__________________________________________________________________ Title: The Life of the Blessed Virgin Mary Creator(s): Emmerich, Anne Catherine (1774-1824) Print Basis: Springfield, Illinois: Templegate (1954) Rights: Public Domain CCEL Subjects: All; Mysticism __________________________________________________________________ THE LIFE OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY From the visions of Anne Catherine Emmerich Translated by Sir Michael Palairet With supplementary notes by Rev. Sebastian Bullough, O.P. Edited by Donald R. Dickerson, Jr. __________________________________________________________________ TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS 2 TABLE OF FIGURES 6 PREFACE 7 I. ANCESTORS OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN 8 1. THE ANCESTORS OF ST. ANNE --ESSENES. 11 2. ST. ANNE AND ST. JOACHIM. 30 2.1 JOACHIM IS SPURNED AT THE TEMPLE AND GOES TO STAY WITH HIS FLOCKS. 37 2.2 ST. ANNE RECEIVES THE PROMISE OF FERTILITY AND TRAVELS TO THE TEMPLE. 39 2.3 JOACHIM IS COMFORTED BY AN ANGEL AND RETURNS AGAIN TO THE TEMPLE TO SACRIFICE. 42 2.4 JOACHIM RECEIVES THE BLESSING FROM THE ARK OF THE COVENANT. 47 II. THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION 49 1. JOACHIM AND ST. ANNE MEET BENEATH THE GOLDEN GATE. 49 2. SUPPLEMENTAL INFORMATION ABOUT THE CONCEPTION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN. 52 2.1 THE ANGELS ARE SHOWN THE RESTORATION OF MANKIND. 52 2.2 AN EGYPTIAN REPRESENTATION OF MARY PRIOR TO ELIJAH. 57 2.3 ELIJAH'S VISION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN. 58 2.4 AN EXPOUNDING ON ELIJAH'S VISION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN. 60 2.5 A REPRESENTATION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN IN EGYPT. 62 2.6 MARY PROCLAIMED TO PIOUS PAGANS. 65 2.7 THE LIFE STORY OF TOBIAS. AN ALLEGORY OF THE COMING OF SALVATION. 65 2.8 THE GENEALOGICAL TREE OF THE MESSIAH. 67 2.9 APPARITION OF SAINT ANNE. 70 2.10 VISION OF THE FEAST OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION. 71 2.11 THE BLESSED VIRGIN REVEALS SECRETS ABOUT THEIR LIVES. 73 2.12 CELEBRATION OF THE CONCEPTION OF MARY IN VARIOUS LOCATIONS. 74 2.13 THE HOLY KINGS CELEBRATE A FEAST HONORING MARY'S CONCEPTION. 77 2.14 ELIMINATION OF HUMAN SACRIFICE BY THE STAR-WORSHIPPERS. 77 2.15 A PARALLEL VISION OF CHILD SACRIFICE. 79 2.16 HISTORY OF THE CELEBRATIONS OF THE CONCEPTION OF MARY. 80 3. THE ACTUAL SEASON OF MARY'S CONCEPTION (NOTE BY THE WRITER). 82 4. THE INFUSING OF MARY'S SOUL AND HER BIRTH. 84 4.1 THE UNITING OF MARY'S SOUL AND BODY. 84 4.2 MARY'S BIRTH. 85 4.3 JOY AT MARY'S BIRTH IN HEAVEN. 88 4.4 THE PROCLAIMING OF MARY'S BIRTH IN LIMBO. 88 4.5 AGITATION IN NATURE AND MANKIND AT MARY'S BIRTH. 88 4.6 THE PROCLAIMING OF MARY'S BIRTH IN CHALDEA. 89 4.7 EVENTS IN EGYPT DURING MARY'S BIRTH. 91 4.8 VISITS WITH THE NEWBORN BABY MARY. 92 4.9 THE CHILD RECEIVES THE NAME MARY. 92 5. CAUSE OF THE FEAST OF THE NATIVITY OF MARY. 93 6. THE EFFECT OF PRAYING ON THE FEAST OF THE NATIVITY OF MARY. 96 7. THE PURIFICATION OF ST. ANNE. 97 III. THE PRESENTATION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN IN THE TEMPLE 98 1. PREPARATION IN ST. ANNE'S HOUSE. 98 2. THE DEPARTURE OF THE CHILD MARY FOR THE TEMPLE. 106 3. BEGINNING THE JOURNEY. 110 4. ARRIVAL IN JERUSALEM. 115 5. MARY'S ENTRY INTO THE TEMPLE AND PRESENTATION. 121 IV. THE EARLY LIFE OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN AT THE TEMPLE. 128 V. THE EARLY LIFE OF ST. JOSEPH 130 1. AN ELDER BROTHER OF ST. JOSEPH 136 VI. A SON IS PROMISED TO ZECHARIAH 138 VII. MARRIAGE OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN TO JOSEPH 141 1. ABOUT MARY AND JOSEPHS WEDDING AND NUPTIAL CLOTHES. 145 2. MARY'S WEDDING-RING. 151 3. FROM MARY'S RETURN HOME TO THE ANNUNCIATION. 154 VIII. THE ANNUNCIATION 156 IX. THE VISITATION 163 1. MARY AND JOSEPH TRAVEL TO VISIT ELIZABETH. 163 2. MARY AND JOSEPH ARRIVE AT THE HOUSE OF ELIZABETH AND ZECHARIAH. 166 3. THE BIRTH OF JOHN. MARY RETURNS TO NAZARETH. 181 X. THE CENSUS AND THE JOURNEY OF THE HOLY FAMILY 183 1. THE CENSUS OF THE EMPEROR AUGUSTUS IS PROCLAIMED. CHRIST'S BIRTH IN NOVEMBER. 183 2. ST. ANNE'S HOUSE IN NAZARETH. PREPARING FOR CHRIST'S BIRTH. 183 3. JOSEPH IS TOLD TO TRAVEL WITH MARY TO BETHLEHEM. 184 4. JOSEPH REVEALS TO MARY THE ANGEL'S COMMANDMENT. 186 5. ON THE JOURNEY TO BETHLEHEM 186 5.1 THE FIELD GINIM. THE TRAVELERS ARE GIVEN A YOUNG SHE-ASS FROM ANNA'S PASTURE. 186 5.2 TRAVELING AT NIGHT. MARY AND JOSEPH REST AT THE TEREBINTH OF ABRAHAM. 188 5.3 TWO HOURS SOUTH OF THE TEREBINTH TREE. THEY REST IN AN EMPTY SHED. 189 5.4 SABBATH CELEBRATION. 191 5.5 THEY TRAVEL FURTHER SOUTH-EAST. THEY SEE THE TEMPLE ON MOUNT GARIZIM. 191 5.6 BETWEEN SAMARIA AND JUDEA. THE FRUITLESS FIG TREE NORTH-EAST OF BETHANY. 193 5.7 THEY STOP AT A SHEPHERD'S LARGE HOUSE. 195 5.8 A HOUSE OWNED BY JOSEPH'S RELATIVES. THEY STAY AT AN INN CONDUCTING A FUNERAL. 196 5.9 THE LAST STRETCH OF ROAD TOWARDS BETHLEHEM. THE GOODWILL OF THE INN OWNERS. 197 6. THE ARRIVAL OF THE HOLY FAMILY IN BETHLEHEM. 197 7. SEEKING LODGING IN BETHLEHEM. 199 8. DESCRIPTION OF THE CAVE OF THE NATIVITY AND ITS SURROUNDINGS. 201 9. THE BURIAL CAVE OF MARAHA, ABRAHAM'S NURSE, ALSO CALLED THE CAVE OF THE SUCKLINGS. 206 10. THE HOLY FAMILY MOVES INTO THE CAVE OF THE NATIVITY. 208 11. MARY CONCLUDES THE SABBATH IN THE BURIAL CAVE OF MARAHA. 210 XI. CHRIST'S BIRTH 212 1. GREAT JOY IN NATURE. "GLORY TO GOD IN THE HIGHEST". 214 2. OCCURRENCES DURING THE BIRTH OF CHRIST IN DIFFERENT LOCATIONS. 218 3. REVELATIONS OF THE BIRTH TO THE KINSWOMEN AND FRIENDS OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN. 218 4. OCCURRENCES DURING THE BIRTH OF CHRIST IN JERUSALEM. 218 5. OCCURRENCES DURING THE BIRTH OF CHRIST IN ROME. 219 6. OCCURRENCES DURING THE BIRTH OF CHRIST IN EGYPT. 221 7. VISIONS APPEAR DURING THE BIRTH OF CHRIST TO THE THREE HOLY KINGS. 221 8. VISION FRAGMENTS WHICH DETERMINE THE EXACT DATE OF THE BIRTH OF CHRIST. 226 9. THE ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS. 229 10. THE SHEPHERDS ASSIST ST. JOSEPH. ESSENE WOMEN RENDER SERVICE TO THE BLESSED VIRGIN. 231 11. THE DONKEY KNEELS BEFORE JESUS. ST. ANNE'S MAID FROM NAZARETH COMES TO MARY. 231 12. THE BLESSED VIRGIN HIDES FROM EMISSARIES OF HEROD. 233 13. THE ANGEL'S APPEARANCE TO THE SHEPHERDS HAS BECOME WIDESPREAD. 234 14. MANY PEOPLE VISIT THE CHILD JESUS ON THE WAY TO BETHLEHEM. JOSEPH PAWNS THE SHE-ASS. 234 XII. THE CIRCUMCISION OF JESUS 235 1. PREPARATION FOR THE CIRCUMCISION. JOSEPHS FETCHS THE PRIESTS FROM BETHLEHEM. 235 2. THE CIRCUMCISION OF CHRIST. THE NAME JESUS. 236 3. ELIZABETH VISITS THE MANGER. 239 4. FAMILIARITY BETWEEN MARY AND ELIZABETH. MARY CONFIDES HER PAINS AND JOYS. 239 XIII. THE JOURNEY OF THE THREE HOLY KINGS TO BETHLEHEM 242 1. THE KINGS SEE THE STAR AND BEGIN THEIR TRAVEL. 242 2. VISIONS OF ABRAHAM, HAGAR, AND ISHMAEL. 249 3. THEOKENO CATCHES UP TO THE TRAIN OF MENSOR AND SAIR IN A DESERTED CITY. 251 4. THE HISTORICAL COLORS AND NAMES OF THE THREE HOLY KINGS. 252 5. THE TRAIN OF THE THREE HOLY KINGS RESTS AT A SPRING. 253 6. ABOUT THE HOMELANDS AND LENGTHS OF THE JOURNEYS OF THE THREE HOLY KINGS. 257 7. NIGHT TRAVEL OF THE KINGS. 259 8. THE ANCESTORS OF THE KINGS. THEIR STAR OBSERVATIONS - JACOB'S LADDER AND ITS PROPHESIES. 261 9. THE KINGS TRAIN IS AUGMENTED WITH OTHER TRAVELERS. 265 10. THE BLESSED VIRGIN FORESEES THE APPROACH OF THE THREE HOLY KINGS. 266 11. JOSEPH CELEBRATES THE FEAST OF THE CONSECRATION OF THE TEMPLE. 267 12. JOSEPH WANTS TO SETTLE DOWN IN BETHLEHEM. 268 13. END OF THE FEAST OF THE CONSECRATION OF THE TEMPLE. 268 14. THE TRAIN OF THE KINGS. ARRIVAL IN MANATHEA. 270 15. ST. ANNE JOURNEYS TO BETHLEHEM. 272 16. THE TRAIN OF THE KINGS CROSSES THE JORDON. 276 17. THEOKENO IS SUMMONED TO HEROD'S PALACE. 279 18. THE THREE HOLY KINGS APPEAR BEFORE HEROD. 280 19. HEROD'S STATE OF MIND - A MURDER. 281 20. THE HOLY THREE KINGS GO TO BETHLEHEM. THEY REST BY A SPRING. 283 21. ARRIVAL OF THE THREE KINGS AT THE TAX-COLLECTION HOUSE IN BETHLEHEM. 284 22. JOSEPH ENTERTAINS THE THREE HOLY KINGS. 290 23. THE KINGS VISIT WITH THE HOLY FAMILY AGAIN. THEIR GENEROSITY TO THE SHEPHERDS. 291 24. DEPARTURE OF THE KINGS. 294 XIV. THE HOLY FAMILY IN BETHLEHEM AFTER THE DEPARTURE OF THE KINGS. 295 1. MEASURES TAKEN IN BETHLEHEM AGAINST THE KINGS. JOSEPH IS EXAMINED AND BLACKMAILED. 295 2. ST. ANNE RETURNS WITH ELIUD. 296 3. THE HOLY FAMILY HIDES IN THE BURIAL CAVE OF MARAHA. 299 4. JOSEPH TAKES THE BABY JESUS FROM MARY BECAUSE OF DANGER. 300 5. COMMEMORATION OF MARY'S WEDDING. 300 6. preparations FoR the departure OF the hOLY family. 301 XV. PERSONAL NOTES: RELICS NEARBY THAT THE THREE KINGS HAD GIVEN TO THE HOLY FAMILY. 303 XVI. THE PURIFICATION OF MARY 309 1. A VIEW OF THE THREE HOLY KINGS ON THEIR JOURNEY HOME. 316 2. SIMEON'S DEATH. 316 3. THE ARRIVAL OF THE HOLY FAMILY AT ST. ANNE'S HOUSE. 318 4. THE WEATHER IN PALESTINE. 319 5. CANDLEMAS. 320 XVI. THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT AND ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST IN THE DESERT 322 1. THE AGE OF THE CHILD JESUS DURING THE FLIGHT TO EGYPT. 322 2. NAZARETH. THE HOUSE OF THE HOLY FAMILY. 323 3. JERUSALEM. HEROD'S PREPARATIONS FOR THE MURDER OF THE CHILDREN. 323 4. HEROD PLACES SOLDIERS IN VARIOUS PLACES SURROUNDING JERUSALEM. 324 5. PERSONAL NOTES: PRAYER DURING THE SEASON OF THE MARTYRDOM OF THE HOLY INNOCENTS. 324 6. NAZARETH. ST. ANNE AND HER MAID BRING FOOD TO THE HOLY FAMILY. 325 7. NAZARETH. A LOOK AT THE LIFESTYLE OF THE HOLY WOMEN. 325 8. NAZARETH. AN ANGEL WAKES JOSEPH TO FLEE. 326 9. NAZARETH. THE HOLY WOMEN PUT THINGS IN ORDER AND LEAVE JOSEPH'S HOME. 328 10. THE GROVE OF MOREH. ABRAHAM'S TEREBINTH TREE. 331 11. THE HOLY FAMILY RESTS BY A STREAM. 331 12. JUTTAH. ELIZABETH TAKES JOHN INTO THE WILDERNESS. 331 13. EPHRAIM BY THE MAMBRE WOODS. 332 14. SOUTH OF HEBRON. JOHN SENDS THE THIRSTING JESUS A SPRING OF WATER. 333 15. NEAR ANIM. THE LAST INN IN THE REGION OF HEROD. 335 16. NIGHT TRAVEL. THE HOLY FAMILY STARTLES SNAKES AND FLYING LIZARDS. 336 17. MARA (?). AN INHOSPITABLE DESERT. 337 18. THE ROBBERS HUT. THE ROBBERS BECOME FRIENDLY. 337 19. THE WILDERNESS. SNAKES AND FLYING LIZARDS. 340 20. THE DESERT. A SPRING ARISES FROM MARY'S PRAYER. 342 21. HELIOPOLIS, OR ON. 342 22. HELIOPOLIS, ON. JOSEPH BUILDS A PLACE FOR JEWISH PRAYER. 345 23. THE MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS. 346 24. THE BOY JOHN ESCAPES AGAIN TO THE WILDERNESS. 350 25. TRAIN TO MATAREA. AN IDOL FALLS AT THE FAMILY'S PASSING. 351 26. MATAREA AND ITS POVERTY. 353 27. ELIZABETH TAKES THE BOY JOHN AGAIN TO THE WILDERNESS. 355 28. HEROD HAS ZECHARIAH CAPTURED, QUESTIONED, AND KILLED. ELIZABETH DIES. 357 29. MATAREA. THE HOLY VIRGIN DISCOVERS A SPRING NEAR THEIR HOUSE. 360 29.1 THE SPRING AT MATAREA - DISCOVERED BY JOB. 361 29.2 THE SPRING AT MATAREA - ABRAHAM LIVES A LONG TIME BY IT. 366 XVII. THE RETURN OF THE HOLY FAMILY FROM EGYPT 371 XVIII. THE DEATH OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY AT EPHESUS 375 1. REGARDING MARY'S AGE. 375 2. MARY'S HOUSE IN EPHESUS. 377 3. MARY'S MAIDSERVANT AND JOHN THE APOSTLE. 379 4. MARY TRAVELS FROM EPHESUS TO JERUSALEM. 381 5. RELATIVES AND FRIENDS OF THE HOLY FAMILY WHO ALSO LIVE IN EPHESUS. 383 6. THE HOLY VIRGIN MAKES THE WAY OF THE CROSS FOR THE LAST TIME. 384 7. TWO APOSTLES HAVE NOT YET ARRIVED. 387 8. ARRIVAL OF SIMON THE APOSTLE. 388 9. JERUSALEM AT THE TIME OF THE DEATH OF THE HOLY VIRGIN. 389 10. THE APOSTLES HOLD A SERVICE. 390 11. JAMES THE GREATER AND PHILIP ARRIVE. 392 12. HOW THE APOSTLES WERE CALLED TO MARY'S DEATHBED. 393 13. THE EFFECT OF RELICS OF THE APOSTLES ON THE VISIONS. 396 14. THE DEATH OF THE HOLY VIRGIN. 397 XIX. THE BURIAL AND ASSUMPTION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN 407 Related Works By or About Anne Catherine Emmerich 415 __________________________________________________________________ TABLE OF FIGURES Figure 1. Pattern of a sacred Essene scapular which Moses had once worn. 19 Figure 2. Patterns of an Essene sacred silk vestment and cloak. 20 Figure 3. Head of the Essenes in sacred vestments. 22 Figure 4. Egyptian idol of the blessed virgin Mary constructed after receiving Elijah's prophesy. 64 Figure 5. Mary in ceremonial garments. 102 Figure 6. Saint Joseph's ancestral home. 131 Figure 7. Mary in her wedding dress. 147 Figure 8. Mary's hair adorned for her wedding. 149 Figure 9. Saint Joseph in his wedding garments. 152 Figure 10. The Annunciation. 159 Figure 11. Mary resting at Elizabeth's house. 177 Figure 12. The Cave of the Nativity. 202 Figure 13. Mary's resting place beside the crib. 215 Figure 14. The Shepherds' Tower. 216 Figure 15. Vision of the Emperor Augustus on the day of Jesus' birth. 222 Figure 16. Saint Anne's maid. 232 Figure 17. An Eastern man and woman making wool cords. 245 Figure 18. Two of the three kings: Theokeno and Seir. 255 Figure 19. Vision of the three kings at the time of Mary's conception. 264 Figure 20. Saint Anne's maid. 275 Figure 21. The holy family flees from Nazareth. 329 Figure 22. Family treasure of Abraham -- a genealogy of Noah's children down to Abraham's time. 368 Figure 23. Mary in her ceremonial dress. 386 Figure 24. Peter in rich, priestly vestments. 400 __________________________________________________________________ PREFACE Clemens Brentano was a well-known and well-to-do German poet and writer. After he had met the German nun and mystic, Anna Emmerich, on September 24, 1818, he was so amazed, he decided to be her stenographer. He later wrote, "I feel that I must stay here, that I must not leave this admirable creature before her death. I feel that my mission is here, and that God has heard the prayer I made when I begged him to give me something to do for His glory that would not be above my strength. I shall endeavor to gather and preserve the treasures of grace that I have here before my eyes." So, daily, for six years, this writer sublimated his career to take dictation. Why? Because he could see that this was God's work. Beginning in 1818, Anna Katharina Emmerich dictated to Clemens Brentano over a period of 6 years various details about the life of Jesus Christ in chronological order. She had additional visions of "celebrated" events such as Christmas, Easter, and Saints Holidays when those feast days occurred in the Catholic Church. Anna's visions, as the reader will see, are quite detailed. Internal biblical "contradictions" are often straightforwardly explained away, though Anna, appears unaware that she does so. For example, the genealogy of Jesus is given both in Luke 3:28-38 and Matthew 1:1-16, and they obviously differ. However, by compiling the relationships that Anna relates in this text, it can be seen that one gospel is stating Jesus' genealogical descent through Jesus' foster-father, Joseph, and the other, through Mary. The primary additions to this new edition of The Life of the Blessed Virgin Mary are: 1. Woodcut figures that were included in the German 1852 edition have been included. 2. Archaic word usage and all spelling has been revised to modern American English. 3. All place names and proper names have been updated to modern spelling norms. 4. Textual omissions of previous editions have been corrected. 5. German section titles, omitted by the English translator, have been translated and included. 6. Some new footnotes have been added. Footnotes are typically concluded with initials in parenthesis. Footnotes without initials or initialed "Tr." are from Michael Palairet, CB are from Clemens Brentano, and SB from Sebastian Bullough. Donald R. Dickerson, Jr. 12 November 2007 __________________________________________________________________ I. ANCESTORS OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN Last night there came again before my soul everything that I had so often seen as a child concerning the life of the ancestors of the Blessed Virgin Mary. I saw it all in a series of pictures just as I did then. If only I could tell it all as I know it and have it before my eyes, it would certainly give great joy to the Pilgrim. [1] In my miserable state I was greatly revived by contemplating these pictures. As a child I was so certain of all I saw that if anyone told me any of the stories differently, I would say straight out: `No, this is how it is.' And, indeed, I would have let myself be killed rather than deny that it was thus and not otherwise. Later on, life in the world confused me, and I kept silence. The inner certainty has, however, always remained with me, and last night I once more saw everything even to the smallest details. When I was a child, my thoughts were always taken up with the Crib and the Child Jesus and with the Mother of God, and I often wondered very much why people told me nothing about the family of the Blessed Virgin. I could not understand at all why so little had been written down about her ancestors and relations. In the great longing which I had, I then received a multitude of visions of the Blessed Virgin's ancestors. I must have seen them back to the fourth or fifth generation. I saw them always as wonderfully pious and simple people inspired by a quite extraordinary secret longing for the coming of the promised Messiah. I saw them always living amongst other men who, compared to them, seemed to me rough and barbarous. They themselves, I saw, were so quiet, gentle and kindly, that I often said to myself in great anxiety about them: `O where can these good people find a refuge, how are they to escape from those rough, wicked men? I will seek them out and will be their servant, I will fly with them into a wood where they can hide themselves; I am sure I shall still be able to find them!' So clearly did I see them and believe in them, that I was always afraid and full of anxiety about them. I always saw these people leading a life of great self-denial. I often saw that those among them who were married bound themselves mutually to observe continence for a time; and this gave me much joy, though why this was I could not clearly say. They practiced these separations chiefly when they were occupied with all kinds of religious ceremonies, accompanied by incense and prayers. [2] From these I perceived that there were priests among them. I often saw them moving from one place to another, leaving large homesteads and retiring to smaller ones, in order to lead their lives undisturbed by wicked people. They were so devout and so full of longing towards God that I often saw them alone in the field by day, and by night, too, running about and crying to God with such intense desire that, in the hunger of their hearts, they tore open their garments at their breasts, as if God were about to burn Himself into their hearts with the hot rays of the sun, or to quench with the moonlight and starlight their thirst for the fulfillment of the Promise. I remember pictures like these came to me when, as a child or as a young girl, I was kneeling and praying to God, alone with the flock in the pastures, or at night on the high fields above our farm; or when, in Advent, I walked through the snow at midnight to the Rorate [3] devotions in St. James's Church at Coesfeld, three-quarters of an hour away from our cottage at Flamske. The evening before, and in the night, too, I prayed much for the poor souls in purgatory. I thought that in their lives they had perhaps not been eager enough for grace; perhaps they had given way to other desires for the creatures and goods of the world, had fallen into many faults, and were now yearning to be released. So I offered up my prayer and my longing to God our Savior for them, trying as it were to pay their debt for them. I got a little benefit, too, for myself, for I knew that the kind Holy Souls, in gratitude to me and because of their constant desire for help by prayers, would wake me at the right time and would not let me oversleep. And so they did; they floated round my bed like little flames, little dim, quiet flames, and woke me just in time for me to be able to offer up my morning prayer for them. Then I sprinkled myself and them with holy water, put on my clothes, and started on my way. I saw the poor little lights accompanying me in a regular procession; and on the way I sang with true heart's desire: `Drop down dew, you heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the Just One.' And as I sang, I saw here and there, in the wilderness and in the fields, the beloved ancestors of Our Blessed Lady running about and crying for the Messiah; and I did as they did, and came to Coesfeld always in time for the Rorate [4] Mass, even when the Holy Souls led me, as they sometimes did, a very long way round past all the Stations of the Cross. Now, in my visions of these beloved ancestors of the Blessed Virgin praying so hard in their hunger for God, they seemed to me strange indeed in their dress and in their way of living, and yet so near and so clear to me, that I still know and have before my eyes all their features and figures. And I kept asking myself: `What manner of people are these? Everything is different from nowadays, yet there these people are, and all that I see has really happened!' And so I always used to hope that I might go to them. In all they did and in all they said and in their religious services, these good people were very decided and exact; and they made no lamentations except over the sufferings of their neighbors. 1. THE ANCESTORS OF ST. ANNE [5] --ESSENES. I had a detailed vision of the ancestors of St. Anne, the mother of the Blessed Virgin. They lived at Mara in the region of Mount Horeb, and were connected spiritually with a kind of very devout Israelites of whom I have seen a great deal. I will relate as much as I can recall about them. I was with these people almost the whole of yesterday, and if I had not been oppressed by so many visits, I should not have forgotten nearly all of what I saw. These devout Israelites who were connected with the ancestors of St. Anne were called Essenes or Essaees. They have, however, changed their name three times, for they were first called Eskarenes, then Chasidaees, and finally Essenes. Their first name, Eskarenes, came from the word Eskara or Azkara, which is the name for the part of the sacrifice belonging to God, and also for the sweet-smelling incense at the offering of wheaten flour. [6] The second name, Chasidaees, means merciful. [7] I cannot remember what the name Essenes comes from. [8] The way of life of these devout people is an inheritance from the time of Moses and Aaron and in particular from the priests who carried the Ark of the Covenant; but it was not until the period between Isaiah and Jeremiah that their way of life was regularly established. At the beginning there were not many of them; later on, however, their settlements in the Promised Land occupied a space twenty-four hours' journey long and thirty-six hours' journey broad. They did not come to the region of the Jordan until later; they lived mostly on the slopes of Mount Horeb and Mount Carmel, the home of Elijah. In the lifetime of St. Anne's grandparents, the Essenes had a spiritual head who lived on Mount Horeb. He was an aged prophet called Archos or Arkas. [9] Their organization was very like that of a religious order. All who wished to enter it had to undergo a year's tests, and the length of time for which they were accepted was decided by prophetic inspirations from above. The real members of the Order, who lived in a community, did not marry but lived in chastity; but there were others (who had formerly been in the Order or were attached to it) who married and carried out in their families, and with their children and household, something similar in many ways to the traditional discipline of the real Essenes. Their relation ship with these was like that between the lay members of a Catholic Third Order, or Tertiaries, and the professed priests of the Order. In all important matters, especially as to the marriages of their relations, these married Essenes always sought instruction and counsel from the aged prophet on Mount Horeb. St. Anne's grandparents belonged to this kind of married Essenes. Later there arose a third kind of Essenes who exaggerated everything and fell into great errors, and I saw that the others would have no dealings with them. The real Essenes were specially concerned with prophetic matters, and their head on Mount Horeb was often vouchsafed divine revelations in the cave of Elijah respecting the coming of the Messiah. He had knowledge of the family from which the mother of the Messiah was to come, and at the time that he gave prophetic advice to the grandparents of St. Anne in matters of marriage, he saw that the day of the Lord was approaching. He did not, however, know how long the birth of the Savior's mother might still be prevented or delayed by sin, and so he was always preaching penance, mortification, prayer, and inner sacrifice for this intention--pious exercises of which all Essenes had ever given the example. Until Isaiah assembled these people together and gave them a more regular organization, they were scattered about the land of Israel, leading lives of piety and intent on mortification They wore their clothes without mending them till they fell off their bodies. They fought particularly against sexual immorality, and often by mutual consent lived in continence for long periods, living in huts far removed from their wives. When they lived together as husband and wife, it was only with the intention of producing a holy offspring which might bring nearer the coming of the Savior. I saw them eating apart from their wives; the wife came to take her meal after the husband had left the table. There were ancestors of St. Anne and of other holy people among these early Essenes. Jeremiah too was connected with them, and the men called `Sons of the Prophet' came from them. They often lived in the desert and round Mount Horeb and Carmel, and later I saw many of them in Egypt. I also saw that for a time they were driven away from Mount Horeb by war and were reassembled by new leaders. The Maccabees also belonged to them. They had a great devotion to Moses, and possessed a sacred piece of his clothing given by him to Aaron, from whom it had come down to them. This was their most precious relic, and I had a vision of some fifteen of them being killed in defending it. Their prophet leaders had knowledge of the secret mysteries of the Ark of the Covenant. The real Essenes who lived in chastity were indescribably pure and devout. They adopted children and brought them up to lead a very holy life. To be accepted as a member of the regular Order, a boy had to have reached the age of fourteen. Those who had been already tested had to undergo a year's novitiate, others two years. They did not carry on any form of trade, but exchanged the produce of their agriculture for whatever else they needed. If one of them had committed a grave sin, he was expelled from among them and excommunicated by their head. This excommunication had the force of that pronounced by Peter against Ananias, who was struck dead by it. Their head knew by prophetic inspiration who had committed sin. I also saw some Essenes undergoing penitential punishment; they were obliged to stand in a stiff robe with their arms extended immovably in sleeves lined with thorns. Mount Horeb was full of little caves, which formed the cells where they lived. An assembly hall of light wattlework had been built onto the mouth of one of the large caves. Here they came together at eleven o'clock in the morning and ate. Each had a small loaf of bread in front of him with a goblet. The head went from place to place and blessed each one's bread. After the meal they returned to their separate cells. In this assembly hall there was an altar on which stood little blessed loaves covered up; they were in some way sacred, and were, I think, distributed among the poor. The Essenes had a great number of doves, which were tame and ate out of their hands. They ate doves, but also used them in their ritual ceremonies. They said something over them and let them fly away. I saw, too, that they released lambs in the desert after saying something over them, as if they were to take their sins on them. [10] I saw them go three times a year to the Temple in Jerusalem. They had also priests among them whose special duty was the care of the sacred vestments; they cleaned them, contributed money for them, and also made new ones. I saw them engaged in cattle breeding and agriculture, but specially in gardening. Mount Horeb was full of gardens and fruit trees in the spaces between their huts. I saw many of them weaving and plaiting, and also embroidering priests' vestments. I did not see them producing silk; that came in bundles to be sold to them, and they exchanged other produce for it. In Jerusalem they had a quarter of their own to live in and a separate place in the Temple as well. The other Jews rather disliked them because of their austerity. I saw, too, that they sent presents to the Temple; for example, great bunches of grapes, carried by two people on a pole. They also sent lambs, but not to be slaughtered; I think they just let them run into a garden. I did not see the real Essenes offering bloody sacrifices in these later times. I saw that before they journeyed to the Temple they made a very rigorous preparation by prayer, fasting, and penance, including even scourgings. If one laden with sins went to the Temple and to the Holy of Holies without having made atonement by penance, he usually died on the spot. If on their journey, or in Jerusalem itself, they found anyone who was ill or in any way helpless, they did not go to the Temple until they had given him all the aid in their power. I saw that, in general, they employed themselves in healing. They gathered herbs and prepared potions. I saw also that those holy people whom I had seen some time before laying sick folk down on a bed of healing plants were Essenes. [11] I saw, too, that the Essenes healed the sick by the laying on of hands, or by stretching themselves on them with arms extended. I saw them also healing at a distance in a wonderful way, for the sick who could not come themselves sent a representative to whom everything was done as it would have been to the sick person. The time was noted, and the distant sick person was cured at that very hour. I saw that the Essenes on Horeb had in their caves recesses in the walls where bones, carefully wrapped in cotton and silk, were kept as sacred relics behind gratings. They were bones of prophets who had lived here, and also of the children of Israel who had died near here. There were little pots of green plants standing beside them. The Essenes used to light lamps and pray before the bones in veneration of them. All the unmarried Essenes who lived together in communities on Mount Horeb and elsewhere observed the greatest cleanliness. They wore long white robes. The head of the Essenes on Horeb wore wonderful priestly vestments during solemn religious services, after the manner of the high priest in Jerusalem, only shorter and not so magnificent. When he prayed and prophesied in the cave of Elijah on Mount Horeb, he always wore these sacred vestments, which consisted of about eight pieces. Amongst them was a very sacred relic, a sort of dalmatic or scapular, covering the breast and shoulders, which Moses had worn next to his body and had given to Aaron, from whom it had later descended to the Essenes. The prophet Archos, their head on Mount Horeb, always wore this dalmatic next his body when he was clothed in all his vestments and was praying for prophetic enlightenment. The lower part of his body was wrapped in a loincloth, while breast and shoulders were covered with this sacred garment, which I will describe as exactly as I can remember. It will probably be clearer if I cut out a sort of pattern of it in paper. [She then quickly cut the shape, shown in Figure 1, out of paper put together, saying:] This sacred scapulary had more or less this shape when spread out. Its stuff was woven as stiff as haircloth. On the middle of the breast and back was a triangular place of double thickness and as it were quilted. I cannot now say for certain what was between the layers. At the neck hole, part I, of the scapulary, a triangular piece was cut from A to B, and a ribbon or little strap ran across the top of the opening. Its lower point, B, was still attached to the scapulary, and the triangle could be let down to hide completely another opening over the breast. This other opening was cut from C to D, and below triangle E, was the place of the double thickness mentioned above. It was ribbed or quilted, and letters were fastened into it with little pins and on the inside with sharp little hooks sticking out and pricking the breast. On the cut-out triangle (which was also of double thickness) at the neck there was also something like letters. I do not now know what was inside these triangles. When the priest put on this sacred vestment, the upper triangle exactly covered the lower one. In the middle of the back there was another place, F, where the stuff was quilted and of two thicknesses, and here, too, there were letters and sharp pins. Figure 1. Pattern of a sacred Essene scapular which Moses had once worn. Over his scapulary the head of the Essenes wore a gray woolen tunic, and on this again a large full tunic made of white twisted silk, girt with a broad belt inscribed with letters. He had a kind of stole round the neck, crossed over the breast, and it was held fast under the girdle and hung down below his knees. The stole was fastened with three straps above and below the place where it was crossed. On this he put a vestment not unlike a chasuble, which was also made of white twisted silk. [She cut out a pattern of this vestment, shown in Figure 2, as it looked when spread out. Please refer to Figure 2, part II.] The back side, A, was narrow and came down to the ground; it had two bells attached to the lower hem, which tinkled with the priest's movements and called the people to the service. The front side, B, was shorter and broader and open from the neck hole, C, downwards. This front part had large openings, E, on the breast and below it, through which the stole and undergarment could be seen. These openings were held together in places by fastenings ornamented with letters and precious stones, D. The front and back of this vestment were held together by strips of stuff under the arms. [These were not shown in the pattern which she cut out.] Round the neck was an upright collar, hooked together in front. The priest's beard, divided in the middle of the chin, fell down over this collar. Figure 2. Patterns of an Essene sacred silk vestment and cloak. Over all this he finally put on a little cloak [Figure 2, part III] of white twisted silk. [Please refer to Figure 3 for a depiction of the full outfit.] It shimmered and shone and was fastened in front with three clasps ornamented with precious stones on which something was engraved. From both shoulders of his cloak there were fringes, tassels, and fruits hanging. Besides all this, he wore a short maniple on one arm. The headdress was, as far as I can remember, also of white silk, twisted into a round shape and padded, like a turban, yet resembling our priests' birettas to a certain extent, for at the top it had ridges like theirs and also a tuft of silk. A little plate of gold set with precious stones was fastened over the forehead. The Essenes were very austere and frugal in their way of living. They generally ate only fruit, which they often cultivated in their gardens. I saw that Archos usually ate a bitter yellow fruit. About 200 years before Christ's birth I saw near Jericho a very devout Essene called Chariot. Archos or Arkas, the old prophet on Mount Horeb, ruled over the Essenes for ninety years. I saw how St. Anne's grandmother questioned him about her own marriage. It is remarkable that it was always about female children that these prophets made predictions, and that Anna's ancestors and Anna herself had mostly daughters. It was as if the object of all their devotion and prayers was to obtain from God a blessing on pious mothers from whose descendants the Blessed Virgin, the mother of the Savior Himself, should spring, as well as the families of His precursor and of His servants and disciples. Figure 3. Head of the Essenes in sacred vestments. The place where the head of the Essenes on Mount Horeb prayed and prophesied was the cave where Elijah had dwelt. Many steps led to it up the mountain-side, and one entered the cave through a small cramped opening and down a few steps. The prophet Archos went in alone. For the Essenes this was as if the high priest in the Temple went into the Sanctissimum, for here was their Holy of Holies. Within there were several mysterious holy things, difficult to describe. I will tell what I can remember of them. I saw Anna's grandmother seeking counsel from the prophet Archos. Anna's grandmother came from Mara in the desert, where her family, which belonged to the married Essenes, owned property. Her name sounded to me like Moruni or Emorun. It was told me that this means something like `good mother' or `noble mother'. [12] When the time came for her to be married, she had several suitors, and I saw her go to the prophet Archos on Horeb for him to decide whom she was to accept. She went into a separate part of the large assembly hall and spoke to Archos, who was in the hall, through a grating, as if she were making her confession to him. It was Only in this way that women approached the place. I then saw Archos put on his ceremonial vestments, and ascend thus arrayed the many steps to the top of Mount Horeb, where he entered the cave of Elijah by the little door and down the steps. He shut the little door of the cave behind him, and opened a hole in the vaulting dimly illuminating the cave, the interior of which had been carefully hollowed out. Against the wall I saw a little altar carved out of the rock, and noticed, though not quite clearly, several sacred objects on it. On the altar were several pots with low-growing bushes of herbs. They were the herbs which grow as high as the hem of Jesus' garment. [13] I know this herb; it grows with us but less vigorously. The plants gave Archos some sort of indication in his prophetic knowledge according to whether they faded or flourished. In the middle between these little bushes of herbs I saw something like a little tree, taller than them, with leaves that looked yellowish and were twisted like snail shells. There seemed to me to be little figures on this tree. I cannot now say for certain whether this tree was living or was artificial, like the Tree of Jesse. [On the next day she said:] On this little tree with the twisted leaves could be seen, as on a tree of Jesse or genealogical table, how soon the coming of the Blessed Virgin was to be expected. It looked to me as if it were living and yet it seemed also to be a receptacle, for I saw that a blossoming branch was kept inside it. I think it was Aaron's rod, which had once been in the Ark of the Covenant. When Archos prayed in the cave of Elijah for a revelation on the occasion of a marriage among the Blessed Virgin's ancestors, he took this rod of Aaron into his hand. If the marriage was destined to take its place in the Blessed Virgin's ancestry, the rod put forth a bud which produced one or more flowers, among which single flowers were sometimes marked with the sign of the elect. Certain buds represented particular ancestors of Anna, and when these came to be married, Archos observed the buds in question and uttered his prophecies according to the manner in which they unfolded. The Essenes of Mount Horeb had, however, another holy relic in the cave of Elijah; nothing less than a part of the most holy mystery of the Ark of the Covenant which came into their possession when the Ark fell into the hands of enemies. [She spoke here uncertainly of a quarrel and of a schism among the Levites.] This holy thing, concealed in the Ark of the Covenant in the fear of God, was known only to the holiest of the high priests and to a few prophets, but I think that I learnt that it is in some way mentioned in the little-known secret books of the old Jewish thinkers. [14] It was no longer complete in the new Ark of the Covenant in the Temple as restored by Herod. It was no work of man's hands, it was a mystery, a most holy secret of the divine blessing on the coming of the Blessed Virgin full of grace, in whom by the overshadowing of the Holy Ghost the Word became Flesh and God became Man. Before the Babylonian captivity this holy thing had been whole in the Ark of the Covenant; I now saw part of it here in the possession of the Essenes. It was kept in a chalice of shining brown, which seemed to me to be made of a precious stone. They prophesied, too, with the help of this holy thing, which seemed sometimes to put forth as it were little buds. Archos, after entering the cave of Elijah, shut the door and knelt down in prayer. He looked up to the opening in the vaulting and threw himself face downwards on the ground. I then saw the prophetic knowledge that was given to him. He saw that from under the heart of Emorun, who was seeking his counsel, there grew as it were a rose tree with three branches, with a rose on each of them. The rose on the second branch was marked with a letter, I think an M. He saw still more. An angel wrote letters on the wall; I saw Archos rise up as if awaking and read these letters. I forget the details. He then went down from the cave, and announced to the maiden who was awaiting his answer that she was to marry and that her sixth suitor was to be her husband. She would bear a child, marked with a sign, who was chosen out as a vessel of election in preparation for the coming of the Savior. Hereupon Emorun married her sixth suitor, an Essene called Stolanus; he did not come from Mara, and as a result of his marriage and of his wife's possessions he was given another name, which I can no longer remember distinctly; it was pronounced in different ways and sounded like Garescha or Sarziri. [15] Stolanus and Emorun had three daughters, called, I remember, Ismeria and Emerentia, and a younger one whose name, I think, was Enue. They did not remain long at Mara, but moved later to Ephron. I saw that their daughters Ismeria and Emerentia both married in accordance with the prophetic counsels of the prophet on Horeb. (I can never understand why I have so often heard that Emerentia was the mother of Anna, for I always saw that it was Ismeria.) I will tell in God's name what I still have in my mind about these daughters of Stolanus and Emorun. [16] Emerentia married one Aphras or Ophras, a Levite. Of this marriage was born Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist. A second daughter was named Enue like her mother's sister. At the time of Mary's birth she was already a widow. There was a third daughter, Rhoda, one of whose daughters was Mara, whom I saw present at the death of the Blessed Virgin. Ismeria married Eliud. They lived after the manner of the married Essenes in the region of Nazareth. They had inherited from their parents the tradition of discipline and continence in married life. Anna was one of their children. The firstborn of Ismeria and Eliud was a daughter called Sobe. Because this child did not bear the sign of the promise, they were much distressed and again went to the prophet on Mount Horeb to seek counsel. Archos exhorted them to betake themselves to prayer and sacrifice, and promised them consolation. After Sobe's birth, Ismeria remained barren for some eighteen years. When she again became pregnant by God's blessing, I saw that Ismeria was given a revelation at night. She saw an angel beside her bed writing a letter on the wall. It seems to me that it was again that letter M. Ismeria told her husband of it; he also had seen it in his sleep, but now, while awake, they both saw the sign on the wall. After three months Ismeria gave birth to St. Anne, who came into the world with that sign upon her body. In her fifth year Anna was, like the Blessed Virgin, taken to the school in the Temple, where she remained twelve years. She was brought home again in her seventeenth year, to find two children there--her little sister Maraha, who had been born while she was away, and a little son of her elder sister Sobe called Eliud. A year after this Ismeria fell mortally ill. As she lay dying she spoke to all her relations and presented Anna to them as the future mistress of the house. Then she spoke once more with Anna alone, telling her that she was a chosen vessel of grace, that she must marry, and must seek counsel from the prophet on Mount Horeb. Then she died. Sobe, Anna's elder sister, was married to Salomo. Besides her son Eliud she had a daughter, Mary Salome, who married Zebedee and was the mother of the apostles James and John. Sobe had a second daughter who was an aunt of the bridegroom of Cana and the mother of three disciples. Eliud, the son of Sobe and Salomo, was the second husband of the widow Maroni of Naim and the father of the boy raised by Jesus from the dead. Maraha, Anna's younger sister, was given the homestead in Sephoris when her father Eliud moved to the valley of Zabulon. She married and had a daughter and two sons, Arastaria and Cocharia, who became disciples. Anna had yet a third sister who was very poor and was the wife of a shepherd on Anna's pastures. She was often in Anna's house. Enue, the third daughter of Stolanus, married and lived between Bethlehem and Jericho. One of her descendants was with Jesus. Anna's great grandfather was a prophet. Eliud, her father, was of the tribe of Levi; her mother Ismeria was of the tribe of Benjamin. [17] Anna was born at Bethlehem, but afterwards her parents moved to Sephoris, four hours from Nazareth, where they had a house and land. They also owned land in the beautiful valley of Zabulon, one and a half hours from Sephoris and three hours from Nazareth. In the fine season of the year Anna's father was often with his family in the valley of Zabulon, [18] and after his wife's death he moved there altogether. This led to the connection with the parents of Joachim, whom Anna married. Joachim's father was called Matthat [19] and was the stepbrother of Jacob (father of St. Joseph) and of Joses. Matthat had settled in the valley of Zabulon. I saw Anna's ancestors helping to carry the Ark of the Covenant with great devotion and piety, and I saw also that they received from the holy thing therein rays of light which extended to their descendants, to Anna and the Blessed Virgin. Anna's parents were rich. This was clear to me because of their possessions; they had many oxen; but they kept nothing for themselves alone, they gave everything to the poor. I saw Anna as a child; she was not particularly beautiful, but yet more so than others. She was far less beautiful than Mary, but remarkably simple and childlike in her piety; I have always seen her like that, whether as girl, mother, or old, old woman. Indeed, whenever I saw a real childlike old peasant woman, it always made me think `she is like Anna'. She had several other brothers and sisters, all married, but she did not wish to marry. She was particularly fond of her parents, and though she had at least six suitors, she rejected them all. After taking counsel, like her ancestors with the Essenes, she was directed to marry Joachim, whom she did not yet know, but who sought her in marriage when her father Eliud moved to the valley of Zabulon, the home of Joachim's father Matthat. 2. ST. ANNE AND ST. JOACHIM. Joachim was far from handsome. St. Joseph, though no longer young, was in comparison a very handsome man. Joachim was short and broad and at the same time thin, and though he was a wonderfully pious, holy man, I can't help laughing when I think of his appearance. Joachim was poor. He was related to St. Joseph in the following way: Joseph's grandfather was descended from David through Solomon and was called Matthan. He had two sons, Jacob and Joses. Jacob was the father of Joseph. When Matthan died, his widow married as her second husband Levi (descended from David through Nathan), and by him had Matthat, the father of Heli, also called Joachim. [20] Wooing was in those days a very simple affair. The suitors were quite awkward and bashful, and when the young people spoke to each other, they accepted the idea of marriage as something that had to be. If the bride-to-be said yes, the parents were glad, but if she said no and had reason for it, they were just as satisfied. If everything was settled between the parents, the betrothal followed in the synagogue of the place. The priest prayed at the holy place where the scrolls of the Law lay, the parents in their usual place. Meanwhile the betrothed couple went together into a room and discussed their plans and their marriage contract; if they were in agreement, they told their parents, and their parents told the priest, who came towards them and received their declaration. On the next day the wedding took place in the open air and with many ceremonies. Joachim and Anna were married in a little place with only a small school. Only one priest was present. Anna was about nineteen years old. They lived with Eliud, Anna's father. His house belonged to the town of Sephoris, but was some distance away from it, among a group of houses of which it was the largest. Here I think they lived for several years. There was something very distinguished about both of them; they were completely Jewish, but there was in them, unknown to themselves, a wonderful seriousness. I seldom saw them laugh, but they were certainly not sad when they began their married life. They had a serene and even character, and even in their young days they seemed a little like sedate old people. Often in my youth I have seen similar sedate young couples, and even then I used to say to myself, they are just like Anna and Joachim. Their parents were well-to-do; they had many flocks and herds, beautiful carpets and household things, and many manservants and maidservants. I never saw them cultivating the fields, but often saw them driving cattle out to pasture. They were very pious, devout, charitable, simple, and upright. They often divided their herds and everything else into three parts, and gave a third of the beasts to the Temple, driving them there themselves and handing them over to the Temple servants. The second part they gave to the poor or in answer to the requests of their relations, some of whom were generally there to drive the beasts away. The remainder, which was generally the worst, they kept for themselves. They lived very frugally and gave to all who asked. As a child I often used to think, `Giving brings plenty; he who gives, receives twice in return', for I saw that their third always increased and that soon everything was in such abundance that they were able to make the three divisions again. They had many relations who were assembled in their house on all festive occasions, but I never saw much feasting. I saw them giving food to the poor now and then, but I never saw them having real banquets. When the family were together I generally saw them lying on the ground in a circle, speaking of God in eager expectation. I often saw bad men from their neighborhood watching them with ill will and bitterness as they spoke together, looking up to heaven so full of longing. They were kindly disposed towards these ill-wishers, however, and lost no opportunity of asking them to their house, where they gave them double shares of everything. I often saw these men violently and angrily demanding what the good people gave them in love and charity. There were poor people in their own family, and I often saw them being given a sheep or even several. The first child born to Anna in her father's house was a daughter, but she was not the child of promise. The signs which had been predicted were not present at her birth, which was attended by some trouble. I saw that Anna, when with child, was distressed about her servants. One of her maidservants had been led astray by a relation of Joachim. Anna, in great dismay at this infringement of the strict discipline of her house, reproached her somewhat severely for her fault, and the maidservant took her misfortune so to heart that she was delivered prematurely of a stillborn child. Anna was inconsolable over this, fearing that it was her fault, with the result that her child was also born too soon. Her daughter, however, did not die. Since this child had not the signs of the promise and was born too early, Anna looked upon this as a punishment of God, and was greatly distressed at what she believed to be her own sin. She had, however, great joy in her newborn little daughter, who was called Mary. She was a dear, good, gentle child, and I always saw her growing up rather strong and fat. Her parents were very fond of her, but they felt some uneasiness and distress because they realized that she was not the expected holy fruit of their union. They therefore did penance and lived in continence for a long time. Afterwards Anna remained barren, [21] which she looked upon as the result of her having sinned, and so redoubled all her good works. I saw her often by herself in earnest prayer; I saw, too, how they often lived apart from each other, gave alms, and sent sacrifices to the Temple. Anna and Joachim had lived with Anna's father Eliud for some seven years (as I could see by the age of their first child), when they decided to separate from their parents and settle in a house with land in the neighborhood of Nazareth that had come to them from Joachim's parents. There they intended in seclusion to begin their married life anew, and to bring down God's blessing on their union by a way of life more pleasing to Him. I saw this decision being taken in the family, and I saw Anna's parents making the arrangements for their children's new home. They divided their flocks and herds, setting apart for their children oxen, asses, and sheep, all much bigger than we have at home. All the household goods, crockery, and clothes were packed upon asses and oxen standing before the door. All the good people were so clever at packing the things up, and the beasts so intelligent in the way they took their loads and carried them off. We are not nearly so clever in packing things into carts as these people were in loading them onto beasts. They had beautiful household things; all the vessels were more delicate than nowadays, as if each had been made by the craftsman with special love and intention. I watched them packing the fragile jugs, decorated with beautiful ornamentation; they filled them with moss, wrapped more moss round them, and made them fast to both ends of a strap, so that they hung over the animal's backs, which were covered with bundles of colored rugs and garments. I saw them, too, packing up costly rugs heavily embroidered with gold; and the parents gave their departing children a heavy little lump in a pouch, no doubt a piece of precious metal. When everything was ready, the menservants and maidservants joined the procession, and drove the flocks and herds and the beasts of burden before them to the new home, which was some five or six hours' journey distant. I think it had belonged to Joachim's parents. After Anna and Joachim had taken leave of all friends and servants, with thanks and admonitions, they left their former home with much emotion and with good resolutions. Anna's mother was no longer alive, but I saw that the parents accompanied the couple to their new home. Perhaps Eliud had married again, or perhaps it was only Joachim's parents who were there. Mary Heli, Anna's elder daughter, who was about six or seven years old, was also of the party. Their new home lay in a pleasant hilly country; it was surrounded by meadows and trees, and was one and a half hours, or a good hour, to the west of Nazareth, on a height between the valley of Nazareth and the valley of Zabulon. A ravine with an avenue of terebinth trees led from the house in the direction of Nazareth. In front of the house was an enclosed courtyard, the floor of which looked to me like bare rock. It was surrounded by a low wall of rocks or rough stones, with a wattle hedge growing either on it or behind it. On one side of this court there were small, not very solid buildings for the workpeople and for storing tools of various kinds; also an open shed had been put up there for cattle and beasts of burden. There were several gardens, and in one near the house was a great tree of a strange kind. Its branches hung down to the ground, took root there, and threw up other trees which did the same, until it was encircled by a whole series of arbors. There was a door opening on hinges in the center of the rather large house. The inside of the house was about as big as a moderate-sized village church, and was divided into different rooms by more or less movable wickerwork screens which did not reach to the ceiling. The door opened into the first part of the house, a big anteroom running the whole breadth of the building and used for banquets, or, if necessary, it could be divided up by light movable screens to make small bedrooms when there were many guests. Opposite the house door was a less solid door in the middle of the back wall of this anteroom, leading to the middle part of the house through a passage with four bedrooms on each side of it. These rooms were partitioned off by light wickerwork screens of a man's height and ending at the top in open trellis-work. From here this passage led into the third or back part of the house, which was not rectangular, as it ended in a semicircular curve like the apse of a church. In the middle of this room, opposite the entrance, the wall of the fireplace rose up to the smoke-opening in the roof of the house; at the foot of this wall was the hearth where cooking was done. A five-branched lamp hung from the ceiling in front of this fireplace. At the side of it and behind it were several rather large rooms divided off by light screens. Behind the hearth, divided off by screens of rugs, were the rooms used by the family--the sleeping places, the prayer alcove, the eating and working rooms. Beyond the beautiful orchards round the house were fields, then a wood with a hill behind it. When the travelers arrived in the house they found everything already in order and in its place, for the old people had sent the things on ahead and had them arranged. The men-servants and maidservants had unpacked and settled all the things just as beautifully and neatly as when they were packed up, for they were so helpful and worked so quietly and intelligently by themselves that one did not have to be giving them orders all the time about every single thing as one must do today. Thus everything was soon settled and quiet, and the parents, having brought their children into their new home, blessed and embraced them in farewell, and set off on their journey home, accompanied by their little granddaughter, who went back with them. I never saw feasting going on during such visits and on similar occasions; they often lay in a circle and had a few little bowls and jugs on the carpet before them, but their talk was generally of divine things and holy expectations. I now saw the holy couple beginning an entirely new life here. It was their intention to offer to God all that was past and to behave as though their marriage had only then taken place, endeavoring to live in a manner pleasing to God, and thus to bring down upon them His blessing which they so earnestly desired beyond all else. I saw both of them going amongst their flocks and herds and following the example of their parents (as I have described above) in dividing them into three portions between the Temple, the poor, and themselves. The best and choicest portion was driven off to the Temple; the poor were given the next best one, and the least good they kept for themselves. This they did with all their possessions. Their house was quite spacious; they lived and slept in separate little rooms, where I saw them very often praying by themselves with great devotion. I saw them living in this way for a long time, giving generous alms, and each time they divided their herds and goods I saw that everything quickly increased again. They lived very abstemiously, observing periods of self-denial and continence. I saw them praying in penitential garments, and I often saw Joachim kneeling in supplication to God when he was with his herds far away in the pastures. For nineteen years after the birth of their first child they lived thus devoutly before God in constant yearning for the gift of fruitfulness and with an increasing distress. I saw ill-disposed neighbors coming to them and speaking ill of them, saying that they must be bad people since no children were born to them, that the little girl with Anna's parents was riot really her daughter, but had been adopted by her because of her barrenness, otherwise she would have had her at home, and so forth. Each time they heard such words, the distress of the good couple was renewed. Anna's steadfast faith was supported by an inmost certainty that the coming of the Messiah was near, and that she herself was among His human relations. She prayed for the fulfillment of the Promise with loud supplications, and both she and Joachim were always striving after more perfect purity of life. The shame of her unfruitfulness distressed her deeply. She could hardly appear in the synagogue without affront. Joachim, though short and thin, was robust, and I often saw him going to Jerusalem with the beasts for sacrifice. Anna was not tall either, and very delicately formed. Her grief so consumed her that her cheeks, though still slightly tinged with red, were quite hollow. They continued to give portions of their herds to the Temple and to the poor, while the portion they kept for themselves grew ever smaller and smaller. 2.1 JOACHIM IS SPURNED AT THE TEMPLE AND GOES TO STAY WITH HIS FLOCKS. After having besought God's blessing on their marriage for so many years in vain, I saw that Joachim was minded to offer another sacrifice at the Temple. He and Anna prepared themselves for this by penitential devotions. I saw them lying on the hard earth in prayer during the night, girt in penitential garments; after which Joachim went at sunrise across the country to where his herds were pasturing, while Anna remained at home by herself. Soon after this I saw Anna sending him doves, other birds and many different things in cages and baskets. They were all taken to him by menservants to be offered up in the Temple. He took two donkeys from the pasture, and loaded them with these baskets and with others into which he put, I think, three very lively little white creatures with long necks. I cannot remember whether they were lambs or kids. He had with him a staff with a light on the top of it, which looked as if it were shining inside a hollow gourd. I saw him arriving with his menservants and beasts of burden at a beautiful green field between Bethany and Jerusalem, a place where later I often saw Jesus stay. They journeyed on to the Temple, and stabled the donkeys at the same Temple inn, near the cattle market, where Joachim and Anna afterwards lodged at Mary's Presentation. They then took the sacrificial offerings up the steps, and passed through the dwellings of the Temple servants as before. [22] Here Joachim's servants went back after handing over the offerings. Joachim himself entered the hall, where stood the basin of water in which all the sacrifices were washed. He then went through a long passage into a hall on the left of the place in which were the altar of incense, the table of the shewbreads and the seven-branched candlestick. [23] There were several others assembled there to make sacrifices, and it was here that Joachim had to bear his hardest trial. I saw that one of the priests, Reuben [24] by name, disdained his offerings, and did not put them with the others on the right-hand of the hall, where they could be seen behind the bars, but thrust them on one side. He reproached the unfortunate Joachim loudly and before the others for his unfruitfulness, refused to admit him and sent him, in disgrace, to an alcove enclosed with gratings. I saw that upon this Joachim left the Temple in the greatest distress and betook himself to an assembly house of the Essenes near Machaerus, passing Bethany on the way. Here he sought counsel and consolation. (In this same house, and earlier in a similar one near Bethlehem, lived the prophet Manahem, [25] who prophesied to the young Herod about his kingdom and his crimes.) From here Joachim betook himself to his most distant herds on Mount Hermon. His way led him across the Jordan through the desert of Gaddi. Mount Hermon is a long narrow mountain, beautifully green and rich with fruit trees on the sunny side, but covered with snow on the other. 2.2 ST. ANNE RECEIVES THE PROMISE OF FERTILITY AND TRAVELS TO THE TEMPLE. Joachim was so grieved and ashamed at having been rejected with scorn at the Temple that he did not even send to tell Anna whither he had betaken himself. She heard, however, of the humiliation he had suffered from others who had witnessed it, and her distress was indescribable. I saw her often lying weeping with her face to the earth, because she had no knowledge of where Joachim was. I believe that he remained hidden among his flocks on Mount Hermon for as long as five months. During the end of that time Anna's distress was much increased by the rudeness of one of her maidservants, who kept reproaching her for her misfortunes. Once, however, when this maidservant asked to be allowed to go away for the Feast of Tabernacles (which was just beginning), Anna, remembering how her former maidservant had been led astray, refused permission out of vigilant care for her household. Whereupon this maidservant attacked her so violently, declaring that her barrenness and Joachim's desertion of her was God's punishment for her severity, that Anna could not bear to have her in her house any more. She sent her back to her parents with presents and accompanied by two menservants, with the request that they would take back their daughter who had been entrusted to her, as she could not keep her in her house any longer. After sending away this maid, Anna went sadly into her room to pray. Towards evening she threw a large shawl over her head, wrapping herself in it completely, and went with a shaded light to the great tree in the courtyard which I have described before as forming an arbor. Here she lit a lamp hanging on this tree in a sort of box, and prayed from a scroll. This tree was a very large one, there were arbors and seats arranged under it, for its branches reached over the wall to the ground, where they took root and shot up and again sank to the ground and took root, so that a whole series of arbors encircled it. This tree was like the tree in the Garden of Eden which bore the forbidden fruit. Its fruits hung from the ends of the branches generally in bunches of five. They are pear-shaped, and their flesh has blood-colored streaks; there is a hollow in the center, round which are the seeds embedded in the flesh. The leaves are very large, resembling, I think, those with which Adam and Eve covered themselves in the Garden of Eden. The Jews used these leaves specially for the Feast of Tabernacles. They decorated the walls with them, because they could be fitted together beautifully one behind the other like fishes' scales. Anna remained under this tree for a long time, crying to God and begging that even though He made her barren, yet He might not keep her pious companion Joachim far from her. And lo, there appeared to her an Angel of God, he seemed to step down before her from the top of the tree, and spoke to her, telling her to be of good heart, for the Lord had heard her prayer [26] ; she was to journey next day to the Temple with two maidservants, taking with her doves as a sacrifice. Joachim's prayer, too, he said, had been heard, and he was on his way to the Temple with his offerings; she would meet him under the Golden Gate. Joachim's sacrifice would be accepted, and they would be blessed and made fruitful; soon she would learn the name by which their child was to be called. He told her, too, that he had given a like message to her husband. Then he disappeared. Anna, full of joy, thanked God for His mercies. She then went back into the house and gave her maidservants the necessary orders for their journey to the Temple next morning. I saw her afterwards lying down to sleep after praying. Her bed was a narrow blanket with a pillow under her head. (In the morning her blanket was rolled up.) She took off her upper garments, wrapped herself from head to foot in an ample covering, and lay down at full length on her right side, with her face to the wall against which was the bed. After she had slept for a short time, I saw a brightness pouring down towards her from above, which on approaching her bed was transformed into the figure of a shining youth. It was the angel of the Lord, who told her that she would conceive a holy child; stretching his hand over her, he wrote great shining letters on the wall which formed the name MARY. Thereupon the angel dissolved into light and disappeared. During this time Anna seemed to be wrapped in a secret, joyful dream. She rose half-waking from her couch, prayed with great intensity, and then fell asleep again without having completely recovered consciousness. After midnight she awoke joyfully, as if by an inner inspiration, and now she saw, with alarm mixed with joy, the writing on the wall. This seemed to be of shining golden-red letters, large and few in number; she gazed at them with unspeakable joy and contrite humility until day came, when they faded away. She saw the writing so clearly, and her joy thereat became so great, that when she got up she appeared quite young again. In the moment when the light of the angel had enveloped Anna in grace, I saw a radiance under her heart and recognized in her the chosen Mother, the illuminated vessel of the grace that was at hand. What I saw in her I can only describe by saying that I recognized in her the cradle and tabernacle of the holy child she was to conceive and preserve; a mother blessed indeed. I saw that by God's grace Anna was able to bear fruit. I cannot describe the wonderful manner in which I recognized this. I saw Anna as the cradle of all mankind's salvation, and, at the same time, as a sacred altar-vessel, opened, yet hidden behind a curtain. I recognized this after a natural manner, and all this knowledge of mine was one and was natural and sacred at the same time. (Anna was at that time, I think, forty-three years old.) She now got up, lit the lamp, prayed, and then started on her journey to Jerusalem with her offerings. All the members of her household were full of strange joyfulness that morning, though none but Anna knew of the coming of the angel. 2.3 JOACHIM IS COMFORTED BY AN ANGEL AND RETURNS AGAIN TO THE TEMPLE TO SACRIFICE. At the same time I saw Joachim among his flocks on Mount Hermon beyond the Jordan constantly praying God to grant his supplications. As he watched the young lambs bleating and frolicking round their mothers, he felt sorely distressed at having no children, but did not tell his shepherds why he was so sad. It was near the time of the Feast of Tabernacles, and he and his shepherds were beginning to put up the tabernacles. Remembering his humiliation at the Temple, he had abandoned the idea of going tip as usual to Jerusalem for the feast and offering sacrifices, but as he was praying I saw an angel appear to him, telling him to be of good courage and to journey to the Temple, for his sacrifice would be accepted and his prayers granted. He would meet his wife under the Golden Gate. Thereupon I saw Joachim joyfully dividing his flocks and herds once more into three portions--and what numbers of fine beasts he had! The least good he kept for himself, the next best he sent to the Essenes, and the best of all he drove to the Temple with his herdsmen. He arrived in Jerusalem on the fourth day of the feast, and stayed in his usual lodgings near the Temple. Anna arrived in Jerusalem also on the fourth day of the feast and stayed with Zechariah's relations by the fish market. She did not meet Joachim until the end of the feast. Although on the previous occasion it was by a sign from above that Joachim's offerings were rejected, I saw that the priest who had treated him so harshly instead of comforting and consoling him was in some way (I cannot remember how) punished by God. Now, however, the priests had received a divine warning to accept his offerings, and I saw that some of them, on being told of his approach with the sacrificial beasts, went out of the Temple to meet him and accepted his gifts. The cattle which he had brought as a gift to the Temple were not his actual offering. The sacrifice he brought to be slaughtered consisted of two lambs and three lively little animals, kids, I think. I saw, too, that many of his acquaintances congratulated him on his sacrifice being accepted. I saw that because of the feast the whole Temple was open and decorated with garlands of fruit and greenery, and that in one place a Tabernacle had been set up on eight detached pillars. Joachim went from place to place in the Temple exactly as he did before. His sacrifice was slaughtered and burnt at the usual place. Some part of it was, however, burnt at another place, to the right, I think, of the entrance hall with the great teaching pulpit. [27] I saw the priests making a sacrifice of incense in the Holy Place. Lamps, too, were lighted and lights burned on the seven-branched candlestick, but not on all seven branches at once. I often saw that on different occasions different branches of it were lighted. As the smoke arose from the offering, I saw as it were a beam of light falling upon the officiating priest in the Holy Place and at the same time on Joachim without in the hall. There came a sudden pause in what was going on, it seemed from astonishment and the realization of something supernatural. Thereupon I saw that two priests went out into the hall to Joachim as though by God's command, and led him through the side rooms up to the golden altar of incense in the Holy Place. The priest then laid something on the altar. This was not, I could see, separate grains of incense; it looked like a solid lump, but I cannot remember what it was. [28] This lump gave out a powerful and sweet smell of incense as it was burnt upon the altar of incense before the veil of the Holy of Holies. Then I saw the priest going away, leaving Joachim alone in the Holy Place. While the incense-offering was being consumed I saw Joachim in a state of ecstasy, kneeling with outstretched arms. I saw approaching him a shining figure of an angel, such as later appeared to Zechariah when he received the promise of the Baptist's birth. The angel spoke to Joachim, and gave him a scroll on which I recognized, written in shining letters, the three names Helia, Hanna, Miriam. [29] Beside the last of these names I saw the picture of a little Ark of the Covenant or tabernacle. Joachim fastened this scroll to his breast under his garment. The angel told him that his unfruitfulness was no disgrace for him, but on the contrary, an honor, for the child his wife was to conceive was to be the immaculate fruit of God's blessing upon him and the crowning point of the blessing of Abraham. Joachim, being unable to grasp this, was led by the angel behind the veil hanging in front of the Holy of Holies. Between this veil and the bars of the screen before the Holy of Holies was a space large enough to stand in. I saw the angel approach the Ark of the Covenant, and it seemed to me as if he took something out of it, for I saw him hold towards Joachim a shining globe or circle of light, bidding him breathe upon it and look into it. (When he held the circle of light so near his face, it made me think of a custom at our country weddings where the sacristan gives one a little board to kiss with a head painted on it, and makes one pay three halfpence for doing so.) Then I saw as if all kinds of pictures appeared in the circle of light when Joachim breathed on it and that these were visible to him. His breath had in no way dimmed the circle of light, and the angel told him that the conception of Anna's child would be as untarnished as this globe, which had remained shining in spite of his having breathed on it. Thereupon I saw as if the angel lifted the globe until it stood like an encircling halo in the air, in which I saw, as through an opening in it, a series of pictures starting with the Fall and ending with the Redemption of mankind. The whole course of the world passed before my eyes as one picture merged into another. I knew and understood it all, but I cannot reproduce the details. Above, at the very summit, I saw the Blessed Trinity, and below and on one side of the Trinity, I saw the Garden of Eden, with Adam and Eve, the Fall, the promise of Redemption and all its prototypes--Noah, the Flood, the Ark, the receiving of the blessing through Abraham, its handing on to his firstborn Isaac, from Isaac to Jacob, how it was taken from Jacob by the angel with whom he struggled, how the blessing came to Joseph in Egypt and increased in glory in him and in his wife. I saw how the sacred presence of the blessing was removed by Moses from Egypt with relics of Joseph and his wife Asenath, and became the Holy of Holies of the Ark of the Covenant, the presence of the living God among His people. Then I saw the reverence paid by God's people to this sacred thing and their ceremonies respecting it; I saw the relationships and marriages which formed the sacred genealogy of the Blessed Virgin's ancestry, as well as all the prototypes and symbols of her and of Our Savior in history and in the prophets. All this I saw in encircling symbols and also rising from the lower part of the ring of light. I saw pictures of great cities, towers, palaces, thrones, gates, gardens, and flowers, all strangely woven together as it were by bridges of light; and all were being attacked and assaulted by fierce beasts and other figures of might. These pictures all signified how Our Blessed Lady's ancestral family, from which God was to take Flesh and be made Man, had been led, like all that is holy, by God's grace through many assaults and struggles. I remember, too, having seen at a certain point in this series of pictures a garden surrounded by a thick hedge of thorns, which a host of serpents and other loathsome creatures attempted in vain to penetrate. I also saw a strong tower assaulted on all sides by men-at-arms, who were falling down from it. I saw many pictures of this kind, relating to the history of the ancestry of the Blessed Virgin; and the bridges and passages which joined all together signified the victory over all attempts to disturb, hinder, or interrupt the work of salvation. It was as if by God's compassion there had been poured into mankind, as into a muddy stream, a pure flesh and a pure blood, and as if this had, with great toil and difficulty, to reconstitute itself out of its scattered elements, the whole stream striving the while to draw it into its troubled waters; and then, as if by the countless mercies of God and the faithful cooperation of mankind, it had at last issued forth, after many pollutions and many cleansings, in an unfailing stream out of which rose the Blessed Virgin, from whom the Word was made Flesh and dwelt among us. Among the pictures that I saw in the globe of light there were many which occur in the litany of the Blessed Virgin. Whenever I say that litany, I see them and recognize them and venerate them with great devotion. The pictures in the globe unfolded themselves still further till they reached the fulfillment of all God's compassion towards mankind, so divided and dispersed in its fallen state, and ended, on the side opposite the Garden of Eden, with the heavenly Jerusalem at the foot of the Throne of God. After I had seen all these pictures, the globe (which was really a series of pictures passing in and out of a circle of light) disappeared. I think that all this was a communication to Joachim of a vision revealed to him by the angel and also seen by me. Whenever I receive such a communication, it appears in a circle of light like a globe. 2.4 JOACHIM RECEIVES THE BLESSING FROM THE ARK OF THE COVENANT. I saw now that the angel touched or anointed Joachim's forehead with the tip of his thumb and forefinger, and that he gave him a shining morsel to eat and a luminous liquid to drink from a gleaming little chalice which he held between two fingers. It was of the shape of the chalice at the Last Supper, but without a foot. It seemed to me, too, that this food which he put in his mouth took the form of a little shining ear of corn and a little shining cluster of grapes, and I understood that thereafter every impurity and every sinful desire left Joachim. Thereupon I saw that the angel imparted to Joachim the highest and holiest fruit of the blessing given by God to Abraham, and culminating, through Joseph, in the holy thing within the Ark of the Covenant, in the presence of God among His people. He gave Joachim this blessing in the same form as I had been shown before, except that while the angel of benediction gave Abraham the blessing from himself, out of his bosom as it were, he seemed to give it to Joachim from out of the Holy of Holies. [30] The blessing of Abraham was as it were the beginning of God's grace given in blessing to the father of His future people so that from him might proceed the stones for the building of His Temple. But when Joachim received the blessing, it was as though the angel were taking the holy benediction from the tabernacle of this Temple and delivering it to a priest, in order that from him might be formed the holy vessel in which the Word was to be made Flesh. All this cannot be expressed in words, for I speak of that Holy of Holies inviolate, yet violated in man when he sinned and fell. From my earliest youth I have very often, in my visions from the Old Testament, seen into the Ark of the Covenant, and have always had the impression of a complete church, but more solemn and awe-inspiring. I saw therein not only the Tables of the Law as the written Word of God, but also a sacramental presence of the Living God, [31] like the roots of the wine and wheat and of the flesh and blood of the future sacrifice of our redemption. The grace given by this blessed presence produced, with the cooperation of God-fearing men under the Law, that holy tree whose final blossoming was the pure flower in which the Word became flesh and God became Man; thus, giving us, in the New Covenant, His humanity and His divinity by instituting the Sacrament of His Body and Blood, without which we cannot attain eternal life. I have never known the Ark of the Covenant without the sacramental presence of God except when it had fallen into the hands of the enemy, at which times the holy presence was safe in the hands of the high priest or of one of the prophets. When only the Tables of the Law were present in the Ark of the Covenant, without the holy treasure, it seemed to me like the Temple of the Samaritans on Mount Garizim, or like a church of our own time which is without the Blessed Sacrament and, instead of the Tables of the Law written by God's hand, contains only the books of Holy Scripture imperfectly understood by mankind. In the Ark of the Covenant made by Moses, which stood in the Temple and Tabernacle of Solomon, I saw this most Holy Thing of the Old Covenant in the form of a shining circle crossed by two smaller rays of light intersecting each other; but now, when the angel imparted the blessing to Joachim, I saw this blessing being given to him in the form of something shining, like a shining seed or bean in shape, which he laid in the open breast of Joachim's garment. When the blessing was imparted to Abraham, I saw grace being conveyed to him in the same manner, and its virtue and efficacy remaining with him in the degree ordained by God until he handed it over to his firstborn son Isaac, from whom it passed to Jacob and from him, through the angel, to Joseph, and from Joseph and his wife, with increased virtue, to the Ark of the Covenant. I perceived that the angel bound Joachim to secrecy, and I understood why it was that later Zechariah, the Baptist's father, had become dumb after he had received the blessing and the promise of Elizabeth's fruitfulness from the Angel Gabriel at the Altar of Incense. [ St. Luke 1.9-22.] It was revealed to me, that with this blessing Joachim received the highest fruit and the true fulfillment of Abraham's blessing, namely the blessing for the immaculate conception of the most Holy Virgin who was to bruise the head of the serpent. The angel then led Joachim back into the Holy Place and disappeared, upon which Joachim sank to the ground in an ecstasy as though paralyzed. The priests who re-entered the Holy Place found him radiant with joy. They lifted him up reverently, and placed him outside in a seat generally used only by priests. Here they washed his face, held some strong-smelling substance to his nostrils, gave him to drink and in general treated him as one does someone who has fainted. When he had recovered, he looked young and strong, and was beaming with joy. __________________________________________________________________ [1] The `Pilgrim' is Clemens Brentano, who wrote down the visions at Catherine Emmerich's dictation. These were communicated by her to him on the morning of June 27th, 1819. (Tr.) [2] It is commonly stated that such separation was required of priests on duty, and this can he deduced from Lev. 15.18 (ceremonial uncleanness contracted) and Lev. 22.3 (ceremonial cleanness required). (SB) [3] Mass of the Fourth Sunday in Advent. [4] Mass of the Fourth Sunday in Advent. [5] Communicated in July and August 1821. (Tr.) [6] This was taken down in August 1821 by the writer from Catherine Emmerich's words. In July 1840, when preparing the book for printing, he asked a language expert for an explanation of the word Azkara, and was told that Azkarah meant commemoration and is the name of the portion of the unbloody sacrifice, which was burnt on the altar by the priest to the glory of God and to remind Him of His merciful promises. The unbloody sacrifices generally consisted of the finest wheaten flour mixed with oil and sprinkled with incense. The priest burnt as the Azkarah all the incense and also a handful of flour and oil (baked or unbaked). In the case of the shewbread the incense alone was the Azkarah ( Lev. 24.7). The Vulgate translates the word Azkarah alternatively as `memoriale', `in memoriam', or `in monumentum'. (CB) Lev. 24.7, literally: "And you shall place upon the shewbread pure incense, and it shall be for the bread as a memorial (azkarah), a burnt offering to the Lord." The other references to the word azkarah are in Lev. 2.2, 9, 16; 5.12; 6.8; Num. 5.26 in connection with the burning of a meal offering (minhah). The connection with the Essenes remains obscure. (SB) [7] Hasid (pl. Hasidim), originally meaning `merciful' (of God), came to mean `devout' of men, and was later in Maccabean times used to designate a specific group of devout and observant Jews who joined the Maccabean party in their fight for freedom ( I Macc.2.42). These Hasideans (Gk. Asidaioi), as they were then called, are generally believed to be the forerunners of the Pharisees (cf. Lagrange, Le Judaisme avant Jesus-Christ, 1931, pp. 56, 272), and probably of the Essenes (Bonsirven, Le Judaisme Palestinien, 1935, I, pp. 43, 64), both sects being mentioned by Josephus in Maccabean times ( Ant., XIII, v, 9) . (SB) [8] They were called Essenoi by Josephus, Esseni by Pliny, and Essaioi by Philo (and six times by Josephus). The origin of the name is uncertain (cf. Lagrange, op. cit. , p. 320). Their way of life, as described by AC, is for the most part fully attested by the contemporary historian Josephus ( BJ , II, viii. 2-13), as well as by Philo (Quod omnis probus liber sit , 75-88). Pliny's remarks ( Hist. Nat. , V, 17) attribute to the Essenes an antiquity of `thousands of years'. There is no other evidence of an antiquity beyond Maccabean times. (Most texts in Lagrange, op. cit. , pp. 307-17.) Passing references by Josephus are in Ant., XIII, v, 9 and XVIII, i, 5. (SB) [9] The spiritual head on Mount Horeb, Archos, it not mentioned in any of the documents. (SB) [10] It is well known that the Essenes refused to sacrifice animals, but the ritual of releasing them (as described by AC) is one of the few matters that is not documented. In Lev. 14.53 the Law prescribed the freeing of a bird after purification from leprosy, and in 16.22 the ritual of the scapegoat, which was to `carry away all their iniquities into at uninhabited land.' (SB) [11] The little daughter of Catherine Emmerich's brother, who came from the farm of Flamske near Coesfeld to visit her at Duelmen in the winter of 1820, was seized with violent convulsions occurring every evening at the same time and beginning with distressing choking. These convulsions often lasted until midnight, and Catherine Emmerich, knowing as she did the cause and significance of this and indeed of most other illnesses, was greatly affected by her niece's sufferings. She prayed many times to be told of a cure for them, and at last was able to describe a certain little flower known to her which she had seen St. Luke pick and use to cure epilepsy. As a result of her minute description of the little flower and of the places where it grew, her physician, Dr. Wesener (the district doctor of Duelmen), found it; she recognized the plant which he brought her as the one she had seen, which she called `star-flower ', and he identified it as Cerastium arvense linnaei or Holosteum caryophylleum veterum (Field Mouse-ear Chickweed). It is remarkable that the old herbal Tabernamontani also refers to the use of this plant for epilepsy. On the afternoon of May 22nd, 1821, Catherine Emmerich said in her sleep: `Rue [which she had used before] and star-flower sprinkled with holy water should be pressed, and the juice given to the child, surely that could do no harm? I have already been told three times to squeeze it myself and give it to her.' The writer, in the hope that she might communicate something more definite about this cure, had, unknown to her, wrapped up at home some blossoms of this plant in paper like a relic and pinned the little packet to her dress in the evening. She woke up and said at once: `That is not a relic, it is the star-flower.' She kept the little flower pinned to her dress during the night, and on the morning of May 23rd, 1821, she said: `I had no idea why I was lying last night in a field amongst nothing but star-flowers. I saw, too, all kinds of ways in which these flowers were used, and it was said to me, "If men knew the healing power of this plant, it would not grow so plentifully around you." I saw pictures of it being used in very distant ages. I saw St. Luke wandering about picking these flowers. I saw, too, in a place like the one where Christ fed the 5,000, many sick folk lying on these flowers in the open air, protected by a light shelter above them. These plants were spread out like litter for them to lie on; and arranged with the flowers in the center under their bodies, and the stalks and leaves pointing outwards. They were suffering from gout, convulsions, and swellings, and had under them round cushions filled with the flowers. I saw their swollen feet being wrapped round with these flowers, and I saw the sick people eating the flowers and drinking water which had been poured on them. The flowers were larger than those here. It was a picture of a long time ago; the people and the doctors wore long white woolen robes with girdles. I saw that the plants were always blessed before use. I saw also a plant of the same family but more succulent and with rounder, juicier, smoother leaves and pale blue blossoms of the same shape, which is very efficacious in children's convulsions. It grows in better soil and is not so common. I think it is called eyebright. I found it once near Dernekamp. It is stronger than the other.' She then gave the child three flowers to begin with; the second time she was to have five. She said: `I see the child's nature, but cannot rightly describe it; inside she is like a torn garment, which needs a new piece of stuff for each tear.' (CB) [12] These were Catherine Emmerich's words on August 16th, 1821. The names are here written down as the writer heard them pronounced by her lips, and also her explanation `noble mother'. When the writer read this passage to a language expert in 1840, the latter said that it was indeed true that Em romo means a noble mother. (CB) Em ramah could mean `noble mother', though the adjective ram , usually meaning materially `high' or else `proud', has no obvious parallel in a proper name, except perhaps in Amram (the father of Moses), which may mean `noble uncle'. (SB) [13] She unquestionably meant that these herbs were the same as those mentioned by Eusebius in his ecclesiastical history, Book VII, Chapter 18, which he says grew round the statue of Jesus Christ put up by the woman of Caesarea Philippi, who was cured of the issue of blood. The plants acquired the power of healing all kinds of sicknesses as soon as they had grown high enough to touch the hem of the statue's garment. Eusebius says that this plant is of an unknown species. Catherine Emmerich had spoken before of the statue and of these plants. (CB) [14] In July 1840, some twenty years after this communication, as this book was being prepared for the press, the writer learnt from a language expert that the cabalistic book Zohar contains several references to this matter. (CB) The Zohar is a rabbinic book, claiming descent from Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai (second century), in the form of a commentary on the Pentateuch, interpreting it throughout, in an enigmatic and esoteric style, according to a mystical sense. The Zohar first became known through the 13 ^th-century Rabbi Moses de Leon, who has often been accused of fabricating the whole thing. Present-day opinion, however, suspends judgment, while emphasizing that the Zohar shows evidence of being a compilation of texts and fragments whose composition probably extended over many centuries, and which is likely to enshrine teaching of the greatest antiquity. The Zohar is one of the principal sources of spiritual interpretation among the Jews, and its main theme may be said to be the significance of every detail in sacred history, and the symbolic reflection in this world of the eternal realities of heaven. With regard to its connection with the statements of AC, see further n. 34, p. 26 . (SB) [15] Catherine Emmerich pronounced these and all other name-sounds with her Low-German accent and often hesitatingly. Her pronunciation, she said, only resembled the real names, and it is impossible to be sure how correctly or incorrectly they have been written down. It is all the more astonishing to find elsewhere long afterwards similar names for the same persons. The following is an instance. Several years after Catherine Emmerich's death the writer found in the Encomium trium Mariarum Bertaudi, Petragorici, Paris, 1529, and in particular in the treatise De cognatione divi Joannis Baptistae cum filiabus et nepotibus beatae Annae, lib. III, f. lii, etc., attached to it, that St. Cyril, the third General of the Carmelite Order, who died in 1224, mentions in a work concerning the ancestors of St. Anne similar visions of branches, buds, and flowers seen by the prophet of whom counsel was sought. He further states that Stolanus was also called Agarim or Garizi, names which reproduce sounds recognizable in the above-mentioned Garescha or Sarziri. On the other hand, in this account it is a Carmelite on Mount Carmel instead of an Essene on Mount Horeb of whom counsel is sought. Seventeen years after the death of Catherine Emmerich the writer was reading, on the feast of Corpus Christi, 1840, the life of Our Lady's holy mother in the Actis Sanctorum, Tom. VI, Julii, where Joannes Eckius in his homily on St. Anne says that Stolanus is called by tradition Stolan, and that the Roman Breviary of 1536 and several Breviaries printed before the reign of Pius V mention a daughter Gaziri, while others call her Garzim. A philological friend who was kind enough to read my proofs, observed: `It is surprising that the names Gaziri, Garzi (the final m has been added), Garsha or Garescha (all three forms are correct, though formed from different verbs) all agree in meaning "outcast", and that Agari(m) in Arabic also conveys the idea of flight and banishment. Stolanus in Greek contains the idea of wandering. Sarssir means starling and thus also signifies a wandering bird.' (CB) The Hebrew root g-r-sh and the corresponding Arabic root g-sh-r convey the idea of banishment. The Hebrew ger (and its Arabic equivalent) means a `stranger'. The Greek stolos means a `journey' (cf . apostolos ). Zurzur is the Arabic for a `starling', being derived apparently from the bird's noise. (SB) [16] It is certainly true that the writers who follow tradition generally give Emerentia as the mother of St. Anne; but they give the wife of Stolanus as Emerentia, whereas Catherine Emmerich calls her Emorun. According to tradition, Emerentia, the wife of Stolanus, bore Ismeria, the mother of Elizabeth, and Anna, the mother of the Blessed Virgin. Yet according to Catherine Emmerich's account, Anna is the granddaughter, not the daughter, of Stolanus. If this is a mistake of hers, the reason for it may be that the humble visionary has confused her own visions with the account which she had heard from her childhood of the traditional descent of St. Anne. The name Emerentia is perhaps nothing more than the Latinized form of the name (heard by her) of Emorun. But being either ignorant or forgetful of this, and having always heard of the names Emerentia and Ismeria as being traditionally in close association with Stolanus as the nearest relations of Anna before her marriage, she may have described them as daughters of Stolanus. At the same time it was very noticeable that she never confused any of the countless names which came to her ears except in extreme illness and distress. We are, however, inclined to suppose that there must be some error here, for tradition in general mentions St. Elizabeth as being a niece of St. Anne's, whereas according to Catherine Emmerich's account Elizabeth is the niece of Anna's mother, which would seem to make Elizabeth almost older than Anna, who is called a late-born child. Since the writer cannot explain the error which may possibly have crept in, he begs the kind reader to accept it with patience and thus make amends for the writer's lack of that Christian virtue in his difficult and often interrupted task of compiling an account of these visions. (CB) [17] The Apocryphal Gospels tell us nothing about the ancestors of Our Lady, except the names of Joachim and Anne, which are also attested by the liturgy and the calendar. Nat . Mar. I further states that Joachim was from Nazareth and Anne from Bethlehem, and Ps-Matt. I that Anne's father was called Achar. Apart from these, AC's statements are all independent. (SB) [18] Most of AC's geographical references are to features traceable on the map, even though some, such as the Valley of Zabulon here, are not specifically mentioned in the Bible. (SB) [19] Matthat, son of Levi, is named in Luke's genealogy (3.23), and see further n. 41, p. 18 . (SB) [20] Cf. infra , n. 29, p. 22 , and n. 41, p. 32 . [21] The Apocryphal Gospels (Protev. 2, Ps-Matt. I , Nat. Mar. I) represent Anna as childless until the conception of Mary. Protev. 2 also relates an incident (though of a different nature) with a handmaid. (SB) [22] The reader must not be disconcerted by Catherine Emmerich's references (here and subsequently) to events which may not yet have been mentioned in her account. It must be remembered that the visions from the story of the Blessed Virgin, here given in chronological order, were vouchsafed to Catherine Emmerich year by year on the various church festivals with which these visions were connected; so that now when relating in July and August 1821, at the time of the feasts of St. Anne and St. Joachim, her visions of the life of Our Lady's parents, she is referring (in order to make herself more comprehensible) to something which she had already seen in previous years in November on the occasion of the feast of Our Lady's Presentation at the Temple. (CB) [23] Cf. 3 Kings 7.48, 49. (SB) [24] The priest Reuben appears in Protev. I , Ps-Matt. 2, and in Nat. Mar. 2 is named Issachar. (SB) [25] This Manahem appears in no document. (SB) [26] The story of Anna's consolation by the angel, and the appointment of a rendezvous at the Golden Gate is found in Protev. 4, Ps-Mat. 3, Nat. Mar. 3. (SB) [27] This statement is confirmed by the following: According to Jewish tradition a portion of the burnt offering had to be burnt, not on the altar, but near it and to the east, on the so-called ash-heap. This portion was the sinew of the thigh, which in Jacob's wrestling with the Angel withered up on being touched by the latter (`forthwith it shrank', Gen. 32.25). See also Gen. 32.32. (CB) Gen. 32.32 states that the Israelites `eat not of the sinew which shrank', but there is no available subsequent legislation about this matter. (SB) [28] It was doubtless a mixture, melted together, of the ingredients required by Jewish tradition for the daily incense-offering, namely myrrh, cassia, spikenard, saffron, sweet-scented reed, cinnamon, costus, sea-lavender, thrift, galbanum, and incense, mixed with pure salt. (CB) Exod. 30.34-38 prescribed four elements in the preparation of incense. Later rabbinic tradition increased these (as CB notes), and by the time of Christ thirteen elements were used, as Josephus relates (BJ, V, v, 5). (SB) [29] The writer was at the time unaware that these three names were only other forms of Joachim, Anna, and Mary. His later discovery of this proof of the accuracy of Catherine Emmerich's version of the names was a striking testimony to the authenticity of her visions. (CB) See infra, n. 41, p. 32 , on the identification of Joachim and Heli. The name Joachim (Yehoyaqim) means `The Lord shall make to stand (or rise)' (e.g. IV Kings 23.34). The name Helia (presumably Heli-yah) would mean `My strength is the Lord', but does not occur in the Bible. It is, however, maintained in Cath. Enc., art. `Virgin Mary', p. 464, E d, that Elia (Helia) is but an abbreviation of the name Eliacim (Elyaqim), which, using the other divine name, means `God shall make to stand (or rise)', and, indeed, in IV Kings 23.34 the name of King Eliacim was changed by Pharaoh to Joakim (Yoyaqim). (SB) [30] Catherine Emmerich, who in communicating her many and various visions from the Old Testament often spoke in great detail of the Ark of the Covenant, never said that after the Babylonian captivity the first Ark of the Covenant with all its contents was placed in the rebuilt Temple or later in the Temple restored by Herod. She did, however, state that there was a restored Ark in the Holy of Holies of the Temple, I in which were still preserved a few remains of the sacred contents of the first Ark of the Covenant, some of which she saw in the possession of the Essenes and venerated by them. (CB) Josephus (BJ, V, v, 5) plainly states that there was `nothing at all' I in the Holy of Holies in Herod's Temple. (SB) [31] The reader need not be scandalized by the expression `sacramental presence of God', for Holy Writ clearly declares that God was present above the Ark of the Covenant in a mysterious and visible manner. (CB) __________________________________________________________________ II. THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION 1. JOACHIM AND ST. ANNE MEET BENEATH THE GOLDEN GATE. It was a warning from on high that had led Joachim into the Holy Place, and it was by a similar inspiration that he was brought into a subterranean passage which belonged to the consecrated part of the Temple and ran under it and under the Golden Gate. I have been told what was the meaning and origin of this passage when the Temple was built, and also what it was used for, but I have no clear recollection of this. Some religious observance relating to the blessing and reconciliation of the unfruitful was, I think, connected with this passage. In certain circumstances people were brought into it for rites of purification, expiation, absolution, and the like. [32] Joachim was led by priests near the slaughtering-place through a little door into this passage. The priests turned back, but Joachim continued along the passage, which gradually sloped downwards. Anna had also come to the Temple with her maidservant, who was carrying the doves for sacrifice in wicker baskets. She had handed over her offering and had revealed to a priest that she had been bidden by an angel to meet her husband under the Golden Gate. I now saw that she was led by priests, accompanied by some venerable women (among whom I think was the prophetess Anna), through an entrance on the other side into the consecrated passage, where her companions left her. I had a very wonderful view of what this passage was like. Joachim went through a little door; the passage sloped downwards, and was at first narrow but became broader afterwards. The walls were of glistening gold and green, and a reddish light shone in from above. I saw beautiful pillars like twisted trees and vines. After passing through about a third of the passage Joachim came to a place in the midst of which stood a pillar in the form of a palm tree with hanging leaves and fruits. Here he was met by Anna, radiant with happiness. They embraced each other with holy joy, and each told the other their good tidings. They were in a state of ecstasy and enveloped in a cloud of light. I saw this light issuing from a great host of angels, who were carrying the appearance of a high shining tower and hovering above the heads of Anna and Joachim. The form of this tower was the same as I see in pictures, from the litany of the Blessed Virgin, of the Tower of David, the Tower of Ivory, and so forth. I saw that this tower seemed to disappear between Anna and Joachim, who were enveloped in a glory of brightness. I understood that, as a result of the grace here given, the conception of Mary was as pure as all conceptions would have been but for the Fall. I had at the same time an indescribable vision. The heavens opened above them, and I saw the joy of the Holy Trinity and of the angels, and their participation in the mysterious blessing here bestowed on Mary's parents. Anna and Joachim returned, praising God, to the exit under the Golden Gate: towards the end the passage sloped upwards. They came into a kind of chapel under a beautiful and high arch, where many lights were burning. Here they were received by priests who led them away. The part of the Temple above which was the hall of the Sanhedrin lay over the middle of the subterranean passage; above this end of it were, I think, dwellings of priests whose duty it was to look after the vestments. Joachim and Anna now came to a kind of bay at the outermost edge of the Temple hill, overlooking the valley of Josaphat, where the path could no longer go straight on but branched to right and left. After they had visited another priest's house, I saw Joachim and Anna and their servants starting on their journey home. On their arrival at Nazareth, Joachim, after a joyful meal, gave food to many poor people and distributed generous alms. I saw how full he and Anna were of joy and fervor and gratitude to God when they thought of His compassion towards them; I often saw them praying together with tears. It was explained to me here that the Blessed Virgin was begotten by her parents in holy obedience and complete purity of heart, and that thereafter they lived together in continence in the greatest devoutness and fear of God. I was at the same time clearly instructed how immeasurably the holiness of children was encouraged by the purity, chastity, and continence of their parents and by their resistance to all unclean temptations; and how continence after conception preserves the fruit of the womb from many sinful impulses. In general, I was given an overflowing abundance of knowledge about the roots of deformity and sin. 2. SUPPLEMENTAL INFORMATION ABOUT THE CONCEPTION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN. [Here follow various visions which Catherine Emmerich communicated at different times in the course of her yearly meditations during the octave of the feast of the Immaculate Conception. Though they do not directly continue the story of the Blessed Virgin's life, yet they throw a remarkable light on the mystery of her election, preparation, and veneration as the vessel of grace. As these visions were related by Catherine Emmerich in the midst of much suffering and many interruptions, it is not surprising if they are somewhat fragmentary in character.] 2.1 THE ANGELS ARE SHOWN THE RESTORATION OF MANKIND. I saw in a wonderful picture that God showed the angels how it was His will to restore mankind after the Fall. At first sight I did not understand this picture, but soon it became quite clear to me. I saw the Throne of God and the Holy Trinity, and at the same time a movement within that Trinity. I saw the nine choirs of angels, and how God announced to them in what manner it was His will to restore the fallen human race. I saw an inexpressible joy among the angels over this. I was now shown in a number of symbolic pictures the unfolding of God's designs for the salvation of mankind. I saw these pictures appearing among the nine choirs of angels and following each other in a kind of historical sequence. I saw the angels helping to make these pictures, protecting and defending them. I cannot now remember for certain the order in which they appeared, but will tell in God's name what I can still recollect. I saw a mountain as of precious stones appear before the Throne of God; it grew and spread. It was in terraces, like a throne; then it changed into the shape of a tower--a tower which enshrined every treasure of the spirit and every gift of grace and was surrounded by the nine choirs of angels. At one side of this tower vine tendrils and ears of corn, intertwined like the fingers of folded hands, seemed to be streaming down from the edge of a golden cloud. I cannot remember at what exact moment in the whole picture I saw this. I saw in the sky a figure like a virgin which passed into the tower and as it were melted into it. The tower was very broad and was flat at the top; it seemed to have an opening at the back through which the virgin passed into it. This was not the Blessed Virgin as she is in time, but as she is in eternity, in God. I saw the appearance of her being formed before the face of the Holy Trinity, just as when one breathes, a little cloud is formed before one's mouth. [33] I also saw something going forth from the Holy Trinity towards the tower. At this moment of the picture I saw a vessel like a ciborium being formed among the choirs of angels. The angels all joined in giving this vessel the form of a tower surrounded by many pictures full of significance. Beside it stood two figures joining hands behind it. This spiritual vessel went on increasing in size, beauty, and richness. Then I saw something proceed from God and pass through all nine choirs of angels; it seemed to me like a little shining holy cloud which became more and more distinct as it approached the sacramental vessel which it finally entered. But in order that I should recognize this to be a real and essential blessing of God, conferring the grace of a pure and sinless line from generation to generation (like the cultivation of some plant in all its purity), I finally saw this blessing in the shape of a shining bean, enter the ciborium, which then passed into the tower. [34] I saw the angels actively taking part in the showing forth of these visions. There rose, however, from the depths below a series of what seemed to be false visions, for I saw the angels combating these and thrusting them aside. Many of these false visions I have forgotten, but here is what I still remember about them. I saw a church rise up from below, almost in the same form in which the holy universal Church always appears to me when I see it not as a particular building but as the Holy Catholic Church in general. There was, however, this difference, that the latter has a tower over the entrance and the church rising from the depths had not. It was a very large church but a false one. The angels thrust it aside so that it stood all crooked. I also saw a great bowl, with a lip on one side; which tried to enter the false church but was also thrust aside. I then saw the angels preparing a chalice, of the shape of the Chalice of the Last Supper, which passed into the tower entered by the virgin. I also saw a lower tower or building appear, with many doors, through which I saw crowds of people passing, among them figures like Abraham and the Children of Israel. I think this had reference to the slavery in Egypt. I saw a round terraced tower arise, which also had reference to Egypt. This was thrust back and made to stand crooked. I also saw an Egyptian temple arise, like the one on the ceiling of which I had seen the Egyptian priests, idolaters, fastening the image of a winged virgin after receiving from Elijah' messenger communications of a prophetic vision of the Blessed Virgin. I will speak of his vision later; it was seen by the prophet on Mount Carmel. This temple, too, was thrust back and made to stand crooked. I then saw between the choirs of angels, to the right of the holy tower, a branch which put forth buds, making a whole ancestral tree of little male and female figures holding each other's hands. This family tree ended with the appearance of a little crib with a little child in it. The crib was of the same shape as the one I had seen exposed in the temple of the Three Kings. [35] Then I saw a beautiful great church appear. The way in which all these pictures were united with each other and yet melted one into the other was very wonderful. The whole vision was indescribably rich and full of significance. Even the hateful, evil, false appearances of towers, chalices, and churches, which were thrust aside, were made to assist in the unfolding of the scheme of salvation. [When recounting these scattered visions, she came back again and again to the unspeakable joy of the angels. There was no real conclusion to these fragmentary visions, which seem to have been a series of symbolic pictures of the history of our salvation. She added: `First of all I saw the emblems of the work of redemption among the choirs of angels, and then a series of pictures from Adam down to the Babylonian captivity.'] 2.2 AN EGYPTIAN REPRESENTATION OF MARY PRIOR TO ELIJAH. I saw something happening in Egypt very long ago which had a symbolic application to the Blessed Virgin. It must have been long before the days of Elijah. I also saw something in Egypt, in his lifetime, which I will tell later. I saw a place in Egypt, much farther away from the Promised Land than On or Heliopolis, where on an island in the river an idol stood. This idol had a head which was something between that of a man and of an ox, with three horns, one in the middle of the forehead. The figure was hollow, and had openings in its body in which sacrifices were burnt as in an oven. Its feet were like claws, and in one hand it held a plant like a lily which grows out of the water and opens and shuts with the sun. In the other hand the idol held a plant like ears of corn with quite thick grains; I think it grows out of the water too, but am not quite sure of this. After a great victory a temple had been built in honor of this idol, which was now to be consecrated, and all preparations had been made for the sacrifice. But as the people were on their way to the island I saw something wonderful happen. Near the idol I saw a dark and dreadful apparition, and then I saw a great angel descending upon it from heaven like the one who appeared to St. John the Evangelist in the Apocalypse. This angel struck the dark figure in the back with his staff. The demon, writhing, was forced to speak out of the mouth of the idol, warning the people to consecrate the temple, not in honor of it but of a virgin who was to appear upon earth and to whom thanks for their victory were due. I cannot remember the exact circumstances, but I saw that the people set up in the new temple the image of a winged virgin, which was fixed to the wall. The virgin as she flew was bending down over a little ship in which lay a child in swaddling clothes. The ship stood on a little pillar, with a leafy top like a tree. One of her outstretched hands had a balance hanging from it, and I saw two figures beside her on the wall who were putting something into each scale of the balance. The little ship in which the child lay was like that in which Moses lay on the Nile, but it was uncovered, whereas Moses' one was entirely closed in except for a small opening at the top. 2.3 ELIJAH'S VISION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN. I saw the whole Promised Land withered and parched with drought, and I saw Elijah ascending Mount Carmel with two servants to beseech God to give rain. First they climbed over a high ridge, then up steps of rock to a terrace, then up many more rock steps, and so reached a great open space with a hill of rocks in its midst in which was a cave. Elijah climbed up steps to the top of this rocky hill. He left the servants at the edge of the open space and bade one of them look towards the Sea of Galilee, which had, however, a terrible aspect, for it was quite dried up and was full of hollows and caverns with rotting bodies of animals in the swampy ground. Elijah crouched down on the ground with his head sunk between his knees, and covering himself in his mantle prayed fervently to God and cried seven times to his servant to know whether he did not see a cloud rising out of the lake. At his seventh call I saw the cloud rise up, and saw the servant announce it to Elijah, who sent him to King Ahab. I saw a white eddy form itself in the middle of the lake; out of this eddy rose a little black cloud like a fist, which opened and spread itself out. In this little cloud I saw from the first a little shining figure like a virgin. I saw, too, that Elijah perceived this figure in the spreading cloud. The head of this virgin was encircled with rays; she stretched her arms out in the form of a cross, and had a triumphal wreath hanging from one hand. Her long robe seemed to be tied beneath her feet. She appeared as if hovering above the whole Promised Land in the cloud as it spread ever farther. I saw how this cloud divided into different parts and fell in eddying showers of crystal dew on certain holy and consecrated places inhabited by devout men and those who were praying for salvation. I saw these showers edged with the colors of the rainbow and the blessing taking shape in their midst like a pearl in its shell. It was explained to me that this was a symbolic picture, and that the favored places watered by the showers from the cloud were in fact those which had had their share in contributing to the coming of the Blessed Virgin. I saw as well a prophetic vision of how Elijah, while the cloud was rising, discerned four mysteries relating to the Blessed Virgin. Unfortunately I have forgotten the details, and much else, as a result of disturbances and interruptions. Elijah discerned in the cloud, among other things, that Mary would be born in the seventh age of the world; hence his sevenfold call to his servant. He saw, too, from what family she was to come. On one side of the country he saw a low but very broad family tree, and on the other a very high one, broad at the base but tapering towards its top, which bent down into the first tree. He understood all this, and discerned in this way four mysteries relating to the future mother of the Savior. Hereupon I had a vision of how Elijah enlarged the cave above which he had prayed and how he made the Sons of the Prophets into a more regular organization. Some of these were always praying in this cave for the coming of the Blessed Virgin and paying her honor in anticipation of her future birth. I saw that this devotion to the Blessed Virgin continued here uninterrupted, that the Essenes carried it on during Mary's earthly life, and that subsequently it was perpetuated up to our time by hermits and the Carmelite Order which eventually succeeded them. [36] 2.4 AN EXPOUNDING ON ELIJAH'S VISION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN. [When Catherine Emmerich communicated later her visions of the time of John the Baptist, she saw the same vision of Elijah with reference to the state of the country and of mankind which prevailed in St. John's time. We therefore reproduce from this what follows as explanatory of what she has said above.] I saw a great commotion in the Temple at Jerusalem, much consultation, much writing with reed pens, and messengers being sent about the country. Rain was besought from God with cries and supplications, and search was made everywhere for Elijah. I saw Elijah receiving food and drink in the wilderness from the angel, who held a vessel like a little shining barrel with white and red diagonal stripes. I saw all Elijah' dealings with Ahab, the sacrifice on Mount Carmel, the slaughter of the priests of Baal, Elijah' prayer for rain and the gathering of the clouds. I saw as well as the dryness of the earth, a great dryness and failing of good fruit amongst men. I saw that by his prayer Elijah called forth the blessing of which the cloud was the form, and that he guided and distributed its showers in accordance with inner visions; otherwise it might perhaps have become a destroying deluge. He asked his servant seven times for news of the cloud; this signifies the seven generations or ages of the world which must go by before the real blessing (of which this cloud of blessing was but a symbol) took root in Israel. Elijah himself saw in the ascending cloud an image of the Blessed Virgin, and discerned several mysteries relating to her birth and descent. [37] I saw that Elijah' prayer called down the blessing at first in the form of dew. Layers of cloud sank down which formed themselves into eddies with rainbow edges; these finally dissolved into falling drops. I saw therein an association with the manna in the desert, but the manna lay thick and crisp on the ground in the morning like fleeces, and could be rolled up and taken away. I saw this whirling eddy of dew floating along the banks of the Jordan, but dropping down only at certain notable places, not everywhere. In particular at Ainon, opposite Salem, and at the places where baptisms took place later, I clearly saw these shining eddies floating downwards. I asked what the colored edges of these dew eddies portended, and was given as an explanation the example of the mother-of-pearl shells in the sea which also bore edges of shining color; they expose themselves to the sun, absorbing the light and cleansing it of color until the pure white pearls take form in their centers. It was shown to me, too, that this dew and the rain that followed it was something much more than the ordinary refreshing of the earth by moisture. I was given clearly to understand that, without this dew, the coming of the Blessed Virgin would have been delayed by more than a hundred years; whereas, after this softening and blessing of the earth, nourishment and refreshment were imparted to the human beings who lived on the fruits of the soil; the blessing communicated itself to their bodies and ennobled them. This fructifying dew was associated with the coming of the Messiah, for I saw its rays penetrating generation after generation until they reached the substance of the body of the Blessed Virgin. I cannot describe this. Sometimes, on the colored edge that I have mentioned I saw emerge one or more pearls having the likeness of a human figure which disappeared in a breath to unite itself with others of these pearls. The picture of the pearl shell was a symbol of Mary and Jesus. I saw, too, that just as the earth and mankind were parched and panting for rain, so, at a later time, was the spirit of man thirsting for the baptism of John; so that the whole picture was not only a prophecy of the coming of the Blessed Virgin, but also of the state of the people at the time of the Baptist. In the first instance there was the alarm of the people, their longing for rain and their search for Elijah, followed, nevertheless, by their persecution of him; and later there was a like yearning of the people for baptism and penance, and again the lack of comprehension by the synagogue and its messages to John. 2.5 A REPRESENTATION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN IN EGYPT. In Egypt I saw the message of salvation being announced in the following manner. I saw that by God's command Elijah sent messages to summon devout families scattered about in three regions to the east, north, and south. For this purpose he sent forth three of the sons of the prophets, but only after asking a sign from God that he had decided rightly, for it was a difficult and dangerous mission, and he had to choose messengers whose prudence would lessen the danger of their being murdered. One traveled northwards, one eastwards, and the third southwards. This last one had to pass through a considerable part of Egyptian territory, where the Israelites were in particular danger of being killed. This messenger took the way followed by the Holy Family on their flight into Egypt. I think, too, that he passed near On, where the Child Jesus took refuge. I saw him come to an idolatrous temple on a great plain; in this temple, which was surrounded by a meadow and by many other buildings, they adored a living bull. They had an image of a bull and many other idols in their temple; their sacrifices were gruesome and they slaughtered deformed children. They seized the son of the prophet and brought him before the priests. Fortunately, the latter were very inquisitive; otherwise, they might easily have murdered him. They questioned him as to whence he came and what brought him there, and he answered without hesitation, telling them how a virgin would be born from whom the salvation of the world was to come, and that then all their idols would fall in pieces. [38] They were amazed at his announcement, seemed greatly moved thereby, and let him go unharmed. I saw them taking counsel together thereafter, and having the image of a virgin constructed and fixed in the middle of the temple roof. This image [See Figure 4], represented as floating downwards at full length, had a headdress like the idols, so many of which lie in rows there, half like a woman, half like a lion. On the top of the head was something like a little high vessel or bushel of fruit; the elbows were close to the body, while the forearms were held out in a gesture as it were of withdrawal and repulse. In her hands were ears of corn. She had three breasts; a large one in the middle, with two smaller ones on each side of it but lower down. The lower part of the body was clothed in a long dress, and from the feet, which were comparatively small and pointed, hung tassels or something of the sort. She had as it were wings on her arms both above and below the elbows; these wings seemed to be made of delicate feathers spreading out on each side like rays and intertwined with each other. Feathers ran crosswise down both thighs and over the middle of the body to the feet. The dress had no folds. They venerated this image and sacrificed to it, begging it not to destroy their God Apis and their other gods. At the same time they continued their gruesome idolatry as before, except that they always began by invoking this virgin. In making this image they had, I believe, followed the indications given them by the son of the prophet in his account of the vision which Elijah had seen. Figure 4. Egyptian idol of the blessed virgin Mary constructed after receiving Elijah's prophesy. [39] 2.6 MARY PROCLAIMED TO PIOUS PAGANS. I saw also that by the great mercy of God it was announced to certain God-fearing heathens that the Messiah was to be born from a virgin in Judea. The ancestors of the three holy kings, the star-worshippers of Chaldea, received this message by the appearance of a picture in a star or in the sky, by which they made prophecies. I saw traces of these prophetic images of the Blessed Virgin in the pictures in their temple, which I have described in my account of Jesus' visit to them after the raising of Lazarus in the last quarter of the third year of His ministry. 2.7 THE LIFE STORY OF TOBIAS. AN ALLEGORY OF THE COMING OF SALVATION. [On the feast of the Archangel Michael in September 1821, Catherine Emmerich recounted, amongst other fragments of a vision of the holy angels, the following fragment of the story of Tobias, whom she had seen with the Archangel Raphael as his guide.] I saw many things from the life of Tobias, which is an allegory of the history of the coming of salvation in Israel; not an imaginative allegory, but one which actually happened and was lived. It was shown to me that Sarah, the wife of the young Tobias, was a prototype of St. Anne. I will relate as much as I can remember of the many things that happened, but shall not be able to reproduce them in their right order. The elder Tobias was an emblem of the God-fearing branch of the Jewish race, those who were hoping for the Messiah. The swallow, the messenger of spring, indicated the near approach of salvation. The blindness of old Tobias signified that he was to beget no more children, and was to devote himself entirely to prayer and meditation; it signified also the faithful, though dim, longing and waiting for the light of salvation and the uncertainty as to whence it was to come. Tobias' quarrelsome wife represented the empty and harassing forms into which the Pharisees had converted the Law. The kid which she had brought home in lieu of wages had, as Tobias warned her, really been stolen, and had for that reason been handed on to her in return for very little. Tobias knew the people concerned and all about it, but his wife only mocked him. This mockery also indicated the contempt of the Pharisees and formalists for the devout Jews and Essenes and the relationship between the two groups, but I cannot now remember how this was. The Archangel Raphael was not telling an untruth when he said that he was Azarias, the son of Ananias, for the general meaning of these words is: `The help of the Lord out of the cloud of the Lord'. [40] This angel, the companion of young Tobias, represented God's watchfulness over the Blessed Virgin's descent through her ancestors and His preservation and guidance of the Blessing through the generations which preceded her conception. In the prayer of the Elder Tobias, and of Sarah, the daughter of Raguel (I saw both these prayers being brought by the angels at one and the same time before the Throne of God and there granted), I recognized the supplications of the God-fearing Israelites and of the Daughters of Sion for the coming of salvation, as well as the simultaneous prayers of Joachim and Anna, separated from each other, for the promised offspring. The blindness of the elder Tobias and his wife's mockery of him also symbolized Joachim's childlessness and the rejection of his sacrifice at the Temple. The seven husbands of Sarah, the daughter of Raguel, who were destroyed by Satan, came to their end through sensuality; for Sarah had made a vow to give herself only to a chaste and God-fearing man. These seven men symbolized those whose entry into Jesus' ancestry according to the flesh would have hindered the coming of the Blessed Virgin, and thus the advent of salvation. There was also a reference to certain unblessed periods in the history of salvation and to the suitors whom Anna had to reject that she might be united to Joachim, the father of Mary. The maidservant's reviling of Sarah ( Tob. 3.7) symbolized the reviling by the heathen and by the godless and unbelieving among the Jews against the expectation of the Messiah, for whose coming all God-fearing Jews were, like Sarah, inspired to pray with ever-increasing fervor. It was also an image of the reviling of Anna by her maidservant, whereafter that holy mother prayed with such fervor that her prayer was granted. The fish which was about to swallow young Tobias symbolized the powers of darkness, heathendom, and sin striving against the coming of salvation, and also Anna's long barrenness. The killing of the fish, the removal of its heart, liver, and gall, and the burning of this by Tobias and Sarah to make smoke--all these symbolized the victory over the demon of fleshly lusts who had strangled Sarah's seven husbands, as well as the good works and continence of Joachim and Anna, by which they had obtained the blessing of holy fruitfulness. I also saw therein a deep significance relating to the Blessed Sacrament, but can no longer explain this. The gall of the fish, which restored the sight of Tobias' father, symbolized the bitterness of the suffering through which the chosen ones among the Jews came to know and share in salvation; it indicated also the entry of the light into the darkness brought about by Jesus' bitter sufferings from His birth onwards. I received many explanations of this kind, and saw many details of the history of Tobias. I think the descendants of young Tobias were among the ancestors of Joachim and Anna. The elder Tobias had other children who were not godly. Sarah had three daughters and four sons. Her first child was a daughter. The elder Tobias lived to see his grandchildren. 2.8 THE GENEALOGICAL TREE OF THE MESSIAH. I saw the line of the descent of the Messiah proceeding from David and dividing into two branches. The right-hand one went through Solomon down to Jacob, the father of St. Joseph. I saw the figures of all St. Joseph's ancestors named in the Gospel on this right-hand branch of the descent from David through Solomon. This branch has the greater significance of the two; I saw the line of descent issuing from the mouths of the separate figures in streams of white colorless light. The figures were taller and looked more spiritual than those of the left-hand line. Each one held a long flower stem with hanging leaves like those of palms: this stem was crowned with a great bell-shaped flower shaped like a lily and having five stamens, yellow at the top, from which a fine yellow dust was scattered. These flowers differed in size, vigor, and beauty. The flower borne by Joseph, the foster-father of Jesus, was the most beautiful and purest of all, with fresh and abundant petals. Halfway down this ancestral tree were three rejected shoots, blackened and withered. In this line through Solomon there were several gaps separating its fruits more widely from each other. The right-hand and left-hand branches met several times, and they crossed each other at a point a few generations before the end. I was given an explanation about the higher significance of the line of descent through Solomon. It had in it more of the spirit and less of the flesh, and had some of the significance belonging to Solomon himself. I cannot express this. The left-hand line of descent went from David through Nathan down to Heli, which is the real name of Joachim, Mary's father, for he did not receive the name of Joachim till later, just as Abram was not called Abraham until later. I forget the reason, but it will perhaps come back to me. In my visions I often hear Jesus called after the flesh a son of Heli. [41] I saw this whole line from David through Nathan flowing at a lower level: it generally issued from the navels of the separate figures. I saw it colored red, yellow, or white, but never blue. Here and there were stains; then the stream became clear again. The figures upon it were smaller than those of the line through Solomon. They carried smaller branches which hung down sideways and had little yellow-green leaves with serrated edges; their branches were crowned with reddish buds of the color of wild roses. These were always closed; they were not flower buds but the beginnings of fruits. A double row of little twigs hung down on the same side as the serrated leaves. At a point three or four generations above Heli or Joachim, the two lines crossed each other and rose up, ending with the Blessed Virgin. [42] At the point of crossing I think I already saw the blood of the Blessed Virgin beginning to shine in the stream of descent. St. Anne descended on her father's side from Levi, and on her mother's side, from Benjamin. I saw in a vision the Ark of the Covenant being borne by her ancestors with great piety and devotion; I saw them receiving rays of blessing from it which extended to their descendants, to Anna and to Mary. I always saw many priests in the house of Anna's parents, and also in Joachim's house; this was the result of the relationship with Zechariah and Elizabeth. 2.9 APPARITION OF SAINT ANNE. [On the afternoon of July 26 ^th, 1819, Sister Emmerich, after relating many things about Anna, the Blessed Virgin's holy mother, fell asleep as she was praying. After a while she sneezed three times and exclaimed impatiently, but still half asleep, `O, why must I wake up?' Then she woke up completely and said with a smile: `I was in a much better place, I was much better off than here. I was being much comforted, and then all of a sudden I was woken by my sneeze and someone said to me "You must wake up ", but I did not want to, I was so happy there and was annoyed at having to go away, then I had to sneeze, and I woke up.' [Next day she told me:] I had just fallen asleep last night after saying my prayers when someone whom I recognized as a young girl I had often seen before came to my bed. She said to me rather shortly: `You have been speaking a great deal about me today, you shall now have a sight of me, so that you may make no mistakes.' So I asked her: `Have I perhaps talked too much?' She answered abruptly `No!' and disappeared. She was still a girl, slim and attractive, her head was covered with a white hood, drawn together at the back of her neck and ending there in a hanging knot as if her hair were inside it. Her long dress, which completely covered her, was of whitish wool; the sleeves of it seemed to be rather full at the elbows. Over this she wore a long cloak of brownish wool, like camel's hair. Hardly had I had time to feel touched and pleased by this vision, when suddenly I saw by my bed an aged woman in similar dress with her head more bent and very hollow cheeks--a Jewess of some fifty years, thin but handsome. `Why,' I thought, `does this old Jewess come to me?' Then she said: `You need not be afraid; I only want to show you how I was when I bore the mother of the Lord, so that you may make no mistakes.' I asked at once: `O, where is the dear little child Mary?' and she replied: `I have not got her with me now.' Then I asked again: `How old is she now?' And she answered: `Four years old.' I asked her once more: `But have I spoken rightly?' and she said shortly, `Yes.' I asked her: `O, please do not let me say too much!' She did not answer and disappeared. Then I woke up, and thought over everything that I had seen of Anna and of the childhood of the Blessed Virgin, and everything became clear to me and I felt blissfully happy. Next morning, when I was again asleep, I had a new and very beautiful vision. I thought I could not forget it, but the next day brought with it so many interruptions and sufferings that nothing of it remains in my mind. 2.10 VISION OF THE FEAST OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION [43] . During the whole night I saw a terrible, horrifying picture of the sins of the whole world; but towards morning I fell asleep again and was transported to the place in Jerusalem where the Temple had stood, and then on to the region of Nazareth, where the house of Joachim and Anna used to stand. I recognized the country round. Here I saw a slender column of light rising out of the earth like the stem of a flower. This column was crowned with the appearance of a shining octagonal church, which grew forth from the stem like the calyx of a flower or the seed vessel of a poppy. [44] The column grew up within this church like a little tree, with symmetrical branches bearing the figures of those among the Blessed Virgin's family who were the objects of veneration on this feast. It was as if they were standing on the stamens of a flower. I saw the Blessed Virgin's holy mother St. Anne, standing between Joachim and another man, her father perhaps. Beneath St. Anne's breast I saw a space filled with light, somewhat in the shape of a chalice, and in this I saw the figure of a shining child growing and developing. Its little hands were crossed on its breast and its little head was bent, and countless rays of light issued from it towards one part of the world. (I thought it strange that they did not shine in all directions.) On others of the surrounding branches were many figures turned towards the center in veneration, and all round within the church I saw orders and choirs of saints, countless in number, all turning in prayer towards that holy mother. This celebration, in the sweetness of its harmony and devotion, can only be compared to a meadow of innumerable flowers, stirred by a gentle wind and lifting their heads to offer their scents and their colors to the sun from which they have received life itself and all they have to offer. Above this symbolical picture of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception the tree of light sent up another shoot, and in this second crown I saw a further moment of the feast being celebrated. Mary and Joseph were kneeling here, and a little lower St. Anne, all in adoration of the child Jesus, whom I saw above them in the top of the tree, holding in His hand the orb or globe and surrounded by an infinite glory of light. Around this scene, and bowing in adoration before it, were, nearest of all, the three holy kings, the shepherds, and the apostles and disciples; farther away other saints joined in the choirs of worshippers. In the light from above I saw indistinct figures of Powers and Principalities, and still higher I saw as it were a half-sun, its light streaming down through the dome of the church. This second picture seemed to indicate the approach of the Feast of the Nativity after the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. When the picture first appeared, I seemed to be standing outside the church, looking outwards from under the pillar; later I saw into the inside of the church as I have described it. I saw, too, the little child Mary developing in the space of light under St. Anne's heart, and received, at the same moment, an inexpressible conviction of the Immaculate Conception. I read it as clearly as in a book, and understood it. It was shown to me, that a church to the glory of God had once stood here, but had been given over to destruction in consequence of unworthy disputes about this holy mystery; that the Church Triumphant, however, still celebrated this feast on this spot. 2.11 THE BLESSED VIRGIN REVEALS SECRETS ABOUT THEIR LIVES. [During her visions of Jesus' ministry Catherine Emmerich related the following on December 16 ^th, 1822.] I often hear the Blessed Virgin telling the women who were her close intimates (for instance, Joanna Chuza and Susanna of Jerusalem) various secrets about herself and about Our Lord, which she knows partly from inner knowledge and partly from what her holy mother Anna told her. Thus today I heard her telling Susanna and Martha that during the time when she was bearing Our Lord within her she never felt the slightest discomfort, nothing but infinite inner joy and beatitude. She told them, too, that Joachim and Anna had met in the hall under the Golden Gate in a golden hour; and that God's grace had been granted to them here in such abundance as to make it possible for her alone, from her parents' holy obedience and pure love of God, to have been conceived in her mother's womb without any stain of sin. She also explained to them that but for the Fall the conception of all men would have been as pure. She spoke, too, of her beloved elder sister Mary Heli, that her parents had realized that she was not the promised fruit, and how, in their longing for that fruit, they had long practiced continence. It was a joy to me to hear now from the Blessed Virgin herself what I have always seen about her elder sister. I saw now the whole sequence of grace received by Mary's parents just as I have always described it, from the appearance of the angel to Anna and Joachim down to their meeting under the Golden Gate; that is to say, in the subterranean ball under the Golden Gate. I saw Joachim and Anna encompassed by a host of angels with heavenly light. They themselves shone and were as pure as spirits in a supernatural state, as no human couple had ever been before them. I think that the Golden Gate itself was the scene of the examination and absolution of women accused of adultery, and that other ceremonies of reconciliation took place here. [45] There were five of these subterranean passages under the Temple, and one also under the part where the virgins lived. These were used for certain ceremonies of atonement. I do not know whether others before Joachim and Anna had gone there, but I think the place was very seldom visited. I cannot at present recall whether it was in general connected with sacrifices offered by the unfruitful, but the priests had been given some order about it. 2.12 CELEBRATION OF THE CONCEPTION OF MARY IN VARIOUS LOCATIONS. [On December 8 ^th, 1820, on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, the soul of Catherine Emmerich was transported in an active state of prayer and meditation over a great part of the earth. The whole of this visionary journey will be described in its proper place, but in the meantime we will reproduce the following extracts from it in order to give some idea of these journeyings of her soul. [She came to Rome, was with the Holy Father, visited a much-loved and devout nun in Sardinia, reached Palestine after a short visit to Palermo, went to India, and thence to what she calls the mountain of the Prophet. [46] Thence she journeyed to Abyssinia, where she came to a strange Jewish city on a high mountain rock and visited its ruler Judith, [47] with whom she spoke of the Messiah, of that day's feast of the Conception of His Mother, of the holy Advent time, and of the approaching Feast of His Birth. During the whole of this journey she did all that a conscientious missionary would have done on a similar journey to carry out his task and make use of his opportunities; she prayed, taught, helped, comforted, and learnt. But in order to make plain to the reader, in her own words, what she perceived on this journey regarding the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, we must refer him to the note on page 46, in which that part of Jesus' ministry to which she here alludes is described in detail.] When in my great dream-journey I came into the Promised Land, I saw all those things which I have related about the Conception of the Blessed Virgin. Thereupon I entered into the daily visions of Our Lord's ministry and had today reached the 8 ^th of December of the third year of His teaching. I found Jesus not in the Promised Land, but was brought by my guide eastwards over the Jordan to Arabia, where the Lord, accompanied by three young men, was in a tent city of the three holy kings in which they had settled after their return from Bethlehem. 2.13 THE HOLY KINGS CELEBRATE A FEAST HONORING MARY'S CONCEPTION. I saw that the two holy kings who were still alive were celebrating with their tribe a three-day feast starting from today, December 8 ^th. On this night, fifteen years before Christ's birth, they had seen for the first time the star promised by Balaam rise in the sky [ Num. 24.17: `A star shall rise out of Jacob']--the star for which they and their forefathers had waited so long, scanning the heavens in patient watchfulness. They discerned in it the picture of a virgin, bearing in one hand a scepter and in the other a balance. The scales were held even by a perfect ear of wheat in the one and by a cluster of grapes in the other. Therefore every year since their return from Bethlehem they kept a three-day feast beginning with this day. 2.14 ELIMINATION OF HUMAN SACRIFICE BY THE STAR-WORSHIPPERS. I saw, too, that as a result of this vision on the day of the conception of Mary, fifteen years before the birth of Christ, these star-worshippers did away with a terrible religious custom of theirs--a cruel sacrifice of children, long practiced among them as the result of revelations which had been misunderstood by them and confused by evil influences. They had carried out at different times and in different manners sacrifices of both children and grown people. I saw that before Mary's conception they had the following custom. They took a child of one of the purest and most devout mothers amongst the followers of their religion, and she esteemed herself very fortunate to offer up her child in this way. The child was flayed and strewn with flour to absorb the blood. They ate this blood-soaked flour as a holy repast, and continued strewing the flour and eating until there was no blood left in the child's body. Finally the child's flesh was cut up into small pieces, which were distributed among them and eaten. [48] I saw them performing this gruesome ceremony with the greatest simplicity and devoutness, and I was told that they had adopted this dreadful practice as a result of misunderstanding and distorting certain prophetic and symbolical indications which they had received regarding the Holy Eucharist. I saw that this terrible sacrifice was carried on in Chaldea, in the country of Mensor, one of the three holy kings, until he put an end to its horrors on receiving enlightenment in a vision from heaven on the day of Mary's conception. I saw him on a high wooden pyramidal edifice, engaged in studying the stars, as his people had done for centuries in accordance with their ancient traditions. I saw King Mensor lying in an ecstasy as he contemplated the stars; his limbs were rigid and he had lost consciousness. His companions came to him and brought him back to himself, but at first he seemed not to know them at all. He had seen the picture in the star with the Virgin, the scales, the ear of corn, and the cluster of grapes, and had received an inner admonition, after which that cruel ceremony was abolished. 2.15 A PARALLEL VISION OF CHILD SACRIFICE. After seeing at night in my sleep the fearful picture of the murdered child on my right hand, I turned over in horror in my bed, but saw it again on my left hand. I begged God most earnestly to free me from this dreadful sight. I woke up and heard the clock strike. My heavenly Bridegroom said to me, pointing round Him as He spoke: `See far more evil that befalls Me every day at the hands of many throughout the whole world.' And as I looked about me into the distance, many things came before my soul which were indeed still more dreadful than that sacrifice of children; for I saw Jesus Himself cruelly sacrificed on the Altar by unworthy and sinful celebrations of the Holy Mysteries. I saw how the blessed Host lay on the altar before unworthy degenerate priests like a living Child Jesus, whom they cut and terribly mutilated with the paten. Their sacrifice, though an efficacious celebration of the Holy Mysteries, appeared like a cruel murder. [49] The same cruelty was shown to me in the heartless treatment of the members of Christ, His followers, and God's adopted children. I saw at the present time countless good, unhappy men being everywhere oppressed, tormented, and persecuted; and I always saw that it was Jesus who suffered this ill-treatment. The times are terrible; a refuge is no longer anywhere to be found; a dense cloud of sin lies over the whole world, and I see men giving way to the worst crimes with complete indifference and unconcern. I saw all this in many visions while my soul was being led through many lands over the whole earth. At last I came back to the visions of the Feast of Mary's Conception. 2.16 HISTORY OF THE CELEBRATIONS OF THE CONCEPTION OF MARY. I am quite unable to tell in what a wonderful way I journeyed last night in dream. I was in the most different parts of the world and in the most different ages, and very often saw the Feast of Mary's Conception being celebrated in the most different places. I was in Ephesus, and saw this feast being celebrated in the house of the Mother of God, which was still standing there as a church. It must have been at a very early time, for I saw the Way of the Cross set up by Mary herself still in perfect preservation. [The second Way of the Cross was set up in Jerusalem and the third in Rome.] The Greeks kept this feast long before the schism. I still remember something of this, but am not quite sure what led up to it. I saw how a saint, Sabbas, I think, had a vision relating to the Immaculate Conception. He saw the picture of the Blessed Virgin on the globe, crushing the head of the serpent under her feet, and recognized that the Blessed Virgin alone was conceived unwounded and unstained by the serpent. [50] I saw, too, that one of the Greek churches or one of the Greek bishops refused to accept this truth unless the picture came to them across the sea. Then I saw the appearance of the picture float over the sea to their church and appear on the altar, whereupon they began to keep the feast. That church possessed a life-size picture of the Blessed Virgin painted by St. Luke just as she was in her earthly life, in a white robe and veil. (I have an idea that this picture had been sent from Rome, where they have only a half-length portrait.) They had placed the picture above the altar in the place where the vision of the Immaculate Conception had appeared. I think it was in Constantinople, or perhaps I have seen it venerated there in earlier times. I was in England, too, and saw the feast being introduced and celebrated there in olden times. In this connection I saw the day before yesterday, on the Feast of St. Nicholas, the following miracle. I saw an abbot, coming from England, in great danger in a ship in a storm. They prayed very fervently for the protection of the Mother of God, and I saw an apparition of the holy bishop Nicholas of Myra floating over the sea to the ship and telling the abbot that he had been sent by Mary to announce to him that he was to cause the Feast of the Immaculate Conception to be kept in England on December 8 ^th, and that then the ship would arrive safely. In reply to the abbot's question as to what prayers should be used for this feast, he answered, the same as those for Mary's nativity. The name of Anselm [51] was also associated with the introduction of this feast, but I have forgotten the details. I also saw the introduction of this feast into France, and how St. Bernard wrote in opposition to it because its introduction had not come from Rome. [52] 3. THE ACTUAL SEASON OF MARY'S CONCEPTION (NOTE BY THE WRITER). All that has so far been recorded of the blessing given to Joachim and Anna is compiled from visions and reminiscences of Catherine Emmerich during the feast of the Immaculate Conception on December 8 ^th. She explained, however, on that day in the year 1821 that the meeting of Joachim and Anna under the Golden Gate did not occur in December but in the autumn, at the end of the Feast of Tabernacles (which lasted from the 15 ^th to 23 ^rd of the month Tisri, i.e. in September or October). [53] Thus she saw Joachim building tabernacles with his shepherds (see p. 22 ) before going to the Temple, and Anna receiving the promise of fruitfulness while she was praying under a tree which formed a tabernacle. In the previous year, 1820, she had, however, stated that she remembered Joachim having gone up to Jerusalem with his offerings on the occasion of a dedication festival. This cannot be the usual Jewish dedication feast in the winter (the 25 ^th day of the month, Kislev), but must doubtless be a memorial festival of Solomon's dedication of the Temple. According to Catherine Emmerich's daily accounts of the three years of Jesus' ministry, Our Lord was in Aruma (a few hours' distant from Salem) at the close of the Feast of Tabernacles in the second year of His ministry, and taught there about the approaching destruction of the Temple. This feast is, it is true, not mentioned in the works about Jewish antiquities which we commonly consult, but its existence cannot, I think, be doubted, apart from Catherine Emmerich's statements, if it is remembered that Solomon celebrated the consecration of his Temple in connection with the Feast of Tabernacles (3 Kings 8.2-66, and 2 Chronicles 7.10), and that the Masora on 3 Kings 8.2 and 54 appoints the account of the consecration of Solomon's Temple as festival lessons for the second and eighth days of the Feast of Tabernacles. Although Catherine Emmerich saw the meeting of Joachim and Anna happening at the close of the Feast of Tabernacles, and thus two months earlier than the Church's celebration of Mary's conception, it was always on the occasion of that feast on December 8 ^th that she was impelled to communicate visions about the Blessed Virgin's conception. She said, too, that it was on that day, not at the time of the Feast of Tabernacles in the autumn, that the remembrance of this grace-bringing event was already being celebrated by the three holy kings when Christ visited them in Arabia after the raising of Lazarus. Here end the additional communications by Catherine Emmerich about the conception of Mary: the story of the Blessed Virgin's life is now resumed. 4. THE INFUSING OF MARY'S SOUL AND HER BIRTH. 4.1 THE UNITING OF MARY'S SOUL AND BODY. I had a vision of the creation of Mary's most holy soul and of its being united to her most pure body. In the glory by which the Most Holy Trinity is usually represented in my visions I saw a movement like a great shining mountain, and yet also like a human figure; and I saw something rise out of the midst of this figure towards its mouth and go forth from it like a shining brightness. Then I saw this brightness standing separate before the Face of God, turning and shaping itself-- or rather being shaped, for I saw that while this brightness took human form, yet it was by the Will of God that it received a form so unspeakably beautiful. I saw, too, that God showed the beauty of this soul to the angels, and that they had unspeakable joy in its beauty. I am unable to describe in words all that I saw and understood. When seventeen weeks and five days after the conception of the Blessed Virgin had gone by (that is to say, five days before Anna's pregnancy was half accomplished), I saw the Blessed Virgin's holy mother lying asleep in her bed in her house near Nazareth. Then there came a shining light above her, and a ray from this light fell upon the middle of her side, and the light passed into her in the shape of a little shining human figure. In the same instant I saw the Blessed Virgin's holy mother raise herself on her couch surrounded by light. She was in ecstasy, and had a vision of her womb opening like a tabernacle to enclose a shining little virgin from whom man's whole salvation was to spring. I saw that this was the instant in which for the first time the child moved within her. Anna then rose from her couch, dressed herself, and announced her joy to the holy Joachim. They both thanked God, and I saw them praying under the tree in the garden where the angel had comforted Anna. It was made known to me that the Blessed Virgin's soul was united to her body five days earlier than with other children, and that her birth was twelve days earlier. 4.2 MARY'S BIRTH. Several days before the Blessed Virgin's birth Anna had told Joachim that the time was approaching for her to be delivered. She sent messengers to Sephoris, where her younger sister Maraha lived; to the widow Enue (sister of Elizabeth) in the valley of Zabulon; and to her niece Mary Salome at Bethsaida, asking these three women to come to her. I saw them on their journeys. The widow Enue had a serving lad with her; the other two women were accompanied by their husbands who, however, went back on approaching Nazareth. I saw that on the day before Anna was delivered Joachim sent his many menservants out to the herds, and among Anna's new maidservants he kept in the house only those who were needed. He, too, went out into his nearest pasture. I saw that Anna's firstborn daughter, Mary Heli, looked after the house. She was then about nineteen years old and was married to Cleophas, one of Joachim's chief shepherds, by whom she had a little daughter, Mary Cleophas, now about four years old. After praying, Joachim chose out his finest lambs, kids, and cattle, sending shepherds to take them to the Temple as a thank-offering. He did not return home until nightfall. I saw the three cousins arriving at Anna's house in the evening. They went to her in her room behind the hearth and embraced her. After Anna had told them that the time was near for her to be delivered, they stood up and sang a hymn together: `Praise the Lord God; He has shown mercy to His people, and has redeemed Israel, and has fulfilled the promise which He gave to Adam in Paradise that the seed of the woman should crush the head of the serpent,' and so on. I can no longer recite it all by heart. Anna prayed as though in ecstasy. She introduced into the hymn all the prophetic symbols of Mary. She said: `The seed given by God to Abraham has ripened in me.' She spoke of the promise to Sarah of Isaac's birth and said: `The blossoming of Aaron's rod is perfected in me.' At that moment I saw her as though suffused with light; I saw the room full of radiance, and Jacob's ladder appearing above it. The women were overcome with astonishment and joy, and I think that they also saw the vision. When the prayer of welcome was over, the travelers were refreshed with a slight meal of bread and fruit, and water mixed with balsam. They ate and drank standing up, and then lay down till midnight to rest from their journey. Anna did not go to bed, but prayed, and at midnight woke the other women to pray with her. They followed her to her praying-place behind a curtain. Anna opened the doors of a little cupboard in the wall which contained a casket with holy objects. On each side were lights--perhaps lamps, but I am not sure. They had to be pushed up in their holders, and then little bits of shavings put underneath to prevent them from sinking down. After this the lights were lit. There was a cushioned stool at the foot of this sort of little altar. The casket contained some of Sarah's hair (Anna had a great veneration for her), some of Joseph's bones (brought by Moses from Egypt), and something belonging to Tobias, I think a relic of his clothing; also the little shining, white, pear-shaped goblet from which Abraham had drunk when blessed by the angel. (This had been given to Joachim from the Ark of the Covenant when he was blessed in the Temple. I now know that this blessing took the form of wine and bread and was a strengthening and sacramental food.) Anna knelt before the little cupboard with one of the women on each side and the third behind her. She recited another hymn; I think it mentioned the burning bush of Moses. Then I saw the room filled with supernatural light which became more intense as it wove itself round Anna. The women sank to the ground as though stunned. The light round Anna took the exact form of the burning bush of Moses on Horeb, and I could no longer see her. The whole flame streamed inwards; and then I suddenly saw that Anna received the shining child Mary in her hands, wrapped her in her mantle, pressed her to her heart, and laid her naked on the stool in front of the holy relics, still continuing her prayer. Then I heard the child cry, and saw that Anna brought out wrappings from under the great veil which enveloped her. She wrapped the child first in gray and then in red swaddling bands up to her arms; her breast, arms, and head were bare. The appearance of the burning bush around Anna had now vanished. The women stood up and received the newborn child in their arms with great astonishment. They shed tears of joy. They all joined in a hymn of praise, and Anna lifted her child up on high as though making an offering. I saw at that moment the room full of light, and beheld several angels singing Gloria and Alleluia. I heard all their words. They announced that on the twentieth day the child was to be called Mary. Anna now went into her bedroom and lay down on her couch. The women in the meantime unwrapped the child, bathed it, and wrapped it up again, and then laid it beside its mother. There was a little woven wicker basket which could be fastened beside the bed or against the wall or at the foot of the bed, whichever was wanted, so that the child could always have its place near its mother and yet separate. The women now called Joachim, the father. He came to Anna's couch and knelt down weeping, his tears falling on the child; then he lifted it up in his arms and uttered his song of praise, like Zechariah at John's birth. He spoke in this hymn of the holy seed, implanted by God in Abraham, which had continued amongst God's people by means of the covenant ratified by circumcision, but had now reached its highest blossoming in this child and was, in the flesh, completed. I also heard how this song of praise declared that now was fulfilled the word of the prophet: `There shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse.' He said, too, in great humility and devoutness, that he would now gladly die. It was only then that I noticed that Mary Heli, Anna's elder daughter, did not have sight of the child until later. Although she had become the mother of Mary Cleophas several years before, she was not present at the Blessed Virgin's birth--perhaps because, according to Jewish rules, it was not considered seemly for a daughter to be with her mother at such a time. Next morning I saw the serving men and maids and many people from nearby gathered round the house. They were allowed to enter in groups, and the child was shown by the women to them all. Many were greatly moved, and some led better lives thereafter. The neighbors had come because they had seen in the night a glowing light above the house, and because the birth of Anna's child after long unfruitfulness was looked upon as a great favor from heaven. 4.3 JOY AT MARY'S BIRTH IN HEAVEN. In the moment when the newborn child lay in the arms of her holy mother Anna, I saw that at the same time the child was presented in heaven in the sight of the Most Holy Trinity, and greeted with unspeakable joy by all the heavenly host. Then I understood, that there was made known to her in a supernatural manner her whole future with all her joys and sorrows. Mary was taught infinite mysteries, and yet was and remained a child. This knowledge of hers we cannot understand, because our knowledge grows on the tree of good and evil. She knew everything in the same way as a child knows its mother's breast and that it is to drink from it. As the vision faded in which I saw the child Mary being thus taught in heaven through grace, I heard her weep for the first time. I often see pictures like this, but for me they are inexpressible and probably for most people not quite comprehensible; therefore I do not relate them. 4.4 THE PROCLAIMING OF MARY'S BIRTH IN LIMBO. In the moment of Mary's birth I saw the tidings brought to the patriarchs in limbo. I saw them all, especially Adam and Eve, filled with inexpressible joy at the fulfillment of the promise given in Paradise. I also perceived that the patriarchs advanced in their state of grace, that the place of their sojourn became brighter and more spacious, and that it was given to them to have more influence on earth. It was as if all their labor and penance, all the struggling, crying and yearning of their lives had matured into its destined fruit. 4.5 AGITATION IN NATURE AND MANKIND AT MARY'S BIRTH. At the time of Mary's birth I saw a great and joyful agitation in nature, in the animal world, in the hearts of all good men, and I heard the sound of sweet singing. Sinners, however, were overwhelmed by fear and sorrow. I saw, specially near Nazareth, but also in the rest of the Promised Land, many who were possessed break out at that time into violent ravings. They were hurled from side to side with loud cries, and the devils shrieked from within them, `We must surrender, we must go out!' In Jerusalem I saw how the aged priest Simeon, who lived in the Temple, was startled at the moment of Mary's birth by loud shrieks coming from the madmen and those possessed of the devil, of whom many were shut up in a building in one of the streets on the Temple Hill. Simeon lived near them and was partly responsible for looking after them. About midnight I saw him go to the open space before the house of those possessed and inquire of one of them who lived nearest as to the cause of the loud cries with which everyone had been roused from their sleep. The man cried still louder that he must go out. Simeon opened the door; the possessed one rushed out, and Satan cried from within him: `I must go out. We must all go out! A virgin has been born! There are so many angels on earth who torment us! We must now go out and may nevermore enter into men!' I saw Simeon praying fervently; the wretched man was flung back and forth on the open space, and I saw the devil go out of him. It gave me great pleasure to see the aged Simeon. I also saw the prophetess Anna and Noemi wakened and informed by visions of the birth of a chosen child. [Noemi was the sister of Lazarus' mother; she was in the Temple and later became Mary's teacher.] They met and told each other of what they had seen. I think they knew Anna, the Blessed Virgin's mother. 4.6 THE PROCLAIMING OF MARY'S BIRTH IN CHALDEA. In the night of Mary's birth I saw in a city of the Chaldeans that five sibyls, or virgin prophetesses, were granted visions. I saw them hastening to the priests, who then made known in many places that these prophetesses had seen that a virgin had been born and that many gods had come down to earth to greet her, while other spirits fled before her lamenting. I saw, too, that the picture of a Virgin holding scales evenly balanced with corn and grapes, which the watchers of the stars had seen since Mary's conception, was no longer visible to them. In the hour of Mary's birth it seemed to move out of the star, in which it left a gap, and to sink down and away from it in one particular direction. They now made and set up in their temple the great idol which I saw there in my visions of the life of Jesus; it had some connection with the Blessed Virgin. [54] Later they set up in their temple another symbolic image of the Blessed Virgin, the closed garden. I saw live animals lying in this temple and being cared for. I am not sure whether they were dogs. They were fed with the flesh of other animals. Within the temple of the three holy kings I had till now always seen a wonderful illumination at night. It was as if one looked up into a starry sky set with all the constellations. They used to make alterations in this artificial sky in their temple according to the visions they saw in the heavens. Thus after the birth of Mary the illumination which had previously come from outside now came from within. 4.7 EVENTS IN EGYPT DURING MARY'S BIRTH. When the Blessed Virgin was born, I saw that image of a winged woman with a balance in her hand (bending down over a child in a little ship lying in the top of a tree) cast into the sea from its place in the temple on an island in a river. I had seen the image placed there long ago, before the time of Elijah, in accordance with the forced utterance of an idol. The little tree on which lay the child in the ship, remained in its place. A church was built there later. At the moment of Mary's birth I saw falling from the temple ceiling pieces of that winged female figure with three breasts which I had seen fixed to the ceiling of a temple when a messenger from Elijah announced his master's prophecy of a coming Virgin. The face, the three breasts, and the lower part of the body all fell down and were broken to pieces. The bushel-shaped crown, the arms with the ears of corn, the upper part of the body and the wings did not fall down. 4.8 VISITS WITH THE NEWBORN BABY MARY. On the 9 ^th of September, the day after Mary's birth, I saw in the house several other relations from the neighborhood. I heard many names but have forgotten them again. I also saw many of Joachim's menservants arriving from the more distant pastures. All were shown the newborn child, and all were filled with great joy. The meal in the house was accompanied by much rejoicing. On the 10 ^th and 11 ^th of September I again saw many visiting the child Mary. Among them were relations of Joachim's from the valley of Zabulon. On these occasions the child was brought into the front part of the house in its little cradle and put on a high stand (like a sawing bench) to be shown to the people. The child was wrapped in red, covered with transparent white stuff, up to its bare arms, and had a transparent little veil round its neck. The cradle was covered with red and white stuff. I saw Mary Cleophas (the two- or three-year old child of Anna's elder daughter and of Cleophas) playing with the child Mary and caressing her. Mary Cleophas was a fat, sturdy child, and wore a sleeveless white dress, with a red hem hung with red buttons like tiny apples. Round her bare arms she wore little white wreaths, which seemed to be made of feathers, silk, or wool. 4.9 THE CHILD RECEIVES THE NAME MARY. [September 22 ^nd-23 ^rd] Today I saw great preparations for a feast in Anna's house. All the furniture was moved aside, and in the front part of the house the dividing screens had been taken away to make one large hall instead of a number of small rooms. Along each side of this hall I saw a long, low table set out for a meal with many things that I had not noticed before. Fragile vases with openwork tops like baskets stood on the table; they may have been for flowers. On a side-table I saw many little white sticks, apparently made of bone, and spoons shaped like deep shells, with handles ending in a ring. There were also little curved tubes, perhaps for sucking up liquid. In the center of the hall, a kind of altar table had been set up, covered in red and white. On it lay a little trough-shaped basket-cradle, of red and white wickerwork, covered with a sky-blue cloth. Beside this altar stood a lectern draped in a cloth on which lay parchment prayer scrolls. Five priests from Nazareth stood before the altar, one of them wearing grander vestments than the others; Joachim stood near them. In the background near the altar were several men and women belonging to the families of Anna and Joachim, all in festal attire. I remember seeing Anna's sister Maraha from Sephoris, and Anna's elder daughter and others. Anna herself, though no longer in bed, remained in her room behind the hearth and did not appear at the ceremony. Enue, Elizabeth's sister, brought out the child Mary, wrapped to the arms in red swaddling clothes covered with transparent white stuff, and laid her in Joachim's arms. The priests approached the altar where the scrolls lay and prayed aloud. Two of them held up the train of the principal one. Joachim then laid the child in the hands of the high priest, who, lifting her up in offering as he prayed, laid her in the cradle on the altar. He then took a pair of scissors which, like our snuffers, had a little box at the end to hold what was cut off. With this he cut off three little tufts of hair from the child's head (one from each side and one from the top) and burnt them in a brazier. Then he took a vase of oil and anointed the child's five senses, touching with his thumb her ears, eyes, nose, mouth, and breast. He also wrote the name Mary on a parchment and laid it on the child's breast. She was then returned to Joachim, who gave her to Enue to be taken back to Anna. Hymns were sung and after that the meal began, but I saw no more. 5. CAUSE OF THE FEAST OF THE NATIVITY OF MARY. [On the evening of September 7 ^th, the vigil of the Feast of Mary's Nativity, Catherine Emmerich was unwontedly-- as she said, supernaturally--gay, although she felt ill at the same time. She was in an unusually lively and confidential mood. She spoke of extraordinary joy in all nature because of Mary's approaching birth, and said that she felt as if a great joy was awaiting her next day, if only this did not turn to sorrow. [55] ] There is such jubilation in nature: I hear birds singing, I see lambs and kids frolicking, and where Anna's house once stood the doves are flying about in great flocks as if drunk with joy. Of the house and its surroundings nothing now remains; it is now a wilderness. I saw some pilgrims, holding long staffs and their garments girt about them, with cloths wrapped round their heads like caps. They are going through this part of the country on their way to Mount Carmel. A few hermits from Mount Carmel live here, and the pilgrims asked them in amazement what was the meaning of this joy in nature? They were told that it was ever thus in that country on the eve of Mary's birth, and that it was probably there that Anna's house had stood. A pilgrim who had passed that way before had, they said, told them that this was first noticed a long time ago by a devout man, and that this had led to the celebration of the feast of Mary's Nativity. I now saw this institution of the feast myself. [56] Two hundred and fifty years after the death of the Blessed Virgin I saw a very devout man journeying through the Holy Land in order to seek out and venerate all the places connected with the life of Jesus upon earth. I saw that this holy man was given guidance from above, and often remained for several days in prayer and contemplation at different places, enjoying many visions and full of interior delight. He had for many years felt, in the night of the 7 ^th to the 8 ^th of September, a great joyfulness in nature and heard a lovely singing in the air; and at last, in answer to his earnest prayer, he was told by an angel in a dream that this was the birthnight of the Blessed Virgin Mary. He received this revelation on his journey to Mount Sinai or Horeb. It was told him at the same time that in a cave of the Prophet Elijah on that mountain was a walled-up chapel in honor of the Mother of the Messiah, and that he was to inform the hermits living there of both these things. Thereupon I saw him arriving at Mount Sinai. The place where the monastery now stands was already at that time inhabited by isolated hermits, and just as precipitous on the side facing the valley as it is now, when people have to be hoisted up by means of a pulley. I saw now that upon his announcement the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin was first celebrated here by the hermits on September 8 ^th about A.D. 250, and that its celebration spread later to the Universal Church. I saw, too, how he and the hermits looked for the cave of Elijah and the chapel in honor of the Blessed Virgin. These were, however, very difficult to find among the many caves of the Essenes and of other hermits. I saw many deserted gardens here and there near these caves, with magnificent fruit trees in them. After praying, the devout man was inspired to take a Jew with them when they visited these caves, and was told that they might recognize as the cave of Elijah the one that he was unable to enter. I saw thereupon how they sent an aged Jew into the caves, and how he felt himself thrust out of the narrow entrance of one of them, however much he tried to force his way in. In this way they recognized it as the cave of Elijah. They found in it a second cave, walled-up, which they opened; and this was the place where Elijah had prayed in veneration of the future mother of the Savior. The big, beautifully patterned stones which made the wall were used later for building the church. They also found in the cave many holy bones of patriarchs and prophets, as well as many woven screens and objects of earlier worship. All these were preserved in the church. I saw much of Mount Horeb on this occasion, but have forgotten it again. I still remember that the place where Moses saw the burning bush is called in the language of the place `The Shadow of God', and that one may walk on it only with bare feet. I also saw a mountain there entirely of red sand, on which, however, very fine fruit trees grew. 6. THE EFFECT OF PRAYING ON THE FEAST OF THE NATIVITY OF MARY. I saw much of St. Bridget, and was given much knowledge of what had been revealed to this saint about Mary's conception and birth. I remember that the Blessed Virgin said to her that if women with child celebrated the vigil of her Nativity by fasting and by the pious recitation of nine Ave Marias in honor of her nine-months' sojourn in her Mother's womb; and if they renewed this devotion frequently during their pregnancy and the day before they expected their confinement, at the same time receiving with devotion the Holy Sacrament, she would bring their prayer before God and beg for a happy delivery even in difficult and dangerous conditions. I myself had today a vision of the Blessed Virgin who came to me and told me, among other things, that whoever recited with love and devotion on the afternoon of this day nine Ave Marias in honor of her nine months' sojourn in her mother's womb and of her birth, continuing this devotion for nine days, would give the angels nine flowers each day for a bouquet which they would receive in heaven and present to the Blessed Trinity, to obtain favor for the suppliant. Later I felt myself transported to a height between heaven and earth. The earth lay below, dark and troubled; above in heaven I saw the Blessed Virgin before the Throne of God, between the choirs of angels and the ordered hosts of the saints. I saw, built for her out of devotions and prayers on earth, two portals, or thrones of honor, which grew at last into palaces like churches, and even into whole cities. It was strange to see how these buildings were made entirely of herbs, flowers, and garlands all intertwined, their different species expressing the different kinds and different merits of the prayers of individual human beings and of whole communities. I saw all being taken by angels or saints from the hands of the suppliants and being carried up to heaven. 7. THE PURIFICATION OF ST. ANNE. Some weeks after Mary's birth I saw Joachim and Anna journeying to the Temple with the child to make sacrifice. They presented the child here in the Temple in devotion and gratitude to God, who had taken from them their long unfruitfulness, just as later the Blessed Virgin according to the Law offered and ransomed the Child Jesus in the Temple. [57] The day after their arrival they made sacrifice, and already then made a vow to dedicate their child completely to the Temple in a few years time. Then they traveled back to Nazareth with the child. __________________________________________________________________ [32] The matter of the tunnel is one that has long puzzled students. Josephus (Ant., XV, xi, 5) certainly mentions an eastern gate where the `pure' could enter, and (ib., 7) a tunnel that led from the eastern gate into the central enclosure, adding that this was built specially for the king (Herod). Then the Mishnah, Middoth, I, 9, mentions a tunnel leading under the Temple to a bath-house within the enclosure, where ceremonial cleansing could be performed. Whether these refer to the same tunnel is uncertain. See further, n. 45, p. 34 . (SB) [33] See the Little Chapter in the Vespers of the Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary from Ecclus. 24.14. `From the beginning, and before the world, was I created, and to the world to come I shall not cease to be' (`Ab initio et ante saecula creata sum et usque ad futura saecula non desinam '). Compare also the passage of Holy Writ which has long been applied by the Church to Mary: `I came out of the mouth of the Most High, the first-born before all creatures. I made that in the heavens there should rise light that never faileth. . . . My throne is in a pillar of cloud' (`Ego ex ore Altissimi prodivi primogenita ante omnem creaturam, ego feci in coelis, ut orietur lumen indeficiens. Thronus meus in columna nubis ' ) ( Ecclus. 24.5 ). (CB) [34] In the course of her many visions, some historical and some symbolical, from the Old and New Testaments, Catherine Emmerich referred to this blessing in many different connections, some of which we will here enumerate in their chronological order. This was the same blessing by means of which Eve was brought forth from the right side of Adam. I saw this blessing withdrawn by God's merciful providence from Adam when he was about to acquiesce in sin; but it was restored to Abraham by the angel after the institution of circumcision, with the promise of Isaac's birth. Abraham handed it on, with solemn sacramental ceremony, to his first-born Isaac, from whom it descended to Jacob. It was taken away from Jacob by the angel that strove with him and handed on to Joseph in Egypt. Finally it was taken by Moses, together with the bones of Joseph, in the night before the flight out of Egypt, and became the Israelites' sacred treasure in the Ark of the Covenant. We had just prepared these disclosures for the press, but with considerable doubt and hesitation, when we learnt that the book Zohar (ascribed to Simon Bar Jochai in the second century of our era) reproduces almost word for word these and other statements of Catherine Emmerich about this mystery of the Jewish Covenant. Anyone able to read late Chaldean can convince himself of this by referring to the following passages: Zohar Par. Tol'doth, pp. 340 and 345 (edit. Sulzbach), Bereshith, p. 135, Terumah, pp. 251, etc. (CB) It would seem that CB was slightly misled in regard to the Zohar, and it is unlikely that he was in a position to examine it himself, since qualified Hebraists and Aramaic scholars admit its great difficulty. The Zohar does not appear to contain any notably close parallels with statements of AC, either about the `mystery of the Ark' (p. 16 ), or the `holy thing' within it (pp. 23 - 24 ), or about the blessing handed down through the Patriarchs to Moses (p. 23 and CB's note above). The references given by CB above are to the Hebrew (and Aramaic) text published at Sulzbach in 1684, and refer to columns in the commentaries on Genesis and Exodus. We are adding here the standard modern references (to folios of the Mantua edition of 1588), which are also inserted in the English translation by Sperling and Simon (London, 1931-1934). Bereshith (Genesis), col. 135 in Sulzbach (= f. 48b-49a, standard), contains no relevant reference; but f. 55b (Sulzbach, col. 171), commenting on `This is the book' ( Gen. 5.1), takes that phrase literally and refers it to the story of the book containing sacred wisdom, which was given by God through an angel to Adam, and then handed down through the patriarchs and finally to Abraham. Toledoth (Genesis), col. 340 in Sulzbach (= f. 146a, b, standard), recounts the many occasions on which Jacob received a blessing. The next reference, to col. 345 (=f. 148a, standard), belongs in fact to the next section Wayyese, and discusses the mystical meaning of the stones picked up by Jacob in Gen. 28.11. Terumah ( Exodus), col. 251 in Sulzbach (=f. 153b, 154a, standard), though commenting on the construction of the ark ( Exod. 25), has no reference to the `mystery' or the `holy thing'. A little earlier, however, f. 145b (Sulzbach, col. 238) has a passing reference to the heavenly mystery of the Holy of Holies. It seems therefore legitimate to say that the Zohar, interesting though it is in itself, throws very little light on the matter in hand. (SB) [35] In Catherine Emmerich's visions of the public ministry of Our Lord, which she daily recounted in chronological order for three years, she saw Our Lord, after the raising of Lazarus (which happened on Oct. 7th of His third year of teaching), withdraw Himself beyond the Jordan in order to escape the persecutions of the Pharisees. From here He dismissed the apostles and disciples to their homes, and Himself went on with three young men named Eliud, Silas, and Erimenzear. (These were descended from the companions of the Three Kings who, when the latter went away, had remained behind in the Holy Land and intermarried with the families of the shepherds of Bethlehem.) With these Our Lord journeyed to the place where the Three Kings were then settled, returning afterwards to the Promised Land by way of Egypt. On the first day of the January which preceded His death, He re-entered Judea, and on the evening of Monday, Jan. 8th, He again met the Apostles at Jacob's well, thereafter teaching and healing in Sychar, Ephron, round Jericho, in Capharnaum, and in Nazareth. Towards February He came again to Bethany and the surrounding country, teaching and healing in Bethabara, Ephraim, and round Jericho. From the middle of February till His Passion on March 30th. He was in Bethany and Jerusalem by turns. The Evangelists are silent about the whole period between the raising of Lazarus and Palm Sunday, except for St. John, who says (11.53, 54): `From that day therefore they devised to put him to death, wherefore Jesus walked no more openly among the Jews, but he went into a country near the desert, to a city that is called Ephraim. And there he abode with his disciples.' Catherine Emmerich mentions the presence of Our Lord in Ephraim near Jericho on Jan. 14th, 15th, and 16th, and again between Feb. 6th and 12th, without giving the exact date. We must, however, return to what gave rise to this note. From Dec. 1st to the 15th of the third year of His ministry, Catherine Emmerich saw and daily described the sojourn of Our Lord and His three companions in a town of tents inhabited by the three Holy Kings of Arabia, where they had established themselves shortly after their return from Bethlehem. Two of these chieftains were still alive. She describes in most remarkable detail their way of life and their religious practices and the festivities with which they received Jesus. Amongst many other things she recounted from Dec. 4th to 6th how these star-worshippers brought Our Lord into their temple (which she described as a square flattened pyramid surrounded with terraced wooden steps), from the top of which they observed the stars and inside which they performed their religious ceremonies. They showed Him in it the image of the Child Jesus in the crib, which they had made and placed therein immediately after their return from Bethlehem; this was made in the exact shape of the one they had seen in the star before they set out on their journey to Bethlehem. Catherine Emmerich describes it in the following words : `The whole representation was in gold and surrounded by a star-shaped sheet of gold. The golden child lay on a red blanket in a crib like the one at Bethlehem; his little hands were crossed on his breast and he was wrapped in swaddling-bands from breast to feet. They had even included the hay of the crib, it could be seen behind the child's head like a little white wreath; I cannot remember what it was made of. They showed Jesus this image; they had no other in their temple.' This is her description of the image of the crib to which she refers above in the text. (CB) [36] This is the general tradition about the origins of the Carmelite Order. It is briefly recounted in the Breviary Lessons for the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel (July 16th), where mention is also made of the tradition that the cloud seen by Elijah (3 Kings 18.42-45) is a symbol of Our Lady. (SB) [37] In the Office for the Immaculate Conception and in other liturgical books there occurs the following verse: `As a cloud I covered all the earth' ( Ecclus. 24.6), which is in complete harmony with this prophetic vision of the Mother of God. (CB) [38] Epiphanius, in his work on the life of the Prophet, says of Jeremiah: `This prophet gave the Egyptian priests a sign and told them that all their idols would fall in pieces, when a virgin mother should set foot in Egypt with her Divine Child. And so it befell. Therefore do they to this day adore a Virgin Mother and a Child lying in the crib. When King Ptolemy questioned them as to the reason therefore, they answered, "This is a secret which we received from our ancestors to whom it was announced by a holy prophet, and we await its fulfillment"' ( Epiphan., Vol. II, p. 240). The above-mentioned son of the prophet sent to Egypt by Elijah cannot, however, be taken to be Jeremiah, for the latter lived some three centuries later. (CB) This is presumably the Greek Father, St. Epiphanius of Salamis, d. 403, but an examination of various editions, old and new, has so far failed to identify the passage. The quotation may be linked with Jeremiah' prophecy (43.13) of the shattering of the idols of Egypt after his warning to the Jews who had assassinated Gedaliah and were preparing to flee to Egypt ( Jer. 41-43). (SB) [39] Since the description of this unfamiliar figure was not clear, an archeologist used an antique image of Isis, which appeared appropriate, to design Figure 4 without in the least needing to change the description. (CB) [40] This interpretation, alluded to but not definitely established by earlier commentators, is shown by Biblical philology to be perfectly correct. (CB) The names Azarias and Ananias both occur in Neh. 3.23, where Ananias is in Hebrew Ananyah, which may mean `the cloud of the Lord', but the much commoner name is Hananyah, `the Lord is merciful'. Azaryah means `the help of the Lord'. (SB) [41] Many ancient and modern commentators of the Greek text have suggested the following version of the passage in St. Luke (3.23 ): `He was supposed to be the son of Joseph, but was in truth descended from Heli', instead of `being as it was supposed the son of Joseph, who was of Heli'. The absence of any mention of Mary (whose line of descent is, however, given by St. Luke) is explained by the basic principle of the Jewish genealogists: `The father's race is called a race, the mother's race is not called a race' (Talmud Baba Bathra, f. 110). The father of Mary was, according to this rule, the first of Our Lord's forebears according to the flesh who could be named in His line of descent. Christ, who had no earthly father, may be as truly called, according to the flesh, the son of Heli as Laban ( Gen. 29.5) could be called the son of Nachor, and Zechariah ( Ezra 5.1) could be called the son of Iddo, for these were both great-grandchildren. (CB) The emphasis on Our Lord's Davidic descent ( Luke 1.32, 69) shows that Our Lady must also have been of the Davidic line (see Fr. R. Ginns, OP., in Cath. Comm., 1953, 748b). The interpretation proposed by CB requires a fresh punctuation of Luke 3.23 (literal translation from the Greek): `Jesus ... being the son (as it was supposed of Joseph) of Heli.' This rendering, though according to Fr. Ginns ( ib., 750g) `rejected by the majority of scholars', is a tenable reading of the Greek. It involves the interpretation of `son' as `grandson' through the mother, as CB explains; and the identification of Heli with Joachim (cf. supra, n. 29, p. 22 ). The more usual reconciliation of the genealogies in Luke and Matthew is by the supposition of a second marriage of Joseph's mother. (SB) [42] Catherine Emmerich no doubt meant by this the connection between the line of David through Nathan and that through Solomon (see p. 32 ). In the third generation upwards from Joachim, St. Joseph's grandmother (who had married as her first husband Matthan, of the line of Solomon, and had by him two sons, one of whom was Jacob, the father of St. Joseph) took as her second husband Levi, of the line of Nathan, and had by him Matthat, the father of Heli or Joachim. Thus Joachim and Joseph were related to each other. It is remarkable that Raymundus Martini, in his Pugio fidei (p. 745, ed. Carp), also states that St. Joseph's grandmother after the death of Matthan married a second husband, from whom Joachim was descended. (CB) [43] Related on December 8th, 1819. [44] Catherine Emmerich had visions of all the feasts of the Church being celebrated by the Church Triumphant, even when they were no longer celebrated on earth by the Church Militant. She saw these feasts being celebrated in a shining transparent church, the shape of which she generally described as octagonal. She saw a mysterious gathering of all the saints who were particularly associated with the feast in question, sharing in the celebrations. She usually saw this church floating in the air; but it is noteworthy that in all the feasts having so to speak a blood-relationship with Jesus Christ or with the mysteries of His life, she saw this church not floating in the air but appearing as the crown of a pillar or of a stern thrusting itself up like a flower or fruit growing out of the earth. What, however, surprised the writer in particular was that on all feasts of saints who had received the stigmata (for instance, St. Francis of Assisi or St. Catherine of Siena), she saw the church not floating in the air but on the stem growing out of the earth. She never made any reflection on this point, probably from humility, though it might well have been edifying had she done so. (CB) [45] Catherine Emmerich's remarks are here in agreement with the accounts of the most ancient Jewish literature. Thus, for instance, Mishnah, tract. Tamid, c. 5, and Sotah, c. I. (CB) Mishnah, Tamid, V, 7, states that the ceremonially unclean were to wait at the eastern gate, but the tractate Sotah, I, 5, dealing with adultery, directs that the woman be taken to the `eastern or Nicanor's gate', where also lepers and mothers awaiting `purification' were to go. The `Golden Gate' was probably an eastern gate. An eastern gate is also mentioned in Middoth, I, 9, in connection with ceremonial cleansing (see supra, n. 32, p. 24 ). John 8.2 mentions that Our Lord was teaching in the Temple when He spoke with the woman taken in adultery. (SB) [46] Mountain of the Prophet' is the name given by Catherine Emmerich to a place high above all the mountains of the world to which she was taken for the first time on Dec. 10th, 1819, in her ecstatic state of dream-journeying, and again several times later. There she saw the books of prophetic revelation of all ages and all peoples preserved in a tent and examined and superintended by someone who reminded her partly of St. John the Evangelist and partly of Elijah--particularly of the latter, since she perceived the chariot which had transported that prophet from the earth standing here on the heights near the tent and overgrown with green plants. This person then told her that he compared with a great book lying before him all the books of prophetic knowledge that had ever been given (often in a very confused state) or would in future be given to mankind; and that much of these he crossed out or destroyed in the fire burning at his side. Mankind, he said, was not yet capable of receiving these gifts, another must first come, and so forth. She saw all this on a green island in a lake of clear water. On the island were many towers of different shapes, surrounded by gardens. She had the impression that these towers were treasuries and reservoirs of the wisdom of different peoples, and that under the island, which was full of murmuring streams, lay the source of rivers held to be sacred (the Ganges amongst them) whose waters issued forth at the foot of the mountain range. The direction in which she was led to this mountain of the Prophet was always (taking into account the starting-point of her journey) towards the highest part of Central Asia. She described places, natural scenery, human beings, animals, and plants of the region which she traversed before being carried up through a lonely and desolate space, as if through clouds, to the place mentioned above. Her detailed description of this place, with all that she experienced there, will be set down in its proper place with an account of her whole visionary journey. On her return journey she was carried down through the region of clouds once more, and then again traversed lands rich in luxuriant vegetation and full of animals and birds, until she reached the Ganges and saw the religious ceremonies of the Indians beside this river. The geographical situation of this place and Catherine Emmerich's statement that she had seen everything up there overgrown with living green, reminded someone who read her account twenty years later of traditions about a place of this kind (sometimes with a similar inhabitant) in the religions of several Asiatic peoples. The Prophet Elijah is known to the Musulmans (under the name of Chiser, i.e. the Green One) as a wonderful half-angelic being, who dwells in the north on a mountain known as Kaf, celebrated in many religious and poetical writings, and there watches over secrets at the source of the river of life. The Indians called their holy mountain Meru, while to the Chinese it was Kuen-lun, both connected with representations of a state of paradise and both situated on the heights of Central Asia, where Catherine Emmerich saw the Mountain of the Prophet. The ancient Persians also believed in such a place and called it Elbors or Albordsch. According to Isa. 14.13 (`I will sit in the mountain of the covenant, in the sides of the north '), the Babylonians would seem to have held a similar belief. That they, like the Persians and Moslems, placed this mountain in the north is explained by their geographical position as regards the mountains of Central Asia. (CB) [47] When the writer copied down the very detailed account of her dealings with this Judith and her description of the place, he only knew (from the direction taken by her journey) that she was in Abyssinia; several years after her death he found in the journeys of Bruce and Salt an account of a Jewish settlement on the high mountains of Samen in Abyssinia. The ruler of this settlement was always called Gideon and, if it was a woman, Judith--the name which Catherine Emmerich herself mentioned. (CB) James Bruce, Travels and Adventures in Abyssinia. He was one of the first Europeans to go there, and his journey was in 1769. Henry Salt, A Voyage to Abyssinia. An account of a journey made on behalf of His Majesty's Government in 1809-1810. (SB) [48] In this connection it seems remarkable that among the writers of the first centuries of the Christian era who reproduce the accusations made by the heathens against the Christians, Minutius Felix mentions this reproach among others that when the Christians initiated anyone into their religion, they laid before him a child completely covered with flour, so as to hide the murder which they were about to make him commit. He was then obliged to stab the child over and over again with a knife. They greedily sucked up the streaming blood, cut the child into small pieces and devoured them all. This crime, committed in common, was a mutual pledge of silence and secrecy in regard to other shameful excesses with which they ended their assemblies. Should the origin of this accusation perhaps be sought in the above-mentioned sacrifice of children by the star-worshippers, who were among the first followers of Christianity? In any case, it may well be supposed that ideas of this kind (which, as we see in the case of the Magi, arise from superstition and from misinterpretation of messages of salvation) may be the hidden cause lying at the root of the murder of Christian children by Jews. If this be so, these dark and cruel deeds must be added to the many motives for which we have to pity the unfortunate people of Israel rather than to despise them; for it conceals a distorted longing for the Savior. This constantly recurring phenomenon has so far as we know never been thoroughly investigated and elucidated in a completely unprejudiced spirit. Of late years it has generally been treated (like all historical riddles whose source is obscure) in a complacent and condescending manner as being nothing but a fanatical accusation. (CB) Minutius Felix, Octavius , IX, 5, and cf. XXX, 1 . (SB) [49] Just as the sacrifice on Calvary was accomplished by the cruelty of ungodly priests and by the bloodthirsty hands of brutal executioners, so is the sacrifice of the Mass, even when unworthily celebrated, a true sacrifice; but the guilty and unworthy priest who celebrates it plays the part not only of the Jewish priests who condemned Our Lord but also of the soldiers who crucified Him. (CB) [50] On July 5th, 1835, the writer discovered from Cardinal Baronius' notes on the Martyrologium Romanum of December 8th that in the Sforza Library there is a Codex (No. 65) containing a speech by the Emperor Leo, who ascended the throne in 886, about this feast in Constantinople. It appears from this speech that the celebration of the feast was much anterior to this date. According to Canisius (De beatissima virgine Maria, lib. I, c. 7) and Galatinus (De arcanis catholicae veritatis, lib. 7, c. 5), the feast is included in the Martyrology of St. John Damascene (d. A.D. 749). St. Sabbas, Abbot, mentioned by Catherine Emmerich, is known for his devotion to Our Lady. He died c. A.D. 500. (CB) The year of the death of St. Sabbas is given in Ramsgate's Book of Saints (1947) as A.D. 532. (SB) [51] It is remarkable that Catherine Emmerich does not give the name (if Anselm) to the abbot who had the vision, since Petrus de Natal in Catal. Sanct., lib.1 , c. 42, does so, as the writer discovered in July 1835. Her account seems to be supported by Baronius in his notes to the Roman Martyrology for Dec. 4th, where he states that the announcement was made, not to Anselm, but at an earlier date in 1070 in exactly similar circumstances to Elsinus or Elpinus, a Benedictine abbot. This is said to be stated also in J. Carthagena in his homilies De Arcanis Deiparae, tom. 1, lib. 1, hom. 19, on the authority of a letter from St. Anselm to the bishops of England. It was this holy Bishop of Canterbury who first introduced the feast into England. (CB) Petrus de Natalibus' Catalogus Sanctorum was published in Venice in 1506. As the subsequent work of Baronius (1586, 1589) shows, AC is right in not attributing the event to Anselm. The source of the Helsin legend, a letter ascribed to Anselm, is now, however, considered to be spurious, though this need not impugn the truth of the legend itself. The Anselm mentioned by AC (with no title) is wrongly identified by CB with the Archbishop of Canterbury (d. 1109). It was his nephew, also called Anselm, who introduced the feast into England when he became Abbot of Bury, St. Edmund's in 1121, having doubtless become acquainted with the feast as observed at the Greek abbey of St. Sabbas in Rome, where he was abbot 1109-1121. Cf. Cath. Encyc., art. `Immaculate' (Holweck), pp. 677b-678a. (SB) [52] It was introduced in 1245 by the Chapter of the Cathedral of Lyons, to which Bernard wrote to oppose it. (CB) The date should read 1140-1145. The reference is to St. Bernard's letter, `To the Canons of the Church of Lyons', traditionally numbered 174, and numbered chronologically 215 (between 1140 and 1145) by Fr. Bruno Scott-James in his recent (1953) translation. (SB) [53] The Feast of Tabernacles was celebrated, according to Lev. 23.34-36, for the seven days 15th to 21st Tisri, with an eighth day of festival on the 22nd. The Hebrew lunar months do not correspond exactly to our months, and Tisri falls in Sept./Oct. CB quite correctly distinguishes the Dedication Feast of Solomon's Temple in the month Tisri, celebrated in connection with the Feast of Tabernacles (3 Kings 8.2-66; 2 Chronicles 7.10), from the Dedication Feast on the 25th Kislev, which commemorated the cleansing of the Temple by Judas Maccabeus in 164 B.C. ( I Macc.4.52). This feast was also called Hanukkah and the `Feast of Lights' by Josephus (Ant. XII, vii, 7), and Encaenia or `Dedication' in the Gospel ( John 10.22). (SB) [54] On Dec. 7th of the third year of Our Lord's ministry she saw a temple of the Chaldeans about which she related the following: `On a neighboring hill they had a terraced pyramid with galleries, from which they zealously watched the stars. They prophesied from the manner in which animals moved and they interpreted dreams. They sacrificed animals, but had a horror of the blood and always let it run away into the earth. In their religious observances they had holy fire and holy water, holy juice from a plant and little holy loaves of bread. Their temple, oval in shape, was full of images very delicately wrought in metal. They had a strong presentiment about the Mother of God. The principal object in the Temple was a three-cornered pillar ending in a point. On one side of this was an image with many arms and with animals' feet. It held in its hands, among other things, a globe, a diadem, a bunch of herbs, and a big ribbed apple held by its stalk. Its face was like a sun with rays, it was many-breasted, and represented the productive and preservative powers of nature. Its name sounded like Miter or Mitras. On the other side of the pillar was the figure of an animal with a horn. It was a unicorn, and its name sounded like Asphas or Aspax. It was thrusting with its horn against another evil beast which was on the third side. This had a head like an owl; it had a curved beak, four legs with claws, two wings, and a tail ending like a scorpion's. I have forgotten its name; indeed, I find it very difficult to remember such outlandish names and often mix them up. I can only say that they sounded something like this or that. Over the two fighting beasts there was an image standing on the corner of the pillar which was intended to represent the mother of all the gods. Its name sounded like the Lady Aloa or Aloas. They also called her "corn granary ". A cluster of high ears of corn grew out of its body: its head was pressed down on to its shoulders and bent forward, for on the nape of its neck it bore a vessel containing wine or about to do so. They had a saying: "The Corn shall become bread, the grape shall become wine, for the refreshment of all mankind." Over this image was a sort of crown, and there were two letters on the pillar which looked to me like O and W [perhaps Alpha and Omega]. What, however, surprised me most in this temple was a little round garden, covered over with gold network and standing on a bronze altar. Above it was the picture of a virgin. In the middle of this garden was a fountain with several sealed basins one above the other, in front of which was a green vine with a beautiful red cluster of grapes which hung down into a dark-colored wine-press. Its form reminded me vividly of the Holy Cross, but it was a wine-press. Above in a hollow trunk was fixed a wide funnel with a bag hanging from its spout. Two movable arms, fixed to each side of the hollow trunk, were used as levers to press the grapes that were in the bag so that the juice ran out of the trunk through openings made in it lower down. The little round garden, which was about five to six feet in diameter, was full of delicate green shrubs, flowers, fruits and little trees which were all, like the vine, very lifelike and had the same significance as it.' (See Canticle of Canticles 4.12.) (CB) [55] In a vision of the Blessed Virgin she had received the promise that on the next day, Sept. 8th (which was also her own birthday), she would be granted the favor of sitting up in bed for several weeks, leaving the bed and walking about the room several times, which she had been unable to do for some ten years. The fulfillment of this promise was attended by all the spiritual and bodily sufferings which had been announced to her at the time, as will be recounted in its proper place. (CB) [56] The main feature of the story, the holy man who heard music in the air and, on asking what it was, received a revelation about Mary's birthday, which then led to its general observance, is found in the Legenda Aurea of B. James of Voragine, O.P. (c. 1255) for Sept. 8th. The oldest documentary evidence for the feast is from the sixth century, and its general acceptance not until the eighth or ninth (Cath. Encyc., art. `Nativity' (Holweck), p. 712d). (SB) [57] See Lev. 12. __________________________________________________________________ III. THE PRESENTATION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN IN THE TEMPLE [58] 1. PREPARATION IN ST. ANNE'S HOUSE. [On October 28 ^th, 1821, Catherine Emmerich described in these words what she was at that moment seeing in a waking vision:] The child Mary will, I think, soon be brought to the Temple in Jerusalem. Already some days ago I saw the three-year-old child Mary standing before Anna in a room in her house and being instructed in her prayers, as the priests were soon to come to examine the child in preparation for her reception in the Temple. Today a feast in preparation for this event is taking place in Anna's house, and guests are gathering there--relations, men, women, and children. There are also three priests, one from Sephoris (a nephew of Anna's father), one from Nazareth, and a third from a place on a mountain some four hours from Nazareth. The name of this place begins with the syllable Ma. [59] These priests have come partly to examine the child Mary to see whether she is fitted for dedication to the Temple, and partly to give directions about her clothing, which has to comply with a prescribed ecclesiastical pattern. There were three sets of garments, each consisting of a kind of petticoat, a bodice, and a robe of different colors. There were also two wreaths of silk and wool, and an arched crown. One of the priests himself cut out some pieces of these garments and arranged everything as it should be. [A few days later (on November 2 ^nd) Catherine Emmerich continued:] Today I saw great festivities in the house of Mary's parents. (I am not sure whether this actually happened then or whether it was a repetition of an earlier vision, for I had seen something like it before during the last three days, but because of much suffering and many interruptions it escaped my mind.) The three priests were still there, and besides them there were several relations of the family with their little daughters; for instance, Mary Heli and her seven-year-old child Mary Cleophas, who is much stouter and sturdier than the child Mary. Mary is very delicately formed, and has reddish-fair hair, smooth, but curly at the ends. She can already read, and all are astonished at the wise answers she gives. Maraha, Anna's sister from Sephoris, is also there with a little daughter, and so are other relations with their little girls. The garments, which had been partly cut out by the priests, had now been finished by the women. During the ceremony the child was dressed in them several times and asked various questions. It was all very solemn and serious, and though the old priests sometimes smiled gently during the proceedings, they were greatly impressed by Mary's wise answers and by her parents' tears of joy. The ceremony took place in a square room near the eating room. It was lit by an opening in the roof covered with gauze. A red carpet was spread on the floor, and on this stood an altar table with a red cloth and a white one over it. Above this table was a picture in some sort of embroidery or needlework which hung like a curtain in front of a kind of little cupboard containing scrolls of writings and prayers. (It was a picture of a man, I think of Moses. He was dressed in a flowing praying-mantle like the one he wore when he went up the mountain to ask something of God. In the picture he was not holding the Tables of the Law in his hand; they were hanging at his side or on his arm. Moses was very tall and broad-shouldered. He had red hair. His head was very long and pointed, like a sugarloaf, and he had a big hooked nose. On his broad forehead he had two protuberances like horns, turned inwards towards each other. They were not hard like animals' horns, but had soft skin, as it were ribbed or streaked, and only projected slightly from the forehead like two small lumps, brownish and wrinkled. He already had them as a child, but then they were little warts. This gave him a very strange appearance, which I never liked because it reminded me involuntarily of pictures of Satan. I have several times seen protuberances like these on the foreheads of old prophets and of some old hermits. Some of these had only one, in the middle of the forehead.) On the altar lay Mary's three sets of ceremonial garments as well as many other stuffs presented by her relations on the occasion of the child's entry into the Temple. There was a sort of little throne raised on steps in front of the altar. Joachim and Anna and the other relations were gathered round, the women standing at the back and the little girls beside Mary. The priests entered barefooted. There were five of them, but only three took part in the ceremony in their vestments. One of the priests took the garments from the altar, explained their significance, and handed them to Anna's sister from Sephoris, who dressed the child in them. First of all she put on her a little yellow knitted dress, and over it a colored scapulary or bodice decorated at the breast with cords. It was put over her head and tied round her. Over this she wore a brownish robe with armholes, over which hung pieces of the stuff. This robe was open at the neck, but closed from the breast downwards. Mary wore brown sandals with thick green soles. Her reddish-fair hair, curling at the ends, had been combed smooth, and she wore a wreath of white wool or silk ornamented at intervals with striped feathers, of a finger's breadth and curving inwards. I know the bird in that country from which these feathers come. A big square cloth, ash-gray in color, was then thrown over the child's head like a cloak. It could be drawn together under the arms, which rested in its folds as in slings. It seemed to be a penitential or praying garment or a traveling cloak. As Mary stood there in this dress, the priests put to her all manner of questions which had to do with the way of life of the virgins of the Temple. Among other things they said to her: `When your parents dedicated you to the Temple, they made a vow on your behalf that you should never taste wine, vinegar, grapes, or figs; what will you yourself now add to this? You may reflect on this during the meal. Now the Jews, and especially the Jewish girls, were very fond of drinking vinegar, and so was Mary. After more of such questions, the first set of garments was removed and the second put on. First a sky-blue dress, then a bodice more ornamented than the first one, a bluish-white robe, and a white veil shimmering like silk, with folds at the back of the neck like a nun's headdress and fastened round the head by a wreath of silk flower buds with little green leaves. Then the priests put a white veil over her face, drawn together above so as to cover her head like a hood. It was held by three clasps which enabled the veil to be thrown back to uncover either a third, a half, or the whole of the face. She was instructed in the use of this veil: how it was to be lifted and then dropped at meals, and when she had to give answers to questions, and so forth. She was also instructed in many other rules of behavior during the meal of which the whole party partook in the next room. Mary's place at table was between two priests, with another facing her. The women and little girls were at one end of the table, separate from the men. During the meal the child was examined several times by question and answer in the use of the veil. They also said to her: `You are still allowed to eat any kind of food', and handed her various dishes in order to test her power of self-denial. But Mary partook of only few dishes and but little of each, and filled her hearers with great amazement by the childlike wisdom of her answers. I saw that during the meal and during the whole examination there were angels beside her, helping and guiding her. When the meal was over, all went once more into the other room and stood before the altar, where the child was again undressed and then clothed in ceremonial garments. [Please refer to Figure 5.] This time she wore a violet-blue dress woven with a pattern of yellow flowers; over this was a bodice or corset embroidered in different colors ending in a point and fastening under the arms, where it gathered and held the fullness of the dress. Above this was a violet-blue robe, fuller and grander than the other ones, and ending in a short, rounded train. Down each side of the front of this robe were embroidered three silver stripes with what seemed to be little gold rosebuds strewn between them; the robe was fastened across the breast by a band which ran through and was held by a clasp on the bodice. The robe was open down to the lower edge of the bodice, and formed two pockets at the sides in which the arms rested. Below the bodice the robe was fastened with buttons or hooks, but showed five stripes of the silver embroidery running down to the hem. The hem itself was also embroidered. The back of this robe fell in ample folds, projecting beyond the arms on either side. Over this was thrown a great gleaming veil shot with colors, white and violet-blue. The crown which was now put on her head was a broad band of thin metal, wider above than below, its upper edge surmounted by points with knobs. Over the top of the crown five metal bands met in a central knob. These bands were covered with strands of silk, and the outside of the broad metal band was ornamented with little silk roses and five pearls or precious stones. The inside of the band shone like gold. Mary, dressed in these ceremonial garments, the significance of each of which had been explained to her by the priest, was led up the steps and placed before the altar. The little girls stood beside her. She then declared what she would bind herself to give up when in the Temple. She said that she would eat neither meat nor fish and would drink no milk, but only a drink made out of the pith of a reed and water, such as poor people drink in the Promised Land, like rice-water or barley-water with us; sometimes she would put a little terebinth juice into the water. This is like a white treacly oil, very refreshing but not so delicate as balsam. She gave up all spices, and said that she would eat no fruit except a kind of yellow berry that grows in clusters. I know it well; in that country it is eaten only by children and poor people. She said that she would sleep on the bare earth and would rise three times in the night to pray. The other temple maidens rose only once. Figure 5. Mary in ceremonial garments. Mary's parents were deeply moved by her words. Joachim, taking the child in his arms, said, weeping: `O, my dear child, that is too hard, your old father will never see you again if you mean to live so austerely.' It was very touching to hear. The priests, however, told her that she was to rise only once in the night, like the others, and they made the other conditions milder. For example, on great feast days she was to eat fish. (There was a great fish market in Jerusalem in the lower part of the town supplied with water from the pool of Bethesda. Once when it dried up, Herod wanted to make an aqueduct and fountain, [60] and to meet the expense by selling sacred vessels and vestments from the Temple. This caused a real uproar. The Essenes came from all parts of the country to Jerusalem to resist it, for, as I have just remembered, it was the Essenes who had charge of the priestly vestments.) The priests also said to the child Mary: `Many of those virgins who are accepted by the Temple without payment or outfit are obliged, with the consent of their parents, to wash, as soon as they are strong enough, the bloodstained garments of the priests and other rough woolen cloths. This is hard work and often means bloody hands. But this you need not do, seeing that your parents are paying for your sojourn in the Temple.' Mary declared at once without hesitation that she would gladly undertake this work if she were considered worthy. While these questions and answers were being made, the clothing ceremony came to an end. During these holy proceedings I often saw Mary appear so tall among the priests that she stood high above them, whereby I was given a picture of her wisdom and grace. The priests were filled with joyful astonishment. At the end of the ceremony I saw Mary being blessed by the first among the priests. She stood on a little elevated throne between two priests, and the one who blessed her stood facing her, with others behind him. The priests prayed from scrolls, answering each other, and the first one held his hands over her as he blessed her. At this moment I was granted a wonderful insight into the inner being of the holy child Mary. I saw her as if transfused with light by the priest's blessing, and under her heart in an indescribable glory of light I saw the same appearance as I had seen in contemplating the Holy of Holies in the Ark of the Covenant. In a shining space shaped like Melchizedek's chalice I saw indescribable figures of the blessing in the form of light. It was as though corn and wine, flesh and blood, were striving to unite with each other. I saw at one and the same time how, above this appearance, her heart opened like a temple door; and how this mystery, surrounded by a kind of canopy of symbolic jewels, passed into her opened heart. It was as though I saw the Ark of the Covenant entering the Holy of Holies in the Temple. Thenceforth, the highest good then on earth was enshrined in her heart. Then I saw only the holy child Mary filled with a glow of burning devotion. I saw her as though transfigured and hovering above the ground. During this vision I perceived that one of the priests (I think it was Zechariah) had been inspired with an inner conviction that Mary was the chosen vessel of the mystery of salvation; for I saw him receive, a ray from the blessing which in my vision had entered into her. The priests now led the child, blessed and arrayed in her finest ceremonial garments, up to her parents, who were much moved. Anna lifted Mary up to her breast and gave her an affectionate but solemn kiss. Joachim, with deep emotion, gave her his hand seriously and reverently. Mary's elder sister embraced the blessed child in her beautiful dress in a much more lively manner than Anna, who did everything with reflection and moderation. Mary Cleophas, Mary's niece, threw her arms joyfully round her neck like any child. After Mary had been saluted by all present, her ceremonial garments were taken off, and she appeared once more in her ordinary ones. Towards evening several of the guests, including some of the priests, went away to their homes. I saw them standing up to take a light meal; there were fruits and rolls of bread in bowls and dishes on a low table. They all drank out of one goblet. The women ate separately. 2. THE DEPARTURE OF THE CHILD MARY FOR THE TEMPLE. I came into the house of Mary's parents at nighttime, and saw several of their relations asleep there. The family themselves were busy with preparations for departure. The hanging lamp with many branches was burning before the hearth. Little by little I saw the whole house astir. Joachim had sent menservants the morning before to the Temple with beasts for sacrifice; five of each kind, the best he had. They made a very fine herd. I saw him now busy loading the luggage on a pack animal standing before the house. Mary's clothes were neatly arranged in separate packages and tied onto the animal, together with presents for the priests. It made quite a heavy load. A broad package was arranged to make a comfortable seat in the middle of the animal's back. Anna and the other women had packed everything in bundles which were easy to load. I also saw several kinds of baskets hanging at the donkey's sides. In one of these baskets, rounded like the tureens that rich people have for their soup, with a lid opening in the middle, there were birds of the size of partridges. Other baskets, like the ones used for carrying grapes, contained different kinds of fruit. When the loading was quite finished, a big cover with heavy hanging tassels was put over everything. In the house I saw all the stir and agitation of departure. I saw a young woman, Mary's elder sister, moving about with a lamp. I saw her daughter Mary Cleophas following her about most of the time. I noticed yet another woman whom I took to be a maidservant. I also now saw two priests there. One was a very old man wearing a hood which hung down in a point on his forehead and had flaps over his ears. His upper garment was shorter than the under one and had straps like a stole hanging on it. It was he who had taken the chief part in Mary's examination yesterday and blessed her. I saw him continuing to talk to the child and teaching her different things. Mary was a little more than three years old, very delicately and finely made, and was as developed as a child of five with us. She had reddish-fair hair, smooth, but curly at the ends; it was longer than the seven-year old Mary Cleophas' fair hair, which was short and curly. Most of the children and grown-up people wore long robes of brownish undyed wool. I was particularly struck by two boys among this company who did not seem to belong to the family at all and held no converse with any of them. It seemed as if no one even saw them, though they spoke to me, and were very charming and attractive with their fair curly hair. They had books which seemed to be for learning from. (Little Mary had no book, though she could read already.) Their books were not like ours, but strips some two feet wide rolled round a stick with a projecting knob at each end. The taller of the two boys opened his scroll and came up to me, and read something out of it which he explained to me. The golden letters, each one of which stood alone, were quite strange to me; they were written the wrong way round, and each letter seemed to signify a whole word. The language was completely strange to my ears, yet I understood it. Unfortunately I have now forgotten what he explained to me, but I think it had to do with Moses; perhaps it will come back to me. The younger of the boys held his scroll in his hands as if it were a toy; he jumped about like a child and played with his scroll, swinging it in the air. I cannot at all express how much I was attracted by these children; they were different from all the people there, who seemed not to notice them at all. [Catherine Emmerich spoke for a long time with childlike delight of these two boys but could not clearly say who they really were. After, however, having eaten and then slept for a few minutes, she recollected herself and said:] It was the spiritual meaning of these boys that I saw; their presence there was not a natural one. They were only the symbolic representations of prophets. The taller of the two, the one who carried his scroll so solemnly, showed me in it the passage in the third chapter of the book of Exodus where Moses sees the Lord in the burning bush and is told to put off his shoes from his feet. He explained this to me; as the bush was on fire without being burnt, so now the fire of the Holy Spirit was burning in the child Mary, who, all unconscious of it, was bearing this holy flame within her. [61] This passage also, he said, foreshadowed the union, now approaching, of the Godhead with humanity. The fire signified God, the thorn bush mankind. The boy also explained to me the meaning of the putting off of the shoes, but I have no clear recollection of what he said; I think it signified the removal of the outer covering to disclose the reality within; and foreshadowed the fulfillment of the law and the coming of One greater than Moses and the prophets. The other boy carried his scroll at the end of a thin stick, blowing in the wind like a flag; this signified the joyous entry of Mary on the path which was leading her to her destiny as the Mother of the Redeemer. The childish behavior of this boy as he played with his scroll showed how Mary, though overshadowed by so great a Promise and called to so holy a destiny, kept all the innocent playfulness of a child. Actually these boys explained to me seven passages out of their scrolls, but in the interruptions and troubles of daily life I have forgotten everything except what I have now told. O my God [she here exclaimed], all that I see is so beautiful and so deep, so simple and so clear, and yet I cannot tell it properly and cannot help forgetting so much because of the miserable, detestable happenings of this wretched earthly life. [62] [A year earlier, in the middle of November 1820, Catherine Emmerich, while communicating her visions of the Presentation, referred to the appearance of these boy-prophets in the following connection. On the evening of November 16 ^th a penitential girdle was brought near Catherine Emmerich when she was asleep. It had been made by a man who was striving to mortify himself but was without any spiritual advice or direction. He had made it with much exaggerated austerity out of leather straps pierced with nails, but he had been able to wear it for hardly an hour. Though it was two feet away from her, the sleeping Catherine Emmerich quickly drew her hands away from this girdle, saying:] O that is quite impossible and senseless! I, too, once wore a girdle like this for a long time, in accordance with an inner warning. It was a means of mortification and self-conquest, but was made of quite short spikes of brass wire set close together. This is a really murderous girdle; the man has taken great pains in making it, but could only wear it for a few minutes. One should never do anything like this without the approval of a wise director of souls: he did not know that, of course, because he had no director at hand. Such exaggeration does more harm than good! [Next morning she recounted the visions of the night in the form of a dream-journey. She said, among other things:] Hereupon I came to Jerusalem, at what period I am not sure, but it was in the time of the old Jewish kings. I have forgotten what I saw. Then I was made to go towards Nazareth to the house of Anna, the Blessed Virgin's holy mother. Before the city of Jerusalem two boys joined me who were going the same way: one held a scroll very solemnly in his hand, while the younger had tied his scroll to a little stick and was merrily playing with it in the wind as if it were a little flag. They spoke to me joyfully about the fulfillment of the time in their prophecies, for they were figures of prophets. I had with me that man's exaggerated penitential girdle which had been brought me, and showed it, by I know not what impulse, to the prophet boy who was Elijah. He said to me, `That is a belt of torture not allowed to be worn. But on Mount Carmel I made and wore a girdle and have bequeathed it to all the children of my order, the Carmelites. That man should wear this girdle, it will profit him far more'. Thereupon he showed me a girdle of a hand's breadth on which all kinds of letters and lines were inscribed, signifying various conquests and struggles, and he indicated various parts of it, saying, `That man could wear this for eight days and this for one day', and so on. O, how I wish the good man could know that! When we came near to Anna's house and I wanted to go in, I could not do so, and my leader, my guardian angel, said to me: `You must first of all lay much aside, you must be nine years old.' I did not know how this was to be done, but he helped me, I cannot remember how. Three years of my life had to disappear altogether, those three years when I was so vain about my clothes and always wanted to be a smart young girl. Well, I was suddenly nine years old, and now I was able to go into the house with the prophet boys. As I did so, the three-year-old child Mary came up to me and measured herself against me; she was just the same height as me when she stood up by me. How kind and friendly she was, and at the same time so serious! 3. BEGINNING THE JOURNEY. Immediately after I was standing in the house beside the boy-prophets. Nobody seemed to notice us, and we got in nobody's way. Though they had been old men hundreds of years ago, they were not at all surprised at being present there as young boys: and I, though a nun over forty years old, was not at all surprised either at being now a poor peasant child of nine years. When one is with these holy people, one is surprised at nothing, except at the blindness and sinfulness of mankind. I saw the travelers starting on their journey to Jerusalem at daybreak. The child Mary came running out of the house to the pack animals, so eager was she to go to the Temple. The boy-prophets and I stood at the door following her with our eyes. They again showed me passages in their scrolls, one of which spoke of the glory of the Temple, but added that even greater glory was contained within it. The travelers had two pack animals with them. One of the donkeys which was heavily loaded was led by a servant and was always a little ahead of the party. On the other donkey, which stood loaded before the house, a seat had been prepared, and Mary was placed on this. She wore the little yellow dress from the first set of garments, and was wrapped in the big cloak, which was drawn round her so that her arms rested in its folds. Joachim, who led this donkey, carried a tall staff like a pilgrim's with a big round knob at the top. Anna walked a short way ahead with little Mary Cleophas. A maidservant accompanied them on the whole journey, and some of the women and children went part of the way with them. They were relations, and turned off to their homes where the roads parted. One of the priests also accompanied the party for a little time. They had a light with them, but it disappeared completely in the light which in my visions of night journeys always illuminates the road about the Holy Family and other holy persons, though they themselves never seem to see it. At first it seemed to me that I was walking with the boy-prophets behind the child Mary, and afterwards, when she was on foot, at her side. I sometimes heard the boys singing the 44 ^th Psalm (Eructavit cor meum verbum bonum) and the 49 ^th (Deus deorum Dominus locutus est), and they told me that these psalms would be sung by two choirs at the reception of the child in the Temple, as I should see when they arrived. I saw the road going downhill at first and later rising again. When it was morning and full day, I saw the travelers resting beside a spring from which ran a brook; there was a meadow there, and they rested beside a hedge of balsam shrubs. These shrubs always had stone basins under them to catch the balsam that dripped from them, thus providing the passers-by with a refreshing drink, with which they could also fill their jugs. In the hedges there were berries which they picked and ate. They also had little rolls of bread to eat. The boy-prophets had by now disappeared. One of them was Elijah; I think the other was Moses. I am sure that the child Mary saw them, but she said nothing about it. She saw them just as, when one is a child, one often sees holy children appearing to one (or when one is grown-up, one sees holy virgins or youths) without saying anything of it to others, because in such moments one is in a state of quiet contemplation. Later I saw the travelers stop at a house standing by itself, where they were made welcome and were given food. The people who lived there seemed to be relations. Little Mary Cleophas was sent back from here. During the day I had several glimpses of their journey, a rather difficult one. They had to pass over hill and dale, and in the valleys there were often cold mists and much dew, though here and there I saw sunny patches where flowers were showing. Before reaching their resting place for the night they crossed a little stream. They spent the night at an inn at the foot of a hill on which there is a town. Unfortunately I can no longer say for certain what was the name of this place. I saw it on other journeys of the Holy Family, and can easily be mistaken about its name. [63] I can only say this much, but not with certainty; they traveled in the same direction that Jesus followed in the September of His thirtieth year, when He went from Nazareth to Bethany and thence to be baptized by John. The Holy Family took the same way on their flight from Nazareth to Egypt. On that flight their first shelter was at Nazara, a small place between Massaloth and a hill town, but nearer the latter. I see so many places around me and hear so many names that I may very easily mix them up. This town stretches up the hillside and is divided into several different parts, though all belonging to each other. There is a great lack of water there, and it has to be drawn up from below with ropes. There are several old towers in ruins, and on the top of the hill is a sort of watchtower with a structure of beams and ropes for hauling things up from the town below. The many ropes make it look rather like the masts of a ship. It must be an hour's climb to the top of the hill. (The travelers stopped at an inn down below.) There is a very extensive view from this hill. Part of this town is inhabited by heathen people who were treated by the Jews as slaves and forced to do hard labor; for instance, they were made to work at the Temple and other buildings. [On November 4 ^th, 1821, she said:] This evening I saw Joachim and Anna with the child Mary and a maidservant arrive at an inn twelve hours distant from Jerusalem. They were accompanied by a manservant who often went ahead with the heavily loaded donkey. Here they caught up with the herd of their beasts on the way to the Temple to be sacrificed; these, however, continued at once on their road. Joachim must have been very well known here, for he was as if in his own house. His beasts for sacrifice always used to stop here. He also came here when he returned to Nazareth from his hidden life among the shepherds. I saw the child Mary asleep here beside her mother. (I have had so much to do these days with the Holy Souls that I think it has made me forget part of the journey to the Temple.) [On November 5 ^th, 1821, she related:] This evening I saw the child Mary with her parents arrive in a town to the northwest of Jerusalem, barely six hours' journey from it. This town is called Bethoron and lies at the foot of a hill. On the way they crossed a stream flowing westwards into the sea near Joppa, where Peter taught after the coming of the Holy Ghost. Great battles were once fought near Bethoron. I saw them, but have forgotten them again. [64] (See Joshua 10.11) It was about two hours' journey from here to a place on a high road from where one could see Jerusalem. I heard the name of this road or place, but cannot distinctly recall it. [65] Bethoron is a large town, inhabited by Levites. Very fine, big grapes grow here, and many other fruits as well. The Holy Family stayed with friends in a well-kept house. The man was a schoolteacher; it was a Levite school, and there were a number of children in the house. I was much surprised to see here several women related to Anna, with their little daughters, who were, I had thought, on the way to their own homes. However, as I now saw, they had taken a shorter road and had arrived here first, I suppose in order to welcome the travelers. These women and children were from Nazareth, Sephoris, Zabulon, and thereabouts; some of them had already been in Anna's house during the examination; for instance, Mary's elder sister and her little daughter Mary Cleophas, and Anna's sister from Sephoris with her daughters. The stay here was made the occasion of great rejoicing over the child Mary. She was led into a big room accompanied by the other children, and was placed on a raised seat with a canopy, arranged for her like a little throne. The schoolteacher and others again asked her all manner of questions, putting wreaths on her head. All were astonished by the wisdom of her answers. I also heard about the cleverness of another girl who had passed through here a short time ago on her way home from the Temple school. Her name was Susanna, and later she followed Jesus with the holy women. It was her place that Mary was to take in the Temple, for there was a limited number of such places. Susanna was fifteen years old when she left the Temple, and thus about eleven years older than Mary. Anna, too, had been educated in the Temple, but did not go there till she was five years old. The child Mary was exceedingly joyful at being so near the Temple; I saw Joachim pressing her to his heart in tears, and saying: `O my child, I fear I shall not see you again.' A meal was now prepared, and while all were reclining at table I saw Mary running about full of loving gaiety, some times nestling against her mother or standing behind her and throwing her little arms round her neck. [On November 6 ^th, 1821:] Today very early I saw the travelers leaving Bethoron for Jerusalem. All their relations, the children, and the people of the inn went with them. They took with them presents of clothing and fruit for the child. It looks to me as if there were going to be great festivities in Jerusalem. I learnt for certain that Mary was three years and three months old, but she was like a little girl of five or six in our country. Their journey did not take them through either Ussen Scheera or Gophna, though they were known in those places; but they must have passed near them. 4. ARRIVAL IN JERUSALEM. [In the evening of November 6 ^th, 1821, Catherine Emmerich said:] Today at midday I saw the arrival in Jerusalem of the child Mary with those accompanying her. Jerusalem is a strange city; one must not picture it with crowded streets like, for instance, Paris. In Jerusalem are many valleys, steep ways winding behind city walls. No doors or windows are to be seen, for the houses, which stand on high ground, face away from the walls New quarters have been added one by one, each enclosing a fresh ridge of hill, but leaving the old town walls standing between them. These valleys are often spanned by solid stone bridges. The living rooms of the houses usually face on to inner courts; on the street side only the door is to be seen, or perhaps a terrace high up on the top of the wall. The houses are very much shut up. Unless the inhabitants have business in the markets or are visiting the Temple, they spend most of their time in the inner rooms and courtyards. In general the streets of Jerusalem are rather quiet, except near the markets and palaces, where crowds of travelers and soldiers and people going in and out of the houses fill the streets with life and movement. Rome is much more pleasantly situated; its streets are not so steep and narrow and are much more lively. When all the people of Jerusalem are assembled in the Temple, many of the districts of the city seem quite dead. (It was because of the seclusion of the inhabitants within their houses and of the number of deserted valley paths that Jesus was so often able to go about the city with His disciples undisturbed.) Water is scarce in Jerusalem, and one often sees great structures of arches with channels to carry it in different directions, also towers to the top of which it is driven or pumped. In the Temple, where a great deal of water is needed for washing and cleansing the vessels, it is used very carefully. It is brought up from below by means of large pumping works. There are a great many dealers in the city: they usually group themselves with others of the same trade, and set up lightly-made huts in open places and markets surrounded by porticoes. There are, for instance, not far from the Sheep Gate many dealers in every kind of metalwork, gold, and precious stones. They have light round huts, brown, as if smeared with pitch or resin. Although light, these huts are quite strong; they are used as dwellings, and awnings are stretched from one to another under which the wares are set out. The gentler slope of the hill on which the Temple lies is terraced with several streets of houses, built one above the other behind thick walls. These are inhabited partly by priests and partly by inferior temple servants charged with menial duties, such as cleaning out the trenches into which is cast all the refuse from animals slaughtered in the Temple. On one side [she means the northern one] [66] the Temple hill falls very steeply into a black gully. Little gardens belonging to the priests make a green strip round the top of the hill. Work on the Temple never ceased: even in Christ's lifetime building was going on in different parts of it. There was a quantity of ore in the Temple hill, which was dug out in the course of building and made use of. There are many vaults and smelting furnaces under the Temple. I never found a good place in the Temple to pray in. It is all so extraordinarily solid, heavy, and high. And the little courts are themselves so narrow, and dark, and so encumbered with seats and other things, that when there are great multitudes, the narrow spaces and the crowds between the thick high walls and pillars, have a really terrifying effect. The perpetual slaughtering and all the blood filled me, too, with horror, though all is performed with incredible order and cleanliness. It is a long time, I think, since I saw so clearly as I do today all the buildings, inside and out; but there is so much to describe that I shall never be able to do so properly. The travelers, with the child Mary, approached Jerusalem from the north, but did not enter it on that side. As soon as they reached the outlying gardens and palaces, they skirted the town, turning east through part of the valley of Josaphat, leaving the Mount of Olives and the road to Bethany on their left, and entered the city by the Sheep Gate, which leads to the cattle market. By this gate is a pool, in which the sheep destined for sacrifice are washed for the first time to remove the heavy dirt. But this is not the Pool of Bethesda. [67] The little company soon turned again to the right between walls as though going to another quarter of the town. On their way they passed through a long valley, on one side of which rose the towering walls of one of the upper parts of the city. They went towards the western side of Jerusalem, to the neighborhood of the fish market, where the ancestral house of Zechariah of Hebron stood. In it was a very old man; I think he was a brother of Zechariah's father. Zechariah always stayed here when he performed his service at the Temple. He was in the city now; his time of service had just come to an end, but he had remained a few days longer in Jerusalem on purpose to be present at Mary's reception in the Temple. He was not in his house when the company arrived. There were yet other relations in the house, from the neighborhood of Bethlehem and Hebron, with their children, amongst them two little nieces of Elizabeth, who was not there herself. These all went out with many young girls, carrying little garlands and branches, to meet the travelers, who were still a quarter of an hour away on the valley path. They gave them a joyful welcome, and led them to Zechariah's house, where great rejoicings took place. They were given some refreshment, and then preparations were made to conduct the whole company to a ceremonial inn in the neighborhood of the Temple. Joachim's beasts for sacrifice had already been brought from near the cattle market to stables near this special inn. Zechariah now came to lead the company from his house to the inn. The child Mary was dressed in the second set of ceremonial garments with the sky-blue dress. A procession was formed, headed by Zechariah with Joachim and Anna. Mary followed, surrounded by four girls dressed in white, and behind them came the other children and relations. They went along several streets, passing the palace of Herod and the house where, later, Pilate lived. Their way led them towards the northeastern corner of the Temple hill; behind them was the fortress Antonia, a big high building on the north-western side of the Temple. They had to climb a high wall by a flight of many steps. They wanted to take the child Mary by the hand, but to everyone's surprise she ran up swiftly and joyfully by herself. The house they were going to was a ceremonial inn not far from the cattle market. There were four of these inns round the Temple, and this one had been hired for them by Zechariah. It was a large building, with a big courtyard surrounded by a kind of cloister with sleeping places and long, low tables. There was also a large room with a hearth for cooking. The place to which Joachim's sacrificial beasts had been taken was near by. On each side of it were the dwellings of the Temple servants who had charge of the animals for sacrifice. When the company entered the inn, their feet were washed, as is the custom with new arrivals; the men's feet were washed by men, the women's by women. Then they went into a room where a big many-branched lamp hung from the middle of the ceiling over a large metal basin with handles, full of water, in which they washed their hands and faces. Joachim's pack-donkey was unloaded and led by the manservant to the stable. Joachim, who had given notice of his intention to sacrifice, followed the Temple servants to the near-by stables, where they inspected his beasts. Joachim and Anna then made their way with the child Mary to a priest's house higher up the hill. Here, too, the child ran up the steps with surprising energy as though upheld and urged by a spiritual force. The two priests in this house, one very old and one younger, gave them a friendly welcome; both had been present at Mary's examination in Nazareth and were expecting her. After they had spoken of the journey and of the approaching presentation ceremony, they summoned one of the Temple women, an aged widow who was to have charge of the child. (She lived near the Temple with other women who, like her, were occupied in various feminine employments and in the training of young girls. Their dwelling was farther away from the Temple than the rooms in which were the oratories of the women and of the maidens dedicated to the Temple. These rooms were built directly onto it, and from them one could look down unseen into the holy place below.) The woman who now came in was so muffled up that only a little of her face could be seen. The child Mary was introduced to her as her future foster-child by the priests and by her parents. She was grave but friendly, and the child was serious, humble, and respectful. They told her of Mary's disposition and character, and discussed various matters connected with the ceremony of her presentation. This elderly woman accompanied them to the inn and was given a package of the child's belongings, which she took back with her to arrange in Mary's new home. Those who had accompanied the party from Zechariah's house returned there, and only the relations who had come with the Holy Family remained in the inn hired by Zechariah. The women of the party settled themselves there and made preparations for a banquet on the following day. [On November 7 ^th Catherine Emmerich said:] I spent the whole of today watching the preparations for Joachim's sacrifice and for Mary's reception in the Temple. Early in the morning Joachim and some other men drove the sacrificial animals to the Temple, where they underwent another inspection by the priests; some of them were rejected, and these were at once driven to the cattle market in the city. Those which were accepted were driven into the slaughtering-place, where I saw many things happening, but can no longer say in what order. I remember that Joachim laid his hand on the head of each animal before it was sacrificed. He had to catch the blood in a vessel, and had also to receive certain portions of the animal. There were all kinds of pillars, tables, and vessels there, where everything was cut up, distributed, and arranged in order. The bloody froth was taken away, while the fat, spleen, and liver were set apart. Everything was sprinkled with salt. The intestines of the lambs were cleansed and, after being filled with something, were put back into the body to make it seem whole again. The legs of all the animals were tied together crosswise. Some of the meat was taken into another court and given to the Temple virgins, who had to do something with it--perhaps to prepare it for their own or for the priests' food. All was done with incredible orderliness. The priests and Levites moved about always two by two, and the most difficult and complicated tasks were accomplished as if by clockwork. The pieces of meat were not actually offered up till the following day; in the meantime they lay in salt. There were great rejoicings in the inn today, and a banquet; there must have been a hundred people there, counting the children. There were present at least twenty-four girls of varying ages; among them I saw Seraphia, who after Jesus' death was known as Veronica. She was tall, and might have been ten or twelve years old. They were making wreaths and garlands for Mary and her companions, and decorating seven candles or torches. The candlesticks, which were without pedestals, were shaped like scepters; I cannot remember what fed the flame at the top, whether it was oil or wax or something else. During the festivities there were several priests and Levites going in and out of the inn, and these also took part in the banquet. When they expressed astonishment at the greatness of Joachim's sacrifice, he explained that he wished to show his gratitude to the best of his power; he could not forget how, by God's mercy, his shame in the Temple at the rejection of his sacrifice had been followed by the granting of his petitions. Today, too, I saw the child Mary going for a walk near the inn with the other little girls. Much else I have forgotten. 5. MARY'S ENTRY INTO THE TEMPLE AND PRESENTATION. [On November 8 ^th, 1821, Catherine Emmerich related:] Today Joachim went first to the Temple with Zechariah and the other men. Afterwards Mary was taken there by her mother Anna in a festal procession. First came Anna and her elder daughter Mary Heli, with the latter's little daughter Mary Cleophas; then the holy child Mary followed in her sky-blue dress and robe, with wreaths round her arms and neck; in her hand she held a candle or torch entwined with flowers. Decorated candles like this were also carried by three maidens who walked on each side of her, wearing white dresses embroidered with gold. They, too, wore pale-blue robes; they were wreathed round with garlands of flowers, and wore little wreaths round their necks and arms as well. Next came the other maidens and little girls, all in festal dress but each different. They all wore little robes. The other women came at the end of the procession. They could not go direct from the inn to the Temple, but had to make a detour through several streets. The beautiful procession gave pleasure to all who saw it, and at several houses honor was paid to it as it passed. There was something indescribably moving in the holiness apparent in the child. As the procession approached the Temple, I saw many of the Temple servants struggling with great efforts to open an immensely large and heavy door, shining like gold and ornamented with a multitude of sculptured heads, bunches of grapes, and sheaves of corn. This was the Golden Gate. The procession passed under this gate, to which fifteen steps led up, but whether in a single flight I cannot remember. Mary would not take the hands held out to her; to the admiration of all she ran eagerly and joyfully up the steps without stumbling. She was received in the gateway by Zechariah, Joachim, and several priests, and led under the gate (which was a long archway) to the right into some large halls or high rooms, in one of which a meal was being prepared. Here the procession dispersed. Several of the women and children went to the women's praying-place in the Temple, while Joachim and Zechariah proceeded to the sacrifice. In one of the halls the priest again examined the child Mary by putting questions to her. They were astonished at the wisdom of her answers, and left her to be dressed by Anna in the third and most magnificent violet-blue ceremonial garment, with the robe, veil, and crown which I have already described at the ceremony in Anna's house. In the meantime Joachim had gone with the priests to the sacrifice. He was given fire from the appointed place, and then stood between two priests at the altar. I am at present too ill and upset to describe all the circumstances of the sacrifice, but will tell what is still present to my mind. The altar could be approached from three sides only. The meat prepared for the sacrifice was not put all together, but was divided into separate portions placed round the altar. Flat shelves could be drawn out of the three sides of the altar, and on these the offerings were laid to be pushed to the center of it; for the altar was too large for the officiating priest to be able to reach the center with his arm. At the four corners of the altar there stood little hollow columns of metal, crowned with chimneys or something similar--wide funnels made of thin copper, ending in pipes curving outwards like horns, which carried away the smoke above the heads of the officiating priests. When Joachim's sacrifice started to burn, Anna went, with the child Mary in her ceremonial dress and with her companions, into the outer court of the women, which is the place in the Temple set apart for women. This court was separated from the court of the altar of sacrifice by a wall surmounted by a grille; there was, however, a door in the center of this dividing wall. The women's court slants upwards from the wall, so that a view of the altar of sacrifice cannot be had by all, but only by those standing at the back. When, however, the door in the dividing wall was opened, a number of the women were able to see the altar through it. Mary and the other little girls stood in front of Anna, and the other women of the family remained near the door. In a separate place there were a number of Temple boys dressed in white and playing flutes and harps. After the sacrifice, there was set up in the doorway leading from the court of sacrifice to the women's court a portable decorated altar [68] or sacrificial table, with several steps leading up to it. Zechariah and Joachim came out of the court of sacrifice and went up to this altar with a priest, in front of whom stood another priest and two Levites with scrolls and writing materials. Anna led the child Mary up to them; the maidens who had accompanied Mary stood a little behind. Mary knelt on the steps, and Joachim and Anna laid their hands on her head. The priest cut off a few of her hairs and burnt them in a brazier. Her parents also said a few words, offering up their child; these were written down by two Levites. Meanwhile the maidens sang the 44 ^th Psalm (Eructavit cor meum verbum bonum) and the priests the 49 ^th Psalm ( Deus, deorum Dominus, locutus est ) accompanied by the boys with their instruments. I then saw Mary being led by the hand by two priests up many steps to a raised place in the wall dividing the outer court of the Holy Place from the other court. They placed the child in a sort of niche in the middle of this wall, so that she could see into the Temple, where there were many men standing in ranks; they seemed to me to be also dedicated to the Temple. Two priests stood beside her, and still others on the steps below, singing and reading aloud from their scrolls. On the other side of the dividing wall there was an old high priest standing at an altar of incense, so high up that one could see half of his figure. I saw him offering incense and the smoke from it enveloping the child Mary. During these ceremonies I saw a symbolic vision round the Blessed Virgin which eventually filled and dimmed the whole Temple. I saw a glory of light under Mary's heart, and understood that this glory encompassed the Promise, the most holy blessing of God. I saw this glory appear as if surrounded by the Ark of Noah, so that the Blessed Virgin's head projected above it. Then I saw the shape of the Ark about the glory change into the shape of the Ark of the Covenant, which in its turn changed into the shape of the Temple. Then I saw these shapes disappear, and out of the glory there rose before the Blessed Virgin's breast a shape like the Chalice of the Last Supper, and above this, before her mouth, a bread marked with a cross. On each side of her there streamed out manifold rays of light at the ends of which appeared in pictures many mysteries and symbols of the Blessed Virgin, as for example all the titles in the Litany of the Blessed Virgin. Behind her shoulders two branches of olive and cypress or cedar and cypress stretched crosswise above a slender palm tree, which I saw appear just behind her with a little leafy shrub. In the spaces between this arrangement of green branches I saw all the instruments of Jesus' Passion. The Holy Ghost hovered over the picture in human rather than dove-like form, winged with rays of light: and above I saw the heavens open and disclose, floating in the air above the Blessed Virgin, the heavenly Jerusalem, the City of God, with all its palaces and gardens and the mansions of future saints. All were filled with angels, and the whole glory, which now surrounded the Blessed Virgin, was filled with angels' faces. How can this be expressed? Its variations, its unfoldings, and its transformations were so innumerable that I have forgotten a very great deal. The whole significance of the Blessed Virgin in the Covenant of the Old and New Testaments and to all eternity was set forth therein. I can compare this vision with the smaller one which I had a short time ago of the holy Rosary in all its glory. (Seemingly clever people who speak slightingly of the Rosary are much less sensible than poor unimportant folk who pray with it in all simplicity, for these adorn it with the beauty of obedience and humble devotion, trusting in the Church's recommendation of it to the faithful.) With this vision before me, all the splendor and magnificence of the Temple and the beautifully decorated wall behind the Blessed Virgin seemed quite dim and dingy, even the Temple itself seemed to be no longer there, so full was everything of Mary and her glory. As the whole significance of the Blessed Virgin unfolded itself before my eyes in these visions I saw her no longer as the child Mary, but as the Blessed Virgin, hovering tall above me. I saw the priests and the smoke of the offering and everything through the picture; it was as if the priests behind her were uttering prophecies and admonishing the people to thank God and to pray that this child should be magnified. All those who were present in the Temple were hushed and filled with solemn awe, though they did not see the picture that I saw. It disappeared again little by little just as I had seen it come. At last I saw nothing but the glory under Mary's heart, with the Blessing of the Promise shining within it. Then this disappeared, too, and I saw the holy dedicated child in her ceremonial dress standing alone once more between the priests. The priests took the wreaths from off the child's arms and the torch from her hand and gave them to her companions. They placed a brown veil or hood on her head, and led her down the steps through a door into another hall, where she was met by six other (but older) Temple virgins who strewed flowers before her. Behind her stood her teachers: Noemi, the sister of Lazarus' mother, the Prophetess Anna, and still a third woman; the priests gave the child Mary over to them and withdrew. Her parents and near relations now approached; the singing was over, and Mary said farewell. Joachim's emotion was particularly deep; he lifted Mary up, pressed her to his heart, and said to her with tears, `Remember my soul before God!' Thereupon Mary with her teachers and several maidens went into the women's dwelling on the north side of the Temple itself. They lived in rooms built in the thickness of the Temple walls. Passages and winding stairs led up to little praying cells near the Holy Place and Holy of Holies. Mary's parents and relations went back to the hall by the Golden Gate where they had first waited, and partook of a meal there with the priests. The women ate in a separate hall. I have forgotten much of what I saw and heard, amongst other things the exact reason why the ceremony was so rich and solemn; but I do recollect that it was so as a result of a revelation of the Divine Will. (Mary's parents were really well off; it was only as mortification and for almsgiving that they lived so poorly. I forget for how long Anna ate nothing but cold food; but their servants were well fed and provided for.) I saw many people praying in the Temple, and many had followed the procession to its gates. Some of those present must have had some idea of the destiny of the Blessed Virgin, for I remember Anna speaking with enthusiastic joy to various women and saying to them, `Now the Ark of the Covenant, the Vessel of the Promise, is entering the Temple'. Mary's parents and other relations reached Bethoron the same day on their journey home. I now saw a festival among the Temple virgins. Mary had to ask the teachers and each of the young girls whether they would suffer her to be among them. This was the custom. Then they had a meal, and afterwards they danced amongst themselves. They stood opposite each other in pairs, and danced in various figures and crossings. There was no hopping. It was like a minuet. Sometimes there was a swaying, circular motion of the body, like the movements of the Jews when they pray. Some of the young girls accompanied the dancing with flutes, triangles, and bells. There was another instrument which sounded particularly strange and delightful. It was played by plucking the strings stretched on the steeply sloping sides of a sort of little box. In the middle of the box were bellows which when pressed up and down sent the air through several pipes, some straight and some crooked, and so made an accompaniment to the strings. The instrument was held on the player's knees. In the evening I saw the teacher Noemi lead the Blessed Virgin to her little room, which looked into the Temple. It was not quite square, and the walls were inlaid with triangular shapes in different colors. There was a stool in it and a little table, and in the corners were stands with shelves for putting things on. Before this room was a sleeping place and a room for dresses, as well as Noemi's room. Mary spoke to her again about rising often to pray in the night, but Noemi did not yet allow this. The Temple women wore long, full, white robes with girdles and very wide sleeves, which they rolled up when working. They were veiled. I never remember seeing that Herod entirely rebuilt the Temple: I only saw various alterations being made in it during his reign. Now, when Mary came to the Temple, eleven years before Christ's birth, nothing was being built in the Temple itself, but (as always) in the outer portions of it: here the work never stopped. [On November 21 ^st Catherine Emmerich said:] Today I had a view of Mary's dwelling in the Temple. On the northern side of the Temple hall, towards the Holy Place, there were several rooms high up which were connected with the women's dwellings. Mary's room was one of the outermost of these towards the Holy of Holies. From the passage one passed through a curtain into a sort of antechamber, which was divided off from the room itself by a partition, semicircular or forming an angle. In the corners to the right and left were shelves for keeping clothes and other things. Opposite the door in this partition steps led to an opening high up in the wall which looked down into the Temple. This opening had a carpet hanging before it and was curtained with gauze. Against the wall in the left-hand side of the room there was a rolled-up carpet, which, when spread out, made the bed on which Mary slept. A bracket-lamp was fixed in a niche in the wall, and today I saw the child standing on a stool and praying by its light from a parchment roll with red knobs. It was a very touching sight. The child was wearing a little blue-and-white striped dress woven with yellow flowers. There was a low round table in the room. I saw Anna come in and place on the table a dish with fruits of the size of beans and a little jug. Mary was skilful beyond her years: I saw her already working at little white cloths for the service of the Temple. [Catherine Emmerich generally communicated the above visions about the time of the feast of the Presentation of Mary. Besides these, however, she related at different times the following accounts of Mary's eleven-year sojourn in the Temple:] __________________________________________________________________ [58] The story of the Presentation of Our Lady in the Temple at the age of three years appears in the Apocryphal Gospels: Protev. 7, Ps-Matt. 6, Nat. Mar. 6, Hist. Jos. 3; and is attested by the liturgical feast on Nov. 21st. (SB) [59] There is a place called Madin about twelve miles north-east of Nazareth on the high ground above the Lake of Galilee. Cf. Jos. 11.1. (SB) [60] Pilate, not Herod, proposed to make an aqueduct with Temple funds, and thereby caused a riot of 10,000 Jews, according to Josephus (Ant., XVIII, iii. 2). (SB) [61] For the burning bush ( Ex. 3.2) as a type of Our Lady, cf. the second antiphon at Lauds on Jan. 1st. (SB) [62] One may well be alarmed by the power of the world over fallen mankind when one considers how earthly things brought forgetfulness upon this favored soul who was not at all attached to them. Every year about this time she saw this picture of Mary's departure for the Temple, and each time the appearance of the two prophets as boys was in some way interwoven with it. She sees them appear as boys and not at their real age, because they were not personally present at the proceeding but accompany her only as emblems. Painters, when making historical pictures, are in the habit of representing not in their real form, but as youths, genii, or angels, those persons who are intended to illustrate some truth or other. Thus we may see that this manner of representation is not a result of their poetical imagination, but lies in the nature of all visionary appearances. (CB) [63] From the situation of this town and from the mention of its having some heathen inhabitants, and of Jesus having traveled in this direction in His thirtieth year on His way to His Baptism, we may conclude that it was Endor. For in her daily visions of the ministry of Our Lord, Catherine Emmerich saw Him celebrating the Sabbath in a small place near Endor in the middle of September of the first year of His ministry on His way to His Baptism. Also in this rather deserted hill-town she saw Him teaching the Canaanites settled here since the defeat of Sisera, in whose army their ancestors had served. (CB) Endor lies north-cast of the Plain of Esdrelon, where the battle was fought in which Sisera was defeated ( Judges 4). (SB) [64] Upper Bethoron is on the hill and Lower Bethoron at the foot of the hill. Jos. 10.11 mentions the battle `in the descent of Beth-Horon'; and a big battle took place here as recorded in I Macc. 3.16-24. (SB) [65] She remembered that the name sounded like Marion (possibly `Marom', i.e. `the height'). It is known that a road ran from Jerusalem past Bethoron to Nicopolis and Lydda. Catherine Emmerich gave all kinds of other details about the hills and valleys on the journey up to this point, but as she sees more distinctly than she can describe, it is impossible to reproduce these details, particularly as the topographical position from which she sees them cannot be determined. (CB) [66] It is the eastern side of the Temple hill that falls steeply into the Valley of Kedron. (SB) [67] John 5.2, usually rendered, `There is at Jerusalem a pond Probatica (=sheep), which in Hebrew is named Bethsaida (or Bethesda or Bezatha)', seems to identify the sheep-pool and Bethsaida, which AC states are distinct. But the most probable rendering of the Greek is `There is at Jerusalem by the Probatica (i.e. sheep gate) a swimming pool called in Hebrew Bezatha', and excavations have revealed traces of a swimming-pool `with five porches' (John, ib.) (cf. Cath. Comm., 791c). This is evidently not the same as the sheep-dipping poo1 mentioned by AC. (SB) [68] This altar-table was set up in this doorway because women were not permitted to go farther. When the meeting of Joachim and Anna took place, Joachim had gone through this door into the subterranean passage, while Anna had come from the opposite direction. (CB) __________________________________________________________________ IV. THE EARLY LIFE OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN AT THE TEMPLE. I saw the Blessed Virgin in the Temple, ever progressing in learning, prayer, and work. Sometimes I saw her in the women's dwelling with the other young girls, sometimes alone in her little room. She worked, wove, and knitted narrow strips of stuff on long rods for the service of the Temple. She washed the cloths and cleansed the pots and pans. I often saw her in prayer and meditation. I never saw her chastising or mortifying her body--she did not need it. Like all very holy people she ate only to live, and took no other food except that which she had vowed to eat. Besides the prescribed Temple prayers, Mary's devotions consisted of an unceasing longing for redemption, a perpetual state of inner prayer, quietly and secretly performed. In the stillness of the night she rose from her bed and prayed to God. I often saw her weeping at her prayers and surrounded by radiance. As she grew up, I always saw that she wore a dress of a glistening blue color. She was veiled while at prayer, and also wore a veil when she spoke with priests or went down to a room by the Temple to be given work or to hand over what she had done. There were rooms like this on three sides of the Temple; they always looked to me like sacristies. All sorts of things were kept there which it was the duty of the Temple maidens to look after, repair, and replace. I saw the Blessed Virgin living in the Temple in a perpetual ecstasy of prayer. Her soul did not seem to be on the earth, and she often received consolation and comfort from heaven. She had an endless longing for the fulfillment of the Promise, and in her humility hardly ventured on the wish to be the lowliest maidservant of the Mother of the Redeemer. Mary's teacher and nurse in the Temple was called Noemi, she was a sister of Lazarus' mother and was fifty years old. She and the other Temple women belonged to the Essenes. Mary learnt from her how to knit and helped her when she washed the blood of the sacrifices from the vessels and instruments, or when she cut up and prepared certain parts of the flesh for the Temple women and priests; for this formed part of their food. Later on Mary took a still more active part in these duties. When Zechariah did his service in the Temple he used to visit her, and Simeon was also acquainted with her. The Blessed Virgin's significance cannot have been quite unknown to the priests. Her whole being, the abundance of grace in her, and her wisdom were so remarkable from her childhood in the Temple onwards that they could not be entirely concealed in spite of her great humility. I saw aged holy priests filling great scrolls with writing about her, and I have been shown these scrolls, lying with other writings, though I cannot remember at what period. __________________________________________________________________ V. THE EARLY LIFE OF ST. JOSEPH [We here break off Catherine Emmerich's somewhat disconnected description of the Blessed Virgin's sojourn in the Temple to give the following accounts of St. Joseph's youth.] Among many things which I saw today of the youth of St. Joseph, I remember what follows. Joseph, whose father was called Jacob, was the third of six brothers. His parents lived in a large house outside Bethlehem, once the ancestral home of David, whose father Isai or Jesse had owned it. By Joseph's time there was, however, little remaining of the old building except the main walls. The situation was very airy, and water was abundant there. I know my way about there better than in our own little village of Flamske. In front of the house was an outer court (as in the houses of ancient Rome), surrounded by a covered colonnade like a cloister. [Please refer to Figure 6.] I saw sculptures in this colonnade like the heads of old men. On one side of the court was a fountain under a stone canopy. The water issued from animals' heads in stone. There were no windows to be seen in the lower story of the dwelling house itself, but high up there were circular openings. I saw one door. A broad gallery ran round the upper part of the house, with little towers at each of its four corners, like short, thick pillars, ending in big balls or domes on which little flags were fastened. Stairs led up through these little towers from below, and from openings in the domes one had a view all round without being seen oneself. There were little towers like this on David's palace in Jerusalem, and it was from the dome of one of these that he saw Bathsheba at her bath. This gallery ran round a low upper story with a flat roof on which was another building with another little tower. Joseph and his brothers lived in the upper story, and their teacher, an aged Jew, lived in the topmost building. They all slept in a circle in one room, in the middle of the story which was surrounded by the gallery. Their sleeping places were carpets, rolled up against the wall in the daytime and separated by removable screens. I have often seen them playing up there in their rooms. They had toys in the shape of animals, like little pugs. [Catherine Emmerich uses this word indiscriminately for any creatures she does not know.] I also saw how their teacher gave them all kinds of strange lessons which I did not rightly understand. I saw him making all kinds of figures on the ground with sticks, and the boys had to walk on these figures; then I saw the boys walking on other figures and pushing the sticks apart, placing them differently and rearranging them and making various measurements at the same time. I saw their parents, too; they did not trouble much about their children and had little to do with them. They seemed to me to be neither good nor bad. Figure 6. Saint Joseph's ancestral home. Joseph, whom I saw in this vision at about the age of eight, was very different in character from his brothers. He was very gifted and was a very good scholar, but he was simple, quiet, devout, and not at all ambitious. His brothers knocked him about and played all kinds of tricks on him. The boys had separate little gardens, at the entrance of which stood figures like babies in swaddling clothes on pillars, but sheltered a little (in niches perhaps?). I have often seen figures like these, and there were some on the curtain which hung by the praying-place of St. Anne and also of the Blessed Virgin, but on Mary's curtain this figure held something in its arms that reminded me of a chalice with something wriggling out of it. Here in St. Joseph's house the figures were like babies in swaddling clothes with round faces surrounded by rays. In still earlier times I noticed many figures of this kind, particularly in Jerusalem. They appeared, too, in the Temple decorations. I saw them in Egypt as well, where they sometimes had little caps on their heads. Amongst the figures which Rachel carried off from her father Laban there were some like these, but smaller, as well as other different ones. I have also seen these figures lying in little boxes or baskets in Jewish houses. I think perhaps that they represented the child Moses floating on the Nile, and that the swaddling-bands perhaps symbolized the tightly binding character of the Law. I often used to think that this little figure was for them what the Christ Child is for us. I saw herbs, bushes, and little trees in the boys' gardens, and I saw how Joseph's brothers often went in secret to his garden and trampled or uprooted something in it. They made him very unhappy. I often saw him under the colonnade in the outer court kneeling down with his face to the wall, praying with outstretched arms, and I saw his brothers creep up and kick him. I once saw him kneeling like this, when one of them hit him on the back, and as he did not seem to notice it, he repeated his attack with such violence that poor Joseph fell forward onto the hard stone floor. From this I realized that he was not in a waking condition, but had been in an ecstasy of prayer. When he came to himself, he did not lose his temper or take revenge, but found a hidden corner where he continued his prayer. I saw some small dwellings built against the outer walls of the house, inhabited by a few middle-aged women. They went about veiled, as I often saw women doing who lived near schools in the country. They seemed to form part of the household, for I often saw them going in and out of the house on various errands. They carried water in, washed and swept, closed the gratings in front of the windows, rolled up the beds against the walls and placed wickerwork screens in front of them. I saw Joseph's brothers sometimes talking to these maid-servants or helping them with their work and joking with them, too. Joseph did not do this; he was serious and solitary. It seemed to me that there were also daughters in the house. The lower living-rooms were arranged rather like those in Anna's house, but everything was more spacious. Joseph's parents were not very well satisfied with him; they wanted him to use his talents in some worldly profession, but he had no inclination for that. He was too simple and unpretentious for them; his only inclination was towards prayer and quiet work at some handicraft. When he was about twelve years old, I often saw him go to the other side of Bethlehem to escape from his brothers' perpetual teasing. Not far from the future cave of the Nativity there was a little community of pious women belonging to the Essenes, who dwelt in a series of rock-chambers in a hollowed-out part of the hill on which Bethlehem stood. They tended little gardens near their dwellings and taught the children of other Essenes. Little Joseph went to visit these women, and I often used to see him escaping from his brothers' teasing to go to them and join in their prayers, which they read by the light of a lamp in their cave from a scroll hanging on the wall. I also saw him visiting the caves of which one was afterwards the birthplace of Our Lord. He prayed there quite alone, or made all kinds of little things out of wood; for there was an old carpenter who had his workshop near these Essenes with whom Joseph spent much of his time. He helped him with his work and so little by little learnt his craft. The art of measuring which he had practiced at home under his master's tuition was here of great use to him. His brothers' hostility at last made it impossible for him to remain any longer in his parents' house; I saw that a friend from Bethlehem (which was separated from his home by a little stream) gave him clothes in which to disguise himself. In these he left the house at night in order to earn his living in another place by his carpentry. He might have been eighteen to twenty years old at that time. To begin with, I saw him working with a carpenter at Lebona. [69] This was the place where he first really learnt his craft. His master had his dwelling against some ancient walls which ran from the town along a narrow ledge of hill, like a road leading up to some ruined castle. Several poor people lived in the walls. I saw Joseph making long stakes in a place between high walls with openings above to let in light. These stakes were frames for wicker-screens. His master was a poor man, and made mostly only such common things as these rough wicker-screens. Joseph was very devout, good, and simple-minded, everybody loved him. I saw him helping his master very humbly in all sorts of ways--picking up shavings, collecting wood, and carrying it back on his shoulders. In later days he passed by here with the Blessed Virgin on one of their journeys, and I think he visited his former workshop with her. His parents thought at first that he had been carried off by robbers; but I saw that he was discovered at last by his brothers and severely taken to task, for they were ashamed of his low way of life. He was, however, too humble to give it up; though he left that place and worked afterwards at Thanath, [70] near Megiddo, by a small river called Kishon which runs into the sea. (This place is not far from Apheca, [71] the home of the Apostle Thomas.) Joseph lived here with a well-to-do master, and the carpenter's work which they did was of a higher quality. Later still I saw him working in Tiberias for a master-carpenter. He might have been as much as thirty-three years old at that time. His parents in Bethlehem had been dead for some time. Two of his brothers still lived in Bethlehem; the others were dispersed. The parental home had passed into other hands, and the whole family had come down in the world very rapidly. Joseph was very devout and prayed fervently for the coming of the Messiah. He was just engaged in building beside his dwelling a more retired room for prayer, when an angel appeared to him and told him not to do this, for, as once the patriarch Joseph at about this time had, by God's will, been made overseer of all the corn of Egypt, so he, the second Joseph, should now be entrusted with the care of the granary of salvation. [72] Joseph in his humility did not understand this, and gave himself up to continual prayer, till he received the call to betake himself to Jerusalem to become by divine decree the spouse of the Blessed Virgin. I never saw that he was married before; he was very retiring and avoided women. 1. AN ELDER BROTHER OF ST. JOSEPH [Later in Catherine Emmerich's visions we shall come across various other allusions to the family history of Joseph and in particular of his brothers. These allusions are, however, too scattered and interwoven in the great mass of her communications for the writer to collect them all together in this place with certainty and clarity. Since, however, an opportunity occurs here unsought, we will mention an elder brother of Joseph's who lived in Galilee. [When we were looking up in our diaries the passage where Catherine Emmerich explained on August 24 ^th, 1821, the relationship between Joseph and Joachim (see p. 18 ), we found a detailed account given by her on the same day (being the feast of St. Bartholomew) of a story from the life of that apostle. This vision had presented itself very vividly to her in connection with a relic of the saint. In the course of it she stated that the father of Bartholomew of Geshur had for some long time frequented the healing waters near Bethulia and had afterwards settled permanently in the region, chiefly on account of his friendship with an elder brother of Joseph. She added:] He went to a valley near Dabbesheth which was the home of Zadoch, a devout man and an elder brother of Joseph. The devout father of Bartholomew had become much attached to him during his sojourn at Bethulia. Zadoch had two sons and two daughters, and these children were on friendly terms with the Holy Family. When the twelve-year-old Jesus remained behind in the Temple and his parents missed him, this was one of the families in which they sought for Him. I saw the sons amongst Jesus' playmates when He was a boy. __________________________________________________________________ [69] It appears from various communications of Catherine Emmerich's about the ministry of Our Lord that the town in which St. Joseph first worked was not the Libna which is in the tribe of Judah some hours to the west of Bethlehem, but Lebona on the south side of Mount Garizim. According to the Book of Judges 21.19, it is to be found north of Shiloh. (CB) [70] Thanath or Thaanath (see Joshua 16.6) lies, according to Eusebius, ten miles to the east of Nablus in the direction of the Jordan, whereas the place here mentioned by Catherine Emmerich must, by her account, lie north-west of Nablus. She must therefore no doubt have meant Thanach instead of Thanath, and have been misunderstood by the writer, who at the time had no knowledge whatever of the geography of Palestine and no means of supplying it. Such misunderstanding was all the more likely to occur because Catherine Emmerich when ill or in a state of ecstasy often pronounced the names somewhat unclearly in her low-German Muenster dialect and sometimes mixed them up. A further convincing proof that she here meant Thanach may be found in the daily account which she gave in 1823 of the third year of Our Lord's ministry. She saw in her visions that Jesus taught on the 25th and 26th of the month Siva in Thanach, a town of the Levites near Megiddo, and that He visited there the former carpenter's shop of his foster-father Joseph. (CB) [71] Apheca is about twenty-five miles north of Thanach. (SB) [72] The same idea is found in St. Bernard's Homilia 2 super Missus est, recited in the Breviary on St. Joseph's feast. (SB) __________________________________________________________________ VI. A SON IS PROMISED TO ZECHARIAH I saw Zechariah talking with Elizabeth of his grief; it was near the time for his turn of service in the Temple, and it was always with sorrow that he went, for he was looked on with contempt there because of his unfruitfulness. Zechariah had to perform his service in the Temple twice a year. They lived not in Hebron itself, but in Juttah, about an hour's distance from it. There were many remains of walls between Juttah [73] and Hebron, as if these two places had once been connected with each other. On the other sides of Hebron were also many scattered buildings and groups of houses, the remains, it seemed, of the former city of Hebron, which must once have been as large as Jerusalem. Priests of lower rank lived at Hebron, while those of higher rank lived at Juttah. Zechariah was a kind of superior of the latter. He and Elizabeth were held in great honor there for their virtue and their unbroken descent from Aaron. I then saw how Zechariah and several other priests of the neighborhood met together on a small farm which he owned near Juttah. There was a garden with various arbors and a little house. Zechariah prayed here with his companions and taught them. It was a kind of preparation for the forthcoming service at the Temple. I also heard him speak of his heaviness of heart, and how he had a presentiment that something was about to befall him. I then saw him go with these people to Jerusalem; he had to wait four days more before it was his turn to sacrifice. In the meantime he prayed in the Temple. When it was his turn to kindle the incense-offering, I saw him go into the Holy Place, where the golden altar of incense stood in front of the entrance to the Holy of Holies. The ceiling above it had been opened so that one could see the sky. One could not see the sacrificing priest from outside, but one could see the smoke rising up. When Zechariah had entered, another priest said something to him and then went away. [74] Now that Zechariah was alone, I saw him go through a curtain into a place where it was dark. He brought something out from there which he placed on the altar, and kindled fire to make smoke. Then I saw a radiance descending upon him from the right side of the altar, and within it a shining figure approaching him, and I saw how he sank down towards the right-hand side of the altar in alarm and at the same time rigid in ecstasy. The angel lifted him up and spoke with him for a long time, and Joachim answered him. I saw the heavens opening above Zechariah, and two angels descending and ascending as if on a ladder. His girdle was loosened and his robe was open, and it appeared to me as if one of the angels took something from him and as if the other put into his side as it were a little shining substance. That was what happened also when Joachim received the blessing of the angel for the conception of the Blessed Virgin. It was usual for the priests to leave the Holy Place as soon as they had kindled the incense-offering, so when Zechariah was so long in coming out, those praying outside became anxious. He had become dumb, and I saw him writing on a tablet before coming out. When he emerged from the Temple and came into the outer court, a crowd gathered round him and asked why he had stayed so long. But he could not speak; he waved his hands and pointed to his mouth and to the tablet, which he at once sent to Elizabeth at Juttah, to tell her of the merciful promise of God and of his own dumbness. After a short time he returned there himself; Elizabeth had also been given a revelation, but I can no longer remember what it was. [This rather incomplete account is all that Catherine Emmerich, who was ill at the time, related on this subject; see St. Luke 1. 5-25.] __________________________________________________________________ [73] Juttah, the modern Yattah, lies about five miles south of Hebron. See also n. 82, p. 70 . (SB) [74] Probably he had said to him, as was the custom, `Kindle the incense-offering'. See Mishnah, tract. Tamid, 6, S: 3, edit. Surenh, p. 305. (CB) The tractate Tamid, IV-VII, describes the whole course of the daily sacrifice. This passage is in tome V, p. 305, in the edition of Surenhusius. (SB) __________________________________________________________________ VII. MARRIAGE OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN TO JOSEPH The Blessed Virgin lived with other virgins in the Temple under the care of pious matrons. The maidens employed themselves with embroidery and other forms of decoration of carpets and vestments, and also with the cleaning of these vestments and of the vessels used in the Temple. They had little cells, from which they could see into the Temple, and here they prayed and meditated. When these maidens were grown-up, they were given in marriage. Their parents in dedicating them to the Temple had offered them entirely to God, and the devout and more spiritual Israelites had for a long time had a secret presentiment that the marriage of one of these virgins would one day contribute to the coming of the promised Messiah. [75] When the Blessed Virgin had reached the age of fourteen and was to be dismissed from the Temple with seven other maidens to be married, I saw that her mother Anna had come to visit her there. Joachim was no longer alive and Anna had by God's command married again. When the Blessed Virgin was told that she must now leave the Temple and be married, I saw her explaining to the priests in great distress of heart that it was her desire never to leave the Temple, that she had betrothed herself to God alone and did not wish to be married. She was, however, told that it must be so.' Hereupon I saw the Blessed Virgin supplicating God with great fervor in her praying cell. I also remember that I saw Mary, who was parched with thirst as she prayed, going down with a little jug to draw water from a fountain or cistern, and that she there heard a voice (unaccompanied by any visible appearance) and received a revelation which comforted her and gave her strength to consent to her marriage. This was not the Annunciation, for I saw that happen later in Nazareth. I must, however, once have thought that I saw the appearance of an angel here too, for in my youth I often confused this vision with the Annunciation and thought that I saw the latter happening in the Temple. [76] I saw, too, that a very aged priest, who could no longer walk (it was doubtless the high priest), was carried on a chair by others before the Holy of Holies, and that while the incense-offering was being kindled, he read prayers from a parchment scroll lying on a stand in front of him. I saw that he was in a spiritual ecstasy and saw a vision, and that the forefinger of his hand was laid upon the passage of Isaiah in the scroll: "And there shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse; and a flower shall rise up out of his root." [ Is. 11.1.] When the old priest came to himself again, he read this passage and apprehended something from it. Then I saw that messengers were sent throughout the land and all unmarried men of the line of David summoned to the Temple. When these were assembled in large numbers at the Temple in festal garments, the Blessed Virgin was presented to them. Among them I saw a very devout youth from the region of Bethlehem; he had always prayed with great fervor for the fulfillment of the Promise, and I discerned in his heart an ardent longing to become Mary's husband. She, however, withdrew again into her cell in tears, unable to bear the thought that she should not remain a virgin. I now saw that the high priest, in accordance with the inner instruction he had received, handed a branch to each of the men present, and commanded each to inscribe his branch with his name and to hold it in his hands during the prayer and sacrifice. After they had done this, their branches were collected and laid upon an altar before the Holy of Holies, and they were told that the one among them whose branch blossomed was destined by the Lord to be married to the maiden Mary of Nazareth. While the branches lay before the Holy of Holies the sacrifice and prayer were continued, and meanwhile I saw that youth, whose name will perhaps come back to me, [77] in a hall of the Temple crying passionately to God with outstretched arms. I saw him burst into tears when after the appointed interval their branches were given back to them with the announcement that none had blossomed, and therefore none of them was the bridegroom destined by God for this maiden. The men were now sent home, but that youth betook himself to Mount Carmel, to the sons of the prophets who had lived there as hermits ever since the time of Elijah. From then on he spent his time in continual prayer for the fulfillment of the Promise. I then saw the priests in the Temple making a fresh search in the ancestral tables to see whether there was any descendant of David's who had been overlooked. As they found that of six brothers registered at Bethlehem one was missing and unknown, they made search for his dwelling-place, and found Joseph not far from Samaria in a place beside a little stream, where he lived alone by the water and worked for another master. On the command of the high priest, Joseph now came, dressed in his best, to the Temple at Jerusalem. He, too, had to hold a branch in his hand during the prayer and sacrifice, and as he was about to lay this on the altar before the Holy of Holies, a white flower like a lily blossomed out of the top of it, and I saw over him an appearance of light like the Holy Ghost. [78] Joseph was now recognized as appointed by God to be the bridegroom of the Blessed Virgin, and was presented to her by the priests in the presence of her mother. Mary, submissive to the Will of God, accepted him meekly as her bridegroom, for she knew that all things were possible with God, who had accepted her vow to belong to Him alone, body and soul. 1. ABOUT MARY AND JOSEPHS WEDDING AND NUPTIAL CLOTHES. [In the course of her continuous visions of Our Lord's daily ministry, Catherine Emmerich (on September 24 ^th, 1821) saw Jesus teaching in the synagogue at Gophna, four days before His baptism. He was dwelling with the family of a head of the synagogue related to Joachim. On this occasion she heard two widows, his daughters, exchanging remembrances of the wedding of Jesus' parents, at which they had been present in their youth with other relations. Of this she told what follows.] While the two widows were recalling the wedding of Mary and Joseph as they talked together, I saw a picture of this wedding and in particular of the beautiful wedding garments of the Blessed Virgin, of which these good women could not say enough. I will tell you what I can still remember. The wedding of Mary and Joseph, which lasted for seven or eight days, was celebrated on Mount Sion in Jerusalem in a house which was often hired out for festivities of this kind. Besides Mary's teachers and schoolfellows from the Temple school many relations of Anna and Joachim were present, amongst others a family from Gophna with two daughters. The wedding was very ceremonious and elaborate. Many lambs were slaughtered and sacrificed. The Blessed Virgin's wedding garments were so remarkably beautiful and splendid that the women who were present used to enjoy speaking about them even in their old age. In my vision I heard their conversation and saw the following: I saw Mary in her wedding-dress very distinctly. [Please refer to Figure 7.] She wore a white woolen undergarment without sleeves: her arms were wrapped round with strips of the same stuff, for at that time these took the place of closed sleeves. Next she put on a collar reaching from above the breast to her throat. It was encrusted with pearls and white embroidery, and was shaped like the under-collar worn by Archos the Essene, the pattern of which I cut out not long ago [see pp. 12 - 13 ]. Over this she wore an ample robe, open in front. It fell to her feet and was as full as a mantle and had wide sleeves. This robe had a blue ground covered with an embroidered or woven pattern of red, white, and yellow roses interspersed with green leaves, like rich and ancient chasubles. The lower hem ended in fringes and tassels, while the upper edge joined the white neck-covering. After this robe had been arranged to fall in long straight folds, a kind of scapulary was put on over it, such as some religious wear, for instance the Carmelites. This was made of white silk with gold flowers: it was half a yard wide, and was set with pearls and shining jewels at the breast. It hung in a single width down to the edge of the dress, of which it covered the opening in front. The lower edge was ornamented with fringes and beads. A similar width hung down the back, while shorter and narrower strips of the silk hung over the shoulders and arms; these four pieces, spread out round the neck, made the shape of a cross. The front and back pieces of this scapulary were held together under the arms by gold laces or little chains; the fullness of the robe was thus gathered together in front and the jeweled breast-piece pressed against it; the flowered material of the robe was a little puffed out in the openings between the laces. The full sleeves, over which the shoulder-pieces of the scapulary projected, were lightly held together by bracelets above and below the elbow. These bracelets, which were about two fingers in breadth and engraved with letters, had twisted edges. They caused the full sleeves to puff out at the shoulders, elbows, and wrists. The sleeves ended in a white frill of silk or wool, I think. Over all this she wore a sky-blue mantle, shaped like a big cloak, which in its turn was covered by a sort of mourning cloak with sleeves made after a traditional fashion. These cloaks were worn by Jewish women at certain religious or domestic ceremonies. Mary's cloak was fastened at the breast, under her neck, with a brooch, above which, round her neck, was a white frill of what looked like feathers or floss silk. This cloak fell back over the shoulders, came forward again at the sides, and ended at the back in a pointed train. Its edge was embroidered with gold flowers. Figure 7. Mary in her wedding dress. The adornment of her hair was indescribably beautiful. It was parted in the middle of her head and divided into a number of little plaits. [Please refer to Figure 8.] These, interwoven with white silk and pearls, formed a great net falling over her shoulders and ending in a point half-way down her back. The ends of the plaits were curled inwards, and this whole net of hair was edged with a decorated border of fringes and pearls, whose weight held it down and kept it in place. Her hair was encircled by a wreath of white unspun silk or wool, three strips of the same material meeting in a tuft on the top of her head and holding it in place. On this wreath rested a crown of about a hand's-breadth, decorated with jewels and surmounted by three bands of metal crowned by a knob. This crown was ornamented in front with three pearls, one above the other, and with one pearl on each side. Figure 8. Mary's hair adorned for her wedding. In her left hand she carried a little silken wreath of red and white roses, and in her right hand, like a scepter, a beautiful gilded torch in the shape of a candlestick without a foot. Its stem (thicker in the middle than at the ends) was decorated with knobs above and below where it was held. It was surmounted by a flat cup in which a white flame was burning. The shoes had soles two fingers thick heightened at toe and heel. These soles were made entirely of green material, so that the foot seemed to rest on grass. Two white-and-gold straps held them fast over the instep of the bare foot, and the toes were covered by a little flap which was attached to the sole and was always worn by well-dressed women. It was the Temple maidens who plaited Mary's beautiful hair arrangement; I saw it being done, several of them were busy with it and it went quicker than one would think. Anna had brought the beautiful clothes which Mary in her humility was unwilling to wear. After the wedding the network of hair was thrown up over her head, the crown was removed, and a milk-white veil put on her which hung down to her elbows. The crown was then put on again over this veil. The Blessed Virgin had very abundant hair, reddish-gold in color. Her high, delicately traced eyebrows were black; she had a very high forehead, large downcast eyes with long black lashes, a rather long straight nose, delicately shaped, a noble and lovely mouth, and a pointed chin. She was of middle height, and moved about in her rich dress very gently and with great modesty and seriousness. At her wedding she afterwards put on another dress of striped stuff, less grand, a piece of which I possess among my relics. She wore this striped dress also at Cana and on other holy occasions. She wore her wedding-dress again in the Temple several times. Very rich people used to change their dresses three or four times at weddings. Mary in her grand garments looked like the great ladies of much later times; for instance, the Empress Helena, or even Cunegundis, although the manner in which Jewish women muffled themselves up on ordinary occasions was very different and was more after the fashion of Roman women. (In connection with these clothes I observed that very many weavers lived near the Cenacle on Mount Sion, who made many kinds of beautiful materials.) Joseph wore a long full coat of pale blue, fastened down the front from breast to hem with laces and bosses or buttons. His wide sleeves were also fastened at the sides with laces; they were much turned up and seemed to have pockets inside. Round his neck he wore a kind of brown collar or rather a broad stole, and two white strips hung over his breast, like the bands worn by our priests, only much longer. [See Figure 9.] I saw the whole course of the marriage of Joseph and Mary and the wedding banquet and all the festivities, but I saw so many other things at the same time, and am so ill and so disturbed in many ways, that I do not venture to say more about it for fear of confusing my account. 2. MARY'S WEDDING-RING. [On July 29 ^th, 1821, Catherine Emmerich had a vision of the separate grave-clothes of Our Lord Jesus and of images of Our Lord which had been miraculously imprinted on cloths. Her visions led her through various places in which these holy relics were sometimes preserved with great honor and sometimes forgotten by men and venerated only by the angels and by devout souls. In the course of these visions she thought that she saw the Blessed Virgin's wedding-ring preserved in one of these places, and spoke of it as follows:] I saw the Blessed Virgin's wedding-ring; it is neither of silver nor of gold, nor of any other metal; it is dark in color and iridescent; it is not a thin narrow ring, but rather thick and at least a finger broad. I saw it smooth and yet as if covered with little regular triangles in which were letters. On the inside was a flat surface. The ring is engraved with something. I saw it kept behind many locks in a beautiful church. Devout people about to be married take their wedding-rings to touch it. Figure 9. Saint Joseph in his wedding garments. [On August 3 ^rd, 1821, she said:] In the last few days I have seen much of the story of Mary's wedding-ring, but as the result of disturbances and pain I can no longer give a connected account of it. Today I saw a festival in a church in Italy where the wedding-ring is to be found. It seemed to me to be hung up in a kind of monstrance which stood above the Tabernacle. There was a large altar there, magnificently decorated, one saw deep into it through much silverwork. I saw many rings being held against the monstrance. During the festival I saw Mary and Joseph appearing in their wedding garments on each side of the ring, as if Joseph were placing the ring on the Blessed Virgin's finger. At the same time I saw the ring shining and as if in movement. [79] To the right and left of this altar I saw two other altars, which were probably not in the same church, but were only shown to me in my vision as being together. In the altar to the right was an Ecce Homo picture of Our Lord, which a devout Roman senator, a friend of St. Peter's, had received in a miraculous manner. In the altar to the left was one of the grave-clothes of Our Lord. When the wedding festivities were over, Anna went back to Nazareth with her relations, and Mary also went there, accompanied by several of her playmates who had been discharged from the Temple at the same time as her. They left the city in a festal procession. I do not know how far the maidens accompanied her. They once more spent the first night in the Levites' school at Bethoron. Mary made the return journey on foot. Joseph went to Bethlehem after the wedding in order to settle some family affairs there. He did not come to Nazareth until later. 3. FROM MARY'S RETURN HOME TO THE ANNUNCIATION. [Catherine Emmerich always had these visions of the story of the Holy Family on the days appointed by the Church for their celebration; nevertheless, the date on which she saw some of these events sometimes differed from the ecclesiastical feast days. For instance, she saw the real historical date of the birth of Christ a whole month earlier, on November 25 ^th, which according to her visions coincided with the tenth day of the month Kislev in that year. Fifteen days later she saw Joseph keeping for several days the Feast of the Dedication of the Temple, or the Feast of Lights (which began on the 25 ^th day of the month Kislev) by burning lights in the cave of the Crib. From this it follows that she saw the Feast of the Annunciation also a month earlier, i.e. on February 25 ^th. It was in the year 1821 that Catherine Emmerich first gave an account of this event. She was seriously ill at that time, and her statement was therefore somewhat fragmentary to begin with. [She had stated earlier that Joseph did not go to Nazareth immediately after the wedding, but had journeyed to Bethlehem to arrange certain family affairs. Anna and her second husband and the Blessed Virgin with some of her playmates went back to Galilee to Anna's home, which was about an hour's distance from Nazareth. Anna arranged for the Holy Family the little house in Nazareth, which also belonged to her, the Blessed Virgin still living with her in the meantime during Joseph's absence. Before communicating her vision of the Annunciation, Catherine Emmerich recounted two fragments of earlier visions, whose significance we can only conjecture. Some time after the marriage of the Blessed Virgin to Joseph she recounted, still in a very weak state after a serious illness:] I had sight of a festival in Anna's house. I noticed her second husband, some six guests besides the ordinary household, and some children collected with Joseph and Mary round a table on which stood goblets. The Blessed Virgin was wearing a colored cloak, woven with red, blue, and white flowers like ancient chasubles. She had a transparent veil and over it a black one. This festival seemed to be a continuation of the wedding festival. [She related no more about this, and one may suppose that it was the meal taken when the Blessed Virgin left her mother after Joseph's arrival and moved into the house in Nazareth with him. Next day she related:] Last night in my vision I was looking for the Blessed Virgin, and my guide brought me into the house of her mother Anna, which I recognized in all its details. I no longer found Joseph and Mary there. I saw Anna preparing to go to the near-by Nazareth, where the Holy Family now lived. She had a bundle under her arm to take to Mary. She went over a plain and through a thicket to Nazareth, which lies in front of a hill. I went there, too. Joseph's house was not far from the gate; it was not so large as Anna's house. A quadrangular fountain to which several steps led down was near by, and there was a small square court before the house. I saw Anna visiting the Blessed Virgin and giving her what she had brought. I saw, too, that Mary shed many tears and accompanied her mother, when she returned home, for part of the way. I noticed St. Joseph in the front part of the house in a separate room. __________________________________________________________________ [75] Although in general late Jewish writers contest the statement that women or virgins were engaged in the service of the Temple, we find confirmation that this was so partly on the authority of the Church (which celebrates the Feast of Our Lady's Presentation on Nov. 21st) and partly in the Bible and in ancient writings. Already in the time of Moses (see Exod. 38.8), and again in the last days of the Judges (1 Sam 2.22), we find women or virgins employed in the service of the Temple; and in the description in Ps. 68 of the bringing of the Ark of the Covenant to Mount Sion, there is an allusion in verses 25-26 to `young damsels playing on timbrels'. The statement that virgins were dedicated to the Temple and brought up there is confirmed by Evodius, a pupil of the Apostles and successor of St. Peter at Antioch (it is true that this is in a letter first appearing in Nicephor, II, c. 3), who expressly refers to Our Blessed Lady in this connection. Gregory of Nyssa and John Damascene, amongst others, also mention this, while Rabbi Asarja states in his work Imre Binah, c. 6o, that virgins devoted to God's service lived in community in the Temple. We are thus able to quote a Jewish authority for the existence of these Temple maidens. (CB) Nicephor is the fourteenth-century Byzantine historian Nicephorus Callistus, who wrote Ecclesiasticae Historiae, libri XVIII. Rabbi Azarias ben Moses de'Rossi (1513/4-1578) was an Italian Jew. The treatise Imre Bina (`words of understanding') forms a part of his chief work, Meor Enayim (`light of the eyes'), published at Mantua in 1574. Both are therefore very late authorities. (SB) In the Old Testament the state of virginity was, at least in general, not considered as meritorious. Among the countless forms of vows, which according to the Mishnah were usual amongst the Jews of old, we find no trace of any vow of chastity. As long as the coming of the Redeemer was in expectation only, a marriage rich in children was the height of blessedness and godliness on earth. See Ps. 126.3: `The inheritance of the Lord are children; the reward, the fruit of the womb': and, for one of God's early blessings, see Deut. 7.14: `Blessed shall you be among all people. No one shall be barren among you of either sex.' This explains why the priests did not yield to Mary's wish, even though instances of persons vowed to chastity, especially among the Essenes, were by no means unknown. (CB) [76] It is remarkable that the apocryphal `Protevangelium of James', which the Church has pronounced not to be genuine, states among other things that Mary journeyed from the Temple to Nazareth accompanied by several maidens. These had been given by the Temple various threads to spin, of which the scarlet and purple ones had fallen to Mary's lot. Taking a jug, she went out to draw water, and lo, a voice said to her, `Hail, Mary', etc. Mary looked to right and left, to discover whence this voice came, and went into the house in alarm. She put down the jug, took the purple thread and laid it on her chair to work, and lo, the angel of the Lord stood before her face and said, `Fear not, Mary', etc. Thus here, too, there is an allusion to a voice while Our Lady was fetching water, but all happens in Nazareth and is connected with the Annunciation. This event is similarly described in the apocryphal `History of Joachim and Anna and of the birth of Mary the blessed Mother of God ever virgin and of the Childhood of the Redeemer,' printed by Thilo from a Latin MS. in the Paris library; except that in this case an interval of three days elapses between the voice at the fountain and the appearance of the angel in salutation. (CB) CB's note needs clarifying. AC distinguishes two angelic visits, the first here at the well, at Jerusalem, with no apparition and no recorded voice (not in the Gospel), and the second, later at Nazareth, after the wedding, the Annunciation proper ( Luke 5.26-38). Among the Apocryphal Gospels Nat. Mar. 9 simply follows St. Luke (one visit at Nazareth), while Ps-Matt. 9 gives the two visits, at the well and the Annunciation, at one day's interval, but with no exact indication of place, and Protev. II (as given here by CB) combines the episode at the well and the Annunciation, and places it all at Nazareth. J. C. Thilo published a collection of apocryphal texts at Leipzig in 1832. (SB) [77] He is by tradition called Agabus, and in Raphael's representation of the Betrothal of Our Lady (generally called `Sposalizio') he is pictured as a youth breaking his staff over his knee. (CB) [78] The miracle of Joseph's rod (with the dove issuing from the rod) appears in Protev. 9, Ps-Matt. 8, and (with the dove alighting on the rod) in Nat. Mar. 8. The name Agabus for the unsuccessful suitor is not found elsewhere. (SB) [79] When the writer copied down these words of Catherine Emmerich--on Aug. 4 ^th, 1821, he could not think of any reason why she should have seen this picture on Aug. 3 ^rd. He was therefore greatly surprised at reading, several years after Catherine Emmerich's death, in a Latin document about the Blessed Virgin's wedding-ring (which is preserved in Perugia), that it is shown to the public on Aug. 3 ^rd (III nonas Augusti). Of this probably neither of us knew anything. (CB) Our Lady's wedding-ring is preserved at the Cathedral of Perugia in a chapel which also has a fine tabernacle (mentioned by AC) by Cesarino del Roscetto, of 1519. Cf. Baedeker. (SB) __________________________________________________________________ VIII. THE ANNUNCIATION [On March 25^th, 1821, Sister Emmerich said:] Last night I saw the Annunciation as a Feast of the Church, and was once more definitely informed that at this moment the Blessed Virgin had already been with child for four weeks. This was expressly told me because I had already seen the Annunciation on the 25^th of February, but had rejected the vision and had not related it. Today I again saw the exterior circumstances of the whole event. Soon after the Blessed Virgin's marriage I saw her in Joseph's house in Nazareth, where I was taken by my guide. Joseph had gone away with two donkeys--I think to fetch either his tools or something that he had inherited. He seemed to me to be on his way home. Anna's second husband and some other men had been at the house in the morning, but had gone away again. Besides the Blessed Virgin and two girls of her own age (I think they were playfellows from the Temple), I saw in the house Anna and her widowed cousin, who worked for her as serving-maid and later went with her to Bethlehem after Christ's birth. The whole house had been newly fitted out by Anna. I saw these four women going busily about the house and then walking at leisure together in the courtyard. Towards evening I saw them come back into the house and stand praying at a little round table. Then, after eating some vegetables set before them, they separated. Anna went to and fro in the house for some time still, busying herself with household matters. The two girls went to their separate room, and Mary, too, went into her bedchamber. The Blessed Virgin's bedchamber was in the back part of the house, near the hearth, which was here placed, not in the center as in Anna's house, but rather on one side. The entrance to the bedchamber was beside the kitchen. Three steps, not level but sloping, led up to it, for the floor of this part of the house rested on a raised ledge of rock. The wall of the room facing the door was rounded, and in this rounded part (which was shut off by a high wicker screen) was the Blessed Virgin's bed, rolled up. The walls of the room were covered up to a certain height with wickerwork, rather more roughly woven than the light movable screens. Different-colored woods had been used to make a little checkered pattern on them. The ceiling was formed by intersecting beams, the spaces between being filled with wickerwork decorated with star-patterns. I was brought into this room by the shining youth who always accompanies me, and I will relate what I saw as well as such a poor miserable creature is able. The Blessed Virgin came in and went behind the screen before her bed, where she put on a long white woolen praying-robe with a broad girdle, and covered her head with a yellowish white veil. Meanwhile the maid came in with a little lamp, lit a many-branched lamp hanging from the ceiling, and went away again. The Blessed Virgin then took a little low table which was leaning folded up against the wall and placed it in the middle of the room. As it leant against the wall it was just a movable table-leaf hanging straight down in front of two supports. Mary lifted up this leaf and pulled forward half of one of the supports (which was divided), so that the little table now stood on three legs. The table-leaf supported by this third leg was rounded. This little table was covered with a blue-and-red cloth, finished with a hanging fringe along the straight edge of the table. In the middle of the cloth there was a design, embroidered or quilted; I cannot remember whether it was a letter or an ornament. On the round side of the table was a white cloth rolled up, and a scroll of writing also lay on the table. The Blessed Virgin put up this little table in the middle of the room, between her sleeping place and the door, rather to the left, in a place where the floor was covered by a carpet. Then she put in front of it a little round cushion and knelt down with both hands resting on the table. The door of the room was facing her on the right, and she had her back to her sleeping place. Mary let the veil fall over her face and crossed her hands (but, not her fingers) before her breast. I saw her fervently praying thus for a long time, with her face raised to heaven. She was imploring God for redemption, for the promised King, and beseeching Him that her prayer might have some share in sending Him. She knelt long in an ecstasy of prayer; then she bowed her head onto her breast. But now at her right hand there poured down such a mass of light in a slanting line from the ceiling of the room that I felt myself pressed back by it against the wall near the door. [See Figure 10.] I saw in this light a shining white youth, with flowing yellow hair, floating down before her. It was the Angel Gabriel. He gently moved his arms away from his body as he spoke to her. I saw the words issuing from his mouth like shining letters; I read them and I heard them. Mary turned her veiled head slightly towards the right, but she was shy and did not look up. But the angel went on speaking, and as if at his command Mary turned her face a little towards him, raised her veil slightly, and answered. The angel again spoke, and Mary lifted her veil, looked at him, and answered with the holy words: `Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done to me according to your word.' The Blessed Virgin was wrapped in ecstasy. The room was filled with light [80] ; I no longer saw the glimmer of the burning lamp, I no longer saw the ceiling of the room. Heaven seemed to open, a path of light made me look up above the angel, and at the source of this stream of light I saw a figure of the Holy Trinity in the form of a triangular radiance streaming in upon itself. In this I recognized--what can only be adored and never expressed--Almighty God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, and yet only God Almighty. As soon as the Blessed Virgin had spoken the words, `Be it done to me according to your word', I saw the Holy Ghost in the appearance of a winged figure, but not in the form of a dove as usually represented. The head was like the face of a man, and light was spread like wings beside the figure, from whose breast and hands I saw three streams of light pouring down towards the right side of the Blessed Virgin and meeting as they reached her. This light streaming in upon her right side caused the Blessed Virgin to become completely transfused with radiance and as though transparent; all that was opaque seemed to vanish like darkness before this light. In this moment she was so penetrated with light that nothing dark or concealing remained in her; her whole form was shining and transfused with light. After this penetrating radiance I saw the angel disappear, with the path of light out of which he had come. It was as if the stream of light had been drawn back into heaven, and I saw how there fell from it onto the Blessed Virgin, as it was drawn back, a shower of white rosebuds each with its little green leaf. Figure 10. The Annunciation. While I was seeing all this in Mary's chamber, I had a strange personal sensation. I was in a state of constant fear, as if I was being pursued, and I suddenly saw a hideous serpent crawling through the house and up the steps to the door by which I was standing. The horrible creature had made its way as far as the third step when the light poured down on the Blessed Virgin. The serpent was three or four feet long, had a broad flat head and under its breast were two short skinny paws, clawed like bat's wings, on which it pushed itself forward. It was spotted with all kinds of hideous colors, and reminded me of the serpent in the Garden of Eden, only fearfully deformed. When the angel disappeared from the Blessed Virgin's room, he trod on this monster's head as it lay before the door, and it screamed in so ghastly a way that I shuddered. Then I saw three spirits appear who drove the monster out in front of the house with blows and kicks. After the angel had disappeared, I saw the Blessed Virgin wrapped in the deepest ecstasy. I saw that she recognized the Incarnation of the promised Redeemer within herself in the form of a tiny human figure of light, perfectly formed in all its parts down to its tiny fingers. Here in Nazareth it is otherwise than in Jerusalem, where the women must remain in the outer court and may not enter the Temple, where only the priests may go into the Holy Place. Here in Nazareth, here in this church, a virgin is herself the Temple, and the Most Holy is within her, and the high priest is within her, and she alone is with Him. O, how lovely and wonderful that is, and yet so simple and natural! The words of David in the 45 ^th Psalm were fulfilled: `The Most High has sanctified His own tabernacle; God is in the midst thereof, it shall not be moved.' It was at midnight that I saw this mystery happen. After a little while Anna with the other women came into Mary's room. They had been wakened by a strange commotion in nature. A cloud of light had appeared above the house. When they saw the Blessed Virgin kneeling under the lamp in an ecstasy of prayer, they respectfully withdrew. After some time I saw the Blessed Virgin rise from her knees and go to her little altar against the wall. She unrolled the picture hanging on the wall which represented a veiled human form--the same picture that I had seen in Anna's house when she was making ready for the Blessed Virgin's journey to the Temple [see p. 43 ]. She lit the lamp on the wall and stood praying before it. Scrolls lay before her on a high desk. Towards morning I saw her go to bed. My guide now led me away; but when I came into the little court before the house, I was seized with terror, for that fearful snake was lurking there in hiding. It crept towards me and tried to shelter in the folds of my dress. I was in dreadful fear; but my guide snatched me hurriedly away, and those three spirits reappeared and smote the monster. I still seem to hear with a shudder its appalling shrieks. That night, as I contemplated the Mystery of the Incarnation, I was taught many things. Anna was given the grace of interior knowledge. The Blessed Virgin knew that she had conceived the Messiah, the Son of the Most High. All that was within her was open to the eyes of her spirit. But she did not then know that the Throne of David His father, which was to be given Him by the Lord God, was a supernatural one; nor did she then know that the House of Jacob, over which He was, as Gabriel declared, to rule for all eternity, was the Church, the congregation of regenerated mankind. She thought that the Redeemer would be a holy king, who would purify His people and give them victory over Hell. She did not then know that this King, in order to redeem mankind, must suffer a bitter death. It was made known to me why the Redeemer deigned to remain nine months in His Mother's womb and to be born as a little child, and why it was not His will to appear as perfect and beautiful as the newly-created Adam; but I can no longer explain this clearly. I can, however, remember this much--that it was His will to reconsecrate man's conception and birth which had been so sadly degraded by the Fall. The reason why Mary became His Mother and why He did not come sooner was that she alone, and no creature before her or after her, was the pure Vessel of Grace, promised by God to mankind as the Mother of the Incarnate Word, by the merits of whose Passion mankind was to be redeemed from its guilt. The Blessed Virgin was the one and only pure blossom of the human race, flowering in the fullness of time. All the children of God from the beginning of time who have striven after salvation contributed to her coming. She was the only pure gold of the whole earth. She alone was the pure immaculate flesh and blood of the whole human race, prepared and purified and ordained and consecrated through all the generations of her ancestors, guided, guarded, and fortified by the Law until she came forth as the fullness of Grace. She was pre-ordained in eternity and passed through time as the Mother of the Eternal. [See Prov. 8.22-35.] At the Incarnation of Christ the Blessed Virgin was a little over fourteen years old. Christ reached the age of thirty-three years and three times six weeks. I say three times six, because that figure was in that moment shown to me three times one after the other. __________________________________________________________________ [80] The tradition about the light at the Annunciation is preserved in the liturgy (Mar. 25th, Resp. ii): ` Et expavescit Virgo de lumine.' (SB) __________________________________________________________________ IX. THE VISITATION [81] 1. MARY AND JOSEPH TRAVEL TO VISIT ELIZABETH. Some days after the Annunciation, St. Joseph returned to Nazareth and made further arrangements for working at his craft in the house. He had never lived in Nazareth before and had not spent more than a few days there. Joseph knew nothing of the Incarnation; Mary was the Mother of the Lord, but also the handmaid of the Lord, and she kept His secret in all humility. When the Blessed Virgin felt that the Word was made Flesh in her, she was conscious of a great desire to pay an immediate visit to her cousin Elizabeth at Juttah near Hebron, whom the angel had told her was now six months with child. As the time was now drawing near when Joseph wished to go up to Jerusalem for the Passover, the Blessed Virgin decided to accompany him in order to help Elizabeth in her pregnancy. Joseph therefore started with the Blessed Virgin on the journey to Juttah. [82] [Catherine Emmerich described the following single scenes from the journey of Joseph and Mary to Elizabeth; but it must be understood that owing to her illness and to various interruptions very many gaps occur in her account. She gave no description of their departure, but only a few pictures from successive days of their journey, which we here transcribe.] They traveled in a southerly direction and had a donkey with them, on which Mary rode from time to time. Some baggage was packed onto it, amongst which was a striped sack of Joseph's (it seemed to me to be knitted) in which was a long brownish garment of Mary's with a sort of hood. This garment was fastened in front with ribbons. Mary put it on when she went into the Temple or into a synagogue. On the journey she wore a brown woolen undergarment, and over this a gray dress with a girdle. Her head-covering was yellowish in color. They made the long journey rather quickly. I saw them, after they had crossed the plain of Esdrelon in a southerly direction, entering the house of a friend of Joseph's father in the town of Dothan, on a hill. He was a well-to-do man and came from Bethlehem. His father was called brother by Joseph's father, though he was not really his brother, but he came of David's line through a man who was, I think, also a king and was called Ela, Eldoa, or Eldad, I cannot remember clearly which it was. [83] There was much trading in this place. Once, I saw them spending the night in a shed, and one evening, when they were still twelve hours distant from Zechariah's dwelling, I saw them in a wood, going into a hut of wattle-work, on which green leaves and beautiful white flowers were growing. This hut was meant for travelers: beside the roads in that country are many open arbors like this, and even solid buildings. Travelers can spend the night in them, or shelter from the heat and prepare the food which they have brought with them. Some of these shelters are looked after by a family living near at hand who are ready to supply any needs in return for a small payment. [Here there seems to be a gap in the account. Probably the Blessed Virgin was present with Joseph at the Passover in Jerusalem, and did not go to Elizabeth until after that; for while Joseph's journey to the Feast is mentioned above, we are told later that Zechariah reached home, after attending the Passover, the day before the Visitation.] They did not go direct from Jerusalem to Juttah, but made a detour to the east in order to avoid the crowds. They passed near a little town two hours distant from Emmaus, and took roads which Jesus often traveled in the years of His ministry. They still had two hills to pass. Between these two hills I once saw them sitting and resting. They were eating bread and mixing in their drinking water drops of balsam which they had collected on their way. It was very hilly here. They passed over-hanging rocks with great caves in which were all kinds of strange stones. The valleys were very fertile. Then their path led them through wood, moorland, meadows, and fields. Towards the end of their journey I particularly noticed a plant with little delicate green leaves and with flower-clusters of nine little pale-red, closed bells or vessels. There was something in these with which I had to do but what it was I cannot remember. [84] 2. MARY AND JOSEPH ARRIVE AT THE HOUSE OF ELIZABETH AND ZECHARIAH. [The following visions were communicated by Catherine Emmerich partly at the time of the Feast of the Visitation in July 1820 and partly at a time when she had heard the words of Eliud, an aged Essene from Nazareth. Eliud accompanied Jesus on His journey to His Baptism by John in September of the first year of His ministry, and told Him many things about the history of His parents and of His earliest childhood, for Eliud was intimate with the Holy Family.] Zechariah's house was on the top of a hill by itself. Other houses stood in groups round about. Not far off a biggish stream flowed down from the mountain. It seemed to me to be the moment when Zechariah was returning home from the Passover at Jerusalem. I saw Elizabeth, moved by great longing, going out of her house for a considerable distance on the way to Jerusalem; and I saw how alarmed Zechariah was, as he made his way home, to meet Elizabeth on the road so far from home in her condition. She told him that she was so agitated in her heart because she could not help thinking all the time that her cousin Mary of Nazareth was coming to her. Zechariah tried to remove this impression from her mind and explained to her, by signs and by writing on a tablet, how unlikely it was that a newly married woman should undertake so long a journey just then. They went back to the house together. Elizabeth was, however, unable to abandon her expectation, for she had learnt in a dream that one of her family had become the mother of the promised Messiah. She had at once thought of Mary, had longed to see her, and had in spirit perceived her in the distance on her way to her. She had made ready a little room to the right of the entrance and had placed seats in it. On the following day she sat there for a long time waiting and gazing out of the house, watching for the coming visitor. Then she got up and went a long way on the road to meet her. Elizabeth was a tall aged woman with a small, delicate face. Her head was wrapped in a veil. She only knew the Blessed Virgin by hearsay. Mary saw her from far off and recognized her at once. She ran to meet her, while Joseph discreetly remained behind. Mary was already among the neighbors' houses, whose inhabitants, moved by her marvelous beauty and struck by a supernatural dignity in her whole being, withdrew shyly as she and Elizabeth met. They greeted each other warmly with outstretched hands, and at that moment I saw a shining brightness in the Blessed Virgin and as it were a ray of light passing from her to Elizabeth, filling the latter with wonderful joy. They did not stay near the people in the houses, but went, holding each other by the arm, through the outer court towards the house. At the door Elizabeth once more made Mary welcome, and they then went in. Joseph, who came into the court leading the donkey, handed it over to a manservant and went to Zechariah in an open hall at the side of the house. He greeted the venerable old priest with great humility. Zechariah embraced him warmly and spoke with him by writing on his tablet, for he was dumb since the angel had appeared to him in the Temple. Mary and Elizabeth, after passing through the house-door, came into a hall which, it seemed to me, was also the kitchen. Here, they took each other by both arms. Mary greeted Elizabeth very warmly, and each pressed her cheek against the other's. Again I saw a radiance stream from Mary into Elizabeth, whereby the latter was transfused with light. Her heart was filled with holy joy. She stepped back, her hand raised, and exclaimed full of humility, joy, and exaltation: `Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And whence is this to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold as the voice of your salutation sounded in my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed are you that have believed, because those things shall be accomplished that were spoken to you by the Lord.' As she said the last words she led Mary into the little room which she had prepared, so that she might sit down and rest after her journey. It was only a few paces away. Mary let go Elizabeth's arm, which she had clasped, crossed her hands over her breast and uttered the Magnificat with exaltation. (When the aged Essene Eliud conversed with Jesus, as mentioned above, about this event, I heard him expounding the whole of Mary's song of praise in a wonderful manner. I feel myself, however, incapable of repeating this explanation.) I saw that Elizabeth followed in prayer the whole of the Magnificat in a similar state of exaltation; afterwards they sat down on quite low seats with a table before them, also low, on which stood a little goblet. O, I was so blissfully happy, I prayed with them the whole time, and then I sat down near at hand: oh, I was so happy! [Catherine Emmerich recounted this in the morning as if it had happened on the previous day. In the afternoon she said in her sleep:] Joseph and Zechariah are now together and are talking about the nearness of the Messiah according to the fulfillment of the prophecies. Zechariah is a tall handsome old man, dressed as a priest; he answers always with signs or by writing on a tablet. They are sitting in an open hall at the side of the house, looking on to the garden. Mary and Elizabeth are sitting in the garden on a carpet under a big spreading tree; behind it is a fountain from which water streams if one pulls at a tap. I see grass and flowers round them, and trees with little yellow plums. They are both eating little fruits and little loaves from Joseph's knapsack; what touching simplicity and frugality! There are two maidservants and two menservants in the house; I see them moving about here and there. They are preparing a table with food under a tree. Zechariah and Joseph come and eat a little. Joseph wanted to go back to Nazareth at once; but I think he is going to stay a week. He knows nothing of the Blessed Virgin being with child. Mary and Elizabeth were silent about it; in the depths of their being, there was a secret understanding between them. Several times in the day, and especially before meals when they were all together, the two holy women said a kind of litany. Joseph prayed with them, and I saw then a cross appear in the midst between the two women (although as yet there was no cross); it was indeed as though two crosses visited each other. [On July 3 ^rd she related as follows:] Yesterday evening they ate all together. They sat under a tree in the garden by the light of a lamp till nearly midnight. Then I saw Joseph and Zechariah alone in a place of prayer. I saw Mary and Elizabeth in their little room. They stood opposite each other, as if rapt in ecstasy, and said the Magnificat in prayer together. Besides the clothes already described the Blessed Virgin wore a transparent black veil as well, which she lowered when speaking with men. Today Zechariah took St. Joseph to another garden at some distance from the house. Zechariah is very orderly and precise in all he does. This garden is rich in beautiful trees and abundant fruit and is very well kept. A shady alley leads through the middle of it. At the end of the garden there is a little hidden summer-house with a door at the side. In the top of this little house are window openings closed by sliding shutters. In it is a wicker couch cushioned with moss or other delicate plants. I also saw two white statues in it, of the size of children. I do not quite know how they came to be there or what they signified, but they seemed very like Zechariah and Elizabeth, only very much younger. This afternoon I saw Mary and Elizabeth working together in the house. The Blessed Virgin took part in all the household work. She made preparations for the child that was expected. I saw them both working together, they were knitting a big coverlet for Elizabeth's lying-in. Jewish women used coverlets like these when in child-bed; an inner lining was fastened to the middle of it so that the mother could be wrapped up together in it with her child. It was as if she were in a little boat or in a big shoe, wrapped up herself like a child in swaddling clothes. She was supported on pillows and could sit upright or lie down, as she liked. The edges of the coverlet were sewn with flowers and texts. Mary and Elizabeth prepared also many different things as presents for the poor when the child was born. (I see Anna often sending her maidservant to look after everything in the house at Nazareth during the absence of the Holy Family. I saw her there once herself.) [On July 4 ^th she said:] Zechariah has gone with Joseph for a walk in the fields. His house stands by itself on a hill. It is the best house in the neighborhood. Others lie scattered around. Mary is rather tired. She is alone with Elizabeth in the house. [On July 5 ^th she said:] I saw Zechariah and Joseph spending last night in the garden which is distant from the house, either sleeping in the summer-house, or praying out of doors in the garden. At dawn they returned to the house. I saw Elizabeth and the Blessed Virgin in the house. Every morning and evening they joined together in prayer and recited the Magnificat, which Mary had received from the Holy Ghost at Elizabeth's greeting of her. With the Angel's salutation the Blessed Virgin was consecrated as the Church. With the words `Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done to me according to your word', the Word entered into her, saluted by the Church, by His maidservant. God was now in His Temple, Mary was now the Temple and the Ark of the New Covenant. Elizabeth's greeting and the movement of John beneath his mother's heart was the first act of worship of the community in the presence of this Holy Thing. When the Blessed Virgin uttered the Magnificat, the Church of the New Covenant, of the new Espousals, celebrated for the first time the fulfillment of the divine promises of the Old Covenant, of the old Espousals, and poured forth thanks with a Te Deum laudamus. Ah, who can express the wonder of seeing the devotion of the Church towards the Savior even before His Birth! Tonight, as I watched the two holy women at their prayers, I had many visions and explanations of the Magnificat and of the coming of the Blessed Sacrament in the present condition of the Blessed Virgin. The illness from which I am now suffering and many disturbances have made me quite forget all that I saw. From the passage in the Magnificat `He has shown might in His arm' onwards there appeared to me all kinds of pictures from the Old Testament symbolic of the most holy Sacrament of the Altar. Amongst them was a picture of Abraham sacrificing Isaac and of Isaiah announcing something to a wicked king who scorned it. I have forgotten this. I saw many things from Abraham to Isaiah and from Isaiah to the Blessed Virgin, and in everything I always saw the coming of the Blessed Sacrament to the Church of Jesus Christ, who was Himself still resting under His Mother's heart. [85] [After Catherine Emmerich had said this, she recited the Litany of the Holy Ghost and the hymn Veni Sancte Spiritus and fell asleep smiling. After a while she said with great fervor:] I must do nothing more at all today and must allow nobody in. Then, I shall see again all that I have forgotten. If I can only have complete quiet, I shall be able to perceive and relate the holy mystery of the Ark of the Covenant and the holy Sacrament of the Old Covenant. I have seen that time of quiet; it is a beautiful time. I saw the writer beside me, and I am then to learn very many things. [As she spoke these words, her face glowed in her sleep like a child's: she drew from under the bed-covering her hands marked with the wounds of the stigmata and said:] It is very warm where Mary is in the Promised Land. They are now all going into the garden of the house, first Zechariah and Joseph and then Elizabeth and Mary. An awning like a tent is stretched under a tree. On one side stand low seats with backs to them. [She then continued:] I am to rest and see again all that I have forgotten: that sweet prayer to the Holy Ghost has helped me, so sweet and gentle it is. [At five o'clock in the evening she accused herself, saying:] I weakly gave way and did not keep the command to allow nobody in. A woman of my acquaintance came and talked for a long time of hateful incidents which angered me. Then I fell asleep. God kept His word better than me, for He showed me again all that I had forgotten; but as a punishment most of it has again escaped me. [She then said what follows. Although some of it is repetition, we reproduce it, because we cannot express what she said otherwise than she herself did. She said:] I saw as usual the two holy women with child standing opposite one another in prayer and reciting the Magnificat. In the middle of the prayer I was shown Abraham sacrificing Isaac. Here followed a series of pictures symbolizing the coming of the Blessed Sacrament. I do not think I have ever perceived so clearly the holy mysteries of the Old Covenant. [Next day she said:] As was promised to me, I perceived once more all that I had forgotten. I was full of joy at being able now to relate so many wonderful things about the Patriarchs and the Ark of the Covenant, but there must have been a lack of humility in my joy, for God ordained that I should no longer be able to set in order and communicate the innumerable things that I perceived. [The cause of this new disturbance was a particular incident which renewed in her the sufferings of Our Lord's Passion, a phenomenon constantly recurring in her life. This rendered her even more incapable of consecutive narration. However, after her visions of the repeated recital of the Magnificat by the two holy women, she communicated at intervals much that she had learnt of the mysterious blessing in the Old Testament and of the Ark of the Covenant, though in a fragmentary and disconnected manner. We have tried therefore to compile them in chronological order; but, that we may not interrupt the life of the Blessed Virgin unduly, we shall add them in an appendix or keep them for some other appropriate place.] In the evening of yesterday, Friday, July 6 ^th, I saw Elizabeth and the Blessed Virgin going to Zechariah's distant garden. They were carrying fruit and little loaves of bread in a small basket and were going to spend the night there. When Joseph and Zechariah came there later, I saw the Blessed Virgin go towards them. Zechariah had his little writing-tablet with him, but it had grown too dark for writing, and I saw that Mary, by the interior bidding of the Holy Ghost, told him that he would speak that night. Then I saw that Zechariah put away his writing-tablet, and that he was able to speak with Joseph and pray with him throughout that night. I saw this, and when I shook my head in great surprise [86] and would not accept it, my guardian angel or spiritual guide, who is always with me, said to me, pointing in another direction, `You do not believe this, then turn your eyes hither!' But where he pointed I saw quite another picture from a much later time. I saw the holy hermit St. Goar [87] in a place where corn was being reaped. Messengers from a bishop who was ill-disposed towards him were talking with him with evil intent. As he started off with them to go to that bishop, I saw him looking round for a hook on which to hang his cloak. He saw a ray of the sun shining through an opening in the wall, and in his simple faith he hung his cloak on it, and I saw that the cloak remained hanging firmly fixed in the air. I was amazed at this miracle of simple faith, and was no longer surprised at Zechariah being given the power of speech by the Blessed Virgin in whom God Himself dwelt. My guide then spoke to me about what we call miracles, and I remember distinctly that he said: A living child-like confidence in God in all simplicity makes everything real, makes everything substantial. What he said gave me a complete interior understanding about all miracles, but I cannot express it perfectly. I saw the four holy people spend the night in the garden. They sat down and ate, or they walked two by two up and down, talking and praying, and took it in turns to rest in the little summer-house. I understood that when the Sabbath was over Joseph was to return to Nazareth, and that Zechariah was to accompany him for part of the way. It was moonlight and a clear starry sky. Round these holy people was indescribable peace and beauty. Again, as the two holy women prayed, I saw a part of the mystery of the Magnificat, but am again to see all in the octave of the Feast before Saturday or Sunday and shall then perhaps be able to tell something of it. I am now only permitted to say: The Magnificat is a hymn of thanks for the fulfillment of the blessing given in the sacrament of the Old Covenant. During Mary's prayer I saw a continuous succession of all her ancestors. In the course of time there followed each other three times fourteen marriages, in each of which the son succeeded directly to the father: and from each of these marriages I saw a ray of light projected towards Mary as she stood there in prayer. The whole vision grew before my eyes like a family tree made by branches of light becoming ever nobler and nobler, until at last, in a more clearly defined place in this tree of light, I saw shine forth more brightly the holy and immaculate flesh and blood of Mary, from which God was to become Man. I prayed to her in yearning and hope, as full of joy as a child who sees the Christmas tree towering above him. It was all a picture of the coming of Jesus Christ in the Flesh and of His most holy Sacrament. It was as though I saw the wheat ripening for the Bread of Life for which I hunger. It is not to be expressed; I can find no words to say how that Flesh was formed, in which the Word became Flesh. How can it be expressed by a poor mortal who is still in that flesh of which the Son of God and of Mary said the flesh profits nothing, it is the spirit that quickens? He, who said that only those who ate His flesh and drank His blood should have everlasting life and be raised up by Him in the last day. Only His flesh and blood were meat and drink indeed; only those who ate and drank thereof abode in Him and He in them. I saw, in an inexpressible way, from the beginning, from generation to generation, the approach of the Incarnation, and with it the approach of the most holy Sacrament of the Altar. Then came a series of patriarchs, followed by the institution of the priesthood to offer up the living God among men as sacrifice and food until His Second Coming--an institution conferred by the Incarnate God, the new and redeeming Adam, upon His apostles and transmitted by them by the laying-on of hands in an unbroken succession of generation after generation of priests. In all this I clearly perceived how the chanting of Our Lord's genealogy before the Blessed Sacrament on the Feast of Corpus Christi contains a great mystery. I also perceived that, just as amongst the ancestors of Christ according to the flesh, there were some who were not holy, and, indeed, were sinners, without however ceasing to be the rungs in Jacob's ladder on which God descended to mankind, so even unworthy bishops still have the power to consecrate the Blessed Sacrament and to impart priestly ordination with all the powers accompanying it. When one sees this one clearly understands why in old German spiritual books the Old Testament is called the Old Covenant or the Old Espousals, and the New Testament the New Covenant or the New Espousals. The highest flowering of the Old Espousals was the Virgin of Virgins, the Bride of the Holy Ghost, the most chaste Mother of the Redeemer, the spiritual vessel of honor, the singular vessel of devotion, in whom the Word became Flesh. With this mystery begins the New Espousals, the New Covenant. In the priesthood and in all those who follow the Lamb it bears the mark of virginity; in it marriage is a great sacrament, that of Christ and His Bride, the Church ( Eph. 5.32). In order to state as clearly as I can how the approach of the Incarnation, and, with it, the approach of the most Holy Sacrament of the Altar, was explained to me, I can only repeat how everything was set before my eyes in a great series of pictures. Although, it is impossible, owing to my present condition and to many interruptions from without, to bring what I saw into a detailed and comprehensible whole. I can only say in general: First I saw the Blessing of the Promise which God gave to the First Man in Paradise, and from that Blessing I saw a ray of light proceed to the Blessed Virgin as she stood there opposite St. Elizabeth, reciting the Magnificat in prayer. Then I saw Abraham, who had received this Blessing from God, and I again saw a ray of light proceeding from him to the Blessed Virgin. Then came the other Patriarchs who were the holders and bearers of that holy treasure, and from each of them a ray of light fell upon Mary. Then I saw the passage of this Blessing down the ages until it reached Joachim. He was endowed with the highest Blessing from the inmost sanctuary of the Temple so that he might become the father of the most holy Virgin Mary conceived without original sin. In her, the Word became Flesh by the operation of the Holy Ghost and dwelt amongst us, hidden for nine months in her, as the Ark of the Covenant of the New Testament, until, in the fullness of time, we saw His glory, born of the Virgin Mary, a glory as it were of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. [On July 7 ^th she said:] Last night I saw the Blessed Virgin in Elizabeth's house asleep in her little room, lying on her side with her head resting on her arm. [See Figure 11.] She was wrapped from head to foot in a long white covering. Beneath her heart I saw a glory of light streaming out; it was pear-shaped and in the center of it was an indescribably bright little flame of light. In Elizabeth I saw a glory shining which was larger and rounder but not so bright, and the light within it was less bright. [On July 8 ^th (a Saturday) she said:] When the Sabbath began yesterday, Friday evening, I saw a lamp being lit and the Sabbath being celebrated in a room in Zechariah's house which I had not seen before. Zechariah, Joseph, and some six other men, probably from the neighborhood, were praying under the lamp. They were standing round a chest with scrolls lying on it. They were wearing cloths hanging down over their heads; they did not make as many contortions as the Jews of today, though they occasionally bowed their heads and raised their arms. Mary, Elizabeth, and a few other women stood apart behind a grating in an alcove from which they could see into the praying-place. All their heads were covered with praying-mantles. After the Sabbath meal I saw the Blessed Virgin in her little room with Elizabeth, standing and reciting the Figure 11. Mary resting at Elizabeth's house. Magnificat in prayer. Her hands were crossed on her breast and her black veil lowered over her face; they stood opposite each other against the wall, praying as though in choir. I recited the Magnificat in prayer with them, and again, during the second part of it, which refers to the promises of God, I had many glimpses, near and distant, of single ancestors of Mary, from whom threads of light proceeded towards her, as she stood before me praying. These threads or rays of light came, I saw, always out of the mouth of her male ancestors, whereas those from the female ones came from under their hearts and ended in the glory within Mary. Abraham must (at the time when his blessing was brought to bear on the future of the Blessed Virgin) have lived near the place where the Blessed Virgin was now reciting the Magnificat, for I saw the ray of light from him streaming upon her from quite near; whereas, I saw the rays from persons much nearer to her in time coming from a much greater distance. After they had finished the Magnificat, which I always saw them reciting morning and evening since the Visitation, Elizabeth withdrew and I saw the Blessed Virgin going to bed. She took off her girdle and her upper garment, leaving only her long brown undergarment. She took a roll of stuff lying at the head of her low couch which I should otherwise have taken to be a bolster, but now saw was a rolled-up length of woolen material almost a yard wide. She held one end of it tight under one arm-pit, and then wrapped it round and round her body from head to foot and then upwards so that she was quite enveloped in it and could only make short steps. Her arms were free below the elbows and the face and throat were open. She wrapped herself up in this way standing beside her couch, which was slightly raised at the head, and then lay down straight on it, stretched out on her side, her cheek resting on her hand. I did not see men sleeping wrapped up in this way. [On Sunday, July 9 ^th, she said:] Yesterday, Saturday, I saw Zechariah during the whole of the Sabbath in the same dress that he put on at the beginning of it. He had a long white robe with not very full sleeves. He was girt about several times with a broad girdle inscribed with letters and with straps hanging from it. At the back of his robe was fastened a hood which fell in folds from his head down his back, like a veil gathered together at the back. When he had something to do in the course of the day on Saturday or had to go anywhere, he threw his robe over one shoulder and tucked it under his girdle below the other arm. Each leg was wrapped round with broad bands separately like trousers, and these wrappings were held fast by the straps with which his sandals were attached to his bare feet. Today he also showed Joseph his priest's mantle, which was very beautiful. It was an ample, heavy mantle, of shining material shot with purple and white, and was fastened at the breast with three jeweled clasps. It had no sleeves. I did not see them eating again until Sunday evening when the Sabbath was over. They ate together under the tree in the garden by the house. They ate green leaves which they dipped into sauce and they sucked little green bundles also dipped in sauce. There were also on the table little bowls of some small fruit, and other bowls from which they ate something with transparent brown flat spoons. I think it was honey, which they ate with flat horn spoons. I also saw little loaves being brought to them to eat. After this Joseph, accompanied by Zechariah, started on his journey home. It was a still moonlight night full of stars. They prayed beforehand all separately. Joseph again had his little bundle with him, in which were small loaves and a little jug, and his staff with a crook at the top. Zechariah had a long staff with a knob. They both wore their traveling mantles over their heads. Before they went, they embraced Mary and Elizabeth alternately by clasping them to their breasts. I did not see them kiss each other then. They went off gaily and quietly, and the two women accompanied them for a short while, after which they wandered off alone through the indescribably lovely night. Mary and Elizabeth then went back into the house, into Mary's room. A lamp was burning there on an arm projecting from the wall. This was always so when she prayed and when she went to bed. The two women again stood opposite to each other, veiled, and recited the Magnificat in prayer. On this occasion the promised vision, which I had forgotten, was repeated: but I have seen so much tonight that I can say but little of it. I only saw the handing down of the Blessing until it came to Joseph in Egypt. [On July 11 ^th she said:] Last night I had a vision of Mary and Elizabeth of which I only remember that they prayed the whole night long. I cannot recollect the cause. In the daytime I saw Mary doing all kinds of work, for instance, weaving coverlets. I saw Joseph and Zechariah still on their journey: they spent the night in a shed. They had made long detours and had, I believe, paid many visits. I think they spent three days on their journey. Except this I have forgotten almost everything. [On July 13 ^th she said:] I saw Joseph once more in his house yesterday, Wednesday the 12 ^th. He seems to have gone straight home without passing through Jerusalem. Anna's maidservant is looking after everything for him and keeps going to and fro between his house and Anna's. Otherwise Joseph was alone. I saw Zechariah coming home again. As always, I saw Mary and Elizabeth reciting the Magnificat in prayer and working together. Towards evening they walked in the garden, where there was a fountain, which is unusual here; they always had a little jug of juice with them. Towards evening, when it grew cool, they generally went for a walk in the country round, for Zechariah's house was isolated and surrounded by meadows. They usually went to bed at nine o'clock, but always got up before sunrise. [This is all that Catherine Emmerich communicated of her visions of the Blessed Virgin's visit to Elizabeth. It should be noticed that she described this event on the occasion of the Feast of the Visitation at the beginning of July, but that the actual visit probably took place in March, since she saw the message of the Incarnation being given to the Blessed Virgin already on February 25 ^th, and closely followed by the Blessed Virgin's journey to Elizabeth. That journey was, according to Catherine Emmerich, undertaken when Joseph went to attend the Passover, which began on the 14 ^th of the month Nisan, corresponding to our month of March. 3. THE BIRTH OF JOHN. MARY RETURNS TO NAZARETH. [On June 9 ^th, 1821, Catherine Emmerich discovered near her a relic of Christ's disciple Parmenas, and amongst other visions having reference to this saint she communicated the following, which belongs to this portion of her narrative.] After the Blessed Virgin's return from Juttah to Nazareth I saw her spending several days in the house of the parents of Parmenas, Our Lord's future disciple, who was not yet born. [88] I think I saw this at the same time of year as it actually happened. I had that impression during my vision. In that case the birth of John the Baptist would have happened at the end of May or the beginning of June. Mary stayed for three months with Elizabeth, until after the birth of John, but was not present on the occasion of his circumcision. [Owing to interruptions, Catherine Emmerich did not relate anything further about John's birth or circumcision, and we therefore refer the reader to the words of the Gospel ( St. Luke 1.57-80).] The Blessed Virgin returned home to Nazareth after John's birth and before his circumcision. Joseph came to meet her-half-way. [Catherine Emmerich was so ill and agitated that she did not tell who accompanied the Blessed Virgin till then, nor did she mention the place where she met Joseph. Perhaps this was Dothan, where they stayed on their journey to Elizabeth with the friend of Joseph's father. She was no doubt accompanied there by relations of Zechariah or by friends from Nazareth who were undertaking the same journey. What follows may be taken as confirming this supposition.] When Joseph traveled back with the Blessed Virgin during the second half of her journey from Juttah to Nazareth, he noticed from her figure that she was with child, and was sore beset by trouble and doubt, for he knew nothing of the Angel's annunciation to the Blessed Virgin. Immediately after his marriage, Joseph had gone to Bethlehem to arrange about some inheritance; in the meantime Mary had gone to Nazareth with her parents and some of her play-fellows. The angelic salutation happened before Joseph returned to Nazareth. Mary in shy humility had kept God's secret to herself. Joseph, though greatly disquieted by what he had perceived, said nothing, but struggled in silence with his doubts. [89] The Blessed Virgin, who had foreseen this trouble, became thoughtful and serious, which only increased St. Joseph's uneasiness. When they came to Nazareth, I saw that the Blessed Virgin did not at once go into Joseph's house with him, but spent a few days with relations. These were the parents of a son, Parmenas (not yet born), who became a disciple of Jesus and was one of the seven deacons in the first community of Christians in Jerusalem. These people were related to the Holy Family, for the mother was a sister of the third husband of Mary Cleophas, the father of Simeon, bishop of Jerusalem. They had a house and a garden of spices in Nazareth. They were also related to the Holy Family through Elizabeth. I saw that the Blessed Virgin stayed for several days with these people before she came to Joseph's house. Joseph's uneasiness increased, however, to such an extent that, now that Mary was preparing to return to him in his house, he made up his mind to leave her and to disappear in secret. While he was harboring this thought, an Angel appeared to him in a dream and reassured him. __________________________________________________________________ [81] The Visitation: Luke 1.39-56. St. Joseph's worries: Matt. 1.18-25. [82] Juttah near Hebron; Luke 1.39 says: `Into the hill country . . . into a city of Judah.' It has been suggested that `Judah' was written by mistake for `Juttah'. (SB) [83] Catherine Emmerich saw Jesus at Dothan in this house on Nov. 2nd (the 12th day of the month Marcheswan) of the thirty-first year of His Life. He was healing the dropsy of Issachar, the fifty-year-old husband of the daughter of this family, whose name was Salome. On that occasion Issachar spoke of the visit of Joseph and Mary here mentioned. The descendant of David whose name is given uncertainly by Catherine Emmerich as Eldoa or Eldad, and whom she describes as being the link between Joseph's and Salome's families, might perhaps have been Elioda or Eliada, a son of David's, mentioned in 2 Kings 5.16, and in 1 Chronicles 3.8. Although it may seem natural that Catherine Emmerich should confuse various name-sounds, such confusion should not necessarily always be assumed. Hebrew proper names have a very definite signification; but since the same signification can be conveyed in speaking by several different expressions, one person may often bear different names. Thus we find a son of David's sometimes called Elishua (`God helps') and sometimes Elishama (`God hears'); and Eldea or Eldaa may mean `God comes' just as much as Eliada. The uncertain mention of this descendant of David's as being also a king need not surprise us, for there can be no doubt that David's sons or descendants administered the government in the vassal states. (CB) The Vulgate forms of the name of David's son are Elisua in 2 Kings. ( Sam.) 5.15, and Elisama in 1 Chr. 3.6. In Hebrew, Elishua (`God saves') and Elishama (`God hears'). The name of the son Elioda or Eliada is in both places Elyada, which with its by-forms means `God knows', (SB) [84] A learned friend tells me that this flower is probably the cypress-cluster (Lawsonia spinosa inermis, Linn.) mentioned in the Canticle of Canticles, 1.13: `A cluster of cypress my love is to me in the vineyards of Engaddi.' Mariti, in his journey through Syria and Palestine, mentions this shrub and its flowers in the region here traversed by the Blessed Virgin. He describes the leaves as smaller and more delicate than those of the myrtle; the flowers are, he says, rose-red and the flower-cluster shaped like a bunch of grapes. This agrees with the general description given by Catherine Emmerich. (CB) [85] The message of Isaiah which she has forgotten is beyond doubt his prophecy to King Ahaz: Is. 7.3-25. (CB [86] AC expresses surprise at Zechariah's release from dumbness, but this was presumably temporary and by miraculous intervention--the lesson of the story of St. Goar--since at the birth of John the Baptist he was still dumb ( Luke 2.62-64). AC has nothing about the birth of the child. (SB) [87] His feast is on July 6th (the day when Catherine Emmerich made this communication), a fact unknown at the time to the writer. When he learnt it later by a casual glance at the calendar, he received a fresh confirmation of the organic connection of all her visions with the festivals of the Church. (CB) St. Goar, the hermit of Oberwesel on the Rhine, died c. 575 (Ramsgate, Book of Saints, 1947). (SB) [88] Parmenas was one of the seven deacons ( Acts 6.5). Cf. following page. (SB) [89] AC's account of St. Joseph's worry in silence accords with Matt. 1.19-20, in strong contrast with the unseemly doubts fancied in the Apocryphal Gospels, especially in Protev. 13. (SB) __________________________________________________________________ X. THE CENSUS AND THE JOURNEY OF THE HOLY FAMILY [90] 1. THE CENSUS OF THE EMPEROR AUGUSTUS IS PROCLAIMED. CHRIST'S BIRTH IN NOVEMBER. The actual date of Christ's Birth, as I always see it, is four weeks earlier than its celebration by the Church; it must have happened on St. Catherine's feast day. I always see the Annunciation as happening at the end of February. Already at the end of October, I saw it being announced in the Promised Land that an enrollment and taxing of the people was to be made by decree of the Emperor. After that I saw many people traveling up and down the country. 2. ST. ANNE'S HOUSE IN NAZARETH. PREPARING FOR CHRIST'S BIRTH. [Sunday, November 11 ^th, 1821:] For several days in succession I have seen the Blessed Virgin with her mother Anna, whose house is about an hour's journey away from Nazareth in the valley of Zabulon. The only woman remaining in the Blessed Virgin's house at Nazareth is Anna's maidservant, who looks after St. Joseph while Mary is with Anna. In fact, as long as Anna was alive they had no completely separate household, but always received their provisions from her. For several weeks already I have seen the Blessed Virgin busy with preparations for the Birth of Christ. She is sewing and knitting coverlets, cloths, and swaddling-bands. There is more than enough of everything. Joachim is no longer alive; I see another man in the house. Anna has married again. Her second husband was employed in the Temple in connection with the beasts for sacrifice. I saw Anna sending him out food when he was with the flocks and herds; there were little loaves and fishes in a leathern wallet with several divisions in it. There is a rather tall little girl, about seven years old, in the house, who helps the Blessed Virgin and is taught by her. I think she might be a daughter of Mary Cleophas. Her name was Mary, too. Joseph is not at Nazareth, but must soon be coming, for he is on his way back from Jerusalem, where he has taken beasts for sacrifice. I saw the Blessed Virgin in the house. She was far advanced in pregnancy, and sat in a room working with several other women. They were preparing coverlets and other things for Mary's confinement. Anna, who possessed pastures with flocks and herds, was well-to-do. She supplied the Blessed Virgin with plenty of everything that it was customary for a person in her rank of life to have. As she thought that Mary would be in her (Anna's) house for the birth of her child, and that all her relations would come to visit her there, she made all the preparations in a very lavish manner, with specially beautiful coverlets and rugs. I saw a coverlet of the kind that was in Elizabeth's house when John was born. It was embroidered with all kinds of texts and emblems, and had a kind of inner lining sewn into it in which the mother could wrap herself. She could fasten this lining round her with tapes and buttons, and be as it were in a little boat or like a baby in its swaddling-bands. She could recline comfortably in it, supported by cushions, when visited by friends, and the latter sat round her on the edge of the coverlet. All these things, as well as many swaddling-bands for the child itself, were prepared in Anna's house. I saw gold and silver threads being used. Not all the coverlets and other things were for Mary's own use; much was intended as presents for the poor, who were always remembered on happy occasions of this kind. I saw the Blessed Virgin and other women sitting on the floor round a big chest, knitting and working at a big coverlet lying in the chest between them. They used two little sticks on which colored threads were wound. Anna was very busy; she went here and there fetching and distributing wool and apportioning their tasks to her maidservants. 3. JOSEPH IS TOLD TO TRAVEL WITH MARY TO BETHLEHEM. [November 12 ^th:] Joseph will arrive back in Nazareth today. He was in Jerusalem, taking beasts there for sacrifice. He left them at the little inn a quarter of an hour on the road from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. The house was kept by a devout old childless couple. It was a suitable lodging for quiet people. Joseph went from there to Bethlehem, but did not visit his relations in that town. He only wanted to find out about an enrolment and taxation of the people which made it necessary for everyone to betake himself to his birthplace. He did not, however, have himself inscribed as yet, because he intended to journey with Mary to the Temple in Jerusalem after the days of her purification, and then to go to Bethlehem and settle there. I do not know for certain what were his reasons, but Joseph did not like being in Nazareth. [91] He therefore looked about him in Bethlehem and made inquiries about stones and timber, for he had it in his mind to build himself a house there. Having found out what he wanted, he returned to the inn near Jerusalem, took his sacrifice to the Temple, and hurried home again. As he was crossing the field of Chimki, [92] six hours from Nazareth, at midnight last night, an angel appeared to him and warned him that he was to go to Bethlehem with Mary at once, for it was there that she was to bear her child. He also indicated everything that she was to take with her for her use, explaining that they were to be few and simple things, and in particular no embroidered coverlets. Also, besides the ass upon which Mary was to sit, he was to take with him a she-ass one year old that had not yet had a foal. He was to let her run free and was always to follow whatever path she took. This evening Anna went with the Blessed Virgin to Nazareth; no doubt they knew that Joseph was arriving. But they do not seem to know that Mary would journey to Bethlehem from Anna's house. They thought no doubt that Mary would bear her child in her own house in Nazareth, for I saw them taking there, packed in saddle-bags, many of the things they had prepared. I saw amongst them several shawls of blue material with hoods. I think they were meant for wrapping the child in. Joseph arrived at Nazareth in the evening. 4. JOSEPH REVEALS TO MARY THE ANGEL'S COMMANDMENT. [November 13 ^th:] Today I saw the Blessed Virgin and her mother Anna in the house in Nazareth, where Joseph revealed to them what had been told him the previous night. Thereupon they returned to Anna's house, and I saw them preparing to leave immediately. Anna was distressed. The Blessed Virgin must have known that she was to bear her child in Bethlehem, but had been silent out of humility. She knew it from the writings of the Prophets about the birth of the Messiah, all of which she treasured in her little cupboard at Nazareth. (She had been given them by her women-teachers in the Temple and had been instructed in them by these holy women. She used to read them very often and pray for their fulfillment. Her prayers were ever full of yearning for the coming of the Messiah; she ever extolled as blessed her who should bear the holy child, and hoped only to be allowed to serve her as her lowest maidservant. Never in her humility had she thought that she herself might be the chosen one.) Since she knew from those passages in the Prophets that the Savior was to be born in Bethlehem, she yielded joyfully to the Divine Will and began the journey, which was difficult for her at that time of the year, when it was often decidedly cold in the valleys between the ranges of hills. 5. ON THE JOURNEY TO BETHLEHEM This evening I saw Joseph and the Blessed Virgin, accompanied by Anna, Mary Cleophas, and some menservants, starting off from Anna's house. Mary sat on the comfortable side-saddle of a donkey, which also carried her baggage. Joseph led the donkey. A second donkey was taken for Anna to ride back on. Her husband was away in the fields when they started on their journey. 5.1 THE FIELD GINIM. THE TRAVELERS ARE GIVEN A YOUNG SHE-ASS FROM ANNA'S PASTURE. [November 14 ^th:] This morning I saw the holy travelers arrive at an open field called Ginim, [93] six hours' journey from Nazareth, where the angel had appeared to Joseph two days before. Anna had a pasture here and the menservants were told to fetch the young she-ass which Joseph was to take with him. She sometimes ran in front of them and sometimes beside them. Anna and Mary Cleophas here took a tender farewell of the travelers and returned home with the menservants. (This field Ginim is several miles long and is shaped like a pear. Another field, called Gimmi, lies nearer Nazareth not far from a shepherds' village high up in the hills called Gimmi or Gimchi, where Jesus taught shepherds from the 7 ^th to the 9 ^th of September before His Baptism. These shepherds had lepers hidden among them. He also healed here the dropsical woman of the house where He stayed, and was mocked by the Pharisees. Farther away from this place and to the south-west of Nazareth, beyond the river Kishon, is a settlement of lepers, consisting of scattered huts round a lake formed by the river. Jesus healed here on September 30 ^th before His Baptism. The field Ginim, traversed today by the Holy Family, is separated from the other field Gimmi by a little river or river-bed. The names are so alike that I may easily have confused them.) I saw the Holy Family going on their way and climbing Mount Gilboa. [94] They did not pass through any town; they followed the young she-ass, which always took lonely by-ways. I saw them stopping at a house in the hills belonging to Lazarus, not far from the town of Ginim and in the direction of Samaria. The steward, who knew them from other journeys, gave them a friendly welcome. Their family was on intimate terms with Lazarus. There are beautiful orchards and avenues here. The house stands high, so that one has a very wide view from the roof. Lazarus inherited it from his father; our Lord Jesus often stayed here during His ministry and taught in the surrounding country. The steward and his wife conversed in a very friendly way with the Blessed Virgin. They were surprised that she should have been willing to undertake such a long journey in her condition, when she might have had every comfort at home with her mother Anna. 5.2 TRAVELING AT NIGHT. MARY AND JOSEPH REST AT THE TEREBINTH OF ABRAHAM. [Thursday to Friday night, November 15 ^th-16 ^th:] I saw the Holy Family some hours' journey beyond this last place, going at night towards a mountain through a very cold valley. It looked as if there was hoar-frost on the ground. The Blessed Virgin was suffering from the cold and said to Joseph: `We must rest, I can go no farther.' Hardly had she spoken when the she-ass that was running with them stood still under a terebinth tree, very big and old, near which was a spring of water. They stopped under this tree; Joseph spread coverings for the Blessed Virgin to sit on, after helping her to alight from the donkey, and she sat down under the tree. Joseph hung a lighted lantern, which he carried with him, on the lower branches of the tree. (I often saw travelers in that country do this at night.) The Blessed Virgin prayed earnestly to God that He would not suffer her to take harm from the cold. At once she was filled with so great a warmth that she held out her hands to St. Joseph to warm his. They refreshed themselves here with fruit and little loaves of bread which they had with them, and drank water from the spring near by, mixing it with balsam which Joseph had brought with him in a little jug. Joseph spoke very comfortingly to the Blessed Virgin: he is so good, and so sorry that the journey is so difficult. When the Blessed Virgin complained of the cold, he spoke to her about the good lodging which he hoped to find for her in Bethlehem. He said he knew of a house with very good people where they would find a comfortable lodging at very little cost. It was, he said, better to pay something than to be taken in for nothing. He spoke highly of Bethlehem in general, and comforted the Blessed Virgin in every possible way. (This upset me, because I knew well that things would turn out quite differently. Even this holy man, you see, indulged in human hopes.) So far they have crossed two little streams in the course of their journey: one of these they crossed on a high foot-way, while the two donkeys waded through the water. It was strange to see how the young she-ass, who was free to go where she would, kept running round the travelers. Where the path narrowed, as for instance between hills, and so could not be mistaken, she ran sometimes before and sometimes behind them, but where there was a parting of the ways she always appeared again and took the right path. Where they were to rest, she stood still, as here by the terebinth tree. I do not remember whether they spent the night under the tree, or whether they went on to another shelter. This terebinth was a very old and sacred tree, of the grove of Moreh near Shechem. When Abraham was journeying into the land of Canaan, he had here a vision of God, who promised him this land for his descendants. ( Gen. 15.) He then built an altar under the terebinth. Before Jacob went to Bethel, to sacrifice to the Lord, he buried under this terebinth all the strange gods of Laban and the jewels which his family carried with him. ( Gen. 35.4.) Under this tree Joshua built the tabernacle for the Ark of the Covenant and made the people assembled there renounce their idols. ( Joshua 24.26.) It was here that Abimelech, the son of Gideon, was hailed as king of the Shechemites. ( Judges 9.6.) 5.3 TWO HOURS SOUTH OF THE TEREBINTH TREE. THEY REST IN AN EMPTY SHED. [November 16 ^th:] I saw the Holy Family spending the whole day here and praying together. I saw the mistress of the house and her three children with the Blessed Virgin, and the farmer's wife of the day before also came with her two children and paid the Blessed Virgin a visit. There was real intimacy among them as they sat together, and the two women were greatly impressed by Mary's wisdom and modest behavior. They listened with great attention to the Blessed Virgin, who talked much with the children and taught them. The children had little parchment rolls from which Mary made them read to her. She spoke to them in such a lovely way about what they read that they could not take their eyes off her. It was sweet to see and sweeter still to hear. In the afternoon I saw St. Joseph walking about with the innkeeper in the country round, looking at the gardens and fields, and talking of holy things, as I saw was always the Sabbath practice of devout people in that land. They remained here for the following night as well. 5.5 THEY TRAVEL FURTHER SOUTH-EAST. THEY SEE THE TEMPLE ON MOUNT GARIZIM. [Sunday, November 18 ^th:] The good people of this inn have become extremely fond of the Blessed Virgin, and have an intense sympathy with her and with her condition. They begged her in the most friendly way to stay and await her confinement here. They even showed her a comfortable room which they would make ready for her. The woman offered her, with all her heart, to care for her and look after her in every way. However, they started again on their journey early in the morning, and went down a valley on the south-eastern side of the mountains. They went farther away from Samaria, towards which the first part of their journey seemed to be directed. As they descended the hill, they could see the temple on Mount Garizim, which is visible from a great distance. There are many figures of lions or other animals on the roof which gleam white in the sunshine. I saw them traveling about six hours today, and towards evening I saw them arrive at a large shepherd's house in a field, where they were well received. This was about an hour's journey to the south-east of Shechem. The man of the house was a steward of the orchards and fields belonging to the neighboring town. The house was not right down in the plain, but on a slope. All the country here was better and more fertile than during the first part of their journey, for this was the sunny side, and in the Promised Land at this time of year that makes a considerable difference. Between here and Bethlehem lay many other shepherds' dwellings, scattered about in the intersecting valleys. The people here belonged to those shepherds whose daughters later married some of the followers of the three holy kings who remained behind when their masters left. From one of these marriages came a boy who was healed by Our Lord in this house at the Blessed Virgin's request in the second year of His ministry, on July 31 ^st (the 7 ^th day of the month Ab) after He had talked with the Samaritan woman. Jesus took him with two other youths as companions on His journey to Arabia, after the raising of Lazarus, and afterwards he became a disciple. Jesus often stayed here and taught. There were children in the house, and Joseph blessed them before he went away. [November 19 ^th:] Today I saw them traveling in more level country. The Blessed Virgin sometimes goes on foot. They often stop to rest and refresh themselves. They have little loaves with them, and a drink which is both cooling and strengthening. This is contained in delicately made little jugs shining like bronze, with two ears. It is balsam, which they mix with water. They sometimes pick berries and fruits which may still be found hanging in sunny places on the trees and bushes. Mary's saddle on the donkey has a foot-rest hanging on each side, so that her feet do not hang down as is usual in our country. She sits sometimes to the right and sometimes to the left of the pack-donkey, which moves very quietly and evenly. Joseph's first action, whenever they rest by the way or stop for the night, is to make ready a comfortable place for the Blessed Virgin to sit and rest. He often washes his feet, and Mary does the same. They have the habit of washing often. It was already dark when they came to a house standing by itself. Joseph knocked at the door and asked for lodging. The master of the house refused, however, to open, and when Joseph explained Mary's condition and said that she could go no farther, adding that he was not asking for lodging without payment, the hard-hearted man retorted angrily that his house was not an inn, and that he wanted to be left alone and not disturbed by knocking, which he could not bear. He told Joseph to go on his way, and was so relentless that he did not even open the door, but shouted his harsh words from behind it. So they went on a little way and turned into a shed where they found the she-ass standing. Joseph kindled a light and prepared a bed for the Blessed Virgin, with her help. He brought the pack-donkey in, too, and found some straw and fodder for him. They prayed, took some refreshment, and slept for a few hours. It must be about six hours' journey from the last inn to this place. They must be some twenty-six hours from Nazareth and ten from Jerusalem. Until now they have not taken any high-roads, but have cut across several trade-roads leading from the Jordan to Samaria and running into the highways which go from Syria to Egypt. The by-roads which they took are very small, and in the mountains sometimes so narrow that a man must pick his way very carefully so as not to stumble. The donkeys, however, are very sure-footed. Their shelter here was on level ground. 5.6 BETWEEN SAMARIA AND JUDEA. THE FRUITLESS FIG TREE NORTH-EAST OF BETHANY. [November 20 ^th:] The day had not yet broken when they left this place. Their way led uphill again. I think they were near the road leading from Gabara [95] to Jerusalem and that the frontier between Samaria and Judea was here. They were again roughly refused admission at another house. When they were several hours north-east of Bethany, it happened that Mary was greatly in need of rest and refreshment; so Joseph turned off the road for about half an hour to a place where he knew there was a beautiful fig tree, which as a rule was full of fruit. This tree had benches round it for people to rest on. Joseph knew it from a former journey. When, however, they got there, they found no fruit at all on the tree, which distressed them very much. I have a dim recollection that afterwards Jesus had something to do with this tree. It never bore fruit any more, but was green, and I think that the Lord cursed it as He passed by when escaping from Jerusalem and that it withered away. [96] After this they came to a house where the man was at first very harsh to Joseph when he humbly asked him for lodging. He shone his light onto the Blessed Virgin's face and scoffed at Joseph for taking so young a woman about with him; he was, he supposed, jealous. The woman of the house then came up and took pity on the Blessed Virgin, showing her a room in a side-building in a very friendly way, and bringing little loaves of bread for them to eat. The man, too, was sorry for his rudeness, and became very friendly towards the holy travelers. After this they came to a third house. It was inhabited by young people, but I saw an old man with a stick walking about in it. Their reception here was tolerably good but not particularly friendly. Nobody took much trouble about them. The people here were not real simple shepherds; they were like rich peasants with us who are more or less entangled in the world and in trade and so on. Jesus visited one of these houses on October 20 ^th (the first day of the month Tisri) after His Baptism, and found the resting-place of His parents decorated and used as a praying-place. I am not sure whether it was the one where the man had at first jeered at Joseph. I have a dim remembrance that the people there had arranged it like this immediately after the wonders accompanying His Birth. Towards the end of their road Joseph made many halts, for the journey grew more and more difficult for the Blessed Virgin. They followed the way taken by the she-ass, and made a day and a half's detour eastwards of Jerusalem. Joseph's father had owned pastureland round here, so he knew the country very well. If they had traveled due south, across the desert behind Bethany, they would probably have reached Bethlehem in six hours, but that way was hilly and at that time of year very difficult; so the she-ass led them through valleys which brought them nearer to the Jordan. 5.7 THEY STOP AT A SHEPHERD'S LARGE HOUSE. [November 21 ^st:] Today I saw the holy travelers entering a big shepherd's house while it was still full day. This must be about three hours from John's baptizing place on the Jordan and about seven hours from Bethlehem. It is the same house in which thirty years later Jesus spent the night of October 11 ^th before the morning on which he passed near the Baptist for the first time after His Baptism. Near the house, and apart from it, was a shed in which were kept the agricultural implements and the shepherd's things. In the court was a fountain with baths round it, supplied with water from the fountain by pipes. The master of the house must have owned much land; it was a large establishment. I saw many menservants coming and going and having their meals there. The master of the house received the travelers in a very friendly way and was very ready to help. They were shown a comfortable room, and their pack-donkey was well looked after. A manservant was told to wash Joseph's feet at the fountain and to give him other clothes while his own were cleaned from dust and smoothed out. A maid did the same for the Blessed Virgin. They ate and slept here. The mistress of the house was rather perverse in character. She lived in a separate room and kept herself apart. She had surreptitiously examined the travelers, and as she was young and vain she was vexed by the beauty of the Blessed Virgin: she was also afraid that Mary might appeal to her to let her stay and be confined there, so she kept away in a hostile spirit and insisted that they should leave the next day. (This is the same woman whom Jesus found there in this house, blind and crippled, thirty years later on October 11 ^th, after His Baptism. After reproaching her for her inhospitality and vanity, He healed her.) There were also children in the house. The Holy Family spent the night here. 5.8 A HOUSE OWNED BY JOSEPH'S RELATIVES. THEY STAY AT AN INN CONDUCTING A FUNERAL. [November 22 ^nd:] I saw the Holy Family leaving their place of shelter about midday. Some of the inmates of the house accompanied them for part of their way. After a short journey of about two hours westward they came to a place where scattered houses, with gardens and forecourts, stand in a long row on either side of a main road. Some relations of Joseph's lived here. They were, as far as I remember, sons by a second marriage of a stepfather or stepmother. I saw the house; it had a good situation and was quite large. They went, however, right through this place, and then turned right for half an hour, in the direction of Jerusalem, until they reached a large inn, in the court of which there was a big fountain with many pipes. A large company was assembled here, attending a funeral. The interior of the house, in the center of which was the fireplace and its chimney, had been made into one large ball by the removal of the low wooden screens which at other times divided it into separate rooms. Black curtains hung behind the hearth, in front of which stood a veiled black object like a coffin. A large assembly of men were praying round it. They wore long black garments with short white ones over them, and some had black fringed maniples hanging on one arm. In another room women completely veiled were sitting on the floor in low boxes and mourning. The owners of the inn themselves, who were busy with the funeral, welcomed the travelers only from a distance. The servants of the house, however, gave them a very friendly reception and showed them every attention. A separate lodging was prepared for them by letting down mats which had been rolled up to the ceiling, so that they were in a kind of tent. There were many beds in this house rolled up against the wall, and mats could be let down to make many separate cells. Afterwards I saw the people of the house visiting the Holy Family and conversing with them in a friendly manner. They no longer wore the white garments over their black' ones. After Joseph and Mary had refreshed themselves and taken a little food, they prayed together and retired to rest. 5.9 THE LAST STRETCH OF ROAD TOWARDS BETHLEHEM. THE GOODWILL OF THE INN OWNERS. [November 23 ^rd:] Joseph and Mary left here for Bethlehem about midday. They still had some three hours' journey before them. The mistress of the house urged them to stay where they were, for, she said, it seemed to her that Mary might be delivered at any moment. Mary, however, dropping her veil, said that she had still thirty-six hours before her. (I am not sure that she did not say thirty-eight.) The woman was very anxious to keep her, not in the house itself, but in another building. As they left, I saw Joseph talking to the innkeeper about his donkeys. He spoke very highly of them, and said he had brought the she-ass with him in order to pawn her in case of necessity. When the people of the house spoke of the difficulty of finding lodging in Bethlehem, Joseph said he had friends there and would certainly be well received. (It makes me always so sorry when he talks so certainly of being well received. He talked to Mary in that way, too, as they went along. One sees by this that even such holy people can be mistaken.) 6. THE ARRIVAL OF THE HOLY FAMILY IN BETHLEHEM. The journey from the last inn to Bethlehem must have taken about three hours. They made a circuit round the north side of Bethlehem and approached the town from the west. They made a halt under a tree some little way off the road. Mary alighted from the donkey and arranged her clothing, after which Joseph went with her to a large building a few minutes outside Bethlehem, surrounded by courtyards and other small buildings. There were trees in front of it, and round about it were crowds encamped in tents. This was the old ancestral house of David and once Joseph's family home. Relations or acquaintances of Joseph's still lived there, but they treated him as a stranger and as a person whom they did not want to know. This house was now being used for the receipt of the money from the Roman taxation. Joseph, leading the donkey by the bridle, went at once to this house with the Blessed Virgin, because every new arrival had to report himself here and was given a paper, without which he could not be admitted into Bethlehem. [After several pauses Catherine Emmerich spoke as follows in her visionary state:] The young she-ass that runs free has not gone with them here, she has run off round the outside of the town towards the south, where it is flatter and there is a sort of open valley. Joseph has gone into the house. Mary is with some women in a little house beside the courtyard: they are very friendly to her and are giving her some food. These women are cooking for the soldiers. They are Roman soldiers, with strips of leather hanging round their loins. The weather here is very pleasant and not at all cold. The hill between Jerusalem and Bethany is in full sunshine; one has a fine view of it from here. Joseph is in a big room with an uneven floor. They are asking him who he is and are referring to long scrolls of which a great many are hanging on the walls. They unroll them and read aloud to him his ancestry and also Mary's: he did not seem to know that she also descended so directly from David through Joachim; he himself descended from an earlier offspring of David's. The man asks him: `Where is your wife?' Owing to many disorders the people of the country have not been properly registered for seven years. [97] I see the figures V and II, making seven [she forms this figure with her fingers]. This taxation has been going on for several months. Some payments were made here and there during those seven years, but nothing regular. The people were made to pay twice over. Some of them stayed here for as long as three months. Joseph came rather late to the tax office, but was treated in quite a friendly way. He has not paid anything yet, but was asked about his means, and stated that he had no land and lived by his handicraft and from the assistance given him by his wife's mother. There are a great number of scribes and high officials in many of the rooms. On the upper floors are Romans and many soldiers. There are also present Pharisees and Sadducees, priests, elders and every kind of official and scribe, both Jewish and Roman. There is no such commission in Jerusalem, but they are established in several other places, such as Magdala on the sea of Galilee, where the inhabitants of Galilee are taxed, and also those of Sidon, I think because of their commercial dealings. Only the people who are not resident anywhere and have no land on which they can be taxed have to present themselves at their birthplace. From now on the tax has to be paid in three months in three installments. Each of these three installments goes to a different object. The first is shared by the Emperor Augustus, Herod, and another king who lives near Egypt. He has rendered some service in war and has a right to a district up in the north, so they have to apportion something to him. The second installment has to do with the building of the Temple; it seems as if it were used to pay off a debt. The third installment is intended for widows and poor people, who have had nothing for a long time, but of all this little reaches the right people, just as happens today. The money is meant for nothing but good causes, and yet remains in the hands of the great. All this business of writing made a terrible fuss and commotion. Joseph was now allowed to go, and when he got downstairs the Blessed Virgin was called before the scribes in a passage, but they did not read anything aloud to her. They told Joseph that it was unnecessary for him to have brought his wife with him, and seemed to be bantering him on account of her youth. Joseph was ashamed of this being said before Mary; he was afraid she might think that he was not respected in his birthplace. 7. SEEKING LODGING IN BETHLEHEM. After this they went on into Bethlehem, the buildings of which were at some distance from each other. The entrance was through ruined walls as if the gate had been destroyed. Mary remained with the donkey at the very entrance of the street while Joseph sought a lodging in the nearest houses--in vain, for Bethlehem was full of strangers, all running from place to place. Joseph returned to Mary, saying that as no shelter was to be found there, they would go on farther into the town. He led the donkey on by the bridle, and the Blessed Virgin walked beside him. When they came to the beginning of another street, Mary again stopped by the donkey, and Joseph again went from house to house in vain seeking a lodging, and again came sadly back. This happened several times, and the Blessed Virgin often had long to wait. Everywhere the houses were filled with people, everywhere he was turned away, so he said to Mary that they would go to another part of Bethlehem where they would surely find lodging. They went a little way back in the direction in which they had come and then turned southwards. They went hesitatingly through the street, which was more like a country road, for the houses were built on slopes. Here, too, their search was fruitless. On the other side of Bethlehem, where the houses lie farther apart, they came to a lower-lying open space, like a field, where it was more solitary. There was a sort of shed here and, not far from it, a great spreading tree, with shady branches like a big lime-tree. The trunk was smooth and the spreading branches made a kind of roof. Joseph led the Blessed Virgin to this tree, and made her a comfortable seat against its trunk with their bundles, so that she might rest while he sought for shelter in the houses near. The donkey stood with its head turned towards the tree. At first Mary stood upright, leaning against the tree. Her ample white woolen dress had no girdle and hung round her in folds: her head was covered with a white veil. Many people passed by and looked at her, not knowing that the Redeemer was so near to them. She was so patient, so humble, so full of hopeful expectation. Ah, she had to wait a long, long time; she sat down at last on the rug, crossing her feet under her. She sat with her head bent and her hands crossed below her breast. Joseph came back to her in great distress; he had found no shelter. His friends, of whom he had spoken to the Blessed Virgin, would hardly recognize him. He was in tears and Mary comforted him. He went once more from one house to another; but as he gave the approaching confinement of his wife as his chief reason for his request, he met with even more decided refusals. Although the place was solitary, the passersby at last began to stand still and look curiously at the Blessed Virgin from a distance, as one may well do if one sees somebody waiting in the dusk for a long time. I think some of them even spoke to her, asking her who she was. At last Joseph came back. He was so upset that he came up hesitatingly. He said he had had no success, but he knew of one place outside the town, belonging to the shepherds, who often went there when coming with their flocks to the town. There they would, in any case, find a shelter. He said that he knew the place from childhood; when his brothers had tormented him, he had often escaped there to hide from them and to say his prayers. Even if the shepherds did come there, he would easily come to an understanding with them; but at this time of year they were seldom there. As soon as he had settled her there in peace and quiet, he would look round again for something else. They then went outside Bethlehem to the east of the town by a lonely footpath, going to the left. It was like a path along the ruined walls, ditches, and banks of some little town. At first, the path ascended slightly, and then, descended after crossing a hill. On the east of the town, a few minutes outside it, they came to a hill or high bank, in front of which was an open space made pleasant by several trees. There were pine-trees (cedar or terebinth) and other trees with small leaves like our box-trees. The place was such as one might find right at the end of the old ramparts of some little town. [In order to avoid continually interrupting the narrative, we will here describe as fully as possible the surroundings of this hill and the interior of the Cave of the Nativity according to the repeated accounts given by Catherine Emmerich.] 8. DESCRIPTION OF THE CAVE OF THE NATIVITY AND ITS SURROUNDINGS. [From the following description, we have constructed a floor plan of the room of the Cave of the Nativity. Please refer to Figure 12.] Among many other different grottoes or cave-dwellings there was, at the south end of this hill, round which the road wound its way to the Shepherd's Valley, the cave in which Joseph sought shelter for the Blessed Virgin. From the west the entrance [Figure 12, part 1] led eastwards into the hill through a narrow passage into a larger chamber, half semicircular and half triangular. The walls of the cave were of the natural rock, and only on the south side, which was encircled by the road to the shepherd's valley, was it completed by a little rough masonry. On this south side was another entrance [Figure 12, part 5] into the cave, but this was generally blocked up, and Joseph had to clear it before he could use it. If you came out of this entrance and turned to the left, you came upon a wider entrance into a lower vault [Figure 12, part 11], narrow and inconvenient, which stretched under the Cave of the Nativity. From the ordinary entrance to the cave, which faced westwards, one could see nothing but a few roofs and towers of Bethlehem. If you turned to the right upon exiting this entrance, you came to the entrance of a lower cave [Figure 12, part 12], which was dark and was at one time the hiding-place of the Blessed Virgin. In front of the main entrance, supported on posts, there was a light roof of reeds [Figure12, part 13], extending round the south of the cave to the entrance on that side, so that one could sit in front of the cave in shade. On the south side there were, high up, three openings for light and air, closed by gratings fixed in masonry. There was a similar opening in the roof of the cave. This roof, which was covered with turf, formed the extremity of the ridge on which Bethlehem stood. Figure 12. The Cave of the Nativity. 1. Cave entrance. 2. Sectioned-off bedroom of Saint Joseph. 3. A side cave. 4. Fireplace. 5. Southern side-entrance. 6. Location of the donkey. 7. Fodder storage. 8. Birthplace of Our Redeemer Jesus. 9. Where the three holy kings worshipped Jesus. 10. Location of the crib. 11. Entrance to an adjacent cave. 12. Another cave. 13. Reed roof on posts. From the west one came through a light wickerwork door into a moderately broad passage opening into a chamber which was partly angular and partly semicircular. Towards the south it broadened out considerably, so that the ground-plan of the whole can be compared to a head resting on its neck. As you came out of the neck of the cave, whose roof was lower, into the higher part of the cave with its natural vaulting, you stepped down to a lower level. The floor of the whole cave was, however, higher at the sides, round which ran a low stone bench of varying breadth. The walls of the cave, as nature had made them, were, though not quite smooth, clean and pleasant and had something attractive about them. I liked them better than the rough, clumsy masonry which had been added on, for instance on the upper part of the south wall of the entrance, where three openings for light and air had been made. In the center of the roof of the cave there was another opening, and, if I remember rightly, I saw besides this three slanting holes piercing the upper part of the cave at intervals from south to east. From the north side of the passage an entrance led into a smaller side-cave [Figure 12, part 3]. Passing this entrance you came upon the place where Joseph lit his fire [Figure 12, part 4]. After that the wall turned northeast into the higher and bigger cave, and it was here that Joseph's pack-donkey stood [Figure 12, part 6], by the broad part of the stone bench which ran round its walls. Behind this, in the thickness of the rock wall to the north, was a small chamber [Figure 12, part 7] just big enough to hold the donkey and containing fodder. The wall of the cave then turned south-east, encircling the chamber (which grew broader towards the south) and finally turned north to end at the main entrance. The Blessed Virgin was in the eastern part of this cave [Figure 12, part 8], exactly opposite the entrance, when she gave birth to the Light of the World. The crib [Figure 12, part 10] in which the child Jesus was laid stood on the west side of the southern and more roomy part of the cave. This crib was a hollowed-out stone trough lying on the ground and used for cattle to drink from. Over it stood a longish, rectangular manger or rack, narrower below, and broader above, made of wooden lattice-work, and raised on four feet, so that the beasts could comfortably eat the hay or grass in the rack and lower their heads to drink the water in the trough beneath. When the three holy kings presented their gifts, the Blessed Virgin was sitting with the child Jesus opposite the crib on the eastern side of this part of the cave [Figure 12, part 9]. From the place where the crib is, if you go out of the cave in a westerly direction into the so-called neck of the cave, you come first of all, following the southern wall, to the southern entrance mentioned above and later opened by Joseph, and then arrive at St. Joseph's own room [Figure 12, part 2], which he later partitioned off on the south side by wicker screens in this passage. On this side there was a hollow in the wall where he put away all kinds of things. The road to the Shepherds' Valley ran past the south side of the cave. Here and there were little houses standing on hills, and scattered about in the fields were sheds thatched with reeds on four, six, or eight posts, with wicker walls. Towards the east of the cave the ground fell into a closed valley shut off on the north side and about a quarter of an hour's journey wide. Its slopes were covered with bushes, trees, and gardens. If one walked through the tall luxuriant grass in the meadow, watered by a spring, and through the trees planted in rows, one came to the eastern ridge of this valley. By following this very pleasant path in a south-easterly direction from the Cave of the Nativity, one came to a projecting spur of the ridge containing the rock-tomb of Maraha, [98] the nurse of Abraham, which was called the Milk Cave or the Sucklings' Cave. The Blessed Virgin came here several times with the child Jesus. Above this cave was a great tree with seats in it, and from here one had a much better view of Bethlehem than from the Cave of the Nativity. I was told much that had happened in the Cave of the Nativity of symbolical and prophetical significance in Old Testament times, but can only remember that Seth, the child of promise, was here conceived and born by Eve after a seven years' penance. She was told here by an angel that this seed was given by God in place of Abel. Seth was hidden and suckled by his mother in this cave and in Maraha's cave, for his brothers were hostile to him just as Jacob's sons were to Joseph. In these caves, inhabited by men in earlier times, I have often seen places hollowed out by them in the rock in which they and their children could sleep in comfort on skins or grass. So perhaps the hollow in the stone bench beneath the crib may have been a sleeping place of Seth's or of a later inmate. But I cannot say this for certain now. I also remember from my visions of the ministry of Jesus that the Lord, on October 6 ^th, after His Baptism, was keeping the Sabbath in the Cave of the Nativity, which had been made into a place of prayer by the shepherds, and that He told the shepherds that His Heavenly Father had appointed this as the place of His Birth as soon as Mary had conceived. 9. THE BURIAL CAVE OF MARAHA, ABRAHAM'S NURSE, ALSO CALLED THE CAVE OF THE SUCKLINGS. Abraham had a nurse, Maraha, whom he greatly revered; she lived to a great age and he always took her on his journeys, riding on a camel. She lived with him for a long time in Succoth. Afterwards, towards the end of her life, she was here in the Shepherds' Valley, where he had his tents near to this cave. When she was more than a hundred years old and her death was at hand, she asked Abraham to bury her in this cave, prophesying about it and naming it the Cave of Milk or the Cave of the Sucklings. Some miracle, which I have forgotten, happened here, and a spring of water burst forth. The cave was then a high narrow passage of a white and not very hard substance. A mound of this blocked up part of the passage but did not reach to the roof. If one climbed over this mound, one came to the entrances of other caves higher up. There were also several deep passages running into the hill under the cave. Later it was enlarged. Abraham made Maraha's tomb out of the mound lying in the passage. Below was a massive block of stone on which rested a kind of heavy stone trough on short thick feet. The trough had a jagged top. One could see between the trough and the block under it. I was surprised to see nothing of it at the time of Jesus' Birth. This cave with the nurse's tomb was symbolically prophetic of the Mother of the Savior giving suck to her child while pursued by enemies; for in Abraham's youth a symbolically prophetic persecution took place, and his nurse saved his life by hiding him in a cave. As far as I can remember, the king in Abraham's country had a dream or was told by prophecy about a child to be born who would become a danger to him. The king took measures to prevent this. Abraham's mother concealed her pregnancy and gave birth to him in secret in a cave. Maraha, the nurse, suckled him in secret. She lived as though she were a poor slave, and worked in a wilderness near the cave in which she suckled the child Abraham. Afterwards his parents took him back, and on account of his being unusually big he was thought to have been born before that prophecy. However, when he was a boy, he was again in danger as the result of some supernatural utterances, and the nurse again saved him by hiding him away. I saw her carrying him off in secret, tied to her waist under her big cloak. Many children of his size were murdered at that time. This cave had been a place of devotion since Abraham's time, particularly for mothers and their babies. This was prophetic, for the reverence paid to Abraham's nurse was symbolic of that paid to the Blessed Virgin. In the same way Elijah had seen the Blessed Virgin in the rain-bearing cloud, and had made a place of prayer in her honor on Mount Carmel [see p. 28 ]. Maraha had contributed to the coming of the Messiah by nourishing with her milk the ancestor of the Blessed Virgin. I cannot, alas, explain it rightly, but it was like a deep spring of water running through the whole of life and always being replenished, until there burst forth from it the clear stream of Our Blessed Lady. [This was the expression used by Catherine Emmerich in her state of ecstatic sleep.] The tree which stood beside this cave was like a great lime-tree, with big shady branches. It was a terebinth, pointed at the top and broad below. It had white seeds, which were oily and could be eaten. Abraham met Melchizedek under this tree, but I cannot remember on what occasion. Joseph enlarged the cave still more and closed the passages leading downwards from it. The tree stands on a hill; beneath it is a door, set at a slant, leading into a passage or kind of vestibule where another door, set straight, opens into the tomb-cave itself. The latter is round rather than square. The shepherds often used the passage to shelter in. This big old tree cast a wide shadow. It was regarded as sacred by the shepherds and others in the neighborhood, and also by devout travelers. It was the custom to rest and pray there. I do not remember the history of the tree, but it had some connection with Abraham: he may perhaps have planted it. Near it was a fireplace which could be covered over, and there was also a spring in front of the tree, from which the shepherds used at certain times to draw water supposed to have a special healing property. On each side of the tree there were open huts to sleep in. It was all surrounded by a fence. [While Catherine Emmerich was recounting this, she was in great pain; and when the writer said to her, `So this was a terebinth tree?' she answered in sudden absence of mind: `Tenebrae, not Terebinth, under the shadow of Your Wings, that is a wing--Tenebrae--under Your Shadow will I rejoice.' The writer did not understand the significance of these words. Perhaps she was applying the words of the Psalm to the tree. She spoke with great intensity of feeling and seemed to be comforting herself with these words.] St. Helena built a church here and Mass has been said here: I think it seemed to be in a chapel dedicated to St. Nicholas. 10. THE HOLY FAMILY MOVES INTO THE CAVE OF THE NATIVITY. [November 23 ^rd:] The sun was already low when they reached the entrance of the cave. The young she-ass, which had left them at Joseph's ancestral house to run round the outside of the town, met them as soon as they arrived here and gamboled joyfully round them. `Look,' said the Blessed Virgin to Joseph, `it is certainly the will of God that we should go in here.' Joseph was, however, very distressed and secretly ashamed at having spoken so often of their good reception in Bethlehem. He put the pack-donkey under the shelter by the entrance of the cave and prepared a place for the Blessed Virgin to rest there while he kindled a light, opened the wickerwork door of the cave, and went into it. The passage into the cave was narrow, for it was full of bundles of straw like rushes, stacked against the walls with brown mats hanging over them. Behind, the cave itself was encumbered with a quantity of things. Joseph cleared out as much as was necessary to make a comfortable resting-place for the Blessed Virgin at the eastern end of the cave. Then he fastened a burning lamp in the wall of the dark cave and led the Blessed Virgin in. She sat down on the couch of rugs and bundles which he had prepared. He apologized most humbly for the poorness of the shelter, but Mary was joyful and contented in her inmost spirit. As she rested there, Joseph hurried with a skin which he had brought with him into the valley-meadow behind the hill, where there was a tiny brook. He fastened the skin with two pegs under the spring so that the water had to run into it, and then brought it back to the cave. Then he went to the town and fetched little bowls, some fruit, and bundles of twigs. The Sabbath was approaching, and because of the many strangers in the town, who were in urgent need of all kinds of things, tables had been set up at the street corners where indispensable necessities could be bought at reduced prices. Those who sold were menservants or people who were not Jews. I cannot quite remember about this. Joseph came back bringing burning coals in a sort of closed metal basket with a handle like a stalk under it. He emptied these out by the entrance to the cave on the northern side and made a little fire. He had the fire-basket and other small utensils with him on the journey. The bundle of wood was of thin sticks neatly tied together with broad rushes. Joseph then prepared a meal: it consisted of a kind of porridge made from yellow grains and a cooked fruit, thick, and when opened for eating, full of seeds. There were also little flat loaves of bread. After they had eaten and prayed, Joseph prepared a sleeping place for the Blessed Virgin. He first made a mattress of rushes, and then spread on it a coverlet of the kind I have described as having been prepared in Anna's house. At the head he put a rolled-up rug. After bringing in the pack-donkey and tying him up out of the way, he closed the openings in the roof to keep out the draught, and then prepared his own sleeping place in the entrance. As the Sabbath had now begun, he stood with the Blessed Virgin under the lamp, reciting the Sabbath prayers with her, after which they ate their little meal in a spirit of great piety. Joseph then left the cave and went into the town, while Mary wrapped herself up to lie down to rest. During Joseph's absence I saw for the first time the Blessed Virgin kneeling in prayer. She knelt on her couch, and then lay down on the coverlet on her side. Her head rested on her arm, which lay on the pillow. Joseph did not come back till late. He was distressed and I think he wept. He prayed and then lay down meekly on his couch at the entrance of the cave. 11. MARY CONCLUDES THE SABBATH IN THE BURIAL CAVE OF MARAHA. [Sunday, November 24 ^th: Catherine Emmerich was very ill today and could communicate only the little that follows:] The Blessed Virgin spent the Sabbath in the Cave of the Nativity in prayer and meditation and in great spiritual fervor. Joseph went out several times, probably to the synagogue in Bethlehem. I saw them sharing the food which had been prepared the day before, and praying together. In the afternoon of the Sabbath, when it is the Jewish custom to go for a walk, Joseph took the Blessed Virgin through the valley behind the cave to the tomb of Maraha, Abraham's nurse. They spent some time in this cave, which was roomier than the Cave of the Nativity, and in which Joseph had prepared a place for the Blessed Virgin to sit. The rest of the time they spent under the sacred tree near it, in prayer and meditation, until some time after the close of the Sabbath, when Joseph took her back again. Mary had told St. Joseph that tonight at midnight would be the hour of the child's birth, for then the nine months since the Annunciation would have been completed. She begged him to do all that was possible on his part so that they might show as much honor as they could to the child promised by God and supernaturally conceived. She asked him, too, to join with her in praying for the hard-hearted people who had refused to give them shelter. Joseph suggested to the Blessed Virgin that he should summon to her assistance some pious women whom he knew in Bethlehem. She declined, however, saying that she needed no human help. Just before the close of the Sabbath Joseph went into Bethlehem, and as soon as the sun had set, he quickly bought a few necessary things--a stool, a little low table, a few little bowls, and some dried fruit and grapes. With them he hurried back to the cave and then to the tomb of Maraha, and took the Blessed Virgin back to the Cave of the Nativity, where she lay down on her couch in the easternmost corner. Joseph prepared some more food, and they ate and prayed together. He then completely divided off his sleeping place from the rest of the cave by surrounding it with posts and hanging on them mats which he had found in the cave. He fed the donkey, which was standing to the left of the entrance against the wall of the cave; then he filled the manger above the crib with rushes and fine grass or moss, and spread a covering over it which hung down over the edge. On the Blessed Virgin telling him that her time was drawing near and that he was to retire into his room and pray, he hung up some more burning lamps in the cave and went out, as he had heard a noise outside. Here he found the young she-ass, who until now had been wandering about loose in the valley of the shepherds. She came joyfully running up and gamboled round him. He tied her up under the shelter before the cave and strewed fodder before her. When Joseph came back into the cave and stood at the entrance to his sleeping place looking towards the Blessed Virgin, he saw her with her face turned towards the east, kneeling on the bed facing away from him. He saw her as it were surrounded by flames, the whole cave was as if filled with supernatural light. He gazed at her like Moses when he saw the burning bush; then he went into his little cell in holy awe and threw himself on his face in prayer. __________________________________________________________________ [90] This chapter represents the journey of Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem for the enrolment: Luke 2.5-6. (SB) [91] AC several times explains that Joseph only lived a short time at Nazareth in the house provided by Anna, and did not at first intend to remain there. This intention throws light on Matt. 2.23, from which it would appear that he deliberately chose Nazareth as a dwelling-place on his return from Egypt, the alternative being the plan (explained by AC) of settling at Bethlehem, his birthplace. This plan he deliberately rejected, since Bethlehem was in Judea and `he was afraid to go there' ( Matt. 2.22) because of Archelaus. (SB) [92] The Field of Chimki is identified by AC (infra, p. 79 ) with Ginim; see next note. (SB) [93] The Field of Ginim, six hours from Nazareth, is presumably Engannim or Ginaea, the modern Jenin, eighteen miles south of Nazareth, near the corner of the Plain of Esdrelon. Engannim is mentioned in Jos. 15.34 and 19.19 and is probably to be identified with Beth-haggan (Douay `the garden house') of IV Kings 9.27. Cf. Cath. Comm., 275i. (SB) [94] This would refer to the foothills to the west of Mount Gilboa. (SB) [95] Gabara is in Galilee, north of Nazareth. (SB) [96] Catherine Emmerich was so exceedingly ill from Nov. 19th to 21st that when she recounted these events on Nov. 22nd she could not give the exact situation of this tree, but could only say that it was somewhere near the path of the Holy Family. It is in any case not the cursed fig tree mentioned in the Gospels. (CB) The barren fig tree of Matt. 21.19 and Mark 11.13 stood between Bethany and Jerusalem. (SB) [97] The question of the successive registrations in the Roman Province of Syria is very intricate, together with the identification of the one in the year of Christ's birth; but there is evidence for censuses in Egypt and Gaul earlier in the reign of Augustus (cf. Cath. Comm., 749a). AC's reference (infra, p. 83 ) to the sharing of the revenue of the taxation remains entirely obscure. (SB) [98] Maraha, Abraham's nurse, is not known in any available document. (SB) __________________________________________________________________ XI. CHRIST'S BIRTH [99] I saw the radiance round the Blessed Virgin ever growing greater. The light of the lamps which Joseph had lit was no longer visible. The Blessed Virgin knelt on her rug in an ample ungirt robe spread out round her, her face turned towards the east. At midnight she was rapt in an ecstasy of prayer. I saw her lifted from the earth, so that I saw the ground beneath her. Her hands were crossed on her breast. The radiance about her increased; everything, even things without life, were in a joyful inner motion, the stones of the roof, of the walls, and of the floor of the cave became as it were alive in the light. Then I no longer saw the roof of the cave; a pathway of light opened above Mary, rising with ever-increasing glory towards the height of heaven. In this pathway of light there was a wonderful movement of glories interpenetrating each other, and, as they approached, appearing more clearly in the form of choirs of heavenly spirits. Meanwhile the Blessed Virgin, borne up in ecstasy, was now gazing downwards, adoring her God, whose Mother she had become and who lay on the earth before her in the form of a helpless newborn child. [100] I saw our Redeemer as a tiny child, shining with a light that overpowered all the surrounding radiance, and lying on the carpet at the Blessed Virgin's knees. It seemed to me as if He were at first quite small and then grew before my eyes. But the movement of the intense radiance was such that I cannot say for certain how I saw it. The Blessed Virgin remained for some time rapt in ecstasy. I saw her laying a cloth over the Child, but at first she did not touch Him or take Him up. After some time I saw the Child Jesus move and heard Him cry. Then Mary seemed to come to herself, and she took the Child up from the carpet, wrapping Him in the cloth which covered Him, and held Him in her arms to her breast. She sat there enveloping herself and the Child completely in her veil, and I think Mary suckled the Redeemer. I saw angels round her in human forms, lying on their faces and adoring the Child. It might have been an hour after His Birth when Mary called St. Joseph, who was still lying in prayer. When he came near, he threw himself down on his face in devout joy and humility. It was only when Mary begged him to take to his heart, in joy and thankfulness, the holy present of the Most High God, that he stood up, took the Child Jesus in his arms, and praised God with tears of joy. The Blessed Virgin then wrapped the Child Jesus in swaddling-bands. I cannot now remember how these bands were wound round; I only know that the Child was wrapped to His armpits first in red and then white bands, and that His head and shoulders were wrapped in another little cloth. Mary had only four sets of swaddling-bands with her. Then I saw Mary and Joseph sitting side by side on the bare earth with their feet under them. They did not speak, and seemed both to be sunk in meditation. On the carpet before Mary lay the newborn Jesus in swaddling clothes, a little Child, beautiful and radiant as lightning. Ah, I thought, this place enshrines the salvation of the whole world, and no one guesses it. Then they laid the Child in the manger, which was filled with rushes and delicate plants and covered with a cloth hanging over the sides. It stood above the stone trough lying on the ground, to the right of the entrance, where the cave makes a big curve towards the south. This part of the cave was at a lower level than the place where Our Lord was born: the floor slanted downwards in a step-like formation. After laying the Child in the crib, they both stood beside Him giving praise to God with tears of joy. Joseph then arranged the Blessed Virgin's resting-place and her seat beside the Crib. [See Figure 13.] Both before and after the Birth of Jesus, I saw her dressed in white and veiled. I saw her there in the first days after the Nativity, sitting, kneeling, standing, and sleeping on her side, wrapped up but in no way ill or exhausted. When people came to see her, she wrapped herself up more closely and sat upright on her lying-in coverlet. Figure 13. Mary's resting place beside the crib. 1. GREAT JOY IN NATURE. "GLORY TO GOD IN THE HIGHEST". In these pictures of Christ's Birth, which I see as an historical event and not as a Feast of the Church, I do not see such radiant and ecstatic joy in nature as I do on Christmas night when the vision that I see expresses an interior significance. Yet I saw in this vision an unwonted joy and an extraordinary movement at midnight in many places even to the uttermost parts of the earth. I saw the hearts of many good men filled with joyful yearning, while all the wicked were overcome by great fear. I saw many animals filled with joy; in some places I saw flowers, herbs, and shrubs shooting up, and trees drinking in refreshment and scattering sweet scents. I saw many springs of water gush forth and increase. In the night of the Savior's Birth, an abundant spring welled up in the cave in the hill to the north of the Cave of the Nativity. Next day St. Joseph captured it and made an outlet for it. The sky was dull over Bethlehem and had a dull reddish glow; but over the Cave of the Nativity and over the valley by Martha's tomb and the Shepherd's Valley lay a shining mist of dew. In the Shepherd's Valley there was a hill about an hour and a half's journey from the Cave of the Nativity, where the vineyards begin which stretch from there towards Gaza. On this hill were the huts of three shepherds who were the rulers of the shepherds' families in this region just as the three holy kings were rulers of the tribes belonging to them. About twice as far away from the Cave of the Nativity as this hill was the so-called Shepherds' Tower. [Please refer to Figure 14]. This was a very high pyramid-shaped erection of wooden beams, built among green trees on a base of big stones on a hill in the midst of the fields. It was surrounded by stairs and galleries, and in places there were little covered stands like watchtowers. It was all hung with mats. It resembled those tower-like edifices which were used in the land of the three holy kings to observe the stars at night; from the distance it looked like a tall many-masted ship under sail. One had from it a very wide view of the whole region; one saw Jerusalem, and also the Mount of Temptation in the desert of Jericho. The shepherds stationed men up there to watch the flocks as they moved about and to give warning of danger by blowing horns if they saw in the distance robbers or armed bands. The families of the various shepherds lived round the tower within a circle of some five hours in circumference; their farms were separate and surrounded by fields and gardens. The tower was their general meeting-place, as it was also for the watchers, who kept their belongings here and got their food from here. There were huts built on the slopes of the hill on which the tower stood, and separate from these there was a large shed, divided into many partitions, where the wives of the watchers lived and prepared food for them. Here by the tower I saw tonight some of the flocks and herds out in the open, but by the hill of the three shepherds I saw them in a shed. When Jesus was born, I saw the three shepherds standing together before their hut, marveling at the wonderful night. They looked about them, and were astonished to see a wonderful radiance over the place where the Cave of the Nativity was. I also saw the shepherds at the more distant tower in great commotion. I saw some of them climbing the tower and gazing at the strange radiance over the cave. As the three shepherds thus gazed up into the sky, I saw a cloud of light sinking down towards them. As it drew near, I perceived a movement in it, a changing and transformation into figures and forms, and I heard a song which gradually grew louder. It was sweet and gentle and yet clear and joyful. The shepherds were at first afraid, but forthwith an angel stood before them and spoke to them: `Fear not,' he said, `for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy that shall be to all the people; for this day is born to you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord, in the city of David. And this shall be a sign to you. You shall find the infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger.' While the angel was announcing this, the radiance round him increased, and I now saw five or seven beautiful great shining forms of angels standing before the shepherds. They were holding in their hands a long scroll on which was written something in letters as big as one's hand, and I heard them praising God and singing `Glory be to God in the highest: and on earth peace to men of goodwill'. The shepherds at the tower saw the same vision, but somewhat later. The angels also appeared to a third party of shepherds near a spring three hours from Bethlehem and to the east of the shepherd's tower. I did not see the shepherds hasten at once to the Cave of the Nativity, which was about an hour and a half distant from the three shepherds and twice as far from the tower. But, I saw them at once consulting together as to what they should bring as a present to the newborn Child and getting their gifts together with all speed. They did not arrive at the Crib until early in the morning. Figure 14. The Shepherds' Tower. 2. OCCURRENCES DURING THE BIRTH OF CHRIST IN DIFFERENT LOCATIONS. At the time that the Child Jesus was born my soul made countless journeys to all parts of the world, to see the wonderful happenings at the birth of Our Savior. As, however, I was very ill and tired, it often seemed to me as if the pictures came to me instead of I to them. I have seen countless events, but have forgotten most of them because of much suffering and many disturbances; all that I can remember are the following fragments. 3. REVELATIONS OF THE BIRTH TO THE KINSWOMEN AND FRIENDS OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN. I saw last night that Noemi, the teacher of the Blessed Virgin, and the prophetess Anna, and the aged Simeon in the Temple, and the Blessed Virgin's mother, Anna, in Nazareth, and Elizabeth in Juttah, all had visions and revelations about the birth of the Savior. I saw the child John, in Elizabeth's house, moved by wonderful joy. Though they all saw and recognized Mary in these visions, they did not know where the miracle had taken place, not even Elizabeth. Anna alone knew that Bethlehem was the place of salvation. 4. OCCURRENCES DURING THE BIRTH OF CHRIST IN JERUSALEM. Last night I saw a wonderful happening in the Temple. All the written scrolls of the Sadducees were several times hurled out of their shelves and strewn about the floor. This caused great alarm; they ascribed it to sorcery and paid much money to keep it secret. [She here recounted some obscure story about two sons of Herod's who were Sadducees and had been placed in the Temple by him [101] ; and how he was always engaged in some dispute or other with the Pharisees and was always trying by underhand means to obtain more power in the Temple.] 5. OCCURRENCES DURING THE BIRTH OF CHRIST IN ROME. I saw much in Rome last night, but of all the pictures I saw I have forgotten many and may easily have confused some of them. I will tell them as I remember them. When Jesus was born, I saw that in Rome, on the other side of the river, where many Jews lived [she here described not very clearly a place like a hill surrounded by water, forming a kind of peninsula], a spring as of oil burst forth and caused general astonishment. A magnificent idol of Jupiter also broke in pieces in a temple of which the whole roof fell in. They made sacrifices in great alarm, and asked another idol--of Venus, I think--what this signified, and received the answer (which must have been spoken by the devil out of the mouth of the idol): `This befell because a virgin without a husband conceived a son and has now given birth to him.' This idol spoke also of the fountain of oil that had sprung forth. Where it sprang forth, there now stands a church dedicated to the Mother of God. [102] I saw the heathen priests consulting their records in great alarm. Seventy years before, when that idol was being magnificently adorned with gold and precious stones, and was being honored with solemn sacrifices, there lived in Rome a very good and pious woman (I am not sure whether she was a Jewess or not) whose name sounded like Serena or Cyrena. She had enough money to live on, saw visions, and was impelled to prophesy. I have forgotten a great deal about her, but I think she used often to tell people the cause of their unfruitfulness. This woman had openly proclaimed that such costly honors should not be paid to the idol, for one day it would burst asunder. The priests called her to account because of this declaration, and demanded that she should say when this would happen; and as she could not at once reply, she was imprisoned and tortured until she obtained by her prayers to God the reply that the idol would break in pieces when a pure virgin should bear a son. This announcement was received with derision, and she was released as being out of her senses. Now, when the collapse of the temple did indeed shatter the idol, they recognized that she had prophesied truly, and were astonished at her having fixed a time for this event. They knew of course nothing of Christ having been born of the Blessed Virgin. I saw that both the Roman consuls called for reports about this event and about the appearance of the fountain of oil. One of the consuls was called Lentulus and was an ancestor of the martyred priest Moses and of the Lentulus who was a friend of St. Peter in Rome. I also saw something connected with the Emperor Augustus, but can no longer remember it distinctly. I saw the Emperor with some other men on a hill in Rome, on the other side of which was the temple that had fallen in. There were steps leading up the hill, which had a golden gate on it. Business matters were settled there. When the Emperor descended the hill, he saw on the right-hand side, over the top of the hill, an apparition in the sky. [Please refer to Figure 15.] It was a vision of a virgin above a rainbow, and a child was soaring up from her. I think that only he saw it. He asked for an explanation of this apparition from an oracle that had long been dumb, and it gave an answer about a newborn child before whom all must give way. Thereupon he caused an altar to be set up on the hill over which he had seen the appearance, and dedicated it with many sacrifices to the Firstborn of God. I have forgotten much of all this. 6. OCCURRENCES DURING THE BIRTH OF CHRIST IN EGYPT. I saw also in Egypt an event which proclaimed the birth of Christ. Far away in the country beyond Matarea, Heliopolis, and Memphis a great idol, which until then had uttered oracles of many kinds, fell suddenly silent. The king then ordered that great sacrifices should be offered throughout the country in order that the idol might explain its silence. The idol was thereupon obliged by God to say that it was silent and must give way because a virgin had given birth to a son, to whom a temple would here be erected. On hearing this, the king of that country decided to build a temple in his honor near the temple of the idol. I cannot clearly remember what happened, but I know that the idol was taken away and a temple was built here in honor of the virgin with the Child whom it had proclaimed, and that she was there honored after their heathen fashion. 7. VISIONS APPEAR DURING THE BIRTH OF CHRIST TO THE THREE HOLY KINGS. At the hour when the Child Jesus was born I saw a wonderful vision which appeared to the three holy kings. These kings were star-worshippers and had a tower shaped like a pyramid with steps. It was made partly of timber and was on the top of a hill; one of them was always there, with several priests, to observe the stars. They always wrote down what they saw and communicated it to each other. On this night I think I saw two of the kings on this tower. The third, who lived to the east of the Caspian Sea, was not with them. They always observed one particular star, in which they saw various changes; they also saw visions in the sky. Last night I saw the picture which appeared to them; there were several variations of it. They did not see it in one star, but in a figure composed of several stars, and these stars were in motion. They saw a beautiful rainbow over the moon, which was in one of its quarters. Upon the rainbow a Virgin was enthroned; her right foot was resting on the moon. To the left of the Virgin, on the rainbow, was a vine, and on the right a sheaf of wheat. In front of the Virgin I saw the form of a chalice, shaped like the one used by Our Lord at the institution of the Blessed Sacrament. It seemed to rise up or to issue more clearly out of the radiance surrounding it. I saw a little child coming forth out of this chalice, and above the child a transparent disc, like an empty monstrance, from which rays like ears of wheat proceeded. It made me think of the Blessed Sacrament. On the right-hand side of the child issuing from the chalice, a branch grew forth on which an octagonal church blossomed like a flower. It had a great golden gate and two small side-doors. The Virgin moved the chalice, the child, and the host with her right hand, guiding them into the church before her. I saw into it, and as I did so it seemed to become quite big. I saw an appearance of the Holy Trinity in the back of the church. The tower of the church rose above this appearance, which at last turned into a city radiant with light, like the heavenly Jerusalem. In this picture I saw many things developing out of each other as I looked into this church; but I can no longer remember in what order I saw them, nor can I recollect in what manner the kings were informed that the child had been born in Judea. The third king who lived farther away saw the same picture in his own home in the same hour. The kings were filled with inexpressible joy at this vision, and immediately gathered together their treasures and presents and began their journey. It was only after several days that all three met. Already in the days just before the birth of Christ I noticed that they were in a state of great activity on their observatory tower and saw visions of many kinds. Figure 15. Vision of the Emperor Augustus on the day of Jesus' birth. How great was God's compassion towards the heathen! Shall I tell you from whence this prophecy came to the kings? I will recount now only just the end of it, for at this moment I cannot remember the whole. The ancestors of the three kings, from whom they descended in an unbroken line from father to son, lived as long ago as five hundred years before Christ's birth. (Elijah [103] must have lived eight hundred years before Christ.) Their ancestors were richer and more powerful than the three kings, for their possessions and inheritances had not been so much divided up as later on. Even in those times they lived in cities of tents--except the ancestor to the east of the Caspian Sea, whose city I now see; its foundations are of stone and the tents are set up on these, for it lies beside the sea, which often overflows. (Here on the mountains one is so high up; I see a sea to my right and one to my left; it is like looking into a black hole.) These chieftains were already at that time star-worshippers; but besides that they practiced dreadfully evil ceremonies; they sacrificed old men and cripples and slaughtered children as well. The most cruel of all their practices was to put the children, dressed in white, into cauldrons, and to boil them alive. But at last all this was changed for the better, and in spite of it God allowed these blind heathens to know of the birth of the Redeemer so long beforehand. In those days three daughters of these early chieftains were living at the same time. They were learned in the science of the stars, and all received at the same time the spirit of prophecy. They all three saw at the same time in a vision that a star should rise out of Jacob and that a virgin should give birth to the Savior without knowing man. They wore long cloaks, and went about the whole country preaching amendment of life and announcing that the messengers of the Redeemer would one day come to them and bring them the ceremonies of the true religion. They also prophesied many things about our own and even later times. The fathers of these three virgins then built a temple in honor of the future Mother of God to the south of the sea, where their three countries met, and made sacrifices to her--some of them in that cruel manner of which I have spoken. The prophecies of the three virgins included something definite about a picture in the stars and various transformations in it: whereupon they began to look for this picture from a hill near the temple to the future Mother of God. They took note of everything and according to what they observed they kept on making various alterations on and in their temples, in their ceremonies and in their decorations. They varied the color of the tent-roof of the temple, which was sometimes blue, sometimes red, and sometimes yellow or still another color. They transferred (and this seemed to me remarkable) their weekly feast day to the Sabbath. Before it used to be Thursday, and I still remember its name. [Here she stammered something which sounded like Tanna or Tanada, but was not clearly audible.] [104] 8. VISION FRAGMENTS WHICH DETERMINE THE EXACT DATE OF THE BIRTH OF CHRIST. [In the course of her visions of Christmas night Catherine Emmerich saw much that indicated the exact date of Christ's birth, but she forgot a great deal of it owing to illness and the disturbance of receiving visitors on the following day, which was her name-day, the feast of St. Catherine. That evening, however, shortly after these visits, she repeatedly gave utterance, in a state of trance, to the following fragments of these visions. It should be noted that she sees all dates written in Roman figures, i.e. with letters; and finds some difficulty in reading them; though she nearly always makes herself clear by repeating them several times in the order in which they appear or by showing them on her fingers. Today she did both. This is what she said:] Now, you can read this: look, there it is: Christ was born when the year of the world 3997 was not yet quite completed. Afterwards people forgot the period of three years and a portion of a year which intervened between His birth and the year 4000, and then reckoned our new era as beginning four years later, so that Christ was born seven years and a portion of a year earlier than according to our reckoning. [105] One of the consuls in Rome at that time was called Lentulus; he was an ancestor of the priest and martyr Moses, of whom I possess a relic here, and who lived at the time of St. Cyprian. The Lentulus who was a friend of St. Peter in Rome also descended from him. Christ was born in the forty-fifth year of the Emperor Augustus. Herod reigned forty years in all until his death. [106] He was, it is true, only a vassal-king for seven years, but harassed the country grievously, and committed many cruelties. He died about the time of Christ's sixth year. I think that his death was kept a secret for some time. His end was dreadful, and in the last days of his life he was responsible for many murders and much misery. I saw him crawling about in a room padded with cushions. He had a spear, and stabbed at anyone who came near him. Jesus must have been born about the thirty-fourth year of Herod's reign. Two years before the entry of Mary into the Temple, just seventeen years before the Birth of Christ, Herod ordered that work should be done in the Temple. [107] It was not a rebuilding of the Temple, but alterations and embellishments were made here and there. The Flight into Egypt took place when Christ was nine months old, and the Massacre of the Innocents was in His second year. [She mentioned, in addition, many other things--incidents, features, and journeys--from Herod's life, which showed how clearly she saw everything, but it was impossible to collect and arrange these very numerous communications, some of which she recounted only in fragments.] The Birth of Christ occurred in a year which the Jews reckoned as having thirteen months. This must have been some such arrangement as our leap-years. [108] I think I have forgotten something about the Jews having months of twenty-one and twenty-two days twice a year. I heard something about feast-days connected with this, but have only a dim recollection of it all. I also saw how at different times something was altered in their calendar. It was after their coming out of a captivity, and the Temple was being added to at the same time. I saw the man who altered the calendar and I knew his name. [Here she tried to remember and said in her how German dialect with a smiling pretence of impatience, `I can't remember the fellow's name'.] I think Christ was born in the month Kislev. [109] The reason why the Church keeps the feast exactly a month later than the actual event is because at one time, when an alteration in the calendar was made, some days and seasons were completely omitted. [110] I once saw it very plainly, but can no longer recall it properly. 9. THE ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS. [Sunday, November 25 ^th (morning):] In the early dawn after Christ's Birth the three chief shepherds came from their hill to the Cave of the Nativity with their presents, which they had gathered together beforehand. These presents were little animals not unlike roe-deer. If they were kids, those in that country look very different from ours here at home. They had long necks, very clear beautiful eyes, and were very swift and graceful. The shepherds led them behind and beside them on long, thin cords. The shepherds also had strings of dead birds hanging over their shoulders, and carried some bigger live birds under their arms. When they knocked shyly at the door of the cave, St. Joseph came towards them with a friendly greeting. They told him what the angel had announced to them that night, and how they were come to worship the Child of the Promise and to present their poor gifts to him. Joseph took their gifts with humble gratitude, and made them take the animals into the little chamber the entrance of which is by the southern door of the cave. Then he accompanied them into the cave itself, and led the three shepherds up to the Blessed Virgin, who was sitting on the coverlet on the ground by the Crib, holding the Child Jesus before her on her lap. The shepherds, holding their staffs in their hands, threw themselves humbly on their knees before Jesus, weeping for joy. They remained a long time speechless with bliss and then sang the angels' hymn of praise which they had heard in the night, and a psalm which I have forgotten. When they got up to go away, the Blessed Virgin put the little Jesus into their arms one after the other. They gave Him back to her with tears and left the cave. [Sunday, November 25 ^th (evening): During the whole day Catherine Emmerich was in great distress of body and mind. She had hardly fallen asleep in the evening when she at once felt herself transported to the Promised Land. During this year she had been also contemplating the first year of Christ's ministry, and particularly His forty-days' fast, and she exclaimed in childlike wonder: `What a moving sight! On one side I see Jesus as a man thirty years of age fasting and tempted in a cave in the wilderness, and on the other I see Him as a newborn child in the Cave of the Nativity, adored by the shepherds from the shepherds' tower.' After these words the visionary rose from her couch with astonishing rapidity, ran to the open door of her room and called in an ecstasy of joy to some friends who were in the outer room: `Come quickly, quickly to adore the Child, He is in my room.' She returned as rapidly to her couch, and began, quivering with rapture and devotion, to sing in a clear, inexpressibly moving voice the Magnificat, Gloria in Excelsis, and some other unknown hymns of praise. These were simple but profound and were partly in rhyme. In one hymn she sang second. She was in an unusually joyful and excited mood and said next morning:] Yesterday evening several shepherds and shepherdesses and children from the Shepherds' Tower, which is four hours away, came to the Crib with presents. They brought eggs, birds, honey, woven stuffs of different colors, little bunches of what looked like raw silk, and bushes of a rush-like shrub with big leaves and ears full of thick grains. After handing their presents to St. Joseph, they came up humbly to the Crib, beside which the Blessed Virgin sat. They greeted her and the Child, and then, kneeling round her, they sang some lovely hymns, the Gloria in Excelsis, and a few short verses. I sang with them; they sang in parts. In one of the hymns I sang second. I remember the words more or less: `O little child, red as a rose, like a herald you come forth.' When they made their farewell, they bent over the Crib as though they were kissing the Infant Jesus. 10. THE SHEPHERDS ASSIST ST. JOSEPH. ESSENE WOMEN RENDER SERVICE TO THE BLESSED VIRGIN. [November 26 ^th:] Today I saw the three shepherds taking it in turns to help St. Joseph to arrange things more comfortably in the cave, round about it and in the side caves. I also saw several devout women with the Blessed Virgin, assisting her in various ways. These women were Essenes, and lived not far from the cave, as you went round to the east of the hill. They lived near each other in the deep part of the valley, in little chambers high up in the rock at a place where the hill had broken away. They had small gardens beside their dwellings and gave lessons to children belonging to their sect. St. Joseph had asked them to come; he knew this community since his childhood, for when as a boy he bid himself from his brothers in the Cave of the Nativity, he sometimes visited these pious women in their rock-dwellings. They took it in turns to come to the Blessed Virgin, bringing her bundles of wood and other small necessities, and cooking and washing for the Holy Family. 11. THE DONKEY KNEELS BEFORE JESUS. ST. ANNE'S MAID FROM NAZARETH COMES TO MARY. [November 27 ^th:] Today I saw a very touching scene in the cave. Joseph and Mary were standing by the Crib, looking at the Infant Jesus with great devotion, when the donkey threw himself suddenly on his knees and bent his head down to the ground. Mary and Joseph wept. In the evening came messengers from Anna, the Blessed Virgin's holy mother. An elderly man and Anna's maidservant, a widow who was related to her, arrived from Nazareth. [Please see Figure 16.] They brought all kinds of little things which Mary needed. They were greatly moved at seeing the Infant, and the old manservant wept tears of joy. He soon started home again to bring Anna news. The maidservant remained with the Blessed Virgin. Figure 16. Saint Anne's maid. 12. THE BLESSED VIRGIN HIDES FROM EMISSARIES OF HEROD. [November 28 ^th:] Today I saw the Blessed Virgin with the Infant Jesus and the maidservant leaving the cave for several hours. I saw that after coming out of the door she turned to the right under the projecting thatched roof, then took a few steps and hid herself in the side cave. This was the cave where the fountain of water sprang up at Christ's birth and was captured by Joseph. She remained four hours in this cave, but later she spent a few days there. Joseph had been there at dawn to make a few arrangements for her comfort. They were given an inner warning to go there, for today there came to the cave from Bethlehem some men, emissaries of Herod, I think, because of the rumor, spread abroad by the shepherds' talk, that some wonderful thing had happened there connected with a child. I saw these men exchanging a few remarks with St. Joseph, whom they met in front of the Cave of the Nativity in the company of the shepherds. When they saw how poor and simple he was, they left him with supercilious smiles. The Blessed Virgin remained with the Infant Jesus about four hours in the side-cave, and then returned to the Crib. The Cave of the Nativity is pleasantly situated and very quiet. No one comes here from Bethlehem, except the shepherds whose duties bring them here. In general no one in Bethlehem pays any attention to what happens out here, for owing to the many strangers there is a great press of people coming and going in the town. There is much buying and slaughtering of beasts, as many of the people present pay their taxes with beasts. There are also many heathen there, who work as servants. [This evening Catherine Emmerich said suddenly in her sleep: `Herod has had a pious man murdered who had an important post in the Temple. He invited him most warmly to visit him at Jericho and had him murdered on the way. He was opposed to Herod's pretensions regarding the Temple. In spite of Herod being accused of this murder, his power over the Temple increases.' She again insisted that Herod had appointed two of his natural sons to high places in the Temple; that these were Sadducees and that they betrayed to him everything that went on there.] 13. THE ANGEL'S APPEARANCE TO THE SHEPHERDS HAS BECOME WIDESPREAD. [November 29 ^th:] Early this morning the friendly innkeeper from the last inn, in which the Holy Family spent the night from November 22 ^nd-23 ^rd, sent a servant with presents to the cave, and in the course of the day he came himself to worship the Child. The appearance of the angels to the shepherds in the hour of Christ's Birth has made the story of the wonderful Child of the Promise known to all good folk here in the valleys, and these people have come to worship the Child whom they had sheltered unknown to themselves. 14. MANY PEOPLE VISIT THE CHILD JESUS ON THE WAY TO BETHLEHEM. JOSEPH PAWNS THE SHE-ASS. [November 30 ^th:] Today several shepherds and other good people came to the Cave of the Nativity and worshipped the Infant Jesus with great fervor. They were dressed in their best and were on their way to Bethlehem for the Sabbath. Among these people I saw the surly shepherd's good wife, who had given shelter to the Holy Family on November 20 ^th. She might have taken a more direct road from her home to go to Jerusalem for the Sabbath, but she made a detour by Bethlehem in order to pay respect to the Holy Child and His dear parents. The good woman was full of happiness at having shown them loving-kindness. Today, I also saw St. Joseph's relations, near whose dwelling the Holy Family had passed the night of November 22 ^nd, come to the cave and greet the Child. Among them was the father of that Jonadab who at the Crucifixion brought Jesus a cloth to cover His nakedness. He had heard from the innkeeper of his village about Joseph's journey through the place and about the wonderful happenings at the birth of the Child, and had come here with presents for Him on his way to the Sabbath at Bethlehem. He greeted Mary and worshipped the Infant Jesus. Joseph was very friendly with him; he accepted nothing from him, but gave him the young she-ass (who had been running free with them) as a pledge, on condition that he could redeem her on repayment of the money. Joseph needed the money to pay for the presents and the meal at the circumcision ceremony. After Joseph had finished this business and everybody had gone to the synagogue in Bethlehem, he hung up in the cave the Sabbath lamp with seven wicks, lit it, and put beneath it a table covered with a red-and-white cloth on which lay prayer-scrolls. Here under the lamp he celebrated the eve of the Sabbath, reciting prayers with the Blessed Virgin and Anna's maidservant. [111] Two shepherds stood farther back in the entrance of the cave. The Essene women were also present, and afterwards they prepared the meal. Today, the eve of the Sabbath, the Essene women and the maidservant prepared several dishes for the next day. I saw the plucked and cleaned birds being roasted on a spit over the glowing embers. While roasting them they rolled them in a kind of flour made by pounding grains which grew in the ears of a rush-like plant. This plant grows wild only in damp, marshy places in that country and on the sunny side. In some places it is cultivated. It grows wild near Bethlehem and Hebron, but I never saw it near Nazareth. The shepherds of the tower had brought some of it to Joseph. I saw them making the grains into a thick shiny white paste, and they also baked cakes with the flour. I saw open holes under the fireplace, very hot, where they baked cakes as well as birds and other things. They kept for themselves very little of the many provisions given by the shepherds to St. Joseph. Most of it went as presents and as food for others, especially for the poor. Tomorrow evening, during the meal at the circumcision ceremony, there will be a great distribution. __________________________________________________________________ [99] Matt. 2 .1 ; Birth, Adoration of the Shepherds, Circumcision: Luke 2.7-21. (SB) [100] AC's delicate description of the painless, miraculous birth of Christ finds parallels (especially in the cave being filled with light) in Protev. 19 and Ps-Matt. 13, though both these apocryphal sources introduce a midwife, whose services are not required. (SB) [101] Herod's two sons, placed in the Temple, are mentioned by AC (infra, p. 102 ) as natural sons. History is, however, silent in their regard. (SB) [102] The tradition about strange portents in Rome at the birth of Christ is very ancient. Its first appearance in a document seems to be in the Universal History of Orosius (A.D. 418), the friend of St. Augustine. We find here the fountain of oil, the idol speaking, the vision of Augustus, and so forth. The story was elaborated by the time of the fourteenth-century Byzantine historian Nicephorus Callistus. The matter is fully studied in Graf, Roma nella memoria e nelle immaginazioni del medio evo, Turin, 1882, Vol. 1, pp. 308-331, where the texts are reproduced. The Church of Our Lady in question is Santa Maria in Ara Coeli, on the Capitol Hill, where Augustus is said to have put up a new altar (infra, p. 94 ). The mention (infra, p. 94 ) of the consul Lentulus need not be associated with the fictitious letter of Lentulus (a supposed Roman official in Judea) about the appearance of Christ. But there was a consul Lucius Lentulus after the death of Julius Caesar (44 B.C.), mentioned by Josephus (Ant., XIV, x, 13). Lentulus the friend of Peter in Rome is unknown, and is not likely to be Lentulus Getulicus who was involved in a plot against Caligula in A.D. 41 and was executed, since Peter probably did not come to Rome until A.D. 42. The priest Moses was one of the first martyrs under Decius, and died in 251 (Ramsgate Book of Saints). (SB) [103] Elijah makes his appearance in 3 Kings 17.1 in the reign of King Ahab, 874-853 B.C. (SB) [104] Here her story was interrupted by so strange and sudden an occurrence that we feel bound to communicate it, so characteristic is it of her condition. It was about six o'clock in the evening of Nov. 27th, 1821, when she spoke these last words in her sleep. It must be remembered that for many years her feet had been paralyzed; she could not walk, and could with difficulty raise herself to a sitting position, so that she was, as always, lying stretched out on her couch. The door stood open between her room and the room adjoining it in which her confessor was at that moment sitting by the lamp reading his Breviary. She had just said these words with such truth of expression that it was impossible to doubt that she was seeing it all actually happening before her eyes. Hardly, however, had she stammered out the word `Tanada' than the enfeebled and paralyzed sleeper suddenly sprang up from her couch with lightning speed, hurried into the adjoining room, and rushed to the window, striking out with hands and feet as if she were attacking and warding off something. Then, turning to her confessor, she said, `That was a great big brute, but I gave him a kick and sent him off'. After these words she sank down as if fainting, and lay very quietly and calmly on the floor of the room before the window. The priest at his Breviary was, like the writer, staggered by this highly surprising incident, but without wasting words he said to her, `Sister Emmerich, under obedience, go back to your bed'; whereupon she at once got up, returned to her room, and lay down again on her bed. When the writer asked her, `What was that strange incident?' she told him the following. She was wide awake and in full consciousness, and though she was tired, she was in the cheerful state of mind of someone who has won a victory. `Yes, it was indeed odd. I was so far, far away in the land of the three kings. I was standing on the high mountain ridge between the two seas, looking down into their tent-cities (just as one looks out of the window here into the poultry-yard), when I suddenly felt myself called home by my guardian angel. I turned round and saw here in Duelmen, passing in front of our little house, a poor old woman whom I knew. She had come out of a little grocer's shop. She was in a very bad and evil-tempered mood, and was grumbling and cursing to herself in a quite abominable way. Then I saw that her guardian angel abandoned her and that a great black devil-shape laid itself across her path in the dark, to make her stumble over him and break her neck and so die in her sins. When I saw that, I let the three kings be (` liess ich drei Koenige drei Koenige sein' ), prayed earnestly to God to help the poor woman, and was back here in my room. Then I saw that the devil was beating against the window in dreadful fury and was trying to break into the room; I saw that he had a whole bundle of nooses and knotted strings in his claws. He was trying, out of revenge, to start a great complication and annoyance here with all these; so I rushed at him and gave him a kick which made him stagger back. That will have given him something to remember! And then I lay down before the window across his path, to prevent him from coming in.' It is indeed strange that while she is looking down from the Caucasus and seeing and recounting things that happened five hundred years before Christ's birth as though they were before her eyes, she should at the same moment see the danger surrounding a poor little old woman close to her house at home and should hurry energetically to help her. It was an amazing spectacle to see her rushing in like a living skeleton and fighting with such violence, whereas in her waking state, she can, since Sept. 8th, hardly move forward a few steps on her crutches without fainting. (CB) [105] The date of Christ's birth is usually fixed by modern scholars in 8 B.C. (e.g. Fr. T. Corbishley, S.J., in Cath. Comm., 676a), or at latest 6-4 B.C. (ib., 749a), but the argument is from contemporary history (such as the death of Herod in 4 B.C.), and not, as AC suggests, from the computation of the Annus Mundi. Yet it is interesting that AC's date 7 B.C. is so near the conclusions of present-day studies. (SB) [106] The chronological data are fairly exact by modern conclusions. The forty-fifth year of Augustus is reckoned (as was the custom among the older historians, e.g. Muratori in 1744-1749) from his assumption of power as a triumvir in 44 B.C., and corresponds therefore to A.D. I (though AC had just said that Christ was born in 7 B.C.). Herod reigned 40-4 B.C. (thirty-six years--AC says forty), and AC gives his thirty-fourth year for the birth of Christ, i.e. 6 B.C. There is therefore some confusion in the correlation of the data. For Herod's madness, cf. Josephus Ant., XVII, vi, 5 to viii, 1. (SB) [107] Josephus tells us (Ant., XV, xi, I) that Herod began the rebuilding of the Temple in his eighteenth year, i.e. 20-19 B.C., and that work continued for one and a half years (ib., 6). The Gospel ( John 2.20), referring to the beginning of Our Lord's ministry, A.D. 29, mentions forty-six years of the Temple, which would give the date 17 B.C., perhaps, for its completion. Perhaps AC's "seventeen years before the birth of Christ" can be understood as 17 B.C., but there is a slight confusion here. (SB) [108] The twelve Hebrew lunar months (of alternatively twenty-nine and thirty days) gave a year of 354 days, so that every few years an error accumulated which was corrected by the insertion after the twelfth month, Adar, of a thirteenth or intercalary month, called Second Adar. The need for this intercalation was, at the time of Christ, still determined empirically, in such a way that the celebration of the Pasch at the full moon or fourteenth day of the first month, Nisan, should always occur after the spring equinox (Mar. 21st). The intercalary month was of the same length as the other months, running from new moon to new moon. (Cf. Schuerer, The Jewish People in the Time of Christ, I, ii, 369 sqq.) AC herself admitted the likelihood of confusion on her part about this technical matter. (SB) [109] Kislev was the ninth month, corresponding approximately to our Nov./Dec., and according to AC (infra, p. 119 ) Christ was born on the 12th Kislev, which that year was Nov. 25th. (SB) [110] The calendar was adjusted in 1582, when by order of Pope Gregory XIII ten days were omitted, so that the day following Oct. 4th in that year was Oct. 15th, and thus the spring equinox was restored to Mar. 21st. The ten days' error was the accumulation since the previous adjustment at Nicaea in A.D. 325 (cf. Breviary, De Anno et ejus partibus). (SB) [111] The ritual of lighting the Sabbath lamp on Friday evening is described in the Mishnah, Shabbath, II, 5-7; III, 6. The Mosaic prohibition of making fire on the Sabbath is in Exod. 35.3. (SB) __________________________________________________________________ XII. THE CIRCUMCISION OF JESUS 1. PREPARATION FOR THE CIRCUMCISION. JOSEPHS FETCHS THE PRIESTS FROM BETHLEHEM. [DECEMBER 1 ^st:] This afternoon I saw several more people who were keeping the Sabbath come to the Cave of the Nativity, and in the evening, after the Sabbath was over, I saw the Essene women and Mary's maidservant preparing a meal in an arbor in front of the entrance to the cave. Joseph had begun to put up this arbor with the shepherds several days before. He had also cleared out his room at the entrance to the cave, covering the floor with rugs and decorating everything as festively as his poverty allowed. He had made all these arrangements before the Sabbath began, for tomorrow at daybreak is the eighth day from the birth of Christ, when the child must be circumcised according to God's commandment. Towards evening Joseph had gone to Bethlehem, and returned with three priests, an elderly man, and a woman who seemed to act as a kind of nurse at this solemn ceremony. She brought with her a chair specially kept for these occasions, and a thick octagonal stone slab containing what was necessary. All these things were put down on mats spread out at the place where the ceremony was to take place. This was at the entrance to the cave, not far from the Crib, between the partition lately removed by Joseph and the hearth-place. The chair was really a box and could be drawn out to form a sort of low couch with an arm at one side. It was covered with red material. It was more for lying than sitting on. The octagonal stone slab must have been over two feet in diameter. In its center there was an octagonal cavity covered with a metal plate; in it were three boxes and a stone knife in separate compartments. This stone slab was placed beside the chair on a three-legged stool, which until now had always stood, covered with a cloth, on the place where Our Lord was born. When all had been arranged, the priests greeted the Blessed Virgin and the Infant Jesus. They spoke friendly words to her and took the Child in their arms with emotion. A meal was then eaten in the arbor before the entrance, and a crowd of poor people (who, as always happens on such occasions, had followed the priests) surrounded the table and were given presents throughout the meal by Joseph and the priests, so that soon everything was distributed. I saw the sun go down; it looked bigger than here at home. I saw its low rays shining through the open door into the Cave of the Nativity. 2. THE CIRCUMCISION OF CHRIST. THE NAME JESUS. [Sunday, December 2 ^nd. She does not mention whether after yesterday's meal the priests again returned to the town and did not come back till next morning, or whether they passed the night at or near the cave:] There were lamps lit in the cave and I saw them often praying and singing during the night. The circumcision took place at dawn, eight days after the birth of Our Lord. [112] The Blessed Virgin was distressed and anxious. She had herself prepared the little cloths to catch the blood and to bandage the Child and had kept them at her breast in a fold of her mantle. The octagonal stone slab was covered by the priests first with red and then with white. This was accompanied by prayers and ceremonies. One of the priests then placed himself in the chair, leaning back rather than sitting in it, while the Blessed Virgin, who was veiled and holding the Infant Jesus in her arms at the back of the cave, handed the Child to the maidservant together with the bandages. St. Joseph took Him from the maidservant and gave Him to the nurse who had come with the priests. She laid the little Jesus, covered with a veil, upon the cloth on the octagonal stone slab. Prayers were again offered. Then, the woman unwrapped the Child from His swaddling clothes and placed Him on the lap of the priest in the chair. St. Joseph bent down over the priest's shoulders and held the upper part of the Child's body. Two priests knelt to right and left, each holding one of the Child's feet: the one who was to perform the holy ceremony knelt before the Child. The cover was removed from the stone to disclose the three boxes with healing ointments and lotions. The handle and the blade of the knife were both of stone. The smooth brown handle had a groove into which the blade could be shut down; the latter was of the yellow color of raw silk, and did not seem to me to be sharp. The cut was made with the hook-shaped point of the blade, which when opened must have been nine inches long. The priest also made use of his sharp finger-nails for the operation. Afterwards he sucked the wound and dabbed it with healing lotion and some soothing substance from the boxes. The part that was cut off he placed between two round discs of some precious material, shining and reddish-brown in color, and slightly hollowed out in the center, making a kind of flat box. This was handed to the Blessed Virgin. The nurse now took the Child, bandaged Him, and wrapped Him again in His swaddling clothes. Up till now these, which were red beneath and white above, had been wound round up to under the arms. Now the little arms were also wrapped round, and the veil was wrapped round His head instead of covering it. He was then again laid on the octagonal slab of stone, which was covered with its cloths, and more prayers were said over Him. Although I know that the angel had told Joseph that the child was to be called Jesus, yet I remember that the priest did not at once approve of this name, and therefore fell to praying. I then saw a shining angel appear before the priest, holding before his eyes a tablet (like that on the Cross) with the name of Jesus. I do not know whether he or any of the other priests saw this angel as I did, but he was awe-struck, and I saw him writing this name by divine inspiration on a parchment. The Infant Jesus wept loudly after the sacred ceremony, and I saw that He was given back to St. Joseph. He laid Him in the arms of the Blessed Virgin, who was standing with two women in the back of the cave. She wept as she took Him, and withdrew into the corner where the Crib was. Here she sat down, wrapped in her veil and soothed the crying Infant by giving Him her breast. Joseph also gave her the little bloodstained cloths: the nurse kept the little bloody shreds of stuff that remained. Prayers were again said and hymns sung; the lamp was still burning, but day was breaking. After a while the Blessed Virgin came forward herself with the Child and laid Him down on the octagonal stone; the priests held out their hands to her, crossed over the Child. After this she retired, taking the Child with her. Before the priests left, taking with them all that they had brought, they ate a light meal in the arbor with Joseph and a few shepherds who had been standing at the entrance to the cave. I learnt that all those who took part in this holy ceremony were good people, and that the priests were later enlightened and obtained salvation. During the whole morning generous presents were given to poor people who came to the door. During the ceremony the donkey was tied up farther away. Today crowds of dirty, swarthy beggars went past the cave, carrying bundles, coming from the Valley of the Shepherds. They seemed to be going to Jerusalem for some feast. They were very violent in demanding alms, and cursed and raged horribly at the Crib because they were not satisfied with Joseph's presents. I do not know what was wrong with these people; I felt a great dislike for them. Today the nurse came again to the Blessed Virgin and bandaged the Infant Jesus. In the night that followed I saw the Child often restless with pain and crying a great deal. Mary and Joseph took Him in their arms in turns, carrying Him about and comforting Him. 3. ELIZABETH VISITS THE MANGER. [December 3 ^rd:] This evening I saw Elizabeth coming from Juttah to the Cave of the Nativity. She was riding on a donkey led by an aged manservant. Joseph received her very warmly, and she and Mary embraced each other with intense joy. She pressed the Infant Jesus to her heart with tears. Her couch was prepared beside the place where Jesus was born. In front of this place there stood sometimes a high stand like a sawing-trestle, with a little box on it. They often laid the Infant Jesus in this box, standing round Him in prayer and caressing Him. This must be the custom there, for I saw in Anna's house the child Mary lying on a similar stand. Elizabeth and Mary talked to each other in the sweetest intimacy. 4. FAMILIARITY BETWEEN MARY AND ELIZABETH. MARY CONFIDES HER PAINS AND JOYS. [December 4 ^th:] Yesterday evening and again today I saw Mary and Elizabeth sitting together in sweet converse, and I felt myself to be with them and heard all their talk with heartfelt joy. The Blessed Virgin told her everything that had happened to her, and when she described their difficulty in finding a lodging in Bethlehem, Elizabeth wept in sympathy. She also told her much about the birth of the Infant Jesus, and I can remember something of this. She said that at the time of the Annunciation she had lost consciousness for ten minutes and had felt as if her heart had grown to double its size and as if she were filled with inexpressible grace. At the hour of the Birth of Christ she had been full of endless yearning, and had been rapt in ecstasy, feeling as though she were uplifted, kneeling, by angels; then she had felt as though her heart was split in twain, and that one half had gone from her. She had remained thus for ten minutes without consciousness, then she had had a feeling of inner emptiness and an intense yearning for an infinite salvation outside herself, whereas before she had always felt that it was within her. She had then seen a glow of light before her, in which the form of her Child seemed to grow before her eyes. Then she had seen His movements and heard His crying, and coming to herself, had taken Him up from the ground to her breast. At first she had been as in a dream, and had not dared to lift up the little Child surrounded with radiance. She also said that she had not been conscious of having given birth to the Child. Elizabeth said to her: `You have been more favored in giving birth than other women: the birth of John was a joy indeed, but it was otherwise than with you.' That is all that I remember of their talk. Today I saw many people visiting the Blessed Virgin and the Infant Jesus. I also saw a lot of ill-behaved folk like the day before going by and stopping at the door to demand alms, cursing and raging. Joseph did not give them any presents this time. Towards evening Mary again hid herself with the Infant Jesus and Elizabeth in the cave at the side of the Cave of the Nativity, and I think Mary remained there the whole night. This happened because all kinds of inquisitive and important people from Bethlehem crowded to the Crib, and the Blessed Virgin did not wish to be seen by them. Today I saw the Blessed Virgin leave the Cave of the Nativity with the Infant Jesus and go into another cave to the right of it. The entrance was very narrow, and fourteen steep steps led down first into a small cellar-like chamber and then into a vaulted chamber which was more spacious than the Cave of the Nativity. The space near the entrance was semicircular, and Joseph divided this oil by a hanging curtain, leaving a rectangular room beyond. The light fell not from above but through side-openings pierced in the thick rock. During the last few days I saw an old man clearing out of this cave a lot of brushwood and bundles of straw or rushes such as Joseph used for kindling. It must have been a shepherd who helped in this way. This cave was lighter and more spacious than the Cave of the Nativity. The donkey was not kept here. I saw the Infant Jesus lying here in a hollowed trough on the ground. In the last few days I often saw Mary showing her Child to visitors who came singly. He was covered with a veil, but otherwise had nothing on but a bandage round His body. At other times I saw the little Child all swaddled up again. I see the nurse often visiting the Child. Mary gave her a generous share of the gifts brought by the visitors, which she distributed amongst the needy in Bethlehem. __________________________________________________________________ [112] The conduct of the rite is accurately described (cf. Jewish Encyc., art. `Circumcision', pp. 95 sqq.), though it seems that the mohel was usually a surgeon rather than a priest. (SB) __________________________________________________________________ XIII. THE JOURNEY OF THE THREE HOLY KINGS TO BETHLEHEM [113] [1821. Catherine Emmerich had already, in the course of 1819 and 1820, communicated a series of visions of the three holy kings' journey to Bethlehem. But, as at that time she was following the dates of the feasts of the Church in her contemplations, the period of thirteen days from Christmas to the Epiphany was too short for their long journey, and she communicated only some descriptions of single halting-places. As, however, in 1821 she dated the day of Christ's birth a month earlier, that is to say on November 25 ^th, and saw the departure of the kings for Judea on that day, there remained a space of about a month's time for the journey. She said, in defining its length, `I always saw the kings approaching Bethlehem when I was putting out the Crib in the convent,'--that is to say, about December 25 ^th. Thus, it is more likely that Herod would no longer find the Child in Bethlehem after the departure of the kings, since the departure of the holy family could then have already occurred.] 1. THE KINGS SEE THE STAR AND BEGIN THEIR TRAVEL. [November 25 ^th :] I have already related on Christmas Day how I saw the Birth of Christ being announced to the kings on Christmas night. I saw Mensor and the dark-skinned Seir gazing at the stars from a field in Mensor's country. [114] Everything was prepared for their departure. They were on a pyramid-shaped tower looking through long tubes at the Star of Jacob, which had a tail. The star split asunder before their eyes, and I saw a great shining virgin appear therein, before whom a radiant child hovered in the air. At his right hand a branch grew forth, bearing, like a flower, a little tower with several entrances. This tower was finally transformed into a city. I cannot remember the picture completely. Immediately after seeing this picture they both started off. Theokeno, the third king, lived a few days' journey farther to the east. He saw the same star-picture in the same hour, and set of