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XIII THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT AND ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST IN THE DESERT
Section II
During the night of the Holy Family’s flight from Nazareth, I saw them passing through various places and resting in a shed before dawn. Towards the evening, when they could go no farther, I saw them stopping at a village called Nazara in the house of people who lived apart and were rather despised. They were not proper Jews, and their religion had something heathen about it. They worshipped in the Temple on Mount Garizim, near Samaria, approached by a difficult mountain path several miles long.170 They were oppressed by many hard duties, and were obliged to work like slaves at forced labour in the Temple at Jerusalem and other public buildings. These people gave a warm welcome to the Holy Family, who remained there the whole of the following day. On their return from Egypt the Holy Family once more visited these good people, and again when Jesus went to the Temple in His twelfth year and returned thence to Nazareth.171
This whole family later received baptism from John and became followers of Our Lord. This place is not far from a strange town, high up, the name of which I can no longer remember. I have seen and heard the names of so many towns in this district, among them Legio and Massaloth, between which, I think, Nazara lies. I believe that the town whose situation I thought so strange is called Legio, but it has another name as well.172
[Sunday, March 4th:] Yesterday, Saturday evening, at the close of the Sabbath, the Holy Family travelled on from Nazara through the night, and during the whole of Sunday and the following night I saw them in hiding by that big old terebinth tree where they had stopped in Advent on their journey to Bethlehem, when the Blessed Virgin was so cold. It was Abraham’s terebinth tree, near the grove of Moreh, not far from Sichem, Thenat, Silo and Arumah. The news of Herod’s pursuit had spread here, and the region was unsafe for them. It was near this tree that Jacob buried Laban’s idols. Josue assembled the people near this tree and erected the tabernacle containing the Ark of the Covenant, and it was here that he made them renounce their idols. Abimelech, the son of Gedeon, was hailed here as king by the people of Sichem.173
[March 5th:] This morning I saw the Holy Family resting in a fertile part of the country and refreshing themselves beside a little stream where there was a balsam bush. The Infant Jesus lay on the Blessed Virgin’s knees with His little feet bare. Incisions had been made here and there in the branches of the balsam shrub, which had red berries, and from these incisions a liquid dripped into little pots hanging on the branches. I was surprised that these were not stolen. Joseph filled the little jugs, which he had brought with him with the balsam juice. They ate little loaves of bread and berries which they picked from the bushes growing near. The donkey drank from the stream and grazed nearby. On their left I saw Jerusalem high up in the distance. It was a very lovely scene.
[March 6th:] Zacharias and Elisabeth had also received a message warning them of imminent danger. I think the Holy Family had sent them a trusty messenger. I saw Elisabeth taking the little John to a very hidden place in the wilderness, a few hours’ distance from Hebron.174 Zacharias accompanied them for only a part of the way, to a place where they crossed a small stream on a wooden beam. He then left them and went towards Nazareth by the way which Mary followed when she visited Elisabeth. I saw him on his journey to Nazareth, where he is probably going to obtain further details from Anna. Many of the friends of the Holy Family there are much distressed at their departure. Little John had nothing on but a lamb’s skin; although scarcely eighteen months old, he was sure on his feet and could run and jump about. Even at that age he had a little white stick in his hand, which he treated as a plaything. One must not think of his wilderness as a great desert of waste sand, but rather as a desolate place with rocks, caves, and ravines, where bushes and wild fruits and berries grew. Elisabeth took the little John into a cave in which Mary Magdalene lived for some time after Jesus’ death. I cannot remember how long Elisabeth remained here hidden with her young child, but it was probably only until the alarm about Herod’s persecution had subsided. She then returned to Jutta, about two hours’ distance away, for I saw her escaping again into the wilderness with John when Herod summoned the mothers with their little sons up to two years of age, which happened quite a year later.
[Catherine Emmerich, who had up to this point communicated pictures of the Flight day by day, was here interrupted by illness and other disturbances. On resuming her story a few days later she said:] I cannot distinguish the days so clearly now, but will describe the separate pictures of the Flight into Egypt as nearly as possible in the order in which I remember seeing them.
I saw the Holy Family, after they had crossed some of the ridges of the Mount of Olives, going in the direction of Hebron beyond Bethlehem. They went into a large cave, about a mile from the wood of Mambre, in a wild mountain gorge. On this mountain was a town with a name which sounded like Ephraim. I think that this was the sixth halting-place on their journey. I saw the Holy Family arriving here very exhausted and distressed. Mary was very sad and was weeping. Everything they needed was lacking, and in their flight they kept to by-ways and avoided towns and public inns. They spent the whole day here resting.
Several special favours were granted to them here. An angel appeared to them and comforted them, and a spring of water gushed forth in the cave at the prayer of the Blessed Virgin, while a wild she-goat came to them and allowed herself to be milked. A prophet used often to pray in this cave, and I think Samuel came here several times. David kept his father’s sheep near here175; he used to pray here, and it was here that he received from an angel the order to undertake the fight against Goliath.176
From this cave they journeyed southwards for seven hours, with the Dead Sea always on their left hand. Two hours after leaving Hebron they entered the wilderness where little John the Baptist was in hiding.177 Their way led them only a bowshot’s distance from his cave. I saw the Holy Family wandering through a sandy desert, weary and careworn. The water-skin and the jugs of balsam were empty; the Blessed Virgin was greatly distressed, and both she and the Infant Jesus were thirsty. They went a little way aside from the path, where the ground sank and there were bushes and some withered turf. The Blessed Virgin dismounted, and sat for a little with the Child on her knees, praying in her distress. While the Blessed Virgin was thus praying for water like Agar in the wilderness, I was shown a wonderfully moving incident. The cave in which Elisabeth had hidden her little son was quite near here, on a wild rocky height, and I saw the little boy not far from the cave wandering about among the stones and bushes as if he were anxiously and eagerly waiting for something. I did not see Elisabeth in this vision. To see this little boy roaming and running about in the wilderness with such confidence made a great impression on me.
Just as beneath his mother’s heart he had leaped up at the approach of his Lord, so now he was moved by the nearness of his Redeemer, thirsty and weary. I saw the child wearing his lamb’s-skin over his shoulders and girt round his waist, and carrying in his hand a little stick with a bit of bark waving on it. He felt that Jesus was passing near and that He was thirsty; he threw himself on his knees and cried to God with outstretched arms, then jumped up, ran, driven by the Spirit, to the high edge of the rocks and thrust with his staff into the ground, from which an abundant spring burst forth. John ran before the stream to the edge, where it rushed down over the rocks. He stood there and watched the Holy Family pass by in the distance.178
The Blessed Virgin lifted up the Infant Jesus high in her arms, saying to Him, ‘Look! John in the wilderness!’; and I saw John joyfully leaping about beside the rushing water, and waving to them with the little flag of bark on his stick. Then he hurried back into the wilderness. After a little time the stream reached the travellers’ path, and I saw them crossing it and stopping to refresh themselves at a pleasant place where there were some bushes and thin turf. The Blessed Virgin dismounted with the Child; they were all joyful.
Mary sat down on the grass, and Joseph dug a hollow a little way off for the water to fill. When the water became quite clear, they all drank, and Mary washed the Child. They sprinkled their hands, feet, and faces with water. Joseph led the donkey to the water, of which it drank deeply, and he filled his water-skin. They were all happy and thankful; the withered grass, now saturated with water, grew straight again, and the sun came out and shone on them. They sat there refreshed and full of quiet happiness. They rested for two or
three hours in this place.
The last place where the Holy Family sheltered in Herod’s territory was not far from a town on the edge of the desert, a few hours’ journey from the Dead Sea. Its name sounded like Anem or Anim. They stopped at a solitary house which was an inn for those travelling through the desert. There were several huts and sheds on a hill, and some wild fruit grew round them. The inhabitants seemed to me to be camel-drivers, for they kept a number of camels in enclosed meadows. They were rather wild people and had been given to robbery, but they received the Holy Family well and showed them hospitality. In the neighbouring town there were also many disorderly people who had settled there after fighting in the wars. Among the people in the inn was a man of twenty called Reuben.179
[March 8th:] I saw the Holy Family journeying in a bright starlit night through a sandy desert covered with low bushes. I felt as if I were travelling through it with them. It was dangerous because of the numbers of snakes which lay coiled up among the bushes in little hollows under the leaves. They crawled towards the path, hissing loudly and stretching out their necks towards the Holy Family, who, however, passed by in safety surrounded by light. I saw other evil beasts there with long black bodies, short legs, and wings like big fins. They shot over the ground as if they were flying, and their heads were fish-like in shape. I saw the Holy Family come to a fall in the ground like the edge of a sunken road; they meant to rest there behind some bushes.
I was alarmed for the Holy Family. The place was sinister, and I wanted to make a screen to protect them on the side left open, but a dreadful creature like a bear made his way in, and I was in terrible fear. Then there suddenly appeared to me a friend of mine, an old priest who had died lately. He was young and beautiful in form, and he seized the creature by the scruff of its neck and threw it out. I asked him how he came to be here, for surely he must be better off in his own place, to which he replied: ‘I only wanted to help you, and shall not stay here long.’ He told me more, adding that I should see him again.
The Holy Family always travelled a mile eastwards of the high road. The name of the last place they passed between Judaea and the desert sounded very like Mara. It reminded me of Anna’s home, but it was not the same place. The inhabitants here were rough and wild, and the Holy Family could obtain no assistance from them. After this they came into a great desert of sand. There was no path and nothing to show their direction, and they did not know what to do. After some time they saw a dark, gloomy mountain-ridge in front of them. The Holy Family was sorely distressed, and fell on their knees praying to God for help. A number of wild beasts then gathered round them, and at first it looked very dangerous; but these beasts were not at all evil, but looked at them in just the same friendly way as my confessor’s old dog used to look at me when he came up to me.180 I realized then that these beasts were sent to show them the way. They looked towards the mountain and ran in that direction and then back again, just like a dog does when he wants you to follow him somewhere. At last I saw the Holy Family follow these animals and pass over a mountain-ridge into a wild and lonely region. It was dark, and the way led past a wood. In front of this wood, at some distance from the path, I saw a poor hut, and not far from it a light hanging in a tree, which could be seen from a long way off, to attract travellers. This part of the road was sinister: trenches had been dug in it here and there, and there were also trenches all round the hut. Hidden cords were stretched across the good parts of the road, and when touched by travellers rang bells in the hut and brought out its thieving inhabitants to plunder them. This robbers’ hut was not always in the same place, it could be moved about and put up wherever its inhabitants wanted it.181
When the Holy Family approached the light hanging in the tree, I saw the leader of the robbers with five of his companions closing round them. At first they were evilly disposed, but I saw that at the sight of the Infant Jesus a ray, like an arrow, struck the heart of the leader, who ordered his comrades to do no harm to these people. The Blessed Virgin also saw this ray strike the robber’s heart, as she later recounted to Anna the prophetess when she returned.182
The robber now led the Holy Family through the dangerous places in the road into his hut. It was night. In the hut was the robber’s wife with some children. The man told his wife of the strange sensation that had come over him at the sight of the Child. She received the Holy Family shyly, but was not unfriendly. The travellers sat on the ground in a corner, and began to eat some of the provisions which they had with them. The people in the hut were at first awkward and shy (quite unlike, it seemed, their usual behaviour), but gradually drew nearer and nearer to the Holy Family. Some of the other men, who had in the meantime stabled Joseph’s donkey, came in and out, and eventually they all became more familiar and began to talk to the travellers. The woman brought Mary little loaves of bread with honey and fruit, as well as goblets with drink. A fire was burning in a hollow in a corner of the hut.
The woman arranged a separate place for the Blessed Virgin, and brought at her request a trough with water for washing the Infant Jesus. She washed the linen for her and dried it at the fire. Mary bathed the Infant Jesus under a cloth. The man was very much agitated and said to his wife: ‘This Hebrew child is no ordinary child, he is a holy child. Ask his mother to allow us to wash our leprous little boy in his bath-water, perhaps it will do him good.’ As the woman came up to Mary to ask her this, Our Lady told her, before she had said a word, to wash her leprous boy in the bath-water. The woman brought her three-year-old son lying in her arms. He was stiff with leprosy and his features could not be seen for scabs. The water in which Jesus had been bathed seemed clearer than it had been before, and as soon as the leprous child had been dipped into it, the scales of his leprosy fell off him to the ground and the child was cleansed. The woman was beside herself with joy and tried to embrace Mary and the Infant Jesus, but Mary put out her hand and would not let her touch either herself or Jesus. Mary told the woman that she was to dig a well deep down to the rock and pour this water into it; this would give the well the same healing power. She spoke long with her, and I think the woman promised to leave this place at the first opportunity.
The people were extremely happy at the restoration of their child to health, and showed him to their comrades who came in and out during the night, telling them of the blessing that had befallen them. The new arrivals, some of them boys, stood round the Holy Family and gazed at them in wonderment. It was all the more remarkable that these robbers were so respectful to the Holy Family, because in the very same night, while they were housing these holy guests, I saw them seizing some other travellers who had been enticed into their lair by the light and driving them into a great cave deep in the wood. This cave, whose entrance was hidden and grown over by wild plants so that it could not be seen, seemed to be their real dwelling-place. I saw several boys in this cave, from seven to nine years of age, who had been stolen from their parents; and there was an old woman who kept house there.
I saw all kinds of booty being brought in—clothes, carpets, meat, young kids, sheep, and bigger animals too. The cave was big and contained an abundance of things. I saw that Mary slept little that night; she sat still on her couch most of the time. They left early in the morning, well supplied with provisions. The people of the place accompanied them a short way, and led them past many trenches on to the right road. When the robbers took leave of the Holy Family, the man said with deep emotion: ‘Remember us wherever you go.’ At these words I suddenly saw a picture of the Crucifixion, and saw the Good Thief saying to Jesus, ‘Remember me when Thou shalt come into Thy kingdom’, and recognized in him the boy who had been healed. The robber’s wife gave up this way of life after some time, and settled with other honest families at a later resting-place of the Holy Family, where a spring of water and a garden of balsam shrubs came into being.
After this I again saw the Holy Family journeying through a desert, and when they lost their way, I again saw various kinds of creeping beasts approach them, lizards with bats’ wings and snakes, but they were not hostile and seemed only to want to show them the way. Later on, when they had lost every trace of their path and direction, I saw them guided by a very lovely miracle; on each side of the path the plant called the rose of Jericho appeared with its curling leaves surrounding the central flower and the upright stalk. They went up to it joyfully, and on reaching it they saw in the distance another plant of it spring up, and so throughout the whole desert. I saw, too, that it was revealed to the Blessed Virgin that in later times the people of the country would gather these flowers and sell them to passing strangers to gain their bread. (I saw this happening afterwards.) The name of the place sounded like Gase or Gose [?Gosen]. Then I saw them come to a place called by a name like Lepe or Lape [? Pelusium]. There was a lake there with ditches, canals, and high embankments. They crossed the water on a raft with a sort of big tub on it in which the donkey was put. Mary sat with her Child on a piece of timber. Two ugly, brown, half-naked men with flattened noses and protruding lips ferried them over. They passed only the outlying houses of this place, and the people here were so rough and unsympathetic that the travellers went on without speaking to anyone. I think that this was the first heathen town. They had been ten days in the Jewish country and ten days in the desert.
I now saw the Holy Family on Egyptian territory. They were in flat country, with green pastures here and there on which cattle were feeding. I saw trees to which idols had been fastened in the shape of infants wrapped in broad swaddling-bands inscribed with figures or letters. Here and there I saw people thick-set and fat, dressed like the cotton-spinners whom I once saw near the frontiers of the three kings. I saw these people hurrying to worship their idols. The Holy Family went into a shed; there were beasts in it, but these went out to make room for them. Their provisions had given out, and they had neither bread nor water.
Nobody gave them anything, and Mary was hardly able to feed her Child. They did, indeed, endure every human misery. At last some shepherds came to water the beasts at a closed spring, and at Joseph’s urgent request gave them a little water. Then I saw the Holy Family going through a wood, exhausted and helpless. On coming out of it they saw a tall, slender date-palm with its fruit growing all together like a bunch of grapes at the very top of the tree. Mary went up to the tree with the Infant Jesus in her arms, and prayed, lifting the Child up to it; the tree bowed down its head to them, as if it were kneeling, so that they were able to pick all its fruit.183 The tree remained in that position. I saw a rabble of people from the last town following the Holy Family, and I saw Mary distributing the fruit from the tree among the many naked children who were running after her. About a quarter of an hour from the first tree they came to an unusually big sycamore tree with a hollow trunk. They had got out of sight of the people who were following them, and hid in the tree so as to let them pass by. They spent the night here.
Next day they continued through waste and sandy deserts, and I saw them sitting on a sand-hill quite exhausted, for they had no water with them. The Blessed Virgin prayed to God, and I saw an abundant spring of water gush forth at her side and run in streams on the ground. Joseph levelled a little sand-hill and made a basin for the water, digging a little channel to carry off the overflow. They refreshed themselves with the water and Mary washed the Infant Jesus. Joseph watered the donkey and filled the water-skin. I saw
tortoises, and ugly creatures like big lizards coming to drink at the water. They did the Holy Family no harm, but looked at them in a friendly way. The stream of water flowed in a wide circle, disappearing again in the ground near its source. The space which it enclosed was wonderfully blessed: it soon became green and produced the most delicious balsam shrubs, which grew big enough to give refreshment to the Holy Family on their return from Egypt.
Later it became famous as a balsam garden. A number of people came to settle there; amongst them, I think, the mother of the leprous child who had been healed in the robbers’ den. Later I had visions of this place. A beautiful hedge of balsam shrubs surrounded the garden, in the middle of which were big fruit-trees. Later a deep well was dug there, from which an abundant supply of water was drawn by a wheel turned by an ox. This water was mixed with the water from Mary’s well so as to supply the whole garden. The water from the new well would have been harmful if used unmixed. It was shown me that the oxen who turned the wheel did no work from midday on Saturday till Monday morning.
After refreshing themselves here they journeyed to a great city called Heliopolis or On. It had wonderful buildings, but much of it had been laid waste. When the children of Israel were in Egypt, the Egyptian priest Putiphar lived here, and had in his house Aseneth (the daughter of Dina of the Sichemites) whom Joseph married.184 Here also Dionysius the Areopagite lived at the time of Christ’s death. The city had been devastated by war, but numbers of people had made themselves homes in the ruined buildings.
The Holy Family crossed a very high bridge over a broad river which seemed to me to have several arms. They came to an open place in front of the city-gate, which was surrounded by a kind of promenade. Here there was a pedestal, thicker below than above, surmounted by a great idol with an ox’s head bearing in its arms something like a child in swaddling-bands. The idol was surrounded by a circle of stones like benches or tables, and people came in crowds from the city to lay their offerings on them. Not far from this idol was a great tree under which the Holy Family sat down to rest. They had rested there for only a short time when there came an earthquake, and the idol swayed and fell to the ground.185
There was an uproar among the people, and a crowd of canal-workers ran up from near at hand. A good man who had accompanied the Holy Family on their way here (I think he was a drain-digger) led them hurriedly into the town, and they were leaving the place where the idol had stood when the frightened crowd observed them and began assailing them with threats and abuse for having been the cause of the idol’s collapse. They had not, however, time to carry out their threats, for another shock came which uprooted and engulfed the great tree till nothing but its roots showed above ground. The gaping space where the idol had stood became full of dark and dirty water, in which the whole idol disappeared except for its horns. Some of the most evil among the raging mob were swallowed up in this dark pool. Meanwhile the Holy Family went quietly into the city, and took up their abode near a great heathen temple in the thickness of a wall, where there were a great number of empty rooms.
170. Clearly the despised Samaritans, cf., e.g., John 4.9, 20 (where their worship on Mount Garizim is mentioned). (SB)
171. Fifteen years after Catherine Emmerich’s death, when the writer was putting together her account of the Flight into Egypt, he wondered why the Holy Family should have remained in Nazara a whole day. It was only then that he discovered that the Sabbath began on the evening of March 2nd, 1821, so that the Holy Family must have kept it in secret here, though Catherine Emmerich made no mention of this. (CB)
172. The identification of Nazara, Legio, and Massaloth is uncertain, but they are probably in the hill country south of the Vale of Esdraelon, and are so placed by Fahsel. (SB)
173. The Biblical references to all these places are given supra. (SB)
174. The story of Elisabeth’s concealing the boy John the Baptist is found in Protev. 22, but with a typical addition in the fanciful detail of the mountain splitting to receive them into hiding. (SB)
175. David kept his father’s sheep near Bethlehem: I Kings (Sam.) 17.15. Bethlehem is about twelve miles from Mambre. (SB)
176. In her general description of the Flight into Egypt she forgot to mention this refuge of the Holy Family. The description given above is taken from her daily account of Our Lord’s ministry, at the time when, after His baptism, He visited with some of His disciples all the places near Bethlehem where His Mother had been with Him. She saw Jesus, after His baptism by John, which she described on Friday, Sept. 28th, 1821, staying in this cave with His disciples from Oct. 8th to Oct. 9th, and she heard Him speak of the graces given in this place and of the hardships and difficulties of the Flight into Egypt. He blessed this cave and told them that one day a church would be built over it. On Oct. 18th she said: ‘This refuge of the Holy Family was later called Mary’s place of sojourn, and was visited by pilgrims who were, however, ignorant of its real history. Later only poor people lived there.’ She gave a precise description of the place, and some time afterwards the writer found to his great astonishment an account by the Minorite friar Antonio Gonzalez of his journey to Jerusalem (Antwerp, 1679, Part I, p. 556), in which he stated that he had been in a ‘village of Mary’s’, a short mile on the left of the road from Hebron to Bethlehem, where she had taken refuge on the Flight. It was, he said, on a hill, and a church with three vaults and three doors was still standing there, with a picture on its wall of Mary and her Child on the donkey, led by Joseph. Below the hill on which stood the village and church was a beautiful spring of water, known as Mary’s fountain. All of this agrees with the place described by Catherine Emmerich. Arvieux says in the second volume of his Memoirs (Leipzig, 1783): ‘Between Hebron and Bethlehem we came through the village of the Blessed Virgin, who is said to have rested here during her Flight.’ (CB)
177. None of the many details of the life of the young John the Baptist in the desert are found in any available document. (SB)
178. Catherine Emmerich heard Our Lord Himself relate this touching incident in her visions of Our Lord’s ministry. It was in January (Tuesday, the 26th day of the month Thebet) of the third year of His ministry, in the house of John’s parents at Jutta, in the presence of the Blessed Virgin, Peter, John and three trusty disciples of the Baptist. A carpet had been spread out before them, which had been worked by Mary and Elisabeth after the Visitation: it had been embroidered with many significant texts. Our Lord was speaking with comforting words of the Baptist’s murder, which had taken place on the 20th of the month Thebet (Jan. 8th) at Herod’s birthday feast at Machaerus. He spoke much about John on this occasion and said that He had only seen him twice in the flesh; that time on the Flight to Egypt and the second time at His baptism. (CB)
179. The first mention by Catherine Emmerich of this inn was in her account of Christ’s ministry. On Oct. 8th after His baptism Our Lord came here alone from the Valley of the Shepherds. He converted Reuben and healed several sick people while His disciples waited for Him in the cave of refuge near Ephraim. He taught at the places where the Holy Family had rested and taken food, and explained to the inhabitants that the grace given to them now was the fruit of the hospitality shown by them to the Holy Family. On His journey between here and the cave near Ephraim He passed by Hebron. A place called Anim or Anem, nine miles south of Hebron in the district of Daroma, is mentioned by Jerome and also by Eusebius. (CB)
Anim is mentioned among the hill cities of Juda in Jos. 15.50, together with Jutta (Douay Jota) in 55 and Hebron in 54. (SB)
180. The apocryphal Ps-Matt. 18-19 includes details of wild beasts in the desert on the way to Egypt, but the account is very fanciful and tells how they wagged their tails in reverence, and so forth, and how the Child Jesus spoke to the creatures and comforted His mother. (SB)
181. The encounter with robbers occurs in the Arabic Gospel of the Infancy, 23, where the robbers Titus and Dymachus are the future thieves at the Crucifixion. According to AC it was at the robbers’ hut that a boy was cured of leprosy by being washed in Our Lord’s bath-water, and this boy (nameless) became the Good Thief at the Crucifixion. The same Arabic source has the episode of the bath-water on three occasions (17, 31, 32). In the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, 10, the Good Thief is called Dismas (his traditional name), and the Bad Thief Gestas (or Gistas). (SB)
182. We quote the whole of this incident, as well as many others of the Flight into Egypt, from the accounts given by Catherine Emmerich of the conversations with Jesus of Eliud, an aged Essene, who accompanied Our Lord on His journey from Nazareth to be baptized by John. Eliud said that Anna the prophetess had told him that she had heard of this incident from the Blessed Virgin. (CB)
183. The palm-tree that bowed appears (on the Flight) in Ps-Matt. 20, but there the little Jesus is figured as addressing the tree and also commanding it to straighten itself afterwards. (SB)
184. Joseph married Aseneth: Gen. 41.50. (SB)
185. The idol falling when the Holy Family reached Egypt is mentioned in Ps-Matt. 23 (all the idols) and in the Arabic Gospel of the Infancy, 10. (SB)
"So let us be confident, let us not be unprepared, let us not be outflanked, let us be wise, vigilant, fighting against those who are trying to tear the faith out of our souls and morality out of our hearts, so that we may remain Catholics, remain united to the Blessed Virgin Mary, remain united to the Roman Catholic Church, remain faithful children of the Church."- Abp. Lefebvre
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XIII THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT AND ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST IN THE DESERT
Section III
[Catherine Emmerich also communicated the following fragments of visions of the subsequent life of the Holy Family in Heliopolis or On:]
Once at a later time I came over the sea to Egypt, and found the Holy Family still living in the great devastated city. It is very extensive, and is built beside a great river with many arms. The city can be seen from afar, standing high up. In many places the river flows underneath the buildings. The people cross the arms of the river on rafts which lie there in the water ready for use. I saw quite astonishingly huge buildings in ruins, great masses of solid masonry, halves of towers and whole, or nearly whole, temples. I saw pillars as big as towers, with winding staircases outside. I saw high tapering pillars completely covered with strange figures, and also a number of big figures like reclining dogs with human heads.
The Holy Family lived in the galleries of a great stone building supported at one side by short thick pillars, some square and some round. People had built themselves dwellings against and under these pillars; above the building ran a road with much traffic on it; it passed a great heathen temple with two courts. In this building was a space with a wall on one side of it and on the other a row of short thick pillars. In front of this Joseph had constructed a light wooden building, divided off by wooden partitions, for them to live in. I saw them there all together. The donkeys were there, too, but separated by screens such as Joseph always used to make. I noticed for the first time that they had a little altar against the wall, hidden behind one of these screens—a little table covered with a red cloth and a transparent white one over it. There was a lamp above it, and they used to pray there. Later I saw that Joseph had arranged a workshop in his home, and also that he often went out to work. He made long staffs with knobs at the end, and little low round three-legged stools with a handle at the back to carry them by. He also made baskets and light wicker screens. These were afterwards smeared with some substance which made them solid, and were then used to make huts and compartments against and in the massive masonry of the walls. He also made little light hexagonal or octagonal towers out of long thin planks, ending in a point crowned by a knob. These had an opening and could be used to sit in like sentryboxes. They had steps leading up to them. I saw little towers like these here and there in front of the heathen temples, and also on the flat roofs. People sat inside them. They were
perhaps sentry-boxes, or little summer-houses used to give shade.
I saw the Blessed Virgin weaving carpets. I also saw her with other work; she had a stick beside her with a lump fastened to the top of it, but I do not know what she was doing, whether spinning or something else. I often saw people visiting her and the Infant Jesus, who lay in a sort of cradle on the floor beside her. Sometimes I saw this cradle raised on a stand like a sawing-trestle. I saw the Child lying very contentedly in His cradle, sometimes with His arms hanging out on each side. Once I saw Him sitting up in it. Mary sat close by knitting, with a basket at her side. There were three women with her. The people in this half-destroyed city were dressed just like those cotton-spinning people whom I saw when I went to meet the three kings, except that they wore aprons, like short skirts. There were not many Jews here, and they seemed to live here on sufferance. North of Heliopolis, between it and the Nile, which there divides into many arms, was the land of Gessen.
Amongst its canals was a place where a large number of Jews lived. Their religion had become very degraded. Some of these Jews became acquainted with the Holy Family, and Mary made various things for them, in return for which they gave her bread and provisions. The Jews in the land of Gessen had a temple which they likened to Solomon’s temple, but it was very different.186
I again saw the Holy Family in Heliopolis. They were still living near the heathen temple under the vaulting of the massive walls. Not far off Joseph built a place of prayer in which the Jews living in the city assembled together with the Holy Family. Before this they had had no meeting-place for prayer. The room had a lightly built dome above it, which they could open so as to be under the open sky. In the middle of the room stood a sacrificial table or altar, covered with white and red, and having scrolls upon it. The priest or teacher was a very old man. The men and women were not so strictly separated at their prayers as in the Promised Land: the men stood on one side and the women on the other. I had a sight of the Blessed Virgin visiting this place of prayer with the Infant Jesus for the first time. She sat on the ground leaning on one arm; the Child was sitting before her in a little sky-blue dress, and she put His hands together on His breast. Joseph stood behind her, as he always does here, though the other men and women stand and sit in separate groups on each side of the room. I was often shown how the little Jesus was already growing bigger, and how He was often visited by other children. He could already speak and run quite well; He was much with Joseph, and I think went with him when he worked away from home. He wore a little dress like a shirt, knitted or woven in one piece. Some of the idols fell down in the temple near which they lived, just as the statue near the gate had collapsed on their entry into the city; many people said that this was a sign of the wrath of the gods against the Holy Family, and in consequence they suffered various persecutions.
186. The presence of a Jewish temple built on the ruins of Leontopolis, on the outskirts of Heliopolis, is well known from Josephus (Ant., XIII, iii, 1-4), who explains that it was built by Onias (IV) after his flight from Palestine, c. 170 B.C., ‘like indeed to that at Jerusalem but smaller and poorer’. Cf. also BJ, VII, x, 3. (SB)
"So let us be confident, let us not be unprepared, let us not be outflanked, let us be wise, vigilant, fighting against those who are trying to tear the faith out of our souls and morality out of our hearts, so that we may remain Catholics, remain united to the Blessed Virgin Mary, remain united to the Roman Catholic Church, remain faithful children of the Church."- Abp. Lefebvre
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XIII. THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT AND ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST IN THE DESERT - THE MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS
Section IV
Towards the middle of Jesus’ second year the Blessed Virgin was told of Herod’s Massacre of the Innocents by an angel appearing to her in Heliopolis. She and Joseph were greatly distressed, and the Child Jesus wept that whole day. I saw what follows.
When the three kings did not return to Jerusalem, Herod’s anxiety decreased to some extent; he was at that time much occupied with family affairs. His anxiety revived again, however, when various reports reached him about Simeon’s and Anna’s prophecies in the Temple at the Presentation of the Infant Jesus. At this moment the Holy Family had been some time in Nazareth.
Under various pretexts he dispatched soldiers to different places round Jerusalem, such as Gilgal, Bethlehem, and Hebron, and ordered a census of the children to be made. The soldiers remained, I think, about nine months in these places. Herod was in the meantime in Rome,187 and it was not until soon after his return that the children were massacred. John the Baptist was two years old when it happened, and had again been for some time at home with his parents in secret. Before Herod issued the order that all mothers were to bring before the authorities their male children up to two years old, Elisabeth had been warned by the appearance of an angel and had once more fled into the wilderness with her little son.
Jesus was nearly eighteen months old and could already run about.188 The children were massacred in seven different places. The mothers had been promised rewards for their fruitfulness. They came from their homes in the surrounding country to the government offices in the various towns, bringing with them their little boys in holiday dress. The husbands were turned back, and the mothers were separated from their children. These were stabbed by the soldiers behind the walls of lonely courtyards; their bodies were heaped together and then buried in trenches.
[Catherine Emmerich communicated her vision of the Massacre of the Innocents on March 8th, 1821, i.e. a year after her account of the Flight into Egypt, so that it may be presumed that the massacre took place a year later than the Flight.]
This afternoon I saw the mothers with their little sons up to two years of age come to Jerusalem from Hebron, Bethlehem, and a third place. Herod had sent soldiers there, and had later communicated his orders through the authorities of these towns. The women came to the city in separate groups. Some had two children with them and rode on donkeys. They came to the city in joyful expectation, for they thought they were to receive a reward for their fruitfulness. They were all taken into a large building, and the men accompanying them were sent home. This building was somewhat isolated; it was not far from the house where later Pilate lived. It was so enclosed that it was difficult to see from outside what was happening within it. It must once have been a place of execution, for I saw in its courtyard stone pillars and blocks with chains fastened to them, as well as trees which were tied together and then allowed to spring apart so as to tear in pieces the men fastened to them. It was a dark, strong building, and its courtyard was quite as big as the graveyard on one side of Dülmen parish church. A gate led through two walls into this courtyard, which was enclosed by buildings on three sides. To the right and left these were one storey high; the centre one had two storeys and looked like an ancient deserted synagogue. There were gates opening into the courtyard from all three buildings.
The mothers were led through the courtyard into the two side-buildings and there imprisoned. At first I had the impression of their being in a kind of hospice or inn. They became alarmed when they saw themselves deprived of liberty and began to weep and moan, continuing their laments throughout the whole night.
[On the next day, March 9th, she said:] This afternoon I saw a terrible picture. I saw the Massacre of the Innocents taking place in that house of execution. The big building at the back of the court was two storeys high: the lower storey consisted of a great deserted hall like a prison or a guard-room; above it was a large room with windows looking down into the courtyard. I saw a number of officials assembled there as if in a court of justice; before them was a table on which lay scrolls. I think Herod was there, too, for I saw a man in a red cloak lined with white fur with little black tails on it. He was wearing a crown. I saw him, surrounded by others, looking out of the window of the room.
The mothers were summoned one by one with their children from the side-buildings into the great hall below the building at the back of the courtyard. As they came in, their children were removed from them by soldiers and taken through the gate into the courtyard, where some twenty soldiers were at the murderous work of thrusting swords and spears into their throats and hearts. Some were children still at the breast, wrapped in swaddling-bands; others were tiny boys wearing long embroidered dresses. They did not trouble to take off their clothes, they ran their swords through their throats and hearts, and then seized their bodies by an arm or leg and flung them on to a heap. It was a ghastly sight. The mothers were thrust back one by one by the soldiers into the great hall. When they saw what was done to their children, they raised a terrible outcry, clinging to each other and tearing their hair. They were so closely packed at the end that they could hardly move. I think the massacre went on until towards evening.
The children’s bodies were afterwards buried in a pit in the same courtyard. Their number was shown to me, but I have no clear recollection of it. I think it was 700, and another number with 7 or 17 in it. The number was explained to me by an expression in which I remember a sound like ‘Ducen’: I think I had to reckon two c’s together several times.189
I was absolutely horrified by what I had seen, and did not know where it had happened: I thought it was here. It was only when I woke up that I was able gradually to recollect myself. The next night I saw the mothers being taken back by the soldiers to their homes, bound, and in separate groups. The place of the Massacre of the Innocents in Jerusalem was used later as a court of justice; it was not far from Pilate’s judgment seat, but by his time it had been a good deal altered. At Christ’s death I saw the grave of the massacred children fall in and saw their souls appear and depart from thence.
I was shown how Elisabeth, warned by the angel, once more fled into the desert with the little John to escape the Massacre of the Innocents. Elisabeth searched for a long time till she found a cave which seemed to her sufficiently hidden, and then stayed there with the boy for about forty days. When she went home, an Essene from the community on Mount Horeb came to the boy in the wilderness, brought him food, and gave him all the help he needed. This Essene (whose name I keep forgetting) was a relation of Anna of the Temple. He came at first every eight days, then every fourteen; but in a short time John no longer needed help, for he was soon more at home in the wilderness than among men. It was ordained by God that he should grow up in the wilderness without contact with mankind and innocent of their sins. Like Jesus, he never went to school; the Holy Ghost taught him in the wilderness. I often saw at his side a light, or shining figures like angels. The desert here was not waste and barren; many plants and bushes grew in it, bearing many kinds of berries, and among the rocks were strawberries, which John picked and ate as he passed. He was uncommonly familiar with the beasts, and especially with the birds: they flew to him and perched on his shoulders, he spoke to them and they seemed to understand him and to act as his messengers. He wandered along the banks of the streams, and was just as familiar with the fishes. They swam near to him when he called them, and followed him in the water as he went along the bank.
I saw now that he moved far away from his home, perhaps because of the danger which threatened him. He was so friendly with the beasts that they helped him and warned him. They led him to their nests and lairs, and he fled with them into their hiding-holes if men came near. He lived upon fruit, berries, roots, and herbs. He had no need to search long for them; he either knew himself where they grew, or the beasts showed him. He always had his sheepskin and his little staff, and from time to time went still deeper into the wilderness.
Sometimes he would go nearer his home. Several times he rejoined his parents, who were always longing for him. I think they must have known about each other by revelation, for whenever Elisabeth and Zacharias wanted to see him, he always came from a long way off to meet them.
After staying in Heliopolis for a year and a half, until Jesus was about two years old, the Holy Family left the city because of lack of work and various persecutions. They moved south-wards in the direction of Memphis. When they passed through a small town not far from Heliopolis and sat down to rest in the open porch of a heathen temple, the idol fell down and broke in pieces. (It had the head of an ox with three horns, and there were holes in its body in which sacrifices were placed to be burnt.) This caused an uproar amongst the heathen priests, who seized and threatened the Holy Family. As the priests were consulting together, one of them said that for his part he thought it wise to commend themselves to the God of these people, reminding them of the plagues that had befallen their ancestors when they persecuted the Israelites, and how in the night before their exodus the first-born had died in every Egyptian house. They followed his advice and dismissed the Holy Family unmolested.
They made their way to Troja, a place on the east bank of the Nile, opposite Memphis. It was a big town, but filthy. They thought of staying here, but were not taken in; indeed, they could not even obtain the drink of water or the few dates for which they asked. Memphis was on the west bank of the Nile, which was here very broad, with islands. Part of the city was on the east bank, and here in the time of Pharaoh was a great palace with gardens and a high tower, to the top of which Pharaoh’s daughter used often to ascend to survey the country round. I saw the place where the child Moses was found among the tall rushes.
Memphis was composed as it were of three different towns, one on each side of the Nile, and another called Babylon which seemed to belong to it. This was farther down-stream on the east bank. Indeed, in Pharaoh’s time the whole region round the Nile between Heliopolis, Babylon, and Memphis was so covered with canals, buildings, and stone embankments that it all seemed to form one uninterrupted city. Now, at the time of the Holy Family’s visit, it had all become separated with great waste spaces between. From Troja they went northwards down-stream towards Babylon, which was ill-built, dirty, and desolate. They skirted this city between it and the Nile, and retraced their steps for some distance. They went down-stream, following an embankment along which Jesus travelled later, when He journeyed through Arabia to Egypt after the raising of Lazarus before meeting His disciples again at Jacob’s Well at Sichar. They travelled down-stream for some two hours; there were ruined buildings at intervals all along their path. They had to cross a small arm of the river or canal, and came to a place whose name as it was at that time I cannot remember; afterwards it was called Matarea, and was near Heliopolis.190 This place, which lay on a promontory surrounded by water on two sides, was very desolate. Its scattered buildings were mostly very badly made of palm wood and thick mud, roofed with reeds. Joseph found much work here in strengthening the houses with wattles and building galleries on to them.
In this town the Holy Family lived in a dark vaulted room in a lonely quarter at the landward side of the town, not far from the gate by which they had entered. As before, Joseph built a room in front of the vaulted one. Here, too, when they arrived, an idol fell down in a small temple, and afterwards all the idols fell. Here, too, a priest pacified the people by reminding them of the plagues of Egypt. Later, when a little congregation of Jews and converted heathen had gathered round the Holy Family, the priests handed over to
them the little temple where the idol had fallen, and Joseph arranged it as a synagogue. He became, as it were, the father of the congregation, and introduced the proper singing of the psalms, for their previous services had been very disorderly. There were only a few very poor Jews living here in wretched holes and ditches, though in the Jewish town between On and the Nile there were many Jews and they had a regular temple there. They had, however, fallen into dreadful idolatry; they had a golden calf, a figure with an ox’s head surrounded by little figures of animals like pole-cats or ferrets with little canopies over them.
These were animals which protected people against crocodiles. They also had an imitation Ark of the Covenant, with horrible things in it. They carried on a revolting idolatrous worship, which consisted of immoral practices performed in a subterranean passage and supposed to bring about the coming of the Messias. They were very obstinate and refused to amend their lives. Afterwards many of them left this place and came to where the Holy Family lived, not more than two hours’ journey away. Owing to the many dykes and canals, they could not travel direct but had to make a detour round On. The Jews in the land of Gessen had already become acquainted with the Holy Family in the city of On, and Mary had done much work for them-knitting, weaving, and sewing. She would never work at things which were superfluous or mere luxuries, only at what was necessary and at praying garments. I saw women bringing her work to do which they wanted, from vanity, to be made in a fashionable style; and I saw Mary giving back the work, however much she needed the money. I saw, too, that the women insulted her vilely.
To begin with, they had a very hard time in Matarea. There was great shortage of good water and wood. The inhabitants cooked with dry grass or reeds. The Holy Family generally had cold food to eat. Joseph was given a great deal of work in improving the huts, but the people there treated him just like a slave, giving him only what they liked; sometimes he brought home some money for his work, sometimes none. The inhabitants were very clumsy at building their huts. Wood was lacking, and though I saw trunks of trees lying about here and there, I noticed that there were no tools for dealing with them. Most of the people had nothing but stone and bone knives like turf-cutters. Joseph had brought his necessary tools with him. The Holy Family soon arranged their dwelling a little. Joseph divided the room very conveniently by light wicker screens; he prepared a proper fireplace and made stools and little low tables. The people here all ate off the ground.
They lived here for several years, and I have seen many scenes from Our Lord’s childhood. I saw where Jesus slept. In the thickness of the wall of Mary’s sleeping-room I saw a niche hollowed out by Joseph in which was Jesus’ couch. Mary slept beside it, and I have often seen her during the night kneeling before Jesus’ couch and praying to God. Joseph slept in another room.
I also saw a praying-place which Joseph had arranged in their dwelling. It was in a separate passage. Joseph and the Blessed Virgin had their own special places, and the Child Jesus also had His own little corner, where He prayed sitting, standing, or kneeling. The Blessed Virgin had a kind of little altar before which she prayed. A little table, covered with red and white, was let down like a flap before a cupboard in the wall, of which it generally formed the door. In the thickness of the wall were preserved sacred relics. I saw little bushy plants in pots shaped like chalices. I saw the end of St. Joseph’s staff with its blossom, whereby the lot had fallen upon him in the Temple to become Mary’s spouse. It was fixed in a box an inch and a half in thickness. Besides this, I saw another precious relic, but can no longer explain what it really was. In a transparent box I saw five little white sticks of the thickness of big straws. They stood crossed and as if tied in the middle; at the top they were curly and broader, like a little sheaf. [She crossed her fingers to explain and spoke also of bread.]
During the sojourn of the Holy Family in Egypt the child John must have again stayed in secret with his parents at Jutta, for I saw him at the age of four or five being once more taken into the wilderness by Elisabeth. When they left the house, Zacharias was not there; I think he had gone away beforehand so as not to see the departure, for he loved John beyond measure. He had, however, given him his blessing, for each time he went away he used to bless Elisabeth and John.
Little John had a sheepskin hanging over his left shoulder round his breast and back, fastened together under his right arm. Afterwards in the desert I saw him wearing this sheepskin sometimes over both shoulders, sometimes across his breast, sometimes round his waist—just as it suited him. This sheepskin was all that the boy wore. He had brownish hair darker than Jesus’, and he still carried in his hand the little white staff which he had brought from home before. I always saw him with it in the wilderness.
I now saw him hurrying along hand in hand with his mother Elisabeth, a tall woman with a small face and delicate features. She was much wrapped up and walked quickly. The child often ran on ahead; he was quite natural and childlike, but not thoughtless. At first their way led them northwards for some time, and they had water on their right hand; then I saw them crossing a little stream. There was no bridge, and they crossed on logs lying in the water, which Elisabeth, who was a very resolute woman, ferried across with a branch. After crossing the stream they turned more eastwards and entered a rocky ravine, the upper part of which was waste and stony, though the lower slopes were thick with bushes and fruits, among them many strawberries, of which the boy ate one here and there.
After they had gone some way into this ravine, Elisabeth said good-bye to the boy. She blessed him, pressed him to her heart, kissed him on his forehead and on both cheeks, and started on her journey home. She turned round several times on her way, and wept as she looked back towards John. The boy himself was quite untroubled and wandered on farther into the ravine with sure steps.
As during these visions I was very ill, God granted me the favour of feeling as if I were myself a child in presence of all that happened. It seemed to me that I was a child of John’s own age, accompanying him on his way; and I was afraid that he would go too far from his mother and would never find his way home again. Soon, however, I was reassured by a voice which said: ‘Do not be troubled, the boy well knows what he is about.’
Then I thought that I went quite alone with him into the wilderness as if he had been a familiar childhood’s playmate of mine, and I saw many of the things that happened to him. Yes, while we were together, John himself told me much about his life in the wilderness; for example, how he practised self-denial in every way and mortified his senses, how his vision grew ever brighter and clearer, and how he had been taught, in an indescribable way, by everything round him.
All this did not astonish me, for long ago as a child, when I was all by myself watching our cows, I used to live in familiar fellowship with John in the wilderness. I often longed to see him, and used then to call into the bushes in my country dialect: ‘Little John with his little stick and his sheepskin on his shoulder is to come to me’: and often little John with his little stick and his sheepskin on his shoulder did come to me, and we two children played together, and he told me and taught me all kinds of good things. And it never seemed to me strange that in the wilderness he learnt so much from plants and beasts, for when I was a child, whether in the woods, on the moors, in the fields, with the cows, or plucking ears of corn, pulling grass, gathering herbs, I used to look at every little leaf and every flower as at a book; every bird, every beast that ran past me, everything round me, taught me something.
Every shape and colour that I saw, every little veined leaf, filled my mind with many deep thoughts. But if I spoke of these, people either listened with surprise or else, more often, laughed at me, so that at last I accustomed myself to keeping silence about such things. I used to think (and sometimes think still) that it must be so with everyone, and that nowhere could one learn better, because here God Himself had written our alphabet for us.
So now, when again in my visions I followed the boy John into the wilderness, I saw as before all that he was about. I saw him playing with flowers and beasts. The birds especially were at home with him. They flew on to his head as he walked or as he knelt in prayer. I often saw him lay his staff across the branches; then at his call flocks of bright-coloured birds came flying to perch on it in a row. He gazed at them and spoke familiarly with them as if they were his schoolchildren. I saw him, too, following wild animals into their lairs, feeding them and watching them attentively.
When John was about six years old, Elisabeth took the opportunity of Zacharias’ absence on a journey to the Temple with herds for sacrifice to pay a visit to her son in the wilderness. Zacharias, I think, never went to see him there, so that he might truthfully say, if asked by Herod where his son was, that he did not know. In order, however, to satisfy his intense longing to see John, the latter came several times from the wilderness to his parents’ house in great secrecy and by night, and stayed there a short time. Probably his guardian angel led him there at the right moment when there was no danger. I saw him always guided and protected by higher Powers, and sometimes accompanied by shining figures like angels.
John was destined to live in the wilderness, separated from the world and from ordinary human food, and to be taught and trained by the Spirit of God. Providence so ordained matters that outer circumstances made him take refuge in the desert to which his natural instincts drew him with irresistible force; from his earliest childhood I always saw him thoughtful and solitary. Just as the Child Jesus fled to Egypt as the result of a divine warning, so did John, His precursor, fly to a hiding-place in the wilderness. Suspicion was directed to him, too, for there had been much talk in the land about John ever since his early days. It was well known that wonders had attended his birth, and that he was often seen surrounded by light, for which reasons Herod was particularly suspicious of him. He had caused Zacharias to be questioned several times as to the whereabouts of John, but had never yet laid hands on the old man. This time, however, as he was on his way to the Temple, he was attacked by Herod’s soldiers in a sunken road outside the Bethlehem Gate of Jerusalem, from which the city was not yet visible. These soldiers, who had been lying in wait for him, dragged him brutally to a prison on the slope of the Hill of Sion, where later I used often to see Jesus’ disciples making their way up to the Temple. The old man was here subjected to ill-treatment and even torture, in order to force from him a confession of his son’s whereabouts. When this had no effect, he was, by Herod’s soldiers, stabbed to death.191
His friends buried his body not far from the Temple. This was not the Zacharias who was murdered between the Temple and the altar. When the dead came out of their graves at the death of Christ, I saw the grave of that Zacharias falling out of the Temple walls near the praying-room of the aged Simeon, and himself coming forth from it. At that moment several other secret graves in the Temple burst open. On the occasion when that Zacharias was murdered between the Temple and the altar, there were many disputes going on about the descent of the Messias, and about certain rights and privileges in the Temple of various families. For instance, not all families were allowed to have their children brought up in the Temple. (This reminds me that I once saw in the care of Anna in the Temple a boy whose name I have forgotten; I think he was a king’s son.) Zacharias was the only one among the disputants who was murdered. His father was called Barachias.192 I saw that later the bones of that Zacharias were found again, but have forgotten the details. Elisabeth came home from the desert expecting to find Zacharias returned from Jerusalem. John accompanied her for some of the way; when they parted, she blessed him and kissed him on the forehead, and he hastened back, untroubled, to the wilderness. On reaching home Elisabeth heard the terrible news of the murder of Zacharias. She grieved and lamented so sorely that she could find no peace or rest at home, and so left Jutta forever and hastened to join John in the wilderness. She died there not long after, before the return of the Holy Family from Egypt. She was buried in the wilderness by the Essene from Mount Horeb who had always helped little John.
After this John moved farther into the wilderness. He left the rocky ravine for more open country, and I saw him arrive at a small lake in the desert. The shore was flat and covered with white sand, and I saw him go far out into the water and all the fishes swimming fearlessly up to him. He was quite at home with them. He lived here for some time, and I saw that he had made himself in the bushes a sleeping-hut of branches. It was quite low, and only just big enough for him to lie down in. Here and later I saw him accompanied very often by shining figures or angels, with whom he associated humbly and devoutly, but unafraid and in childlike confidence. They seemed to teach him and to make him notice all kinds of things. I saw that his staff had a little cross-piece, so that it formed a cross; fastened to it was a broad band of bark which he waved about in play like a little flag.
A daughter of Elisabeth’s sister now lived in John’s family house at Jutta near Hebron. It was well supplied with everything. When John was grown up he came there once in secret, and then went still farther into the wilderness, remaining there until he appeared among mankind. Of this I shall tell later.
187. This was recounted while Catherine Emmerich was seriously ill; she mentioned several journeys and other matters connected with Herod’s family, but very obscurely. The statement that Herod had been in Rome in the meantime was the only clear one. Some fifteen years after this communication, the writer reread the history of Herod the Great given by the Jewish historian Josephus, but found no mention of any journey of Herod’s to Rome at this time. (CB)
188. It has already been observed that Matt. 2.13, according to AC, involves the passing of over seven months. Here we are told that Jesus was nearly eighteen months old, so that Matt. 2.16, ‘Then Herod perceiving that he was deluded... sending killed...’, shows the passage of a further nine months to the murder of the Innocents. The Gospel has no details beyond the fact of the massacre. (SB)
189. Perhaps this refers to the Roman numeral DCC = 700 (AC always saw Roman numerals). She mentions (supra) that the massacres took place in seven different places, and the Gospel (Matt. 2.16) indicates a whole district: ‘Bethlehem and all the borders thereof.’ (SB)
190. Troja and Babylon near Memphis, and Matarea near Heliopolis or On, are all readily identifiable in the region of the modern Cairo. At Matarea it is said that the ‘Tree of Our Lady’ is still shown. The tree is also mentioned in the Arabic Gospel of the Infancy, 24. (SB)
191. The murder of Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, is recounted in Protev. 23, with subsequent portents added. (SB)
192. The earlier Zacharias killed near the altar is in II Par. 24.20-21. There is a well-known difficulty in Matt. 23.35, where this Zacharias is called ‘son of Barachias’, when II Par. gives his father’s name as Joiada. It is generally agreed that the verse in Matt. includes a scribal error, arising from the fact that the much betterknown Prophet Zacharias’ father was called Barachias (Zach. 1.1), and that the two names were thus linked in the scribe’s memory. This supposition is borne out by the omission of a father’s name in Matt. in Codex Sinaiticus. The parallel in Luke 11.51 has no father’s name. Yet all texts of Matt. before the discovery of Sinaiticus in 1859 include the name, and it is hardly surprising that AC should do so too. (SB)
The two names given for Zacharias’ father can be explained in another way. It may well be that the father of Zacharias was called both Barachias and Joiada. The name “Barachias” means ‘son of Achias,’ so that Joiada refers to Zacharias’ father and Achias to Zacharias’grandfather. The Jews in ancient times often referred to the son by the father’s name; for example the Caiaphas of the Gospels was actually Joseph, son of Caiaphas. The father of Zacharias could easily have been called both Joiada, his given name, and Barachias, referring to his father: Joiada Barachias means Joiada, son of Achias. As an example of this, we have “Joseph called Barsabbas, who was surnamed Justus.” (Acts 1:23). The name Barsabbas may refer to his father, meaning ‘son of Sabbas.’ The name Justus is called a surname, that is, a last name or family name. For the Jews of that time, the surname often referred to the father. Thus, both the name Barsabbas and the name Justus may refer to Joseph’s father’s names. Alternately, the name Barsabbas may refer to Joseph himself. Sabbas may be a derivative of Sabbath, so that Joseph, a devout keeper of the Sabbath, may have been referred to metaphorically as Barsabbas, ‘son of the Sabbath.’ In either case, it is an example of one man being referred to with two different names. Similarly, Zecharias is referred to as Barachias (‘son of Achias’) and Joiada. AC tells us that the Virgin Mary’s father was called both Joachim and Heli. (RC)
"So let us be confident, let us not be unprepared, let us not be outflanked, let us be wise, vigilant, fighting against those who are trying to tear the faith out of our souls and morality out of our hearts, so that we may remain Catholics, remain united to the Blessed Virgin Mary, remain united to the Roman Catholic Church, remain faithful children of the Church."- Abp. Lefebvre
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XIII. THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT AND ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST IN THE DESERT
Section V
In Matarea, where the inhabitants had to quench their thirst with the muddy water of the Nile, a fountain sprang up as before in answer to Mary’s prayers. At first they suffered great want, and were obliged to live on fruit and bad water. It was long since they had had any good water, and Joseph was making ready to take his water-skins on the donkey to fetch water from the balsam spring in the desert, when in answer to her prayer an angel appeared to the Blessed Virgin and told her to look for a spring behind their house.
I saw her go beyond the enclosure round their dwelling to an open space on a lower level surrounded by broken-down embankments. A very big old tree stood here. Our Lady had a stick in her hand with a little shovel at the end of it, such as people in that country often carried on their journeys. She thrust this into the ground near the tree, and thereupon a beautiful clear stream of water gushed forth. She ran joyfully to call Joseph, who on digging out the spring discovered that it had been lined with masonry below, but had dried up and was choked with rubbish. Joseph repaired and cleaned it, and surrounded it with beautiful new stonework. Near this spring, on the side from which Mary had approached it, was a big stone, just like an altar, and, indeed, I think it had once been an altar, but I forget in what connection.
Here the Blessed Virgin used to dry Jesus’ clothes and wrappings in the sun after washing them. This spring remained unknown and was used only by the Holy Family until Jesus was big enough to do various little commissions, such as fetching water for His Mother. I once saw that He brought other children to the spring, and made a cup with a leaf for them—to drink from. The children told this to their parents, so others came to the spring, but, as a rule, it was used only by the Jews. I saw Jesus fetching water for His Mother for the first time. Mary was in her room kneeling in prayer, and Jesus crept out to the spring with a skin and fetched water; that was the first time. Mary was inexpressibly touched when she saw Him coming back, and begged Him not to do it again, in case He were to fall into the water. Jesus said that He would be very careful and that He wanted to fetch water for her whenever she needed it.
The Child Jesus performed all kinds of services for His parents with great attention and thoughtfulness. Thus I saw Him, when Joseph was working near his home, running to fetch some tool which had been left behind. He paid attention to everything. I am sure that the joy He gave His parents must have outweighed all their sufferings. I also saw Jesus going sometimes to the Jewish settlement, about a mile from Matarea, to fetch bread in return for His Mother’s work. The many loathsome beasts to be found in this country did Him no
harm; on the contrary, they were very friendly with Him. I have seen Him playing with snakes.
The first time that He went alone to the Jewish settlement (I am not sure whether it was in His fifth or seventh year) He was wearing a new brown dress with yellow flowers round its edge which the Blessed Virgin had made and embroidered for Him: He knelt down to pray on the way, and I saw two angels appearing to Him and announcing the death of Herod the Great. Jesus said nothing of this to His parents, why I do not know, whether from humility or because the angel had forbidden Him to, or because He knew that the time had not yet come for them to leave Egypt. Once I saw Him going to the settlement with other Jewish children, and when He returned home, I saw Him weeping bitterly over the degraded state of the Jews living there.
The spring which appeared at Matarea in answer to the Blessed Virgin’s prayers was not a new one, but an old one which gushed forth afresh. It had been choked but was still lined with masonry. I saw that Job had been in Egypt long before Abraham and had dwelt on this spot in this place.193 It was he who found the spring, and he made sacrifices on the great stone lying here. Job was the youngest of thirteen brothers. His father was a great chieftain at the time of the building of the Tower of Babel. His father had one brother who was Abraham’s ancestor. The tribes of these two brothers generally intermarried. Job’s first wife was of the tribe of Phaleg: after many adventures, when he was living in his third home, he married three more wives of the same tribe. One of them bore him a son whose daughter married into the tribe of Phaleg and gave birth to Abraham’s mother. Job was thus the greatgrandfather of Abraham’s mother. Job’s father was called Joktan, a son of Heber. He lived to the north of the Caspian Sea, near a mountain range one side of which is quite warm, while the other is cold and ice-covered. There were elephants in that country. I do not think elephants could have gone to the place where Job first went to set up his own tribe, for it was very swampy there. That place was to the north of a mountain range lying between two seas, the western-most of which was before the Flood a high mountain inhabited by evil angels by whom men were possessed.194 The country there was poor and marshy; I think it is now inhabited by a race with small eyes, flat noses, and high cheek-bones.
It was here that Job’s first misfortune befell him, and he then moved southwards to the Caucasus and began his life again. From here he made a great expedition to Egypt, a land which at that time was ruled by foreign kings belonging to a shepherd people from Job’s fatherland. One of these came from Job’s own country; another came from the farthest country of the three holy kings. They ruled over only a part of Egypt, and were later driven out by an Egyptian king.
At one time there was a great number of these shepherd people all collected together in one city; they had migrated to Egypt from their own country. The king of these shepherds from Job’s country desired a wife for his son from his family’s tribe in the Caucasus, and Job brought this royal bride (who was related to him) to Egypt with a great following. He had thirty camels with him, and many menservants and rich presents. He was still young – a tall man of a pleasing yellow-brown colour, with reddish hair. The people in Egypt were dirty brown in colour. At that time Egypt was not thickly populated; only here and there were large masses of people. There were no great buildings either; these did not appear until the time of the children of Israel. The king showed Job great honour, and was unwilling to let him go away again. He was very anxious for him to emigrate to Egypt with his whole tribe, and appointed as his dwelling-place the city where afterwards the Holy Family lived, which was then quite different. Job remained five years in Egypt, and I saw that he lived in the same place where the Holy Family lived, and that God showed him that spring. When performing his
religious ceremonies, he made sacrifice on the great stone.
Job was to be sure a heathen, but he was an upright man who acknowledged the true God and worshipped Him as the Creator of all that he saw in nature, the stars, and the everchanging light. He was never tired of speaking with God of His wonderful creations. He worshipped none of the horrible figures of beasts adored by the other races of mankind in his time, but had thought out for himself a representation of the true God. This was a small figure of a man with rays round its head, and I think it had wings. Its hands were clasped under its breast, and bore a globe on which was a ship on waves. Perhaps it was meant to represent the Flood. When performing his religious ceremonies he burnt grains before this little figure. Figures of this kind were afterwards introduced into Egypt, sitting in a kind of pulpit with a canopy above.
Job found a terrible form of idolatry here in this city, descending from the heathen magical rites practised at the building of the Tower of Babel. They had an idol with a broad ox’s head, rising to a point at the top. Its mouth was open, and behind its head were twisted horns. Its body was hollow, fire was made in it, and live children were thrust into its glowing arms. I saw something being taken out of holes in its body. The people here were horrible, and the land was full of dreadful beasts. Great black creatures with fiery manes
flew about in swarms, scattering what seemed like fire as they flew. They poisoned everything in their path, and the trees withered away under them. I saw other animals with long hind-legs and short fore-legs, like moles; they could leap from roof to roof. Then there were frightful creatures lurking in hollows and between stones, which wound themselves round men and strangled them.
In the Nile I saw a heavy, awkward beast with hideous teeth and thick black feet. It was the size of a horse and had something pig-like about it. Besides these I saw many other ugly creatures; but the people here were much more horrible than any of them. Job, whom I saw clearing the evil beasts from around his dwelling by his prayers, had such a horror of these godless folk that he often broke out in loud reproaches of them, saying that he would rather live with all these dreadful beasts than with the infamous inhabitants of this land. I often saw him at sunrise gazing longingly towards his own country, which lay a little to the south of the farthest country of the three holy kings. Job saw prophetic pictures foreshadowing the arrival in Egypt of the children of Israel; he also had visions of the salvation of mankind and of the trials that awaited himself. He would not be persuaded to stay in Egypt, and at the end of five years he and his companions left the country.
There were intervals of calm between the great misfortunes that befell Job: the first interval lasted nine years, the second seven, and the third twelve. The words in the Book of Job: ‘And while he (the messenger of evil) was yet speaking’ mean ‘This misfortune of his was still the talk of the people when the following befell him.’195 His misfortunes came upon him in three different places. The last calamity—and also the restoration of all his prosperity—happened when he was living in a flat country directly to the east of Jericho.
Incense and myrrh were found here, and there was also a gold-mine with smithies. At another time I saw much more about Job, which I will tell later. For the present I will only say that Job’s story of himself and of his talking with God were written down at his dictation by two trusty servants of his, like treasurers. Their names were Hai and Uis or Ois.196 This story was preserved by his descendants as a sacred treasure, and was handed down from generation to generation until it reached Abraham and his sons. It was used for purposes of instruction, and came into Egypt with the children of Israel. Moses used it to comfort and console the Israelites during the Egyptian oppression and their journey through the desert, but in a summarised version, for it was originally of much greater length, and a great deal of it would have been incomprehensible to them. Solomon again remodelled it, so that it is a religious work full of the wisdom of Job, Moses, and Solomon. It was difficult to recognize the true history of Job from it, for the names of persons and places had been changed to ones nearer Chanaan, and it was thought that Job was an Edomite because the last place where he lived was inhabited long after his death by Edomites, the descendants of Esau. Job might still have been alive when Abraham was born.
When Abraham was in Egypt, he also had his tents beside this spring, and I saw him teaching the people here.197 He lived in the country several years with Sara and a number of his sons and daughters whose mothers had remained behind in Chaldaea. His brother Lot was also here with his family, but I do not remember what place of residence was assigned to him. Abraham went to Egypt by God’s command, firstly because of a famine in the Land of Chanaan, and secondly to fetch a family treasure which had found its way to Egypt through a niece of Sara’s mother. This niece was of the race of the shepherd-people belonging to Job’s tribe who had been rulers of part of Egypt. She had gone there to be serving maid to the reigning family and had then married an Egyptian. She was also the foundress of a tribe, but I have forgotten its name. Agar, the mother of Ismael, was a descendant of hers and was thus of Sara’s family.198
The woman had carried off this family treasure just as Rachel had carried off Laban’s household gods, and had sold it in Egypt for a great sum. In this way it had come into the possession of the king and the priests. This treasure was a genealogy of the children of Noe (especially of the children of Sem) down to Abraham’s time. It looked like a scales hanging on several chains from inside a lid. This lid was made to shut down on to a sort of box which enclosed the chains in it. The chains were made of triangular pieces of gold linked
together; the names of each generation were engraved on these pieces, which were thick yellow coins, while the links connecting them were pale like silver and thin. Some of the gold pieces had a number of others hanging from them. The whole treasure was bright and shining. I heard, but have forgotten, what was its value in shekels. The Egyptian priests had made endless calculations in connection with this genealogy, but never arrived at the right conclusion.
Before Abraham came into their country, the Egyptians must have known, from their astrologers and from the prophecies of their sorceresses, that he and his wife came from the noblest of races and that he was to be the father of a chosen people. They were always searching in their prophetic books for noble races, and tried to intermarry with them. This gave Satan the opportunity of attempting to debase the pure races by leading the Egyptians astray into immorality and deeds of violence.
Abraham, fearing that he might be murdered by the Egyptians because of the beauty of Sara, his wife, had given out that she was his sister. This was not a lie, since she was his step-sister, the daughter of his father Tharah by another wife (see Gen. 20.12). The King of Egypt caused Sara to be brought into his palace and wished to take her to wife. Abraham and Sara were then in great distress and besought God for help, whereupon God punished the king with sickness, and all his wives and most of the women in the city fell ill. The king, in alarm, caused inquiry to be made, and when he heard that Sara was Abraham’s wife, he gave her back to him, begging him to leave Egypt as soon as possible. It was clear, he said, that Abraham and his wife were under the protection of the gods.
The Egyptians were a strange people. On the one hand they were extremely arrogant and considered themselves to be the greatest and wisest among the nations. On the other hand they were excessively cowardly and servile, and gave way when they were faced by a power which they feared was greater than theirs. This was because they were not sure of all their knowledge, most of which came to them in dark ambiguous sooth-sayings, which easily produced conflicts and contradictions. Since they were very credulous of wonders, any such contradiction at once caused them great alarm.
Abraham approached the king very humbly with a request for corn. He won his favour by treating him as a ruler over the nations, and received many rich presents. When the King gave Sara back to her husband and begged him to leave Egypt, Abraham replied that he could not do this unless he took with him the genealogy that belonged to him, describing in detail the manner in which it had come to Egypt. The king then summoned the priests, and they willingly gave Abraham back what belonged to him, only asking that the whole transaction might first be formally recorded, which was done.199 Abraham then returned with his following to the land of Chanaan.
I have seen many things about the spring at Matarea right down to our own times, and remember this much: already at the time of the Holy Family it was used by lepers as a healing well. Much later a small Christian church was built on the site of Mary’s dwelling. Near the high altar of this church one descended into the cave where the Holy Family lived until Joseph had arranged their dwelling. I saw the spring with human habitations round it, and I saw it being used for various forms of skin eruptions. I also saw people bathing in it to cure themselves of evil-smelling perspirations. That was when the Mohammedans were there. I saw, too, that the Turks always kept a light burning in the church over Mary’s dwelling. They feared some misfortune if they forgot to light it. In later times I saw the spring isolated and at some distance from any houses. There was no longer a city there, and wild fruit-trees grew about it.
193. The Book of Job gives no clue to the ancestry, offspring, or homeland of Job, and (as AC remarks, infra) it is difficult to recognize the true history of Job from it. Job is only mentioned elsewhere in the Old Testament as a just man, together with Noe and Daniel (Ezekiel 14.14, 16, 20). Rabbinic lore has, however, many accounts of the circumstances of Job’s family; some texts place Job as a contemporary of Abraham, while others place him earlier or later. There are several accounts of his visit to Egypt. The list of such Rabbinic texts is too great to insert here, but a general account of them will be found in the Jewish Encyclopedia, art. Job, p. 193b. (SB)
194. It is remarkable that she said on another occasion that the Black Sea had been before the Flood a high mountain on which evil angels held sway. This seems to show that the mountain range behind which Job’s first dwelling-place was situated must have been the Caucasus. (CB)
195. The phrase ‘while he was yet speaking’ occurs in Job 1.16, 17, 18. The text certainly suggests a quick succession of calamities, but if AC’s statement of intervals of nine, seven, and twelve years between the calamities is correct, it is easier to suppose the story to have been telescoped for the purpose of the drama as we know it, than to interpret the text (as AC suggests) as meaning ‘while it was still the talk of the people’. (SB)
196. In 1835 the writer heard that the founder of the Armenian race was so named. (CB)
197. Flavius Josephus (lib. I, Antiquitat. Jud., c. 8) and others state that Abraham instructed the Egyptians in arithmetic and astrology. (CB)
Abraham in Egypt: Gen. 12.13. That Lot was with him is shown by 13.1. He pretended that his wife was his sister a second time (20.2) after which the explanation referred to is given (20.12). That Abraham taught the Egyptians is an old Jewish tradition, preserved in Josephus, Ant., I, viii, 2, and there are many Rabbinic stories about his sojourn in Egypt, especially in the Midrash (e.g. Genesis Rabba, XLI and XLIV). (SB)
198. Catherine Emmerich says elsewhere of Agar: ‘She was of Sara’s family, and when Sara herself was barren, she gave Abraham Agar for his wife and said she would build from her and have descendants through her. She looked upon herself as one with all the women of her tribe, as if it were a female tree with many blossoms. Agar was a vessel, or flower of her tribe, and she hoped for a fruit of her tribe from her. At that time the whole tribe was as one tree and each of its blossoms formed part of it. (CB)
Gen. 16.1 simply states that Agar was an Egyptian. (SB)
199. Gen. 12.20 (literally from the Hebrew): ‘And Pharaoh gave men orders concerning him, and sent him away, and his wife, and all that belonged to him.’ (SB)
"So let us be confident, let us not be unprepared, let us not be outflanked, let us be wise, vigilant, fighting against those who are trying to tear the faith out of our souls and morality out of our hearts, so that we may remain Catholics, remain united to the Blessed Virgin Mary, remain united to the Roman Catholic Church, remain faithful children of the Church."- Abp. Lefebvre
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XIV THE RETURN OF THE HOLY FAMILY FROM EGYPT200
At last I saw the Holy Family leaving Egypt. Though Herod had been dead for some time, they were not yet able to return, for there was still danger. Their sojourn in Egypt became increasingly difficult for St. Joseph. The people there practised an abominable idolatry, sacrificing deformed children, and even thinking it an act of special piety to offer healthy ones to be sacrificed. Besides this, they practised obscene rites in secret. Even the Jews in their settlement had become infected by these horrors. They had a temple which they said was like Solomon’s temple, but this was idle boasting, for it was utterly different. They had an Ark of the Covenant in imitation of the real one, but it contained obscene figures, and their ceremonies were abominable. They no longer sang the psalms. Joseph, on the other hand, had arranged everything admirably in the school at Matarea. He had been joined there by the heathen priest who had taken the Holy Family’s part when the idols collapsed in the little town near Heliopolis. Others had accompanied him and had attached themselves to the Jewish community.
I saw St. Joseph busy at his carpentry on the eve of the Sabbath. He was in great distress because he was not given the payment due to him, and he had nothing to take home, where money was much needed. In his trouble he knelt down under the open sky in a corner and prayed to God to help him in his need. The next night I saw that an angel came to him in a dream, saying that those who had sought the life of the child were dead, and that he was to rise up and make ready to journey home from Egypt by the high road; he was to have no fear, for the angel would accompany him. I saw St. Joseph communicating to the Blessed Virgin and to the Child Jesus this command that he had received from God, and I saw them preparing as promptly and obediently for their journey home as they had done when warned to flee into Egypt.
When their decision became known next morning, many people came to them in great distress to say farewell, bringing with them all kinds of presents in little vessels of bark. They were mostly Jews, but some were converted heathen and all were truly grieved. (The Jews in this country were so sunk in idolatry as hardly to be recognized. There were some people here who were glad at the departure of the Holy Family, looking on them as sorcerers who owed their power to the mightiest among the evil spirits.) Amongst the good people who brought presents I saw mothers with their little boys who had been Jesus’ playfellows.
Among these I particularly noticed a prominent woman of that town with her small son whom she used to call ‘the son of Mary’; for this woman, who was named Mira, had long hoped for children, and had, by the prayers of the Blessed Virgin, been granted this son by God. She had called him Deodatus. [When Catherine Emmerich saw Jesus passing through Egypt on His way to Jacob’s well after the raising of Lazarus, she said that He took this Deodatus with Him as a disciple.] I saw this woman giving money to Jesus—yellow, white, and brown pieces, triangular in shape. Jesus looked at His Mother as He accepted this gift.
As soon as Joseph had packed on the donkey all that they needed, they started on their journey, accompanied by all their friends. The donkey was the same one on which Mary had journeyed to Bethlehem. (On their flight into Egypt they had also had a she-ass with them, but Joseph had been obliged to sell her when they were in want.) They went between On and the Jewish settlement, and then turned southwards to the spring which had gushed forth in answer to Mary’s prayer before they came to On or Heliopolis. All was now green here, and the stream from the spring encircled a garden, surrounded on all four sides (except for the entrance) by a hedge of balsam shrubs. This garden was as big as Duke Croy’s ridingschool at Dülmen, and in it were young fruit-trees, date-palms and sycamores. The balsam shrubs were already as big as good-sized vines. Joseph had made little vessels of bark, very smooth and delicate except for the places where they were smeared with pitch. While they were resting he often made vessels like these for various uses. He broke off the trefoil-shaped leaves from the reddish tendrils of the balsam, and hung his little bark bottles on the shrub to catch the falling drops of balsam for them to take with them on their journey. Their companions now took a tender farewell of them, after which the Holy Family remained some hours here. The Blessed Virgin washed and dried some things, and after refreshing themselves with water and filling their water-skin, they started on their journey along the highway.
I saw many pictures of them on this journey home, always free from danger. The Child Jesus, Mary, and Joseph had on their heads, to protect them from the sun, a round piece of thin bark tied under their chins with a cloth. Jesus had His brown dress on, and wore shoes of bark which Joseph had made for Him. They were arranged so as to cover half His feet. Mary wore only soles. I saw that she was often worried because the Child Jesus found it so difficult to walk in the hot sand. I often saw her stopping to shake the sand out of His shoes. He often had to ride on the donkey so as to rest. I saw them go through several towns and pass by others. Their names have escaped me, though I still remember the name Ramesses. They crossed some water which they had also crossed on their journey into Egypt. It runs from the Red Sea to the Nile.
Joseph did not really want to go back to Nazareth, but wished to settle in his ancestral home of Bethlehem. He was, however, still irresolute, since on arriving in the Promised Land he heard that Judaea was governed by Archelaus, who like Herod was very cruel. I saw that the Holy Family stayed about three months in Gaza, where there were many heathen. Here an angel again appeared to Joseph in a dream and commanded him to go to go to Nazareth, which he did at once.201 Anna was still alive. She and a few relations knew where the Holy Family had been living. The return from Egypt happened in September. Jesus was nearly eight years old.
200. Matt. 2.19-23.
201. Joseph’s obedience to the angel in the choice of Nazareth: Matt. 2.22. (SB)
"So let us be confident, let us not be unprepared, let us not be outflanked, let us be wise, vigilant, fighting against those who are trying to tear the faith out of our souls and morality out of our hearts, so that we may remain Catholics, remain united to the Blessed Virgin Mary, remain united to the Roman Catholic Church, remain faithful children of the Church."- Abp. Lefebvre
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XV THE DEATH OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN AT EPHESUS
The following communications, made in different years, generally in the middle of August before the Feast of the Assumption, are here arranged in chronological order.
[On the morning of August 13th, 1822, Catherine Emmerich said: ‘Last night I had a great vision of the death of the Blessed Virgin, but have completely forgotten it all.’ On being asked, in the middle of a conversation on everyday matters, how old the Blessed Virgin was when she died, Catherine Emmerich suddenly looked away and said: ‘She reached the age of sixty-four years all but three and twenty days: I have just seen the figure X six times, then I, then V; is not that sixty-four?’ (It is remarkable that Catherine Emmerich was not shown numbers with our ordinary Arabic figures, with which she was familiar, but never saw anything but Roman figures in her visions).]
After Our Lord’s Ascension Mary lived for three years on Mount Sion, for three years in Bethany, and for nine years in Ephesus, whither St. John took her soon after the Jews had set Lazarus and his sisters adrift upon the sea.202 Mary did not live in Ephesus itself, but in the country near it where several women who were her close friends had settled.203 Mary’s dwelling was on a hill to the left of the road from Jerusalem some three and a half hours from Ephesus.204 This hill slopes steeply towards Ephesus; the city as one approaches it from the south-east seems to lie on rising ground immediately before one, but seems to change its place as one draws nearer. Great avenues lead up to the city, and the ground under the trees is covered with yellow fruit.
Narrow paths lead southwards to a hill near the top of which is an uneven plateau, some half-hour’s journey in circumference, overgrown, like the hill itself, with wild trees and bushes. It was on this plateau that the Jewish settlers had made their home. It is a very lonely place, but has many fertile and pleasant slopes as well as rock-caves, clean and dry and surrounded by patches of sand. It is wild but not desolate, and scattered about it are a number of trees, pyramid-shaped, with big shady branches below and smooth trunks. John had had a house built for the Blessed Virgin before he brought her here.
Several Christian families and holy women had already settled here, some in caves in the earth or in the rocks, fitted out with light woodwork to make dwellings, and some in fragile huts or tents. They had come here to escape violent persecution. Their dwellings were like hermits’ cells, for they used as their refuges what nature offered them. As a rule, they lived at a quarter of an hour’s distance from each other. The whole settlement was like a scattered village. Mary’s house was the only one built of stone. A little way behind it was the summit of the rocky hill from which one could see over the trees and hills to Ephesus and the sea with its many islands. The place is nearer the sea than Ephesus, which must be several hours’ journey distant from the coast. The district is lonely and unfrequented. Near here is a castle inhabited by a king who seems to have been deposed. John visited him often and ended by converting him. This place later became a bishop’s see.
Between the Blessed Virgin’s dwelling and Ephesus runs a little stream which winds about in a very singular way. Mary’s house was built of rectangular stones, rounded or pointed at the back; the windows were high up near the flat roof. The house was divided into two compartments by the hearth in the centre of it. The fireplace was on the floor opposite the door; it was sunk into the ground beside a wall which rose in steps on each side of it up to the ceiling. In the centre of this wall a deep channel, like the half of a chimney, carried the smoke up to escape by an opening in the roof. I saw a sloping copper funnel projecting above the roof over this opening. The front part of the house was divided from the room behind the fireplace by light movable wicker screens on each side of the hearth. In this front part, the walls of which were rather rough and also blackened by smoke, I saw little cells on both sides, shut in by wicker screens fastened together.
If this part of the house was needed as one large room, these screens, which did not nearly reach to the ceiling, were taken apart and put aside. These cells were used as bedrooms for Mary’s maidservant and for other women who came to visit her. To the right and left of the hearth, doors led into the back part of the house, which was darker than the front part and ended in a semicircle or angle. It was neatly and pleasantly arranged; the walls were covered with wickerwork, and the ceiling was vaulted. Its beams were decorated with a mixture of panelling and wickerwork, and ornamented with a pattern of leaves. It was all simple and dignified.
The farthest corner or apse of this room was divided off by a curtain and formed Mary’s oratory. In the centre of the wall was a niche in which had been placed a receptacle like a tabernacle, which could be opened and shut by pulling at a string to turn its door. In it stood a cross about the length of a man’s arm in which were inserted two arms rising outwards and upwards, in the form of the letter Y, the shape in which I have always seen Christ’s Cross. It had no particular ornamentation, and was more roughly carved than the crosses which come from the Holy Land nowadays. I think that John and Mary must have made it themselves. It was made of different kinds of wood. It was told me that the pale stem of the cross was cypress, the brown arm cedar, and the other arm of yellow palm-wood, while the piece added at the top, with the title, was of smooth yellow olive-wood. This cross was set in a little mound of earth or stone, like Christ’s Cross on Mount Calvary. At its foot there lay a piece of parchment with something written on it; Christ’s words, I think. On the cross itself the Figure of Our Lord was roughly outlined, the lines of the carving being robbed
with darker colour so as to show the Figure plainly.
Mary’s meditation on the different kinds of wood forming the cross were communicated to me, but alas I have forgotten this beautiful lesson. Nor can I for the moment be sure whether Christ’s Cross itself was made of these different kinds of wood, or whether Mary had made this cross in this way only for devotional reasons. It stood between two small vases filled with fresh flowers. I also saw a cloth lying beside the cross, and had the impression that it was the one with which the Blessed Virgin had wiped the blood from all the wounds in Our Lord’s holy body after it was taken down from the cross. The reason why I had this impression was that, at the sight of the cloth, I was shown that manifestation of Our Lady’s motherly love. At the same time I had the feeling that it was the cloth which priests use at Mass, after drinking the Precious Blood, to cleanse the chalice; Mary, in wiping the Lord’s wounds, seemed to me to be acting in the same way, and as she did it she held the cloth just as the priest does. Such was the impression I had at the sight of the cloth beside the cross.
To the right of this oratory, against a niche in the wall, was the sleeping-place or cell of the Blessed Virgin. Opposite it, to the left of the oratory, was a cell where her clothes and other belongings were kept. Between these two cells a curtain was hung dividing off the oratory. It was Mary’s custom to sit in front of this curtain when she was working or reading. The sleeping-place of the Blessed Virgin was backed by a wall hung with a woven carpet; the side-walls were light screens of bark woven in different-coloured woods to make
a pattern. The front wall was hung with a carpet, and had a door with two panels, opening inwards. The ceiling of this cell was also of wicker-work rising into a vault from the centre of which was suspended a lamp with several arms. Mary’s couch, which was placed against the wall, was a box one and a half feet high and of the breadth and length of a narrow plank. A covering was stretched on it and fastened to a knob at each of the four corners. The sides of this box were covered with carpets reaching down to the floor and were decorated with tassels and fringes. A round cushion served as pillow, and there was a covering of brownish material with a check pattern. The little house stood near a wood among pyramid-shaped trees with smooth trunks. It was very quiet and solitary. The dwellings of the other families were all scattered about at some distance. The whole settlement was like a village of peasants.
The Blessed Virgin lived here alone, with a younger woman, her maidservant, who fetched what little food they needed. They lived very quietly and in profound peace. There was no man in the house, but sometimes they were visited by an Apostle or disciple on his travels. There was one man whom I saw more often than others going in and out of the house; I always took him to be John, but neither here nor in Jerusalem did he remain permanently near the Blessed Virgin. He came and went in the course of his travels. He did not wear the same dress as in Our Lord’s time. His garment was very long and hung in folds, and was of a thin greyish-white material. He was very slim and active, his face was long, narrow, and delicate, and on his bare head his long fair hair was parted and brushed back behind his ears. In contrast with the other Apostles, this gave him a womanish, almost girlish appearance.
Last time he was here I saw Mary becoming ever quieter and more meditative: she took hardly any nourishment. It was as if she were only here in appearance, as if her spirit had already passed beyond and her whole being was far away. In the last weeks before she died I sometimes saw her, weak and aged, being led about the house by her maidservant. Once I saw John come into the house, looking much older too, and very thin and haggard. As he came in he girt up his long white ample garment in his girdle, then took off this girdle and put on another one, inscribed with letters, which he drew out from under his robe. He put a sort of maniple on his arm and a stole round his neck. The Blessed Virgin came in from her bedchamber completely enveloped in a white robe, and leaning on her maidservant’s arm. Her face was white as snow and as though transparent. She seemed to be swaying with intense longing.
Since Our Lord’s Ascension her whole being seemed to be filled with an ever-increasing yearning which gradually consumed her. John and she went together to the oratory. Our Lady pulled at the ribbon or strap which turned the tabernacle in the wall to show the cross in it. After they had knelt for a long time in prayer before it, John rose and drew from his breast a metal box. Opening it at one side, he drew from it a wrapping of material of fine wool, and out of this took a little folded cloth of white material. From this he took out the Blessed Sacrament in the form of a small square white particle. After speaking a few solemn words, he gave the Sacrament to the Blessed Virgin. He did not give her a chalice.
Behind the house, at a little distance up the hill, the Blessed Virgin had made a kind of Way of the Cross. When she was living in Jerusalem, she had never failed, ever since Our Lord’s death, to follow His path to Calvary with tears of compassion. She had paced out and measured all the distances between the Stations of that Via Crucis, and her love for her Son made her unable to live without this constant contemplation of His sufferings. Soon after her arrival at her new home I saw her every day climbing part of the way up the hill
behind her house to carry out this devotion. At first she went by herself, measuring the number of steps, so often counted by her, which separated the places of Our Lord’s different sufferings. At each of these places she put up a stone, or, if there was already a tree there, she made a mark upon it. The way led into a wood, and upon a hill in this wood she had marked the place of Calvary, and the grave of Christ in a little cave in another hill. After she had marked this Way of the Cross with twelve Stations, she went there with her
maidservant in quiet meditation: at each Station they sat down and renewed the mystery of its significance in their hearts, praising the Lord for His love with tears of compassion.
Afterwards she arranged the Stations better, and I saw her inscribing on the stones the meaning of each Station, the number of paces and so forth. I saw, too, that she cleaned out the cave of the Holy Sepulchre and made it a place for prayer. At that time I saw no picture and no fixed cross to designate the Stations, nothing but plain memorial stones with inscriptions, but afterwards, as the result of constant visits and attention, I saw the place becoming increasingly beautiful and easy of approach. After the Blessed Virgin’s death I saw this Way of the Cross being visited by Christians, who threw themselves down and kissed the ground.
After three years’ sojourn here Mary had a great longing to see Jerusalem again, and was taken there by John and Peter. Several of the Apostles were, I believe, assembled there: I saw Thomas among them and I think a Council was held at which Mary assisted them with her advice. On their arrival at Jerusalem in the dusk of the evening, before they went into the city, I saw them visiting the Mount of Olives, Calvary, the Holy Sepulchre, and all the holy places outside Jerusalem. The Mother of God was so sorrowful and so moved by
compassion that she could hardly hold herself upright, and Peter and John had to support her as they led her away.
She came to Jerusalem from Ephesus once again,205 eighteen months before her death, and I saw her again visiting the Holy Places with the Apostles at night, wrapped in a veil. She was inexpressibly sorrowful, constantly sighing, ‘Oh my Son, my Son’. When she came to that door behind the palace where she had met Jesus sinking under the weight of the Cross, she too sank to the ground in a swoon, overcome by agonizing memories, and her companions thought she was dying. They brought her to Sion, to the Cenacle, where she was living in one of the outer buildings. Here for several days she was so weak and ill and so often suffered from fainting attacks that her companions again and again thought her end was near and made preparations for her burial. She herself chose a cave in the Mount of Olives, and the Apostles caused a beautiful sepulchre to be prepared here by the hands of a Christian stonemason.
[At another time Catherine Emmerich said that St. Andrew had also helped in this work.] During this time it was announced more than once that she was dead, and the rumour of her death and burial was spread abroad in Jerusalem and in other places as well. By the time, however, that the sepulchre was ready,206 she had recovered and was strong enough to journey back to her home in Ephesus, where she did in fact die eighteen months later. The sepulchre prepared for her on the Mount of Olives was always held in honour, and later a church was built over it, and John Damascene (so I heard in the spirit, but who and what was he?)207 wrote from hearsay that she had died and been buried in Jerusalem. I expect that the news of her death, burial-place, and assumption into heaven were permitted by God to be indefinite and only a matter of tradition in order that Christianity in its early days should not be in danger of heathen influences then so powerful. The Blessed Virgin might easily have been adored as a goddess.
Amongst the holy women living in the Christian settlement near Ephesus and visiting the Blessed Virgin in her house was the daughter of a sister of Anna, the prophetess of the Temple. I saw her once travelling to Nazareth with Seraphia (Veronica) before Our Lord’s baptism. This woman was related to the Holy Family through Anna, for Anna was related to St. Anne and still more closely to Elisabeth, St. Anne’s niece. Another of the women living in Mary’s neighbourhood, whom I had also seen on her way to Nazareth before Our Lord’s baptism, was a niece of Elisabeth’s called Mara. She was related to the Holy Family in the following way: St. Anne’s mother Ismeria had a sister called Emerentia, both living in the pasture-lands of Mara between Mount Horeb and the Red Sea. She was told by the head of the Essenes on Mount Horeb that among her descendants would be friends of the Messias. She married Aphras, of the family of the priests who had carried the Ark of the Covenant. Emerentia had three daughters: Elisabeth, the mother of the Baptist, Enue (who was present as a widow at the birth of the Blessed Virgin in St. Anne’s house), and Rhode, whose daughter Mara was, as I have said, now at Ephesus. Rhode had married far away from the home of her family: she lived first in the region of Sichem, then in Nazareth and at Casaloth on Mount Thabor. Besides Mara she had two other daughters, and the sons of one of these became Our Lord’s disciples. One of Rhode’s two sons was the first husband of Maroni, who, when he died, married as a childless widow Eliud, a nephew of St. Anne, and went to live at Naim. Maroni had by this Eliud a son whom Our Lord raised from the dead in Naim after his mother had become a widow for the second time. He was the young man of Naim who became a disciple and received the name of Martial in baptism. Rhode’s daughter Mara, who was present at Mary’s death at Ephesus, was, married and lived near Bethlehem. At the time of Christ’s birth, when St. Anne absented herself from Bethlehem on one occasion, it was to Mara that she went. Mara was not well off, for Rhode had (like the rest of her family) left her children only a third of her property, the other two-thirds going to the Temple and the poor. I think that Nathanael, the bridegroom of Cana, was a son of this Mara, and received the name of Amator in baptism. She had other sons who all became disciples.
Last night and the night before I had much to do with the Mother of God at Ephesus: I followed her Way of the Cross with her and some five other holy women. The niece of Anna the prophetess was there, and also Elisabeth’s niece, the widow Mara. The Blessed Virgin went in front of them all. I saw that she was weak, her face was quite white and as though transparent. Her appearance was indescribably moving. It seemed to me as if I were following her here for the last time. While she was making the Stations, John, Peter, and Thaddaeus were I think, already in her house. I saw the Blessed Virgin as very full of years, but no sign of old age appeared in her except a consuming yearning by which she was as it were transfigured. There was an indescribable solemnity about her. I never saw her laugh, though she had a beautiful smile. As she grew older, her face became ever paler and more transparent. She was very thin, but I saw no wrinkles; there was no sign whatever in her of any withering or decay. She was living in the spirit, as it were.
The reason why I saw the Blessed Virgin with such particular clearness in this vision may be my possession of a little relic of a garment which she wore on this occasion. I will endeavour to describe the garment as clearly as I can. It was an over-garment. It completely covered only the back, where it fell to the feet in a few long folds. At the neck it was crossed over the breast and shoulders, and was held on one shoulder by a button, making a kind of scarf. It was fastened round the waist by a girdle and fell from under her arms to the feet on each side of the brown undergarment. Below the girdle it was folded back to show the lining, which had red and yellow stripes running down and across it. The little piece in my possession comes from the right-hand side of this fold, but not from the lining. It was a festival garment, worn in this way according to old Jewish custom. Our Lady’s mother wore one, too. This garment covered only the back of the brown under-garment, leaving the bodice and whole front of the latter visible. The sleeves, which were full, showed only from the elbows downwards. Our Lady’s hair was hidden in the yellowish cap which she wore; this was stretched rather tightly across her forehead and drawn together in folds on the back of her head. Over it she wore a soft black veil which hung down to her waist. I saw her wearing this dress at the wedding of Cana. In the third year of Jesus’ ministry, when Our Lord was healing the sick and teaching beyond the Jordan at Bethabara (also called Bethania), I saw the Blessed Virgin wearing this dress in Jerusalem, where she was living in a beautiful house near the house of Nicodemus, who, I think, owned that house also. Again at Our Lord’s crucifixion I saw her wearing this garment, completely hidden under her praying and mourning cloak. No doubt she wore this ceremonial dress here at the Way of the Cross in Ephesus in memory of having worn it during Our Lord’s sufferings on His way to Calvary.
[The morning of August 9th, 1821:] I came into Mary’s house, some three hours’ journey from Ephesus. I saw her lying on a low, very narrow couch in her little sleeping-alcove all hung with white, in the room behind and to the right of the hearth-place. Her head rested on a round cushion. She was very weak and pale, and seemed as though completely consumed with yearning. Her head and whole figure were wrapped in a long cloth; she was covered by a brown woollen blanket. I saw several women (five, I think) going into her room one after the other, and coming out again as though they were saying farewell to her. As they came out they made affecting gestures of prayer or grief. I again noticed amongst them Anna the niece of the prophetess, and Mara, Elisabeth’s niece, whom I had seen at the Stations of the Cross. I now saw six of the Apostles already gathered here—Peter, Andrew, John, Thaddaeus, Bartholomew, and Matthias—and also one of the seven deacons, Nicanor, who was always so helpful and anxious to be of service. I saw the Apostles standing in prayer together on the right-hand side of the front part of the house, where they had arranged an oratory.
202. The chronology here is not quite plain. The years given here probably include parts of years, since infra AC states clearly that Mary lived fourteen years and two months after the Ascension, or, as infra, thirteen years and two months. If the Ascension took place in A.D. 30, the date of the Assumption would be A.D. 43 or 44, which will fit with the subsequent martyrdom of James the Great under Herod (42-44). If she was then sixty-four years old (as AC says here), she was born in 20 B.C. But here there are difficulties about other statements: from AC’s remarks we can deduce that she was eighteen at the birth of Christ, though supra we gather she was fourteen when she left the Temple and was married. The matter is also confused by the historical problems of the date of the birth of Christ and the date of the Crucifixion and Ascension, and cannot be decided with any certainty. (SB)
203. None of the apocryphal legends of the Assumption suggest that Our Lady lived at Ephesus: most suggest Jerusalem, and the Greek legend (John, 4) gives Bethlehem. (SB)
204. The ‘road from Jerusalem’, one would suppose, would be the main road eastwards through Colossae, etc., but the suggestion that Mary’s house was ‘nearer the sea’ than Ephesus indicates a road south-ward along the coast. The issue is obscured by AC’s supposition that Ephesus ‘must be several hours distant from the coast’ (ib.). There seems to be some geographical confusion here, although the precise geographical history of Ephesus is rendered difficult through the silting-up of its harbour. (SB)
205. These visits to Jerusalem may be the source of the legends that suppose her dead to have taken place there. Several, the Latin (3), the Greek (3), and Pseudo-Joseph of Arimathea (4), refer to her visit to the sepulchre. The Council cannot be that of Acts 15, which took place some years later. (SB)
206. Her tomb at Gethsemani is mentioned in the Greek legend (48). The others indicate the Vale of Josaphat, usually identified with the Kedron Valley between Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives. Gethsemani is on one side of the valley. (SB)
207. St. John Damascene, a monk at Jerusalem, died c. A.D. 754, and is a Doctor of the Church. His sermon (2 de Dormitione Deiparae) relates her burial at Jerusalem. It is recited in the Breviary on the Octave-Day or during the Octave, and is in fact the simplest collection of popular legends about the Assumption. (SB)
"So let us be confident, let us not be unprepared, let us not be outflanked, let us be wise, vigilant, fighting against those who are trying to tear the faith out of our souls and morality out of our hearts, so that we may remain Catholics, remain united to the Blessed Virgin Mary, remain united to the Roman Catholic Church, remain faithful children of the Church."- Abp. Lefebvre
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XV THE DEATH OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN AT EPHESUS
Section II
[August 10th, 1821:] The time of the year when the Church celebrates the death of the Blessed Virgin is no doubt the correct one, only it does not fall every year on the same day. Today I saw two more Apostles coming in with girt-up garments like travellers.208 These were James the Less and Matthew, who is his step-brother, since Alphaeus married when a widower Mary the daughter of Cleophas, having had Matthew by a former wife.
Yesterday evening and this morning I saw the assembled Apostles holding a service in the front part of the house. For this purpose they had taken away or arranged differently the movable wickerwork screens which divided it into sleeping compartments. The altar was a table covered with a red cloth with a white one over it. It was brought from its place to the right of the hearth (which was in daily use) to be set up against the wall and used at the service, after which it was put back again. In front of the altar was a stand covered with a cloth over which hung a scroll. Lamps were burning above the altar. On the altar had been placed a vessel in the shape of a cross made of a substance lustrous with mother-of-pearl. It was barely nine inches in length and breadth and contained five boxes closed by silver lids.
In the centre one was the Blessed Sacrament, and in the others chrism, oil, salt, other holy things, and some shreds of what was perhaps cotton. Everything was tightly closed and packed together to prevent any leakage. It was the Apostles’ custom to carry this cross on their travels hanging on their breasts under their garments. They were then greater than the high priest when he carried on his breast the holy treasure of the Old Covenant. I cannot clearly recollect whether there were holy bones in one of the boxes or elsewhere. But I do know that in the sacrifice of the New Covenant they always had near the altar the bones of prophets and later of martyrs, just as the Patriarchs at their sacrifices always placed on the altar the bones of Adam or of other progenitors on whom the Promise rested. At the Last Supper Christ had taught the Apostles to do the same. Peter stood in priestly vestments before the altar, with the others behind him as if in choir. The women stood in the background.
[August 11th, 1821:] Today I saw a ninth Apostle, Simon, arrive. James the Greater, Philip and Thomas were the only ones missing. I also saw that several disciples had arrived, among whom I remember John Mark and the aged Simeon’s son or grandson, who had killed Jesus’ last Easter lamb and had the duty of supervising the sacrificial animals in the Temple. There were now some ten men assembled there. There was again a service at the altar, and I saw some of the new arrivals with their garments girt up high, so that I thought
they must be intending to leave immediately afterwards. In front of the Blessed Virgin’s bed stood a small, low, three-cornered stool, like the one on which the kings had laid their presents before her in the Cave of the Nativity. On it was a little bowl with a small brown transparent spoon.
Today I saw nobody in the Blessed Virgin’s room except one woman. I saw Peter again bringing her the Blessed Sacrament after the service; he brought it to her in the cross-shaped vessel. The Apostles stood in two rows reaching from the altar to her couch, and bowed low as Peter passed between them bearing the Blessed Sacrament. The screens round the Blessed Virgin’s couch were pushed back on all sides.
After witnessing all this in Ephesus, I had a longing to see what was going on in Jerusalem at this time, but shrank from the long journey thither from Ephesus. Whereupon the holy virgin and martyr Susanna209 came to me and encouraged me, saying that she would be my companion on the journey. (Today is her feast-day, and I have a relic of her, and she was with me the whole night.) So I went with her over sea and land, and we soon reached Jerusalem. She was, however, quite different from me, as light as air, and when I tried to take hold of her I could not do it. As soon as I came to a definite place, as for instance Jerusalem yesterday, she disappeared; but in all my passages from one vision to another, she was there to accompany and encourage me.
I came to the Mount of Olives, and found it all changed and laid waste since I had seen it before, though I was able to recognize each place I had known. The house near the garden of Gethsemani where the disciples had stayed had been pulled down, and a number of trenches and walls had been made there to prevent access to it. After this I betook myself to Our Lord’s Sepulchre. It had been walled up and buried under rubbish, and above, on the top of the rock, a building like a little temple was being put up. So far only the bare walls had been built. As I looked about me, distressed at all the devastation, my heavenly Bridegroom appeared to me in the form in which He had once appeared to Mary Magdalene in this place, and comforted me.
I found Mount Calvary built up and desolate. The little hill on which the Cross had stood had been levelled and surrounded by banks and ditches to prevent access to it. I did, however, make my way there to pray, and again Our Lord came to strengthen and comfort me. When Our Lord appeared to me I no longer saw St. Susanna beside me.
Afterwards I entered into a vision of Christ’s miracles and acts of healing near Jerusalem, and saw many of these healings again. This made me think of the power of healing in the name of Jesus which is specially bestowed upon priests, and how in our days this grace has been particularly manifested in the person of Prince Hohenlohe.210 I saw him healing many kinds of illnesses by his prayers; sometimes he cured people who had long suffered from ulcers hidden under their dirty rags. I am not sure whether these were really ulcers or only symbols of old burdens on their consciences. At the same time I found myself in the presence of other priests who possessed this power of healing in the same degree, but failed to exercise it owing to distractions, preoccupations with other things, fear of other people, or lack of perseverance. One of these I saw particularly clearly; to be sure, he helped many people whose hearts were, I saw, being gnawed by ugly creatures (these, no doubt, signified sins), but others, who lay stricken with bodily illness and whom he could certainly have helped, he neglected to assist owing to distractions, which caused disturbances and obstacles within him.
[August 12th, 1821:] There are now not more than twelve men gathered together in Mary’s house. Today I saw a service being held in her sleeping-alcove; Mass was said there. Her little room was open on all sides. A woman was kneeling beside Mary’s couch and every now and then held her upright. I see this being done throughout the day, and I see the women giving the Blessed Virgin a spoonful of liquid from the bowl. Mary had a cross on her couch, half an arm’s length long and shaped like the letter Y, as I always see the Holy
Cross. The upright piece is somewhat broader than the arms. It seems to be made of different woods, and the figure of Christ is white. The Blessed Virgin received the Blessed Sacrament. After Christ’s Ascension she lived fourteen years and two months.
[As Catherine Emmerich fell asleep that evening, she sang hymns to the Mother of God very softly and peacefully in a most moving manner. When she woke up again, the writer asked her what she was singing, and she answered, still heavy with sleep: ‘I was following in the procession with that woman there: now she has gone!’ Next day she again spoke of this singing. ‘In the evening I was following two of Mary’s friends on the Way of the Cross behind her house. Every day they take it in turns to go there, morning and evening, and I creep up quietly to join in behind them. Yesterday I could not help starting to sing and then everything was gone.’]
Mary’s Way of the Cross has twelve Stations. She paced out all the measurements, and John had the memorial stones set up for her. At first they were just rough stones to mark the places, afterwards everything was made more elaborate. There were now low smooth white stones with many sides—I think eight—with a little depression in the centre of the surface. Each of these stones rested on a base of the same stone whose thickness was hidden by the close turf and the beautiful flowers surrounding them. The stones and their bases were all inscribed with Hebrew letters. These Stations were all in hollows like little round basins. They were enclosed, and a path encircled the stones broad enough for one or two people to approach in order to read the inscriptions. The spaces round the stones, covered with grass and beautiful flowers, varied in size. These stones were not always uncovered; there was a mat or cover fastened at one side which, when nobody was praying there, was pulled over the stone and held down on the other side with two pegs. These twelve stones were all alike, all engraved with Hebrew inscriptions, but their positions were different. The Station of the Mount of Olives was in a little valley near a cave, in which several people could kneel at prayer. The Station of Mount Calvary was the only one not in a hollow, but on a hill. To reach the Station of the Holy Sepulchre one went over this hill and came to the stone in a hollow. Still lower down at the foot of the hill, in a cave, was the Sepulchre in which the Blessed Virgin was buried. I believe that this grave must still exist under the earth and will one day come to light.
I saw that the Apostles, holy women, and other Christians, when they approached these Stations to pray before them, kneeling or lying on their faces, brought out from under their robes a Y-shaped cross about a foot long, which they set up in the hollow on the various stones by means of a prop at its back.
[August 13th, 1821:] I saw the service being celebrated today as before. I saw the Blessed Virgin being lifted up several times in the day to be given nourishment from the spoon. In the evening about seven o’clock she said in her sleep: ‘Now James the Greater has come 219 from Spain by Rome with three companions, Timon, Eremensear, and still another.’ Later Philip came with a companion from Egypt. I saw the Apostles and disciples arrive mostly in a very tired condition.211 They had long staffs with crooks and knobs of different shapes in their hands which showed their rank. They wore long white woollen cloaks which they could draw over their heads as hoods. Underneath they wore long white priests’ robes of wool; these were open from top to bottom, closed by little knob-like buttons and slit straps of leather. I always saw them like this, but forgot to say so. When they were on their travels they wore their garments girt up high round their waists. Some of them had a pouch hanging from their girdles.
The newcomers tenderly embraced those who were already there, and I saw many of them weeping for joy and for sorrow, too—happy to see each other again and grieved that the occasion for their meeting was so sad. They laid aside their staffs, cloaks, girdles, and pouches, letting their long white undergarments fall to their feet. They put on broad girdles which they carried with them, engraved with letters. After their feet had been washed, they approached Mary’s couch and greeted her with reverence. She could only say a few words to them. I saw that they took no nourishment except little loaves; they drank from the little flasks hanging from their girdles.
A short time before the Blessed Virgin’s death, as she felt the approach of her reunion with her God, her Son, and her Redeemer, she prayed that there might be fulfilled what Jesus had promised to her in the house of Lazarus at Bethany on the day before His Ascension. It was shown to me in the spirit how at that time, when she begged Him that she might not live for long in this vale of tears after He had ascended, Jesus told her in general what spiritual works she was to accomplish before her end on earth. He told her, too, that in answer to her prayers the Apostles and several disciples would be present at her death, and what she was to say to them and how she was to bless them. I saw, too, how He told the inconsolable Mary Magdalene to hide herself in the desert, and her sister Martha to found a community of women; He Himself would always be with them.
After the Blessed Virgin had prayed that the Apostles should come to her, I saw the call going forth to them in many different parts of the world. At this moment I can remember what follows.
In many of the places where they had taught, the Apostles had already built little churches. Some of them had not yet been built in stone, but were made of plaited reeds plastered with clay; yet all those I saw had at the back the semicircular or three-sided apse, like Mary’s house at Ephesus. They had altars in them and offered the holy sacrifice of the Mass there.
I saw all, the farthest as well as the nearest, being summoned by visions to come to the Blessed Virgin. The indescribably long journeys made by the Apostles were not accomplished without miraculous assistance from the Lord. I think that they often travelled in a supernatural manner without knowing it, for I often saw them passing through crowds of men apparently without anyone seeing them.
I saw that the miracles which the Apostles worked amongst various heathen and savage peoples were quite different from their miracles described in Holy Writ. Everywhere they worked miracles according to the needs of the people. I saw that they all took with them on their travels the bones of the Prophets or of martyrs done to death in the first persecutions, and kept them at hand when praying and offering the Holy Sacrifice.
When the Lord’s summons to Ephesus came to the Apostles, Peter, and I think also Matthias, were in the region of Antioch. Andrew, who was on his way from Jerusalem, where he had suffered persecution, was not far from him. In the night I saw Peter and Andrew asleep on their journey in different places but not very far apart from each other.
Neither of them were in a town, but were taking their rest in public shelters such as are found by the roadside in these hot countries. Peter was lying against a wall. I saw a shining youth approach and wake him by taking him by the hand and telling him to rise and hurry to Mary, and that he would meet Andrew on the way. I saw that Peter, who was already stiff from age and his exertions, sat up and rested his hands on his knees as he listened to the angel. Hardly had the vision vanished when he got up, wrapped himself in his cloak, fastened his girdle, grasped his staff and set forth. He was soon met by Andrew, who had been summoned by the same vision; later they met with Thaddaeus, to whom the same message had been given. Thus all three came to Mary’s house, where they met John.
James the Greater, who had a narrow pale face and black hair, came from Spain to Jerusalem with several disciples, and stayed some time in Sarona near Joppa. It was here that the summons to Ephesus reached him. After Mary’s death he went with some six others back to Jerusalem and suffered a martyr’s death.212 The man who denounced him was converted, was baptized by him, and beheaded with him.
Judas Thaddaeus and Simon were in Persia when the summons reached them. Thomas was of low stature and had red-brown hair. He was the farthest off, and did not arrive until after Mary’s death.213 I saw the summoning angel come to him. He was a very long way off. He was not in any town, but in a reed-hut, where he was praying, when the angel told him to go to Ephesus. I saw him alone in a little boat with a very simple-minded servant crossing a wide expanse of water—then journeying across country without, I think, touching at any town. He was accompanied by a disciple. He was in India when he received the warning, but before that he had decided to go farther north to Tartary, and could not make up his mind to abandon this plan. (He always tried to do too much and so often arrived too late.) So he went still farther north, right across China, to where Russia is now, where he received a second summons which sent him hurrying to Ephesus. The servant whom he had with him was a Tartar whom he had baptized. This man played a part in later events, but I forget what it was. Thomas did not return to Tartary after Mary’s death. He was killed in India by being pierced with a lance. I saw that he set up a stone in that country on which he knelt and prayed, and that the marks of his knees were imprinted upon the stone. He foretold that when the sea should reach this stone, another would come to that country preaching Jesus Christ.
John had been in Jericho a short time before; he often travelled to the Promised Land. He usually stayed in Ephesus and its neighbourhood, and it was here that the summons reached him.
Bartholomew was in Asia, east of the Red Sea. He was handsome and very gifted. His complexion was pale, and he had a high forehead, large eyes, and black curly hair. He had a short black curly beard, divided in the middle. He had just converted a king and his family. I saw it all and will recount it in due course. When he returned there he was murdered by the king’s brother.
I forget where James the Less was when the summons reached him. He was very handsome and had a great resemblance to Our Lord, whence he was called by all his brethren the brother of the Lord.
About Matthew I again saw today that he was the son of Alphaeus by a former marriage, and was thus the stepson of Alphaeus’ second wife Mary, the daughter of Cleophas.
I forget about Andrew.
Paul was not summoned. Only those were summoned who were relations or acquaintances of the Holy Family.
During these visions I had by my side, amongst the many relics I possess, those of Andrew, Bartholomew, James the Greater, James the Less, Thaddaeus, Simon Zelotes, Thomas, and several disciples and holy women. All these came up to me in that order more clearly and distinctly than the others, and then entered into the vision that I saw. I saw Thomas come up to me like the others, but he did not come into the vision of Mary’s death; he was far away and came too late. I saw that he was the only one of the twelve who was missing. I saw him on his way at a great distance.
I also saw five disciples, and can remember with particular clearness Simeon Justus and Barnabas (or Barsabas), whose bones were beside me.214 Among the three others was one of the shepherd’s sons (Eremensear), who accompanied Jesus on His long journeys after the raising of Lazarus. The other two came from Jerusalem. I also saw coming into Mary’s house Maria Heli, the elder sister of the Blessed Virgin, and her younger stepsister, a daughter of Anna by her second husband. Maria Heli (who was the wife of Cheophas, the mother of Mary Cleophas, and the grandmother of the Apostle James the Less, Thaddaeus, and Simon) was by then a very old woman. (She was twenty years older than the Blessed Virgin.) All these holy women lived nearby; they had come here some time before to escape the persecution in Jerusalem. Some of them lived in caves in the rocks which had been arranged as dwellings by means of wickerwork screens.
208. AC’s matter-of-fact account of the arrival of the Apostles (and on their tiredness) contrasts strikingly with that of the legends. In most of these the Apostles are transported by clouds to Mary’s deathbed, and in the Syriac legend some are already dead and come to life for the occasion. (SB)
209. St. Susanna was a Roman maiden, martyred in A.D. 295. (SB)
210. Prince Alexander Leopold Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingsfürst was born in 1794. Ordained priest in 1815, he became a canon of Bamberg in 1821. About this time he began to perform some remarkable miraculous cures. The most outstanding was that performed on June 21st, 1821, when Princess Mathilda von Schwarzenberg was released from her paralysis of the previous eight years. The date at the heading of this section of AC’s statement shows that she was speaking less than two months after this event, which therefore had a great topical interest. The holy man became a titular bishop in 1844 and died in 1849. (SB)
211. The mission-fields of the various Apostles as mentioned by AC on these pages generally correspond to the traditional legends as preserved in the Lives of the Saints, the Breviary, the Acta Bollandiana, and local cult. Timon was one of the seven deacons (Acts 6.15), and is so called by AC (infra). The identity of Eremensear is unknown, but AC states that he joined James and Timon later and had been a disciple of Our Lord. (SB)
212. The martyrdom of James the Great is the only death of an Apostle narrated in the New Testament (Acts 12.1), and the persecutor is named: Herod, i.e. Herod Agrippa I. This Herod reigned A.D. 42-44. AC suggests that James went directly to his martyrdom after the Assumption, in which case the Assumption must have taken place in A.D. 44 at the latest. (SB)
213. The late arrival of Thomas is included in the tradition preserved by St. John Damascene, but among the early legends only in that entitled ‘of Joseph of Arimathea’ (17). It might easily be supposed to be invented in view of John 20.24, but it might equally easily be supposed to be truly in character. (SB)
214. Simeon Justus and Barnabas or Barsabas. There may be a confusion here (unless other persons are intended): Joseph Barsabas Justus was the candidate proposed with Matthias in Acts 1.23; Joseph Barnabas, later the companion of St. Paul, first appears in Acts 4.36. (SB)
"So let us be confident, let us not be unprepared, let us not be outflanked, let us be wise, vigilant, fighting against those who are trying to tear the faith out of our souls and morality out of our hearts, so that we may remain Catholics, remain united to the Blessed Virgin Mary, remain united to the Roman Catholic Church, remain faithful children of the Church."- Abp. Lefebvre
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XV THE DEATH OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN AT EPHESUS
Section III
[On the afternoon of August 14th Catherine Emmerich said to the writer: ‘Now I will tell of the death of the Blessed Virgin if only I am not disturbed by visits. Tell my little niece not to interrupt me but to wait patiently in the other room for a time.’ The writer, having done this and returned, said to her, ‘Now tell’, whereupon she answered, gazing before her with a fixed stare: ‘Where am I, then? Is it morning or evening?’ The writer: ‘You are going to tell of the death of the Blessed Virgin.’ ‘Well, there they are, the Apostles, ask them yourself, you are much more learned than I am, you can ask them better than I can. They are following the Way of the Cross and are preparing the grave of the Mother of God.’ When she said this, she was already seeing what happened after Mary’s death. After a pause she continued, marking on her fingers the figures she mentioned: ‘See this number, a stroke land then a V, does not this make four? Then again V and three strokes, does not that make eight? This is not properly written out; but I see them as separate figures because I do not understand big sums in Roman letters. It means that the year 48 after Christ’s Birth is the year of the Blessed Virgin’s death. Then I see X and III and then two full moons as they are shown in the calendar, that means that the Blessed Virgin died thirteen years and two months after Christ’s Ascension into Heaven. This is not the month in which she died—I think I already saw this vision several months ago. Ah, her death was full of sorrow and full of joy.’ In this continued state of fervour she then recounted the following:]
Yesterday at midday I saw that there was already great grief and mourning in the Blessed Virgin’s house. Her maidservant was in the utmost distress, throwing herself on her knees and praying with outstretched arms, sometimes in corners of the house and sometimes outside in front of it. The Blessed Virgin lay still and as though near death in her little cell. She was completely enveloped in a white sleeping coverlet, even her arms being wrapped in it. It was like the one I described when she went to bed in Elisabeth’s house at the
Visitation. The veil over her head was arranged in folds across her forehead; when speaking with men she lowered it over her face. Even her hands were covered except when she was alone. In the last days of her life I never saw her take any nourishment except now and then a spoonful of juice which her maidservant pressed from a bunch of yellow berries like grapes into a bowl near her couch. Towards evening the Blessed Virgin realized that her end was approaching and therefore signified her desire, in accordance with Jesus’ will, to bless and say farewell to the Apostles, disciples and women who were present. Her sleeping cell was opened on all sides, and she sat upright on her couch, shining white as if suffused with light.
The Blessed Virgin, after praying, blessed each one by laying her crossed hands on their foreheads. She then once more spoke to them all, doing everything that Jesus had commanded her at Bethany. When Peter went up to her, I saw that he had a scroll of writing in his hand. She told John what was to be done with her body, and bade him divide her clothes between her maidservant and another poor girl from the neighbourhood who sometimes came to help. The Blessed Virgin in saying this pointed to the cupboard standing opposite her sleeping cell, and I saw her maidservant go and open the cupboard and then shut it again. So I saw all the Blessed Virgin’s garments and will describe them later. After the Apostles, the disciples who were present approached the Blessed Virgin’s couch and received the same blessing. The men then went back into the front part of the house and prepared for the service, whilst the women who were present came up to the Blessed Virgin’s couch, knelt down and received her blessing. I saw that one of them bent right down over Mary and was embraced by her.
In the meantime the altar was set up and the Apostles vested themselves for the service in their long white robes and broad girdles with letters on them. Five of them who assisted in offering the Holy Sacrifice (just as I had seen done when Peter first officiated in the new church at the pool of Bethsaida after Our Lord’s Ascension) put on the big, rich, priestly vestments. Peter, who was the celebrant, wore a robe which was very long at the back but did not trail on the ground. There must have been some sort of stiffening round its hem, for I see it standing out all round. They were still engaged in putting on their vestments when James the Greater arrived with three companions. He came with Timon the deacon from Spain, and after passing through Rome had met with Eremensear and still another.
The Apostles already present, who were just going up to the altar, greeted him with grave solemnity, telling him in few words to go to the Blessed Virgin. He and his companions, after having ha their feet washed and after arranging their garments, went in their travelling dress to the Blessed Virgin’s room. She gave her blessing first to James alone, and then to his three companions together, after which James went to join in the service. The latter had been going on for some time when Philip arrived from Egypt with a companion. He at once went to the Mother of Our Lord, and wept bitterly as he received her blessing.
In the meantime Peter had completed the Holy Sacrifice. He had performed the act of consecration, had received the Body of the Lord, and had given Communion to the Apostles and disciples. The Blessed Virgin could not see the altar from her bed, but during the Holy Sacrifice she sat upright on her couch in deep devotion. Peter, after he and the other Apostles had received Communion, brought Our Lady the Blessed Sacrament and administered extreme unction to her. The Apostles accompanied him in a solemn procession. Thaddaeus went first with a smoking censer, Peter bore the Blessed Sacrament in the cruciform vessel of which I have spoken, and John followed him, carrying a dish on which rested the Chalice with the Precious Blood and some small boxes. The Chalice was small, white and thick as though of cast metal; its stem was so short that it could only be held with two or three fingers. It had a lid, and was of the same shape as the Chalice at the Last Supper.
A little altar had been set up by the Apostles in the alcove beside the Blessed Virgin’s couch. The maidservant had brought a table which she covered with red and white cloths. Lights (I think both tapers and lamps) were burning on it. The Blessed Virgin lay back on her pillows pale and still. Her gaze was directed intently upwards; she said no word to anyone and seemed in a state of perpetual ecstasy. She was radiant with longing; I could feel this longing, which was bearing her upwards—ah, my heart was longing to ascend with hers to God!
Peter approached her and gave her extreme unction, much in the way in which it is administered now. From the boxes which John held he anointed her with holy oil on her face, hands, and feet, and on her side, where there was an opening in her dress so that she was in no way uncovered. While this was being done the Apostles were reciting prayers as if in choir. Peter then gave her Holy Communion. She raised herself to receive it, without supporting herself, and then sank back again. The Apostles prayed for a while, and then, raising herself rather less, she received the Chalice from John. As she received the Blessed Sacrament I saw a radiance pass into Mary, who sank back as though in ecstasy, and spoke no more. The Apostles then returned to the altar in the front part of the house in a solemn procession with the sacred vessels and continued the service. St. Philip now also received Holy Communion. Only a few women remained with the Blessed Virgin.
Afterwards I saw the Apostles and disciples once more standing round the Blessed Virgin’s bed and praying. Mary’s face was radiant with smiles as in her youth. Her eyes were raised towards heaven in holy joy. Then I saw a wonderfully moving vision. The ceiling of Our Lady’s room disappeared, the lamp hung in the open air, and I saw through the sky into the heavenly Jerusalem. Two radiant clouds of light sank down, out of which appeared the faces of many angels. Between these clouds a path of light poured down upon Mary, and I saw a shining mountain leading up from her into the heavenly Jerusalem. She stretched out her arms towards it in infinite longing, and I saw her body, all wrapped up, rise so high above her couch that one could see right under it. I saw her soul leave her body like a little figure of infinitely pure light, soaring with outstretched arms up the shining mountain to heaven. The two angel-choirs in the clouds met beneath her soul and separated it from her holy body, which in the moment of separation sank back on the couch with arms crossed on the breast.215 My gaze followed her soul and saw it enter the heavenly Jerusalem by that shining path and go up to the throne of the most Holy Trinity. I saw many souls coming forward to meet her in joy and reverence; amongst them I recognized many patriarchs, as well as Joachim, Anna, Joseph, Elisabeth, Zacharias, and John the Baptist.
The Blessed Virgin soared through them all to the Throne of God and of her Son, whose wounds shone with a light transcending even the light irradiating His whole Presence. He received her with His Divine Love, and placed in her hands a sceptre with a gesture towards the earth as though indicating the power which He gave her. Seeing her thus entered into the glory of heaven, I forgot the whole scene round her body on the earth. Some of the Apostles, Peter and John for example, must have seen this too, for their faces were raised to
heaven, whilst the others knelt, most of them bowed down low to the earth. Everywhere was light and radiance, as at Our Lord’s Ascension.
To my great joy I saw that Mary’s soul, as it entered heaven, was followed by a great number of souls released from purgatory; and again today, on the anniversary, I saw many poor souls entering heaven, amongst them some whom I knew. I was given the comforting assurance that every year, on the day of Our Lady’s death, many souls of those who have venerated her receive this reward.
When I once more looked down to earth, I saw the Blessed Virgin’s body lying on the couch. It was shining, her face was radiant, her eyes were closed and her arms crossed on her breast. The Apostles, disciples, and women knelt round it praying. As I saw all this there was a beautiful ringing in the air and a movement throughout the whole of nature like the one I had perceived on Christmas night. The Blessed Virgin died after the ninth hour, at the same time as Our Lord.
The women now laid a covering over the holy body, and the Apostles and disciples betook themselves to the front part of the house. The fire on the hearth was covered, and all the household utensils put aside and covered up. The women wrapped and veiled themselves and, sitting on the ground in the room in front of the house, they began to lament for the dead, kneeling and sitting in turns. The men muffled their heads in the piece of stuff which they wore round their necks and held a mourning service. There were always two praying at the head and foot of the holy body. Matthew and Andrew followed Our Lady’s Way of the Cross till the last Station, the cave which represented Christ’s sepulchre. They had tools with them with which to enlarge the tomb, for it was here that the Blessed Virgin’s body was to rest. The cave was not as spacious as Our Lord’s and hardly high enough for a man to enter it upright. The floor sank at the entrance, and then one saw the burial-place before one like a narrow altar with the rock-wall projecting over it. The two Apostles did a good deal of work in it, and also arranged a door to close the entrance to the tomb. In the burial-place a hollow had been made in the shape of a wrapped-up body, slightly raised at the head. In front of the cave there was a little garden with a wooden fence round it, as there had been in front of Christ’s sepulchre. Not far away was the Station of Calvary on a hill. There was no standing cross there, but only one cut into a stone. It must have been half an hour’s journey from Mary’s house to the tomb.
Four times did I see the Apostles relieve each other in watching and praying by the holy body. Today I saw a number of women, among whom I remember a daughter of Veronica and the mother of John Mark, coming to prepare the body for burial. They brought with them cloths, as well as spices to embalm the body after the Jewish fashion. They all carried little pots of fresh herbs. The house was closed and they worked by lamplight. The Apostles were praying in the front part of the house as though they were in choir. The women took the Blessed Virgin’s body from her death-bed in its wrappings, and laid it in a long basket which was so piled up with thick, roughly woven coverings or mats that the body lay high above it. Two women then held a broad cloth stretched above the body, while two others removed the head-covering and wrappings under this cloth, leaving the body clothed only in the long woollen robe. They cut off the Blessed Virgin’s beautiful locks of hair to be kept in remembrance of her. Then I saw that these two women washed the holy body; they had something crinkled in their hands, probably sponges. The long robe covering the body was severed. They carried out their task with great respect and reverence, washing the body with their hands without looking at it, for the cloth which was held over it hid it from their eyes. Every place touched by the sponge was covered up again at once; the middle of the body remained wrapped up and nothing whatever was exposed. A fifth woman wrong out the sponges in a bowl and then dipped them into fresh water; three times I saw the basin emptied into a hollow outside the house and fresh water being brought. The holy body was dressed in a new robe, open in front, and reverently lifted, by means of cloths passed under it, on to a table where the grave-clothes and swaddling-bands had been arranged for convenient use. They wound them tightly round the body from the ankles to below the breast, leaving the head, breast, hands, and feet free.
In the meantime the Apostles had assisted at the Holy Sacrifice offered by Peter and received Communion with him, after which I saw Peter and John, still in great bishops’ cloaks, going from the front part of the house to the death-chamber. John carried a vessel with ointment, and Peter, dipping the finger of his right hand into it, anointed the breast, hands, and feet of the Blessed Virgin, praying as he did so. (This was not extreme unction; she had received that while still alive.) He touched her hands and feet with ointment, marking forehead and breast with the sign of the cross. I think that this was done as a mark of respect for the holy body, as at the burial of Our Lord. After the Apostles had gone away, the women continued their preparation of the body for burial. They laid bunches of myrrh in the arm-pits and bosom, and filled with it the spaces between the shoulders and round the neck, chin, and cheeks; the feet, too, were completely embedded in bunches of herbs. Then they crossed the arms on the breast, wrapped the holy body in a great grave-cloth, and wound it round with a band fastened under one arm so that it looked like a child in swaddling-clothes. A transparent handkerchief was folded back from the face, which shone white between the bunches of herbs. They then placed the holy body in the coffin which stood near; it was like a bed or a long basket. It was a kind of board with a low edge and a slightly arched lid. On the breast was laid a wreath of white, red, and sky-blue flowers as a token of virginity.
The Apostles, disciples, and all others present then came in to see the beloved face once more before it was covered up. They knelt quietly, shedding many tears, round the Blessed Virgin’s body, touching Mary’s hands wrapped up on her breast in farewell, and then went away. The holy women, after making their farewells, covered the holy face and placed the lid on the coffin, which they fastened round with grey bands at each end and in the middle. Then I saw the coffin lifted on to a bier and carried out of the house on the shoulders of Peter and John. They must have changed places, for later on I saw six of the Apostles acting as bearers—at the head James the Greater and James the Less, in the centre Bartholomew and Andrew, and behind Thaddaeus and Matthew. There must have been a mat or piece of leather attached to the carrying-poles, for I saw the coffin hanging between them as if in a cradle. Some of the Apostles and disciples went on ahead, others followed with the women. It was already dusk, and four lights were carried on poles round the coffin.
215. All the ancient legends describe the pure soul of Mary leaving her body. The dogmatic decree of Nov. 1st, 1950, however, makes no pronouncement about the death of Our Lady. It is worth here quoting the actual definition: ‘Immaculatam Deiparam semper Virginem Mariam, expleto terrestris vitae cursu, fuisse corpore et anima ad caelestem gloriam assumptam.’ – ‘That Mary, the Immaculate and ever Virgin Mother of God, at the end of the course of her life on earth, was taken up, body and soul, into the glory of heaven.’ (SB)
"So let us be confident, let us not be unprepared, let us not be outflanked, let us be wise, vigilant, fighting against those who are trying to tear the faith out of our souls and morality out of our hearts, so that we may remain Catholics, remain united to the Blessed Virgin Mary, remain united to the Roman Catholic Church, remain faithful children of the Church."- Abp. Lefebvre
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XVI THE BURIAL AND ASSUMPTION OF OUR LADY
The funeral procession followed the Way of the Cross set up by Our Lady right up to the last Station, and then went over the hill in front of that Station and stopped at the right of the entrance to the tomb. Here they laid down the holy body, and then four of them carried it into the burial-chamber in the rock and laid it in the place hollowed out for it. All those present went in one by one and laid spices and flowers beside the body, kneeling down and offering up their prayers and their tears. Many lingered there in love and sorrow, and night had fallen when the Apostles closed the entrance to the tomb. They dug a trench before the narrow entrance of the rock-tomb, and planted in it a hedge of various shrubs brought with their roots from elsewhere. Some had leaves, some blossoms, and some berries. They made the water from a near-by spring flow in front of the hedge, so that no trace of the entrance to the tomb could be seen and none could enter the cave without forcing a way round behind the hedge. They went away in scattered groups, some remaining to pray and watch by the tomb, others stopping to pray here and there at the Stations of the Cross.
Those who were on their way home saw from the distance a strange radiance over Mary’s tomb, which moved them to wonder, though they did not know what it really was. I saw it, too, but of all that I saw I remember only the following. It was as if a shaft of light descended from heaven towards the tomb, and in this shaft was a lovely form like the soul of the Blessed Virgin, accompanied by the form of Our Lord; then the body of Our Lady, united to the shining soul, rose shining out of the grave and soared up to heaven with the figure of Our Lord. All this lies in my memory as something half realized and yet distinct.
In the night I saw several of the Apostles and holy women praying and singing in the little garden in front of the rock-tomb. A broad shaft of light came down from heaven to the rock, and I saw descending in it a triple-ringed glory of angels and spirits surrounding the appearance of Our Lord and of the shining soul of Mary. The appearance of Our Lord, whose wound-marks were streaming with light, moved down in front of her soul. Round the soul of Mary, in the innermost circle of the glory, I saw only little figures of children; in the midmost circle they appeared as six-year-old children; and in the outer-most circle as grownup youths. I could see only the faces clearly, all the rest I saw as shimmering figures of light.
As this vision, becoming ever clearer, streamed down upon the rock, I saw a shining path opened and leading up to the heavenly Jerusalem. Then I saw the soul of the Blessed Virgin, which had been following the appearance of Our Lord, pass in front of Him and float down into the tomb. Soon afterwards I saw her soul, united to her transfigured body, rising out of the tomb far brighter and clearer, and ascending into the heavenly Jerusalem with Our Lord and with the whole glory. Thereupon all the radiance faded again, and the quiet starry sky covered the land.
I do not know whether the Apostles and holy women praying before the tomb saw all this in the same manner, but I saw them looking upwards in adoration and amazement, or throwing themselves down full of awe with their faces to the ground. I saw, too, how several of those who were praying and singing by the Way of the Cross as they carried home the empty bier turned back with great reverence and devotion towards the light above the rocktomb.
Thus I did not see the Blessed Virgin die in the usual manner, nor did I see her go up to heaven; but I saw that first her soul and then her body were taken from the earth. On returning to the house the Apostles and disciples partook of a little food and then went to rest. They slept outside the house in sheds built on to it. Mary’s maidservant, who had remained in the house to set things in order, and the other women who had stayed there to help her, slept in the room behind the hearth. During the burial the maidservant had
cleared everything out of this, so that it now looked like a little chapel; and thence forward the Apostles used it for prayer and for offering the Holy Sacrifice. This evening I saw them still in their own room, praying and mourning. The women had already gone to rest. Then I saw the Apostle Thomas and two companions, all girt up, arrive at the gate of the courtyard and knock to be let in. There was a disciple with him called Jonathan, who was related to the Holy Family.216 His other companion was a very simple-minded man from the land of the farthest of the three holy kings, which I always call Partherme,217 not being able to recall names exactly. Thomas had brought him from there; he carried his cloak and was an obedient, child-like servant. A disciple opened the gate, and Thomas went with Jonathan into the Apostles’ room, telling his servant to sit at the gate and wait. The good brown man, who did everything that he was told, at once sat quietly dawn. Oh, how distressed they were to learn that they had come too late! Thomas cried like a child when he heard of Mary’s death. The disciples washed his and Jonathan’s feet, and gave them some refreshment.
In the meantime the women had woken and got up, and when they had retired from Our Lady’s room, Thomas and Jonathan were taken to the place where Our Lady had died. They threw themselves to the ground and watered it with their tears. Thomas knelt long in prayer at Mary’s little altar. His grief was inexpressibly moving; it makes me cry even now when I think of it. When the Apostles had finished their prayers (which they had not interrupted), they all went to welcome the new arrivals. They took Thomas and Jonathan by the arms, lifted them from their knees, embraced them, and led them into the front part of the house, where they gave them honey and little loaves of bread to eat. They drank from little jugs and goblets. They prayed together once more, and all embraced each other.
But now Thomas and Jonathan begged to be shown the tomb218 of the Blessed Virgin, so the Apostles kindled lights fastened to staves, and they all went out along Mary’s Way of the Cross to her tomb. They spoke little, stopping for a short time at the stones of the Stations, and meditating on the Via Dolorosa of Our Lord and the compassionate love of His Mother, who had placed these stones of remembrance here and had so often wetted them with her tears. When they came to the rock-tomb, they all threw themselves on their knees.
Thomas and Jonathan hurried towards the tomb, followed by John. Two disciples held back the bushes from the entrance, and they went in and knelt in reverent awe before the resting place of the Blessed Virgin. John then drew near to the light wicker coffin, which projected a little beyond the ledge of rock, undid the three grey bands which were round it and laid them aside. When the light of the torches shone into the coffin, they saw with awe and amazement the grave-clothes lying before them still wrapped round as before, but empty.
About the face and breast they were undone; the wrappings of the arms lay slightly loosened, but not unwound. The transfigured body of Mary was no longer on earth. They gazed up in astonishment, raising their arms, as though the holy body had only then vanished from among them; and John called to those outside the cave: ‘Come, see, and wonder, she is no longer here.’ All came two by two into the narrow cave, and saw with amazement the empty grave-clothes lying before them. They looked up to heaven with uplifted arms, weeping and praying, praising the Lord and His beloved transfigured Mother (their true dear Mother, too) like devoted children, uttering every kind of loving endearment as the spirit moved them. They must have remembered in their thoughts that cloud of light which they had seen from afar on their way home immediately after the burial, how it had sunk down upon the tomb and then soared upwards again.
John took the Blessed Virgin’s grave-clothes with great reverence out of the wicker coffin, folded and wrapped them carefully together, and took them away, after closing the lid of the coffin and fastening it again with the bands. Then they left the tomb, closing the entrance again with the bushes. They returned to the house by the Way of the Cross, praying and singing hymns. On their return they all went into Our Lady’s room. John laid the grave-clothes reverently on the little table before the place where Our Lady used to pray. Thomas and the others prayed again at the place where she died. Peter went apart as if in spiritual meditation; perhaps he was making his preparation, for afterwards I saw the altar being set up before Our Lady’s place of prayer where her cross stood, and I saw Peter holding a solemn service there, the others standing behind him in rows and praying and singing alternately. The holy women stood farther back by the doors, behind the hearth.
Thomas’ simple-minded servant had followed him from the distant land which he had last visited. His appearance was very strange. He had small eyes, a flat forehead and nose, and high cheek-bones. His skin was of a browner colour than one sees here. He had been baptized; apart from that he was just like an ignorant, obedient child. He did everything that he was told—stood still where he was put, looked in the direction he was told to, and smiled at everybody. He remained seated in the place where Thomas had said he was to wait, and when he saw Thomas in tears, he wept bitterly, too. This man always stayed with Thomas; he was able to carry great weights, and I have seen him dragging up enormous stones when Thomas was building a chapel. After the Blessed Virgin’s death I saw the assembled Apostles and disciples often standing together in a group and telling each other where they had been and what had befallen them. I heard it all, and if it be God’s will I shall recollect it.
[August 20th, 1820 and 1821:] After performing various devotions most of the disciples have taken leave and returned to their duties. The Apostles are still at the house, with Jonathan, who came with Thomas, and also Thomas’ servant; but they will all be leaving as soon as they have finished their work. They are working at freeing Mary’s Way of the Cross from weeds and stones and are planting it with beautiful shrubs, herbs, and flowers. While working they pray and sing, and I cannot express how moving it is to see them: it is as if, in their love and sorrow, they were performing a solemn religious service, sad but beautiful. Like devoted children they adorn the footsteps of God’s Mother and their Mother – those footsteps which followed, in compassionate devotion, her Divine Son’s path of suffering to His redeeming death upon the Cross.
They entirely closed up the entrance into Mary’s tomb by earthing up more firmly the bushes planted in front of it and strengthening the trench. They arranged and beautified the little garden before the tomb, and dug out a passage at the back of the hill leading to the back wall of the tomb, chiselling out an opening in the rock through which one could see the place where the Holy Mother’s body had rested—that Mother whom the Redeemer when dying on the Cross had entrusted to John and thus to them all and to His Church. Oh, they were true and faithful sons, obedient to the Fourth Commandment, and long will they and their love live upon the land! Above the tomb they made a kind of tent-chapel with carpets; it had wattle walls and roof. They built a little altar in it, with a stone step and a big flat stone supported on another stone.
Against the wall behind this altar they hung a little carpet on which the picture of the Blessed Virgin had been woven or embroidered, very plainly and simply. It was in bright colours, showing her in festal attire, brown with blue and red stripes. When all was finished they held a service there, all praying on their knees with uplifted hands. They made Mary’s room in the house into a church. Mary’s maidservant and a few women continued to live in the house; and two of the disciples, one of whom came from the shepherds beyond the Jordan, were left here to provide for the spiritual comfort of the faithful living in the neighbourhood.
Soon afterwards the Apostles separated to go their different ways. Bartholomew, Simon, Jude, Philip, and Matthew were the first to leave for the countries of their missions, after taking a moving farewell of the others. The others, except John, who stayed on for a while, went all together to Palestine before separating. There were many disciples there, and several women went with them from Ephesus to Jerusalem. Mary Mark did much for the Christians there; she had established a community of some twenty women who to a certain extent led a conventual life. Five of them lived in her own house, which was a regular meeting-place for the disciples.219 The Christians still owned the church at the Pool of Bethsaida.
[On August 22nd she said:] John is the only one left in the house. All the others have already gone. I saw John carrying out the Blessed Virgin’s wishes and dividing her clothes between her maidservant and another girl who sometimes came to help her. Some of the stuffs given by the three holy kings were among them. I saw two long white robes and several long cloaks and veils, as well as coverings and carpets. I also saw quite clearly that striped over-dress which she wore at Cana and on the Way of the Cross—the one of which I possess a little strip. Some of these things became the property of the Church; for instance, the beautiful sky-blue wedding-dress, ornamented with gold thread and strewn with embroidered roses, was made into a vestment for the Holy Sacrifice for the Bethsaida church in Jerusalem. There are relics of it in Rome still. I see them, but do not know if they are recognized there. Mary wore it only for her wedding and never again.
All that I have described happened in stillness and quiet. There was secrecy but (unlike today) no fear. Persecution had not yet reached the stage of spies and informers, and there was nothing to disturb the serenity and peace.
216. She recognized this disciple by a relic of him which was in her possession but had no name on it. She said of him on July 25th and 26th, 1821: ‘Jonathan or Jonadab received the name of Elieser in baptism. He was of the tribe of Benjamin and came from the region of Samaria. He was with Peter and then with Paul, but wastoo slow for him: he was also with John, and came with Thomas from far away at Our Lady’s death. He was, like Thomas’ simple Tartar servant, very childish in character, but became a priest. I saw him still here in Ephesus three years after Mary’s death. Later I saw him left lying here, stoned and half dead, and then taken into the city, where he died. Afterwards his bones were brought to Rome, but his identity remained unknown. (CB)
217. Partherme was indicated before as the land of Sair, though the land of Theokeno, Media, was stated to be the remotest. (SB)
218. Thomas’ late arrival was the immediate occasion of Our Lady’s tomb being opened and found empty. This is also a feature of the general legend preserved by St. John Damascene and recited in the Breviary. (SB)
219. Mary Mark’s house at Jerusalem, a meeting-place for disciples, was the natural place for Peter to go to after his escape from prison (Acts 12.12). It is evident that this event was after the Assumption, because Peter’s arrest was part of the same persecution which caused the martyrdom of James the Great (Acts 12.1) which, according to AC, happened after his return to Jerusalem from Ephesus. (SB)
"So let us be confident, let us not be unprepared, let us not be outflanked, let us be wise, vigilant, fighting against those who are trying to tear the faith out of our souls and morality out of our hearts, so that we may remain Catholics, remain united to the Blessed Virgin Mary, remain united to the Roman Catholic Church, remain faithful children of the Church."- Abp. Lefebvre
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