The Life of the Blessed Virgin Mary by Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich

[Stone]

XIII THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT AND ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST IN THE DESERT167
Section I

[On Saturday, February 10th, 1821, Catherine Emmerich, who was ill at the time, was worried by material cares about where she was to live. She fell asleep full of these cares, but soon woke up quite happy. She said that a good friend of hers who had lately died (a pious old priest) had just been with her and had comforted her. ‘How wise that wise man now is, and how well he can now speak! He said to me: “Do not be anxious about a dwelling for yourself; take care only that you are swept and garnished within to receive Our Lord when He comes to you. When Joseph came to Bethlehem, he sought a lodging for Jesus, not for himself, and swept the Cave of the Nativity till it was beautifully clean.” She told of several other profound utterances of this friend, all characteristic of one who knew her temperament so well. She added that he said to her: ‘When St. Joseph was told by the angel to flee into Egypt with Jesus and Mary, he did not worry about a dwelling-place, but set off at once as he was told.’ As she had seen something of the flight into Egypt the year before at this time, the writer thought that this was happening again, so asked her: ‘Was it today that Joseph started for Egypt?’ to which she answered very clearly and decisively: ‘No, the day he started on the flight was what is now February 29th.’ Unfortunately there was no opportunity of obtaining precise information from her about this, as she was very ill during these communications. Once she said: ‘The Child may well be more than a year old, I saw Him playing about by a balsam-bush at one of the halting-places on the journey, and sometimes His parents led Him by the hand for a little way.’ Another time it seemed to her that Jesus was nine months old. It must be left to the reader to conjecture the age of Jesus from the various circumstances of Catherine Emmerich’s account, and in particular from a comparison with the age of the little John the Baptist, which seems to confirm the theory of Our Lord being nine months old.]

[Sunday, February 25th:] I saw the Blessed Virgin doing knitting or crochet work. She had a roll of wool fastened at her right hip and she held in her hands two needles (of bone, I think) with little hooks. One must be half a yard long, the other is shorter. The needle is prolonged beyond the hook, and it is round this prolongation that the thread is looped to make the stitch in working. The part already knitted hangs down between the two needles. She did this work standing or sitting beside the Infant Jesus lying in a basket. I saw St. Joseph plaiting long strips of yellow, brown, and green bark to make panels for screens or for walls and ceilings. He had a store of these panels lying on top of each other in a shed near the house. He wove various patterns into them—stars, hearts, and other things. I felt sorry for him; he had no idea that he would soon have to flee into Egypt. Our Lady’s mother comes regularly every day to visit her; it is nearly an hour’s walk from her house.

I had a view of Jerusalem, and saw Herod having numbers of men summoned, as when soldiers are called up with us. These were led into a large courtyard and given clothes and weapons. They wore something like a half-moon on one arm. They carried spears and short broad swords like chopping knives. They wore helmets, and many of them had wrappings tied round their legs. All this must have been connected with the Massacre of the Innocents. Herod was in a very uneasy frame of mind.

[February 26th:] I still see Herod exceedingly uneasy, just as he was when the three kings asked him about the new-born King of the Jews. I saw him taking counsel with several old scribes, who read from very long parchment scrolls, fastened on rods, which they had brought with them. I saw, too, that the soldiers who had been given new clothes two days ago were sent to Bethlehem and to various places round Jerusalem. I think they were sent to occupy the places whence the children were to be brought by their unsuspecting mothers to Jerusalem. The soldiers were intended to prevent any insurrection when the reports of the massacre reached the children’s homes.

[February 27th:] Today I saw Herod’s soldiers who had started yesterday from Jerusalem arriving at three places. They came to Hebron, Bethlehem, and another place, lying between those two in the direction of the Dead Sea. I have forgotten its name. The inhabitants had no idea why these soldiers had been sent to them and were somewhat disturbed. Herod was crafty, he kept his own counsel and sought in secret for Jesus. The soldiers stayed in these towns for some time; then, when Herod completely failed to find the child born in Bethlehem, he massacred all the children under two years of age.

[This evening at dusk Catherine Emmerich fell asleep and after a few minutes said, without any apparent reason: ‘God be thanked a thousand times that I came at the right moment! What a blessing that I was there! The poor child is saved; I prayed that she should bless and kiss it, and after that she could no longer have thrown it into the pond.’ The writer, on hearing this sudden exclamation, asked, ‘Whom do you mean?’ She continued: ‘It is an unfortunate girl who has been seduced. She was going to drown her new-born child not far from here. During the last few days I have besought God so earnestly that no poor innocent child should die without being baptized and blessed. I prayed thus because the time of the martyrdom of the Holy Innocents is drawing near. I adjured God by the blood of His first blood-witnesses. One must profit by the times and seasons, and every year, when
the rose-buds open in the garden of the Church Triumphant, one must pluck them on earth.

God has heard my prayer and enabled me to help the mother and her child. Perhaps one day I shall see that child.’ This is what 3he said immediately after her vision, or rather after the action she took in spirit. Next morning she said: ‘My guide took me quickly to M. Near there I saw a girl who had been seduced who had just given birth to her child behind a bush. She carried it in her apron towards a deep pond on which green scum was floating, meaning to throw the child into the water. I saw a tall dark figure beside her from which a dreadful kind of light was thrown; I think it was the evil one. I went close up to her, praying with my whole heart, and saw the dark figure withdraw. Then she took the child and kissed and
blessed it, after which she could no longer bring herself to drown it. She sat down again, weeping most terribly and not knowing where to turn. I comforted her and gave her the idea of going to her confessor and begging him to help her. She did not see me, but her guardian angel gave her this advice. Her parents were, I think, far away. She seemed to belong to a middle-class family.]

[February 28th:] This evening I saw Anna and her eldest her house to Nazareth with the maidservant who was related to her—the one she had left with the Blessed Virgin in Bethlehem after Christ’s birth. The maid had a bundle hanging at her side, and carried a basket on her head and another in her hand. They were round baskets, and you could see through one of them. There were birds in them. They were taking provisions to Mary, who did no house-keeping and was provided for by Anna.

[February 28:] This evening I saw Anna and her eldest daughter with the Blessed Virgin. Maria Heli had with her a sturdy little boy four or five years old, her grandson, the eldest son of her daughter Mary Cleophas. Joseph had gone to Anna’s house. I watched the women sitting there, talking confidentially to each other, playing with the Infant Jesus and pressing Him to their breasts or giving Him to the little boy to hold in his arms. Women are always the same, I thought; it was all just as it is with us today.

Maria Heli lived in a little village some three hours to the east of Nazareth. Her house was almost as good as her mother’s: it had a walled courtyard with a fountain and pump. You trod on something beneath it, and water poured out at the top into a stone basin. Her husband was called Cleophas, and her daughter Mary Cleophas, who was married to Alphaeus, lived at the other end of the village.

In the evening I saw the women praying. They stood before a little table covered with a red-and-white cloth and standing against the wall. A scroll lay on this table, which the Blessed Virgin unrolled and hung up on the wall. A figure was embroidered on it in pale colours; it looked like a dead man in a long white cloak, wrapped up like a child in swaddling-bands. The head was wrapped in the cloak, which was wider round the arms. The figure held something in its arms. I had already seen this figure at the ceremony in Anna’s house, when Mary was taken to the Temple. It reminded me then of Melchisedech, for he seemed to have a chalice in his arms; but another time I thought it represented Moses.

A lamp was burning during the prayer. Mary, with her sister beside her, stood in front of Anna. They crossed their hands on their breasts, folded them, and then extended them. Mary read from a scroll lying before her, unrolling it as she read. They prayed in a particular tone and rhythm which reminded me of the chanting in the convent choir.

[The night of Thursday, March 1st, to the morning of Friday, March 2nd:] They are gone, I saw them start forth. Joseph came back early in the morning of yesterday, Thursday, from Anna’s house. Anna and her eldest daughter were still here in Nazareth. They had all only just gone to bed when the angel came to warn Joseph.168 Mary and the Infant Jesus had their bedroom to the right of the hearth; Anna’s was to the left, and her eldest daughter’s room was between hers and Joseph’s. These rooms were compartments divided off and sometimes roofed by wicker screens. Mary’s room had yet another curtain or screen dividing it off. The Infant Jesus lay on a rug at her feet, and she could pick Him up without getting out of bed.

I saw Joseph in his room lying on his side asleep with his head on his arm. I saw a shining youth come up to his bed and speak with him. Joseph sat up, but was heavy with sleep and lay down again. The youth took his hand and pulled him up, when Joseph came to his senses and got up, on which the youth disappeared. Joseph then went to the lamp burning in front of the fireplace in the centre of the house and lit his own lamp at it. He knocked at the Blessed Virgin’s room and asked whether he might come in. I saw him go in and speak with Mary, who did not open the screen before her bed; then I saw him go to his donkey in the stable, and afterwards into a room where all kinds of things were kept. He prepared everything for their departure. As soon as Joseph had left the Blessed Virgin’s room, she got up and dressed for the journey, before going to her mother and telling her of God’s commands. Anna got up, as did Maria Heli and her little boy, but they let the Infant Jesus go on sleeping. For these good people God’s Will came first of all; sad at heart though they were, they hastened to make all preparations for the journey before allowing themselves to give way to the sorrow of parting.

Anna and Maria Heli helped to get everything ready for the journey. Mary did not take nearly so much with her as she had brought from Bethlehem. They packed up nothing but a moderate-sized bundle and a few blankets, which were taken out to Joseph to be loaded on the donkey. Everything was done quietly and very quickly, as was proper for a journey undertaken secretly after a warning at dead of night. When Mary fetched her Child, she was in such haste that I did not even see her wrap Him in fresh swaddling-clothes. Then came the farewells, and I cannot describe how moving it was to see the distress of Anna and her eldest daughter. They embraced the  Infant Jesus with tears, and the little boy, too, was allowed to take Him in his arms. Anna embraced the Blessed Virgin again and again, weeping as bitterly as if she were never to see her more. Maria Heli flung herself on to the ground in tears.

It was not yet midnight when they left the house. Anna and Maria Heli accompanied the Blessed Virgin on foot for a short part of the way from  Nazareth, Joseph following with the donkey. The way led towards Anna’s house, but rather more to the left. Mary carried the Infant Jesus, wrapped in swaddling-clothes, before her in a sort of sling, which went round her shoulders and was fastened behind her neck. She wore a long cloak which wrapped both herself and the Child, and a big square veil, fastened round the back of her head and hanging in long folds beside her face. They had not gone far when Joseph came up with the donkey, which was carrying a skin of water and a basket with several compartments containing little loaves of bread, small jugs, and live birds. The baggage and blankets were packed round the side-saddle, which had a foot-rest hanging from it. They embraced again with tears, and Anna blessed the Blessed Virgin, who then seated herself on the donkey, led by Joseph, and they started off. (Whilst Catherine Emmerich was describing the grief of Anna and Maria Heli, she wept copiously herself, saying that in the night, too, when she saw this vision, she could not help shedding many tears.]

[March 2nd:] Early in the morning I saw Maria Heli with her little boy going to Anna’s house and sending the master of the house and a manservant to Nazareth, after which she went to her own house. I saw Anna putting everything in order in Joseph’s house and packing away many things. In the morning there came two men from Anna’s house; one of them was dressed in nothing but a sheepskin, and had on his feet thick sandals strapped round his legs. The other had a long robe on; he seemed to me to be Anna’s present husband. They helped to arrange everything in Joseph’s house, and to pack up what was movable and take it to Anna’s house.169


167. Matt. 2.13-18. (SB)

168. Since Matthew alone gives the account of the Magi and of the Flight into Egypt, and Luke alone that of the Presentation, it is not easy to decide the exact order of events. According to AC the Magi came to Bethlehem before the Presentation, and the angel’s warning came to Joseph at Nazareth some time after it, if Jesus was by then nine months old. In this case the words of Matt. 2.13, ‘And after they [the Magi] were departed, behold an angel…’, refer to the passage of over seven months and a removal to Nazareth. This interval between the visit of the Magi and the Flight into Egypt certainly offers an explanation of a chronological problem. (SB)

169. According to this account Joseph evidently intended to give up the house at Nazareth, and presumably to carry out his plan of moving to Bethlehem. All this helps to explain why we get the impression from Matt. 2.22-23 that Joseph really wanted to settle in Judaea but came to Nazareth almost faute de mieux. (SB)