ON ST. MUSA VIRGIN OF ROME.
IN THE 6TH CENTURY
CommentaryMusa, Virgin of Rome (St.)
About the passing of the girl Musa St. Gregory writes these things
in book 4 of his Dialogue chapter 17. Nor will I
be silent about this, which the aforesaid Probus, servant of God,
about his sister, by name Musa,
a little girl, used to narrate, Warned by the Mother of God about the day of her death, saying, that on a certain
night the holy Mother of God the Virgin
Mary appeared to her through a vision, & showed her girls
of her own age in white garments. With whom she when she wished
to be mingled, but did not dare join herself to them,
was asked by the voice of the Blessed Virgin
Mary, whether she wished to be with them, &
to live in her service. To whom when the same girl
said, I wish; from her immediately she received a command, that
she should do nothing further light & girlish, & from laughter & jokes
should abstain herself, knowing through all things, that, among the same
whom she had seen, to her service on the thirtieth day she would come.
By which things seen, in all her habits the girl
was changed, she corrects girlish levity; & all levity of girlish life
with the great hand of gravity she wiped away. And when her parents
were wondering that she was changed, being asked the reason,
she related what the Blessed Mother of God had commanded her, or
on what day she was to go to her service indicated.
Then after the twenty-fifth day she was seized by a fever.
But on the thirtieth day when the hour of her departure had drawn near,
she saw the same Blessed Mother of God, with
the girls whom through the vision she had seen, coming to her. & piously dies:
To whom also as she called her she began to answer, &
with eyes reverently cast down with open voice to cry out, Behold
Lady I come, behold Lady I come. In which voice
also she delivered her spirit; & out of her virgin body, to dwell
with the holy Virgins, she departed.
[2] These things St. Gregory the Pope: whom elsewhere others have described;
among whom Peter de Natalibus Bishop of Equilina, related by various authors on April 2.
book 11 of the Catalog of Saints chapter 111, & in the title he calls
her St. Musa Virgin; then on this second day of April
Molanus, in his additions to Usuard of the first edition
of the year 1568; Canisius in the Germanic Martyrology;
Ferrarius, in the Catalog of Saints of Italy, & again
in the general Catalog of Saints; Arturus du Monstier, in
the sacred Gynaeceum. Also Antonius Gallonius of Rome, in the History
of the Holy Virgins of Rome, published in Italian
at Rome in the year 1591; Heribertus Rosweidus in the History of the Holy
Virgins, who outside monasteries flourished in Holiness,
published in the Belgian idiom, with the images of the Holy
Virgins elegantly sculpted in bronze. Nicolas Brautius, Bishop of
Sarsina & Count of Bobbio, in the Poetic Martyrology, about
St. Musa Virgin of Rome composed this distich:
Twice called by the Mother of God the girl Musa;
Behold I come, I come, she said, & met her day.