners' possession of such a holy man, asked him for forgiveness of their unbelief. But the Father, confused about being treated in this way, escaped from their hands as soon as he could, and went into a room.

Finally the boat won the ship. It was noticed that, although the waves were very moved, she came straight without being agitated, and that she stopped herself. It was also kept in mind that she had no movement until the fifteen men she was carrying entered the ship and that the sailors would have tied up behind the stern.

As soon as those men who were believed to have been lost were kissed, they wanted to know their adventure, and it was very surprising to learn that ‘they had come in the midst of the most horrific storm that ever happened, without fear of death or misleading, because, they said, Father Francis was their pilot and his presence did not leave the slightest worry. As the people of the ship maintained that the Father had not left them, those of the boat, who had always seen him with them holding the rudder, could not believe what was said to them. After a little contestation, some judged that the saint had been at the same time in two places; and a miracle so visible

so impressed upon the spirit of the two Saracen slaves of the boat that they abjured the mahometism.

The impatience that the fifteen men had to see the one who had led them so fortunately and who had fainted with their eyes at the time when they had joined the ship, forced Xavier to appear. They wished to greet him as their deliverer, bowing down before him; but he did not suffer him, and declared that it was the hand of the Lord, and not his who had saved them from the shipwreck. At the same time he gave God public thanksgivings for such an extraordinary favor!"

IX. — The life of Saint Martin de Porres® contains no less surprising facts.

"One day, the Blessed is accosted in the streets of Lima by a man who came back from China and speaks to him in Chinese. The Blessed answered him in this language with a purity that it would be hard to acquire while remaining in this country for a long time. The traveler spoke with him of this nation, which the saint seemed to know as well as he did. But he spoke to him about a servant of God whom he had met in Manila, and who was ignored by the Blessed. But a few days later, having resumed their conversation, the Blessed spoke to him in turn of this religious with such exact details that he had been visiting him since then. The traveller was called Jean Criollo; he was from Lima itself, and the fact that I have just reported is recorded in the canonization trial.

Here's another no less wonderful one. A Spanish man who had been a slave for a long time in Algiers arrived at the convent one day. The first person he meets is the Blessed, and he exclaims when he sees him: "Here's my father!

1 P. Boilers, Life of S. Franç. Xavier, 1. 5, p. 445-459, ed. 1682. 3 Life of the Saints, by the abode Darras, t. 11, 5 Nov., p. 120.

my liberator!" Then he throws himself in his arms and prints his lips on his forehead with respect and grateful tenderness. "Welcome," replied the good brother; "but excuse me, I have a matter of importance, we will meet again later." And he escapes immediately. The religious who were there, surprised by the sudden departure of Brother Martin, no less than exclaims from abroad, asked him where he had known the brother, to treat him so familiarly. "But I saw him often in Algiers," said the man, "when I was a slave to the Turks. He came to see us frequently, me and my chainmates, bringing us bread and money, comforting us, healing us when we were sick, encouraging us to endure our calamities Christianly and to remain firm in the faith. [He showed me a particular affection, and it was to him that I owe my deliverance."

But the Blessed was mulatto, and it was difficult for another Saint-Dominic religious to resemble him perfectly. The gift of healing the sick was not, moreover, very common. So this man was not wrong. But how could the Blessed have gone so frequently to Algiers, China, Japan, where many Christians were also comforted by him in their sufferings, is the secret of God and the saints. The good brother had very much desired to devote himself to the missions; his superiors were always refused. Our Lord, no doubt, was more generous than men, and carried him miraculously to those countries where he called the ardour of his charity. One day he escaped a word that proved his mysterious journeys. He was treating a sick person who was suffering from an eresipele, which he wanted to wash with chicken blood. The patient refused, saying that he had no confidence in the effectiveness of such a remedy: "Be certain," replied the Blessed, "that it will be of use to you, for I have seen him practice."

in Bayonne Hospital, en. France." No one had ever known that he would have left America.

X. — Blessed Angelo d'Acri, whom we have already appointed, also had to a rare extent: degree the gift of the multilocation. In particular, two of these are: pradiges whose accounts appear. at the trial of his beatification.

During a mission, which he preached in Amantea, he was seen, far from there, in the city of Rossane, assisting a lady to whom he had promised to be present to die.

This is the second fact from Baron Francesco Fava's statement.

"In the year 1727, in March," said the witness, "as he was attacked by a very dangerous disease, "I, on the advice of the doctors, decided to receive St. Viatica. One morning, before the day, while I was sitting on my bed and the light was burning in my room, I saw the servant of God, Angelo d'Acri, who was then preaching the squaredsimal station in Amantea, and who was staying in the house of my relative dofña Anna Camardi, wife of Don Horace Carratelli. [He took a chair from his hands and sat down with my bed, comforted me with sweet words, and exhorted me for half an hour; then he left without I could see where he had gone. In the same morning, after receiving Holy Communion, my relative came to visit me, and all joyful, told me that she had spoken in the morning. to God's servant, that she had presented to her my two little children removed from my sickness, praying to him to ask God for my health, that they might not become orphans. Orphaned, a recommendation: that she had already made others: sometimes to the holy man; and he had assured him that I was well. The fever, in fact, does not

1 Vita del B. Angelo di Acri. Roma, 1895, L. 3, this. 2, p. 101. Due fatti

soltanto se ne registranano, trascrivando le deposizioni di quesa testimonj giurati,.in: quella guisa, che ci trovano nesa Processi.., etc.

I didn't take it back, against the doctors' predictions, and from that moment on, I started to get better. I then told Doña Maria that before receiving Holy Communion, Father Angelo had come to me in my room and had inspired me with his words a lot of comfort and courage. This news fills her with astonishment and astonishment, and this, because at the very hour when I told her that the Father had come to visit me, she had heard him discipline in his room; after which she had led him to my two little children, and asked for his prayers. My surprise was no less; but, knowing the perfection of God's servant, we judged that som body had mutiped.

There was no hallucination in me when I saw him enter my room and exhort, for I was in the midst of my senses, and I had all my presence in mind. What confirmed us in my persuasion was that at the time when the Father came to visit me, the doors of my house were closed and all my servants slept. The doors were opened only when a servant went to call Don Francesco: Gracco, who was a euthaniac of my parish, to bring the saint to me. Viatic; what they all certified when I told them the fact."

XI. — Saint Joseph of Copertino! Dieute in her life two cases. Octave Piccino, compatriot of the Blessed, and called the Father, because of his great age, had. prayed to Joseph to assist him in his last mummenis. The one-cre, who was then at the convent of the Grotella, not: far from: Copertino promised him, saying: "Yes, I would be: in Rome I would come to assist you." This

TA. Pasrroviccai. BB. 18 Sept., t. 45, p. 1034, n. 87: Corporis geminatio quae raro legitur.contigisse, Beato nostro Cupertinensi bis concessa est. Octavio Piccino de Cupertino, seni and viribus jam destituto, which Pater cogno-

minatus leaks, precanti ut sibi morienti assistet, Josephus, who tunc in conventu Cryptelæ habitabat, promisorat se facturum, etc.

promise was a prophecy. Joseph, in fact, was in Rome when the old man touched his last hour; but he was no less faithful to his word, and he appeared to strengthen him in this supreme battle. Several people saw him, including Tertiary Sister Terèse Fatali, who, astonished to see him, said: "Brother Joseph, how do you find yourself 1c1?""To recommend to God the soul of the Father," he replied, and he disappeared.

By such a miracle he witnessed his own mother. As she was about to expire, she exclaimed with a great accent of pain: "0 Brother Joseph, my son, I will not see you any more!" At the very moment there appeared a great light that lit the whole room, and the moribund, seeing her son, cried again, filled with joy: "Oh, brother Joseph, my son!"

But at that time the blessed was in Assisi, and went, moaning, from his cell to the church to pray. The guardian father met him and asked him about his sadness. His answer was: "My poor mother just died." The letter which soon came for him confirmed the fact; but it was also learned that the saint had personally assisted his dying mother! All these facts have been discussed in the beatification trials, and must be held for some.

XII. — What is said of the venerable Mary of Agréda is unique. This admirable virgin kept praying and offering herself as a victim for the salvation of souls. One day, God made the whole universe pass before his eyes, during an ecstasy, with all human families, and among the great multitude of unfaithful nations, those of the New Mexico were shown to him as the most mature for faith. In many other similar visions, she saw these lands and peoples, and she

1 A. Pasrroviccui. BB. 18 Sept., t. 45, p. 14034, n. 87 and 88: Similiter cum Assisii habitaret, Cupertini presents himself with a stetit, in agonia matris suæ, etc.

made his prayers for their salvation. But when she prayed in this way, she was delighted in ecstasy, and was carried as if by enchantment in the midst of one of these Indian peoples. She saw them, understood their language, spoke to them to preach the Gospel, and, although she did in Castilian, the Indians seemed to hear it as if she had spoken their natural language; much more, she performed miracles in confirmation of the faith she taught. Returning from her ecstasy, she found herself in her convent, from where she had not left.

And this wonder was renewed more than five hundred times.

"The servant of God," wrote her historian, "had, in order to persuade herself that she was physically carried in this country, the foundations that follow... He then seemed to have a clear experience of these people, such as seeing the kingdoms of these countries distinctly, knowing very well the names; seeing their homes, distinguishing them from those of Spain, the people and their manners, their trade, their wars, the weapons they use to fight; communicating with them, persuading them, hearing them speak, appreciably considering their conversion, seeing them kneeling on their knees asking for the spiritual help they needed for the salvation of their souls; feeling climate change, and seeing other things as really present. He seemed to discover to her, as if she had passed through various countries and parts of the world, that in certain places it was night, and in other days; that in some it was raining, and in others the time was serene; here, as if she had passed through a great expanse of sea, there, several different lands... Believer,

1 Jos. XIMENÈS SAMANIEGO, Life of the Ven. Mother Mary of Jesus d'Agréda, C. 19, p. 113-126. We borrow these excerpts from the translation of P. Crozet, a little overyear, it is true, and defective by virtue of being faithful; but it is important here to quote textually.

in one of these occasions, to distribute to these Indians some rosaries which she had in her room, having returned from the delight, she no longer found them: she had put them, although she took all the care imaginable. to find them.

Notwithstanding all this, the thing being so extraordinary, she always doubted that this füt in body, and she was rather inclined to believe that the thing was going on in spirit; and even, considering this event to the weight of her humility, she could not persuade herself that it was as useful as it was believed and that God would have chosen it for such an admirable work. But the confessor...... convinced that one should not limit the wonders of the Almighty, reflecting on the foundations we have just marked, believed that she was carried body by body to these places of America, and other learned people to whom he communicated this wonder, were also in the same sense...

The truth, as it was discovered in the rest in the way I will say, was that a person, whether she is the servant of God herself or some angel in her form, performed these wonders in this country, the Indians seeing her, hearing her speak, and communicating with her. A few years earlier, in America, the vast provinces of New Mexico had been discovered, where the children of Saint Francis were constantly working to make it the spiritual conquest... These religious used with great zeal such a holy exercise, when they were approached. by a troupe of previously unknown Indians, who fervently asked them for holy baptism. The nuns were very surprised; and asking these Indians for the cause of their coming, they answered that a woman had long appeared in their kingdom, prescribing to it the law of Jesus Christ; that she was sometimes absent from it, and that they did not know where she was withdrawing; that she was

He had made known to them the true God and his holy law, and had commanded them to come and get them to be baptized. The religious were astonished, and much more, when they wanted to educate these Indians, they found them perfectly catechized. They were anxious to know what the instrument of such a rare wonder of the Lord was, and asked them how this woman was dressed and in what form she seemed to them; but all they knew was that they had never seen a similar one: they gave only a few marks by which the religious conjectured that she was reli- DTEUSE...

These religious reflected on the wonders they saw; and, praising God in such admirable works of his right hand, they eagerly wished to know what was this servant of God, whose divine majesty used to do them... These desires were more ardent in their Custos, Father Alonse of Benavides; so that he came to Europe, willingly exposing himself to the fatigue of a path of more than three thousand leagues to discover the organ of this divine wonder. He arrived in Madrid, the stay of the Catholic king, in the year 1630, the eighth after the wonders we have just spoken of. He found his minister general there, who was then of all the Order of Saint Francis, the Reverend Father Bernardin of Siena. He informed him of the main case that had brought him to Europe, telling him the details of all the wonders of which he was an eyewitness. The general, who, according to: the obligation of his office, had examined the spirit of Sister Mary of Jesus, being carried there by the smell that she had already spread of her holiness and by the singular esteem that he made. of his: admirable virtue, doubted painted only that it did not do this handmaiden: of God whose Lord used to perform his mercies. And knowing that she wouldn't, if she weren't, find out.

He gave Father Benavides letters in which he was his commissioner in this matter, ordering the venerable mother, by virtue of obedience, to respond clearly to all the requests that this Father would make to him. H also gave him letters of recommendation concerning the same matter for the Provincial Father and the confessor; and with these dispatches he sent him to Agréda.

Father Benavidès finally came to this city, where, having communicated to Father Sébastien Marzilla, a Jubilee reader and a singular reputation, which was then provincial, and to Father François-André de la Torre, who had recently confessed to the venerable mother, he went with them to the monastery of the nuns, to examine there the servant of God on this subject. And having read to him the letters of the general, where he was commanded to answer, the provincial and the confessor adding their commandments to them again so that she would do so with more merit, he asked him about the main article. And the servant of God, making a sacrifice of her secret to the virtue of obedience, made a smearful confession of what had happened to her on this matter, in the form that I said above, declaring with great caution the doubt she had about the way, and manifesting, with deep humility, time, principle, progress of these wonderful events and the various times that they had arrived to her. Father Benavides, in order to clarify himself better, using the authority he had of the general, asked him for the particular marks of these provinces, the disposition of the country and the inhabited places, the customs, the occupations and the way of life of these Indians. And the obedient religious declared to her everything that was going on there, using the proper names of the kingdoms and the provinces, and discovering things with circumstances as special as if she had travelled and stayed in a good place.

in these regions. And being questioned, she confessed that she had seen the same Father there with the other religious, marking him with the day, the hour, and the place where she saw him, those who were in his company, and all that distinguished them from each other."

XIIE. — We shall not overlook the appearances of the venerable Mother Agnes of Jesus to M. Olier, and that's Mr. Olier himself who will provide us with this story!.

"One day, being (in Saint-Lazarus) in retreat where I was ready to undertake the first journey of the mission of Auvergne," he wrote, "I was in my room, in prayer, when I saw this holy soul come to me with great majesty. She held a crucifix with one hand, and a rosary with the other. Her guardian angel, perfectly beautiful, wore the end of her choir coat, and with the other hand, a handkerchief to receive the tears of which she was bathed. Showing me a penitent and distressed face, she said to me: "I cry for you." Which gave me much to heart, and filled me with holy sadness. After this apparition, this holy soul came back another time, shortly from there, to confirm me in this view, and I also presented it in mind as if I still saw it. D _ "This second visit, says the historian? Olier, and probably the suit under which Mother Agnes had appeared to him, made M. A bond that the person whom he had taken first for the Mother of God was some nun of the Order of Saint-Dominique, still alive.

After several trips to Langeac, where Mr. Olier had always unnecessarily presented herself to the speaker, the Prioress (Mother Agnes) came to find him. She returned, accompanied by one of her nuns, the veil lowered on her face, according to

1 Faïlcon, Life of M. Olier, 1. P., 1. 3, t. 1, D. 93. 2 Jbid., p. 95.

25% of intellectual order phenomena: visions

I custom of his Order, and spoke to him first as to an ecclesiastical whom she seemed to know only by the noise of the works of zeal to which to be drunken in the land. Mr. Olier, wishing finally to know whether Mother Agnes was not the person who had appeared to her, asked her to please lift her veil; she immediately lifted it up, and this moment was like an opening to the most secret communications about all that was happening in these two great souls. Mr. Olier, struck to see again in Langeac the same person he had seen in Paris, said to him immediately: "My mother, I've seen you elsewhere." Agnes answered him: "This is true, you have seen me twice in Paris, where I appeared to you in your retreat in Saint-Lazarus, because I had received from the Most Holy Virgin the order to pray for your conversion, God having destined you to lay the foundations of the seminars of the Kingdom of France."

"...After the procedures for the beatification of Mother Agnes, it was through a real and bodily appearance that this great servant of God, far from more than a hundred leagues of Paris, made herself twice visible to M. Olier, in the house of Saint-Lazarus What excludes any doubt in this regard is the testimony of Mr. Olier, the testimonies of twenty-four atrial witnesses, among whom were the most qualified and recommendable Langeac people, and the full fame of the fact by the whole of France in the last century."

It is regrettable that the historians of Mother Agnes and Mr. Olier insisted so little on the most wonderful character of this apparition, namely: that she was operated by two-location. Here's what Mr. Palade, priest, nephew of Mr. Terrisse, who was parish priest of Langeac and confessor of Mother Agnes, dropped off at the beatification trial!: "In time

4 Proc., 1722,

that Mother Agnes appeared to Mr. Olier, in Paris, his body remained motionless, at the place of the monastery where she was. Mr. Terrisse was called, as was M. Romeuf, home doctor. The latter maintained that the mother was dead; Mr. Terrisse claimed the opposite. Twenty-four hours later, Mother Agnes sighed and returned to herself, and M. Terrisse tells Mr. Romeuf: "Well! Sir, I told you that she was not dead!" The witness states that he holds this particular characteristic of Mr. Terrisse, his uncle!.

The life of Mother Agnes presents another act of bilocation. As it is less bright and less certain, we merely mention it by the way?.;

XIV. — Another trait whose authenticity is out of reach. It concerns the miraculous appearance of Saint Alphonsus of Liguori to the unfortunate Pope Clement XIV, whom he attends and consoles at his last moments.

This is what we read at the canonization trial of Saint Ligori.

"On September 21, 1774, the venerable servant of God, being in Arienzo, a small town in his diocese, fell into a kind of fainting. Sitting on his chair, he remained for about two days in a gentle and deep sleep. One of the servants wanted to awaken; his vicar general, Don Jean Nicolas de Rubino, ordered him to let him rest, but to keep him in sight. When he was finally awake, and immediately gave a few blows of a bell, his people ran. Seeing them astonished: "What is it?" he said to them. "What is it?" they replied; "It has been two days since you spoke, that you do not eat, that you do not eat."

1 Life of the Ven. Mother Agnes, by M. de Lanracess, reissued by M. Lucot, 3° P., c. 19, n. 3, t. 2, p.251, footnote 2.

2 Ibid. 2% P.,c.4,n.7,t. 1, p. 350.

3 Informatio, animadversions and responsio supra vürtulibus V.S. D. Alæhonsi Mariæ de Ligorio.

give no sign of life.""You others," said the servant of God, "you believed me to be asleep; but you do not know that I went to assist the pope who had just died." It was soon reported that Clement XIV! had died on 22 September at 1300 hours (around seven o'clock in the morning), that is to say, at the very moment when the servant of God had waved the bell."

The lawyer for the cause of Saint Alphonse, after having demonstrated that this prolonged state was a real ecstasy, adds: "This perfect accord of the days when the servant of God was delighted in spirit, remaining in his half-dead seat, while the sovereign pontiff was dying, and the exact convenency of the hour at which he declared, at Arienzo, that the sovereign pontiff had ceased to live, offers an unreplicated argument that proves the truth of the admirable favor that God had bestowed on our saint and the dying pontiff?"

We could cite other examples of bilocations, attributed to several servants and servants of God, among others to St. Peter Regalat*, St. Brigid of Ireland, Anne-Catherine Emmerich*. Here we suspend these accounts, to discuss the fashion and reality of these wonders.

XV. — Generally, while in appearance the living person speaks and acts, and remains in full possession of himself, at the point of departure on the contrary it seems aborted by ecstasy, or even in the immobileness of death. We saw that this was the case in Saint Anthony of Padua, Saint Lidwine, Mary of Agreda, Mother Agnes, Saint Alphonsus of Liguori.

1 See Clement XIII and Clement XIV, by Father of RAvVIGNAN, p. 454.

2 See Card. Vice-CourtT, Life and Instilut of S. Marie-Alphonse de Liguori. 83, c. 54,t. 2, p. 403.

3 Daza, BB. 30 mart., t. 9, p. 858.

4 BB. 1 febr.,t. 4 p. 131, n. 89.

S P. SCHMOEGER, Life of Anne-Catherine Emmerich, ©. 19, t. 3 p. 191-933.

However, ecstasy is not an indispensable condition of bilocation, at least for its duration. Saint Francis Xavier spoke and waved on the ship, and at the same time drove the boat in distress. Blessed Angelo d'Acri was disciplined in the house of Anne Camardi, while he appeared at Baron Francesco Fava. It should therefore not be assumed that bilocation always leads to a psychic state that suspends the action of the senses and any conscious operation.

Note again that bilocations can be executed by instant translation or successive translation. The account by Mary d'Agréda of her apparitions to the Indians seems to indicate that she passed successively through the distance between Spain and America.

XVI. — The explanation of the phenomenon of bilocation has thrown scholastic theologians into the strangest perplexities; for the fact is so well known in itself and so often repeated, that it leaves no room for doubt.

Let us indicate the various solutions that have been proposed.

The first, usually followed by the supporters of Aristotelian philosophy, is to deny, not only the reality of the two-location, but its very possibility!, and to explain the fact of the double presence by an angelic representation at one of the two places.

But where does the performance take place? Is it at the point where the appearance occurs, or at the point where the person leaves to appear in the distance? Opinions are divided.

The most common feeling *? is that the subject of

1 SANSEVERINO, Philos. christiana. SieNorteLLo, Comp. Cosmol., n. 67, vol. 1, p. 101. Ponere quod aliquod corpus sit localiter in hoc loco, and tamen sit in alio loco, is ponere contradictoria esse simul. — And ibid. n. 3: Quod attint ad apparitiones Sanctorum in pluribus locis, dicendum est illas evenisse vel ministerio Angelorum, qui in similitudine corporea illos Sanctos représentæsentabant eorumque nomine res gerebant, vel productione novi corporis, sive ex nihilo sive ex alia materia.

2 Voss. Comp. Scaramelli, L. 2, P. 2, a. 1, p. 357: Denic appearances

The place where he is is, and the angels replace him in the place where he appears. In this opinion, it was not Alphonsus of Liguori who assisted Pope Clement XIV, but an angel who had taken his traits; it was not the Mother Agnes of Jesus who showed himself to: Mr. Olier, but an angelic appearance representing the venerable Prioress of Langeac.

We do not dispute that these apparitions cannot be made by representation; only, to affirm that it has been so, we need positive evidence, which. do not: meet in any of the cases we have cited. Corn, erected in principle, this interpretation is contradicted in two ways.

First of all, by the characters who appeared. — Saint Alphonse de Liguori, returning to him, says that he has just assisted the pope and that he saw him die. Mother Agnes confesses: to Mr. Olier that she appeared to him twice at. Paris. It is true, Mary d'Agréda! is inclined to explain her apparitions in New Mexico by the substitution of an angel;. but her directors submitted these apparitions to the examination: of several theologians who were well versed in mystical theology, and. their conclusions were that the famous nun had been physically present in America;.without ceasing to be visible: in Spain.

In the second place, the physical accidents that sometimes happen to: the bilocalized person infirm more: expressly again: the theory of: the: angelic substitution. at the place. beatarum animarum in purgatorio languentium and Sanctorum in terra adhuc vittium per Angelorum fieni-ministerium, communis SS. Patrum is sensia, lict: quidem etiam eas per propriom: personam:, Deo. omnipotent adjuvant, proud solere putent.

1 Jos.. XIMENÈS SaMANIEGO,. Read life: V. Maria d'Agréda, c.. 12 p: 184: Daas la: relation: (which she wrote herself) she said: "Ge that I believe it: more certain about it. in the way, is that an angel appeared there under.

figure, preached and catechized the Indians, and the Lord showed me: here in prayer what was going on there."

of the apparition. St. Lidwine, returning from her miraculous journeys, kept on her body sensitive traces of what she had felt during these peregrinations, a sprain on her foot, a thorn in her hand; and the same is said of the ecstatic A\nne-Catherine Emmerich. Marie d'Agréda, transported to America, experiences the ardours of the climate and the other peculiarities we talked about.

Others reverse interpretation and assume that the person who appears is replaced by an angel at the point of departure, while it is miraculously transferred to the point of appearance. Fr. Séraphin*® cites the example of an ecstatic still alive at the time he wrote (1872), who would have the privilege of seeing the angel in charge of representing her. The fact is possible and, duly established, cannot be revoked in doubt. But there is no obligation to generalize this explanation and to say that all the two-locations are

1 P. SERAPHIN, Theol Principles. Myst. (Bilocation Study), n. 8, p. 440: In these kinds of bilocations (in body and soul), all the personality of the ecstatic is elsewhere, that is, where God sends it; and if, during the bilocation, we see it again where it was before the bilocation began, it is a real presence {!) undoubtedly, but representative {!!!; only, operated by an angel who takes the place of the person, borrows its features, position and all that concerns it, to veil his absence. If the body bilocation takes place at night, or even at daytime, but there is no one around the ecstatic, in which case it often happens (what do you know?) that the angel does not take the visible form to represent it, and then the ecstatic person disappears altogether to carry out the orders of God in the distance, without leaving any trace of herself.,

2 Ibid., n. 17, p. 437: The living person we were talking about was in the same uncertainty when these two-locations started... But finally God... gave him the light necessary to get out of this uncertainty; so she now knows very clearly and most certainly whether the two-location she has been made purely in spirit, or. well in body and soul. When the two-location at home is done in body el. in soul, she always sees the angel who remains in her place to represent her, and she even sees it from afar, from: the place where she is transported, when the two-location is done in spirit, the angel is still there, but she no longer sees him busy representing her; she. then sees her own body at the place where he was, when the two-location is started, etc.

produce in this way. Who would admit, for example, that an angel was disciplined in the room of Blessed Angelo d'Acri, while he appeared at the foot of the bed of a sick man; that it was not Francis Xavier, but a heavenly spirit, who exhorted, prayed, wept on the ship, while the saint was running the boat?

XVIT. — Some authors explain the prodigy of multilocation by doubling: double the body, according to some; double the soul, according to others.

Let's talk about body duplication first.

To justify against Protestants and unbelievers the dogma of the Eucharistic multilocation of Jesus Christ, Varignon (1654-1722), who first studied theology, but owed his fame to mathematics, the oratorian of Lignac! (1710-1762) and the famous of Pressy (1712-1789); Bishop of Boulogne?, imagined and supported with variants the theory of corporal duplication. According to these authors, the soul is subject to the laws of space only by virtue of its union with the body, and could simultaneously animate several of them. If, by the all-powerful virtue of God, which suspends the laws of nature, one forms, from the multitude of elements that make up or have successively composed the human body, several organisms, and

1 Man's body presence in several proven places can be found in the principles of good philosophy. We can only quote this passage, which shows how the author applies his system to multi-locations: "Assume that the Creator has granted a prophet the privilege of visiting several places at once, as the inspired man will. On the occasion of the will of this happy mortal, his body will be doubled. Part of the digital matter that is appropriate to him, will leave with speed, equal, or even greater than that which our modern philosophers suppose in the cells of light darted by the sun. In a blink of an eye, remaining in Paris, he is present in Rome. And if he pleases to be in Madrid, Constantinople, Stockholm, Beijing, America at the same time, new duplications will serve him as he pleases." (5° letter.)

- What? Pastoral Instructor on the Euch. Migne, t. Four, collar. 1077-1102.

the same individual will be repeated as many times and in as many forms as the separate organisms will have multiplied!

If this theory suffices to explain the multiple presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, more importantly will it suffice to explain the simple bilocations, as they meet in the saints. But we are far from adopting this way of conceiving eucharistic multiplication, because it seems to us to distort what faith teaches us from the adorable mystery in which the Saviour is present and gives himself, not as these authors claim, in part and in pieces divided to the infinite, but whole, with his divinity, his soul, his body, and for all his whole body and for all the same, the very one who was hanged on the cross, deposited in the sepulchre, and who is now in glory.

Irrespective of this fundamental grievance, the assumption that we are discussing is wrong to be free and inconsequential.

It is free, in what it assumes without any foundation the multiplication of the human body into an infinite number of equivalent parts. Whether there is enough in each body to form several, it can be absolutely granted;

1 We confuse in the same statement the different ways in which these three authors present their views, because they seem to be reduced to this general formula and to this common point of view. It is sufficient to quote the following lines of Pressy, who claims to oppose his system to the other two, to show that it is the same for the substance: "The visible body of Jesus Christ, second Adam, contained an innumerable number of other small invisible bodies, similar to those contained in the visible body of the first Adam: these little invisible bodies formed of the substance of Mary's at the same time as the visible body, were all like him organized, alive, united to the soul and to the person of the Word... According to the words of consecration (according to the decree of God}, it is detached from the visible body as many invisible bodies as there are sensitive parcels of bread in each host, and each of these parcels is converted into the substance of one of these invisible bodies, etc., col. 1101.

But that, in fact, this multiplication takes place is what is not shown, and what should be demonstrated.

The inconsequence of this interpretation is no less obvious. It uses the multiplicity of body forms only because it refuses to admit the possibility of multilocation for bodies. It admits, however, that the soul can animate several distinct and distant organisms, and thus multiply its presence indefinitely. But if the soul can be found simultaneously in several distant places between them, why could the body not, especially if it is admitted, as well as Pressy's fact, that the body is an aggregate of simple elements?

Spiritual duplication is even less plausible. This opinion! distinguishes in the soul two operations, which give it two distinct and characteristic names: the operation by which it informs and animates the body, and, in this regard, it is called AME (anima seu animans); and the operation which makes it live from: intellectual life, and by this aspect it is called ESPRIT (mens). In bilocation, the soul remains in the body, as a "AME", that is, as it performs the vital functions there; but it comes out and travels according to Providence, as a spirit; which obviously assumes that the bilocation takes place only in spirit and not body.

If it is meant that the soul, as a thinker and reasonable, can enter into an intellectual relationship with

1 P. SérapHIN, Bilocation Study, p. 447, n. 96: God can operate the two-location in spirit in a soul, supernaturally attracting to him this upper part of herself, the spirit, and leading it wherever he wants, while the soul, as a soul, does not leave the body during the two-location, and it is the only spirit (mens) that leaves and goes where God calls it. This spirit which, now in its natural state, travels everywhere and in the most distant regions, by the thought alone will go by itself where God directs it, when, by divine virtue, it crosses the limits

of nature and to enter into this supernatural world where divine action is

freer and where the: creature is more willing to feel the prodigious: influence.

distant realities, without these realities changing their space position: and without the soul deserting the body, we see no impossibility to this; but, in our view, there would be simply vision and not bilocation. As for dividing the soul into two parts, one of which keeps the body, and the other one runs the world, such a supposition is inadmissible; it clearly compromises the simplicity and unity of the human soul. That the whole soul can be present in several places at once, just as it coexists at the same time at all points of its own body, far from contradicting it, we hold for certain the possibility of this multipresence; but that the soul, one and simple, is half on one point and half on another, it seems to us a pitiful contradiction: the soul is all where it is.

XVILL. — Another hypothesis is that the soul abandons the body that it animates, with or without suspension of organic life.

When vital functions cease, it is one: application of the ordinary law after which the conditions of bodily life are interrupted as soon as the soul separates. It is simply death; and the return of the soul into the organs will constitute a true resurrection.

Taken in itself, this supposition has nothing impossible; but I miracle of the resurrection is such, that it must be used only at every end. In fact, although it has sometimes been observed in the bilocalized persons the immobility and insensibility of death, as in Mother Agnes: and in St. Alphonse of Liguori, the opposite x was also observed, for example in St. Francis Xavier, who appeared. well alive and active in both places; in St. Colombe of Rieti, in whom the doctors recognize signs of life for one. pleasure of: five

days and a supernatural peregrination in Holy Land!. This generalised explanation is therefore unacceptable, especially since by resorting to the resurrection it requires a miracle much greater than that of real and personal bilocation.

The second situation of the body separated from the soul is that it preserves, by miracle doubtless, the movement and play of the organs essential to life. Thus the vital functions would continue in the body, while the soul is absent?. There is nothing absolutely impossible there, but the return of the soul will be no less a kind of resurrection, and, at this miracle so considerable, it is necessary to join the one who maintains in the body, in the absence of the soul, the conditions or appearances of life.

That's not all, because that's only part of the problem. It remains to be explained how the appearance is done in the distance, and to achieve this, one still has to resort to the miracle.

While the natural body remains struck with paralysis, "the soul sees itself clothed with a body in everything similar to its own, without knowing how; it sees this body, usually dressed in the same way, covered with the same clothes, and clothes of the same color, in the same way, that cover its true body... This solution,

1 A. SEBASTIAN. Confession. BB. 20 maïi, t. 18, p. 163*, n. 35: Nam sponsa Christi, cum diutius anxie desiderasset contueri loca sancta and Hierusalem, and utinam Deus indulsisset ardenter concupisceret, rapitur spiritu, ac, per quinque dies, quasi esset exanimis omnino immobilis redditur; ita ut parents jam eam flerent velut mortuam. Quamobrem advocating medicos, which non-invenientes cordis pulsum, inter se disserebant; unus tandem supra caput palpans, judicavit eam vitem. Elapsis diebus quinque, cum redisset ad actus sensuum, etc.

2 P. SERAPHIN, Billicure Study, n. 21, p. 442: During this bilocation and the absence of the soul, the body is not dead...; the natural heat, the pulsation and the breathing, though weak, continue, and it is the divine power that keeps them momentarily and temporarily, either immediately by itself, or by the ministry of the angel, ete.

Continues Fr. Seraphin! which we quote textually, we believe likely... We are not the only ones who profess this way of thinking; others, Italians like us, eminent men by their knowledge, their virtues and their knowledge in the mystical ways, share it."

To us, on the contrary, it seems very unlikely to us, either to say with all due respect to the Italian author, and to those of the same nation whose testimony he invokes. We do not understand this profusion of miracles, when only one is enough to explain everything. This unique miracle is that of body multilocation.

XIX. — We will not hide it, this last solution has all our preferences. Since the living body appears in two places at once, it is simple to admit that it is actually present in one and the other, unless this double presence does not lead to contradiction. But there is no contradiction in assuming the same body simultaneously present in two places, no matter how distant they are from one another. Let the unbelievers contest it, pass it again; but can we Christians and believers, without grossly contradicting us? We do not immediately before the eyes, before the eyes of faith of course, have a multifold and permanent fact of bodily multation: Our Lord, in the Eucharist, as many times present as there are consecrated species on earth, and even as there are divisible points in each species? If the fact occurs for the body of Jesus Christ, it can be renewed in ours, which are basically of the same nature.

It is not disconcerted that this is extranatural under the present conditions of space; but these conditions, having nothing absolute or necessary, can be changed.

- I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Two-location study, n. 21, p. 544. It 12

They were established and persevered by an act free of his will.

What, then, does it take for the two-location to happen?

It is enough for God to lift this law freely and freely maintained, by virtue of which, to move from one point to another, one must cross the intermediate points that connect them. It will not be hard to hear this, if one makes an exact notion of presence and distance, and if one thinks that the same being can enter into immediate contact with several beings at once.

A being is present when he is or is acting on a point without any intermediary; and it is more or less distant, depending on whether the intermediaries separating them and uniting them are more or less multiplied.

Secondly, that the same being, material or spiritual, it does not matter, can establish multiple relationships of presence with several beings, it does not suffer any difficulty. The soul is simultaneously present at all parts of the body that it animates; any central point is present at the first point of each of the rays.

If therefore the contingent law of the intermediaries were lifted, a being could enter, at the same time, in connection with immediate or presence with a multitude of points, no matter how distant they were between them, and without that distance füt removed. The simultaneous presence of the soul in all the elements of the body does not destroy the distance between the feet of the head and the arms of one another; the multiplicity of Jesus Christ as tabernacles and altars does not prevent these tabernacles and altars from being distant from one another.

1 Boxac. Institut. theologic. de Euch., n. 36, ed. 112, t. 3 p. 482: Quæritur quomodo corpus Christi præsens esse posit simul in pluribus locis? Rep. Ad solvendam hujusmodi difficultytatem pura excogitata fuerc system-

Thus would explain the two-locations of the Saints. This simultaneous presence of the soul and the body at two or more points of space, distant from one another, probably constitutes a departure from the present order and a real miracle, but in no way an impossibility, as the supporters of Aristotelian doctrines have claimed in so many. At the bottom, this miracle is of the same order as that of the freeing of distances by instant translation and that of the freeing of gravity, so often renewed in ecstatic ones.

This interpretation, supported by most French philosophers, supporters of Leibnizian theory on the extent and on the bodies; by Balmès!, Spain; in Italy,

mata, quorum unum solum vero proximius vidtur, and quod post Leibnizium breviter sic exponitur.

Spatium nihil aliud est quam relatio præsentiæ simul et distanceiæ inter pres substantias irrationales, seu actio præsentiæ immediatæ and mediatæ in pres substantias. Sint v. g. substantiae:

A bcdf

Substantia À immediate acte in B, and in C mediante B, and in D mediantibus BC, and in F mediantibus BCD; ergo A præsens est substantiæ B, distansautem seu apsens ab F per spatium BCD.

At talis ordo, cui de de facto subjicuntur omnes substantiae, quae spatium reale constituunt, non pendet abessia rerum, nec est per se necessarius. Sic substantia J, ex hypothesi immediate act in A, eique ideo præsens est. Curautem simult immediate non ageret in F, eique etiam non esset præsens? Eo quod À non actif in F nisi mediantibus BCD, cur eidem legi necessario subjiceretur J? Nihil profecto necessarium is in quotaibus: porro actio immediata substantiæ J in A and F, dum A and F inter se distant per BCD, nihil aliud est quam présentia substantiæ J simul in duobus locis A and F inter se remoteibus; ergo non repugnat idem corpus ess simul m pluribus locis.

4 Philos. fondament... 3, ch. 33, No 258, t. 2, 2nd ed., p. 183. Admit a body subject to other conditions, either of reports or of scope, the assumption from which one draws the possibility, for him, of being in several places, disappears. So, if it is proved that the divine all-power can change and even destroy these relationships, we can admit without contradiction that the consequences that were to result from these relationships also lack.

by Fr. Tongiorgi!, Fr. Pieralisi? and others, is far from new. In the past, she claims the authority of illustrious theologians, such as Bellarmin* and Suarezt. Both profess, in fact, openly the possibility, for a body, of being present in several places at the same time, and this assertion serves as the basis for the argumentation by which they justify the multipresence of Our Lord in the Eucharist. Since the situation and the difficulty are clearly identical, the principle also applies to the two-locations of the Saints.

Moreover, according to Bellarmin ÿ, the Fathers admitted or assumed this hypothesis, to explain and the eucharistic multiplication and supernatural apparitions that we are talking about here. Suarez f, though very parsimonious in applications that do not interest the Eucharist, boldly maintains the principle in favor of this mystery. He declares this almost common opinion of his time, and he cites as favorable to him several earlier theologians.

1 Philosopher inst. Cosmol. n. 313, vol. 2, p. 370; Prop. VI: Nulla multilocatio est corpori naturaliter possibilities; at certum ex æquo est multilocationem, saltem definitivam vel mixtam, nullam repugnantiam includere; id quod etiam de circumscriptiva multilocatione probabilius dicendum vidtur.

2 Metañfisica, n. 142, p. 79, Roma, 1878: No è assurdo che l ́esser medesimo sia allo stesso tempo in più luoghi.

3 Of Sacram. Eucharist, 1. 3,c. 3,t. 3 p. 662: Probabimus non implicare contradictionem, and pronde possibile esse, ut unum corpus sit in pluribus locis. 3

4 From Euch. 48, sect. 4, n, 5, t. 21, p. 90: Dico tertio: No is imposibile idem corpus simul constitui in duobus locis remoteibus, and, in utroque, modo naturali and quantitativo.

8 Jbid., supra, p. 665. Tertium argumentum sumitur a testimonis Patrum, which rem unam in pluribus simul locis esse possesse docent.

6 From Euch., Disp. 48, sect. 4, n. 5, p. 90: Distinctius and formalius docuerunt hanc sensiam Alexandr. Alensis, Scotus, etc., and fere communiter reliqui moderni scriptores theologi, qui hoc tempore scripserunt, præsertim contra hereticos. Is enim hæc opinio, non solum aptio ad repdendum hæreticis and veritatem catholicam tuendam, sed etiam, meo judicio, tam necessario tamque evidenter consequens illam, ut mirabilie semper mihi visum fuerit, contrariam sentriam gravissimis theologis persuassioni potuisse.

He is even surprised that an interpretation so capable of reducing heretics, and which, in his opinion, results rigorously and with full evidence of the dogma of the Eucharistic multilocation, could have been ignored and combated by very serious theologians.

Our astonishment is no less; but, apart from the authority attached to the names of Bellarmin and Suarez, the reasons that decided them seem to us to be perpetuaries; and, while separating ourselves on this point from the common traditions of the School, we believe ourselves in safety.

Chapter XIV

The Objects of Supernatural Vision — X. Non-Rational Creatures

Appearances of animals. — Germination ct les fleurs. — The cross and crucifix. — Images and statues. — The holy relics. — The sun of Anna-Maria Taigi. — The bells that ring in the same way. — The candles and miraculously lit lamps.

Ï. — We have not said everything about visions, and we do not claim to say everything. We would, however, like to inform the reader of general and common forms, so as to make it possible to appreciate most of the facts that arise.

After having considered God, the angel and man as terms of supernatural vision, it remains, in order to travel regularly the scale of beings, only to speak of creatures without reason. These creatures are alive or inanimate: let's share each other.

We have already seen that animals intervene in apparitions, expressing in turn the divine attributes, the purity of the blessed or the abjection of the reprobates. This is sufficient in substance to make the meaning of these symbolic representations. The Scripture contains one

Many examples. We know the mysterious vision of the four animals of Ezekiel!, renewed with some diversity in the Apocalysis of St.John ©. Those who led to Daniel the succession of empires are no less famous.

The prophet sees, in a first vision, four great beasts very different from one another, which elevate from the sea and dispute the empire of the world. The first one was like a lioness with the wings of a laigle. The second looked like a bear, and wore in his mouth three rows of teeth. The third, similar to the leopard, had at the same time four wings and four heads. The last, more terrible than the others, crushed everything in its passage with its large iron teeth, and had its forehead armed with ten horns. Out of the midst slew a little horn that brought down three of the little horns; and this new horn had wills as the will of a man, and a mouth that spoke great things. And it was revealed to the prophet that these four great beasts were the empires that were to succeed upon the earth.

In another vision, Daniel saw a ram that could not resist, which had two horns raised, one of which exceeded the other and gradually grew. Then appears, on the west side, a goat who had only one horn in the middle of the forehead. It melts impetuously on the ram, overturns it, breaks its two horns and the crowd at feet. He then becomes extraordinarily great; but soon his mighty horn breaks, and four horns are formed below, toward the four winds of heaven. From one of these horns comes a little horn that grows too large and desolates the people of the saints. Gabriel explains the vision to the prophet: the two horned ram is the empire of the

1 Ezech. 1, 10. — 2? Apoc. 1V, 7. — 3 Daniel. vn, 2-97. — 4 Daniel. vm, 3-25.

Medes and Persians. The goat is the Greek empire, and the horn is its first king. The lesser four horns, which replace the great, are four kings who will collect the inheritance of the first. Then will come a power that will rise up against God, wage war against the saints and succumb in turn. This is not the place to examine what this last empire will mark the end of time!.

IT. — There would be much to say about the symbolic relations of vegetative nature, plants and flowers, with mysticism. It will not come out of the special point of view which concerns us to report the following trait, taken in the acts of Saint Dorothy ©.

This illustrious virgin of Caesarea was in the courthouse of Saprice, governor of Cappadocia. To scare and reduce it, this fierce persecutor of Christians ordered that he lay on the easel. She let it be placed without resistance; then, calling upon the Judge with a noble intrepidity: "Why," she said to her, "do you let me wait?" Do what you have to do, so that I may see Him for whom I fear neither death nor torment.""What then is he whom you desire?" said Saprice.""This is Christ, the Son of God.""Where is this Christ?""By his almighty power, he is everywhere; by his humanity he is at the right hand of God his Father, in heaven, where he reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, sharing with them the same divinity. And he invites us to the paradise of his delights, where, at all times, the trees are adorned with fruit, the lilies always white, the roses always flowered, the fields and the ever-green mountains, the hills always shaded, the fountains always springing out of delicious water, and the souls of the saints intoxicated with immortal joy in Christ.

1 See ROHRBACHER, Hist. univ. de l'Égl. cath., 1. 48th, t. 10, p. 1-3. 2 BB. 6 febr., t. 4 p. 782, n. 5 and 10.

If you believe, Saprice, you will seek true freedom, and you will enter into this garden of the delights of God."

Saprice responded to this discourse with new trials, which could not triumph over the invincible consistency of the Christian virgin. Finally, he handed down the sentence against her: "We order that Dorothy, a proud young girl, who refused to keep life by sacrificing to the immortal gods, and who absolutely wants to die for I do not know which man is called Christ, be struck with the sword." In these words, Dorothy exclaimed: "I give you thanks, heavenly Lovers of souls, for what you call your paradise and invite to your wedding bed."

As she came out of court, a lawyer named Théophile said to her in a mockery: "Come, wife of Christ, send me from the garden of your husband, fruits or roses." Dorothy answered him: "I will gladly do it." When she was about to receive the blow of death, she asked the executioner to leave her for a few moments to pray. When she had finished her prayer, a child suddenly appeared, carrying three of the most beautiful fruits and three roses in a cloth. She said to that child: "Take this to Theophile, please, and tell him from me: "This is what you asked me to send you from the garden of my Spouse." Immediately she was struck with the sword, and with the palm of the martyrdom she went up to Christ.

At the moment, Theophile was laughing at his colleagues at Dorothy's promise, when the child stood before him, bearing the three beautiful fruits and the three

1 BB. 6 febr., t. 4 p. 782, n. 11-13. And cum egreeretur prætorium judicis, dicit ad eam irridicule quidam advocatus nomine Theophilus: Eia, you sponsa Christi, miti mihi de paradiso sponsi tui mala aut rosas. And Dorothea dixit: Plane, quia ita fapiam... Cum autem hec narrret (Theophilus) irridens sanctæ virginis promissionem, ecce et puer ante eum cum orario, in quo ferens tria mala mirifica, et tres rosas floridissimas, dixit ei: Ecce sicut petenti tibi promised virgo sacratissima Dorothea, transmitted haec tibi de paradiso sponsi sui.

7k phenom. of the intellectual order: visions

roses flourished, and. said to him: "This is what, at your request, Dorothy, the most holy virgin, you & promised; she: you send her husband's garden." And the messenger immediately disappeared.

Theophile, in receiving this present, exclaimed: "Christ is the true God, and lies are not in him." His companions ask him if he is crazy or joking. "Nothing," he replied, "tell me, in what month are we?""In February, did they reply."Well, a cold ice reigns throughout the Cappadocia, and all the trees are devoid of their leaves; where do you think these roses and these beautiful fruits come with the foliage that accompanies them?" He then tells them how the virgin Dorothy had just sent her this present through the hands of a wonderful child who could only be an angel. Theophile was told to the fierce president, and suffered torture and death for Jesus Christ, and went to heaven to join the pious virgin Dorothy.

In reality, where did these flowers and fruits come from?

The sky is the fullness of all goods, the place and time of abundance, as spring is for the earth the season of flowers; summer and autumn, that of fruits. To express the overabundance of glorious bliss, man exhausts the most vivid images of sensitive goods and pleasures, and God himself borrows this language, when he wants to make hear something of what he reserves to those who love. The flowers and fruits of which the virgin Dorothy was delighted to speak, and of which she obtained a miraculous sample at Theophile, were symbols of the heavenly bliss.

God also makes greenness and flowers appear as signs of the holiness of his servants. To the translation of the relics of Saint Vandrille, Abbé de Fontenelles, Saint Ausbert, Archbishop of Rouen, and Saint

Vulfran, archbishop of Sens, at the monastery of Blandinbert, in. the city. of Ghent in Flanders, one saw the earth flourish as. in spring, although it was then in the middle of autumn '.

God renews these wonders to cover or reveal the charity of the saints.

"Elisabeth of Hungary loved to carry herself to the poor, to steal, not only money, but also the food and other objects that she intended for them. It was thus loaded with steep and hijacked paths that led from its castle to the town and to the cottages of the nearby valleys. One day she went down, accompanied by one of her favourites, by a very rough little path. which is shown again, carrying bread, meat, eggs and other dishes in the strips of her coat, to distribute them to the poor, she suddenly stands in front of her husband, who came back from the hunt. Stoned to see her thus spreading under the weight of her burden, 1l said to her: "Let's see what you are wearing," and at the same time opened the coat, which she would shake all fear against her chest; but there were more than white and red roses, the most beautiful that he would have seen in his life; it surprised him all the more as it was not the season of flowers. Seeing Elizabeth's disorder, he wanted to reassure her with her caresses, but suddenly stopped seeing a bright image in the shape of a crucifix appear on her head. He then told him to continue his journey without worrying about him, and went up to the Wartburg, meditating with recollection on what God was doing with her, and taking with him one of those mervely roses-

1 BB. 22 Jul., t. 32, p. 301, n. 48. And ecce totus mons Blandiniensis, mirabile dictu, caepit florescere and hujusmodi honor, ob gloriam adventientium Sanctorum, sese vestire. Arbores quaque eorumdem florum variate candescere, viridescere, purpurascere quaque coeperunt... Vernalis naturam autumnus se succepis miratus est.

he kept his life. At the very place where this meeting took place, next to an old tree that was soon felled, he raised a column surmounted by a cross, to consecrate forever the memory of the one he had seen hovering on his wife's head."

Saint Germaine? of Pibrac shared with the poor the little food that a mischievous hand gave him at the father's house. On a winter day when she was ready to give her portion of bread to one of them, her odious marten rushes furiously upon her, and wants to know what she hides in her apron; but instead of bread she sees only flowers: God had performed this miracle to protect his faithful servant and to attest to her virtue. A similar prodigy came to Blessed Jeanne or Vanne d'Orviette, * of the third order of Saint-Dominique.

"It is told [of the venerable Anna-Maria Taigi] that the divine Savior appeared to him in the following way: She saw a beautiful lily whose stem was finished with a beautifully bloomed flower; on this flower, as on the throne of purity, Jesus showed himself to her humble servant in all the brightness of her superhuman beauty; while she was contemplating in the joy of ecstasy the charms of her sweet Master, she heard a voice saying to her: "I am the flower of the field and the lily of the valleys, and I am all yours."

III. — The appearances of inanimate things are frequently repeated and in the most diverse forms.

The Scripture contains many examples. The empires that were to succeed each other until the advent of Jesus-

1 DE MONTALEMBERT, Life of St.Elisabeth of Hungary, e. 8, p. 252.

2 Propr. Brev. Tolosan. 18 Jun., Lect. 6: Germana... panem pauperibus erogandum, ut novercam lateret, hiberno tempore in floras convert.

-MARIE, the Lives of Saints El Blessed of the Order of Saint Dominique, t. 2, p. 193.

# P. BourriEr, the Ven. Serv. of God Anna-Maria Taigi, according to the authentic documents of his beatification, 1. 2, n. 6 p. 99.

Christ was shown to Nebuchadnezzar, in the various parts of a gigantic statue whose head was golden, the chest and arms silver, the belly and thighs brassed the legs of iron, and the feet partly iron and partly clay; and the Church, this immortal empire which is to go until the end of the centuries, was revealed to him under the figure of this stone which detachs itself from the mountain without any man's hand, comes to hit the feet of the statue and makes it fall into dust!

The prophet Zechariah saw in a vision a candlestick of gold, at the top of which a lamp was shining; seven other lamps were lit on his branches; and an angel taught him that these were the Lord's seven eyes, which traveled all the earth. Further on, he saw a book in the air of a wonderful greatness, which contained the many and terrible curses that God threatened the earth with.

Since the redemption of men by the divine Crucified, among these apparitions, the cross is the most common. It is known that a prodigy of this kind decided on the religion and fortune of the great Constantine. At the time of coming to his hands with Maxence, whose strength was superior to his own, this prince prayed to the one and sovereign God whom his father Constance had worshiped. God responded to this by this miraculous vision which the first Christian emperor told in the course of the day, on the faith of the oath, to historian Eusebius, whose account we reproduce in substance.

1 Daniel. n, 31-36. —? Zach. 1v, 2, 10. — 3 Zach. v, 1-3.

4 ecses. From Vita Constantini, 1. 1, c. 28-30. Migne, t. 20, col. 943. Cum ipse victor Augustus nobis qui hanc victoriam seribimus, longo post tempore..., id retulerit et sermonem sacramenti religione firmaverit, quis posthac fidem huic narrationi adhibere dubitabit?.. Horis diei meridianis, sole in occasum rodnte, crucis tropæum in coelo ex luce conflatum, soli super-

positum, ipsis oculis se vidisse assertavit, cum hujusmodi inscriptione: Hac vince. Eo viso et seipsum et milites omnes qui ipsum nescio quo iter facien-

One afternoon, Constantine lived in the sky, above the sun already inclined towards the West, a cross of light with this inscription: TRIUMPHY BY THIS ('Ev or even vexæ'). The soldiers who followed him, in a march that they were doing together, saw the wonder like him, and all remained astonished. The following night, Jesus Christ appeared to him, during his sleep, with the sign that had been shown in heaven, and commanded him to make a military standard on this model that would serve as protection in the fighting. At the point of the day, Constantine rose up and shared the revelation with his confidants. Then he brought goldsmiths, and sat in the midst of them, and depicted the shape of the sign to them, and commanded them to reproduce it in gold and stonework. It was the famous Labarum that led Constantine to victory.

All of France is experiencing the appearance in this century at Migné, parish of the diocese of Poitiers.

"Sunday, December 17, 1826, the day of the closing of a continuation of religious exercises given to the parish of Migné, on the occasion of the Jubilee, by the parish priest of Saint Porchaire and the chaplain of the Royal College (Mr. Marsault), at the time of the solemn planting of a cross, and while the latter addressed to an audience of about three thousand souls a speech about the greatness of the Cross, in which he had just recalled the apparition that took place in the presence of the army of Constantine, one saw in the air a very regular cross and vast dimensions. No sensitive signs had preceded his manifestation; no noise, no flash of light had announced his presence. Those who first saw her showed her to their eyes.

tem sequebantur, and who spectators miraculi fuerant vehementer obstupefactos.... Christus Dei sormetenti appeared cum signo illo quod in coelo ostensum fuerat præcepitque ut militari signo ad similitudinem ejus quod in coelo vidisset fabricato, eo tanquam salutari præsidio in præliis uteretur.

And soon she fixed the care of a large part of the audience, so much so that M. the parish priest of Saint Porchaire, warned by the crowd in whose midst he had placed himself, thought he had to interrupt the preacher. Then all eyes were carried towards the cross, which had first appeared exactly formed, and which was placed horizontally... No accessory seemed to hold on to this cross or to accompany it; all its forms were pure and were very distinctly visible on the sky. It did not offer the wishes a dazzling glow, but a color everywhere uniform, and such as no witness could define it in a precise way or find it an object of fair comparison. Only, it is more generally agreed to give an idea with the help of an Argentinian white nuanced with a slight shade of pink!.

It certainly follows from all the statements that this cross was not at a considerable height; it is very likely that it did not rise to two hundred feet above the ground; but it is difficult to fix anything more precise than this limit. The total length of the stem could be one hundred and forty feet; and its width, judging by the least rigorous data, could be three to four feet.

When the cross began to be seen, the sun had been lying down for at least half an hour, and it kept its position, its forms and all the intensity of its colour for another half an hour or so, until the moment when it entered the church to receive the blessing of the Blessed Sacrament. Then it was night, the stars shone with all their brightness. The ones who came back

4 Excerpt from the Report prepared on February 9, 1827 by the commission officially responsible for seeing and appreciating this memorable event. This commission consisted of a vicar general, a professor of theology, and a professor of theology.

_ gie, from the mayor of Migné, from the professor of physics to the royal college of Poitiers, who was Protestant, from a lawyer and from a secretary.

The last ones saw the cross fade away: then a few people who remained outside saw gradually wipe out, first by the foot, and successively from near to near, so that they soon presented four equal branches, without any of these parts having changed their places since the first moment of the apparition, and without those who had disappeared leaving the lightest trace of their presence in the vicinity. It is said that no observer has applied himself to following this gradual fainting until its last term; but it is known that it was fully consumed when one left the church, immediately after the blessing... The impression produced by this extraordinary spectacle was so lively and so profound that it was still tearing tears away from some of those who lay before us, after more than a month of interval since the event."

The appearances of the cross naturally relate to those that occur around the crucifix. These kinds of wonders do not count in the annals of the saints.

According to a tradition accepted by the Bollandists!, a crucifix before whom Saint Bernard loved to recite a touching prayer which he had composed, untied one of his arms and hugped the pious doctor with ineffable tenderness.

Blessed Catherine of Ricci? had in her room a crucifix which she greatly reverenced. One day this crucifix came to meet her and said to her, "My dear wife, I urge you to use, with your daughters, to appease my anger against sinners who treat me so indignantly; and if you love me, do three processes to

1 BB. 20 Aug., t. 38, p. 210, n. 501: Our piissimam manc historiam multa cum admiratione veneramur, testimonio fide digno suffultam Exordii magni.

2 , the Lives of Saints and Blesseds of the Order of Saint Dominique, 1. 2, c. 5, t. 1, p. 357.

this end." Catherine, hearing these words and seeing her crucifix move towards her, opened her arms to her, and brought him back to her cell, where she was taken immediately with great delight. The nuns, instructed by the miracle, ran to their mother, still in the sweetness of her ecstasy, kissed each other and her hands and the wonderful cross that she was lovingly hugging, and all smelled a sweet smell that escaped from this sacred sign. Since then, on the 22nd of August and the following two days, the three processions were made, and, after the death of the servant of God, his room was transformed into a beautiful chapel, where this crucifix was preserved dd dpi with several other relics.

Another daughter of Saint-Doiique Marie la Bonnet, sister converses at the monastery of Sainte-Marie de Zamora, in Spain, prostrated before a cross, conjured the Lord to satisfy her with her grace. And the crucifix cut off one of his arms, and smote his chest, saying to him, "Let me do it, Mary, I will satisfy you." It was the proclamation of eternal satisfaction; for at the end of three days the Blessed died, and her soul went to heaven to enjoy the delights of holy love.

IV. — What we say about the crucifix is reproduced in the statues and images of Our Lord, the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Saints.

Saint Rose of Lima? obtains only a painting that represented the Saviour of blood, to excite to componction and love. Another image miraculously extends

1 , the Lives of the Saints and Blesseds of the Order of Saint Dominic, 1. 2, ch. 40, t. 1, p. 398. - 3 L. Hansen, BB. 26 Aug., t. 39, p. 949, n. 236: Viderunt, non sine ictu pietatis, effigiem undequaque vel roris antelucani guttulis confistim madidam atque obductam; jamque stillæ ad ipsum usque marginem ligneum, qui picturam includebat, defluxerunt, ac novaæ identidem guttæ a fronte, maxillis, oculis succrescebant.

The arm on the holy Good One of Pisa, and blessed her at the moment when she signed herself and bowed before her. worshiping Jesus Christ inwardly.

Saint Gregory VII 2, being still an archdeacon of the Roman Church, came back from a legation in the course of which he had absolved a bishop of calom accusations: neous.. [He entered, according to his custom, in the Basilica. of St. Peter, to pray before a certain image of the Virgin. His astonishment was immeasurable when he saw this image spreading tears and staring at him with compassion. Îl strengthened the fervor of his prayer.And. spread by a great abundance of tears to this witness of tenderness which he received from the Mother of God, without yet understanding the meaning of it. He soon understood it; for, having stood before the sovereign pontiff, to whom had made false reports on the conduct which he had held vis-à-vis the bishop in question, he was greeted with a severe face. and words of reproach. But Hildebrand. justified himself so well, that he silenced his accusers who were there. At the end of the pontifical audience, he came to kneel again before the miraculous image, and this time he saw her smile at him as if to applaud his triumph.

A canvas depicting Saint Philip of Neri, and. con-

1 BB. 29 mali, t. 20, p. 1445, n. 8: Caput cum reverentia. inclinasset, Christum adorans in ea, imago eadem, vice, se totam inclinants B. Bbnæ, extensa manu,.benedixit eamdem..

2-Pauz BERNRI, BB. 25 Maii, t. 19, p. 114,.n. 17: Erat ei familiare diverticulum ut ad B. Mariæ Dei Genitricis iconem consistem intra eamdem basilicam, ante eam orando procideret, and plorando cor suum effunderct. Igitur cum hac:vice,. secundum. hanc. consuedunem. facturus accessisset, vidit, quod dictu mirabile esto. ipsam imaginem lacrymas stillare ot: quasi. dolorem. suum. pro的 aliqua dilecti sui:molestia. significare....India.. cam prædicto more:solita repeterct. imaginem.,. converso:miraculo.. vidit eam arrir dere sibi tanquamutriumphatori..

3 J. Tuowassini, Civitatis-Novae Bpise.. Relatio' of Sudore imaginis.Patar vinæ. BB. 26 Maii, t. 19, p. 642-649, n. 28 and 29. D. Joannes Baptista.Peliz

in Padua, in the sacristy of the Fathers of the Oratory, covered itself for several months with a sweat that was declared, after severe investigations several times renewed, coming from a supernatural cause.

We will not tell the details of the wonders attributed to a famous image ‘of St. Dominic, brought, says-

by the Blessed Virgin on September 15, 1530, to the reli- _gieux of the convent of Soriano, diocese of Mileto, Italy. The facts? are so numerous and so constant, that the pontiff sovereigns allowed the celebration of the miraculous image, not only in the sanctuary of Soriano, but throughout the Dominican Order.

In this same sanctuary of Soriano, on September 15, 1870, a miracle of another genus, no less well demonstrated and belonging to our subject, occurred. Here it is, according to the sentence given by the bishop of Mileto, which we reproduce here almost entirely.

A statue of Saint Dominique, which should not be confused with the miraculous canvas we have just spoken of, appeared to several people moving and giving signs of life and intelligence. Beginning the day before, the prodigy renewed itself during the night and in the morning, but had not yet been. noticed. by: a small number.

About noon, the: fact. being. become public, the: crowd of the inhabitants of: Soriano and that of the strangers gathered for the fair, warned by the cries: of admiration: that the prodigy aroused: in the church, ran, and could. for more than one decoy. contemplate him:

zarius, nostræ.civitatis pictar celebris...., suo juamento assertavit, asserens prædictum sudorem non esse naturalem, sed supranaturalem ac miraculosum. Same claim D, Marius Antonius Bonacorsi, Patavinus, ingeniosissirmus etiam pictor; aliique:pictores, qui manc relationem legcrunt, ipsumque, sudorem declararunt extra naturæ ordinem esse, etc.: 'Cnoquer, BB. 4 Aug., p. 535, n. 922.

2-EC Year:Dominican, Sept. 1868, p: 390.

The statue moved forward and backwards, and from left to right, that is, in the shape of a cross, and this movement took place while the tables on which it was fixed remained motionless.

One sees this solid wooden statue rising to the height of a half-palm and its movement locate in the head; the right hand, which is closed, opens and shakes, say the witnesses, in the shape of a girandole. The lily, which was in the left hand, moved in all directions, as well as the aureole and the metal star placed around its head.

The face of the saint was coloured, moving from the most vivid incarnate to an extreme paleness, and expressing successively indignation and placidity, as if it were alive; the forehead was wrinkled and the figure was bathed in sweat, while the desire to move in all directions, and most often turned to Our Lady of the Rosary with an expression of sweetness and confidence, and the lips were opened like those of a man who wanted to speak.

Sixty-one witnesses were heard, and if the investigation was not carried forward, it was because it appeared to the delegates that there was an overabundance of evidence; all these witnesses placed visions with a perfect agreement on the substance of the facts; if some had observed better, this is explained by the closer or lesser position they occupied in the church, and by the time they had been able to make their observations.

"Considering," concludes the Bishop of Mileto, "that the illusion of so many people would be a miracle perhaps more difficult to explain than the one mentioned; that if no natural explanation of the fact can be given, the circumstances of time, place, and moral effects produced on the population exclude any other intervention that would not really be supernatural;

"Considering that he is to our knowledge, and established

by the investigation that singular graces, even in temporal order, have been obtained, and that the moral effects have been excellent for the people of Soriano as for that of our diocese;

"The holy name of God invoked:

"We declare that everything is SURNATURAL AND MIRACU-LEW IN THE MOVEMENTS OF THE STUDY OF SAINT Domi-nicE SURVENUS ON SEPTEMBER 19, 1870, THAT WE SHORT TO EXPOSURE. Mileto, February 11, 1871!"

V. — Saint Pascal Baylon has sometimes manifested his presence or rather his virtue by beatings on the images that represent him? But it is mainly in the chasses that contain its relics that these extraordinary sounds are heard, sometimes soft and harmonious, sometimes more accentuated, and sometimes resounding like a blast of bomb. It was thought by experience that peaceful and moderate movements usually succeeded happy events, and that loud and noisy agitations were the omen of some calamity. These supernatural manifestations are a source of inner suavities for some, and healthy fears for others.

It occurs around the relics of the saints of these kinds of miracles, in a thousand different forms, whose detailed enumeration would lead us too far. But we cannot ignore the wonderful apparitions that continue in the relics of Saint John of the Cross.

1 See P. RouARD DE CaRD. the Miracle of Saint Dominique in Soriano, p. 70 - in D'ARTA, BB. 17 May, t. 17, p. 404-113, n. 40-44. Fidem, apud homines præsertim indoctos, superare emptyur prodigiosæ illæ percussiones, de quibus aggredimur scribee, toties iteratæ et tam certa crebraque experientia cognitia, tam in Valentino regno, quam in aliis Hispaniae par-

tibus, eo quod etiam ad impressas imagines minimaque reliquias sancti sese extendedint....

2$6 phenom. of the intellectual order: visions

Let's hear what his first historian, Father Jérôme de Saint-Joseph, brings back!

"Among the miracles that Our Lord honored our blessed Father, revealing his high and sublime virtue, it is important not to forget the countless apparitions that were made in the relics borrowed from his flesh. It's such a strange miracle and is so continually renewed that it has never been met or read in the history of any other saint. It is by the appearance at Medina del Campo that we must begin this relationship; not only because it is the first of this kind in the order of time, but also because it was solemnly called miraculous, lan 1615, by the illustrious and reverendissim according to Don Vigil de Quiñonès, bishop of Valladolid, in a judgment rendered adversarial, according to all the formalities of law, in the presence of the tax prosecutor and before a large assembly of theologians, jurisconsults and doctors, to whom three lords of the chamber of the King Don Philip II. All the members of the court unanimously decided that there was a miracle; then the bishop pronounced a legal sentence, and sent the trial documents to the sovereign pontiff Paul V. In order to understand the circumstances of this wonder, it is necessary: to take up things again: high.

Our Signor, in his infinite mercy. had. granted: insignia: favors to the venerable. François de. Yeshes, by appearing to him himself, and allowing several saints to show themselves to him. The servant of God had long felt, in the secret of his heart, an ardent desire to see his brother (saint John of the. Cross), and one day that. Our Lord appeared to him. He said to him: "Lord,

1 Adreged of the Life of Blessed Father Saint John of the Groix, ©. 2; ed. 1877, t. 1, D. 288-297.

since you are deigning to grant me the grace to see many of your courtiers from heaven, will you not also grant me the happiness of seeing my beloved brother?""Every time," replied his divine Majesty, "that you will look at a piece of your brother's flesh in the relic that you possess, you will see it himself." By saying these words, he disappeared.

Animated by a strong faith and certain to see the fulfillment of the divine promises, the holy man took his reliquary, and at the very moment he saw his brother as he was in his lifetime, with the only difference that his face reflected an incomparable beauty. At the same time, in the relic, he saw the Most Holy Virgin wearing the Carmelite garment, and holding between her arms the child Jesus, whose left arm surrounded the neck of his Mother, while he leaned to lay his right hand on the saint's head. This vision, which first arrived on the day of the Epiphany in the year 1594, is a revelation of the high and fervent devotion that the Blessed Father had all his life practiced towards the Augustine Queen of heaven and her divine Son.

Francis of Jeps reported this miracle to the Father. Christophe Caro, of the illustrious company of Jesus, a man as learned as he really was apostolic, who at that time was his confessor.. This religious saint, taking this extraordinary relic, kneeled down with great devotion, and, contemplating it, witnessed a wonderful apparition, which threw him in an unspeakable admiration. H was quite another. astonished again, when, gathering around him several people of different ages to venerate this holy relic, without saying a single word to them: these apparitions, some cried that they saw Our Lord Jesus Christ crucified there, others the blessed Father on his knees before one. crucifixes, others still. of the repre-

There was nothing to see. Hence the learned confessor concludes that there was a deep and admirable mystery there, and that God, in revealing himself in so many different aspects, kept hidden secrets whose effects were to occur in the souls of those to whom it was given to contemplate these wonders.

In these apparitions, God varies his action to the infinite. Our Lord often appears under the figure of a little child; sometimes in the arms of his Mother, other times between the arms of the Blessed Father, who, prostrated on two knees, kisses his divine feet; in other circumstances, sitting on a cloud, holding in hand a golden crown which he will lay on the saint's head; or carried on the left arm of the Father, who kisses him with love. It is not only under the figure of a child, but also in the fullness of age, that the Saviour shows himself in the relics of the Blessed Father. Some see him, with his head leaning on his hand in the attitude of meditation; others radiant with beauty and shine of light, others in the different phases of his painful Passion. At other times, it is the Holy Spirit that one sees in the form of a dove surrounded by an aureole of glory; then it is the very Holy Sacrament radiating in the ostenoir, they are angels and seraphim, it is our leader, the holy prophet Elijah, our seraphic mother Teresis of Jesus, the forerunner John the Baptist, the apostle Saint Peter, Saint Catherine martyr, Saint Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis Xavier as we see him, with his eyes lifted up to heaven, and a crowd of other saints. These relics have never been seen in any representation that was perfectly holy. The reflections of the brush are such a wonderful masterpiece, that all human industries, to the testimony of several artists to whom God made the

By seeing them, they are powerless to reproduce them. It is because the colours used by the painters of this world are substances of the earth, while those that radiate in these holy images are the product of the sky.

The wonders of these countless apparitions are especially remarkable by the grace effects they have produced in the hearts by bringing them to a more perfect life.

Let us end with a prodigy approved in the trial of the canonization of our holy mother Testus of Jesus, which proves how jealous God is to see the relic of his servant surrounded by the veneration due to him. In the convent of the Reformed Carmelites of Granada, one evening Mother Mary of Saint Paul saw, after sunset, a dazzling ray of light coming out of an image of our holy Mother who adorned a hermitage of the garden. Surprised by this phenomenon, she looked at the place where this ray stopped, "and saw that he was coming to expire on a small basket in which was wrapped a relic of our blessed Father, which one of the sisters, as we have known since, had dropped there. The Mother then took him, and at the very moment the light svanuited.. So great is the concern of the divine Providence, who does not want to let perish, nor to see deprived of the worship which is theirs, the smallest parcel of their bones."

VI. — The visions whose relics of Saint John of the Cross are the occasion and the theatre, however extraordinary, do not match in wonder those which Anna-Maria Taigi was contemplating in a mysterious sun which was constantly under her gaze and which she consulted at her discretion.

"This sun" appeared to God's servant the first

1 Card relationship. PEDECINI, his confessor. Cf. P. BouFFIER, the Ven. Serv. of God Anna-Maria Taigi, 1. 5, p. 196-205.

When she took discipline in her little oratory, shortly after God had called to perfect life. From then on, he was constantly in front of his eyes until his death, during the space of forty-seven years. The pious woman was seized with great fear, with the sight of such a surprising light; her confessor ordered her to ask God for an explanation of this singular phenomenon; she received for answer these words which we transcribe to the letter: "This is a mirroir I am watching you, so that you know the good and the good that is going on!" The confessor then ordered him to ask God to withdraw such gifts from him, and to impart his favors to the virgins of the cloisters, not to a poor and married woman. The servant of God obeyed: he was told that God was free to do what he wanted, that no one should afford to probe his secrets, and that the confessor should do his duty and nothing more.

In the beginning, the light of the sun had the color of the flame, and the disc was like matt gold; as the pious woman progressed in virtue, the disc became more bright and clothed with a brighter light than seven suns at a time: her greatness was that of the natural sun surrounded by her rays; she assured that her light was so bright, that she would have tired the healthier and brightest wishes. The pious woman saw her with her sick eye, which she had almost completely lost, and with which she could not bear the light of the day, nor distinguish any object. The heavenly light, far from weary, strengthened him... The sun was before her at a distance of twelve palms, and three palms above her head. He always kept that position. Above the upper rays, and as

-Jbid. Quaesto è uno specchio che io ti faccio vedere. perche capis chi il: bence e he male,

At the end, was a large intertwined crown of thorns, which embraced the whole dimension of the sun, and overtook it like a diadem. On both sides of the crown, two thorns descended under the disc, joining one to the other, and seemed to kiss while crossing; and their arched tips came out on both sides, in the middle of the rays. In the center was a woman sitting, with a noble majesty, the forehead raised towards the sky, in ecstatic contemplation, and shining with the brightest light; she carried two rays on the forehead, as Moses descended from the mountain; her feet rested on the lower end of the solar disk. The centre was dazzling with clarity. Images passed through the sun, as in a magic lantern, to serve us with the very expressions of God's servant.

In this mysterious sun, Anna-Maria did not only see the physical and moral things of this world, it penetrated the abyss and heights of the heavens. She knew with full assurance the fate of the treacherous; she saw the objects at the greatest distance, the deepest secrets of nature and grace, the physiognomy of the people she did not know, found themselves at the ends of the world, their most secret thoughts and all their actions. The state of consciousness was manifested to him with the greatest certainty; the order of time did not exist for her, the events of the present, the past and the future were at her disposal, with all their most extensive circumstances. A glance at the sun Jui was enough, and at the moment the thing that his thought was about was becoming present, with an immediate view and full knowledge of what she wanted to know. She saw the whole world, as we see the facade of a building; in a blink of an eye she had present in sight all the nations of the earth; she knew the troubles that were

and the calamities that had to strike them, the cause of their ills and the remedies that could have healed them, the dispositions of individuals, the condition of each people and the situation of the human race. Through this extraordinary grace and truly without example, Anna-Maria possessed and tasted the knowledge of all things in God, as much as one can taste it in this life.

She had the gift of the sun in a stable and continuous way, and she always had it in front of her will wherever she went, day and night. Objects passed continuously into the sun, sometimes naturally: mails, battles, etc.; sometimes allegorical symbols: crowns, golden chalices, precious stones, daggers, thorn beams, networks, pellets, incendiary bombs. The rays of the sun were opened to shed blood; sometimes they appeared thick clouds, sometimes a golden rain, and other things of all kinds. It was like a continuous movement; but if Anna-Maria looked at the sun to see a certain object, all the allegorical signs disappeared, and the object she was looking for was clearly visible. It seemed, in a word, that the gift was subject to his will and desire, and this continually, since it was always so for forty-seven years."

We can see in the author! from whom we borrow these interesting excerpts about this wonderful sun: what we have quoted is enough for our purpose.

VII. — On this subject of apparitions we shall again point out, by finishing, two kinds of facts which seem to constitute real supernatural manifestations, and which thus fall within the framework which we have tried to fill.

1 P. Bourfrier, the Vene. Anna Taigi, based on the authentic documents of the trial of his beatification, 1. 5.

Saint Erry‘', monk of Saint Germain, tells of himself, that having travelled from his monastery to the cathedral church of Soissons, to celebrate the feast of St Germain, the bells rang themselves until he and his companions had crossed the threshold of the basilica, which they found completely deserted.

Four visitors came to see in his solitude Peter of Morron?, who was to be Pope Saint Celestine, and spent three days sedifying from his conversation and praying with him. Throughout this time, they heard the harmonious sound of a large number of beautiful bells, although there were no bells in this place, and it was too distant from any human habitation so that no noise of this kind could naturally arrive until then. After them, several others also heard these mysterious bells, and this wonderful sound, first heard, continued to resonate in their ears, always and everywhere, except in the city and in the camps. As for the brothers who lived with the Blessed, they all enjoyed this carillon, more or less bright, according to the degree of solemnities; yet it was not the same for all, which added to the wonder. One of the two, in particular, heard a sweeter and louder bell at the time of the sacrifice when the priest raised the body of the Lord in his hands.

It is mainly at the death of God's servants and

1 BB. 24 Jun., t. 25, p. 743, n. 15: Jamque nobis atrium ecclesiæ subeuntibus, signa solitum dedere clangorem.

- What? BB. 19 May, t. 17, p. 424, n. 12 and 13: At illi coeperunt audirum multarum et magnarum campanarum; loci tamen ille ita remotus erat ab homeibus hominum, quod nunquam sonus alicujus campanæ potuisset ibi audiri: unde stupefacti sunt. Omnes quidem Fratres audiebant, sed non omnes æqualiter; quia unus apertius altero, and plurimarum campanarum and diversarum. Quidam Frater audiebat unam campanam quae dulciorem sonum reddebat omnibus aliis et haec pulsabatur cum elevabatur Corpus Domini.

to the translation of their relics, that this miracle occurs, and it is amazing how often it appears in the acts of the saints. Among other names, we will cite the names of Saint Ludger, the first bishop of Munster, Saint Conon, the monk of the Order of Saint Basil, Saint Aldebrand*, the bishop of Fossombrone, the solitaire Saint Vivald*, the Blessed Gregory, the hermit of Saint Augustine, Saint Isidore f, the plower, Saint Theobald of the Badie, Camaldule, Saint Boniface*, the archeval of Mainz, the Blessed Henry of Treviso, Saint Bernard d'Arce*, honored in the Abruzzo, and in whose office the prodigy is recalled. and lamps that light up or turn on miraculously., Blessed Elizabeth!!, daughter of the King of Hungary Andrew III, and religious of the Order of St.Dominique, spread on her bed by mortal paralysis, and in the impossibility of making any movement, sighed one night after the light of day, when suddenly the lamp of her cell came to light and cast so bright a light that

4 Actrrm. Episc., BB. 26 mart., t. 9, p. 649, n. 18. 2 BB. 28 mart., t. 9, p. 731, n. 3. 3 FERD. UGueLLo, BB. 1 Mayi, t. 14, D. 163, n. 7. & Dionys. Ponant, BB. 1 Maiii, t. 14, p. 164, n. 2. 5 BB. 4 May, t. 14, D. 541, n. 5. © 6 Joan. Diacr., BB. 15 May, t. 16, D. 515, n. 11. 7 Dominic. PassonI, BB. 1 June, t. 21, p. 135, n. 57. 8 WizciBaD, BB. 5 Jun., t. 24 p. 464, n. 7. 9 Pertr. Dominic. Ep. Tarvisin., BB. 10 Jun., t. 24 p. 368, n. 95. 10 BB. 14 Oct t. 54, p. 628. Hymn. Vesp. Translatione corporis Campanis Arpinensibus à Fit sonus intus et foris Nullis illas pulsantibus.

# Gen. Muret, BB. 6 May, t. 45, p. 127, n. 93: Dum ita jaceret, orationi intenta, quae in cubicello pendebat extincta lampas cælitus accensa fuchet, multoque clarius solito lumen dare caepit.

The nurse who was watching the patient was awakened with a burst.

Saint Abbé Mayeul wanted, according to a commendable custom, a candle to remain constantly lit in the midst of his religious during their sleep. But when he was traveling with some of his brothers, the light extinguished, and the hour of mornings came, the religious knew not how to relight their torch, the home having more than ashes and the servants having withdrawn. But Mayeul began the service, and when it came to it, the brother who was to recite the lesson by heart asked for blessing. At the moment when the holy abbot pronounced the formula, as if a divine flame had come out of his mouth, the candle was lit.

An eyewitness, in the process of the canonization of St. Francis of Paul*, set forth that one day the servant of God, kneeling at the foot of the altar, lit the candles that were on the altar for the sacrifice, extending at a distance, and without any contact, a torch lit which he held in his hand.

These wonders often occur with the relics of the saints. The examples are endless. The sisters of Saint Hildegarde * saw several times a candle placed on his tomb light up again from himself. In the translations of the relics of the patriarch Saint Benedict, of Saint Au-

1 NALGODE, BB. 11 Maii, t. 45, p. 63, n. 28: Cum unus e Fratrits ex corde lectionem dicturus, benedictionem expetiit, sub eodem momento quo vir Domini benedictionem dabat, divinus ceream ignis invasit, ac si exore Abbatis ignis pro benedictione fluxisset.

Ex Processu. BB. 2 April, t. 10, p. 131, n. 51. Franciscus genuflexus ante dictum altare tenens manbus candelam acdensam ostendit illam candelam candelis extinctis quae in alteri rant; and statim sunt accessæ, quamvis ablla quae erat accessa, non-accederent.

8 BB. 17 Sept., t. 45, p. 698, n. 4. Item dict, quod viderit candelam ardantem super tumbam ejus, cum cantabatur Missa pro defunctis. Qua extincta, Evangelio incepto, per se accensa, not semel, sed sæpius.

4 AMOUNT. Miracul. S. Bened. BB. 21 mart., t. 9, p. 330, n. 15: And ecce, in ipso basilicae sancti Benedicti egressu, orta cum vento pluvia cereos ad

Gustin ‘ apostle of England, of St.Gengoul? martyr of Burgundy, of St.Giborade ÿ virgin and martyr, of St.Rictrude* abbess of Marchiennes in Flanders, and of many others, this wonder renews itself with various circumstances, but always attesting a kind of affinity and sympathy between the light of heaven and that of the earth.

honoring Dei ac sanctorum ejus accesos, funditus extinxit. Sed antequam portam castri ipsius monasterii egreerentur, and serenitas redite, and cerei divinitus reaccensi, inspicientibus cunctis, per aliquod viæ spatium nullis ventorum flatibus extingui potuerunt. Simili modo, dum peractis pro quibus ierant, sanctas Reliquias a tabernaculo sub quo manserant extulsent, lucernae extinctæ, divinaque virtute illuminatæ, nullo aurarum spiramine Jlumen amiserunt, donec a terra S. Benedicti Sanctorum progrederentur pignora.

1 Gocelin, BB. 26 Maii, t. 49, p. 433, n. 49.

2 BB. 41 maïi, t. 45, p. 648, n. 7.

3 BEpIpanN. BB. 2 Maiii, t. 44, p. 311, n. 1.

4 BB. 12 May, t. 16, p. 105, n. 32.

Chapter XV

The Supernatural Words (Locutions)

The supernatural words differ from the visions. — It is not required that they be understood from the one who hears them. — Like the visions, the words are of three orders: atrial, imaginary, intellectual. Relative perfection of these three species. — The atrial words, of which they are made, and their manner of execution. — The imaginary words, their various ways of occurrence, their distinction from supernatural vocal words and purely natural inner words. — They are heard during sleep, in the day before, with or without suspension of senses; never at the highest point of ecstasy. — Their causes. — The notions of intellectual words, and the marks which distinguish them from visions of the same order. — The secret of their realization in the mind. — The truth of the truth of the truth. classification of mystical words by Saint John of the Cross in succession, formal and substantial. — The successive words both natural and supernatural. — The illusions to which they expose and the signs that distinguish the true. — The formal words, their extension. — The substantial words; they embrace the three genres, but mainly the intellectual words.

I. — After the visions, we have to study the words of the mystical order. This language, whether external or internal, is always supernatural, and consequently differs from that whereby man communicates his thought or receives the confidence of a foreign thought. We will see the differences later.

Words are also distinct from visions. Visions present realities or images to contemplate in the mind, while words are formulas that

state statements or wills. In addition, visions can occur without words, and words may also not be accompanied by visions.

II. — Another comment. Whatever the nature of supernatural words, it is not absolutely required that the subject to whom they are addressed understand them. They are sometimes said in an unknown idiom, or in a statement that will only lighten up later.

At the height of his inner sorrows, Saint Chantal had a vision. Ün morning, being in bed, a little drowsy, he felt that she was in a wagon filled with travelers, and that, passing before a church, she wanted to enter through the large door, which was open; but she felt repulsed, and she heard a distinct voice saying to her, "We have to go over and go further. You will never enter the sacred rest of the children of God except through the gate of Saint-Claude." Then she understood nothing about this vision, except that her sorrows would end one day. So when they got more alive, she said: "Patience, my soul, God has promised you that you will enter the sacred rest of his children through the gate of St.Claude." It was, indeed, in the church of St.Claude that Saint Chantal began several years later under the leadership of St.Francis de Sales, and that peace was restored to him. On the eve of the day when she was to undertake this pilgrimage of Saint Claude, her vision of the past returned to her mind, so clear and lively, that she could not doubt that the moment of her realization had finally come!.

III. — Among the supernatural words, some strike the external senses, others sound in the intimate of the soul, sometimes in a sensitive way, sometimes in a direct way to the understanding; which brings back the order adopted.

1 See BauGacp, History of Saint Chantal, c. 6, t. 1, pL 160.

for visions, i.e. words are intellectual, imaginary or bodily. The latter, starting from the organ of the voice to the organ of hearing, are naturally called vocals and atrial.

The relative perfection of these three kinds of words is absolutely the same as that which exists in the three kinds of visions.

As in the vision, intellectual speech? occupies the first rank, and the earful word * the last; hence the mystics conclude that vocal words are commonly addressed to beginnings and imperfectes, imaginary words to those who progress, and intellectual words to the most advanced souls.

In dealing with visions, we have indicated the foundations of this merarchy, and we have made reservations. These reserves, we renew them here. If God almost never speaks to the imperfect through purely intellectual communication, and reserves this sublime way of conversing for some privileged few#, it is less

1 WANT Paz, De grad. contempl., 1. 5, P. 3, c. 6, n. 6, t. 6 p. 569: Hæc locutio triplex est. Altera vocibus exterioribus formata, quam aures corporis audiunt, and per eam intellectus audientis illustatur et affectionus accrediteur.. Altera Dei locutio non aure corporis auditor sed imaginatione concipitur, dum Dominus per seipsum vel per aliquem Angelum format in imaginatione hominis ea verba, easque sententias quas vult ab ipso intelligi, quibusque oportet eum de rebus utilibus edoceri.. Tertia locutio Dei non sonat in aure corporis, nec percipitur imaginativee capitis, sed pure spiritualiter intellectu lied.

2 Voss, Direct. Myst. Comp. ScaAramelli, 1. 2, P. 2, c. 2, a. 3 p. 398: Intellectual locutions sunt omnium perfectissimæ and sublimissimæ.

3 Jbid., a. 1, monita, n. 1, p. 385: Locutions auriculariæ, liquet quandoque etiam personis perfectis concedantur, ordinaria tamen animabus imperfeetis quae ad perfectionem tendere incipiunt, and sublimiorum communicationum nondum sunt capaces, impertiri solent. Deus enim, which omnia in numero, pondere et mensura operatur, ejusmodi anïmas per gratias sensibiles a rebus sensibilibus avellere et ad celestia et divina elcvare intentit.

# ScHRaM, Theol. myst. $ 543, t. 2, p. 265: Deus quandoque ex speciali privilegio cum animabus perfectis and FOHEnnIAINls pure intellectualiter loquitur.

avarice of vocal and imaginary words. He makes them heard indistinctly to those who enter the career, to those who advance and to those who touch the top. The Bible accounts and the annals of the saints bear full witness, as we could judge from the many apparitions we have reported.

IV. — As we have already said, the ear speech consists of a sensitive communication that sounds to the ears of the body, whether or not there is a corresponding vision. It can proceed from the different objects we have recognized in the vision.

The Old and the New Testament attest that God has more than once revealed his presence and wills through the word. Adam! and Eve hear his voice in the earthly paradise, and hide from fear. Samuel * awakens three times, at the sound of the voice that calls him. While Jesus Christ is baptized in the Jordan, we hear these words sound from heaven: "This is my Son, in whom I have put all my complacency." The same statement struck the ears of the three apostles in the scene of the transfiguration. And a third time, the Saviour asking his Father to glorify his name by bearing witness to him before the multitude of Jews gathered in Jerusalem for the Passover feast, the voice of the heavenly Father bursts out of heaven like a thunder blow: "I have glorified him, and I will glorify him again."

Jesus Christ, since his glorious ascension, has made more than once his word heard in a sensitive way, for example, to Saint Paul and his companions on the way to Damascus, when he, terrorizing the future apostle of the Gentiles, said to him: "Saul, Saul! Why do you persecute me?" From

1 Gen. m, 9 and 10. — 2 Reg. m, 3-10. — 3 Matt. m, 11. — 4 Matt. AVU, 5. — 5 Joan. xn, 28. — 6 Act. ix, 4, 7.

even to the angelic Doctor, ‘ through the mouth of the crucifix before whom he was prostrated: "Thomas, you have written of me well; what do you want as a reward?" To which the saint replied: "Nothing but you, Lord!" One day, when Saint John of Matha*° prayed before a crucifix in the church of Saint-Victor in Paris, he heard a voice three times saying these words to him from the PROVERBES": "Apply to wisdom, my son, and you will rejoice in my heart."

These sensitive manifestations have often repeated themselves, starting either from the Eucharist or from the images of the Saviour.

Angels, as we have seen, also speak to men in their bodily appearances. It even happens quite frequently that, without appearing, they make heard sensitive words. And Hagar, being driven out of her master's house, wandered into the wilderness, and found no water to quench herself, she and her son Ishmael, and left the child lying under a tree, and slew away at a staves, and sat down against him, saying, I won't see my child die. And there, raising her voice, she began to cry. And God heard the voice of the child, which wept also; and his angel called Hagar out of heaven, and said unto him, "Agar, what are you doing here? Take courage, God has answered the child's weeping. Arise, take your son, and hold him by the hand, for I will make him the ruler of a great people." And at the same time God opened his eyes to the mother; and she saw a well full of water, where she filled her ship and gave it to Ishmael to drink.

At the birth of the Saviour, a multitude of heavenly spirits fill the air with their songs of praise,

1 Guizz. DE THOCO, BB. 7 mart., t. 7 p. 669, n. 35: Thoma, bene scripsisti of me: quam recipies a me pro tuo labe mercedem? Who replied: Domine, not nisi te. — And tunc scribebat tertiam partem Summæ de Christi passione et resurrectione.

3 RIBADENEIRA, Lives of the Saints, 17 Dec., t. 12 p. 238.

11 Prov. xxvn, 11. — 4 Gen. xx1, 14-19.

warn the shepherds of the great news, without however showing themselves to them!.

Before appearing visibly to Joan of Arc, and denouncing to him the mission that God gives him to save France, the archangel Saint Michael makes him hear his VOIX several times.

"It was Jeanne d'Arc herself who spoke; it was her judges who had her words written in the official drafting of her proceedings. She says that "at the age of thirteen (it was postponed to 1495), she had a voice of God who called her. It was a summer day, at noon, in his father's garden. The voice was heard on the right side of the church, and a great clarity appeared to her at the same place; and rarely since then did she hear the voice without her seeing this light at the same time. The first time, she had great fear; but she sat down and found that the voice was worthy; and she told her judges that it was from God. At the third time, she knew it was the voice of an angel. (was, as she later knew, St. Michael's larceny?"

Later, St. Catherine and St.Marguerite will also appear at the Pucelle d'Orléans. Whether it's about the one who changes or the saints, whether she sees them or only hears them, she always calls them her Voices, because they show themselves to her only to speak to her.

What we have reported from the very healthy Virgin and the blessed, is sufficient proof that the words are always mixed, or almost HAUJOUES, with the apparitions.

The souls of purgatory, we have also said, manifest themselves many times in complaining cries, calling the

1 Luke n, 13. 2 hours. WaLLox, Joan of Arc, 1. 1, I, t. 1, p. 86. 3 Jbid.; 1. 7.t. 2, p. 79 and passim.

friends they're asking for help from. More often than not demons and damned ones accuse their presence by the clamors and the words they make heard.

The animals themselves sometimes speak, witness the donkey of Balaam, to whom the Lord opened his mouth, says the Scripture!, to reproach his master for the ill-treatment that he made him suffer.

How do these external sounds happen?

For Our Lord and His Most Holy Mother, who have their own bodies, nothing prevents us from admitting that they naturally articulate the words they address, assuming, however, their personal presence in apparitions.

If it is about God, angels, good or bad, separated souls, one must obviously resort to another interpretation. When these words arise from real appearances, in a human or animal form, one can only assume that the organizing and driving principle of these external forms, whatever it may be, prints to the material elements of which they consist a movement similar to that of our organs in the play of speech. If there is no external vision, the sounds that strike the ears will be due to vibrations of the air, made by a supernatural cause. Spirits do not need organs to produce these purely physical movements ÿ.

There can be no doubt that demons are not the true and immediate cause of the words they make heard.

1 Num. xx, 28-30.

2 Tuyræus, De loc. infestis, ©. 20, n. 7 p. 80: Hine is quod spiritus in voce, clamore, gemitu, risu, cantu formandis, nullis organis, quemadmodum homines, atque animalia quae voces formant, opus habeant. Non indigent ore, non lingua, non palatio, non labiis, non dentibus, queæ in articulata magis voce requiruntur. Non pulmone arteria, live gut, rope, gurgulione cum viginti suis musculis, quae ad alias non ita articulatas necessaria sunt.

3 ScaRAM, Theol. myst. 8,539, schol. 4, t. 2, p. 258: Etiam daemon qui, veluti Dei simia, divina æmulatur, verba humanis similia formare potest... Hæc pleura alia in nostram perniciem diabolus facere potest, ita ut no

More importantly, the same must be said of the faithful angels, who have greater freedom to act on nature. One can even admit the common opinion that, when God, the Savior Jesus, the blessed or suffering souls speak, it is the angels who execute the external vibrations from which the sounds result, although there is no repugnance, we have repeatedly made the remark, that the heavenly spirits are caused only by the words spoken in their name, and that God, Jesus Christ, the saints of heaven and the souls of purgatory produce themselves the words which they speak to the living.

V. — Imaginary words are heard appreciably in the soul, without there being any organic impression outside. They have reality only in the imagination, and yet they resound in the ear of the soul more clearly than if they affected in the body the sense of the ouie.

"These are perfectly distinct words," said Teresis, "but they are not heard from the ears of the body; nevertheless, the soul hears them much more clearly than if they came to it by the senses: one would resist not to hear them, every effort is useless."

Perhaps one wonders how these sensitive and inner words can occur. We answer that they happen in the same way as imaginary visions. Everything that can affect our external senses has its corresponding representation in the imagination?, with this difference that the imagination multiplies

Solum fictitie and apparent, red reipsa sonos excitetet, who voces humanas imitator.

1 His Life, ch. 95.

2 SCHRAM, Th. myst. $542, schol. 1, t. 2, p. 263: Præter modum auditu auris verba articulata percipendi, dantur alii modi verba faciendi et audiendi... Sic in ipsis sensibus externis sensibilia aliter percipit auris audiendo, and oculus videndo. Item in sensebus internis, phantasia sic ima-

objects, while the bodily senses grasp them as they are in reality, and often receive only an imperfect and weakened impression of them.

Although these words are inner, they sometimes seem to come from afar, to descend from heaven, to leave a certain place more or less close, or even to ascend from the heart of the one who hears them, although articulated by a foreign voice!: the Blessed Stephen of Soncino heard a voice that cried out from the bottom of her heart: Charity, charity, charity?

Hence, it is a great difficulty to distinguish these supernatural communications from the truly external ones. The rules we have drawn up for the distinction of body and representative visions come back here. When the same voice sounds to the ears of a certain number, the prodigy must be held to be outer. If, on the contrary, only one hears words that escape entirely from those who are with him, especially if these words are necessary despite the noise from the outside and the efforts that one would make to divert attention, then it is a purely inner fact, and since this fact takes on a sensitive form, it is right to the imagination.

Another pitfall must be avoided, which is to confuse the inner supernatural words with those that come from our bottom. Cardinal Bona thus describes the signs that allow to dispel these two kinds of words. ginatur quasi sic audiat, and aliter imaginatur quasi emptyat, and ita quasi audit and empty, and quidem suo modo perfectius quam sensus externi, quia ad pura and etiam absentia extended, quin tamen interius audiat and emptyat, prout per alios sensus exterius contingit.

1 WATCH Paz, De grad. contemplative. I. 5, P. 3, c. 6,t. 6 p. 570: Sed hec verba, liquet a Deo vel Angelo in ipsa hominis orantis vel contemplatantis imaginante formeur, tamen ita disponuntur ut interdum vacantur

e cælo descendere, interdum juxta audientem vel a longe proferri, interdum ex ipso penetrali cordis assurgere.

2 -MARIE, of the memorable Lives and deeds of the holy and blessed daughters of the Order of Santo Domingo, 1. 3,c. 7 t. 1, p. 698.

"The discourses of our own understanding and imagination," said the author!, "are distinguished from the discourses of God in that, when our natural powers speak, they command and dispose of what they tell us, and it is in our power to turn away from it, when we please. But when it is God who speaks to us, our powers keep silent and listen, and cannot turn away the thought of the things that have been heard or reject them. Moreover, the things that God says are far removed from human intelligence, and he makes so many things heard in such a short space of time that it would be impossible for the human mind to conceive them so quickly. It is yet a sign that God has spoken, if the things that we have heard never come out of memory, if we have not thought of them before we have received them; if we keep a faithful memory, not only of the meaning, but also of all the expressions; if they are in accordance with the Holy Scripture and the doctrine of the Church; if they enlighten the soul, strengthen it and excite it to perfection."

Saint Térèse, to whom Bona borrows all these rules, insists on the last, that of the effects, and presents it as the most decisive: "There is yet another mark, the most obvious of all," she says. "It is that the words that come from the understanding produce no swell, while those that come from God are words and works all together."

VE. — These supernatural talks take place, as well as visions of the same kind, during the night before or during sleep.

In the day before, they occur with or without the suspension of the senses, in the midst of the most absor-

1 Discreet. spirit. c. 8, n. 3 p. 254.. 2 His Life, chap. 3.

as in the silence and contemplation of contemplation!.

The mystics after Saint Teresus make this reservation, that the inner words cannot occur at the highest point of ecstasy, because in this state the soul is passive, and that the play of its impregnated faculties, among which the imagination is placed, is suspended. But let us quote rather Saint Teresus, to which all these authors refer.

"Let us notice it well," she says, "if the soul has these visions or hears these words, it is never, in my opinion, when the delight is at its highest degree. For during this time, as I explained earlier, all the powers of the soul being completely lost in God, she cannot see, listen, or hear. It is then all in the power of others, and during this time, which is very short, it seems to me that God does not leave him any freedom for anything. But once this short time has passed, and the soul perseveres still in delight, then it is that visions and words can occur; for the powers, without being completely lost, remain, however, almost without action; they are as if absorbed, and unqualified to form any reasoning."

According to Bona #, this divine communication by word

1 Voss, Direct. Myst. Comp. ScarAMELLt, 1. 2, p. 2, ©. 2, a. 2, p. 387. In raptuum intervallis autem, quom potentia quaedam et speciatim imaginativa, soluta et ad suas operationses libera reddatur, locutions imaginariæ contingere posunt. Interdum denique audiuntur etiam extra orationem -and contemplationem, dum anima exterioribus operationibus distrahitur et pccupatur.

2 See Scaramelli, Dirett. Mist. Tratt. 4,c. 12, n. 145, p. 300. — SCHRAM, Theol. myst. 8,541, schol. 3, t. 2, p. 261.

# His life, ch. 25.-

4 Discreet. spir. c. 8, n. 3 p. 252: Solet frequentius haec mystica Dei loquela in somno audiri, quia tune anima nullo tumultu, nullis curis exterioribus distrahitur.

The inner part is preferably realized during sleep, because of the deep calm of the soul in this state. And he claims, in support of his assertion, this passage of the NameBres!: "If there is a prophet of the Lord among you, I will appear to him in a vision or speak to him in a dream." "God speaks through dreams, in the visions of the night, while men are in the slumber of sleep and rest on their beds; then he opens the ears of mortals, to make them hear his warnings."

VIE. — To avoid tedious repetitions, we will not dwell on the principle of imaginary words. It is demonstrated, through the accounts of Scripture and the continuous experience of centuries, that God makes men hear his word in the circle of their imagination. Most of the prophetic revelations in a sensitive form were thus consumed in this part of the mind where man collects and combines images of bodies. Our Lord, the Most Holy Virgin, the angels and the blessed, usually show themselves in representative vision only to converse with men. The same can be said of the souls of purgatory, although they appear quite often without uttering any words, showing only by their sad and begging attitude that they come to interest their friends of the earth in their lot. For reproved spirits, it is also constant that they manifest themselves in words, as well as in imaginary visions.

Everything we have said about the personal character of representative apparitions applies to words of the same nature; we do not go back to these discussions.

VIIL. — In addition to the vocal and imaginary words, there is

1 Num. xu, 6. 2 Job, xxxm, 15.

intellectual words, which are heard in the soul without the intermediary of the external or inner senses, and by the direct way of understanding!.

The faculty which understands us, bears without distinction the name of intelligence and that of understanding. It has as its object the being or the affirmed truth; but, as truth is shown and seen by the spirit, it produces the vision, which is the proper act of intelligence; as it affirms and formulates itself, it becomes word, and resolves itself in a fact of understanding or hearing?. Every act of thought, as Saint Augustine says, is an inner word.

It should not, however, be concluded that there is no difference between visions and intellectual words. God gives his manifestations the form he wants: when he appears or presents things as realities upon which man sets his gaze, he offers an object of vision; when he makes statements and formulas, he makes words heard.

The word brings the idea of a being who reveals his thought to another. Sensitive beings come into contact with and trade in thoughts with signs consummated by their nature; pure spirits are obviously freed from this condition, and their language is reduced to a mere view of their reciprocal conceptions. Thus the angels converse. So intellectual words raise souls

1 SCHRAM, $542, t. 2, p. 262: Is proinde locutio pure intellectualis illa quae fae verbis solum intelligibility perceptis, independer a sensu externo auditus, and interno phantasiæ seu imaginatiis.

2 L. pu Ponr, Tract. 1. Duc. spir. c. 22. Intellectus simul is auditus and visus animæ,; auditus is quatenés a Deo accipit instructionem, attenditque quid sibi dictatur; visus est, quatenés illud intelligit et assequitur.

8 From Trinit. 1.15, c. 17, p. 58: And if verba not sound, in suodicut utique rope that cogitat. 5, P. 3, c. 6 p. 571: Hæc autem locutio propria est Angelorum, quae merito aliquado illis animabus communictur in hac es

quae vitam angelicam in territ instituunt.

human beings in the state of pure spirits; or rather, God, through this spiritual language, communicates with the traveling souls in the way he talks with his angels and elect.

"His voice then," said Bona!, "sounds in the silence of the soul, not through the ears of the body, nor through the imagination, but through the whole spiritual virtue of understanding. God speaks to the tip of the soul by a very simple word, and the soul means by a very simple look also of his mind. He speaks to the angels and the blessed, not by any sensitive voice, but by printing in their mind the truth that he has resolved to discover to them; likewise he makes his words heard in the upper part of the soul, spreading there an extremely clear light, within which, without fatigue or disgust, but rather with a very kind rest and a wonderful sweetness, the soul learns more in an instant than she could do by a work of several years."

IX. — For us, who mix our sensitivity to all our concepts, it is difficult for us to hear and explain how this admirable word between God and soul works. Those who heard him barely penetrate the mystery and know how to express it.

"It is such a language of heaven," says Teresus?, "that no human effort can make it understood unless the Lord teaches it by experience. He puts much before in the soul's innermost mind what he wants to make him hear, and there he represents him without image or form of words, but by the same mode as the [intellectual] vision I have just spoken of... It's like he was in our house.

, 1 Discrete. 8, n. 3 p. 253: Tertius modus sublimior est, cum.vox Dei loquentis in silentio ad cor Hierusalem, non aure, non imaginative, sed solo intellectu spiritualiter percipitur. Loquitur enim Deus in apice lied uno simplicitissimo verbo, and anima audit uno simplicitissimo lied intuitu. 2 His Life, ch. 27.

stomach a meat that we would not have eaten, without knowing how it entered us, though some of the fact. By this kind of language, the Lord wants, I believe, to give the soul a certain knowledge of what is happening in heaven where it speaks without words. That such a tongue existed, I had always completely ignored it until it was raining upon the Lord to show it to me in a delight. Thus, from this world, by this alone that God wants to be heard from the soul, God and soul hear, without it being necessary to resort to any other artifice to express their mutual love. Here, two people of mind who love a lot, even hear by signs, only by looking at each other. This is apparently what is happening between God and soul; but we are not given to see how these two lovers each look at the other, by which they express their mutual love, as it is said of the husband and wife in the Songs, according to the interpretation I believe I have heard of it."

The theologians, however, have tried to clarify the mystery of this divine communication, and they reproduce on this point their ways of explaining the intellectual vision.

To the common feeling of the scholastics!, God, Jesus Christ, the angels and the saints cast into the mind intelligible species that respond to their intimate thoughts, and the divine light, spreading over these species, gives full intelligence of the things they want to manifest.

Others think that the preexisting ideas in the mind, illuminated by divine clarity, and combined by God's supernatural operation, can absolutely suffice for the

1 Voss, Direct. Myst. 1. 2, P. 2, c. Two, two. 3 p. 399: Deus si aliquem ser- -vorum suorum locutuibus alloquitur intellectualibus, eique secretum aliquod aut veritatem quamdam patefacit, intellectui illius spiritualem infun-

speciem, quae non solum ipsius conceptum représentat, sed etiam in ipso conspectu dictum secretum aut veritatem protestant.

as with intellectual vision. Cajétan and many others explain in this way the mutual language of angels!. To answer God, his angels and his saints, the soul in turn directs his thoughts and affections to them, and they not only perceive these intimate acts, but she herself knows, with the help of divine enlightenment, that his voice is heard.

One can opt between these solutions, unless one prefers to withdraw in the silence of Saint Teresus. The simplest interpretation, in our opinion, is to see in the intellectual words of judgments formulated by God, angels or saints, and that they direct to the listening soul. It is admitted that, to answer them, the soul presents to their eyes the impressions it feels and the movements it produces; why could it not grasp in the same way, by a view, or rather by an immediate hearing, the words addressed to it? This direct apprehension and the supernaturally widespread divine light in the understanding fully justify the evidence and certainty that characterize these kinds of communications.

As we touch upon the nature and the different degrees of this supernatural illumination, we have nothing to add here to what we have said about the intellectual vision.

1 Suarez, De Angelis, 1. 2, c. 27 n. 12 p. 247: Est secunda (sententia) valde celebris in scholis, quae docet unum Angelum loqui alteri, solum ordinando per voluntatem conceptum and alium, id est volendo ut suum affectionum liberum aut cogitationem suam alter intelligat. Nam per manc solam voluntatem sic patens alteri Angelo non prius erat occultum, et ideo ab illo per species quas habet concreatas statim videri potest, quod ad locutuem sufficit.... Hæc est opinio Capreoli... Sequitur Cajetanus, 1 P., q. 107, a. 1, and multi moderni theologi.

2 Voss, Direct. Myst. 1. 2, p. 2, c. 2, a. 3 p. 399: Quod si anima deinde respondere, and Deum alloqui velit, cogitatus et affectionus suos ad eum dirigit, quos Deus tunc ob directionem istam, non solum modo naturali, sed tanquam animæ verba intelligit, and anima ipsa sese a Deo intelligenti cognoscit.

It is clear that there is no difference in this point of view between visions and words.

This light, we have made the remark again, is exclusively divine; but the voice that speaks and enlightens can be that of God, of Our Lord, of the Blessed Virgin, of the faithful angels, of the saints and even of the demons: everything that is said, everything that is affirmed is echoed in the ear of understanding.

X. — Saint John of the Cross? distinguishes three kinds of supernatural words. He calls successively the words that the mind, gathered and concentrated, speaks to itself through the work of reasoning; formal, those that come from another; and, finally, substantial, those that have the virtue to operate what they express.

Scaramelli* applies this distribution to imaginary words only, while Schram ‘ hears it from intellectual words. The latter seems to us to interpret more faithfully the thought of Saint John of the Cross, as one can convince by referring to the place ® where the Doctor

1 Ch. 4, n. 8.

2 Mounted Carmel, 1. 2, c. 28 p. 140: Although there are several kinds of words, I reduce them to three, to successive words, to formal words, to substantial words.

8 Diret. Mist. Tr. 4, ©. 13, n. 119, p. 301: S. Giovanni della Croce, parlando di queste locuzioni internale soprananaturali, che si formano per mezzo dell-imaginativa, distinguishes him in a species, altre successive chiama, altre formali, ed altre sostanziali.

4 Theol, myst. 8,542, sch. 3,t. 2, p. 264: Quotuplex sit locutio intelletualis? — S. Joannes a Cruce triplicem locutuem mere intellectualem assignat: 1° eam quae fai per verba successiva.....; 2° illam quae fai per verba formalia.....; 3° eam quae fit per verba substantialia.

$ Mounted Carmel, 1. 2, c. 23, p. 114: I will now begin to deal with the four kinds of knowledge of the spirit, which are visions, revelations, inner words and spiritual feelings, which I have called purely spiritual, because they are communicated to the mind, not by the way of the senses, as the bodily and imaginary representations, but by a supernatural way, without any operation of the external or internal senses.

Mystical formulates clearly the summary of the doctrine that he intends to develop. —

Other authors, among others Philip of the Most Holy Trinity! and St. Liguori?, extend this division to all supernatural words, whether vocal, imaginary or intellectual. We believe, indeed, that these three general forms each have their share in the classification of Saint John of the Cross, as we will see in the development that we will make of it.

XI. — The successive words consist in a series of reasonings, by which the soul, under the action and the light of the Holy Spirit, speaks and responds to itself, but with such promptness and ease, that it seems to him that it is another who operates and speaks to him. Let us hear St John of the Cross* describe this kind of inner speech. Co

"The spirit usually forms the words we have called successively, when, having entered into itself, it applies strongly to the consideration of some truth. He absorbs himself entirely there; he then makes very correct reasonings on his subject, with ease, with clarity, with distinction; he discovers things he did not know before. It seems to him that it is not himself who operates, but that it is another who speaks to him, who answers him, who instructs him internally. And, truly, it is necessary to think of it and even to believe it; for he speaks himself with himself, and he answers himself as if a man were with another man. And, indeed, it happens in him in this way, because it is still the spirit.

1 Sum. Theol. mysl. P. 9, Disc. 4, a. 5,t.2, p. 418: Tres sunt mordi divinæ locutitis: completeur enim divina locutio vel verbis successivis, vel verbis formalibus, vel verbis substantialibus.

2 Praz Confess. n. 141, p. 190: Quod vero ad locutions attinet, locutio esse potest successiva, formalis et substantialis.

3 Mounted Carmel, ch. 29 p. 130.

The Holy Spirit often gives him the help of his grace to form thoughts, reasonings and words in accordance with the truth which he meditates. Hence he has spoken these words and said them to himself, as if it were a separate word. For the understanding being united with the truth of the object which he contemplates, being also joined to the divine spirit which helps him, he successively represents the truths which are necessary followers of the object which he considers; but it does so only with the assistance of the Holy Spirit who gives him the opening, who enlightens and teaches him. And this is one of the ways he uses to educate understanding. So that we can apply these words of Genesis here!: "This voice is to the truth Jacob's voice, but these hands are Esau's hands." Likewise this operation is to the truth the operation of understanding; but this light is the light of the divine spirit. Never will understanding be able to persuade himself that what he does comes from himself, but he will always believe that it is the work of another person. For he does not understand eomly he can form words that express the thoughts and truths that another communicates to him."

These words are called precisely successively, as the operations of the reasoning of which they are the fruit.

These inner words are therefore both natural and supernatural: the natural consists in the work of reasoning; the supernatural, in the light that the Holy Spirit casts upon the soul to enlighten and lead it into this work of deduction. The covenant of the divine element with human activity absorbed by reflection presupposes, we understand, the calm of solitude and the silence of prayer. *

1 Gen. xxvx, 22. 2 RicHarp SainT-Vicror, De grad. charit. c. 4. Migne, Patr. lat., 6,

The starting point of this wonderful deduction can be an intimate word which God makes heard, and from which the supernaturally illuminated soul makes spring, with ease which is evident, a series of new thoughts and words; or a divine truth first considered by faith, upon which the Holy Spirit spreads such bright clarity, that the soul not only hears this truth, but also sees with an inducing look a greater or lesser number of other truths that result from or are related to it. The deduced truths are all new statements that seem to the soul affirmed by a voice distinct from itself.

These kinds of concepts or words do not obviously belong to imagination, but to understanding, as the reasoning itself that produces them, and must be seen as intellectual operations.

XIT. — We are very exposed to misunderstand! in successive inner words, and to consider as divine what is only the fruit of human activity without any guarantee other than the rational light that accompanies the natural exercise of the mind. From there, there must be miscounts: imputed not to God, but to man. This is how this illusion occurs.

When the soul deduces from a first truth, by means of

Col. 1206: O dulcis confabulatio Dei in anima, quae sine lingua and labiorum formatur strepitu, quae sine aure percipitur, sed sub Silentio solus qui loquitur et cui loquitur audit illam, a qua omnis alienus excludedditur!

4 PazmP. To SS. Trinit. De grad. Charit. P. 2, D. 4a. 5,t.2, p. 419: Quamvwis autem in hac intellectuali communicatione ac illustratione pure spiritali, secundum se non soleat aliqua daemonis illusio subrepere, ex defectu tamen ipsius animæ potest aliquaando reperiri deceptio; cum enim ipsamet anima sit quae tales format discursus ac rationes deducit, etsi media luce sibi divinitus communitta, quia tamen non illam plene posidet, nec illi perfecte subordinatur, at potius juxta propriom intellectus sui capacitatem ac limitationem utiur lla, sæpe contingit quod in ratioum deductionc et in discursum illatione decipiatur, et sic ex veris principis falsas conclusions colligat.

and through the assistance of divine light, other truths related to it, it leads to certain and truly supernatural statements, if not in itself, at least by the mode that obtains them. But it may happen that the spirit comes out of the ray enlightened by God and returns, without his knowledge, under the simple conditions of natural deduction. Therefore, not only are these operations no longer mystical, but they are subject to human infirmity failures, illusion and error. It would seem that the deductions obtained form the continuation of a first divine word or a truth first considered supernaturally, in the brightness and abundance of the light of the Holy Spirit; in reality, we are no more than purely human conceptions, which may be just, but may also be wrong.

On this so important doctrine, which allows us to explain how sincere souls, and others who imprudently aspire to extraordinary favors!, can abuse in matters of revelations, we must hear St John of the Cross?, who, the first, put it in full evidence.

"Although there is no lie or deception in this communication and in this light of mind considered in themselves, he can nevertheless find it, and indeed he often finds it in the words and reasonings which the understanding forms on this knowledge. For as the light that he receives from above is sometimes so subtle and spiritual that he does not know it perfectly, and as it is himself who reason from his own background, his reasonings are sometimes false and some kind of

1 SCARAMELLI, Dirett. Mist. Tr. 4, ©. 13, n. 151, p. 302. Si noti bene questa dottrina: perchè da questo proviene, che alcune anime di buono spirito che non sono capaci di liere, o di fingere, rimangono ingannate e deluse nelle loro predizioni.

3 Mounted Carmel, 1. 2, c. 29 p. 131.

and always defective, because having begun by contemplation of the truth solid and certain, and using it to operate on its ability, or rather on its rudeness and bassity, it is easy for it to take the change and invent many things, as if it were another that spoke......

"There are spirits so vivid and so penetrating that as soon as they gather to meditate on a truth, they naturally reason with great ease; they form incontinent inner words and very vivid expressions of their thoughts, which, however, they attribute to God, persuading themselves that they come from him, although, indeed, it is only the work of ententeadement. For when understanding has come out in some way of the operation of the senses, it can do all things by natural light alone, and without any extraordinary help. What often happens to many, who abuse themselves by believing that they are raised to a sublime prayer and great communications with God, and who even write or cause to write everything that comes to their mind, although, for ordinary, these so-called wonders do not contain any solid virtue, and are good only to nourish pride and vanity."

The way to discern whether successive words come from God, or whether they are purely natural, is to examine

if the soul is satisfied in this intellectual work, and especially if it is attached to it. God's gifts go to charity rather than to the satisfactions of the spirit. Intimate disturbances, pride uprisings, or too much vanity concerns would accuse a hidden intervention of the demon. The effects that follow these inner words are the surest marks of God's action!.

1 SCARAMELLI, Dirett. Mist. Trat: 4.0. 13. n. 153, p. 303: I contrassegni

Lee SA

Holy Teresis! adds that the soul who will experience divine words will not confuse them with purely human conceptions: "For there is a great difference between each other. When it is the understanding that forms these words, whatever subülity he puts in them, he sees that it is he who arranges them and who utters them. There is as much difference as between composing a speech and hearing it from another. The understanding will see that he does not listen, but that he acts; and the words he forms have something deaf, fantastic, and lack the clarity that accompanies God's words. So we can distract ourselves then, as we are free to remain silent when we speak; but when God speaks, it is not in our power."

XIII. — Formal words do not, like successive words, proceed from the subject which listens and speaks to himself, but from another person. They are called formal because they are expressly formulated out of the mind that hears, instead of the successive words being the very work of the spirit. Since these kinds of words are not the result of subjective and mental work, they do not require the concentration of the soul and can be heard in the silence of prayer, as in the midst of business agitation.

per conoscere quanto the debt word successive vengono da Dio, quando dalla luce dell-intelletto umano, e quando dal demonio, pospono essere i seguenti. Se i predetti concetti e parole interne vadano congiunte con un amore umile e rivento, e con un intimo raccogliamento quieto e pacifico, sarà segno che quello procedono dallo spirito di Dio: perche sono caratteri da cui sono sempere accompanimente le visite del Signore. Quinso poi tali parole risulteranno dalla vivacità dell-intelletto, non porteranno seco il predetto amore, ma al più al più un certo amore naturale, non cosi intimo, non cosi umile, non cosi ossequioso, ad alla fine lascerianno l-anima in una certa indfferenza, non inclinata è al bene, nè al male... Finalizes his word avranno tratta dal demonio la loro origin, dovranno lasciar l'anima poco quieta, tutta arida, e fabatto indisposita al pene: 1 His Life, ch. 95.

We still borrow these notions and remarks from the mystical Doctor, Saint John of the Cross.

"The inner words of the second kind," he says, "are those we call formal." They are supernaturally reborn in the mind, without the operation of the bodily senses, either that the mind is gathered, or that it is not gathered. I have said that these words are formal, because the spirit formally realizes that they are spoken by another, without his contributing to them. It is for this reason that they are different from those we have just mentioned. But this is not the only difference that is found in it; there is yet another, which is that the spirit is struck with these words when he has no recollection, and even when he does not think about it; instead of the contrary happens in successive words; for they always have as their object the things that one considers in meditation."

These words are more or less distinct, more or less multiplied. Sometimes it's a single word, sometimes several times, and even a real conversation between the soul that hears and questions, and the inner voice that speaks and answers.

"Now the words we are talking about now," continues Saint John of the Cross? "are sometimes very distinctly formed, sometimes much less; they are often in the mind as thoughts by which something is told to him, sometimes by speaking to him, sometimes by answering him. Sometimes we hear only one word, sometimes two, and sometimes several words that follow one another. For this conversation sometimes lasts for a long time, either by instructing the soul or by giving with it some matter; nevertheless so that the mind does not act, and

1 Mounted Carmel, 1. 2, c. 30, p. 135. 3 Ibid., p. 136.

that we hear all these words, as if one person were speaking to another. It was as Daniel once experienced, as he himself said (1x, 22), that the angel Gabriel spoke to him; for he uttered words formally and successively in the spirit of this prophet, and he taught him what was to happen in a few years."

These words are expressed in a jet, or successively, in the human way. In any case, it is God's proper to say many things in a few words. "The words of God, " said Saint Teresis, "express in a few words such profound, admirable meanings that we would need a great deal of time, only to put them in order, which shows to the point that such words are divine, not human."

Although St John of the Cross considers formal words only those which are addressed to understanding, while Scaramelli sees them, on the contrary, that imaginary words, it seems to us that this statement embraces all words, whether internal or external, which come from an extrinsic cause. The soul receives from these kinds of supernatural communications through the bodily senses, as we have said above. Imagination, under the influence of an external principle that illuminates and coordinates mental images, can also produce these formal discourses, and, no less obvious, understanding is even more able to grasp such statements. When these words are inner, the way to recognize whether they are expressed in the imagination, or if they are due to a simple intellectual apprehension, is to consider whether these formulas take on a sensitive form, or whether they are presented only by the aspect of truth. In the first case, one feels; in the second, one

1 His Life, ch. 25.

It's only known. In practice, this discernment sometimes presents great difficulties, as a result of the mixture of sensitive and intelligible in human knowledge. XIV. — The distinctiveness of the substantive words is to realize what they state. This effectiveness can be suitable for all kinds of words that we have spoken, for successive and formal, for intellectuals, for imaginations and for atrials; for all these various words can accomplish at the moment what they express, and therefore they are substantial. So when Our Lord said to the paralytic: "Arise and walk!" he said a substantial word. The same is true of all miraculous formulas, whether internal or external, followed by their effect."Although any substantial word is formal, does St John of the Cross teach?, nevertheless any formal word is not substantial, only this one being substantial that truly and truly prints in the soul what it means, as would happen, for example, if Our Lord formally said to the soul: "Be good," and as soon as the soul became good, as if he were still saying: "Love me," and that at the very moment she had felt in herself the substance of love, that is, the true love of God; or if, being appalled with fear, he said: "Do not fear," and that she is now filled with courage, confidence and peace. The reason is that, as the Wise says, "the word of God is almighty;" that is why it actually does in the soul what it expresses. The king-prophet had the same feeling when he said: "He gave virtue, strength, power to his voice." Indeed, God behaved in this manner with Abraham; for when he did

1 Joan. v, 8. —? Mounted Carmel, 1. 2, ch. 31 p. 138. — 3 Eccles. VIN, 4. — 4 PS. Lxvn, 34.

Says! "Walk in my presence and be perfect," this great patriarch was at the very hour brought to perfection; and since that time he kept respectfully in the presence of his Creator. This power is erupted in the words of Jesus Christ, since according to the report of the evangelists, he had only to say a word to heal the sick and to raise the dead. When God says these substantial words to certain people, they act in their souls with the effects of such a great consequence and of such a great value, that they make all the life, all the virtue, all the strength and all the good of these people; for one word of this nature is much more useful than all that they have done in the course of their natural life." _ Holy Teresis expresses the same, and expressly attributes the substantial effectiveness to the vocal, imaginary and intellectual word.

"What do these words come from within, from the upper part of the soul or from the outside, they can all proceed from God, and among the marks to which one can recognize that they are of him, the first and most certain, is the power and the empire they carry with them to operate what they express. I can explain more. A soul is found in the pain and in this inner trouble which I have spoken of above, in the darkness of the spirit and drought; and this few words: "Do not grieve," put her in peace, fill her with light, and dissipate all her sorrows, of which she would not have believed, the moment before, that all the most learned men of the world together were able to deliver her. May a person be in affliction and agitated with a thousand fears, because his confessor or some other told him that what is happening in him comes from the devil, with

1 Gen. xvu, 1. —? Int., 6th Dem., c. 3.

these few words: "It is I, fear not," all is dispelled, and she remains so comforted, that no one would be able to persuade her anything else. Is she worried about the success of some important case: that she hears saying: "Be in rest, everything will succeed," she is completely and reassured and without any pain. The same happens on several other occasions."

Substantial words, by the effect that accompanies them, therefore carry the certainty that it is God who has spoken. That is why this efficiency is particularly suited to intellectual words, the very purpose of which is to persuade the soul. Other words, even those from God, do not always act instantly; sometimes they only bow and communicate great ease to act according to what they state: repugnants, if any, are only momentary, and these intimate words give the strength to overcome them.

The effectiveness of the substantial words indicates enough that God is the principle. The soul can therefore give up without fear to this divine influence.

"As for these words," said St John of the Cross! "the soul has nothing to do with itself and must not flourish to act; but it must humble itself and abandon itself to the conduct of God by freely giving her consent. It must also not refuse God's impressions, nor fear them, nor work to accomplish what is presented to it. God himself does all this in her... These substantial words advance much soul, and help to unite with God; and the more they are inner, the more substantial they are and the more useful they are. Oh, how blessed is the soul to whom God spoke in this way!"

1 Mounted Carmel, 1. 2, ch. 31 p. 139 and 140.

Chapter XVI

Of Revelations

Notion and classification. — Revelations are made by vision, by words or by instinct. — They are public or private: the mystic only deals with the second kind. — Existence of particular revelations. — Scope of the approvals that the Church sometimes gives to them. — Do these revelations impose faith on those who receive them, and on others who come to know them? — Danger of private revelations. — Hence it follows that it is not necessary to desire or demand these kinds of favors. — Even less should it be made the rule of its conduct outside the control of the — Prophecy: its two elements: vision and expression. — The inner enlightenment which it supposes and its degrees. — Prophecy can be fulfilled with or without ecstasy, corn always with calm and dignity. — Value of the prophecy taken in itself. — Difficulties of hearing it well: memorable examples and causes of these false interpretations. — The discernment of spirits. — Its forms and degrees. — Revelations can absolutely have as organs sinners and imperfectes; in general they are the sharing of holiness. — These gifts are not permanent,

I. — Revelations are supernatural manifestations of hidden truths or unknown facts. ‘ It does not matter whether these truths and facts are accessible or inaccessible to reason; it is sufficient for there to be revelation that their knowledge is carried out by an extranatural way.

We need to study this new aspect of God's communications. To know and classify the

1 Paper. To SS. Tran. Sum. Theol. myst. P. 2, Tr. 3, D. 4, a. 4t. 2, D. 413: Dicimus quod revelatio est declaratio alicujus veritatis occultæ sive manifestitio alicujus arcani vel mysterii.

different forms, you have to place yourself in the triple point of view of fashion, destination and object.

II. — We have little to say about fashion, if we do not want to repeat ourselves. The revelations are accomplished in one of these three ways: by vision, by words or by instinct. They're all species.

Instinctive revelations are a form of prophecy that we will talk about later.

What we have said about visions and lyrics is that

turrets are enough to make known how they can be revealing sources. Visions and words are intended to reveal something hidden, and it is under one or the other of these two ways that most revelations are realized. However we have just pointed out a form that does not understand vision or speech; and visions and words themselves may learn nothing by producing only things already known: by which one sees the relationships and differences that exist between visions and words on the one hand, and revelations on the other. It seems superfluous to repeat what concerns the classification of visions and words into organic, representative and intellectual, and to repeat that supernatural manifestations are addressed to the outside senses, to the imagination, or, without any intermediary, to the understanding.

HT.—From the point of view of its destination, revelation is public or private: public, if it is imposed on all and looks at the common utility of the Church; private, when it is made for the instruction and conduct of particular persons.

Dogmatic theology tells of public revelation, especially in the treatises of revealed Religion, theological places and the Faith. Mystical Theology

This work is not to be repeated or controlled. But the particular revelations are expressly part of his domain, and are, therefore, the only ones that must occupy us. THE

IV. — Let us first say that private revelations cannot be questioned. "It is evident, both by Scripture and by approved stories," says Bona!, "that there have always been special revelations, in all ages and in all states of men, from Adam to us." The Scripture and history, in fact, attest together to the existence of many such revelations, and the Christian tradition is as unanimous in recognizing them as it is in respecting them.

Scripture is only a series of revelations, most of which, if not all, were deprived before becoming public. In the old law, the prophets exercised a regular public ministry, not only for the conduct and general interests of the nation, but also for the service and utility of ordinary individuals. Saul? turns to Samuel to find his lost donkeys; Jeroboam's wife uses the prophet Achiasÿ to know what will be the outcome of his son's illness; and so many others.

Saint Paul # attests that the gift of prophecy perseveres in the Church, even after the public revelation is closed, and he shows it to us in exercise in the assemblies of the faithful 5. The book of Acts mentions, on several occasions, prophets to whom God revealed the future and the hidden things; it points out in the Antioch Church of

1 From discr. spir. c. 90, 0. 1, p. 313: Privatas autem de quibus his disserimus, in omni ætate et in omni status hominum semper essesse a primo parente usque ad nos, tum ex sacra Scriptura, tum probatis historiiis evidens est.

2 L Reg. 1x, 18-90. — 8 [IL Reg. xv, 5. — 4 L Cor. x1v, 1. — 6 Ibid., 3-39. — 6 Act. xur, 1.

prophets and doctors, some by their names; further on, it is spoken of the four daughters of the deacon Philip, all prophesies; and, in the same place?, one sees a Jew called Agabus, a prophet himself, who binds his feet with the belt of Paul, saying: "The man to whom this belt belongs will be bound by the Jews in Jerusalem and delivered into the hands of the Gentiles."

The annals of the Church are even richer in such accounts. Among the most famous revelations are those of Saint Hildegarde, Saint Elizabeth of Sconauge, Saint Lutgarde, Saint Gertrude, Blessed Angele of Foligno, Saint Brigitte, Saint Catherine of Siena, Saint Francis Romane, Saint Catherine of Bologna, Blessed Osanne of Mantua, Saint Térèse, Saint Rose of Lima, Saint Madeleine of Pazzi, Saint Catherine of Ricci, Blessed Marguerite-Marie Alacoque, Venerable Mary of Agréda. It would be easy, by going through the series of holy souls in the order of time, to show that the prophecy or grace of revelations is never interrupted in the Church. This permanence, Saint Justin * in the second century, the Angelic Doctor * in the thirteenth, and in his wake the whole School, also affirmed it; and regardless of the facts that are guaranteed, this doctrine continued to us with the same unanimity.

The Church gives the sanction of her authority to these revelations, discussing them and approving them in the canonization trials, without however imposing them or covering them

1 Act. xx1, 9. — 2? Act. 10 and 11.

3 Dialog. cum Tryph. n. 82. Migne, Patr. gr., t. Six, pass. 670: Apud nos enim nunc dona extant prophetica; ex quo et ipsi intelligere debetis, quae apud vos olim fuere, ea in nos esse translata.

4 Sum. 2. 2. q. 174, to. 6, ad 3: Singulis temporibus, non defuerunt aliqui prophetiæ spiritum habentes, non quidem ad novam doctrinam fidei depromendam, sed ad humanorum actuum directionem.

the seal of his infallibility. It is on the revelations made to Blessed Julienne!, Prioress of Mount Cornillon, near Liège, that Pope Urban IV instituted, in 12692, the feast of the Most Holy Sacrament. For a long time, this saint had a vision that no one could explain to her. She never went into a prayer without seeing the moon in its fullness, with a slight breach. God finally made him know that the moon meant the militant Church, and that the echancture marked the defect of a special solemnity in honor of the divine Eucharist. The devotion, today universal, to the sacred Heart is due to the admirable manifestations of the Saviour to the Blessed Marguerite - Mary.

Let us also point out the implicit declaration of the Council of Trent in favour of particular revelations, when it fulminates the anathema contes anyone who dares to claim absolute and infallible certainty about his predestination, unless, adds the Holy Council, of a special revelation, recognizing by the way that God can reveal this secret to a soul.

Y.—However, if the Church takes private revelations under her protection, she does not assume responsibility for the facts and doctrines that they state. Approving, for example, the revelations of Saint Hildegarde, Saint

1 BB. 5 April, t. 40, p. 457, n. 6: Tempore juventutis suæ, quotiens Christi virgo Juliana orationi incumbebat, magnum sibi signum and mirabile apparebat. Apparebat, inquam, ei luna in suo splendore, cum aliquantula tamen sui sphærici corporis fractione: quam cum mullo tempore conspexisset, mirabatur multum, ignorans quid illa protenderet.. Tunc revelavit ei Christus, in luna presentem Ecclesiam, in lunæautem fractione, defectum unius solemnitatis in Ecelesia figurari, quam adhuc volebat in terres a suis fidelibus celebarri. Hanc autem suam esse voluntatem, ut. instituio Sacramenti Corporis et Sanguinis sui quolibet anno semel solemnius ac specialius recoleretur quam in Cœna Domini.

2 Sess. 6, can. 16: If quis magnum illud usque in finem perseverantiæ donum se certo habiturum absoluteta et infallibili certitudine dinerit, nisi hoc ex speciali revelatione didicerit, anathema sit.

Brigitte, of Saint Catherine of Siena, of Saint Teresus, she does not pretend to impose them; she only wants to recommend them to the respect of the faithful, and authorizes their disclosure and reading. Turrecremata!, indicating the scope of the approval granted to the revelations of Saint Brigitte, declares that there has been nothing found contrary to the doctrine of Scripture and the Fathers, and that they can therefore be read as the books of other doctors, the stories and legends of the saints are read. Benedict XIV?, whose authority in these matters is not exceeded, sees in these kinds of approvals only a license to propose these revelations as probable and worthy of the pious claim of the faithful. And, generalizing the question, Cardinal Bona * says that, for things that are believed to have been written by spiritual persons, they should not be believed to be so approved that they have to adhere to it with a certainty of faith, but only to be accepted as probable.

It is clear from all the above that there are particular revelations worthy of respect, and we can conclude, with the learned and pious Louis de Blois*, that reject them all indiscriminately, as if

1 Rev. S. Brigit. Prolog. D. J. Card. of TURRECREMATA, C. 4: Si bene et diligenter ac pio studio, sicut Sanctorum dicta solita sunt legi, et pertractari intelligentur, nihil continent quod intellectum habeat adversum sacræ Scripturæ, aut doctrinæ sanctorum Doctorum ab Ecclesia approximationum; aut ita alienum ab exemplis Sanctorum sit quod pias valeat offendere aures.

2 Servor. Dei beatif. 1. 2, c. 32, n. 11,t. 9, p. 187: Sciendum is approvedem istam nihil aliud esse quam permissionem ut edantur ad fidelium institutionem and utititatem post maturum exam; siquidem hisce revelationibus taliter approximations, licet non debeatur nec possit adhiberi assensus fidei catholicæ, debetur tamen assensus fidei humanæ, juxta pru- ‘lentiæ regulas, juxta quas nempe tales revelationses sunt probabiles pieque credibiles.

3 Discrete. 20, n. 1, p. 313: Quae vero circumferuntur a sanctis viris et mulieribus scriptæ, non ideo-approbatæ censentur, ut illis certitudine fidei astentiamur, sed ut ut eas tanquam probabiles recipiamus.

% Spiritual Monile. Præf., p. 586: Præmonendus reader is, do perver-

of vain rèveries, would be to show little spirituality and humility; it would be to ignore the brightness and usefulness of the Church. This severe reproach of presumptiveness and absence of a Christian spirit can only be mitigated by attributing such prejudices and denials to ignorance and lightness.

VI. — After the question of existence comes the question of authority. Do private revelations, assuming they are well established, command faith, and to what extent?

First, it cannot be doubted that they do not impose on those who receive them, as soon as they have recognized with certainty their divine character.' It is an intolerable disorder that God deigns to speak to the creature, and that the creature refuses to hear his word or to adhere to it. Moreover, as we have already observed, the public revelations themselves begin by being personal; if he who receives divine confidence can at his will give him or deny him his faith, much more so.It will be dispensed from promulgating it, and it will therefore be necessary for God to use thunder to speak to men.

Are these particular claims part of the formal object of faith, and is the adherence given to them an exercise of this virtue? On this point, there is sharing among theologians?. The most common opinion, that

sum quorumdam hominum judicium sequatur, which, revelations ac visiones divinas ceu vanissima somnia contomnendo, parum spirituales and bumiles ess ostensient. Only enim parvipendendæ sunt revelationses divinitus exhibitionæ, quibus Ecclesia Dei mirifice illuminatur.

1 DE Luco, De virt. Fidei div. Disp. 1. Sector 11, n. 229, p. 57: Si vero loquamur de illo, cui revelatio privatita immediate fit, non vietur negari possesse, quod aliquando et non raro teneatur illam et objectum revelatum credere.. If vero adsint motiva talia, ut non posit pruder dubitari, debet positive credere, alioquin erit gravis irreverentia in Deum, cui loquenti and sufficiente suam loquutionem proponenti ad demandam hominis fidem, illam non possumus negare.

2? De Luco, De virt. Fidei div. Disp. 1. Sector 41, n. 225 and 226. Prima sententia negat pertinere ad objectum formale nostræ fidei privatas revelatio-

Suarez! calls it true, says that by giving his assent to these revelations, one makes an act of theological virtue of faith, just as when one adheres to Catholic dogmas.

The condition of those who know the particular revelations through human testimony is not absolutely the same. In general, they are not bound to inform themselves of the value of these revelations; and as long as their minds float in uncertainty, they must not and cannot make an act of faith. The greatest number thus escapes the obligation to believe. Several theologians even believe that this obligation never exists, or that very rarely, among others, Lugo* who nevertheless excludes those to whom God would make express wills signify on his part, with sufficient grounds of credibility. This grave author adds {that, if it is permitted not to give his faith, it is never to contradict without reason, and that doing so would be guilty of serious irreverence towards the word of God.

I'm not sure. Secunda sensia communior jam docet omnem revelationem Dei suffcienter propositam pertinere ad objectum nostræ fidei, sive privata sit, sive publice ab Ecclesia proposita.

1 De Fide. Disp. 3. Sector 10, n. 2, p. 90: Hæc sententia mihi vidtur omnino vera.

2 Suarez, De Fide. Disp. 3. Sector 10, n. 7 p. 93: Respectu vero aliorum, rara is obligatio; no is impossibilis.

3 Virt. Fidei div. Disp. 1. Sector 41, n. 298, p. 57: In hoc puneto distinguishundum emptyur: possumus enim loqui de ipsomet cui fit immediate revelatio, vel de aliis ad quos postea ejus notitia derivatur. Loquendo ergo non de ipso, sed de aliis, credo, communiter loquendo, numquam aut rarissime obligari ad credendum positive revelationem, vel objectum revelatum, quandiu manet intra terminos revelationis privatie and non proponitur ab Ecclesia.. Unde no est sermo nunc de revelatione alicui immediate facta ad hoc, ut id ex parte Dei alteri etiam privatim nuntiaret: tunc enim occurrentibus motivis sufficientibus, credere teneretur positive is etiam ad quem mandate vel nuntium illud deferretur, quia jam tune Deus saltem per nuntium loqueretur illi and demandet ab eo fidem.

% Ibid., n. 231, p. 58: Quamvis autem ii strong non-binding positive ad assensum, obligantur tamen ad non dissentiendum, quia dissensus

More commonly, it is admitted that particular revelations, sufficiently guaranteed by witness or miracle, are binding on anyone who knows them with certainty; and it is still the most common feeling? that this adherence becomes an act of theological and divine faith. The reason seems simple and decisive. Faith is the assent that we give to the word of God by the motive of its sovereign truthfulness; but this dual condition is fulfilled both in private revelations and in public revelations; in one and the other case, God speaks, and man adheres to this word because it comes from God.

VII. — If particular revelations are precious, they are no less full of peril. Irrespective of the gruesome complacencies that they can raise in the soul, they are dangerous by the surprises to which they expose and by the difficulty of hearing them in their true sense.

The disappointments are easy and multiplied in fact by revelations, and in general in all these extraordinary ways. They may come from the deceptive mind or even be natural illusions, and it is often very difficult to discern the true source of these facts. The wise and many rules drawn by the spiritual authors to demere the divine of the evil and

redundaret in magnam irreverentiam divinii testimonii coram ipsis sufficienter exhibitioniti.

1 BoxaL, Fid Tract, n. 50, 112 ed., t. 2, p. 26: Alii tamen communiter contrarium propugnant. Eo quod enim revelatio ad ipsos non pertineat, sequitur quidem eos non teneri credivitatis monumenta experterc. At, if ipsis affulgant, v. g., so emptying miraculum inditubitant divinium in illius revelationis confirmationem, tunc positivum assensum exigit debita divinæ auctoritati reverentia.

2 Kizsen, Theol. Wirceburg. de Fid. theol. n. 451 and 152, t. 4 p. 131: Questio mota præcipue versatur circa suffcientiam revelationis privatie, suffcienteer propositæ.. Thomistæ communiter eam sufficere ad fidem theologicam negant; alii communius affirming.

of the human, do not prevent hesitation or contempt; and the directors of souls must exercise extreme caution here, for the number of doubtful and suspicious revelations far outweighs, according to St. Liguori!, that of the true and certain.

The divine origin of revelations would be well-known, but it remains to interpret them well; and it often happens that it is misinterpreted. The Scripture presents more than one example of these kinds of errors. Thus Our Lord, speaking to his disciples of the death of Lazarus, said to them: "Lazarus, our friend, sleeps; but I will awaken him from his sleep.""If he sleeps, answer the disciples, 1 is saved." Jesus spoke of the sleep of his death, and they heard natural sleep. Then the Saviour openly said to them: "Lazarus is dead*." On another occasion, the Jews asked him for a sign of his mission, Jesus Christ answered them, showing them his body, the most august of the shrines: "Destroy this temple, and I will rebuild it in three days."* What the Jews interpreted of the material temple, and they made it one of the subjects of accusation in the court of Caiaphas {.

VIT.—From these difficulties inherent in revelations, mystical authors draw practical conclusions that it is important to gather.

The first is that we should not wish or ask for these kinds of graces. All the masters and saints agree on this point. The safest way, according to Saint

1 Praxis confess. n. 142: Ipse cautissime semper procedat, imo utatur sapientiorum consilio, quiniam, ut plurimum, tales revelationses dubiæ sunt and suspectæ.

2 Joan. x1, 11-14. — $ Joan. n, 8-11. = + Maith. xxvi, 61.

$ Box, Discreet. Spirit. ©. 20, n. 2, p. 314: Ideo viri sapientes unanimi consensu hortantur, nes quis deditus studio orationis revelationses a Deo postulet aut desideret, sed eas potius rejiciat exemplo Sanctorum, quos legimus dixisse se indignos visionibus esse, sibi sufficere peccata sua plangere, and Christum ac beatos spiritus in futuro sæculo vidcre.

Bonaventure!, is not to seek these favors, and accept them only with distrust. Alvarez de Paz? says that the desire for apparitions, revelations and all these extraordinary things is greatly reckless and guilty, because it is commonly derived from pride, curiosity or a lack of faith. We have already pointed out this important rule, in dealing with contemplation, and we will have to return to it in the third part, when we will examine the sources of the supernatural phenomena of mysticism. But there is one point on which it is important to insist here.

According to Saint John of the Cross and several others, it is not permissible to ask God, either directly or through another, for supernatural knowledge that can only be obtained by miracle. "Although the search for delights and sensitive tastes is doimageable to the soul," he says, "I nevertheless believe that the will to know things by a supernatural way is much more pernicious to her; and when she arrived at the state of perfection, and she desires this knowledge for good ends, I do not see how she can be excused for sin, at least venial, nor the director who orders her to apply herself to acquire these lights, or who consents that she works there."

1 Profect. Religion. 1. 4, c. 77, t. 12 p. 437. Aliis autem videtur esse securius talia non quarerere, oblateis non cito credere, deceptionis caveam cavere. Discreetly. 5, Ind. 4, t. 6 p. 670: Appearitionuw, and revelationum, and raptuum, and aliarum rerum hujus generis appetitus is valde temerarius atque culpabilis. Nascitur namque communiter ex superbia, quas quis putat ses supernaturalibus dignum; ex curiositate, qua cupit insolita and nova experiri; atque ex defectu aut tepore fidei, cui, quia communia veritatis testimonia minimal, ex hominis culpa, suffciunt, aliis extraordinariis vult ad firmius asentiendum excitari..

8 See Boxa, De discr. spirit. c. 20, n. 2, p. 313. - Voss, Direct. Myst. Compend. SCARAMELLI, 1. 2, P. 2, c. 3 p. 406.

4 Mounted Carmel, 1. 2, c. 21, p. 101.

It should not be concluded that God sometimes accepts these unscrupulous requests. According to Saint John of the Cross! Again, it is out of condescendence for the weakness of these souls that he responds to their desires. After quoting Saul's example, referring to Samuel, the same author adds: "These examples, and many others that I leave, prove that God sometimes condescends to our desires, with indignation against us; that it is nothing more dangerous than to use these means with him, and that confusion and sorrow fall upon those who hold this pernicious method. That if someone still mentions these things, his experience will finally compel him to confess that I am right in fighting them."

IX. — A second practical conclusion of even greater importance is that it is not necessary to act after the particular revelations, unless they have been subject to control and have received the approval of legitimate authority. - This has been the conduct of all the saints, and this is the unanimous teaching of the doctors. In particular, Saint Térèse urged his daughters never to depart from this rule.

"If the words you hear," she said to them*, "have the marks I have spoken of, we can make sure that they come from God. However, if it is an important thing for you or something that interests the neighbor, not only do nothing, but do not even stop at the thought of doing nothing without the advice of a learned, prudent and virtuous confessor; and this, though you heard the same words several times and it is

1 Mounted Carmel, 1. 2, c. 21, p. 101: Why then, you will tell me, does God respond to the requests of these people? First of all, I do not deny that sometimes it is the demon who answers them. Secondly, I say that when God speaks to them himself, he wants to satisfy them because of their weakness.

2 Jbid. 1.2, c. 21, p. 103.

8 Int., 6° Dem., c. 3.

You can see that they come from God. For this is the will of Our Lord; and it is not lacking in what she commands us, since he told us to look upon our confessor as holding his place and speaking to us in his name. We will have more courage to overcome the difficulties, if any, and Our Lord will inspire the confessor the same assurance and firm conviction, when he judges it appropriate, that these words come from his spirit. If this happens otherwise, we are not obliged to do anything more. But doing something other than what I have just said and referring to his own feeling is, in my opinion, a very perilous conduct, and I warn you, my sisters, from Our Lord that this never happens to you. "

More importantly, we must not follow, without resorting to those who rule in the Church, revelations that tend to dispense with a vow or a serious obligation; and, in general, directors and doctors will act wisely by proving themselves difficult for the practical applications of particular revelations.

Cardinal Bona drew up precise and strict rules in this regard, which he justified by the monstrous excesses of illuminism in the different ages of the Church. "It is indeed to be desired," he said, "that all learn by these examples, but mainly those who have undertaken the conduct of souls, to close the entrance to private revelations and not be easy to approve them, unless they are confirmed by miracles or by testimonies of the Holy One."

1 De discr. spir. ©. 20, n. 2, p. 314: Atque utinam hinc discant omnes, illi præsertim qui animas regendes suceperunt, aditum claudere privatis revelationibus, nec illis facile assentiri, nisi aut miraculis, aut sacræ Scripturæ testimonis confirmur, sicut Canon Innocentii IT præscribit. Majorem vero animadversionem small illæ queæ dispensationem ab aliqua lege, vel a voto continere dicuntur, etc.

Writing, according to the rule that Innocent III! gave to this subject. These, above all, require special attention, which is said to contain an exemption from any law or vow. For though God may change the laws of which he is the author, as does St Bernard?, and he has indeed changed some, as when he commanded the Jews to take away the remains from Egypt; whom he commanded Abraham! to immolate his son; whom he inspired a prophet * to force another prophet to strike him and to hurt him; or, which he instructed Hosef to take a woman who was undefiled to have children; where there are so many dispensations upon which the interpreters of Scripture tell him loudly; nevertheless, if revelations are revealed. It seems to allow similar things, there should be no faith, unless it was very clear from the gift of discernment of the spirits that it is God himself who speaks and reveals, and that this was confirmed by the divine witness of true and approved miracles. Since the obligation to keep the law is very certain, an obvious certainty of the exemption is necessary to illustrate this.

"We must then, in accordance with the rules which the holy Fathers have given us on this matter, submit the case to the pastors of souls, and, in more or less serious circumstances, resort to the sovereign pontiff, to whom Jesus Christ gave the supreme power to bind, to deer, to dispense when there is a just cause of dispensation. And no one should easily add debt to these kinds of dispensations, or use them, if they do not come from legitimate authority; otherwise, as Cajétan notes very well, it is to open the way to disobedience, to dissoluteness, and to a lack of confidence.

4 Cap. Gux Ex INSUNCTO, from Hæreticis. 2 De Præcepto et Dispens. c. 3,t.1, D. 423. — 8 Exod. xu, 35, 36. — Gen. XXI; 22 — SI Reg. XX, 35, 37. 6 Os. +, 2:

and to other excesses, those who would allow such disorders to hold that they are driven there by divine revelation. In the law of grace, we do not read that no revelation has been made to exempt anyone from the common law, regardless of the prelates of the Church, to whom Our Lord has entrusted the power to dispense."

X. — From the point of view of the supernaturally revealed object, revelation includes prophecy and discernment.

I'm not sure what you think.

The prophecy embraces a twofold element: a supernatural knowledge and the manifestation of this connaissence!. As they discover through the inner gaze of hidden things, the prophets are called voyanTs!; as they declare to others what they see, they are PRo-PHÈTES, a word that means to speak in advance®, because their revelations usually concern the future.

The expression of prophecy can be done by words or deeds. The first mode is the most ordinary. When the manifestation occurs through acts, it is necessary that the word intervene to reveal this figurative meaning, unless God is supplanted by an inner revelation. We would not have known that Jonah in the belly of the whale announced Our Lord in his sepulchre, if Our Lord had not taught us. Who would have seen, without the express indication of the Evangelist, in the circumstances

$1 S. Tromas, Sum. 2. 2. q. 171, a. 1: Prophetia primo and principaliter consistit in cognitione, quia videlicet prophetæ cognoscunt ea quae sunt procul et remota ab hominum cognitione... Prophetia secundario consistit in locutione, prout prophetæ ea quae divinitus edocti cognoscunt, ad edificationem aliorum enuntiant.

2 S. Ismore from Seville, Etymolog. 1. 7, c. 8. Migne, Patr. lat., t. 82, col. 283: Who autem a nobis prophetæ, in veteri Testamento VIDENTES appellabantur, quia viebant ea quae caeteri non vibantbant, ct perceptivebant ea quae in mysterio abscondita erant.

- I'm a Greek, a gnul.

The legal of the Passover Lamb whose bones were not to be broken, the prophecy of the Victim of Calvary, to whom the one would not break his legs like the others who had been supplanted?

Prophecy can be formulated at the very inoment where intimate revelation is fulfilled ‘, as is seen more than once in the predictions of Scripture; but this simultaneousity is not necessary; when revelation takes place during sleep or in ecstasy, most often then the expression is only made after one has returned to normal state.'

Considered as revelation and taken in its generality, prophecy extends to all knowledge beyond man's natural reach and embraces the universality of things. His field is the same as that of the divine light, which penetrates all of his rays, God.

1 Suarez, De Gralia. Proleg. €3. 5, n. 32, t. 7 p. 160: Iloc ostendit experientialia, nam Prophetæ recordabantur eorum quae prophetaverant et postquam ea verbo prædicaverant, potant ea scribee. Imo, interdum, priusquam verbis.illa proferrent, eorum revelationem accepiebant, and post aliquod tempus illa enuntiabant.

2 S. THomas, Sum. 2. 2. q. 171, a. 3: Manifestatio queæ fit per aliquod lumen ad omnia illa se extendere potest queæ ïlli lumini subjicuntur.... Cognitioautem prophetica est per lumen divinum, quo possunt omnia cognosei tam divina quam humana, tam spiritualia quam corporalia, and ideo revelatio prophetica ad omnia hujuscemodi is extended. Considerandum tamen est quod, quia prophetia est de his quae procul a nostra cognitione sunt, tanto aliqua magis ad prophetiam pertinent, quanto longius ab humana cognitione existunt. Iorum autem is triplex graduated. Quorum unus esteorum quae sunt procul a cognitione hujus hominis sive secundum sensum, sive secundum intellectum, non-autem in cognitione omnium hominum. Secundus autem graduated is eorum queæ excedunt universaliter cognitionem omnium hominum, non quia secundum se non sint cognoscibilia, sed propter defectum cognitionis humanæ, sicut mysterium Trinitatis... Ultimus autem graduated est eorum queæ sunt procul ab omnium hominum cognitione, quia in seipsis non sunt cognoscibilia; ut contingentia futura, quorum veritas non est determinata. And quia quod is universaliter and secundum se, potius is es quod is particulariter and per aliud, ideo ad prophetiam propriessime

pertsæt revelatio eventuum futurorum: unde et nomen prophetiæ sumi vietur.

and the creatures, the world of spirits, and the world of bodies, all the successions of time, and all the points of space.

Because of the difficulty, a gradation can be established in this supernatural knowledge. To the lowest degree come those that man is able to acquire by his own forces, but to which, in fact, he only arrives by miracle. Thus, when Pope Saint Pius V learned by revelation, in Rome, of Lepante's famous victory, at the very moment when God granted this success to Christian weapons, Don Juan and his soldiers saw with their eyes what the absent pontiff could only know by supernatural illumination. The second degree includes the truths that surpass all human intelligence, such as the mysteries of the Trinity and the Incarnation. But, above all, are the unrealized things, which exist only in the thought and decrees of God. Now, the more distant one thing is from human knowledge, as Bona says, ‘after the Angelic Doctor, the more it belongs to prophecy in its own right; therefore this denomination is especially suited to the knowledge of the future contingents, who are completely out of the reach of our mind, both because of their darkness and because these things are not determined, neither in themselves nor in the next causes from which they must arise.

Thus, according to the remark of Saint Gregory, the prophecy,

1 From discr. spir. c. 17, n. 2, p. 292: Quo vero longius ab hominum notitia res aliqua distat, eo magis pertinet ad prophetiam; atque ideo, eorum quae spiritu prophetico cognosci posunt, diversi sunt graduated. And primo quidem ac magis proprie prophetiæ nomine notitia futurorum quotaium intelligitur: haec enim a nostra cognitione remotissima sunt, tum propter eorum obscuritatem, tum quia nec in ipsis, nect in suis proximis Causis determinata sunt.

2 Homil. in Ezech. 1. 1. Hom. 1. Migne, t. 76, Col. 786: Prophetiæ tempora tria sunt, scilicet præteritum, præsens and futurum. Sed sawnum is quod in duobus temporibus prophetia etymologiam lost. Quia cum ideo

In its generality, embraces the three times: the past, the present and the future; but it loses its etymology at two of these times, being thus called only because it predicts the future. This name, when it speaks of the past and the present, no longer has its raison d'être.

XI.—Whether it is taken in all its sound — vast or in its own narrow sense, prophecy presupposes a mterial illumination ‘ that shows or makes heard the things naturally hidden, at least enough to be uttered. To raise the mind's gaze to the divine things that are the object of prophecy, one must obviously have a light in connection with this object, as St. Thomas expressly teaches.

The prophetic enlightenment is a measure of the very knowledge of the things she discovers. The prophet hears more or less the things he announces: the more the intelligence he has is extended, the more enlightenment the product is excellent. When he sees, speak ow works with a full understanding of his vision, his words, his actions, the prophecy is then perfect. If he doesn't hear

prophetia dicta sit quod futura prædicat, quando de præterito vel præsenti loquitur, rationem sui nominis amittit, quoniam non prodit quod venturum est, vel ea memorat quae transacta sunt, vel ea quae sunt.

1 S. Tnomas, Sum. 2. 2. q. 171, to. 1, ad 4. In prophetia requires quod. intentio lied elevetur ad percipienda divina... Hæc autem elevatio intentionis fit Spiritu sancto movente.. Postquam: autem intentio lies elevata is ad superna, percipit. divina. Sic igitur ad. prophetiam requires inspiratio quantum ad liens elevationem, secundum illud Job (xxx, 9): Inspiralio Omnipotentis dat intelligentiam; revelatio autem quantum ad ipsam perceptionem divinorum; in quo perficitur prophetia and per ipsam removetur obscuritatis and ignorantiæ velamen.

2 Jbid., a. 2. Dicendum quod sicut Apostolus dicit (Eph. v, 13): Omne quod manifesteur lumen est, quia videlicet sicut manifestitio corporalis visionis fit per lumen corporale, ita etiam. manifestitio visionis intellectualis fit per lumen intellectuale. Oportet ergo quod. manifestitio propouutionetur lumini per quod fit, sicut performed proportionatur suæ causæ. Cum ergo prophetia pertineat ad cognitionem, quae supra naturalem rationem existit, consequens est quodiad prophetiam En quoddam. lumen intellectuale excedens lumen. natanalis rationis,.

point what he sees, says or represents, but that he nevertheless feels under the supernatural action of the Holy Spirit, enlightenment, and consequently prophecy, are less perfect. The last degree is d'agiv or to speak prophetically without even knowing that one gives in to supernatural excitation. This is what theologians call prophetic instinct.

The word is from St Augustine, * who applies it in part to the unconscious prophecy of Caiaphas, and in another place to the predictions of astrologers, which are sometimes true; from where he concludes that men are sometimes driven by a secret instinct to state, without their knowledge, facts and truths that they do not know. Thus the prophets can ignore what they predict and even predict; but then the prophecy is imperfect: it is all the higher, LL is accompanied by more light.

XII. — It can be seen how much Montan and his followers ‘ abused by pretending that the act of prophecy takes away from the

1 S. Tomas, Sum. 2. 2. q. 173, a. 4. Cum ergo aliquis cognoseit se moveri a Spiritu sancto ad aliquid æstimantum vel significandum verbo vel facto, hoc proprie ad prophetiam pertinet: cumautem movetur, sed non cognoscit, no est perfecta prophetia, sed quidam instinctus propheticus.

- What? From Genes. Ad bed. 1. 12, c. 22, p. 606. Vigilantibus etiam, neullo morbo aflictis nec furore exagitatis, occulto quodam instinctu, ingestas esse cogitationes, quas promendo divinarent, non solum aliud agents sicut Caiphas pontifex prophetavit (Joan. x1, 51), cum ejus intentio non haberet voluntatem prophetandi, verum etiam id suscipientes, ut divinandi modo aliquid dicerent, novimus.

8 Ibid., 1. 2, c. 17, p. 218: Ideoque fatensim est, quando ab istis vera dicuntur, instinctu quodam occultissimo diici, quem nescientes humanæ mentes patiluntur.

# S. Hxerox., In Isaiam. Prol. Migne, t. 24, col. 19. Neque vero, ut Montanus cum insanis femis somniat, Prophetæ in ecstasi sunt locuti ut nescicrent quid loquerentur, and, cum alios erudent, ipsi ignorant quid dicerent.

Ibid., 1. 1.in heading. 1. col. 93: Ex quo Montani deliramenta conticier, qui in ecstasi et cordis amentia Prophetas putat ventura dixisse: neque enim empireur potter quod ignorabant.

prophets the calmness of the mind, the use of reason and all the awareness of what they announce. According to them, one could prophesy only in the insanity and fury of their decorations with the name of "extase"; a gross mistake that Tertullian, a supporter of the Montanist heresy, tried to temper, hearing this dementia of ecstasy itself. The holy doctors have constantly contradicted this false and bizarre assertion, relying on the data of faith, reason and experience, and they have looked at mind disorder, violence and fury as signs of the evil and false prediction?. True and divine prophecy excludes such disorders, and offers nothing but worthy and suitable ÿ.

However, it can be accomplished with or without the suspension of the senses. In external and intellectual visions and words, ecstasy rarely accompanies prophetic revelation. When Moses 5 saw the bush burning and heard the voice of the Lord, when Isaiah made Ahaz the

1 De anima, c. 45, p. 345: Hanc enim vim ecstasim dicimus, excessum

sensus, and mind like.. 2 S. Carysosr. In 1 Cor. Hom. 29, n. 1. Migne, t. 61, col. 241. So that abreptus esset a spiritu immundo and vaticinaretur, quasi abductus sic ille trahebatur a spiritu vinctus, nihil sawns eorum quae dicebat. Hoc enim divinatori propriom est, ut mente excedat, vim patiatur, pellatur, trahatur quasi furens: Propheta vero non sic, sed cum vigili mente, cum temperanti constitutione, illa sawns quae dicit, omnia loquitur. Itaque etiam ante eventum hinc internosce vatem and prophetam.

3 S. Taomas, Sum. 2. 2. q. 173, a. 3. Talis enim alienatio a sensibus non fit in prophetis cum aliqua inordinatione naturæ, sicut in arreptitiis, vel in furiosis, sed per aliquam causam ordinatam, vel naturalem, sicut per somnium, vel spiritualem, sicut per contemplationem...; vel virtute divina rapiente, secundum illud (Ezech. 1, 3): Facta is super eum manus Domini. D. 8, sect. 4, n. 2, p. 231: Advertendem is non negari a nobis prophetas interdum in extasi and alienatione a sensibus recipire propheticas revelationes..; sed dicimus eos qui vere prophetæ sunt, etiamsi extasi illuminantur, vere nihilominus intelligere quid sibi reveletur,

alias non essent vere illuminati a Deo, sed tanquam instrumenta mortua ses haberent.

5 Exod. m, 2-4. — 6 Is, vn, 14.

The prophecy of the Virgin Mother; that Joseph! explained to Pharaoh the dream of the seven cows and the seven ears; that Daniel interpreted the dreams of Nebuchadnezzar? and the vision of Balthasar ÿ, there is no indication that these servants of God were delighted out of themselves. Imaginary prophecy alone usually carries with it the suspension of meanings, to this extent at least as much as at the same time of the inner vision or hearing, the soul was abstracting external things to attach itself to the object manifested to the imagination. *

However, Cardinal Bona* points out that the perfect judgment of a prophetic vision is not made during the transport of the soul, because then the senses, which play such an important role in our thinking, are not actionable; it is when man is awakened from sleep or ecstasy that he knows and discerns what he has seen before in the light.

XIIL.—To appreciate the value of prophecy, one must distinguish between the prophecy itself and its interpretation.

The prophecy, taken in itself and supposedly divine, cannot be false. God, who reveals and affirms, is free from error in his knowledge and word. The question

1 Gen. x11, 25-32. — 2 Dan. n, 28-45; 1V, 16-24. — 3 Jbid., v, 25-99.

4 S. Tuomas, Sum. 2. 2. q. 173, a. 3: When fit revelatio prophetica secundum formas imaginarias, necesse is proud abstractionem a sensibus, ut talis apparitio phantasmatum non referatur ad ea quae exterius senteuruntur. Sed abstractio a sensibus quapoque fit perfecte, ut scilicet nihil homo sensibus percipiat; quanoque autem imperfecte, ut scilicet aliquis percipiat sensibus, non tamen plene discernat ea quae exterius percipit ab his quae imaginable videt.

S Discrete. spir. ©. 17, n. 3 p. 294: Perfectum autem prophetæ visionis judicium non in ipsa abstractee fit, quia tunc ligatus est sensus, qui est principalpium nostræ cognitionis: sed cum homo a somno sive ab ecstasi excitatur, quae prius vierat superno lumina illustatus, intelligence and discernit.

6 S, Taomas, Sum. 2. 2. q. 171, a. 6. Prophetia is quaedam cognitio intellectui prophetæ impressa ex revelatione divina, per modum cujusdam doctrinæ. Veritas autem cognitionis est eadem in discipulo et in docente.... Opor-

It is to decide whether or not there is a supernatural intervention.

When the prophecy is perfect, that is, accompanied by the consciousness that it is divine, there is no difficulty. But, if there is only a prophetic instinct, which may be in the background only a natural internal movement, it becomes extremely difficult to decide whether it is God who speaks or whether it is man who dreams and imagines.

Gregory the Great observes that sometimes the holy prophets themselves, believing themselves, by the effect of habit, under the divine action, sledge by affirming in the name of heaven inspirations that arise naturally from their mind. This Father adds that God, out of regard for their holiness, does not delay in showing them their error, so that they may hasten to repair it? He supports his assertion of Nathan's example. The prophet first approves Jehovah's purpose to raise up a man, David, as acceptable to Jehovah.

tet igitur eamdem esse yesitatem prophetiae cognitionis et enuntiationis, quae est cognitionis divinæ, cui impassibile est subesse falsum. Unde prophetiæ non potest subesse falsum,

1 BoxA, De discr. spir. c. 17, n.a. 2, p. 293: Illud etiam hoc loco observandum est, quod mens prophetæ duplicater a Deo instructor; vel per expressam revelationem, vel per occultum instinctum. Is autem inter utrumque modum notabile discrimen. Nam cum propheta ex divina revelatione loquitur, semper discerni potest, quid per spiritum prophetum, quid per proprieum dicat, si quidem certissime cognoscit revelationem a Deo esse, etsi per somnium ea sit, agnoscens posta rei veritatem, jam somni voce non utitur....; Cum vero ex instinetu loquitur, aliquando feri potest, ut proprio spiritus suggestio sit, quam Dei esse arbitratur.

- What? Hom. in Ezech. 1, kom. 1, Nos. 16 and 17. Migne, t. 76, Col. 793, 794: Sciendum quoque is quod aliquaando prophetæ sancti, dum consultuntur, ex magno usu propheti, quaedam ex suo spiritu proferunt, and se haee ex prophetiae spiritu dicere suspectur; sed, quia sancti sunt, per sanctum Spiritum citius correcti, ab eo quae vera sunt, audiunt, and semetipsos quia falsa tenehendunt... Qua in re inter prophetas veros ac falsos ist distantia est, quia prophetæ veri, si quid aliquaando per suum. spiritum dicunt, hoc ab auditorum mentebus, per Spiritum sanctum eruditi, citius corrigint. Prophetæ autem falsi and falsa denuntiant, and alieni. a.sancto Spiritu in sua falsitate persistent.

IL Reg. vn, 2-13.

The Lord made known that the temple was not to be built by David, whose hands were defiled with blood, but by his son, he would go in peace.

Is God always obliged to correct these involuntary missteps into those whom he once honoured with the gift of prophecy? It would be difficult to demonstrate this absolutely. Cardinal Bona adds to Nathan's knowledge, divinely warned of his contempt, other examples in which it seems that. God did not intervene to correct the error. "It was perhaps in this same way," said 1st, "that some women, though holy and worthy of all respect, were deceived, to whom they are attributed opposite revelations; which is only explained by admitting that they wrote these things with their own spirit, imagining that it was by the spirit of God, unless, however, these writings were falsely imputed to them." By drawing closer to one another the revelations that were most favorably received in the Church, there are accounts and assertions that are very difficult to reconcile and sometimes in disagreement? In short, in fact particular prophecies, the only decisive guarantees are: the miracle before the event or the event itself.

XIV. — The main cause of the hesitations in the face of prophecy is. in the frequent disregards that result from misinterpretation. "H is constant, according to: St John: of the Cross*, that we can surely not rely on divine revelations, since it is easy to deceive ourselves, attributing them a sense far from God's purposes. His words are abisms that we cannot deepen, and want them to tighten in the

1 To say. 17, n. 2, p. 293. ScuRAm., Theol. Myst. S$548, sch. 5, t. 2, D. 275. 3 Mounted Carmel, 1. 2, c. 19, p. 94.

smallness of our mind, it is to want to contain in our hands the air and the atoms, which pass away as we try to take them."

Examples abound in Scripture and history. The Jews, who heard in a temporal sense the glory and triumph of the Messiah, did not know how to recognize him in the person of Jesus Christ. Jonas, unaware that the prediction of the ruin of Nineveh was only comminatory and conditional, irritates not to see it come true!. Jeremiah also complained to the Lord about what he had predicted events that did not happen, and thus exposed him to the ridicule of the multitude?; obviously the prophet misunderstood the meaning of divine words. Jesus Christ proclaims by the same formulas the ruin of Jerusalem and that of the world, and this is why, after the fall of Jerusalem, the first Christians looked as imminent the end of all things.

Among the facts of this kind told in large numbers in the history of the Church, we will mention only the following two.

Saint Bernard preaches, by the pope's express order, the second crusade, promising, in the name of God, that it will succeed; and God seems to accredit these assurances by multiphating miracles on the steps of the saint abbot. However, as everyone knows, this undertaking had, humanly speaking, the most disastrous outcome. Cardinal Bona*, notes that the other was the thought of the

1 Jonah, m, 10; 1v, 1.

2 Jerem. xx, 7: Seduchisti me, Domine, et seductus sum...; factus sum in derisum tota die, omnes subsannant me.

3 De discr. spir. c. 17, n. 8, p. 296: Hinc autem observation aliud hominum, aliud Dei consilium fumes: nam Deo imperante et benepalcitum suum miraculis indication, exercitus congregatus est; sed homines qui terrena sapiunt, gloriam, divitias et regno Hierosolisymitani recuperationem sibi præfixerant: Deus vero æternam eorum salutem qui in illa expediencee pro fide et pro Ecclesia perempti sunt:

men, and another of God's. On the command and will of God, attested by miracles, a great army was gathered: men, who love the things of the earth, had in view the glory, riches and- the recovery of the kingdom of Jerusalem; but God had offered himself the eternal salvation of those who died for faith and for the Church in this expedition.

Here is the second fact, quite otherwise wonderful!. The author is Saint Vincent Ferrier, the apostle and the thaumaturge of his century. The Saviour appeared to this Blessed while he was seriously ill in the convent of the Preachers Brothers in Avignon, to give him the mission to preach penance to men and to warn them that his judgment was near. Then with his right hand he touched his cheek in the form of a caress, and commanded him to rise up. Vincent rose immediately, perfectly healed, and began his apostolate. He traveled north of Italy, most of the provinces of France and Spain, announcing everywhere that time was nearing completion and that God was going to judge the world.

Now one day when he spoke in Salamanca before an innumerable crowd, 1} quoted this passage from Revelation, where St John saw in spirit an angel flying in the midst of heaven, evangelizing all nations, tongues, and tribes, and making the earth sound with this wonderful cry:

1 RANZANE, BB. 5 a.m., t. 10, p. 489, n. 4. Ei visus is Jesus Christus, mirabili claritate coruscans..; his verbis eum allocutus est. Constans esto, mi serve Vincenti...; elegi enim te in singularem Evangelii mei præconem, et volo quod per universas Galliarum, Hispanirumque regiones evange- Hizans, cum humilitate ac paupertate discurras.. Inter cætera autem quae evangelizabis, volo ut populis extremum judicii diem cito afuturum denunties, populorum scelera reprehendens sine formidine.. Vade, adhuc te exspectabo, antequam mundi terminus veniat. Hæc dicens genas B. Vincentii leniter tetigit, tanquam vidalicet ei signum singularis familiaritatis ostenderet, moxque adjectis multis..., Christus ipse disappeared. At Vincentius, statim resumptis viribus, ex lecto quo decumbebat, pops up, etc.

2 Rev. xv, 6 and 7.,

"Fear the Lord and honor him, because the hour of his judgment approaches," Vincent added, "that the angel prophesied by Saint John was himself. Immediately a murmur was stirred up among the doctors and students, who had come to hear the sermon only in a spirit of criticism. ««Calm down,» said the saint, «and do not be so prompted to scandalize you; you: go see clearly whether I am or not the angel of Revelation. At the Saint Paul gate, you will find a dead woman; bring her here, and in proof of what I am going forward, I will raise her up." ‘They ran to the designated place; indeed, they found there the corpse of a woman whom they were carrying on the ground, and they hastened to lay him down at the preacher's feet, before this many eager and eager to know what would happen. "Woman," exclaimed the saint, "I command you, in the name of God, to rise again!" At the same time this woman returned to life and stood on her coffin. "Now that you can speak," continued the thaumaturge, "say whether I am or not the angel of Revelation, having a mission to preach to all the judgment?""Yes, Father," replied this woman, "you are this angel." After receiving this testimony, Vincent asked her if she preferred to die or live. She replied that she liked to live better. So she lived many years, attesting at all times to the wonders and circumstances of her resurrection. _

The background of this account seems authentic, and the latest and recent historian! of St Vincent Ferrier does not hesitate to reproduce it without any reservation. Moreover, it is no doubt that the saint whom we are talking about was convinced that the end of the world was not near, as one can convince by reading the letter? which he wrote on this subject to the pope of Avignon, Benedict XIII, or that the ordinary theme

1 See A. Bayze, Life of S. Vincent Ferrier, 1755, p. 193 et seq. 2 BAYLE, Append., p. 385.

His preaching was not the approach to the final judgment, and his word was not confirmed by countless wonders.

How can we reconcile these prophetic assertions that events are not justified, with those miracles that seemed to guarantee them?

* Saint Antonin claims that prophecy was not absolute, but comminatory; the condition that was to suspend the sentence was that the people should be converted to the preaching of St. Vincent. Most of his historians have explained his prophecy of the particular judgment, which follows death, and which is, for each of us, what the general judgment will be. "For each of us," said St Augustine?, "the day of death is the last day of the world."

1 BAYLE, Append., p. 196: It is easy to notice how much the words of Revelation, to which St Vincent referred, relate exactly to the mission God had entrusted to him. He is an angel both by the purity of his life and by his evangelical mission; he is sent to the peoples by Jesus Christ himself, as a messenger of peace and salvation: he steals from the midst of heaven, that is, through the Church, which is the kingdom of God; he prays on all sides the Gospel, whose truths are eternal and lead us to a blessed eternity; he proclaims the good news to those who sit on earth, that is, to those who lead an earthly and creeping life, who rest in their disorders, similar to those whom Saint Paul said: "Arise, O you who sleep." — "These words: sedentibus in terram," says a historian of St.Vincent, "can also be understood by the Mohammedans, to whom the apostle has so often prayed, and who are always seated on the ground, working, eating, sitting on the ground, what the other peoples do not do. He evangelized the Gentiles and the idolaters, gentem, that is, the people so rude, that they ignored the truths of faith as much as the pagans, that they even worshiped creatures, like those of the diocese of Lausanne who worshipped the sun. He gave to the eribus who are the Jews, of which he has converted more than twenty thousand; to the nations of different languages, linguam, because he has travelled most of the kingdoms of Europe; to the people, ef populum, that is to say, to the small as well as to the great, the poor, the ignorant as well as to the learned. He preached to all the nearness of judgment, because the particular judgment that follows death is for everyone what the universal judgment will be; so he could say in truth: The hour of God's judgment is approaching."

2 Sermo 170, de Verbis apostolic. c. 40: Novissimus dies erit finished ur.

As for us, it is sufficient to note that, if there was a prophecy, there was a mistake in its interpretation.

These misinterpretations are attributable to different causes.

The first is the darkness that usually veils prophetic statements. God is not required to be more explicit in particular predictions than in public revelation, and those who have read the greats and small prophets of the Bible know what shadows are often wrapped in their words. Hence Saint John of the Cross! concludes that "souls often misinterpret God's revelations according to the strength of the words that declare them, and not according to God's intentions, which are usually hidden, which makes them understood only with difficulty".

The second comes from assigning an edit scope to a prediction that is only conditional?. God frequently reveals purposes that he subordinates to conditions that he does not declare. These implied conditions can easily be conjectured, if it is a threat of damnation, by the reason that God never refuses to forgive the repentant sinner. But we must take in an absolute sense the proclamation of all things concerning the final state, because the conditions that God formulates or underlies look at freedom and merit, and that the finished trial, the meritorious free acts are suspended 5. In most other cases, it is the event alone that decides.

Nolo dicis: When is it written? Generi humano longe erit, unicuic hominum prope erit;, quia novissimus dies is cuuple die mortis.

1 Mounted Carmel, 1. 2, c. 19, p. 91.

2 Suarez, De Fide. Disp. 8, sect. 4, n. 8,t. 19, p. 293: Distinguunt Patres duplicatem prophetiam: aliam absolutam et simpliciter,.aliam comminato-

riam, quae in sensu quo fit est omnino certa; ut vero exterius sonat, vidétur aliquando deficere.

3 JIbid., n. 9, p. 233. At quomodo, quaeso, intelligur prophetiam esse

A third cause of aberration is that each one interprets divine words according to his tastes, character and interests.

The practical conclusion that follows from all this is that it is necessary to be very reserved when it comes to determining the value and meaning of a prophecy, and that the surest and simplest solution is in the event that realizes it.

XV. — We have said that prophecy, generally considered, embraces all hidden things, placed out of the natural reach of man, both present and past and future. When this supernatural knowledge has as its object the secret thoughts and movements of the soul, and the principle that inspires them, it takes the name of discernment of the spirits. The discernment of spirits therefore differs from prophecy, as the species differs from the genus.

"It consists, after Bona," reproducing Suarez?, in a special motion of the Holy Spirit, which makes discerning the various internal movements and recognizing if they proceed from a good or bad mind, whether these movements relate to morals or doctrine, whether comminatoriam and conditionalem, vel potius absolutam? Respondetur breviter primum ex materia prophetiæ, nam quandocumque est comminatio de pœna pertinent ad statim hujus vitae, vel quae fai homini in hac vita viti, intelligi potest comminatorie, nisi performed aliud ostendat. Quia enim scimus Deum esse paraatum ad remittensem peccata et æternam pœnam agentibus penitentiam; ideo quandocumque de viatore dictur illum fore damnandum, ut de Judæis sæpe Evangelium loquitur, ex vi verborum sæpe intelligentur comminatorie. Dico ex vi verborum. Nam interdum performed potest ostendere prædictionem esse fundatam in præscientia futurorum. Quando vero comminatio est de pœnis temporalibus, potest et comminatorie et absclute intelligi, quia, etiamsi homo emendetur, sæpe tamen Deus infert talem pænam; quomodo vero intelligenda sit, certo quidem solum ex performed, probabiliter autem ex verbis et conjecturis colligi potest. Quia vero conditio. quae in his comminationibus subduedelligitur, suponit status viæ, and liberum arbitrium flexibile ad bonum, ideocomminationes queæ fiunt de poais relevantibus ad status damnatorum, absolutum sensum habit.

1 Discreet. spir. c. 2, n. 2, p. 226.

© 4 De gratia. Prol. 3, c. 5, n. 38 and 41, t. 7 p. 162 and 163. 15°

30% the phenomena of the intellectual order

the effect of an inner and invisible touch, or whether they are excited by the teachings and counsels that men give outside, or by angels appearing and speaking in a sensitive way. It is this grace of discernment that the Apostle marks the seventh among those who are called in the school freely given; thanks to the Holy Spirit not giving to all, but to whom he wills and whenever he wills, that those who receive it may be able to discern the various spirits, not only in themselves, but also in others, for the common utility of the Church."

XVI. — This knowledge of the internal provisions may operate in different ways and to varying degrees. In its fullness, it shows the intimateness of souls, the intentions that animate them, the good or bad movements that agitate them. Saint Philip of Neri!, Saint Joseph of Copertino?, M. Olier*, and infiniteness

1 BARNABEI, 26 mali, t. 19, p. 595, n. 425: In animorum sensibus pene-

trandis usque adeo Philippus enituit, ut si quid ab eis, quorum confessiones solebat audire, boni vel mali gestum aut cogitatum essay, optime intelligeret... Quod quidem illis adeo common and vulgare erat ut quicumque sibi male consciously forent, eo presente stare loco non possessent; quicumque vero bene consciously, paradisi gaudia quodammodo sibi percipere emptyentur.. 3 years. Pasrroviccar, BB. 18 Sept., t. 45, p. 1030, n... 73-76. Ad. cæleste sapientiæ lumen; quo maxime arcana. fidei nostræ mysteria penetuabat, accedebat lumen aliud, quo alienas cogitationes, resque secretas et occultas clare cognoscebat.. Nec ullæ erant cogitationes, lieet occultissimæ and intra mentem conelusæ, ad quas Dei servus, magno suo lumina, non penetraret.

8 FAILLON, Life of Mr. Olier, L. 40, t. 3.p. 501: "I cannot write," said M. de Bretonvilliers, "all the things of this nature that have happened; but I can assure before God, and take him to witness, that an infinite number of times, so to speak, during the space: fourteen years, M. Olier discovered to me the most secret thoughts of my soul: that which was not for me a little consolation... One day when I was with him, he met a person in the Rue des Canettes who, starting to talk to him, was hiding something from him: Mr. Olier knew it immediately and discovered it as it was. Then I asked him how he could have known such a hidden peculiarity; he answered me: It's in God

Revelations 354.

other, had this privilege of reading in souls. In particular, Saint Rose of Lima, had this gift to one eminent degree, and, as a child, she listed to her confessor the marks that distinguish God's spirit from the evil spirit.

When the sight of souls is made with this evidence, it is due to a supernatural illumination that reveals in the eyes of the mind these secret depths and the principle that moves them. "The discernment, says St John Climaque, * indicating the increasing proportions of this gift according to the different degrees of virtue, is, in those who begin, a true knowledge of their interior; in those who progress, a clear view that makes them safely distinguish the true good from that which is only natural or contrary; in the perfect, it is a divine light that spreads upon them its clarity and makes them capable of dispelling darkness in others; in a word, it is a certain knowledge of the will of God, in: at all times, in every place, in the same way, in the same way, in the same way. all encounters, which these alone possess, which have the purity of the heart, body, and lips." Donation is more restricted when it is reduced to an inner instinct that warns of the dispositions of souls and the spirit

that we see all these things and much more clearly than if we saw them: in them-memes." See: Gorkes, the Mystique, 1. 3, c. 11,t. 1, p. 409.

3 Leoxanp Hansen. BB: 26 Aug., t. 39, p. 942, n. 212. Eminebat in Rosa, confessariis attestingibus, mirabile donum internoscendi sinceras vis'onesa illusionibus Sathanæ, and distinguished sanctas inspirationes a versutus: suggestionibus antiqui serpentis, quod Apostolus discretoniem spirituum vocat.... Adhuc juvencula examiningi confessario erudite recsu disnoscendèrum spirituum regulas ab effectibus.

3 Boxa, De discr. spir. c. 2, n. 2, p. 226. Hæc autem nihil aliud est:quam: iHustratio lied qua perfusus homo easy and sine errore dijudicat a quo principio, tum propri tum alieni motus et cogitationes ad electem per. tenentes excitentur; quid seilicet à bono, quidve a malo spiritu suggestatur.

4 Scala Paradisi. Gr. 26, initio. Migne, Patr. gr.t. 88, Col. 1014.

who animates them; and then it is understood, less certain than in the case of an intellectual and direct perception, whatever it suffices, combined with the rules of sound doctrine and Christian prudence?

This instinct, when it comes to self, sometimes takes the form of an inner taste * that makes approve or disapprove, of an experimental flavor, which is only the feeling of divine action.

Finally, one can be led to the knowledge of intimate thoughts by the external aspect of the physiognomy, by the sensitive expression of the face, the accent of the voice, the maintenance of the body. These inductions are in themselves purely human, the effect of natural sagacity or the result of experience; but they can also come from a supernatural light and inspiration, which are one of the forms of discernment of spirits; and it is mainly in this form that it meets in the spiritual directors who implore divine light, without neglecting the

1 ScuraAm, Theol. myst. $ 579 and 581, t. 2, p. 312 and 313: Discretio veræ revelationis a falsa submitted in ipso cui fit, potest proudi per quemdam instinctum... In defectu discretionis spirituum per infallibilis judicii lumen, pro discernenda vera revelatione in aliis, illius quidam instinctus inferoris conditionis aliquando suffcere potest. Sicut enim potest quis a Deo instructi de seipso, ita et de alio ad ejus directionem.

2 SCHRAM, Ibid., Sch. 4 p. 314: Licet hec discreteio per solum instinctum non sit ex parte motivi infallibilis, sicut illa quae fit prophetie, sed tantum ex signis prudia morali simul cum speciali lumina consideratis, hoc tamen sufficit, ut, in casu quo moralis certitudo non fallit, revera pro instinctu divino habeatur, maxime si fallibilitas motivi per discretionem doctrinalem adjuvetur.

8 SAY PAZ, DISCRIPTION SPIRIT. 1. 5, P. 4, c. 1, Ind. 5, t. 6 p. 627: Nam proprios (motions) gustu quodam and lied tranquillitate vel worried, interna inspiratione discerned.

4 GERSON, Prob. spir. t. 1, col. 38: Alius invenitur modus per inspirationem intimam, seu internum saporem, sive per experimentalem dul-

cedinem quamdam, sive per illustrationem a montibus æternis effugantem tenebras omnis dubietatis.

human means to give the knowledge of souls!.

It is evident that the inner impulse communicated by the Holy Spirit is, of its nature, infallible; but as man does not have the consciousness of this divine action, it follows that neither did he in these encounters the absolute certainty of the judgments he pronounces?

XVII. — In assuming them divine, revelations generally address holy souls; life. depraved is a sign that one is rather Satan's organ than God's. However, like most graces given for free, they can meet in imperfect souls and even in sinners?, as well as one's

1 Suarez, De gratia. Proleg. 3, c. 5, n. 40 and 44, p. 163, 164: Whenever spiritus is non-discordat manifest a regula fidei and rectæ rationis, sed res est anceps et involuta, tune habet locum quod prius dixit Anselmus distecionem banque esse difficillinam; nihilominus tamen tunc etiam est diligentia adhibenda ex parte hominis, ut probet spiritus et motiones internas vel consilia externa an ex Deo sint. Neque expectanda semper est specialis gratia gratis data, hanc enim non promisit Deus omnibus, nec semper illam præbet, sed quibus et quando vult: et nihilominus omnes posunt cum morali et practica certitudine prudienter judicare et discernere inter hos spiritus.. Per talem gratiam gratis datam, nunquam fit discreteio spirituum sine discursu ex generalibus principaliis fidei applicitis magna diligentia and circumspectione omnium circumstantiarum, simul etiam invocata Spiritus sancti directione et impulsu, ut observation ex usu et ex his quae de hac probatione spirituum viri experti and eruditi tradedderunt.

2 Suarez, De gratia. Proleg. 3, c. 5, n. 45, p. 165. Quoties in reipsa discreteio fit per gratiam gratis datam, judicium ex parte principali moventis est infallibile ac subinde materialiter certum; quamvis ipsum hominem nunquam reddat simpliciter certum, quia nunquam omni certitudine assequitur vel cognoscit judicium esse ex directione et motione Spiritus sancti.

3 S. THomas, Sum. 2. 2. q. 172, to. 4. Quidquid potest esse sine charitate, potest esse sine gratia gratum faciente, et per consequens sine bonitate morali. Prophetia autem potest esse sine charitate, quod apparet ex duobus: primo quidem ex actu utriusque, nam prophetia pertinet ad intellectum, cujus actus præcedit actum voluntatis, quam perficit charitas... Secundo ex fine utriusque: datur enim prophetia ad utilitatem Ecclesiaæ, sicut et aliæ gratiæ gratis datæ... Non autem ordinatur direct ad hoc quod affectionus ipsius prophetæ conjungatur Des, ad quod ordinatur charitas. And ideo prophetia potest esse sine bonus morum quantum ad propriom radicem hujus bonitatis.

see in the greedy Balaam, that he is brought back from the Sibyls, and that Our Lord declares it? of many who prophesy in his name, and whom he shall not know. "I am well," said the sweet Saint Francis de Sales, "that since one can have charity without being ravy and without prophesying, so one can be ravy and prophesy without having charity." God can even use the ordinary organs of demons to reveal his purposes to men.

It is not less true, as St Thomas teaches, that prophecy requires the calmness of the soul and the silence of passions ÿ; it is only transiently and by exception that this gift is not joined to inner grace and holiness.

Bonaf sums up this whole doctrine as follows: "Moral goodness is not necessary for prophecy, if one looks at the inner root of this goodness, sanctifying grace. The reason for this is first that prophecy is given for the benefit of the Church, like other graces of this nature, instead of that charity has as its object to unite the soul to God, and so that these two graces can be separated from one another; secondly, prophecy belongs to the understanding, whose operations precede those of the will, which receives its perfection from charity. But

. 1 Num, xxn.

2 Matth. vn, 22, 23.

3. Treaty of Love of: God. 7 c. 6.

4 Sum. 2. 2. q. 172, to. 6, ad 1: Prophetæ dæmonum:non semper loquuntur ex dæmonum revelatione, sed interdum ex revelatione divina, sicut manifeste legitur de Balaam, cui dictur Dominus esse locutus (Num. xxn) licate esset propheta dæmonum: quia Deus utitur etiam malis ad utilitatem bonorum... Unde ctiam Sibyllæ multa vera prædixerunt de Christo.

5 Sum. 2. 2. q. 172, a. 4: If vero considermus bonitatem morum secundum passions animae and external actions, secundum hoc aliquis impeditor to prophetia per morum malitiam. Nam ad prophetiam requireur maxima lied elevatio ad spiritualem contemplationem, quaæ quidem impeditur per vehementiam passionum, and per inordinatam occupationem rer um exteriorum...

6 De discr. spir. v. 17, n. 5, p. 298.

especially since, in order to prophesy, it is required that the soul be extremely elevated to the contemplation of spiritual things, and that the disruption of life is an obstacle to this elevation, God. makes this gift, for the ordinary, only to holy souls, and one: it is customary to see there a very certain proof of holiness... It is good, therefore, to despise the predictions of vicious people."

What we say about prophecy is particularly true of the discernment of spirits, which is almost never granted to souls troubled by passions and bound by sin.

Let us again listen to the pious Bonat: "The effusion of supernatural light, necessary to exercise this discernment, demands the tranquillity of the soul and inner peace, which cannot be met in a man abandoned to vices and shaken by earthly affections. Therefore this light is usually granted only to righteous souls and pure hearts, to whom are promised the vision of God and the contemplation of divine things."

According to Suarez?, not only is this grace not given to sinners, if not by very rare exception, but, as a general rule, it is not even granted to the mediocre virtue; it is the almost exclusive sharing of holiness. However, the exception is possible.

XVIII. — Let us conclude this chapter with a remark which naturally arises here, but which will appear more general in the third part, when we deal with it.

1 From discr. spir. c. 2, n. 4 p. 227.

- What? From gratia. Proleg. c. 5, n. 46, p. 165: Unde etiam colligi facile potest hanc gratiam regulariter non Tribi malis, imo nec quibuscumque mediocriter bonis, sed viris spiritualibus ac sanctis, quoniam Spiritus sanctus qui suaviter omnia disponit, non præbet hanc gratiam nisi his qui posint per aliquam experientiam spiritualium rerum de qualitéate spiritus conjecturam facere. Quamvis autem hoc regulare sit, interdum potest Spiritus sanctus, ad ostensionem potentieæ and gratiæ suæ, donum hoc etiam peccatori homini conferre.

graces called by the School freely given; that is that prophetic enlightenment! and that of discernment? do not meet in man in a constant and usual way: each of these supernatural acts therefore prevails a new revelation; Our Lord is the only one in whom these gifts have been permanent.

1 S. THomas, Sum. 2. 2. q. 171, a. 2: Lumen autem prophetum non inest intellectui prophetæ per modum formæ permanentis; alias oporteret quod semper prophetæ adesset facultas propheti; quod patet esse falsum... Relinquitur ergo quod lumen prophetium insit animæ prophetæ per modum cujusdam passionis vel impressionis transeuntis. And inde is quod sicut aer semper indiget nova illuminatione, ita mens prophetæ semper indiget nova illuminatione, sicut discipulus, qui nondum est adeptus principalia artis, indiget ut de singulis instruatur.

2 Bona, De discr. spirit. c. 2, n. 3 p. 226: Sunt qui putent han gratiam infundi per modum habitus; nam de aliquibus sanctis legimus, virtute quadam habituali aliorum cogitationes pro suo arbitratu perspexisse, imo etiam cognovisse quasi ex ipso aspectu an quisset in status gratiæ, vel damnationis, quae gratia major est quam occultas cogitationcs inspicere... Non tamen credo, in eorum potestate fuisse omnes omnium cogitationes empire, quoties vellent: haec enim gratia, sicut et reliquæ gratis datæ, in Christo solo per modum habitus fuerunt, utors Theologorum sensia docet, cæteris datur per modum actus sive motionis transeuntis, aliis quidem rarius, aliis frequentius, aspirante divina gratia quando et quomodo vult.

Chapter XVII

The Infused Intellectual Aptitudes — I. Knowledge

Different species and varying degrees of these abilities. — Miraculous initiation to the first elements of instruction. — Transitional relief for special needs. — Science infused in Adam and Solomon. — Two other examples of universal science: Grégoire Lopez and Marie d'Agréda. — Partial infusions: philosophy and natural sciences. — Medicine. — Supernatural knowledge, mainly mystical theology. — Dogmatic and moral theology. — Science of the divine Scriptures granted to a large number of holy women, — to several illustrious doctors: Saint Gregory the Great, Rupert, Saint Thomas of Aquinas.

.. — To the visions and words that bring to man divine revelations, we must join another intellectual form of mystical life, certain supernatural abilities- * infuse, some of which concern knowledge and of which others have more relation to art.

This chapter deals with gifts of the first species.

It occurs in two degrees: in one, it is a wonderful facility to learn, which usually manifests itself in the double form of a quick and deep penetration, and a powerful memory. The other is higher, and consists in the very infusion of science, without any work on the part of man. In each of these

degrees, the measurement can be varied, constitute a transient state or relief. We will not distinguish between these degrees and measures, and we will merely indicate the different applications of these intellectual skills that surpass and amaze nature.

IL. — Sometimes it is a miraculous initiation to the first elements of instruction.

It is said of Saint Lunaire!, bishop of Brittany, that, led by his parents to school from the age of five, they in three days took what the other children took years to learn; on the first day he learned all the letters; the second, how to unite them; and the third, writing.

Saint Catherine of Siena? wanted to know how to read, in order to be able to recite the divine office; but she had not finished learning only the alphabet that one of her companions had transcribed to her. Regretting the time that she was losing in this unsuccessful work, she addressed Our Lord and Jui asked to teach her to read, if it was her good pleasure, so that she could sing psalmology and celebrate her praises. She immediately obtained what she asked; from that moment she was able to read as fluently as the most skillful. And the most wonderful thing is that she was unable to spell out, and hardly knew the letters, as well as her confessor, Blessed Raymond of Capua, who brought it back to us, sssura himself. Later, she still miraculously received from her divine husband

1 BB. 1 Jul., T 28, p. 107, n. 1: Contestit autem virtus divina Leonorio beato tantam gratiam, ut in primo die litterarum omnium nomina, in secundo conjunctiones earum, in tertio seribendi notitiam agnoscerct.

2 RAYM. DE CAPOLE, BB. 30 a.m., t. 39, p. 890, n. 113: Mirares, and divinæ virtutis manifestum indicium! Antequam de oratione surgeret, ita divinitus est edocta, quod postquam ab ipsa surrexit, omnem scivit litteram legere, tam velociter et expedite, sicut quicumque doctissimus. Quod ego ipse dum fugé expertus, stupeham; potissime propter hoc, quod inveni, quia cum velocissime legeret, si jubebatur syllabicare, in nullo scibat aliquid dicere: imo vix litteras cognoscebai.:

the ease of writing, so that, in a letter to her director, she could relieve her heart from her ecstasy. _ The emule of the virgin of Siena, Rose of Lima?, taught every child to read and write, in the same way. Her mother, after teaching her to distinguish letters, was 4 combining them together, and she had given her a model of big writing, which she had to reproduce. But the little girl seemed unattentional to these lessons, absorbed that she was by her attraction for prayer. His mother, attributing this indifference to the ordinary disgust of the children for work, msinuated Rose's confessor to reproach him in his presence about this; to which he willingly lent himself. The next day, the holy child prayed, and then came to her mother, and this time she read very commonly in the book presented to her and showed an admirably written page with her own hand: Our Lord had made himself his master and had taught him all these things in an instant. The same facts are repeated, with different circumstances, in many others, especially in three daughters of Saint-Dominique: the Blessed Osanne of Mantua ÿ, the Blessed Agathe of the Cross ‘, the Blessed Hope Lopez‘.

1 Letter from the saint to the B. Raymond. BB. 30 a.m., t. 39, annotation, p. 891: Scripsi hanc epistolam.., proprio manu......; dedit enim mihi Dominus fabilitatem scribendi, ut, ab extasi ad sensus rediens, exonerare possim cor meum.

2 LronarD. HANSEN, BB. 26 Aug., t. 39, p. 976, n. 380: Rosa postridia, oratione præmissa, matrem adiit, librum oblateum expeditissime legit; insper programma exhibition sua manu eleganter conscriptum.

3 Jen. Urver, BB. 18 Jun., t. 24 p. 608, n. 99: Deus and Deipara me docuerque continuoque docebant, atque ïita ab ïis solis hausi litterarum peritam, and aliarum omnium rerum spiritualium, nonautem ab aliqua creatura.

4 -MARIE, the memorable Lives and Actions of the daughters of S. Dominique, 1. 1, c. 24, t. 1, p. 120: Our Lord Luy taught himself to write, not by dragging his hand, as the masters usually do, by commanding only, his almighty word doing in an instant what art would have done only in a lot of time.

8 Jbid., 1. 3, c. 7 p. 69. The General Chapter of Rome, in 1629,

III. — Several holy souls have also been instructed by miracles: some, formulas of the Rosary, like the Blessed Catherine of Ricci!; others, like the Blessed Véronique of Binasco?, canonial hours and how to recite them; others, Ida of Leuven for example, the meaning of liturgical prayers and the words of Holy Scripture.

The scattered and transitory facts are innumerable; we will only mention the following two.

A schoolboy, to whom the games of his age had made forget and the lessons and threats of the master, fled, at the time of the class, to the tomb of St.Erkonwald #, bishop of London, urging the Blessed to help him. The ruthless teacher is following him in this retreat and the sum of recite his lesson, ready to strike

which she learned to read, to write, to say her office and to hear it by miracle, without any master of this world.

1 Jbid., 1.2, c. 1, p. 525. As soon as the use of reason had been granted, his good angel Luy appeared and taught the visions of heaven, including devotion to the Queen of Angels, by means of the Holy Rosary whom he was pleased to recite.

2 Isodore de Isolanis, BB. 13 Jan., t. 2, p. 181, n. 29. Angelus Domini, magna luce coruscus adventiens octo dierum spatio omne Romanæ curiae officium Virginem edocuit, ac varios mores religiosorum qui Romanam sequuntur curiam in divinis laudibus persolvendis.

3 Huauss DE FLORE, BB. 13 a.m., t. 11, p. 188, n. 26: Cum in omni vita sua litteras aut elementa scholaria minimal didicisset, no more absque haec quolibet eorum intellectu legere, proferre vel expresse potuisset, sæpissime tamen ea quaæ cantabantur aut legebantur a monialibus inspirante gratia Spiritus sancti, intellexit, in Quadragesima præcipue, cum sancta recitarentur Evangelia.

4 CAPGRAVE, BB. 30 a.m., t. 12 p. 795, n. 26: Puer quidam ætatis teneræ lubrico et coætaneorum ludo seductus, tam didascali sui comminationis, quam proprioæ lectionis est oblitus... O nunc infericem puerum, nisi citius habeat liberatorum Clementissimum Erkonwaldum!... Precibus itaque et meritis præclari doctoris Erkonwaldi, affiuit puero sapientia.. Cum enim puer lectionem sine libro proferre cogeretur, non solum quod magister ejus tradiderat, absque obstaculo atque diminiculo reddidit, verum etiam illud quod præceptor ejus traditurus fuerat, obstupescent magistro, memory diuque recitavit. Tum vero didascalus tandem ad cor reverseus, iram remet, veniamque fugæ puero con Requires.

as many hits as he'll count mistakes. Feeling under powerful protection, the child begins to debunk with perfect assurance not only what he should know, but much more than he had been taught; what caused, we understand, the anger of the master, and saved for this time at least the poor and pious schoolboy.

On the help that writers can receive from Heaven, here is a charming trait that the historian of Saint Euthymus and Saint Sabas, the monk Cyril!, tells us as happened to himself. After collecting a great deal of material to write the lives of these two great anachorets, he had only to put his hand to work; but on several occasions he had taken the pen in vain; he did not know how to approach his account. To his lonely humble efforts was prayer and tears. But one day, when he was moaning with his helplessness, he fell asleep. During his sleep, the two saints whom he wanted to tell the virtues appeared to him in the outside that they had in their lifetime; they seemed to confer together, and the venerable Sabas said to the great Euthymus: "You see your Cyrilla all willing to write, and yet, after a lot of care and pain, he could not yet begin.""How could he do so," replied Euthymus, "if he is helped with help from above?""Get him this grace, Holy Father," said Sabas. Then Euthymus removed from his womb a custos of silver filled with heavenly honey, and three times he put them in the mouth of the pious historian, who found himself flooded with inexpressible suavity and, upon his awakening, full of holy ardour to celebrate the memory of Euthymus and Sabas.

IV. — Science was given by infusion to our first parents in the earthly paradise. "God spread

1 Vita S. Euthymii Magni, BB. 20 Jan., t. 2, p. 692, n. 162.

He created in them the knowledge of the spirit; he filled their hearts with meaning, and showed them goods and evils; he made his eye shine upon their hearts, to reveal to them the greatness of his works, and to provoke them to bless his name, to glorify his wisdom, to publish his magnificence."

Adam tried out the science that he had of nature by imposing on all the animals that God brought before him the name that was right for them ©. Saint Augustine therefore concluded, against Julien d'Éclane, the perfection of our first father, and in this regard he quoted the word of the wise Pythagoras whom he had had to be the most learned of men, who first had given every thing his name. "The Scripture, substantial and short in its expressions, tells us, says Bossuet #, the fine knowledge given to man, since he could not have named the animals without knowing their nature and differences, and then give them suitable names, according to the roots of the language that God had taught him."

Solomon offers another example of this infuse science. In giving him wisdom, God threw in his mind admirable treasures of knowledge and a magnitude of intelligence that applied, according to Scripture®, to as many things as there are grains of sand on the shores of the sea. He wrote about everything: trees and plants, from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop that believes on the wall; animals, birds, reptiles and fish. Cornelius

1 Eccli. xxn, 5-8. — 3 Gen. n, 19.

3 Opus imperf. contra Julian. 5, 0. 1,t. 27 p. 305: Neque secundum christianam cogitatis fidem, qualis sit factus Adam, qui universis gencribus animarum vivarum nomina imposuit: quod excellentissimæ fuisse indicium sapientiae, in sæcularibus etiam limitis legimus, Nana ipse Pythagoras, a quo philosophiæ nomen exortum est, divisisse fertur, illum fuisse omnium sapientissimum qui vocabula primus indidit rebus.

4 High on Myst., 3rd sem., {relev. — 5 II Reg. 1v, 29-33.

the Stone! hears these words of the PARALIPOMENES: "Wisdom and science were given to him," of the very universality of knowledge, either natural or supernatural, and he believes that Solomon speaks of his own science in this place where the Wise says of himself? "The Lord has given me to speak with meaning and to have thoughts fit for my dignity; for he himself is the guide of wisdom, and he is the one who straightens the wise. We are in his hand, we and our speeches, as well as all prudence, the science of works and the rule of morality. He himself has given me the true knowledge of what is, he has made known the organization of the world, the virtue of the elements, the beginning, the end and the middle of the times, the atmospheric variations, the vicissitude of the seasons, the revolutions of the years, the dispositions of the stars, the nature of the animals, the strength of the winds, the thoughts of men, the variety of plants and the properties of their roots. I learned everything that was hidden and not yet discovered, because Wisdom itself, which did everything, taught me."

V.—The solitaire Gregory Lopez, who from Spain, the place of his birth, passed, about 1562, at the age of twenty, in America, where he died in 1596, presents a

1 Comm. in L 3 Reg. c. 3, n. 12, t. 2, p. 288: Per quae primo intelligente Ethicam et Politicam ad gubernandum tam se quam populum; manc præcipue postulabat Salomon. Secundo Physicam, Medicinam, Logicam, Rhetoricam, Poeticam, Mathematicalam, Architectonicam (hac enim egecbat ad fabricandum templum) omnesque seientias and natural artes. Hæ enim ab Hebræis vocantur Sapientia, ut patet Exodi xxx, 3. Name of his ipse has Sapiens seen, 17. Tertio Sapentiam and Prudentiam supernaturalem fidei mysteriorum, imo and donum prophetiae. Salomonem enim eximium leaks Theologum patet ex ejus Proverbis and Sapientia.. Horum ergo omnium scientiam infusam hac nocte accepit Salomon, ques in gradu valde intenso, ut eorum oblivisci non posit. ‘

2 Sap. vn, 15-27.

3 The Life of Gregory. Lapez in New Spain, composed of

Spanish by François Losa, prestre, dismissed, and once parish priest of Hs cathedral of Mexico. 2nd ed., Paris, 1655.

admirable example of science infuses almost all its degrees. He learned to read and write; but it is a well-known thing that he did not do any other studies, from which it is necessary to infer, with his historian, that God alone was his master in the natural and divine knowledge which he possessed to such a prodigious degree! He read with extraordinary ease and speed, and what would have cost a month to any other, he traveled through it in ten hours. It was enough for him to see only the titles and summaries of the chapters, to penetrate the bottom of them; what did not happen only, as his historian points out?, for the books of the common, but for those very ones who contained a sublime doctrine. In twenty hours he read the works of Saint Teresus, and he possessed the substance and the details of them perfectly.

Although he had not studied Latin, he read the Holy Scripture in the VuLGATE, and translated it into a vulgar language, as if he had spent his life studying Latin letters and theology. He knew by heart the whole sequence of the Bible, and recited, without missing a syllable, the gospels of St Matthew and St John, and of the others, all that completes the first two; moreover, the epistles of St Paul and Revelation?; finally, he knew so well all the sacred pages, that he could indicate where the texts which were quoted to him were referred, and if they were false, declare it immediately; so many preachers said that they did not need to wear Concordance when they prayed where was Grégoire. He interpreted in a luminous and exalted way the darkest passages of the divine Scriptures, until he marveled at the most doctic men. Dominique de Salazar, de

1 The Life of Gregory Lopez in New Spain, ch. 1, p. 4. — 3 Ibid., c. 17, p. 133. — 3 Jbid., c. 14, p. 99. — 4 Jbid., p. 102; c. 46, p. 124.

the Order of the Precheurs Brothers, who died Archbishop of the Philippines, said of him, in the presence of three considerable religious of the same order: "What does it mean, Fathers, that we, with all that we have studied in our lives, do not know half of what this young man knows?" He was also versed in the principles of spiritual life and in the knowledge of souls. *

His knowledge of holy and ecclesiastical history was wonderful. "He knew, as much as one can learn from Holy Scripture and other historians, what happened from the creation of the world to Noah, with all generations of the children of God and the first patriarchs, so distinctly that, without a book, he described all the lines, degrees and alliances, with the dithering of times and ages, whatever was so difficult to develop, even to the most doctes. He had no less knowledge of all that affects men of that time, and he brought up precisely and with great clarity the customs and inventions. He did the same for everything that happened from Noah to Our Lord, speaking of the people who lived then, as if they had been present to him. He deciphered so perfectly everything that is of God's people, that he knew of the ins and outs, the bounds and the boundaries, making history of the least things and the smallest peculiarities that he related to the times, the successes and the events of this nation. He had not only the intelligence of wars and other accidents that came among this chosen people; but even among the Gentiles, until the coming of Our Lord.... He said remarkable peculiarities of birth, childhood,

1 The Life of Gregory Lopez in New Spain, p. 103. — 2 Ibid., c. 15, p. 104-192. — 8 Jbid., c. 16, p. 125.

of the Saviour, and even of his preaching and his death, and of all other mysteries, and of the benefits which the law of grace has over the law of nature and over the written law. It would have been said that he had before his eyes the lives and preachings of the holy apostles and disciples of Jesus Christ, those of the most illustrious martyrs, with the lives and actions of the most memorable confessors who appeared from Saint Sylvestre to Clement VIIT, under whose pontificate he died. He also reported the names, times and customs of the founders of religions and the authors of the eremitical life. He also made heresiarchs, rebutting their mistakes and alleging the sacred councils that condemned them, marking the time of their birth and decadence."

That's not all.

Gregory did not only know the Holy Scripture, the moral and spiritual things, which formed his main study, but he still knew, assures his biographer!, astrology, cosmography and geography. He had contrived a sphere and drawn a map of the world that made the admirers admire. He also heard anatomy, medicine, pharmacy, and he composed a collection of simple and inexpensive recipes for the poor, who used them successfully. Finally, he was a very expert in agriculture, and had a wonderful knowledge of plants and their various properties.

Such an assemblage of gifts in a man without letters was due to a usual and sublime elevation of his spirit in God; for, as he was asked if he was not embarrassed in the multitude of his occupations and knowledge, he replied: «I find God in all

1 The Life of Gregory of Lopez in New Spain, ch. 17, p. 129.

things, in the smallest as in the greatest." That was the secret of this prodigious science.

The venerable Mary of Agréda is no less a remarkable example of this universal science. His main historian wrote: *

"The Tres-Haut poured into his soul the priceless treasure of his science. He discovered to him the secrets and mysteries of his wisdom, in the following way. He communicated to him a very clear knowledge of all that is created, from the top of heaven to the centre of the earth, by making him penetrate very distinctly all the parts, all that he created for man's foreign service and to recreate his senses; making him distinguish all the inhabitants of the earth, their various qualities and their naturalness. Then he gave him a higher knowledge of all the militant Church, its treasures and wonders, of the order of grace and of all the gifts that God gives to mortals in this valley of tears. And this science extended to all political states and to all kinds of temporal governments, not only the children of the Church, but also to all those who are out of her womb; so that this science contained all the States of the universe. She then received a more eminent knowledge of the triumphant Church, of the order of the angels and saints of human nature, of their hierarchies and choirs, of the reward God gives them in essential glory and accidental glory. She also received a great and rare understanding of the Holy Scriptures.

"In addition to these great lights, the Almighty communicated to him a very high view of his divine Majesty. He purified his powers again, raised his mind, and he

1 The Life of Gregory of Lopez in New Spain, c. 17, p. 132.

2 Jos. XIMENÈS SAMANIEGO, Life of Ven. Mother Mary of Jesus of Agreda, ch. 24 p. 192.

manifesting his divine Being in the trinity of his people and the unity of his essence, infinite perfections and attributes.

"All this science was now present, distinct and deep to penetrate all these objects. The one who looked at the creatures of the three orders mentioned above, of nature, grace and glory, was habitual and permanent; she could use them with ease when she wanted, not only in knowledge of the conclusions, but also in her deduction by the principles. She had such a light of Holy Scripture in a manner of habit, that when she said the divine office, she entered several mysteries contained in the Psalms and the lessons; and applying to the intelligence of any text that it was, she interpreted it with admirable clarity, according to the literal sense and spiritual meaning, as the superiors several times experienced, wanting to experience this wonder. The Lord gave him great ease to hear the Latin language, but not to speak it; so that, by reading or hearing Latin, she understood it perfectly; the translations that were not faithful made him sad; and when the opportunity arose to translate some text of Scripture, when ordered to write, she did so in the most perfect way, and according to all the rules of translation. In addition to having an exact notion of the Castilian language, which was natural to her, she received the gift of an elegant and majestic style, and of admirable discernment of the terms most appropriate to the scholastic and mystical theology; what very learned people could acquire with all their application.

She never used this science out of curiosity or ostentation; on the contrary, she tried to hide it in all sorts of occasions. She used it outside only when she couldn't avoid it, as if to write

what the Lord and his superiors commanded him, to inform his confessors of what was going on in his interior, to satisfy those who had the right to examine him, wanting to ensure his spiritual conduct, or when others did so by their command, to be persuaded of this wonder of God. This is where one admired the sublimitity of this divine secret."

VI. — In general, these kinds of supernatural infusions are only partial. One can consider as a divine gift the knowledge of philosophy to the degree that it erupted in Saint Catherine of Alexandria; or at least admit, with Baronius!, that it was assisted by the Holy Spirit in the victorious struggle that she supported in the presence of Emperor Maximin against fifty sophists, who converted to the Christian faith.

If one believes a legend told in the annals of the Preachers Brothers, the natural sciences, understood at that time under the generic name of philosophy, were granted, by a free outpouring of grace, to Blessed Albert the Great. He who was supposed to immortalize his name by his immense knowledge would, it is said, have experienced in his early days an extreme difficulty of learning, and in the displeasure that he felt it, the thought had just left his novice's clothing and returned to the century. While he was in the grip of these dark worries, he had a mysterious dream during his sleep that made him peace. It seemed to him that he was about to climb the walls of the monastery, when four virgins of beautiful beauty appeared to him and prevented him from carrying out his

1 Annal. eccles. a. 307, n. 32, ed. 1864, t. 3 p. 475: Dignum plane is existimare eam, quam disertissimam sciret, per gentiles philosophos quibus urbs Alexandrina abundare solebat, Maximinum conatum esse a christiana

religione divelre, ipsamque eos omnes, tum sawntia qua egregie imbuta erat, tum etiam divinitus inspirata sibi sapientia, superasse.

purpose. And one of them, who was the Virgin Mary, asked her where her disenchantments came from and what her desires were. The young man to answer that the object of all his vows was the knowledge of philosophy. ‘‘Let it be done to you as you desire,' said the Mother of God to him; ‘you will surpass in this knowledge all those who preceded you, and I will watch over you that your faith will not be affected through the traps of the sophists. But, that it may be known that this gift comes from my goodness, and also because you have preferred the science of men to the science of my Son, it will wipe away from your mind upon the end of your life.""

The historical character of this account is disputed, however, reported in various terms by most of the biographers of Blessed Albert, and mentioned by those who see it as a fable?. At least we agree enough on how this great man ends up. Three years before his death, one day he was in the pulpit and gave his lecon before a large assembly, the memory suddenly failed him, and he lost his immense knowledge in an instant. According to several historians, the illustrious master warned his listeners that the Blessed Virgin had predicted this event to him and had given it to him as a sign of his coming end.

VII. — Medicine, which, according to Scripturef, is a creation of God and a blessing of his goodness, has met in several saints in the state of supernatural gift. Saint Hildegarde possessed it to such a high degree that the sick

1 S. Razz, Lives of Saints and Saints of the Order of Saint Dominique, qre P., p. 149. 4 Joacu. SienarT, Albert the Great, ©. 2, 1862, p. 93, n. 3: This legend is not very old. It is found only in Flaminius, Léandre, Jammy and the posterior biographers. So it is only a fable; but it is too charming to be omitted altogether.

3 Eccli. xxxva, 1 and 4.

He came to see her in a crowd; and his remedies provided relief to almost all. It is true that she often sent them back healed by her only blessing; but it cannot be called back in doubt that she did not really take away from the art of healing, since we have a work?, to the truth little lucid, on minerals, plants, animals and their healing virtues. His $ Visions also contain aphorisms about the various infirmities of the soul and body, and according to the remark of Trithema, this mixture of human science and mystical science indicates enough that the source was in God.

Although there is more than one example of this infuse ability for medical art,5 most often it is less of a science itself than the gift of miracles for the relief of the bodies; several servants of God, among them the two brothers Como and Damien, and Saint Sampson of Constantinople, performed, under the cover of the medicine of which they worked, healings that were the effect of their prayers and holiness.

* VITE. — The knowledge of the supernatural order is more

4 Tueoneric, Vita S. Hildegardis, c. 1, n. 19. Migne, Patr. lat., t. 197, col. 105: Plurimi consilium ab ea percipichant necessitatum corporalium, quas patiebantur; nonnulli quoque benedictionibus suis a languoribus alleviabantur.

3 Liber subtilitatum diversarum naturarum creaturarum and sic de aliis quammultis bonis. Migne, t. 197, col. 1125-1352.

8 Scivias sive libri tres visionum ac revelationum. Migne, t. 197, col. 383.

% Catalog. viror. illust. p. 183: In libris medicis mirabilia multa et secreta naturæ subtili expositione ad mysticum sensum refert, ut nisi a Spiritu sanceto talia femina seire possess.'

$ Cf. Gorars, Divine Mystics, 1. 3, c. 18, t. 1, D. 454.

6 S. GREG. DE Tours, Lib. mirac. de glor. martyr. ©. 98. Migne, t. 74, col. 791. Duo vero gemini, Cosmas scilicet and Damianus, arte medici, postquam Christiani effecti sunt, solo virtitum merito and orationum interventu, infirmitates languentium depellebant.

7 BB. 27 Jun., t. 27 p. 238, n. 2: Tanquam gratiæ velamento arte utentes propter summam humilitatem..

and with an admirable profusion. God is truth and light; so, when he comes into us, he brings to it clearness unknown to reason; and as he spreads his reign, he makes rise in the intimate depths a day more and more resplendent. Holiness, above all, is an incomparable home of supernatural enlightenment. A pure soul, who has been exalted by sacrifice to the heights of perfect life, often knows, sees more than theologians about God, about his nature and works, his reign in souls, the secrets of his mercy and justice; she knows, she sees more about Jesus Christ, his divine person and his sacred humanity, about the mysteries of his life that is punishable and glorious, the grandeur, the splendor, the pains of his holy soul; about his life in the Church, in the Eucharist and in glory; about the angelic and the blessed hierarchies of heaven; about the virtues and the virtues of God; and about the truths of God. The ingratitudes of the earth, the sufferings of purgatory, the horrors of hell.

Mystical theology, which embraces this body of knowledge and brings together in a bundle all these claritys, as they result from free and extranatural communications, is the work of the saints. Not only do they draw materials from their intimate visions, but they receive similar lights to interpret these facts and organize them into a body of doctrine; they are the first masters and vulgarizers of this divine science. Named St. Denis the Areopagit, St. Bonaventure, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Térèse, St. John of the Cross, is to point out the most illustrious doctors of mystical theology, and it is an easy demonstration, that their science was less the result of human work than that of divinely infuse lights. The facts that we have produced, and those that we will produce, go in great numbers to this conclusion.

which exempts us from insisting here. Nevertheless, we will report the symbolic way in which Saint Ephrem, nicknamed by tradition the Syrian prophet and the harp of the Holy Spirit!, received the gift of science, to the testimony of Saint Gregory of Nyssa, his contemporary and probably his friend.

A truly spiritual man, says this holy doctor?, said he had the next appearance. He had seen a troupe of angels coming down from heaven, carrying in their hands a volume rolled like the ancients, and writing inside and outside. And these heavenly spirits said to each other: What is the most worthy of receiving this book? Some named one character, others named another, among the most prominent men of that time. After a long discussion, all agreed to award to Ephrem the Syrian, they hastened to leave him among his dwarfs. He who came to attend this show rose up in the middle of the night and ran to find Ephrem, who was at the moment at the church, absorbed in sublime contemplation; he learned from his mouth what this vision meant: it was the gift of wisdom united with that of the eloquence, which God gave to his servant; such magnificent gifts, continues Gregory of Nyssa, that the word

1 AzzoG, Manual of Patrology, p. 241.

2 De vita S. Patris Ephraim. Migne, Patr. gr., t. 46, col. 835: Illustrated præterea quod ad ipsum pertineret, alius quidam homo perspicax se conspexisse testatus est: Angelorum scilicet copiam descendentem e coelo, volumen intus and foris conscriptum detinere manibus.. Tuncque coeælestes Angelos idem conspexisse fertur, Ephraem volumen tradere, etc.

3 De vita S. Patris Ephraim. Migne, Patr. gr.,t. 46, col. 835. Tantam enim sapientiæ abundantiam enlargedtus illi Deus fuerat, ut quantumvis ei perpetui quasi verborum fontes suppeterent, rebus tamen explained pares nequaquam essent.. Unde magnus senex, singulare quoddam a Deo eloquendi donum efglagitabat hisce verbis: Largire, Domine, flumina gratiæ tuæ. Siquidem doctrinæ profunditas lingüam ipsius absorberbat, ut sensa animi efferre nequiret, cum muneri concionandi instrumenta ad diserte dicenda opportunea deficient.

d-Ephrem, though abundant and easy, could not express all that was Jailling from the heavenly light of his mind; the depth of his doctrine cast him into a painful impotence to speak, and made him cry out: "Enough of light, Lord; but grant my lips the grace to spread it."

IX. — These inner illuminations, which are like the development of God in souls, project more or less radiantly upon all parts of sacred science. It is not only the Mystic that feeds, builds up and lights up at this luminous foyer; dogmatic theology and exegesis receive admirable radiation.

The most learned men used Saint Hildegarde to ‘ have the solution of their difficulties on the Religion and its mysteries. Saint Joseph of Copertino?, whose entire instruction had been limited to learning to ire, clarified to the scholars the most arduous points of dogma and morals. Saint Coleite* answered the highest and most subtle questions addressed to him by clergymen, teachers in theology, and other in-

1 BB. 17 Sept., t. 45, p. 655, n. 114. Quanquam non possumus non miari Sanctam a tot viris, dignitatibus et scientia inelytis, de rebus occultis et areanis consultam fuisse, magis tamen obstupescere cogor, dum perspicio ad mulierem indoctam, et omnis scientie studio expertem, delatas fuisse queestiones ex theologia subtilissimas, ex sacris litteris difficillimas, ipsamque non dubitasse responsa dare theologica et scripturistica, quamvis aliquando ad quaesita, curiosa magis quam atilia, plenum responsum non dederit.

2 BB. 18 Sept., t. 45, p. 1001, n. 81-53: Tria sunt queæ singulari quodam modo in eo eluxerunt... Primum is sapientia ejus divinitus accepta, qua, licet ipse, ut supra diximus, litteris minimal imbutus and tardioris ingenii esset, viris doctrina præstantibus admirationi fled.

3 , B.B. 6 mart., t. 7, p. #69, n. 138: Aliquoties multi clerici et in theologia magistri, pariter et alii sapientes mundani, preres ab ea difficile queestiones seiseitabantur, et de subtibilibus materiis.. et clare dilucidabat, quod omnes admirabautur et magis ædificabantur, asserantes quod alta mysteria secretaque divina a Spiritu sancto sancto sbi revelabantur.

When she felt in herself that curiosity was not the reason for these questions, all of them assuralized that the highest mysteries and secrets of divine science were revealed to her by the Holy Spirit.

The Blessed Ursuline of Parma! spoke of the Trinity, of the incarnation and nativity of the Word, of the angels, of the glory of heaven, and in general of the revealed truths, with a lucidity that dispelled all doubts, and an elegance of language that delighted with admiration.

X. — The Holy Scriptures containing all the revelations of God to man, the souls illuminated by the heavenly light have a special grace to interpret its formulas well; the divine word which sounds within them predisposes them to recognize and hear this same word in its external and human form. In an infinity of cases, God communicates a more special gift that reveals the deep and hidden senses under the letter, with more ease than the others have to read the letter itself. These kinds of examples are innumerable; we will only mention a few.

We have seen how much great understanding of the divine Scriptures God had given to the venerable Mary of Agreda and to the solitaire of Mexico, Gregory Lopez. Saint Hildegarde, of which we have also spoken, and who was a true wonder by the wonderful abundance of these free gifts of science, heard the meaning of the books of the Old and the New Testament, although she was unable to account for the reading of the text, not knowing the meaning of the words, nor the laws of grammar, nor even

1.5. ZanacHi, BB. 7 a.m., t. 10, p. 723, n. 19: Divina'um seripturarum pexitam habebat mirabilem: utpote of Trinitate, Dei Inearnatione, ejusdem Nativate, Angelis, eolesti gloria. Mirabantur omnes super ejus sapientiam, and illius sermonis elegantim super vires muliebres judicabant: nam uausquisque omnis dubitationis solutionem clarisimam reportabat.

the organization of the syllables, as she herself declares at the beginning of her Scivias! or revelations®, written in Latin, if not under her dictation, at least on her stories, by Godefroy her confessor, monk of the monastery of Saint Disibode.

Blessed Christine, nicknamed the Admirable, had received, without any human instruction and by the only way of divine infusion, a full understanding of the Latin text of the Vulgate; but, by humility, she rarely consented to explain it, saying that it was not appropriate for a woman, and that this role was reserved for priests and clergy.

St.Angèle de Mérici also possessed to a prodigious degree the infuse science of divine things, and especially that of our holy books. "Having never learned even the alphabet," Nazari says in an authentic report*, "having never studied Latin or any other science,

1 This word means: THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE WAYS OF THE LORD, by abbreviation of the Latin sentence: Scream vias Domini.

2 Scivias, sive visionum ac revelationum, 1. 1, Præf. Migne, Patr. lat., t. 497, Col. 383: Actum est in milesimo centesimo quadragesimo primo Filii Dei Jesu Christi incarnis anno, cum quadraginta duorum annorum septemque mensium essem, maximæ Coruscationis igneum lumen, aperto coelo veniens, totum cerebrum meum transfudit, and totum cor, totum cor, totumque pectus meum velut velut non tamam non tamam ardens, sed calens ïita inflammavit, ut sol rem aliquam caulfacit super quam radios suos immittit. And repent intellectum expositionis librorum vialicet Psalterii, Evangeliorum et aliorum cCatholicorum, tam veteris quam novi Testamenti voluminum sapiebam, nonautem interpretationem verborum textus eorum, nec divisionem syllabarum, nec divisionem casuum aut temporum callebam.

3 TRITHEME, Chronicle. spanh., ad ann. 1179.

4 CANTIMPRE Tuomas, BB. 24 Jul., t. 32, p. 657, n. 40: Intelligebat autem ipsa omnem latinitatem et sensum in Scriptura divina plenissime noverat, licatet ipsa a nativate litteras penitus iignaret, et earum obscurissimas quaestiones spiritualibus quibusdam amicis, cum interrogatororateur, enodatissime reserabat. Invitissime tamen agrissime facere voluit, dicens Scripturas sanctas expore proprieum esse clericorum, nec ad se hujusmodi ministrerium pertinere.

8 See SazvaTtoRI, Life of St.Angèle de Mérici, translated from Italian by Allibert, canon of Lyon, 1847, p. 159.

Not only did she read the spiritual books of all kinds, written in one and the other language, but she also had such a knowledge of Holy Scripture, and her reputation was so wide in this regard, that she was often used by distinguished religious, and especially preachers, great theologians and great masters in divine things, to consult her orally or by letters on the meaning of several passages of the darkest and most difficult of the Psalms, the Prophets, the Revelation, and all the Old and the New Testament, and for obtain the solution of the doubts they offered him."

We could cite a large number of other saints whose memory is famous by the supernatural knowledge that they had mysteries of God and his sacred word. If women seem privileged in these divine enlightenments, it is that in reality they participate in greater abundance in the extraordinary effusions of mystical life, for the reasons we have indicated, ct also because being naturally less able to science, the prodigy of these gifts seems in them with more brightness and evidence.

XI. — However, men are not deprived: to the names of Gregory Lopez and Joseph de Copertino, we can add many more illustrious ones.

While Saint Gregory the Great! dictated to the deacon Peter his comment on the last vision of Ezekiel, from time to time he stopped for more or less long intervals. Intrigued by these intermittents, the secretary discreetly penetrated his style the veil that separated him from his master, and began to look through the opening. He saw, resting on his head, a dove whiter than the snow, which held his beak for a long time applied to his

1 PauLus Diacon. Vita Gregorii M. n. 28. Migne, t. 75, Col. 57.

mouth, as if to lay down heavenly food, and as soon as she withdrew, the saint resumed his dictation, which the minister collected on wax tablets. Then silence was again, and the deacon, looking again, saw the pontiff with his eyes and hands lifted up in heaven until the mysterious dove, attracted by prayer, had brought inspiration back to his lips. However Gregory, warned internally that his secretary had seized the secret of his divine communications, conceived an extreme sadness of it, and he instructed him, by apostolic authority, never to speak to anyone during his lifetime. To which the Blessed Deacon showed himself faithful; and it was only after the death of the Holy Doctor that a miracle was so glorious in his memory.

The pious Rupert ‘, Abbé de Tux, also owed his brilliant and unctuous knowledge of the divine Scriptures to a special grace of the Holy Spirit. It is said that, when he entered the monastery of St. Lawrence in Oesbourg very young, he did not spare sight or application to advance in the study of the holy letters; but it was first with such little success that he despaired of ever learning anything. He addressed the Blessed Virgin, for whom he professed the most tender devotion, and the Mother of God, responding to her prayer, appeared to her and assured her that her vows were fulfilled. Since that day, indeed, he had a wonderful opening for all sacred sciences, mainly for the understanding of Scripture. Recognition and love for her

1 JOHANNES SPANHEIMENSIS, Orat. in laudem Ruperti. Migne, Op. Rupert. Patr. lat., t. 167, col. 13: Cum autem esset adhue minus eruditus tam in sæcularibus litteris quam in Scripturis divinis, orando continu et legendo, petivit a Deo cum Salomone donum Sapientiæ: nec aboratione incepta desiit, donec Spiritu sancto per visionem inspiratione, copiosissime ultra omnes contemporaneos suos, quod optaverat, accepit. Erat autem beatæ Mariæ semper virginis ardentissimus amator; cujus intercessionc tantum sapientiæ munus obtinuisse crediteur. Ad cujus laudem postea, ne ingratus profeet beneficio, Cantica canticorum sevem libris exposuit, etc.

divine Maitress, whom he considered to be the sacred bride par excellence, made him surpass himself in his seven books on the , a true monument of faith, admiration and light.

Saint Thomas of Aquinas, the great figure in whom Christian theology seems to have been personified, received from nature a genius capable of penetrating all parts of science and probed its depths. However, considering how short was the life of this great man, who died at the age of fifty, the prodigious number of works which he wrote in about twenty years, the admirable perfection of these writings, the way in which he composed them, never undertaking any study that after being prepared there by prayer and tears ÿ, jeünant, weeping, and repeating his prayers to have the solution of the difficulties, then dictating to three, to four copyists at once, on different subjects, without any hesitation or contempt; sometimes even, even at the age of fifty years, the great man's life was relatively short. The report of one of his secretaries ‘, continuing to dictate on the subject begun, after falling asleep by the effect of fatigue; all this weighed, it is impossible not to see in the science of the angelic Doctor a miracle of divine infusion.

Brother Renaud, who was Thomas's long-time companion, assured the other religious that his knowledge did not come from his genius or study, but that he was a

1 See Moreni, Dict. hist., to the word REUPERT.

2 Gui. DE THOCO, BB. 7 Mait., t. 7 p. 663, n. 18.

3 Vita S. Process. Thom. Aquina., BB. 7 Mait., t. 7 p. 704, n. 88. Item dixit audivates to Fr. Raynaldo de Piperno socio dicti Fr. Thomæ, de scientia ipsius, quod cejus scientia non fuerat a naturali ingenio acquisita; sed per revelationem et infusionem Spiritus sancti; quia nunquam ponebat se ad scribendum aliquod opus, nisi præmissa oratione et effusionc lacrymarum; and quando in aliquo dubitabat, recurrebat ad orrationem et perfusus lacrymis de ipso dubio revertebatur clariticatus et doctus.

4 Guxz. pe Tuoco, BB. 7 Mart., p. 664, n. 78: Of cujus ore sleeping,

præfatus scriptor rewritebat in scriptis, continuando materiam de qua ante scripserat.

free gift from God. Among other wonderful facts, he told them that, when the Blessed wrote his comment on Isaiah, he came to a passage that he could not hear fully. For several days he began to fast and pray, asking God to give him the understanding of these words. At some point, one night, Brother Renaud heard him speaking, without being able to distinguish whether it was with several or with one; and, the finished interview, Thomas called his companion, prayed to him to light his torch and to take his leaves on Isaiah. It was to dictate to him the explanation of the passage that had first stopped him. When he was finished, he dismissed Brother Renaud, saying: "Now, my son, go back to your rest." But he fell at his feet crying, and conjured him, by the name of God, to tell him with whom he had spoken that very night, before calling him. Out of respect for the name of God which the brother invoked, Thomas, casting in tears, revealed to him that the Lord had pityed him, and had sent to him the blessed apostles Peter and Paul to instruct him about this passage of Isaiah which he could not understand; "But," he added, "I command you, from God, not to speak of this as long as I live."

This is how God, the very principle of enlightenment, as is expressed in the Areopagitus, radiates in the souls of

1 Vita S process. Thomæ, BB. 7 Mart., p. 704, n. 59: And cum diu scripsisset and expedivisset dictum passum dubium, dixit ei: Fili, vade ad quiescendum. Who genuflexus petivit cum lacrymis and adjuuravit eum ut revelaret sibi cum quibus vel quo fuerat locutus. Who doesn't emptyretur contomnere nomen Domini per quod adjuratus erat, prorupit in lacrymas, and dixit quod Deus misertus ejus misit ei beatos apostolos Petrum and Paulum, who ipsum locum dubium and secretum plenissime docuerunt, and addidit: Ex parte Dei, tibi præcipio quod hec in vita mea non audeas revelare.

2 Hierarch. cel. v. 13, 8 3. Migne, Patr. gr., t. Two, collar. 314: Is igitur omnium quae illuminandi principaliium Deus, natura quidem and

revera proprie ut fons lucis et per se lux et auctor omnibus, ut et sint et per se empsant.

His saints, put their eyes on them and give them rays to see things invisible to every mortal eye, according to the beautiful expression of the poet Milton!, they are an inexhaustible source of universal light.

We will tell later how these supernatural claritys are derived from the extraordinary outpouring of three gifts of the Holy Spirit: intelligence, wisdom and science, and graces that the School calls free of charge, mainly those that bear the same names of wisdom and science.

1 Paradise Lost, 1. Three, initio.

So much the other thou, celestial Light,

Shine in award, and the mind through all her power Irradiate; there plant eyes, all miss from there Purge and dieperse, that I may see and tell

Of things invisible to mortal night.

Chapter XVIII

The Infused Intellectual Aptitudes — II. The Arts

Reflection of supernatural life on the organs. — Poetry in the Bible, — and in the annals of saintity. — Music: the inspirations it receives from religion and piety. — The inspired songs spoken of in I Scripture, and the melodies of the saints. — Painting and what it owes to mysticism. — Sculpture and Architecture. — The Sacred Eloquence, with its various supernatural forms.

I. — Art is the realization of beauty by the sensitive. I] speaks to the soul through the two intellectual senses of sight and ouie; but each of these senses receives the impression of beauty in various forms. The architecture, sculpture and painting are for the eyes; the music is addressed to the ear; the eloquence strikes both senses at once: the eye by the action of the body, the ear by the accent of the voice.

We do not have to make a treatise on art here; we only want to indicate the influences that mystical life exerts on artistic faculties.

By themselves, Christian faith and life are sympathetic to art, to the manifestation of the beautiful ideal by the sensitive. "When we hear that Christianity is the enemy of the arts," wrote Chateaubriand!, "we are silent.

1 Genius of Christianity, 3 P., 1. 1, ch. 3, t. 2, p. 151.

"What the Christian spirit has penetrated above all from its blessed influence, says another contemporary apologist!, what he has completely renewed in several senses and brought to the highest degree of perfection, is art. "All religions feed the soul," wrote Canova to Napoleon, "but none do so to the extent of the alder."... If art is the expression of the ideal, its manifestation in a bodily form, a revelation of the divine; if it is the infinite appearing in the finite, the heavenly in the earthly, then it can be said that in terms of the richness and elevation of ideas, the depth and warmth of feeling, Christianity has opened up to the soul a world all the more new, as its doctrine about God and man it has overtaken the doctrines that were before. Christianity puts before the eyes of the mind an order of things superior to the senses and to the earth; it shows him the eternal ideas of God represented in a holy and sublime way in the visible figures of Christ and his saints; it is a whole inner world which he creates in his soul and for her, with the purest and most powerful motives that move and shake the human heart, from the feeling that a sinner has of his fault and the pain that it causes him, to the enthusiasm that delights the souls delivered to grace out of themselves. This is what Christianity has done, and by all this it has closely united with the religion of art, which owes to this union its most beautiful triumphs."

Thus, the Christian life itself goes to this radiance of the invisible through the sensitive. Sometimes this power of expression has such proportions, that it is impossible not to see there a special and miraculous infusion of grace. Without going to the obvious miracle,

1 FRAnz HETTINGER, Apology of Christianity, eh. 19, t. 5, p. 153.

Mystical life can still betray its influence; the vibrating soul under divine action, the result in artists a ease and a vigour of expansion that project on the body by a natural and spontaneous reflection. Piousness, without even exceeding the limits of active and common life, much more so in the bursts of passivity and contemplation, produces in the depths of the being light and visions, emotions and attractions that tend to radiate outside, through all the ways that allow the soul to make shine upon the outside world its intimate life of light and love. Most often, it is true, it becomes impossible to unravel where the supernatural influence begins and how far it extends; but it remains certain that it is exercised and that it has its part, more or less great, in the conceptions and works of art.

IT. — Poetry, of all the noblest arts, is also the one that received the most divine inspiration.

Two things do poetry: the rhythm and the vivacity of the images. One and the other are born of an exaltation of the soul under the charm of the beautiful. The beautiful, in fact, according to the remarkable etymology of the Greek word! which means calling, attracting, subjugating the being on which it radiates, the fact flourishes in harmonious and measured forms that form the rhythm of poetry, provokes in it a keen need for expression, and puts it in motion to seek in the human language the sensitive signs most capable of translating. the lovely vision that loaves. This powerful action of the ideal on man, which prompts him to express it by the color of the images and the rhythm of the sentences, constitutes natural inspiration.

If we assume a supernatural radiation of invisible beauty on the soul, there will be an exaltation in it.

1 Kakov, handsome, from xæheiv, call.

This is a much greater task, a more imperative instinct to translate the intellectual view that delights it into living and harmonious signs outside. Hence a kind of poetic inspiration of supernatural order. Under this fascination with the enlarged and closer-looking ideal, the soul vibrates all, instinctively unfolds all its empire over the body that it animates, and makes Jaillir, so to speak, out of herself, through the senses, in vivid, brilliant, impetuous words, the feelings that carry it.

Poetry occupies a place of honor in the Bible, which is par excellence the book of inspiration! In addition to Job's poem, which the competent critics regard as the masterpiece of the epic genre, besides the collection of the Psalms of David, of such varied, so brilliant, often sublime poetry; and the Song of Songs, of which nothing equals the vivacity and boldness of figures if not the depth of the mysteries that they represent, the Scripture contains a great number of hymns, such as those of Moses, Debora, Judith, magnificent productions of the breath of God in the language of man; and, as one of our first masters in the art of thinking and saying, "all The Scripture is full of poetry, even in places where there is no trace of versification."

II. — The annals of the saints abound in edifying features

1 W. Jones, Memories published by Lord Teignmouth. Excr. from the Mercury of France, 93 Sept. 1809. I have read with great attention the Holy Scriptures, and I think that this volume, regardless of its heavenly origin, contains more eloquence, more historical truths, more morals, more poetic riches, in a word more beauties of all kinds, than one could collect from all the other books together, in some century and in any language they were composed.

2 Exod. xv, 1-21. — Deuter. xxx, 1-44. — 3 Jud. v, 1-31. — 4 Judith. XVI, 1-21.

$ FENELON, Letter on the Occupations of L'Acad. franç., t. 3 p. 424.

and graceful attesting that Christian poetry has not ceased to inspire God's sources.

Saint Walten or Walëne!, abbot of Scotland, received in a vision a wonderful ease of improvising elegant and pathetic verses on pious subjects taken from Holy Scripture, from the history of Saints, or from religious teaching.

This gift is even brighter in Joseph*?, nicknamed the Hymnograph because of the abundance and beauty of the religious poetry of which he was author. This holy person, who was treasurer of the Church of St. Sophia of Constantinople, honored a special cult of St. Bartholomew, whose special favors he received. He had a great desire to celebrate to the glorious apostle; but, fearing that he would not do so with dignity, he called upon the saint and venerated his relics with the tenderest devotion. His vows and prayers were not barren. Saint Bartholomew appeared to him the day before his feast, and put on his chest the book of the Gospels, saying: "Let God's hand pour out his blessings upon you; let the waves of heavenly wisdom flow through your mouth; let your heart become the seat of the Holy Spirit; let your songs rejoice all the earth; let the sublimitity of thoughts and the grace of words be a delicious and healthy charm for all." At these words the vision fainted, but it had sent down

1 BB. 3 Aug.,t. 35, p. 372, n. 105: Mirares! Ille frater ante visionem istam erat valde simplex, hebes et impeditæ linguae; sed post, subtilis performed est et eloquens, ita ut in promptu haberet rhythmos camponere rhetorice et venezte.

2 The deacon Jeax, BB. 3 ar., t. 10, p. 273, n. 25-927: Cum vero ingenti aliquando desiderio æstuaret sanctum Apostolum versibus exornandi, tamen continebat se, mctuers ne forte minus acceptum gratumque a se illi evenreet.... Pridie hujus diei, quo divi Bartholomæi memoria celebratur, videt virum linea jacket circumamictum.. Is sacræ mensæ velamen pulsans, tollit sancti Evangelii codicem, and ejus pectori imponens: Benedicat, inquiry, tibi præpotentis Dei manus, ete.

in the soul of the devoted servant of ineffable treasures of poetry, and had communicated to him a prodigious fruitfulness to compose suave hymns which the people sang with admirable edification. The hymnographer celebrated in pious transports the Blessed Virgin Mary, the saints whom the Church honors every day, and especially the glorious Apostle her protector.

The love that overflowed in the soul of the Seraphic Francis of Assisi! burst more than once into passion--born songs, where one feels rather the breath of divine life than that of natural inspiration. His song in the Sun, in which he invites all creatures to bless the Lord, and the fiery hymn he sang after his glorious stigmatization, preludes the graceful and pious songs of Franciscan poets.

His historian and the greatest of his disciples, Saint Bonaventure, left us, among his theological and mystical works, poetry of a nonparil charm?. Among his poetic compositions, we will mention in particular his poem entitled PRILOMÈLE?, his praise of the Cross

Drs 1RÆ is from another minor brother, Thomas de Celano. But the most illustrious of these Franciscan poets is Blessed Jacopone of Todi. STABAT would be enough alone

1 OzanAM, of the Franciscan Poets, 3rd edition, p. 70. When the name of the Saviour Jesus came on his lips, he could not pass over and his voice altered, according to the admirable expression of Saint Bonaventure, as if he had heard an inner melody which he would have wanted to recollect. However, this melody which he was pursued had to come out in a new song, and this is what historians are reporting, etc.

2 See BERTHAUMIER, Hist. de S. Borienter p. 321.

3 Philomela, t. 14, p. 162-166.

4 Laudismus de sancta Cruce, t. 14, p. 172-174.

- Laus B. Virginis Mariæ, t. 14, p. 181-188. — Psallerium minus B. Mariæ Virginis, t. 14, D. 189-195. — Carmina per Cantic. SALVE REGINA, t. 14, p. 196-198.

to his glory. He composed on the same measure, in the same order of ideas, but giving them a joyful form, the STABAT of the crèche, a naive poem and graceful as the mystery that he celebrates. The contempt of the world, the apotheosis of penance and poverty, above all the most ardent and tender Pamour for the divine Crucified, form the substance of these songs full of verve and originality. We must read about this strange man, to whom faith and love had inspired, as to his father the poor beggar of Assisi, the holy madness of the cross, the kind and famous Frédéric Ozanam, in his interesting study on Franciscan poets!.

IV. — Music is the sister of poetry, and although the harmony of sounds can be conceived and exist without the rhythm of words, it is true, however, that it realizes all its virtue only by putting itself at the service of this form of art which it carries, through its union, to its highest power. Read the Dies IRÆ, and then sing it; unless you lack a meaning, you will see how much the song enlarges the speech. In music, inner exaltation is usually more intense than in poetry. A body resonates under a percussion that puts its molecules in motion; thus the soul, powerfully excited by a sudden revelation of the ideal, precipitates its momentum towards the object that attracts, and its vibrations extending to the organs, the result is the singing, faithful echo of intimate concussions.

There is only love that sings; but love does not stop singing: it sings its desires, its joys, its sorrows, its hopes. This is why the Religion, which is the seal of love between God and man, has always sang. The

1 The Franciscan Poets, ch. 5, p. 167-217.

2 CHATEAUBRIAND, Genie of Christianity, 3° P., L. 1, c. 14, t. 2, p. 145: The song comes from the angels, and the source of the concerts is in the sky.

It is the religion that makes the vestal moan in the middle of the night under its quiet domes; it is the religion that sings so gently on the edge of the

Christianity, in which all religious harmonies are concentrated, is not only the friend of musical art, it can be said that he is the creator of it. Is it surprising that godly devotion, which is divine love in its finest delicacy and its most intoxicating emotions, has often been its most fruitful inspiration? And when Christian love takes in the soul an exceptional intensity, more importantly, it must print vibrations that reach and animate the human voice, the instrument par excellence of the ideal and living expression.

V. — More than once musical inspiration was infuse and miraculous. The psalms were sung by the people in public ceremonies, and the holy king David, to whom most of these sacred odes are attributed, had also invented * musical instruments and composed new tunes: is it not natural to think that the divine inspiration of the words was not without some rejailing on their expression by singing? Still, it is mainly from David that the interpreters hear these words of the EccleésIASTIQUE*: "Islands reported their skill

bed of unfortunate. Jeremiah said to him his lamentations, and David his sublime penances.

1 BLaze DE Bury, Contemporary Musicians. Weber, p. 5. It is now recognized that music comes out of Christianity and develops with it. Music holds in the new world the place that the statuary occupied in paganism. By its ineffable character of spiritualism, the art of sounds could only succeed in making the Christian idea of an uncreated God. If antiquity had resorted to plastic art to represent its gods, it was that the gods of antiquity were constantly affecting human form and passion. But in an era of earthly detachment and mystical contemplation, it was necessary to interpret an art with infinite object, an art where the very element is elusive, music. The Statuary's work has consistency and is somewhat able to enchaine before his eyes the human form; the statuary, even though idealized, nevertheless reproduces sensitive types; the sound, on the contrary, imitates nothing, it exhales and faints; it is fugitive and transient as the life of man.

2 I Paralip. xxm, 5. — 3 xLiv, 5.

in the chords of music, and they left us the songs of the Scriptures."

The venerable Bede!, reports a charming trait reproduced by the Bollandists?, and closer to us by Montalembert, where one sees at the same time the infusion of poetry and that of music.

"Neither the kings nor the princes who were going to consult the great abbess (Hilda) on her maritime promontory," writes the illustrian author of the D-OccIDENT Monks, "not the bishops nor the saints who were even trained in her school, "do occupy in the annals of the human spirit or in the scholarly researches of our contemporaries a place comparable to that of an old bouvier, who lived in one of the domains of Hilda, and whose memory is inseparable from his. It is on the lips of this bouvier that the Anglo-Saxon language burst into poetry, and nothing in the history of European literature is more original or more religious than this beginning of the English muse. He was called Céadmon; he had already reached an advanced age, always keeping his cattle, without having learned music, without being able to mix his voice with the joyful choruses which held such a great place in the meals and meetings of the people, as nobles and rich, in the Anglo-Saxons as in the Celtic. When, in a feast, his turn had just been singing, and he was being carried by the harp, he went out of the table and went to his house. One night he had gone away so, he entered his stable

sleeps there next to his oxen. During his sleep, he heard a voice calling him by his name and said to him: "Sing me something." To which he replied: "I

1 Histor. ecclesiasst. 1. 4, c. 24. Migne, Patr. lat., t. 95, col. 212 et seq.: Adstit ei quidam per somnium, eumque salutans, ac suo calllans nomine: Cædmon, inquite, canta mihi aliquid. Ill answer: Nescio, inquite, cantare.. At it: Canta, inquis, principalium creaturarum, etc.

24 1 febr., t. 5, p. 552: From S. Cædmono, monacho, cantore theodidaeto. 8 Liv. 43, c. 2,t. 4 p. 69.

"Singing, though," said the voice. "But what then?"Sing the beginning of the world, creation." And immediately he began to sing verses of which he had no knowledge before, but which celebrated the glory and power of the Creator, the eternal God, the author of every miracle, the father of mankind, who had given the sons of man the heaven for a roof and the earth for a dwelling. When he woke up, he remembered all that he had sung in his dream, and he went to tell the farmer of which he was the valet.

"L'abbess Hilda, informed of the fact, was brought in Céadmon, and questioned him in the presence of all the educated men whom she could gather around her. He was told his vision and repeated his songs, and then was explained various features of holy history and points of doctrine, committing him to put them in verse. He went until the next morning, and began to recite all that had been drawn to him in the verses which were found excellent. Suddenly, he was provided with the gift of improvisation of the verses in his mother tongue. Hilda and his doctes assessors did not hesitate to recognize a special grace of God, worthy of all respect and tender care. She began by joining with all her family to Whitby's monastic family, and then admired him among the religious whom she governed, and carefully translated all Scripture into Anglo-Saxon. As he was told the holy history and the Gospel, he took these accounts, ruminating them, said Bede, as a very pure animal, and Islands turned into such sweet songs, that all his listeners remained delighted with them.

"This Northumbrian bouvier, now Whitby's monk, was the first known poet of Germanic race, and therefore the precursor of so many geniuses admired by the

world, from Chaucer to Byron, and from the unknown author of the Wibelungen to Uhland and Henri Heine. He sang in front of Abbess Hilda the revolt of Satan and the lost paradise, a thousand years before Milton, in pages that are still admired next to the immortal poem of the British Homer."

Blessed Hermann Joseph of Steinfeldt!, of the order of the Premonstrates, professed a tender and enthusiastic cult for Saint Ursule and his companions; he wanted to show them his love by a new song about their glorious martyrdom. As soon as he began to compose, one of these virgins appeared to him, and standing before him, communicated to him with the sweetest familiarity what he was to write. At the same time a beautiful dove, which he recognized to be another of the virgins, rested on the shoulder, and applied its beak to the ear of the one who dictated. That's why in this hymn, and always in the sequel, he calls them the dear little doves of Christ. At these verses you had to find a melody. While he was looking for her, the choir of the virgins, flying in the air above his head, sang a delicious song, which he hastened to write; and when he hesitated or was noticing imperfectly, the heavenly singers repeated these passages until finally he had faithfully returned.

Another fact of the same order, though of a different mode.

1 BB. 7 April, t. 10, p. 694, n. 29: Cumque appliquet dexteram ad scribendum, ecce una virginum illi evidenter appeared, and stans coram eo, quid scripturus essay benignissim and familiarism informavit. Quin etiam columbam pulcherrimam super humerum suum resistere conspexit, quae rostrum suum dictantis auriculæ incessanter infixit. Hanc quaque unam drille de numero sanctarum virginum intellexit.

2 4th stanza:

O vernantes Christi rosæ, Supra modum speciosæ, O puellæ, O agnellæ, Christi charæ columbellæ.

St Catherine of Bologna, during a disease which was thought to be fatal, lost the use of her senses, but it was to be delighted in spirit and led in a beautiful meadow of delicious freshness. In the middle was the Saviour, majestically sitting on a shining throne, surrounded by a crowd of angels and having on his right his blessed Mother. In front of him stood someone who played with infinite charm, on a stringed instrument, this text from Isaiah: "It is in you that one will see his glory." And the Lord stretched out his hand, and took the hand of the virgin, his wife, and said to him, "My daughter, notice this song well, and understand what these words mean." And as she remained silent in admiration and astonishment in the presence of such a great majesty, he told her that she would rise from this disease, and disappeared. Coming back soon from her vision, Catherine began to repeat, with an indescribable accent, the words she had just heard: BE GLORIA EJUS IN YOUR VIDEBITUR. She had to be given an instrument, on which she immediately reproduced, although she had never learned to use it, the celestial melody whose only memory made her fall into ecstasy. His sisters could only admire the beauty of this song or the transports in which he threw this blessed woman; for more than once they believed that she would expire in the excess of her jubilation.

VI. — The painting also had its supernatural inspirations, and the miracle blended more than once in its history. It is reported by the painter Saint Lazarus?, priest and religious

1 J. ANT. FLamiINI, BB. 9 mart., t. 8, p. 39, n. 13 and 14: Post visionem autem quanta fuerit sanctæ virginis lætitia, verba lla crebro remetentis: And gloria, etc., here nunquam possess; adeo quidem recessarium fuerit, ut lyram illic parvam Soores invenient, ad quam sæpius illa cantu suavissimo repetebat: And gloria, etc.

2 CEDRENUS, BB. 93 febr., t. 4 p. 398, n. 3: Carnem depastus is ignis,

donec, deficient anima, pugil semimortuus corrugated. Verum oportebat eum divina providentia postris reservari...; itaque, ut erat plagis male affectionus,

of Constantinople, that after having had the hands completely calcined under fiery blades by the order of the iconoclast emperor Theophile, 11 painted yet another image of St John the Baptist, which was long preserved and which performed miracles. Metaphrast tells that Saint Cornelius {the centurion, baptized by the prince of the apostles and ministered by him on the church of Caesarea in Palestine, appeared, from the midst of glory, to a painter who wanted to reproduce his image after nature on the walls of a temple consecrated in his honor.

"It is in the lives of the saints, as the historian observes? of Christian Art, that one must seek proof of these interesting relations between religion and art... Just as speculative theology, raised to its highest power, leads to mystical theology, so also religious peimture, aiding certain means and tending towards a certain goal, takes the qualification of mystic painting, which objectively implies the highest form of the ideal, and subjectively the most sublime rise of the faculties of the soul." In whatever form it is realized, the ideal is divine; holiness, by bringing it closer to God, brings it closer to the primary source of all inspiration.

In painting as in other fine arts, besides the common and natural radiation, there are the privileged ones of grace. In the first place among these favorites is Fra Angelico de Fiésole. Vasari, his biographer, although not in favour of the Christian expression of art, exalts with

imaginem ejusdem Præcursoris depinxit, quae diutissime conservata is ac morbos sanabat.

1 BB. 2 febr., t. 4 p. 286, n. 18: Rogabat ergo sanctum Eucratius (hoc enim erat nomen pictoris) ut ei suam revelet speciem... Hinc factum est ut (pictor) eum talem fingeret qualem vierat, ipsam plane veritatem cum arte injiciens in pictoram.

3 Ro, Christian Art, t. 2, ch. 11, p. 320 and 326.

admiration the mystical paintings of this truly angelic man, and declares "that such a superior and extraordinary talent could and should only be the sharing of the highest holiness, and that, in order to succeed in the representation of religious and holy subjects, the artist had to be religious and holy himself!"

His two subjects of preference were Annunciation and Crucification. The beauty and purity of the figures that his palette desimai was a reflection of his intimate visions and the subhima elevation of his soul. The Saviour's type, _ always identical in the variety of situations, breathes greatness, benignness and incomparable serenity. The Virgin is the most perfect expression of grace in a pure, gentle and majestic light.

"The componction of the heart, its impulses towards God, the ecstatic delight, the foretaste of heavenly bliss, all this order of deep and exalted emotions, which no artist can render without having previously tried them, is what was the mysterious cycle that Fra Angelico's genius enjoyed to travel, and which he recommenced with same love when he had finished it. In this genre, 1l seems to have exhausted all the combinations and all the nuances, at least in terms of the quality and quantity of the expression, and if we look closely at certain paintings where a certain monotony seems to reign, we will discover there a prodigious variety that embraces all the degrees of poetry that human physiognomy can express. It is above all in the crowning of the Blessed Virgin in the midst of angels and the heavenly hierarchy, in the representation of the last judgment, in the femms as regards the elect, and in that of paradise, the supreme limit of all imitation arts; it is in the

4 Rio, Christian Art, p. 377. —? Ibid., D. 378.

These mystical subjects, so perfectly in harmony with the vague but infallible impressions of his soul, that he profusionally deployed the inexhaustible riches of his imagination. It can be said of him that painting was nothing other than his favorite formula for acts of faith, hope and love; that his task might not be unworthy of Him for whom he undertook, he would never put his hand to work without having pleaded the blessing of Heaven, and, when the inner voice told him that his prayer had been answered, he no longer believed himself entitled to change anything to the product of inspiration that had come to him from above, convinced that in this as in all else it was only the instrument of God's will. Every time he painted Jesus Christ on the cross, tears were flowing his eyes with as much abundance as if he had witnessed this last scene of the Passion on Calvary, and it was to this sympathy so real and so deep that it was necessary to attribute the pathetic expression that he was able to give to the various characters who witnessed the crucification or descent of the cross, or the deposition in the tomb."

VIT. — The Bible presents us with a memorable fact of the concession, by supernatural infusion, of the art of sculpture and chiseling, in the person of Beseleel and d'Ooliab, charged by God himself with the construction of the tabernacle and the arch of covenant. They received extraordinary skill and skill in making the meticulous and symbolic decorations of this portable temple, especially the gift of sculpting marble and wood, chiseling metals, cutting precious stones. "By his name I called Beselel the son of Huri," said the Lord to Moses, "and I filled him with my spirit of wisdom, understanding, and knowledge for all kinds.

1 Exod. xxx1, 1-7.

of works, to invent all that art can do with gold, silver, brass, marble, stonework and wood of any kind. I have given him Ooliab, son of Ahisamech, as a companion, and have poured out wisdom in all the skilled craftsmen who must help them in this work which I myself have prescribed."

The great place of the temple in Christian worship suggests that more than once the design and execution of these monuments have had God's particular inspirations as a principle. There are many legends that promote this belief. What is the cathedral that originally created some artistic revelation that enhances the merit of the work and consecrates its beauty?

In any case, we cannot contest the example of Scripture that we have just given. In showing him the plan of the Tabernacle, God declares to Moses that he chose for the realization of this architectural work Beselel and Ooliab, which he will fill with his spirit to this end; the temple of Solomon, one of the wonders of the world, will be only the enlarged reproduction of the Tabernacle.

VIIL. — We will not finish this chapter without speaking of the eloquence and influences that it receives from mystical life.

Eloquence is the art of moving and persuading by word. It holds poetry through the elevation of thoughts and the richness of images; from music, through the variety of tones, the nuances and emotions of the voice; from painting and sculpture, through the vivacity and nobility of attitudes: all these aspects of art undergoing a radiance of divine life passed in the soul through grace, it would be surprising that eloquence would not have its share here.

This part is beautiful and glorious. Can man, says the Wise, speaking of another object, hide fire in the

1 Prov. vi, 27. 47"

her breast without her clothes being consumed? When the love of God, Jesus Christ and souls ignites the heart, it is difficult for the body to feel the ardour of the body and that this divine fire is not betrayed by the bursts of the word, the movements of the limbs, by all the reflections of the humacious physiognomy.

But sometimes this grace of expression takes on miraculous proportions. This was the case with the apostles!, suddenly transformed on the day of Pentecost by the tongues of fire, symbols of the eloquence communicated to them in fullness. These wonders were frequently renewed at the origin of the Church because of the obstacles that the Gospel had to overcome. If they become rarer in the future, they are still found in various measures, from the ease of speech to the gift of the most brilliant languages.

Blessed Ambroise Autpert?, abbot of Saint Vincent on the Volturn in Italy, who had some difficulty in speaking, asked the Most Holy Virgin to untie her tongue, and the Mother of God immediately appeared to her with a joyful and resplendent face, touched the lips of her servant, commanded her to celebrate her greatness and praise with fidelity from now on, and promised her to assist her always. The religious saint rose from Joy and began his hymns of love to the gkorieuse Queen of Angels.

Saint Bernardin of Siena*, whose devotion is known

1 Act. 11, 4.

2 BB. 19 Jul., t. 31 p. 650, n. 7. Tunc soporatus ante sacrum altare, adesse sibi conspicit in visione... perpetuam Virginem Mariam, læta faie et ultra solis splendorem rutilantem; quae quasi annuens deprecanti tetigit labia ejus, etc... Lætus ergo de visione surgens, quae fuerat jussus, ore faundo coepit persolvere laudes, and carmina digna reddebat alacri corde.

8 BB. 20 Mayi, t. 18, p. 96", n. 14: Christo duce and beatæ Virginis precibus magnifice convaluit, et invisibilis globus igneus e coelo ejus gutturi affuit, qui inveteratam linguæ rubiginem raucitatemque decoxit.

for the Blessed Virgin, also obtained through her intercession to be delivered from a hoarseness that prevented her from preaching. Our Lord and his divine Mother invisiblely brought down a globe of fire into his throat, and he was healed in Pstant with the sheerness of his voice.

The Christian speakers, of whom Peloauence can be constituted as a special gift of God, are in large numbers; in the multitude, what is enough for us to remember the names of Bernard!, Norbert?, François d'Assisi?, Antoine de Padua‘, François Régis 5.

More than once, early signs have announced this glorious predestination. A swarm of bees rested on the lips and filled the mouth of Ambrose 6, who was barely born and slept in his cradle. A similar prodigy is found in the life of St.Dominic. It is even said that, still carrying him in his bosom, his mother saw in dream a dog in his mouth having a torch escaping from his bowels and burning the universe: happy omens of the waves of light and disloque that the zeal of Dominique and his children had to spread throughout the world &,

1 GaurRID, BB. 20 Aug., t. 38, p. 297, n. 158.

2 BB. 6 Jun., t. 21, p. 815, n. 24.

5 BB. 4 Oct., t. 50, p. 579, n. 182.

4 BB. 13 Jun., t. 23, p. 200, n. 10.

$ P. DauBenTon, da Vie de S. François Régis, 1. 3 p. 101.

6 PauzmUus, Vita B. Ambros. Migne, Patr. lal., t. 14, col. 28 n. 3. Natus is Ambrosius: who infans in area prætorii in cuna positus, cum somureet aperto ore, sovio examination apumm adventiens, faciem ejus atque ora completevit. Quo facto teritus must be able to trace: If vixerit infantulus ist, aliquid magni erit.

7 Terry D'ApozpA, BB. 4 Aug., t. 35, p. 387, n. 154: Cum autem jaceret: in Cunis, quodam tempore examination apum circa os ejus volitabat; quod linguam ejus melle divinæ sapientiæ effluere præfigurabat.

8 Brev. Rom. 4 Aug., Lect. 4. Hujus mater gravida sibi visa is in quiete coatinere in alvo catuwlum ore præferentem facem, qua, editus in lucem, orbem terrarum incenderet... Id enim and præstit per se, and per sui Ordinis socios deinceps is consecuteus.

From the point of view of eloquence and its effectiveness, the most illustrious of the Preachers brothers seems to us to be Saint Vincent Ferrier, who deserves a special mention here. Nature had fortunately gifted him, but his power came from the grace of the Holy Spirit and the virtue of miracles. As we have already said, he had received from Jesus Christ even the mission to preach to men the great truths of salvation. As soon as it was announced, the crowds rushed to meet him, and, at the hour of his preaching, the artisans abandoned their work, the teachers and doctors interrupted their lessons; everywhere the enemies reconciled, the fornicators, the robbers, the blasphemers, the usurers hated their disorders, suspended their violence and repaired their injustices. It is estimated that more than one hundred thousand public sinners were brought back to penance, and it is claimed that he converted more than twenty-five thousand Jews and eight thousand Mohammedans to true faith. Most often, the multitude of people from all sides were so large, even in simple villages, that he was forced to speak in the open air; and, amazingly, although the number of his listeners was often more than fifty thousand, the farthest heard as distinctly as those who were closest.

He spoke the Catalan or Lemosine language, and he was understood by the peoples of Lombardy and Savoy, England, Scotland and Ireland, Languedoc, Provence, Dauphiné, Burgundy, Flanders, Picardie, Normandy and Brittany. The Greeks, Germans and Hungarians also heard his word, as if he had spoken to each one his own idiom. When he preached on judgment, on hell, or on the

1 RANZANE, BB. 5 April, t. 10, p. 493, n. 12-15. Nam ex christianis hominibus qui partiti atque obstinati in manifestis flagitiis ab hominibus habebantur, supra centum millia ad salutiferam penitentiam reduxit....

Our Lord's passion, the lamentations and sobs of the crowd often forced him to stop. He himself was interrupted more than once by his emotion, tears or ecstasy. To the warmth and training of his word, added the prestige of admirable holiness and that of countless miracles. Since the apostles, men have perhaps never seen so much disloquence united with so many wonders.

A century later, Saint Francis Xavier was to give the peoples of India and Japan a spectacle like that. In the short space of ten years he preached the Gospel in more than a hundred different islands or kingdoms, and converted an incalculable number of souls. "I don't start to count the leagues he's made, I don't think it would be difficult, and I'm content to say in general that according to the rules of the geographers who measured exactly the globe, if we put all Xavier's races to an end, there would be enough to go around the earth several times. However, the least he did in these journeys was to travel; and those who practiced him most say of him what St.Chrysostome said of St.Paul, that he traveled the world with incredible speed and as if flying, not without work and without any fruit, but preaching, baptizing, confessing, uprooting idolatry, reforming morals and establishing Christian piety everywhere. His apostolic works were accompanied by all the inconveniences of life, and if one believes that the people who observed him closely, it was a continuous miracle that he could live; or rather Xavier's greatest miracle was not to have raised so many dead, but not to have died himself of fatigue for ten years."

1 P. Bouuours, the Life of S. François Xavier, 1. 6 p. 567.

His speech took all forms, according to the character and mind disposition of his listeners: simple in catechisms, pathetic in exhortation, subtle in controversies. He was even able to answer multiple questions and of a different nature, but often quite opposite. In the beginnings, God gave him only a great ease in learning the languages he was to use?; later the gift was complete and wonderful; he explained the mysteries of religion in one language to many. who used different didiomes, and each one heard as if he had spoken only to himself." Miracles of all kinds would confirm this already miraculous preaching. Thus, all the elements of supernatural eloquence meet in this apostle: the light that enlightens, the word that gives the sign that serves as a divine guarantee.

We shall show in his place, in the graces given, these conditions of lenitude, as well as those of other divinely infidel abilities. It is only a question of enumeration of the facts: in the third part we will look for the causes and means.

1 P. Bounours, the Life of St. Francis Xavier, 1. 5, p. 376. It was at the height of so many questions whose saïnt was overwhelmed, that by one of the strangest wonders which one ever spoke of, yes, he satisfied with one answer several people who questioned him on very different and most often opposite matters: such as the immortality of the soul, and the movement of the heavens, the eclipses of the sun or the moon, and the colors of the rainbow, sin and grace, paradise and hell. The wonder was that after listening to them all, he answered them in a few words, and that his words, multiplied in their ears by a divine virtue, made them hear what they wanted to know, as if he had answered everyone in particular. They saw this wonder several times and remained so astonished, that, looking at each other all out of their own memes, and looking at the Father with admiration, they knew nothing to think about or to say.

3 Jbid., 1. 2, p. 88. — 3 Ibid., 1. 5, p. 115. — % Jbid., 1. 3 p. 173. — 6 Jbid., pass.

Chapter XIX

Of Ecstasy — I. Its Notion and Diverse Forms

Distribution of materials.—L-ecstasy; its notion.—The element that characterizes it on the side of the soul: the supernatural elevation and its three degrees.—The part of the body: the suspension of the senses and its various forms.—L-ecstasy itself. Is she going so far as to separate the soul from the body? Doctors and facts. — Natural fainting, which should not be confused with ecstasy. — Ecstasy fainting and the means of recognizing it. The two general forms: ecstasy and rapture. — The existence of

. the ecstasy, and the conditions of virtue it requires in the subject.

[. — We have just described the mystical facts of the intellectual order; we will, in the following chapters, study the facts of the emotional order.

The soul sees and hears only to desire and to love. Through intelligence, she meets and recognizes her object; by will, she adheres to it, she loves, she acts, she lives.

In the mystical life, whose will is the center and the home, the soul follows an ascending path and undergoes gradual transformations that lead to complete consumption in God; it is the Contemplation with its phases

successively. The study of these wonderful ascensiones was the subject of our first part. But, in the course of these ascensional adherences of the soul to the divine world, love produces other phenomena that we must now consider.

The first is the ecstasy, in which the soul, absorbed by the object that delights it, suspends its external and sensitive life, and seems to withdraw from the body that it animates. By the effects that erupt outside, ecstasy belongs to this order of phenomena that we have called organic; by the inner state of the soul, it is a moral fact which proceeds from love, and which resides mainly in the will; and, as this last point of view seems to us to characterize ecstasy, we place it among the facts of moral or emotional order.

In the ecstasy itself, or without reaching the ecstasy, the supernaturally moved and attracted soul experiences, under the embraces of love, a touch of joy or pain, depending on the nature of the impressions that dominate it. When she possesses her object and admires its perfection and beauty, the fervour lumbles, and she abandons herself to the transports of joy. If it is separated from it, or if it steals it unknown and outraged, it suffers, it saddens; and these various feelings burst upon the body by wonderful effects in relation to the inner state.

Apart from contemplation, mystical influences that directly interest emotional life can therefore be reduced to the following three points: ecstasy, jubilation and suffering.

I. — Etymologically, ecstasy means an exit and a fixedness out of oneself! The word is the perfect expression of the thing. In ecstasy, indeed, the soul deserts the senses

1 "Exocaor, from E-fornur, ex-stare.

to attach to a supernatural object that charms it and absorbs its powers.

Saint Augustine! defines it: "an alienation that frees the soul from the senses of the body, so that the spirit of man, under the action of God's spirit, may rise up to the contemplation of heavenly things"; and Saint Bonaventure *: "a desertion of the outside man and a delicious rise of soul to this source of divine love that surpasses all understanding." According to St Thomas d'Aquina ÿ, one suffers ecstasy when one is pulled out of oneself, which takes place in two ways: by the apprehensive force of intelligence, or by the appetiteful virtue of the will coming out of itself to stand and rest on the object loved. Gerson # sees it as a delight in the spirit that suspends the operations of the lower powers. Alvarez de Paz ÿ I calls for a growth of the spirit in God, which abstracts from the external senses, and comes from the very sublimitity of this elevation; for since the strength and capacity of the soul is limited, the power and capacity of the soul is limited.

1 From various. quaest. ad Simplician. 1. 2, quaest. 1, n. 1, p. 188: Mentis alienatio a sensibus corporis, ut spiritus hominis divino spiritu assumeus, capiendis atque intuendis imaginibus vacet.

2 Sept. grad. contempl. (Inter dubia), t. 12 p. 184: Ecstasis est, deserto exteriori homine, sui ipsius supra se voluptuosa quaedam elevatio ad superintellectualem divini amoris fontem.

3 Sum. 1. 2. q. 28, a. 3. Dicendum quod ettasim pati aliquis dicitur cum extra se ponitur; quod quidem contingit et secundum vim apprehensivam et secundum vim appetitivam. Secundum quidem vim apprehensivam aliquis dictur extra se poni, quando ponitur extra cognitionem sui propriom..., dum elevatur ad comprehendenda aliqua quae sunt supra sensum et rationem.. Secundum appetitivam vero partem dicitur aliquis ettasim pati, quando appetitus alicujus in alterum fertur, exiens quodammodo extra seipsum.

4 Theol. myst. speculate. Cons. 36, col. 391: Is igitur ettasis raptus lied cum stop omnium operationum in inferioribus potentiis.

$ De grad. contemplative. 1. 5, P. 3, c. 8, t. 6 p. 577. Is ergo ecstasis elevatio lied in Deum cum abstractione a sensibus exterioribus, ex magnitudine ipsius elevationis processdens; cum enim anima limitatæ virtutis et capacitis sit, quantum efficacius et vehementius uni functioni waitit, tanto minus aliis tendit.

The more it is applied to one function, the less it can give attention to others; which makes Bona say that "the ecstasy is something other than a transport of the soul by which the exercise of external senses is so prevented, that not only do they not act, but they cannot act nor be excited by external objects."

Thus ecstasy, including a double aspect, the retreat of the sensitive world and the elevation in God, can be defined: a sublime absorption of the soul in God, which suspends in man the exercise of senses.

IT. — It is the proper of ecstasy to raise the soul, to attract it, to fix it in God and to exhaust in this effort of attention and this effusion of love all its strength, to the point of making it incapable of considering and wanting anything else.

The mystics distinguish three degrees in this divine attraction. The first consists in the mere alienation of external senses, and is commonly realized in imaginary visions and auditions. The second suspends the exercise itself of inner senses or imagination. The third is carried out by direct contemplation of the divine essence, or at least by ineffable intellectual communication where human senses and reason are not accessible.

This is the teaching of Richard de Saint-Victor?, continued by Saint Thomas $ and by the whole of the School. The

1 From discr. spir. c. 44, n. 4 p. 275: Exestasis idem is ac ried excessus, quando sensus externi ita sunt impediti, ut non solum non operantur, sed nec operari possint, aut ab objectis exterioribus excitari.

2 Benjamin Major,. 5, c. 49, col. 492: Ascendit altem aliquaando supra sensum Ccorporalem, aliquaando etiam supra imaginationem, aliquaando vero supra rationem.

8 Surn. 2. 2. q. 175, a. 3, ad 1: Mens humana divinitus rapitur ad contemplationandam veritatem divinam triplieiter: uno modo ut contemplatetur eam per similitudines quasdam imaginarias, et talis. escapit exeessus lied who

Cardimal Bona‘, in particular, describes this classic gradation.

"The ecstasy thus arrives in the first and most imperfect way, when the soul, seized by contemplation, uses all its strength in these intimate acts, so that it ceases to apply to the external senses, which suspends their functions and renders useless the external excitations that put them into exercise. It takes place in the second way, when the inner senses are absorbed by a high contemplation, and God refuses them his help, they are prevented from acting, so that they cannot carry themselves to the objects to which they have a natural inclination. At the third and highest degree, the upper part of the soul, knowing, reason and will, is raised above all the sensitive images by a supernatural and hidden means which God implements, and which is known only to those who have experienced it."

Let us note, with Saint Teresis?, that this absorption into God often continues, with more or less intensity, after the ecstasy itself; but then it is no longer ecstasy, it is simply a continuation and an effect of this divine transport.

This is ecstasy in the soul.

IV. — In the body, it is characterized by the suspension of external senses.

This alienation of the senses in the order of contemplation

thisdit supra Petrum; alio modo ut contempletetur veritatem divinam per intelligibiles carried out, sicut leak excess David dictis (Ps. cxv, v. (2): Ego dixi in excessu meo: Omnis homo mendax. Tertio modo ut D dtedileE eam in sua essentia, and talis leaked raptus Pauli and etiäm Moysis; and satis congruenter, nam sicut Moyses fled primus doctor Judæorum, ita Paulus MIE primus doctor gentium.

1 From discr. spiral. C. 14, n. 3, D. 278.

2 His Life, c. 20. When the soul returns to it, if the rapture has been great, its powers still remain, for one or two days and even. three, so absorbed and so intoxicated, that they seem to be out of themselves.

&12 mystical phenomena of the emotional order

can occur in three ways: the first is suitable for perfect ecstasy, the second is a simple natural fainting, and the third is held by one and the other, i.e. an ecstatic fainting. In the ecstasy itself, it is the soul that lacks the body; in ecstatic or natural fainting, it is the body that lacks the soul.

Let us explain clearly this triple ligature of senses.

"When one experiences a powerful impression, the faculties suddenly concentrate on the point that causes them, absorb them and become insensitive to other surrounding realities; they stop seeing, hearing, feeling everything that is not the fascination object. Let one carry this charm to a high power, let the soul be subject to the brilliance of divine enlightenment, to the sovereign attraction of infinity, and one will have ecstasy, in which the soul will lose all sense of its presence and action in the organs.

The desertion of the body by the supernaturally delighted soul is more or less complete, depending on the degree of inner absorption, and this absorption varies in the ecstasy itself. At the peak, the suspension of the senses is entire; the body no longer retains any activity other than that of vital functions, with the expression caused by the spontaneous shine of the intimate vision. During the intervals and the release of complete rapture, the ecstatic finds, in part at least, the use of his senses; he hears what is said around him, sometimes he utters some words himself. _

It is a question among theologians and mystics, if the desertion of the soul can be so consumed, that the bond between the body is broken, so that the return to normal life constitutes a real resurrection.

St Augustine ‘, after hearing St Paul, dared to decide whether his rapture took place in his body or outside the body, dared himself to pronounce himself; but elsewhere he felt that this separation could have occurred in some ecstasy, especially in that of the apostle. Saint Thomas #, without directly contesting the possibility of this rupture, does not see the need to admit it, at least for St Paul, and seems to conclude in the negative. Cardinal Bona ‘immits the reservation of St Augustine, relying on the hesitation of the great apostle and also that of St. Teresa, who, after trying to compare to explain, without admitting death, this separation, ends up declaring that she may not know what she says.

We understand these perplexities. On the one hand, the miracle of the resurrection is so considerable, that it must be admitted only as a last resource and on irrefutable evidence. On the other hand, Saint Paul and others after him.

1 De Gen. ad litt. 1. 12, c. 1, p. 566. Quia and hoc ita posuit ut nescire se dinerit, utrum in corpore an extra corpus raptus sit, quis audeat dicere se scire quod se nescire Apostolus dixit?

2 Deo videndo. Epist. 147, ad Paulinam, n. 31 p. 133. Sic enim raptus est... ut live in corpore sive extra corpus fuerit, id est, utrum sicut solet in vehementiori extasi, men ab hac vita in illam vitam fuerit alienata manente corporis vinculo, an omnino resolutio faita fuerit quelis in plena mort contingit, nescire se dieret. Ita did ut... no sit incredibile quibusdam sanctis nondum ita defunctis ut sepelienda cadavera remanerent, etiam istam excellentiam revelationis esfosse concessam.

3 Sum. 2. 2. q. 175, a. 5. And ideo in raptu non leak necessarium quod anima separaretur à corpore ut ei non uniretur quasi forma.

# Of discr. spir. c. 14, n. 1, p. 276: An vero anima per divinam potentiam in altiori ac vehementiori raptu e corpore interdum abierit vel abier posit, quaestio anceps et difficilis est: nam Aptolus raptus ad tertium coelum se nescire professus est an in corpore, vel extra corpus id contigerit. Quid autem tantus vir ignoravit, nostrum non est définire. Who enim, inquited Augustinus of Pauli raptu doctissime disputans, audeat dicere se sicre, quod se nescire Apostolus dixit? Eadem ignoratio Teresiæ mentem invades, etc.

8 Int. Chât., 6° Dem., ch. 5: While all of this is happening, is the soul united with the body, or is it separated from it? I don't know. I don't want to say either... Maybe I don't know what I'm saying, etc.

K14 the mystical phenomena of the emotional order

in their sublime delights, the soul, reaching a degree of freedom and ineffable release, had not been freed, in this whole spiritual flight, from the burden and chains of mortality. To which it is necessary to add that these divine transports are sometimes so vehement, that one seeks vainly in the lightest trace of life organs.

In any event, no one is considering challenging the possibility of prodigy; therefore, it is more than a question of fact that should arise as follows: Yes or no, are there any cases where ecstasy art was carried until the rupture of the bond between soul and body?

If one believes that there is nothing to suggest authenticity, more than once the ecstasy would have operated this separation from death and would have been followed by real resurrections.

Saint Furcy, the first abbot of the monastery of Lagny, died! in an ecstasy, and while his body remained lifeless, his soul, carried on the wings of the angels, penetrated into the heavenly dwellings; then she had to take over his mortal remains and continue her trial. A second time?death occurred, while he was praying, in a mysterious illness that had followed his first recapture. His soul, having travelled in turn, under the guidance of his angel, heaven, hell, and purgatory, entered his body, which was nothing more than a corpse.

1 BB. 16 Jan. t. 2, p. 401, n. 5: Tunc unus ex supernis agminibus armato preæcedentique Angelo jussit ad corpus venerandum reducere virum... Tunc primo vir sanctus se corpore exutum eognoscens, a sanctis comitibus quo se neferrent enquirrit; sanctus Angelus à dextris consistens dixit ei: Oportet you own corpus suscipere. Tune quality anima corpus infraverit, hujus carminis suavitate lætificata, intelligere non potuit.

2 Ibid., p. 401-405, n. 7-32: Manibus in oratione extensis, lætus excepit mortem... Jubeturque ab Angelo proprioscere cognoscere et resumer corpus. Tunc ille quasi ignotum cadaver timesns, nolle se ibidem approinquare

answer. Cui sanctus Angelus: Noli timere, inquite, hoc suscipere corpus. Tunc vidit a pectore illius corpus aperiri.

We read a similar miracle in the life of Saint Sauve!, Bishop of Amiens. Even though he was a monk, during a serious illness, he had a vision that detached his soul from his body and introduced him into the midst of the heavenly choirs. His brothers, when they saw him dead, began to bury themselves; but as they were about to do the funeral, the saint came back to life, and they heard him exhaling his pain in touching complaints about the hard necessity of having to return to this world of misery, after enjoying eternal joys. He recounted what his eyes had contemplated with splendors in the heavenly abode, glory, clarity, peace, the bliss of the blessed satisfied with the presence and love of God. e But, alas, he exclaimed, this ineffable enjoyment was only beginning, which a divine voice made heard and condemned me to leave this stay of light and life, to return to this world of darkness and mortality."

Blessed Raymond of Capua * tells, with very detailed details, that Saint Catherine of Siena died in a transport, her heart having burst

3 BB. 11 Jan., t. 1, p. 705, n. 5 and 6: Spiritum Salvatori Domino congratulate reddidit.. Voce divina meis dictum is comitibus: Revertatur in sæculo, Quoniam necessarius est Ecclesiis meis, etc.

2 BB. 30 April, t. 12 p. 914-916, n. 213-218: Tanta leak vis amoris illius, quod cor virginis scissum a summo usque deorsum, hoc est, ab una extreme ad aliam, sicque, fractis venis vitalibus, expiravit ex vehementia divini amoris præcise, nullaque alia naturali causa cogente. Miraris, reader? sed noveris de hoc preres ess ess ess, qui and quae in ejus exhale fuerunt présentes, qui and quae primo mihi retulerunt hoc, quorum nomina infra pinneur. Tune ego adhuc hesitans, ad eam acecssi diligenterque investavi quid ipsa de hoe sentiet. Quæ prorumpens in singultuosos fletus.... inquire: Nunquid no, Pater, compateremini uni animæ quae fumesset tiberata de earcere tenebroso, et, post visam lucem gratisimam, iterum reclusa essay in tencbris consuetis? Ego, inquam, bet Hla sam cui hoe contigit, Dei providentia sic disponente, propter demerita mea... Func ego: Quanto tempore, Mater, absque stetit corporate anima tua? And he said: Dicunt funeris mei observateurs, quartet fuisse horarum spatium. interexpireem et resurrectionem meam...; salt anmma mea, putans se æternitatem fuisse ingestam, de tempore mon cagitabat.

K16 mystical phenomena of the emotional order

part by part by the vehemence of love. His soul remained for four hours separated from his body; after which, the heavenly Husband whom she believed to have ever commanded him to return to the earth, to work there for his glory and for the salvation of souls. The faithful historian had learned the fact of the admirable virgin and of the many witnesses present at this wonderful trepas, including four religious still alive at the time of writing this account. The saint herself bears witness in a letter! addressed to this blessed guide of her conscience, that, under the action of ecstasy, her soul had left her body and had tasted the heavenly bliss.

According to the historians of Mother Agnes de Langeac, this venerable servant of God would have died four times, in excess of pain or ecstatic love, and would have returned so many times to life. Let us move away from the first and the fourth of these resurrections, because it seems to us that death in these encounters was not sufficiently demonstrated. This is quite different from the other two *, on which we have the vote of Mr. de Lantages, whose good faith and good spirit have never been disputed, and who was able to gather the most accurate information on these facts. Without condemning, as he says in his preface, those who would otherwise think, for him, he believes that there was, these two times, death and resurrection.

1 Epist. 12 ad Raym.

2 OF LANTAGES, Life of the Vene. Mother Agnes, reed. by M. Lucor, 1st P., ch. 12, t. 4 p. 144. This prayer, loving and painful together, ended with a great delight that lasted six hours, during which her parents thought she was dead.

8 Ibid., 3rd P., c. 13, t. 2, p. 318, note. She died again a fourth time because of pain, writes the author of the Admir. Life, 1. 5, c. 5, and, like other times, returned alive to continue his suffering there.

Ibid., 2 P., c. 9, t. 4 p. 412. — 3rd P.,t. 2, p. 116.

S Jbid., 2nd P., ch. 43,t.1, p. 75. Another special thing, which needs to be

We could still cite the example of another spiritual daughter of St.Dominic, the Blessed Étiennette of Soncinno!, whose delights went, to what one believes, until death; the facts we have just reported are sufficient to demonstrate the possibility and the actuations of these kinds of wonders.

VI. — Sometimes we take for ecstasy what is only a natural fainting? These syncopes which take place in the order of piety can be caused by too much vivid impressions and come from the great debility of the body or its extreme sensitivity. Too tender inner suavities, impetuous sluggishness, deep sadnesss, in some weak and impressionable people, determine a more or less prolonged alienation of the senses. They suddenly collapse and lose consciousness of their own thoughts. A refreshing air, a few exciting scents are usually enough to remind them to themselves.

There is this difference between this palmoson and the supernatural ravishing, that in this soul, far from above, is the same as in this one.

I say a word, it is the account of the two resurrections of Mother Agnes. What is very certain about this account is all the external accidents that very reliable people saw with their eyes, who were close to her when they thought she was dying and resurrected. But I agree that there is no equal evidence that she is truly dead and resurrected. For my own sake, I feel that this is the way I have said it in reporting the first of these resurrections, and in my respect for God's servants, after which I write this Life, all of whom are in this feeling. But although it seems to me that my claim is pious and prudent in this encounter, I declare to the reader that I will not blame, nor that I will not even fight intensely against him, if he wants to be of a contrary feeling, and say as a few that Mother Agnes, these two times, has only returned to herself from a great ecstasy, and not risen, as I believe with many others and with herself.

4 -MARIE. the memorable lives and actions of the holy and blessed daughters of the Order of Saint-Dominique, 1. 3, c. 4, t. 1, p. 708.

2 BonA, Discreet. spir. c.14,n. 4 p. 279: Interdum etiam raptus crediteur ab inexpertis quod est deliquium.

hang his intellectual and emotional life, is elevated to a vision that captures him, to a love that transports him, while in that he ceases to think and to want, or only vague and indelible thoughts.

Another form of natural fainting is another. During meditation, one absorbs into a thought, one <sends to a vaporous concentration, to a kind of passivity that numbs and withdraws from the sensitive and conscious life; if one still thinks, one no longer knows what, or it is to various things more or less frivolous and indifferent.

It is rare that in this drowsiness the alienation of the senses can be complete. Most often, it is enough to shake these people strongly or talk to them with vivae and energy, to remove them from their slumber.

Holy Teresis severely blames these excesses, which are only poorly disguised spiritual sensualities and whose result is to consume the forces of the body without profit for the soul, and even to cause the mind to lose, if it is not a remedy. "It would be much better," she says, "to use the long hours lost in this kind of drunkenness in the Lord's service; it can be worth much more by one act and often by exciting the will to love God, than by leaving it in inaction." And she's joking. "I therefore advise the prioress to remove, with all possible care, these long fainting monasteries from their monasteries. They take away their energy from the faculties and the senses themselves, and the soul can no longer obey it; by doing so, they lose the merits that could have been acquired by a constant concern to please God. It can be seen that in a nun they come from the exhaustion of the forces, that the prioress removes from him penances and

1 The Foundations. c. 6. — Medina del Campo.

fasts that are not obligatory; in some cases, it may even remove them from him in complete safety of conscience. Finally, to distract her, she will occupy her at the offices of the house... Oh, how deplorable is the misery where sin has reduced us! We must use measure, even in the good, if we are to ruin our health and thus see us escape the spiritual advantage that we desire to enjoy. This is why it really matters a lot, 1} is even necessary for a large number of people, especially those who are weak in head or imagination, to know themselves well."

It is superfluous to add, with Godinez! and Scaramelli?, that it is women mainly who are subject to these kinds of illusions.

VII. — However, the directors must be on their guard, so as not to misunderstand; for, as we have said, Pevantouissement can be ecstatic. It can be done, in fact, that supernatural illumination delights. The soul by raising it to divine splendors, and that the soul, still imperfect, finds itself seized with fear at this spectacle, and under the blow of a deep emotion that dominates it, the disorder and leads to a body failure. But, while the natural chamoison totally or largely suspends the life of Pensus, in the ecstatic fainting this life continues with an activity and a

1 Theo. Myst. 1. 9e. 8. p. 374: Ay mugeres de corazon tan pequeño, flaeo ytierno, che con qualchicra pasion grande de amor, temor o suavidad, lueso se desmayan. Yo tengo para mi, que esto es lo que ordinariamente tienen muchas mugerces.

2 Diret. Mist. Tr. 3, ©. 20, n. 188, p. 211. Vi sono persone d'indole fiacca, di euor piecole, di testa debole, quali se indeboliscono anche più da

se stesse eon sourchie fatiche, o con penitenze indisserete: e tali il più delle velte soegliono: essere le donnée.

8 Jos. Lorez EzquernA, Lucern. Myst. Tract. 5, n. 186, p. 106: Hujusarodi detiquia sunt performed spiritus my purgati neque ad pure spiritualia dispesiti, propterea quippe fiunt deliquia.;, nam si anima omnino purgata esset, nullis deliquiis indigeret ad ejus sensus interceptandos.

elevation that surpasses nature'. If there was no memory of what happened in ecstasy, which sometimes happens, then the effects that follow these kinds of failures would be used and that Joseph Lopez Ezquerra explains:

"When fainting is natural," said the author! "it produces weakness, fatigue, warmth, disgust of virtue and desire for rest. If it is supernatural, on the contrary, although the body feels tired, the mind comes out of it, alerts, fervent and ready to undertake everything for good and virtue."

If to these signs we add, as Scaramelli advises, the reminder, which we will soon talk about, we will have sufficient guarantees of the presence or absence of the true supernatural. When, recalled in the name of the oheissence, the person who suffers these equivocal failures returns immediately from his sleep, and besides the other brands offer nothing suspicious, one can hold these faintings to be truly ecstatic and over-

1 Ibid., No. 190, p. 107: If dum corpus hoc deliquium patitur, mens is etiam extincta, debilis aut inefficax.., tunc deliquium erit a naturali and not ab infusa causa. If vero dum emortuus is usus sensuum, potentiae spirituales altissime and vivaciter in Deum aut aliud spirituale objectum occupant, ita ut clare percipiat (magister) nulla naturali cognitione possesse illud ita cognoscere, tune manifesto erit deliquium ex causa infusa and supernaturali.

2 Lucern. myst. Tract. 5, n. 190: Naturale deliquium generat debilitatem, lassitudinem, teporem, tædium virtuitis, and requiescendi cupiditatem. In supernaturali vero, quamvis lassitudinem corpus sentiate, spiritus tamen redditudur promptus, agilis, fervidus, and ad omnia quais laboris sunt and virtutis conversus. Quamobrem si prius signum deficiate, recurrat (magister) ad verba signi sequentialis.

3 Dirett. Mist. Tratt. 3, c. 20, n. 189, p. 211: First, the esamini diligentamente circa ci, che ella opera intermamenente con lo spirito, m entre è perita nei sensi... Second, the faccia precetto che torni in se, che parli, che risponda: se obbedirà, darà un contrassegno di trovarsi in estasi vera, perchè Iddio si accomoda alloobedienza, e, alla voce del Superiore, lascia l'anima che tiene stetta tra le sue braccia, acciochè sia abile ad obbedire. Is not obbedirà, sara indizio che ello not so trova né con Dio, né con sè Stessa, ma fuor di sè sevita.

natural. If, on the contrary, she does not obey this command of authority, it is a natural, if not evil, drowsiness.

VIII. — This absorption into God, which renders insensitive to all the impressions of the outside world, can be accomplished in two ways: by a peaceful and gentle attraction which effortlessly removes the soul from the outside life and the pupil suavely to the contemplation of divine things, it is the ecstasy proper; or by a kind of divine invasion upon the soul, which violently separates it from any conscious relationship with the sensitive world and rushes it with impetuousness towards the vision which charms and subjugates it; the ecstasy then takes the name of delight.

"The difference that distinguishes the delight of the ecstasy," said the Angelic Doctor! the famous Cardinal Bona?, "is that the ecstasy removes the soul from the senses with more mildness, and that the delight separates it more forcefully and with a kind of violence; so that the delight has this more than ecstasy, that it does in some way violence to the soul, and that it suddenly and powerfully pulls it out of sensitive things, to carry it and raise it to the contemplation and love of invisible things."

However, according to Cardinal Laurea ÿ, reproduced by Benedict XIV #, Schram * and Scaramelli, the

1 Sum., 2. 2. q. 175, to. 2, ad 1: Dicendum quod raptus addit aliquid supra ettasim. Nam extasis importat simpliciter excessum a seipso, secundum quem scilicet aliquis extra suam ordinationem ponitur: sed raptus super hoc addit violentiam quamdam.

2 Discreet. spirit., ©. 14, n. 2, p. 277.

3 Opusc. 5 of Orat v. 6.

4 Serv. Beagent dei. 1. 3, c. 49, n. 3 p. 348: Juxta eumdem cardinalem de Lauraya ecstasis and raptus passim promised sumuntur.

5 Theol. myst. 8 585, t. 2, p. 320: Who is tamen (card. Laureaea) cum aliis notat ettasim and raptum passim promiscue sumi.

6 Voss, Compend. SCARAMELLI. 2, P. 1, c. 9, p. 310: Multi mystici doctores raptum ab extasi non distinguishunt, quia ejusdem sunt generis.

Mystical leaders often take these two words indifferently one for the other. "We give delight," said Terese, "a variety of names, all expressing the same thing: they call it elevation or theft of spirit, transport, ecstasy." Saint Francis de Sales also does not differentiate between the two expressions. "The ecstasy," he said, "is called delight, especially since by icelle God attracts us and lifts us up to soy; and rapture is called ecstasy, as, by iceluy, we go out and stay out and over ourselves to unite with God."

We will therefore use the terms of ecstasy and pleasure without distinction, although we have distinguished them as special states of prayer; for, as we have said in his place, rapture presupposes a further degree in the mystical scale.

IX. — We will not stop showing the existence of ecstasy; these facts are frequently encountered in both the Old and the New Testament pages, and are multiplied to the infinite extent in the lives of the saints. On this point, observes Benoit XIV, which lists a long series of authorities, 1 there is agreement among theologians, mystics, philosophers and all those who have dealt with the subjects of canonization. The facts already told and those we will still claim are sufficient for a full demonstration; but we must say a few words about the degree of perfection they imply in the subject.

1 His Life, ch. 20.

3 Treaty of God's Love, 1. 7 c. 4.

3 Gen. u, 21; xv, 12; Daniel, wine, 8.

4 Act. x, 10. — II Cor. xn, 2 and 3.

$ Serv. Beagent dei. 1. 3, ec. 49, n. 4 p. 349: Theologist, mystici, philosophi and quotquot de materia canonizationis scripserunt, confirming ea quae hectenus dicta sunt.

Considered in general, divine ecstasy only accords to pure souls or to those whom God desires to have a high holiness. Thus Cardinal Bona ‘assigns as one of the surest marks of true ecstasy, that it meets in a soul free from earthly affections. However, just as great holiness can be without ecstasy, ecstasy can also occur to a mediocre virtue, and does not even exclude absolutely, nor does most other graces for free give, the anomaly of sin?

According to Scaramelli, ecstasy is diversified according to the degree of virtue; but we have distinguished three kinds of ecstasy or three degrees in ecstasy, depending on whether it suspends only external senses, — that is the most imperfect degree; or that it enchains both the senses of the outside and those of the inside, — that is the second degree; or, finally, that it raises above the senses and understanding, — that is the third degree, of all the most perfect.

First degree ecstasy is sometimes granted to beginners, more often to the perfect ones; but it is, according to this author, * the proper one of the progressors. The former

1 From discr. spir. c. 14, n. 5, p. 280: Debet vir prudens, qui animas regendes sucepit, cum quis ecstases patitur, sedulo perpendere, an ejus anima tantæ gratiæ capax sit, an omnem affectionum erga creaturas exuerit, ad quem gradum divini amoris pervenerit, qua puritate niteat, qua humitate prædita sit. Deinde observandum an, sicut in mente, ita etiam in moribus ecstasim habeat, an emptyicet vita vivat supermundana and in Deum elevata per omnimodam abnegationem.

2 ScHram, Theol. Myst. $506, sch. 2, t. 2, p. 338: Aliqui, maxime contemplativivi, raro vel nunquam ettasim patiltur, cum e contra alii minus contemplativi, vel pure meditativi, imo et incipientes et peccatores, inopinato etiam extra orationem in etasim rapuntur; est enim ettasis gratia gratis data quam Deus cui et quando vult enlargtur, uti docet Lauraya (Opus. 5 of Orat v. 6).

8 Voss. Compend. Scaramelli, Direct. Myst. 1. 2, P. 1, c. 9, a. 1, p. 313: Raptus isti proficientibus sunt propri, and quandoque, liquet raro, incipientibus conceduntur... Nihil tamen obstat quominus magnæ etiam perfectionis personis concedantur, præcipue si aliorum institutioni deservire debeant.

second degree taise, which binds the inner senses, is suitable only for souls raised to the union of love; more importantly, the third degree ecstasy, which accords very rarely and to some privileged among the perfect.

1 Voss. Compend. Scaramelli, Direct. Myst. 1. 2, P. 1, c. 9, a. 1, p. 313: Nonnisi animabus ad unionem amoris jam elevatis conceduntur.

Chapter XX

Of Ecstasy — II. Its Causes and Effects

In the soul, ecstasy is born of love. — The two principles of ecstatic attraction, goodness and beauty. — Its forms from the point of view of the cause that determines it: Admirative, loving, joyful, painful ecstasy. — Causes in the body. — Is the alienation of the senses a natural consequence of inner absorption, or a special gift? — Effects of ecstasy in the soul: freedom and merit during ecstasy. — Heroism. — The impatience of dying. — Effects on the body: insensitivity, expression of physiognomy, agility.

I. — The ecstasy, we have said, presents two sides: the inner one, which is a prominent elevation of the soul to the divine world; the outer one, the suspension of the senses. Let us successively study how ecstasy comes into the soul to shine from there on the body, and the admirable effects it produces on one and the other.

Saint Denis! The Areopagit has formulated this law, repeated by all mystics, that ecstasy is born of love. This

1 Divine. Name. c. $4, $13. Migne, Patr. gr.,t. Three, collar. 711: Is divinus amor ectaticus, who not sinit esse suos, eos that sunt amatores, sed eorum quos lover.

A precipitated movement from the soul towards the vision that charm can only be, in the eye, a movement of love, the action of the soul being at the bottom only an exercise of love in possession or in search of the object of his life. The light, no doubt, has a part in the delight of the spirit; but, in the end, the soul gives in to the light by moving towards the objects that it reveals only because it loves and is complacent in its vision, as St Thomas teaches. The delight of the mind is therefore the true cause of the love of the will?.

Let us listen on this point to the pious and learned Bona 3.

"One is in ecstasy or in delight, when one is drawn out of oneself, and this happens both according to the understanding and according to the will; in the understanding, because the deep meditation of one object distracts him from all others; but it is in voionity that the true cause of this abstraction of the spirit is, for the vehemence of love absorbs the soul and does not allow him to remain a masteress of herself. It is a famous sentence of Saint Denis, whom love makes ecstasy; and, although the soul flies to God as by two wings, know: knowledge and love; love nevertheless gives him for this flight more strength and degility. Knowledge is required only to light Pamour; but love has virtue

1 Sum. 2.9. q. 175, a. 2: Raptu duplicate loqui poscuraus: uno modo quantum ad id in quod aliquis rapitur, et sic, proprie loquendo, raptus non potest pertinere ad vim appetitivam, sed solum ad cognoscitivam... Alio modo potest considerari raptus quantum ad suam aussam: and sic potest habere causam ex parte appetitivæ virtuits. Ex hoc enim ipso quod appetitus ad aliquid vehementer affectur, potest contingere quod ex violentia affectionus homo ab omnibus aliis alienetur. Habet etiam affectionum in appetitiva virtute, cum scilicet aliquis delectatur in his ad quae rapitur. Unde and Aptosolus dixit se raptum, non solum ad tertium coelum, quod pertinet ad contemplationem ïintellectus, sed etiam in paradisum, quod pertinet ad affectionum.

- What? Gxnsow, Theol. Myst. speculate. eons. 38, eol. 392: Raptus rationis in aetu suo super potentias mferiores fit per veluntatis amorem.

3 From Discr. &pir. ©. 14, n. 3 p. 277.

To unite the lover with the beloved and to transform one into another, as the Apostle said in these words to the Galatians: "I live, or rather I live no longer, but Jesus Christ who lives in me." That is why the Platonic philosophers attribute to love the perfect knowledge of God, which they refuse to science, because, through knowledge, we are only seeing God, while we possess it by love, and by this possession we still know him, according to this maxim of Saint Gregory the Great: "Love is itself a knowledge." And Saint Bernard, in turn, after assigning two waters of supernatural transports, light and love, also attributes the main part to love, which brings the soul into the mystical cellars of the Spouses."

II. — In order to hear better where the effective virtue of ecstasy comes from, let us stop looking at the two aspects that truth takes in the eyes of the intelligent soul, to charm it and provoke in it the impulse of love, I mean goodness and beauty.

The good attracts the being, because it responds to a need of its nature and is the very object of life. That is why all beings aspire to good, as they aspire to life." Hs call with such ardour and impatience, as it can be said, according to the Greek expression, the CALLED par excellence, Kaäov. When this aspiration of soul toward good, which all its powers demand and see, becomes so pressing that it loses sight of any other object and makes it insensitive to external impressions, it is ecstasy. These ardours grow even more in this possession of goodness, which, like fire that simmers all that it reaches, transforms into itself the beings to which it gives itself; for it is the proper one.

1- ARISTOTE, Æthie. 1. 1,e.1,t %, p. 3: 4ù raküç dneprvevro Tayaldv or Navara EpleTA.

Kindness to make good; it gives itself only to spread and bring everything back to be.

Finally, security and enjoyment bring joy, whose transports can be such as to absorb all forces, until it renders unable to see or want anything out of the object loved and possessed.

Beauty has an even greater share in ecstasy.

The beautiful is the splendour of the good, that is, the good in such perfect evidence and such great brightness, that it attracts and delights the beings before they have even been able to see that this object is their good and responds to the attractions of their nature? Here again there is a call; but it is the beautiful one who calls rather than the being he fascinates: it is the Käov active 5, in all its power.

III. — In the face of this delightfully subjugated appearance, several successive movements occur in the soul.

1 Denis L'Aréopr. Div. name. c. 4, n. 4. Migne, t. Three, collar. 699: Omnia bonitas ad converts, primac, quae dispersa sunt, colligit, tanquam unitia divinitas, and principalium unitatis, omniaque ipsam ut principalium, ut complexum, ut finem appetunt.

2 S, FRANCOIS OF SALES, Trail of the Love of God, 1. 7, c. 5: God draws the spirits to be soy by his sovereign beauty and incomprehensible goodness: excellences that both are nevertheless a supreme divinity very beautiful and good all together. Everything is done for the good and for the beautiful, all things look towards luy, are meüs and contained by luy and for the love of Juy... In short, the good and the beautiful are only one thing: all things seem good and beautiful. Thus God, Father of all light, sovereignly good and beautiful, by his beauty attracts us to contemplate him; and by his goodness, he draws our will to love him... Love provoking us to contemplation, and contemplation to love, from which it follows that ecstasy and delight depend entirely on love.

3 A remarkable thing, which is the affinity of the two concepts of good and beautiful, the words which express them in the main languages, have, when they are not identical, a common root. In Greek, xahoc means both good and beautiful. The Hebrew word tob also presents this double meaning. Latin bellus, which provided most derivatives with the expression

of beauty, has its etymology in bonus. (See FREUND, Grand Dict. de la lang. latin, at Bellus.)

The first is seizing, a kind of stupor coming from what the mind, making an effort to expand, in order to embrace throughout its entire scope the vision whose light exceeds, and failing to dilate at its own will, remains as forbidden and stops still; it is admiration. This movement extends even more, as illumination is more superabundant. If it becomes intense enough to remove the soul from all sensitive impressions, it produces ecstasy.

This first movement follows the momentum of love, the eager desire to reach the fascinant object, and in this effort, even less one is self-sufficient. That if one succeeds in enjoying the object and he fully responds to the hopes and desires, then it is above all that the soul will come out of itself to be all to love.

Finally, the enjoyment of the coveted well produces the drunkenness of Joy, which alone is sufficient to determine ecstasy.

This slenderness of the soul, caused by the revelation of goodness and beauty, thus takes on one of these three forms: the surprise of admiration, the impatience of love and the drunkenness of joy. Richard de Saint-Victor‘, followed by most mystics, especially Bona?, assigns to ecstasy these three causes: admiration, devotion and joy, and these three feelings have manifes-.... a common source, love.

Saint Francis of Sales % also admits three species of d ́extase; but, according to this saint doctor, the third, which con-

1 Benjamin Major, 1. 5, c. 5: Migne, t. 196, Col. 174: Tribus autem de causis, ut mihi videtur, in lies alienationem abducimur. Nam modo præ magnitudine devotionis, modo præ magnitudine admirationis, modo vero præ magnitudine exsultationis fit ut semetipsam mens non capiat. and supra semetipsam elevata in abalienationem transeat.

2 De discr. spir. c. 14, n. 3 p. 278.

3 Treaty of God's Love, 1. 7, c. 4.

The other two are in the works. "My dear Theotime, as for sacred ecstasy, they are of three kinds: the moon is of understanding, the other of affection; the one is in splendor, the other in fervor, and the third in work: one is made by admiration, another by devotion, and the third by operation." Basically, this latter is less an ecstasy than an effect. characteristic and a sure note of divine ecstasy, as well as Saint Francis de Sales to make it notice!. But, in addition to the three forms specified by Richard de Saint-Victor, he may encounter a fourth one determined by the excess of pain. The sight of beloved object unknown, outraged, sorry, Throws the loving soul in a mortal sadness that absorbs it. Makes him repeat the momentum of his love, without reducing anything of his anguish. These are the causes of ecstasy in Fame and the various ways of producing it. The forces of the soul being limited, the intensity of its application on one point removes it from all others, and this intensity can become such, that it leads to the cessation of other operations 1 Trailed of the love of God, 1.7, c. 6: The second mark of the ecstasy vrayes consists of the third ecstasy patch, which we have marked cy-on: ecstasy all sound, all amicable, and crowning the other two: and it is the ecstasy of the work and of Ja life. 2 Suarez, De Relig. 1. 2, ©. 15, n. 4, t. 14, p. 190: Quod non sequatur naturaliter exemplemente, quantumunque perfecta, suaderi potest, etc. Suarez, Jhid., n. 5: Nibilominus probabilius vidtar, supposita gratie perfectæ contemplationis, ex illa naturaliter seu eonnaturaliter sequie possesse ettasinr, saltor quoad dictamx suspensionem sensuum externorum. btaque, lict hec ipsa suspensio et ettasis inter dona gratiæ computamla sit, quiæ

revera sequitur ex priori gratia, ita wt non sint duæ gratiæ ita distinetæ ut non sint connexæ inter se, sed una ab alia naturaliter profluat.

natural resources. Under the irresistible attraction that calls him, the soul, as well as ssexrhne Marie d'Agréda!, "remove the senses to fly to what she loves, abandoning what she animates."

This seems to be the opinion of the Angel of the School, Saint Thomas?. Suarez, who discusses this point of view wisely, shares this feeling and does not give any other reason than impotence for the soul to suffice for the organic functions, when it is absorbed within the divine light. The most authorized mystics, among others Alvarez de Paz‘ and Joseph Lopez Ezquerra, think ct prove the same.

V. — After we have reported the causes of ecstasy, we must study the effects, first in the soul, then on the body.

The ecstasy produces in the soul an elevation that absorbs into God without destroying his freedom, and leaves after him a heroic energy for good and a fervent desire for the sorur of life to possess God. The first view

FT Mystical Cile, 1° P., L 1.0. 3, n. 26.

2 Sum. 9. 2. q. 175, a. 2: Potest considerari raptus quantum ad suamr eausam, and sic potest habere causam ex parte appetitivæ virtuits. Ex hoc enim ipso quod appetitus ad aliquid vehementer afticitur, potest contantere quod ex violentia affeetus homo ab omnibus aliis alienetur.

3 From Religion to. 2, c. 45, n. 5: Ratio unica est illa, quia virtus animæ est finiæ, and absorpta vehementer in superioribus ae internis actibus, non potest simul ad inferiores et externas descendere.

+ From contemplative græd. L 5, P. 3, c. 8, t. 6 p. 578: Sunt ergo in ecslasi duo: alterum est vehemens occupatio interior, quae non ex humana industria (nam hec procul dubio ad omnimodam alienationem not sufficient ). sed ex divina gratia animam lactante et inescante proeedit: alterum abstractio ab omni usu sensuum exterior, quae ex illa priori occupatione vehementiori. ut Thomas Aquimas sentit, quasi naturaliter manat. Quia widelicet non potest home tam: intentes divinis insiste et usam sensuum retinere.

$ Lake. Myst. Tr. 5, n. 203, p. 168: Hæe sensaum abstractio seu afienatio ex eo provenit quod, cum vires animæ limitatæ sint, elevatio sublimis et efficax betrays and recolligit ad ses omnes vires animæ, quia uHæ remanere posiné pro sensibus, quamobrem à suis sensificationibus emnino privatiur.

is the very essence of ecstasy, and we have talked about it by giving its notion. Let's look at the others.

First, does rapture allow freedom and merit to survive?

All theologians admit that the acts that precede the ecstatic attraction can be free, but they are divided on the existence of merit during the very time of ecstasy. " Many believe that in the absorption of delight, the brilliance of vision and the training of will are such that there is no room for the deliberations of free will. This is the opinion of Saint Alphonsus of Liguori?, of Bossuet?, who, however, praises the contrary sentiment, and of a few others whose authority cannot be disdained.

The largest number claims the reconciliation of ecstasy and freedom. In the first place appears Suarez, who discusses this interesting question in his fourth TREATY on the virtue of religion. It starts with recon-

1 Bexoir XIV, De Serv. Dei beat. 1. 3, ©. 49, n. 14, p. 357: Quæritur inter theologos, an ecstaticus in actibus intellectus, id est viendi, et voluntatis, id est amandi, quos habet in ecstasi, mereatur. Cardinal de Laurea has: Ecstaticum merri in actibus præcedentibus, cum liberi sint, and in objecto verser, fine and circumstantiis honis, sicuti sunt caeteri actus religionis and fidei; non mereri autem in actibus qui in ecstasi contingunt, cum non sint liberi. — Suarez stat pro libertate actuum, and sic pro eorum merito; eumque sequitur P. Antonius ab Annunciatione..., adhæret Gravina, etc.

2 Prax. confess. n. 127, p. 173: Quinco anima pervenit ad status passivum contemplationis, tunc anima, etsi non mereatur, quia eo tempore non operatur, sed tantum patitur, nihilominus acquirit magnum quemdam vigorem ad operandum posta.

3 Instructing on the weather conditions, 1. 9, n.13,t. 6 p. 194: It is true that the prayer of pure grace, which is done in us without us, of oneself has no merit, because it has no freedom; but it is also true that it gives rise to very eminent acts, and even it is the doctrine of the theologians, like Suarez, whom God does not always deprive of merit ecstatic orations and delights, where it often pleases him that freedom is preserved entirely.

4 De Relig. 1. 2., c. 19 and 20, t. 14.

S 1bid., c. 19, n. 23, p. 206: Assero hanc contemplationem, prout in intel-

to be born that, in the contemplative vision, the soul can only be free indirectly, i.e. in the acts preceding and preparing ecstatic contemplation. The light is necessary especially when it shines with the brightness of the evidence, and unless then closes your eyes, you are not free to not see. But if on the side of intelligence the soul is not free, it is quite different from the will. Suarez openly affirms and defends the exercise and the merit of freedom in the act of love that constitutes ecstasy, and in the special acts that occur during the suspension of the senses." [1 proves his assertion by three examples from the Scripture: Adam's making an act of faith during the ecstatic sleep where God revealed to him his purposes on the human seed; Solomon's asking for wisdom in a dream; that of Saint Peter refusing to eat unclean animals that were shown to him in vision.

He further established it by the following argument?. Nothing in the delight requires the will, nor the grace that

lectu pervenit usque ad ectasim, non esse actum liberum proxime et direct, liquet remote ex actu libero sæpe ducat originem.

1 De Relig., c. 20, n. 5, p. 210: Dicendum is actum amoris et charitatis, which in tali contemplatione et extasi exertur, liberum esse, vel quoad exercitium, vel etiam quoad specificationem, juxta rationem considerationie et judicii intelelectualis.

Hæc assertio probari potest exemplis adductis de Salomonie, nam tune habuisse liberam optional, satis ex superioribus observed. Same as Adamo, who in sopore suo actum fidei exercise, ut Sancti docent, cum tamen sine libertate non fiat. Petrus etiam, Acé. x, in extasi erat quando vidit linteum descendentem de coelo...; and tamen idem Petrus libertatem habebat, cum dicebat: Absit, Domine, etc.

2 Jbid., ©. 20, n. 6 p. 210: Divina gratia non estruit naturam, sed perficit, unde licet in altissima contemplatione moveat et excitet affection ad sui amorem per inspirationes divinas, quas gratias excitantes calllamus, quaæ sunt actus necessarii quatenés per illos Spiritus sanctus cor tangit; tamen numquam excluded liberum consensum in amore perfecto and obedientiali. Quia libertas in hoc amore pertinet ad perfectionem vie, and is necessaria ut actus sit meritorius; no is autem verisimile Deum pricare hominem justum, cum eum elevate ad eximiam contemplationem, hac perfectione et hoc fructu, quia in hac vita maxime extensés est.

the move, nor the light that lights up. God's supernatural action, far from destroying freedom, perfects it. And is it not appropriate and natural to assume that God, by raising the righteous soul to the sublime heights of contemplation, does not deprive it of the ordinary fruit, and of all the most precious, of holiness, which is merit? The ecstatic light does not require more; neither by its brightness, for it is a maxim received among theologians, that the will is irresistibly driven only by the light of glory, which is superior to that of ecstasy; nor because it prevents the will, the reason having all its play in contemplation, as much and more than in the simple light of nature.

These reasons of the illustrious theologian seem to us to be of great weight.

Alvarez de Paz? speaks no less expressly; he admits of exception only for sleep, and again, with the reservation that, even during this time, God can strengthen by miraculous action the powers of the soul, so as to leave them an exercise sufficient for freedom and merit, as it happened in Adam's supernatural sleep and in Solomon's dream.

According to Scaramelli $, the violence of ecstasy only reaches intelligence, but does not extend to will.

1 SuaAREz, ibid., C. 20, n. 8, p. 211: Commune axioma theologorum est, extra visionem beatam non necessitari voluntatem quoad exercise ex vi objecti abstract cogniti, quantumwvis perfecte.. Quod vero ille actus in intelectu sit necessarius (esto ita sit) non infer necessitatem in actu volun- {atis.., quia illa semper est domina sui actus.

2 De grad. contemplative. 1. 5, P. 3, c. 11, t. 6 p. 596 and 597: Libertas auferri non potest ex parte Dei necessantis voluntatem, cum hoc sit contra finem a Deo in ecstasi et raptu intentum; quod homo sanctior et sibi conjunctior evadat. Nec ex parte rei amatæ...; neque ex parte cognitionis aut visionis perfectissimæ... Only ex parte tandem necessitatis visionis, imaginis aut intellectus.. In somnis, affections ex hac visione (imaginaria) secuti,absque novo and miraculoso dono liberi and meritorii esse non possunt.

3 Voss. Dir, Myst. Comp. ScarameLLi, 1. 2, P..1, c. 9, a. 1, p.313: Violen-

Philip ‘of the Most Holy Trinity, reflecting the doctrine of St.Terèse, deals more directly with the difficulty and recognizes that, under the power of the divine attraction which makes ecstasy, the soul is not free from this freedom which may want evil, but that it preserves the freedom of good; to use the terms consecrated by the School, that it has, not the freedom of annoyance, but that of contradiction, which is certainly sufficient for merit, since Our Lord and His divine Mother had no other. It is one of the aberrations of the fallen man to believe that he ceases to be free, as soon as he is in the happy impotence to do evil. No doubt, the same author adds?, the delighted soul has no more freedom for all that is sensitive and external; but it retains the fullness of its moral life in this world on which its gaze ct its will is concentrated. However, it may happen, especially in the beginnings, that the still weak soul loses full consciousness of itself in rapture; it would be difficult in this case to say where freedom and merit are.

tia ista non infertur voluntati sed intellectui, ita ut anima perfecte wianeat libera. And licenset Deus, in raptu. violenta luce quam intelletui infundit, animam ad se rapiat, relinquitur tamen voluntati tantum libertatis, quantum ad operandum cum merito requirement.

1 Sum. Theol. myst. P. 2, Tr. 3, D. 3, a. 4t. 2, p. 339. Solet inter doctores mysticos disputari, utrum in raptu reperiatur lihertas sufficiens ad meritum; quidam affirming, alii negant. Ad hujus difficultatis evidentiam, scientum est quod ad meritum sicut ad demeritum requires aliqua libertas, ut commuter docent authores, et novissime fuchet ab Innocentio X definitum; sufficit autem libertas contradictionis.. Dicimus, cum S. Mr. N. Teresia...., quod ut plurimum in raptu supernaturali de quo loquimur, is sufficians libertas ad meritum.

2 Ibid., p. 340: Verum is autem quod ligatis sensibus judicium non est liberum quantum ad ea quae per sensus recipiuntur; manet tamen liberum quantum af ea quae divinitus ostensintur animæ, nam anima supra scipsam rapta vere ac perfecte judicat circa ea quae sibi mauifestantur.

3 Jbid., p. 341. Potest tamen proud quod incipientes, ex debilitate and imperfecte propria, total absorbant in raptu, and tunc nullum sit in eis

VI. — The proper and characteristic effect of divine ecstasy is to communicate a supernatural energy that goes as far as heroism, that is to say, to this generous impulse of the soul that makes it undertake and sustain what is ‘more perfect and more arduous, as a witness of its fidelity and its love!'. It's a constant fact that true ecstasy light in the heart an ardent and insatiable love, and the love brought to this point that we are ready to brave everything for the object loved, is it heroism?

The effort of an ecstatic soul to strive for perfection is all the more energetic, since, in the divine light that is bleating, it sees, on the one hand, the infinite holiness of God and his ineffable goodness to the creature; and, on the other, it sees, with evidence that confuses it, its own ingratitude, its stains and its imperfections; this double feeling gives it a tireless activity and these wonderful boldnesses, so well described by the pious author of the IMITATION. *

Saint Francis of Sales # calls holy ardour for the good that follows divine ecstasy, the ecstasy of work and action, and he considers most perilous the delights that

libertatis indexium, and sic merantur tantum per antecedent and subsequent actus.

1 S. Tomas, 3. P. q. 7, a. 2, ad 2: Habitus ille heroicus non diftert a virtute communiter dicta, nisi secundum perfectiorem modum, in quantum scilicet aliquis is dispositus ad bonum quodam altiori modo quam communiter omnibus competat.

2 St. TERÈSE, His Life, c. 20: As for me, I know very well, and I have seen from experience, that a delight of one hour, even a shorter duration, is sufficient, when it comes from God, to give the soul a sovereign domain over all creatures, and such freedom, that she no longer knows herself....We had witnessed her weakness, and suddenly we see her pretending that there is more heroic, no longer merely to serve God in a vulgar manner, but to aspire to glorify him with all the expanse of his strength. This heroism of sentiment, it is called temptation and madness.

8 Lib. 3,c. 5. De mirabili performed divini amoris.

Treaty of God's Love, 1. 7 c. 6.

don't have this suite. Seraphic Teresis thinks the same and expresses in several places his writings?.

VII. — L-extase, inspiring the love and admiration of divine things, produces another effect in the soul, that of making death desire with a kind of greedyness: "The very essence of true ecstasy," says Bona*, "is to bring to the heart an anxious desire to get out of this life." After seeing God in the light of contemplation, the soul longs with a holy impatience for the happiness of seeing him face to face and possessing him forever. "After these great favors," says Térèse #, "the soul becomes so eager to possess the One who gives them to him, that his life is more than a torment, though mixed with delights. She sighs with ineffable anguish after death, and she keeps asking God with tears that he remove her from this exile. All that she sees in it is fatigue; she finds relief only in solitude; but this pain immediately re-enters her, and she is never at rest."

In addition to these two main results, the energy in action and the impatience of dying to be God's, ecstasy is a fruitful source of holy influences, which we have indicated in dealing with contemplation in general and ecstatic union in particular.

1 Tr. of God's love, 1. 7, c. 7: When, therefore, one is blinding a person who, in prayer, has delights by which he goes out and ascends above himself in God, and yet has no ecstasy in his life, that is, he does not make a life raised and attached to God by the abnegation of worldly lusts..., and on everything by a continual charity; believe, Theotime, that all these ravismen are greatly doubtful and perilous; they are delights proper to make men admire, but not to sanctify them...; and in short, it is a vrayed mark that such ravismens and such ecstasy are only amuses. and deceitfulness of the evil spirit.

2 His Life, c. 20. — Int. Chât., 6° Dem., c. 4.

to De Discrete. spirit. c. 14, n. 5, p. 282: Oritur etiam ex vera ecstasi anxium mortis desiderium.

# Int. Chât., 6° Dem., ch. 6.

We defer the study of certain effects of ecstasy on the body, to deal with them with more opportunity in the continuation of our exposure; at present we bring back to the following three that we propose to report, namely: organic impassibility, expression of physiognomy and agility.

VIT. — (FR) As we have said in our study of its causes, the body is reduced to a state of insensitivity and inaction, more or less complete according to the power of attraction exercised on the soul the object of the vision.

This insensitivity occurs at several degrees. In the greatest delights, it is at its peak: tact, hearing, smell, taste, in a word, none of the senses attests the mildest impressionnability; the most painful incisions, the strongest concussion, no dispatch is able to awaken the sleeping senses. Minded in ordinary ecstasy, feeling is totally suspended when the divine attraction is at its peak!. Most often, the eyes keep all their activity; but it is to attach themselves to the vision with a vivacity that seems to enlarge them; from the surrounding material things they perceive nothing, so that one can assure of it by presenting suddenly the hand or any other object: neither the eyelids n1 the plums undergo the slightest impression. There are also tears, sighs, sighs,

1 SCARAMELLI, Dirett. Mist. Tratt. 3, ©. 19, n. 181, p. 208: Dalle cagioni inieriori passiamo agli effecti esteriori che estasi producte nel corpo. Questi sono, come ho più volte detto, un的 impotenza totale neî sentimenti esterni a produire le loro operazioni sensitive, sicchè non posa l'occhio, benchè investeo da viva luce, rimirare; née l'orecchio, benchè percosso da grande strepilo, ascoltare; née il tatto, benchè tormentato da ferro e fuoco, smelling dolore; né l'odorato smelling fraganza, née il palato smelle il sapore, né aposa alcun membro con minimo suo moto da segno alcuno di vila.

exclamations!, spontaneous screams?. As soon as the ecstasy seized it, St Joseph of Copertino* threw a loud cry followed by a long moaning. Saint Michel des Saints also entered his transports by shouting a whimsical cry, accompanied by several sighs or unarticulated months that express surprise, like: there!

Not all senses are fully linked in the release of pleasure. Sometimes the sight is exercised, but rarely. More often we hear the outside words as a confused and distant sound, and we respond to them.

Even in the midst of ecstasy, it happens that the ecstatic speaks of the object of his vision; Saint Catherine of Siena © dictated, in her delights, whole treatises; Saint Mary Magdalene of Pazzi? made aloud her examination of conscience and her confession, in the presence of her divine

1 SCHRaM, Theol. myst. $ 706, sch. 2, t. 2, p. 339: Suspensio sensuum externorum in extasi divina aliquando est omnium, aliquado non omnium, vel non omnimode; nec semper ex minori ettasis perfectione oritur, quod in ea usus visus, auditus, loquelæ, ete., licet cum aliqua difficultate ad as semidormientis remaneat: potest enim extasis esse perfecta and nihilominus dare locum locutii, gemitibus, lacrymis, exclamatibus queæ ex abundantia spiritualium luminum et affectionuum erummpunt, and internam cum Deo unionem magis fovent quam impediunt.

2 Benedict XIV. Serving. Dei beatif.1. 3, c. 49,n. 11,t. 2, p. 356: Tum Gravina, tum de Lauraya verba clamoremque in extasi divina admittunt, tanquam ineffabilis gaudii and alacritatis signa, si verba sanctitatem resonent, modo clamores and ejulatus horrorem non inducing.

3 ParroviCCHI. BB. 18 Sept., t. 45, p. 1020, n. 25: Prorumpebat primum in altum ejulatum, deinde vero in vehementem planctum.

4 Louis DE SAINT-JACQUES. Life of Michael of the Saints, 1. 2, c. 6 p. 441.

Benoit XIV. Serving. Beagent dei. 1. 3, c. 49, n. 11, t. 2, p. 356: Negari non potest in ecstasim raptos, loquendo de ecstasi divina and supernaturali, aliquaando loqui.

5 RaAyMmonD DE Cap. BB. 30 April, t. 12 p. 945, n. 339: In quo dictamine hoc leaks singular and admirandum, quod totum dictamen leak ab ea prolatum tunc tancummodo, quando, ex lieds excessu, sensus ejus corporei actu proprio privatinantur... And tamen, Domino sic operating, virgo sacra in illa extasi posita, totum illum dictavit.

7 Vince. Puccini. BB. 95 maïi, t. 19, p. 188, n. 31-34: Hoc examines de facto, and raptu eodem nihilominus pendant, etc.

Husband. Jeanne de la Croix!, a Spanish nun of the third order of Saint Francis, preached during her ecstasy a sublime doctrine and even spoke several foreign languages that she had never learned. For thirteen years this prodigy lasted, it was visited by the greatest figures of Spain, doctors, bishops, lords and ladies, especially by Gonzalve de Cordoba, Cardinal Ximenès and Emperor Charles-Quint himself.

Sometimes also the ecstatic speaks in the name of another, of God, of Jesus Christ, of an angel or of some saint. Schram? points out, after Cajatan and Sylviusÿ, whose words he reports, that these kinds of substitutions make the ravishing suspicious; but he admits that there are such facts in the absence of any suspicion, and he points out in particular those which are told of the two saints whom we have just named: Our Lord spoke through the mouth of Catherine de Siena, and the three divine Persons by that of Marie-Madeleine de Pazzi.

One of the sisters in the religion of Saint Catherine of Ricci# could not believe her ecstasy. One day, "having found her in this state and seeing herself without witnesses, she kneeled before the saint, begging the Lord ardently for having

1 ANTOINE D AÇA. Admirable life of Saint Jeanne de la Croix, 1614, c. 13, p. 133 et seq.

2 Theol. myst. 8 602, t. 2, p. 335: Cajetanus.. subdit: "And hinc patet, quod personæ in extasi positæ, loquentes in persona Christi vel alterius sancti, quasi actæ abillo and not ex proprio sensu pronuntiantes, aut seducuntur aut seducunt." — Schol. Hoc signum suam patitur exceptionem, in nonnullis waxestantiis, saltem quoad illud quod modo ex Cajetano subditum est. Talis leaks singularis S. Cath. Senensis, in ejus Act..(BB. 30 April, t. 42, p. 884, n. 90), when suo confessori appeared, sua faie in faciem Salvatoris transfigurata, and illo attonito interrogating: Who is it that resounds me? It restes: Ill that is. — Tales quoque fuerunt singulares doctrinæ quas S. Magdalena de Pazzis (BB. 25 Maii, t. 19, p. 237, n. 233) in suis raptibus dictavit, nunc loquens in proprio persona, nunc in persona Patris æterni, nunc Verbi, nunc Spiritus sancti.

3 See. Benedict XIV. Servorum Dei beatif. 1. 3, ©. 49, n. 6 p. 354.

% P. Hyac. Bayonne. Life of Saint Catherine of Ricci, that. 9, t. 1, p. 161.

From ecstasy: causes and effects kht

pity on her and to remove her obstinacy from her heart not to give faith to the delights of her holy wife. Then, rising her wishes towards Catherine's face, she saw only the face of Jesus Christ with her big hair and beard. She's afraid of this sight, and she wants to run away. But without leaving her ecstasy, the saint, holding her with her two hands by her shoulders and looking her in front, said to her: "Who do you think I am, Jesus or Catherine?" The poor child, even more frightened, cried out loud, so that she could be heard by a crowd of her companions who ran from all sides, and said, "You are Jesus." And three times, at the same request, she answered the same question: "You are Jesus." At the very moment a great Joy flooded her soul; she had just obtained the certainty of Catherine's great holiness and of the truth of her exlases. She then naively told her companions "that she had never seen beauty comparable to the beauty of Jesus' face, which had taken the place of Catherine's".

The decisive rule, as does the sign Benedict XIV!, is to appreciate these kinds of cases after all.

It is said of Saint Mary Magdalene of Pazzi?, Mother Agnes and several others, that their long ecstasy did not always prevent them from going to their outer occupations. Above all, there are two circumstances in which ecstatics find it easy to move: when it comes to going to communion and obeying the orders of the superiors, as we see in particular, to name but one example, in the life of St. Francis the Roman. "

1 Serv. Dei beatific. 1. 3, c. 49, n. 11: Denique regula is ut verba observantur queæ ab ecstaticis reruntur una cum omnibus circumstantiis.

2 Vince. Pucani. BB.t. 19, p. 206, n. 111. Etiam sic occata, rapiebatur quidem, non tamen limittebat coeptum opus.

3 LANTAGES, Life of the M. Agnes, 3 P., ch. 3, t. 4 p. 105. — And passim.

4 BB. 9 mart., t. 8, pp. -185 and *187, n. 40 and 50: Ista spiritus obductio a

However, the ordinary effect of ecstasy and a kind of suspension of vice, at least of the life of relationships, are the ordinary effect of ecstasy, and the facts we have just pointed out are only exceptions.

In this state, the vital heat decreases ‘, especially at the extremities, i.e. at the feet and hands?, and sometimes the body is so icy that it becomes rigid as a corpse, although the breathing and circulation are not entirely suspended.

Finally, the neglect of the body by the soul can be if it is active, that the vital functions are or seem to be interrupted, that the least clues of organic life disappear: not a breath on the lips, not the lightest movement in the chest, in the heart or in the veins. If it is not death, we have at least all appearances, and we have already said that the desertion of the soul could go so far.

When the principle of life withdraws from the organs at this point, the expression they take is that of immobility and death. These effects occur only in the highest and most violent delights; usually, though ecstasy removes the feeling of outside life, it gives the physiognomy a character-like, non obsessive appearance quominus cum aliis ad altare accederet, indeque, sumpto Sacramento, reverteretur in locum suum, cecra immobilis ad dues aut, aliquado etiam ad pleures horas.., in extasi posita and naturalium sensuum usu destituta, patri suo spirituali promptissime obediret.

1 SCARAMELLI. Diret. Mist. Tratt.3, c. 21 n. 207, p. 219: Gli manca a poco a poco tutto il calore naturale, si raffredda, si intirizzisce, si gela, e se ne rimane a guisa di cadavere fabatto esangue. Tutto questo accade infallibilmente metre l'anima si trova nel alto del ratto.

2 Ste TÉRÈSE, Chdt. int., 6th D., ec. 4: Such coldness gains hands and the whole body, that the soul seems to be separated.

8 GERSON. Myst. theol. speculate. assholes. 36, col. 591. Mens ita in suo actu sustina est, quod potentiæ inferiores ceasing ab actibus sui; sic

quod nec ratio, nec imaginatio, nec sensus exteriores, immo quandoque nec

natural potentials nutritivæ, and increaseativæ, and motivæ possible exire in suas proprios operationses.

It is a resounding thing that betrays the intimate transport of the soul. By an irradiation that is due to the nature of man, the intoxication and the clarity of the inside are reflected outside; the supernatural vision delights and beatifies at the same time, though diversely, soul and body. Under these rays and attractions ins. the face of the ecstatic light of a heavenly beauty, which translates the deepest and purest admiration. It's a real transfiguration."

This expression varies according to the nature of the vision. All intimate feelings are painted with admirable perfection on the face el in latitude. As long as ecstasy continues, it is rare that it does not have different aspects, whose variety and transition are reflected on the body with a flexibility and fidelity that are not equal in the mobility yet so great of the human physiognomy. The most common forms that appear are: admiration, love, joy, pain, and respond to the different kinds of visions that we have pointed out in speaking of causes; which brings back, from the point of view of expression, admiring, loving, joyful, painful ecstasy.

Generally, the body keeps the position where it surprised the divine eruption: it is standing, sitting or kneeling, hands joined or extended, raised or lowered; however, the attitude may vary with the phases of the apparition?.

Finally, with the celestial expression of which the physio-

{ V. That's it. Vita S. Mariæ Magd.de Pazzis. BB. 25 Maii, t. 19, p. 258

n. 46: Rapta in ecstasim nullum edebat motum ac nec oculi quidem nictabant vel semel; vultus autem, alias pallidus ac macilentus ex morbo, factus erat rubicundus ac plenus, tanquam caelstis cujusdam Angeli.

2 SLAVE PAZ. De grad. contempl. €. 9,t. 6 p. 585: Ideo in raptu, aut sedet, aut jacet, aut in loco ubi erat, ceu columna quaedam, immotum perstat. Interdum, vi spiritus in aera levatur; interdum manus and brachia in altum levat, aut aliis modis insetis vehementiam ïinterioris motionis ostentat.

Kk4k the mystical phenomena of the emotional order

Agility is one of the most curious phenomena of ecstasy. The lovely vision that drives the soul and absorbs into the beloved object also sometimes, often even, attracts the body, the pupil, moves it with an irresistible empire and subtracts it from the natural laws of gravity. We will not insist on this prodigy, reserving that we should deal with more along in a special chapter.

Saint Térèse, describing the extraordinary effects of rapture, sums up almost everything we have just said.

"Often," she wrote, "my body became so light, that he had no more gravity; sometimes it was so much, that I no longer felt my feet touching on the ground. As long as the body is in rapture, it remains as dead, and often in absolute impotence to act. He keeps the attitude where he was surprised; so he stays on foot or sitting, with his hands open or closed, in a word, in the state where the delight found. Although the feeling is not usually lost, it has happened to be entirely private; this has been rare and lasted very little time. Most often the feeling is preserved, e-mails I don't know what trouble, and although we can't act outside, we don't let you hear it; it's like a confused sound that would come from far away. However, even this way of hearing ceases when the rapture is at its highest degree, I mean when the powers, wholly united with God, remain lost in him. So, in my opinion, you can't see, you can't hear, you can't feel anything."

1 His life, ch. 20.

Chapter XXI

Of Ecstasy — III. Its Time and Duration

Ecstasy occurs during sleep or the night before. — It is usually irresistible, unforeseen, sudden, transient. — Its duration. How is the common doctrine of the short duration of the rapture reconciled with the long ecstasy of the saints? — The end of ecstasy through natural awakening. The phases of this return. — The suspension of ecstasy by the reminder. — Conditions of the reminder. — The conduct to be held towards the ecstatics in the long ravishing.

I. — In terms of time, we have to consider the beginning, the duration and the end of ecstasy.

The ecstasy can occur in the sleep or the sleep. The Scripture contains examples of ecstatic sleep, especially in Adam!, the ruler and source of mankind, and in Abraham, * the father of believers.

Ecstatic sleep differs from natural sleep in its intensity. In this case, the senses are not entirely linked; a sharp clarity, a loud noise, a strong concussion are sufficient to put them back into practice; this one, to the con-

1 Gen. n, 21. Immisit ergo Dominus Deus soporem in Adam, obdormisset cumque, tulit unam de costis ejus, etc.

2 Jbid., xv, 12. Cumque sol occumberet, sopor irritates super Abram and horror magnus and tenebrosus invades eum.

The body's physiological conditions seem to be the same externally.

It is usually during the day before that ecstasy declares itself and, preferably, in the recollection and fervor of prayer, after Holy Communion; but it also seizes out of prayer and in the midst of ordinary occupations, which takes place especially in the ravishing itself?.

The opportunity that determines transport can be a word that is heard. Blessed Gilles #, of the order of Santo Domingo, no longer possessed himself by hearing the sweet name of Jesus; the same was true of St Peter of Alcantara # in these words of the Gospel: "The Word was made flesh," and, in general, every time he explained Christian mysteries. This opportunity may be a mere memory, * a thought that is born of previous thoughts or that arises unexpectedly in the mind, f, an object of piety,

1 SchRAM. $606, sch. 3, t. 2, p. 339: In somno etiam ettasis divina contingere potest, uti patet in somno extatico Adami, quando ex ejus lactre Eva formata leaks; different endomet somnus extaticus to naturali, quod somnus naturalis suavi, easy solubili, and ad evigilandum apto modo sensus suspendat, cum e contra somnus extaticus fortiori resistia sensus leget; non ad requiem, uti somnus naturalis, sed ad divinas intellicentias capiendas.

2 Jos. Lopez EzQuerrRA, Luc. myst. Tr. 5, n. 216, p. 110: Raptus igitur sæpius fit in homine in diversa occupato (licet fiat interdum recollecto), and tune, repentino and improviso motu spiritus, violenter in divinium objectum rapitur.

3 . BB. 14 May, t. 16, p. 408, n. 14: Quoties dulcissimum Jesu nomen nominari ab aliis audiret aut nominaret ipse, quod solitus erat frequentissime, incredibile dictu est quam tota ejus anima liquefiebat.

4 Fr. LAURENT. BB. 19 Oct., t. 56, p. 755, n. 217: Cum fidei mysteria explicabat, ordinaria extra sensus rapi and lumina superno a Domino illustari videbatur, etc.

5 Ste TÉRESE, Chdl. int., 6° Dem., c. 4: One of these kinds of delights often happens without meme that one is in prayer, when a per- _ sound is touched by remembering a few words that God once told him.

8 St. Ténèse, 1bid., 7° Dem., c. 3. Once, when she was consumed

a religious song; most often, the true cause is a vision that suddenly appears in the eyes of the soul and puts it out of itself.

II. — L'extase is imposed with irresistible power. Sometimes, however, God seems to wait for the consent of the soul and to make him a gentle violence. The soul then can resist, and if it refuses by humility, it feels in it the eflets of this divine attraction, as if it had accepted it.

"You can hardly resist the rapture," said Saint Terèse! speaking of herself. Sometimes I could oppose some resistance; but as a cetrail in some way to fight against a strong giant, I remained broken and overwhelmed with fatigue. At other times, all my efforts were in vain; my soul was taken away, my head almost always followed this movement, and I could not hold it back, and sometimes even my body was taken away in such a way that it no longer touched the ground. When I wanted to resist, I felt an amazing pressure under my feet that would lift me; I would not know how to compare it. No other of all the movements that were happening in the mind has anything approaching such impetuousness. It was a terrible fight; I was still broken. When God wills, all resistance is vain; There is no power against his power. From time to time he deigns to be content to show us that he wants to grant us this favor, and that he is only up to us to receive it. So if we resist it by humility, it produces the same effects as if it had obtained full consent."

Generally, ecstasy occurs unexpectedly, in

of these ardent desires to be united with his divine Husband, it was enough of the slightest opportunity, of a pious song, of the first words of a sermon, of a devoted image, to bring her out of herself.

1 His Life, ch. 20.

this sense at least that it cannot be anticipated long in advance; God, in these extraordinary favors, did not impose day or hour on him. " Allois l'extase can take on a periodic character, for example, every Friday, after Holy Communion, or at the hour of crucification and the death of the Saviour.

The soul can also be warned by a certain intimate impression, by an increasing contemplation, by irresistible impulses of the approach to rapture. These symptoms are often given to the ecstatics to give them time to escape from the eyes of the public; for humble and holy souls fear nothing as long as they are surprised in those states that attract glances and cause esteem; and all masters? strongly recommend that these people avoid with the utmost care to occur and publish these kinds of favors.

In any case, when it arrives, the ecstasy is sudden, without transition or sharing, as it happens in the half-sleep ÿ.

The grace of ecstasy is never granted in a permanent way, so that it can enter into delight at will. "It's a sign, or at least a reason to suspect that ecstasy comes from the evil mind or from a natural cause," says Bona #, "when you brag yourself.

1 ScHRaM, 8,589, t. 2, p. 395: If ectasis determinatum tempus sui insultus server, plerumque ectasis naturalis erit. E contra etasis divina, utpote gratia gratis a Deo data, nulli tempori determinato alligetur.

2 ScarAMELLI. Diret. mist. Tr. 3, c. 20, n. 194, p. 213: Capiterà in mano del Direttore persona che spesso cada in questi eccessi di mente, proccuriegli quanto potrà, che fugga la presenza degli uomini in tutti questi casi in cui potra prevedere o presentire tali elevazioni di spirito.

3 GURRERS. Mystical, 4, ©. 4t. 2, p. 242: The ecstasy itself occurs in an instant, without transition, like lightning.

4 From Discr. spir. ©. 14, n. 5, p. 281: Quod ecstasis a malo spiritu vel aliqua causa naturali proveniat, signum est vel saltem suspicio, cum quis jactat se rapi quandocumque voluerit; nemini enim datur raptus per modum habitus, sed divina gratia ad se animam betrays quando vult and quomodo vult.

to enter into the delight whenever desired; for no one receives this gift in a manner of habit; but God draws the soul to himself by his grace, when he wills and as he wills." This rule is so obvious and so sure, that it does not suffer any exception!.

III. — From the admission of all, ecstasy is short-lived, because of the violence that the senses and the body suffer? According to Saint Teresus, in agreement with the mystics who preceded him and those who followed him, "it's a lot when she goes up to half an hour."

However, many saints are told that they spent hours, days, weeks, whole months in delight. Sainte Colette 4 remained in transports which deprived her entirely of the use of her senses for six, ten, and even twelve hours. The Blessed Angel of Folignoÿ was three days in a row outside herself. Saint Mary Magdalene of Pazzi$ spends so once four days, and another whole week. Saint Phantin, monk of Thessalonica, is delighted for twenty continuous days. The

1 SCHRAM. $600, p. 334: So that pro suo libitu ectasin patiatur. If ectaticus rapiatur aut alienetur quoties vult, signum ettasis diabolicæ erit; nemini enim datur ettasis per modum habitus, sed divina gratia, prout et quando vult, animam ad betrays itself.

2 Boxa. From discr. spir. ©. 14, n. 4 p. 282: Solet raptus modico tempore durare propter violentiam quae sensibus et corpori infertur.

8 His Life, c. 18.

4 Er. pe Juuers. BB. 6 mart., t. 7 p. 557, n. 89: Interdum in tali status permanebat per sex horarum spatium, aliquado per decem vel duodecim, nihil sentiens de forensibus.

ANAUD. BB. 4 Jan., t. 1, p. 206, n. 193: Duravit mihi ista visio per tres dies continues.

6 Vnc. Puccmt, BB. 25 Maii, t. 19, p. 189, n. 35: In hac enim (ecstasi) per octa continuos dies.

Ibid., p. 191, n. 43: Una in ecstasi perseveravit quartet diebus quartetque continuis noctibus, nect nisi duabuse quotidie horis revertebatur ad sensus.

7 BB. 30 Aug., t. 40, p. 623, n. 1. Per dies omnino viginti, mente in cælum raptus, nullumque hominum sentiens.

Venerable Mother Agnes of Jesus "was sometimes absorbed into God for fifteen days and three weeks, nevertheless doing her services, aided by her holy angel, and always responding appropriate, as if she would have been to herself!" We could cite many of these facts.

In order to understand and reconcile these apparently contradictory claims, one must distinguish between the highest ecstasy and the intervals. After Saint Teresus?, who explains this very clearly, the delight undergoes alternatives of union and release from understanding, imagination and memory, while the will always remains united with God, to varying degrees, however. At the height of the union, this master faculty draws and fixes on the object that delights it those that are submitted to it. The simultaneous accession of all powers, together with the will, lasts little, not more than half an hour. After which the divine attraction relaxes; but the will does not separate itself from the object that she loves, and still maintain, at least to a great extent, the suspension of the senses: intelligence, memory, imagination detach themselves, less to distract herself, than to reflect on the vision itself, and to seek new reasons for admiration and praise, until the will the will

1 DE Lanraces, Life of the Venerable Mother Agnes, 3° P., ch. 4, t. 2, D. 109.

2 His Life, ch. 18: The supension of all powers never lasts long, it's a lot when it goes up to half an hour, and I don't think it's ever lasted so long. Whenever this suspension takes place, there is little time without one of the powers returning to it. The will is the one that keeps itself best in the divine union; but the other two soon begin to import again. As she is in peace, she brings them back and suspends them again: they thus remain quiet for a few moments and then resume their natural life. The prayer can, with these alternatives, be prolonged, and actually lasts for a few hours... I would add that the powers only become to them imperfectly, they can remain in some sort of

delirium within a few hours, during which God rekindles them and fixes them in him.

recalls or that God applies them again to the object from which they have come out, or to any other, which brings a revival into ecstasy.

We must hear Saint Teresus testifying to his own experience: his statements on this subject are law among mystics!.

"This total transformation of the soul into God, produced by the rapture at its highest point," she says?, "is of very short duration; but as long as it lasts, no power has the feeling of itself, nor knows what God is doing.

"Maybe you will ask me, Father, how the delight sometimes lasts for several hours. I will answer from what I have often experienced.

"The delight, as I said of union, is not continuous; the soul enjoys it only at intervals. On various occasions she stings, or rather God lukewarms in him; and after he has held it all in this way for a few moments, the will remains alone united by delight. In the other two powers, the movement is similar to that of the shadow of the needle in the sundials, which never stops. But when the Sun of Justice wants it, he knows how to make them stop; and it is this simultaneous rapture of all powers which, in my opinion, is short-lived. However, as the transport that has taken the soul away has been so powerful, the will, despite the new movements of the other two faculties (intelligence and memory) remains deeply damaged in God. In vain, by the agitation of their natural activity, do they want to disturb his peace, it dominates them as sovereign. Not to be disturbed by the senses, the least

1 Voss, Dir. Mist. 1. 9, P. 1, c. 9, a. 1, p. 315: Talis is doctrina and experientia S. Teresiæ, sicut and aliorum which tantos favores receiveunt. 2 His Life, ch. 20, trade in P. Bouix.

of her enemies, she also hangs them at her will, because this is the will of the Lord. The eyes remain closed almost all the time, although they would not want to close; and if sometimes they open, they do not distinguish anything, as I have already said. In this state, the body has lost all power to act; hence it results that, when memory and understanding unite again to the will, these two powers encounter less difficulty. So let him to whom God does such a great favor not find it hard, for several hours, to find himself the body as bound, and the memory and understanding distracted. Most often, to the truth, the distraction of these two powers consists only in spreading in praise of God, of which they are as drunken, or in trying to understand what has happened in them. Yet they cannot do so at their own discretion, since their condition resembles that of a man who, after a long sleep filled with dreams, is still only half awake."

IV. — We come out of ecstasy in two ways: by simple island awakening or by reminder.

The ordinary return is due to the cessation of the inner charm which carries the soul: the cause cease, the effect must cease. The ecstasy starts from the soul to extend to the body; the body only regains its action when the soul is released; or rather, removed from the senses by the vision that drives it and raises it to a higher life, the soul, as soon as it is restored to itself, resumes all its organic functions.

This return to outside life is instantaneous or gradual.

The instantaneity seems to be the common law. Free from the attraction that was absorbed outside, soul, alert and as rejuvenated, finds effortlessly the regular and conscious government of the organism.

When the release occurs in degrees, it is not

Rarely is he laborious. The face of the ecstatic, previously suspended by the mysterious charm, falls insensitively: its features relax, the mouth closes, the eyelids lower, its head leans, and it then occurs on its physiognomy, again human, an anxious and prolonged malaise. While the ecstasy suddenly removed senses, the soul, when the vision ceases, only gradually resumes its action on the organs; it is all the more hard to reactivate its numb senses and as paralyzed, as it has been separated from them with more violence and training. It's a painful struggle and a kind of anguish similar to that of a person who makes an effort to get out of a deep sleep, from an overwhelming lethargy!.

Moreover, it is only to regret that the soul is brought back from a bright and enchanting vision to the darkness and servility of the flesh. Sometimes the fixity seems to start over again, and the face lightens several times in soft light; but these are only memories. When Blessed Gilles?, by the order of the Preachers Brothers, came out of divine contemplation, it was heard, even from afar, to grow sighs and moanings, as if his soul bore with difficulty to have to resume his bodily functions, just as a child suffers and complains, if, at the moment he sucks milk with a greedy sovereign, he is cut off from the mother's womb. Well-

1 Dr. Leresvre. Louise Lateau, 1870: The ecstasy ends with a frightening scene: the arms fall along the body, the head bows to the chest, the eyes close, the nose sieves, the face takes a deadly paw, it covers itself with cold sweat, the hands are icy, the pulse is absolutely imperceptible, it scolds, etc.

- What? To. RESENT. BB. 14 maiii, t. 16, p. 408, n. 11: Ubi ad humanitatis senum, ex illa divinæ contemplationis dulcedine, redict animus cogebatur, crebra suspira and gemitus etiam procul audiebantur, quasi ægre ferentis animæ ad corporeas functions reverti: quo pacto, dolet et con-

querritur infans, si in summo lactis desiderio a carissimæ nutricis uberibus avellatur.

45% the mystical phenomena of the emotional order

Christine de Stommeln took quite a long time to come back from her delights. These were first interspersed moanings, which printed light oscillations on the whole body; his breath, until then impercepble, was becoming deeper and deeper; his lips articulated some words that betrayed inner drunkenness and threw it into jubilation transports. The exaltation slowly calmed down and ended with a great abundance of tears. After a three-day pleasure, St Catherine of Siena? was in a sort of drunkenness and drowsiness that she could not dominate. Usually the awakening is quick, if not instantaneous. The soul, suddenly freed from supernatural charm, immediately regains the empire over the organs. This happens in the ordinary way, when the vision withdraws to allow the ecstatic to go about his duties as a state and to satisfy either obedience or charity. The features of this nature are read in the life of Mother Agnes of Langeac and in that of another servant of God, Mary of Ognies 4. What-

1 . BB. 22 Jun., t. 25, p. 242, n. 26 ct 27: Cum ergo sic sedisset inclinata aliquantulum super quoddam scamnum, and faciem et manus peplo velatas haberet, ad trium vel quartet horarum spatium, singultando ingemuit, ita ut in toto corpore modicum moveretur: et post coepit aliquantulum spirale, multo tamen rarius et minori motu quam soleant homines commiter. Post hec coepit loqui, adeo tamen submisse quod auscultante diligenter vix potorat percipi; non tamen oratione perfecta, sed uno enuntiato verbo dulei et amatorio, id est, Amantissimus, Dulcissimus, vel Præcordialissimus, Intimus, vel Sponsus, tanto et tam inusitato extulavit tripudio, ut toto corpore tremefacto.., sub uno Spiritus attractionis motu in hoc perseveraverit... Exilii sui multipleces miserias coepit, cum maxima cordis amaritudin, and lacrymarum profusione, conqueri ut talem lacrymandi moduim nunquam prius viderim.

2 RaymonD OF CAPOUE. BB. 30 a.m.,t. 19, p. 911, n. 200: Tandem..., sancta illa extasi terminata, spiritus allitus celestibus quae vierat, tam invite redibat ad vitam corpoream, quod stabat virgo almost continuous sleeping, and in similitudinem debacchati who non potest a somno evigilare, nect tamen perfecte sleeps.

3 OF LantAGEs, Life of the Ven. Mother Agnes of Jesus, Passim.

% JacQ. From Viry. BB. 23 Jun., t. 25, p. 562, n. 65: Quenque tamen propter indigentium aliquorum utilitatem, nullo nisi Spiritu sancto inci-

while this last one was immersed in the sleep of contemplation, the Holy Spirit awakened her and said to her: "Go, someone is waiting for you, not out of curiosity, but out of necessity." This is still happening in the reminder*, which we are going to talk about; but in these very cases the awakening can be slow and painful. The violence that Mary of Ognies made to wrestle with the rapture sometimes went as far as to have her blood shed in her mouth, as if her bowels had been torn; and Dominique of Jesus Mary *, undressed carma, was never reminded of her ecstasy without him vomiting the blood in abundance. Others, Anne-Catherine Emmerich, "for example, come out instantly and without apparent suffering from their ecstatic sleep, to the voice of obedience.

V. — The reminder is an order made to ecstatically by the rightful superior to interrupt his delight and return to ordinary life. The power of recall can be delegated as the authority itself.

aunt, cogebatur suum somnum disrumpere. Vade, aiebat Spiritus; quia non curiosus, sed causa necessitatis aliquis expectat te.

1 Louis DE Saint-Jacques. Life of S. Michel de Sanctis, 1. 9, c. 6 p. 110: Hearing about the glory of the Blessed, F. Michel shouts his ordinary cry and falls into ecstasy.. The general ran and said to the brother: "My dear brother Michel, be careful that I am here." This flaw obeying Tevint to him, at the very moment, to the voice of his superior.

2 JacQ. From Viry. J.D. Ipsa vero, audito extraneorum adventu, ne forte aliquem scandalizaret, a suavi illa contemplationis jucunditate, ab amplexibus Sponsi sui, vim sibimet inferens, spiritum suum tanto dolore avellebat, quod quandoque, quasi ruplis visceribus, sanguinem purum in magna quantitate evomebat vel conspuebat, malens hoc afflicti martyrio quam Fratrum and maxime peregrinorum pacem turbare.

3 CARAMEL. Dominicus. Vienna in Austria 1655, n. 975, p. 485: Cœpit statim magnam sanguinis copiam emittere, quod solebat; corpus enim, cum abstrahitur animus, eum restituitur sensibus, summam violentiam patitur.

4 P. ScumMoEcEr, Life of Anne-Calherine Emmerich, c. 18, t. 1, p. 278: Various questions made by the doctors remained unanswered. Then the vicar general said to him: "I command you to answer by virtue of obedience." Barely were these words spoken, that she rejected her head on the side where we were with surprising speed..., and answered all the questions.

This injunction, which is duly rebutted by whom by law, always has its effect ‘in truly divine ecstasy, and there are examples of it in the lives of most ecstatics, especially those of St Joseph of Copertino, * and the venerable Mother Agnes. A delight that resists this trial should not be regarded as divine; but authors of the greatest weight, such as Saint Ignatius of Loyola * and Cardinal Bona ÿ, hold this sign as infallible only as much as it has the support of other circumstances. If the reminder is formulated externally, there is no evidence that the demon, assuming the author of the alienation of the senses, cannot determine the awakening as it produces the transport in order to mislead, but if the recall is purely mental, God alone has the virtue to realize it, because only he is able to know it. The demon only conjecture.

1 Josepnx Lopez EZQUERRA, Luke. myst. Tract. 5, n. 351, p. 129: In ecstasi, raptu corporis caeterisk favoreurbus ubi sensus non patitur, debet anima statim ad sensum redire, and integre præcepto directoris parere, ut... communicate tenent Mystæ.

2 BonAvENT. CLAvVER. BB. 18 Sept., t. 45, p. 998, n. 34. Nec enittebaut ecstases, nisi cum ego per sanctam obedientiam ita imperassem.

3 DE Lantages, Life of Ven. Mr. Agnes, 3° P, c. 3. And passim.

# BENED. XIV. Serving. Beagent dei. 1. 3, c. 49,n. 6 p. 354: Magna animadversione dignum is example relatum a Patre Ribadeneyra in Vita S. Ignatii de Loyola, I. 5, c. 10. Ubi narrat Patrem Reginaldum Dominicanæ familiae virum gravem convenisse Romæ S. Ignatium and coram eodem P. Ribadeneyra, exposuisse Bononiæ... extare Virginem orationis virtute prestantem et quae adeo sæpe abalienatur a sensibus ut ne only admotum ignem smellet, etc., and a S. Ignatio quaesivisse quodnam ejus esset de hujusmodi rebus judicium, ipsumque respondisse, ex signis expositis illius tantum habendam esse rationem, quod Virgo ut fuerat narratum promptissimam exhibitionet superiorum mursis obedientiam: cumque Reginaldus deinde discessisset et incæptum sermonem S. Ignatius prosecutus esset, addit Ribadeneyra ab eo conslucum demum fusse ea signa possesse esse a Deo and possesse esse a dæmone.

S De discr. spir. ©. 14, n. 5, p. 281: Virtus divina no is verbis alligata, nisi sit vox superioris obedientia vomantis: quod tamen signum non est infallibile, nisi cætera consentant.

VI. — On the strict conditions of the reminder, the authors disagree. According to some, it is sufficient that the recall be mentally rebutted; according to others, the inner injunction is effective only in the case of a special inspiration from God; and, regularly, the order of the superior must be verbal. Scaramelli pronounces himself ‘for this latter feeling, and the reason he claims is that the command, in order to compel, must be expressed externally. This reason does not seem decisive, for the perception of this order does not take place through the channel of the senses, since, in fact, the senses are suspended, and that, from the admission of all, this order may be respondent at a distance and in a language unknown to ecstatic. It is therefore a spiritual relationship which establishes itself from soul to soul, as well as ecstatics which are more than once attested.

Saint Joseph of Copertinoÿ, questioned how, in the name of obedience, he came back to him, while he remained insensitive to iron and fire, replied that, in his abstraction, he did not hear the voice of his superior, but that God, who loves obedience, withdrew from him the

_ 4 Direct. Myst. Tratt. 3, c. 20, n. 192, p. 212. Sd che alcuni molto si sernono di tali comandi mentali, e che vi fanno sopra gran fondamento, parendo loro di pottere per questa via giungere con sicurezza a discuoprire se sia falsa o sia vera l'estasi di qualche loro penitente. Lo loses non posso in modo aleuno approvalli.

2 Jbid., p. 213. Chi a detto mai che il comandamento interno sia vero precetto, m entre è di essenza di ogni precetto che sia manifesto? Chi a detto mai che il superiore abbia facoltà di comandare con atti interni, e che il sudido sia sottoposto all Dunque, imponendo il Direttore allo anima estatica precetti puramente mentali, non vi è ragione, per cui debba Iddio accomodarsi a tali ordini. E se qualche volta vi si accomoda, cid fa per altri suoi finished, e non perchè sia dovuta a tali eomandi una take condiscendenza.

Pasrmoviccui. BB. 18 Sept., t. 45, p. 1029, n. 67: Revera nec impulsus, nec ferrum nec ignis potant ipsum ab ecstasibus revocare; sed, per pbedientiam revocatus, mox sibi reddebatur. Rogatus propterea quo pacto id proudet, reply: "Vocem superioris a se quidem non audiri, sed Deum obedientieæ amantisissimum, visionem tum subtrahendo, velle ut statim obeditert."

vision for him to obey immediately. Marie Moerl! also declared that she was reminded of the ecstasy, not by the outside word, that she did not hear, but by an inner voice to which she could not not obey.

In these circumstances, an inner act seems to be sufficient, No doubt, it would be difficult to establish that God absolutely must comply with this injunction set out outside human conditions; but it would be equally difficult to demonstrate that he must yield to the very external reminder. The question is not whether God is required to give effect to a mentally expressed order, for everything here is a free condescendence of his goodness; it is sufficient to see that he grants it.

Let's mention a few facts.

Father Antoine Villacre, in charge of the Franciscan province in which the monastery of Agréda was located, wanted to examine for himself all that was asked of him about the ravishes and supernatural states of the venerable Mary of Jesus. So he moved to the place, questioned the nuns, saw with his eyes the wonders that had been spoken to him, and what shed much more light upon it received from the servant of God the faithful communication of the sublime graces of which she was the object.

"Having discovered in the examination which he had just made the perfect obedience in which this soul was established from the beginning, he resolved to make a test whose effect is a sure mark of the good spirit, although the failure of this effect must not always be interpreted in bad part. One morning he went to the monastery of the nuns, and in the way he was told that the ser-

4 D. Anronio Riccarpi. The Stigmatisés of Tyrol, by Léon Boré, p. 49.

3 XIMENÈS SAMANIEGO. Life of the Ven. Mother Mary of Jesus of Agréda, c. 9, p. 87.d

after having been in communion with God, he was delighted in ecstasy to his ordinary. The superior prudent, returning to himself, ordered him inwardly to come to the parlor, where he had something to say to him, hoping that the Seioneur would do this wonder in confirmation of the perfect obedience and good spirit of his handmaid. His divine Majesty did what he hoped, making known, in the sublimit of his ecstatic communication, to the lower obedient the command of his superior. She immediately returned from her delight and went to the parlor, where, in the time that the provincial came in, she was to receive her orders there. The superior praised God for the experience which he had just made of such a clear manifestation of his favors; and, judging about establishing the whole truth of it in the monastery, he communicated to the abbess and the principal nuns what had happened. The abbess wanted to experience it herself. When she was sick in the infirmary, and had learned that the servant of God was delighted in ecstasy in the choir, she commanded her to come incontinent to visit her; and the Lord renewing the same grace, her handmaid returned from the delight and went immediately to the infirmary, according to the order she had received from her superior. All those who had authority over the servant of God experimented in the same afterward, not only her superiors, but also her confessors and the novices' mistresses, and they saw her return from the highest of her delights to their own. internal command."

What is reported from the servant of God Dominique of Jesus Mary is more explicit and even more wonderful. His superior! directs him out loud, in front of him

1 CARAMUEL, Dominicus, n. 406, p. 192: Erat in ecstasi Dominicus ‘ and quia illa erat festiva dies, loco devotæ recreationis generalis antists advocat nonnullos religiososos. Vult periculum facere de obedientia Domini, illi-

Some of his brothers, to get out of his ecstasy; but cn himself he formulates an act of contrary will, and Dominique remains in his delight. Driven before King Philip Il[', this monarch, to whom the General of the Carmelites had delegated his authority, also enjoined him orally to resume his senses, while inside he contradicted this order; and the saint religious remained still; he commanded him in spirit to speak to the queen, and he spoke; to remain silent, and he stood silent; and finally, to break his ecstasy, and he returned immediately.

Despite these facts, we would dare to pronounce ourselves absolutely for the constant effectiveness of the inner reminder, when Father Scaramelli? assures, in the name of experience, that these secret orders often remain ineffective. But, far from irritating them, as he openly does, we would advise the practice, on the contrary, because success provides plausible proof of the divinity of ecstasy, while the appreciably manifested reminder only makes this demonstration in a negative way, that is, his insuccessive would be a sign that God is not there; but, effective, it is not enough for him alone to characterize the delight; He needs the other guarantees of divine intervention.

In fact, whether their authority is immediate or delegated, and whether they exercise it mentally or verbally, superiors should only engage in such experiments for the purpose of

that clara voce præcipit ut ad se redeat, and tamen ment tacita jubet contrarium: and ille in raptu permanet.

1 CARAMUEL, Dominicus, n. 416, p. 196. Voluit rex exitum empty prodigii.. And generalis... delegavit authoritatem suam regi... And rex nova hac potestate suffultus, jubet Dominico lingua ut redeat, lie ut maneat; and ill lied and voluntati regiæ obediens, ut lapis remanet. Jubet lieth ut loquatur Augustæ, and loquitur; it ceased, tacet. Tandem... serio jubet ut redeat and statim Dominicus recovers.

4 Dirett. mist. Tr. 3, ©. 20, n. 192, p. 218. Percid il più delle volte questà precetti occulti non hanno effecto, come si vede con l ́esperienza.

legitimate reasons, mainly for the purpose of recognizing or persuading others that ecstasy is true and divine; never by lightness, vanity, curiosity or any other unacceptable reason. They must also refrain from making ecstatic injunctions that he could not perform without miracles, such as rising from his bed, if he is sick or paralytic, from holding himself suspended in the air, from revealing secret things, from performing healings; it would be tempting God, who alone has the power to carry out these wonders, and God is in no way obliged, in order to satisfy man's whims, to derogate from the laws of nature. A secret inspiration from the Holy Spirit can explain and legitimize such commandments, which are always followed by their effect. In this case, they can only be excused in ignorance of the rules, and their inefficiency would not prove PQUR or against ecstatic transport.

Practically, the course to be followed in these trials is that of Father Scaramelli? and which he summarizes in these two points: first, to impose nothing that is suitable for the person and the state in which he is located; second, to prescribe nothing to him that he would have the

1 SCARAMELLI, Dir. mist. Tr. 3, c. 20, n. 193, p. 213: Altri passano anchoré& più avanti, fino a comandare le cose fabatto superiori alle forze umane, come sarebbe, e. gr. l ́imorre ad una penitente inferma e inabile à muoversi dal proprio letto, che venga a confessarsi nella chiesa, e cose simili. Io non vedo che pospono farsi senza scrupolo tali cose, che in realtà sono un volie obbligare Iddio a fare rivelazioni e a far miracoli; he che à un manifesto tentare Iddio.

2 Dirett. mist. Tr. 3, c. 20, n. 199, p. 213: Io loses tonesiglierei semper i Direttori, che dovendo imporre qualche obbedienza a persone estatiche, avessero due riguardi. First, the imposte molto convenienti alla persona ed allo stato in cui ella si trova. Secondo, che gliele prescrevissero nel modo con cui tale obbedienze si prescriptionono a persono che sono in pottere de proprj senzi; perche dico io, o egli intende di comandare alla creatura, e allora il commando va fatto cosi; o egli pretende di comandare a Dio che solo vede il cuore, e questo è temerità, est lost Iddio non gli dia speciale impulso di operare cosi.

The right to demand of her if she had the use of her senses; for, of two things, one, or it is intended to command the creature, and then it is to speak to say nothing; or it is claimed to give eminence to God, which would be an unbearable foolhood, to the moins that are given, as we have said, to an inner movement of the Holy Spirit.

VIL — L-ecstasy can resume after one or more reminders; the defense of returning to it would be excessive and almost always fruitless: when God has given a sufficient sign of his presence, his action cannot be bound by human injunctions. Sometimes, however, these kinds of prohibitions have a more or less prolonged effectiveness. 0,0

More importantly, the order not to leave the ecstasy is beyond the limits of legitimate authority, especially since this negative result would not provide any evidence in favour of the supernaturality and divinity of the phenomen.

If the delight lasts for a long time, whether there has been a reminder or not, there would be an inconvenience and a crutitude to subject the ecstatic to all kinds of experiments, such as seeking to awaken him with deafening noises, shaking him violently, making him breathe deleterious smells, torture him with iron and fire. Their current insensitivity does not mean that the organs keep track of the violence and do not feel the consequences. As Godinez advised!, and after him Scaramelli?, we must be content with

1 Theol. myst. 1. 9, c. 10, p. 382: Lo mejor que entêces se hazer es poner las tales personas en un aposento, assistirles y regalarles quanto fuere possible: pero no consent medicos, neither medicinas, nor plauble ruidos, nor concursos, nor alborotos; que Dios que le puso en quel estremo, le sacarà del.

2 Diret. Mist. Trat. 3, c. 20, n. 191, p. 212.

To remove the person from the eyes of the public, in a place removed from which she will be left in the hands of God; to be visited only from time to time to help and to relieve her, if necessary, in the work of the awakening.

Chapter XXII

Jubilation and the Mystical Burnings

The jubilation to his principle in love. — It translates into the drunkenness that transports. — She exhales with shouts, songs, extraordinary movements. — The burning. — The fire. — The jubilation and burning of Saint Philip of Neri. — The explanation of mystical incandescence.

[L — Divine love is usually betrayed in souls by consolations and drunkenness unknown to the earth; for as St Thomas of Aquinas says, it is the source of spiritual joy. But sometimes he throws in wonderful access of jubilation, which burst on the body in different ways.

It is these transports that we would like to describe.

II. — Most often, it is an intoxication that precipitates the movement of the heart, ignites extreme and suave ardours that go so far as to cause fainting. On the anniversary of the ascension of the Saviour, Saint Julienne du Mont-Cornillon? could not at times remain in his house;

1 Sum. 2. 2. q. 28, a. 1. Spirituale gaudium quod de Deo habetur, ex charitate causatur.

2 BB. 5 April, t. 10, p. 449, n. 19: In solemnitate autem Ascensionis Domini, Juliana interdum se domibus inclusam non potorat sustinere; sed eam deduci seu deferri sub dio, ubi coelum conspiceret, oportebat.. Sic repleta and referta gratia leaks, ut, plenitudinem ejus anguslo corpore capere nonvalente, illa ad quam Juliana venerat plurimum timeret ne, disrupto corporis vasculo, sua visitatrix per medium splitretur.

You had to drive her or carry her outside so that she could contemplate the sky. There she seemed to follow the glorious humanity of the Saviour penetrating into the heavenly abode with her eyes, and her heart felt such braiding, that he was about to break.

In this state, we grow sighs, we feel the need to speak, to cry, to praise and exalt the object of love and to relieve ourselves of the delicious torments that it imposes. Brother Gérard!, one of the first disciples of Saint Alphonse de Liguori, experienced in the heart impetuousnesses that took away loud and deep sighs from him. "If I were alone on a mountain," he once told the doctor Santorelli, "I think I would be making the world of my sighs." And applying the doctor's hand to his heart, he felt him beating violently, as if he wanted to escape from the chest. The ardours that consumed Saint Catherine of Siena? were so vivid that they took away from her in spite of her constant moaning. His confessor warned him to abstain as much as she could, at least when she was near the altar, so as not to disturb the priests in the action of the sacrifice. To comply with this order, she withdrew from the altar, and she prayed to God to enlighten her director on the impossibility where she was to be contained, and he immediately received a supernatural light that made him understand how irresistible these movements were.

1 TANNOSA, Memoirs on Life and the Congregat. of S. Alph. de Liguori, Appendix, t. 3 p. 649.

RayMoxo DE Cap. BB. 30 April, t. 42, p. 908, n. 186: Præfatus confessor ejus, timens ne rugitus gemitus ejus sacerdotes celebrantes molestaret, dinerat ei, ut quantum potrat, dum esset prope altari, gemitus prædictos compesceret; ipsa sicut vera obediens, remota ab altari se posuit, oravitque Dominum ut confessori suo lumen infunderet, quo emptyret, quality tales motus Spiritus Dei compesci non possessent. Quod ut ipsemet confessor seribendo testatur, tam perfecte ei ostensum est, quod amplus non est ausus ipsam de talibus admonere.

"This joy that the soul feels is so excessive," said Saint Terèse! "that she would not want to enjoy it alone, but the diré to all, so that all may help to praise the Lord. Oh, that of parties, that of demonstrations she would, if it were in her power, make it clear to all what her happiness is!"

: Sometimes the sexhalal transport by singing, which is the ordinary expression of intimate exaltation. The only name of Jesus threw St. Felix of Cantalice into a mild drunkenness, and he himself never uttered it except with incomparable suavity. To satisfy the ardour of his love, he composed of pious hymns that he sang alone. or with others, always in the braiding of a holy drunkenness. Another son, much more famous, of the Seraphic Francis of Assisi, St. Peter of Alcantara?, was so filled with divine consolations, that, some effort was made not to sing in public, he could not prevent, which made him call him mad by the worldly; heavenly madness that envied St. Teresis ‘ and that she wished her sisters.

IIT. — On other occasions, the impressions are so intoxicating that the body, unable to bear rest, abandons itself to impetuous movements, which testify that the soul is no longer the masteress of itself.

Thus David danced before the ark of the Lord,

1 Int. Chât., 6° Dem., ch. 6.

2 Boverius. BB. 18 Maiii, t. 17, p. 243, n. 20: Quanta in Deum caritate æstuaret non obscurée innouit: tanta enim in nomine Jesu prolatione voluptate afficiebatur, ut illud absque lacrymis effari non posset. Nomen istud super omnia amabat ac tam suaviter pronuntiare solebat, perinde ac si mel in or haberet. Quapropter quosdam sibi rhythmos, rudi metro... composing, quos vel solus decantare, vel interdum... cantandos offerre consueverat; quibuscum et una ipse, Dei spiritu ebrius, concinebat.

3 JOHN De Sainte-Marie. BB. 19 Oct., t. 56, P. 674, n. 80.

# Int. Chât., 6° Dem., ch. 6.

S II Reg. vi, 14. And David saltabat totis viribus ante Dominum.

until it came to pass that St. Pascal Baylon!, carried with fervour and a burning face, treptled and danced before a statue of the Virgin Mary. Brother Gérard Majella, whom we have already talked about, sometimes danced in his ecstasy. One day that Christine the Admirable spoke of Our Lord with the nuns of a convent that she loved to visit, the Spirit founded on her by a sudden and unexpected invasion. His body began to turn on itself as a toupee agile by children, and a movement so verliginous that one could no longer distinguish the shape of its limbs. After she had turned for a while, this movement sápaized, as if the access had passed, and she entered a sweet rest, during which one heard between her chest and her throat a wonderful harmony. Then, returning a little to herself, she rose up, as drunk, really drunk: "Bring me," she exclaimed with a brilliant voice, "the whole community, that we may bless the sovereign goodness of the Saviour Jesus in the wonders that he works. The sisters rushed immediately, for the servant of God was a great subject of joy and consolation. Then she sang the Te Deum, which all continued with transport. This song ended, Christine found herself in the first place, and having learned what had happened to her, she fled confused, saying that she was crazy.

1 XIMENËs. BB. 17 Mayi, t. 47, p. 53, n. 47: Invenitque Paschalem coram

Imagine Mariana. tripudiantem, and retrorsum, antrorsum magno cum jubilo salientem.

2 TAnNosa, Memoirs on Life and Congreg. of S. Alphonse-Marie de Ligquari. Appendix, t. 3 p. 587, 649

3 CANTIMPRE THomaAs. BB. 24 Jul., t. 32, p. 656, n. 35 and 36: Cum essay familiarisation valde monialibus S. Katarinæ extra oppidum S. Trudonis, and cum ipsis aliquando, sedendo, Christo's loqueretur, sovio and inspire rapiebatur a Spiritu, corpusque ejus, velut trochus ludentum puerorum in vertiginem rotabatur, ita quod ex nimia vehementia vertiginis nulla in corpore ejus membrorum forma discerni possess. Cumque diutius sic rotata essay, ac si vehementia deficeret, membris omnibus quiescebat...

These facts, no doubt, should not be raised as a law; but their very strangeness does not allow them to be ignored in a complete enumeration of mystical phenomena.

IV. — These violences of love are manifested above all by the outsides of heat and fire. God is a consuming fire, according to the expression of Scripture!; when he appears in the soul, he l`il dilates, he l`il scalds, and these ardours sometimes become so intense, that they spread to the flesh, as happened to the psalmist? when he cried: "My heart and my flesh have braided in the living God."

These expressive manifestations of love, in the form of fire, occur to varying degrees.

The first consists in an extraordinary warmth in the heart, the home of love, and from there radiating on all organs. A reliable witness, said the historian of Blessed Julienne of Mount Cornillon, testified that he had seen more than once a great smoke rise above the head of the pious virgin in prayer; which was probably, adds the same writer, the clue of fire that was burning in his heart. Divine love lit in St. Brigitte ‘ such ardour, that she did not feel the excessive colds of Suede. Saint Wenceslasÿ,

1 Hebr. xx, 29: Etenim Deus noster ignis consumens est.

2 Ps. Lxxxin, 3: Cor meum and caro mea exultaverunt in Deum vibum.

3 BB. 5 April, t. 10, p. 470, n. 39: Solet queædam persona testari, de cujus assertione non est licium dubitare, se vidisse Namurci Christi virginem Julianam, alivando post Evangelium orationi incumbentem, et desuper caput ejus ingentem evaporationem fumi superius ascendentem......

4 BB. 8 Oct., t. 52, p. 403, n. 446. Sic ibi sleep solebat, habens super se vestem simplicitem vel mantellum. Quæ, dum quaerebatur, quomodo illic quiescere possesse in refrigeraribus intensissimis, quae in partibus illis urgent, respondit dictens: Ego sentio intus in me tantum calorem ex divina gratia quod frigus illud, quod exterius est, non me multum urget ad lectum molliorem.

5 Caro. IV. BB. 98 Sept.,t. 47, p. 780, n. 6: Cum quadam vice iret

by night, visiting the churches, barefooted, through the ice and snow, left behind bloody footprints that warmed up the earth; he therefore walked first and recommended to his companion, who suffered and complained of the cold, to lay his feet on the trail of his feet.

V. — The fire of divine love can become so intense that it forces the use of refrigerants to temper the ardour that invades and consumes the body. It is said of samt Stanislas Kostka ‘, of the venerable mother Agnes? and of an infinity of others, that the inner flames of love caused them delicious tortures, which could hardly be softened by applying wet cloths on their chests, or by injections of cold water. "Divine love was so much burning up St. Francis Xavier," reports his main historian? "that he was usually seen with his face burning, and that, to temper the ardours from within and from outside, he had to throw water into his breast. Often, in preaching or walking, he felt so fond and so inflamed that, unable to sustain this inner burning, he opened his all-B sudan. Wenceslaus nocturno tempore, dum nives et glacies campos et viam occupatre, miles suus secretarius, nomine Podywoy, eum sequebatur, in cujus pedibus frigus invaluit, quamvis esset calceatus, ut tolerare non posset. Cui B. Wenceslaus aiens dixit: Pone pedes tuos in vestigio pedum meorum; quod et fecit, et caulfacti sunt pedes milisis, ita ut nullum frigus deinceps senset.

1 Brev. Rom. Pro aligq. loc. 13 Nov., 6 Oct.: India illi facies semper accessa, nonnunquam radians, perennes lacrymæ; ardor pectoris tantus ut media quoque hieme forest injecta identidem gelida temperandus.

2 DE Lantages, Life of the Ven. Mother Agnes, 3° p., c. 5, t. 2, p. 133: Another very ordinary effect of the vehemence of his love was to put his heart and body on fire; so that it was not always enough to apply soaked cloths to him, as we have seen before; but it was sometimes necessary for him to be presented with a basin filled with cold water, which she poured in full hand on his chest. And yet she did not receive much relief, for all this water was consumed in a moment by

the violence of his ardour. 8 Bounces. Life of S. Frung. Xavier, 1. 6 p. 558;

And this is what he was seen doing in several meetings, in the public squares of Malaca, Goa and on the shore of the sea."

On a winter day, when St. Francis of Assisi was on his way up, because of his great weakness, on the donkey of a poor man, at night he had to stop under a rock forming a kind of vault, to shelter it from the inconveniences of night and snow. But soon he heard his companion turn aside and push complaining moans: the cold, whose clothes too light could not defend him, prevented him from sleeping. Then the saint, all burning with the ardour of divine love, spreads his hand upon him, and, admirable thing! at the touch of this sacred hand which carried in it the fire of a fire all seraphic, as Saint Bonaventure expresses!, the cold disappears, and this man feels inside and outside a heat similar to that which comes out of the mouth of a furnace. Immediately strengthened in his mind and body, he slept until the morning, in the midst of the rocks and snow, better than he had ever done in his bed, as he himself assured him.

We would like to be able to tell the admirable ardours and projections that Jesus' love brought forth in Saint Mary Magdalene of Pazzi?. Her transports were so impetuous that, unable to contain Islands, she traveled the monastery with inflamed exclamations; she was heard constantly exclaiming: "O love! to love!" To temper the fire from which it was burned, she was often

1 Legenda S. Francisci. C. 43, t. 44, D. 339.

2 V. Puccxi. BB. 26 Maii, t. 19, p. 1487, n. 28-30: Non adeo grandis est vapor arduis fornacis, ut aliquado major non fuerit flamma, quam ex corde ejus prorumpere faiebat arduiissimus ignis divini amoris... Non potorat continere quin elamaret: O amor! o amor! etc... Multoties ctiam cogebatur bottle fridigissimam aquam magna in copia, eique brachia sua immergere, quin et vultum suum eadem conspergere, ipsamque immittee in sinum, dicendo quod vienderetur sibi ardere atque consumi, Etc.

forced to drink a large amount of water, the coldest one could find, to throw it on his face and chest, to plunge his arms into it, without nevertheless succeeding in appeasing the inner heat that consumed it. Often she was seen shaking a section of her veil as a fan, in order to bring some relief to this strange torture that set her whole face on fire. -

VI. — When the flames come to this point that the body boils, becomes incandescent and burns objects under its contact, this is what mystics call the fire.

Blessed Jean Colombini!, founder of the order of the Jesuates, felt such ardour that he was almost naked in the harshest winters. One day, one of his friends met him in the public square, and asked him how, barely dressed, he could withstand such an intolerable cold, when the others dared to go out well covered in clothes and coats. "Give me your hand," said the holy man, and taking it, he made her touch her breasts uncovered. "Well," he said to her, "is it to you that I am freezing?""No, indeed," replied the other, taking away her hand as if she had encountered burning coals. God! What is this wonder? Is it flesh or a hot iron that I just touched?" And he is astonished, neither that the Blessed does not bother, but rather that he is not consumed by such intense heat. Sometimes this fire would become if

1 J. B. Rossi. BB. 31 Jul., t. 34, p. 377, n. 91: Hieme sævenie, quando nivibus ventisque rigescit tellus et aer, ab amico in flata forte obvio interrogatatus, ecqui pene nudus intolerabilem vim refrigéris sustineret quam ceteri bene penulati ac tunicati vix ferre possess, respondit: Quaeso te, porrige dextram, eamque apprehensam aperto spectori apprimit ac sciscitatur: Tum tibi algere vacuum? Nequaquam, inquite ille, statimque retracta manu ut si in prunas esfusset injecta. Papæ! Quid hoc prodigii is! Carnemne an ferrum candens tetigi? Stupetque æstu non absumi, quem prius mirabatur gelu glacieque non rigescere.

3 Ibid., p. 399, n. 273.

Ardent, which he was Jailling in luminous rays from all parts of his body, especially from his face; he himself, losing the feeling of external things in the transports of his love, fell to the ground, and his companions saw his face illuminated with a redness of flame, whose Day was powerless to sustain the brightness.

Saint Peter d'Alcantara!, consumed by this suave fire of charity, could not at times stand in his cell; he began to run in the country, in order to temper by the freshness of the air lukewarming of his body. One day, when the divine flame came to invade, he went down to his neck in an icy water reservoir; but, far from finding any refreshment, the ice melted and the water boiled, as in a vessel on fire, so much was burned the heart of the saint, from which, like a powerful home, these inextinguishing ardours escaped.

The charity that burned the soul of Saint Catherine of Genoa? carried fire in all parts of her body. His chest, in particular, and the whole area of the heart, seemed incandescent, and he could not apply his hand to it without feeling an intolerable heat.

The fire of love made the heart of Blessed Nicolas Factor, a Franciscan religious, a true furnace for the

1 Fr LAURENT. BB. 19 Oct., t. 56, p. 757, n. 291: Quadam die, hujus incendii divini flamma etiam corpus sibi correptum sentiens, procurrebat iu hortum, ibique se totum usque ad collum congelato stagno promptius immersit.....; miro tamen divinæ charitatis prodigio visum est gelu resolvi, stagnumque comme ferventis ollæ ebullire; eo quod cor S. Petri de Alcantara intus accuensum, corporis ardore aquam ferventem effecerat.

2 CLem. XII. Bulla cannon. BB. 15 Sept., t. 45, p. 183, n. 39: Animus veluti altare Domini..., totus exarsit, vaporem exhalans divini ignis, non solum penetrantis inflammantisque cordis intima, sed pertingentis usque ad exteriora corporis and ad sensus mortalium hominum. Nam thorax cæteræque parts cortoris, quae cor ambiunt, ignem spirale viebantur, nect manibus tangi pottant quin and dolore affecteur et intolerabilem ardorem. persent.

Fucking. Unable to sustain the violence, he threw himself in the middle of winter into icy waters, which immediately became hot and almost boiling. "

The Blessed Lucie de Narni?, of the third order of Saint-Dominic, consumed by this inner fire, had the hazy and black skin, and the flesh as cooked and roasted. The flames swollen and raised his chest so disproportionately, that the sisters, fearing that his ribs were broken, tried to contain them with all the effort of their hands. "Ah!" she said at the height of her access, "I burn and cannot live! Fire! Fire, my sisters! The love of Jesus consumes."

The heart of St Paul of the Cross, founder of the Passionist congregation, was burning at this point of the divine flame, that more than once the corresponding part of his wool tunic was roasted, and that two false ribs had a noticeable protruding on the left side.

So extraordinary as these facts seem, they are not rare, mainly among the ecstatic ones; but we must limit our narratives there, or rather we want to close them by quoting a last example, that of St Philip of Neri, in which most of the wonders of mystic jubilation seem to be summed up as in a living picture.

1 Process. Canoniz. tit. de Char. in Deum. (Apud Bexepicr. XIV. From serr. Dei bealif. 1. 3, c. 23, n.27,p. 156.) Hujus ardoris incendium tam violenter eluxit e peclore Nicolai ut illa fornace actus stare loco nesciret, sed, cum obrigentem hiem gelu acuto aqua sæviret, ipse lacus et fontes ad extinginendos pectoris æstus impatienter adirt et conjectus in undas in imi: visceribus temperiem quaerreret, tanquam igne admoto extemplo fervere viebantur et penitus ebulire.

2 - MARIE, The Lifes and Memorable Actions of the Girls of Saint Dominique, T. 2, p. 208.

3 Brev. Wheel. 28 April, 6. Tanta in ejus pectore alebatur divinæ charitatis flamma ut indusium quod erat cordi proprious sæpe veluti igne adustum and binæ costulæ elatæ appear. — Cf. SrramBr, Life of the B. Paul of the Cross. Castermann. 1861, t. 4 p. 342.

VIL. — Philip asked the Holy Spirit to fill him with his gifts. His wishes were to be fulfilled beautifully. On the day of Pentecost of the year 1544, as he was repeating his prayer, he suddenly felt a heavenly flame so impetuous, that, unable to sustain himself, he fell to the ground, and sought, when he discovered his burning breast, to give himself some relief. As these ardours were a little slender, he rose up, but everything was still flooded with an ineffable joy that made his whole body, especially his heart, tremble. He carried his hand.To his side, and found that he had made an uplift in the heart area of the fist, without any inconvenience.

He was then twenty-nine years old, and he will live even more than fifty, usually available, always alert and joyful, without ever suffering or speaking of this wonder, which will not be revealed until after his death. In doing the autopsy of his body, the doctors found in the part of the thorax where the miraculous protuberance had occurred two false ribs, the fourth and fifth, broken, and their fragments, separated at a small distance from each other. In this enlarged space, his heart, which was of extraordinary size and muscle strength, could expand with greater amplitude.

As soon as the saint began to pray, to speak of God's things, or to perform some sacred function, his heart palpitations became extreme; it was said that his breast would break; his body so trembled, that all under him and around him was shaken, his bed,

1 BARNABEI. BB. 26 Maiii, t. 19, p. 523, n. 22 et seq.: Annos natus undetriginta, quodam die sub fetum Pentecostas, Spiritum sanctum Dominum ardenter orabat, ut dona sua benigne sibi clementerque triberet. Mos erat. Philippo. Spiritus sancti.gratiam implorare.. Ecce autem tanto amoris does inflammari felt, ut stare omnino non possess. Etc.

his room itself, absolutely as in an earthquake.

The result was such warmth throughout his body, that in his very old age, and although exhausted by all sorts of austerity, he was forced, until the middle of winter, to seek some refreshment. Often, during the coldest nights, it was necessary to leave open Islands doors and windows of the room where he was sitting, and shake the air around him with a linen or fan. His clothes were usually open on his chest, and when, in bad weather, he was warned to take more precautions, he replied that it was useless, since, far from suffering from the cold, he was plagued with extreme ardour. Despite his great mortification, he was forced to drink a little fresh water from time to time, to quench his throat dried up by the burning breath that was escaping from his chest.

Sometimes the impetuousness became so vivid that he betrayed by exclaims inflamed his anxious lovers. "I'm hurt by charity," he exclaimed. Let me, Lord, let me! My poor mortality can no longer sustain so much joy! I die, Lord, if you do not help me!

But his transports were never more ardent or admirable than at the altar. There he tried to contain them in vain. Sometimes, losing his voice, he was forced to stop; sometimes he felt a vehement agitation that moved the altar itself. His whole body was barely on the tip of his feet, and in this situation he was seen to be braided with an irresistible movement and as dancing in spite of him. In fact, often he was delighted out of himself, and he had to be pulled by his clothes to bring him back, and tell him how he was sacrificing. So when he had to celebrate in public, he took care of

to take a servant who is initiated into his secret and who gives him these good offices.

It was usually at the offering that the exultation of his mind and heart began. A tremor then caught him; he could only pour the wine into the chalice by pressing the elbows on the altar, and, admirablely, although the chalice was very small and he put on a lot of wine, he never poured out any goult. When he raised the divine Hostie, according to custom, often his arms remained in the air, as stiffened, without he could lower them. Therefore he put the greatest speed to carry out this movement; he did the same when he had to distribute holy communion, for then also his fervour slammed immediately and set his whole body on hold; it was seen above the ciborium, that he held a trembling hand, swaying and raising the holy species, with the other hand he quickly laid the host on the tongue of the communicants, but he never let none fall. Only once one saw a escape from his fingers in his convulsive agjitations; but she remained suspended in the air, to the great admiration of the assistants. After taking the precious Blood, he sucked with incredible greed the drops attached to the edge of the chalice, and pressed it so hard with his lips and teeth, that he had almost worn it. To hide the joy that was now shining on his face, he recommended that the servant present the ablutions only when he warned him. These were, in short, the drunkennesses of divine love in Saint Philip of Neri.

HIV. — The explanation of these strange facts is not without difficulty, although not all is mystery.

No doubt there is a striking relationship between love and fire, as St. Denis admirably explains. *

:G.45. Migne; it, col. 327 and 398.

I-Areopagile in his CELEST HIERARCHIA. As fire consumes and changes in itself everything that approaches it and undergoes its action, so divine love transforms into God the creature that submits to its power.

There is another more striking reason for the relationship between spiritual love and the body heat of the heart. The heart is the organ that responds to the emotional life; the more man extends and activates his life of love, the deeper is in his heart the backlash of this inner activity, and this backlash is blamed by a growing acceleration of blood in this organ, and from there in the whole body. However, the intensity of heat is directly related to that of movement, which is its true generator. This explains in large part most of the mystical burnings: love accelerates the movement of the heart; this movement determines a proportional heat in this organ first, and then throughout the body.

However, the natural correlation between the intimate love of the soul and the sensitive warmth of the organs is not enough to give reason for all these phenomena; for in many cases, incandescence occurs without any symptoms of fever or abnormal acceleration of the blood. In addition, the body could not naturally support such violent shaking: in the burning of the fire, especially when they are repeated, the flesh should consume itself, calcining itself. Nothing like this happened: the burnings and transports did not prevent Blessed Colombini, St. Peter of Alcantara, St. Philip of Neri and others, from reaching an advanced age.

That's why the best explanation seems to us to be in the miracle.

Chapter XXIII

The Mystical Sufferings — I. The Gift of Tears and the Mystical Illnesses

The Spirit of Christianity on the Reparation by the Cross. — Various Forms of Mystical Suffering. — The Gift of Tears. Different kinds of tears. — Sources of infuse tears. — Mystical diseases: their causes. — The three signs to which they are recognized, namely: how they occur, their symbolic meaning, their effects. — Some features. — Admirable painting in St.Lidwine.

I. — It is the law of Christianity that the restoration of fallen man is accomplished by voluntary suffering. Jesus Christ glorified his Father and redeemed man in suffering, and 1 prolonged his reparation and redemption in the most holy souls through pain. You can't love it without loving the cross. The inflamed soul of his love is therefore called to reproduce the expiating life of this divine Reparator.

Love, moreover, has the first effect of associating with the pains of the Beloved: "Remember," said Our Lord to the Blessed Marguerite Mary! "that he is a crucified God whom you want to marry; therefore you must conform to him, saying goodbye to all the pleasures of life, since there will be no more for you who

1 Life of the Blessed through her contemporary, t. 1, p. 67.

.. mystical suffering 4719

be crossed by the cross." And could the lover not suffer when he sees the object of his love unknown, rejected, outraged? If love produces joy, then it also produces suffering, by a natural consequence.

Thus is explained the great attraction that carries the loving souls to the crucified life. Jesus Christ responds to their desires and fulfills his plans for reparation by adding special trials to the pains and tribulations of his faithful servants, who hasten and consume their sacrifice. The distinctive character of these trials is that they cannot be explained in the regular order of nature, and that they betray a supernatural origin by their nature or by their causes.

IT. — Tears are the ordinary sign of pain. When they come from a supernatural source, they must be regarded as a free gift from God.

Without causing injury or alteration in the organs, love, through its desolations, can throw the body into an extreme demotion that expresses inner anguish. But usually the body pain is located, and when it results from an organic alteration, it constitutes what is called a disease. If the principle of morbid affection starts from nature, the disease is natural; when it proceeds from a higher cause, the disease is, in this case, the responsibility of the mystic.

Finally, the main reason for mystical suffering is to associate with the Saviour's passion, and this talk can go so far as to mark on the flesh the traces of crucifixion by stigmatization.

This chapter deals with the supernatural gift of tears and mystical diseases; the next two will be devoted to the interesting issue of stigma. We have talked at length about the desolations and sadnesss within, describing the passive trials that prepare for

to contemplation. What remains to be said on this subject will find its place among the accessories of stigmatization.

IL. — Tears are the natural expression of pain, and, as St Thomas remarked?, even though they come from the joys of love, they imply a mixture of sadness.

It is important to distinguish from which tears it is IC.

Tears are active or passive, depending on whether they spring from the sole effort of nature, or whether they are due to a special and gratuitous action of the Holy Spirit. Active tears are usually indifferent in themselves; they become good or bad, depending on the character of their object or end. Those who are evil are born from the very source of our sins, that is, our passions. Among the honest tears, some are caused by natural motives, good in themselves; others, by supernatural motives. These different kinds of active tears, either good, bad, natural or supernatural, are not those of interest to the mystic; it is concerned only with infuse or passive tears.

They are called infuses, because they are not theirs.

1 GREG. Nyss. Lib. of hominis opificio, that. 12. Migne, Patr. gr.,t. 44, col. 159: In dolore, propter tristitiam subtle meatuum perspirationes.... quae deinde guttæ lacrymæ callantur.

2 Sum. 2.2. q. 82. a. 4, ad 3: Lacrymæ prorumpunt non solum ex tristitia, sed ex quadam affectionus teneritudin, præcipue cum consideratur aliquid delectabile cum permixtione alicujus tristabil; sicut solent homines lacrymari ex pietatis affectionu, cum recouperant filios, vel caros amicos, quos existimaverant se persidisse. And per hunc modum, lacrymæ ex devotione process.

8 Josepn Lopez EzQuERRA, Luke. Myst. Tr. 5, n. 137, p. 101: Malæ and activae Sunt quae ex malo impuroque cast profluunt, videlicet quae stileur propter pusillanimitatem, iram, vindictam, desperationem, amissionem bonorum temporalium, vel profanam dilectem.

reason to be in nature and that they are a free gift of God, passive, because it is not in the power of the will to bring them forth or to tarnish the source!.

This gift is frequently found among the saints. The Blessed Marguerite of Hungary? had the cheeks consumed by the tears that were constantly flowing from her wishes, while she was praying. Saint Anschaire $, the first archbishop of Hamburg, asked for a long time and obtained, at the end of his life, to be able to cry at will. The demon complains that the tears that Saint Auxence * mixes with his prayers burn him. We could quote infinitely, and we believe we can say that no other free and extraordinary gift has ever been given with as much profusion as that of tears, because no other one is better suited to the present condition of man.

IV. — Among these tears are several species, which Joseph Lopez Ezquerra 5 brings back to the three sources of pain, desire and love.

The first are caused by the double desolation of having offended God and seeing him offended. These were no doubt the tears Mary Madeleinef watered her feet

1 Jos. Lopez EZQUERRA, Luc. myst., n. 146: Quarum omnium causa prorsus supernaturalis est et infusa, licet naturaliter per oculos profluant: unde ejusmodi lacrymas vocamus infusas, non solum propter earum causam, sed etiam quatenés citra omnem animæ facultatem et considerationem effluentur; nihil enim suffcere possess, si a Deo misericorditer et supernaturiter non darentur.

3 GaRix. BB. 28 Jan., t. 3 p. 519, n. 30: In orationibus semper flebat. Habebat genes adustas fluxu lacrymarum et multa sudariola consumébat per detersionem earum.

3 S. Ramsert. BB. 3 febr.,t. 4 p. 429, n. 59...: In ultimo ætatis suæ anno hanc gratiam diu quaesitam, Domino enlargente, promeruit, ut quotiescumque vellet, ploraret.

4 BB. 14 febr., tt. 5, p. 775, n. 28: Eo autem orante in cella, coepit draco loqui.: Mihi infested with Auxenti... rivi tuarum lacrymarum bulging me.

8 Luke. myst. n. 146, p. 102: Lacrymæ perfectæ et penitus passivæ..... ad triplex genus posunt reperri, villicet ad lacrymas doloris, ad lacrymas

poenæ impatientis and ad lacrymas amoris vulnerati. 6 Luke. Seen, 38: Lacrymis cœpit rigare pedes ejus.

of the Savior in the house of the Pharisee. The Blessed Marguerite of Cortona! and Saint Otte? shed tears of blood on the sins of men and to obtain their conversion. Saint Mary Magdalene of Pazzi#, meditating on the ingratitude of men, wept bitterly; in her pain her heart came to this degree of anguish which he seemed to make an effort to get out of her chest, and she was heard to cry: "O Love, how offended you are! You are not known! You are not loved!"

The infuse tears also arise from the desire to be with God without delay or uncertainty. Saint Geneviève of Paris # had received to a high degree the gift of tears, but she could not above all hold the course of it every time she looked up to heaven and thought of the prolongation of her exile. The impatience she had to enjoy God also caused the Syrian virgin, Saint Domnine, to shed an extraordinary abundance of tears.

1 Juxcra, BB. 22 febr., t. 6 p. 307, n. 19: Hæc ita proximorum vita cum hristi Passione deflevit, quod non solum frequenter præ dolore radices oculorum viebantur de suis orbibus erui, verum etiam aliquado lacrymaæ in sanguinem versæ sunt.

2 F. Scaemsecx. BB. App. ad 5 maii, t. 20, p. 597, n. 12: Toto affectionu deprecabatur Dominum pro conversione gentilium et confirmatione neophytorum, non solum lacrymas, sed sangerome quandoque ex oculis fundens... Similiter and pro peccatoribus.

8 V. Cepari. BB. 25 Maii, t. 49, p. 258, n. 45: Paulo post lacrymari incipiens, atque erumpens in voces planctu interruptas, aliaque magnæ angus- * tiæ indicia dans, ita agebat ac si cordi exile de pectore cupienti viam faceret...; magno cum affectionu dicebat: O amor, quantum offenderis! no agnosceris, no husbands!

# BB. 3 Jan.,t. 1, p. 139, n. 14, p. 142, n. 41: Colum quotiens conspexit, toties lacrymata is... Idcirco sine intermissione flere consueverat, quandoquidem sawbat se in corpore positam peregrinari in Domino.

- Tusoporer. BB. 1 st., t. 7 p. 33, n. 1 and 3: Dies totos continuis lacrymis ducens, non solum rigat genes, sed amictus quoque cilicinos: talibus enim indumentis corpus tegit.... Lacrymatur, et luget, ac ingemiscit...; ardens enim in Deum amor has parit lacrymas, mentem ad divinam accendens contemplationem, stimulisque pungens et urgens ut ex hac vita excedat.

This impatient desire comes from love, the most fruitful source of holy tears. In the name of the later Trinity and of Jesus Christ, Saint Ignatius of Loyola felt such a tenderness, which his eyes immediately flowed like two fountains. The happiness of being to God gave Saint Elizabeth of Hungary the same emotions, but calm and serene. "She was crying all the time," wrote her great admirer Montalembert? "and the gift of the holy tears, which she had received from the cradle, had become more and more abundant as she approached the grave. The more happy she felt, the more she cried; but her tears flowed like a quiet and hidden spring, never riding her face, without altering in any way the pure beauty or the plecity of her features; they added only one more charm: it was the last effusion of a heart to which no word could be sufficient."

Among the tears of love are the tears of compassion for Our Lord crucified. The venerable Mary of Oignies? poured out torrents when she meditated on the mystery of the Passion, without any human effort being able to contain them. When a priest took him back with gentleness on a holy Friday eve, with little moderation which she seemed to put in her tears and sobs, she withdrew from the church by obedience and prayed to the Lord to show this ecclesiastical that he was not a priest.

1 BB. 31 Jul., t. 36, p. 539, n. 624: Ut printetur mihi tam alte Jesu nomen..,succurebat nova lacrymarum and singultuum copia... Postea etiam in sacello novae lacrymæ noveque sensus pietatis in SS. Triadem semper desinentis. to

2 History of St.Elisabeth, ch. 28, 5th ed., p. 547.

3 Jaco. From Vitry. BB. 23 Jun., t. 25, p. 551, n. 17: Cum igitur priestdos ille die eodem missam celebraret, aperuit Dominus and not leak that clauderet; emisit aquas and subverterunt terram. Tanto enim lacrymarum diluvio subversus est spiritus ejus, quod fere suffocatus sit; quantum reproximere impetum conabatur, tanto magis lacrymarum imbre non solum ipse, sed et libre et altaris linteamina rigabantur.

Weeping, which is yellowed by the movement of the Holy Spirit, is not at will. On that very day, while this priest was saying Mass, he made such a burst of tears in him, that he was almost suffocated; the more he tried to repress them, the more abundant they were flowing, not only over him, but also over the book and the linens of the altar. He then understood, through his own experience and with confusion, what he had not wanted to learn from humility and charity. The servant of Christ, who had seen everything in spirit, having returned to church long after Mass, and speaking to the priest about what had just happened to him: "Now," she said to him, "you know for yourself that it is not given to man to stop the impetuousness of the Spirit when he breathes upon us."

When the mystical phenomenon we describe does not exceed a certain measure, it can be explained by the physiological relationship that exists between intimate emotions and tears. But when this phenomenon takes on proportions that should affect the organs, and they do not receive any damage, we must seek the interpretation, not in nature, but above or outside, i.e. in the miracle.

Mary of Oignies, of whom we have just spoken, shed tears in so great abundance night and day, that they were flowing on her face, and that the ground would have been sown around her, if she had not taken care to collect them with the linens that covered her head. His confessor and biographer, Jacques de Vitry, asked him to

1 Jaco. From Vrrry, BB. 93 Jun., t. 25, p. 551, n. 18: Hæ, inquite, lacrymæ sunt refectio mea, hæ sunt mihi panes die acnocte; quae caput non afflictunt, sed mentem pascunt; nullo dolore torquent, sed animam quadam serenitate exhilarant; non cerebrum evacuant, sed animam satietate relent and suavi quadam unctione mulcent, dum per violentiam non extorteur, sed sponte a Deo propinantur.

Day if this continuous flow, combined with its long jeunesses and its long watches, did not exhaust and if its head did not find weakened: "These tears, she said, comfort me; it is my bread and my bread and my bread of day and night: far from weaning my head, they revive my mind, far from causing me any pain, they satisfy my soul; instead of weakening my brain, they fill my heart with a heavenly anointing and suavity, because they are not the result of violence, but the fruit of the divine Goodness that gives them."

Blessed Véronique de Binasco! was continually spreading sweet and silent tears during her prayers and meditations, and, if she made an effort to hold them, she was caught immediately by a violent hoarseness that made her sick. He was seen spreading such a quantity of it, during his contemplative prayers, that his clothes were soaked in it, and the earth flooded all around, as if a full vessel of water had been thrown into it. To collect those she poured out during her ravishing, a burrow was placed in her cell, in which they fell so abundantly, that he sometimes found it up to several books.

How can we explain, naturally, such an outpouring of tears, whose health does not suffer any harm?

V. — Mystical diseases are of a distinctive nature to come from a supernatural cause. However, they may occur in the event of a natural infirmity or accident; the course and various phases of evil will show divine intervention.

1 ISIDORE OF IsolanIs. BB. 43 Jan., t. 2, p. 174, n. 11-15: Lacrymarum autem ea copia ab oculis ejus fluebat, qua exuberantia flumina vienderentur. Nullæ voces, nulli streptus, nulliva motus lacrymis jungebantur.. Sategit

nonnunquam fluentes retinere lacrymas, quae de reaucedine vocis vehementi laboravit.

The causes of these trials imposed on loving souls are summarized in the following three: the atonement for personal faults, the love of Jesus Christ crucified, the reparation for the sins of men.

VI. — The signs to which mystical mala.dia can be recognized often appear in the way in which they declare themselves or end, i.e., when they begin or cease by an act, a circumstance which has no natural connection with evil. Thus, one can affirm the mystical character of a morbid affection, when it occurs during the meditation of the sufferings of the Saviour; after that one has offered himself as a victim, either to atone for his own sins or those of others, or to obtain any other spiritual favor or temporclule; if these phases are consistent with the ecclesiastical cycle; if it results from an intervention that God permits to test his servants, as he came to Job, and as it has been seen in many other saints. It will be the same if the evil, after disconcerting the human art by the strangeness of its forms, suddenly ceases following a prayer, a delight, a communion, upon the command of the superiors; if its end is announced by revelation or for a precise term, or if, after death, any trace of wounds and damage to the organs disappears, and the body shines with wonderful beauty.

In these and similar cases, evil must be viewed as having a supernatural origin. The evidence will be all the more convincing, since the disease will be better detected and will have resisted all natural remedies.

Symbolic significance can still be a decisive clue; as if, for example, stubbornness is punished by a violent headache; excess mouth, by the impotence of taking nothing, by extreme hunger, by extreme

Vomiting; sluggishness of the schism through dislocation of limbs. This meaning, we understand, is known only by revelation or by external coincidences that indicate this relationship.

One of the most admirable and least suspicious signs of the supernatural provenance of a disease is the resulting effects. In these kinds of infirmities, while the body is tortured and crushed, the soul often overcomes consolations and light; always, of strength and energy. It is not enough, for one to conclude that the mystical character of the disease is that the patient bears the evil with resignation or even with joy; the effects we are talking about must be radiant and exceed the ordinary proportions of the common calm and patience. The surest mark is a growing proportion between body pain and extraordinary graces of the soul. "When the body comes to be afflicted with some pain," said Saint Gertrude! "the part that suffers is to the soul as an atmosphere all lit up from the rays of the sun, and of which it receives wonderful light; so that, the greater and universal the sufferings, the more the lights they communicate to the soul are pure and brilliant."

In addition to these effects of holiness on the soul, mystical diseases are often accompanied by wonderful phenomena in the body order. The most frequent and extraordinary are the suave smell that exhales the wounds of these sick divines and the healings that their contact takes place.

VIL. — We still have examples of these divines.

1 Vilæ and Revelat. 1. 2, ec. 14, p. 112: Cum contingit corpus per aliquam passionem afflicti, ex parte membria patientis, suscippit anima tanquam aerem solari luce perfusum, and ex hoc miro modo clarificatur. And quo universalior seu gravior is passio, eo puriorem clarificationem animæ præstat.

infirmities, and circumstances that allow for their recognition.

Saint Aldegonde ‘is inspired to ask God for a disease that torments his body and sanctifies his soul; she soon feels the suffering of a horrible cancer in her womb.

Anne-Catherine Emmerich reflected, in her strange and continual diseases, the anxieties of the Church during the last period of Jansenism and the dark days of the Great Revolution. One of his historians, Father Schmoeæger, after describing the upheavals and defections of the most moving and clever of heresy, thus expresses the repairing counter-effect that was received from all these admirable excesses of God's servant, become as a universal victim.

"This was the time when Anne Catherine bore the weight of the sufferings of the Church, and it may be thought that her heart had been prepared for the end and for the purpose of her suffering, which were circulating in her, not as a general evil or as a vague disease spread throughout all parts of the body, but which was imposed upon her by God, according to a certain order, or at certain intervals, as well as well-defined tasks which she had to accomplish completely, so that in finishing the one she immediately began another. Each of these tasks was shown to her in vision in symbolic forms, so that their acceptance was a worthy act of her charity.... In the vision, Anne-Catherine saw and understood perfectly the intimate meaning of her sufferings and their connection with the situation of the Church. The cycle

1 BB. 30 Jan., t. 3 p. 665, n. 46: Tribulari desiderabat in corpore, ut glorifiercaretur in anima. And who's humiliating petiit, misericorditer impetravit, patiently supported quod. Accepit ergo cancri vulnus in mamilla cor-

I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Cœpit gravissimis prim doloribus.? Life of Anne-Catherine Emmerich, t. A, Ch. 14, n. 44, D. 212.

The whole of the feasts of the Church was for her a present always alive and without veils; she took part, as a contemporary, in the solemnities in which the Church celebrates every day the mysteries of faith and the facts of religion... In this participation in the celebration of the feasts, she received from her divine fiancé, not only the tasks she had to perform for her Church according to the order of the ecclesiastical calendar, but also the strength, inner consolation and unalterable peace of heart, which were necessary to her not to lose courage in the midst of her incessant tortures. Although the relationship between such and such bodily suffering and the task of atonement was clearly and simply shown in the vision......, in front of the nuns or the doctor, she would not have dared to open herself on this subject, because it would have been believed mad or delusional. She therefore willingly submitted herself to all the prescriptions of the man of art and didcility to the attempts that medical science, so foreign on this ground, made to heal in her the sufferings that were the purpose of her life."

These sufferings were as many as strange and cruel. "In addition to the continual and singularly poignant pains that ended only with her life, and which had their seat in her heart, there was a perpetual succession of diseases in their forms that were very varied and often presenting the most contradictory symptoms; for she had to endure not only all the sufferings of the Church, but also the varying sufferings of its members taken individually. There was not a point throughout her body that was healthy or free from pain, for she had given everything to God!"

1 Life of Anne-Catherine Emmerich, t. 4, ch. 14, n. 12 p. 207.

The venerable Anna-Maria Taïgi was also associated with this glorious role of reparation through the cross. "She was continually suffering from extraordinary headaches, which were still increasing in intensity on Fridays, especially during the hours of the Saviour's passion; they were so violent that she was obliged to go to bed, and when the circumstances or demands of the house forced her to continue her work, evil was so strong that, despite her natural virtue and energy, her tears were flowing through torrents. His eyes were as pierced as thorns, and could not bear the light of day without sharp pain. The ears suffered from acute rheumatism, which was almost continuous...; she constantly had unbearable bitterness in her mouth. His sense of smell felt the horrible infection of the sins that cover the world in a way that was intolerable; his feet and hands suffered, especially the one who had the power to heal the sick, violent and acute pains; his whole body was tormented. The poor woman suffered from a host of diseases, such as gout, asthma, hernia, pain in her legs, especially in the last years of her life. Crucified on her bed of pain, she was the joy and consolation of others, the peace and joy of those who saw her, the ardour and courage of the afflicted; she was affectionately interested in everyone with inexpressible benevolence, forgetting her own sufferings, always quiet, cheerful, courageous, always resigned in everything to the will of her divine Spouse. The sufferings continued to increase, but the abundant waters of bitter tribulations upon his head could never extinguish the fire that was burning in his heart. In order to prolong his painful existence, in the interests of the neighbor, God would tell him what-

sometimes what had to relieve or cure her.

"She continually had heavenly conversations; but instead of the spiritual enjoyments she once enjoyed, the delight carried her to the most painful contemplations, and God discovered to her the evils of the world, the plagues prepared by her righteousness, the sins of the peoples, those of the clergy, etc. That is why communications and delights did not bring any relief to his heart, but his charity carried him, on the contrary, to pray again to the Lord to suspend his anger and his righteous vengeances, and to make repeated offerings of herself. God, accepting his desires, avenged the rights of his righteousness upon her, and they were new and cruel sufferings."

This mixture of bodily pain and intimate diilluminations is also found in Jeanne-Marie de la Croix*, a Franciscan religious. "She suffered almost continuously; all diseases seemed to be conjured against her, and succeeded in the strangest way; so she was often forced to keep the bed for a long time. Fever, kidney pain, stone, the most horrific cramps, inflammations, convulsions, vomiting, the torment of a thirst that nothing could soothe, the most painful toothaches, and other diseases, made his life a constant martyrdom. But in the midst of the most cruel sufferings, she kept a cheerful and benevolent face, and had on her lips only affable words that won all hearts. She saw herself, under an ingenious and pious image at the same time, as an ins-

1 Relationship of his confessor. Cf. Bum. The Ven. Servant of God Anna-Maria Taigi, 1. 4, n. 4 p. 163, n. 6 p. 169.

2 Bène Weësr, Jeanne-Marie de la Croix and his time, p. 355 by Charles de Sainte-Foi, 1856.

music, whose delicate strings were not good for nothing, when they were not touched by the hand of the heavenly artist. But when this powerful hand touched the tender cords of his body, he came out like painful sounds, all of which were in a beautiful harmony, and sang as a song of love to Jesus Christ. She heard a voice in her soul that said to her familiarly: "Courage, my sister; sings the Lord on the harp of the cross. He has companions everywhere from his table, but very little of his cross and suffering." She then became as if intoxicated with love for suffering: "Oh, how happy I am," she sighed, "that God may let down upon my poor soul some parcels of the holy cross!" The singular nature of the diseases against which she was attacked once decided a clergyman to recite the prayers of exorcisms on her, in order to deliver her from the evil influences which he believed to be vic-. time. She then became all ablaze of love, and God, touching her in the most intimate depths of her being, said to her: "O holy simplicity! it is I; no exorcism can drive me out. You're not chaste, you're not sorcered, you're not possessed. Let the Holy Spirit act, he does not follow the rules of the doctors of the earth." His sufferings sometimes went up to such a point that his soul fell into the anguish of death, as she found herself uncomfortable in the body that held her; her nerves twisted in a terrible way, often for a day and a night without interruption. It went up to this extreme limit that separates death from life. God then delivered her himself from the sufferings she was suffering from, and plunged all the powers of her soul into deep peace and in ineffable delight. Going out with a sweet smile from this terrible struggle, she exclaimed: «Long live love

of my God! I will pour with joy for him until the last drop of my blood." Wonderful visions sometimes came to comfort her in her sufferings, and to enlighten her with their sweet light the deep night she was wrapped in."

The venerable Mary Bagnesi', who offered in her person an admirable model of mystical suffering, felt renewed her pains every Friday, during the Holy Week and all Easter, on the day of Ascension, at the feasts of the Blessed Virgin and some saints, especially her patrons. But while his body was being subjected to this increase in torture, his soul was receiving an increase in strength and heavenly consolations. When those who lived with her saw the evil worsen, they no longer marveled at it, and explained it by the time when it was, by the approach of such or such solemnity. At the height of her suffering, if the occasion presented herself to exercise charity and to build up with fervent words, she seemed to find herself entirely, and she spoke as if she had not suffered from anything. In these holy interviews, her face was kindled, and she was like a delightful mixture of milk whiteness and rose purple; it was said that a twenty-year-old girl was a girl, and yet, from her teens until her death, she spent almost forty-five years without being able to get up from her bed.

When Saint Francis Romaine? meditated on the

1 AuG. Capri. BB. Corollar. ad 28 Mayi, t. 49, p. 111*, n. 21, 25: Solebat insist Dominus dilectam hanc suam certis temporibus specialibus visitare, immittento eidem novos cruciatus: atque ordinario qualibet sexta feria, per hebdomadam sanctam, atque Paschalem totam, in festo suæ ambimabilis ascentis atque in festivitatibus Deiparæ Virginis, aliorumque nonnullorum Sanctorum, specialium Patronorum suorum.

2 MarniorTi. BB. 9 mart., t. 8, p. 15: Singulas Crucifixi plagas amore mirabili contemplans, tanto dolore et compassione afficiebatur, ut in corpore suo eadem vulnera sibi vivretur habere..; ut puta, dum vulnera

The wounds of the Saviour's feet, she suffered from the feet and walked only hard; when she looked at the wounds of the hands, she felt a great pain in her hands, which then let everything fall; if she looked at the crowned head of thorns, she was unable to stand or sit, she was obliged to lie on her bed.

By a kind of supernatural sympathy and solidarity, the venerable Mary of Oignies! felt the infirmities of her friends and suffered from their temptations. To deliver from it, she asked a priest to make the sign of the cross in the sick place, and evil moved immediately, but to throw itself on another part. Deliverance was complete only after the sign had been repeated two or more times.

Many holy souls read that, in celebrating the memory of the martyrs, they participated in their torments. The Blessed Jeanne of Orvieto? experienced, in the days of their feasts, the crucification of St Peter and the taking off of St Paul, and took in these delights the attitude of these various torments.

Saint Colette* suffered in turn, the night that

pedum contemplatbatur, Christi sui intima compassione claudicabat; si vero manuum plagas, quidquid casu tetigisset, ex impotetia ad terram cadebat; cumaut caput Christi spinis coronatum contemplationando intueretur, nec stare, nec sedre, nisi in lecto jacere solummodo potorat.

1 JacQ. From Viry. BB. 93 Jun., t. 25, p. 556, n. 40: Aliquando, cum aliquis ex amicis suis aliquo gravamine laboraret, vel alicui tempteri succumberet, tune ipsa cum infirmantibus infirmata, cum scandalizatis vehementi dolore urebatur, and tunc plerumque morbum suum prædictum in aliquo membrorum suorum particulariter sentiebat.

2 JEAN DE Samte-Maarie. Memorable Lives and Actions, etc., t. 2, P- 126.

3 Er. Juicy. BB. 6 mart., t. 7 p. 566, n. 424 and 195: And erat quiddam valde mirabile, cum nulla pertransiret hebdomada in qua non experiretur unum vel duo martyria veraciter in seipsam, videlicet quod aliquado torquebatur in igne, sicut B. Laurentius.. And illud martyrium communiter per Spatium unius integræ noctis protendebatur. Forbidden vero torquebatur

before the solemnities of the martyrs, all their torments. It was sometimes burned, like the blessed deacons Laurent and Vincent, sometimes skinned like Saint Bartholomew, sometimes crucified, cut into pieces, dipped in water or boiling oil. Sometimes it seemed to him that his heart was torn away, that he was opened and torn into his bowels, that he was shoved into his flesh with burning stems, and that he was pierced from one side to another.

"The cordial devotion that Mother Agnes of Jesus had to the very illustrious martyrs Saint Laurent and St Stephen was rewarded by this precious and terrible thanks to participating in their torments. The pains of stoning and the ardour of fire, she experienced them on the day of their feasts, in a way as real and sensitive as if she had been on a grill or knocked down with stone. St Peter the Martyr (of Verona), for whom she had a special devotion, did him such a favor. For all the day of her feast, from one minute to the next, she felt like great blows to her heart, and it seemed to her that she was being split her head, as the pain she felt was violent, thus participating in the martyrdom of this glorious saint."

VIT. — Holy Lidwine seems to summarize in his person and in his life all these wonders of infirmity or patience.

Lidwine was born in Holland in the penultimate year of the 19th century. She barely came out of childhood, that her rare beauty and grace that shined in all her ways made her seek in marriage by the parties

- I'm sorry. Vincentius, aliquaando vero cruciergebatur, aliquaando autem excoriabatur ut S. Bartholomæus, aliquoties minutatim conbricabatur, nonnumquam vero bulliebatur. Nihilominus interdum sibi viebatur quod cor ejus aperiretur, etc.

1 Of LANTAGES, Life of Ven. Mother Agnes, 3° P., c. 18, t. 2, p. 414.

2 J. BruGman. BB. 44 April, t. 11, p. 305, n. 4. Lydwina nostra de comitatu Hollandiæ traxit originem. Etc,

the most advantageous. She rejected all the offers, locked herself in the father's house to shelter herself from the temptations of the world, and told her parents that, if we were to be strove to import, she would obtain from God some deformity that would discourage all prosecution. By the age of fifteen, a first illness took away all his charms, and allowed him to appear safely in public. Her companions took them on a winter day to skate with them, or at least to see them skate on the ice, as young girls are used to doing in Holland. While they were playing this innocent game, one of them, in his fast race, came to hit Lidwine, who was thrown violently on a pile of ice, and in this shock broke one of the small ribs. In spite of the care and remedies, an inner ulcer was formed there, causing him the most cruel suffering. During a crisis which put her out of her self, suddenly slender from her bed between her father's arms, she died; but the pus, finding no other way out, had to go out through her mouth with such painful vomiting, that her parents believed their daughter at the door of the tomb. His life, however, will last for almost forty years, but in the midst of intense pains, the strangest diseases that follow each other and build up on the body of this admirable victim.

His stomach was debilitating and could not bear any food. Consumed by a burning thirst, she drank, not fresh skin that she could not feel, but everything she met, warm water, muddy and fetid water. The sleep ran away from her eyelids, and the tears were all her consolation during her long Insomnia; in thirty-eight years she did not sleep the equivalent of three nights. All his childhood companions abandoned him,

as if she had been dead, and she found herself reduced to the saddest loneliness: God alone was his support in his incredible trials. They multiplied in all forms. The putrefaction gained the inner wounds; they were filled with worms of a blackish colour, big as the tip of a spindle and the length of one inch, which, after having eaten the intestines and the neighbouring parts, were made day by three openers; it came out from one hundred to two hundred per day. Üne new wound formed on the right shoulder whose rot soon devoured the flesh and put the patient in the impossibility of stirring: the two parts of her body that seemed to want to separate had to be tied with strips. The sacred fire invaded his right arm and consumed his living flesh to the bones; there was only one nerve left to bind him to the trunk. She had violent slenderness at her head, as if she had been pierced with needles, or broken with hammers. She suffered for weeks and months from toothaches that were kind of rage. Her forehead split from top to bottom, her chin also divided up to the lower lip, her tongue swollen to the point that she often could not speak. His eyes were not spared; after dreadful pains, one completely extinguished and the other became so weak, that the light was unbearable to him. A chronic esquinancia formed in his throat, which caused him unheard of anguish and often prevented him from receiving the Holy Eucharist. What she made of blood through the nostrils, mouth, eyes and ears, was wonderful. She was still usually vomiting water in such a large quantity that, in the course of a single month, there would have been the burden of two men, so that her very infirmities made her

life a permanent miracle, 21

&98 mystical phenomena of the emotional order

She also cut off her lungs and liver; her breasts were covered with pustules almost always purulent; her feet and legs paralyzed; her bowels, half consumed by worms and in the midst of a hydropisia that lasted eighteen years; to complete her martyrdom, all these ills came in addition to that of the rascal, who torturing her horribly until her death. The plague had invaded Holland, and Lidwine was the first to attack it. In a word, fevers of all kinds, all known diseases and others worked on it for thirty-eight years, some continuously until the end of his life, others for varying periods of time.

In the midst of these bodily afflictions, which we were only able to give a brief description, Lidwine retains an admirable serenity and patience. In the beginnings, it is true, there were moments of failure in his soul; but gradually she strengthened, and soon his courage became heroic. "If it were not necessary," she said, "for a Ave Maria to perform the miracle of my healing, I would be careful not to say it." She endured all her pains with joy, and while she was outside, she seemed overwhelmed by God's hand, within this divine hand, gave her incomparable favors. We have told, speaking of the two-locations, his wonderful peregrinations through the holy places, in time: even though she was nailed to her bed by the multitude of her infirmities. In her visions and ecstasy, she provided for the various sufferings she would have to endure and the symbolic meaning that the divine will attached to it; for example, the dislocation of her two shoulders symbolized the calamity of the great schism of the West, which at that time desolated the Church. Everything was kind of a miracle around her. Her parents kept in a vase what came out

of his body as a result of operations or dissolution, for he exhaled from these putrid materials a scent that surpassed the most pleasant perfumes; so was his wounds and all that had been in his use.

We will not tell the multitude of wonders that filled this life. But we must mention the miraculous transformation that sops on his flesh, at the death of the servant of God. As soon as she had restored her soul, her face, disfigured by sickness, became of a beautiful beauty; all the parts of her body, once in decay, appeared in integrity and without any trace of wounds, of a uniform and radiant color that charmed her eyes and inspired purity. From this blessed body, there escaped such a delicious and fortifying smell that the virgins who were in charge of his guard, for two days and three nights, felt neither the need for sleep nor the need for food.

Thus God knows how to break his strength in the midst of human infirmities.

1 J. RruGuaAx. BB. 14 April, t. 11, n. 285-299: Non aliud sibi viebatur domus mortuæ Virginis, quam locus aromaticus, promptuarium ungentorum, cella balsami.. Ecce prodiit facies ejus candida as imaginis exquisiteiæ pictoris egregii artificio studiosissime depictæ. Deponentes quoque dressenta quae circa corpus eo tempore posita fuerant, invenerunt corpus pulchrum, planum, solidum atque perfectum, quasi eadem hora purissimo colore per omnia membra delibutum... Fatebantur autem virgines cum aliis qui juditer diu noctuche sacrum depositum observabant, non siti, non somno, non esuria se grvari...; et hoc ex mira suavitate fragrantis odoris, etc.

Chapter XXIV

The Mystical Sufferings — II. Stigmatization: Its Notion and Forms

What stigmatization consists of. — Its various forms: it is apparent or invisible, — Permanent or periodic and transient, — Simultaneous or succesive. — The stigmas of the hands and feet. — The wound on the side. — The crown of thorns. — The blood sweat. — The flogging. — The successive reproduction of the other scenes of the Passion. — The plastic formations on the flesh. — The inlays and inner inscriptions.

I. — The wounds printed on the Saviour's flesh in the crucifixion remain the highest and most simple expression of the divine drama consumed at Calvary. These glorious marks of the Cross's reparation survive in Jesus Christ the transformation of his eorps, and he sometimes graves them, by the ineffable virtue of his love, on the bodies of the saints, to make them living images of his crucified life. These wounds, which he keeps in the glory and communicates to the lovers of the Cross, are called stigmatized, a Greek word (or&w) which means piercing, hurting, opening with iron, and, by extension, marking a red iron, which was practiced on the

slaves of Greece and Rome: From there came the crucified of love the name of stigmatized.

These sacred openings are in Jesus Christ five: two in hands, two in feet, and the heart. Stigma is pure and simple, and the five fingerprints must be communicated. But, in addition to these main wounds, Our Lord still reproduces in his servants the series of his sufferings: agony, flogging, crowning thorns, stations and various phases of crucification to Calvary. To the signs that put these scenes of pain into effect, are connected the plastic formations by which the Saviour graves on any part of the inner or outer body the image of the Cross, the instruments of the Passion, or any other similar mark. All this set of phenomena tending to reproduce the intimate pains of the divine Crucified and the external circumstances of his torture, is in some way part of the stigma. It is, however, supposed to be complete when it presents the five wounds and the crown of thorns; and, strictly speaking, the five wounds are sufficient, even though the other aspects of the Passion would not be reproduced.

Let us note carefully that the pure inner participation in the sufferings of Jesus Christ does not carry the imprint of stigma; stigmas only exist when the pains characteristic of crucifixion are located in the body, as happened in Our Lord.

IL.—Stigmatism is apparent or invisible. They are invisible when one suffers such or such pain of the Passion in the part of the body and in the form that corresponds to them in crucified Jesus Christ, but without this local suffering being revealed by any external trace.

They were apparent in Saint Francis of Assisi and in the

others. The saints who have asked God that these sacred prints remain invisible, and who have obtained them, are much more numerous. Dominique de Jesus-Marie‘, seeing Our Lord who was preparing to burn the stigmas on his body, begged him not to do so, reprehensible for such a favor. Jesus answered his prayer in part and printed only in his soul the imprint of his wounds. After having tried by all sorts of means to make the divine plagues of which she had been marked disappear, the venerable Ida of Leuven? tried to steal those of the hands from the eyes of men; but, because the vivacity of the pain betrayed her, and the necessity of earning her life did not allow her to hold her hands always covered, fearing above all that this prodigy would expose her to public veneration, she begged the Divine Goodness to withdraw this favor. God answered her prayer by completely removing the outer marks, and softening the pain she felt. St Lidwineÿ, seeing himself marked by these wounds, asked the Lord to remove them from all human eyes, and immediately they were covered by the skin, while remaining printed in the flesh. Those of the Blessed Lucia of

1 GARAMUEL. Dominicus, c.5, p.140: Voluit Christus benedictionis nominine sua illi stigmata printe; oravit Dominicus ne faceret....; Christus... impressit animo.

Two HuGues de FLORE. BB. 13 a.m., t. 11, p. 163, n. 16: Omnipotentis Dei clementiam profusis precibus exorare coepit.. ut... a suo corpore stigmaa removerit; qui clementer eam exaudiens, ipsas quidem scars, a locis quibus olim impressæ fuerant, penitus auferendo dimovit; sed doloris pristini læsionem ab eisdem locis ex toto non abstulit.

3 BruGuAN. BB. 14 a.m., t. 41, p. 330, n. 129: Timens Dei signifcra quod vulnera tam patula in futurum latere non possint, cum ex hoc competition hominum and applausum timeret, oravit Dominum...; repente superinducta est cutis quinque vulneribus ipsis; eo tamen salvo quod reliquis succe-

dentibus annis vitae nonnunquam dolore pariter et livore postmodum caruit.

Narni ‘ was visible for seven years; then, at his prayer, they disappeared, except for the lateral stigma, which was less exposed to the eyes, which she kept for a while, and which also ended up closing.

Sometimes, these prints appear in a form other than those they actually have, as seen in Saint Catherine of Ricci. While his hands were open from one side to the other, several of his sisters saw only luminous foyers that dazzled them; others, swollen and red wounds, but healed, with a black round in the middle, of the width of a denier, around which one could see blood flowing?.

IT. — It is difficult to say anything about the permanence of stigma. In general, they persevere until the end of life, and even after death; for more than once they have seen a pink and pure blood flow, as if the person still enjoyed the fullness of life. What is particularly wonderful, but also rare, is that long after the trip, these sacred openings are preserved in a body that they seem to preserve from corruption. As soon as the Blessed Helen of Hungary * had made the last sigh, the wounds on her feet and hands were closed; but, seventeen years later, the one on her side was found intact, and a priest, having put his two fingers on it, took them all away from them imbued with a very smelly oily liquor. In many, stigmatized wounds and pains disappear entirely before the end of life or cease to be visible, almost always by the effect of their prayers.

1 SAINT JEAN - MARIE. The Memorable Lives and Actions of Saints and Blessed Girls of Saint-Dominique, t. 2.1.1.c. 7 p. 209.

2 P. Hyac. BAYONNE. Life of Saint Catherine of Ricci, ch. 10, t. 1, p. 178.

3 SAINT JEAN - Manu. The Lifes and Memorable Actions of Saints and Blessed Girls of Saint Dominique, T. 1, 1.3, c. 1, p. 762.

These wounds may also occur only at certain times, during Lent or Holy Week, for example, or on fixed days, such as Friday of each week, every Holy Friday, and in similar circumstances that recall the painful mysteries of the Saviour. In most cases, the seizures that reopen these wounds and cause blood to flow only occur at more or less time-distant and precise intervals, whether the external prints are maintained or severed.

St Jeanne of the Cross! received the stigmas on Good Friday, and kept them until the feast of Ascension of the same year; but they appeared only from Friday to Sunday morning, at the hour of the resurrection; out of this time, the marks and the pains completely ceased. The venerable Gertrude of Oosten was also honored with the sacred wounds of the Saviour on the night of Holy Thursday, and, at least until the Ascension of that same year 1340, seven times a day, in canonical hours, he escaped a blood of a beautiful red color. The numerous contest that troubled his loneliness to contemplate this prodigy, and which frightened his humility, made him ask to be delivered from it. The Lord answered; the blood ceased to flow; only the prints remained until his death. His love made him ask for the bloody traces again in the future, but his prayer remained ineffective.

The Blessed Étiennette of Soncino* had her most

1 AGA ANTOINE. Admirable life of Saint Jeanne de la Croix, of the Third Order of Saint Francis, 1614, p. 149.

2 BB. 6 Jan., t. 1, p. 351, n. 20: Hæc devota virgo Ghcertrudis de Oosten. susceperat ante diem Parasceves in nocte quinque vulnera Christi, de quibus septies in die multis hebdomadis emanavit gratia sanguinis rubicundi, vel ad minus usque ad Ascensionem Domini anno eodem et ejusdem MccCxL.

3 -MARIE. Memorable lives and actions of the holy and blessed daughters of St. Dominique, vol. 1, 1.3, c.9, p. 704.

great access to pain every Friday of the year and to the two feasts of the Invention and the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. It was on Wednesday and Friday, and especially throughout Holy Week, that Blessed Osanne of Mantua! felt the pain of her stigmas, which she never stopped suffering. She had obtained from Our Lord that her wounds remained invisible to all; she alone saw them; but at the time of her death they will be restored, and for centuries her incorruptible flesh will keep track of them.

IV. — Stigma is sometimes simultaneous and sometimes successive. Saint Francis d'Assisiÿ received the five prints on the day of the Exaltation of the Cross, in a quick vision. The Blessed Osanne of Mantua # obtained first the crown of thorns, then the wound of the heart, and, one year later, the wound of the feet and hands. The Blessed Helen of Hungary* received the stigma of the right hand on the day of St Francis of Assisi, whom she used to honor with a special worship; and the stigma of the left hand, in the feast of the glorious apostles Peter and Paul, at noon; for the stigmas of the feet and of the side, it is not known the day or the hour when they were given to her.

V. — The form of apparent stigma varies according to the

1 FR. SYLVESTRE, B.B. 18 Jun.,t. 24 p. 580, n. 105: Horum stigmaum dolor nulla intermissione Virginem excruciabat: Mercurii tamen and Veneris die majorem in modum exprescebat. At, ea hebdomada quam sanctam calllamus, usque adeo invalescebat, ut omnes ejus vires pessumdaret... Latebant præterea hec stigmata universos, sibiautem manifeste et aperta erant, tanquam subtili et perspicuo velo contecta.

2 Ibid., p. 557, n. 19: Apparet in integro Beatæ 'corpore vultus nullibi læsus, apparent nudi pedes manusque, in iisque vestigia sacrorum stigmaum clare conspiciuntur.

3 S. BonAvENTURE, Legend. S. Franc. v. 13, t. 14, p. 338.

4 FR. SYLVESTRE, B.B. 18 Jun., t. 24 p. 579, n. 401-104.

8 - MARIE, the lives and memorable actions of the holy and blessed daughters of Saint Dominique, t. 1, 1. 3, c. 1, p. 762.

subjects. Usually, they occur with bleeding, if not in a continuous way, at least at the hour of seizures, mainly in the heart region. However, it is not uncommon for fingerprints to be accompanied by any flow, or only by simple aqueous exudations, such as dew.

At the feet and hands, the stigmatic configuration is very varied. In Saint Francis d'Assisi! and in many others, they were fleshy outgrowths similar to nails. Sometimes the feet and hands are punctured as they were in Our Lord, and the place of nails sniffs with a vacuum where the blood sweats, at certain times, with more or less abundance. In others, it is a blood-blooded wound, always without suppuration; or even a simple blood congestion that extends from one side to the other of the hands and feet, but without perforating them from one side to the other. This wound sometimes determines depression and sometimes a slight swelling, and takes various forms and colours. The stigmas of Jeanne de la Croix? were round, of the size of a small coin (d-a real), fresh and vermel like roses. Those of the venerable Ida of Leuven were like circles of various shades, which came out inside and outside. In Jeanne-Marie de la Croix, "they were blue dots sown with blood spots, looking like nail heads, which were covered by a very thin film. They were as big as a

1 S. BONAVENTURE, Legend. S. Frank.

2 ANTOINE D'AÇA, Admirable Life of Saint Jeanne of the Cross, ch. 44, p. 148.

3 FLORE HUGUES, BB. 13 April, t. 11, p. 462, n. 13: In Jlocis manuum aut pedum, illis scilicet ubi jam manus pedesve Domini clavorum punctionibus archebantur, quasi circulari quidam diversi colors, repiesentationses quaædam stigmaum intrinsecus simul and extrinsecus excreverunt.

* Bève Weser, Jeanne - Marie de la Croix, ch. 13, p. 368.

But they appeared only on the left hand and on the right foot, and only on one side, without ever bleeding." The Blessed Marie-Françoise of the Five Pleies! had her hands pierced besides; but, at her prayer, these wounds were covered with a slight membrane, through which one could still see the inner opening.

In the stigmatization of the feet, let's note a peculiarity. A large number of stigmatized people place, during painful ecstasy which renews in them the scene of the crucifixion, their feet one on the other, as if they were united by a single transfixion. Can one infer from this singular attitude that the Savior would have had, too, his feet superimposed on the cross by one nail?

This question, purely historical?, does not belong to

1 P. BerNanp LaviosA, Life of the B. Marie-Françoise des Cing-Plaies, ch. 17, p. 89.

2 Christian tradition is very divided on this point of history. Some, including Thomas Bertholin (from Cruce, Hyp. $1, $5, p. 59), Bellarmin (De Septem Christi Verbis, Proæm.), Benedict XIV (De Festis, 1. 1, ©. 7, n. 87, p. 89); nowadays, M. l'abbé Martigny (Dict. des Antiquités chrét., word Cruarix, $ 4), and M. Rohault de Fleury (Memory on Passion Instruments, 1. 2, c. $1,1), and most modern people want the feet to have been pierced separately, and they rely on the difficulty of uniting the two by a single nail without breaking the bones, which would contradict the prophecy: Os non comminuetis ex eo (Joan. xix, 36); on the history of the four nails reported by St. Helena, on the authority of several Fathers, and finally on old paintings that represent the Saviour fixed to the cross by four nails.

Others, like Saint Bonaventure (De Medit. vitae Christi, c. 78, t. 19, p. 606), and the famous Tostat (Paradox. 3, e. 10), believe that the crucification was done with three nails, two for the hands, and one for the two feet. They also invoke the testimony of the doctors, the custom of the early Christian centuries to represent the Saviour on the cross (Baronius, Annal. anno 34, n. 118.—Anno 396, n. 52), a custom that is perpetuated today among the Latins; for in the Greeks it has long been the practice to represent the Crucified Saviour with four nails. Others, finally, remain undecided in the face of these contradictory reasons; among them, mention is made of D. Calmet (Bible Dict., Clous), Suarez (De Myst. Christi, disp. 36, sect. 4, n. 7 p. 567, which considers the solution impossible: In hac re nihil certi statusi nose

about us; but we cannot hide that it has complicated some of the difficulties of mysticism. Saint Brigitte repeatedly declares in his REVELATIONS!, having seen the Saviour attached to the Cross with four nails, two in his hands and two in his feet. On the other hand, several ecstatics, in which the scenes of the Passion reproduce in a living way, superimposed their feet as if there were only one nail for both. In particular, Saint Mary Magdalene of Pazzi®, Marie-Marguerite of the Angels *, the venerable mother Agnes of Langeac#, Saint Catherine of Riccis. The Blessed Gérardesque de Pisef sees Our Lord hanged on the cross the two feet together by one nail. Well-

Existimo Just Lipse, whose treatise of the Cross is a monument of erudition on matter, and which thus concludes (De Cruce, I. 2,c. 9, p. 48) the study of the question presents: Jeaque if morem velerem empty, arbitrarium leaks clavis, and frustra litigamus. If of Christo tamen quarilur, nescio, and in dissensu Patrum no is meum arbitrari. Thus, according to the latter author, the ancients used to "crucify him with three or four nails indifferently. What about Jesus Christ?The dissentment of the doctors makes the difficulty almost insoluble.

1 Lib. 4, c. 70, p. 276: Ecce malleus and quartet clavi acuti in promptu sunt.... (p. 272). And pedes similiter ad foramina sua distensantur..... et... duobus clavis ad crucis stipitem per solidum os, sicut et manus erant, contiguous. — Lib. 7, ©. 45, p. 551: Junctos pedes afixerunt in cruce duobus clavis.

2 Vnc. Pucant, BB. 25 Mayi, t. 19, p. 226, n. 184: Postea extends in terra, in brachia sic porrexit ut appareret quod se aptaret supra Crucem Jesu and quod configerelur ei pes uterque. (See CEPARI, ibid., p. 296, n. 219.)

3 Life of Mother Marie-Marguerite des Anges, Carmelite nun and founder of the convent of Oirschot, in the Dutch Brabant. — 3° P., c. 24 p. 344: The wound of the right foot corresponded to the wound of the left foot, as if a single nail had pierced them simultaneously.

4 De Lanraces, Life of Mother Agnes, 3° P., ©. 18, t. 2, p. 305: She was put all along on an invisible cross, yet very hard, with her arms stretched out, and her feet laid on one another, and so well attached, that it was impossible to separate them.

5 Hyac. Bayonne, Life of Saint Catherine of Ricei, c. 8,t. 1, p. 146: At the time of the crucifixion, she. laid her feet on one another, just as Jesus did when he was nailed to the cross.

6 BB. 29 Maiii, t. 20, p. 173, n. 56: Vidi Dominum Jesum Christum tenentem pedes conjunctos, uti tenuit in cruce affixos.

bleak Baptista Varani! hears, from the very mouth of the divine Crucified, these words: "I was tied by three nails on the cross, you must be crucified by so many nails, which will be: poverty, obedience and chastity."

Finally, a last remarkable fact is that of the instruments of the Passion printed in the heart of Blessed Claire de Montefalco?, among which there are only three nails.

What can we conclude from these differences? This, at least, is that the question in dispute remains in the same state, and that it is not appropriate, in order to resolve it, to oppose one another these claims; they do not prove, according to the wise remark of the learned Papebroch#, either for or against. Should these revelations be rejected because of their disagreement? Neither: both are worthy of respect; only, because of their incompatibility, is it obliged to recognize that they had to occur according to the preconceived ideas of the various subjects, and that the supernatural vision is carried out according to the pre-existing provisions of nature, God intervening, not to resolve idle controversies, but with the aim of sanctifying souls.

VI. — The lateral stigma is no less diverse #.

1 BB. 31 Maii, t. 20, p. 486, n. 58: Fui crucifixus in cruce tribes clavis; and you etiam totimem cruciergeris, villicet paupertate, obedientia and castitate.

2 Cornec. Cunrrius, BB. 18 Aug., t. 37, p. 672, n. 46 and 37: Pendebant ibidem ex Nerviculis tribes, quasi filis, very claviculi.

BB $. 95 maïi, Parergon, t. 19, p. 245, n. 7: Egoin istis omnibus nullam probare aut reprobare præ aliis intendo: unum dico, si ista omnia fuerint acta, dicta, visa in vera ac supernaturali ecstasi (uti absque ipsarum partium gravi injuria nequit dubitari) profecto jam observatoire, ex ipsa sensiarum tam contrariarum incompatibilitate, quod etiam talibus multum interveniat a natura, divinitus non impedita quo minus secundum præhabitas species agat.. Curate, come on. Deus non etiam curavit aptare and correct ad normam sibi notæ veritatis? Credo quia id nihil ad spiritualem fructum miraculo illo intentum fatiebat.

4 IMBERT-GOURBEYRE, Stigmatization, 2nd P., c. 6, t. 2, p. 70: The Jateral stigma, or side wound, has been reported many times as having

Sometimes the imprint is superficial, and the flesh is not open; but, most often, it is a wound that reaches the heart and pierces it deeply, if not from part to part. In the venerable [da de Louvain!, the opening was so wide and so advanced, that the breath of breath, passing through, penetrated into the region of the liver. In addition to the fact that blood is closer to its source, and therefore more abundant, the depth of the wound is sufficient to explain why the bleeding is more copious to this stigma than to all others. Sometimes the blood mixes with water that recalls the water that came out of the open side of Jesus Christ.

A singular diversity still occurs here. Sometimes it is the right side of the chest that is open, as seen in St Francis of Assisi? and St Mary Magdalene of Pazzi*; but most often it is the side

as it happens to Saint Catherine of Siena

an oval, elongated shape; it was also compared to a spear, a bow or crescent... There was also a simple temporary blood flow, or blood extravasations under the skin, with bleeding at a given time. Several cases of penetrating wounds are mentioned: in Ida de Leuven, I looked as far as the liver region; one saw the heart beating at the bottom of Louise Plazza's wound; in Saint Véronique Giuliani, the air of the chest came out through a bewildering wound. Françoise de Serrane, Angèle de la Paix, Joseph Carabantes and Marie-Françoise des Cinq-Plaies also had penetrating wounds, as well as Vittoria Angelini; her doctors had declared that she could not live in such conditions. The doctors of our time will also have to wonder how all these stigmatized people have been able to live for many years with such wounds, usually fatal.

1 FLORE Huues, BB. 13 April, t. 11, p. 162, n. 14: Lateris etiam aperturam tam hiantem et patulam... hæc Christi passionis æmulatrix et socia persensisse dictur, quod in eodem, ad as oblongi vulneris patefacto, ad hepar usque proveniens, halitus per ipsa corporis interstitia laberetur.

2 S. BONAVENTURE, Leg. S. Franc. v. 13, p. 338: Dextrum quaque latus, quasi lancea transfixum, rubra scar obducum erat.

3 V. Puconi, 25 Maii,t. 19, p. 223, n. 172: Mittebat mihi certos radios ad pedes, manus ac latus dextrum.

* Ravioxp DE Caroue, BB. 30 April, t. 12 p. 910, n. 195: Tunc CgO:

and most stigmatized. The essential character of this phenomenon is the commemorative imprint in the heart region, not the absolutely identical reproduction of the wound that the Saviour received on the cross. Assuming moreover that in Jesus Christ the transfixion took place on the right flank, it is still easy to explain how stigmatized people receive the impression on the opposite flank; it is enough to admit that the radiation that produces it occurs in direct line, that it leaves the right side of the Savior to reach the left side of the stigmatized.

The other stigmas were seen clustering around the lateral stigma and the five wounds gathered in the heart area as if to make only one.

Igitur non pervenit aliquis radiorum ad latus dextrum? At illa: No, inquite, sed ad sinistrum directissime super cormeum.

1 The authors do not agree on the side reached by Ja lance. Most believe it was the left side, and this feeling, as Suarez notes (De Myst. Chrisli, D. 41, s. 1, n. 3 p. 686), first seems the most likely, for this reason that the Roman soldier wanting to make sure that the supplanted man died, it was in his heart that he had to strike. Others, however, in large numbers, argue that it was carried to the right side, and they rely on the ancient Greek liturgy (Marriany, Dict. des Antig. chrét., word Lance), and on other monuments of the highest antiquity, among others on a Greek medal including Just Lipse (from Cruce, p. 111), and Gretzer (of Sancta Cruce, 1. 1, c. 34, p. 114) reproduced the print; there is the Saviour attached to the cross, a soldier on the right, with his spear, ready to pierce the side of the victim, and all around this legend: Divine blood is the ransom of the world. Some Fathers, including Eustache d'Antioch, Saint Leo the Great and Prudence, have imagined a double wound, one on the right, the other on the left, a completely free, implausible assumption, not in conformity with the Gospel narrative and the Christian tradition. Berti (Hist. evangelization. Prælect. 40, t. 1, p. 194) believes that it is conciliatory by admitting a wide opening extending from the right side to the left side of the chest. It is more natural to assume, with Mr. Rohault de Fleury (The instruments of the Passion,,, ). 2, c.6, p. 273), that the spear when entering the right pierced the heart from one side to the other and that its point went out left under Island breast.

2 Taeopx. RAyNAUD, De stigmatismo sacro et profano, p. 232: In vicinia ante annos viginti, Paternis Cavarum oppido, matrona S. Francisci tertiaria, sanctorum operum and omnium virtutum foemina, post mortem piissime obitam, cum ad sepulturam a piis sororibus ablueretur, deprehensa est stigma habere in regione cordis; quod advocati medici and chirurgi vires

VIT. — We participate in several ways in the crowning of thorns. Sometimes it's through violent headaches, without there being any outer or invisible crown, as is said from Blessed Emilia. Bicchieri. At other times, these pains are caused by a symbolic crown that the Saviour seems to pose on the head in a vision. "One day, when I went to Holy Communion, wrote Blessed Marguerite Mary? speaking of herself, the Holy Host seemed to me to be shining like a sun of which I could not bear the brightness; and Our Lord, in the midst, holding a crown of thorns, put it upon me. The head a little after I had received it, saying to myself: "Receive, my daughter, this crown as a sign of "the one that will soon be given to you by conformity with "me." I did not understand what it meant at that time; but I soon knew it by the effects that followed, namely: two terrible blows that I received from the head, so that it seemed to me to have the whole turn of my head surrounded by very poignant thorns of pain, whose stings will end only with my life."

When the stigma is apparent, it usually consists of a blood sooting around the head or the ‘frontal part, caused by a real or imaginary crown, visible or veiled. The one by Anne-Catherine Emmerich seems to have been real. "She described it," said Fr. Schmæger#, as composed of three different braids

naturæ transcends pronuntiarunt. Appearing in eo uno stigma quinque Christi vulnera, ita disposita ut medium occupied almost rosa vernans colors purpurascentis; quartet vero alia ad mediam CORRIGER, in oblongo quadrangulo efformata viscerant.

1 ANNE-MECHTILDE SOYOR FuazA, BB. App. ad 3 maii, t. 20, p. 555, n. 29: Iterum meditanti mysterium coronæ spineæ, accidit petere, ut hujus quoque tormenti participate se faceret; Christus autem id oranti per os Crucifixi respondit quod erat exaudedida. Tum vero, aboratione surgens, tam intensum soudio sensit capitis dolorem, ut triduo toto nequiverit de lecto surgere.

- What? His Life written by herself, p. 496.

3 Life of Anne-Catherine Emmerich, t. 1.0. 11, p. 152.

thorns. One of the braids came from a thorny shrub where she saw white flowers with yellow stamens; the second, from a shrub that had similar flowers, but wider leaves; the third appeared to her as a wild slender. Often, in the ardour of prayer, she strongly pressed this crown against her head, and each time she felt the thorns sink deeper. When in the convent the wounds began to bleed..., one of the sisters surprised Anne-Catherine once as she wiped the blood flowing from her temples, but she promised her the secret."

Blessed Christine of Stommeln ‘ received a similar invisible crown, whose thorns, shoveling through her whole head, flowed blood on her face and neck.

Îl also happens that it forms on the head, as thorns, a kind of crown drawn with the flesh, like the protuberant stigmas of the hands and feet. When, in 1618, the commission appointed by the archbishop of Burgos to inspect the stigmas of Jeanne of Jesus-Mary * proceeded to this examination, those who composed her noticed, all around the head of this servant of God, a circle wide of more than one finger, which gave in under pressure as if it had been swollen, formed a deep groove of half a finger, and extended, as did the doctors, to the bone region. The venerable mother Agnes de Langeac had the head "cointed with a green crown. This circle had a protruding finger, and the red thorns that came out of it shone

1 DACIA PIRRRE, BB. 22 Jun., t. 25, p. 269, n. 48: Statim venit quasi corona spinea per totum caput ejus, and printingbatur ei, ita quod flowit sanguis in faciem ejus, and in collum ejus.

. 2 See Gorres, Mystique, 1. 4, c. 15,t.2, p. 221. 3 LANTAGES, Life of the Ven. Mother Agnes, 3 P., c. 13,t. 2, p. 291.

in the skin". In Jeanne-Marie de la Croix, "we saw around her forehead, between skin and flesh, a circle of a bright red like a crown of thorns. This crown sometimes spread over the whole forehead, along the cheeks and up to the neck, and gave the whole face a livid color.

Finally, they are still bloody bruises, more or less multiplied. Marie-Dominique Lazzari? had the head pierced with more than fifty holes. The venerable Ida * had as a living wound around her head, and in tears it was thought to be the thorns whose Savior was crowned by the Roman soldiers.

The shoulders sometimes retain the stigmas of the flogging and bearing of the cross; but, in general, these fingerprints are only temporary, like the trials of the Passion, which we will talk about {. © VIIT. — We said that stigma, considered in its generality, embraces all aspects of divine atonement consumed at Calvary. We have seen a great number of servants and especially of God's maidens, in their painful succession, suffer the torments of the divine Crucified, and reproduce in them, with a touching vivacity, the scenes of his Passion.

The agony is often renewed, and more than once, with blood sweat. When the thought of Saint Lutgarde ® 1 Bène Weser, Jeanne-Marie de la Croix, ©. 18, p. 539.

3 ANTOxIO Riccarni, Relationship on Marie-Dominique Lazzari, p. 125. — See Léox Boré, Les Stigmatisés du Tyrol, 2nd ed., 1846.

3 FLORE Illues, BB. 13p., t. 11, p. 162, n. 15: Capitis quoque circumferentiam ex omni parte tam vehemens læsio compressebat, ut nihil minus quam spineam coronam portendere vidéretur, quae, sanctissimo passionis tempore, pungendo simul and cruentando caput Dominium ambiebat.

4 See. IMBERT-GOURBEYRE, Stigmatisalion, t. 2, p. 71.

5 You. CANTIMPRÉ, B.B. 16 Jun., t. 24 p. 200, n. 23: Quoties rapta in spiritu, passionis Dominicæ memo erat, viebatur ei quod essentialiter per totum

blood corpus perfusa ruberet. Hoc cum quidam religiosus presbyter secretius audivisset, ohservans eam tempore opportuno, quo dubium non

Stigma: its various forms s15

During his delights, he was carried on the pains of Jesus Christ, and it seemed to him that the blood was flowing from all his body. A priest who heard of this wonder, wanting to make sure for himself that he was true, came to see the admirable virgin, in a time when she had to be busy meditating on the painful mysteries. He found her leaning against a wall and plunged into contemplation. His face and hands, the only parts of his body that were uncovered, were flooded with fresh blood; drops of blood also flowed, like dew beads, of his hair. He furtively cut off a wick from it, which he began to consider in the light with a religleous astonishment; but as soon as Lutgarde returned to her, the blood disappeared, and the hair which the pious and indiscreet visitor held by his hand immediately resumed their natural color. Similar facts are reported by Blessed Christine of Stommeln, St Marguerite of Cortone* and many others.

The authors * are divided on the nature of this phenomenon. According to some, it is miraculous; according to others, it is naturally due to the violence of the mterior sadness. Benedict XIV * concludes from this last feeling, the most common and the most motivated, that, in the trials

erat secundum tempus Christi fore memorem passionis: agressus est illam emptyre: ubi acclinis ad parietem in contemplatione jacebat. And ecce vidit faciem ejus et manus, quae tantum nudæ patebant, quasi recenti perfusas blood relucere: cincinnos vero ejus, quasi guttis noctium, infusos blood. Quod viens, clam forcipe partem illorum in partem tulit, and ad lucem eos in manu ferens, cum supra modum attonitus miraretur, pia Lutgarda de raptu contemplationis ad sensum forinsecus revertente, cincinni quoque in manu stupentis ad colorem naturalem protinus revertuntur.

2 F. Juxcra, BB. 22 febr., t. 6 p. 307, n. 19.. 8 Benoit XIV, De Serv. Dei beatif.. 4, P. 1, c. 25, n. 4-6, p. 189.. 4 Ibid., No. 7, p. 190: Ex hoc efficient, ut, si aliquaando in evolvendis actis servorum Dei.sive beatorum, similia octurant, haec a classe miraculorum arcenda sint.

of canonization, these kinds of facts must be ruled out as not fulfilling the conditions of the indisputable miracle. It would be difficult, however, in some cases, to give reason for the circumstances without resorting to miracles.

IX. — Flagellation is rarely apparent. The pains without external marks other than extreme fatigue and a kind of general dislocation of the whole body are felt. More than once, however, the whippings leave obvious traces; the flesh is torn or becomes livid by the number of bruises; the hands and arms keep the imprint of the ties that hold fast. After the Blessed Véronique de Binasco! suffered this torment with the hand of the devil, Our Lord delights her in ecstasy, tells her that he has made her participate in one of the most painful scenes of his Passion, and heals her from her pains, however, leaving the marks of the blows on her body, which remains very black of the results of this cruel flogging.

X. — The series of the other scenes of the Passion, with the corresponding pains and external signs, is often portrayed with such expressive fidelity, that one believes to see the unfolding of this bloody drama. Sister Marguerite of the Blessed Sacrament, the instigator of devotion to the Holy Childhood, offers an admirable example of this association to Jesus crucified.

"Marguerite's application to the Saviour's Passion," says one of her biographers*, "shows the most extraordinary phenomena; it took place for the first time in the history of the Church.

1 ISOLANIS ISIDORE, BB. 13 Jan., t. 2, p. 180, n. 20-22: Aggredians dæmon ferox, crudelibus verbrum ictibus affecit.... and seminecem virginem spiritus nequam relié.. Veronica continuo ad superos rapitur. Asseruit vero ad terrem regressa sedem, Salvatorem hac oratione se hortatum fumes..: Mysteria meæ Passionis tibi nota effeci, etc. Ad corporis officia rediens, sospes inventa est. Omnis dolor, omnisque ægritudo, divini aspectus

medicina requires, totius corporis sola nigredin perseverante.? Louis n'Cissey, Life of Marguerite of the Blessed Sacrament, c. 11, p. 127.

approaches to Lent of the year 1632. We'll only talk about this one... Marguerite was first transported in spirit to the desert where Our Lord prepared by fasting to redeem men. Like him, she also spent forty days there, during which she did not come out for a moment of her delight, and lived without taking any food... These forty days were barely over, which she was, in another delight, taken to the garden of the Olviers, where Our Lord communicated to her the sadness of his divine soul, his fears, his blood sweat, his agony, and imprimated them in her, as much as she was able to bear them. For the first two hours, Marguerite remained with her face stuck to the ground, shed tears with such abundance, that the whole community was greatly moved. She then rose up, stood straight for a quarter of an hour, with her eyes lifted up into heaven, trembling and seeming very scared; after which she bowed again. Insensitively, one saw his body bowing and his head leaning down with an unspeakable expression of terror, until, unable to sustain the tearing spectacle of agony and the infinite pains of his Savior, she fell face to face, giving up to God as Jesus Christ had done to carry his cross and the burden of the sins of the world.

"The following night it was applied to the impression that Our Lord felt when the Jews arrested him in the garden of the Olives and took him before the judges. At the moment when she saw in spirit the troop led by Judas, she rose up, as Our Lord had had to do, calm, serene, with a port full of majesty, in supernatural peace and sweetness. Shortly afterwards, his hands fixed one on the other, as if they had been bound with ropes, whose marks

so strongly printed in the flesh, that the sisters saw very distinctly two long swellings, which seemed to follow all the sinuosities of the rope and form two species of stuffings, leaving between them the passage of the rope. His arms were so harshly garrotted by these invisible bonds that several sisters tried unnecessarily to lift them. The whole night passed for Marguerite in this painful state. At once she walked painfully, as if she had been violently dragged; sometimes she remained still, appearing to be delivered to pains exCesIves.

"In the morning, this delight was suspended for about an hour, after which it appeared to be further strengthened by the invisible bonds we have spoken of. The black and livid bruises, and swelling caused by the ropes increased significantly; nevertheless her face, which she held down, retained a gentleness and majesty all celestial... Marguerite spent a whole day in this state. No doubt it was then, like Our Lord, given in spirit to the blows and insults of the people excited by the priests of Jerusalem; for in the evening its state was so pitiful, that it was painful to see. His face, black and wilted, was disfigured, as if he had received the most violent blows; his forehead, so swollen, that she could not open her eyes. She had her nose crushed, her lips torn; the chin seemed to have received the most violent blows, and on this part of the figure there was a black and bloody tumor that completely distorted her.

"As in the face of the divine Savior, during his Passion, it could have been said of Marguerite that he had no more form or beauty; and yet, according to the testimony of all the sisters, his face, which should have seemed hideous, far from giving any horror, remained admi-

Stigma: its various forms d19

irrigated by the inexplicable sweetness and majesty that she kept in the torments. Especially when it was applied to the torment of flogging, Marguerite appeared to have a supernatural grace. Our dear sister then stood up and stood straight, still; and she bowed slightly her head and shoulders, and crossed her hands on her back, as Our Lord had had to do when he was tied to the post. She had barely been in this position for a few seconds, when the divine power, suddenly letting out the effects of her righteousness, brought down upon the humble victim an infinity of strokes of yards whose marks sprinted on all sides on her body bruised and furrowed countless scars. Marguerite, during this torture, only raised her head once, which she overturned on her shoulders. Sadness and neglect, expressed at the moment by his physiognomy, appeared to equal the sufferings of his body.

"It was thus applied for five hours to the participation of the flogging of Our Lord. At the end of the five hours, the Son of God stopped Marguerite's supphce and returned her to her ordinary state, without keeping any trace of the blows she had received. But this rest was short; for it came out of the impressions of some of the scenes of the passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ only to undergo another.

"When it was applied to the coronation of thorns, his body was deployed by a secret virtue that made it sit on a seat. His face leaned on his chest, and a kind of small noise was heard, like thorns that had entered violently into his head and which left numerous traces on his forehead, where one saw the blood sweating through a large amount of red stings. At this moment, there was a violent thrill in her, which ran through all her members; and she told from

that in that moment her soul was filled with so much bitterness that she would have died if God had not sustained her power.

"It was only after sharing all the pains of her husband in the various states of her passion that she was charged with the cross and condemned to climb with him Calvary, in a series of ravishings that followed for several days. The pains and fatigues so cruel that Our Lord had experienced when ascending to Calvary were too sharp for Marguerite to endure them with continuity; so the delights during which she bore the burden of the cross were much less long than the previous ones; but they were renewed at very short intervals, so that one of these ecstasy could be said to be used as a preparation for the next.

"From the first, the cross was placed on its shoulders, invisiblely, it is true, but in such a way that the sisters kept as sure as if they had seen it with their own eyes. Cursed by the enormous weight of the instrument of his Saviour's torture, she walked only with difficulty and as if she had been dragged violently, raising a hand to support this heavy burden, whose mark shone on her heavily compressed shoulders. Several times she collapsed under this weight, and fell failing, exhausted and out of state to rise without the help of the sisters.

"At the last of these delights which took place on Good Friday and which preceded little before the hour at which Our Lord gave his soul to God, either that Marguerite was more burdened, or that she was penetrated by a deeper sense of humility, she walked only on her knees, leaning on the ground with one hand, and holding the other raised to support her cross. At about three o'clock, she was more

especially applied to the contemplation of the death of the Saviour of the world. One saw her bowing down to the ground, with her lips stuck on the feet of a crucifix, which she held with an admirable fervor. She remained in this position for three hours, without it being possible to get her out. During these three hours his soul was overwhelmed by the immense sorrows of his husband and bitterness, where he had plunged the sins of men. Insensitively, his body became stiff and icy like that of a dead man. His feet and hands kept the position they had, his head alone bowed a little. His pale, unfavorable face had a cadaverous appearance. The Carmelites thought she was dead...

"This state of assimilation to the Saviour's death lasted about a quarter of an hour, after which Marguerite gradually returned to life, but without regaining her strength and without her mind being able to detach itself from the sight of the sufferings of her divine Spouse, until the Holy Day of Easter, where, after communion, she was, as she had been so many times already, supernaturally healed, restored in the fullness of her forces, and instantly saw the disappearance of all the traces of her sufferings... On Easter Day she attended the solemn feast that was celebrated in heaven that day.

"This application to the pains of the Passion of Jesus Christ and to the feasts of his resurrection sc repeated several times, at the approaches of Holy Week. As the. first time it ended on the holy day of Easter, where, as a reward for her fidelity, Marguerite always received an additional new graces."

In Saint Catherine of Ricci, this staging of the Passion was renewed every week, for twelve consecutive years. We regret not being able to

reproduce in full the series of these representations 2 2h

wonderful. Let us cite only a page where her recent historian! sums up the varied and successive attitudes that the saint took during this admirable compassion.

"In this ecstasy, as in all others, his face appeared with superhuman splendour and a character of majesty that belongs only to angels, inspiring all those who saw it a deep respect and a keen attraction for the things of God. But while in the ordinary ecstasy she remained deprived of the use of her senses, the still body and the fixed will, betraying her emotions only by the color of her face, which paled or blushed according to the feelings that stirred her soul; in the ecstasy of the Passion, by a wonderful exception, her body came out of her immobility to conform to the gestures, the atlitudes, the various movements of the body of Jesus Christ in the course of her pains. She presented her hands, as he did, when she was charged with bonds, when she was tied to the column of the flogging, and reproduced all the movements that she saw her perform under the blows that she was stricken with. During the crowning of thorns, she gently wore her head on one shoulder and on the other, depending on whether the executioners pushed Jesus' head to the right or left. At the time of the crucifixion, she stretched her right hand, then her left hand, then finally laid her feet on one another, just as Jesus did when he was nailed to the cross. And all these attitudes, all these movements, she carried them out with such modesty and such gentle gravity, that she naturally made think of the ineffable sweetness of this lamb of which Isaiah speaks, which offers without whispering its limbs to the mammary who robs him, and his head with a knife that rips off his life."

1 P. Hyac. Bayowxe, Life of Saint Catherine of Ricci, ch. 8, t. 1, P. 145.

We would like to be able to reproduce in detail all that is said of these living images of Jesus crucified: of Saint Mary Magdalene of Pazzi', of Saint Colette?, of Blessed Madeleine of Panateri*, of Venerable Mother Agnes‘, and of an infinity of others; but we must limit ourselves.

XF. — The plastic formations of the cross and other signs or instruments of the Passion naturally relate to the question of stigmatic fingerprints.

These kinds of phenomena frequently recur in the history of mysticism and occur in various ways.

Sometimes it is outside, in the face, on the chest that these signs are engraved. One day, Brother Pacific saw on the front of the Seraphic Francis d'Assisi 5 the letter T, or a large cross, nuanced in various colours and spreading an admirable radiance on the face of the saint. In Mr. Olier, this brand was permanent in the last years of his life: "One of his spiritual children (Mr. de la Perugia) often told that, despite the care that the servant of God had to hide this favor, never discovering his forehead for all the time that his last infirmities had held him in his room, it was nevertheless seen several times. As he himself spoke to him with great familiarity, and as he often kept him company, he noticed that one of the branches of this cross, of red colour, which rose from the middle of a heart as if inflamed, was almost not formed:

1 V. Puconi, BB. 25 Maii, t. 19, p. 222, n. 167 et seq.

2 Er. DE Juuiers, BB. 6 mart., t. 7 p. 560, n. 94 et seq.

3 BB. Auctarium ad diem 14 Oct., t. 60, p. 174*, n. 3.

4 DE Lanraces, Life of Mother Agnes, 3 P., c. 13, t. 2, p. 283 et seq. BoxavenT. Leg. S. Francisc. © 4 p. 306: Hic postmodum in omni sanctitate proficiants.., meruit iterato magnum Tau in fronte Francisei empty, quod, colorum veritate distinctum, faciem ipsius miro veneztabat ornatu.:

"My Father," he said to him, "your cross was nothing but a cross." Olier, it is that my cross is not finished," meaning that he still had much to suffer." But after his death, the cross appeared whole, and everyone could see it painted in very sensitive features on his forehead!.

Anne-Catherine Emmerich? had several crosses visibly drawn on her chest. Blessed Christme of Stommeln had this part of her body cruelly torn in three places by demons. Instead of these wounds, three crosses were formed, wonderful by their brightness, their shape and the inscriptions of which they were intertwined.

XI.[.] More often than not, it is within the heart itself that these symbolic signs of painful compassion for the crucified Saviour {. We have already talked about the instruments of the Passion discovered, after his death, in the heart of Blessed Claire of

1 Mr. Falcon, Life of Mr. Olier, 3° P., 1. 9, n. 37,t. 3 p. 480.

2 P. SCHMOœGER, Life of Anne-Catherine Emmerich, c. 17, t.1, p. 274.

3 Pierre DE Dacie. BB. 22 Jun., t. 25, p. 303, n. 33. Tria lla loca quae prius a dæmonibus ungulis transfibebantur, tribes crucibus mirici color, cum dispositione and circumseriptura mirabili signabantur.

4 IMBERT-GOURBEYRE, {a Stigmatisalion, 3° P., ch. 4, t. 2, p. 48, note: Twelve stigmatized people had in their hearts the sacred imprints of the Passion.

The martyr of Cantimpré: crucifixes in the heart.

Saint Claire de Montefalco: all the instruments of the Passion.

Lucie de Norcia: crucifixes and wounds.

St Julien of Bologna: crucifixes.

Borgo Rainier San Sepolcro: whip.

Isabelle Barilis: all the instruments of the Passion.

Cecilia Nolili: two whips.

Paul de Saint-Thomas: crucifixes.

Blessed Charles of Sezze: crucifixes.

Jeanne-Maric de la Croix: the spear, sponge and reed.

Saint Véronique Giulani: instruments of the Passion and various figures.

Florida Cevoli: Idem.

Of these twelve stigmatized, six positively announced that their hearts would be found, after death, the sacred footprints.

Montefalco; but it is appropriate to present here the whole fact. During an ecstasy that came to the Blessed in her last illness, the demon dared to appear to her, doubling her threats at this supreme hour; but she urged him, and, with the accents of his faith, forced him to flee. One of the sisters who was with her, fearing that these obsessions would inspire her some trouble, approached and made the sign of the cross on the sick woman. Claire, immediately leaving. her delight: "Do not be afraid, my daughter," she said to her, "for I have the cross printed in my heart with Christ." And speaking to another nun, she said to her: "If you seek the cross of Jesus, take my heart; there you will find this divine Crucified!"

These words gave rise to the awakening, and as soon as the saint had made the last sigh, there was no longer any question but to extract and inspect her heart to see if it would contain any special mark of the cross of Jesus Christ. One of the sisters opened his chest and removed his heart, which was as big as a child's head. After hesitation and prayer, it was resolved that the autopsy of this organ would be carried out, and Sister Françoise, appointed for this operation, took her heart into her hands and, with a razor, divided it into two, not without having shed many tears. The nuns, placed in a circle, a candle in their hand, then contemplate the most amazing spectacle; they see, represented by wonderful signs, the mysteries of the Passion of Jesus Christ.

On the right side of the heart, appeared the image of Sau-

1 Moscow. BB. 18 Aug.,t. 37, p. 684, n. 44: Id cum audisset una ex sororibus, timens ne fallacias daemonis formidasset accience crucisque eam signo munivit. Yes Clara, no sécus ac si somno expergisteretur: No is, inquis, quod de me dubites, filia; crucem enim cum Christo gero in corde meo impressam. Quin and alteri moniali dixit: If Christi crucem quaeris, accipe cormeum, in quo Christum crucifixum reries. Etc.

crucified, having a little longer length than a woman's thumb; he had his arms stretched out and a little high, his head leaned forward. The right side was open, and 1 s'en escaped from the blood in abundance; and on the left side was a cloth stained with droplets of blood. At the feet, to the right, a circle, composed of small fibers, drew the crown inherited from thorns with sharp tips. Higher hanging, hanging three fibers, three pointed nails, black and harder to touch than flesh. Below was the spear, whose sharp tip and colour of the iron, was directed towards the right side, as if it were coming out of the wound. A red-coloured, informed mass was still seen, together with other fibres, which was taken to be a sponge.

On the left side of the heart, there appeared a whip with five flexible fibres, each of which had several knots, all dyed with black blood, separated from the flesh and attached to a handle that looked like wood and ended with a small strap intended to hang it. Between the end of the whip ropes and the crown of thorns, was the column, surrounded by strings of a color of blood. All these signs that recalled the Lord's passion, though formed of the substance of the flesh, had the hardness and colour of the instruments they represented. Some were sent to Pope John XXII as authentic pieces for the process of canonization; the others were kept in the tomb of the servant of God, where they can still be seen.' What

1 Moscow. BB. 18 Aug., t. 37, p. 685, n. 50-51. In parte cordis dextera, Jesu Christi crucifixi imago magnitudine muliebris pollicis, licatet alivando longior, extenta tenens brachia, aliquantulum sublata, caput extra humeros declive and deflexum. Pars dextra corporis in qua vulnus situm est, libidum colorem gerebat, blood confecta. In sinistra vero, vids sindonem minutis sanguinis guttulis aspersam. Vulnus in latere mullo cruore manabat. In hac eadem parte, circulaus e nervculis confectus spineam delineabat coronam, quaæ hirsutis spinis toruosisque constabat aculeis: ibidem tres nervi-

adds to the wonder that, in the dissection of the heart that was made with iron and by inexperienced hands, as we have said, these images were uncovered without any alteration.

Similar phenomena are canonically observed, in two other Italian ecstatics: Saint Véronique Guliani ‘, and Florida Cevoli?. -

These plastic stigmatizations that relate to crucification are frequent and diverse. Sometimes it is a crucifix or a simple cross, sometimes a nail or any other sign of the Passion. We merely report these facts by their principal nature, without going into detailed details that would force repetitions. But this is the place to mention the incrustations and inscriptions of the same kind having something other than the sufferings of the Cross. A few accounts will make it clear what they are.

The Blessed Marguerite of Tiferne# had often

cli, veluti tria fila, in una parte pendebant, in quorum extremo devincti pendebant ferrei elavi, cuspidis acutæ, nigri, tactu duriores carne...; sub quorum loco clavorum alter aderat nerviculus lanceam designans, cujus erat cuspis acuta sane, ferruginei and duritiei colour, et.; erat idem a surface ereetus ac si ex suo latere cuspis exiret. - In sinistra parte cordis erat flagellum ex quinque flexis nervculis nodisque pluribus revinctum; pendants particulara carnis mollis gracilisque ceterum, quo flagellum suspenditur, referencebat: post eam mania carnea, sed ligno similis, sequebatur; eodemque mo:lo funiculi erant atro bleu tinti, and a carne elati et separati: quae omnia vel hodie in ipsius Clarie sepulero ostensintur. Prope erat alter nerviculus, which columnam rectam flexis and small funiculis circumseptam notabat... Hæc omnia, discerpto rope, integra remanserunt.

1 See SALvaToRI, Vita della B. Veronica Guliani, Roma, 1860.

2 See Fr. GEMELTI, Comp. della vita della ven. suor. Florida Cevoli, Roma, 1838.

8 J. BB. 13 a.m., t. 11, p. 191, n. 7: Nonnuli ex fratris memoria retinentes B. Margaritam, dum in humanis ageret, cum suis domesticis sæpius reetere solitam esse pretiosum thesaurum in corde gestare; capti desiderio cor inspiciendi..., humata repetunt exta, et cor inter sepulta viscera

said in her lifetime that she was carrying a treasure in her heart. After his death, the heart was opened, and three rounded stones were found there, of the size of a nave, on which was engraved a small image depicting the scene of the nativity of the Saviour: one saw there the crèche, the divine Child and the Blessed Virgin his mother, Saint Joseph and a white dove.

A wonderful butterfly described on the clothes of Saint Rose of Lima!, towards the region of the heart, the perfect image of a heart, which was seen and noticed by several young girls who worked with the saint.

Blessed Henri Suso? had inscribed on his chest, in bloody strokes, the name of Jesus. These wounds eventually healed, and the blessed name remained printed until his death on his flesh in long letters like the joint of the little finger. When he came to trial, he looked at this sign of love, and felt his forfied soul. One day when he was resting in his cell, with his head leaning on a volume of the Fathers' life, he was seized by ecstasy, and he saw an abundant light escaping from his bosom that shone around a golden cross full of precious stones on which was engraved with an admirable art the name of Jesus. In vain did he try to veil with his clothes the radiation that overflowed from his chest; the more effort he made, the more intense that luminous foyer became and the more he was gnawing with his waves.

culpti globi, mespilorum magnitudine, mibilier erumpunt: in quibus imagunculæ quaedam, Christi nativatem cum B. Virgine ac præsepe, necton S. Josephum cum alba columba representant, inspiciebantur.

1 L. HANSEN, B.B., 26 Aug. t. 39, p. 927, n. 133: Expleto opera, disappeared, and ecce cordis eftigiem plene ac scitissime formatum in jacket Rosæ, quam a papilione ibi depictam relictam conspicue observarunt puellæ quotquot in eodeim conclavi laborabant.

- What? LauRENT Surius, BB. 95 Jan., t. 3 p. 270, n. 13: Ad mortem usque tulit hoc nomen in suo pectore...

On the eve of the Annunciation, on March 24 of the year 1585, Saint Mary Magdalene of Pazzi ‘ meditated on the mystery of the Incarnate Word. In coming to these words of St John: "And the Word was made flesh, and Verbum caro factum is," she was delighted in a sublime ecstasy that lasted from ten o'clock in the evening until the next day at three o'clock in the afternoon. Everything that springs from this holy soul, during this transport, in admiration, in love, in praise, cannot be described. While she exhaled the ardours that consumed her in a burning words, St Augustine came to meddle in her vision; unable to speak appreciably, she carried her hands and arms on her heart, and with her eyes she begged the Holy Doctor to write these sacred words: Verbum caro factum is; finally, in her impatience regaining her voice, she said: "This is my blood, this is ink to write; what are you tarrying at Augustine?" Soon after, he was heard shouting, turning to the saint: "You have just written the sublimitity of the Word in the humility of my flesh!" The much-wanted inscription was indeed fulfilled: the word Verbum was written in letters of gold, and the rest in letters of blood; it itself indicated the meaning of mystery: the gold expressed the divinity, and the blood of the humanity of Jesus Christ. To give her the certainty that the inscription was real, St Augustine assured her that she would never cease, until the end of her life, to have

1 V. Puconr. BB. 95 maïii, t. 19, p. 221, n. 161-161: Juxta haec: Ferbum. caro factum est, sovio in ecstasim rapta leaks. Manibus ac brachiis designabat locum cordis ut S. Augustinus, who appeared sibirat, registeret ei desiderata sibi verba. Quare ad eum conversa dixit: Sanguis, id is atramentarium, apertus is, soon, o Augustine... Postea ad S. Augustinum se vertens, dixit: You scripsisti sublimitatem Verbi in mea humilitate... Vox Verbum scripta ab eo sit litteris aureis; and litteris sanguinis caro factum est; idque non sine mysterio, quia, sicut aiebat, arum denotab divinitatem, sanguis humanitatem Christi. Præterea ex eodem Sancto intellexit quod, id signum quod vere haberet serpta in corde verba ista, semper habitura esset coram se memoriam magni mysterii Verbi incarnati.

present in his mind the thought of this great mystery, which took place indeed.

These are the various aspects of stigma, but we have to study the causes of these strange phenomena; this will be the subject of the next chapter. In concluding this one, let us note that to these external wounds, to these symbolic marks on the body, correspond in the soul intimate impressions, and that between the prints of the inside and those of the outside, there is this inverse relationship that the more crucifying and painful the c1s are, the more delicious and intoxicating these are! We have already seen this prodigy of drunkenness in pain, when we were talking about wounds and wounds

Love.

1 Scaramelli, Dirett. Mist. Tr. 3, c. 27 n. 262, p. 239: When the ferita di amore passa a far piaga nel corpo, finchè questa sta aperta e dà dolore alle membra, quella dà diletto allo spirito, e continue a dolce tormento ed un soave martirio.

Chapter XXV

The Mystical Sufferings — III. Stigmatization: Its Causes and Subjects

Rationalistic interpretation. — It is gratuitous and in disagreement with the facts. — The way in which stigmatization is carried out also contradicts the explanation of rationalism. — The two most famous stigmatized: Saint Francis of Assisi and Saint Catherine of Siena. — Subjects of stigmatization: the perfection that it requires. — Number of stigmatized.

[ — It is a fact of experience that stigma usually occurs in deep meditation and in love with the sufferings of the Savior. Many believed that this association and likeness to crucified Jesus Christ were the fruit of the imagination exalted by the mysteries of the cross. According to Benoit XIV', Francis Petrarch and others attributed to this cause the visible impression of the stigmas that Saint Francis of Assisi received; and Pomponace?, agreed

1 Servor. Beagent dei. 1. 4, P. 1, c. 33, n. 19; Synopsis ab Emm. of AZEVEDO, p. 279. Imaginationi quoque Franciscus Petrarca aliique stigmaum impressionem in S. Francisci corpore adscribund, quos tamen fuse præter alios Bartholomæus de Pisis, ord. Minorum, redarguit.

2 Jbid., n. 11. Avicenna eam esse imaginationis vim opinatur, ut alienum corpus transmutari posit.... Huic sententiæ adhæsit Pomponatius, etc.

with the Aristotelian and the Muslim Avican, attributed to this ability the power to transform even foreign bodies, more importantly the power to affect the proper body that the soul animates. This interpretation could not fail to please rationalists, only because it removes the supernatural in one of the situations where it bursts with the most obvious. We will discuss the denials and explanations of unbelief in the place where we will explicitly deal with the causes to which the facts of the mystical order are attributable; but we must point out here, to combat it, the way in which the illustrious Gürres hears stigmatization.

This learned author, who too often disfigures the supernatural of the facts by the interpretations to which he submits them, seems to have given in particular to his penchant in the question that is before us, where he tries to explain these prodigious wounds in a way in any way consistent with the rationalistic process. According to him, the soul first receives the imprint of the sacred wounds in the ardour of contemplation; and, in turn, by the plastic virtue it exerts on the body, the soul prints these wounds to him according to the divine model which appears to him in these visions. The remedies by which the author florets to temper his theory, are not sufficient to excuse the reproach of naturalism.

"An indispensable condition for receiving stigma," writes 1l?, "is an immense compassion for the suffering of the Saviour. The soul, contemplating the passion of this Man of pain, receives its imprint. It is as surrounded by a bitter ocean and seems to dissolve in ineffable sadness. Yet it is in the nature of the feeling of compassion to transport out of oneself

1 Divine Mystical, 1. 4, ch. 17,t. 2, p. 232. 2 Ibid., p. 233.

He who sheds himself, to strip him of himself, to clothe him in some way with him whom he loves and to engrave in him his image... Intoxicated with this burning wine that she drinks at the wounds of the Saviour, the soul rested only when she saw on her own body the image and the imprint of her suffering, and that she was thus all transformed into him. When she conceived this desire with full reflection and expressed it with perfect freedom, she sometimes obtains, through a special favor of God, what she asks, and receives in her body the imprint of the sacred wounds of the Saviour. It is indeed in the body that this transformation of man into Our Lord must be accomplished; for it is the spectacle of the material sufferings of Jesus Christ that excites in the soul this tender compassion, and it is after physical pain that she sighs. The relationship which is established in these circumstances between man and his Redeemer goes from the body of this one to the body of the first, and carries out in him a material and sensitive transformation."

These first explanations offer nothing that is absolutely impossible to admit, with this reservation however that most of the souls who received the stigmas did not ask for them. But, after professing, as we have just heard, that external stigma is a special favor of God, the German docte writer strives to demonstrate that it is a natural consequence of internal stigma.

"The soul, the principle of life," he continues, "can not receive any imprint without its reproduction in the body that it animates; for it is eminently plastic; and, as long as this life lasts, it is united to the body by such intimate bonds, that nothing can happen in the body.

1 Divine Mystical, 1.4, ch. 17, t. 2, p. 234.

she who is not reflected in him. It is according to this law that she herself has somehow built her own body, and that any modification that takes place in herself brings a similar metamorphosis into the body. So if the soul, as a result of the compassion it experiences in view of the sufferings of the Saviour, receives its imprint, the act which thus makes it assimilate to the object of its affections is immediately reflected outside, and the body also takes part, in its own way, in this wonderful assimilation; this is how the phenomenon of stigmatization occurs."

We ignore the physiological theory on which we try to support these interpretations. What we have quoted is sufficient to establish that it removes the supernatural from stigma; We still have to show that it is completely wrong.

II. — The condition for receiving stigmatization is claimed to be compassion for the sufferings of the Saviour. This is the standard condition, and it cannot be questioned; this condition is indissociable.

sand, 1l is very permissible to contest it, and the following fact, of which we borrow the account from Gôrres! himself, is proof of this.

"At the age of nine, Angele of Peace had entered a church with one of her friends. There they separated, and Angèle went kneeling alone in the chapel of St. Francis to pray. Seeing the stigmas of the saint, she began, in her childish simplicity, to speak to him as if he had lived. "My Father," she said to him, "who caused you these wounds? They hurt me, and I want to heal them, if you allow me."These are not wounds," said the saint, "but jewels."

‘ Divine Mystical, 1. h,t. 2, ch. 16, nr. 228.

"No," replied the voice, "these are jewels; and if you will, I will show you how I received them.""I will, Father," said Angele. And at the same moment the vault of the chapel seemed to open, and the saint signaled to him to lift his eyes. She did so and saw Our Lord in the form of a child, with her arms stretched out on a cross, while she herself was surrounded by a great light. The appearance came to her and put on her stigma; which caused her so great pain, that she fell to the ground as dead, crying piercing, and thus remained until the evening, always surrounded by light. Only then did her companion return, and finding her in the midst of this light, which seemed to her a fire, she called by her cries people who carried her to her parents, still damaged in ecstasy. The doctors tried his pulse and couldn't move his arm. His mother, who wanted to support her, discovered her hand; and it was then that they realized that she was, as well as the other, marked with stigma. The doctors also inspected the feet, and found them also wounded and bloody. They gave her remedies to bring her back from her ecstasy, which they looked upon as a continuation of her wounds; but all was useless. She remained in this state for eight days, and then returned to her. As her mother looked at her crying, she said: "Do not weep, for it is God who willed it so; send away the doctors, their remedies cannot relieve me." She remained on her bed for two more years, suffering greatly, and eventually being abandoned from hers. She was healed later, and her healing was as miraculous as her illness had been!"

But, should it be admitted that stigma is, by the

It would not follow that there exists between one and the other the relationship and dependence of the effect on the cause. Who could count the holy souls who have abated themselves in contemplation of Christ's pains, and who have not had the stigmas? If, by his own effort, compassion produced the marks of the cross, the very Holy Virgin Mary would have been the first of the stigmatized, according to Bartholomew of Pisa's right remark.

Secondly, it is assumed that stigma is due to the violence of desires. The truth is that, while a small number of souls, mad of the love of the cross, have asked for these sensitive marks of the crucifixion, most have received them only with astonishment mixed with terror, and have asked the Saviour, with the instance of tears, to at least suppress any outside manifestation. Far from the soul contributing as a cause in stigmatization, it is most often against the will of the soul that the body is marked with these fingerprints.

And then, how would the soul direct, without even being aware of it, blood or moods on any point of the body? Neither will nor imagination are able to divert the course of life from ordinary ways. If the learned increduhity was not obsessed with the concern to push back the supernatural at all costs, it would look like a misguided badge to maintain that, by the sole effort of the imagination, one can, according to his whim, determine blood flows to the head, heart, feet and hands; but what is misunderstood remains misunderstood, and the bias taken does not allow, that we know, to change logic or to violate the common sense. It is especially important today, among the unbelievers, to

1 See BexeD. XIV, Deserv. Dei beatif., 1. &, P.1, c. 33, n. 19, p. 247.

to drink most extranatural phenomena, such as stigma, to disturbances and hysterical anomalies, to the suspension of periodic functions in women. In our third part, we will return to these so-called physiological interpretations. At the moment, let us merely note that they are free, since the connection between hysteria as a cause and stigma as an effect has never been removed from the conditions of an interested hypothesis; that, in their generality, they are false, these alleged causes can only be alleged for the woman, and the stigma which is also encountered in the man; and that they are directly contradicted in the woman herself, either by the duly established regularity of the functions which are assumed in her, or by the age when the stigmas are printed on her.

The rationalistic explanation will appear even more childish and unbearable, if one considers the stigmatic wounds in themselves and in the prodigies that accompany them. As we have said, sometimes the feet and hands are pierced from one side to the other; most often, the lesion of the heart, if natural, would lead to death; the blood keeps pure and vermeil in this abnormal flow which should degenerate into purulence. More than that, these wounds that one would naturally like to explain exhale exquisite perfumes, unknown to the earth, as seen in Saint Jeanne of the Cross ‘, in Blessed Lucia of Narni*°, and° in several others. It comes out of embalmed flowers, bright rays, as it is said of the Blessed Helen of Hungary; in venerable

1 , Admirable Life of Saint Jeanne of the Cross, ch. 14, Sr OF SAINTE-MARIE, Lives and deeds, etc., of the saints and good-

Happy Daughters of Saint Dominique, t. 2.1. 1, ch. 5, p. 204. 3 Jbid., 1. 3, c. 1, p. 762: Two great wonders appear to be stigmatized

Mother Agnes de Langeac!, were red crosses that pierced from one side to the other and had a flower of lily at the end of each branch; these miracles are of all kinds and without number.

IT. — Finally, the history of stigmatization attests that the virtue that marks these divine prints does not depart from the soul, but from a supernatural extrinsic cause. For the impression of the five plagues, Our Lord often appears in the attitude of the crucifixion, and, of each of his glorious stigmatisms, dards rays that come to strike, in the stigmatized, the corresponding parts of the body; the rays of the hands are directed on the hands, those of the feet on the feet; the one of the heart goes to the heart: this is how St Mary Magdalene of Pazzi was stigmatized?

When the stigmas appear, the light is red; it is white if they must remain invisible 5. Sometimes the luminous features start from an image of the cross, as it happens to the Blessed Gertrude of Oosten ‘; or from the Eucharist, as Jeanne-Marie of the Cross tells it. The crucifixion also occurs as for the Saviour: the victim seems to lie on the cross and be tied to it by nails that pierce successively his hands and feet. Holy

with both hands; for in the one with the right hand some gilded nets with several small flowers of lilies, violets and others grew to him from time to time as if his hand had been some small parterre sown with these flowers.

1 Of LANTAGES, Life of Mother Agnes, 3° P., ch. 2, t. 2, p. 82.

2 V. Pucomi. 25 Maii, t. 49, p. 293, n. 472: Contemplando sanctissimam passionem, vidi quod Dominus mihi daret sacras plagas suas; quia mittebat mihi certos radios ad pedes, manus ac latus dextrum, quia viebantur esse ignei, figuranturque in medio ubi sunt plagarum loca, sic ut ibi suum sigillum relinquerent.

3 See. Go ahead, Mystique, 1. 4, c. 17, t. 2, p. 235.

# BB. 6 Jan.,t. 1, p. 351, n. 16.

S Bève Wesen, Jeanne-Marie de la Croix, ch. 13, D. 363.

Catherine de Ricci! and Marceline Pauper* seem to have been crucified in this way.

The side is frequently opened by a dart, an arrow, a spear.

It is also Our Lord who usually performs the painful crown, sometimes letting down the crown of his forehead on that of his lovers, or, with his own hands, laying it on their heads; sometimes presenting them two crowns, one of flowers, gold or stonework; the other thorns, and acting on their hearts to choose the one who must associate them with his pains. At other times, it is the angels or saints who bring this tiara: Saint John of God * the rebuke of the hands of the Blessed Virgin Mary and those of the Evangelist Saint John.

IV. — To better show how stigma works, and how it is outside natural laws, mention is made of the two most famous and authentic facts of this kind, the example of the Seraphic Francis of Assisi, and that of Saint Catherine of Siena. We borrow the first account from Saint Bonaventure, and the second one from Blessed Raymond de Capua: it is enough to say the respect that one owes to such accounts.

The angelic man, Francis, wrote Saint Bonaventure, had a habit of never resting in good, and, like the heavenly spirits of Jacob's scale, he ascended to God or descended to the neighbor. He had learned to share so carefully the time he was given to

1 P. H. Bayonne, Life of Saint Catherine of Ricci, ch. 10, t. 1, p. 175.

2 Life of Marceline Pauper, of the Congreg. of the Sisters of Charity of Nevers, written by herself, ch. 12 p. 64.

3 Anwr. GovrA, BB. 8 mart., t. 7 p. 837, n. 18: Vidit ipsam Virginem Dominam nostram, sanctumque Joannem Evangelistam ad se descendere ex altari capitique suo spineam coronam print.

4 Legenda S. Francisci. 13, t. 14, p. 337.

to increase his merits, that he devoted part of it to the laborious gain among men, and the other to the peaceful delights of contemplation. So when he had used, according to the demands of the places and times, to bring salvation to others, he abandoned the crowd's agitations and withdrew to a lonely and quiet place, in order to shake, moving more freely towards God, which had been able to attach dust to him in his dealings with men.

Thus, two years before his death, he was led by divine Providence, after many works, to a very high place of the Apennines, called Mount Alverne. Having begun the Lent which he had custom of doing in honor of the archangel Saint Michael, 1 he was flooded in his contemplation with an unaccustomed abundance of heavenly sweets; the flame of holy desires flamed with a new fire, and he felt the divine sprinkling of grace flowed upon his soul, in a more rushed flood. He rose up and tried to fix his gaze on the top, not as the curious scrutinizer of the supreme majesty, who exposes himself to be overwhelmed by glory, but as the faithful and prudent servant who seeks to know God's good will and burns to conform without reservation. He was therefore warned by an inner inspiration that by opening the Gospels he would be revealed to him by Our Lord what God would have above all to please to accomplish in him and through him. After praying with great devotion, Francis, taking the sacred book on the altar, opened it three times, in the name of the Holy Trinity, by his companion, who was a fervent and holy religious. And as each time one fell upon the Saviour's passion, the saint, filled with the Spirit of God, understood that after having imitated Jesus Christ in the acts of his life, he must, before coming out of this world, resemble him in afflictions and pains

of his passion. Although the austerity of his past life and his continuous application to bear the cross had exhausted his body, far from being terrified, he sanimes with new courage to this new martyrdom. The love of which he was consumed by the sweet Jesus had the proportions of a fire that was spreading in burning sparks and flames; the most violent waters could not have extinguished this strong home of his charity.

As the fervent seraphim of his desires brought him up to God and the tenderness of his compassion transformed him into the One who in the excess of his charity wanted to be crucified, one morning it was towards the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, while he prayed on the side of the mountain, he saw a seraphim descending from the heights of heaven, supported by six burning and shining wings, and who had a rapid flight came to rest, hovering near him. Between the wings appeared the figure of a crucified man, hands and feet stretched and tied to a cross. Two wings were raised from above his head, two more were deployed to fly, and two others covered the Body.

At this sight, the saint remained amazed, and a singular mixture of joy and sadness was made in his heart. The sweet spectacle of his Saviour staring at him in the form of a seraphim rejoiced him; but, seeing him thus nailed to the cross, a painful compassion pierced his soul from a sword. He admired without measure the mysterious vision, knowing that the infirmity of passion could not be reconciled with the immortality of a blessed spirit!

1 Legenda S. Francisci, p. 338: Dum oraret in latere montis, vidit Seraphim unum sex alas habentem...; appeared inter alas effigies hominis crucixi in modum crucis manus et pedes extensos habentis, et cruci affixos... Hoc videns, vehementer obstupuit, mixtumque moeærore gaudium cor ejus

Finally he understood, through a revelation of Heaven, that divine Providence had shown this spectacle in his eyes, to teach him, the friend of Jesus Christ, that it was not by the martyrdom of the flesh, but by a total burning of the soul, that he should become a perfect image of the divine Crucified. By disappearing, the vision therefore left in his heart an admirable ardour, and printed in his flesh no less wonderful prints. For immediately the signs of the nails began to appear in the hands and feet, as he had seen them in the image of the seraphim; and he saw his limbs pierced with the same nails, whose heads appeared inside the hands and on the feet, and whose tips came out to the opposite part. These heads were black and round; and the dots, long, curved and as folded, passing through the flesh, but then distinguishing by a marked promenence. Its right side, as pierced by a spear, bore the imprint of a red scar "whose lips were opened, and from which blood escaped with such abundance, that its tunic and underwear were often soaked!

The servant of Jesus Christ, understanding that he could not hide these stigmatisms, so ostensibly printed on his flesh, to those with whom he lived, and on the other hand, fearing to publish the secret of the Lord, found himself in great perplexity to know whether he would make known or whether he incurred... Admirabatur quam plurimum......, sawns quod passionis infirmitas cum immortalitate spiritus will be nullified nullitants agree. Etc.

1 Legenda S. Francisci, p. 338: Disparens igitur visio mirabilem in corde ipsius reliquit ardrem, sed et in carne non minus mirabilem signorum impressit effigiem. Statim namque in manibus ejus ac pedibus apparere coeperunt signa clavorum quemadmodum paulo ante in effigie illa viri crucifixi conspexerat. Manus cnim and pedes in ipso medio clavis confixa vidébantur.. Erantque clavorum capita in manibus and pedibus rotunda and nigra, ipsa vero acumina oblonga, retorta and quasi repercussus.. Dextrum

quaque latus, quasi lancea transfixum, rubra scar obductum erat, quod sæpe Sanguüuinem sacrum effundens, tunicam and femoralia respergebat.

Would keep quiet what he saw. Having called some of his brothers, and speaking to them in general terms, he proposed his doubt and asked them for advice. One of them, enlightened by grace and guessing by his language and the state of astonishment that appeared in him, that he had had some wonderful vision, said to him: "Brother, know that it is not only for you, but also for others that the divine secrets have been revealed to you. You must fear precisely, if you were to hide what was given to you for the benefit of many, that you will not be taken back on Judgment Day for burying the talent you had to make frucüfier." Touched with these words, the saint deviated from his habits of discretion, which made him say in every other encounter: "My secret is for me," and brought forth with great fear all the rest of the vision, adding, however, that the one who had appeared to him had told him certain things that he would never entrust to any man during his life. These secrets of the seraphim, added Saint Bonaventure, probably elevated from those that man is not allowed to say again!.

After the true love of Christ had thus transformed into his likeness the one who was penetrated, the forty Days devoted to solitude having passed and the solemnity of the archangel Saint Michael arrived, the angelic Francis descended from the mountain, carrying with him the image of the Crucified, image not engraved on the stone or on the wood by the hand of the worker, but printed in his flesh by the finger of the living God. However, as it is good to hide the king's secret, the man who had received the confidence did all he could to steal from the eyes

1 Legenda S. Francisci, p. 337: Quidam vero ex fratris, gratia illuminatus.., dixit ad virum sanctum: Frater, non solum propter te, sed etiam propter alios, scias tibi ostendi aliquaando sacramenta divinea... Ad cujus verbum motus vir sanctus..., cum mullo timore seriem retulit visionis, etc.

These sacred signs. But also, as it is for God to reveal for his glory the wonders of his power, himself, having secretly printed in Francis these stigmates, performed by them brilliant miracles, in order to manifest, to the clarity of these wonders, the admirable virtue hidden under these prints.

We will not tell these miracles; they can be seen in Saint Bonaventure. We will only add, with the legendary pious, that the stigmatization of his father's seraphic has the indisputable notoriety of history. Several brothers, whose holiness guarantees witness, swornly affirmed their conviction of their reality by touching them: some cardinals also noticed them, and Pope Alexander IV once declared to the people in a public preaching before several brothers, among whom was Saint Bonaventure himself, having seen them with his eyes. At the death of the saint, more than fifty brothers also saw them, and with them Blessed Claire, as well as all her nuns and an innumerable crowd of laymen, many of whom kissed them with the sentiments of tender devotion, and touched them with their hands, in order to give a more assured witness!

The second example we want to cite is that of Saint Catherine of Siena. Behold, according to Blessed Raymond de Capua*, his confessor and confidant,

1 Legenda S. Francisci. Viderunt enim, dum vivret, fratres plurimi...... Viderunt ctiam... cardinal aliqui... Summus etiam pontifex dominus Alexander, cum populo prædicaret coram multis fratris and meipso, asserts se, dum sanctus vivret, stigmata illa sacra suis oculis conspexisse. Viderunt in mort plus quam quinquaginta fratres, virgoque Deo devotissima Clara cum cæteris sooribus sui, and sæculares innumeri, ex quibus... quamplurimi et osculati sunt ex devotionis affectionu, and CORREEUNSe runt manibus ad testimonii firmitatem.

2 BB. 30p.,t. 12 p. 910, n. 194 and 195: In civitate Pisa, dum enim ipsa illuc venisset et quamplures cum ea, quorum ego extiti unus, ipsa hospitio est recepta in domum... juxta ecclesiam sive capellam S. Virginis

how this admirable virgin was honored with the sacred stigma.

In the year 1375, she was in Pisa with Father Raymond and some other people, and was staying in a house near the church of St.Christine. On a Sunday, while she was attending the Mass of the Blessed, she was, after communion, as often happened to her, deprived of the use of her senses and delighted out of herself. Those who were with her were waiting for her to find herself, eager to receive a few words of spiritual comfort, as he escaped from her lips from time to time upon the return of her ecstasy, when they suddenly saw her body straighten up a little, stood on her knees, stretched out her arms and hands, and all her face burst with light. After a long time in this attitude, she suddenly collapsed, as if hit with a fatal injury.

Finally she regained her senses, and called Blessed Raymond, and she said in secret: "Learn, Father, that through a blessing of his mercy I carry in my body the stigmas of the Lord Jesus.""I had doubted the movements and attitude of your body during your ecstasy; but of grace," he added, "how this miracle was operated." She said: "I saw the Saviour attached to the cross descending upon me all shining with light. Under the flower of my soul stinging to meet its Creator, my body rose up. So I saw five bloody rays coming out of his sacred wounds that were heading on my hands, my feet, and my heart. Understanding the mystery, I exclaimed: "Oh! Lord my God, let these wounds at least not appear on my body!" I had not completed these

Christianæ. In hac ecclesia, quadam die dominica.., remansit absque corporeorum sensuum usu, etc.

words and these rays had not yet reached me, that the color of blood has changed to gold color, and five rays of pure light have reached my hands, my feet and my heart. — So there was no ray on your right side? — No, but on the left side, immediately on the heart, because this luminous trait that was going from the right side of my Savior did not cross, but fell on me in direct line. — Feeling some pain?» Catherine pushing a deep sigh: "The pain that I experience in these places of my body, and especially in the heart, is such, that without a new miracle, my life cannot last for long."

Indeed, in the first days after the miracle, it was believed that the saint would succumb. His disciples urged her to ask her husband that he tempered the violence of these pains; she refused to express on herself any other vow than that of the divine will. Then they increased their tears and their prayers to God, and their prayers were heard. Eight days after the miraculous impression of stigma, Catherine was completely healed. Blessed Raymond asked her if she still felt the severe pains of her wounds: "God has answered you," she replied, "to the great regret of my soul; my wounds, far from hurting me, are now a source of strength and health."

. Unseen as long as she lived, at her death stigma became apparent, and kept on her body respected by corruption. Even today, we can see these glorious prints on one of his hands still covered with flesh and preserved in the church of St.Sixte in Rome, and on his left foot, which he owns in Venice in the church of St.John and Paul!.

1 CHavix pe MALAx, Saint Catherine of Siena, ©. 14, t. 2, p. 569.

What we have just reported about the stigmatization of St Francis of Assisi and St Catherine of Siena, we would have to say again, if we wanted to expose the facts of this kind, as many times as they happen again. Always and everywhere, it is the miracle in multiple forms, it is the miracle especially in the impression, on the limbs, of these sacred signs. In the presence of these facts, to speak only of those we have quoted, the rationalistic thesis that it is the imagination that opens up the stigmas, supported even in the sense of Gorrres, namely, that it is the soul that, by its plastic virtue on the body, determines and locates these wonderful flows; — in good faith, is a similar thesis sustainable?

Saint Francis de Sales, it is true, seems in favour of this interpretation; to hear it, it is through a loving contemplation of the Passion that the soul is all transformed into a second Crucifix, as it expresses itself: "The soul," he said, "as a form and buttress of the body, using its power over iceluy, imprimed the pains of the plays of which it was wounded, in places which corresponded to those which his lover endured; so love caused the internees of this great lover, Saint Francis, to pass to the outsider, and wounded the body of a mesme dard of pain from which he saw wounded the heart." Language exaggeration which he hastened to reduce by immediately adding: "But to make the openings in the flesh, outside, the love that is in it cannot properly do it; it is for how long Seraphin, coming to the rescue, darded rays of such penetrating clarity, that she made actually the external plays of the cerucifix in the flesh, which love has seen printed in the soul."

1 Treaty of God's Love, 1. 6, c. 15.

It is already a lot to assume to the imagination the power to locate pain at its own will, as well as the holy loving fact. In taking the assertion in its generality, we would not want to contradict it: it is difficult to assign the limits that the imagination can reach in terms of subjective impression and sensation; but, in the specific case of stigmatization, with the set of circumstances that characterize it, with the real, invisible or apparent wounds, which it prevails over the body, we fully contest that such effects can be explained by the virtue of imagination alone, and we hold, with Théophile Raynaud!, such an explanation for a joke of which a good man can explain by the virtue of imagination alone. It is not enough to be satisfied. The last word of these phenomena, well-known, is the miracle; the hatred of men impressed Christ with his stigmatizations, Christ again printing them on men out of love.

V. — We still have to talk about stigma to appreciate the frequency of this gift and the degree of virtue it requires in those who receive it.

Regarding the second point of view, which we consider in the first place, it seems that the divine stigmas are not suitable for sinners. How can we reconcile in a soul the hatred of God and this wonderful sympathy with Jesus Christ crucified? To even consider things only outside, is there not a manifest incompatibility between the deliberate defilement of sin and the outer traces of the Saviour's passion? So when these signs meet in sinners, they must be held to be the work of the demon.

1 Apud Beneo XIV. Serving. Dei beatif. 1. 4, P.1,c. 33, n. 13: Ut in corporate proprio homo jam grandis natu indictee posit aliquas notas, illudve præter naturam afficere interventu solius imaginalis, tam nugatorium est, ut ferri ab homine sano non posit.

More than that, it is a law commonly followed that the grace of stigmatism is not granted to imperfect ones; that it is the privilege of advanced souls, to whom God confers it as the reward of perfect love or as an exciting sovereign to the consumption of love?

However, the miracle of stigma does not seem to require that perfection has been achieved. It may meet in souls called to a high holiness or to a providential role of building up in the Church, and yet are still only in the progress of virtue.

The variety that is seen in the periods of life when stigmatization occurs, confirms these observations. Angel of Peace? was marked at the age of nine, and lived fifty-two years; Blessed Lucia of Narni # and Saint Catherine of Rice* received them at the age of twenty, and died one and the other seven-year-old; St Mary Magdalene of Pazif, at twenty-one years, and she will bear them for twenty years; Mother Agnes of Langeac',

1 Scaramelli, Dirett. Mist. Tr. 3, c. 28 n. 265, p. 240: The esame that dovrà fare il Dirttore, sarà circa i seguenti punta. First, the anima is benchè non pite ancora perfetta, sia per molto avvantaggiata nella perfezione, e sia giæ stata, se non in tutto, almeno in gran parte purificata da Dio con molte prove, perchè non suole Iddio compartire tali favoreur, che hanno del prodigioso, ad anime deboli ed imperfette. Seconde, se una tal anima abbia gran communicazione con Dio.., perchè le ferite ed impressionisoprannaturali che Iddio scolpisce nel corpo di alcun suo servo, sono come carateri e come attestazioni sensibili dell-amor particolare che gli porta; e pero not so concedono se non a quelli con cui tiene Iddio un tratto molto intimo e famigliare.

- What? Jos. Lopez EzquerrA, Luc. Myst. T. 5, c. 26, n. 285 and 286, p. 120: Prædictus favor solum conceditor perfectissimis animabus... And licenset posit incipientibus concedi juxta divinum beneplacitum, nunquam tamen (quod nos sciamus) nisi his perfectissimis concessum est.

3 GORRES, Mystique, 1. 4, c. 16,t.2, p. 230.

5 am. BAYONKE, Life of Saint Catherine of Ricci, c. 10,t. 1, p. 178.

6 V. Pucommi, BB. 95 Mayi, t. 149, p. 223.

7 Of LANTAGES, Life of Mother Agnes, 3° P., ch. 143, t. 2, p. 293.

At twenty-three years, and she shall die thirty-two years old; Joan of the Cross, also twenty-three years old, and she will live thirty years; Blessed Catherine of Racconigi* and Sister Dominique of Paradise*, at twenty-four years old, and the first will go until sixty years old, and the second until eighty years old; Blessed Christine of Stommeln #, at twenty-six years old, and she lived seventy years of it; Blessed Osanne of Mantua, at twenty-eight years old, and she dies only at fifty-six; Blessed Stephen of Soncinof, at thirty-three years old, and her life continues for forty years; Saint Véronique of Julianis, at thirty-seven years old, and she reach sixty-seven years; Anne-Catherine Emmerich®, at 38, and she died only at fifty.

In others, stigma coincides with the end of the trial, and seems to be the reward and crowning of their virtue. Saint Catherine of Siena *° will receive these sacred prints five years before her death; Saint Francis of Assisi ‘, only two; several, the last year or even in the last days of their lives, as Saint Catherine of Genoa‘, for example.

VI. — The phenomenon of complete and visible stigmatization is quite rare. If we leave people still alive aside, the total figure, according to our calculations, does not exceed sixty. Partial stigmatization,

1 , Admirable Life of Saint Jeanne of the Cross, ch. 14, D. 147.

6 Fr. SILVESTER. BB. 18 Jun., t. 24 p. 580.

7 Puiuippe SALVATORI, Vita della B. Veronica Giuliani, p. 560.

8 P. ScumocEr, Life of Anne-Catherine Emmerich, ch. 16, t. 4 p. 266.

10 S, BONAVENTURE. Legend. S. Franc. v. 13, p. 337.

11 BB. 15 Sept., t. 45, p. 148, n. 198.

This number is considerably increased by the heart, which is most often repeated. Those that remain invisible are much more numerous; there are more than apparent stigmatizations, and a large number probably remain unknown. If humility has been able to conceal during life external and sensitive prints, how much more do those who hide themselves?

Saint Paul was perhaps the first of the stigmatized; for many hear in this sense these words of the epitome to the Galatians! "I bear on my body the stigmas of Our Lord Jesus Christ;" but this interpretation is not well founded, and the common tradition explains this text of the sufferings that the apostle endured, and whose body keeps track of, glorious trace that attests the love and servitude that he professes toward Jesus Christ crucified?.

Saint Francis of Assisi opened the historical series of stigmatized people in 1224. Since then, the prodigy of stigma has been, so to speak, permanent in the Church, though sparingly. As in all mystical favors, women have the best share; it is hardly if there are four or five men on the list of complete stigmatizations, and about fifty on the whole; it is always as in Calvary, where there were many compassionate women, and men loving and faithful, absent, except one.

1 Gal. vi, 17: Stigma Domini Nostri Jesu Christi in corporate meo porto.

3 See. You. RaynauD, De Sligmatismo, s. 1 €. 5,t. 13, p. 109.

3-IMBERT-GOURBEYRE. The Sligmatization, t. 1, ad fin.: Let us conclude with a general overview of all the centuries of stigma.

Of the three hundred and twenty-one stigmatized (visiblely or invisiblely) mentioned in this book, two hundred and ninety-three belonged to Orders, Third Orders or Congregations. Of these three hundred and twenty-one, there are forty-seven men, about one seventh.

The order of Saint-Dominique walks in mind with one hundred and nine stigmatized;

Today, there is a relatively large number of stigmatized people. In some, the divine action is manifest; in others, less and perhaps questionable. We have made a law not to comment on these current facts.

then the Franciscan order, one hundred and two, among which almost a quarter of Clarisses. Fourteen Carmelites, fourteen Ursulines, twelve Visitandines, eight of the order of Saiint-Augustin, five Cistercians, four Benedictines, three Jesuits, three Theatines, two Trinitaries, two Hieronymites, two Conceptionists. Thirteen other Orders or Congregations had only one stigmatized by each religious family.

Chapter XXVI

Abstinences and Vigils

Admirable abstinences of the saints. — The Eucharist is their place of bodily food. — The conditions and signs of miraculous abstinence. — Free from the law of sleep in contemplatives. — The supernatural character of these insomnia.

[. — We have exposed the mystical facts in which vision and love dominate; 1l we have to study those where the wonderful reaches mainly the organism. We will see the body in turn subtracted from the natural laws that govern its conservation, the play of its organs, its relations with the physical world that is surrounding it.

Among these laws, it is no more imperative than those of food and sleep. Every organized body loses by exercise, repairs by rest and by new assimilation. But one of the most ordinary effects of mystical life is to suppress or restrict this double servitude of animal life in more or less broad proportions.

Let's first talk about the miracle of abstinence. He often meets with the saints. We've seen them passing, without taking any food, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days, days,

weeks, whole Lents and vents, sometimes one or several years. On two occasions, Moses dwells forty days on the mountain, without any food other than the law of the Lord, which he was to pass on to his people. After tasting the mysterious bread that the angel presents to him, Elijah* walks forty days and forty nights till Mount Horeb. The Saviour was to consecrate this forty-day fast by his example.

Saint Simeon Stylite*, Saint Elizabeth qualified as a thaumaturge by the Greeks, St Colette and several others renewed this absolute abstinence during the liturgical quarantine. Saint Simeon Salus, fasting all Lent, until Holy Thursday. Saint Dalmace® also spent a whole Lent without eating food, until the Thursday of the great week, where, after the sacred services, he took his meal with the brothers. On the evening of that same day, he sat on his stairs and remained forty-three days, that is, until the solemnity of Ascension, in the immobileness of ecstasy. Finally his superior Isace reminds him, and the saint then tells a vision that provides all the proof that the illumination whose soul Joui had really came from the Lord.

Apart from the time devoted by Christian piety, these facts are multiplied to the infinite. St. Peter d'Alcantara

1 Erod. xxiv, 18; — xXXXIV, 28. — 3 IIT Reg. x1x, 8. — 3 Matth. 1v, 2.

# METAPHRAST, BB. 5 Jan., t:1, p. 276, n. 11: Novem omnino and trigenta dies sine ullo cibo transigebat.

8 BB. 24 ar., t. 12 p. 275, n. 1: Quadraginta diebus, nihil prorsus gistans jejunavit.

6 Er. pe Juuers, BB. 6 mart., t. 7 p. 573, n. 166: Per quadraginta dies totidemque nocts nihil penitus manducavit only bibit.

7 Léonce, bishop. BB. 1 Jul., t. 28 p. 143, n. 47: Adveniente enim sancta jejuniorum quadragesima, non gustabat aliquid usque ad sanclam feriam quintam.

8 BB. 3 Aug., tt. 35, p. 220, n. 3-5. Cum totos quadragina quadragina quadraginaimæ dies jejunus egisset usque ad sanctam feriam quintam, oblatea deinde üturgia, cibum omnes sumpserunt, etc.

confessed to Saint Teresus! that he gave food to his body only three in three days; and his historians tell that sometimes he extended his abstinence for whole weeks? Father Saint Elpide * lived twenty-five years in a cave, taking food only on Sunday and Thursday. Saint Euthymus #, nicknamed the Great, ate only on Saturday or Sunday. The venerable Mary of Oignies® was eight, eleven, and sometimes thirty days without drinking or eating, absorbed in a gentle contemplation, and showing hunger only for the Eucharist, which was then her only food.

IL.—It is important to note these two points, namely, that it is mainly the ecstatic ones who are freed from the law of nutrition, and that the adorable sacrament of the altar is the food that supplements all others. These facts do not countf. Here are only a few. Saint Catherine of Siena, in whom the contemplative life radiated with such a bright radiance, spent all Lent and Paschal time without any other repair than the Eucharist, and she obtained from her confessor to have no more food than this heavenly meat. On the days on which she commutes

1 His Life, ch. 27.

2 -MARIE, B.B. 19 Oct., t. 56, p. 662, n. 28: Imo aliquotices modicam manc suam refectionem ad octavum usque diem distulit.

8 , BB. 2 Sept., t. 41, p. 383, n. 37: Per annos xxv quos ibi vixit, Dominico tantum and Jovis diebus sumebat, aliis diebus nihil omnino gustabat.

4 CyrILLE, monk. BB. 20 Jan., t. 2, p. 675, n. 58: Nemo unquam emptied comedentem nisi sabbato aut die Dominicano.

S JACQUES DE Vrray, BB. 93 Jun., t. 25, p. 552. Plerumque diebus octo, quandoque vero undecim.., nihil manducans vel bibens, jejunabat.. Aliquando trigenta diebus, nullo corporatei usa est cibo, nullumque verbum per dies aliquot proferre potorat nisi istud solummodo: Volo corpus Domini nostri Jesu Christi.

6 See JEAN D8.SAINTE-MARIE, The Lives of the Saints and Blessed Ones of the Order of St.Dominique, Passim.

7 RaAyMOND DE CAPOUE, BB. 30 a.m., t. 12 p. 905, n. 170 and 171: In quadra-

gesimali tempore usque ad festum Ascensionis Dominicæ, absque quocumque cibo et potu corporeo.. Cæpit sic absque ciho corporeo vivre.

The venerable Catherine, "who founded with Blessed Colombini the order of the Jesuates, did not taste any other food. The Eucharist was causing Saint Rose of Lima? such a satisfaction, that she put it in the impotence of swallowing a bite of bread or a drop of water. The venerable Mary Bagnesiÿ could not bear the lightest food in her diseases; but she kept the saimtes species el sséen found fortified.

"It happened several times," wrote Mother Agnes de Langeac, her pious historian #, "that for a considerable time her body was sustened with no food but the Eucharist, which was wonderful once more than six months in a row, during which he had only the Most Holy Sacrament that remained in his stomach, being impossible for him to swallow anything other than anything else that she vomited all incontinent."

Blessed Nicolas de Flue or de la Roche obtained from his wife, of whom he had ten children, to dedicate himself to God in deep loneliness. He spent the rest of his life there, from the age of fifty to the age of seventy, without using any food. After the first six months, at the order of his superiors, he tries to eat; he barely manages to insert in his stomach a few crumbs and a few drops of wine which he also rejects-

1 BB. 31 Jul, tt. 34, p. 364, n. 155: Quoties angelico reficiebatur pane, ne inicam quidem profani, aut aliud sumeret edulii genus.

2 LEONARD HANSEN, BB. 26 Aug., t. 39, p. 958, n. 279: Respondebat, præ ingenti satietate a mensa Domini alium se cibum admittere nondum possesse, adeo ut citra extremam vim and cruciatum, nec panis bolum glutire, nec aquae guttulam sorbillare owns adverteret.

3 Campi. BB. Coroll. ad 28 maïi, t. 49, p. 111°, n. 95: Deus ipsam potius cælesti illo Pane quam alio cibo quocumque sutentaret.

# OF LANTAGES, Life of Mother Agnes, 3° P., c. 15, t. 2, p. 360.

6 P. Huoox, Jesuit. BB. 22 mart., t. 9, p. 405-408, n. 34-37: Ex eo momento (n. 27) quares paternos damnavit.., nihil omnino nec cibi nec

Potus admitted... Christi corpus (n. 37) ejusdemque sanguis unica mea sagina est.

Abstinences and watches b57

Early. When asked how he could live like this, he replied that it is the Eucharist that is his life. A certificate in the archives of the parish of Saxlen, during the lifetime of this famous hermit, and quoted by his biographer, reads as follows: "Let it be made known to all and to everyone that, in the year of the Lord 1487, lived an excellent man named Nicolas de Flue, born and raised in the parish of Saxlen, in the mountain, who abandoned father and brother, his own wife and children, five sons and five daughters, went into the desert of Raust, where God sustained him without food or drink for a long time, that is, eighteen years. At the time when it was written, it was full of meaning and leading a holy life, What we have seen and know in truth. D

[IL. — After these accounts, which we could multiply, we must ask ourselves to what extent these abstinences are miraculous, and to what signs can be recognized that they have a supernatural character.

It is an undisputed law of physiology that nutrition is the regular condition of health and life. There are two exceptions to this law: a morbid state and a miracle. In principle, or at least as a general rule, the first case invalidates the second case or renders the finding problematic.

There does not stop the difficulty. Organic disturbances are so many, so complex, sometimes so eccentric, that it becomes difficult to do the part of nature.

1 P. Hucon, Jesuit, BB. 22 mart.,t. 9, p. 427, n. 93: Deus enim sustentavit absque cibo and potu ad longum tempus, scilicet octodecim annos. Quando haec scripta sunt, and ipse erat adhuc bonæ rationis and sanctæ vitae, quod vidimus and scimus in veritate.

2 BRACHET. Basic Physiology of Man, 9th ed., t. 1, p. 181: Man only maintains his life through the artifice of an incessant generation, a continuous childishness in tissue activity, or, according to Buffon's fine expression, nutrition would be only a continuous generation.

The medical collections cite numerous cases of prolonged abstinences where the supernatural ns appear not, and which resemble the facts alleged by the hagiographs. Most recently Tanner, Succi and others performed with fanciful fasts of thirty to forty days; so that we are reduced here to overthrow the terms, that is to say to conclude the supernatural of abstinence by the evidence of holiness, rather than holiness by the act of abstinence.

This is the course of the most prominent judge in these matters, Benedict XIV. He wants to see that, after being assured of abstinence, it is examined whether it has coincided, as a cause or as an effect, with illness or fatigue; what are the motives that inspired it; whether it has harmed other obligatory godly practices; and, finally, whether it offers the guarantee of a heroic virtue." He also points to another mark, which several authors declare decisive, and which we believe is such in reality, that is when the Eucharist is a food substitute. But this trial does not strictly conclude with the miracle as much as it is both positive and negative, i.e., that, received, the divine manna of the altar supplants any other food, and that, missing, results in the ordinary exhaustion of the inanition in the subject.

1 Serv. Dei beatif., 1. &, P. 1, c. 27 n. 14, p. 201: Ut nostram promamus sensiam quam sacræ Congregationis judicio libenter subjicimus, si in causa Beatificationis et Canonizationis aliquo longum proponatur jejunium a Dei servo factum, quod a postulatoribus fuisse supra naturam contendatur, sedula de facti cognitione assumeda est indago, de abstinentia videlicet ab omni cibo et potu per totum illud tempus, ad quod dicitur fuisse protractum jejunium; and promoters memores esse debent in hac, sicut et in ceteris probationibus, fidei promoters consuvise esse admodum severos.. Posita facti probatione, videndum erit an jejunium to morbo incæperit.. Illud quaque necessarium erit perpendere qua de causa fuerit susceptum...; an jejunans tempore jejunii a ceteris piis operabus abstinuerit quae exercise tenebatur.. Spectandi sunt demum mores and virtutes jus de cujus longo agiteur jejunio.

The wonderful of these abstinences, assuming them supernatural, is without difficulty explained. It is a kind of premature incorruptibility that suspends the law of the incessant loss of organs, and thereby exempts from the correlative law of food rehabilitation.

IV. — Sleep, like food, is necessary for the normal preservation of the organism: life is exhausted by exercise, it is restored in rest. The saints have always tended to restrict this requirement of animality. In addition to their appeal for mortification, they found here the benefit of the multiplication of time: happy to transform into a fruitful prayer the hours that they took away from the unconsciousness of sleep. Like abstinence, the night before is mainly in contemplatives and ecstatics.

Saint Macaire * of Alexandria spent twenty days and twenty nights in a row without sleeping; but at the end he was forced to yield, feeling his head delusional. Saint Colette * gave very little sleep, sometimes barely an hour in a whole week; and, according to her historian*, she was a whole year without discontinuing her watch.

1 DuPINEY DE VOREPIERRE, Dict. au mot Sommeil, p. 1095: The need for sleep is, like the need for food, a need for preservation. When he is not satisfied, he becomes imperious, and whatever the heura and the moment, man succumbs to his attacks.

Dr. H. Georce, Element. d'hygiene Treaty, 1870, p. 303: Sleep is as necessary for the rest of the body as it is for the rest of the mind. Insufficient sleep, especially pushed to insomnia, leaves a great muscle fatigue, leads to hebism of all senses and intelligence, etc. Insomnia prolonged by violence brings death.

- What? BB. 2 Jan., p. 85, n. 45: Totis viginti diebus et noctibus non sum tectum ingessus ut somnum vincerem......; ita mihi erat arefactum cerebrum, ut deinceps agerer in ecstasim.

3 Er. Pe Juuiers, BB. 6 mart.,t. 7 p. 557, n. 82: Aliquoties in octo diebus. vix sorebat per unicam horam.

4 Ibid., p. 573, n. 166: Cum ipsa vigilando perseveraverit absque sleeptione somni per totum unius anni spatium continuum, ex speciali gratia coelitus ei collata.

For more than thirty years, Saint Lidwine! did not sleep the equivalent of three nights. St. Peter of Alcantara? slept for forty years only an hour and a half a night, and he declared that in the beginning no other penance had cost him so much. St. Rose of Lima has limited the time for sleep at two o'clock, and sometimes it has given less. Saint Catherine of Ricci‘, "from childhood, never slept more than two or three hours a night, still regretting these short hours as a lost time for Jesus Christ. But as his love for him grew, he gained ground on his sleep; so, when she was twenty years old, ecstasy had seized her life, she ended up sleeping only an hour a week, and sometimes barely two or three hours a month."

The Blessed Agathe of the Cross® spent the last eight years of her life on an incessant watch. Saint Elpidef, whose labors we have already reported, slept, it is said, never for twenty-five years, devoting every night to prayer and the singing of psalms. After the death of this admirable master, his disciple Sisinnius? locked himself in a tomb, and lived there for three years, standing, still and in a continual prayer.

1 J. BruGMAN, BB. 14 April, t. 11, p. 319, n. 38: Veritatem autem dicam: Lydwina etenim nostra annis triginta and amplius panem non comedit quantum vir sanus and incomlumis pro Tribes diebus necessarium vitae habet; sic nec somnum cepit qui sano sufficceret Tribes noctibus competenter.

2 St.TéRèse, His Life, ch. 27.

3 L. Hansen, BB. 26 Aug., t. 39, p. 922, n. 110: [psa somnum suum intra duarum horarum angustias coercuit, and aliquando etiam minus spatii indulsit.

4 P. Ivac. BAYONNE, Life of Saint Catherine of Ricci, T. 1, p. 319.

S - MARIE. The Lives of the Holy and Blessed Daughters of the Order of Saint Dominique, t. 1, p. 194.

6 BB. 2 Sept.,t. 41, p. 383, n. 37: Per annos xxv... per totam noctem stando and orando psallebat.

7 Ibid. Cujus exemplo, discipulus ejus Sisinnius, cum apud eum septem annis esfusset, in sepulcro se clausit, in quo stans per triennium semper oravit, numquam die vel nocte deambulans aut sedens aut jacens.

V.—When the day before lasts without any interruption for weeks, months, years, and without resulting in any reduction in the vigour and exercise of body life, it is not doubtful whether this phenomenon should be considered supernatural. We can restrict the ruinous need to sleep; without miracles, we do not absolutely dominate it. Doctors and physiologists unanimously profess that, without coming out of the normal laws of organic nature, one does not manage more to deprive oneself of sleep than to deprive oneself of food. The difficulty is to decide how early the derogation begins. Where does the power of habit end, where must the struggle stop under pain of exceeding nature and touching the miracle? No one can tell.

It is at least indisputable that the habit of contemplation, and especially that of ecstasy, emerges from the servitudes of animal life; that the more the soul nourishes and drunken with God, the less it tastes the coarser dishes of the body; that the more absorbed and concentrated it is in God, the less it is subject to sleepiness and the drowsiness of the flesh.

1 Dict. of medical sciences, art. Are, signed Montfalcon, t. 52, p. 97: Sleep is a way of being and an indispensable condition for vice of animals. Some of them, and even some men, give in less often than others to this need; none keep watch.

Burpacx, Treaty of Physiology, t. 5, p. 234: Too little sleep causes fatigue, weight loss, premature old age, total absence leads to fever, delirium and death.

Chapter XXVII

The Mystical Odor

Frequency of this prodigy. — L'odeur sometimes exhales sick bodies and wounds. — It is usual in stigma and mystical ring. — It often bursts at the death of God's servants and declares itself, even after years and centuries, in their relics. — It is felt at great distances and sometimes also at simple thought. — These smells rarely come close to known scents. — The explanation of these phenomena is only possible by referring them to the miracle, especially when one considers the circumstances that accompany them. — Is it possible to explain these phenomena? Mystical meaning.

[.—Our body has a constant need for food, because it undergoes continuous work that disintegrates its elements and makes our body a permanent home of more or less putrid excretions and exhalations: death begins with life. We just saw him, the saints were more than once exempted from the physiological law of feeding. More often than not, their bodies, exhausted by penance, worked by sickness, and even in the corruption of the tomb, have exhaled perfumes and secreted odoriferous liquors. These wonders form the subject of this chapter and the next.

This one is dedicated to supernatural smells.

These embalming emanations often occur in the apparitions of the Savior, the Blessed Virgin Mary, angels and saints. The many stories that we have

by dealing with the objects of vision, we dispense with the insinuating from a point of view that it would be easy to justify in many other examples. We now want to consider the miracle only in the person of the saints living on earth, or in their blessed remains.

Among the signs of holiness, the facts of this kind are perhaps the most multiplied, and the Church, so severe in the discussion and affirmation of the wonderful, tells them in great number in the legends of the Breviary. St Stephen of Muret spread an admirable smell around him: a certain sign, as his biographer notes, that the author of all suavity filled him with his presence. [He escaped from Blessed Christine of Stommeln?, during his ecstatic contemplations, an all celestial perfume. The virgin purity of St. Philip of Neri * was exhaled by an exquisite smell of nothing from the earth. The sisters of Mother Agnes de Langeac! saw and felt, one Sunday day, at the time when she was ready to communion, a very smelly steam coming out of her mouth, whatever effort the servant of God made to shake her lips, in order to hide this favor. "Many very reliable people," writes the historian of this admirable wife of Jesus Christ, "says that they have often noticed, during her life, that

1 GERALD, BB. 8 febr.,t. 5, p. 208, n. 21: Miri odoris fragrantia, quam cum eo loquentes et astantes circa eum ex ipso proceduree sentebant, totius suavitatis auctorem in eo requiescere testabatur.

2 DAGIE PIERRE, BB. 22 Jun.,t. 95, p. 251, n. 65: Odorem sentio omnibus aromatibus meliorem and omnibus compositionibus suaviorem.

3 J. BARNABEI, BB. 26 Mayi, t. 49, p. 567, n. 264: Philippus hominem complectitur et aperto accipit sinu. Tum vero Fabricius suavisimum odorem ex eo efllari sentit et planee coelestem, ne ne que enim in terres similim unquam persenserat. Cumque deinde audisset Philippum virginali pudicitia præditum esse, tum demum inusitati illius odoris originem intelexit.

# OF LANTAGES, Life of Mother Agnes, 3° P., ch. 145, t. 2, p. 352.

5 Zbid., ch. 1, p. 75.

His pudic body exhaled a very good smell that rejoiced and comforted the hearts of those who approached him. These perfumes were especially exhaled from the body of our virgin after she had received at the holy table the Beloved of her heart: she was then de-spirited and body, for her sisters and for all those around her, the good smell of Jesus Christ." The martyrs were often fortified and comforted by similar wonders, as we see, to name but the following, in the acts of St. Potit, Saints Julien and Celsus*, St. Hermagoras #, St. Prisk, St. Martine.

IT. — These embalmed emanations sometimes come from bodies that are plagued by disease and are subjected to active decaying work. Saint Lidwine$ is a memorable example. In the incredible infirmities that put her body into putrefaction, as we have said elsewhere, her wounds exhaled a sweet smell, and a part of her intestines, which she had rejected by mouth with waves of blood, kept, even dried up, an aroma that attracted a considerable crowd of visitors into the poor chaumiere of the saint, until at last she had obtained from her brother that he buried these debris of herself in the cemetery. The plagues of which St John of the Cross was afflicted in his last sickness spread such a pleasant scent, that she engulfed the whole monastery.

II. — Stigmas are usually the home of these

1 BB. 13 Jan., t. 2, p. 39, n. 15: Carcer enim sic olebat quasi aromata.

2 BB. 11 Jan., t. 1, p. 582, n. 33: Nectareum odorem reddens.

3 BB. 12 Jul., t. 30, p. 243, n. 112: Odor suavis replebat carcerem.

4 BB. 18 Jan., t.2,p. 550, n. 8: Odoratus is odorem suavitatis.

BB $. 4 Jan., p. 44, n. 26: Ogoratis and your odorem nimium?

6 J. BRUGMAN, BB. 14 a.m., t. 11, p. 274, n. 20; — p. 276, n. 24: Evomuit pulmonem et hepar absque ullo foetore: imo quicumque ea manibus attrectasset, adeo suaviter manus ejus fere per diem redolebant, quasi species aromaticas tetigisset, sicut multi eo tempore experti sunt.

7 P. Jerome of SamnT-Joseru, Abstract of Life of the B. P. John of the Cross, 4877, ©. 18, p. 255.

wonderful smells, as we see, among others, in Saint Jeanne de la Croix! and in the Blessed Lucie de Narni?. He escaped from the ring which Saint Catherine of Ricci had received from the hand of Our Lord, in his mystical weddings, an all heavenly perfume. But what is told in this regard in the life of Jeanne-Marie de la Croix is even more extraordinary. "From the moment she received the mysterious ring, her finger exhaled a very pleasant smell that she could not hide, and that all the sisters soon noticed. So they took advantage of all the opportunities to touch and kiss him. The smell it was spreading was so strong that it communicated to the touch and persisted for a long time. Thus, when Sister Marie-Ursule touched her finger, her hand exhaled for several days the most delicious fragrance. This smell was particularly sensitive when she was sick, because she could not take so many precautions to hide the thing. It gradually spread over the whole hand, then over the whole body, and communicated to the objects that she had touched. It could not be compared to any of the fragrances of this earth; for it differed essentially and penetrated the soul and body of ineffable delights. She was stronger when she came back from communion."

Saint Catherine of Genoa, flirting with the hand of the priest who directed his soul, felt a smell of ineffable suavity that comforted him both soul and body, and whose virtue was as it seemed to him that the dead, according to

1 , Admirable Life of Saint Jeanne of the Cross, ch. 14, p. 148.

2 -MARIE, Life of the Daughters of Saint-Dominique, t. 2, p. 204.

3 P. H. Bayonne, Life of Saint Catherine of Ricci, c. 10, t. 1, p. 171.

4 Bine WEBER, Jeanne - Marie de la Croix, c. 13, p. 373.

5 The Life and Spiral Works of Saint Catherine of Adorny of Gennes. Paris, 1646, p. 305.

His expression, had to resurrect. The confessor would have enjoyed the same favor; but he had smeared his hand, and for him there was no wonderful smell.

Blessed Mary of the Angels! "N-exhaled her perfume first than at intervals; it then became more frequent, and finally usual. Although always sufficient to produce a delicious sensation, the emanation was felt more strongly at the solemnities of Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, the feasts of the Blessed Virgin, St Joseph, the novenas she used to make, and when she approached the holy table."

[see — It is mainly at the death of God's servants that the smell of holiness is declared. While human corpses are unbearable by the stench they spread, the bodies of the saints often embalm by the most delicious scents. At the time when St.Paternian*, Bishop of Boulogne, gave the spirit a sweet smell to all the assistants, and many of them were healed of their infirmities; what is also said of St.Andreus the Scoti, St.Omer‘ and many others. But, it is necessary to observe it, it is the mortal remains itself that exhales these perfumes, as reported from the martyr Saint Piatf, Saint Rose of Lima f, Saint Teresus?, St Peter of Alcantara ®, of

1 Lamis, Summary of the Life of B. Marie des Anges, c. 29 p. 158.

2 BB. 12 Jul., t. 30, p. 286, n. 19: Cœlo spiritum reddidit. Tanta autem, illo recedente, illic odoris fragrantia is respersa, ut omnes qui aderant inæstimabili odore replerentur, and in diversa infirmitate laborantes, qui eum secuti fucrant, ex ipsius odoris aspersione sanarentur.

3 BB. 22 Aug.,t. 38, p. 546, n. 22.

4 BB. 9 Sept., t. 43, p. 410, n. 22.

5 BB. 1 Oct., t. 49, p. 9, n. 12: Dum sepulturæ mandaretur, odor gratissimus emanavit.

6 LeonarD HIANSEN, BB. 26 Aug., t. 39, p. 986: Mirifica celestis odoris who has sacro corpusculo spirabat fragrantia, does not quidem cessavit in sepulchro.:

7 Riëera, BB. 15 Oct.,t. 55, p. 643, n. 110: Totum corpus suavisimum exhalabat odorem qui qualem aromatum nidorem referret dicere nemo potorat.

8 RIBADENEIRA, Lives of the Saints, 19 Oct.,t. 10, p. 281.

the venerable Mother Agnes of Jesus.' Among these wonders, one of the most remarkable is the one who signalled the funeral of St.Elisabeth #, Queen of Portugal. Two days after the death of this princess, her body was carried to Coimbra, a distance of more than thirty leagues and by the great heats of summer. The putrefaction was complete, and the pus distiled through the slits of the coffin. But far from infecting, during the journey that lasted seven days, the carriers and those who ran on their way, he exhaled a sweat and incomparable smell in the distance.

The peak of the wonderful is that the bones of the saints preserve this fragrance of heaven many years and even centuries after death. We shall not discuss these accounts; the number is incalculable; we shall simply mention a few names and a short series of figures relating the space between the time of death, and another posterior where the smell of holiness has almost always been legally observed.

Saint Rose of Lima* presents this wonder fifteen years after his death, Saint Thomas of Villeneuve‘, twenty-seven years later; Saint John of Saint-Facond*, after sixty; Saint John of Caramolef, after a century; Saint Teresa, after two hundred years, Saint Raymond of Pégnafort®, after three hundred; Saint Eulalie*, after four hundred; Saint Ynigo",

1 OF LANTAGES, Life of Mother Agnes, 2 P., ©. 21, p. 42.

2 BB. 4 Jul., t. 29 p. 192, n. 106-112: Illico senserunt odorem inde efflari, qui fragrantior erat quam quidquid unquam in hoc mundo olfecients aut credi possess.... And proud to alienate non potuit quin aliquid humoris e feretro stillantis infecerit manus ac vests porterium.

+ BB. 18 Sept., t. 45, p. 958, n. 5.

BB $. 12 Jun., t. 23, p. 155, n. 154.

6 BB. 26 Aug., t. 39, p. 858, n. 25.

7 F. X. Passe, Souvenirs du pays de suite Térèse, c. 12 p. 290.

8 Bulla CLEMENT. VII. BB. 7 Jan., t. 1, p. 414, n. 41.

9 BB. 42 febr., t. 5, p. 578, n. 4.

10 BB. 1 Jun.,t. 21, p. 119, n. 49.

After five hundred; St Davin', after six hundred; St Julien's?, martyred, after seven hundred; St Aldegonde of Maubeuge, eight hundred years later; St Monique', mother of St Augustine, after nine hundred; St Athanasius', after a thousand years; St Mathiasf, apostle, after eleven hundred; St Fortunate' and his brothers, after twelve hundred; St Stephen's, pope and martyr, after thirteen hundred; Saint martyrs? Dulcissism, Carissim and Crescent, after fourteen hundred years.

This aroma, which bears witness in such a touching way to the presence of God in his elect, extends to the external objects which they have sanctified by their contact, What is told of the clothes and poor furniture of Blessed Peter Petron * is admirable. The cell of St Joseph of Copertino‘! was distinguished by the smell, and the smell was such that it permeated everything that was used for it; although it was washed, nothing could make it disappear; after more than twelve years, its room still kept that perfume. Letters written by the hand of Saint Teresis ‘ and other objects that she had simply touched kept an exquisite smell long after her death.

V. — These miraculous effluves sometimes communicate

1 BB. 3 Jun., t. 21, p. 326, n. 20.

2 BB. 16 febr., t. 5, p. 885, n. 9.

3 BB. 30 Jan.,t. 3 p. 669, n. 7.

4 Bocaaup, Life of Saint Monique, c. 16, p. 408.

5 BB. 2 May, tt 14, p. 261, n. 441.

6 BB. 24 febr., t. 6 p. 451, n. 3.

7 BB. 14 Oct., t. 54, p. 452, n. 12.

8 BB. 2 Aug.,t. 35, p. 136, n. 143.

9 BB. 6 Jul., t. 29 p. 257, n. 23.

10 . BB. 29 Mayi, t. 20, p. 196, n. 25: Tautam odoris fragrantiam etiamnum ex seffundunt, ut nulla eis aromata vel opobalsami rivuli, si per ædes fluerent, comparari possess.

11 BB. 18 Sept.,t. 45, p. 1003, n. 61-72, n. 67: Cella in qua frater Josephus habitabat, fragrantiam et odorem paradisi spirabat, idemque in ceteris ejus vestibus contingebat.

14 Rumera, BB. 15 Oct., t. 55, p. 724, n. 57 and 58: Olim Aeepes literas.... has ergo produxit suavissime redolentes.

At long distances. At the death of Saint Louis Bertrand!, his body spread in the distance an incomparable suavity, and one tells of a monk called Veran, long without the sense of smell, that, at the hour when Blessed Maure passed, he felt, four miles away, the perfume that sexhaled from the body of the pious virgin. Seventy years after the death of St. Trévère #, his body was discovered intact and spreading a delicious smell. As he was lifted from the ground, everyone felt a thousand in the round like an exquisite mixture of roses, lilies, balm and incense.

The simple thought is sometimes enough to manifest the gentle influence of God's servants. Saint Columba or Columkill#, this famous abbot of Ireland, whom M. de Montalembert® so suavely described the poetic and original physiognomy, visited his monks in spirit and saw them greatly by lightening the weight of their burdens and by making everyone feel an exquisite smell, a soft inner warmth and a dilatation of heart that removed any feeling of grief and fatigue.

VI. — To describe and describe these sacred smells is difficult, if not impossible. Sometimes they seem to rap -

1 Canonization Bull. BB. 10 Oct., t. 53, p. 486, n. 26: Non solum proxime vicinos, sed longius dissitos, mirifico peregrinæ fragrantiae oblectamento anhelavit.

2 S. PRUDENCE, Bishop of Troyes. BB. 21 Sept., t. 46, p. 278, n. 17: In ipsa hora migrationis sanctæ Virginis, Veranus monachus, olfactus sensu diu ante prorsus amisso, eumdem odorem suavitatis sensit in monasterio Leonis, quem proximi sancto sancto cormorant.

# BB. 16 Jan., t. 2, p. 399, n. 14: Invenerunt corpus sanctissimi Treverii confessoris Christi, illæsum and integrum......, fragrances multis odoribus suavitatis.. Levantes sanctum corpus, in uno milliario per gyrum omnes senserunt odoramenta virtutum, quasi rosarum folia, and lilia, and balsamum, and incensum.

4 ADamn. BB. 9 Jun., t. 22, p. 207, n. 30: Quamdam miri odoris fragrantiam, ac si universorum florum, in uno sentio collectorum.

. 5 Western Monks, 1. 10, t. 3. 24*

close to known species. The cell of Saint Rose of Viterb! kept the perfume of the rose; Saint Cajetan*?, founder of the Theatines, smelled the orange blossom; Saint Catherine of Ricci, the violet; Saint Teresus, in turn the lily, the jasmine and the violet; St Francis of Paul, the musk, St Thomas of Aquinas, incense.

Hagiographs mention balm?, nectar®, aromats *, without specifying more and to translate in some way what has not been equivalent among the things known.

More generally, in fact, it is a singular aroma that has nothing to do with ordinary perfumes and which has been described as a smell of holiness, a smell of paradise or paradise, a smell of heaven, supernatural; and when it emanates from the tomb or remains of the saints, a smell of relics. The authors who report these wonders exhaust all the expressions to make hear how pleasant, delicious, penetrating, these wonderful efluves are. Sometimes they see it

1 BB. 4 Sept., t. 42, p. 428, n. 69. Per olfactus omnium permanere coepit suavisimus rosarum odor.

- What? BB. 7 Aug., t. 36, p. 261, n. 95. Suavissimum quemdam mali citrei odorem adflare consuevise.

3 P. H. Bayonne, Life of Saint Catherine of Ricci, t. 2, p. 316.

4 RiBerA, BB. 45 Oct.,t. 55, p. 711, n. 1. Erat his odor suavissimus, nec semper idem; interdum liliorum, interdum jasmes and violarum referebat fragrantiam.

8 Canon Proc. BB. 2 April, t. 10, p. 127, n. 22: Fragrabat odor suavi......, habebatque persona sua odorem musci.

6 BB. 7 mart.,t. 7 p. 688, n. 12: Sensit suavem fragrantiam odoris, quasi incensi.., de corpore ipsius Fr. Thomæ dictus odor exibat.

7 BB. 9 Jan,t. 4 p. 581, n. 25. Balsamo eum putaverunt perfusum.

8 BB. 11 Jan.,t. 1, p. 582, n. 33: Nectareum odorem reddens.

° BB. 13 Jan.,t. 2, p. 39, n. 15: Carcer enim sic olebat quasi aromata.

10 FRANC. SYLVESTRE. BB. 18 Jun., t. 24 p. 577, n. 90: Sanctitudinis odorem.

11 BB. 18 Sept., t. 45, p. 1004, n. 67. Odorem paradisei spulabat. — BB. 24 febr., t. 6 p. 451, n. 3. Paradisiacis odoribus.

13 Jbid., p. 1003, n. 62: Fragrantiam coelestem spirasse.

13 Jbid., n. 63. Odorem suavissimum and supernaturalem.

14 BB. 16 febr., t. 5, p. 885, n. 8: Odore ipsarum sanctarum reliquiarum,

the finesses of all the aromatic compositions!, the gathering of all the flowers together?, an ideal fragrance like the nectar?; sometimes they are reduced to say that it is an unknown smell #, a kind of emanation of eternal beatitude, having nothing comparable on earth. "Whoever approaches the precious chassus that contains his sacred remains," wrote Saint Euphemiah Evagre!, the author of the century, aspires to a sweet smell that surpasses many of the usual scents. It is not that of the green meadows or the most fragrant things; it is no more like the compositions of man's hand; it is an exotic fragrance for our world which, by its very excellence, attests to the supernatural virtue of the relics from which it emanates."

The perfumer of the Cour de Savoie was sent to the convent of Blessed Mary of the Angels, * to try to recognize the nature of the smell that this servant of God exhaled, and he had to confess that she did not resemble any perfumes here. Also the nuns, his companions,

1 BB. 24 ar., t. 12 p. 291, n. 148: Arbitrabantur quasi omnium aromatum species perfragrasse.

2 BB. 19 Sept., t. 46, p. 889, n. 8: Videtur balsamum cum floribus omnibus permixtum fragrance.

8 S. GREGOIRE DE Tours, De glor. mart., ©. 31. Migne, Patr. lat.,t. 71, col. 731: Oleum cum odor nectareo.

4 BB. 3 Jun., t. 21, p. 386, n. 20: Redolet totum corpus and capsa odorc grato, non tamen molli nec aromatico, sed ignoto.

BB $. 23 Jun., t. 25, p. 416, n. 8. Odor tantæ suavitatis appeared, ut putarent se foveri deliciis æternitatis.

6 BB. 10 Oct., t. 53, n. 146, p. 428: Suavissimus odor diversus a cuntis aromatibus queæ in hoc mundo reperire est.

7 BB. 16 Sept., t. 45, p. 250, n. 22: Ubi quis ad eum locum accesserit in quo est arca illa pretiosa quae sacras continet reliquias, ejusmodi odoris suavitatem sentit queæ omnes consuetos odores longe superat. Nam neuve odori qui ex pratis colligitur, neuque ei qui ex rebus fragrantissimis exhalat, similis est odor ille, nec quelis ab ungentariis confictur, sed peregrinus quidam et excellens, per seipsum declarans quanta sit virtus reliquiarum quae ipsum emittunt.

8 Lamis, Summary of the Life of B. Marie des Anges, ch. 29 p. 158.

She called it a smell of paradise and holiness.

VIT. — It is useless, as Gorrres tries to do!, following in this his tendencies to rationalism or cloud physiology, to seek in the organism even the cause of these embalmed exhalations; one must simply resort to miracles. How could the body produce, by a natural virtue, these smelling fragrances even in morbid and cadaveric states? Even in health, the incessant loss is the law of organized nature; the disease accelerates corruption, and death, who does not know it? does not give any more obvious sign of itself than the putrefaction: incorruptibility and the good smell, especially after life has withdrawn, can only be supernatural. "Although some mixtures make a pleasant odor, while altering," notes the learned pontiff Benedict XIV, "it is different from the human body after the soul has moved away. That he may naturally not feel bad, it is possible; but that he smells good, it is outside of nature, as is evident from experience. Therefore, whether the body gets corrupted or remains intact, whether it is rotting or not, if a smell declares itself persistent, suave, n'incommodating no one, pleasing to all, and whether it is constant that there exists or did not exist any natural cause capable

1 Mystique, 1. 3, c. 4, t. 1, p. 339: As soon as the soul has spread its wings and gained its growth towards heaven, the economy of life as a whole is profoundly changed. As she goes up into a higher region, she takes the body with her into a higher sphere. New relationships are established for the soul and the body. The life of both is governed by new laws; the various vital functions follow each other in a different order, and the mixture of the elements that enter into the composition of the human body is accomplished according to other bases, resulting in a profound change in the whole compound. The materials he assimilates become thinner, more untied, more ethereal than in the ordinary state.. This transformation of body life is often predicted by the good smell that the body exhales.

to produce it, it must be brought back to a higher cause and hold the fact to be miraculous!"

_ The external circumstances that accompany most of these emanations add to the evidence of the miracle. Sometimes it is sudden healings performed in those who aspire these sweet smells, as we have had OCCasion to notice; sometimes these wonderful smells are felt by some while they escape from others placed in the same conditions. Among the many facts of this nature, we will tell only the following. The letters of Saint Teresus, as we have already said, exhaled after his death the smell of holiness. A nun who had a sávisa had to erase something she wanted to keep secret. So she began to scratch this passage; then, interrupting, she wondered if she was doing well in this. Reassuring herself about the rightness of her intention, she continued to erase; but anxiety soon resumed her, and an unexpected miracle revealed to her that she was not vain, for the smell she had felt until then suddenly ceased. A Franciscan religious, having come to see this person, recognized with the smell that she was carrying on her relics of Saint Teresus. She admitted that she had indeed

1 Serv. Dei beatif. 1. 4, P.1, cc. 31, n. 24 p. 233: Asserimus autem, liket aliqua mista, dum corrumpuntur, gratum odorem emitant, aliter tamen rem se habere in corpore humano, quod post animæ discessum, quamwvis naturaliter posit non male olere, bene olere nihilominus naturaliter nequit, uti conseil experientia; ita ut, sive illud incorruptum sit, sive corruptum, sive putridum sive non, si constet nullam causam naturalem adesse aut adfuisse aptam ad productum odorem, and odor effluat, qui non sit momentaneus, qui sit suavis, qui nemini noxam inferat, sed omnibus omnino gratus sit, id ad causam superiorem sit referendum, and ita miraculo adscribendum.

2 RiBERA, BB. 15 Oct., t. 55, p. 724, n. 58. In obliterando pergit and aliam lineæ tergit partem. Tum de novo inaugeri angor, and aliud sequi prodigium. Quem enim hectenus perceperat in epistola odorem, prorsus evanu... Id vero tum patuit manifestum, cum idem non mullo post monachus mirabilem quemdam odorem a ab eadem epistola proficisci, quem tametsi alii -percipiebant, haudquaquam tamen ipsa olfafiiebat.

A letter from the mother seraphic, and drawing it from the sachet that contained it, she carried it to her nose, hoping to find the faint perfume, but unnecessarily: it no longer existed for her. At some time the monk returned and still breathed the same smell; only the nun who kept the source of it had ceased to enjoy it.

The characteristic of this odor, which assigns it a manifest character of supernatural, is that not only does it delight the body like other perfumes, but it also reaches the soul and performs there effects of grace and sanctification. Saint Catherine of Bologna ‘exhaled from her mouth an embalmed breath that pleasantly recreated the senses and at the same time filled the spirit of a heavenly sweetness. The prodigy took place mainly at the choir, which was all perfumed with this wonderful aroma. A priest of great piety, passing through the house of the Blessed Osanne of Mantua?, felt an extraordinary smell that breathed holiness. [He informed who was the saint who lived in this house. He was brought to Osanne, to whom he asked to pray for the salvation of her soul, what she promised to do.

We should deny the facts or close our eyes to the light, to ignore the supernatural reach of such wonders. Intimate grace, no doubt, is the reason for these delicious emanations, as the rapporteurs for the cause of Saint Teresis observed. When God Enters

1 J. GRASSET, BB. 9 mart.,t. 8, p. *57, n. 49. Afflatus illius corporis est suavissimus odor, quem et expirare quandoque inter loquendum vidébatur.... Observatint... suavisssimi cujusdam odoris fragantiam toto choro diffuseam, quaæ et sensum earrum demulcebat mirifice, et animos celesti quadam delcedine recreabat.

2 Fr. SYLVESTRE, B.B. 18 Jun., t. 24 p. 577, n. 90: Novum quemdam persensit odorem who sanctitatem præ se ferebat... Sensi enim de hac domo quampiam sanctitudinis odorem prodire, quo mihi persuasi divinum hic hominem immorari, etc.

3? Acts authentig. BB. 15 Oct., t. 55, P-368, n. 1130: Odor enim spiri-

and regnant in a soul, not only he purifies it, illuminating it, embrasing it and embalming it, he still tends to radiate outside by beneficial influences. And since man rises up to the invisible world only with the help of sensitive impressions, God strikes the senses to warn man of his presence. The smell of holiness is one of these divine warnings; but one does not proceed from the nature of man, as he is currently organized; one can only explain it by assuming a miraculous derogation.

VIII. — The good smell represents, after St.Thomas?, the effect of the grace which Our Lord was filled, according to these prophetic words of Genesis: "The smell that exhales my son is that of a field full of flowers," and which, from Our Lord, erupts upon the faithful through his ministers, as the Apostle to the Corinthians said: "It is through us that he spreads everywhere the smell of his knowledge: we are the good smell of Christ before God and before men." The saints admirably make the office of sacred ministers for the sanctification of the Church, and the wonders through which the divine power manifests their virtue are like sacraments which, with temporal goods, give the grace of salvation to souls, while before the throne of God they are, through prayer and love, like incensers always smoking. tualis ex interna partium animae contentione virtutumque debita connecte promanat, and internam pulchritudinem magnopere commendat.

1 S. GREG. The Gr. Hom. 38 in Ev. n. 15. Migne, t. 76, Col. 1291: Sancta anima illa a carne soluta est; tancaque soudio fragrantia miri odoris aspersa est, ut ipsa quoque suavitas cuctis ostenderet illic auctorem suavitatis venisse.

2 Sum. 3 q. 83, a. 5, ad 2: Pertinet (thurificatio) ad représentandum performedm gratiæ, qua, sicut bono odore Christus plenus leaks, secundum illud (Gen. xxvn, 27): Ecce odor filii mei, sicut odor agri pleni; and a Christo

derivature ad fideles officio ministrarum, secundum illud (I Cor, 11, 14): Odorem notiliæ suæ spargit per nos in omni loco.

It is possible to say of all the saints who spread these suave exhalations around them, what the pious of Lantages! wrote of the venerable Mother Agnes: "These wonderful smells.. no doubt mean that the very ardent and pure charity of this incomparable bride of Jesus Christ has made her an ever holy host and a smell of suavity before the divine Majesty; that her wonderful example of fervour has been the good smell of her divine Spouse in an excellent way, as long as she has lived on earth; and that her memory is now like a composition of various very pleasant scents, as it is written from the memory of Saint King Josias?"

1 Life of the Ven. Mother Agnes of Jesus, 3rd P., ch. 21 t. 2, p. 533.? Eccli. xuix, 1.

Chapter XXVIII

The Balsamic Liquors

These phenomena are rare in the lifetime of the saints; however, several are reported. — They are numerous after death. Flows in the form of milk, water, sweat, blood, manna, balm. — Usually, these liqueurs have the appearance of fragrant and medicinal oil. — The odoriferous and salutary oil that comes from the tomb of St.Nicolas de Myre. — Raison and mystical senses of these discharges. — Supernatural of these facts: precautions to be taken. — The miracle is even more evident, if the body is preserved in complete integrity and flexibility.

I. — This is still an undisputed fact for anyone who is little or no part of the hagiography, that it sometimes results from the bodies of the saints of the odorous and balsamic liquors. They usually have an oily appearance, which often makes them referred to as holy oils; but they also take on other forms, such as milk, blood, water, dew, and a melted manna.

These kinds of phenomena are rare during the lifetime of the saints; however, some examples are given. Christine the Admirable!, enchained by her relatives who wanted to em-

1 CANTIMPRE Tomas. BB. 24 Jul., t. 32, p. 654, n. 19: Virginea enim ubera ejus clarissimi olei liquorem coeperunt effluere. Quem illa in condimentum sicci panis assumens pro pulmento habebat, and pro unguento; liniebatque ex eo vulnera membrorum suorum putrescentium. Quod ubi sorores ejus and amici viderunt, coeperunt flere, nihilque ulterius divinæ voluntati in Christinæ miraculis renientes, eam solverunt a vinculis.

Fishing his flight and his ecstatic races, having for any food only a little bread and water, a part of the body already in putrefaction was rescued in a wonderful way. Her breasts were filled with a very clear oil, which she watered with dry bread, which she could no longer eat, and whose wounds she also anointed. At the sight of such a miracle, her sisters and friends, moved to tears and ceasing to resist the divine will, set this truly admirable virgin free.

During the Christmas holidays, Saint Gertrude of Oosten! meditated with incredible devotion how deep the joy of the very pure and very glorious Virgin Mary had to be in the birth of God her Savior, and with what pious tenderness she had fed him with her virgin milk. God rewarded her with great inner suavities, of which he wanted to give outside a singular testimony. A miraculous milk filled the breasts of the pious virgin, and did not cease to flow for forty days, from the Sunday of the Nativity until the feast of Purification.

One day, while Blessed Christine de Stommeln* remained delighted in ecstasy, she appeared, on the part of the coat covering her head, a very fine dew. One of the assistants, Brother Jean, who had for more than two weeks had a considerable size at the joint of the wrist, humecta the other hand of this liquor and rubbed it excrois-

1 BB. 6 Jan.,t. 1, p. 350, n. 14: Contigit vero signum maximum virgineæ gratitudinis per dies quadraginta... Cœperunt ipsius Gheertrudis virginis ubera tumescere lacteque manare; sicque per singulos dies a Festo Dominicæ nativitatis usque ad festum Purificationis non cessavit exitus virginei lactis ab uberibus virginis.

2 DACIA PIERRE, BB. 22 Jun., t. 25, p. 254, n. 74: Pallium suum quo caput cooperuerat, plenum subtilissimo humor quasi rore, quem omnes vidimus and pro rore habuimus.. Accessit, and aliam manum in humor illo madefecit et super excrescentiam posuit; quae ablla hora citius incepit decrescere quam prius potuit crescere, ita ut infra paucos dies omnino deficeret.

It immediately began to shrink, and disappeared after a few days.

Saint Lutgarde had gone to see a recluse with whom she had relations of a holy friendship. One day, at the end of the contemplation, flooded with ineffable suavities, she calls her friend and shows her fingers of her hand flowing with a wonderful liquor: "Behold, my sister," she exclaims, "how the Almighty acts with me; the overabundance of the grace which I am filled with within, escapes out by my fingers like a kind of oil, symbol of grace." And truly drunk, she ran all over the house, expressing by her gestures and her trepplings the excess of her jubilation.

As they consulted together with the Lord, Saint Rainier of Pisa? and a holy man named Albert, who had been the instrument of his conversion, were one and the other delighted within a bright light, and, after their ecstasy, their head was wet with an oil hanging on their hair like dew beads.

Where Saint Agnes of Montepulciano* prayed, the ground was often seen with flowers, and almost every day, when she came out of the oration, her coat was dotted with small white crosses like snow. On the day she was consecrated prioress *, this mysterious manna-

1 CANTIMPRE THOMAS, BB. 16 Jun., t. 24 p. 194, n. 16: Accidit ut post orationis contemplationem, tanta spiritus dulcedine repleretur, quod, vocata Reclusa, manus suæ digitos ostendebat, and eos expressndo dicebat: Ecce, soror, quality mecum acts Omnipotens, quia ex superabundanti gratia repleor interius, etiam digiti mei exterius ad significandam gratiam, velut oleo nunc distillant. And hec dicens, quasi ebria and vere ebria, cum gestu and tripudio mirabili per reclusorium ferebatur.

2 A. BenInsecA, BB. 17 Jun., t. 24 p. 350, n. 15: Peracto aliquo horæ spatio, lux illa dispense, odoris fragrantia and roris oleum in eorum capillis remansit.

8 DOMINIQUE Poxsr, Life of Saint Agnes of Montepulciano. Paris, 1865, c. 5, p. 205.

# Ibid., c. 6 p. 206.

The altar, the church court and the assistants themselves, were covered, always in the shape of small crosses.

II. — These facts are rare in the lives of the saints; they are much less so after their death. Benedict XIV! attests that he met in the canonization trials, and that, more than once, they were expressly recognized as miraculous. The number is considerable, as it is easy to convince by flickering the hagiographic collections.

The water that was used to wash the remains of Saint Maure was changed into milk, as a testimony of his virginal pudicity, says his biographer Saint Prudence?, Bishop of Troyes, who declares that he was an eyewitness of the fact.

Several years after his death, the remains of Saint Franque* were found swimming in water that had oil colour and a bitter taste of salt. This water was preciously collected and worked in the continuation of the healings; and every time those holy relics were visited, it was found that they continued to distill the same liquor.

During the two days following the death of Saint Marguerite of Ravenna { and that her body remained exposed, her face covered herself with a wonderful sweat as a

1 Serv. Beagent dei. 1. 4, P. 14, c. 31, n. 20: De hisce liquioribus actum aliquando is in causis canonizationum.

2 BB. 21 Sept., t. 46, p. 278: Corpusque de plus lavantes, aquam in lac conversam, testimonium pudicitiæ virginalis, viendam meis oculis præstarunt, quod Leontius..,abunde deglutiens, a febrili ardore sanatus est.

8 BERTRAM, BB. 25 a.m.,t. 12 p. 399, n. 36. Capsam cum aperuient, vidrunt et invenerunt eam aqua, quasi oleo colorata, plenam, and ossa S. Franchæ supernatantia.. Adducebantur infirmi.., and statim, ut dicitur, aut brevi tempore, curabantur quacumque tenerentur ægritudine.

4 Jerome Rossi, BB. 23 Jan., t. 3 p. 167, n. 8: Per duos dies cadaver sanctum insepultum servatum est, quo tempore cum sudore facies tanquam rore madesceret, Gentilisque assidua magistrae comes, linteolo. detersisset, linteolum ad ignem exsiccatum, violarum suavisimum odorem afflavit, qui multis ctiam annis in eodem lintcolo permansit.

And the handkerchief, which was used to wipe, dried by fire, immediately poured out an exquisite smell of violets, which was preserved for many years.

Sometimes it's the blood that appears. It was so abundantly derived from the relics of Saint Euphemia that in the report of Evagr ' and other reliable historians it was possible to distribute them to the greedy crowds who came to this tomb. The venerable Anne of St. Bartholomew, the famous companion of St. Térèse, laid down in law* in the preliminary trial of her canonization, which, having come to visit the body of her mother's seraphic, she saw on her shoulders a redness like that of living and fresh blood, and having applied a cloth, she removed it dyed with blood. Other examples could be cited. In particular, it is said of several saints, including Saint Amand de Maëstricht#, Saint Jeanne de Valois and the venerable mother Agnes de Langeacf, that long after their death their relics gave blood, when they were tried to profane or detach plots.

The flow is also in the form of a more or less condensed manna, which is born of bones to the way these kinds of juices detach themselves from the trees or plants that produce them. The body of St.Vitalian 7, Bishop of

1 BB. 16 Sept.,t. 45, p. 256, n. 21: Tanta autem est cruoris qui illinc extrahitur copia, ut... universa populi multitodo ibidem collecta abunde ex eo accipiat.

- What? BB. Jbid., p. 257, n. 25.

3 BB. 15 Oct., vol. 55, p. 346, n. 1048: Intuemur corpus cum magna reverentia.... Animadverti circa scapulas partem adeo coloratam ut sanguis vivus illic adesse vividretur: quam cum linteo attigissem, special blood confistim tinctum leaks.

4 Mio, BB. 6 febr., t. 4 p. 897, n. 12: Deus sublatus aborre, fudit sanguas ut vivo e corpore guttas.

5 Cannon trial. BB. 4 febr., t. 4 p. 584, n. 14. Copiosissimum sanguinem efudit, cum tamen ultra 58 annos sepulturæ murmium fusset.

6 LucorT, Life of the Ven. Mother Agnes, 3rd P., cc. 22, t. 2, p. 558.

7 BB. 16 Jul., t. 31 p. 172, n. 11: Jam diu manna scatebat, usque ad

Capua about 700, exuded a manna that tarried in 1584, — an official attestation of the canons of the place and of the time is proof of this, — after a woman of bad life had been buried with these relics. One year after her funeral, Blessed Jeanne d'Orvieto! appeared to a religious, and ordered her to have her remains transferred to a more suitable place. So we dug up his body, and found it in a perfect state of preservation and flexibility. On the side, his clothes were soaked in fresh blood from the heart wound. His head was dotted with a smelly manna, and he and his feet were the result of it, an oil from which the most delicious perfumes were exhaled.

The authors often describe this liqueur as balm, whether it has its characteristics or whether it is closer to it by composition and smell. Relics of the martyr St. Thérapont?, we saw Jaillir in a rush a exquisite ointment whose aroma spread in the distance. After Saint Agnes of Montepulciano * had made the last sigh, suaves emanated from his body began to escape. This prodigy and the reputation of holiness enjoyed by the servant of God attracted such crowds, that

They were forced to stay at the funeral, and, fearing that corruption would win the body for a long time, they sent to Geneva to ask for spices to embalm. But soon, the virgin's feet and hands become like springs

tempus quo leak prope locum ubi sacra pignora latebant, sepulturæ traditum cadaver cujusdam inhonestæ mulieris.

1 . Lives of the Saints and Blessed Girls of the Order of Saint Dominique, t. 2, p. 133.

2 BB. 27 May, t. 49, p. 677, n. 9. Ungentum quippe fragrantissimum, torrentis comme, e sacris Therapontis reliquiis scaturiens, odoris pulcherrimi, quo navis erat impleta, fontem ostendebat certissimum.

3 Dominique Pons, Life of Saint Agnes of Montepulciano, 3, ch. 1, P. 267.

precious balm; which caused the messengers to run after them, whose mission became useless, the body being naturally or rather supernaturally embalmed.

IT. — These discharges usually take place in the form of perfumed and medicinal oils. We pass away from the wonderful phenomena that are reported about lamps lit in front of the tomb of the saints. Sometimes the oil &的y finds miraculously renewed or does not consume; more frequently, it acquires a therapeutic virtue!. We only want to talk about the relics that distill this liquor. These facts are told in large numbers in the lives of the saints. Let's see a few of them.

From the members of St. Walburge, especially from her chest, came an oil that healed all kinds of infirmities. Bishop Philip?, who wrote the life of this virgin, reports for himself that being dangerously ill, he had a vial filled with miraculous liquor, and that after drinking it, he returned to health.

On the tomb of St.Ange*, a Carmelite religious, pushed a lily, and cut, he always pushed back. The prodigy's witnesses, intrigued, dug there, and uncovered the body of the holy martyr, from which escaped the sweetest smell. These venerable remains were moved to rise from the ground and to hold them in a precious chasm. And at the very place where they had been buried, a spring came forth.

1 Office of Saint Lucia. BB. 19 Sept., t. 46, p. 102, n. 8: Arsit enim iguis in lampade præter olei consumptionem, lampade mutata in fontem olei in medicinam.

2 BB. 95 febr., t. 6 p. 567, n. 36 and 37: Of membris ejus virgineis maxime pectoralibus, sacrum emanat oleum, quod, gratia Dei and intercessione B. Walpurgæ virginis, cæcos illuminat, surdos autre fait et gressum claudis reddit, cunctisque debilibus optatum prunctem devote petentibus misericorditer indulget. Quam etiam gratiam curationis ipsi experti sumus.

3 BB. 5 May, t. 45, p. 58, n. 8-11. Ex loco ubi prius jacuerat corpus, fons vivus aquaæ nitidissimæ and suavissimi odoris emanavit: ex ea vero parte ubi caput Martyris requiescebat coepit fluere medicinalis olei liquor.

From the point where the head rested, water began to pour out a medicinal oil that performed many healings.

The first time that the tomb of Seraphic Teresis was opened, ‘ nine months after his death, his body was found intact, exhaling a delicious fragrance and distilled a very sweet oil, in such abundance, that she had soaked the clothes that covered the body, and the earth all around. Twenty-four years later, an eyewitness reports, the leather belt with which the saint had been buried still left a few drops of this extraordinary liqueur.

Similar wonders are told of the relics of the apostle Saint Andrew, — Baronius said of this miraculous flow that almost the entire Christian world had witnessed it; — the relics of St Matthew, more than a thousand years after the death of this Evangelist; those of the martyr Saint Demetrius the Great, St Paul of Verdun, St Candida, St Hedwige, and many others.

IV. — Among the multitude of facts that we might still mention, we shall mention more than one, remarkable among all. It concerns Saint Nicholas of Myre, less famous by his life, moreover memorable, than by the wonders that illustrated his tomb. After he died,

1 BB. 15 Oct., t. 55, p. 343, n. 1036. Oleum tam abundanter e sacris membris defluebat ut adhærens terra ac valesta eo imbuerentur.

3 Jbid. Hoodedum, postquam anni fere viginti quartet elapsi sunt a S. Matris funere, visitor.... cingulus quocum sepulta leaks; e quo ab eo tempore ad presentem usque diem cernitur oleum guttatim scaturiens.

3 Martyrol. 9 May: De perenni miraculo scaturientis inde livoris medici ad curandos morbos, totus pæne christianus orbis est testis.

4 BB. 24 febr.,t. 6 p. 452, n. 4.

5 BB. 8 Oct.,t. 52, p. 73, n. 9.4.

6 BB. 8 febr.,t. 5, p. 174, n. 32.

7 BB. 4 Sept., t. 42, p. 230, n. 3.

8 BB. 17 Oct.,t. 56, p. 263, n. 170.

He poured out of his bones a smelly oil, salutary to all evils, a wonder that attracted the most distant regions of the crowds eager to contemplate it, and came to seek from the saint the relief of their physical and moral misery. Seven hundred and forty-five years after his burial, when the Mohammedans had become masters of Lycia, Italian merchants conceived the bold plan to remove this precious deposit and to transport it to their homeland. They broke the marbles that contained it and carried it, at least in large part, on their ships. The alarm was given, but too late, to the inhabitants of the land, who ran on the shore with shouts of vengeance and pain. The spoliateurs had rushed to sail towards Italy and landed at the port of Bari on 9 May 1087. The saint whose remains they delighted in the East seemed to lend himself to this pious pious larceny by the many miracles which signaled his welcome, and which was told to us by a contemporary and eyewitness, the archdeacon John‘. Since then, the tomb of the saint has not ceased to be glorious. The wonderful liquor continued to flow from its bones and to perform countless healings.

"God," wrote Professor Baronius three centuries ago.

1 Surius, 8 May, p. 399: Universitis Christi ecclesiis litteris nostris cognoscenda significamus quaë miranda, laudanda, and veneranda nostris in temporibus Nicolai beatissimi famuli sui meritis pro sanctissimis omnipotens Deus mortalibus insinuare dignatus est, villicet qualifier de Mira metropoli, Barensibus per pontum transferentibus, illius artus sacratissimi Barum sunt asportati, ubi sunt etiam innumeræ ostensæ virtutes et stupenda miracula.

- What? Martyrol. Nine maii. Deus opt. maximus, cum multis modis sanctorum suorum cineres illustrit, eo etiam honor dignatus est ut ex aridis ossibus {ut olim ex asini maxilla qua Samson Philisthaeos delevit, aquaæ fontem manare fecit, Jud. xv), liquorem medicamenti vim habentem ad curandas malas valetudines et impios hagiomachos convincendos jugiter fluere voluit: idque, non tantum Andreæ apostoli ac Nicolai, sed et aliorum complurium sanctorum sacris reliquiis præstitit.

In his commentary on the Roman Martyrology, referring to this ever-ending fact of miraculous oil, God, whose goodness equals power, and who so in so many ways illustrated the ashes of his servants, has deigned to add to their glory to make their dry bones untouchable sources of precious liquors, destined for the relief of the sick and the confusion of the ungodly who dared to attack the saints; just as he had once made a dealtering water of the jaw with which Samson terrified the Philistines. And it is not only the relics of the Apostle St Andrew and St Nicholas of Myre, which are mentioned in this place of Martyrology, which present these wonders, but also those of many other saints."

And long before Baronius, Saint John Damascene!, justifying the worship of relics by the miracles that recommend them to the faith of believers, said: "Christ Our Lord has made the remains of the saints like healthy fountains that let many benefits flow upon us, and from which sometimes a very sweet ointment escapes. There's nothing incredible about this. For if in the desert water springs out of a dry and hard rock, and God permits it out of the jaws of a donkey to quench Samson's thirst, what amazes us that we also see a exquisite balm flowing out of the relics of martyrs? Those will know who knows what power is

of God and how great the honor he gives to his saints."

1 of the Orthodox fide. 4, c. 15. Migne, t. 94, col. 1166. Christus Dominus sanctorum reliquias velut salutares fontes præbuit, ex quibus plurima ad nos beneficia manant, suavisimumque unguentum profluit. Nec quisquam his fidem detrahat. Nam si aqua in deserto ex aspera et dura rupe, atque ex asini maxilla ad sedandam Samsoni simim, Deo ita volente, prosiliit, cur incredibile vidéatur ex martyrum reliquiis suave unguentum scaturire?

Minimal certe, iis quidem quibus Dei potentia et honor quo sanctos suos afficit, exlorata sunt.

V. — If one seeks the reason and meaning of these wonderful flows, we will say that they are, the oil mainly!, the abundance of divine grace in the saints; the vessel is full when it overflows. They still mean that the blessed are like reservoirs where God wants us to draw the help we need.

The authors point out other mystical reasons which must not be disdained, but, as Gorrres does, fall into imaginations which nothing justifies. Saint Brigitte % tells of herself that, having come to the tomb of St. Nicholas of Myre, she began to think of the extraordinary liquor that came from it, and that, immediately entering into ecstasy, she saw in spirit a character embalmed with a smelly oil, which addressed her with these words: "I am Bishop Nicholas, who appeared to you in the outside that I had in my mortal life. All my members were then flexible and flexible in the service of God, as an instrument soaked in oil that yielded without resistance to all the impulses that the hand gave him. In the depths of my soul there was praise, and on my lips the word of God, and patience in the work, and I could draw

1 S. THomas, Sum. 1. 2. q. 102, a. 3, ad 13: Oleum figurat gratiam Christi.

2 Mystique, 1. 3, ©. 4, t. 1, p. 345 et seq. Mystical life, in the diet it imposes itself, prefers the foods provided by the plant kingdom: it even has a certain repugnance for the flesh of animals. This abstinence, coupled with the remoteness of everything that can excite passions, must in the long run wonderfully simplify the operations of life, give to the products that are intended to maintain it a more plant nature, and favor the formation of this oil which we have seen in the body of several saints, etc. etc.

3 Revelations, 1. 6, ©. 103, p. 522: Ego sum Nicolaus episcopus.. Omnia membra mea ita heabilitata et flexibilia erant ad servitium Dei, sicut res uncta quae flexibilis est ad opus posidentis, ete... Tu vero scias, quod sicut rosa profert odorem et uva dulcedinem, sic Deus corpori meo emanandi oleum singularem dedit benedictionem, quia ipse non solum honorat electos suos in coeælis, sed et lætificat et ealtat in territoires, ut pres ædificentur et participant de gratia eis data.

all this in the virtues of humility and chastity that I loved above all others. And now it is because most of those in the world have not their bones moistened with divine grace, they make a sound in vain, they shun each other to destroy themselves, they live barren from every fruit of righteousness, and they are abominable in the sight of God. You, at least, know that, as the rose has its perfume and the grape its flavor, so God has granted my body the singular favor of making a healthy oil come out of it; for not only does he honor his chosen ones in heaven, but also he glorifies them and exalts them on earth, that they may be for many a cause of edification, and make them partakers of the grace which they have received."

Thus God raises the saints above nature by wonders of the physical order, to attract more powerful souls to supernatural life.

VI. — That is enough to say that these phenomena, duly recorded, must be regarded as miraculous; but prudence requires great caution here. This, according to Benedict XIV, is the way to proceed in these meetings. "When these kinds of cases are proposed in the processes of beatification or canonization, and what is recommended in these circumstances formulates a very wise rule which must not be removed, — if the miracle arises with the character of healings obtained by the use of water, oil or ointment coming from the body of a saint whose intercession has been invoked beforehand, the examination must be focused on the reality and the wonderfulness of these healings. If it is only because of the flow of water or any other liqueur that is born of dry bones, attention will be paid to the place where these bones lie, to see if the liqueur that emanates from them would not come from a natural cause, i.e. from a source that would have been

or an artificial cause that would bring the liquid to that point. In a word, to qualify these facts as miraculous, it will be necessary to demonstrate that the liquor comes out of the arid bones and outside of any external local moisture. That if, in order to solve the difficulty, the bones were removed from the tomb, and the flow ceased to occur in that place, it would become clear that he had his cause, not in the nature of the soil, but in the bones themselves!"

The examiners of the cause of Saint Teresus?, discussing the odoriferous oil phenomenon that arose from its relics, declare that such a fact, not only can be miraculous, but also constitutes a miracle of the first order, by the reason that it is outside the natural order that the dead bodies, after the consumptiveness of the odoriferous oil, declare that it is not the natural order.

1 Serv. Beagent dei. 1. 4, P. 1, c. 31, n. 21, p. 231: So in causis Beatif. and Canoniz. consimiles res proponantur, and eas inter miracula recensendas esse contendatur; and so prævia invocatione served Dei aut Beati, hausta aqua ex ejus sepulcro manante, aut oleo vel unguento ex beato corpore fluentibus, quaæ ægris applicent, vera fiant miracula, and sanationes contingant habentes omnia requiredita veri miraculi, examination ad sanationes and earm requiredita erit reducendum... Si miraculum reponatur in sola effusione aquaæ, olei vel liquoris ex ossibus siccis.., magna cum baile de loco videndum erit in quo ossa sunt tumulata, veluti scribit Bordonus..: Sepulcrum is aperiendum, and videndum ex quo liquid procedat, an ex causa naturali, quia ibi sit fons; vel ex arte, an illuc sit liquor immisssu.. Uno verbo, ut approbetur miraculum aquaæ aut liquioris ad longum tempus manantis ex ossibus served Dei aut Beati, demostrandum is ex iis jam aridis and extra locum humidum constitutis emanare... Quod so strong ad omnem submovendam difficuliatem, ossa... e tumulo vel fovea educerentur, eorumque proude et translatio ad alium locum, cautela haec non esset omnino spernenda; si enim ossibus subductis, liquor cessaret, nec amplius e loco emanaret e quo emanabat, dum ossa erant in eodem loco restita, signum evidentissimum hoc esset liquorem, non a loco aut a natura loci, sed ab ipsis aridis aricis accis ossibus scaturire.

2 Authentic acts of the canonis. BB. 15 Oct.,t. 55, p. 368, n. 1132: Cum ex se pateat quantum præter ordinem omnis naturæ creatæ hoc eveniat, quantum illius vires excedat and alienum sit a corporibus mortuis.., necessario est fatensem ess opus supernatural, et in fact substanti omnes naturæ creatæ vires excedere, et sic miraculum primi ordinis esse.

In addition, the production of meats can produce no mood or any liqueur.

VII. — The miracle is no less, if the flow occurs in a perfectly preserved body; for the prodigy of incorruptibility then adds to that of a healthy source which feeds nothing and does not tarnish.

God loves to preserve the saints from the corruption of the tomb, and to give to the Church who honors them this brilliant sign of their glorious immortality. In general, when integrity is maintained for a long time in the bodies of those who have lived godly, it is permissible to see a sign of holiness. This is what Benoit XIV'!' teaches, with a large number of others that he quotes himself, and one can add to these testimonies of science? the common impression of Christian piety:

However, even though he is a hero of virtues, if it is a matter of rigorously concluding these extraordinary facts to their miraculous character, the grave author you have just named brings several restrictions. They all reduce themselves to ensuring that no natural cause has intervened capable of producing this effect, such as embalming, burial in a place that preserves the flesh or supports its moods; in such a way,

1 Serv. Beagent dei. 1. 4, P. 1, c. 30, n. 3 p. 214: Post approximations virtutes, cadaveris incorruptio inter miracula enumerator.

2 BB. 15 Oct., t. 55, p. 367, n. 1128: Quod talis incorruptio sit sanctitatis signum and pro maximo miraculo habenda, satis apparet ex pluribus corporum servorum Dei exemplis, quibus serbutus fuchet hanc gratiam.

3 Synops. ab E. n'AZEVEDO. 4, P.1, C. 30, n. 8, p. 271. Ex his omnibus indubitatum emptyur non statim ac de heroicis constet virtutibus, cadaveris incorruptem miraculo esse adscribendam, quin prius sedulo inquisitor an aliqua præcesserit naturalis causa cui incorruptio tributi posit, coque magis quod multo plura sunt sanctorum corpora quae corruptioni obnoxia fuerunt quam quae incorrupta permanserunt.. And quod caput est, quoties sacra rituum congregalio hujusmodi incorruptis mira-

culum tanquam beatificationis and canonizationis fundamentum admitted,

semper in suis decretis addidit, nullam adfuisse naturalem incorruptis causam.

Balsam liqueurs o91

According to Benedict XIV‘, that the mere exiccation would not be sufficient to constitute the miracle; it would be no less necessary than the flexibility and the complete preservation of the bodies, unless, for special reasons, incorruptibility reached certain parts, such as, for example, in St John Nepomucene*, the language, to glorify its fidelity not to betray the secret of confession.

These rules breathe wisdom, and we dare to say it too harsh, when it comes to making it the basis of a solemn judgment such as that of beatification or canonization. But the miracle can exist without reaching the degree of obviousness required by the Riles congregation. Thus, the body remains intact for a significant time and then becomes corrupt; the preservation, though limited, can be miraculous. Similarly Fincorruptibility will occur with partial or total exiccation; most of these cases will present a genuine derogation from the general law of corruption, although the legal evidence is complicated by difficulties that do not allow to conclude. To cite just one example, the body of Saint Catherine of Bologna has been kept uncovered for more than four hundred years in remarkable integrity, and always supple as a living flesh, without any other aroma, as James Albergatiÿ expressed, than that of his holiness. However, on the doubts raised by doctors

1 Synops. ab E. ne AZEVEDO, 1. &, P. 4, C. 30, n. 9 and sq: Ut incorruptio igitur inter miracula enumerator, tum putredine, tum exsiccatione cadavercarere debet, uti laudatus Zacchias alïique notarunt... Ex his omnibus, comprobatum est, ad hoc ut ejusmodi incorruptio miraculis acceneatur, opus esse ut corpus integrum ac tractabile sit, excluded incorruptis naturali causa, itemque excluded a putredine and exsiccatione.

2 Ibid.,1.4,P.1,c. 30, n. 15, p. 271. And quod ad S. Joannis Nepomuc. linguam spectate, ejus incorruptio tanquam miraculum in ejus causa proposita fut.; incorruptio ipsa inter miracula secundi ordinis locum obtinuit.

3 Benoit XIV, De Serv. Dei beat. 1. 4, P. 1,c. 30, n. 7 p. 217.

on the very subject of the non-corruption, because of the blindness that they had noticed in the corpse, the sacred Congregation! refused to admit the fact as miraculous, contrary to what several others could say. Another thing is to conclude to the wonderful fact of a fact by the established holiness elsewhere, something else to argue with this fact holiness.

4 Benoit XIV, De Serv. Dei beat. 1. 4, P. 1, c. 30, n. 12, n. 219.

Chapter XXIX

The Radiance

The radiation of the body can occur in contemplation and out of contemplation. — It is often restricted to certain parts of the body: the head, hands, feet, eyes, mouth, chest. — Instead of emanating from the body, the radiation can be extrinsic. — Frequency of these manifestations at the death of God's servants, and also at their birth. — Light is usually white, but sometimes it has other nuances. — Rational explanation of these wonders.

I. — What we have said about mystical burning is a close touch on the body radiation we are about to talk about, and it happens frequently that the two phenomena are confounding. However, one can exist without the other, and, since the first is an immediate effect of love, we had to mention it by describing the facts of the emotional order.

The mystical radiance usually emanates from the body of the saints as a luminous fover, mainly in the hour of contemplation and ecstasy.

Saint Zite of Lucca! was locked in the most removed place of his house, to quietly store with God and steal the secret of the consolations from which it was flooded; but often, during the night, one could see the deaf light in the waves of this retreat, as if the sun

4 BB. 27 a.m., t. 12 p. 508, n. 17: Tanta claritas sæpe nocte emptybatur ac si fons luminis sol oriretur ibidem.

It shone with all its brightness. One day St. William of Olive ‘started the divine office, a mysterious flame, which seemed to come out of his mouth and into it, surrounded him whole and hid him from all eyes. Saint Arsene *? also appeared on fire in the fervor of his prayer, and the same prodigy is told of two abbots of Ireland, Saint Fintan* and Saint Comgall#, Saint John of Saint Facond*, Saint Francis of Borgiaf and a crowd of others.

These illuminations still occur outside of prayer. The body of the glorious martyrdom Agnes, whom an infamous judge had condemned to a more odious shame than death, shines out with wonderful claritys that dazzled satellites and libertines. God also made a garment of light that stole their nakedness from the eyes of the Gentiles, to two other martyr virgins, Saint Barbef and Saint Prisk*. Saint André Avellini came back, for one night

1 BB. 10 febr., t. 5, p. 499, n. 25: Officium divinium persolvere coepit. And ecce souvio lux de coelo in modum ignis waxeumeinxit eum, diuque involvit, ita ut a circumstantibus minimal vacuumretur. Imo celestis splendor abor ejus exire et in illud iterum intrare viebatur.

- What? Tneoporee STUDITE. BB. 19 July, t. 34, p. 622, n. 13: Frater... observants per fenestramn... vidit Senem totum quasi ignem.

3 BB. 17 febr., t. 6 p. 19, n. 18: Vidit circa illum immensam lucem per magnum spatium, ut pene oculi ejus excarentur.

4 BB. 10 Maii,t. 15, p. 581, n. 3: Cum $S. Comgallus...... cum lacrymis vrasset, lux superna circumfulsit eum.

BB $. 12 Jun., t. 23, p. 131, n. 25: Magnum lumen tota cella diffuseum reperit, atque in ejus medio orantem in ecstasi sanctum.

6 RIBADENEIRA, BB. 10 Oct., t. 53, p. 285, n. 293: Franciscum lumina spleendere faciemque solis like radios emittere deprehendit.

7 S. AMBROISE, BB. 21 Jan.,t. 2, p. 716, n. 8. Ingressa autem turpirudinis locum, Angelum Domini illic preparatum invenit, ut circumdaret eam immenso lumina, ita ut nullus possess eam præ splendore nec centingere nec emptyre.

8 RIBADENEIRA, Lives of Saints, 4 Dec., t. 12 p. 67.

9 BB. 18 Jan.,t. 2, p. 549, n. 7. Sancta autem Prisca viebatur candida sicut nix, cujus splendebat corpus in tantum, quod nitor claritatis ejus caligare faiebat respicientes in eam.

10 Brev. ROM. 10 Nov., Lect. 5. Inusitato splendor e suo corpore mibilier emicante, sociis inter densissimas tenebras iter monstravit.

Dark and stormy, confessing a sick man. The rain and the wind turned off the light that lit the march. Not only did the saint not have his wet clothes, despite the rain falling torrent, but from his body escaped a miraculous splendor that guided his companions into these thick darkness.

IF. — Often radiation is confined to certain parts of the body. The head is the ordinary seat of illumination. When Moses went down from the mountain, carrying the tables of the law, his forehead projected beams of light that dazzled and frightened the children of Israel, so that he had to veil his face to speak to the people. While a religious saint named Wolfram * celebrated the divine mysteries, his face became bright. In his ecstasy, the figure of St.Kentigern, bishop of Scotland, also appeared on fire. Twice a day, St. Otte ‘ was raised and supported in the air by the angels while she prayed, and her face shone with heavenly clarity. The fervor of Saint Philbert, the first abbot of Jumièges, was such that one night one of his religious saw his eyes shining like two burning lamps. These kinds of facts are innumerable, and one would not end if one undertook to tell them all, as Benedict XIVS remarked.

1 Er. xxxiv, 29-35.

2 BB. 29 Sept., t. 48, p. 108, n. 490: Quemdam monachum nomine Wolframum... reperit celebrantem..., cujus facies erat quasi cornuta, sicut de Moyse legitur, præ fulgoris magnitudine.

3 CAPGRAVE, BB. 13 Jan., t. 2, p. 101, n. 28. Facies ejus quasi ignea apparens, stupor and extasi circumstantantes replevit.

4 Fr. SCHEMBECK, BB. App. ad 5 maii, t. 20, p. 597, n. 11: Bis die quolibet solitam elevari in aere, ministerioque angelorum sic sustineri, donec à colloquio Domini, comme Moysis vultu coruscante, reverteretur.

5 BB. 20 Aug., t. 38, p. 77, n. 12. Quadam nocte..., tanquam dues fulgent lampads, oculos illius in Spiritu sancto micare prævidit.

6 In serv. Beagent dei. 1. 4, P.1, c. 26, n. 14, p. 191: If in hoc capite strengthens villet radios, lumina and splendores which in facie sanctorum, dum

Sometimes the light seems to escape from the hands. Saint Geneviève of Paris!, having entered the Basilica of Saint Martin, healed many possessed by the virtue of his prayer and by the sign of the cross. And they were possessed, when the virgin of the Lord lifted up her hands upon them, they cried with rage, and saw her fingers lit and burned like candles. The archbishop of Ragusa took the hand of St Philip of Neri to kiss her one day, and remained astonished when he saw it shining like gold and shining like the sun. Saint Marien de Regensburg®, Saint Felan d'Scotland#, Saint Columban of Ireland, and many others are said to have made their left hand bright at night and projected its rays on the book they read, or copied with their right hand.

Sometimes, but rarely, the radiation starts from the feet. A doctor from Paris, who was held in bed by the disease, wondered, not without some hesitation, how this flesh of mud and rot could one day shine like the sun. As he ruminated these thoughts, he began to look at his feet drawn out of the hatching-

lived, appeared and inter miracula enumerator, nunquam finem faceret.

1 BB. 3 Jan t. 1, p. 142, n. 44: Fatebantur in hora cruciatus sui, quod digiti manuum Genovefæ singillatim velut cerei divinitus caelesti igne flagrarent, and circa se ardere, foetidissim debacchantes clamabant.

2 JEROME BARNABEI, BB. 26 Maiii, t. 49, p. 585, n. 361: Apprehensamque ejus dexteram reverenter osculatur: quam quidem auro ipso nitidiorem and solari radio splendidiorem intuetur.

# BB. 7 febr., t. 5, p. 367, n. 11. Ipse tamen sine omni luce materiali scribere non haesitavit; quoniam divina misericordia tres digitos manus suæ sinistræ ad as trium lampadarum splendescere fatiebat.

4 BB. 9 Jan., t.1, p. 594, n. 3: Quenque cum essay in tenebris, sinistra manus, as facis lucidissimæ, dexteræ manui dum scribeet aut legeret, lumen præbere a caeteris monachis viebatur.

8 MonTALEMBERT. The Western Monks, t. 3 p. 124. Being on a visit to his former master Finnian, our saint found a way to make a clandestine and rushed copy of this abbot's psalmist, by locking himself at night in the church where the psalmist was laid, and by enlightening himself for this night work of light that escaped from his left hand.

And he saw them radiating with such splendor that his eyes could not sustain its brightness. He understood the lesson Our Lord gave him to strengthen his faith!

The prodigy more frequently takes a form that manifests the purity of the soul, its illuminations and its ardour. Light emanates from the mouth with breath and speech. The sisters of Saint Colette saw a trail of flame coming out of her mouth while she was praying. His entire oratory seemed to be on fire; but if he approached to extinguish this strange fire, he suddenly fainted. Only once was the veil covering it burned. At another meeting, one saw on her lips a shining sun that lit up the oratory where she prayed. One day that Saint Lutgarde® sang in the choir with his usual devotion, one of his companions saw a mysterious flame coming out of his mouth and getting lost in the air.

At other times, it is the heart that becomes the home from where irradiation starts. St. Colombini of Siena ‘ came to hit a

1 HEISTERBAG CEASOIRE, Historiarum memorabilium, 1. xu, 1. 12, c. 54, p. 896 (Poland, 1599): Magister quidam parisis infirmatus, cum de glorificatione corporum cogitaret, et haesitans in corde diceret: Quomodo potrit esse ut corpora ista fictilia et putrida lucere possint in futuro sicut sol, ad pedes suos, quos de operamento erexerat, respexit; and ecce tantus splendor de illis exivit, ut oculi ejus, reverberati, eos intueri nequirent; moxque ad se reversus, gratias egit Christo cujus virtute, antequam moreretur, ad fidem resurrectionis reductus est.

2 , B.B. 6 mart.,t. 7 p. 557, n. 83: Videbatur eisdem, quod realityr emptied quamdam facem igneam, ex ore ejus processem, lucidam and resplendentem, sic in altum ascendentem, quod coelos tangere viebatur.. If that approximates ad extinguendum ignem illum sovito apparentm, sovito disparatebat. Semel tamen is repertum velum ejus combustum... Quædam etiam religiosa... vidit semel, existnee matre in orationis fervore, quemdam solem magnum et resplendentem, oratorium totum illuminatingem, ab ore ejus processem.

3 CANTIMPRE Tnomas, BB. 16 Jun., t. 24 p. 199. n. 18: Cum ergo die quadam in vesperis cantaret in choro, monialis quaedam... visibilibus oculis corporalis luminis flammam de ore ejus vidit ascendere, et in sublimi aere penetrare.

4 J. B. Rossi, BB. 31 Jul., t. 34, p. 386, n. 168: Cum vero... quietem

evening at the door of a hospice and asked to spend the night there. The time was late, and everyone was asleep when it was introduced into the common room that served as a dormitory. Barely had the saint opened his tunic to go to bed, that from his breasts escaped a wonderful splendor, comparable to that of the sun. Awakened by this sudden clarity, the crowd of those who were lying all around look with admiration at the new host from whom these waves of light emerge, and take him as an angel in human form descended from heaven to honor this asylum of poverty.

IE. — The luminous effect, instead of emanating from the body of the saints, can be external and radiate upon them from an extrinsic source. They are inflamed globes, rays or light-tracks that come to shine around them and surround them as a radiant aureole.

Saint Gertrude of Nivelle! told the historian who kept this account, that being in prayer before the altar of Saint Sixtus, a martyr, she had seen a flaming sphere come down over her head, which filled the whole church with its light for half an hour and then gradually ascended up to heaven. Another time, her sisters saw the miracle renew itself on her in the same way. A person worthy of faith, and in a great reputation of holiness, said that he saw a day of heavenly splendor coming upon Blessed Ambroise of Siena?,

Capturus lectulum conscenderet, diducta manibus tunica, e pectore repente ux ingens irradiavit, quae per totum dormorium conclave fusa, æquare soles radios viebatur. Expergefecta ibidem underlyingium turba oculos in hospitem recentem conjicit unde illa prodibat, et mirabatur, dicens quod sub humano schemate angelo hospitium præbuients.

1 BB. 17 May, t. 8, p. 593, n. 5: Vidit super se descendentem sphæram flameam, perluecidam, ita ut tota basilica illius claritate fumesset illustriata, quasi hora dimidia: paulatimque reccssit unde venerat. And posta, cernentibus aliis sooribus, iterum super ipsam appeared eo modo.

- What? BB. 20 mart.,t. 9, p. 191, n. 53. Splendorem e coelo venientem super

while preaching to the people, and hovering on his head until the end of his speech. At the beatification trial of Saint Louis Bertrand, an eyewitness, who had had the happiness of serving him the Mass for two years, said that he had seen very often a radiant cloud descend on the altar at the moment when the Blessed held in his most adorable hands Sacrament, and formed luminous circles between the head of the priest and the host, which cast a bright glow. Blessed Angelo d'Acri? loved to prostrate himself from his first age before an image of the Virgin hanging from the wall, and several times we saw rays from this image and shine on the face of the pious child.

IV. — These supernatural manifestations often take place at the death of God's servants, and are one of the most ordinary signs of holiness.

At the time when St.Medard*, Bishop of Noyon, gave his soul to God, the heavens simmered open and divine light shone, for nearly three hours, on the remains of the saint. Feeling close to its end, Saint Severin*, the Apostle of the Norics, exhaled one last prayer, "and immediately a great light surrounded it, and when this light disappeared, his soul flew with it to the Sei-

caput ipsius beati viri quiescentem vidit, which was subjected to final practice requires.

1 BB. 10 Oct., t. 53, p. 315, n. 40: Melchior Magnes in processu testatus est se..., dum... Ludovico sacricanti frequenter inserviret, creberrime vidisse, quando sanctissimum Sacramentum in manu sua tenebat, descendentem super eum candidissimam nubem, cum aliquot gyris lucidissimis inter sanctissimum Sacramentum et caput sacerdotis, unde tantus prodibat splendor ac si duo luminaria ardient.

3 Vita del B. Angelo di Acri. Roma, 1895, p. 2.

3 VENANCE FORTUNAT, BB. 8 June, t. 22, p. 81, n. 9: Cœli prorsus aperti sunt, and ante sancti corpusculum fere per tres horas divina luminaria cuntis emptytibus adstiterunt.

- Four BBs. Addenda ad 8 Jan. t. 4, p.743, n. 20: Oratione facta, lux immensa appeared.

I've got to go. At the death of Saint Cheledoin, an incomparable splendor spread from the place where it was to be long-lived in the whole region, to the point where it was believed to be a great fire. At the very hour when Saint Louis Bertrand died, those who were present saw a light like a shining lamp appear.

Nor is it rare that these luminous phenomena signal the birth of the saints, and become a prophetic announcement of the salutary radiance that they will one day exercise in the Church. There are many examples. Let us mention only the names of St Wilfrid, St Petrone#, St Heibert5, St John of God, St Charles Borromee, St Brigide ® abbess of Kildar.

V.—The supernatural light emanating from or surrounding holy bodies is usually white; but sometimes it has different nuances. The sisters of Saint Catherine of Bologna* saw one day, during the Mass and the singing of the Hours, her face all shining with a red light that dazzled her eyes; wonder all the more

1 Guild. From NaARni, BB. 43 Oct., t. 54. p. 367, n. 9-10: E sæculo migrans, factus is coelitus mirus splendor a loco quem incoluerat ad coelum usque tensus.. Porro aderant existimabant in aliqua Campaniæ parte copiosum ignem existre, de quo tantus splendor exsiliret.

2 BB. 10 Oct., t. 53, p. 351, n. 229: Testati sunt is vidisse lumen ad like lampadis lucidissimæ.

8 EADMER, BB. 24 ar., t. 12 p. 296, n. 4.

4 BB. 4 Oct., t. 50, p. 427, n. 19.

5 BB. 16 mart.,t. 8, p. 462, n. 3.

6 Ant. Govea, BB. 8 mart.,t. 7 p. 834, n. 2.

7 GiusANo, Life of Saint Charles Borromaeus, 1. 1, ch. 2, p. 6.

9 J. GRASSET, B.B. 9 mart., t. 8,*57, n. 50: Viderunt eam omnes sequence die, dum missa and Horæ canonicæ decantantur in choro, faie supra modum lucenti et flameo quodam rubore accensa, sic ut defixos in eam oculos nequirent continere; quod tanto acsidebat mirum magis, quanto magis obscurus ei ac pene luridus color essay, etc.

More amazing than the servant of God, as a result of her continuous infirmities and frequent bloodshed, had a pale and yellowish complexion. Three days after his trepas, Saint Volfheim, Abbé de Brauviler, instead of the paleness of death, presented a face of pink colour, full of grace, and covered with small drops of dew.

Sometimes it is a luminous transparency that leaves or gives the different parts of the body their natural color. "As soon as Mother Agnes had expired," says her biographer®, "its face became very beautiful, shining like a sun, and all its body as white as the alabaster. The next day, her face looked all laughing, and her mouth was fresher and more vermilla than when she was alive... It would have been said that this virgin body was already in possession of the clarity of the blessed bodies resurrected. This beauty, writes an eyewitness, Mr. Branch, former parish priest of Langeac, gave its main shine during the great Mass of the funeral. For the vermilion of his face appeared with more vigour; the eyes and mouth were as laughing, and these wonders took their increase as the Mass proceeded. The parts of his body that appeared to the opposite of the torches, though from afar, were transparent, and the bones and nerves were seen inside, as they would have been seen through an incarnate glass."

The Blessed Catherine of Racconigi presents, during her lifetime, a fact of the same nature, pleasantly told by the naive historian * of the daughters of the order of Santo Domingo.

"As he came at the age of fourteen," he wrote,

1 Qur'an. BB. 22 April, t. 19, p. 88, n. 43: Cum wasset triduanus mortuus, appeared non defuncti more pallidus, sed roseo colore perfusus, gratia plenus, and veluti roscidilis guttis sudor respersus.

3 De Lanraces, Life of Mother Agnes, 2nd P., c. 21 t. 2, p. 40.

3 - MARIE. ‘The Lives of the Holy and Slow Daughters of Saint Dominique, t. 1, p. 416.

graces of the sky bidding greatly on its natural beauty, it bequeathed to the will of men as angelic as it was of the soul. For on his joues a vermilion was passed, mixed with a white that made it an exquisite beauty. All the neighbors of her neighborhood, greatly surprised to see so many graces in her face, believed that she was hiding herself, and on this belief she asked how and with what ingredients she combed her face. She laughed at their request, and did not want to tell them the truth on another side, and replied that she could use nothing other than the bread chewed, hearing the Blessed Sacrament, which is in it these bright colors, especially since the great colors which it glitters in her soul, redone to the body, luy covered her Joües with this vermilion and made them beautiful."

VI. — The rational explanation of these phenomena is in the relationship between the intimate illumination of grace and the external radiation of physical light. Saint Denis the Areopagit ‘ sees in the sun a perfect picture of divine goodness. Of all the symbols, fire and light are indeed those who express with the most vivacity the mystical action of the Holy Spirit on souls. The wonderful claritys we have just described are many ways in which God reveals and attests to his presence in the saints.

They can also be seen as an effect of the predominance of the soul over the body. It is a law of human organization, which the soul casts upon the flesh reflections of itself. When it undergoes the empire of the senses, all outside betrays this shameful servitude; if divine life reigns within, the expression becomes pure, luminous, radiant as the home from which it emanates.

- I'm sorry, I'm sorry. De divinis Nominibus, c. 4.8 4. Migne, Patr. gr., t. Three, collar. 698.

However, this brilliant irradiation, which is like an anticipation of the sovereign empire that the spirit will one day exercise on the glorified body, is always miraculous. In the present conditions the soul can, by its own virtue, make shine upon the organs something of its purity, of its serenity, of its intimate 1lluminations; it cannot, without coming out of the providential and present order of nature, spread upon them waves of light. This is even more obvious when the radiation is extrinsic.

The most difficult thing is to ensure with certainty the reality of the prodigy. According to Benedict XIV, the testimony of several eyewitnesses, or even that of one person, but recommended by his holiness and prudence, offers sufficient guarantees; and, well-known, the fact must be regarded as miraculous, mainly if he accompanies a divine work, such as prayer or preaching, if it results in the effects of grace, and especially if the subject is recommended by pure and holy manners?

1 Serv. Dei Beatif. 1. 4, P. 1, c. 26 n. %6, p. 195: Haud exiguum probationi pondus accedet, si non unus sed preres testes.. testimonium reddiderint..; unus quoque testis suffcere possesse si esset sanctitate eximius et summa præditus præditus prudentia.

2 Serv. Beagent dei. 1. 4 p. 1, c. 26, n. 27, 196. Pro miraculo quidem facere potest si lux ceteris lucibus fuerit splendidior: si non momentanea fuerit, sed diutturnior...; si ea non una, sed pluribus vicibus apprôrit; si visa sit dum sermo de Deo habebatur, vel aliud quippiam in honorm Dei peragebatur; si de sanctis moribus cujus caput ignitum aut splendidum apprôt nulla sit dubitatio; si illi qui viderrunt ad Deum conversi sunt; si quodcumque aliud spirituale bonum subsecutum est.

Chapter XXX

The Transformation of the Senses

The wonders of mystical life on speech and song, — sight, — hearing, — smell, — taste and tact. — All these wonders in Catherine Emmerich. — Explanation of these facts by the nature of the human compound and by the miracle.

I. — Under the mysterious action of grace, the soul is transformed; the soul in turn, by the influence it exerts on the body, transfigures it by giving it a reflection itself. It is, so to speak, a whole new order of sensations that settles!. This spiritualization of the body by the soul has its ordinary and regular effect on the physiognomy; but, when it pleases God to derogate from the common order, it still extends beyond, sometimes operating on one sense, sometimes on another, a miraculous transformation that alters their natural conditions of exercise. We must point out the main ways in which these wonderful effects occur.

1 Jos. Lopez EZQUERRA, Lucern. Myst. Tr. 5, C. 13, n. 119, p. 99: Multifariam multisque modis hujusmodi sensors in anima percipuntur.... Quaedam quidem fiunt sensibus externis, scilicet olfactui exhibentur odores suavissimi, universios mundi hujus longe superantes; auditory mirabiles and harmonici concentus; gustui, inexplicabiles dulcedines, præcipue in receptione sacrosanctæ Eucharistiæ; tactui delicatissimæ sensationes, quae usque ad compagines medullasque ossium perveniunt et recreant; visui denic luces, splendores, atque adeo pulcherrima objecta quod ipsam ideal and desiderium superant.

Mystical life often communicates to the organ of the word a suavity, a flexibility, a power that holds prodigy. Among the preachers of the Gospel, one of the ‘most famous by the sensitive virtue of his voice is without a doubt Saint Anthony of Padua! Although he was born and raised in Portugal, he spoke Italian idiom with so much purity, the timbre of his voice was so bright and his accent so unctuous that the crowds ran into his speeches, attracted as much by the charm of his diction as by the sublimitity of his doctrine and the vehemence of his movements. Nature had given Saint Vincent Ferrier a beautiful and powerful voice; but one can see as an emanation of the inner grace the ease with which one varied the expression, rendering it at his will, and according to Islands circumstances, grave, piercing, graceful, sound. What is evident from the wonder is that, in the immense multitudes he was often forced to speak in the open, the farthest listeners heard as distinctly as those around him.

Saint Mary Magdalene of Pazzi received, in her former

1 BB. 13 Jun., t. 23, p. 202, n. 16: Tanta illum Domninus gratia perfuderat, ut lingua fabundissima, voce clarissima, sua verba, like tubæ cujusdam, explomens, ab omnibus and audiertur and intelligeretur. Nec in admiratione vacat, cum in longinqua regione natus et educatus multo tempore fuchesset, quod Italico idiomate adeo polite potuit, quae voluit, pronuntiare ac si extra Italiam nunquam posuisset pedem.

2 RANZANE, BB. 5 a.m., t. 10, p. 493, n. 13 and 14: Vox ejus sic erat à natura disposita quod eam pro libito voluntatis quomodo volebat, facile emittebat: nam pro rei necessitate, acutam, gravem, gracilem ac sonoram callem edebat... Non minius ab eis qui plurimum distant erant quam ab eis qui erant proximi, distinct audiebatur sermo ejus.

3 V. CEPARI, BB. 25 Mayi, t. 19, p. 261, n. 57: In iisdem extasibus, loquebatur aliquando in forma dialogi, modo cum æterno Patre, modo cum Verbo incarnato, aut cum Spiritu, Deipara Virgine vel aliis sanctis; atque in ipsorum persona interrogatobabat respondebatque, aut in persona proprio, prout res demandat. Nec erat difficult to distinguish in cujus persona loquere-

-686 mystical phenomena related to the body

This is an admirable facility to express the most diverse roles. She had dialogues with the people of the Holy Trinity, with the Blessed Virgin and the saints; and her voice rendered, through varied and appropriate intonations, the words of each of the interlocutors. When she represented the person of the Father, they were serious, majestic, solemn accents; when she gave her voice to the Word and the Holy Spirit, the tone was still full of dignity and majesty, but sweeter; and finally, if she spoke in her own name, her voice became so humble, that it was hard to hear it.

Another wonder, which relates to the miraculous transformations of the voice, is that of several martyrs who have articulated sounds and made words heard after having had the tongue cut off. St Peter of Damascus! celebrates aloud the sacrifice of Mass, despite amputation of his tongue. Others, like Saint Terentian?, Saint Maximus and Saint Anastasis#, Saint Eusebius#, Saint Aiou de Lérins® and his companions, Saint Léger‘, also spoke, after having suffered the same torment, either to their judge or to the friends and infidels who approached them. Saint Raymond Nonnat, a prisoner in the Moors of Africa, freely preached the word of God, although his lips were closed with an iron padlock.

tur..., mutabat enim vocem..., itaque variabat vocem, secundum variatatem personarum in ipsa loquentium.

1 BB. 4 Oct., t. 50, p. 496, n. 2: Petro sanctissimo Damasci metropolitæ.... linguam jussit præscindi... Missæ sacrificial clara voce celebravit.

2? BB. 4 Sept., t. 41, p. 415, n. 10.

3 BB. 43 Aug.,t. 37, p. 130, n. 49 and 50.

4 BB. 25 Aug.,t. 39, p. 116, n. 8.

BB $. 3 Sept.,t. 41, p. 746, n. 15.

6 BB. 2 Oct., t. 49, p. 404, n. 201.

7 BB. 31 Aug., t. 40, p. 738, n. 6: Ejus labia repagulo ferreo occlusa sunt, ne verbum Dei effunderet; expeditus tamen loqui, non sine barbarorum admiratione auditus est.

After the wonders of speech come the wonders of singing. They take place in ecstasy or outside of ecstasy, and in various ways. Sometimes it is the human voice that improvises charming melodies, harmonious echoes of the intimate drunkenness of the soul. After the singing of the Matines, when everyone had retired from the church, Saint Christine the Admirable! sang songs of incomparable sweetness. Sometimes harmony seems to form elsewhere than in the gossip, in the heart, in the chest. Sometimes it's still the modulations of the human voice, but with I don't know what comes from the angel and the sky. In delights that followed cruel stomach pains, Blessed Humiliane Cerchi? sounded a delicious song that seemed to rise from her soul, so subtle, so delicate, that to grasp it it was necessary to apply the ear to her lips, and yet could not be distinguished from any of the words.

Other times, they are heavenly accords of an indefinable suavity, where neither human sounds nor words are detached. Such an inimitable harmony that one could hear one day in St. Christine the Admirable, * during one of her jubilation, and that came out, not from her lips on which one could not grasp the slightest breath, but from the depths of her throat, between the chest and the gossip; like the lovely melody that escaped from the heart of another saint of the same name, almost from the

1 CANTIMPRE THOMAS, BB. 24 July, t. 32, p. 657, n. 34: Canticum tantaeus dulcedinis emittebat, ut potius empiretur cantus Angelicus quam humanus.

2 BB. 49 May, t. 17, p. 394, n. 34. Quenque in quodam jubilo dulciter canentem audierunt, tam subtiliter et tacite, quod audiri non potorat, nisi apponereretur juxta os suum auris: callem quidem jubilationis audiehant, sed discerni non potorat quid proferret in cantu.

3 THomaS OF CANTIMPRE, BB. 1. 32, p. 656, n. 35: Sonabatque inter guttur et pectus ejus quaedam harmona mirabilis, quam nemo mortalium vel intelligente potest, vel aliquibus artificibus imimari.

same time and from the same country', Christine de Stommeln?.

It is also a mysterious bird that alternates by its rowing with the sweetest radiances of the human voice. What is told in the life of St. Rose of Lima * is an inexpressible charm; the following trait, which we borrow from the story of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, is no less suave. "One day she seemed to be turned against the wall of her room, one of her wives, named Elizabeth, who was sitting next to her bed, heard as a sweet and exquisite melody that escaped from the gossip of the sick. A moment later, the duchess changed her place, and turning to her companion, she said to her: "Where are you, my beloved?""Here I am," replied the following, adding: Oh! "What!" said Elizabeth, "have you heard anything?" And on her answer, yes, the patient continued: "I will tell you that a charming little bird came to sit between me and the wall, and he sang me for a long time in such a sweet and sweet way, and he so rejoiced my heart and soul, that I had to sing too. He revealed to me that I would die in three days." It was probably, says an ancient narrator, his guardian angel who came in the form of this little bird to proclaim eternal joy to him."

IT. — The sense of sight is often transformed, in the saints, in a miraculous way. The Blessed Mar-

1 Christine the Admirable died in 1224 in Saint-Trond, the city of Belgium, about thirty-four leagues away from Stommeln (Stumbela, of which the Germans did S{ommeln), in the Rhine Prussia, where the second Christine nalt about the year 1242. — Cf. D. Papebroch, BB. 22 Jun., t. 25, p. 239, n. 4. — And 24 Jul.,t. 32, p. 659.

- What? Mother-of-pearl. BB. 22 Jun.,t. 25, p. 249, n. 55: Sonus supradictus audebatur quasi in pectore essay Christinæ.

- What? Leonarn Hansen. BB. 26 Aug., t. 39, p. 932, n. 162-164.

# From MonracemBenrt, Hist. of St. Elizabeth, ch. 29 p. 532.

Warrior of Ypres! saw the director of his soul at a distance of five leagues. Blessed François Dyrrachin?, of the order of the Minor Brothers, hears, from the kitchen where he held his office, ring the bell which gives, in the church of the convent, the signal of elevation. Immediately he bowed down, and, turning his eyes and heart in the direction of the altar, he struck his chest, and by his sighs, by his tears, he expressed his sorrow that he could not worship the divine Eucharist more closely. What a wonderful thing! the three walls that separate the holy man from the place where the sacrifice was made open, and San regard extends freely to the adorable victim that the priest raised in his hands.

Several saints judged the bad state of consciousness by the ugliness of the soul that passed over the figure of sinners. A good person led a day to St Joseph of Copertino? a young gentleman who wanted to see him. "What Ethiopian are you bringing here?" said the Blessed. Don't you see how black it is?" Then turning to the young man: "Go therefore, my son," he said to him, "go wash your face." He understood the warning, went and confessed and returned to the saint, who kissed him this time, saying to him: "It's good! You're beautiful now, son. Wash often; yesterday you were as ugly as an Ethiopian."

1 -MARIE, Lives of the Holy and Blessed Daughters of Saint Dominique, t. 2, p. 347.

2 BB.t. 47,7 Mayi, p. 45, n. 5 Ecce a templo tintinnabuli signum datur: Christi corpus ostendi populo intelligit.... Posito genu, mentem and oculos intensit.. Apertis sponte nutuque divino tribes muris who interjecti erant, nullo apparent motu, nullo audito sono, via sanctissimi viri oculis ad aram fata est, unde Sacrum populo ostendebatur.

25 PasrroviccHI. BB. 18 Sept., t. 45, p. 1025, n. 49: Who is Ist Æthiops quem mihi huc adduxisti? Empty nun ut niger sit? Deinde vero ad nobilem conversus: Vade, inquis, vade, fili mi, lava tibi faciem... Quapropter sic reducem amplexus is: Eia, inquiens, jam bellus es, fili mi, lavato te sæpius; heri enim foedus eras like Æthiopis.

To anyone who approached him in a state of sin, he repeated these words! "Come on, wash yourself; you have the face all defiled with ink."

In her ecstasy, Saint Mary Magdalene of Pazzi* continued her external occupations for hours. The nuns, wanting to experience if, in this state, she saw with the eyes of the body, veiled them, or closed the shutters of the windows; and she continued her work with the same ease and perfection, not ceasing to sew, to paint images, or to make charming little works that were kept long after her death.

It is especially in relation to sacred objects, among which we must place in the first line the Eucharist, that the mystical transformation of the body view occurs. It is a fact of experience that the ecstatics recognize, especially in their transports the Holy Eucharist, and distinguish the consecrated hosts from those that are not. The number of saints and saints who saw the eyes of the body Our Lord on the altar and in the tabernacle, in a form distinct from the Eucharistic appearances, is considerable. Blessed Lucie de Narni* saw the consecrated hosts all radiant with light. She thus distinguished a consecrated host among twelve others who were not there, and who presented him with a new confessor, to ensure by this

1 Pastrovicchi. BB. 18 Sept., t. 45, p. 1031, n. 73: Gucumque occerreret, which animam peccato infectam habebat: Vade, aïebat, lava tibi faciem quam atramento conspurcatam habes.

2 Vic. Pucomi, BB. 25 maïii, t. 19, p. 206, n. 1411: Cum sueret, arum scinderet, vel in charta devotas imaginées pingeret, etiam sic occpata rapiebatur quidem, non tamen limittebat coeptum opus... Monachæ autem, experiri volentes an corporeis oculis tunc uteretur, quandoque hos ei obvelabant aut fenestras claudebant: et illa, absorpta in Deum, prosequebatur exercitium suum.

3 JEAN DR SaInxTE-MaARIE, Lives of the Holy and Blessed Daughters of Saint Dominique, t. 2, p. 208.

experience of the spirit that was enthralling. On another occasion, Our Lord revealed to him his presence on the altar in the form of a little child who had a light on his face like that of the sun. We will not insist on these kinds of wonders so multiplied in the lives of the saints, especially as we have spoken of them elsewhere, dealing with the body apparitions of the Savior.

HIT. — Mystical life also sometimes communicates a wonderful impressionnability in the sense of faith. In the ecstatic Marie-Dominique Lazzari', the fineness of this organ was extraordinary, for from her bed she heard, so that she could reproduce it in full, the sermon preached at the parish church, five or six hundred steps away. Most often these are transitory miraculous facts, such as the one reported by Saint Séverin of Cologne®. At the hour when the thaumanturge of Gauls, Saint Martin de Tours, died, and the angels carried his soul to the stay of the blessed, he heard their harmonious songs and told his archdeacon that the great bishop came out of this world and ascended to heaven. Blessed Davanzato* was recreated, towards the end of his life, by angelic concerts which his ear was alone to grasp; to make them hear the cleric who served him as a companion, he put his hand in his hand, laid his foot on his foot, and immediately, as two sound bodies that communicate their vibrations, one and the other also opened the celestial melody.

. 4 D. Anromo Riccarnt, Relationship on Marie- Dominique Lazzari, or the patient of Capriana, p. 128.

2 S. GréG. DE Tours, De Mirac. S. Martini, 1. 1, c. 4. Migne,t. 71, col. 918: Beatus autem Severinus Coloniensis civitatis episcopus.... illa hora qua Beatus obiit, audivit chorum canentium in sublimi.

8 BB. 7 Jul., t. 29 p. 528, n. 11: Who Davanzatus manu famulum capiebat pedemque suum pedi clerici preæponebat, ei dicens: Ausculta, fili mi, #i quidquam audis.... Audio nempe, pater, inquis, supernum angelorum canticum.

IV. — The smell of holiness is adorable influences. It often allows God's servants to recognize the virtues and vices of those who approach them, as reported by the holy Abbé Oyent!, Saint Philip of Néri°, the venerable Mother Agnes and many others. Saint Hilarion ‘ guessed by the only smell of the body, clothes, or objects that had been touched, of what demon or vice one was enslaved. Saint Joseph of Copertino*, whose angelic purity exhaled a heavenly fragrance, felt an extraordinary infection at the sole sight of those who sinned against this virtue. He was reduced to taking tobacco, trying to stir his sense of smell and to chase out a smell infected by another which seemed more bearable to him. As soon as she heard words that offended God, Saint Brigitte © felt in her nostrils a horrible stench of sulfur, that she had all the sorrows of the world to endure.

Holy things, he escapes again for the saints from the sweet emanations that embalm them.

"Many times," wrote Jeanne-Marie de la

1 BB. 1 Jan., t. 1, p. 53, n. 20: Ex cujuslibet superventu personæ, ita per odoris fragrantiam foetorisk afflatum, meritorum insignia dignoscebat, ut præsciret illico, cuisque virtuti vel viti subjaceret.

2 ANTOINE GALLONI. BB. 27 May, t. 19, p. 469, n. 39: Illustrated in Philippo leaks ex multis admirabile, quod, ut virginitatem ceterasque virtutes ex odore, ita impudicitiam and id genus alia ex foetore divinitus deprehendebat.

8 DE LanrTacrs, Life of Mother Agnes of Jesus, 3° P., c. 1, t. 2, p. 75: If anyone came to find her, whose life was broken or her heart spoiled, she felt the smell of it unbearable.

4 S. JEROME, Vita S. Hilarionis, n. 28. Migne, Patr. lat.,t.23, col. 42.

25 PasrroviccHI, BB. 18 Sept., t. 45, p. 1028, n. 61: Satis ipsi erat vidisse libidinosum, ut eumdem ex foetore cognosceret.., tantum foetorem, ut eum, etiam adhibito tabaco, nequiret excelerate.

BimGer, BB. 8 Oct., t. 52, p. 492, n. 25: If aliquis loquebatur and aliqua verba vitiosa vel dolosa, quae Deum offenderent, statim sentit in naribus foetorem horribilem sulfuris quem vix potorat tolerare.

Cross ‘, as soon as I had received the holy host on my tongue, it seemed to me as a ray of sweetest honey, which filled my mouth with inexpressible sweetness. This suavity was accompanied by a delicious smell that was like the quintessence of the most pleasant scents. This sweetness and smell were first spread in the high regions of the soul, then throughout the body, filling me with a feeling of ineffable well-being, and communicating me with a wonderful force." — "Only the approach of the Blessed Sacrament, adds his biographer*, developed in her the most varied perfumes; it was sometimes that of the most fragrant flowers, sometimes that of the balm, sometimes as a compound of all the perfumes together... This phenomenon often worked before communion of the wonderful effects on his body. She had barely begun to smell these heavenly fragrances, which she fell into ecstasy." When she attended Mass, Blessed Jeanne d'Orvieto* often smelled a pleasant smell, that her soul was as liquefied with sweetness. In receiving the divine host, Saint Catherine of Siena {aspired to a delicious smell that made her almost faint.

One day when she had just come to communion, Saint Catherine of Genoa found herself embalmed with an ineffable smell and so sweet that she thought she was in paradise. In her humility, she urged the Lord not to give her such sensitive and external graces.

Saint Charles Borromee, one day entering the church

1 WEBER, Jeanne-Marie de la Croix, 1. 8, p. 221.

2 Ibid., p. 212.

3 -MARIE, Lives of the Holy and Blessed Daughters of Saintde The T. 2, p. 1928.

# , BB. 30 April, t. 12 p. 907, n. 181: Sæpius sentiebat tantum odorem and tam suavem, sumendo supervenerabile SeCrRDenR,

The life and works of St. Catherine of Adorny of Gennes, c. 3 p. 21.

of Sommascus, where the remains of St.Jerome Emilian ‘ rested, was warned by a very sweet smell of the presence of this precious deposit, to which he gave special marks of his veneration.

. When Blessed Hermann Joseph? heard Mary's name in the office and prostrated himself on the ground, he breathed such a fragrance of flowers and d'aromates, which he could no longer rise. At the end of Laudes, during the song of Benedictus, he felt like a incense smell, and every day, when after the meal he was psalming, according to the custom of the monastery, passing from the refectory to the church, the psalm Miserre, he experienced exhalations of such a suavity that he seemed to enter heaven.*

Smells are still a sign that God gives his servants of his miraculous presence. It was by such a favor that Saint Rainier of Pisa devastated the true visions of perfidious illusions; he recognized the divine intervention to a perfume from which he was all penetrated.

More than once, they give the saints a vivid testimony of the divine predilection that surrounds them. The good-

1 Ross, BB. 8 febr., t. 5, p. 218, n. 4: Anno M.cpLxvi, Somascham profectus, ac vix portam templi ingestus, mox ob suavisimum odorem a se perceptum, raptus in sanctam admirationem..., dixit in ea ecclesia quiescere corpus alicujus magni served Dei. And ubi, divinitus illuminatus, cognovit aliquem odorem prodire ex reliquiis P. Hieronymi, petiit.. sibi ostendi sepulchrum viri Dei.

2 BB. 7 a.m., t. 10, p. 690, n. 16 and 17: Ecce, inquit, quotiens ad nomen sacræ Virginis prosternor ad terram, odor omnium florum et aromatum, cum tantæ Suavitatis abundantia mihi de terra redolere emptyur, ut semper ibi vellem recumbere in his deliciis, si liceret.... Cum cantaretur ex more evangelicus hymnus Benedictus, etc., Dominus eum... suavitate mirifiea visitare dignatus est, faciens illum sensie suavitatem odoris incensi.

3 Jbid., p. 689, n. 15. Quotiescumque post refectionem corporalem psalmum Miserrere mei Deus in gratiarum actione canendo, a refectorio monasterium introvit, odor aromaticus, imo paradisiacus, illum tantæ suavitatis excepit, ut se paradisum Domini crederet introire.

# Benmcasa, BB. 17 Jun., t. 24 p. 350, n. 21: Cum a Deo esset visio, totus. respergeretur odore miro.

Happy Angel of Foligno', eager to go to God, asked with instance for the grace to come out of this world: God responds to his prayer by making him feel unspeakable suavity, which gives him a taste of heaven.

V. — The sense of taste, despite its seemingly exclusive relationship with animal life, may have a part in the supernatural manifestations of mystical life.

When St. Brigitte came to do some sin of speech, she immediately felt an extreme bitterness in the palace, which stopped only after she had confessed. Saint Felix of Cantalice # articulated the name of Jesus with incomparable delight, as if he had had honey in his mouth. His glorious father in religion, the Seraphic Francis d'Assisi#, trembled at ease by speaking or hearing this blessed name, and he passed his tongue on his lips as if he had enjoyed a delicious liqueur.

The experimentation of these supernatural sweetnesses has as its main object the divine Eucharist. Blessed Mary Magdalene of the Ursins ° had an inexpressible flavour as she approached the Blessed Sacrament. Saint Marguerite de Cortonef recognized to taste the hosties

1 ARNAUD, BB. & Jan., t. 1, p. 194, n. 57: Sæpe sensi odores indisibiles...; sed delectationem et dulcedinem quam sensi, non possum référre.

2 A. BIRGER, BB. 8 Oct., t. 52, p. 492, n. 25: Quando vero aliquid loquebatur quod esset offensa Dei, statim sentiebat in ore suo amaritudinem maximam..., ad aquas salutaris confessionis cucurrit citius.

3 BB. 18 May, t. 17, p. 243, n. 19: Tanta enim in nominis Jesu prolatione voluptate afficiebatur.., ac tam suaviter pronuntiare solebat, perinde ac si mel in or haberet.

4 S. BONAVENTURE. BB. 4 Oct., t. 50, p. 770, n. 148: Nomen autem Jesu cum expresset vel audiret, jubilo quodam repletus interius totus videbatur exterius alterari, ac si mellifluus sapor gustum vel harmonicus sonus ipsius immutasset auditum.

6 -MARIE, Lives of the Holy and Blessed Daughters of Saint Dominique, t. 2, p. 690.

6 F. Juxcra, BB. 22 febr., t. 6 p. 343, n. 197: Dominiautem famula Margarita, nullam sentiens in communione dulcedinem, ut solebat, etc.

devoted. Holy Angel of Foligno! smelled the hosty spreading over his tongue not with the taste of bread or none of the meats that one eats, but with an unknown taste of flesh, an exquisite flavor, which was nothing comparable to the world. She would have kept this heavenly food in her mouth for a long time, if she had not obeyed the recommendation that she should swallow with promptness; but swallowing herself gave her a sense of ineffable pleasure that made her whole body tremble. Catherine de Saint-Augustin?, a hospital nun in Quebec City, enjoyed similar favours every time she communicated.

We will later point out the beneficent virtue attached to the contact of the saints; it is currently only a question of the influence produced on this meaning by mystical life.

Almost all ecstatics have the ability in their transports to distinguish with tact sacred or holy objects. What we are going to bring back from Anne-Catherine Emmerich will suffice to show how this wonder is realized.

VI.—Perhaps no one possessed to the same degree the gift of distinguishing holy things with the help of external senses. In her, this grace seemed as permanent as it was universal. "The sound of the holy bells was for his ear essentially different from any other sound, even as harmonious. She felt the blessing of

1 ARNAUD. BB. 4 Jan., t. 4 p. 205, n. 118: Quando communico, hostia extenditur in ore, and not habet saporem panis, nec carnis istius quam comedimus, sed alium saporem carnis, sed saporis sapirissimi quem nescio assimilare alicui rei de mundo... Quandoautem descended, dat mihi unu sentimentum magnum placabile.;

2 RAGUENEAU, Life of Mother Catherine of Saint Augustin, 1671, 1. 2, ch. 11, p. 141: Since I have been in communion, I have always felt a taste in Holy Hosty other than that of bread. This taste has no relation to the sweetness or flavor that is found in the most exquisite dishes, which are fads at the price of this sacred meat. It seems to me that the clean of this taste contains eminently everything that is contained of tasty in others.

water and distinguished the holy water from that which was not, as surely and as easily as another person distinguishes water from wine. It recognized the bones of the saints through the smell, as well as through the will and touch. She had such a keen sense of priestly blessing, when sent to her from the furthest distance, that when it was given to her from the nearest point to her; either in ecstasy or in a state of watch, she inadvertently followed the consecrated fingers of the priest as a holy power from which the strength and blessing flowed in her... She saw what was holy in the form of light, rays of light... She felt and perceived the action of this light as something that relieved her, strengthened her, brought her joy and drew her to herself strongly; just as she was suddenly and unintentionally pushed back, she felt filled with disgust and horror, when a secular object on which sin and curse were weighed was carried into her neighbourhood, or when she came to a place where some guilty act had been committed, or on which the consequences of unexplained crimes were weighed {.»

She made sure that no one had ever had the gift of recognizing relics to the degree that God had granted her. It distinguished with no less security the holy objects. One day she held relics in her hands, and she was presented with an Agnus Der. "This is good and touched by the strength of above," she says; "it is blessed: but here, in relics, I have the strength itself." And speaking of a blessed cross: "The blessing," she said, "shines like a star in it! It must be honoured greatly; but the

1 E. SCHMOEGER, Life of Anne-Catherine Emmerich, c. 13, t. 3 p. 236. 2 Jbid., p. 237. 8 Jbid., p. 434.

The priest's fingers, she added, turning to his confessor, are still above. This cross may perish: the consecration of the fingers is ineffaçable; it is eternal; neither death nor hell can annihilate; in the very sky it is still distinguished. It comes from Jesus, who redeemed us."

Mother Mary of Jesus, better known as Madame du Bourg, also had to a rare degree, even outside of ecstasy, the gift of discerning relics.

VIT. — If we pay attention to the role that the senses play in our knowledge, we will easily find the reason for the supernatural abilities that they acquire in mystical life. In our opinion, organic printing is basically only a signal that determines the consciousness of intellectual life in the soul. By the sensation itself, the mind exercises its perceptual power over the bodies; by language, which is ultimately only a sensation, it enters, according to the common law, into the consciousness of the ideal world; thus most of its intimate operations, if not all, are carried out under the excitement of a sensitive sign, which proceeds more or less from external senses. The two elements of which man is composed, each taking their part in man's acts in this way, unite and complement each other in a harmonious whole. But these natural relationships are not necessary, either in their substance or in their modes. According to the current law of human organization, the senses can only accuse the presence and physical actions of the surrounding objects on our body; but obviously it depends on God to link the knowledge of invisible and supernatural things to such or such organic impression. At the moment, no doubt, this connection is not in nature; but that is not the case.

" Cf. BERSANGE, Madame du Bourg, 1891.

Does he follow, or is she extranatural and miraculous? The miracle, in fact, seems to us the only plausible explanation of the phenomena that we have just reported.

We believe there is no point in mentioning here, if not by passing and without discussion, the way in which some authors, faithful to the very end to the peripatetic theories, explained these supernatural sensations, namely, by miraculous injection in the sense of material species or ghosts responding to the physical objects lacking outside. According to Joseph Lopez Ezquerra', who points out these interpretations in his MYSTIC LAMP, the feeling of much more likely and who recommends the authority of St.Thomas?, is that these impressions are rather a redundancy of the upper part of the soul on the sensitive part; and that is basically what we have just said. According to the common law, it is the body that seems to give to the soul; here, it is the soul that gives to the body: in one and the other case reveals the harmonious unity of man.

1 Tr. 5, ©. 43, n. 120 and 122, p. 99. Modus quo hae supernatural sensations fiant, in maximam Mystas hesitationem confer. Quidam puttant quod in sensibus supernaturaliter inrunduntur earrum species materials, eodem tempore quo anima spiritualiter in divina cognitione et amore occatieur... Sed longe probabhilior est senticia D. Thomæ asserentis prædictas meanings a superiorum potentiarum effective motione in materials inducbie sensus redundare.

2 Sum. 1. 2. q. 24, a. 3, ad 1.

Chapter XXXI

The Renewal of the Heart

Influence of mystical life on the heart. — Renovation of the heart in the venerable Mechtilde, Saint Gertrude, Saint Mary Magdalene of Pazzi, Blessed Jeanne de Valois, Saint Catherine de Ricci. — Physical extraction of the heart in the Blessed Osanne de Mantue, Blessed Catherine de Racconigi, Blessed Marguerite-Marie Alacoque, Venerable Mother Agnes de Langeac.— A gift that Our Lord makes of his heart to Saint Lutgarde, Saint Catherine de Siena, Saint Michael of Saints. — Interpretation of the prodigy.

I. — The heart is the centre, the very source of vitality. Holiness, which cleanses and transforms the external senses, cannot fail to manifest itself in this main focus. This is evident from the very organization of man. The heart, in fact, is in us the organ that responds to the emotional life; the soul undergoing a transformation in its life of love, the backlash cannot fail to resonate on the body organ that attests to the intimate impulse and marks its measurement by its own action and by the very intensity of its movements. It is therefore no doubt that mystical life does not involve a renewal of the heart and that God does not accept this desire expressed in the past by David, and so ardently repeated by all the saints: "My God, create a pure heart in me"

This creation, the penitent king and all those who have recited

1 Ps. L, 12: Cor mundum crea in me, Deus.

His prayer would hear a graceful influence that would contain or suppress fleshly instincts, and multiply in the soul the ardour and the impulses of love. God, whose inventions are indefensible and the infinite power, pleased to realize to the letter in some of his saints this vow to obtain a new heart, removing from their chest the heart that was already beating there, to renew it or to substitute another purer and more burning one. Sometimes even Jesus Christ seems to exchange his own heart for the hearts of his lovers. Of all the mystical wonders this one seems to us one of the most wonderful. It is important to report and discuss its significance.

IL. — The venerable Mechtilde of Spaheim! one day received the heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary with a legend that recalled the merits and the benefits. Another time?, the same saint expressed in prayer a strong desire to possess the Beloved of his soul. Suddenly the divine virtue attracted his heart so powerfully, that he seemed to him to ascend to the very side of the Saviour, from whom she received a sweet and sweet kiss. By this kiss, Jesus intoxicated his heart so much and poured upon her so much grace, that all the members of the pious virgin seemed to have become so many sources that watered the saints; so that all, moved with extraordinary joy and holding their hearts in their hands, like ardent lamps filled with heavenly blessings, which, from Mechtilde, flowed upon them, all gave to the Lord immortal thanksgiving.

Saint Gertrude, his companion and his sister in religion, reports in the cmquième book of his REVELATIONS* that Notre-

1 Lib. of sp. graltia, 1. 1, c. 65, p. 252. _® Ibid., 1. 2, c. 14, p. 303. 8 C. 7 p. 700: Ipse Dominus..., commonfaciens eam doni illius prædi-

Lord appeared to Mechtilde at the time of his death, and that, reminding him of the insignia he had given him a few years before, to give him his heart as a pledge of his love, the joys and consolations that this gift had spread in his soul, he said to him with a face full of blessing: "Where is my present?" To which she answered by offering her heart, which she plunged into the heart of her Beloved. And Our Lord, in turn, applying his sacred Heart to the heart of the virgin, took it entirely by the virtue of his divinity, and fortunately put it into possession of eternal glory.

Saint Gertrude' tells us again of herself that she had received on several occasions a similar grace from the divine Savior, who sometimes simply gave her her heart, sometimes, by a more touching witness of their mutual familiarity, exchanged her for her.

Our Lord promises Saint Mary Magdalene of Pazzi* the gift of her heart, and he places this blessed heart between the arms of this faithful lover, who bursts into transports of love and thanksgiving.

In an apparition to the Blessed Jeanne de Valois, gnissimi, quo ante aliquot annos... cor suum donaverat sibi in pignus amoris.. Hinc blandissime salutans ipsam, have: And ubi is xenium meum? Ad quod illa cor suum in cor dilecti sui obtulit et immersit. Dominus quoque cor suum sanctissimum cordi illius applicans, totam ear suæ divinitatis virtute absorptam gloriæ suæ feliciter sociavit.

1 Rev. 1. 2, c. 23, p. 141. Deificatum cor tuum præbendo..., nunc gratis dando, nunc ad majus indicium mutuæ familiaritatis illud mihi pro meo commutando.

2 V. Pucoxi, BB. 25 Mayi, t. 49, p. 230, n. 202-204: Tune promised ei Dominus dare cor suum quemadmodum olim S. Catharinæ Senensi.. Aperiens brachia seque versus Sponsum suum elevans, recepit cor ejus... Tantamque ostendebat lætitiam, ut quasi respirare non amplus valens, vieretur abitura ex hac misera vita.

3 Trial of cannon. BB. 4 febr., t. 4 p. 583, n. 8: Vidit Christum up to Matrem... prædictas epulas, duo scilicet corda in disco, sibi offerentes. Volens proinde and ipsa cor suum secundum Cbristi petitionem apponere,

manum in sinum misit; illudque non reperiens, plurimum obstupuit, dulssimo Jesu suaviter ei arridente. Sed nihil mirum, if not repererit, quod

Our Lord and his holy Mother, who had promised him a sweet feast, presented him on a dish two hearts, inviting him to join his. She carries her hand to her side and finds herself, with a stupefying repeat of her ecstasy, that she has no more heart in her chest, while the Saviour smiles at her surprise with an incomparable suavity. What amazes her historian, that she did not find where she sought him her heart united by love to the Heart of Jesus and living rather in Jesus than in her own body?

"Holy Catherine of Ricci!" said the Most Holy Virgin, "and urged her to obtain from her son Jesus a new heart, all divine and all heavenly. It was the 6th of June of the year 1541, at the age of nineteen, that she received this favor, the Day of the Feast of the Corps of Our Lord. On the morning of that day, after receiving Holy Communion, she was delighted in spirit in heaven. There, it seemed to her that the glorious Queen of Angels presented her to Our Lord Jesus Christ her son and prayed with humble instances that she would kindly grant her the grace to change her heart, as she had long wanted for so long. The Son of God shuddered to hear the prayer of his august Mother. Then, in one of her love drunkennesses, as the blessed ones feel, she felt something mysterious to accomplish in her heart region, and the waves of an unknown life suddenly spread within herself. The divine Redeemer had just taken away his heart and given him a new one, formed in the pattern of that of his most holy Mother, the Virgin Mary. An immense, unspeakable joyss of Catherine when she saw herself in possession

jam cordi Christi per amorem unitum, in eo magis quam proprio in corpore vivebat. 1 P. Hyac. Bayoxne. Life of Saint Catherine of Ricci, c. 8, t. 1, p. 137.

of another life, of another being far superior to that which she had before. It was not an illusion produced by her presence in the sojourn of the blessed; for, after her ecstasy, having regained her senses and touched earth, she saw well that it was a blessing, a real gift of divine munificence."

If the prodigy did not exceed the proportions we have just described, it would certainly be extraordinary; but at last it could be brought closer to several other supernatural manifestations by which God and the Redeemer give to hear their merciful love for the creature. What disconcertes human thought is that, in many, this renovation seems to be accomplished by a material extraction from the natural heart, and the substitution, after a more or less considerable time, of a new heart, and, in addition to an encounter, of a heart that Our Lord has claimed to be his own.

Let's mention it, because here we need facts.

III. — Blessed Osanne of Mantua! One day, the divine goodness begged her to change her heart. Jesus, accessing his prayer, opened his chest to him, removed the Heart Island, and after showing him the stains and defects, he disappeared, taking him into his hands. Osanne thus remained for some time deprived of this organ of life. After a short wait, her husband returned, holding a new heart from which came from all sides of the rays.

1 Fr SyLvestre. BB. 18 Jun., t. 24 p. 579, n. 98 and 99: Christo coeælesti Juncta knownbio, nulla cor terreni amoris infectum iri macula gestiens.., ab ipso summa fide cor alterum small. Excipit ille fabili benignac aure sponsæ sanctissimas preces: nam ad eam summo splendore coeæli delapsus, aperto ejus latere, inde cor propria evelit manu, non mediocri Osanneæ delectatione.. Aliquantulum temporis post decerptum cor, exanimis perstitit; ignara prorsus quod illud Sponsus (sese enim occuluerat) detulisset. Post modicam cunctationem rediit, alterum cor ferens quod ardent omnifariam radios emittebat, idque priorities recondidit loco. Tum sponsam affatur: Egi, carissima sponsa, quod merogaveras. Tantoque Christi desiderio affect, ut tres annos liberum nunquam senuum usum habuerit.

And then I'm going to go in the first place and say, "I have done, my dear wife, what you have asked me to do: now, in your turn, to love me with all your strength, to obey me, and to honor me." The servant of God was confused with thanksgiving, and from that moment she felt in her renewed heart incredible ardour for divine things, and her transports to Our Lord were such that she spent three years without regaining the free use of her senses.

- Blessed Catherine of Racconigi had renewed her heart up to five times in a miraculous way. Let's hear about this from Fr. John of Saint Mary, in his naive and maneful style.

"Like another Saint Catherine of Siena, whose most perfect imitation she pursued, our Blessed often saw in her mouth this jaculatory prayer of the royal prophet: O God, create a pure and worldly heart as a hub, and renew your Holy Spirit within me. She once said this verse with so many larines and sobbings (it was the third day of August, the eve of our Father Saint Dominique, at prime time, 1512), that Our Lord, having compassion for the one who so ardently claimed his help, appeared with a group of saints who accompanied him. He gave his blessing and long maintained several great secrets which he revealed to him. After quoy, she, urging a pure and clean heart, luy pulled away hers from the chest, which was found covered with dust and seemed as languishing everywhere, except one place d'iceluy, where he saw there written in letters of silver: JESUS, SPES MEA, Jesus, my hope. Jesus Christ hurled him into his hands, and he set him free in the presence of this com- Fr. Lives of the Holy and Bountyful Daughters of the Golden of Santo Domingo, vol. 4,19, c. 6; p. 433-436. hi pa

He turned these letters of silver into gold, and gave them in his first place.

"Since such a favorable visit, Blessed Catherine, growing every day into a greater awareness of God's infinite perfections, she also believed in more vehement desires to keep her heart pure and clean, which housed in the same purity. To the desires were joined prayers, and to the prayers, tears and sobs, asking again the same favor, which she saw received from her husband on the aforementioned visit. What finally she had, the following year, which was 1513, on a day of St. Catherine, martyrdom. Our Lord Luy appeared accompanied by his holy Mother, Saint Catherine the martyrdom, and several other saints; and then, coming in love with her, he put his hand on his chest, and luy took away his heart for the second time, and immediately disappeared. She fell grim with pain, and though she had no heart, Jesus Christ, who is not attached to the laws of nature when he acts by his extraordinary power, brought her back to soy, and regained her heart without having a heart, within ten whole days, yet suffering incredible pains. At the end of his life, Our Lord Luy appeared to be head, holding in his hands the heart which he saw torn away, so beautiful, so pure and clean, that he no longer seemed to be that which he had seen; and then gave him away as before in his place.

"With more magnificence and effect, Jesus Christ luy took away and cleared the heart for the third time, the thirtieth of his age, the year of salvation 1516, on the fourth of May, the day of the glorious Ascension. At this feast, contemplating the glory of her Saviour ascending to heaven, she was suddenly surprised by a certain part of her heart, wishing that he would follow Jesus Christ in his triumphant entrance into heaven... "Me voicyy, Catherine," said Jesus-

Christ, who likes him at the same time, I want to take with me this heart that burns with love for moy. On this he opened his chest, and took away his heart for the third time, and held it with silk within fifty-five days. Unheard of, and more than wonderful, the play on its side was so wide and large, that it sucked and breathed air by icelle.

"The day of St John the Baptist came, where the number of the days mentioned ended, his seraphim and guardian angel appeared, warning that she was preparing for the visit of Jesus Christ, who was soon to come down to bring back her heart... But when she answered her guardian angels, a great light melted in the chamber, and in the middle of it, Jesus Christ appeared. At the same time, Blessed Catherine threw herself on the floor, stretched out her arms on the cross, and worshiped her Savior. He lifted her up himself, and with his right hand he handed his heart to his natural place. Then he says these beautiful words: "You know, my dear wife, that I am the eternal wisdom that has done and perfected all things of nothing, and that it is in my will to do and to redo the hearts of my friends and elect: seeing that this heart, which you have offered me so many times and consecrated me, I make it more beautiful, purer and more ardent than ever it was."

One fourth and one cmquieth time, the Saviour rips out his heart from this admirable virgin, not to renew him, but to make him a victim of reparation. She herself confessed that after the last extraction, she had been seven Days without heart!.

Let us now hear the Blessed Marguerite-Marie Alacoque tell us how this amazing miracle is accomplished on her own.

1 Lives of the Holy and Blessed Daughters of the Order of Saint Dominique, t. A, 1. 2: C. 6, Pi 446. + C, 8, P- k49.

"Once then," she wrote! "Being before the Blessed Sacrament, I found myself fully invested in this divine presence, but so strongly, that I forgot about myself and the place where I was, and I gave myself up to this divine Spirit, giving my heart to the strength of his love. He made me rest for a long time on his divine breast, where he discovered to me the wonders of his love and the inexplicable secrets of his sacred Heart, which he had always kept me hidden until he opened me for the first time, but in such an effective and sensitive way that he left me no place to doubt it. He asked me my heart, which I begged him to take, which he did, and put it in his adorable one, in which he made me see him as a little atom that was consumed in this fiery furnace, from where, taking him as a burning flame in the form of a heart, he put him back to the place where he had taken him, saying to me, "This, my beloved, is a precious pledge of my love, which contains in your side a little spark of its brightest flames, to serve you as a heart and consume you until the last moment... And for the mark that the great grace which I have just given you is not an imagination, and that it is the foundation of all those which I have yet to do to you, though Jj! have closed the wound on your side, the pain will remain to you forever..." After such a great favor, continues the saint, and which lasted such a long time during which I was born knew whether I was in heaven or on earth, I remained several days like any burning and intoxicated, and so out of me that I could not return, to say a word, but with violence. This wound, whose pain is so precious to me, causes me so much ardour, that it consumes me and makes me burn alive."

The life of the Blessed, written by herself, t. 2, p. 379.

There are few mystical favours in which the venerable mother Agnés de Langeac did not participate; the one we are talking about did not miss her. Here's what we read in his story!.

"At the beginning of the year 1626, as she was praying after the Vepers, she was in a more wonderful delight than the ordinary, where she seemed to her that her husband took her heart and took it away. After that, she was long dead. At the last sign of Complies, she heard a voice in her interior saying: "Arise, my dear daughter, will sing the praises of your divine Husband." And then it seemed to her that her heart was put back in her place, and suddenly she felt her strength restored as before. This same favor has been granted to him several times."

IV. — The miracle grows again, when this renewal of the heart takes place by the substitution of the very heart of Jesus Christ.

Saint Lutgarde® had received the gift of healing by the simple touch all kinds of infirmities; but the help of the unhappy becoming an obstacle to the life of prayer, she asked that this grace be withdrawn from her, and that in exchange God give her the intelligence of the psalms, so that she could recite the office with more devotion. This prayer was answered, and yet the wife of Christ was not yet satisfied. Then the Lord said to him: "What do you want?""What I want is your heart!""And I desire yours even more.""Let it be so," exclaimed Lutgarde, "that the love of your heart be the love of mine,

1 Of LANTAGES, Life of V. Mother Agnes, 3rd P., c. 5, t. 2, p. 132.

3 CANTIMPRE THOMAS, BB. 146 Jun., t. 24 p. 193, n. 12: Cui Dominus: Who's living? Volo, inquis, cortuum. And Dominus: Quin ego potius and cor tuum volo. He said: Ita sit, Domine... Facta is ex tunc communicative cordium.

and that I have not my heart more than I have in you!" And this happy communication was accomplished immediately.

Saint Catherine of Siena ‘ once with a repetition of fervor the prayer of the prophet: "Create in me, my God, a pure heart." Immediately she saw her divine husband coming to her, opening her left side, extracting her heart and moving away. The vision passed, she realized that it had not been purely symbolic, for she could not grasp in her chest any sign that accused the presence of the heart. Having gone to find her confessor, she did not hesitate to declare to her the prodigy, and as he was only laughing at it and rebuked her from her credulity, considering that it was impossible to live without heart: "Nothing is impossible to God," said Catherine, "and I cannot help but believe that my heart has disappeared from my chest." And for several days he was heard repeating that she lived without a heart. At some point from there Jesus appeared again in the light, having in his hands a human heart, red and luminous like the flame. At this sight, the humble wife bowed down in a holy simmering. The Lord came to her, opened her for the second time on the left side, and placed the heart he held in his hands at the place,

1 CAPOUE RAYMOND, BB. 30 a.m., t. 12 p. 907, n. 479-180: Videhatur siquidem ei quod Sponsus æternus ad eam solito more vendreet, up latus sinistrum aperiens, cor inde abstraheret et discederet, sicque ipsa sine corde penitus remaneret.... Pluribus diebus hoc idem repetens, se dixit vivre sine corde.

In luce appeared ei Dominus, habens in sacris suis manibus cor quoddam humanum rubicundum and lucidum... Appropians Dominus, latus ejus sinistrum aperuit iterum, ipsumque cor, quod in manibus gestabat intromittens, inquis: Ecce, carissima filia, sicut pridie tibi abstuli cor tuum, sic in presentiarum trado tibi cor meum quo semper vivas. And his dictis, aperturam quam in carne fecerat, clausit and solidavit...... Remansitque in signum miraculi loco illo cicatrix obducta, prout ejus sociæ mihi et pluribus aliis frequenter se vidisse bonduerunt, et ipsa mihi seriose percunctanti negare non valens, verum esse confitens, confirmavit.

Telling him: "My dear daughter, I have taken your heart; now I give you mine, that it may be your life from now on." After these words, he closed and solidified the opening that he had made in the flesh, leaving the edges of a scar to stand as a sign of the miracle "that his sisters, added Blessed Raymond de Capua, assured me, as well as several others, to have seen with their eyes, and which she herself confessed to exist." From that day on, it was impossible for him to say again the prayer that had been on his lips all the time: "Lord, I recommend my heart to you!" and 1 it seemed that his chest had become a furnace whose ardours doubled at the sight and approach of the Holy Eucharist, so that his companions then heard as a sounding and harmonious sparkle of flames! escaping from his heart.

Let us mention among these wonders, more multiplied than we think?, a last example that we borrow from the life of Saint Michael of the Saints.

"The fact that we have to tell," writes his biographer, "is one of the greatest proofs of love that Our Sergneur has given to some of his most faithful servants. F. Michael had given himself to God so perfectly from childhood, that he could say from then on... that his beloved was all his own and that he was all his beloved.... But as love is one of those things that never say: It's enough, it seemed to him that he didn't like beautiful-

4 RAyMoND DE CAPOUE, BB. 30 a.m., t. 12 p. 907, n. 481: Videndo vel sumendo Sacramentum altaris, novum et indibile gaudium generabatur in mente ipsius, ita ut sæpius cor ejus præ gaudi saltaret in corpore, faciendo streptum sonorosum sive sonantem, quem clarissime audiebant sociæ circumstantes.

2 See IMBERT- GOURBEYRE, Shohahetiôn, 2nd P., ch.5,t. 2, p. 57.

8 Louis DE SAINT-JACQUES, Life of Saint Michel-des-Saints, ch. 4 p. 85, by Veyrenc. Paris, Vivès, 1862.

and all his desires were to love him more and more.

"As he was one day praying, in this usual disposition of mind, not satisfied with his love for God, he asked Our Lord Jesus Christ to change his heart and to give him another more tender and more sensitive to the attractions of divine love. This loving petition was so pleasant to Our Lord, it was so well received and so widely answered, that never could the beggar have imagined what a singular mark of friendship his divine Master wanted to give him. Ge sovereign Lord took away the heart of his beloved Michael, and instead of that heart which he took and hid in his chest, he put his own heart, leaving the Brother so happy, so rich in this exchange and so much burning with love, that it is impossible for a pen to trace these mysteries.

"This admirable privilege, Fr. Michel himself told his confessor, F. Francis of the Mother of God, who deposited him under the oath, and he was not only a witness above all suspicion, but a man of merit distinguished by his virtues and doctrine.

"Although this fact did not require further evidence... it nevertheless pleased Our Lord to make him known in another way for the honor of his servant and faithful friend. In Seville there was a nun of the Order of the Decadals, the venerated Anne of Jesus, who ended her days in this city with a great reputation of holiness, which Our Lord himself confirmed by performing some miracles at her intercession on the day of her funeral. This servant of God wanted her good Master to burn so much of her pure love, that she could love her as much as the seraphim. In the pious tyranny of her fervour, she asked nothing less for her

sweet Jesus as the gift of his own heart. And it seems that this good Maister did not offend this boldness, since he said to him, "I will not give you my heart, because Michael has it, and I have his." One day, when the same servant of God was in prayer, Our Lord showed him the F. Michael, and she lives in her chest, instead of the heart, the child Jesus surrounded by flames."

V. — This is the miracle. Now it's about explaining it.

In any way that it operates and is heard, one cannot fail to see in this change of heart the testimony of a renovation of the emotional life of the soul.

But isn't there just a symbol? The extraction from the heart, the concession of a new or renewed heart, especially what brings the wonder to its peak, the substitution of the very heart of Jesus Christ, is all of this happening only, or is it necessary to see physical, concrete realities there? Do we have to take these narratives rigorously to the letter?

In order to respond more accurately and accurately, these multiple and diverse points of view should be considered separately.

The truthfulness of the accounts made before, once admitted, it becomes unquestionable that the extraction of the heart was material, true. How else can we explain the scar that closes the opening, as we have seen in Saint Catherine of Siena; the pain that follows the operation, as in the Blessed Marguerite-Marie; this blissful wound by which Blessed Catherine of Racconigi aspires the outside air for more than fifty days? The alternative is inevitable: you have to go through the fact or contest the narrative.

But a reasonable mind does not contest without just

grounds for mistrust. What can these motives be? On the one hand, witnesses and sources do not appear to have anything suspicious, apart from the fact that they bring in. Thus, the very fact, which would be criticized for its impossibility or its strangeness, would remain. However, in the order of quota, there is nothing necessary. God could have organized man without making him a heart: why would he be forbidden to keep his life after taking away this main viscera? This would obviously be a departure from the current and ordinary laws of the human organism; but this derogation is not an impossibility; it bears another name, familiar to believers: it is called the miracle.

Strange miracles, we may say."To this it is said that all miracles are more or less strange in relation to the current order, and that God has no more to take advice from the creature to redo or modify it, than to give it the being and its first form.

If it is admitted that extraction is physical and real, the renewal or change of the heart presents no difficulty, especially to those who consider that this result responds to the desires of the saints and sets forth the fundamental reason for the prodigy.

But, in fact, what is the relationship between this reorganization of the body heart and Mystics, the holy and supernatural life of the soul?

In addition to the reason for meaning we have indicated, there is another more direct one that derives from the very nature of man. Man consists of a double element, soul and body, so united and organized that the body has life and action only through the soul, and that the soul enters into consciousness of its most intimate operations only with the help of the body. The soul is the life of the body, and the body is the instrument of the soul. Seeing and loving is

The whole life of the soul is the whole soul. The conscious life of thought has the brain as the instrumental organ; the heart is the instrumental organ of conscious love. No doubt, the heart does not make love more than the brain does the thought: thought and love have their sources in the soul; but it is echo that returns from the body to the soul of this double operation, that man receives the attestation and the feeling: from this point of view, the heart is to love what the brain is to thought‘. Whether the right or wrong disposition of these organs is a help or an obstacle to the free exercise of psychological functions, it is a mystery for no one. The material organization of the heart, having its impact on the emotional life of the soul, the more perfect this organization will be, the more it will contribute to the inner perfection of love.

. The substitution of Jesus' heart in the heart of man is less easy to explain. It is at first unacceptable that the holy humanity of the Saviour should be dispossessed of his own heart, so that he ceases to be hypostatically united with the person of the Word. It is no less so, that the heart of such or such a saint passes into the breasts of Christ, so much so that the Incarnate Word claims it as part of his divine personality.

Moreover, it is difficult to hear how the Saviour's physical heart can, without ceasing to belong to him, become another's heart, more so than many at a time. At the most, could we admit that Jesus Christ then gives his heart, in the same way

4 What we say here about the role of the heart in the psychological life of man seems to contradict recent assertions, produced in the name of experimental physiology. The disagreement may be only apparent. In any event, we believe that we can and must maintain traditional and unanimous statements of languages and peoples on the poïnt in question. — See. The Heart of Man and the Sacred Heart of Jesus, by M, A. Ricne, p. 109 et seq. Paris, 1878.

that he gives his body in Eucharistic communion, communicating under a symbol while remaining entirely himself.

Would not the most natural interpretation be, that by replacing his Heart with the pre-existing heart, Our Lord makes to the blessed creature whom he stripes and enriches in this way a double gift: to his soul, that of dispositions and feelings that reflect the intimate affections of his divine soul; to his body, that of a heart in harmony with the inner state, as his sacred heart was harmonious with the impulses of his soul!?

The learned Pope Benedict XIV adopted this interpretation by declaring venerable Michael of the Saints. This is what we read in the Life of this servant of God, concerning the miracle that we have already reported?: "Some first believed that this exchange had been real, real, physical. It even seems that Fr. F.-Joseph de Jésus-Marie, who wrote in 1688, shared this view and supported it with evidence that we could infer, if we wanted to get out of the limits within which our plan requires us to contain ourselves. However, this fact, considered rare and prodigious, was examined with som by the sacred congregation of the Rites, according to the rules of the severe criticism that such matters require and which are in the habits of this respectable tribunal, true areopage of the Catholic Church. And since the historian does not walk a sure step except when he follows this infallible guide, in keeping with his judgment, he must warn, in closing this account, only when N. S. Pope Benedict XIV declared the heroism of the virtues of Blessed P. F. Michel, he did

1 P. SERAPHIN, Study on the Heart of Jesus, n. 14, p. 459: Jesus Christ,

cannot give this soul the very substance of its divine Heart

hypostatically united with the person of the Word, by an excess of love gives him all the affections.

- What? Louis DE Saint-Jacques. Life of Saint Michael of the Saints, ch. 4 p. 87.

of his virtues an eloquent panegyric in the church of the convent of Saint Charles of the Spaniards, and in this speech he says, with this profound knowledge which is his own, that the exchange of the heart of Jesus with that of his faithful servant was a mystical and spiritual exchange; and this is now the opinion of those who settle themselves on the infallible judgment of the Church,"

The personal authority of Pope Benedict XIV, of glorious and scholarly memory, provides sufficient support for an opinion which it is not important to decide, without the need to resort to pontifical infallibility, which does not seem to have been exercised on this occasion.

Thus, in order to summarize our assessment of the phenomena that are the subject of this chapter, the renovation of the heart can be accomplished in a mystical way, and we are not obliged to assume any more when the statement of facts does not seem to require it. But when authentic and sincere testimonies reveal that in order to warn more effectively of the intimate transformations that he is carrying out in his saints, Our Lord extracts from their breasts, by a real and physical action, their hearts, to modify or replace him, nothing prevents us from taking these narratives to the letter. That if the substituted heart is the very heart of Jesus Christ, the alleged reasons make it difficult to hear this substitution of a real and physical exchange, and bring it back to internal and external transformations carried out on the Saviour's model.

1 The S. Congregation of the Rites consecrates this interpretation in the office of the saint of which we are talking: "Hunc servum suum fidelem speculiari voluit illustrire prodigio, quo ipse divini sui cordis mysticam commutationem cum corde illius inire dignatus est. — Brev. Rom. Pro aliq. locis, 5 Jul. lect. 6.

Chapter XXXII

Freedom from External Influences

Dispense from the law of gravity.—Suspension, ascension, ecstatic flight.—Supernatural agility out of ecstasy. Air races of Saint Christine the Admirable. — Energy of this ascental attraction. — Walk on the waters. — Explanation of these phenomena. — Ease of penetrating solid bodies. — Immovability, invulnerability, bodily inalterability. — Incombustibility. — The privilege of becoming invisible and the way of explaining it.

I. — We have just studied the intrinsic transformations that the saints receive, in their bodies, from the mystical life. We still have to consider the miraculous actions that they exercise outside and the reactions that they escape. In relation to the middle, all privileges are, in fact, reduced to this twofold point of view: freeing and influencing; freeing from external servitudes, and, around oneself, extranatural influence on the surrounding beings. The first of these aspects provides the subject matter of this chapter, the second will be the subject of the next chapter.

The most varied and surprising exemptions concern the law of gravity.

Body beings are connected like rings of a long chain by actions and reactions that extend and pass through to the last con-

the physical world. At each point in the material space, is the result of the reciprocal actions of the parts which make up one another.

Considered in general, this primordial law of matter which puts its constituent elements in relation to dependence, liaison or, as the scholastic philosophers express, continuity, bears the name of attraction; and, applied to the relationship with the mass of objects that loom, this is what we call gravity. All bodies are subject to the imperious attraction that pushes them towards the center of the earth, until the balance is established between action and resistance; the living bodies themselves undergo it. However, organic life is a kind of struggle and reaction against this enslavement of matter by matter, and the more powerful and clear the principle of life, the more the body he animates and commands seems to be subtracted from outer servitudes. A valiant soul communicates to the members and organs something of the prestyness and agility of the mind.

In mystical life, this spiritualization is often carried to the miracle. Leaving aside the ordinary phenomena that result from the simple influence of the soul on the body, as an easy, light, precipitated walk, quick and sharp movements, under the impulse of an inner transport: facts moreover, which we have pointed out the wonderful character in speaking of ecstasy and jubilation; — at present, we only want to mention these derogations from the physical law of gravity which vital action is not enough to explain.

II. — They occur mainly in ecstasy, and to varying degrees. It is little ecstatic that had been seen, once or another, in their ravishing, raised above the ground, suspended in the air without support, floating sometimes and swinging at the slightest breath.

"In the delight," wrote Saint Terèse!, "my body became so light, that he had no more gravity, at this point, that sometimes I could not feel my feet touching on the ground." When Mary d'Agréda® was seized by ecstasy, her body also rose as if it had not had any natural weight, and a breath, even far away, made her oscillate and move like a light feather. Hundreds of such examples would be cited. In particular, several holy priests are told, including St Peter's of Alcantara %, St Philip's of Néri', St Francis Xavier®, St Joseph's of Copertinof, St Paul's of the Cross, whom they had at the altar of these aerial ecstases.

Sometimes it's not just an elevation above the ground, but a real ascent in the air. Dominique of Jesus Mary, a Carmelite religious, so famous by his ecstasy, rose to the point that his brothers could barely, by extending their arms, touch the soles of his feet. Saint Peter d'Alcantara * sometimes reached, in his trans-

1 His Life, ch. 20.

2 XIM. SAMANIEGO, Life of the Ven. Mother Mary of Jesus, ch. 9, p. 87.

3 Fr. LaurenT, BB. 19 Oct., t. 56, p. 734, n. 138: Antequam ad sanctissimi corporis communionem "pervenisset, vehementi raptu per tres horas ultra cubitum a terra sublevatus, etc.

4 BarnaBri, BB. 26 Mayi, t. 19, p. 584, n. 359: Cum pridie Sacrum faces atque in aere sublimem you emptyrem.

ÿ Bounours, Life of S. François Xavier. 6, D. 557: From time to time, during the sacrifice of the Mass, when he had just pronounced the words of the consecration, he was so raised.

25 Pasrroviccni. BB. 18 Sept., t. 45, p. 1035, n. 93: Vidit illum..: ad elevationem consecratæ hostiæ tribes palmis a terra elevari.

7 SrraMBt, Life of B. Paul of the Cross, 1. 2, c. 3, t. 1, p. 301: The servant of God slew in the air two palm trees, twice before and after the consecration.

‘8 CARAMUEL, Dominicus; c. 5, p. 138: Crebro raptus in th a terra elevabatur; and ad altitudinem tantam interdum, ut Religiosi vix RE ejus in aere pendentis corporis plantas manibus tangere.

- Fr. Lauhent, BB. 19 Oct., t. 56, p. 764, n. 239: Ita ut.orans in choro

and in Dei FRMERRANoNE absorptus usque ad net prautus ardore ferretur..

ports, to the walls of the choir. One day of Ascension, while she was psalding in the garden between two of her companions, Blessed Agnes of Bohemia, suddenly delighted, slew in their eyes, where they soon lost sight of her; and it was not until after an hour that she appeared again, the face radiating with grace and joy. Several times, during his contemplative prayer, St Colette disappeared entirely in space to the gaze of her sisters.

Some ecstasy prints the body with a quick and impetuous movement that was precisely described as theft. Saint Peter of Alcantara*, hearing singing in the garden of the convent, by a brother who was exercising at the office, the first words of the Gospel according to St John: IN PRINCIPIO ERAT VERBUM, is suddenly delighted out of himself; and, gathering in ball by a kind of irresistible instinct, no longer touching the ground, he sneezes, crosses with incredible speed, without injury n1 accident, three very low doors that led to the church, and comes to rest in front of the great altar, where his brothers who ran after him find him damaged in ecstasy. He often kneeled at the foot of the trees, and there, seized by the ecstasy, he rose, with the lightness of the bird, to the highest branches. Blessed Philippin #, also of the order of Saint Francis, remained suspended in the

1 BB. 6 mart., t. 7 p. 510, n. 10: Eo die quo Asrensum Domini in caelos Ecclesia solemnem agite, cum in horto inter Benignan and Priscam virgines psalleret, rapta ex medio illarum, vix in hora illis reddita leaks.

2 Er. Pe Juuiers, BB. 6 mart., 1. 7 p. 558, n. 83: Pluralis visa leak a prædictis Religionis corporaliter elevata sic in altum in aera, quod ipsarum penitus frustabatur intutus, ab earum oculis evanescens.

3 Fr. LAURENT, B.B. 19 Oct., t. 56, p. 764, n. 239: Sæpe ad radices arborum genuflexus, supremos ramos velut avis volando atlingere vieillebatur; aliquando ab horto ad ecclesiam souvio impetu per aera ducebatur.

# BB. 95 a.m., t. 12 p. 408, n. 6: Ad consortia rapiebatur Angelorum. supra altissimas quasque arbores elevatus. Viderunt eum aliquando.. immobiliter in aere herentem supra ilices proceras.

airs, over the big oaks, like an eagle that glides freely.

These wonders overabound in the life of Blessed Joseph of Copertino!. He was seen flying to the vaults of the church, on the banks of the pulpit, along the walls where the crucifix hanged or some pious image, towards the statues of the Blessed Virgin and the saints, hovering on the altar and around the tabernacle, shoveling in the air and at the tops of the trees, standing and swinging on the smallest branches with the lightness of a bird, crossing a leap of great distances. A word, a look, the slightest incident concerning piety threw him into these transports. We would like to be able to describe some of these scenes which the world would tax strange and ridiculous, and which we find admirable, because they attest to the wonderful power of holy souls on the body and on nature, and even better on the heart of God, which frees them at his own discretion from vulgar servitudes; but these prolonged descriptions are not part of our purpose.

IL. — Supernatural agility is still manifested outside of ecstasy, and in the multiple forms we have just described. Marguerite of the Blessed Sacrament? passed almost instantly from one point to another. She was found in the choir, in the infirmary, in the exercise room, without even the doors being opened, and several times her sisters saw her lifted up above the ground, as if her body no longer had gravity. One day she was going to pick a grape for a sick woman, and they saw him raising as effortlessly as far as the height of the fruit, untiring it and returning to the ground. Anne-Catherine Emmerich* tells her-

1 Pasrroviccui, BB. 18 Sept., t. 45, p. 1020 et seq. $ L. pe Cissey, Life of Marguerite of the Blessed Sacrament, c. 16, p. 199. 3 SCAMOGER, Life of Anne-Catherine Emmerich, xv,t.1, p. 243.

even as, fulfilling the functions of sacristine, she climbed and stood on the windows, on the cornices, on relief ornaments; that she cleaned everything in places humanly inaccessible, without experiencing fear or anxiety, accustomed that she was from childhood to be assisted by her good angel, and feeling moreover carried and supported in the air by an invisible virtue.

Not only the agility and the simple ascension meet outside of the ecstasy, but also the flight in what it has most wonderful. Saint Christine, nicknamed the Admirable, offers us an incomparable example. We do not have to discuss here the historical character of the amazing eccentricities attributed to this saint, which the Bollandists themselves call paradoxical; We are satisfied that these scholars have accepted the accounts that concern them and have declared them, at least in the part we claim, worthy of respect and debt.' To omit such accounts for fear of the scandal that unbelief can make of it would be to yield to a human respect that should have stopped us for a long time and which seems to us as contrary to piety as to science. Here is in a few words the preciseness of this singular existence.

Christine? was born in Saint-Trond, in the province of Liège, in the middle of the 20th century. Orphan early, she remained with two sisters, her eldest, and was

busy keeping herds in the fields. But,

1 BB. 24 Jul., t. 32, p. 637, n. 2: De nostræ Sanctæ, quantum paradoxæ, mirabilibus mox temere non judicemus.

2 Thomas DE CANTIMPRÉ, BB. t. 39, p. 654, n. 4 and 5: Memorabilis Christi virgo Christina ex oppido S. Trudonis in Hasbania honestis parentibus oriunda leaks... Ex interno contemplationis exercitio virtute corporis infirmata, vita excederet... Mane ergo facto, ad ecclesiam deportatur. Cumque, pro depositione ejus missarum oblateio firet, soudio commotum corpus exsurrexit in feretro, statimque comme avis evecta, templi trabes ascendit.... A presbytero ecclesiæ sacramento constricta, est coacta descendere.

activated by contemplation, the ardour of his soul became so intense that his body could not resist it. She fell ill and died. The next day his body was taken to the church for the funeral ceremony. At the AGNus Der of the Mass that was celebrated for her, she was suddenly seen moving, rising in her coffin and flying like a bird to the vault of the temple. Everyone fled terrified, with the exception of the older sister, who remained there still, but not without fear, until the end of the Mass. At the priest's command, Christine went down without harming herself and returned home, where she took her meal. with her sisters. She then told the friends who had come to question her, that soon after her death the angels had taken her successively to purgatory, to hell, to heaven. There, the choice was given to him to remain forever in this place or to return to the earth, to work there, through his sufferings, for the redemption of the souls of purgatory, which she had accepted without hesitation!

He was not to miss purgatory, for from then on, for this admirable virgin begins the strangest life. The presence and smell of men is unbearable; to avoid it flees into the deserts, flies on the trees, at the top of the towers, at the gables of ‘churches, on all high points. It is believed to be possessed, pursued, topped to a great extent, and bound with iron chains. But she gets out and resumes her air races, going from one tree to another as would have been a bird. Hunger, however, the press; it then invokes the Lord,

1 CANTIMPRE TOMA, BB. t. 32, p. 651, n. 6 et seq.: Statim, inquite, ut defuncta sum, susceperunt meam animam ministeri lucis, angeli Dei, and deduxerunt me in quemdam locum tenebrosum... Hic locus purgatorius est. India deduxerunt ad tormenta inferni..... Post haec delata sum in paradise... And Dominus... Optionem propono: aut nunc scilicet permancere mecum; aut ad corpus reverti.. Responded.. old revert. Etc.

And, against all the laws of nature, her breasts distill an abundance of milk, which she feeds for nine weeks. A second time, it falls into the hands of those who pursue it, but it escapes them again and comes to Liège to ask a priest the divine Eucharist. With this heavenly food, she leaves the city, carried away by the spirit with the rapidity of a whirlwind, crosses the Meuse, light as a ghost, and resumes her wandering life, far from human homes, at the tops of trees and towers, often on the pious ones that bordered the hedges, on the thinnest branches, where she rested and swung like a passerine.

Shameful of these apparent extravagances, which the public attributed to a legion of demons, his sisters and friends paid for it to recover a wicked man, very strong, who began to pursue him. He did not reach her with his hands, but he joined her close enough to break her leg bone with a blow of a club, and it was in this state that he brought her back to his sisters. For compassion, they had her driven on a cart to a doctor in Liège, recommending her both to heal her and to hold her captive. He locked him in a cellar that had no other opening than the entrance, tied him strongly to a column and closed the door, after having applied the proper bandages to the fractured limb. As soon as he had withdrawn, Christine rejected this apparatus, considering it unworthy of resorting to a doctor other than the Savior Jesus. His hope was not deceived. One night God's spirit came to melt upon her, broke her chains, healed her from her wound; and she, free, ran and stumbled from Joy in that dungeon, praising and blessing Him for whom only she had resolved to live and: to die. Soon, her mind feeling narrow between these walls, she manages, with the help of a large stone, to open a way out, and, quick as the

A trait that escapes from the powerfully tense bow, it sways outside and regains its freedom.

Recaptured a third time, she was bound with chains to a wooden bench, so closely that her flesh was soon taken off. When she was filled with sufferings and the torment of hunger came in, she again resorted to the Lord, and they saw her breasts pour out, as we have already told, a clear oil, which she watered her bread and anointed her wounds. Waiting for this show, his sisters, previously inhumane by unbelief, took away his chains and allowed him to follow freely the spirit that was enthralling. She continued her holy follies for many years, for he was forty-two years between his first resurrection and his death, which came about the year 1224!

IV. — This ascending power sometimes occurs with such energy that no obstacle is able to contain it. What we have just said about Christine the Admirable would suffice to prove it; but this is not the only example. Let us still point out St Joseph of Copertino, in whom seem to gather all the wonders of ecstatic life. One day of the Immaculate Conception, 1 mvite the Guardian Father to say again with him: PuccarA Maria! "Mary is beautiful!" And as soon as he repeated these words, the saint, entering into ecstasy, seized his superior with arm-body and carried him with him in the air, one and the other saying in concert: PuLcHRA Maria! PuzcHRA Maria! Another time, a gentleman with dementia is brought to him, so that he may obtain his healing from God. The saint made him kneel, and put his hand on his head: «Lord Baltazar, he

1 CANTIMPRE THOMAS, B.C.T. 32, p. 659, n. 54: Vixit autem postquam primo resurrexit a mortuis quadraginta duobus annis, and defuncta is anno circiter ab Incarnatione Domini mccxxiv.

- What? Pasrroviccui, BB. 18 Sept., t. 45, p. 1022, n. 37 and 38.

Says 1:1, be without fear; I commend you to God and his most holy Mother." At the same time he utters the usual cry which proclaims ecstasy: "Ah!" seized this man by the hair, rose with him in the space, where he held him suspended for a while; when his feet found ground, the sick man was healed.

V. — Air ascension is not the only form of supernatural agility; it also occurs by walking on the water. The Gospel! offers us the first examples. It is known that the Saviour walked on the waves as well as on the dry land, and that he granted the prince of the apostles to come to him on the waves of rest. The miracle has been reproduced a thousand times on the sea, on lakes, rivers and rivers, to testify that God is pleased to free his saints from natural bondages.

The Roman Breviary? reports, among the most brilliant miracles attributed to Saint Raymond of Pégnafort, his crossing of the Majorca island in Barcelona, that is to say, a sea area of one hundred and sixty miles, which he and his companion crossed in six hours, without any more than his coat.

Saint Hyacinthe, not finding a boatman to cross the Vistula, took the sign of the cross and entered the river resolutely, whose waters became firm under his feet. But his less confident companions dared to follow him. So he returns to them, and, extending his coat on the waves, he makes them climb on them and thus leads them to the other bank under the eyes of a large crowd. The Church immortalized this miracle by consigning it

1 Matth. xIv, 25-31.

2 93 Jan., Lect. 6. Multa patravit miracula; inter quae illud clarisimum, quod ex insula Baleari Majori Barcinonem reverseurus, strato super aquas pallio, centum sexagina millia sex horis confecerit.

in the canonization bubble! and in the legend of the Breviary?.

In another encounter, the same saint renews this wonder in an even more brilliant way?. The Tartars had come to climb the city of Kiev by storm and were already giving up all the looting, when the saint, who was at the altar, was warned that there was not a moment to lose, if he wanted to save himself with all his community. He goes in that opinion, and without leaving the sacred clothes, he takes in his hands the holy ciborium and starts to get out. Towards the middle of the church, he hears a loud and complaining voice from a statue of the Virgin, in alabaster, weighing from eight to nine hundred pounds: "My son Hyacinthe shouts to him, you would give up the desecrations of the Tartars! Take me with you."Glorious Virgin," replied the devotee, "this image is so heavy; how can I carry it?""Take it, my Son will lighten the weight of it." The saint, holding the Holy Eucharist with one hand, seizes the statue as light as a reed; charged with this double treasure, he passes safely and with his own through the barbarians who already invade the monastery, and arrives on the banks of the Dniper. There he made a boat to his brothers from his rosary, and he walked through the river in all its breadth on a dry foot, printing on the waters the trace of his steps. We would have many other facts similar to

1 CLEMENT VIIL Bulla Canoniz:. 1594. — Bull. 6.

- What? BREvV. Rom. 16 Aug., Lect. 6. Inter quae (miracula) illud insignia, quod Vandalunm fluvium prope Visogradum, aquis redundantem, nullo navigio usus trajecit, sociis quoque expanso super undas pallio traductis.

3 BB. 16 Aug.,t. 37, p. 316, n. 40-41: Historiæ autem veritas sic habet.... Ipso ad altare sacra mysteria perficiente., ecce soudio ex repentino Tartarorum incursu clamor in urbe exortus est. Accepto ex sacrario divinissimo Sacramento, coepit refuge. And cum mediam ecclesiam transiisset, imago gloriosæ Virginis ex lapide alabastrino, weight quartet vel quinque talentorum, magna voce post ipsum clamare cœpit.. Substracta fratris es cappa, siccis pedibus in alteram partem fluminis trajecit.

tell, for they abound in the lives of the saints; but we must close these accounts to seek interpretation.

VI. — We will not stop at the rationalistic and fanciful explanations of Gôrres, who, with a seriousness to which his readers are not held, try to bring back these miracles of holiness to a physiological transformation where "the element of the air takes in man over others", where "the bird develops in him, so to speak, takes precedence over the brute, and, emerging from his envelope, flies joyfully towards the higher light that draws." With Joseph Lopez Ezquerra?, reproduced by Scaramelli*, we like to see in this release of earthly attractions an early and miraculous communication of the agility of glorious bodies. It is in contemplation that these phenomena occur regularly; out of there, they are only temporary exceptions; and contemplation, to the sentiment of mystical doctors, is a kind of prelude to eternal bliss: that is why it begins in the body what glorification will consume there for eternity.

VIL. — The miracle of agility is connected with the miracle of agility.

1 Mystique, 1. 4, ch. 23, t. 2, p. 367.

3 Luke. Myst. Tr. 5, c. 30, n. 339, p. 127: Videmus etiam in hac elevatione quasi dotes corporis, quandoquidem reperitur, liquet imperfecte, Im- PASSIBILITAS; Siquidem neuque pénam neque molestiam patitur, nec acus punctum dolet; susritras, quia redditor quasi diaphanum, and crystallinum, and potius vidétur coleste quam terrenum; AGILITAS, nam a terra in altum extollitur, ibique elevatum diu perstat, and ad tenussimum flatum, amisa omnino ejus gravitate, circumducitur; CLARITAS, quia manet formosum, rubicundum, and splendens.

3 Dirett. Mist. Tr. 3, c. 30, n. 276, p. 246: L-altra authority, appoggiota al commune parere de Dottori mistici, à quella.. cioè che la contemplazione é una beatitudine imperfetta dell-anima... If scorge di fatto nei corpi di quei Servi di Dio.. Ma più chiaramente si scuopre in essi la dote dell-agilità in quel stupendi elevazioni, per cui si sollevano prestamente in alto, e vi perseverano lungo tempo sospesi, diveniti mont a guisa di leggerissima piuma.

the formation of solid bodies. After his resurrection, the Saviour appeared to his disciples, although the doors of the house where they were gathered were closed! Saint Raymond de Pégnafort also entered his convent, the doors being closed. St. Dominique and a conversing brother of the Order of Citeaux who accompanied him arrive one evening in front of a church they find closed. They kneel at the door; but they hardly began their prayers that they saw themselves, by a mysterious favor, brought into the holy place, where they spent the night blessing the Lord.

This gift, which suppresses all the resistances of matter, seems to us to consist in premature enjoyment of the bodily subtlety promised to the blessed. This clearance of outer space is like a prelude to the complete freedom of glory #.

VIII. — Independence from external elements is still manifested in resistance to the actions they exercise.

Sometimes it is a immobility that makes all impulses and eflorts futile. One day, Blessed Gilles, of the Preachers Brothers, remained suspended in the air by ecstasy, his companion and the people of the house where they

1 Joan. xx, 19.

2 BRev. Rox. 23 Jan., Lect. 6. Suum coenobium, janus clausis, fuerit ingestus.

8 BB. 4 Aug., t. 35, p. 568, n. 47. Venit etiam aliquando famulus Omnipotentis cum quodam converso Cisterciensis ordinis...., ad unam ecclesiam sero, et invenit eam clausam: qui, cum orass ad ostium, intus se souvio, clausis januis, mibilier invenerunt.

4 Scaramelli, Direlt. mist. Tr. 3, C. 30, n. 276, p. 246: If scorge ancora nei loro corpi un vestigio di quella dote che chiamasi sottigliezza....., e alcuni, como narrasi nelle loro history, sono entratielle stanze a porte chiuse con quella failità con cui il raggio de sole penetra in un crystallo.

$ , B.B. 14 Mayi, t. 16, p. 409, n. 45. Absorptus est, ut terra elevatus, null standing, penderet immobilis. Quod cernens socius ejus., aliquot frustra pulsibus and attractionibus illum nitebatur de-

ponere: non enim modo moveri de loco non potuit, sed nec etiam vel aviter inclinari.

They tried to bring his body to the ground; they failed even to make him change his position. Saint Lucia, the martyrdom of Syracuse, threatened with infamous places, became so still, that neither the executioners who ordered him to be removed, nor several pairs of oxen to whom they tied with ropes, could ever cause her to stir.

Sometimes it is invulnerability against which the weapons and all the devices of torture come to break. Among the wonders of this kind, without many in the acts of martyrs, may we simply recall the wheel of Saint Catherine*, who flies in bursts at the prayer of this famous martyrdom. At other times, it is the poison that loses its virtue on the bodies of the saints, as seen in St.Antoine of Padua, who, after having made the sign of the cross on it, eats, in proof of the Catholic faith, the poisoned dishes that the heretics present to it, and does not receive any damage; in the martyr Saint Victor, who twice suffered victoriously the same ordeal, in the name of Jesus Christ; in the Blessed Apostle Saint Paul, who, bitten by a viper in the island of Malta, shakes it on the fire and does not feel any harm; in a large number of other saints, in whom the The Saviour's Word: "In

1 BREv. Rom. 13 Dec., 6 Lect. Luciam eo betrayed jussit ubi ejus virginitas violaretur. Sed divinitus factum is ut firma virgo ita consistantet, ut nulla vi de loco dimoveri possess.

2 Brev. Rom. 25 Nov., Lect. 6. Rota expeditor crebris and acutis præfixa gladiis, ut virginis corpus crudelissime dilaceraretur. Quae machina brevi, Catharinæ oratione, confracta est.

3 BB. 13 Jun., t. 23, p. 217, n. 6. Suadent ergo cibum sumat appositum, promittents, quod sibi nil nocuerit, fidei Evangelii adhærebund perpetuo.. Cibu ergo sumpto, sanus appeared nec sensit in corpore aliquid nocumenti.

4 BB. 14 Mayi, t. 16, n. 266, n. 4: Tunc jussit confici venenum mortiferum et dari in carnibus a malefico, ut edret ab eis.. And manducavit S. Victor and not died.

S Act xxVIL, 5. 6 Mark. xvi, 18.

My name, they will take the serpents, and if they drink any deadly drink, it will not harm them."

This privilege is like an attempt at glorious impassability for elected officials.

IX. — Among the natural agents, the most energetic is fire, Fire itself respects the favors of grace. We cannot count the number of martyrs that the flames dared to reach. Some, thrown, as in the past, in burning furnaces, come out without having lost a hair; such as Saint Victor #, Saint Ephyse#, Saint Christineÿ. Others, like Saint John the Evangelist, are immersed in boilers of boiling oil and regain the vigor of youth; these, like Saint Clement of Ancyra? and his companions, are watered with oil, pitch and sulphur, and remain intact; these, like Saint Polycarp # and Saint Agnes °, are placed on stakes whose flames, instead of consuming them, surround them with a protective rampart, or turn against those who light them.

The miracle is not only found in the martyrs, but also very frequently in the multitude of other saints. [It is some who carry in their hands, on their breasts and their clothes, coals or burning irons, which, without extinguishing in cold, temporarily suspend any combustive and deleterious action, so

4 ScARAMELLI. Direct. Myst. Tr. 3, n. 276, p. 246. If vedi in essi un non so che di impassibilità.

2 Dan. 1m.

3 BB. +4 Mayi, t. 16, p. 266, n. 3.

# Marc. BB. 15 Jan., t. 2, p. 285, n. 32.

5 BB. 24 Jun., t. 32, p. 527, n. 45. 6 TertuLz. De Præscript. hæret. v. 36, p. 285.

7 BB. 93 Jan.,t. 3 p. 80, n. 34.

8 BB. 26 Jan., t. 3 p. 319, n. 43.

9 S. Amen. BB. 21 Jan., t. 2, p. 716, n. 11.

among other things, it is said of Saint Duthac!, Saint Lambert, Saint Jole. Many, yielding to a secret inspiration of the Holy Spirit, accepted the test of fire; sometimes as testimony of the divinity of the Gospel, as Saint Boniface, "of the order of the Camaldules, who, in order to convince the king of the Russians of the truth of his preaching, passes through healthy and except an immense fire; sometimes, in proof of their innocence, as the Empress Saint Cunegunde, who justified himself from the infamous accusation of having failed to the conjugal faith by walking bare feet on plow-scrapped rooms; sometimes as a sign of some providential purpose, for example, Saint Christine Admirable $, who, having agreed, as we have said, to return to life in order to dedicate himself to the relief of the souls of purgatory, entered in burning furnaces, in boilers full of boiling water, suspected of such pains, that she was crying lamentable and yet came out without any sign of burning.

Ectatics seem to be particularly excluded from the law of combustion. Isl often came to Saint Catherine of Siena? to fall into the fire during her transports and to stay there even for several hours without having any harm, without his clothes being damaged. The ecstasy often carried Saint Joseph of Copertino® to the tabernacle-

1 BB. 8 mart., t. 7 p. 798, n. 1.. 2 BB. 19 mart.,t. 9, p. 37, n. 5. 3 BB. 9 Jun.,t. 22, p. 251, n. 1. 4 S. DAILY WELL, B.B. 19 Jun., t. 24 p. 760, n. 6. 5. BB. 3 mart.,t.7, p. 271, n. 2. 6 Thomas DE CANTIMPRÉ, BB. 24 Jul., t. 32, p. 652, n. 11.

7 CAPOUE RavmonD, BB. 30 a.m., t. 42, p. 894, n. 127: Ipsam de igne trahens, invenit et corpus et indumenta in nullo penitus læsa esuffesse ab igne; imo nec vestigium nec odorem ignis apparere in eis. And quod plus is... pluribus horis in igne fuisse credatur.

8 Pasrroviccai. BB. 18 Sept., t. 45, p. 1021, n. 29-34: Tabernaculum sanctissimi Sacramenti complexus, quarta circiter parte horæ suaviter raptus

in the midst of candles and lamps lit, and never did the fire take up his clothes. One day he prayed in the church of a convent in Naples, he was suddenly heard shouting and he was seen slamming towards the altar, flying, arms stretched on a cross, between candles and flowers: "He burns, he burns!" the frightened nuns shouted; but he, without disturbing anything and without the flame having reached him, returned from a light flight to his knees, repeating with transport these words: "Ah, the Blessed Virgin! Ah, the Blessed Virgin!" A fire broke out at the monastery of the Rosary and threatened the church where St. Peter of Alcantara "was in prayer. The brothers, approaching the Blessed, speak of taking the Blessed Sacrament away: "Do not be afraid," he said to them, "God will help us." Then, rising, he heads towards the neighbouring hermitage, where the fire was most ravaging, enters the midst of the flames, removes from it some tables half consumed; and the flames, as docile to his command, decrease and extinguish, without having dared to reach.

It should not be concluded from these facts that ecstasy regularly communicates non-combustibility; experience demonstrates, on the contrary, that this privilege is only the exception. If the ecstatics are subjected to the action of fire, they feel nothing, to the truth. in full transport; but as soon as they return to themselves they experience, as everyone else, the pain of burning, and they keep track of it on their limbs. To cite but one example, St. Michael of the Saints? used in his ecstasy to stretch out his arms on a cross; yet one day, while he was at the altar,

hæsit, nec tamen ullum e cereis ardentibus quorum altare plenum erat interim dejecit, nec ulla ipsius dressendi pars igne contacta est.

1 F. LAURENT. BB. 49 Oct., t. 56, p. 726, n. 1921.

- What? Louis pe Sainr-JACQUES. Life of Saint Michael of the Saints, ch. 6 p. 107.

He was suddenly delighted, and his hand met a lighted candle whose flame caused a deep wound in the flesh.

X. — On the independence of the outside world, we have yet to point out a final prodigy, that of escaping from the eyes by invisibility, a prodigy no less admirable than those we have just told, and of which a number of examples are cited.

Violent, Queen of Aragon, with a sense of curiosity easy to conceive in a person of her sex, asked St. Vincent Ferrier ‘to visit his room. The man of God refused to lend himself to such condescendence, and the sovereign, eagerly supporting this refusal, ordered that the cell be opened to him with force. But by a just punishment of her indiscretion, neither she nor her escort could ever see the saint, though he was present. As she asked the brothers who accompanied him where Father Vincent was, strangely surprised, they replied that he was there before his eyes. Then, addressing himself: "Good Father," they said to him, "why do you do so to His Majesty, when she gives you the honor of coming to you?" You don't say anything to her; you don't even stand up to greet her."You know, my friends," said Vincent, "that women are not allowed to enter our cells. It is no exception, even for the queen; and as long as she remains here, by a miracle of God, her eyes will not see me." The queen hastened out, and Vincent followed her. She could then see, and, bowing down at her feet, she asked her forgiveness with great humility. "If your fault, he said, had no excuse for a woman's ignorance, you

I've got RENZANE. BB. 5 April, t. 40, p. 495, n. 20: Violent, Aragoniæ regina, Joannis regis uxor, quadam femina cupiditate permota, affectabat ingredi viri Dei celulam. Etc.

would have been punished otherwise. Try to behave better with God's servants from now on, for he has severely avenged the wrongs that are done to them."

Father Tannoja, in his note on Brother Gérard, says: "Brother Gérard, constantly surrounded by priests and gentlemen, could no longer find the time or the means to gather. Having therefore asked Father Juvenal, the rector of the house, to be able to make a retirement feast, he granted it to him; but the next morning, in need of him, he sent him to his room, and he was not found there; he went to the choir, not to Brother Gérard; he was visited all the way, and he was not met anywhere. On these facts comes the doctor Santorelli, to whom Father Juvenal hastened to say: "We lost Brother Gérard." Santorelli replied: "Maybe he hid under his bed; let's go see." And taking a brother with him, he's going to examine everything by himself, but without any more success. "It is nothing," he said, "when the hour of communion is come, you will see him come out of his retreat." Indeed, he appeared precisely then; immediately the Rector Father called Gérard and asked him where he had been. "To my room," he replied. "How, in your room!" replied the Rector; "we were there twice without being there." Gérard was silent with a smile; but having received the command to explain such a strange thing, he said with simplicity: "Fearing to be distracted in my retreat, I asked Jesus Christ the grace to become invisible." This answer struck Father Juvénal and Santorelli astonishment; but the Rector said to him in a somewhat angry way: "What are these mysteries? For this time I forgive you; but be careful in the continuation of such prayers." The Chamber of

* Memories on Life and the Congress of S. Alph. of APTE t. 3, Appendix, p. 645.

Gérard had only twelve palm trees in square: there was only a poor bed and a small table, without any other furniture that could have prevented him from seeing it. 101, with the prophet king, that "God is admirable in his saints, and that he cannot refuse their prayers."

We find similar stories in the lives of St Stephen the Thaumaturge, St Coengen*, St Bonne de Pisa, St Anthuse, Blessed Névélo de Favence and others we might name, whose gestures are reported in particular stories and hagiographic collections, mainly in the ACTA SANCTORUM of the Bollandists, our favourite source, where we drew almost all the previous examples.

Sometimes they are not only temporary disappearances, it is the gift of invisibility at all times and at will. The disciple and biographer of St Stephen the Thaumaturge, Léoncef, held from his master that some anachorets obtained from God, through their prayers, to be able to avoid the will from human eyes, and he cites the name of a cenobite called John, who enjoyed this favor and had used it towards himself. The Greeks' Anthologology reports that the priest Saint Lucien, martyred in Nicomedia under Maximian, could at his own discretion, when he went out into the city, show himself or sever, so

1 Léonce, BB. 13 Jul.,t. 30, p. 449, n. 47.

2 BB. 3 Jun.,t. 21, p. 313, n. 39.

3 BB. 29 Mayi, t. 20, p. 150, n. 32.

BB. 27 Jul., t. 33, D. 449, n. 5.

BB $. 27 Jul, tt. 33, p. 497, n. 7.

6 BB. 13 Jul., t. 30, p. 521, n. 43. Is enim prima illa anachoretarum petitio apud Deum, quamque, ab ipso statim exordio, cum egressi monasteriis valedixerunt fratris, proponere Deo consueverunt, a quoquam conspicientur, nisi cum aliter velint.

7 BB-7 Jan., t. 4 p. 363: Tanto autem homine fuchet sublimior, ut cum urbem perambularet, a quibus vellet vidéretur, a quibus nollet non parcircheur.

even as it was seen by some, while it remained invisible to others.

Blessed Hermann Joseph of Steinfeld is said to have been given the gift of invisibility in the usual state. His brothers often passed before him without seeing him, and more than once, after vainly searching him in all corners of the monastery, they suddenly saw him appear before them, at the moment when he liked to show himself. The Blessed Mary Raggi? of the Order of Santo Domingo seems to have Joui of the same privilege.

Gorrres takes himself to doubt the authenticity of these facts, doubtless afraid of the implausibility of the theory he imagines to explain them; for, according to this author, as well as, "to become visible, the spiritual powers must clothe a body, so that the senses can grasp them with the help of the veil that covers them...; if, on the contrary, the mind wants to subtract from the eyes which hides it, it must be taken away to oneself, and that instead of wearing it, it clothes it in some way and embraces it on the contrary, so that it passes, so to speak, in the spirit and participate in its invisibility.' We understand well how the mind hides and reveals itself both in the material forms that it animates and moves; but, we will simply admit, we understand less, or rather we do not understand at all, how the body can take refuge and erase behind the mind. It's a big complication, if not to make it inintellhigible.

1 BB. 7 a.m., t. 10, p. 703, n. 50 and 51: Nec una vice contigit eum, licatet presentem, a présentibus non vivideri, ut veritas tanti miraculi (quæ etiam testibus confirmatur) nulla posset tergiversatione cecri.

3 , Lives of the Holy and Blessed Daughters of Saint Dominique, 1. 2, p. 556: To these miraculous graces we can add the grace that God gave to make herself invisible when she wanted. We don't.

believe not, if the experiences had been more than palpable and she herself had confessed.

3 Mystique, 4, c.8,t.9, p. 105.

The natural explanation of these facts, too numerous for it to be reasonably permissible to question their authenticity, — which is not important, for who would dare deny their possibility? — the natural explanation, in our view, is to admit that God suspends one of the physical laws under which the vision operates, either in the very home of radiation, by preventing the action of the elements that determine it; either in the environment, by modifying irradiation; or at the point of arrival, by suppressing organic impression or sensation. All these relationships of material order, freely established and freely maintained by the Creator, can be changed by a sovereign act of his free will. In cases where the vision takes place in one, and not in the other, the miracle seems to be circumscribed in the subject which does not see, and to be reduced to a momentary modification which would prevent the perception of the senses.

Chapter XXXIII

Dominion over Surrounding Beings

God renders to the saints the empire of man innocent of creation. — Their miraculous interventions on the inanimate nature: the enormous masses displaced; — the flood contained and the dry lakes; — the storms soothed or raised on the sea and on earth; — the lightning of the sky, the rain and the salutary springs; — the multiplication and transformation of food; — the recomposition of fragile objects broken. — The wonders on fields, harvests, flowers, fruits. — The miraculous influences on animals: sermon of St.Antoine of Padua to the fish. — The Empire on beasts. — The ordinary theatre of the supernatural interventions of holiness is man in his body and soul. — The miraculous effects on souls are exercised by prayer, — the word, — contact, — the island simple aspect, — or by various other wonders. — Conclusion of the exposition of mystical phenomena.

I. — We have just seen him, God has a thousand ways of freeing the saints from outer bondages; we would like to sum up in this last chapter the positive and supernatural influences that he allows them to exert on the surrounding beings. God partially renders to his servants the empire that innocent man had over nature, and sometimes he adds to the primitive sovereignty that we lost by sin. All creation is at the service of the elect, "and whatever this advantage seems to us, let us say with Bossuet!, this

1,447 Serm. for the feast of all Saints. Live, t. 8, p. 23.

It is not a thing to deny to the blessed that to command all creatures, since they have the happiness of being born to possess God. So they are not all more vehemently inclined than to serve them; all the effort made by natural causes, according to what the Apostle says, is only to give the world the children of God... They constantly complain about the disorder of sin, which hid from them the true heirs of their master by confusing them with the vessels of his anger. All they can do is wait for God to discover it on this great day of judgment... They will not fail to come to fight with him against the fools, but rather to render obedience to his children. That if, in this time, there are some that more visibly bear the mark of the living God on their foreheads, the fiercest beasts will throw themselves at their feet, the flames will withdraw for fear of harming them, and I do not know how impatience will cause the wheels and the easels to burst in a thousand pieces to torment them."

We speak of these privileged ones "which more visibly bear on their forehead the mark of the living God," and of the wonders that they operate "in this interval" that precede the supreme glorification. To further clarify the reason for these wonders in their innumerable forms, let us note that they all tend to this triple purpose: to rescue man, to suppress evil, to show with honor holiness itself; that they can therefore be realized wherever the needs and misery of man meet, the turpitudes and audacity of the wicked, the reparations, praises and divine ardour of the holy souls. We do not have the pretension, we do not say to tell all the facts: this undertaking is above human forces; no. not even to describe in their

together the variety of aspects to which they relate: we nevertheless hope to point out fairly faithfully the main forms, so that we can understand how glorious is the supernatural influence that the Lord's friends exert around them.

IT. — Their miraculous interventions in the inanimate world are frequent. They have been seen to lift huge masses and even to move mountains, to contain in their overflows the torrents and rivers, to calm the storms, to conjure the storms, to call from the sky the lightning that consumes, and more often the rain that refreshes and fertilizes; to make Jjaïllir of rocks or a dry land of clear fountains, to multiply the food or to transform them, to adjust the debris of a fragile object.

Some examples and names are given.

Saint Vincent Ferrier! takes in his hands and places on a tank a piece of wood that ten men would have had difficulty raising from the ground. On another occasion, he carried to the convent, without any fatigue, a beam that a pair of oxen could not have dragged, by a sloppy, who, after this task, was immediately healed.

These facts are greatly multiplied in the Acts of the saints. At the request of a priest of idols who could not accept the mystery of an incarnate God, and who wanted, to believe in it, a sign of heaven, St Gregory the Thaumaturge* made

1 Trial. BB. 2 ap., t. 10, p. 132, n. 59: Dixitque præfatum lignum fumes tantæ magnitudinis quod vix decem homines potuit illud a terra tollere; ipseque solus illud in planitiem deduxit.

2 Jbid., n. 57. Duxit eum ad tram quamdam, quam par boom non potuissent movere.. Sicque dictus testis acceptans trabem tulit ad monasterium absque aliquo fascidio, fuchetque crure incontinenti sanatus.

3 S. NYSSE GREEGORY, De Vita S. Greg. Thaum. Patr. gr.,t. 46, col. 918: Cum enim postularet antists, ut saxum quoddam ingens, quod oculis eorum subjectum prospiceretur, and absque manu humana moveretur, ac per solam fidei virtutem, jussu Gregorii, ad alterum locum transferretur, nulla interjecta mora, magnusille statim i imperasse dicitur saxo tanquam animato,

instantly pass from his place into another, by a mere word of his faith, a huge rock that was before them; and the pagan converted. Once, the same saint wanting to build a church in a convenient site, but too tight between a rock and the sea, came at night to kneel in this place and remind the Lord of his promise to move the mountains to confident prayer. The next day, the obstacle had receded, leaving the necessary space for the temple's location. The liturgy consecrates this memory by making read at the mass of this pontiff the place of the Gospel where Our Lord said to his disciples: "I assure you, whoever will say without hesitation to this mountain: Arise and cast you into the sea, what he believed will indeed be done;" and, in the Breviary, "in commenting on these same words, by the account made of this prodigy the venerable Bede.

III. — Saint Gregory of Nyssa, to whom we owe a long and enthusiastic panegyric of the illustrious thaumaturge of the Bridge, reports? two other miracles also recorded in the legend of the Breviary, and which find their place here. A river, which the rains of the mountains frequently transformed into a devastating torrent, had broken its dikes and was desolating throughout the country. The grieved inhabitants came and begged the holy bishop, whose credit they knew with God, to help them in such a pressing calamity. He welcomed them kindly and went with them, holding pious speeches, to the place where the eruption was taking place. There, after ut transiret ad illum locum quem designasset; quo facto extemplo credisse sermoni dicitur autistes.

Nov. 1,47, Nov. 3,

2 S. GREGOORY OF Nyssa, De Vita S. Greg. Thaum. Patr. gr., t.46, col. 931: Magna voce, Christum... precatus, scipionem quem manu tenebat in corrupto ripæ loco defigit.. Protinus enim, vel haud mullo tempore post,

baculus quidem, radicibus in ripa actis, arbore evasit. Flumini vero hee planta pro termino fixa est. 7

A burning prayer to Jesus Christ, he thrust his staff into the wet earth, commanding the waters to respect this barrier. The waves stopped, and the stick, taking root, soon became a large tree that firmed the shore and prevented flooding. These kinds of wonders are often repeated in the lives of the saints.

The other fact is no less wonderful. Two brothers disagreed about a pond that was part of the paternal inheritance, and which one and the other coveted possession. All means of conciliation became unnecessary, and the two parties, exasperated, were determined to resolve the problem by the weapons. On the eve of the day set for the fratricidal battle, the man of God carried himself on the edge of these waters, the object of the quarrel, and spent the night there in prayer. In the morning the lake had disappeared, and instead spread an uncultivated land on which the enemy brothers kissed, claiming an unalterable affection.

IV. — Others calm the fury of the sea by their command or prayer. At the moment when St. Gobin* and his companions were about to embark to reach the coasts of France, a violent storm broke out: the holy priest ascended to the altar, and to the secret of Mass, the winds and the waves suddenly calmed down. St. Francis Xavier ÿ went to Cochin on a Portuguese ship that was attacked by the most horrific storm in the Strait of Ceylon. After hearing the confessions of the passengers and

1 S. Nysse, De Vita S. Greg. Thaum. Patr. gr., t. 46, col. 926 and 927: Pridie ejus diei quo prælium utriusque committendem fuerat, cum homo Dei ad ripas stagni permansisset noctemque pervigilasset, miraculum quoddam Mosaicum edit in aqua..., omnem eum lacum in Rouen et terram redigens, diluculo ostendit.

2 BB. 20 Jun.,t. 25,p. 21 n. 4: Cumque pervenisset ad secretæ Missæ orationem, statim gratia Dei, in mari magna facta est tranquillititas.

- What? Boilers. The Life of Saint Francis Xavier, 1. 4 p. 148..

When the Blessed Apostle had urged them to trust, he withdrew to one of the booths, and on his knees before his crucifix he brought up the most ardent prayer to God. Then, returning to the tillac, when the ship was already giving against the benches that border the island, 1l asks the pilot for the lead wire that is used to probe the sea, unfolds it on the waves with this invocation: "Great God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, have mercy on us!""And at the same time the ship stops and the wind calms.

More than once the storm was put in the service of the saints to punish those who despised their exhortations or prayers. [It is told, for example, of the holy priest Senzio!, in great honor to Spolestus, that the ship which refused to receive him, he and his companions, was forced by a violent torment to return to the ground and take them on board. Thus God seems to be at the command of his faithful servants.

On earth, they also dissipate or conjure the storms. "As a day of summer the time was ready for a furious storm that threatened the wheats and the vines with great damage, one of the sisters having pointed out to Mother Agnes the evil that it was capable of doing to the poor people, she kneeled down, touched with compassion towards the poor whom she loved so much and animated by a lively faith in divine goodness. And as soon as with these provisions of her heart she had lifted up her eyes to heaven, he began to lighten up, and the thick cloudy that made the storm fear melted into a sweet dew."

: Sometimes they cause these atmospheric revolutions in particular purposes that God seconds with a

1 BB. 25 Mayi, t. 19, p. 71, n. 3: Mare turbari coepit fluctibus ut putarent quod Charybdis glutiret eos. Cœperunt flere... dineruntque ad invicem: Eamus and levemus servos Domini... And placatum is mare.

- What? De Lanraces, Life of the Venerable Mother Agnes, 3° P., ch. 20, t. 2, p. 453.

tender solicitude. Among these traits, let us recall that of St Scholasticus, told with so much charm by St Gregory the Great, from whom the Church borrows the entire legend of the Breviary? on the angelic sister of St Benedict. Scholastic lived in a solitude not far from Mount Cassin, and she came to spend one day with her brother every year, to open her soul to him and talk to him about divine things. In her last visit, when St Benedict wanted to retire in the evening with the religious whom he was always accompanied at the place of the appointment located not far from the monastery, her sister, who had probably had some revelation or feeling of her next death, urged him to prolong their pious talks during that night. The founding austere, afraid of the consequences that a similar condescendency might have for monastic discipline, remained inflexible. Then the virgin, leaving her head in her hands, began to pray to the Lord with a great abundance of tears. When it rose up, the sky, until then serene, covered itself with dark clouds, and at the very moment a violent storm burst. The lightnings, the thunder, the rain that fell by torrents no longer allowed Benedict to lay a foot outside. "God forgive you, my sister," he said; "but what have you done?""Well, yes," she replied, "I prayed to you, and you did not want to hear me. I prayed to God and I listened. Now go out, if you can, and give me leave to go up to your monastery." It was necessary to resign and spend the whole night in a spiritual conversation. Thus God fulfills the desires of those who mourn.

V. — A few examples are given where their invocations have drawn the flashes of lightning from the sky. The King

1 Dialog. 1. 2, c. 33. Migne, t. 66, Col. 194. 2 BREv. Rom. 40 febr., lect. 2 Noc.

Ochozias instructs an officer at the head of fifty men, to bring him Elijah!, because he dared to predict him a near death. When the officer arrived with his company at the foot of the mountain where the prophet was standing, he shouted to him: "Man of God, the king commands you to come down.""If I am a man of God," says Elijah, "let fire come down from heaven and devour you and your soldiers." And the fire fell from heaven and devoured those bold men. Ochozias sent a second squad, which did likewise and had the same fate; and a third, whose leader was more wise and happier. When he came before Elijah, he kneeled and begged him: "Man of God, take pity on your servants; you have cast fire from heaven upon the first two officers and the fifty men whom they commanded: let it not be so of us." And the angel of the Lord said to Elijah: "Follow him without fear." And the prophet arose, and went down with this captain, and stood before the king, and spoke to him of this manner: "This is what the Lord says: Because you sent to consult Beelzebub, the god of Accaron, as if there was no God in Israel that you could question, you will not lick off this bed, and your death is certain." And King Ochozias died as a eflet.

These rigors are rare; much more often the saints bring down from heaven, instead of the burning fire, a beneficent rain. There are many examples: the reader will settle for the following trait taken from the source where we have drawn so many others, the life of Mother Agnes de Langeac. "One day," says his pious and naive biographer*, "our wife of the Son of God was saddening much of what was being eaten by him because of a few infirmities... The superior, having compassion for his pain, said to him in

1 IV Reg. 1, 2-17. 3 OF LANTAGES, 3rd P., c. 20,t. 2, p. 451. E

And to satisfy her a little: "Sister Agnes, I promise you that if it rains today, you will eat more meat again." This good mother spoke of rain on the occasion of a very great drought which led the poor people to grasp a year of infertility and famine. Sister Agnes, considering that getting the rain of Our Lord was the way to no longer eat meat and at the same time to provide poor people with bread to eat, conceived a great desire for this precious water, and together a firm hope that her divine Spouse would give to her prayer. In these movements she said to her prioress: "My mother, remember, please, what you promise.""Yes," replied the prioress, "I promise you again that if it rains today, I will remove the meat from you..." Before the end of the day there fell a great rain that lasted all night. Thus God gave to the desire of this humble soul and fervently gave what the public prayers of the entire provinces could not obtain from his mercy."

The miracle is found in the opposite direction in the life of St Philip of Neri. During one of his pilgrimages, a violent storm seemed imminent, and his companions only thought of fleeing to shelter themselves. The Blessed Father assures them that they have no fear of rain, and, on his word, most remain with him; others less confident save themselves in all directions. But soon a torrential rain falls on all the runaways, while not a drop reaches those who continued their journey next to the saint.

A benefit of the same order, though in a form

1 J. Banvaget, BB. 26 Maii, t. 19, p. 534, n. 83: Quicumque Philippum secuti sunt, reliquum iter feliciter confecere, ut ne guttula quidem aquaæ eos tetigeriit; ceteri vero qui illum deseruerunt, quamvis aliqui ab iis

haud londe distarent, maximo imbre perfusi, incredulitatis and pervicaciaæ poenas dederunt.

and which is also frequently found in the lives of the saints, is that of sources due to their faith and prayers. According to the correct remark of P. Victor of Buck!, one of Bollandus' recent continuators, the Christian custom of putting fountains under the patronage of a saint is a happy hijacking of pagan superstition, which saw there tutelary deities. Therefore, the saints of the sources who are more or less involved in the worship of them should not be regularly honoured. However, the narratives which attribute to them the very origin of many fountains are so many, that it would be indecent to revoke them all in doubt. Among many names are those of Pope Saint Clement*, Saint Venant, Saint Julien du Mans, Saint Ethelburge, and the venerable mother Agnes.

VI. — The faith and charity that bring forth the arid soil of fountains are even more often manifested in order to provide man with the food necessary for his life. The facts of their multiplication are innumerable, and among the saints famous by their alms, one is not in whom does not find this kind of miracles. Not to mention the Saviour $ who rassifies the multitude in the desert, once with five loaves and two fishes, another time with seven loaves and a few small fishes, the only nomenclature of names to which to honor this wonder

1 BB. 24 Oct.,t. 58, p. 763, n. 2.

2 Brev. Rom. 23 Nov. lect. 5.

3 Brev. Wheel. 17 May, Lect. 5.

4 LeruaLp. BB. 27 Jan.,t. 3 p. 378, n. 8.

5 CAPGRAVE, BB. 11 Oct., t. 53, p. 650, n. 2.

6 Lucor, Life of the Ven. Mother Agnes, 2 P., c. 2,t. 1, p. 322.

7 Licny, Hist. of the life of Our Lord Jesus Christ, ©. 24,n.7,t.1, p. 271: Miraculous multiplication, ordinary fruit of alms. Perhaps it is the most common of all wonders. It is not all written; but one can doubt whether, among the people who make great alms, it would be found who did not experience it more than once.

8 Matth. xvi, 9 and 10.

Not from the prophet Elisha would end, multiplying oil in the vessels of the poor widow, to the holy priest of Ars? dilating by the blessing of his word the dough in the kneading. Among many traits we will mention only the following one, collected from an eyewitness, * but whose translation we borrow from the most illustrious biographer of Saint Dominique.

"At the end of a laborious day, Blessed Dominique came to the convent of Saint-Sixte, where he had once transferred the first nuns of his Order, and he gave them a great lecture. "Then he said to them: It will be a good thing, my daughters, that we drink a little. And calling Brother Roger, he ordered him to go and get wine and a cup. When the brother brought them, Blessed Dominique told him to fill the cup to the edge. Then he blessed her, for the first and after him all the brothers who were present. And there were twenty-five of them, both clerics and laity, and they drank as much as they pleased, and the cup was not diminished. When they had all been drinking, Blessed Dominique said: "I want my daughters to drink too." And calling Sister Nubia, 1l said to her: "Go in the turn, take the cup, and give drink to all the sisters." She went there with a companion and took the cup full to the edge, not a drop of which was poured out. The prioress was the first, then all the sisters as long as they wanted, and the blessed father often repeated to them: "Drink at your ease, my daughters." They were then one hundred and four, all of whom drank, and as long as it pleased them, and yet the cup remained full, as though it were

1 IV Reg. 1v, 1-7.

* Moxnin. The parish priest of Ars, c. 8,t. 1, p. 237, 9th ed. in-12.

# Sister Cecile's relationship. Cf. Life of Saint Dominique.

* LACORDARY. Life of Saint Dominique, c. 12 p. 450 and 451.

Had it not been for pouring wine into it, and when it was brought back, it was full to the edge."

Not only do the saints multiply food, but more than once they transform it. The miracle performed by Our Lord at the wedding of Cana was renewed by his servants. "One day, during the absence of her husband, Saint Elizabeth of Hungary! ate only her poor meal of dry bread and water. The duke, having appeared unannounced, wanted, as a sign of friendship, to drink in his drink; 1He found there, to his surprise, a liqueur which seemed to him to be the best wine that could be drunk in the world. He immediately asked the echanson where he had taken him, and he replied that the duchess had only been served with water." The acts of Saint Elouan of Ireland?, too rich perhaps in miracles of all kinds, report that this saint abbot changed once water drawn from the fountain into a milk that had all the flavor of honey and the intoxicating strength of wine. St. Brigide?, famous abbess of Ireland, by a simple sign of the cross, turns water into beer.

VII. — Let us point out a series of wonders, among so many others that we are obliged to pass under silence, and which attest to the power of holiness on the material world: it is the recomposition in their first unit of fragile objects broken or damaged. An American nigger, carrying a basket full of eggs to the market, was thrown to the ground by the violence of a passerby, and in the fall all the eggs were broken. Great desolation from this poor girl, who had no other resources

1 MONTALEMBERT. Hist. of Saint Elisabelh, ©. 7 p. 241.

2 BB. 4 Aug.,t. 35, p. 250, n. 34: Cu Lugidius has: Ite, and aqua fontis vasa implete. Quod cum fecisent, factum is lake, quod saporem mellis, and ebrietatem habebat vini.

8 LAURENT. BB. 1 febr., t. 4 p. 179, n. 55: Cum aquis iisdem signum sanctæ Crucis impressisset, visæ sunt confistim aliquantulum densari and in &äium colorem permutari... Optimam ori bibentium cerevisiam sapibat.

to live for several days. On these facts, the apostle of the Negroes, Blessed Peter Claver, "of the company of Jesus, came to pass; and, touched with compassion, he said to the slave: "Put your eggs back in your basket, and don't cry anymore." Then, as if to help him to pick it up, he began to touch them from the end of his staff, and as he touched them, they became as whole as before. The toy of a dream was thought to be the negress, but it only made it more ardent to take back one by one its miraculously restored eggs. At the last, she raised her head to thank her benefactor; but he disappeared immediately.

The venerable Agnes de Langeac?, still in the paternal house, let down a dish of earth that broke into several rooms. The fear of giving her mother the opportunity to be angry made her use her husband by the cry of the heart: "Jesus, help me!" At the moment all the parts of the broken dishes came together, without any trace of breakage. Gregory the Great * recounts a similar trait of St Benedict still a child.

VIIT. — The fields, the crops, the flowers and the fruits are too close to man to have been the object of miraculous interventions by the saints. The facts still take all forms here. These are ravaged or sterile fields that cover themselves with harvests!, cut stems® that, joined to the trunk, immediately resume; flowers f, which hatch in the middle of winter; fruit?

1 P. Fibertau. Life of the V. P. Claver, 1. 4 p. 287.

2 Dr. LanraGes, Life of Ven. Mr. Agnes, 1r° P., c. 17, t. 1, p. 293.

3 Dialog. 1. 2, c. 2. Migne, t. 66, Col. 198: Aboratione surgens, ita juxta se va sanum reperit, ut in eo inveneri fracturæ nulla vestigia potuit.

# RIBADENEIRA, Lives of Saints, 17 Nov., S. Aignan, t. 11, p. 318.

5 TuroBaLD. BB. 11 Oct., t. 53, p. 683, n. 7.

9 BB. 9 Jan.,t. 1, p. 577, n. 7.

7 Da Lawrazors, Life of the Ven. Mother Agnes, 3° P., c. 20,t. 2, D. 467.

Picked out of season with stripped branches; trees! that dry out by miracle. It is said of Saint Aldhelm* that, while preaching to the people, his staff, which he had planted on the ground, became a large tree full of sap, rich in branches and foliage.

One day, when Saint Louis Bertrand* was on his way to his missions in America, a Spanish who accompanied him began to whisper about having to run the empty stomach. To satisfy him, the charitable missionary sank with him in a thick wood where soon offered to their sight a shrub, the only one of its kind in the whole forest, all loaded with beautiful and tasty fruits, and, at the foot, a source of clearness and delicious freshness. After eating and drinking at his own will, the saint's companion wanted to bring with him these wonderful fruits; but the latter vigorously opposed them, and, as this man had sneaked a few of them in his besace, he took them away with words of blame and threw them away, his humility did not want to leave any trace of the miracle that had just been accomplished by his charity.

In order to punish the peasants who were working on Sundays, Saint Leufroi‘, abbot of the Cross, in Normandy, asked the Lord that this land be struck with sterility, which indeed took place, if one believes his biographer.

1 BB. Appendix ad 12 maii, t. 20, p. 743, n. 432.

2 CAPGRAYE, BB. 25 May, t. 19, p. 89, note d: Forte baculum fraxineum quo utebatur, terrae fixit, et interim, per Dei virtutem, miram in magnitudinem crevisse, succo animatus, cortice indutus, foliorum and frondium decorem emisisse dicitur.

8 AviGNON, BB. 10 Oct., t. 53, p. 382, n. 80: In spissam ingressi sunt silvam, in quam parum procedentibus occurrit arbuscula pulchris maturisk malis onusta... Quia poma ista sapuerant.....fatebat sibi provider..., sed accurrens Beatus forbids.

4 BB. 21 Jun., t. 25, p. 96, n. 25: Conversus ad Dominum cum lacrymis imprecatus is dictated: Fiat, Domine, terra ista sterilis.. Quod ita factum oculis comprobamus.

IX. — A charming book would be made by telling of the wonderful power exercised on animals by God's friends. A few features will suffice here to make it appear how they are restored to the empire that innocent man had over the beings of creation. Saint Blaise, bishop of Sevaste, and the Seraphic Francis of Assisi? enjoy in this regard an exceptional celebrity. We completely ignore their many exploits, the details of which would take us too far. Let's mention other names.

Saint Anthony of Padua, repelled by the heretics of Rimini, who welcomed his word with contempt, one day went by a divine inspiration to preach to the fish, where the Marecchia flows into the Adriatic Sea. He called them from God, and in his voice they flocked by many troops near the shore. "It was a beautiful and admirable thing," it is said in the chronic naïves of the Brothers Minors, "that at once there was a bead on the water an almost infinite quantity of fish from the sea and from the said river, which gradually resembling themselves according to their species and qualities, sanctifying themselves, of an admirable order, so that the little ones came near the shore, and so the largest and largest, from hand to hand, so that it was very pleasant to see. After they had come to a good reception, the saint gave them the following sermon: My brothers, the fish, who are creatures of the common Creator like us, are also obliged to praise him, as you have received from him l ́estre and life, and whom he has given you as a dwelling the noble element of fresh or salted water, according to your natural necessity and maintenance. Îl then gave you in icelle given cachots and retreats to guarantee you

1 BB. 3 febr.,t. 4 p. 343 et seq. 3 BB. 4 Oct., t. 50, passim. 3 Liv. 5, c. 18.

Watch out for your pursuers. It also rained that this element was transparent, diaphanous and clear, so that you could more easily cognize what you must embrace or flee: for which it similarly gave you aislerons and the strength to lead you where you would like; but especially luy are you greatly obliged that you alone of all the other fust creatures saved from the universal flood: for which you are creused in number on all others. You were chosen to save the prophet Jonah, and kept three days in your belly, making him alive on earth. You paid the cens and tribute to Our Lord Jesus Christ and to his first apostle, St Peter. You have also always been his meat during his life and after his death when he rose again. For these and other reasons, which I do not recall now, you are completely obliged to thank God. — The fish consented to these words with all the gestures they feared to show, lowering their tests, stirring their tails, and indicating that they wanted to approach. For which signs, the Holy Father turned to the rebellious and diamond-like hearts of heretics, and said to them in the presence of a great multitude who were gathered there for the coming of such a quantity of fish, which were not moving, waiting for the saint to dismiss them: God be praised for the fact that the fishes mesmes are willing to hear his word! What other testimony do you want more evident from the word of God? Do you not be ashamed of yourself being less cognizant than the fishes that have no reason? — So all the inhabitants present there, without waiting more, converted to the foy, and the Catholics confirmed themselves all the more. And the fish did not move, and their number increased ever, without in any way confounding their order, until they had all had the blessing of the Holy Father,

After which they separated, and went each of them where he had gone, and St.Antoine, returning to Rimini, converted there the rest of the heretics who were there, who were not found to be in the miracle."

No matter how strange it may seem, this miracle is as unquestionable as touching, and it is enough for a moment of reflection to understand that this delicious sermon was less for the inhabitants of the wave than for the heretics. A chapel was erected in this place, which Daniel Papebroch! visited in 1660, as he himself recalls, by publishing, without any reservation, this part of the Acts of the illustrious converter.

X.—In the end, is this wonder more amazing than that of wild beasts, becoming, under the gaze or hand of God's servants, harmless and gentle, like our domestic animals? But who knows that this phenomenon occurs quite frequently in the Acts of the Mariyrs? Among many others are Saints Abdon and Sennen, St Julien and his companions, the Samaritan martyrs, and those who died with him for faith.

Martyrs are not the only ones who are imputed these wonders. Saint Jacques de Tarentaise © sniffs a bear under yoke in place of the ox he devoured. Saint Humbert, founder of the monastery of Maroiles, also appoints a bear

3 BB. 13 Jun., t. 93, p. 217, n. 6.

3 BB. 30 Jul., t. 34, p. 149, n. 6.

3 BB. 9 Jan.,t. 4 p. 586, n. 60.

4 BB. 22 Jun., t. 25, p. 165, n. 13.

5 BB. 149 Jan., t. 4 p. 582, n. 13.

6 BB. 16 Jan., t. 2, p. 391, n. 7: Who protinus ad callem served Dei, liquet rougiens, collum jugo subposuit.

7 BB. 25 mart., t. 9, p. 559, n. 5: Quia tu nostrum.. necasti jumentum.. oportet ut sarcinulas nostras toto peregrinationis nostræ itinere obedienter will do. Videres horribilem belluam ad verba hominis mansuescere.

the burden of the horse he ate. Saint Macaire of Alexandria ‘ returns the view to the little hyena, who was repainting the next day and depositing, in witness of his gratitude, a skin of sheep at the feet of the saint. The latter accepts the present only after having made the beast promise to no longer touch the sheep of the poor; to which it is committed by bowing its head. When Saint Louis Bertrand met tigers in his apostolic races, far from receiving any harm, he seemed to be the object of their protection. A deer fed in her solitude St. Ivan ° hermit. A wild deer that had been sent to the Carmelite nuns of Livorno and which, in its fury, broke its ties and tossed fear through the whole monastery, became sweet as a lamb in the presence of Saint Mary Magdalene of Pazzi*.

Saint Martin de Porres is famous for the compassionate kindness he had for the animals and the friendly attraction he exercised over them. Among several other features, the following one is mentioned. "One day the sacristan brother complained to the Blessed that the mice were eating all the ornaments of the church; He wanted to destroy them, but the Blessed One prevented them: "No, no," he said, "they are the creatures of God; they are excusable when they have no other food." Then he took a big horn.

1 BB. 2 Jan., t. 1, p. 88, n. 29: Hyæna autem humi inclitato capite genu flectebat ad pedes Sancti, and ponebat shovelm. Ipse item ei dicebat: Dixi me not accepturum, nisi juraveris te non amplius offensuram paupers, comedendo eorum oves. Illa vero ad hoc quaque capite suo annuit.

3 Antist. BB. 10 Oct.,t. 53, p. 325, n. 88: Refercbat sibi per deserta montésque ac silvas proficicentibus, aliquoties magnos tigers aliaque ferocia animalia occuris.

3 BB. 24 Jun.,t. 25, p. 706, n. 2: Famis suæ cervam interested.

# V. CEpari, BB. 25 maïii, t. 19, p. 293, n. 209: Ad ejus prostrata pedes, facta is mansueta atque tracstabilis.

RIBADENEIRA, Lives of the Saints, Nov. 5 11, p. 122.

He put it in the midst of the sacristy, and he called them. In his voice, all the mice came out of their holes and came together in the basket. He carried them to a corner of the garden, where he fed them, and defended them from doing no damage, and they were docile to his orders. Even today, in America and Italy, one places his image in the buildings that one wants to protect against the ravages of rodent animals, and they say that they still respect him as during his life."

Saint Francis of Solano!, Franciscan religious, also an apostle and patron saint of South America, defended the ants who spoiled everything in the infirmary of the monastery of Lima and made it intolerable for them to remain, to molest no sick person from now on, or to touch their food; and his orders were fully respected.

XI. — The inhabitants of the air, like those of the earth and the waters, recognize this empire of holiness. A raven brought half a loaf to St Paul, the first hermit, every day, for sixty years, and when St Anthony came to visit him, the miraculous supplier brought a double ration, that is, a whole loaf.

The birds surrounded Saint Francis of Solano, of which we have already spoken, and perched on his head, his shoulders, his arms as freely as on the branches of the trees, they listened in silence, and in the attitude of deep attention, the exhortation that he made them to celebrate with their songs the goodness of the Creator, mixed their pleasant ramage with the accents of his voice; then each came to take in his hand the crumbs of bread that he served them. When he died, there were many of them, although it was

1 BB. 24 July, t. 32, p. 882, n. 147: Infestants conventus Limensis valeudinarium formicas ita solius voluntatis imperio abegit, ut deinceps nullam infirmis molestiam nec eorum alimentationis damnum inferrent.

2 S. Jerome. Vita S. Pauli. Migne, Patr. lat., t. 23, Col. 25.

* BB. 24 Jul., t. 32, p. 882, n. 147, p. 885, n. 169.

in the winter season, which made the most sweet melodies heard in the window of his cell, as a testimony, no doubt, of the bliss that God had just given to the saint, their friend.

Swallows once troubled the Blessed Francis of Fabriano ‘ by their timidity, while he was at the church to do his prayer. He recommended that they go and not return to the house or to the temple. They flew away immediately and did not reappear all year round.

All we do is mention the famous miracle by which St James of Nisibe dispersed the army of Sapor II, king of Persia: at his prayer, a swarm of speckled flies arose which, attached to the trunks of the elephants, to the ears and nostrils of the horses, put all the legions in disarray. We know this charming peculiarity of the legend of Saint Ambrose, still in his cradle, of a swarm of bees that comes to rest on his lips, in omen of his eloquence and holiness. According to Hispanic traditions, ‘ the miracle would have been renewed in favour of St. Isidore of Seville.

What is told of Saint Rose of Lima is as graceful as it is wonderful. His room was filled night and day with mosquitoes that covered the walls, flew into the air, entered and went out like living waves, but never sting it, nor even rest on it. In the first light of dawn, she invited those who had stayed at night in her cell to join her in praising God. "Come, my friends," she said to them, "let us bless the Almighty God together." And immediately

1 WappinG, BB. 22 Apr., t. 12 p. 92, n. 12.

- What? BB. 15 Jul., t. 31 p. 38, n. 45.

8 Brev. Rom. 7 Dec., Lect. 4.

4 BB. 20 Jun., t. 25, p. 17, n. 1. 5 L. Hansen. BB. 26 Aug., t. 39, p. 928, n. 126-1929.

They tried to buzz in a sort of harmonious concert, to turn into a choir; after which they ran to their pasture. In the evening, the same praises began again until the hour of sleep; Rose then gave the signal of silence, and everything was silent until the morning.

XII. — Holiness exercises its empire and marks its imprint on all nature, for the glory of God and for the good of man; but the privileged subject of its salutary influences is man himself, man in his body and soul.

Who would dare to enumerate the prodigies accomplished in favor of man in the circle of his bodily life, either to free him from Satan's rule, to heal him from his infirmities or to remind him of death, or finally to deliver him from some material servitude? It is a well-known fact for anyone who is not entirely alien to religious history, whom the saints command in masters to the demon and drive him out of the bodies he tyrants; one only has to remember the apostle Saint Paul!, Saint Anthony?, Saint Bernard *, Saint Philip of Neri. Miraculous healing occurs and is told everywhere; the very resurrections are so many, that no Christian thinks of questioning them, nor the other miraculous interventions which have as their object the bodily necessities of man. And since it is for the believers that we write, and among them no one ignores these things, why should we insist?

Psychological and moral influences are neither less numerous nor less certain. The radiance of Ja sanctity is above all spiritual. Of those pure souls that

1 Act. x1x, 12.

- What? S. ATHASEAN. Vita S. Antonii, n. 62 et seq. — Migne, Patr. gr., t. 26, col. 931 et seq.

3 BB. 20 Aug.,t. 38, p. 129, n. 132, and alibi passim.

# Bannaser. BB. 96 Mayi, t. 19, p. 602, n. 472.

God illuminates, directs and pacifies, escapes a grace of light for the spirit, of flexibility for the will, of calm for passions; it is an admirable emanation that spreads outside I do not know what perfume of God, makes it penetrate into souls and makes them enjoy the indefinable enjoyment. The light darkness, the calmed worries, the defeated resistances, the faint temptations, the hatred that gives way to charity and the egoism of love, the magnificent impulses that follow shameful weaknesses: these are the ordinary effects that the trade of saints has on souls. We do not believe it necessary to discuss the details of these invisible and intimate wonders. What we are going to say about the various ways in which they can be realized will draw enough of the characters.

XIIT.—Holy ones touch souls only through God; therefore prayer is the normal and ordinary means that they use to reach them. Even when they resort to other expeditions, they start regularly or end up with this one, which is the primary source of their power, and which is usually enough for him alone. Among countless examples are the following, taken in the life of St.Dominic.

"There was a young novice, a Roman citizen, named Brother James, in the convent (of St. Sabine), who, shaken by a violent temptation, had resolved to leave the order after morning, when the doors of the church were opened. Dominique, who had had the revelation, brought the novice at the end of the mornings and gently warned him not to yield to the tricks of the enemy, but to persist courageously in the service of Christ. The young man, insensitive to his opinions and prayers, rose up, took the clothes off the body and told him that he had absolutely resolved to leave. The

1 LACORDARY. Life of Saint Dominique, ch. 12 p. 453, 3rd ed.

Most merciful father, touched with compassion, said to him: "My son, wait a little; after that you will do whatever you want." And he began to pray, prostrated on the ground. We then saw what the merits of Blessed Dominique were with God and how easily he could obtain from him what he wanted. Indeed, he had not finished his prayer, that the young man fell in tears at his feet, conjuring him to return to him the habit that he had left himself in the violence of temptation and promising him never to leave order. The venerable father therefore made him habit, not without warning again to remain firm in the service of Christ; what happened, for this religious lived long in order with edification. D

XIV. — After and with prayer, the word is the sign and as the sacrament that carries miraculous grace in souls. This is how St Thomas de Villeneuve proceeded!, whose exhortations had a powerful virtue to give peace to souls, to calm the most intense angers and hatreds. He began by speaking to God, and then he spoke to men, and as soon as he had opened his mouth, all resistance fell. 11 So was St Elizabeth of Portugal, whose birth inaugurated her role as a peacemaker between the princes of her house. The holy priests whose word has relieved souls, triumphed over their obstinacy or their weaknesses, are of all time in the Church of God. The wonder is that often they make peace before receiving any confidence and without making any reference to the punishments they deliver ÿ.

1 BB. 18 Sept., t. 45, p. 868, n. 162-164.? BB. 3 Jul.,t. 29 p. 173, n. 5: p- 178, n. 29; p. 180, n. 48. 3 FAILLON, Life of Mr. Olier, 4th ed., 2° P., 1. 8,n. 7.t. 2, p. 288.

XV. — These supernatural graces are sometimes communicated through contact. Saint Philip of Neri! makes faint the most horrible thoughts of despair by a simple touch; it dispels? the fears and obsessions of which a young man was assailed, taking his hands and approaching them from his chest; other times, it presses against his heart, and this embrace calms at the moment all the temptations of the flesh and lights in the soul the flames of holy love. He also sometimes gave freedom of mind to the tempted by giving them bellows, as if to strike the demon and force him to distance himself.

What is said about Saint Mary Magdalene of Pazzi* is even more extraordinary. It was enough to approach and touch the edge of his clothes to deliver evil thoughts and impressions.

XVI. — The only aspect of God's servants produces a radiance of grace. Marie-Madeleine de Pazzif, of whom we have just spoken, inspired by her presence a feeling "i alive of purity, that her sisters n'osalent appear

1 GALLONI. BB. 26 Maii, t. 19, p. 481, n. 76: Sebastianum manu leniter apprehendit. Quo attactu illud condestim factum est, ut æger a summa desperatione atque tristitia ad magnam animi tranquillitatem lætitiamque.... traductus.

2 Jkid., 491, n. 118: Tum Philippus, manibus ejus pectori admotis..., bonum habere animum jubet. Remansit alumnus, abeunte Philippo, ingenti lætitia perfusus.

3 J. BARNABEI. BB. 26 Mayi, t. 19, p. 524, n. 24. Nec defuere, which ex ejus pectore tantum virtutis hauserunt, ut ab impugnationibus dæmonum extemplo se liberos ess intellexerunt, etc.

4 Gases. BB. 26 Mayi, t. 13, p. 479, n. 71. Colaphum inflicts consueverat, dictants: No, cædo, sed diabolum.

5 V. Cepari. BB. 25 Mayi, t. 19, p. 293, n. 208: Sunt etiam quae assert, quod temptentibus pulsatæ conabantur ei appropriquare and vel extremam vestem leviter contingere, eoque se liberas sentebant.

6 V. Cepari. BB. Ibid. Expertæ Monachæ quod non aposent in ejus præsentia quiete consiste, si quam vel levissimam labeculam contraxant.... Sicut item peccatis maculati non potant coram ea consistere... E contrario personis affictis tentatisve maximo solario erat ejus conspectus.

before her, when they had contracted the slightest defilement, and the people in the state of sin could not sustain her gaze. On the contrary, those who struggled against evil or suffered from some affliction felt comforted and strengthened as he approached.

His contemporary and his emulation, Saint Catherine of Ricci, also possessed to a high degree the gift of moving souls through the expression of his physiognomy and the sweetness of his gaze. Here are two lines that we follow textually from the last biographer of this kind saint.

"While his master was at the speaker's conference with the saint, a young man (a real debauchery, who accompanied him) wanted to approach the gate, not enough to hear their conversation, but enough to see Catherine's face distinctly. God's grace seized him immediately, but in the most amazing way for a sinner like him. The spectacle of this sweet physiognomy fills his soul with I do not know what heavenly anointing that seemed to carry all his thoughts, all his affections above the perishable things of this life. It was not an illusion, his heart was now acquired to virtue. Returning to Lucca, he filled the theatre with his former miseries of the spectacle of his piety and works of Christian perfection.

"Another young man, no less dissolute than the previous, having come to visit two of his sisters, nuns, in Saint Vincent, they called Mother Catherine, so that she would address to the visitor, according to her habit, a pious exhortation for the salvation of her soul. Barely she was at the gate of the speaker, that, raising her eyes on the young man's face, and penetrating her eyes, she took great sadness and deep pity.

1 hour. Bayonne. Life of Saint Catherine of Ricci, ch. 15, t. 1, p. 267-268.

for her soul, in view of the horrors of which she was unclean. Then, after staying for a while in this melancholy attitude, she withdrew without saying a single word. The sisters, astonished and all confused with this silence and sudden departure, which looked like an insulting process, waited a few moments, and finally called her again. She came back, looked again at the young man with sadness, and, a moment later, withdrew, keeping the same silence. More and more astonished and confused, the sisters returned again to the charge, and made her pray for goodness to go down to the parlor. But this time, Mother Catherine was sorry, and she told them that she was suffering. Then the poor sisters, all disconcerted, took on their brother such strange conduct and so contrary to all his habits. The unfortunate young man, no longer holding on, discovered the mystery to them. He confessed to them that from the first moment when his eyes had met the look of the saint, he had seen all the crimes, all the abominations of his life, all his ingratitudes towards God pass as in a accusator mirror, and that at this spectacle, penetrated by the most intense contrition, he had promised the Lord to serve him faithfully every day of his life. His sisters hastened to come and tell the things to Catherine, who assured them that not only would their brother be a faithful Christian, but that, filled with the ardour of the Holy Spirit, he would become an instrument of salvation for many souls."

XVII. — Finally, it is by wonders of all kinds that escape by their variety from a concise and complete enumeration that the saints shake souls and bring them back to God. Suffice it to recall the miraculous way in which St Joseph of Copertino ‘removed from heresy'

1 To, Pasrroviccui. BB. 18 Sept., t. 45, p. 1024, n. 43-45: Hic princes......, curiositate sua ductus, Roma Assiium studiose entertained, Joseph vigendi

Lutheran the Duke of Brunswick, Jean-Frédéric. This prince, then twenty-five years old, visited in 1649 the main courses of Europe. The renown of the religious saint, which spread to Germany, led him to Assisi, with the aim of seeing him and maintaining him out of pure curiosity. So he came to the monastery with two gentlemen attached to him, one Catholic and the other Protestant, and expressed his desire to speak to Father Joseph and to return immediately afterwards. He was received with honour, and the next morning he was brought to the door of the chapel where the Blessed said Mass, but without the latter being warned. He soon became in a strange way. To the hostia fraction, he found it so hard, that he made vain efforts to break it. Stunned, he puts it back on the patena, staring at it, and, after a few moments, bursts into sobbing; then, pushing the usual cry of ecstasy, he rises up in the air, his knees bent, retreats without turning away from a distance of five steps, and, after a new cry, approaches the altar, takes over the host, and arrives this time, albeit with great difficulty, to divide it.

After the Mass, the prince asked him by his superior for the cause of his tears: "Those whom you sent this morning to my Mass," he replied, "have a hard heart, because they do not believe all that the Holy Church believes our mother; that is why the tender Lamb became so hard this morning in my hands, that I could not break it." The Duke was struck by the fact and the answer, and he was less in a hurry to leave. Îl wanted to have an interview with the Holy One on that day, which lasted since

gratia, quem ex fama in Germania jam noverat..... Ad portam ecclesiæ deductus est. Celebrabat tum ibidem missam Beatus...; dum consecratam Hostiam rumpere vellet, durissimam comperit. Etc. Anno subsecuto, ut promulgated... abjuravit in manibus B. Josephi.

Dinner until Complies' hour, and the next day, he was still attending his Mass. [He witnessed a miracle that decided on his conversion. At the elevation, the cross marked on the host appeared to all eyes in a black color, while the celebrant, suddenly delighted in ecstasy with his ordinary cry, slew from the height of a palm above the altar's footstep, and thus remained suspended in the air, with his arms raised, with the holy host, for about half an hour. At this spectacle, the Duke began to cry with warm tears, and the Protestant gentleman whom he accompanied wrote with disrespect: "Unfortunately I came to this place! In my country, I had a quiet mind; here I am in the grip of fury and the scruples of conscience." Joseph, who saw everything in a higher light, assured one of the religious, his confidant, that the Duke would come to true faith: "Let us rejoice," said 1l, "the deer is wounded." He spoke with the prince until the hour of dinner; and in the evening, after Vepres, when he saw him coming into his room, he ran to meet him, and passed his own cord around the body, exclaiming in a great spirit transport: "I gird you for heaven. And now go worship St Francis, attend Complies, follow the procession devoutly, and do what the religious will do." The prince, a docile, humbly executed the whole, declared that he was a Catholic, and entered with his own hand into the registers of the Cordigeres of Saint Francis. Before publicly abjuring heresy, he wanted to go back to his state and settle its affairs. But the following year he returned to Assisi, as he had promised, and abjured him on his knees before the Blessed Sacrament, in the presence of the two cardinals Facchinetti and Rappaccioli, in the hands of the Blessed who, by his prayers, had won his soul and given this glory to God.

XVIIL — We have completed the exhibition of mystical phenomes. After studying contemplation and its successive degrees as the main purpose and object of mystical life, we have tried to enumerate the countless modes under which this life still reveals itself in souls or radiates outside independently of contemplative act, bringing these various forms back to the triple intellectual, emotional and organic point of view.

It is up to the reader to decide whether we have been complete, methodical and faithful. No matter what the appreciation of men may be, God alone will know what has cost us in our efforts, in our combinations, and in our patient researches, this complex and endless exposure. May this work serve his glory, the utility of souls, and our eternal reward.

After finding the facts, the only thing left to recognize is the causes. The regular cause, we have not stopped making it heard, it is God. But the demon tries to counterfeit the divine work, and the nature itself, especially in man, sometimes presents analogies that remind it.

In our last part, we will discuss the distinctive features of divine action, demonic counterfeits and human analogies. Only then will the title we have given to our work be fully justified, and it seems to us to formulate the theological doctrine on matter.

End of second volume

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