ON ST. ALBERTUS, BISHOP OF MONTE-CORVINO IN APULIA.
YEAR 1127
PrefaceAlbertus, Bishop of Monte-Corvino in Apulia (St.)
BY AUTHOR D. P.
After John XIII the Roman Pontiff ordered the church
of Benevento to be Metropolitan,
not only were several from among the old Bishoprics subjected
to it, Life written by Richard his successor. but also new ones on the occasion
of the instituting of suffragan Prelates increased their
number. Thus in the eleventh century were adorned with the Episcopal title
Vulturaria, a mountain city of the Further Principality, and another
city then for the first time founded and called Monte-Corvino: the dignity
of both of which titles now in the sole Vulturarian conjunction remains united,
also polished by Alexander, likewise Bishop, from the year 1433. The Bishopric of Monte-Corvino
the Saint, of whom we are intending to treat, Albertus, first
and alone filled up with celestial honors. Richard,
elected there not long after him, wrote his Life: which Alexander
Gerardinus, Prelate of Vulturaria and Monte-Corvino, polished
with a more brilliant style, a man famous for many published and written
monuments, before he set out for the West Indies, about to rule the city
of St. Domingo, with whose Episcopal title.
[2] The deeds and praises of this Alexander from the writings of Onuphrius Gerardinus
Ferdinand Ughelli first published, is given from MS. in tome 7
of Italy sacred, testifying that the same wrote the lives of his predecessor Bishops:
and among these this one of St. Albertus, which as he received from
the autograph itself, so he liberally handed down to us, in the same
7 tome already printed. Hence therefore we give it. But we omit
the hymns, to be recited in Sapphic meter at Vespers, Matins
and Lauds; which Ughelli writes are of the same Alexander,
and we do not doubt: with the hymns of the proper office omitted. since we understand he elaborated diverse little works
also in verse, and indeed in Sapphic the Life
of St. Benedict. Here it suffices to indicate that in those hymns is contained
the sum of the Life written in prose, and by the same the ecclesiastical
cult of St. Albertus is brilliantly proved, and indeed
and there most decently preserved, we hold for certain;
since the city of Monte-Corvino is now lying leveled to the ground,
and nothing of it remains at this time,
except certain traces of the Episcopal church and walls,
Ughelli says, treating of the Bishops of Vulturaria.
[3] he died not in the year 1037 The year in which St. Albertus died, the one thousand
thirty-seventh, the faulty transcription showed to us and to Ughelli;
and indeed disturbed the whole order of the Corvinian Bishops,
but posed no small difficulty to us: the solution of which before
we undertake, it must be shown clearly, that year conflicts with all
the characters expressed in the Life of St. Albertus.
Let the first be the year of the founding of the city on Monte-Corvino, which
Alexander prefaces was in his time the 463rd year.
Alexander died septuagenarian in the year 1525, born therefore
in the year 1455: Bishop he is said to have been created about the year
1496, but to have written the Life of St. Albertus in the year 1499.
since Monte-Corvino was not yet a City, So that, though it is very unlikely,
we concede namely, that Alexander counted 463 years from the founding
of the city to the year of his birth, it would have had its beginning
only in the year 992; how
then could Albertus, who came into the city already founded only
as a five-year-old, have died in the year 1037 from long-lasting
old-age blindness? But if you lead those 463 years to the time
of the written Life (as the common manner of men's speaking
and the greatest probability persuades must be done), only
in the year 1036 would Monte-Corvino have begun to have the form
of a city.
[4] Another character, convincing that the Saint did not die
in the year 1033, and the Normans recently brought into Italy; is taken from his very birth from a noble stock
of the Normans. Now the first from that nation, forty in number,
who having completed the Jerusalem pilgrimage, landed at Salerno,
and wondrously freeing the city from a Saracen siege
so much won to themselves the minds of Prince Guamerius and of the nobles,
that by common counsel legates were sent to their own
with gifts, by which that people might be not so much invited
as drawn into Italy against the Saracens; the first, I say,
those forty, with Leo of Ostia then living and
attesting it after about sixteen years, came in the year 1003.
But the legation had no effect, before the year 1019;
in which, Rudolph the Norman, with a few of his own having fled from his country
to Pope Benedict, and directed to the Beneventans,
troublesome to Italy than the Saracens had been: the fame of which
victory being brought into Gaul, moved Count Richard,
that a very great multitude of Normans, with their wives
and children prepared for the journey, not only should he not impede
but also should compel to go in aid of Rudolph, and there
to fix a new colony of the people, at which time, Albertus (if the year
of death were not faulty) ought to have been not far from
octogenarian.
[5] Therefore I think that in the autograph for the year of death was written
in numeral letters the year 1127 where some drowsy one
instead of C read and transcribed X, but 1127, and extending the numbers at length,
the one thousand thirty-seventh. Now this
being posited, we think the series of Corbinian Bishops should be so ordered,
that from those successor was of Adeodatus, whose names are had, the first to sit was Adeodatus;
and in the year 1059 he was present at the Roman Council,
summoned by the order of Nicholas II, as Ughelli testifies, not without
To Adeodatus mediately or immediately succeeded Beatus,
to Beatus Albertus: about the 10th year of the founding of the city brought there as a boy
with his parent, if he was more than ninety when he died.
To St. Albertus Crescentius, an iniquitous man, predecessor of Peter, given to the blind old man not
so much as Coadjutor as persecutor, as long as he lived, and therefore
not predeceasing him (as Ughelli writes, with the words of the Acts
not sufficiently weighed), but surviving him by a very short time.
With whom removed from life Peter succeeded, named here in no. 12,
and contemporary with Roger, King of Sicily ruling from the year 1102 to
1154; contemporary also with Raus, Bishop of Vulturaria,
extinct about the year 1129, so that the very miracle, by which Raus
is read to have been saved, immediately after St. Albertus's
death, with the memory of his merits still fresh, happened.
[6] after whom Richard, contemporary of Peter of Benevento, These can be excellently confirmed from the age of Peter of Benevento,
Archbishop, by whose exhortation Richard composed
the Life of St. Albertus, as Alexander prefaces. This
Peter (with Ughelli himself approving, and with the public instrument which
Vipera produced agreeing) held the Metropolitan see
in the year 1148 and (as the same Ughelli against Vipera
proves by the authority of a bull, from Pope Anastasius in Indiction
I of the Pontificate in the 4th year, given to the same Peter)
was still among the living in the year 1153: so that Richard, contemporary with him,
could not have immediately succeeded Albertus a hundred years before;
as Ughelli wrote, unmindful of ages to be compared among
themselves. Add, that with the Episcopal series so
constituted, that Richard followed Peter the Corvinian Bishop,
nothing whatsoever will be in this whole Life, which
Alexander received from elsewhere than from the first author Richard;
having promised in the Exordium, not a supplement, but only a more lucid
style. But Richard could have been immediately succeeded by
Rofridus, present in the year 1179 at the Lateran Council;
and him indeed Ursus, and finally in the year 1221 a certain Raus,
distinct from the above-mentioned Vulturarian: after whom for the remainder
of the 13th century the gap-filled catalogue of the Corbinian Bishops
fails in Ughelli: nor have we so far found from elsewhere,
whom between Raus and Rogerius, flourishing in the year 1310,
we can place.
LIFE
By Alexander Bishop of Vulturaria
From the MS. of Ferdinand Ughelli.
Albertus Bishop of Monte-Corvino in Apulia (St.)
BHL Number: 0231
BY ALEXANDER, BISHOP, FROM MS.
[1] I Alexander Gerardinus a Bishop, least of all
Bishops and faithful of God,
when I was traversing my diocese, and gathering the Lives of the superior Pontiffs
my elders; I discovered
that most holy Albertus, of the noble stock of the Normans,
had led his life uncultivated; although at the urging
of the most ample Peter, Archbishop of Benevento, Richard
Bishop of Monte-Corvino composed it.
Therefore, with the great love, by which toward the great Father Albertus
I am driven, I have determined to write it in a more lucid style.
[2] In the four hundred sixty-third year from
our time b, when the illustrious city of Monte-Corvino
was being founded, with the fame of the abundance divulged everywhere, A boy led to Monte-Corvino, very many
peoples came together to inhabit it: among whom when
from the town of Planisium c very many came, John,
father of Albertus, betook himself also there, with Albertus his little boy
of five years. Who taking the beginning from
the work of piety, built the church of St. Nicholas, which we now see
demolished, on the very border of Monte-Corvino and Lucera.
and instructed in letters, But when he handed over his son Albertus to be imbued
with literary discipline, you would see the divine work
shining in him: since from the first time
he avoided the commerce of women, and had youth and
the rest of his age occupied in fasting, in the adornment of temples,
and continual prayer to God, and
showed himself as the common father of the poor.
[3] With the Blessed Bishop dead, two days before the nativity
of the Lord, the Clergy, people and d Count, he is created Bishop; who at that time
had that province, by common vote chose Albertus
as pastor of his country, fleeing and refusing
to undertake such a burden. But when he was compelled by force, he did not wish
to be consecrated before he raised his temple, small and uncultivated,
to the honor of God high and celebrated.
Then with the fame of sanctity growing daily, e the Duke of Apulia
and the other nobles to confess their crimes
began eagerly to flock to him. he loses his sight: And lastly,
when with prayers, fastings, assiduous weeping and great
meditation before God he attenuated his body; the light
of his eyes he lost.
[4] At which time manifest miracles began to appear in him.
For on a certain day, when according to his custom before
the door of the curia he was sitting, for one thirsting water is turned into wine, at a time of summer exceedingly
burdensome; and he felt someone passing by that place;
having asked who he was, after he heard him to be
the servant of John Limi, having inquired whence he came;
when he said he was bringing water from the fountain, he asked for a little
water. Which when he handed in a vessel, and Most Holy
Albertus applied to his mouth, by God's great wonder
it was at once changed into wine. Wherefore when Albertus wished
to drink, he said, My son, why have you deceived me? I was asking
for water, you have given wine. The servant marveling at the great thing,
with a great oath affirmed, that he had given pure only
water; and therefore, when he gave water again,
it was again changed into wine. By which miracle
the great name of Albertus began to be.
[5] invoked he frees a captive, And a little afterwards when William Count f of Rotellum,
was torturing a certain captive with heavy fetter and harsh prison,
and he was not sufficient for so great a labor; the name
of Albertus he began to invoke with a loud voice: whom on the following
night he saw coming in sleep and saying:
Arise, and go from here. Who when he awoke, and
it seemed that command had been real; for a long time he was stupefied,
then on another night, when he appeared again,
he began to ask who he was: who replied he
was Albertus, Bishop of Monte-Corvino, who
was telling him to go from there. Which thing when he tried in vain,
he thought the dream was vain. And at length,
when on the third night he came, he said, that he
was so fatigued by that labor, that he would not return again.
Soon amid speaking unexpectedly he seized him,
and beyond Termulas left him at a place neighboring Monte-Corvino
among the vineyards. Who in the morning afterwards
when he went to Albertus, and with a wondrous kind of praise
pursuing him was giving thanks, because by his
power he had at last escaped from the harsh prison; Most
Holy Albertus replied. Do not ascribe this to me, son,
but to the immortal God, who with wondrous power raises
the crushed and frees those bound. Which miracles Lemarchus
g, Archbishop of the Beneventan see, heard from
Desiderius and Albinus, who of venerable grey hair were aged,
and had seen these things; when according to the custom of an Archbishop
he was visiting Monte-Corvino, and with great zeal from every quarter
was inquiring into the miracles of Albertus.
[6] he is troubled by Crescentius his Vicar Then with old age progressing in length, on account of the light
of his eyes lost, you would see him have the divine
spirit and foretell the future. For when the Clergy,
people and Count of the province, on account of his old age and blindness,
gave him as Governor Crescentius a Priest,
and he wished that the life of Albertus would be brief; Albertus
said to him: Crescentius, I affirm to you that shortly you will be a Bishop h:
yet you will have all things adverse in that office.
Which indeed by a miracle of God was true afterwards,
when the impious man committed the life of the most holy Albertus to boys,
friends, and evil men: who by the deceit
of demons now were leading him through cliffs and rough places
of mountains, so that he frequently fell; now
great voices over his aged head they were sending forth; now
they were throwing his shoes and garments into the fire.
Often with great laughter throwing water on the most holy face
they were saying; O Lord, it is raining, cover yourself: great
rains are now pouring forth. Nay also when he slept in the midst
of July and August's heat, they put very many cicadas near the head
of the most holy man. All which things he with the most equable mind
by tolerating was praying God, that He should wish to render no evil
for that matter. But at length the divine vengeance appeared,
and by the manifest judgment of the eternal God some of them
by harsh exile, some by cruel death, and some by poverty
and harsh prison wretchedly died.
[7] and at last most piously he dies, And when at last God wished to free Albertus from that labor,
at once the whole city far and wide was moved by the fame
of Albertus dying. So when men, women and boys
came running to him with great weeping, they began to proclaim
with a loud voice: O our guardian; O public
parent of all! O salvation! O defense! O public
and private hope of our country! what shall we do hereafter?
Behold, Father Albertus, that liberty which we have
while you are alive, with you now dying we lose.
Then he with his body already deprived of strength, with a joyful countenance,
opening his once-loved lips to his people blessed them,
and saying that it would be the last speech
which he would make to his people, he taught them to live piously and justly;
and with his body now languishing, blessing again;
he departed from life as if sleeping, on the Nones of April i in the one thousand
one hundred twenty-seventh year from the birth
of our Redeemer.
[8] The funeral is honored by a miracle, Then on the following day, when the most holy body
with great weeping of all was being borne to the sepulchre, they saw
man, which filled all the air far and wide. And then
Russus, a man of approved faith and sanctity, who
thought that his eyes had grown dim, with the smoke now vanishing
together with the sacrifice, began with a loud voice to give thanks
to the immortal God, who at that time opened such
wondrous works. And a little afterwards a great crowd of sick people
was seen going to the tomb, and by a manifest miracle of Albertus
returning with health.
[9] a contracted woman is loosed, Among the others soon after his departure, the fame
of the holy man moved Basilica, a woman of Alife,
to seek Monte-Corvino, who for two years at
member whole: And when she disclosed to her host, that she
was going to that city with a taper according to custom, to see
the holy sepulchre; the host brought the matter to the Bishop:
who desiring to do a thing pleasing to the people, first
gave thanks to the eternal and immortal God, who
in that age opened wondrous works to the people: then
he caused that woman to be led before the sepulchre. Who
when she was praying day and night with tears poured out, by chance
it happened on the day on which the miracle occurred, that the Lord
and the people of the city were convening in that temple to
conduct public business of the country: when suddenly they heard the woman
rendering with loud voice praises both to God and
to B. Albertus: nay also very many clearly perceived, the broken
bones returning to the ancient state of the members.
Wherefore with the whole city running to the temple with great
joy, she publicly confessed, that by divine revelation
she had come to the tomb.
[10] A little afterwards a certain Benedict from Bicari l a town,
which is at the eighth milestone from thence, a paralytic and mute is healed, when with grave
and long sickness in his whole body he labored, and with use of hands
and feet lost he was now also losing the speech of his tongue;
to the temple of St. Albertus he caused himself
to be led. Where when for a whole week in vain he had prayed,
with great anger he withdrew from there, reporting that by Albertus's
aid all rejoiced, but he was withdrawing without the aid:
and in that manner he entered by night the temple of the town of Serra.
Where when he had spent the night, he saw most holy Albertus
coming in sleep and saying: Why, brother,
do you walk sad and grieving? when those things which are of God's will
are by no means in your will. But rise: by this
infirmity you will no longer be burdened. Who at once awakening,
found himself sound in his whole body; and so returning
to the temple of Albertus, with great joy of all long
in that city he remained. And at almost the same time another
miracle was done with Bishop Richard present.
[11] an energumen woman is freed, When innumerable throngs of women and men
were flocking there, and many miracles were daily being done,
it happened that a certain woman, by name Mary,
by the hidden judgment of God was occupied by a demon, who
with her husband Albert was living both in good name and
great love. In so great a matter the husband was stupefied,
the neighbors wondered, kinsmen grieved; but she
with a horrible voice was raging, was twisting her face, gnashing
her teeth, striking her breasts; and with a grim gaze
looking upon each, was tearing her face, clothes and her whole body.
Wherefore the husband, when in vain he had implored the help
of physicians, came to the temple of St. Albertus:
where with his wife set before the sepulchre, when
he believed that she ought to become milder, she being made more angry,
for three whole days barking in the manner of dogs, horrible
inhuman voices, unheard wailings, and horrendous
growlings with the whole people amazed she sent forth. At last
when the husband in no way withdrew from there, but
determined to stay there the whole time and to invoke the Holy
Trinity, the spirit unable any longer
to stay in her, at once threw her to the ground: where
with belly, breasts, and the whole chest made swollen,
an immense spirit, changed into a lurid poison,
with great labor she vomited out. By which miracle
Bishop Richard and the people moved appointed
up to the ninth day to pray for her, with a portion
of citizens distinguished, who by night should guard her.
But on a certain night, when they slept a little,
the whole temple, and one with great force seized
her: whom when it was lifting from the earth, they awakened
and stupid at last with great labor freed her.
Wherefore Bishop Richard, having called John m, Bishop of Vulturaria
and a venerable man, to counsel,
when they had discovered the error of the woman, enjoined her
to cross to the holy Sepulchre in the East.
Which journey indeed she completed with great joy,
and returning to the temple of Albertus, shortly there died.
[12] those endangered at sea Another miracle also must by no means
now be passed over, confirmed by a certain letter
of the venerable Raus, Bishop of Vulturaria, to the venerable
Peter, Bishop of Monte-Corvino, to the clergy and
people of the city written. When Raus by Roger, the most glorious King
of Sicily, was called to Palermo, and from Salerno to the nearby
parts of n Balnearia, which are places near the Pharo
came; a great storm having arisen he asked the sailors, that
they enter the port of Balnearia. Which thing when they were trying
to do, with the wind rising to immense proportions, through
the midst of the seas they were cast with great peril.
Wherefore the Bishop, much more moved than before,
began to publicly promise all the goods which he had, if
they should touch land. Then the sailors with great weeping
replied, that they were lost: and with a wind arisen between
the West and the North, are miraculously brought to port: by a certain miracle
through most narrow cliffs they escaped. Then through the narrows
of the Pharo as they were being carried, nor did they have any hope of
safety, with all the multitude despairing, Raus began
to invoke the name of St. Albertus. And at once
he saw a man clothed in white raiment, of honorable appearance
and joyful countenance, coming to him, saying: I am here,
whom you call: I am Albertus. Wherefore when
Raus rolled himself at his holy feet, Albertus raising
him up, said, Be of great courage, Raus my son; the port
immediately you shall touch, and by God's great mercy,
between going and returning, all things favorable
shall be for you. And when he had said these things, at once he vanished.
Wherefore Raus, coming forth into their midst, proclaimed: Live
with secure mind all who are here: great
miracles have I seen. Nor had he fully narrated them, when
they saw the ship as if flying passing over the highest mountains
of waters, and unexpectedly entering the port. At which
miracle, all who were in the ship came together as one,
and gave innumerable thanks to most holy Albertus. But Raus
returning from Sicily, at once went to the holy sepulchre
of Albertus, received with wondrous joy by the Clergy and people
of Monte-Corvino.
[13] We read, what by no means must be omitted,
that St. Albertus, when above the altar he was holding the host of Christ consecrated,
and was praying with great tears, that
He would signify to him by what things he could acquire salvation
of his soul, and He did not answer; said, My Lord, To Albertus once sacrificing,
I will never dismiss You from my hands, unless previously
You shall have answered. And with Him not answering, he adjured Him.
Who at last answered that these seven things were to be done by him.
First, if every day you feed me, that is, if for the love
of me you shall daily give one obol, more will it
profit your soul and be grateful to me, than if
after death they should offer for you one mountain of gold
that from earth should touch heaven. Second, Christ teaches seven very meritorious acts. more does it avail
to shed one tear every day while you shall live,
than if after death so many tears flowed out for you
that they could make one lake. Third, it
pleases me enough, if on any night from delightful sleep
you shall withdraw yourself, and with whole heart pray to me: which thing
will benefit your soul more, than if at your death ten
thousand men should cross to war for the faith of Christ
in your name. Fourth it will be greatly pleasing to me,
if in a doubtful matter you shall take in good
part all things which by others shall be done and wrought,
and you shall not send forth any murmurs about your neighbor,
and you shall correct him erring between
yourself and him: which certainly will avail more, than if
you should complete a fast of seven years on bread and water.
Fifth; which pleases me more than all, if
with good spirit you shall remit a grave offense to your enemy:
which indeed will be more useful to your soul, than
if going to St. James of Galicia, at each
mile you should find a field full of rods, with which
in such a manner you should beat yourself, that far and wide your blood
in every mile you should pour out. Sixth is, if at every
time you shall esteem yourself less than every creature;
which is true humility, and will profit your soul
more, than if you should sustain many hospitals of the poor,
and should refresh the thirsting and hungry throng of men
every day. Seventh you shall beware, as long as you shall live
to make any judgment with rash mind: which will be pleasing
to me more, than if whole days in prayer you should
pass, and at all times also fast, and all
your goods for the love of God give. You shall strive therefore Albertus, if
you shall desire to obtain my glory, to fulfill these things in mind and
work.
NOTES.
a Alexander is
Bishop created about the year 1496, but always implicated in such great affairs of Kings,
that it is much if even in the first years in his Bishopric
he resided: which he dismissed in the year 1515, and in the year 1520 sailed to India,
dying in the year 1525, a septuagenarian.
1074, in which the latter was killed, and at length he himself also died 1077,
put an end to the Principality, long continued in the Lombard stock, and
yielded place to the Norman Princes.
the Pharo namely (which all things afterwards the nobler name of Apulia
absorbed) as Falco of Benevento has in his chronicle, drawn out for the first 40 years
of that century; which William the Anonymous of Monte Cassino, in a chronicle
embracing almost the whole 12th century, writes died in the year 1126.
by the sea, and the extreme limit of Apulia toward Italy) he is said soon to have been transported, when the captive was freed.
Archbishop, to be placed as mid between Gregorius, still surviving in the year 1142; &
Peter, whom it is established to have begun to sit within the sixth year from then,
is to be established? Nowhere else does his name occur: but indeed that of Rosamundus, who on the side of the Pseudo-pontiff Anacletus, with Gregorius expelled, for some time held that See.
who following his erroneous calculations about Richard, said this one
sat in the very year in which St. Albertus died: more rightly would he have done if the first place
among the Vulturarian Bishops he had left to Arderadus: &
this John he had made one of the successors of Raus to be named shortly, those
whose names are still lacking to fill up a gap of at least
eighty years.
ON B. JULIANA THE VIRGIN, PRIORESS OF MONTE-CORNELIUS AT LIÈGE, PROMOTER OF THE FEAST OF CORPUS CHRISTI,
YEAR 1258.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY
Juliana the Virgin, Prioress of Monte-Cornelius at Liège, promoter of the feast of Corpus Christi (B.)
BY AUTHOR G. H.
§. I. Various writers of her Life. Place of birth of B. Juliana.
[1] Two illustrious monuments are proposed in the Acts
now about to be set forth: of which one regards the
virtues and deeds illustriously done by the most holy
Virgin Juliana; the other contains the first origin
of the feast of the body of Christ, hitherto with the highest solemnity
celebrated in the Church, from the vision divinely offered to the Virgin Juliana.
What faith should be had in these monuments,
the author sets forth in the preface, Life of B. Juliana when he says, they were known and related
by venerable and faith-worthy persons, soon after her death of whom
some had dwelt with Juliana herself, some
also had obtained the special grace of friendship, of her life
and virtues very many things they had known, and without
the leaven of falsehood had indicated to those asking. These things
were first, first in French through the diligence of one very religious
person, as certain fragments lest they perish,
in the French language committed to letters, and by John
de Lausenna, Canon of the Church of St. Martin of Liège,
the counsel of this Canon, most faithful friend of Juliana, another writer in the same place
translated into Latin, nay enriched with many added things,
as Bartholomew Fisen testifies in his Annotations
to the History of the first Origin of the feast of Corpus Christi no.
15, asserting that the first Life written in French in a very old MS. booklet
is preserved in the Cornelian house, in which Juliana had lived.
But a very ancient Latin exemplar found in the archive of the Cornelian house,
perished at Paris in the hands of the typographer,
who while he was preparing to publish it, here published from a double MS. of Liège, departed from life. Afterwards Lambertus
Ruitius Vicar of the Cornelian house copied the same Acts from an ancient
MS. Codex in the house ad Catenam written in the year 1436,
copied in the year 1591, and collated it with another exemplar of the Liège Carthusians,
which even now is preserved in the Cornelian house, as in our transmitted
apograph is read. These
Acts we give collated with the Life, found in the MS. codex of the cenobium
of Rubea-Vallis near Brussels in the second part of the Hagiologium
of the Brabantine. & another of Rubea-Vallis, The same exists in the MS. codex of Averbode,
which in the year 1651 Chrysostomus Vander-Sterren, Abbot of the cenobium
of St. Michael, Premonstratensian, had brought to Antwerp.
Among the persons joined with B. Juliana in holier familiarity
was Eva, near the church of St. Martin at Liège
30 of book 2 it is said, that to this day, when the author was writing,
she was magnificently attesting. The said Eva was still living in the year
1264, when Pope Urban IV transmitted to her the Bull
concerning the solemnity of the Venerable Sacrament instituted: which Bull
at the end of the Life in the codex of Rubea-Vallis we found annexed,
and here likewise we give. The author divided the Life into two books,
again subdivided into their chapters as he himself book 1 no. 13
calls them: but what are appended to these as summaries of things, divided into 2 books: some
are in the MSS. of Liège, others in the MS. of Rubea-Vallis, both
annexed by later hands. Furthermore in the Liège MSS. is subjoined
to book 2 chapter 46 this title: On the desire of death,
which Juliana had, and that by the writer she is said to be
in place of this in the MS. of Rubea-Vallis these things are read: How
she desired to be dissolved and to be with Christ, and how
she was a Martyr. We omitting these titles, because similar
summaries we ascribe to the margin, change the chapters into numbers,
and according to our custom divide the whole treatise into Chapters of just
prolixity.
[2] This synchronous author not at long intervals
(the words are of Bartholomew Fisen) was followed by John Holsemius
Canon of Liège, John Ultramosanus, Other writers followed,
and John Warnantius, who among things done by their
countrymen briefly but eloquently commemorate this history:
they wrote about the year
1330. Of the same makes mention the author of the Great Chronicle
of Belgium, who lived under the siege of Neuss
or in the year 1474. But all these treat almost
of the Institution of the feast of the Venerable Sacrament at Liège, without
particular mention of the Virgin Juliana: John Blærus, to whom its first
origin John Diesthemius Blærus brought down, Prior at St. James
at Liège of the Benedictine family: who in the year 1496
wrote a commentary on that matter, distributed into ten articles,
at Douai with the great mirror of examples in the Bellerian press
in the year 1603 printed, and reprinted in the Annals
of Bzovius at the year of Christ 1230. In the same passing century
15, in which Blærus lived, Guillelmus Fanius, the same subject was treated by Guillelmus
Fanius, Canon at St. Martin of Liège, but this
little book we do not yet know has appeared in print. The above-mentioned
Lambertus Ruitius published at Liège, in the press of John Voßius in the year
1598, the Life of B. Juliana, Lambertus Ruitius, from ancient Latin codices
translated into French; to which he subjoined a compendium, extracted
from the Latin Commentary of the said Guillelmus Fanius. There flourished
at the beginning of this century John Chapeavillus, Canon
and Vicar of Liège of the Bishops of Tongres, John Chapeavillus,
of Utrecht and of Liège in three tomes published in the year
1613, and to the second tome subjoined: A historical
Treatise, on the first and true origin of the festivity of the Most Sacred
Body and Blood of the Lord, from authentic
histories and documents collected. He first
of all cites the Life of B. Juliana which we give, and asserts
it is preserved in several places of that diocese in old
codices MSS., learnedly and
gravely described by an anonymous author of that time in two books.
Chappeavillus was followed by the above-mentioned Bartholomew
Fisen of Liège, & Bartholomeus Fisen: from our Society, a man exceedingly erudite in Liège
affairs: who with an illustrious Commentary,
at Douai in the Bellerian press in the year 1628 published, this whole
history, on the Life of B. Juliana and the First Origin of the Feast
of Corpus Christi, illustriously illuminated: and again he has very many things
on the same subject in the History of the Church of Liège, which
he brought down to the year 1252, after which B. Juliana for some years
survived in life. Of her finally the Life in his own phrase on
this fifth of April the same Fisen published, in the Flowers of the Church
of Liège, in the year 1647 printed.
[3] The place of birth of B. Juliana was in the land of Retinna, within
the second milestone from the city of Liège, She was born at Retinna, which therefore a citizen
of Liège Fisen calls her no. 16 of the Annotations to
the former treatise. Because, he says, Retinna is situated within those
limits, which the Bannal league circumscribes to the city, as
they say: for the whole people of Liège,
part inhabits the city, part inhabits the adjacent country: but
they enjoy equal right in both places, even of suffrage at the assemblies,
both Consular and any other: they use the same
laws, and are citizens and are named, and
are equally subject to the Consuls. Furthermore the boundaries of this consular
province in the vernacular idiom they call the Bannal
league, although sometimes by less than a league, sometimes
to two leagues, or six thousand paces it extends. In the said village Retinna there is a fountain,
where is the fountain of B. Juliana. which the inhabitants call St. Juliana's, for what cause
nothing is brought forward. Certain houses there retain
the ancient name of Abbey: I reckon there was formerly a farm
of the Cornelian house placed in the same place, in which
were the houses of St. Juliana's parents. But now, with the goods
given in emphyteusis, there is no name of the Cornelian farm.
These things Fisen says of the birthplace of B. Juliana, whom
everywhere he honors with the title of Saint.
§. II. The house of Monte-Cornelius: The Rule of St. Augustine observed there.
[4] At Monte-Cornelius dwelt the Premonstratensians, The other place, in which B. Juliana was raised, and then
lived as a nun and Prioress, was at the Trans-Mosan gate
of the city of Liège, under a steep mountain,
which Fisen relates to be called of Cornelius or of Cornels, the vernacular
word leaning toward "corna." There were on the said mountain
two houses destined for religious men, one on the summit
of the mount, another at the foot. On the summit was the Premonstratensian
cenobium, constituted by Bishop Adalbero, who died in the year 1124.
But the Premonstratensians
migrated into the city in the year 1288, having received on the Meuse
now Carthusians: which Engelbert de Marca, likewise Bishop,
in the year 1357 attributed to the Carthusians: who to
this day Fisen relates hold the place with great honor to the Divinity
no. 20 in the Notes. At the foot a House for religious and the sick, At the foot of this Mount Cornelius
was an ample house, built both as a hospital and cenobium
by the people of Liège, so that citizens of both sexes, who
incurred the contagion of leprosy, might there receive a dwelling, as in book
2 chapter 1 below in the Life is widely explained: and what
Jacob de Vitriaco, a most upright writer of that age,
in his History of the West chapter 25 gives in these words agrees completely: There are other
congregations both of men and of women, renouncing
the world and regularly in the houses of lepers and in hospitals
of the poor living, without estimation and
fixed number, in all regions of the West,
to the poor and sick humbly and
devoutly ministering. They live however according to the Rule of St.
Augustine, according to the rule of St. Augustine without private property and in common,
under the obedience of one Major; and with the regular habit
received, they promise perpetual continence to the Lord.
Apart however the men, and apart the women,
with all reverence and chastity, sleep and eat.
The Canonical Hours however, as much as the zeal of hospitality
and the ministry to Christ's poor
permit, by day and night they do not omit to hear.
In the houses in which there is a greater convent,
and a more numerous congregation of Brothers and Sisters,
they frequently gather in chapter to correct the negligences
of delinquents, or for other necessary and
honest causes. Readings of the divine
Scriptures however mostly, praised by Vitriaco, while the bodies are being refreshed,
they cause to be recited to them: in the refectory and other
certain places and established hours observing silence.
Sick men however or healthy guests, whom
they receive in their houses, separate from women
they cause to eat and sleep. Their Chaplains however
with all humility and devotion to the poor
and sick in spiritual things ministering, with the word of divine
preaching the untaught they instruct, the fainthearted &
weak they console, and to patience and to giving
of thanks they exhort. The divine office, that all
the sick may hear in their beds, in the common chapel
by day and night they assiduously celebrate.
Confessions however and extreme Unctions and other
Sacraments they diligently and solicitously administer to the sick,
and to the dead they exhibit due burial. situated then in lower Lorraine. To these
he adds many things, and then these: At Paris and Noyon
in France, at Prun in Champagne, at Tournai in
Flanders, at Liège in Lorraine, at Brussels in Brabant,
there are hospitals of piety, houses of honesty,
workshops of sanctity, convents of decorum and religion,
refuges of the poor, asylums of the wretched, consolations
of the mourning, refreshment of the hungry, the sweetness and mitigation
of the sick. Thus Vitriacus, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church,
died on the 30th of April in the year 1244, when in the designated
by him house of lepers at Liège B. Juliana was dwelling as
Prioress. For then lower Lorraine or Ripuaria was
Godfrey Duke of Bouillon, afterwards King of Jerusalem
had ruled: and because the Counts of Louvain and Limbourg formerly
possessed the Duchy of Lorraine, hence it came about, that
even afterwards the dukes of Brabant and Limbourg were so called.
There were also subject to the Dukes of lower Lorraine
other Counts and Lords all round about, especially the jurisdiction of Liège,
Hasbania, and neighboring places.
[5] There was therefore among the said people of Liège the hospital praised by Vitriacus
or house of lepers on Mount Cornelius, which some wished to have been of the Cistercian Order, in which from
that time to this day, with Fisen as witness, the Augustinian
Rule flourished, and according to this vows also are there
made; nor does he affirm any trace of this family remains anywhere else at Liège,
and therefore he wonders whence it came into the mind
of Molanus and other more recent writers, to assert that St. Juliana
presided over Cistercian Virgins. This controversy
was recently sharply ventilated in Flanders between Peter de
Waghenare, Prior of Furnes of the Premonstratensian Order;
and Charles de Visch, likewise Prior of Bruges of the monastery
of the Dunes of the Cistercian order, while each strives to vindicate
her to his own; the former in the treatise "On Persons of the Premonstratensian order
illustrious in holiness," together with the Life of St. Norbert published
in the year 1651; the latter in the "Library of writers of the sacred Order
Cistercian," reprinted in the year 1656. Waghenare on page
104 and following among the Premonstratensians reckons B. Juliana,
B. John the Prior, B. Sapientia the Prioress,
BB. Ozilia, Ermentrude, Elisabeth
and Agnes, religious sisters on Mount Cornelius, because
honorable mention of all is made in the Life of B. Juliana. But on the contrary
Chrysostomus Henriquez inscribed all on different days in his
Menologium of the Cistercian Order. The Life of B. Juliana variously interpolated to prove this: The same afterwards published Lilies
of Citeaux, or the Lives of the sacred Cistercian Virgins, &
among these in distinction 3 the Life of B. Juliana, premising that he
had taken it, with a few things indeed changed, from the very celebrated
library of Rubea-Vallis: but he does not indicate what
are those things, which he changed at his pleasure. They appear most
to be, by which he would add B. Juliana, and other mentioned persons to his
Order: thus in book 1 no. 2 to these words, "to the house
of Mount Cornelius, near Liège, which then was a new
plantation," he added "of the Cistercian Order": and no. 6
to these words, "the writings of most blessed Bernard seemed to her
vehemently fiery"; he added "of our Father Bernard," as if
the ancient writer had been of the Cistercian Order: and book 2 no. 7
of Jacob de Trecis, afterwards Pope Urban IV, to these words, "This
one afterwards was made Bishop of the Church of Verdun,"
these he placed between, "This one indeed desiring to be more freely
at leisure for God, despised ecclesiastical dignities and honors,
and in a certain monastery of our
Order took the habit of religion, and afterwards
was made Bishop of the Church of Verdun."
And at no. 27, so that the principal argument might be snatched from the Premonstratensians,
these words, "First they constituted as their Prior a certain monk
of the white habit of the higher Mount Cornelius,"
he thus changed: "A certain monk
of the higher Mount Cornelius they constituted as their Prior."
I omit to inquire into others.
[6] Indeed she lived in exile and was buried in Cistercian monasteries There are indeed many things in the Life of B. Juliana, which show her
affection toward the Cistercians: because she delighted in the writings of St. Bernard,
and driven from the Cornelian house to Robert-mont, to the Valley
of our Lady, and finally to Salzinnes she withdrew, and lastly
at Villers she wished to be buried: all which are indicated to be domiciles of the Cistercian Order
in the very Life of B. Juliana. Besides (&
this is principally the argument of the Cistercians taken from
book 2 of the Life no. 33) "Juliana and her companions by the counsel of skilled
and religious persons, [and she subjected herself to the protection and obedience of the Cistercian Abbess:] but especially of the Reverend Father
Guyard Bishop of Cambrai, to the subjection and protection
of the Abbess of Salzinnes as long as they should live
subjected themselves: lest without a Superior, but by the sole judgment
of their own will, they should be said to live." This was done when
Juliana was still dwelling at Namur near the church of St. Symphorian,
but afterwards, with Agnes and Ozilia her companions dead, with
her companion Isabelle she migrated to Salzinnes. yet she does not seem to have professed a different Rule from the first And all these things are such,
that it appears that the Cistercians have much right in St. Juliana;
not however such as to make even by a shadow probable, that
the Cornelian House was of the Cistercian Institute.
[7] Nay after the death of Isabelle, book 2 no. 42, it is said that
Juliana, seeing herself to have remained alone, commanded from the House
of Mount Cornelius one of the Sisters, by name Ermentrude,
to come to her. But how could she have perceived herself alone,
if she had been inflamed by a new profession of another Rule
at Salzinnes? What? that the same, says
Fisen, when she was dwelling at Salzinnes, received the Prior of Cornelius
coming to her, not otherwise than as her soul's
President and Pastor, and by that name commended
to Ermentrude that she should confess to him, as at the same
no. 42 is indicated. And from these things Fisen says, it is effected, that she was
of the same institute then, as she had been when she inhabited the Cornelian
house; that is, in the Augustinian family, as she had lived,
so she had put her last breath, and indeed outside the Cistercian
monasteries, in the Reclusorium of Fosses. Adds that, as
is said in no. 50, "when before her death by the venerable Abbess
she was asked, that in her house of Salzinnes she should
choose her burial, this she refused to do": for this, how
ought she to have been asked or to have been able to refuse, if she had been professed of the Salzinian house?
We also were in the Cornelian House, and found
both the Sisters themselves at the foot of the mountain, where also the church
is, and the Brothers, who called themselves Prebendaries, in a house
not far distant and nearer to the city dwelling, which was then Augustinian and now is. in both places
in a black habit, such as is almost of secular priests, and of Virgins
professing continence in paternal or their own dwellings;
and this under the Rule of St. Augustine, without any memory of ever mutated
profession in that place: Juliana herself all the pictures,
ancient and new, represented in black habit. Which thing
us already before inclined to the sentence of Fisen, more easily inclined,
because we had the letter of Charles de Visch himself, once given to Fr.
Bolland; by which he ingenuously professed, that he plainly was conceding into the same
opinion, and from the beginning would have so felt, unless
the consenting assertion of great authors following one another had carried him elsewhere:
but he added, that she ought not to be called Premonstratensian
either, and that this was also acknowledged by principal men from the Premonstratensian order
Chrysostomus Vander Sterre Abbot of Antwerp &
Amandus Fabius Religious of Ninove, most known to us for piety,
erudition and sincerity. And here we thought we should stop, when
the Reverend Lord Godfrey de Licht, in the very celebrated monastery of St.
Michael a Premonstratensian Canon—a diligent examiner of ecclesiastical antiquity—
exhibited to us deduced reasons,
by which he thought it probable that it could be effected, that the Sisters
and Brothers of the Cornelian house pertained to his Order rather than to any other:
which reasons because they contain outstanding learning, it seemed fit
to us to propose in the following §. But that the Corneliensian house never
was of the Cistercian institute even the mere proximity of the Premonstratensian
Abbey can prove, since among the conditions of the society entered into
by both orders in the year 1142, and signed by St. Bernard,
one is, that "the Dwelling of the Sisters from the Abbey, namely of the other
Order, should be distant by two leagues."
§. III. Why the Corneliensian house seemed to some to have been originally of the Premonstratensian institute.
[8] That it may be well understood, on what foundation the Premonstratensians
stand, while they reckon B. Juliana among their own;
it must be noted first, [In the same monastery also Sisters formerly dwelt, in the Premonstratensian Order] that from the beginning of the Premonstratensian
Order women dwelt in the same monastery with men;
yet so enclosed (as Cardinal Vitriacus says chapter
22) "within the precincts of the monastery they were held, that to them
no entrance was open to any men." But when with the first
fervor growing lukewarm, improvident security began to induce torpor &
negligence, B. Hugo, successor of St. Norbert in
the government of the Order, caused it to be sanctioned by a decree of the Fathers of the General Chapter,
"that henceforth the nuns should not be admitted to the same
quarters with the men religious:
but should be transferred, separated to a more remote place," as
le Paige says in the Premonstratensian Library book 1, part 1, chapter
19. Which was also done in many monasteries it is established; so
however that they still remained members of that monastery, whence they had been
translated; and their dwellings should remain incorporated with the aforesaid
monastery. Hence it happened, that some more, some less far
were translated: according as a convenient place for dwelling
presented itself.
[9] then separated in roof they had the common name of the monastery: It is to be noted secondly that the aforesaid monasteries of nuns
are not cited by different names in the catalogues of the monasteries
of the Order, from the names of the men's monasteries,
because they were absolutely incorporated with these; although meanwhile it is established
that there were distinct dwellings. This is evident from the monastery over which
B. Oda presided, which was under the monastery of Bona-Spei in Hainault:
also from the monastery of St. Michael of Antwerp, which
still long after the aforesaid general Chapter, had the cloister of the Sisters
incorporated into itself, which with all its goods
pertained to the monastery of men itself; as the authentic diplomas prove,
one of Nicholas Bishop of Cambrai,
given in 1155; another of Godfrey Duke of Brabant, given
1161 and of Pope Alexander III, given 1179: by which
among the goods proper to the same Church of Saint Michael, they confirm
"the court of the Sisters with the liberty of their church":
as also the letters of Duke Henry, given 1186,
by which the same Duke confirms among the same goods "the cloister
of the Sisters": but these who still survive, and bear the care of incurables
under the Rule of St. Augustine, even now remember
their once subjection, and tried not long ago
to return to the same; but for just causes were not admitted. The same
is established concerning the monastery of Saint Nicholas of Furnes from the letters
of Philip Count of Flanders and Vermandois, given 1181,
by which he confirms "to the Sisters of Saint Nicholas of Furnes
fifty solidi to be paid annually," as
also did Urban III, writing "to the beloved in Christ daughters
Christiana Prioress and the sisters of St. Nicholas of Furnes
etc." Of other Prioresses of the aforesaid monastery
the ancient Necrology of St. Augustine of Thérouanne mentions,
which at length can be seen in Peter de Wagenare in
the description of his monastery of St. Nicholas. What however more
than these is, in certain monasteries it seems to have longer persevered
the ancient custom of cohabiting, either because means were lacking
for building houses for the Sisters elsewhere, or because the fervor had not yet
so cooled, that from mutual cohabitation danger was feared,
or for other causes. Cause for sighing about this is provided by letter 68
of Gervase Premonstratensian Abbot to Henry Duke
of Brabant, in which he thus writes: "Indeed when the Venerable brother
N. Abbot of Floreffe, by pious (as we believe) intention
led, intends to transfer the Sisters, who now at Postel
are dwelling, to another place,
where their honesty and reputation may be better preserved, your Excellency
we affectionately beg, that to the same
Abbot you would wish to assist in this deed etc." It is established
however among all that the monastery of Postel from its first foundation
was of men. Since therefore the aforesaid Gervase only in the year
1209 entered upon the Generalate, it becomes probable that that
ancient custom was not yet at that time fully abrogated.
[10] many afterwards retained the bare Rule of St. Augustine. It is to be noted thirdly, that with succeeding times several
Prelates withdrew themselves little by little from the government of the nuns:
who indeed in part permitted them to die out, in part
sufficiently founded, allowed to live on their own revenues, and either retained them
subject to themselves, or left them wholly to the jurisdiction of the Bishops
(to which the Order was long subject), among whom
the observance of the Augustinian Rule so persevered, that
what had been added to it from the peculiar form of the Norbertine institute,
passed into disuse and oblivion. This happened to the nuns
of Steenvoorde in Flanders, long subject to the Premonstratensian monastery
of St. Augustine among the Morini in Artois;
and to those whom we have said above, of Antwerp, who now are purely
Augustinian, and have assumed the black scapular; the rest
of the habit, even the pallium, they still keep white.
Similar examples without any doubt more could be found, &
perhaps clearer than those brought forward, if the archives of other monasteries
anyone should examine.
[11] thus at Mount Cornelius is believed to have happened, These things being premised, it seems it must be said, in the aforesaid ways
with the lower monastery of Mount Cornelius it was done: for
in the first place, that in Mount Cornelius Brothers and Sisters of the Premonstratensian
institute dwelt together, a witness greater than all exception
is St. Bernard in Epistle 79, which is to Lucas Abbot of the aforesaid
monastery; in which by profession he admonishes him, that
he should separate the cohabitation of Brothers and Sisters: "We beg,
he says, by that blood which was shed for souls,
that the peril, bought at such a price, not be lightly esteemed:
which especially from the cohabitation of men and women
is not undeservedly feared by those, who in the school
of God for a long time have now struggled against the devil's temptations,
taught by their own experience, can say with the Apostle:
'For we are not ignorant of his cunnings etc.'" Although
this Lucas, John Picardus and Jacob Merlo
Horstius, in notes on the same Epistle, from Trithemius's conjecture,
make a Benedictine; yet that he was a Norbertine
so clearly the very epistle indicates, that the matter needs no proof.
But it is altogether probable that the aforesaid Sisters, either
at this admonition of St. Bernard, where separated from the superior monastery Sisters, or afterwards according to Hugo's
General decree, separated from the Brothers, were led
to the foot of the mountain; where perhaps already then, by the ancient custom
of the Premonstratensian order, there was a Hospice of the Cornelian
monastery itself: since the mountain, steep to ascend, was not so convenient
for receiving travelers and pilgrims: which
however office of charity was proper to the Order, may be taught
by the most celebrated Postellense foundation,
destined to the same from its very beginnings;
and the Hospice of SS. Gervase and Protasius, constituted
by St. Norbert himself. But when it seemed good to the Liègeois
to establish a Leprosarium of both sexes; the aforesaid
Sisters indeed for the ministry of the sick women there to be placed could have sufficed:
but for the sick men Brothers had to be deputed, after the erection of the leprosarium not
however under the same, but under a different habitation: over whom in common
presided the Prior or Prelate, taken from the superior monastery,
perhaps also dwelling in the same. 2 Cor. 2, 11 These things will become
clearer, if we shall bring forth entire the diploma of Bishop Robert himself, given at that time
in which there B. Juliana was acting as Prioress:
in which it will be permitted to note the profession formula, most similar to that
which the Premonstratensians use, yet in such wise
that it appears that they subjects and subjectesses were no longer
subject to the Abbot of the superior monastery, for whom this Constitution the Bishop
establishes: it is of this kind.
[12] Robert by the grace of God Bishop of Liège,
to his beloved sons, all the Brothers and Sisters of the House
of the lepers of Cornillion, near Liège, in
perpetuity. From the office of Pastoral care enjoined upon us,
to provide for your safety and peace, and to your humility
through the regard of piety we are compelled to be inclined. Wherefore,
beloved in Christ sons, wishing you all and
each, both men and women, both healthy and
sick, in the house of God honestly and peacefully to dwell;
we establish, that the discipline of Chapter, they received from Robert the Bishop together with the Brothers the institutes
of silence and labor, and the other good and approved
customs and institutions of your house,
diligently and faithfully you shall observe: nor let the Prelate dare
to change anything in them, or to dispense with anyone,
unless when he shall see it to be expedient. We charge
however, that those, who with you renounce the world,
solemnize their profession with living voice in this
manner.
I N. make profession, the formula of profession, and promise stability
in this house N. I also vow and promise to God
and to Blessed Mary, and to You N. Father of this house, the renunciation
of property, and the perpetual keeping of chastity,
and obedience according to the Rule of Saint Augustine,
to your discretion, and of your successors,
and that I will be obedient to you, and to your successors
until death.
Let the Prelate however be provident and discreet, that the same
Rule he may cause you firmly to observe according to your measure.
We strictly forbid however in the virtue
of obedience, that any of you possess property in any way;
but if any has anything of his own, let him at once
resign everything: but if any be discovered
to have property, after warning, the mandate of most absolute poverty, let him be expelled from the house,
nor be received further, unless he worthily according
to regular discipline repents: but if property
be found with anyone after death,
let it along with him in sign of his perdition outside the enclosure
be buried under. But whoever,
both in these things and in any other things to be observed or cases,
shall be found negligent or reprehensible, let the Prelate them
charitably rebuke, and their excesses correct and amend;
inflicting the due penalty upon transgressors, according to the
manner of the fault and the person delinquent.
But from any convent two persons, discreet
and having zeal of religion, let be taken; who
solicitously investigate those things, which will be worthy
of correction and reformation, and let them faithfully bring them to the Prelate:
who let him strive to amend manifest excesses, in manifest,
and hidden in hidden, with love
of men and hatred of vices, and let him extirpate by the roots the causes
and origins of evils. To which Prelate
both Clerics and laymen, both sound and sick, both
men and women, let them strive to show obedience alike
and reverence. But when by you is to be elected
is proceeded to, prudent and fearing
men be called, who instruct you about the manner of election, &
diligently admonish you to elect a suitable Pastor;
in whose election let them presume to claim for themselves
no right ever: but more strictly we forbid,
that by secular laymen, with the Brothers and Sisters
the aforesaid election be presumed: which if by chance
be presumed, know it to be invalid and vain
etc. It must be noted however that among the Premonstratensians
it is still in use, that two kinds of Provosts are distinguished:
namely Manual ones who are constituted by the Father Abbots (as they call them),
without election of the Nuns; and Prelates, who are elected by the Nuns:
which was conformable to the Premonstratensian institute: and such here in Belgium are the Provost
of Vallis-liliorum of Mechlin, and the Provost of Oisterhaudt near
Breda, and several others about the parts of Germany.
[13] And indeed Robert wished a Prelate of the first kind,
expressly warning, that in the Prelate's election they should never presume
to claim any right for themselves, who were to be consulted only: it seems
however that after the death of Bishop Robert, some greater right concerning
election accrued to the Abbot of the superior monastery: because there is found
in the archives of the monastery of Belli-reditus (to which namely, in the year
30 after the death of B. Juliana, the Premonstratensians led from Mount
Cornelius migrated) a suppliant little book, written in old character
and in French speech, of which the beginning in Latin
rendered Robert Lamberti, Prior of Averbode (in the history
of the Divine Virgin de Cortenbosch, for asserting to the Premonstratensians
Juliana, but this right seems not to have been lasting for them prolixly disputing) presents such, "Explains
with due honor the Reverend Lord Abbot and
Convent of Belli-reditus, that formerly (when namely
they were dwelling on Mount Cornelius) they permitted the city, at
the foot of the said Mount Cornelius to build a house and chapel,
endowed with the goods and alms of the citizens, both
for the elephantine or leprous, and for healthy Brothers and Sisters,
which is called of Mount Cornelius: &
that it pertained to the Abbot and Convent themselves
to name, and to institute one or two of their Brothers,
who should govern the said Chapel, and to the Brothers
and Sisters, both healthy and sick, should serve:
whom at their pleasure they recalled and removed,
when it was necessary, and others of the same Convent in
their place substituted: which Brothers and Sisters
are held to profess and observe the Rule of Saint
Augustine, after the example of the Abbot and Convent of the superior,
who profess the same. Since therefore several Religious
of the said Convent, to the aforesaid government, as Priors,
presided over the aforesaid Brothers and Sisters,
as from the documents adjoined in favor of the aforesaid
Lords Abbot and Convent appears, etc."
[14] These are therefore the domestic Clerics, of whom in the Life in
Fisen mention is made, namely Clerics of one house or pertaining
to the same house. For to what purpose would other Clerics, to be
Priors and Chaplains, the Abbot of the superior monastery send
to the inferior, and only through the sequestration from the Premonstratensian Order restored. if the same had his own various domestic Clerics,
that is, not pertaining to the superior monastery? When
however the aforesaid Abbot ceased so to send them, is difficult
to divine, especially since at hand are not the documents, by which
that right had once been his, and various Priors thus to have been sent, he tried
to prove, the Abbot of Belli-reditus, nor is the year of the aforesaid supplication
noted for us by the cited Lord Lamberti. Yet a longer
time seems to be insinuated, than that which extends from Bishop Robert's
death to the year of the cenobium transferred to the city, which
was of Christ 1288. Probably however one could suspect,
that the Premonstratensians, by Pope Alexander V in the year
of Christ 1409 exempted from Episcopal jurisdiction; redeemed the free
use of this their exemption by the cession of some rights
from the Bishop of Liège, among which was the administration of the Corneliensian House,
which lest at any time they should repeat, the Brothers
and Sisters dwelling there were ordered to assume
the black habit: which thereafter is also seen in pictures:
which itself was so much the more easily asked by the Bishop, and by the Premonstratensians
conceded; because they must have been weary of suits, by reason
of the foundation between the Bishop and the Magistrate of the city long before
being turned; while on both sides, as Fisen says, "as
about a violated right there is contention even to our age":
but it was of interest to the Bishop, that no one, except by his own or at least
the free election of Brothers and Sisters constituted, should be mingled
in the government of the house, otherwise sufficiently controverted.
[15] From the things said there follow two things sufficiently probable Thus far the above-praised Reverend Lord Godefridus:
which indeed persuade us, that it could have happened, that those who before
under the same roof with the Brothers in the superior monastery had dwelt
as Sisters, were led to the foot of the mountain, and there
up to the time of the erected by the citizens Leprosarium they persevered,
as a member and part of the superior monastery: although
the Abbot of Belli-reditus in his suppliant little book did not mention
any Sisters, there existing before the time which we have mentioned,
and subject to the Prior designated by the Abbot, as is pretended.
From the aforesaid things also it seems credible to us that for restoring
the discipline, in the Cornelian house wondrously shaken, &
by the restitution of the Simoniac Prior, with Bishop Robert dead
and Juliana driven into exile, foully destroyed, it seemed good
to one of the Bishops of Liège, to subject the said house to the Premonstratensian
Abbot only so far, as that it should henceforth be ruled by a Prior
constituted by him and removable at his nod,
the rest of Bishop Robert's first institution being preserved: and
so true and well founded was the supplication of the Abbot of Belli-reditus.
But as regards that very time, in which Robert and
Juliana lived, so far is it that any such subjection or
dependence from the Premonstratensians is proved, either from her Life, yet not that which is principally here sought
or from his Bull; that on the contrary, rather from both it seems to be gathered,
that that house was of an institute and habit different from the Premonstratensian use,
and purely and simply of the Augustinian Rule, as
it is even now. For in the Bull indeed there is deep silence
concerning the Premonstratensian Order and the superior monastery,
indeed a great prejudice against the pretended dependence of the Corneliensian
house upon them: and that both the Simoniac Prior,
the source of all the disturbances, and John substituted in his place by Bishop Robert,
were taken from the number of the Corneliensian Brothers themselves
there admitted, is far more probable;
or at least that they were not sought from the Superior monastery.
For when the seditious were striving to bring back that Simoniac,
that somehow they might cover up the malice conceived within, for the time in which Juliana lived there,
"first they constituted for themselves as Prior a certain monk
of the white habit of the superior mount of Cornelius;
but the holy and innocent Brother namely John, without
reason most wickedly they removed from the Priorate." But what
can indicate in this place such express designation of the white habit and of the superior
mount, except some unwonted novelty, &
the election of a man from a different institute than were then the
Corneliensian leprosarium's inmates; concerning whom whenever in the Life of Juliana
mention is made, you read nothing else than "A certain Brother," "A certain
woman of the Order" etc.
[16] Certainly if they had been professed of the superior monastery, as
they wish, it is scarcely credible, that against John another should have had
to be taken from the same monastery (for how could
the Abbot tolerate, let alone approve, a new election, inductive of a most pernicious schism
among the religious of his very own order nay even monastery?)
and Bishop Robert, when he removed the simoniac Prior from his position,
should have rather sent him back to his monastery, than
to Huy, to a house by no means subject to the Premonstratensian
Abbot of the superior monastery. To this however it could be answered, that for the sake of
more certain quiet he was led farther away by the Bishop, since the Order was not yet
exempted from the jurisdiction of Ordinaries. More we are moved
by the fact that in chapter 1 book 2 of the Life of St. Juliana (for this whole chapter
is about the foundation of the Cornelian house) no trace
of the Premonstratensian habit and rule is found: nay
that the habit, as now it is, was thus from the beginning of the instituted leprosarium black,
and that of the Sisters almost the same which was of the Recluses (except that these
used the black veil: those, how now the Beguines, using the habit, not the black veil. with only a linen head-covering
were content) seems to be taught not obscurely book 2 no. 28
where it is said, that when Juliana in the time of her persecution
was staying in the reclusorium of a certain Recluse,
the Recluse was persuading her, that "she should place a black veil
on her head, that she could suddenly be believed a Recluse by beholders";
which would scarcely have profited, if the rest of the habit was white. Add that
Premonstratensian Virgins were not at all without the black veil, since
in the Chronicle of Laon book 3 chapter 7 it is said, that "it is permitted
to none indeed to have a silken veil after the manner of certain nuns;
but yet either it is enjoined or permitted, to wear the meanest little black cloth
upon the head," such as humble
Recluses wore, and even now wear those professed of the said order.
But they say it is still shown in the superior monastery a certain
little door, serving secretly for descent to the Cornelian house,
through which Prior John was wont to go there
to hear the confessions of Juliana and the Sisters. About the little door,
and that it served those Priors, whom we acknowledge to have been
sometimes taken from the superior monastery, no one will deny: but
whether it is rightly applied to John, that he used it, we rightly doubt.
For these reasons therefore we think, that the opinion previously
established by us can be held more probable, yet in such wise that we do not wish
the right of the Premonstratensians to be prejudged, which in Juliana
they judge themselves to have, and the foundations of which, as they were proposed
to us, so candidly we have submitted to the readers' judgment. The Cistercians'
whatever right in the same, we nevertheless wish
overturned, provided they deduce it not from Religious profession (for by this
Juliana inserted into their Order, not even by probable
reasoning can it be sustained) but from elsewhere. With these already to be
subjected to the press, a letter came from France, asking, whether Juliana
we were not going to inscribe to the Regular Canons of St. Augustine.
A new question to us occurred, to whom so far there had become known
no author of such an opinion: unless perchance by the name of Regular Canons,
taken more widely, anyone also includes the Premonstratensians,
although these constitute a distinct Order from others who commonly
are called Regulars of St. Augustine.
§ IV Time of the life and death of B. Juliana: Relics translated: sacred memory.
[17] B. Juliana born in the year 1193 This most holy Virgin Juliana flourished in the thirteenth
century of Christ, born a citizen of Liège in the year of Christ 1193,
as from the sequence of her whole life will soon be established. When then she had five years
of age, as in book 1 no. 2 is indicated, she was led to the house of Mount Cornelius,
piously raised in the company of the nuns, and among
them afterwards received the monastic habit according to the rule of St.
Augustine. [from the year 1208 she begins to be illumined by a vision concerning the feast of the Venerable Sacrament,] About the 16th year of her age, of Christ 1208,
she saw the first sign in the moon, and two years later she understands by divine inspiration
the feast of the Body of Christ to be established in the Church: but for twenty
years she shrank from announcing the divine decree concerning that new feast.
Meanwhile elected Prioress of the Cornelian house, she begins about
the year 1230 to open the secret brought to her from heaven, concerning instituting
the feast of the Body of Christ; and in the following years to consult wise men,
among whom was Guiard Bishop of Cambrai, promoted to
that See in the year 1238. All these things are indicated
in book 2 nu. 6, 7 and 8. In the year 1240 B. Juliana, because of the destroyed
dwelling, withdrew to the city to the recluse Eva, and to
the house of Canon John of Lausanne of St. Martin's; but after three
months she was restored by sentence and authority of Bishop
Robert, who at the beginning of November of said year, from the see of Langres
had been translated to Liège: which are read in book 2 nos. 21, 22
and 23. Then, with the simoniac Prior deposed, John was substituted,
who composed the office of the Body of Christ, but it was begun to be celebrated in the year 1246. approved by learned men.
In the year 1246 Bishop Robert in the diocesan Synod
decreed the feast; and at the beginning of October at Fosses sick, the new
Office of the feast of the Body of Christ in his sight he ordered
to be celebrated; then on October 16 there he died.
[18] In the following year 1247, the Canons of St. Martin, first of all,
celebrated the feast of the Body of Christ, on the fifth weekday after the Sunday
of the most holy Trinity: as there also in the year
1252 Hugh celebrated it, and he himself, and two years later Peter
Capoccius, both Cardinals and Legates, confirmed it by their diplomas,
as is related in book 3 no. 13 and following. Meanwhile B.
Juliana, having left Mount Cornelius, because of the intestine dissensions both of the Liègeois
and of Mount Cornelius withdrew to the monasteries of Cistercian
Nuns, Mount Robert, and the Vallis benedictine
near Liège, and the Valley of Blessed Mary near Huy. But compelled
to migrate from these, she went to Namur, and dwelt first among
the Beghines in great poverty, then in the house of the Archdeacon of Liège,
whence into the Abbey of Salzinnes of Cistercian nuns also
she migrated, as are had in nos. 31 and following.
Finally about the year 1256 compelled to withdraw from Salzinnes, she migrated
to Fosses; where after a life passed in every kind of virtues she fell asleep
in the Lord, Juliana dies in the year 1258. in the year of grace 1258, in the 66th year
of her age, on the Nones of April the sixth weekday after the Octave of Easter,
which in the said year was celebrated on March 24, in the cycle
of the Moon 5, of the Sun 7, with Dominical letter F. In the MS. codices by
error of the copyists was read the preceding year 1257,
which also very many transcribed. But then the Nones of April
fell on Thursday, not Friday; nor did Wednesday
fall on the vigil of St. Ambrose, or the third day of April;
nor was the next day from her death a Saturday; nor the third,
on which she was handed over to burial, fell on Sunday, which
all are indicated in the Life. In the year 1261 was created Roman
Pontiff Urban IV, to whom by the request of Eva the recluse, (who had been
faithful friend of B. Juliana and concordant in the promotion of the aforesaid feast)
Henry Bishop of Liège writes for the sanction of the said
feast, and he obtains it: and so it is in the year 1262 celebrated
through the whole diocese of Liège. Then in the year
1264 Urban IV decrees the feast through the whole Church, &
concerning this matter directs a Bull to the aforesaid recluse Eva, which below
toward the end of the Life is annexed.
[19] Chrysostomus Henriquez chapter 75 of the Life, treats of the translation
of the body of B. Juliana and writes these things: "For many years the sacred
body with other Relics of the same monastery
behind the greater altar remained reposited: but, the sacred bones among other Relics preserved and translated. on account of
the internal and external movements of these provinces, it was not honored
with the regard it deserved: until little by little
with the state of things mitigated and the time more settled, Robert
Henrion, Prelate of this house, determined to transfer the Blessed's body
to a more decent place. Which
also in fact was done, and the sacred body with other Relics
of Saints into the Chapel of our Father St. Bernard, which with jasper
and marble he had ordered to be adorned, he translated; and in it
he caused an ark made of black marble skillfully polished to be made,
and in it the bones of the Saints to be placed." Robert
presided as Abbot from the year 1587 to the year 1620, buried in the said
chapel of St. Bernard.
[20] The memory of the same Juliana honorably in various places celebrate
writers: her memory with the title of Saint and first the Synchronous Author of the Life everywhere calls her Virgin
of Christ: but later writers when they transcribed the Life,
prefixed this title: "Life of St. Juliana the Virgin,
Prioress of the House of Cornelius at Liège." Thus with the title of Saint
honored her Lambert Ruitius, Vicar of the Cornelian house;
John Chapeavillus, Canon and Vicar of the Church of Liège;
Bartholomew Fisen, before mentioned; also John
d'Assignies Abbot afterwards of Nizelles, in her Life, published together with others
of the Cistercian Order; Heribert Rosweyd, in the Belgian
Legendary, Galesinius, and others. or Blessed Others honored her with the title of Blessed Juliana,
as the before cited Chrysostomus Henriquez, Charles de Visch,
Peter de Waghenare; also Francis Haræus "On the Lives of Saints,"
Miræus in the Belgian Fasti, Wion, Menardus and Bucelinus in their
monastic Martyrologies, Ferrarius in the General Catalogue, and others.
Some abstain from both titles of Saint and Blessed,
as the author of the MS. Florary Molanus, Canisius, Saussay, and others.
Giles Monin after his Sacrarium of Namur, whether she is honored with ecclesiastical office? wrote
Offices of certain Saints of the diocese of Namur, &
at the 5th day of April established a feast of St. Juliana the Virgin as semi-double,
and subjoins lessons from the Life to be recited in the second Nocturn:
but which he himself seems to have composed from his own devotion.
Certainly in the proper offices of the feasts of the diocese of Namur, printed in the year
1619, no mention of B. Juliana is found. Translations referred to April 7 The author
of the MS. Florary at April 7 has these things: "Near the monastery of Villers
of Brabant, the translation of Juliana Virgin, nun
of Corelinus." & 17 January. There it treats of some older
translation: for that which under Robert Henrion was done in the year
1599, happened on January 17, and at that day was inscribed
in the Menologium of Chrysostomus Henriquez: the said Florary
however was written in the preceding century.
[21] B. Juliana a detractor Thus far we had prepared for the press our commentary
on B. Juliana, when through the autumn of the year 1668,
for investigating the Acts of the Saints, having set out to the Meuse and Moselle
regions, we examined both houses under Mount Cornelius, both of the Brothers
and of the Sisters, and we learned, on the occasion
of the Indulgence, not long since granted to those visiting the Corneliensian church
on the feast of St. Juliana, and frequented by a great concourse of Liègeois
citizens; that great controversy had been stirred to the aforesaid
inmates of the Cornelian monastery, as superstitious, and sinning
against the decrees of the Urbanian Constitution, in this,
that they proposed Juliana to be venerated as a Saint. Whose indeed
the stirrer of the controversy not content with writings and words, even
presumed to threaten suspension, to those so venerating Juliana: but
his inconsiderate zeal was repressed by an excellent apology, elaborated
by the Lectors of sacred Theology in the convent of Friars Minor Recollect,
refuted a copy of which Fr. Nicolaus du
Bois, Prebendary of the Corneliensian, made for us. From this a few things (for the rest
from the very words of the Urbanian Constitution and this our commentary
are clear) take excerpted.
[22] by the antiquity of public invocation, Lest it be able to be pretexted, that Juliana was indeed
from antiquity celebrated, on account of the revelation of instituting
the feast of the venerable Sacrament, but with no sacred
cult venerated; let us here recollect the manifold arguments
of her cult. And first indeed, concerning the title of Saint and
Blessed it is established from the most ancient histories, and the common mouth
of Clergy and people, even to the denomination
of a certain fountain in her birthplace, called "of St. Juliana."
Second, known is the solemn and religious burial
of Juliana, among the more sacred Bodies of the monastery
of Villers, placed for no other reason than that of sanctity
to a virgin exile and very poor; a monument of marble erected to her,
four feet tall with a tablet of prayer appended,
common indeed to the Saints buried there, proper however to St. Juliana. Which same
(and this is the third argument) in the proper Litanies of the Floreffe
Abbey among the Saints of the Premonstratensian Order,
is proposed to be invoked in these words, "B.
Juliana, illumined by many revelations from heaven; by whose
works God willed the feast of the most holy Sacrament to be
celebrated annually throughout the whole Church, and by the cult and use of statues, whence is
your praise great: pray for us."
[23] The fourth argument is taken from the sacred statues
of St. Juliana: of which one wooden, from immemorial time
existed and exists in the Corneliensian church, erected
at the column of the choir, opposite the equal statue of St.
Augustine, bearing in the hand the figure of a Theotheca or
Remonstrance: which statue is so ancient and decayed,
that it had to be three years ago painted externally
with colors: when also instead of a garland of flowers, which anciently
was seen placed on the head, was substituted
exposed to the public cult of the people, who with bent knees
before it were wont to pray, and offer lights and vows:
nay on the feast of St. Augustine, Patron of that church,
in the same manner as the statue of the Saint himself it is honored, through
the offering of a floral garland, by the Consuls of Liège
or their Commissioners to be made. Another statue,
of similar form, exists in the Parish church of Fléron
near Liège; and every year before the venerable
Sacrament it is carried processionally, on account of the memory
of the feast revealed to her, and of her birth from the village
of Retinne, subject to the same parish. A third is engraved
in sandstone now almost worn away, in the Corneliensian church,
next to the tabernacle of the Venerable; of the same form
and inscription as the former, exhibiting the name of St. Juliana.
A fourth finally was in the very silver hierotheca of the Lord's
Body, corresponding to a statuette of the holy Angel placed on one side,
which having the head adorned with the insignia of rays, seemed
to sustain the Sacrament with extended hands. Although however
this hierotheca, three years ago reformed, and into a more august
and more transparent form recast;
yet there remain eye and memory witnesses of the former form and statuettes
placed in it; foremost
the goldsmith himself, who recast it, and the Reverend Lord Prior
of the Charterhouse with one of his Religious. And in memory of this matter,
into the new hierotheca has been inserted a double image
of the same Saint, with the history of the double sign, in the moon
defective and made through the Apostles.
[24] The fifth argument is made by icons engraved on copper,
of images and pictures of the Blessed. and thence printed on paper, and publicly distributed:
all of which have some indication of her
sanctity. The most ancient of all, represents the Venerable
Sacrament, sustained by the hands of B. Juliana
with rays, and Isabelle; adored however by St. Augustine
and Eva the recluse. Another more recent, of the year
1625, exhibits the same Sacrament adored by Juliana,
Isabelle and Eva, in such wise that only the middle Juliana has her head
encircled with a diadem or luminous circle: &
this dedicated to the Dean and Chapter of St. Martin of Liège,
serves the Confraternity of the Venerable Sacrament,
and is publicly every year distributed among the Confreres.
A third however representing Juliana alone diademed,
adoring the said Venerable, similarly
in the church of Mount Cornelius every year among the Confreres
and those devoted to St. Juliana is distributed. Finally the same
church's interior walls from all retrospect
memory were surrounded with large pictures, representing the whole Life
of St. Juliana in parts: which being consumed by age,
and a third time renewed it is permitted to see now also,
together with more recent ones substituted in place of the ancient.
But on the summit of the greater altar
is depicted St. Juliana, with rays on her head, and as in ecstasy.
Nay even in the temple of Villers equally of Juliana
herself as of the other Saints there resting,
an image is depicted, with the inscribed title of Blessed.
[25] An annual feast with office formerly in Lusitania where are her Relics; There is added to all these a more illustrious argument of more solemn cult
from the kingdom of Portugal, to which also Relics, and indeed
sent from Rome to adorn the royal Oratory, in the previous
century arrived; namely three parts from the backbone.
Which to be honored annually with a solemn feast by the royal Chaplains
on April 5 with an Office of three Lessons, with the sacred Congregation of Rites
approving, was testified by John Alvarez
de Luzana, Bishop of the city of Porto and Provost of the Royal
Chapel in Lusitania: as we have widely said on April 2
§4 before the Life of St. Mary of Egypt, on the same occasion
there donated with a similar cult. There the reader can see
how these Relics afterwards came to the monastery
of St. Salvator of the Cistercian Order at Antwerp; and finally
in the year 1672 on the 7th day of August with most solemn pomp were carried around,
under the third standard of the same pomp, which was of the holy
nun-monks, by the Tertiary Religious of St. Francis, & now at Antwerp. whom
we call Beguards, together with this lemma noting the year of the Translation,
IVLIana eVCharIstIæ festIs DeVotIssIMa.
It has also been permitted, by the force of the Urbanian Bull of the year
1630 emanating on July 3, by which it is established that in
parish or regular churches of both sexes,
where notable approved Relics of Saints and of holy women
are preserved, of them their
feast can and ought to be celebrated with such office and rite,
as in the church from which they have been translated it was wont
to be celebrated: it has been permitted, I say, by the authority
of the Ordinary, that the said Cistercians two
proper Lessons from the Life of Saint Juliana should compose, and in choir to be recited
they should have printed, as they now are printed
and used, with 40 days' Indulgence added, to be obtained on that very
day, besides other graces indulgenced to the Confraternity there
instituted under Clement X.
LIFE
Described by an Author Contemporary
From various MS. codices.
Juliana Virgin, Prioress of Mount Cornelius at Liège, promoter of the feast of Corpus Christi (B.)
BHL Number: 4521
BY A CONTEMPORARY AUTHOR FROM MSS.
PROLOGUE.
Among all visible things, by which human nature
is easily bent to good or to evil, Examples draw men to imitation example
seems to be the chief. For as wax receives
the impression from the seal, so the morality of life
is formed by example. Hence perhaps in our
times such iniquity overflows, that
they have been multiplied beyond number who present themselves
as models for the perverse; and with lethal cold
the charity of many grows cold, because very few
are found, who in their actions demonstrate pursuits
to be imitated. So the multitude of sinners
creates the custom of sinning. For in a wondrous
manner human frailty is drawn to imitate
those, whose works it more frequently beholds, whether good
or evil. among these the deeds of Saints stand out, For this cause it has always been worth
the effort to describe the deeds of Saints male and female,
and so the examples of those who likewise from this world
are taken, as it were into the present matter through the writers'
memory to be recalled: that as human mortality
from the morals of the depraved can commonly find the means
by which to fall; so with the examples of the Saints read or heard,
if it still stands by God's grace, it may have the means to profit;
or if it has already fallen, it may have the means to rise. But although
the deeds of the Saints male and female of ancient time,
instilled into the ears of the faithful, should always be incentives
to virtues; yet I know that the examples of the Saints
of our time, especially more recent ones, the more recent the more
are motivating. For those which have been frequented by the sight of moderns
seem more accommodated and of use.
Although however a Saint seems to have failed from the earth,
because of the extreme charity of the perfect; yet no one should
doubt, that our times also have had and still have many Saints
and holy women; imitable not only
by women, but also by men in the exercises and progress
of virtues. But perhaps someone will say: If in these
times there is such great lack of holy men,
who will find a holy woman? 1 Cor. 7, 34 I shall bring forth, if it please,
one Virgin, as are the deeds of B. Juliana. whom our century like
holy in body and spirit. This is Juliana,
who a few days ago from this wicked age taken,
is worthy that for the edification of the faithful she should be
recalled to memory. It is she, who forgetful of corporal frailty,
by which most moderns cover their sluggishness and
lukewarmness as with a shield, forgetful also of her sex,
ran to the arduous things of perfection and seized them. She ran
through most profound humility; and in flesh
weak and almost useless she apprehended the highest perfection.
This Virgin therefore with whatever style I shall bring back
to the middle, writing very few things of her life and holy
conversation, of the exercise and progress of virtues,
of her affections and of the revelations made to her,
as if from the abundance of a full field which
the Lord has blessed I gather some ears: of these many lie hidden because of the death of her familiars, or if from
from a fertile vine I choose very few grapes. Whose scantiness
the reason is this, that certain persons, who
had been the inseparable companions of this Virgin in times of peace and persecution,
before her, as they had wished,
departed from this age; and of the many relators
worthy of trust, who had known more than others in Christ's handmaid,
none were left aware. & the humility of the Virgin herself: Although
the Virgin herself to them or others never revealed
the fullness of graces which she received. So friendly indeed
from her first years was humility to her, that whatever
was marvelous in the ears of the hearers if she said,
with perpetual silence within the bolts of her breast she locked,
unless sometimes for some things to be communicated, the liberty
of the Holy Spirit loosened the reins of her mouth. Of the things known
however I have omitted very many: select and certain things are given, because for showing our
Virgin's sanctity, I believed a part of them
to suffice, wishing in this also to provide for fastidious readers.
What has been written indeed, is known and related by venerable
and faith-worthy persons: of whom
some, though not all, yet for much time in which
she lived, dwelt with her; and some having obtained the special
grace of her love, of her life and
virtues very many things have known, and without the leaven
of falsehood have narrated to us asking. Which indeed
through the diligence of one very religious person,
as if certain fragments lest they should perish, in the French
language were committed to letters; and by Lord
John of Lausanne, translated from the French and approved, Canon of the church of Saint
Martin of Liège, a man of admirable sanctity,
have been approved: whose also life and death, which already
has intervened, desires not a brief precious commendation,
but a proper work, if there be one who should undertake it.
This only was, that to so great a man, when it was recited to him
how through the aforesaid person it had been
collected, could displease; that no speech could worthily
explain the sanctity, purity, charity, and zeal of justice of our
Virgin, which he himself before all men had better known.
But with him himself beseeching me
(whom in the number of his friends, although unworthy
and undeserving, he was counting),
though rude and unlearned, at length I undertook,
that which had been done in French, to turn into Latin.
Especially since he himself, set forth in rude style, as also other persons
(whom not to obey it seemed to me impious,
who were similarly inducing me to write) were asking for a simple,
not an ornate, narrative. Thus therefore
I was compelled to betray my stupidity, when
I attempted to do this, which surely befitted a better
intellect. But I beseech readers and hearers alike,
that if any of them has a supply of speech,
he should not think it vain nor be lazy in exercising in this work
the strength of his intellect, and the worthy material, let him clothe
with worthy elocution. For although truth, that they may be embellished by others: purely and simply
said, is worthy of the gift of acceptance: yet I know
that ornament added to truth confers much
grace and favor upon it. Nor shall I object to being done injury,
if the truth of my unpolished narrative by some
diligent person be in some place reformed for the better; or
even entirely renewed by a more decent manner of speaking.
This present little work moreover is divided into two little books.
The first insinuates our Virgin's birth, divided into two books the increments
of her ages, the progress of her affections and virtues,
and the sublimity of her contemplations. The second manifests
her tribulations and persecutions, which for the zeal
of justice; and the injuries and pains which for the special solemnity
of the Sacrament she sustained, and also
her blessed passing.
BOOK I.
CHAPTER I.
Birth, pious education, humble conversation.
[1] There was in the Bishopric of Liège, in the village of a
Retinne, a certain man endowed with the merits of many virtues,
distinguished in progeny, prevailing in riches, Born at Retinne of pious and wealthy parents
Henry by name, and his wife Frescendis: who when
they had lived together for many years without any offspring,
through themselves and through certain faithful ones ceaselessly with prayers
and alms were beseeching the Lord, that He
who can do all things, might deign to grant them children, to be obedient to the
divine mandates. But benign and
merciful God, who is wont to hear the prayers of those
crying out to Him, especially where the hand of pious operation helps
the efficacy of prayer; decreed
by the showing of twin offspring the prayers and works of his faithful,
not to deprive of the gift of petition.
For there were procreated from them two daughters, whom
they were raising with much care and
solicitude: But the name of the elder of these was Agnes;
the younger was called Juliana.
[2] But they were bereaved in the tenderest age of the solace
of their parents,
consummating their good life with a good end. she with these, with parents dead,
But the friends and kindred of the little girls, of whom
the younger was only five years old,
by God's nod bearing solicitude for preserving their innocence,
caused them to be led to b the house of Mount Cornelius
near Liège, which then was a new
plantation, and procured that they be received into the company of Sisters
there dwelling. she is handed over to be raised at Mount Cornelius For it seemed
to them to be worthy, that the poverty of these little girls should be
supplied by the abundance of the Sisters; in one and the same
action providing for the poverty of those, and
consulting the innocence and salvation of these. then at Boverie: But the Sisters,
superiors of the said house, bearing pious
bowels over the infancy of these, to c Boverie, from the aforesaid
house not far divided, placed them; by a certain spiritual
Sister, Sapientia by name, there dwelling,
to be nourished and instructed. They subjected therefore
the little children's youthful necks to the yoke of the Lord, under d Sapientia
their nurse and likewise mistress. For she
was feeding their bodies like a nurse, refreshing
also their minds as mistress, delivering the law of life and discipline.
Sapientia also was giving her pupils to drink, water
of salutary wisdom: which they, according to age and time,
with thirsting breast drank. Now the elder sister grew
in the praiseworthy simplicity of life, she profits in virtue. in
great holiness of body and soul also: yet the younger
surpassed her in the holiness of both man. For indeed Christ,
to whom it is permitted to do what He wills,
treasured up greater accumulations of grace and virtue upon her. Passing over therefore the narration
of the life and praiseworthy conversation of e Agnes, who by piously &
simply living truly showed herself a lamb (for it would have been
unworthy if the matter disagreed with the name), to the execution
of the history of our young Juliana, let the series of the present
narration be turned.
[3] Therefore Juliana, placed under the mistress, was not
impatient of teaching, not flying from discipline, not
at last seeking plays, which however this age
is wont to have as sweet and familiar; for she was already transcending
her age in morals, free from all insolence and
lasciviousness of childhood. she is imbued with letters, For she was young in body,
but in mind grey: she loved however to dwell with herself, very
simple and quiet, and beyond what can be believed
modest. And it seemed good to her mistress, that
she should teach her letters, by which she might know God &
love Him; to whose love the infancy of such
character seemed to aspire. Sitting therefore Juliana at the feet
of her mistress, by her she was being taught letters; to whose doctrine
by daily progresses she responded. For she had received
and it came about in a short time that not only was she able to read
the psalter, she learns the psalter: but also retained it by heart:
for God had given her both a capacious understanding and a tenacious
memory: also in that age if she had read anything
or heard anything, which smelled of the grace of virtue;
this retaining in her heart, she desired to fulfill in deed.
[4] For on a certain day, when the Sisters were fulfilling their accustomed
fasts, of that Scripture of the Life of B. Nicholas,
that on the fourth and sixth day he once sucked the breasts,
Juliana remembering, similarly determined to fast: &
she herself would have done enough in her purpose, because she fasted without the mistress's permission had not the severity of her mistress
resisted her first attempts. Juliana undertook
it could not be hidden from her mistress. Who simulating
herself angry, to terrify her brought her outside of Boverie,
and threw her into the snow (for it was winter), and said to her:
How unlicensed have you taken upon yourself fasting? here do
your penance: and leaving her in the snow, into the
house she returned. But Juliana did not burst out into the voice of murmuring
or impatience, as is usually done
by children of this age at a slight
injury: but, not moved even from the place in which she had been placed,
humbly she does penance: she had taken on the countenance and form of a penitent.
After a little time her mistress returning to her,
commanded her, that continually, she should go to church,
and upon her guilt her confession
she should not defer. Who rising from the place of the cold, straightway
obeyed the one commanding; and concerning what she had presumed,
and had troubled her mistress, she humbly
confessed. But the priest hearing the confession of such purity,
enjoined her, that for what by the presumption of fasting
she had sinned, she should expiate with the eating of one egg. Who
returning fulfilled what she had been commanded. Juliana's fasting
is not to be imputed to childhood, or to any levity: in
it rather is to be noted a certain prelude of the very long
fast to follow.
[5] But when she had obtained a little more age,
desiring to build an edifice which should reach to the heavens, in the safety
of humility she took care to lay the foundations. For not wishing
to eat her bread idle, and desiring more to minister than to be ministered to,
she chose a humble and abject office, with the office of milking cows obtained, whose
fruit might profit in common, and nonetheless whose humility
should remain in work. For she asked of
the Superiors of the house and with poured out prayers obtained, that
when the cattle from the place of pasture with full udders should return,
she from them should milk the milk. Juliana was doing therefore
this office the more devoutly, the more she knew
would use the milk drawn by her hands. She was estimating
with pious devotion of mind, that she would be participant in the penance
of the sick and of all good things which were being done in the congregation,
who would use milk of this kind. It happened however many times when she drew
milk from the cattle, that by the kicks of the cows' feet she was
gravely struck and cast to the earth: yet she,
for the love of silence, did not utter voices of lamentation or cries,
nor even the sounds of light complaining.
But her sister Agnes sometimes coming to the place, she performs this with great humility and patience. for the sake
of seeing what her sister Juliana was doing,
and finding her cast to the ground, sadly was saying
to her: O wretched Juliana, why do you lie here?
I know, wretched sister, I know that in this dunghill
you will die. But she hearing her sister's voice, was rendered
more sad for the spilling of the milk, than for
her body's injury: and suffused with the blush of modesty,
thence she was humbly confessing, as if this had happened to her for her
negligence. We do not dwell on all the things which
adorned the childhood of Juliana of good character: we hasten
to her greater age and greater works.
[6] For from her entering adolescence it began to appear more manifestly
what was in the Virgin, so that in her
the grace of Christ should not seem empty, for the works
which she did bore witness concerning her, and from
her pursuits she could be evidently known. For you would see
the Virgin young, paying less attention to what the flesh could,
than to what the spirit willed; undertaking
not only what obedience had commanded, but also what
usefulness had induced or charity had persuaded: you would see, I say,
her solicitous about all things, negligent about herself,
and most obedient to all the Sisters; of
herself however, as of a lost vessel, not caring.
Always counting her former things as nothing, she strove for greater things,
not to spare her body, she works strenuously and to serve
all: and her virginal body without intermission
with many fastings and vigils, frequent prayers,
and also with assiduous labors was wearing down. And
when from excessive labor she felt her strength failing her,
when it was given her to linger a little in her friendly silence,
wondrous to say! her strength she seemed to repair and resume.
Nor did she desist from corporal exercise, until
outward labors, and inward affections prevailing,
had wholly exhausted her body's strength;
and the weak animal of the flesh so fell, that it added
no more to rise again. When however she was free from work,
at once to spiritual studies she would turn herself, time free from labor she expends in reading, of St. Augustine
and either prayed, or read, or was busy with meditation:
for she was wondrously meditative always. Who
when now she had learned to read freely every scripture Latin and French,
the books of B. Augustine with much
affection she read; and the holy man himself she greatly loved.
But since the writings of most blessed Bernard
seemed to her vehemently fiery, & of St. Bernard on the Canticles & sweeter than
honey and the honeycomb; them she read and embraced with very much
devotion, and the holy man himself with the privilege
of immense love she honored. She gave therefore her soul
to his words; and more than twenty sermons
of the final part, composed by him on the Canticle
of Canticles, in which the most Blessed one was seen
to have transcended human knowledge, studiously she learned by heart,
and committed to firm memory. Why would not
Juliana more willingly read and learn the nuptial song
of Christ and the Church, because of her love toward Christ: of the Word and the soul? She was indeed
more ardently loving love-songs, since the language of love
was to her not unknown or barbarous, for she loved.
For from the first years of her adolescence, she conferred all
her love upon Christ, a Virgin upon a Virgin, upon a Virgin's
Son. Therefore clearly blessed Virgin, who before
she was defiled by the embraces of the world, was federated
with Christ through love: to whom as much more happily as more
maturely she devoted herself. she converses about God: If ever however Juliana
was speaking with her sisters, her speech about God,
from the abundance of the heart proceeding, was woven. If anything
from the precept of Superiors was to be done, she wished
in every way that this be enjoined to her in the name of the Lord,
that from so great and such a name her obedience
might be seasoned.
[7] This discipline therefore of morals and advance
of virtues, her nurse Sapientia with watchful sagacity &
sagacious watchfulness weighing and considering, was turned
into no small amazement and admiration, and
exceedingly over her pupil's progress rejoiced.
Why indeed would not Sapientia exult in joy, she advances with the admiration of her nurse
when she saw her not puffed up with the wisdom of this world, which
is foolishness with God; nor allured also with the wisdom
of the flesh, which works death; but marked with that
certainly heavenly and divine, which is drawn from hidden things:
not that she imputed to her teaching her pupil's
continual increments of virtues: because neither
"he that plants, nor he that waters is anything; but God
who gives the increase." She recognized indeed that Juliana
was running to apprehend the summits of perfection,
& of the edification of others, not so much with herself as nurse, as with unction as mistress.
Nor could she hide, that the marks of her life and
conversation to some persons she should reveal;
so that known how great things the one who is powerful was working in her,
the profit of edification might come to the hearers.
And when from this she was to all an object of reverence and amazement;
she was not on that account rendered more insolent, as is customary;
but more mild and humble in all things and before
all was found.
[8] And so little by little the reputation of her praiseworthy
conversation began to grow, and the fragrance of her fame far
and wide to be scattered, and she by great and humble
persons henceforth to be frequented. But she, who desired to hide
and to lie hidden under the bushel of her humility, the comings
of visitors was bearing with great difficulty, she evades the visitations of the great, thinking herself
unworthy that she should be visited by anyone. Whence if
she could have known that any of the great persons were coming to her,
out of the greatest humility and modesty seeking
hiding places, she would hide herself; that thus without offense
she might decline his conversation: and this especially
in the time of her youth; although in all her
life she had suffered with difficulty the comings of lofty persons.
And if even in her advanced age, when they came to her,
for avoiding scandal, she was compelled to speak with them;
this with such modesty and anxiety of heart
she was doing, that this very thing she compared to the penalty of purgatory.
But if in her youth it happened
that she was anticipated by great persons, or with them she deals humbly. so that she could not flee,
asked by them that she should speak something of God;
she to them with all humility and modesty replied:
"I am a servant of the kitchen, a handmaid of the sisters,
and from me you wish to hear divine colloquies? I know,
I confess, I know how to milk the milk of the cattle,
to nourish the chicks of the hens, and to do such base things. What more
do you ask of me? But you who know how to speak of God much more fully
and more perfectly, of God I beg speak,
and I will hear you diligently: which indeed more
the equity of reason demands." These things Juliana to great
persons in the time of her youth. But with
humble and small persons her speech, to whom
of God and the salvation of souls she spoke more affectionately,
according to what she saw to befit the understanding and age and progress
of each.
NOTES.
CHAPTER II.
Juliana weeps for others' sins as her own: her extraordinary affection toward the sacrifice of the Mass and the sacred Eucharist.
[9] She had taken on such contrition of spirit
for the sins of the whole human race,
that all pain and sigh, although in herself much,
for such sins, she estimated as least, nay
as almost nothing. she weeps for men's sins: Whence as for too little
lamenting strictly accusing herself, she appeared in her own eyes
guilty of all sins. But one example
we subjoin, that what we have said may more clearly
shine forth. When a certain lofty person had sometime
come to her, he began to inquire from her, that she should narrate some
good, which God had taught her.
But she, that she knew little of good, with all humility
replied, asserting herself a great sinner.
And when he enumerated many sins, which God
had always kept far from his handmaid, inquiring whether she
was guilty of those sins; she replied: Lord,
it can well be that I am guilty of all
sins. But he less attending from what
fount such words emanated, and says herself guilty of them, because she does not sufficiently bewail them: with indignation
withdrew from her: for he had thought, as I judge,
he was going to hear sublime things: thinking perhaps that true
religion consisted in the sublimity of speech.
But her Sisters from this were made modest and sad,
and inquiring with reproach, with what
conscience she had uttered such a sentence of herself,
this answer from her they received: Because
I do not have such great grief and anxiety of heart for
the sins of the human race, by which God is continually offended,
as I ought, therefore I seem to myself guilty
of all sins. O truly Virgin of perfect
religion! firm exemplar of religious perfection!
But alas! how few imitators of her virtue she left,
how few emulators of her religion. Very few
indeed to this day seem to lament worthily the wounds of their
own sins, but much fewer who
in lamenting others' offenses strive to imitate Juliana.
[10] From the time however when Juliana was placed, with
her nurse Sapientia, to dwell at Boverie; by
the same, when this could conveniently be done, according
to the custom of the Sisters, to the church she was led.
But God prevented his handmaid Juliana with
the blessings of His sweetness, from a tender age,
when she happened to be present at the solemnities of Masses;
especially however and with more abundant devotion in the time
of the Sacrament. At this wondrous Sacrament
from childhood age she began to conceive not
childish affections. But sensing wondrous sweetness of inward delight
at the hour of the sacrifice first by the Holy Spirit
to be infused, like water her heart began to be poured out,
and in the sight of the Most High to beseech, that to an ampler
grace of the tasted sweetness she might be promoted.
And when from day to day, through vehement desire,
for receiving what she desired she was rendered more capacious; she experiences great sweetness in prayer, especially in Mass.
so greatly the fervor of devotion grew, that when in the time
of the Sacrament she lay upon prayer, from the torrent
of her delight she could scarcely be torn away. There was nothing
in which she could more delight, than if at that hour
she were permitted to linger longer in prayer and her taste.
But her nurse and sisters, although not at that hour
to her devotion, yet with provident intention, yielding to her tenderness,
drew her away from prayer,
and the taste of spiritual delights (which she bore with difficulty)
they compelled to interrupt. And when they would ask her,
what she would wish to eat; she the abundance
of spiritual refection as much as she could was hiding;
and in that jocular manner of hers, she said she would wish
to eat something more beautiful and better. But she was understanding
of the spiritual refection, with which a little before she had been fed,
but by no means satiated. For it is written: "Those who
eat me shall yet hunger." Eccl. 24, 29 But her Sisters understanding
of the food of her body, at the hour of refection
set before her the best food they could have:
but she despising corporal food, although
not in word, yet in the very matter; that such was not the food,
which she desired to eat, she demonstrated, which
under the name of more beautiful and better she had covered. For
the peace of her Sisters however, and against her own appetite;
tasting moderately, she is not affected by corporal food, she ate so little from it,
that her Sisters who saw this firmly asserted,
that a human creature from such little food could by no means
subsist by nature. But to Christ's Virgin, returning
to the places of richer pasture, such abundance was given
of spiritual refection, that both her body was sustained,
and her soul was as with fat and fatness filled.
[11] But when the affection, which Juliana had,
toward the Sacrament of the life-giving Body and Blood of Christ,
through individual days grew immensely; with her spirit resting
no other way, she was compelled to do one of two things, either
to be present at the solemnities of the Mass, or at that
time to incline herself more conveniently to prayer:
and the first indeed was to her in fervent desire,
the latter in consolation. she desires daily to be present at the Sacrifice of the Mass, For she was accustomed
to draw so much heavenly sweetness, when she was present at the Mass
of the Sacrament, that with highest affection daily she desired to return
to the same: but because it was not the custom of her Sisters
to hear Mass every day, she
using force upon herself, was conforming to their custom, lest to certain
Sisters she should be an indignation, to certain an admiration.
For if daily, against the custom
of them, she tried to be present at the Mass; the weaker
might be indignant at the singular prerogative or dominion
which she seemed to have over them;
the more perfect, through such unusual frequency,
her vehement desire being manifested, if it had been permitted without offense to the Sisters, might
admire: which two things, namely the indignation or
offense of her Sisters, or admiration or ostentation
of herself, in her whole life as much as
she could she avoided; or the showing off of herself, in the one consulting the peace of the Sisters,
in the other her own humility. She did
however what she could: and when to hear Mass was not permitted
to her, at that time to prayer, where better she could,
she inclined. Which Sapientia her nurse noting,
condescended to her with pious affection, and partly
provided for her devotion: for in the said Boverie an oratory
she arranged for her to be made. at that time in the oratory she pours forth prayers With the opportunity therefore
of a more secret place received, Juliana at the time of Mass
entered the oratory, and at the altar Sacrament, because in body
she could not, in mind she was present, with the more worthy part certainly
of herself. She was insisting however upon prayer the more devoutly
the more secretly, and her corporal absence, with the mind's
presence she was consoling. But the merciful and compassionate
Lord was considering with a clement eye his handmaid's desire
and the preparation of her heart, and her
at that time with the infusion of his grace more copiously perfused.
[12] But when of her one beloved and elect, not
only from thousands, but from all who are in heaven
and in earth, the most sacred body of Christ she received; in Holy Communion she is filled with sweetest savor:
then with such and so abundant a dew of grace and the fatness
of devotion she was filled, that like wax placed to the fire
her soul melted, and within herself
her spirit failed. Then indeed she tasted and
saw that the Lord is sweet, with the gifts certainly
of ampler grace received. For she was feeling
in the food of the sacred Body every delight
and every savor of sweetness. For what happened to the people
of Israel, concerning the manna raining from heaven, in figure;
this to Juliana, while she received the living bread which from heaven
came down, of which manna bore the shadow,
happened in the very reality: except that this bread much
more sweet and savory tasted in the heart of Juliana,
spiritual and sweet; than the manna formerly tasted
in the mouth of the people, carnal and stiff-necked. after it she desires to remain a whole week in silence, After
the reception however of the Body of Christ our Virgin,
at least for a week she wished to remain in silence,
bearing too ill on these days, except for
great and urgent necessity or usefulness, the comings
of any persons. Yet do not think that
for such a space of time, for keeping feast
to him whom she had received, it seemed to her to suffice;
since she often said to her Sisters ministering to her victuals,
that for one month to her no
corporal food at all should they minister, & for a whole month to abstain from any food nay
not even they themselves should come to her, and from the comings of any
other persons coming should defend her.
For such great strength she felt to be in the eating of that
sacred bread, that for so much time in the strength
of that food even corporally she did not fear that she could subsist:
and it would easily have been proved, if
it had not been lacking on the part of the Sisters ministering to her
who could prove it. But since to Juliana so long
desired, yet wholly absorbed in spirit,
to Him alone, whom she had received and loved, the bride to the bridegroom
she was devoted; and in the abundance of inmost charity and the fullness
of fervor, by a wondrous and ineffable manner, to the same through
the union of spirit she clung: and changed into divine
affection, she could not feel or taste except
God. And that you may briefly know, with what singular
prerogative of his grace Christ visited his handmaid,
in the reception of his Body and Blood;
this I judge must not be kept silent, that for many years
before her death, communicating she always perceives some heavenly secret: as often as she received the body of Christ
(which because of immense love she often was desiring
to do with great desire), Christ to her some
new secret, from his heavenly arcana,
was revealing. Which secrets yet, with such indiscreet (if
it is permitted to say) humility she hid; that rightly with
the Prophet she seemed able to cry out, "My secret
to me, my secret to me." Isa. 24, 16 Which secrets not
only from strangers she hid, but nor to her familiars
and those dearest to her did she reveal any of them, except very rarely;
or unless intoxicated in spirit, she could not be wholly silent.
So much from her tender years a profound humility's
emulator was she, that whatever could confer upon her the reputation
of holiness, but on account of humility she hid it: if she said, with silence
she would cover; lest anyone above what she herself had esteemed herself, should esteem her.
She despised herself inwardly, esteeming herself as nothing
in the chamber of her heart; nor of other price than
she herself had determined, she wished herself to be esteemed by any outwardly.
[13] But behold, when the King was at his table, the spikenard
of his handmaid gave forth its odor. For how pleasing
and how acceptable an odor of sweetness the spikenard
of Juliana's humility gave to King Christ in his table,
that is, reclining in the bosom of the Father; in this you can know
most evidently, that He certainly the exalted Lord,
who regards the humble, and knows the lofty from afar,
with a singular grace his own will deigned
to reveal to his handmaid before all mortals.
For to begin a special feast, by God she is chosen for promoting the feast of the venerable Sacrament.
of the Sacrament of his most sacred Body and Blood,
which the very power of God and wisdom of God Jesus Christ
still willed to be made on earth, not many noble
and powerful of this world of secular power or
ecclesiastical dignity, he determined should be elected; but he,
who chose the weak things of the world, to confound whatsoever is strong,
humble Juliana, with a sign shown her and
signification divinely revealed, for doing this
wondrously pre-elected. Who when such a thing,
so arduous and lofty, to be imposed on some other person,
by whose authority the matter could be borne more quickly
to a high place, most instantly in the Lord's sight
she prayed; received the answer, that this must
through her in every way be begun, and also thereafter through
humble persons promoted. book 2, no. 5. But by what manner
this was done and shown, elsewhere, with the Lord granting,
is to be more widely narrated. These things however by anticipation
we have said, because in certain preceding
chapters of the life-giving Sacrament of the Body and Blood
of Christ, to which Christ's virgin wondrously
was affected, we made mention: and that it may be more manifestly
known to the readers, with what special gift of his love
Christ wished to illustrate her.
CHAPTER III.
Labors of body and mind undertaken by Juliana: fastings and vigils.
[14] But what fortitude of flesh, in the sight of such
affections, would longer subsist? Eccl. 12, 12 For if according to
the saying of the Wise one, "frequent meditation
is affliction of the flesh"; how to most frequent meditation
added much and frequent affection, is not
destruction or mortification of the flesh, and enervation of its strength?
What moreover, if, after constant meditations and affections,
there be increased much corporal exercise? These
two exercises moreover, of body namely and of spirit,
Juliana with fervent soul, as long as she could, maintained;
in a wondrous way in one person showing herself Martha and Mary.
For from her adolescence, giving to every one asking
of her and showing herself Martha, she exposed herself to labors;
but after works of obedience and piety,
being intent upon herself and free only for God, she
showed herself nonetheless Mary. But was not
even one alone of the said two valid enough,
to weaken and cast down the virginal body? For
the strength of stones was not Juliana's strength, She contracts bodily weakness by assiduous labors, nor was her flesh
of bronze. Whence it was no wonder, if the tender
body, besieged by a twin assailant, was quickly conquered,
with labors dominating without, with affections
prevailing within: Juliana therefore fell,
still placed in the age of youth, into much bodily
weakness: which also she had all the days
she lived: and this was the occasion, by which she was compelled to omit
bodily labors. And if from excess, Christ's
Virgin be believed to have exceeded; such excess certainly
has its own reverence among pious minds. For what
if by the labor of her tender body she strove to add to the fullness
of the virtues, which she had from grace? Not
of excess, but of fervor, she left an example for posterity;
nor did she, who began in spirit, at some point end in flesh:
but while the flesh failed, the spirit grew strong;
& while action withered, affection flourished. Juliana
thus strong in spirit was in weak and infirm flesh,
that rightly with the Apostle she could say, "When I am weak,
then am I strong and powerful." 2 Cor. 12, 10 Do you see that weakness
of the body augments the strength of the spirit, and supplies
vigor? on the contrary you should know, & by affections of the mind; that strength of flesh
works weakness of spirit. If within or without
I must be weakened, would that I thus fail in flesh,
that I grow strong in spirit: for to have the perfect fortitude
of both, is most difficult: for these are mutually
adverse; and most often, while one is cast down,
the other is raised up. Nor have we said these things, because
Juliana must greatly be excused for excess:
since to that weakness which she incurred, not
so much by bodily exercises as by the mind's affections
and by the draws of love we believe she came. But
if even in these you wish to reprove her, in your reproof
you will perhaps be convicted of blaming the Lord,
to whom she herself could say with the Prophet: "You have seduced me
Lord, and I have been seduced; you were stronger than I, and you have prevailed." Jer. 20, 7
For what if it pleased God wholly to sequester her
from outward actions; that thus her, sufficiently devoted to inner things,
he might more closely bind to himself? Perhaps Christ did not wish
in his handmaid, by the exercise of the body,
which is of little avail, the exercises of the spirit
to be interrupted; wishing her to be wholly free for himself. Moreover
God is a spirit, and whom more specially He wishes to himself
to bind, he makes spiritual. she observes not only the fasts of the Sisters, So spiritual
Juliana, in all the time of her infirmity and weakness,
led her life; that not only her spirit, but
her body itself in a certain way seemed to live spiritually.
For who could believe, that she could observe the Sisters'
fasts, in a body imbecile
and almost useless? But she not only did she keep
their fasts, but in fastings and vigils always
above all abounded.
[15] That I may for the present pass over those fasts, which
Juliana without the example of the Sisters from adolescence prolonged,
this I do not think should be kept silent, that before
her death, for thirty years and more, at every
time she celebrated continuous fasting. but for 30 years fasting until evening, The time
however of her refection was evening: so moderate indeed,
nay so little was what always she took at the hour of refection;
that whatever persons had known this,
most firmly could believe, the dwelling of her body,
from the defect or tenuity of the body's sustenance,
about to fall most swiftly; if they had not likewise recognized
in her the Holy Spirit dwelling, and her body
together with her soul by invisible power sustaining.
Yet some persons, who had partly
known the grace given her by the Lord,
bore too ill her so lasting and uninterrupted
fasting; when she happened to turn aside to them for the grace
of familiarity. This also troubled them not
to eat, but only to taste what was set before her.
And when she was often asked by those persons, to whom she had come,
that with them twice in the day she would eat; she replied
that she could not do this. But with them importunately
insisting, she suffered at length sometimes for a second
refection food to be ministered to her from the office of charity,
lest as by some obstinacy of mind she should be believed
to resist by denying the will of the suppliants. Who
when she had placed the food prepared for her in her mouth,
ground it with her teeth, with the ministry of her tongue hither and thither
through her palate turned, by long custom she had unlearned to dine, she could not
from it swallow anything or a little. And so at least at last, the persons who had compelled her
to this, believed her words, that she could
not violate her accustomed fast. And, as I
judge, either custom had been turned for her into nature,
or the Holy Spirit wished this to be done, lest she
whom he had filled, might be thought to live not so much from himself,
as from the common use of nature. she cannot eat delicate foods: When however by the aforesaid
persons, over the smallness of food of her sole refection,
complaint was raised, and it was believed that
foods more carefully prepared in greater quantity either she ought or
could take; there was once set before her
Who from the skin a little she plucked off and ate,
of the rest she did not taste. Simple species were also offered her,
that by these at least she might be refreshed: but she,
for the peace and charity of the offerers, them with her teeth
crushing and not able to swallow, secretly
from her mouth she cast them out, and under the napkin placed for her
she hid them. Which removed were found those species,
only by her teeth crushed, in the same quantity
in which they had been set out. But what shall I say, that she
once coming to visit a person familiar to her,
brought her own food with her? content with a few peas cooked in water. She brought with her
I know not how many peas, which to one chick of doves for a single
refection you would judge ought not to suffice: which
cooked in water, at the hour of her refection, as she had asked,
were brought: these for her in the holy banquet were
feasts; these were delights. But if very many things
similar to these, which from trustworthy ones have been learned
and related, in the present I should narrate; to some,
unless I am mistaken, they would seem incredible. But this very thing,
that she could take what she took, from God
by prayers she had obtained. For since not only was her appetite
not drawn by any pleasure, but the mere memory of food
caused her to be satiated; she often asked the Lord,
that at least a little food she could take, lest
to the wonder of all peoples it should be turned, if she
were said to live without bodily food. she esteems it a trouble to take food Whence this very little
which she took, conferred on her not so much sustenance of body,
as a certain communion with human nature;
by which namely she could be said to use bodily food,
although very moderate and slight. She was also wont
to say to her faithful ones, that to eat, to drink,
and to speak, before all things were a burden to her in herself,
in which we know human mortality more to delight.
often she spends whole nights in prayer in vigil. Her very slight,
and almost non-existent victuals, was accompanied by a similarly most slight sleep,
and almost non-existent, which to none other except her
could grant even the smallest refreshment. On
the festivities of the Saints however whole nights, or almost
whole, she spent sleepless; for then her accustomed
burden of vigils devotion would multiply. Her vigils
were full of spiritual pursuits, and of holy meditations,
affections, prayers and contemplations.
But if at length sometimes she was going to pause a little,
briefly sleeping she is vexed by a demon: and had reclined her head upon a pillow;
the malignant spirit would draw it from beneath her head,
or would shake her bed with frequent movements: for then
to her, as opportunity taken, about to inflict some
annoyance, he more boldly presumed to approach;
when she about to pause, relaxed her spirit
from prayer. But Juliana lightly awakening, resumed
the arms of prayer familiar to her, with which her enemy
she most powerfully repelled. For it must be known,
that the malignant one himself, envying Juliana's happy pursuits,
from her youth visibly and sensibly
tried to disturb her, in manifold and many
ways sharply harassing her; until considering his attempts
frustrated, and that he was profiting himself nothing at all;
through his ministers he stirred up hatreds and persecutions
against Christ's Virgin, invisibly
and most wickedly raging: of which persecutions
we shall have to speak elsewhere, for now let us pursue other things.
NOTES.
so B. Ordoricus of
Portu-Nanis in his pilgrimage related on January 14 no. 11 says that in Java the island are born musk-nuts and many precious species, and St. Frances the Roman is said by Matiotto in the Life of March 9 no. 10, to have abstained from sugar, honey, species, and from things seasoned with the same.
CHAPTER IV.
Extraordinary devotion toward the Saints, toward the Virgin Mother of God, toward Christ incarnate, and toward the Most Holy Trinity.
[16] Juliana venerated with much devotion the Saints
of God, Devout toward the saints, as friends of her spouse and citizens
of the heavenly Jerusalem, as one also one day to be gathered
to their companies: on whose festivities
of their happiness through inner sweetness
she pre-tasted no little, although still in the region
of dissimilitude placed. But with more excellent affection
and ample veneration she loved the Virgin Mary,
as Mother of God, parent of her spouse, especially the Mother of God, genetrix
of her one beloved. On the Lord's Annunciation
however, the year, as I may say, of her affections she began;
and every dispensation, which Christ bore in
the flesh and holy Church recollects, with certain devout &
affectionate steps following, in a wondrous manner the very year's
circle she passed through. And indeed, according to the harmony
of times and solemnities, as for example, of the Nativity,
Circumcision, Passion, and Resurrection
of Christ; and Ascension and other festivities, as also
of the blessed Virgin and of many Saints, which in their
distinct places each year Mother Church venerates,
Juliana was bent, and by an ineffable manner,
not only to us, who what she felt do not feel;
but even to her to whom what she felt, was unspeakable, toward
the individual solemnities she was affected. And first with the coming
of the Lord's Annunciation, she is affected by the mystery of the Incarnation, with much joy
and consolation she felt in that address, which
the Angel had to Mary; and the modest Virgin's but
wise response. As Christ in
the consideration of the Sacrament of his Body and Blood,
her through knowledge and love wondrously
affected: so the Virgin Mary, illumined her contemplating
the Lord's Incarnation, with the fire of love and the light of intelligence
most worthily. But of the salutation
of the same blessed Virgin, which most frequently
she had in her mouth, she was wont to say to her familiars
and friends, that it much pleased the glorious Virgin,
when to her salutation was added the response
of her consent, namely, "Behold the handmaid of the Lord, let it be done
to me according to your word." Whence persons, of
whom she had confidence, more affectionately she exhorted, and to the assent of the Virgin shown to her: that as
she herself said this, they should say it, and thus teach
others to say it; and that this not mediocrely pleased
the blessed Virgin they should announce. She said that added part
was the consummation to the blessed Virgin's salutation;
because then perfectly in her was celebrated the mystery
of the incarnation, when she answering, "Behold
the handmaid of the Lord etc." gave her assent.
Who moreover should doubt whether just as much, nay
much more, it delights the blessed Virgin to hear
those saying, "Behold the handmaid of the Lord"; renewing for her
the joy of the perfect incarnation of Christ in her;
than those repeating the joy of the Angelic salutation?
With inestimable savor of inner sweetness she soothed the inward
man, when her canticle,
uttered in the presence of Elizabeth, namely,
"Magnificat anima mea Dominum," Juliana herself recollected.
But now her own testimony about this let us bring forth:
for she had the age and authority of a vehement
spirit, when she brought forth such testimony.
[17] When Juliana at a certain time, before her
death, at Salzinnes, an abbey of nuns
of the Cistercian Order, was dwelling; at a certain time
with the venerable Abbess of the same place on the sweetness
of this Canticle she was discoursing. And when the Abbess
insisted, and of her Canticle, Magnificat, that she should somewhat belch forth
that mellifluous sweetness which she felt about this; Juliana
suddenly as if intoxicated, not however with wine but
with the spirit, unless the spirit is a wine inebriating how
illustriously; she, I say, disposing her discourses less
in judgment this time (which yet she always
was wont to do), with the bridles of her mouth relaxed by the Holy Spirit,
burst forth into these words: "It is little, Lady,
what I feel; but for so much gold, which could fit
in the abbey in which we now live, I would not,
as it has been given to me by the Virgin Mary, about her
Canticle, what I know not to know, what I feel not
to feel." Hearing which, the Abbess no wonder if she wondered.
But when Christ's handmaid Juliana afterwards,
what as if in excess of mind she had said, in her heart
she retracted; she began to repent, that so notable a word
she had brought forth. which she recites nine times a day and commends to others. Whence on the following day, when to her to speak
with the said Abbess power was given; for the word yesterday
brought forth suppliantly she was asking pardon; beseeching
lest about this, which incautiously she had said,
she should accuse her. But in honor of the nine months, in which
the singular virgin the author of our salvation, the only-begotten
Son of God, carried in her womb, the mentioned Canticle
nine times every day she was wont to say.
Persons both familiar and dear to her she was admonishing,
that with their other prayers, they should recite it so many times
on individual days. For she said that it seemed to her
impossible, that any person set in the state of grace,
from any petition of hers, pertaining to the salvation
of the soul, should not be heard by the intercession
of the glorious Virgin; who that joy of hers, which
she then had, when in the voice of exultation she brought forth
"Magnificat anima mea Dominum" and what follows,
to the same Virgin daily so many times would renew,
as many months as she carried the Son of God in her womb so
blessed. And Juliana was beseeching most affectionately, that
this everywhere, and especially in convents of nuns
and beguines, should be disseminated, beyond doubt the profit
of those so saying it not being unaware, and desiring
the spiritual advantage of all.
[18] With how great love of devotion Juliana recollected
the principal solemnities of the year, with how much sweetness of inmost
delight. she is affected with wondrous consolation on the festivities of Saints, The festivities of the glorious Virgin and of other Saints
male and female she was keeping, is not
for our poverty and lack to declare. For who,
to be silent for now of the rest, would suffice by words to narrate,
with how great pleasantness of spirit, and with how fervent
arms of love she received Christ, a little child newly
born, on the solemnity of his Nativity? Who worthily
could express, I do not say weigh, with how much
fatness of devotion the holocausts of her meditations and prayers
were enriched, in consideration of Christ
either being born, or being nursed, or in the Circumcision
shedding his most pure blood? especially of Christ the Lord, Who also
that force of pain and those affections of compassion,
which at the memory of Christ's passion Juliana had,
could explain in words? In explaining the affections,
which toward each of the aforesaid and things similar to these
she had, even the genius of Origen would succumb,
and the torrent of Cicero's eloquence would dry up. For
to every dispensation, which that singular
majesty exhibited in the flesh, she was most affectionate: and his passion in
which very often from her early years meditating and
recollecting, upon her heart more closely she had impressed. When however
holy Church recollected something of this kind at a fitting time,
Juliana conformed herself to the time in all things.
Whence at that time, in which in the Church is sung
about Christ's passion, she was affected with such compassion, this she pursues with tears and cries,
that she scarcely contained herself for pain; who while
she was present at divine things, was all in tears; so that from
her eyes pouring forth rains of tears, pressed out from the winepress of the Cross,
the place of the temple in which she sat she more abundantly moistened. And when she heard
the hymn begun, "Vexilla regis prodeunt"; with Christ's passion
suddenly renewed to her, she sometimes uttered
great cries, and most swiftly she had to be led
outside the church. For she melted
at the memory of this passion, nor could she contain herself,
from at least taking breath a little through such cries:
which however did not proceed from the nod of her mind,
but from the sudden motions of her affectionate heart
burst forth. Many times also she is said to have desired,
in the sight of all living for Christ
to endure death of the cross; that thus at least some little
requital she could render for that love, she desires to die on the cross: which Christ
dying on the cross had shown. But since
the death of the cross she could not attain in body, as
she desired; often in spirit into the same, in which
Christ suffered, cross, she with incredible fervor
of love stretched herself. In which state it seemed
to her, that if in that which to her through the spirit
had been shown and given to feel, through the love
of Christ's passion, she should allow her spirit to proceed
as much as she willed; once it proceeded no return to
human things thereafter would be open. For from her youth,
in her holy and most frequent meditations,
with the pious eye of her mind she gazed upon King Solomon
in the diadem, with which his mother crowned him: She gazed upon
him bound, scourged, spat upon, assailed
with reproaches, pierced with nails. She gazed upon
that bronze serpent, in the desert of this exile raised up
upon the stem of the cross, given myrrh to drink,
his side pierced with a lance. These marks of the suffering
and dying Christ were always present to Juliana's heart.
And see whether worthily she could sing that
of the Canticle of Canticles, "A bundle of myrrh is
my beloved to me, he shall abide between my breasts." And indeed
worthily: for from all the anxieties of her beloved
and bitternesses, which by myrrh are designated, she has the memorial of the suffering Christ impressed upon her heart.
as from little branches of fragrant myrrh, she had
tied a little bundle for herself, and gathered had placed between her
breasts, those salutary bitter things, which for the salvation
of the world our Savior deigned to suffer, in the principal
part of her breast reposing; and the memorials of the suffering &
dying Christ to her memory more closely
commending: whose memory so carnal and
tender a heart had made for her, that for much time
neither any person hearing speaking, nor
could she herself speak of Christ's passion, without
from excessive compassion to incredible pain of heart
being moved. As the persons have attested,
who knew Juliana more fully, three things were
which from her youth exhausted the strength of her body:
one the great labor, which at Boverie
she had, of bodily exercise; another, the frequent memory
of the Lord's passion; the remaining, toward her Creator
the vehemently intense affection of love.
[19] On the solemnity of the Lord's Ascension Juliana
sometimes could not bear being enclosed in houses;
but she had to be led or carried out under the sky, where she could see the heavens,
it was necessary. But it seemed to her, that she saw
Christ, in the form of our humanity, as once
when the disciples watched he had ascended, raised by his own
power, contemplating Christ ascending on his feast, she overflows with joy, penetrate the heights of the heavens: in which her blessed
gaze she was said to be wondrously delighted. Whence when
on the day of the mentioned solemnity, to a certain beloved
person she had turned aside to visit, she was so filled
and refreshed with grace; that the narrow body not being able
to take in its fullness, the one to whom
Juliana had come feared very much, lest with the vessel of the body disrupted,
her visitor should be split through the middle.
But she who was at hand to her so affected (wondrous to say)
was hearing Juliana's voice, and speaks through her breast, as with closed mouth. which without opening her mouth,
but only by her breast she brought forth. For grasping
some evaporation of the ardor, which within
herself she suffered, that she should emit the enclosed voice she admonished,
asserting that no one would hear this. And she
exclaimed and said: "My Lord has departed. Does it not
seem to you to have said? 'God has ascended in jubilation.'"
Thus as if the office of the Ascension having been completed,
when she had returned to herself, thus she had a certain
gravity of sadness, as if she had been alone and as an orphan
left behind. But afterwards in the Sacrament of the Altar
she resumed much consolation, and also
in this word of solace, which to his disciples and to all
the faithful he left, "Behold I am with you
all days even to the consummation
of the age."
[20] A certain venerable life's person is wont to relate,
that when Juliana sometimes came to her for the sake of familiarity;
she began with another person, I know not
which Hour of the day to fulfill. Which when of the
hymn assigned to the Hour, she contemplates sometimes the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity "Præsta Pater per Filium,
præsta per almum Spiritum," to this point she had said;
with eyes fixed on heaven, nothing further
could she say; but she failed at the sight of the Trinity:
and rapt through excess of mind to sublime things
to be contemplated; to the notice of the ineffable arcana
of that supernal city, which the force of the river makes joyful,
was admitted: which also to her on account of the excellent
purity of her mind and the holiness of her body very often
happened. In which her blessed excess, the state,
happiness, and glory of that supernal Jerusalem
she contemplated, and of the blessedness of the pleasantness and
exultation of those, who feast in the sight
of God and are delighted in joy, by inner draught
no little she pre-tasted: which house of his not made
by hand diversions and mansions (which are many and
diverse according to the diversity of any men's merits)
walking through, she came to that highest
Divinity, whom her soul loved. She contemplated
therefore with the eyes of a pure heart the Trinity in
Unity, and the Unity in Trinity: the Trinity
in the properties of Persons, the Unity in the simple
substance, essence, nature. She beheld, and in her
gaze marveled, how that Deity in Persons
does not disdain division, which in its most simple
substance, essence, nature, receives no
section. of the Incarnation, She saw how that supreme Deity,
by the incarnation of the only-begotten of the Father, wholly descended onto earth:
and nonetheless remained wholly in the heavens. of the glory of the Saints, She saw
the blessed Spirits, and also the souls of the Saints,
how they were in themselves, how in God, &
how God was in them. & of the most sacred Eucharist. She saw how
Christ to each receiving him for salvation, himself whole,
entire, and perfect offers as food;
whom nonetheless she saw to remain in himself
whole and perfect. These and many other things about
the excellence of the Divinity and the glory of the Saints in her
blessed excess she was contemplating; and of these very many
with such pure and refined intelligence she comprehended,
that the very truth of future knowledge, or in
part, to her contemplating seemed to play its parts.
But about all the articles which pertain to the Catholic faith,
with Him teaching who teaches man
knowledge, she had been so fully taught; that
there was nothing about which she had to consult doctors
or Scriptures concerning these. For so inconvertible
that sometimes she said, whatever
could happen; that is, with the snares of any heresies also cast before her,
she could never deviate
from the rectitude of that faith. Prov. 25, 27 Nor did that saying of the
Wise man touch her, "Searchers of majesty shall be oppressed by glory":
where I think breakers-in are meant,
not those who are caught up into it, but those who rush in.
But she was not rushing into the arcana of majesty to be searched out
by her own temerity, but to them was caught up
and admitted by the dignation of the Son of God. Whence
she was not oppressed by glory, but imprinted in it,
to which with Christ as guide she had been admitted, that she might glory
and be delighted in true glory. But when from
this happy state to herself she had relapsed, for the most part
upon her a certain ray of heavenly brightness, her
intellect illumining, emanated; so that not less
clearly or less lucidly did she know many good spiritual things
with the pure intelligence of mind, than we know corporal things by sight.
NOTES.
the Sambre in the County of Namur an Abbey, which to the Moulins Abbot, in the same
County on the Meuse, particularly to obey, Miræus relates in the Cistercian
Chronicle: the sacred building of this is said to have been dedicated by Pope Innocent II in the year 1130.
About this Abbey widely below it is treated.
CHAPTER V.
With prophetic spirit Juliana indicates various things; especially to Eva the recluse Virgin.
[21] Among other gifts of charisms, which Juliana from
the treasures of her spouse Christ had received, the spirit
of prophecy shone forth not mediocrely. But
for the notice of prophecy perhaps, not for foolishness,
to the readers to say briefly some things we think
worth the effort. According to the etymology of the name
is called prophecy, because it foretells future things, and according
to this only of future time it is: but,
as B. Gregory evidently proves in the exposition
of the Prophet Ezekiel, Clear in every kind of prophecy, namely in the first
homily, "prophecy contains past, present, and future
time." That therefore the exposition of this name
prophecy may be able to fit these three times;
rightly it is called prophecy, "not because it foretells
future things, but because it brings forth hidden things." Prophecy therefore
of future time is, when any things are foretold,
which only in future time are hidden. Prophecy
of past time is, when those things which have been done,
which were not subject to the eyes of the prophesying one, with no one
also reporting, are known and reported. There is also
prophecy of present time, when the hidden things of the heart
are made manifest: for as any thing is hidden
in future time, so thought and affection
in a hidden heart. In another way of present time
is prophecy, when a thing is not covered by the mind but
by place, and yet by the spirit is uncovered;
so that there is the mind of the prophesying one, where by presence
the body is not. All these could easily be confirmed by the testimonies
of sacred Scripture; but lest
we make too great a digression from the matter, such proofs
we pass over. These things however we have
said, so that in the subsequent chapters to the readers it may be manifestly
evident, how Juliana in every kind
shone of prophecy. For many things, before they came to pass,
as about to come she predicted by prophetic spirit: many things
also, which had already happened, which she had neither seen, nor
heard reported, she knows future, past and present hidden things. through the same spirit she revealed: some things
in the moment, in which in remote places they were happening,
she announced to be happening: the state of many persons she recognized
by the spirit: moreover the secrets of hearts she showed herself to know
by manifest indication. But now, what for the clear proof
of these things can suffice, a few out of many we propose to narrate.
But we wish the readers to be admonished,
that they should through themselves learn to attend to the times
of prophecy: for not in individual chapters, which
something said through prophecy will contain, do we intend to repeat
the times of the prophecy itself. This also
let them know, that all the chapters
which contain prophecy, are by no means connected to each other;
but others containing another matter are often inserted:
for if we wished to join them to each other,
among the first perhaps things which must be said, in the last
we should say in reversed order. These things having been premised,
what is to be narrated, with truth going before, we shall pursue.
[22] He assists Eva wavering in her purpose: Christ's handmaid Juliana had once come to
Eva of praiseworthy Life, recluse of St. Martin of Liège
on the mountain: for they were most familiar to each other,
as being bound to each other by the indissoluble bond
of charity. For the aforesaid a Eva, set in the age of flourishing
youth, with Christ inspiring was touched by love
of the reclusorium; but nonetheless as is of human fragility,
she was terrified at the sublimity of the purpose: which Juliana
recognizing, put the empty fear to flight from her heart with powerful
words, and for consummating the purpose by exhortations
she effectively animated her:
for already mutual love in Christ between them had
growing found unfailing increase. She entered
therefore the narrows of the reclusorium Eva, and visits her made recluse: so that her own Eva,
that is, her flesh she might more freely subjugate to the spirit,
and the fruits of spiritual goods for herself more freely
amplify: she entered, I say, with this pact intervening,
that her beloved exhorter, at least once
in a year, should visit her. So she came,
as has been premised, once Juliana to the aforesaid
Recluse, newly entered into the reclusorium: in whose
upper room when she had fallen to prayer, as was her custom
in every place to pray more frequently; she perceived by the spirit
the Body of the Lord in the church of B. Martin, after
the solemnities of the Masses, had not remained. The prayer
being completed, she knows divinely that the Body of Christ is absent from the church she descended from the upper room, with a somewhat sad countenance
she said to the Recluse: "Recluse, the Body of the Lord
after Mass in this church is not kept:
which yet in other churches is accustomed to be done." So
it had been; I do not know whether from forgetfulness or custom this
had happened. The same virgin of Christ Juliana, when at another
time she had returned to the said Recluse and had poured out a prayer,
recognized by the spirit the Body of the Lord in
the aforesaid church, before and after the solemnities of the Mass, was preserved.
Who bringing forth the inward joy of her mind, with her face
made serene so said to the Recluse: at other times to be present in it. "Truly, Recluse,
now more than usually rich is your church, since
with the Body of Christ, which in it before Mass and after continually
remains, it has been enriched." And the Recluse herself
knew by faithful inquiry, that her beloved Juliana, about the
Body of Christ once and again, had announced nothing except by prophetic
spirit most true things.
[23] When at another time to the same place she had come,
she was received by the Recluse with all cheerfulness of devotion.
But Juliana always thinking
the things which were of God, either was occupying herself with prayer or with divine
praises, or even with the Recluse herself
conferring in salutary and spiritual colloquies.
Amid speaking however she began once to ask from the Recluse,
that she would wish to reveal to her the hidden things of her heart.
But she stunned at the novelty of such a petition, as is of human
modesty, she sees through the thoughts of the same Eva: about this
began to hesitate somewhat. But Christ's handmaid Juliana,
"What is it," she said, "O Recluse, do you think
that you hide from me the hidden things of your heart? I know, she said, I know
so well your thought through all things, as if on my palm
(she was running her finger over her palm) I were to see with bodily eyes,
whatever you think, written in letters."
For making however the faith of this so admirable saying,
she began to bring forth very many things from the hidden things of that heart.
But the Recluse turning her eyes back upon herself,
by this most evident indication realized that Juliana was truly
prophesying: for she outwardly was announcing, what
she within herself was knowing. Thus the Recluse to herself
from her guest manifestly heard expounded, what to her
to expound first she had hesitated. Say, I pray, reader,
could she scrutinize the depths of her own heart,
who so lucidly was searching the secrets of another's heart?
And yet it is written, "The heart of man is perverse &
inscrutable." Jer. 17, 9 But, as is clearly evident, she had not received
the spirit of this world, but the spirit which
is from God: which not only of man, but also searches
the depths of God.
[24] Many times Juliana, when with some
persons coming to her she was speaking, she knows and abominates the sins of others she recognized
by the spirit with what kind of vice they labored. When however
she felt some of them infected with criminal things,
their presence scarcely equanimously she tolerated. And
because God above all things detests the vice of pride,
on account of which he did not spare the seal of his likeness,
but so cast him down, that he should not add to rise again:
she herself Christ's virgin Juliana, wheresoever
she discovered such a vice, more than can be said she abhorred it.
Her spirit indeed, especially pride, mild
and humble, abominated most vehemently the spirit
swollen and puffed up by pride: whence when with such
pestiferous death she recognized certain persons infected
by the revealing spirit; scarcely herself, lest
she should withdraw, she could contain; scarcely with such could she
sit: yet scandals with much zeal avoiding,
she forced herself, and them about their own salvation,
as she knew to be expedient, she admonished. But, since
what she perceived about them, manifestly to disclose
she did not dare, fearing to betray herself by revealing such
hidden things, or lest they should not believe her,
or not accept her manifest reproof,
if she should express the vice by which they labored; at least
in whatever way, with words indeed of weak understanding
hidden, but to exercised senses clear enough, and modestly she strove to eradicate. them
to the purgation of the detestable vice of pride she provoked.
"Purge out," she said to them, "purge out the old leaven":
by these words the vice of pride understanding, &
wishing to be understood, admonishing it from the borders of the heart
to be purged out. And indeed leaven is pride, which
has been wont to corrupt the whole mass of virtues by its
mixture. But is not pride old leaven,
which in heaven took its beginning? & indeed,
as Scripture testifies, "the beginning of every sin is pride." Eccl. 10, 15
On the other hand, when Christ's Virgin Juliana happened to speak
with some persons, before unknown to her;
sometimes such sweetness and rest she would find
her spirit in them, that she did not doubt
that the Holy Spirit had chosen a place of habitation in the hearts
of those persons.
[25] One of the Sisters of Mount Cornelius was sometimes
sick vehemently, [she prays to God that Ozilia may be able to receive the viaticum of the Body of Christ,] to such an extent that nothing at all
of bodily food could she receive: she asked therefore the Body of the Lord
to be given to her. The Sisters however feared very much,
that she would not be able to consume it; as one who could not
even a little something swallow: yet the sick one's
desiring to satisfy the will, they did as
she had asked and caused the viaticum to be brought. But Juliana with another
Sister was then in another place, far from the sick one
divided: who when she had heard the bell, which was wont
to be rung when the Body of Christ was being borne to the sick,
at once prostrated herself to the ground, pouring out
prayer before the Lord. She prayed moreover, that Christ
himself might deign to confer so much strength upon the sick one,
that Sister might be able to receive Him unto salvation.
At once the Lord heard the desire of the supplicant,
and for the accumulation of greater grace to her that she had been heard,
revealed: and she understands her prayers are heard. & when she had risen from prayer,
she said to her companion: "My Sister, let us render thanks
to our Savior; since Sister b Ozilia (for so
she was called) has already received Him entirely."
[26] At a certain time Juliana was lying in the dormitory
of the said house, and was wondrously burning with divine love,
so that truly to any spiritual ones
she could say that of the Canticle of Canticles, "I adjure you,
daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, that
you announce to him that I languish with love." Cant. 5, 8 For she had lain
in bed, from no other thing certainly than from the languor of divine love;
she lies from the languor of divine love: but the Sisters of the said house, her to labor
believed with bodily trouble. There came meanwhile a certain
maiden, who had obtained the grace of her familiarity,
began about Juliana to inquire of the Sisters of the said house:
who replied to her, that her whom she sought, already for three days
lying in bed was gravely sick. But she, "Go," she said, "and to her
that I have come here, announce." Which when they had done, by
the will of the one lying there she was brought in to her: and when they
had greeted each other by the office of mutual charity, Christ's
Virgin said to the maiden: "Come here, that about God together
we may speak: but first let us ask the holy
Trinity, that to us rejoicing together He may command the celestial
virtues to be present, that by their presence our
joy may be full." O how true the saying of the Prophet
who says: "The eyes of the Lord are upon the just, &
his ears unto their prayers." Ps. 33, 16 & 144, 19 she inflames another with the same fire, And if by the same Prophet's testimony,
He will do the will of those fearing him, and hear their prayer;
how much more of those loving?
He heard therefore his handmaid's prayer, brief
indeed, but devout: for with so much sweetness
of inward delight, she who had come was bedewed,
with so much fatness of devotion was fattened, with so vehement
felt, those celestial virtues had come at the prayers
of the Virgin. After some little time's
space, Juliana said to her: "Let us now pray to the Lord,
my beloved, for know in this hour one
of my friends is departing from this age." she knows the death of an absent friend, And
they prayed. But after the poured prayer that one
who had come began within herself to wonder, how Christ's
Virgin, what she had said could know: nor did she delay
longer to inquire, how in bodily absence
the passing of one of her familiars she could know,
even with no one announcing it. And she: "At that very,
she said, hour a particular pain in my body invades me,
inexperienced by me elsewhere, except when some of my friends
is about to migrate from the exile of present life:
the pain itself moreover is so great, that I can scarcely
sustain it: and when of some of my friends
the death and hour of passing is announced, by an inner sign of pain otherwise unwonted. I remember that
hour to have been, in which a particular, as I have said, I suffered
in my body passion." But when by mutual conversation
and by immense sweetness of spirit they had been refreshed
mutually, she who had come asked permission
to depart. And Christ's Virgin, as if for a blessing,
gave one apple to the one departing: which she
with cheerfulness received, and home with her brought.
It pleased her, not without divine, as I judge,
will, of what taste was the apple, which
she had brought, to try; and when she had tasted, she found a fruit
of sweetest taste and most delightful for eating.
Marveling however herself to taste such sweetness, she believed,
that this very sweetness from herself tasting rather
proceeded, than from the apple: the touched apple she makes of wondrous taste. for so copiously
not even the fruit of a tree could taste to her except sweet?
Wishing however to be certified about this, she divided the apple
among her companions, that, if perchance tasting
they should find similar sweetness, this to the apple more justly
she would ascribe; but if not, this she would more safely impute
to herself. Tasting however, they experienced
in that apple such sweetness and savor, that unanimously
they attested, that they had never tasted equal in the fruit
of a tree. The maiden therefore believed, not foolishly
as I judge, that such a taste of sweetness
in the apple from its first nativity had not
grown, but rather most recently by Juliana's merits had accrued:
accrued, I would say, for knowing,
with how great sweetness of delight his elect and beloved
Christ was perfusing in the inner man, who
also by his grace would make such sweetness reside in the visible
apple.
[27] taught of others' deaths by revelation Not only did Christ's Virgin Juliana know her friends'
deaths by that special, which I have said, pain
of body: but sometimes the spirit of one
of those who had departed, passing through the place in which she was,
from her devoutly prayers' suffrages asked.
Sometimes also with the Holy Spirit revealing,
she recognized the passing of one of her familiars.
Whence when on one occasion the death of one woman
most dear to her had become known by the spirit, she helps them with recited Vigils of the deceased. at once
for her soul she paid, in abundance of tears,
the vigils of the dead. But she who had departed,
by God's permission to her sister appeared announcing to her
that Christ's Virgin Juliana for her had paid Vigils,
which wondrously had profited her. The sister however
of the deceased did not delay longer Christ's virgin
to visit, and her sister's death to announce. To whom
Juliana: "I had known well her death, for
whom I had said vigils, all melting in tears;
which if I had been a good Christian, ought to have profited her."
Then the woman remembered her
dead sister's words, who had appeared to her, namely that the Vigils
of the Virgin had greatly profited her.
[28] At a certain time Juliana came to her,
whom we have mentioned, near the church of St. Martin the Recluse, visiting Eva the Recluse,
by whom with all affection of devotion she was
received. But when the Recluse had observed her guest
very weak and sick, in the upper room
she placed her on a small bed: it was however the Vigil
of the Dedication of the mentioned church, but this she who
had come did not know. Yet she felt after a little, she knows in spirit that it is the Vigil of the Dedication of the church:
and recognized the excellence of the pressing solemnity,
with no other than the Holy Spirit revealing to her, & her,
to the oblivion of all weakness and infirmity,
with the gift of his grace perfusing. She arose therefore
swiftly, and with all celerity, as one who
truly was intoxicated, not with wine but with spirit, descended the steps
of the upper room, in which she had lain; and through the window of the reclusorium,
as if flying, hastened to enter. For she was drawn,
in the impetus of the vehement spirit, by the love of the place,
in which the mysteries of so great a solemnity she knew,
were to be recollected. To whom the Recluse meeting said: "Not so,
my Lady, but for our Dedication now impending,
help me adorn my altar more diligently."
And she, "willingly," she said. But when the Recluse had opened
her Veronica: Christ's Virgin fixed her eyes
upon the image of the Savior: who at once seized with excessive
pain, from the memory of Christ's passion, to the ground
fell and fainted. The Recluse however took her in
her arms, and reclined her on a small bed. And desiring
either to expel or to lighten her pain, she said to her:
"Be quiet, my Lady, for the pain of Christ's passion
has already gone and withdrawn." And she: "It is true,
she said, that it has withdrawn; but yet that very passion
he sustained." After some space of time,
when she had heard the festive bell rung, which
they call Benedict's, rapt into ecstasy of the mentioned church; through the window
near her she fixed her eyes on the firmament of heaven,
and so wondrously rapt in spirit she existed,
that with no sign of life remaining in her, it could have been believed
that truly she had expired; except that her formerly tinted and pale
face, now as lilies was shining;
her cheeks with rosy color were flourishing; her eyes however, like
two crystals, with radiant light were glowing. Which
when she had long kept fixed immovably in the firmament of heaven,
she closed, any of her members not at all
moving. Then the Recluse, who was providing familiar
service to the one so affected, she is heard speaking with SS. Peter and Paul. heard her
speaking with the most blessed Apostles Peter and Paul.
After this, she opened the eyes which she had closed;
and seeing the Recluse standing near, was amazed,
and said: "Let us go." And the Recluse: "And where, she said, my
Lady, shall we go?" Who replied: "To Rome to the Apostles."
Waking indeed from the sleep of her excess,
in the manner in which Peter, who formerly at the Transfiguration
of the Savior wished three tabernacles to be made, knew not
what he was saying. And was she drunk? Drunk
plainly, but in spirit: thus indeed she was speaking, as if
she, still living in a mortal body, with such facility
could seek out the thresholds of the Apostles, as they stripped
of body could visit her in spirit.
[29] Was sometimes sick the said Recluse with many
infirmities, among which with an acute fever she was more gravely
laboring: which indeed had so prevailed, that all
her familiars and acquaintances despaired of her convalescence.
she predicts the same Eva's sick recovery, Which when Juliana had recognized, she hastened
to come to her for the sake of visiting. Who when she had come
entered the oratory and prayed: and when she had risen
from prayer, she spoke to the Recluse, and said
to her: "From all these infirmities you shall be healed;
for you are about to recover entire soundness." And
this indeed she brought forth about the exterior man of the sick one:
but of the inner also with the same no less
wondrously she spoke, & indicates the present and future state of her mind, manifesting the state of mind,
in which the Recluse was; and also that, into which
she was afterwards to come. But of the aforementioned
nothing fell to the ground, but all things, as she had
foretold by the prophetic spirit, that she might be found faithful,
in their own times came to pass. For bodily
the Recluse received health: and into that
state of mind, which had been predicted to her by Juliana,
she affirmed she had come.
[30] The Recluse manifested however afterwards
to her beloved Juliana many tribulations, which
her mind vehemently afflicted. & she promises she will be freed from tribulations. And she gently consoled
her, providing that divine clemency would
be at hand. "From all, she said, these tribulations,
which you have, the Lord will free you."
Which was also done: for from all these she was freed
through the grace of God, obtained to her by Juliana's merits and prayers,
as the Recluse herself even to this day
magnificently attests.
[331] A certain woman of the Order was frequented by
Juliana not moderately loved. This frequenting
was against her will, who knew the man's
spirit: and also that of the woman herself,
when she had perceived the iniquity of his heart.
The woman admonished therefore the man often, a certain one compelled to desist from approaching the Nun, that from the frequency
of his coming he should desist; but such admonition
he heard with deaf ears. Who when on a certain
day he had come, and being asked did not wish to depart; with the zeal
of religion inflamed the woman called two persons,
who compelled him to withdraw, and to him his wickedness
and foolishness they reproached. But he
not bearing his repulse with equanimity, inflamed with the torches of wrath,
began to accuse the religious woman of dishonesty
and turpitude and mendaciously to defame.
On the road however on which he was walking, with sacrilegious mouth
hurling the viperous poison of lies, and injuring her reputation with lies by divine vengeance
he fell to the ground, seized by a strong disease
of sudden sickness. Who deprived at once of knowledge and memory,
to his own, as lifeless, was carried.
Which hearing the aforesaid woman related, she began inconsolably
to grieve, that this to that wretched, punished by sudden disease, though
not by fault, yet by cause of herself had happened; especially since
she did not trust him to have been taken in a state of salvation.
She sent therefore with the daring of familiarity to Christ's Virgin
Juliana, asking her with all affection, that divine clemency
she would beseech, that to him so punished the knowledge,
by which he might be able to repent, she would deign to grant:
otherwise she would know, her heart would never have
solace of peace. These things heard Christ's Virgin, as
she with all bowels of piety was flowing, to her beloved
grieving condoled, and in the power of prayer cried out
to the Lord; and what she had been asked to ask, she obtained.
For with the Lord placated by his handmaid's prayers,
he restored to the scourged one memory and knowledge,
not only such as he had before, amended by Juliana's prayers, but knowledge
he conferred both true and illumined, with the gift
of his will changed for the better. Which when he had
received, he was pricked in his heart, publicly attesting,
that he had lied in all things about the good woman; promising
if he should recover, that from the guilt of lying from her
pardon he would ask. But that the old man
with his actions he might put off, the vicar of Christ having been summoned,
he confessed, desiring the spirit of his mind to be renewed.
In a short time however, after the purgation &
healing of his mind, was restored to him also the health corporal; he receives health,
which had not been lost for any other reason, than because
the soundness of mind had already been lost. Who made wholly sound,
wished to return to the aforesaid woman, and the old ways
to resume. But the religious woman, foreseeing
future things, although she hoped the man from the old
into another was changed; yet feared, lest in the course
of time he should resume his former disordered habits.
She sent therefore again to Christ's handmaid Juliana,
asking and beseeching, that she would beseech the Lord,
that she would guard that man from evil will, &
in the good state, which He by his piety had given him,
preserve him. Why should I delay with many things? Juliana raised
pure hands in prayer to the Lord, & he loses the capacity of acting ill. & what she asked
she obtained: for the Lord, who to the punished man had conferred health
and the will of acting well, for greater
security even in great part the capacity of acting
ill took away: moreover the pious Lord withdrew
from him almost the knowledge of all things, which
did not at all contribute to his salvation.
[32] Juliana had sometime sent a certain Cleric
to remote parts, for certain business to be transacted:
but snow had covered so the whole surface of the earth,
that he could not keep the road or the path:
whence he fell into many very dangerous places by wandering.
But she who had sent him, at once recognized
by the spirit, how it was with him: she recognizes the absent Cleric's peril, and she commanded
certain of her familiars, that they should ask the Lord,
that He would deign to rescue the Cleric from the imminent perils:
and she also poured out prayer
to the Lord. The Lord therefore heard the prayers
of those crying out to him, and him from the perils which he had incurred, & by praying averts it.
more maturely freed. Christ's Virgin
also recognized this very thing in a moment; for also the rescue
of the Cleric she announced, and returned thanks for him to his rescuer.
But when the Cleric returned, he narrated in order the day &
hour, when into the aforesaid perils he had fallen; not
otherwise assuredly than Christ's handmaid had foretold; firmly
attesting, that only by the suffrages of prayers he believed,
that such perils he could have escaped.
[33] Was sometimes sick one of her chief
friends with a vehement sickness, so that all who came
announced death to be at his door: which
when Juliana had recognized, she came to visit him from the office
of mutual charity. she predicts a sick Presbyter is to be healed: And when with the sick one for some little
time she had stood at last about to withdraw, she said to him:
"I indeed shall withdraw, but I would by no means do this,
unless I had known you were to be better: but I ask
you, that as long as you shall be so weak, that Mass
you cannot celebrate (for he was a Presbyter), that you yourself
at least once in the week should receive the Body of the Lord."
He who without understanding had borne his infirmity,
understood the admonition of this kind, and with
all devotion fulfilled it.
[34] Hedwiga, Recluse of St. Remaclus near Liège, of great religion
and illustrious reputation, is wont to narrate,
that Sister Juliana foretold very many things to her by
the spirit of prophecy. & in what order three women are to die. With the mother and sister of the said Recluse
still living in body, she foretold
to the Recluse, that her mother would die first, her sister
would follow afterwards: she herself
the Recluse would remain surviving: which without
any change the outcome of the matter confirmed.
NOTES.
taken from these Acts, is described by Fisen in part 2 of the Paralipomena
to the Flowers of the Church of Liège, who in chapter 4 adds these things: "A tomb
adorned by the Martinian Canons for the merit of virtue we have, upon which from
white marble a likeness of Eva herself with an inscription was added.
But with the temple consumed by flames, when afterwards it was restored, as
we see today; from the marbles of the tomb was erected an altar, which to the Venerable
Sacrament it pleased to dedicate. Thus, I know not by what means, it remained almost unknown
or certainly without honor her sepulchre, until the year twenty-second of this century of ours,
with great exultation of all and reverence, from the darkness
and obscure sepulchre into light and veneration was brought forth the sacred
Virgin's body: from which some part the Most Serene Infanta Isabella
Clara Eugenia Princess of the Belgians with great humility of soul and religion
received." Thus Fisen, who honors her with the title of Blessed. The authors of the Apology add
that the elevation was made by the Apostolic Nuncio. We
ourselves saw the altar, and heard how on the fifth weekdays to that altar from the Choir, after
Vespers, the Canons were accustomed to come processionally, and to recite
by Raißius, in the Addition to the Natales of Saints of Belgium published by Molanus, at
this day. Of her death it is treated below book 2 no. 33.
CHAPTER VI.
The tempted and sick helped: demons restrained. False Relics detected.
[35] Juliana wondrously compassionated her neighbors,
who were pressed by the storms of temptations,
or who were burdened by heaviness of heart or of body,
so that truly with the Apostle she could say: "Who
is weak, and I am not weak? who is scandalized,
and I do not burn?" 2 Cor. 11, 29 Whence when some persons,
for the exchange of familiarity or from desire of liberation
coming to her, temptations or burdens
with true heart, humbly and without hypocrisy, revealed;
and she according to the grace of the discernings of spirits,
which she had received from the Lord, recognized,
that so it was; such passions, through exceeding
compassion of mind, she took upon herself more closely, and as
her own carried them to the Lord: nor did she appear
in the Lord's sight empty; but she poured out
her heart like water before him, in a humbled
and contrite spirit, Compassionating the tempted with the gift of devout prayer &
upon the troubled and afflicted, she might more quickly move
the bowels of divine piety, her own tender body
without mercy with harsh blows she afflicted: nor
did her spirit rest, until those persons
had received from the Lord entire liberation
from temptations or burdens, or (if perchance for them
to be entirely freed was not expedient) at least alleviation. for them she afflicts herself:
The day will fail me, if I should try to explain the temptations
and burdens, from which by the insistence of her prayers
very many persons obtained the benefit of divine
consolation: but since the fastidious readers must be
spared, we shall try to relate a few
out of many.
[36] There had besieged the spirit of a certain Beghine a horrible
sloth: which already had rendered her enervated
from many exercises of good works, as is customary: she frees a Beghine by prayers from sloth,
and with almost all things existing as weariness to her, even
she was a burden to herself. She came therefore to Christ's handmaid
Juliana, and showed to her the misery, which her spirit
had oppressed vehemently. And Christ's Virgin
grieving condoled with her, and with the affliction of mind and body
for her liberation beseeched the Lord.
Nor was she longer frustrated in her prayer, but what she asked
she obtained: for the Lord at her prayers sloth from
the mind of the Beghine mercifully drove away. She recognized
also the liberation of her, as quickly or more quickly
by the spirit, than the Beghine could know of herself
by experience. Juliana commanded
her to come to her, and diligently and with maternal affection
in true religion instructed her, as a spiritual
daughter, whom the Lord by the intercession of her prayers
had deigned to recall from the pit of destruction.
Besides this the same Beghine labored with great pain of the head,
which the rheum that she had continually produced:
& by her cap from head pain: who when she had complained to Juliana about this pain,
Christ's Virgin gave her as if for a blessing the cap, which
upon her own head she was accustomed to place. Which when the Beghine had placed
upon her head, she was so healed, that
she no longer felt the vehemence of the former pain.
[37] A certain woman of the Order, from the death of a certain
friend of hers had incurred such sadness of heart and pain,
that with sense perturbed she believed herself about to be turned
into insanity; by words a nun from great sadness: nor could she by the consolation
of any person from such pain and sadness be relieved.
She came at last to Christ's handmaid Juliana,
and about the inflicted wound of heart complained;
if perchance she could by the grace given her be somewhat consoled.
And Christ's Virgin thus said: "Drive these things, Lady,
from your mind, and your whole heart to
the Lord turn, and he from you all
burdens which you suffer will drive away." These things and such like
with much affection of compassion and with consoling discourses
bringing forth, the constancy of her mind, which
now almost wholly had departed, she wondrously restored.
For such consolation the woman, before she departed, obtained;
that with almost all her pain banished,
she testified that she believed, scarcely greater miracle could
be done, than for so great pain and sadness in so
brief a space of time to be relegated.
[38] Came at one time to Christ's handmaid Juliana
and continually in soul and body was vexed. another Beghine from a malignant spirit
Who when had narrated to her the wretched series of the pressing
and almost oppressing her temptations; humbly
she was asking to be helped by the aid of her intercession.
Christ's Virgin therefore prayed, and of the divine propitiation
swift effect she received: for it seemed
to the Beghine, when she was about to depart, that a great stone
ponderous from her shoulders had fallen, and at once
she felt herself as if wholly from the weight of the harassing vexations
freed.
[39] Since therefore Juliana through the individual courses
of times was rescuing souls from the power of the malignant spirit,
and was caring to restore them to Christ; against herself the anger
and envy of the devil more sharply she was provoking. Too much indeed
was angry the sinner, the demon rising against her with his teeth was grinding
and wasting, when he saw very many souls, which
he thought he had absorbed in the storms of temptations, or by the weight
of sins had irremediably cast down, through
her prayers' efficacy to be as if from hell's gulf
recalled. With all malignity therefore against Christ's handmaid
he was raging, and her sleeping or waking
he did not allow to rest. He himself, also with ghostly
forms displayed, also in ghostly figures, visibly appeared; perhaps so that
from the liberation of souls captive by him her he might compel
to desist; or at least by her bearing it, he might inflict
upon her penalties, such as he could. But the more he
attacked her, the more willingly she strove to loose souls
from his bonds: for she knew
that so much it pleased Christ to do this work, as much
as she perceived the malignant spirit to rage over it.
Yet always holding suspect his snares,
she stood upon her guard; lest perchance him
her, even in small things, should supplant and insult her.
With the shield of prayer she was blunting the tooth of the envious,
with which surrounded on the right and on the left, she drives him off by prayer.
within and without, she intrepidly sustained her persecutor's attacks.
In the Sacrament of the altar however, special and
principal fortitude she took on: & the sacred Eucharist: by which indefatigably
against him, with innumerable arts of his malice,
she could struggle. Who when he had vexed Juliana for a long
time visibly, so that against her he could be believed
to have conspired; he himself was handed over in visible
and sensible form into her hands, to receive the vexation
which he had inflicted.
[40] Some Sisters of the house of Mount Cornelius are wont
to narrate that at one time they had heard the noise and onset, sometimes she beats and tramples,
which Juliana was making against the demon: whom
holding in her hands she was beating with all her effort, and with her feet
trampling, and to him reproaching was insulting: "Thus
thus, he who wished to make himself equal to the Most High was being trampled by a little woman;
and he who had presumed to rise up against her, was confounded,
and covered as with a double garment in the confusion
of the whip and shame." even with the Nuns listening, And when now beaten he wished
to flee and could not; at length to Christ's handmaid thus he
addressed: "Send me away, and go to your Sisters,
who under the door of your chamber listening have set snares
for you: who will accuse you upon this, which you desire to be hidden."
At this voice she sent him away, and coming
to the door of the chamber, she found some Sisters there,
as the demon desiring flight had said, keeping watch:
whom found, she was saddened, that they
should be aware of such a thing. For in the said House
were two kinds of persons, either applauding or envying her. who Christ's bride
curiously explored, one for envying,
the other for imitating: which even still in every
choir of young girls, unless I am mistaken, could be found.
One was applauding Juliana's daily progress;
the other depraving her well-done things, was detracting
from her virtues. One by glorifying the Lord working
in his handmaid, was ascending the limits of perfection;
the other wondrously descending, was wasting in the torment
of its own envy. But Juliana, as a flowering lily,
this and that kind of persons, both by the services of benefits
as she could, and by the sanctity of her life
adorned.
[41] There was a certain Beghine, who had suffered a most grievous
infirmity for two and a half years in one of her eyes:
for there had grown from her eye a piece of flesh, in the manner of a nut, a piece of flesh covering the eye, infirmity,
which brought horror
to those looking on. She was afflicted therefore with a double
contrition, namely of shame and of pain;
both also the length of time was augmenting.
At length led by sound counsel, she came to Christ's handmaid
Juliana once and a second time; and to her complaining
she laid open, how great and how long a time
she had tolerated the passion of her eye. by her blessing and a linen cloth, applied,
She indeed as she was prepared for compassionating, condoled with the sufferer;
the morbid eye she signed; and to her for a blessing
the flowings of her tears. Who bidding farewell departed;
and with her the cloth, which she had received, carried.
On the next day, when the Beghine was present
at the solemnities of the Mass and was praying; not without divine,
as is believed, nod into a light sleep she was dissolved: during Mass it is removed. &
she saw, and behold a certain reverend person, whom
Christ's Virgin Juliana was sending from the altar, was coming to
her; who handling with her hands the eye, the superfluous flesh
removed lightly and healed: which done there withdrew
the sleep from her. Who when she had placed her hand on her eye,
she felt nothing of the old passion, and knew herself to have received
the long-desired well-being: and with great joy
she rejoiced, and to Christ her own healer gave thanks.
Her companions indeed
and acquaintances were vehemently amazed, when they saw her
so unexpected healing, beholding the soundness
of her eye so sudden and perfect. Who when to those inquiring
had narrated the order of the thing done, they gave glory
to God, who the merits of his beloved Juliana had wished
to manifest by so pleasant a miracle. For not for
any other thing did Christ wish, as I judge, that the said Beghine
should behold the person coming to her, and bringing the remedies
of health, sent to her by his handmaid;
except that she might clearly know, that she had obtained by the merits
and prayers of her the health of her eye.
[42] As Christ's Virgin Juliana discerned the good spirits
of men from the bad through the spirit; so by the grace
given her from God, true Relics from false she wondrously
recognized. Whence it happened that a certain
great Prince of the land, and a certain friend of the Virgin
herself, by many and persuasive discourses of false hope
had been incited, that they should
set out to the Holy Land: for it had been said to them, To those about to undertake the journey to Palestine in hope of Relics
through a vision it had been revealed, that if they would undertake such a journey,
they would powerfully and manfully act against the perfidious nation;
the column also, to which bound; and also
the rods, with which beaten was the Savior of the world, with many
other most precious Relics they would find. Who to such
and what had been mendaciously urged upon them, was almost
persuaded. But the benignity of the Savior, although by the generous right
of his munificence he could reward them at his nod, either
in the present or in the future, even surrounded by empty
words; yet did not wish, by the deceptive hope of promises
not to be obtained, them to be fatigued through so many
spaces of sea and land. It seemed good therefore to that other
from the Prince, to seek counsel from Christ's handmaid Juliana;
nor that he should undertake so great a matter, without
her will and persuasion, whose familiarity he had obtained,
and in part knew her sanctity.
He came therefore to her, God so willing, she dissuades, because of the lies imposed on them, and what to him
and to the Prince had been urged he intimated. And she continuously
persuaded him, not to believe those things which were being urged;
freely pronouncing, that all these things mendaciously
were being feigned; and forbade him to undertake the journey, &
not to give credit to false visions. He then at once
rather chose to believe the Virgin, than to persuasions exceedingly
bland pertinaciously adhere.
The Prince also did not altogether believe them, for
he refused to go there personally: yet he sent his messengers
across the seas, to know what there could be found.
And those who had been sent, when they had returned, announced
to the Prince that the column would be so great, & she knew the rods brought from there to be common. that
through so many distances of lands it could not have been brought by them:
of the rods however, with which the Savior of the world had been beaten,
they said they had brought, most wickedly lying.
Which when they had been brought to Christ's Virgin, no
more devotion and inner sweetness they conferred upon her,
than if she had seen common rods, as indeed she did see.
She therefore truly recognized, and also another
person, that these were common rods, nor should any
reverence or honor be paid to them. What? When Christ's
Virgin, what she had recognized about such rods,
had intimated; after a diligent inquiry by the Prince, were known
the persons, who him with the Virgin's friend, by their own
inventions and fraudulent persuasions,
tried to drag across the sea: who also presumed to deceive with these false
Relics. But now the book must be closed,
and the course of the narration, for catching a little
rest, must be suspended somewhat.
BOOK II.
PROLOGUE.
We must speak of the tribulations and persecutions next,
which for the zeal of justice and the love of Christ
Juliana before the end of her blessed repose tolerated.
For she herself also bore her cross, and followed
Christ: followed plainly, even if not by the death of the cross,
yet by the endurance of torment. Did she not crucified
sustain the persecution of her domestics, bear multiple
injuries, compelled to flee from her house, in poverty
driven to go to diverse places? But now as if with an intermitted
diet let us breathe a little, so that to the aforementioned persecutions
and tribulations, and if not to be suffered, yet to be related,
with other things worthy of memory, more manfully we may rise up.
CHAPTER I.
The institution of the house of Mount Cornelius. Its Prioress Juliana suffers persecutions.
[1] a For greater notice of the things which are to be said,
we believe it opportune; if some things briefly &
succinctly about the institution and ordination of the house of Mount Cornelius
we set forth. It must therefore be known, that the said
house, not far distant from Liège, by the citizens of Liège
for this, as is said, was specially instituted,
that the citizens of Liège of both sexes, who the contagion of leprosy
should incur, there might receive a dwelling, by the resources of the house
to be sustained. In which together, b men and women,
healthy and sound, are admitted; so that by healthy persons
of both sexes, [the house of Mount Cornelius near Liège, instituted for lepers of both sexes, is ruled by a Prioress,] deputed for various and suitable offices,
the necessity of the sick likewise of both sexes may be congruously
ministered to: but to each sex its own habit is deputed.
The men, both healthy and sick, are called Brothers; the women,
both sound and infirm, are called Sisters.
Over the Sisters is set a Prioress, to whom c according to the order
of their Religion they are held to obey. Over all
the Brothers and Sisters of the house, however, is constituted a Prior:
whom it is necessary to obey by all, as a Prelate. There are in
the said house with the Prior, & Prior, several Brothers Clerics and
Priests, by whom the divine offices are celebrated. And since
the said house by the citizens of Liège, as has been said,
was founded; they are wont to institute two or three provident men among themselves
for a time, who to the said house
ought to provide in temporal things. In this house therefore
when the venerable d Sapientia for several years
had strenuously fulfilled the office of Prioress, where after Sapientia, her own reward for her labors from the Lord
to receive, she was released from the flesh: she
had been, under whom as nurse, Juliana to the Supreme King
dedicated the beginnings of her infancy and innocence; under
whom as mistress, to the heights of perfection, of age and sex
forgetful, she ran, which with Christ helping she afterwards attained.
[2] After the death of the aforesaid Sapientia, diminished were
also by the intervening death of the said house's wise ones: of the younger
Brothers and Sisters the number multiplied. But
those, whose concern it was to provide for the house regarding a Prioress,
recognized that the younger Sisters much desired
such to elect, with the votes of all into the Prioress by whose conversation and admonition they might
advance into better. And because Christ's Virgin Juliana,
by the merit of admirable conversation and the privilege of sanctity
had surpassed all the Sisters of the said house;
it seemed to them, B. Juliana elected, that none more worthy than she already was
to be set over, who from her first years, with unction as mistress, both
had learned to be subject and to be with others. With the votes of the Sisters
concurring therefore in her, she was constituted Prioress
of the aforesaid house, not without divine providence.
For Christ did not wish the burning and shining lamp any longer to be hidden
under a bushel, but to be placed upon a candlestick, so that it might give light to all
who were in the house of God. But Juliana however much
to hide, however much also to be subject much more she desired
than to preside, yet the vice of disobedience to incur
she was greatly fearing, purely for God and for the good of obedience,
she undertook the office enjoined on her. she shines with the example of rare sanctity, But who worthily
could narrate how Christ's Virgin presided—nay profited—
in such an office? She presided in usefulness, she presided in
humility, she presided also in solicitude. She offered herself as an example
to all of good works, not seeking what was her own,
but what was of Jesus Christ. To herself as Prioress she claimed the care
and work, not dominion or pomp. Whatever
was holy, whatever lovable, whatever of good report &
of religion, these she spoke of and exhorted. With all affection
she strove to increase the charity of Christ, where it was; where
it was not, she took care to provoke it with salutary monitions: promoting all in every kind of virtues. The flock
of Sisters committed to her to be pastured, to each
kind of virtues she admonished, as she knew to be expedient
for the capacity and understanding of individuals; & the Sisters who were
of good will, were delighted in her admonition
and teaching, gratefully submitting their necks to the magisterial
authority of the affectionate Prioress; and they believed her
words, and sustained her counsel, nor did they forget
her works. For Christ's handmaid was working, with her help,
their salvation, inviting them with most official charity
always to advance to better charisms. She showed herself not as mistress,
but as a handmaid, but as mother, but as nurse.
And how could she not attract the affection of the benevolent
sisters to herself? For when they came running to her in tribulations or
necessities, she extended the maternal breasts of consolation &
helping, dew-flowing breasts, full from heaven.
For the Father of all consolation had placed in Juliana's mouth
the word of spiritual solace, that those who either
in sadness or tribulation were, she might by the grace given to her
console. The faint-hearted she strengthened, to those advancing
she applauded, with the perfect she rejoiced together. She emulated
all with God's emulation, desiring and with all efforts
striving, to exhibit those same chaste virgins of Christ. And
that she might offer the sheep committed to her holy to Christ
in flesh and spirit, she studied in every way to preserve their innocence, innocent herself without any graver sin committed
plainly innocent herself. Was not Juliana
innocent? about whom her confessor, who her conscience
perfectly knew, as boldly as truly attested,
that she had never committed a
criminal sin. Was she not innocent and an immaculate lamb? who
was never permitted to feel even the first motions of the flesh,
tickling with lust. For when some persons concerning strong
temptations of carnal allurement, which they were suffering,
complained to her; she within herself very much
marveled at such things, for the fact that never in her life had she
experienced anything similar. Also to some of her familiars she attested,
nor tempted by the motions of lust, that never had she been tempted with any carnal
concupiscent pleasure, than she had been tempted
to eat the bones of the dead. O reverend virginity, O
admirable purity! Although however it is a rare bird on the earths,
either not to lose innocence of flesh or at least of spirit, or
that humility not be excluded by the holiness of both; Juliana
yet by the special privilege of grace, the innocence of flesh and spirit
always retained, and humility the guardian of virtues
did not lose; & meanwhile always most humbly persisting. therefore deservedly worthy, who from her spouse
Christ to hear she merited, "Behold you are beautiful my friend,
behold you are beautiful." Nor undeservedly beautiful is she called,
to whom holiness acquired did not take away humility, but preserved
admitted it: deservedly our Virgin with repetition hears herself
called beautiful by her spouse, by whom to her it was given in both,
namely flesh and spirit, to glory in beauty.
By this bride of the Lamb therefore, the lamb of the bridegroom, the sheep of the Lord,
namely the Sisters of good will of the house of Mount Cornelius,
to the pastures of eternal verdure were being led: under
this husbandman the new plantings, in the field of the Lord
planted, in virtues were growing and multiplying.
[3] But what do you think? Did Christ's Virgin find anything
to labor upon in the field of the Lord her God? Very much indeed. Although
she who had preceded as Prioress had labored much in it,
yet she had not worked it all out: for the new Prioress found
in the field of the Lord, whence she grieved not a little, barren
trees: I speak of Sisters, trees without fruit, except
perhaps of acorns or husks which pigs eat. she strives to amend the vices of her subjects gently, She found,
I say, some Sisters uncultivated, disobedient,
in habits and acts repugnant to the order; and which very much
displeased the lover of purity, with men in the most dangerous
gatherings meeting. These indeed were they who were transgressing
the way, who as much as was in them, were stripping
and demolishing, like little foxes, the vineyard
of the Lord of Sabaoth. These therefore first she approached in
the spirit of gentleness, that they might refrain from the frequenting of men.
Who when her admonition with deaf ears
they passed by (for it did not please them to dismiss what
they liked often to repeat), it seemed to Christ's Virgin that she should use
she began to reprove their vices more harshly; the seeds of vices
to prick, & strongly, not to stroke: yet she intermingled at times,
to harsh reproofs, sweet blandishments.
In guarding these also was to her such diligence
and solicitude, that for the most part she did not take rest neither
by night nor by day: for incredible was her care
lest the Sisters committed to her, as they had been wont, should commit themselves
to the perils of their souls. watchful over them day and night, Many times when she believed them
in peace to be about to rest, and she herself her tired limbs wished
to refresh with a little rest, she was aroused by the malignant
spirit, sometimes announcing, that the Sisters
were not resting, but had fled. Nor however is it to be believed that he announces these things,
because he was jealous of their salvation, even by the malignant spirit she is aroused: who so much thirsts for
blood. And when Christ's Virgin rose hastily,
to see whether those were at rest; she sometimes found
them with the doors unbolted had withdrawn. Sometimes however
that same malignant one, arousing Juliana, spoke a lie
about the Sisters: for he is a lying spirit,
and sometimes was compelled to speak truth. For
when she at some time aroused rose, hearing that the said Sisters
had fled; she found them peacefully resting.
[4] These and such things when Christ's Virgin was doing incessantly,
and for her sheep was obstructing the ways of sinning;
she learned by experience, what Scripture says, "All who
wish piously to live in Christ, from them, and their lovers, she suffered persecutions, will suffer persecution." 2 Tim. 3, 12
For they indeed now not sheep, but most ferocious she-wolves, every
kind of spiritual medicine despising,
desired rather to cherish the disease of vices than to cast it out; &
fallen into frenzy of soul, the hand and industry of the healer
they rejected. Not only those however, but also those from
whose frequentations and gatherings she labored to draw them back,
with iniquitous hatred hated her, nor could they
peaceably speak any thing to her; and gnashed their teeth
at her, and with detractions, whisperings, enmities
and in all ways they could, her they persecuted.
Shame! they set against Christ's handmaid
evils for goods, and hatred for her love; &
spoke against her with a crafty tongue, and with discourses
of hatred surrounded her, worthier rather to be surrounded
with flowers of roses and lilies of the valleys. They firmed
moreover for themselves a wicked speech, and long
searched, that in Christ's handmaid they might catch and thus
publicly reprehend some iniquity:
but they failed searching with scrutiny. For Juliana, who
with Christ as artist to perfection had been polished, so piously
and prudently in all things bore herself, that nothing could be found,
which worthily the malice of the searchers could catch.
Nor yet did they return on that account to their heart (for indeed
anger and fury had blinded their foolish heart) but
all whom they could of the house with poisonous colloquies
against Christ's Virgin they stirred up: and they found
people who believed them, more prone to evil
than to good: and hatred against her was multiplied
vehemently. Yet never could that exasperating house,
in all its persecution and fury, extinguish the unction
of the Spirit, with which Christ's Virgin had been fully imbued;
but she amid tribulations and contumelies,
which she suffered from them, in her meekness persevered.
For with those who hated peace she was peaceful,
after the example of Job bearing all things in all patience.
Nor did she repay her persecutors, she is strengthened by the Prior Godfrey. but the evildoers,
with the zeal of charity at opportune times
she reproved, persecuting vices, not persons. In those
days presided over the House a Prior of venerable life, by name
Godfrey, who much strengthened Christ's handmaid in her tribulations
with divine help.
[5] In the life of this Prior God revealed to his handmaid
many things, which after the said Prior's death happened. For she
is wont, whom we have mentioned, the Recluse of St. Martin to narrate,
that when Juliana, while the mentioned Prior was still living,
had come to her once, she said to her: "Malignant spirits,
Recluse, who hitherto visibly vexed me,
have withdrawn from me; but malignant spirits who in the hearts
of men and women invisibly reign, more sharply henceforth
will rise up against me, about to rage in me more malignantly.
They will rage also, she said, against the church of Christ, & those
who will wish to exalt it; but me first they will attack."
This last she was saying about the solemnity of the Sacrament,
which through her was to be made known to the world by the command of the Lord:
about which Christ's Virgin first and principally,
and also many faithful who first attempted to promote it,
suffered many evils. After
this she added still to speak to the Recluse, saying: "Lord
Godfrey, our praiseworthy Prior, she foretells his death & persecutions afterwards to be inflicted on her. within the course of a year
is to migrate from this age. There is however one
Brother in our house, who will succeed him in the Priorate,
under whom the malignant spirits will so rage in me, that it will be necessary
for me to flee from the face of him troubling me. There is also in the same
house another Brother, young and innocent, who will help me
to bear the weight of tribulations. Yet
I must flee, and with tears rising she said: In that
time, O Recluse, you will be necessary to me: will you not take
me as a fugitive into your hospice." Then the Recluse to her:
"Every, she said, solace and every good, which I
shall be able to furnish you, know me to be ready with all desire
to furnish you." But nothing of the aforesaid fell,
which Christ's Virgin had foretold, to the ground: but all things
in their times happened. For all the mentioned things
the Lord had revealed to her to happen: more specially however
than at other times, in the hour of the Sacrament of the altar, uncertain
and hidden things of his wisdom and will he was revealing
to her. Of which one most excellent, in which the prerogative
of our Virgin manifestly can be known,
we believe must be narrated; with the tribulations for a time set aside,
which a little before we touched upon, which in congruent time
we shall resume.
NOTES.
in habitation the healthy men, and those infected with leprosy or diseases, likewise in the same way the women.
CHAPTER II.
The first occasion of instituting the solemnity of the Venerable Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ.
[6] In the time of her youth, a as often as Christ's
Virgin Juliana was intent upon prayer, a great
sign and wondrous appeared to her. There appeared, I say,
to her the moon in its splendor, By the moon often appearing to her with some fracture, yet with some fracture
of its spherical body: which when she had beheld for a long
time, she marveled much, not knowing what it
portended. Beyond this however she could not sufficiently wonder,
that as often as she was insistent on prayers, the said sign
without ceasing presented itself to her sight: and when
with all efforts she strove to remove what she wished, nor
prevailed; she began with great fear and trembling excessive
about this to be tormented, judging herself to be tempted.
She was praying however, and through persons faithful to her she was causing the Lord
to be prayed, that
from a certain temptation, which she said she was suffering,
He might deign to rescue her. But when by no industry, by no
prayer of hers or of other faithful could she repel the importunity of the sign
from herself; at length she began to think, that perhaps
not so much she should labor to repel such a sign,
as to seek something mystical in the sign itself.
She betook herself therefore wholly with all devotion
to beseeching the Lord, [she learns, in the Church the solemnity of the Venerable Sacrament is to be instituted:] that if what
she was seeing signified anything; to her to reveal
He would not disdain the mystery of the vision. Then Christ revealed to her;
in the moon, the present Church;
in the fracture of the moon, the lack of one solemnity
in the Church was figured, which He still wished
on earth by His faithful to be celebrated. And that
this was His will, that for the increase of faith,
to be weakened at the end of the age, and also for the profit and grace of the elect,
the institution of the Sacrament of His Body and Blood
every year once should be more solemnly and specially recollected,
than on the Lord's Supper, when about the washing
of feet and the memory of His passion the Church is generally
occupied: and in that very solemnity concerning the memory of His
Sacrament it should be supplied more diligently, what on other
daily days in less devotion or by negligences
had been passed over. These things therefore when Christ had revealed to His Virgin,
and she receives the mandate of promoting it: He enjoined her, that this solemnity
she should begin, and that it ought to be done, first she should announce to the world.
But Juliana, weighing and considering the sublimity of the business and her humility
and fragility, beyond what
can be said was stunned, and replied that she could not do
what was being enjoined on her. But as often as she was intent on prayer,
Christ admonished her, that the business enjoined on her
she should undertake, whom for this from all mortals
He had chosen. And she always responded: "Lord, dismiss
me; and what You enjoin on me, enjoin rather on great Clerics,
shining with the light of knowledge, who may know and be able
to promote so great a business? for how could I do it?
I am not, & in vain because of humility she excuses herself: Lord, worthy to announce to the world a thing so
arduous, so lofty: nor would I know, nor could I fulfill it."
And it was answered her; that this solemnity ought
in every way to be begun through her, and thereafter
through humble persons to be promoted. And when sometimes she was insistent
on prayer, beseeching with all intention the Lord, that
He might choose another person for this work; she heard a voice saying:
"I confess to You, Father Lord of heaven and earth, that
You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent of this
world, and have revealed them to the little ones." Nor did she thus at once acquiesce,
but replied: "Rouse, Lord, Yourself; rouse
also great Clerics; and dismiss me in peace, Your
least creature." And again a voice was made to her saying,
"He put in my mouth a new canticle, a song to our God:
Your justice I did not hide in my heart, Your truth
and Your salvation I declared: I did not hide Your mercy
and Your truth from the great council."
[7] When therefore from the time of the aforesaid vision, more than
twenty years' courses had passed; and again Christ's
Virgin Juliana, from excessive humility, with unspeakable
groans and prayers had insisted, that
Christ Himself upon any other person the mentioned business
would impose, nor could she at all obtain this alone;
perceiving it would be hard for her against the goad of the divine
will to kick, she subjected her will to His will:
for she had insisted with such prayers and tears, that
often with tears exhausted, after 20 years acquiescing, her eyes pure blood
led forth in place of tears. Nor let anyone be offended,
that Christ's Virgin so late seemed to acquiesce to the divine
admonition: since this did not proceed from any
negligence, or lesser devotion toward the Sacrament itself;
but solely from profoundest humility:
for always in the Lord's sight she asserted herself most unworthy,
that so great a solemnity through her should become known to the world,
excusing herself nevertheless of her inexperience and impossibility.
But the more she reputed herself unworthy,
the more Christ, lover and teacher of humility,
judged her more worthy. Acquiescing therefore even late
to the admonition so often made to her, she indicates the vision to John de Lausenna, a Canon; first she disclosed all things in order
to b a man of venerable life, Lord John of Lausanne,
Canon of the Church of St. Martin of Liège, whose
memory is in benediction; whom for the excellence of his sanctity
she much loved: and she asked him, that since
he was known to many great Clerics and religious persons,
who came to him for the sake of prayers:
all the things which she had related to him, yet with her name kept silent,
he should expound to them: that he might know, what even great
Theologians thought about such a solemnity. And see
the wise Virgin: she does nothing precipitously,
she undertakes nothing inconsiderately: but with maturity
and very much deliberation, she does all things; through herself
testing, and through others desiring to be tested, whether the spirits be
from God. Let men and women of both sexes hear this,
wise in their own eyes, believing every spirit, who whatever
has occurred to their minds they judge to be divine revelations.
To Juliana a sign is shown, a mystery is revealed;
the business is enjoined, nay also impressed, and all these things
by Him who cannot deceive nor be deceived: and yet through men,
learned in divine law and having the Spirit of God,
all the aforesaid she asks to be reviewed. But if the example
of our Virgin is of the least importance to them, let them attend to Paul's work.
Did not he his own Gospel, which he had received not from man,
but from Christ, yet think should be conferred
with men, lest perchance he should run or had run in vain?
There he is not secure; nor Christ's handmaid Juliana: if
anyone should be this, then examined by the Archdeacon Jacob of Troyes afterwards Urban IV, the Pope. let him see whether not so much security as temerity
should be judged. Gal. 2 There were therefore exposed all the above-mentioned things
to Lord c Jacob of Troyes, then Archdeacon
of the Church of Liège, a man certainly in the divine law greatly
erudite and adorned with merits of sanctity: who because
he always showed himself faithful before God in the little things
which he received from Him; afterwards he deserved to be placed
over many. For he indeed afterwards was made Bishop of the Church
of Verdun, from which thence into the Patriarch
of Jerusalem he was taken up: finally, with God
wondrously promoting him, after Pope Alexander
the fourth, to the Supreme Pontiff he was raised, and Urban
he was called. There were also exposed all the aforesaid things
to Brother d Hugh, then Prior Provincial of the Order of Preaching Friars;
who afterwards, by his demanding
merits, deserved to be promoted to a Cardinal of the Roman Church: and to other learned men,
and also to the Reverend Father Lord e Guiard
Bishop of Cambrai, who in those days like
two great luminaries of heaven, in life and knowledge, in the Church
were shining. There were also exposed all things to a most erudite man
the Chancellor of Paris, and also to the Brothers
Ægidius, John, and Reinardus, lectors of the Dominican Friars
of Liège; moreover also to many other persons,
in life and knowledge twinkling like stars.
But when would the Holy Spirit dissent from Himself? when
would He speak things contrary to Himself? Not one thing certainly
through the mouth of His handmaid Juliana, and another through the mouths of His
faithful servants did He speak: but nor was found
among them "Yes and No," but "Yes" only. For the aforesaid
persons all, diligently having heard, understood
and examined the merits of the mentioned business, and by all it is approved, with one
spirit pronounced, that there could not be found in the divine
law an efficacious reason, why a special festivity
of the reverend Sacrament should not be made. It would
be most worthy and most just, and also to the honor
of God it would yield, to the profit also and grace of the elect,
if the memory of the institution of that very Sacrament
more solemnly and specially, than up to that
time, every year mother Church should celebrate.
The concord of which sentence when Christ's Virgin
had recognized, she gave thanks to God, that of her will
He had put the response in the mouth of so great and such persons.
[8] But when the handmaid of Christ with much affection desired,
that some other person should have the name of beginning
the new solemnity; Devout Isabelle the Beghine, admitted among the Cornelian Sisters, and wished to have a person
nearby, who would consent in what she was feeling,
with whom she could confer about her desire, & to whom
those things, which sometimes from fullness she could not conceal,
she could communicate at least in a small way; she heard the famous
report of a certain Beghine, Isabelle by name, dwelling at
Huy, who among all religious persons,
who had known her, was held in greatest
esteem: for she was of wondrous patience, of outstanding humility,
of immense charity, finally prevailing with much
grace and virtue. To this eminence of perfection
the pious Lord, who scourges every son whom
He receives, through many tribulations had advanced her, &
through great scourges of body, the gifts of such
charisms had made her worthy. Having therefore heard of her reputation,
Christ's handmaid Juliana arranged, that Isabelle herself
in the house of Mount Cornelius should be received as a Sister.
Whom when Christ's Virgin by speaking had often experienced,
how illumined a mind she had from the Lord in
understanding spiritual and divine things;
at length she wished to attempt, whether
anything of heavenly arcana concerning the institution of the new solemnity
of the Sacrament divinely she had received. she asks about instituting the solemnity, And when
of the marvels of the Sacrament itself they had somewhat conferred
mutually, Sister Juliana asked her,
what seemed to her about making a special solemnity
of the Sacrament itself, in thanks-giving to Him,
glory and honor. But she, who had not yet received
the special good of feeling about this which she
was feeling; this time less cautious, to draw out honey from
the rock and oil from the hardest stone; and to speak more openly,
less foresighted, to extract from the questioner,
what about this was in the cave of her heart, out of excessive
humility of hiding the great mystery, simply
replied: "And whence, my Lady, do pious hearts
daily keep feast if not concerning such a Sacrament?"
Then Sister Juliana, from her response perceiving,
that of the recognition of the hidden thing revealed to her nothing
as yet had been revealed to her; had herself no otherwise, than
if by a two-edged sword her heart had been pierced through.
For Juliana was anxious inwardly, that she had by no means
found the comfort of a similar revelation (which she had believed).
But Sister Isabelle, from the look and gesture
of her recognizing, the force of pain, which from her simple response
nay ignorance she had conceived;
and acknowledging herself not to feel what she about this was feeling;
through the circle of one year most insistently by herself
the Lord beseeched, and through very many religious persons
obtained Him to be asked, that in this the eyes of her intelligence
He would open. Which space of time elapsed,
it happened her for I know not what cause to go to the Recluse of St. Martin.
When she had approached her reclusorium, & after prayers poured for a whole year, &
she saw the doors of the same church open; she entered it
for the sake of prayer, and before the Crucifix she prostrated herself.
And behold in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, she was rapt
to supernal things; and the Lord showed her, how
this special festivity of the Sacrament had always been
in the secret of the blessed Trinity; revealing to her that now
the time was coming, when to men, upon whom
the ends of the ages have come, this most sacred
solemnity ought to be declared: and she saw all the celestial
orders' armies with continuous and devout prayers
beseeching the Lord, that what until these times
He had held in hidden things, now at length for strengthening
and confirming the faith of the Church militant,
and for augmenting the grace of the elect, the new
solemnity to the perilous world He would hasten to open.
Who when from the heights she had returned to the depths, stirred up by divine revelation, after
the example of the blessed spirits, desiring this to be made in the world
and praying for it to the Lord,
she had such great desire that this solemnity to the world
might become known, that sometimes she said, that she alone
would insist for this solemnity to be made in the Church, even
if the whole world should resist from the opposite;
giving her confidence the Lord's will, which she had recognized
about this. Who when to Sister Juliana that
which in her rapture she had seen, she had related: she receives a companion in promoting the said solemnity. she exulted
with vehement joy, that of the divine will she had
man, but through revelation and pure knowledge
the Lord had made her companion and consort. From
thenceforth Christ's Virgin Juliana and she, concerning
this holy festivity to be instituted and promoted,
in mellifluous speech more frequently and familiarly conferred
mutually.
[9] Thus Juliana, strengthened by divine and human counsel,
began within herself to think, whom she could summon for
composing the Office of so great a solemnity.
But when she noted that she could not have at hand
literary men, excellent Clerics, who seemed fit to act;
trusting only in the divine wisdom about to be present,
John, a youth indeed, but very much innocent,
for this work in her heart she disposed to choose. [By the Curate the office of the Body of Christ to be written by a young and less erudite Cleric,]
This was he of whom Christ's Virgin
long before to the Recluse of St. Martin had foretold, that he
would help her bear the weights of the coming tribulations:
whom although in the science of letters she knew
to be unskilled, yet knowing the power of God
and wisdom (whose work she wished to be done) could say worthy things
through the unlearned, him, concerning the investigating and composing
of the Office of the new festivity, she took care with exhortatory
discourses to approach. But he at first began
to distrust, and to excuse himself of his ignorance: but Juliana
strengthened the distrustful and fainthearted, &
promised divine help would be at hand. Why
many words? He, although he did not doubt that such a burden exceeded
the measure of his intellect and knowledge (for he was of moderate
letters), overcome however by the prayers and authority
of the Virgin, whose sanctity he well knew,
to investigate and order the aforesaid Office he undertook.
He undertook I say, persuaded to trust in the help
of Him, who says through the Prophet: "Open
your mouth and I will fill it." Ps. 80, 11 And so that young Brother
and Christ's Virgin agreed, that he should proceed
to writing, she likewise should proceed to praying;
so that one by the other's labor might be helped, and so mutually
they might be consoled. Going through therefore the books
of many Saints, as a most prudent bee of divine
sentences he was gathering flowers, tasting the sweetness of the Sacrament
of the Body and Blood of Christ; which with him composing, her praying, from which
within himself making honey of Antiphons,
Responsories, Hymns and other things, which pertain to the Office itself,
he stored them in the beehive of his tablets;
restoring his honey to the waxes, assuredly sweeter
than the former. Whence it happened that he more easily and
more learnedly, than he could have hoped before, did what
pleased him. But that he could do this, he rather
ascribed to Christ's Virgin's prayer, than to his industry
or labor; and when something pertaining to the aforesaid Office
he had composed, bringing it to her,
he said, "This, my lady, is sent to you from
above; see and examine whether there be anything in song or
letter to be corrected." Which she by wondrous knowledge
infused into her, with such subtlety and perspicacity,
when necessity demanded, was doing; that after her
examination and correction, it was never necessary
for the file of even the highest Masters to come near.
And what Christ's Virgin had approved, this
he retained, or to her correction he left.
And so it was done, that the whole Office of the new solemnity,
nocturnal and diurnal, was completed, and by learned men, approved. in Hymns, Antiphons,
Responsories, Lessons, Chapters,
Collects, and all other proper proper, with Christ's
Virgin praying, the young Brother composing, with God
wondrously helping, was consummated. These
however all things are of such sweetness and delight in
letter and song, that even from stony hearts devotion
rightly ought to extract. But before
they were published, they were shown to those whom we have above named,
great Theologians, and to many other men
not mediocrely lettered; that they might see and examine,
if there were anything, which they desired to be corrected or demanded
to be eliminated: who in the light of truth all things
more diligently examining, could find nothing
insipid, uncomposed, or uncultivated. Many
of them marveling were asking, who so great and such
that that young Brother, whom we have said, this
had done; those who knew him, replied: "Not
truly this work did he do, but the Holy Spirit": and all things
they magnificently commended together, since they could find nothing,
even more curiously exploring, which required the file
of a corrector. g
NOTES.
in Ciaconius is read. The Sammarthani attribute both Archdeaconries to him,
created Bishop of Verdun in the year 1252, Patriarch
of Jerusalem 1255. Roman Pontiff under the name Urban IV in the year 1261, died 1264.
"This office begins, 'Animarum cibus'; and is found complete in
the Church of Tongres and in other places. Then Urban IV; the office which
is sung everywhere, instituted." Adds Chapeauvillus,
"That office is had in the collegiate church of St. Martin &
the parochial church of St. John Baptist of Liège, & in several churches
of the diocese of Liège."
CHAPTER III.
The solemnity of the Venerable Sacrament amid various adversities promoted and begun to be celebrated,
[1] She found many opposing at the instigation of the demon, These things therefore having been done, when Christ's Virgin, with all
marrows of her affections, desired the solemnity itself to be
promoted; the enemy of the human race, who
rules over all the sons of pride, with all malignity
began on the contrary to rage. For by his
persuading and instigating, very many ecclesiastical
persons, to whom because of hope of promotion
of the aforesaid festivity the eminence had been made known, not giving
honor to God, to its promotion with all
efforts resisted. Alas! those who first in promotion
ought to have been, were first made in opposing;
and they showed themselves to be of the number
of those of whom the Lord complains through the
Prophet, "I have nourished and exalted sons, but they
have despised me: The ox knew his owner, &
the ass his master's crib; but Israel did not know me,
my people did not understand." Is. 1, 2 Truly this people,
when it was in the honor of ecclesiastical dignity, did not understand;
& what is more detestable, did not wish to understand
to act well, and to promote the solemnity of the Lord;
but as is read in Job, "he stretched out his hand against God,
and against the Almighty was strengthened,"
while by abusing his power that very festivity
he did not allow to be exalted; but ran against
God with extended neck, and with fat neck was armed.
Job 15. 23 And perhaps the fatness of ecclesiastical revenues
had blinded his heart, so that the light of truth
he could not see. Deut. 32, 15 "The beloved grew fat and kicked
(says that most gentle Moses), grew fat, was enriched,
enlarged, he forsook God his maker,
and departed from God his salvation." For his iniquity came forth
as if from fatness, he who while he attends only
to the pleasure of his own flesh, does not care to do
the divine will. But now this discourse must be restrained,
lest perchance some of them should read or hear these things,
and be angry, gnash their teeth and rage; & sharpen
against me like a sword their tongue, and strike
with the rod of their mouth. This word therefore was divulged rather quickly
about the aforesaid solemnity far and wide
through the Bishopric of Liège; and it was made to some, humble
namely and devout, for acceptance &
reverence of it, a fragrance of life unto life; but to others,
for pride, impugnation and blasphemy, it seemed
to become a fragrance of death unto death. Truly as once the old
just Simeon, whose old age was in rich mercy,
when he had received the infant Christ in his arms
foretold of him; so also of the present festivity
it could be said, that it was set for the ruin and resurrection
of many, and for a sign which should be contradicted. Luke, 2; 34
For it was set for the ruin of the adversary proud;
but for the resurrection of the humble and the meek,
obeying so great a grace of Christ with due devotion.
And for a sign which should be contradicted. Nothing is more true:
for innumerable contradictors this solemnity had,
most atrocious impugners. For
as once at Christ's birth Herod was troubled, & all
Jerusalem with him; so when the star of the new solemnity
was published, the devil, whom Herod signifies,
with his envious and proud satellites was troubled, and judging the festivity to be superfluous,
and unanimously the rising festivity they strove to extinguish:
for this with equal counsel they declared superfluous,
this with equal sentence they condemned. Which
insanity first prevailed so much, that it involved many more
Clerics than Laymen; and more those,
who were swollen with that knowledge which puffs up, but empty
of that charity which edifies: and which cannot be said without grave pain,
the insanity of contradiction held involved in itself
many of those, who bore the name and habit of religion.
This alone however all the adversaries,
for the destruction and overthrow
of it, adduced; that this solemnity daily was made
in the Sacrament of the altar, and on account of this would be
as if superfluous to be rejected; by which alone, I say not reason,
but misuse, the inexpugnable strength of the festivity
instituted by God, as if with an opposed battering-ram, they strove
to break. But by him whom we have mentioned
the Reverend Father Brother Hugh, of the Order of Preaching Friars
Presbyter Cardinal, that great
Theologian and distinguished preacher, was erected the bulwark
of one luminous epistle on the opposite side,
which the devices of the assailants wholly destroys
and breaks. But not at once was the mouth of those
speaking iniquities against the Lord and against
his devout handmaid Juliana closed; but against her
and the Lord's solemnity on individual days the virulent
poison of detraction belched forth. But all this was done,
so that the word, which Juliana long
before had foretold to the Recluse of St. Martin, might be fulfilled; by whom a dreamer she is called, namely that malignant
spirits, reigning in the hearts of men,
against the Church of God and those who should wish to exalt it
would rage; but first against herself. Assuredly
so it was: for the impugners of the aforesaid festivity,
small with great, called Christ's Virgin a dreamer;
and in the mouth of innumerable
favorers of the same, who had neither seen nor known her,
the name of Juliana the dreamer with detractions
and assiduous mockeries was spoken. For
she had been made a derision of this people, their song
all day: but all these things she sustained for You,
Lord, hearing the reproach of many dwelling
round about.
[11] Seeing therefore Christ's Virgin, that for promoting
the aforesaid solemnity human suffrages were lacking to her;
with her wonted devotion she strove to resort to the divine: [setting out for Cologne, she seeks patronage of this business from SS. Peter, Andrew, and the Ursuline Virgins.]
and she proposed to visit the thresholds of the Saints male and female,
resting in the city of Cologne, especially
of blessed Peter keybearer of the celestial gate and of Saint Andrew
and of the holy Apostles, and also of that candid
army of twelve thousand Virgins, who
"did not defile their garments, for they remained
Virgins"; that with prayers poured out to them,
they together gathered into one, from the holy Trinity
by their intercessions might obtain, that the festivity,
which she on earth wished to be made and had imposed on herself,
He would exalt. She set out abroad with some
Sisters of her house, concealing the cause of her pilgrimage:
but this was alone her
intention, that for the aforesaid business the suffrages of the Saints male and female
she might ask. And when she with that
company of Sisters had ascended a chariot (for indeed
from her excessive weakness she could not go on foot),
the malignant spirit, perceiving by the subtlety of his nature
this pilgrimage to be against himself and his own,
visibly appeared upon the chariot, with all the effort of his malignity,
striving to impede her with her companions. But she with her own
was protecting herself with the shield of prayers: whence also without any impediment
she came to Cologne. And having entered the city, into the church
of St. Peter first she caused herself to be led, and before one of
the altars she fell prostrate in prayer. But who would the insistence
of that prayer, who the devotion of those prayers,
expound? Heaven beyond doubt was open to her
prayers, and her prayer reached the heights of hearing:
which afterwards the outcome clearly proved. "I adjure
you, daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes and harts of the field,
you, I say, who Christ's bride have accompanied, she is rapt into ecstasy:
that you stir not, nor cause the beloved
to awake, until she wills." But alas! otherwise was it
done. For about the evening hour her companions approaching,
lifted her from the place of prayer, from the pleasantness
of richer pasture; yet mute
and as if wholly sequestered from the senses of the flesh.
At length when among the Sisters' hands to herself she had returned,
with a plaintive voice exclaiming she said: "Alas! why do you
bear me away, before the crops have been gathered?" She complained, as
I judge, that she had been roused from the sleep of her excess sooner
than she had wished, and that she had been recalled from
the gathering of the fruits of devotion and prayer, by whose
abundance she was delighting. Several also churches of the said
city she traversed, with all affection of devotion
seeking the suffrages of Saints male and female.
[12] The aforesaid pilgrimage completed, she added
to visit the thresholds of the glorious Virgin Mary
of Tongres a, and of B. Servatius of Maastricht,
that by multiplied intercessors, what she desired, she might the more quickly
obtain. [Setting out to the Mother of God at Tongres and to St. Servatius, with her chariot overturned she remains with her companions unharmed.]
And when she had begun the journey with her companions,
the devil seeing and envying, that the business of the holy solemnity
was being promoted through her solicitude and the insistence of prayer,
nay inflamed with fury; the chariot
in which Christ's Virgin with her own was riding, in a plane
and beautiful way, wickedly overturned, showing himself the fifth
wheel: who since their souls
he could not harm, at least he was trying to destroy their bodies.
Yet Christ's handmaids, when with the rushing chariot they had fallen,
were not crushed: because the Lord placed
his hand under.
[13] Meanwhile while Christ's Virgin thus, for the exaltation
of the new festivity, by imploring the suffrages of the Saints,
was laboring; Christ in the manner in which he willed
was procuring her desire. For by the nod of him
who disposes all things sweetly, venerable and religious men,
the order and procedure of the solemnity expounded
to the Reverend Father Lord Robert Bishop of Liège; Robert Bishop of Liège promotes the solemnity,
and to him, that he should recognize the gift of divine grace
and exalt it, with efficacious words they suggested. Why
more? When at length the merits of the said festivity
had been known, it well pleased him, and he declared that by right it ought
to be done: who also, through continual
increments of times, himself grew in love of it;
whence he proposed to exalt it magnificently. b To all
therefore the ecclesiastical persons of his diocese through an elegant
epistle he enjoined, that very solemnity
on each year, on the day appointed for this, with its proper Office,
to be celebrated; and by their peoples, as the Lord's
day, from every servile work inviolably to be observed
he caused to be written at his own expense, wishing to have
an abundance distributed through suitable places. And lest
any of the negligent Prelates of ignorance
might be able to excuse himself; he proposed in his general d Synod
(which every year with the Rectors of churches gathering together,
and with the Deans of councils into one is wont to be made)
that what by epistle he had established, with living voice solemnly
to publish. But alas! he was prevented by e death,
and what he willed, he could not fulfill: who although his purpose
he did not perfect, yet the reward of his purpose
he did not lose. But since further concerning him, how much
reverence and familiarity he showed to Christ's handmaid Juliana,
and concerning his death elsewhere must be said;
now rather, by what helps and increments
the holy solemnity was promoted, we shall relate.
[14] Was sent sometime the Reverend Father Brother
Hugh, of the Order of Preaching Friars Presbyter
Cardinal, to the parts of Germany from the side of the supreme Pontiff
destined: who when he had come to Liège,
by venerable and religious persons, was shown
to him the Office of the mentioned solemnity: which long
before, namely when he was still Prior Provincial
of the aforesaid Order, he had pronounced rightly to be done.
Who all the things contained in the Office considering and searching
with more diligent eyes, A solemn feast Cardinal Hugh celebrates at Liège, in the church of St. Martin. nothing
to be added, nothing to be diminished he judged, finding all things
decently ordered. And God put in his heart,
that the new solemnity through himself he should exalt,
and himself as an example for celebrating this to all the faithful
he should exhibit. When it had been divulged therefore through the city of Liège,
that that Cardinal in the church of St. Martin on
the Mount was to celebrate the solemnity of the Sacrament,
girded with the insignia of his dignity, amid the Mass
solemnities, about to give to drink to the great crowd which had gathered,
the streams of celestial wisdom, ascended an eminent
place; and concerning the sublimity and grace of the present
solemnity made an elegant discourse to Clerics and Laymen.
At first he greatly commended it, asserting it to be for the honor
of God, and also to the no small profit of the elect; God
omnipotent attesting, that to those piously recollecting it,
with generous right hand He would bestow the gifts of his manifold
graces. Also the day, on which for each
year it should be celebrated, he instituted: and to all
prepared for this, whose hearts God would touch,
he gave permission to receive every year on the very day of the solemnity
the most sacred body of Christ. With the sermon
however completed, the solemnities of Masses he celebrated
solemnly and devoutly. Also at the same Cardinal's
exhortation the Canons of the major Church of Liège,
with the said Cardinal still acting in those parts,
the aforesaid solemnity in their church
in full Office celebrated. & by his example the Canons of the Cathedral church, But some
of them are proved to have done this, not so much from
devotion, as from fear or desire of pleasing:
for with that Cardinal returned to the Roman Curia,
those who seemed to be the pillars of that church,
by whose counsel and aid that solemnity seemed
not only for some years to be able to be made, but also
perhaps in perpetuity to be established; with the year elapsed,
forbade it to be made, swollen and lofty. Thus against
God they abused the power granted to themselves, they who more than others
from him had obtained of dignity and name. from these afterwards turned away various are soon extinguished, But
with what dreadful death they ended their life, with the term
approaching which could not be passed over, more
I think must be kept silent: yet with no rash judgment
would I affirm, that they in retaliation for their contradiction
with such death were punished. This however I would
boldly say, that very many ecclesiastical persons, who
had a great name, after the name of the great
who are on earth, whom the holy solemnity had as impugners
and rebels, were so preempted by death,
that their death by laymen was turned into a proverb.
This however for terror I thought should be said, that
all who shall read or hear these things, when mention of the holy solemnity comes to them, learn not to disparage it, nor to defend impudently and obstinately the claim that what is celebrated daily in the Church concerning the Sacrament of the altar ought to suffice; lest they appear to strive in vain against the torrent of the divine will, or to kick against the goad. Would rather, if possibility be at hand, that they themselves promote this embraceable festivity; or if perhaps it is not, that at least with the whole affection of the heart they desire it to be promoted: lest if they act otherwise (which God forbid), vexation alone give understanding to hearing. Let them take care, I pray, lest if they be entangled in the fault of the rebels, they be also entangled in the penalty. I would wish that all men be roused to the grace of so great a solemnity, not so much by vexation as by the mistress of unction.
[15] For the rest, before the reverend Cardinal returned to the Roman Curia, he was zealous to provide for the said solemnity in the future. For by all the Rectors of Churches and Prelates and other faithful of Christ established within the limits of his legation, Hugh the Cardinal promotes the same solemnity by circular letters. he decreed that it should be celebrated; asking, enjoining, and commanding that it be done every year on the day appointed for this, with its proper Office deputed for that solemnity. And that it may be known to all with what reverence and devotion the said Cardinal judged that it should be honored, we have thought to insert his letter into the present chapter. The tenor, therefore, of the letter is this: "To the Reverend Fathers, Archbishops, Bishops, and Venerable Brothers Abbots, and to other beloved in Christ Priors, Deans, Archdeacons, and to persons of all whatsoever orders, and also to the other faithful established within the limits of our legation, Brother Hugh, by divine mercy Priest Cardinal of the title of Saint Sabina, Legate of the Apostolic See, he inculcates in them the duty of gratitude, greeting in the Lord. While we weigh in the balance of reason the merits of the human race and the benefits of the eternal Creator, we find between them a greater distance than that of a drop of dew and the Ocean; our mind is shaken with mighty fear, because nothing else is found in the judgment of right investigation than this: that if the whole man, like wax before the face of fire, should melt into divine service, yet he could not render to God anything in man worthy. For He made man, fashioned from clayey matter, a fellow-citizen of the Angels; and taking the form of a servant and uniting flesh to Deity, for his redemption He poured out the inestimable price of his own blood, over him whom he grieved to be fettered by the diabolic bonds of servitude. Nor could this be sufficient for Him, but also as a sign of greater love towards us, when about to take His body away from our eyes and bear it up to the stars, because of the excellence of this Sacrament increased, He left it to us wrapped under a certain most pure shroud of the Sacrament; that by its operation He might fortify our senses against the aerial powers, and remit venial sins, remove all consent in more grave ones, and bestow the perfection of virtues; also that by eating it continually we may have in mind the memory of the Lord's Passion, and offer for so great a benefit the host of praise—He who pursues us through every moment with the continual consolation of His benefits, until we grow up into a perfect man, into the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ; eating the marrow of wheat and drinking pure wine upon the table in his kingdom, which while we exist in darkness and in the shadow of death are set forth to us under a certain rind of the Sacrament, the chaff of the letter, and the veil of faith.
"Indeed, although this venerable Sacrament is recalled in daily remembrance with due devotion, yet it is worthy—for the confutation of the madness of certain heretics, in a like feast to be somehow discharged: that at least once a year, more specially and more solemnly than on the Supper of the Lord (when Holy Mother Church is more generally occupied about the washing of feet and the memory of the Lord's Passion) and the other daily days, it should be recalled to memory by all the senses. For since the Saints, whose memory is venerated daily in the Church in the Litanies and Masses and other secret prayers, nevertheless once a year have their own feasts for a more special recalling of their merits; it is not incongruous if the holy of holies, the love of loves, the sweetness of all sweetnesses, should have its own special feast, [which he commands to be celebrated on the Thursday after the Octave of Pentecost:] in which there may be supplied carefully and solicitously what had been omitted concerning its venerable memory on other daily days.
"We, therefore, decreeing that on the next Thursday after the octaves of Pentecost, the feast of this most excellent Sacrament be held within all the limits of our legation, ask and exhort your Universality in the Lord, firmly commanding you by the authority with which we are invested, and enjoining in remission of sins, that you celebrate the said feast on the aforesaid day every year, with nine Lessons, Responsories, Versicles, and Antiphons proper, specially ordered for this, in each of the churches, and that you publicly announce it yearly to your subjects on the preceding Sunday; so that by vigils, alms, prayers, and other good works they may strive so to prepare themselves that they may be able to be participants on that day of that most sweet Sacrament. But those who shall have been prepared and proved, and whose hearts God shall have touched, can receive it not from necessity but from honor, if they wish, with salvation; that by its operation their vices may be purged, and their just desires fulfilled. We therefore, to invite the faithful to celebrate and observe this feast more venerably, and he grants indulgences: to all penitents and confessed who shall reverently approach the church where the Office shall be performed concerning the same, on that very day and during the octaves, mercifully relax one hundred days of the penances enjoined upon them. Given at Liège, on the fourth day before the Kalends of January, in the tenth year of the Pontificate of the Lord Innocent IV." f The same Cardinal also published another letter on the same matter, composed in a splendid discourse, in which he declares that he himself had celebrated the solemnity of the reverend Sacrament.
Afterwards, however, when the Reverend Father g Peter, Cardinal Deacon of Velum Aureum, the same feast is promoted by Peter Cardinal Capoccius. Legate of the Apostolic See, had come to Liège, he confirmed the said solemnity, and moreover composed an elegant letter concerning the same. But these two letters, together with that one also which Robert, Bishop of Liège of good memory, gave—although they contain no small commendation of the holy solemnity, and an invitation to reverence and honor it—we do not believe ought to be appended on account of delicate readers, lest perchance the heaped-up abundance should produce disgust.
NOTES.
CHAPTER IV.
The solemnity of the venerable Sacrament stabilized by various revenues conferred. Blessed Juliana's conversation concerning it with Eva the Recluse.
[16] Stephen a Canon of Saint Martin's, There was in the church of Saint Martin a certain Canon named Stephen. He had his sister living with him, named Mary, a woman of honorable life and a lover of religious persons, but specially of Christ's Virgin Juliana. Now the aforesaid Canon, although he had come to old age, yet touched, as is believed, by love of his native country, which so attracts most men that it does not allow them to be unmindful of it, wished to exchange his prebend for a certain parish church of his country. When his Sister learned this (bearing very ill that she would be removed from the religious women whom she had known in the city of Liège and in its vicinity), in every way in which she could, by prayers poured forth by Blessed Juliana, she was zealous to recall him from his purpose. But when he, in no way bent by his sister's prayers, nor recalled by dissuasions, stubbornly adhered to his purpose, his sister, with grief of heart and anxiety of spirit, intimated her brother's inflexible will to Christ's Virgin Juliana. But she gently consoled the sorrowing and anxious one, saying: "My Lady, let us have recourse to the support of prayers, and God will help; and your brother, if it please God, will return." And so it was done. For when her brother, having set out for his country, had presented himself before those in whose presence the exchange was to be made, a book was offered him, that by reading something, he might by the lightest examination be declared suitable. A wonderful thing and vehemently astonishing! He who was skilled in laws, who bore a great name of knowledge, is believed to have persisted in his Canonry, could read no more in the opened book than if he had never looked upon letters. Whence who can doubt that this was the power of Juliana's prayer, that one so skilled came to such unskillfulness in reading? And he publicly confessed, and did not deny; and he confessed that he truly believed this had befallen him by prayers alone, because his sister had attempted by many prayers, but had not been able to detain him at Liège. He revealed his impossibility, namely that he could do nothing more than what they were seeing. Therefore returning to Liège, the business of exchange undone, he remained weak and infirm for a long time, for the most part destitute of understanding and memory.
[17] Now when the Reverend Cardinal, Brother Hugh, so often mentioned, was celebrating in the church of Saint Martin the Mass of the solemnity of the Sacrament, as we said above, the said Canon was conducted by his sister to the very church. When he heard the Cardinal preaching and greatly commending that solemnity which he recalled, the Lord gave joy and gladness to his hearing. For he understood, grace going before him, the eminence of the festivity of which the discourse was; in which he took great delight. he bestows revenues so that the said solemnity may be celebrated every year. At length, the solemnities of the Mass being completed, when he had returned home, he said thus to his sister: "This solemnity of which the Cardinal spoke today seems to me to be to the honor of God: whence, unless I had already disposed of my goods, I would confer so much of them to the church of Saint Martin that there in perpetuity this festivity might be solemnly venerated every year." But he had disposed and ordered that almost all that he had should devolve to his sister. But she, inflamed perhaps with no lesser desire, gave this response: "My brother, notwithstanding your disposition, let us confer so much of our goods to the same church, whence so great a solemnity may there be celebrated in perpetuity." Therefore they with one accord assigned to the said church suitable revenues, to be received in perpetuity, from their goods: whence from that time forth the embraceable solemnity of the Sacrament, with its proper Office and most decent illumination, as is customarily done on the principal festivities, is solemnly celebrated there.
And oh, the kindness and liberality of our Savior God! For He was not content to reserve for them, on account of their devotion which they had had for the holy solemnity, the measure good and pressed down and shaken together and overflowing until the future age; rather, in the present life too He deigned to anticipate them in soul and body with the gifts of His graces, so that from the reception of present gifts there might be firm expectation of future ones. For Christ bestowed upon the said Canon, beyond what is usual, much knowledge of himself and great devotion to the Sacrament of the altar; urged by which he fortified himself each week with the body of Christ. Moreover, illumined by this grace of knowledge and devotion, in good hope and confession, full of days, he consummated the term of his life.
[18] After his death, however, his sister Mary, whom we have mentioned above, The sister, smitten with great illness, began to be lashed with many troubles of bodily sickness by Him who scourges everyone whom He receives: that perhaps by this furnace of infirmity, the dross of her sins, without which human life cannot be led, might be purged; or perhaps, as at length appeared, that the works of God might be manifested in her. When she had labored with this infirmity for a long time, it happened at one time that the solemnity of the reverend Sacrament approached. But what should the lover of so great a solemnity do? Infirmity commanded her to lie in bed; devotion persuaded and urged her to be present at the solemnities of this festivity; but she was so weighed down by the burden of infirmity, that she could scarcely walk to the nearest places: she was so swollen that she could not at all bend or curve herself. But the eagerness of devotion conquered the weight of infirmity; for doing violence to herself, she came somehow to the parish church, in which, having heard the Office of the holy solemnity (for it was being celebrated there) and received the body of Christ, on the very feast of Corpus Christi she is freed, for the reverence of that day she returned home. And when she had returned her weary and infirm bodily members to her little bed, a quiet sleep creeping over her, she fell asleep. But the omnipotence of Christ was present to the sleeping one, which drove from her all weakness and restored perfect health. When she awoke, she found herself, beyond hope, freed from all the misery of monstrous swelling and the trouble of lethargic sickness: and recognizing that Christ's mercy had wondrously come to her aid, for the devotion which she had had and had for His festivity, she rendered immense thanks to her Healer; and judging it honorable to reveal the glory of Christ, she made known the miracle worked upon her to the Canons of the church of Saint Martin, where the said solemnity was venerated more specially than elsewhere. This same thing she explained to very many persons, announcing and making known how great and wonderful things He who is mighty had done to her. Nor was there anywhere from which any scruple of incredulity or doubt could arise: since the full and evident health of the one testifying made the fact a testimony exceedingly credible. Now all those who loved the said solemnity rejoiced with very great joy; that Christ had deigned to declare by so manifest a miracle that she would be pleasing and acceptable to Him.
[19] Afterwards, however, a certain Canon of the said church, John the Canon adds revenues for the Octave, named John, set out for Laon, whence he was born, where he began to labor more vehemently in the illness from which he died. When the Body of the Lord was brought to him, as he had asked, he said: "Wait a little: because I have less worthily received my Savior often; I bequeath half of my claustral house at Liège to the church of Saint Martin, that thence the Octaves of the solemnity of the Sacrament may there be recollected in perpetuity." Which was done: and thus the solemnity of the Sacrament, and also its Octaves, are solemnly performed every year in the church of Saint Martin at Liège. Blessed Martin, therefore, Christ's Virgin Juliana loved greatly for these reasons, because in his church more than in others the new solemnity of the Sacrament had been exalted; and also on account of the honor which the Lord showed to him when he was offering the Sacraments; namely, when the Holy Spirit appeared in the form of a fiery globe above his head. This also accumulated her love, that that blessed Confessor had provided from his cell and other goods for Eva the Recluse, dear to him, dwelling under the protection of Christ and himself; and that the very cell was a special refuge for her when fleeing from the face of persecutors. Whence sometimes, on account of the immense love which she had for the same Saint, from the abundance of her heart she broke forth into these words: "Blessed Martin," she said, "with whom we are guests, O Recluse, seems so sweet to me that even the whole earth seems to me to distill his sweetness."
[20] Do not wonder, reader, that I have dwelt longer on the narration and promotion of the holy solemnity, since I judge that this will specially please Christ and his handmaid Juliana (to whose honor, though most unworthy, I have undertaken this work). I also think that Christ's Virgin herself, although in the heavenly country under the shadow of Him whom while living on earth she so loved, already delightfully resting, still until now desires that the said festivity be exalted among men, more than that the life she led in her body (though holy, well-pleasing to God, and perfect) be commended to the perpetual memory of men. For this solemnity from her first years had claimed her whole affection: this had possessed her heart and mind beyond what any speech could express. Whence when before her promotion of it she had come to that Recluse whom we have mentioned, and seemed wondrously meditative, thus the Recluse spoke to her: "I beseech you, my Lady, if it please you, tell me what makes you so meditative and troubled? But if anything grievous is the cause, I would surely wish, if possibility were present, to aid you by bearing it." But she answered: "The meditations of my heart take their cause from a certain solemnity of the Sacrament: this for a long time up to this day has continually been turned over in my heart, nor have I ever shown it to anyone; nor could I explain in any words what it has been divinely granted me to perceive from this. Nevertheless what I can, I will tell you, since you desire to know whatever kind of thing it is. This solemnity was always in the secret of the Trinity." And taking up the discourse, Christ's Virgin narrated in order to the said Recluse the sign of the moon which from her youth she had seen, and what was signified, which the Lord had revealed to her, and what He had enjoined upon her concerning this, as has often been related. And when she had completed the series of her narration, the Recluse was not a little astonished at what she heard, and begged her, saying: "I pray you, my Lady, to pray to the Lord for me, that He may deign to grant me to feel concerning this Sacrament what you feel." She answered: "I shall not do this, Recluse: it is not expedient. For your humanity could not bear this, in her she instills her love of it, rather it would be compelled to fail; for this is what has utterly unnerved the strength of my body and destroyed my humanity. Nevertheless God will grant you and his other friends to feel from it, for your and their utility; measuring to you and to them a measure which you may be able to contain." But in the progress of time the word of the Virgin was specially fulfilled in that Recluse: for to such an extent did she become a lover of the holy solemnity, that every delay tormented her more vehemently, by which she did not behold the said festivity exalted. And since, according to the poet,
"Love is a thing full of anxious fear,"
she greatly feared lest it should not befall that the solemnity be promoted. But when she had brought her lament concerning this kind of fear to Christ's Virgin, she received from her this response of consolation: "Fear not, O Recluse, this solemnity will be exalted; but through the humble and the little, indeed for the advancement of all the elect. But the adversary of all goodness, through himself and his own, will oppose this exaltation, and will rage against it; but his effort will be reduced to nothing, nor will he be able to prevail." And of all these things not one jot passed by, but all came to pass in order, as has been sufficiently declared above. And since concerning the holy solemnity of the Sacrament and its promotion, and also concerning the tribulations and anguishes which on this occasion Christ's Virgin bravely and perseveringly sustained, we have narrated very many things, as it seems to the readers, but very few in respect to those which were; it remains that we resume speaking of those tribulations and persecutions which she most patiently endured for justice and truth, for zeal of souls and fervor of religion, already touched upon above, but interrupted for a time.
CHAPTER V.
The persecution inflicted by the Prior and quieted. The excellence of the morals of Blessed Juliana. The death of the Bishop of Liège.
[21] When the Lord Godfrey, formerly Prior of the House of Mont-Cornillon, had entered the way of all flesh, within the time which Juliana had long foretold, Blessed Juliana suffers many adversities tribulation grew strong upon her. For he, as long as he lived, was accustomed to help, comfort, and console Christ's Virgin, who was fighting with reproofs and prayers against the vices of the persons of the House. But a certain Brother of that same House succeeded him in the Priorate, with a vicious entrance, as afterwards became clear, concerning whom also Christ's handmaid had predicted that under his dominion she would suffer such things that she would have to flee from the face of the troubler. For even before his promotion he was by John promoted to the Priorate by Simony: especially opposed to Christ's Virgin when she rebuked vices, and abounded more so once promoted. O how pernicious a thing is power, added to malice! He, not following in the footsteps of his predecessor, paid no regard to the sanctity of Christ's handmaid; disposing his works, not by the judgment of reason, but by the headlong rush of his own will. And to be silent meanwhile about spiritual matters, which suffered no small detriment during his reign (for we spare, out of deference to the honor of his house), he began to have much care and solicitude that he might have in his possession the charters and instruments of all the goods of the house, that he might do with these goods what pleased him, more freely and more securely. "The thief comes not but for to steal and to kill and to destroy." But what have I said? Was he then a thief? Hear rather what, not I, but the Lord says: "He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber." John 10:1 But this man climbed up some other way, because (as afterwards became clear) by simony he had obtained the office of Priorate. Now Christ's Virgin, knowing that many damages and dangers threatened herself and the whole house if they were delivered into the hands of that dissipator, by the counsel of religious persons arranged, she and the saner part of the Sisters, that she should have the charters and faithfully preserve them with her. But the occasion being seized, the devil, torch of all wrath,
inflamed the hearts of the said Prior and his supporters, lest they abuse the charters of the foundation, she hides them, that is, of Juliana's adversaries, with excessive fury and wrath against her and her religious companions; so that they complained to the citizens of Liège and said that those women had stolen the charters of the house by theft. To provoke the said citizens further, they added that Christ's Virgin had delivered much money to the Bishop of Liège, Lord Robert, for the making of a certain solemnity. But this her adversaries had feigned with iniquitous lying; since those who knew her within and without truly testified that she had never in any way conferred anything upon the Bishop, that the said solemnity should either take place or be exalted. The citizens of Liège, therefore, enraged at what they had heard, one day came to the said house, and together with Juliana's adversaries who were in the house itself, they hastened to her oratory to inflict violence. They, having broken the door of the oratory with sacrilegious hands, rushed in as stiff-necked ones; and searching here and there for the charters which they understood to be hidden there, and against plotting citizens she preserves them. by God's will they in no way found them: which nevertheless were in so manifest a place, that those frenzied ones could have struck against a certain chest in which the charters were placed. These not being found, they were kindled with greater fury, and broke other things which presented themselves to their eyes, and scattered them through the oratory. Also upon two religious Sisters whom they found, they heaped many abusive words, charging them that they had hidden together Juliana and the charters. For Christ's Virgin had been conducted to another place, and the door closed upon her. Now when these were departing, the said Sisters returned to Juliana's oratory, and found the things of the oratory broken and scattered; but the chest where the charters had been placed, they found whole and untouched. When this was announced to Christ's Virgin, she said: "Thanks be to God, for it is not pleasing to Him that these citizens should have our charters, and that this house be subjected to undue servitude."
[22] But when the hatred of the Prior and his supporters of the house, and also of the citizens of Liège, who with gifts fostered the Prior's party, did not fail through the course of time but grew vehemently against Juliana and her followers, she fearing, lest if they should come together again, they should in excessive fury inflict death upon her, decided, according to the Apostle's saying, to give place to wrath. Rom. 12:19 She said therefore to the religious Sisters, she departs with her companions to Eva the recluse, who were contending with her in the contest of tribulations and persecutions for justice: "If these men, who persecute me with iniquitous hatred without cause, again rush upon me and kill me, I fear that I shall be found guilty of my death; especially since I, knowing their savagery, can avoid their rage by withdrawing from here. I shall go, therefore, to the house of the Recluse of Saint Martin, for I do not judge that the charters of this house ought to be conferred upon those who seek them." But they unanimously responded: "Wherever you shall go, we shall follow you, prepared to bear all tribulations with you for the sake of justice." Thus therefore Christ's Virgin, with her holy company, going out as it were from Ur of the Chaldees, was lodged with the said Recluse. When this was known, that truly burning and shining lamp, Lord John de Lausanne, Canon of the church of Saint Martin, came and with all the sweetness of charity said to her: "The house of the Recluse, Sister Juliana, is too narrow for you and your companions; mine is larger, choose it for your stay, with participation in my prebend: I offer it to you, as I will take my rest in the church of Saint Martin." But she, hearing the word of such charity, with joined hands said: "Thanks to you, and the house of the Canon of Lausanne. Lord my God, who have well fulfilled the word of the Apostle, saying: 'God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that which you are able.' 1 Cor. 10:13 I was thinking that here I had only two little friends, but thanks to you, I experience them to be great, not small." And she remained with them for the space of three months.
[23] Now when it had come by clamorous insinuation to the Reverend Father Robert, Bishop of Liège, the Prior deposed by the Bishop that Christ's Virgin Juliana and her followers were being so badly treated by the Prior of her house and his supporters, that she had had to yield to their madness and fury; the venerable Bishop himself, coming personally to Saint Martin's, commanded Christ's Virgin that they should not depart thence, until he himself had caused inquiry to be made with all diligence concerning the state of the said house. He therefore sent provident and discreet men to that house to inquire and learn in what manner he who presided over it had been promoted to the Priorate, and how under his administration spiritual and temporal matters stood. These, diligently inquiring the truth on these articles from each of the Brothers and Sisters of the house under oath, found that he who presided had obtained the Priorate through simoniacal depravity, under whom the house itself was suffering great detriment in spiritual and temporal matters. Moreover, a certain one of the Brothers, who had supported the said Prior's party, afterwards testified that the said Prior had cost the said house no less than a weight of silver equal to himself. When the truth concerning these things had been declared to the said Bishop by the inquirers, with the just balance of reason he deposed the Prior from his seat, and exalted the humble: sending him who had been simoniacally promoted to the Leper House of Huy; but recalling Christ's handmaid and her companions to their own house. And thus they remained separated from each other until the death of the aforesaid Bishop.
[24] The Sisters therefore, having returned, began to hold a diligent discussion about substituting a suitable Prior. But several religious men, she foresaw that John the Prior would suffer many adversities, knowing the internal discord of the house, dreaded to undertake the office of the Priorate of that house, although requested. Whence, compelled by necessity, they arranged to appoint as Prior of the house that young and innocent Brother, who with the help of God and His handmaid had most fittingly composed the Office of the solemnity of the Sacrament. And although Christ's Virgin greatly compassionated him, whom she knew would suffer many adversities in his Priorate, yet she gave her assent to his promotion, knowing that the spiritual and temporal goods of the house, which had been diminished under another Prior, would under his protection, with the clemency of God sustaining, resume no small increments.
[25] Afterwards the aforesaid Bishop of Liège, who greatly loved Juliana for the privilege of her sanctity, in a more beautiful and healthier place than that in which the old oratory was situated, she receives a new oratory: ordered a new cell of prayer to be built for her. Which, although the Bishop himself wished to pay for it from his own means, yet the Lord John de Lausanne of eminent life and the aforesaid Recluse of Saint Martin completed it at their own cost and expense. There flowed together many religious and sublime persons, that from what was seen and heard in her and through her being edified, they might commend themselves to her prayers. For what lover of virtue and honor would not desire to come and see a holy, modest, timid, circumspect Virgin? What wise man desiring to profit would not eagerly seek to gaze upon and read the immaculate law of the Lord—I do not say now that one written in books, but the one written in Juliana's morals and senses? Everything in her was disciplined, everything was a mark of virtue, the form of perfection. I am silent now about her interior man, whose beauty, purity, and constancy she preserves the purity of the interior man, her morals and life sufficiently showed; so always in one and the same way, and that most honorable and decent, did she conduct herself, that nothing appeared in her that could offend beholders. But this is the sentence of Blessed James: "If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man." And who ever in Juliana, even though he observed more curiously, could detect an idle—I do not say word—but gesture? James 3:2 Who moving hand or foot in vain? A certain very religious and holy man testified external modesty, that he could not remember that in thirty years and more during which he had known Juliana, he ever saw her move any of her members without reason. So great finally was the distance of morals between her and other women, that any religious and perfect persons, for the singular grace of holiness which they saw in her, looked up to her and admired her. What was not edifying and worthy of admiration in her speech, gait, gesture, look, habit, and countenance? Her countenance was serene, and the upright composition of her members: her habit modest, her look simple and humble, her gesture composed, her gait fitting to equity, and alien from lightness and sloth. Her speech was rare and circumspect, which breathed nothing but the spirit. A certain grace appeared in her flesh, yet spiritual rather than carnal. In her face a brightness shone, certainly not earthly but heavenly; in her eyes the dove-like simplicity radiated, and the splendor of angelic purity. So great indeed was the beauty of her inner man, that it broke forth by certain evident signs; and the outer man also seemed copiously imbued with the heap of internal purity and grace. And indeed all the aforesaid things offered themselves to all who beheld. But those who with a greater boldness of familiarity could draw forth something from the storeroom of her heart, or even those to whom she was willing to reveal a few things of her inmost thoughts, they certainly recognized much more clearly with what abundance of sincerity, piety, and charity, and with what most sweet affections, the virginal breast overflowed. Hence it was that great, religious, and learned men, who knew how to weigh in themselves or in others the gifts of heavenly graces, venerated Juliana with great affection, knowing her to be a bride of the Lord of virtues, who possessed such abundance of virtues. Many religious and sublime persons therefore, some provoked by the mere odor of her clear reputation, from the concourse of illustrious persons some delighted by what they had elsewhere seen and heard in Christ's Virgin, came to her for the grace of edification, and after divine conversations most devoutly commended themselves to her prayers. But she, who with her familiar humility had always more desired and desired to lie hidden rather than appear, and to be depressed rather than exalted, tolerated the too frequent coming of visitors with much burden. On one of the days, however, two Bishops came to her: that very famous Theologian Guiard of Cambrai, and of 2 Bishops and the said Lord Robert of Liège. Although Christ's Virgin was pleased with the condescension and devotion of such persons, yet she bore it most grievously, that from their visit some temporal honor seemed to befall her in the eyes of men: more humble: and she suspected that they had been admonished by the Recluse of Saint Martin to visit her. Whence when afterwards she had come to that Recluse, she said to her: "If I could hate you, Recluse, and if this could be done without sin; I confess I would hate you: because never, except through you, would I have been named in the courts of Princes. And whence is it to me that Bishops should come
to me? But I beseech the King of the world, that before my death, He may allow as much shame and dishonor to be inflicted upon me, she wishes to suffer dishonor and shame: as from their visit has been rendered to me, though unwilling, of reverence and honor." O wonderful choice! for among the sons of men too rare. Who wishes shame and dishonor for himself? We believe it sufficient not to seek or pursue honors; but also, if perhaps we are honored yet not extolled, we say we are safe. But who wishes an honor freely offered to himself to be compensated with shame and dishonor? This voice is more frequently wont to be found on the lips or in the heart of those who justly or unjustly suffer the former: "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me." But you, Juliana, wished that a too bitter cup be offered you. Fear not nor be dismayed: you will not be cheated of your vow. Truly Christ's Virgin in her said choice and prayer was heard; for after the death of the aforesaid Bishop of Liège, she sustained such great tribulations and persecutions, full of shame and dishonor, that in explaining these, if it were present, the river of Ciceronian eloquence would be dried up.
[26] At a certain time, when the said Bishop of Liège had come with his wonted devotion to Christ's Virgin, he said to her: "Formerly, Sister Juliana, when you were wont to say to me that to the honor of God and the profit of the elect was the solemnity of the Sacrament, I was accustomed to respond that I well believed it. But thanks to God, since the certainty of the matter has taken the place of credulity. I profess that I no longer believe, but know, that it is truly to the honor of God: she predicts that the Bishop will not be promoted to the Archbishopric: since by its grace it has gone well with me." Then Juliana, who knew that this Bishop aspired with much labor and desire to the Archbishopric of Rheims, took care to admonish him on this, humbly and confidently, saying: "Let it suffice you, I beseech you, my Lord, what you have received from the liberal hand of the Lord; knowing most certainly that you will never be promoted to the Archbishopric of Rheims. Do not therefore labor for this: since all labor that you may obtain what you desire will be spent in vain." But oh, blind ambition of dignities! Although the said Bishop greatly venerated Christ's Virgin Juliana, so as to believe her, yet led by vain hope, he did not wholly cease from the labor begun of obtaining the aforesaid Archbishopric; but he never grasped that for which he had labored: for not much time afterwards he was oppressed by a vehement sickness, which growing stronger, brought him to his last. He, considering diligently that the end of life, which could not be passed by, was upon him, strove with much urgency of prayers to admonish, beg, and exhort those who were with him; that they should likewise love the solemnity of the Sacrament which he himself had greatly loved, and promote it according to their power; which he, now placed in the article of death, could not exalt so sublimely as he had disposed in his heart. As a sign of the devotion and great affection which he had had and had for it, he had it celebrated in his presence concerning the same solemnity. He, much compunct in heart for his excesses and sins, in good hope and confession exhaled his last breath. and she forewarned of his death Now in that same year in which the said Bishop died, before he died, Juliana received three indications of his death. For when sometime she was at leisure for prayer, a voice was made over her, saying: "Bishop Robert." At another time also, when she was praying, the same voice repeated the aforesaid word. A third time she heard a voice saying: "Bishop Robert, die." She indeed, although she had heard these things at interpolated times, did not set her heart to them, reckoning that she was being mocked by the evil one. But at the hour of the passing of that Bishop, a spirit stood by Christ's Virgin as she was praying, representing the image of him who had died: who passing by, suppliantly said to her: "Pray." But she said: "And who then are you?" Then he said: "I am Bishop Robert." she also sees the spirit of the dead man. Then at length Christ's Virgin believed that the Bishop of Liège had passed from this world: and thus she knew that those voices which she had heard were not illusory, but betokening the imminent death of him whom they were calling. Now when fame flying with swift wings, the Recluse of Saint Martin had learned of the death of the aforesaid Bishop, she immediately sent her maid to Christ's Virgin to announce this sad news. When Juliana saw her, before she who had come had related the word concerning him on account of whom she had come, she said to her: "You have not come now to announce to me prosperous things, as you were wont to do at other times." Then the maid, who had already heard the matter for which she had been sent announced in the highest, related to her that the said Bishop had died. To whom Juliana responded: "It is true, and I indeed had well known this."
CHAPTER VI.
The manifold tribulations of Juliana. Departure to various monasteries, then to Namur and to the monastery of Salzinnes.
[27] After the death, therefore, of the often-mentioned Bishop, the Brothers and Sisters—nay rather, the wolves and tigers—of the house of Mont-Cornillon, who while the said Bishop lived did not dare to oppose Christ's Virgin openly, not unmindful of their old malice and wrath, flamed up against her the more as they had been longer concealed, and resumed the burning of all wickedness and fury. They first recalled back from Huy the Brother in a new persecution who had been cast down from the Priorate of the aforesaid house by the said Bishop, with his faults becoming clear: whom for some space of time they made to dwell with them like one of the other Brothers. and a third Prior being intruded, And that they might in some way palliate the malice conceived within, first from a certain monk a of the white habit, of the upper Mont-Cornillon, they constituted for themselves a Prior; but the holy and innocent young Brother, who according to the wisdom given him from above strenuously governed the house itself in spiritual and temporal matters, they most wickedly removed from the Priorate without reason. she encourages her companions, Therefore Christ's Virgin, perceiving that whirlwinds were again rising, and the waves of temptations and idle talk swelling, devoutly strove to confirm her Sisters adhering to her with the words and examples of the Saints, that they might learn to sustain all temptations with all patience. and the previously given Prior that he should remain in office: She also effectively admonished that innocent Brother who had truly shown himself by his deeds to be Prior, not to lay down the office of the Priorate, although another by the violence of the adversaries occupied his place. And Christ's Virgin urged him to take the examples of the Saints for his own fortification; inviting him always to turn over in mind what is sung of Blessed Lambert:
"Strong in adversity, humble through the prosperities of peace, Neither could he be worn by terror, nor broken by gift."
And again that:
"In his heart was sincerity and the fullness of the law, In his mouth was truth and beauty."
[28] the Simoniac Prior restored, After a little while, Juliana's adversaries, the Brother who before had by the Bishop of Liège been justly removed from the Priorate of the house, whom they had also recalled back by fair means and foul, instituting and destituting at the will of their own desire, made Prior again. This done, they approached Christ's Virgin, and shaking their heads insulted her, saying: "Him you must wholly obey, for he is your Prior." But she with all meekness responded: "By no means." Therefore hatred grew against her to such a degree she is agitated by various tribulations that they even cast great stones into her oratory, even when she, with her familiar frequency, was beseeching the King of heaven. Fearing greatly, lest through sublime and religious persons, who knew Juliana and were wont to visit her, the Prior constituted by them should, as formerly, be expelled from the house equally and from office; with his consent, they strove in every way they could to bring it about that Christ's Virgin be forced to withdraw from the house itself. And they again exasperated the citizens of Liège against her, provoking them with venomous suggestions to act impiously. These, on a certain day, came to the house, and were gathered together with the iniquitous ones of the house who hated Juliana; and, making an onrush unanimously, they approached with iron instruments, and other things suited for this, to utterly destroy the oratory. She was snatched away by her religious Sisters and shut up in the dormitory of the house. But they, like rabid dogs, atrociously broke down the house of prayer; providing that Christ's Virgin should henceforth not be able to have access to it. They also snatched up stones and pieces of cut wood, she prays for the destroyers of her oratory and with all their strength were casting them against the windows of the dormitory, where they understood her to be shut up. Truly the first who extended his hand and arm to cast was so struck by divine vengeance, that until the end of his life, he could never recover health from the injury received. And when this was announced to Christ's Virgin, like the Protomartyr Stephen, having bent her knees, she devoutly besought the Lord, that He would guard them from every impediment and danger. Nor did she cease from prayer, until they had utterly destroyed her oratory. But in all these things Juliana did not sin with her lips, nor did she speak anything foolish against God or against her malefactors secretly or openly: but she sustained all things in the greatest patience. Yet she was inwardly tormented with so great grief for her oratory thus destroyed, that at one time she said to one of the Brothers of the said house: most fit for her to recover her health. "I grieve so much, Brother, for the destruction of my oratory, that for so much silver as that oratory was worth, I would not have permitted it to be destroyed, if without sin I could have prevented it, if it should not be rebuilt for me again. Know however that they have committed a great sin in this: for by the commodity of the salubrious air and of the place in which my oratory was situated, I had recovered such strength of body, that I and Sister Isabella for the faithful departed, through each day and night, used to say the psalter in its entirety, besides the other nocturnal and daily Hours: but henceforth I do not hope to be so strong, that I may be able to perform it in the wonted manner."
[29] But how gravely the Lord of majesty was offended by this, He deigned to reveal to a certain religious person. For when at one time she was directing her sharp gaze into the clouds of heaven, she saw as it were an immense club hanging in the air over the city of Liège, and threatening with frequent shakings. At which she wondered and trembled with vehement stupor, and begged the Lord, with divine punishment following upon the persecutors. that if it pleased Him, He would make known to her what that which she had seen portended. And a voice was made to her saying: "For the sin which has been committed against Sister Juliana, the whole city of Liège must be scourged with a hard whipping." Which was also done. For not a long time afterwards there arose a dissension between the Elect of Liège b and the citizens of the said city: whence so many and such great afflictions and troubles
they arrived, that Homer, the writer of the Trojan history, would have failed in recounting them. Moreover, the scourge of divine chastisement was so common to all that scarcely anyone—cleric or layman, rich or poor, man or woman, foolish or wise, lofty or lowly—remained in that great city who did not experience the divine vengeance in some loss of property. The destruction of this grief fell upon the chief and principal c towns of the diocese of Liège; nor for that reason was it any less for individuals, because it was more widely spread. From this followed the destruction of houses, the impoverishment of the rich, the reduction of the middle class to the utmost want, and then also the slaughter of men. Let those who lightly esteem the elect and beloved of Christ—nay, who do not even fear to grieve them, or who with still greater madness do not shrink from inflicting injuries upon them—hear and heed this, I pray. Let them no less hear the voice of the supreme Majesty protesting to his faithful and his friends: "He that toucheth you, toucheth the apple of mine eye." And that other: "Vengeance is mine, and I will repay them, saith the Lord." Zech. 2:8; Heb. 10:30
[30] Afterward, the Virgin of Christ Juliana, considering that the makers of the new Prior wished by all means to compel her to obey him (who, contrary to God, had usurped the place of the good, innocent, and still living man), she resolves to leave Mount Cornelius, and that, out of excessive wrath and fury, they pursued her with stones whenever she went out anywhere, said to the religious sisters who cleaved to her: "You see that I cannot dwell in this house, because the hatred of the wicked always mounts, and they seem to be pursuing me to death. I will therefore give place to their wrath and the fury of my persecutors, unwilling, by bringing on my death too soon, to be found guilty before God. I must withdraw from here and seek a dwelling elsewhere." But the Sisters, who knew full well that she bore all these things for justice's sake, answered with fervent desire: "And we, Lady, will follow you wherever you go." But she said: "I shall not be able to take all of you with me, not yet knowing where I ought to find lodging. But those of you who are stronger and better able to endure tribulations and to depart elsewhere with companions: shall remain; and God will help them in their straits and sorrows."
[31] Then the Virgin of Christ departed, with a few Sisters, from the embittered house of Mount Cornelius, as from Ur of the Chaldees; and she departed without any aid of silver. And when she was asked who would supply the necessary expenses for herself and her companions, she—who had cast all her care upon the Lord, according to the counsel of Blessed Peter—answered: "God will help us; and, if need be, two of our stronger Sisters shall go from door to door to beg." 1 Pet. 5:7 She stayed at first in Robertmont, afterward in Val-Benoît, she lodges in various monasteries, then in Val-Notre-Dame, houses of nuns of the Cistercian Order. But the aforesaid Prior—rather, the usurper of the priorate—pursuing the Virgin of Christ from one to another of those houses, always contrived with cunning schemes that she might not find lasting abode in any of the said houses. Matt. 5:11 But she, who heard with no deaf ears the Lord in the Gospel saying to his disciples concerning their persecutors, but is compelled to depart, "When they shall persecute you in one city, flee into another," said to her companions: "Let us go to Namur, for it is wont to receive those driven from their country." And they undertook the labor of that journey, full of calamity and misery. O how many evils did your devoted handmaid Juliana endure for your sake, O Lord! The persecution of those of her own household, expulsion from her own house and country, now too the separation from relatives and friends, the difficult obtaining of a dwelling, and poverty of means. But because she was pleasing to you, it was necessary that temptation should prove her. bearing persecution with great love. Did you not prove her most faithful in all things? Truly you proved her: for you proved her, O God, when formerly she was striving to remove the vices from her house, in various conflicts of justice and truth; you examined her, as silver is examined, in the furnace of manifold persecution and tribulation; nor was any iniquity of impatience or murmuring found in her. Your proving and examination, O Lord, if anything imperfect remained in her, removed it; nay, rather increased the merits of her perfection; nay, rather declared the unshakable constancy of her mind, which in great part lay hidden from men. For who would believe that in a frail sex and an almost useless body there was such virtue of constancy and fortitude? But after the manner of the stars, which are hidden by day and shine by night, that very virtue which had not appeared in prosperity shone forth in adversity. Now it is manifest that she loved you with her whole heart, with her whole soul, with her whole strength. It had long been known that she loved you with her whole heart, since she was so sweetly affected toward you and yours; with her whole soul, since her outward conduct was so prudently governed by her after the pattern of the inner man; but now it is clearer than day that she loves you with her whole strength, by which labor, pain, and the manifold affliction of adversities are bravely endured. Now it appears, and throughout the remainder of her life will appear, that in her love was strong as death—except that it can more truly be said, stronger than any death. For many waters of tribulations could not extinguish her charity, and the floods of overflowing anxieties and temporal bitternesses could not overwhelm the purity of her innocent life.
[32] When, therefore, the Virgin of Christ Juliana and her Sisters had come to Namur, Migrating to Namur they could scarcely find any who would receive them as guests, because they had no acquaintance there in the inn. At last, at length, they took lodging with poor Beguines, where they remained for some time in the great straits of poverty. But Juliana frequently brought back to memory her beloved Jesus Christ, who, being rich, became poor for our sake, that by his poverty we might be enriched. she dwells first among the Beguines, All the necessities, straits, persecutions, bitternesses, and the like, which Gospel scripture records the Savior of the world himself to have endured for the salvation of the human race, she carefully pondered; and whatever outward adversity and grievance she endured, she esteemed lightly for love of him. She rejoiced to walk, as a handmaid and disciple of Christ, by the way of temporal tribulations, by which she knew her Lord and Master to have gone before her. Knowing also that in the testament of truth this clause had been appended, most content in the love of Christ, "In the world you shall have tribulation," she rejoiced that that which had been assigned to her from the tables of the testator should fall to her as her portion. She did not refuse to pay by testament the debts of present afflictions, that she might one day reach the bequeathed inheritance of eternal blessedness. Nor did she doubt that the riches of the inheritance infinitely surpassed the debts of affliction; knowing that "the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come, that shall be revealed in us." Now while the Virgin of Christ herself, and her companions, very poor and needy as has been said, were dwelling with the poor Beguines, the venerable Lady d Hymana, Abbess of the house of Salzinnes near Namur, learned of their persecution and poverty; she was the sister of the Reverend Father e Conrad, Archbishop of Cologne, marked with many titles of wisdom and grace. Having great compassion on them, she took care to announce to a man of very venerable life, Lord John, Archdeacon of Liège, that the most religious Sisters of the house of Mount Cornelius, unjustly expelled, were staying at Namur without any certain lodging. For this Archdeacon was wont to give many alms of piety to the poor Beguines of Namur; and he showed mercy to the Virgin of Christ and her companions; for he granted to them the house, then in the house of the Archdeacon of Liège, near the church of St. Alban, which he had near the church of St. Alban, in which they stayed for a long time. They rejoiced with all spiritual joy that the house was near a church in which there was an abundance of precious Relics, especially of the wood of the Cross, and of the Blood of the Lord: in the meditation and very frequent devotion to which they were nourished, and delighted as in all riches. The said Archdeacon afterward had a hospital built at Namur at his own expense, in which poor and feeble Beguines might dwell without charge. He bestowed on Juliana and her companions land beside the said hospital, then near the church of St. Symphorian. and the church of St. Symphorian, for building a dwelling. And a little house was made for them by the help of the faithful: in which, leading a poor life for a long time, they lived on alms.
[33] she receives some rents: After this, the venerable Abbess of Salzinnes, considering it to be very unjust that the handmaids of Christ should receive nothing from the house of Mount Cornelius, to which their ample goods had long ago been transferred, procured by herself and through other persons that they should obtain from that house annual revenues as long as they lived. And, by the counsel of experienced and religious men, and especially of the Reverend Father Guiard, Bishop of Cambrai, they submitted themselves, as long as they lived, to the subjection and protection of the said Abbess, she submits herself to the Abbess of Salzinnes. lest they should be said to live without a superior, by the sole arbitrament of their own will. Afterward two of Juliana's companions, of whom one was called f Agnes, the other Ozilia, by a precious death intervening, were taken from this wicked world, after the deaths of Agnes and Ozilia, and were given burial in the aforementioned house of Salzinnes. These, by holy character and life, had always shown themselves to be true and inseparable companions of Juliana; enduring with her all tribulations and straits, even to the end of life. These therefore being dead, Sister Isabella, she goes with Isabella to the Abbey: who alone had remained with the Virgin of Christ, urged her with frequent admonitions that they should go to dwell at Salzinnes; saying that it was not expedient for her to keep a hospice for the two of them, both of whom remained too weak and infirm. For there was already forged, between the said Abbess of Salzinnes and the Virgin of Christ, a sweet and strong bond of charity; nor was there any doubt in Sister Isabella's mind but that the venerable Abbess would greatly desire Juliana's coming. But the handmaid of Christ refused to go there; fearing the tribulation and sorrow that was to come upon the said house. Yet when she was importuned by her sister day after day with importunate prayers that they should go there for the sake of dwelling, at length she subjected her own will, though very reluctant, to that of the other. When they came to the said house, the venerable Abbess, having received them with all devotion, set before them a broad and spacious hall to dwell in; showing great reverence to her guests, with the service of charity. But Juliana, lover of humility, seeks a humbler dwelling. bore very uneasily the honors and services that were shown to her, as one who was, and always had been, bashful in such matters; and she often entreated the Abbess to place her with her companion near the church in some little dwelling; asserting that she would more willingly remain in humble and modest places than in lofty and extensive halls.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER VI.
The deeds of Juliana at Salzinnes; various predictions; her departure to Fosses.
[34] [Among other things, she foretells that the Ursuline Virgins will be honored through the Abbess and her holy sister,] The venerable Abbess herself used to relate that her guest Juliana had long beforehand foretold things that were to be, and that she had perceived this in very many matters. Of which, out of many, I have not thought this one should be passed over in silence: that one day as they were conversing with each other about those blessed eleven thousand Virgins, Sister Juliana said to the Abbess that through herself and her sister, namely Lady Aleyde, the venerable Abbess of St. Walburga a, the said Virgins would be honored. This saying, after the death of the Prophetess, was thus fulfilled. For the said Abbesses and sisters, having obtained leave to dig in the cemetery of the said holy Virgins at Cologne, had the ground dug up deep; and unexpectedly were found b five hundred and more bodies of those Virgins: a treasure indeed hidden in a field, more desirable than gold, and more precious than silver. These, through the care and solicitude of the said sisters, were carried into Flanders, and were received by the illustrious Matron c Margaret, Countess of Flanders, with the exultation of that whole land, and in those places and by those persons to whom they were distributed, they were held in the highest honor and immense reverence. And thus it came about that she was proved to have spoken truly, who had foretold that through the said Reverend Abbesses the holy Virgins would be honored.
[35] At the time when the handmaid of Christ Juliana was dwelling at Salzinnes, a certain Cleric, kinsman of a more powerful burgher of Namur, had a house near the said Abbey of Salzinnes, because of a brothel destroyed in which, with the associates of his wickedness and dissoluteness, he was wont to return and lead an unchaste life. Now when the d Empress of Namur had come to the said house of Salzinnes, it was announced to her about the dishonesty and dissoluteness that was practiced in the house of the said Cleric. she incurs the hatred of various persons. But she, inflamed with zeal for justice, ordered the house of prostitution to be destroyed. At which the people of Namur were unspeakably unbridled or enraged with wrath and fury, and stirred up against her with the most violent hatred. And although the fierceness of wrath is commonly in most men softened by length of time, yet in these it did not cease to be stirred up day by day: against even the house of Salzinnes, and its Abbess, they were inflamed beyond what can be said, by whose counsel, they said, the Empress was doing and had done all that she did.
[36] But Juliana, seeing from afar that the people of Namur would very fiercely rage against the said house and its Abbess, unless she withdrew herself from the familiarity of the Empress, admonished her many times to shun her society wisely. But she could not do this: for the Empress by no means permitted her to be far from her. [foreseeing the desolation of the monastery, and the disturbance of the town of Namur,] Which the Virgin of Christ beholding, was so tormented with grief that she could take no rest for herself; but her life failed in sorrow, and her years in groans; so that her eyes shed almost continual streams of tears. It also increased the heap of her lamentation that she foresaw by a certain presage of things to come that the said disturbance would be common to the whole village or town of Namur, as the outcome proved. Whence when she was sometimes asked why she afflicted herself so much, and why she was so continually in tears, she answered: "Why should I not bewail with much sorrow the straits and grief she is much saddened: which are to come upon the town of Namur, and upon the good people, both men and women, who are in it? They received us in the time of our pilgrimage, and bestowed many kind services upon us. Why should I not also bewail the desolation threatening this House of Salzinnes, and the tribulations which our Abbess, though undeservedly, will suffer from it? For I know, and truly know, that if she could have had quiet and peaceful times, she would have found sweet familiarity with the Lord. These are my just cause of grief, these the matter of my lamentation, these furnish me with abundant mourning and wailing." Also by day and by night, with tearful supplications she besought the Lord, that whatever he might suffer to happen to the said house, he would defend the souls and bodies of the Abbess so dear to her, and of the whole congregation committed to her, from every danger. Many times also she asked the Lord to inflict upon her the blows of the impending scourges, provided he would mercifully deliver them from them. Nor is it any wonder if she was willing to endure any hardships and grievances for her so beloved familiars and benefactors, she wishes to be afflicted for the people of Salzinnes, she who is known to have wished to suffer bodily death for her persecutors and very companions, on condition of obtaining their salvation. For she was sometimes asked how she could pray the Lord for those who had inflicted so much tribulation and persecution upon her, and unjustly: and she answered: "I would willingly once, without desert, receive bodily death, and afterward be brought back to the present life to die again; on this condition, that those who have unjustly persecuted me should stand in the state of those to be saved." O word truly magnificent! A choice as wonderful as it is dear. nay, to undergo death for her persecutors. Do you consider how copious a fire of charity was kindled in that virginal breast, which, moved by a slight question, sent forth such fervent sparks? Did it not seem a great enough thing, if, her own death being postponed—which by the law of human condition she could not escape—she should desire meanwhile to sustain one death; yet with this agreement, that her own death should turn to her own merit, and to the salvation of her persecutors? Surely this is a great enough thing, and a vow exceedingly rare; since, as Truth attests, "greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends." John 15:13 But to lay down one's life for enemies is the most excellent charity, which Christ had; because when we were yet enemies, we were reconciled to God by the blood of his Son. The true lover therefore and imitator of Christ, even though she did not have a charity equal to Christ's (nor was, nor is, nor will be possible to any creature), yet seemed to have one like his, at least in part, in desire; she who wished to sustain death even without any merit of her own, for the salvation of her persecutors.
[37] Now while the Virgin of Christ was persisting in the aforementioned tribulations, the word which she had foretold long before was fulfilled. For at a certain time the Sisters e Agnes and Ozilia, whom we have said already died above, as well as Sister Isabella, while they were still alive, [that Isabella her companion after the other two, as she had foretold, would die before her] and feared not a little lest the Virgin of Christ Juliana, whom they followed, should be taken from them, said to her: "Perhaps unexpectedly, Lady, by the interposition of death, you will be taken from us, and leave us alone and orphaned." But she, conceiving a prophetic spirit, gently consoled them, saying: "Let not your heart be troubled over this, nor let it be afraid: for you shall all go before me, and I shall remain the last of all." Which was indeed done. For Sister Isabella (who had never withdrawn her shoulders from bearing the burdens of the Virgin of Christ, and who had run the course of the present life in much holiness of flesh and spirit) was loosed from the flesh, and was buried in the house of Salzinnes, where the other two Sisters had been buried. When her body was to be washed and prepared according to custom, the venerable Abbess, by a higher counsel, did not allow Juliana to be present at these services, so that, being placed apart, she might better restrain her tears. These being done, the Abbess returned to her for the sake of consolation; whom she found pouring forth most abundant streams of tears. To whom when the Abbess said, ironically: "A fine example you leave us, to weep and mourn so over her death," she answered: "I do not bewail her, but I bewail myself." Now, how great a belief—nay, how great a certainty—the handmaid of Christ Juliana had she firmly believes her absolved from the pains of purgatory. that Sister Isabella had been absolved after her death from all punishments, even those of purgatory, and presented to the Lord also without stain, can be inferred from this: that Juliana herself, who for those familiar to her and beloved, when they migrated from this world, applied the greatest care and solicitude for their deliverance from the pains of purgatory, and besought the Lord for them with most urgent prayers, by herself and through other religious persons, was never seen nor perceived for Sister Isabella, with whom she had always been one heart and one soul, to have asked prayers for the deceased from any person whatsoever. Then, fifteen days having elapsed after the death of Sister Isabella, the venerable Abbess said to Juliana in jest: "I have set a trap for you, Lady: I have noticed you very well, that you never in the slightest suggested that any person coming to pray should pray, never that I should pray, or that I should have the Convent of this house pray for Sister Isabella." But she, with a placid countenance and serene face, as if with a slight smile, answered: "One of the saints says that he who prays for a Saint does an injury to the Saint." O compendious answer, but fruitful! For by this very brief utterance she satisfied the Abbess, and sufficiently showed clearly what she knew about her Sister. For the Abbess did not take this saying otherwise than if she had answered her in other words: "Sister Isabella is a saint, and therefore one must not pray for her." For the Abbess had long before been admonished by a man of venerable life, Lord John of Lausanne, that she should give credit to Juliana's words as if Christ himself had uttered the same words from his own mouth. Now for this reason Juliana loved the said house of Salzinnes not a little, because in it three such precious gems had been laid up: where also many bodies of Saints were at rest. Hence also she greatly grieved that from this house the Convent would have to be dispersed, and the place itself, through the invasion and destruction of raging men, would at least for a time be reduced to a wilderness. But before we attempt to proceed further, let it not displease us to tarry a little on the narration of certain things which we have put off until now.
[38] When at one time a certain person was speaking to the Virgin of Christ about the dissension between her and the Prior of Mount Cornelius, among other things, by the boldness of familiarity,
said: with the highest patience she bears the tribulations inflicted. "Many of the things which you have laid against the Prior himself are not believed by many to be true, my Lady; you are said to have injured him more than justly." But she answered: "I would have you know, my beloved, that I never departed from the Gospel path against the Prior himself, on the occasion of any tribulation or injury that he inflicted upon me. Know also undoubtedly, that neither beneath nor above the earth is there silver for which I would have uttered a word of falsehood about him, or contrived anything against him, on account of which my conscience would gnaw at me." Her protestation is most readily to be believed, since she refused with marvelous constancy to do those things which even to religious persons seemed slight or no faults at all. For this reason I shall add one example which meanwhile occurs to me. f When in the time of her persecution the Virgin of Christ was staying in the cell of a certain Recluse, she refuses to accept the black veil in order to hide herself the Recluse urged her to put a black veil over her head, so that she could be believed by onlookers to be a Recluse. And this because those who were outside, and favored the Prior of Mount Cornelius by word and mind, should not recognize her in any way through the windows, and rend her with injurious speech. But she in no way acquiesced to do this, asserting that she would be held guilty of the vice of duplicity, if, being one thing, she wished to be believed another. It is therefore no wonder, if she had built up unjust calumnies against the said Prior or any innocent person, building unto Gehenna, she who maintained such discipline in the smallest matters.
[39] A certain person is wont to testify, of whose assertion it is not lawful to doubt, that he saw at Namur the Virgin of Christ Juliana, in prayer smoke evaporates from her head: once after the Gospel, bent in prayer, and above her head a great evaporation of smoke rising upward. Which, as I think, the Lord therefore willed to show, so that the person who saw this should from visible things attend to invisible; namely that he might recognize how great a fire of charity burned in that virginal breast, from which such an evaporation of smoke was shown to rise upward. And this is what the Psalmist prayed, saying: "Let my prayer, O Lord, be directed as incense in thy sight." Ps. 140:2
[40] At one time a certain nun was very gravely ill, she foretells that the sick woman will live after her: whom Juliana loved not a little: and when this had been announced to her, in the silence of the deep night she betook herself to prayer. And in the morning, when she was asked about the sickness of her whom she had known the day before, she answered: "This sickness is not unto death. I shall die before her: who, surviving, will beseech the Lord for me." Which was indeed done: for she first went out from the body, the said nun remaining alive.
[41] she knows the day when a ship is to sink: On a certain day, when the Virgin of Christ was to go from the house of Salzinnes to Namur, her companions urged her to board a ship prepared for her, lest she have to be fatigued by going on foot the long way around. But to this she could not at the time be induced by any persuasion; rather she advised those urging her not to place their belongings in the ship. Nevertheless they were placed in, contrary to her counsel, especially since it seemed to them nothing was to be feared. She herself undertook the labor of going on foot, by a longer way. But before the ship could pass through the water, it was sunk, and likewise the things that had been placed in it.
[42] After the happy death of her companions, the Virgin of Christ, seeing herself left alone, bade one of the Sisters in the house of Mount Cornelius, g Ermentrude by name, to come to her. She came, as one who was wholly subject to Juliana's will. After this God put it into the heart of Brother John, true Prior of the house of Mount Cornelius, though supplanted by the intrusion of another, to visit the Virgin of Christ: he who, with her present and absent, had suffered many tribulations for the love of Christ. When he had come to her, and that John, once Prior, would soon die, he was received with immense affection of charity, as one whom Juliana greatly loved for his innocence and holiness. Now when he was about to depart, the Virgin of Christ admonished Sister Ermentrude, saying: "Confess to Brother John, because he is your true Prior, and has the care of your soul; knowing most certainly that neither I nor you shall ever confess to him any more." She said this by a prophetic spirit, foreseeing that the said Brother would shortly pass from this world to the Father. For when he had returned, he was seized by a severe illness; which growing worse day by day, he ended the miseries of the present life by the passage of a precious death. At the hour of his blessed migration, when a certain Recluse of venerable life, far distant from the place where the servant of Christ had died, was engaged in prayer, she heard the voice of a numerous multitude passing over her, and an Invitatory of this kind, "Christ the King of kings, let us adore the Lord," chanted with wonderful loftiness and ineffable sweetness. She also heard the voice of Brother John, heard at the hour of his death singing with others. whom she recognized among the choirs of the psalming multitude: for at that same hour he had died, though she who heard the singers was wholly ignorant of this. She, being unable to contain herself for the immensity of joy, began to sing herself with those singing. After a little while it was announced to the Recluse of Christ about his blessed falling-asleep: who by faithful inquiry learned that that had been the hour of the passage of God's servant, at which she had heard the voices of those singing and praising God on high. Now when his body was still lying in the middle of the church, a certain religious person was engaged in prayer: and she saw, and behold, the roofs of the church were opened; and the Lord Jesus, with the glorious Virgin his Mother, descended from above: who, graciously receiving the soul of the deceased, were carrying it upward by flight. When a man of venerable life, on the day on which the deceased was given burial, had offered sacrifice to the Lord for his soul, the religious Sisters of that house asked him what he had seen concerning Lord John. He, from the confidence conceived about him, answered: "He beheld his beloved Jesus Christ, and was satisfied."
[43] After this the fury of the people of Namur had so flared up against the house of Salzinnes that they firmly asserted they would lay it waste by fire. When the Empress had learned of this, she commanded the Abbess that she and the Convent should depart from their house, until that disturbance which was raging between her and her people should be quieted; and that she should establish guards for the house of Salzinnes, who would protect it from all enemies. in the dispersion of the monastery of Salzinnes But when this had been reported to the Virgin of Christ Juliana, she was struck with vehement sorrow of heart; knowing that those who would be set as guards would first subject the house itself to disgrace, and would not in the end defend it from the assaults of its attackers. Now when the Convent was being dispersed, from sadness of heart she spits blood, she, unable to repress within her the force of grief, broke out into great cries; and as though her inwards were rent from the anguish of her heart, she emitted blood through her mouth: which from that time forward, so long as she lived, she did not cease to do. The nuns, wishing to ease her sorrow, said to her that the commotion of the people of Namur, by which they were departing, would be quickly ended through the Empress; and so, peace being restored, the dispersion of the Convent would be more quickly revoked. But the Virgin of Christ admitted no consolation over this, but said: "If you are dispersed, you will not return so quickly." Now what she said and what she felt concerning the house of Salzinnes, whether concerning the dispersion of the Convent or concerning the guards of the house, we know to have come to pass more fully, nor do we believe there is anything to come of what ought to happen. At the hour of the bitter dispersion of the aforesaid Convent, a certain religious person remaining at Liège was engaged in prayer; and when she had brought back to memory her beloved Juliana, she began to be anxious within herself and sad, and to be tortured with so great and so strong a sorrow that the same sorrow seemed intolerable to her. which is revealed to another absent: And when she had risen from prayer, she asked a certain Priest of praiseworthy life who had come to her, saying: "I beseech you, Lord, pray for Sister Juliana, because either she is now dying, or suffering exceeding sorrow." And so it was. Not long after, letters were sent to her from the venerable Abbess of Salzinnes and the Virgin of Christ, containing the wonderful account of that most vehement sorrow which she had sustained in the dispersion of the said house. Then the aforementioned person manifestly knew that it had been the hour of Juliana's affliction, in which she had felt in her prayer, through excessive compassion, that she was suffering either death or exceeding sorrow, and had revealed it to the Priest who had come to her at that time.
[44] The convent of Salzinnes therefore being dispersed, the venerable Abbess, bearing the care of the Virgin of Christ Juliana, brought her to the house of the Cantor of h Fosses, a man of praiseworthy and honorable life. Who, having learned the holiness of so great a guest, received her with her companion taken to Fosses, gratefully into his hospice, bestowing on them the services of great charity, with an abundance of reverence and honor. Now the said Cantor had formerly had a cell made, adjoining the church of Fosses, in which his Sister had been enclosed; who on the same day and time, at which the Recluse of Saint Martin of Liège had entered her cell, had likewise entered her own. But when now at the coming of Juliana, the Virgin of Christ was to be taken from the midst, the Cantor himself had proposed to have the said cell destroyed. Then, his mind changed, he had it very becomingly prepared in all things necessary, which also he granted to Juliana for the sake of her dwelling. And while she was remaining in the said cell, as long as she afterward lived, he venerated her with wonderful affection, knowing her to be holy and filled with the gifts of spiritual graces.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER VIII.
The last illness, death, burial.
[45] Now when the merciful Father determined to bring to an end and to reward the so many and so great tribulations, straits, and sorrows which his faithful handmaid Juliana had sustained for his love, he heaped upon her bodily ailments. Having fallen into her last sickness, She fell into the bed of her last infirmity, and her weak flesh began to fail day by day. Yet she by no means relaxed her unconquered spirit from prayer: but even when now, through the excessive anxiety of mouth (which among other things she was suffering), she spoke with difficulty, nevertheless she paid to the Lord her accustomed tale of Hours. And when she certainly knew that the earthly dwelling of her body was to be dissolved, she greatly longed for the presence of her most beloved friend in Christ, Lord John of Lausanne, Canon of Saint Martin of Liège; and she often asked the persons sitting by her, if in any way she could have him. She desired him, as is believed, especially with this intention, that she might reveal to him even at the end of her life her secrets, she is unable to have the conversation of her friends: which she had so carefully concealed in her life. But in this last illness of hers, neither Lord John himself, nor her other familiars and friends who were staying at Liège, visited her; partly because of the dangers of wars around the town of Namur; partly because they did not believe that she would die at that time, thinking the infirmity she was then suffering to be similar to the others which she had often endured, and from which she had recovered. From this was fulfilled the word which she had foretold long before to one dear to her, namely that at the time of her migration she would not have the presence of her special friends, and especially of those who had known her in all her tribulations in body and soul. And long ago also she was wont to say to the Sisters who specially cleaved to her, that while she lived, if they could grasp any good, they should grasp it; for in vain would they await the end of her life for this. For she knew that they, suspended by this deceptive expectation, were hoping that at least she would open up to them the hidden things of her secrets, when she was about to migrate from the body. But she signified plainly enough that even then she would not reveal them; since it was to be that those would then be absent, to whom she would desire to commit the things which she could not commit to others. For though at the last time of her life she had certain persons present in whom she trusted not a little, nevertheless either she was ashamed, or did not dare to lay bare to them the hidden things of her heart; as she would have done to one of her most faithful, who had known the whole course of her life in body and soul, who from things previously known would more easily have understood what she said, believed it, and committed it to writing more diligently. to whom she would have opened the secrets of her heart But when now, as she approached death, she saw no one of her own of this kind present, she called to her Sister Ermentrude, with whom she began to have secret discourse about her death. But she, unable to bear with equanimity the word of the Virgin of Christ's death, began to weep most copiously. Then Juliana said to her: "You have disturbed me, Sister; I shall no longer speak with you about such things." Therefore she opened her mouth no further to her concerning the things she had intended; though it is certain that she had proposed to say certain things to her, if she could have dissimulated the sadness of her heart, at least for a time. At length she also asked that a Notary be brought to her. But since in that village no suitable scribe could be found at hand, at length a young boy was brought to her: whom when she had seen, she said that she could not be helped by such a boy. Thus therefore Juliana had no mortal even at her death privy to her secrets; which yet, if made known, could have declared the glory of her holiness, and ought to have more gladdened her friends and acquaintances. Yet we do not believe this happened without divine counsel. But who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counsellor? Almighty God willed perhaps that lovers of virtue should rather attend in his handmaid to those things which offered themselves to all for imitation, than to those which, if they were revealed, would be only to be wondered at. Or wonderful was the knowledge of those things, it was comforted, and we could not reach it. Or perhaps we were unworthy to know the sublimity of such and so great secrets, which even now the multitude of sins presses and weighs down.
[46] Now that most fervent fire of sacred desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ, long before vehemently kindled in her virginal breast, did not suffer itself to be enclosed within; she desires to be with Christ, but it burst forth outwardly in fiery speech and most burning sparks of words. Now the Virgin of Christ, who had so often been wont to say to the Lord in her secret prayers, now evidently repeated these and many like things: "Lord, when will you deliver me from the body of this death? When will that sweet hour come which I have so greatly desired? When will you fulfill the desire of my heart?" And when sometimes by those around her, by way of consolation, it was said to her that she was now going to death, with all confidence she answered: "Truly, I am not going to death, but to life." Why then do you complain, Virgin of Christ? Your exile shall not be prolonged any longer: soon you shall return to your homeland. Are you not she who cried so incessantly to the Lord, saying, "Bring my soul out of prison, that it may praise thy name"? Your cry has ascended unto the King of Heaven, who, seeing, has seen the afflictions of your heart and body, which you have suffered for the glory of his name in Egypt: whence now he will hasten to lead you out of the house of prison and the shadow of death. Rejoice therefore, O daughter of Sion, and exult greatly, daughter of Jerusalem; be glad, having now almost sailed across the wicked great and spacious sea of this world; soon you shall reach the desired port. Yet a little, and with the most cruel tyrants—namely the world, flesh, and devil—together with all their armies overcome, you shall gloriously proceed from the battle, to be adorned with the palm of victory, and crowned with the laurel of virginity. to be crowned a Virgin and Martyr by will But to that laurel neither roses nor lilies shall be lacking: the roses for the mark of martyrdom, the lilies for the privilege of virginal whiteness. Nor am I sorry, Virgin of Christ, to have called you a Martyr: for why should I have doubted that you are to be joined to the choirs of the Martyrs? because the martyrdom that they had in deed, you had in will. For, as I recall having said in the first book, when you frequently revolved in mind the memory of the Lord's Passion, and your tender heart melted before his face as wax melts before the face of fire, you very often desired with great desire to undergo the death of the cross for love of the Crucified, even in the presence of all living. Why, in this also, shall I not assert you to be a Martyr by will, who are known to have wished for one death for the salvation of your enemies and persecutors? Moreover, I remember that one of the Saints in his most famous writings left us, and by continual mortification: that it is a kind of martyrdom to mortify one's members which are upon the earth: that indeed, as he says, is milder in horror than that in which the members are cut by iron; but more grievous in duration. Which if it be true—nay, because it is true (since he who says this is Blessed Bernard, whose teaching is as the sun and moon through the whole Church)—let no man of sound mind doubt, O Virgin of Christ, to call you a glorious Martyr also in deed. For from your earliest years, not only did you utterly mortify the body, but also the senses of the body: you endured very great and continual debility: you sustained many and great infirmities: you endured injuries, reproaches, tribulations, and innumerable persecutions for the name of Christ, in all which you always bore yourself sweetly and bravely. Truly, Virgin of Christ, unless you had obtained that constancy of mind by which the Martyrs suffered, you could never have persisted in so many and so great tribulations. Boldly therefore I said above, and still say: To your laurel neither roses nor lilies shall be lacking. Or, if you prefer, since your Beloved is white and ruddy, from the white you shall receive a white crown, from the ruddy a purple one: for you followed the white one by the whiteness of most pure virginity; the ruddy one, by the endurance of manifold passion. But yet sustain a little while, and for the multitude of present tribulations and sorrows which you have endured, you shall be brought into the fullness of eternal joys.
[47] Now when the handmaid of Christ had passed the whole of Lent in much discipline of silence and supreme patience of the illness which she was suffering in her whole body, on the Vigil of the Lord's Resurrection, she said to Sister Ermentrude: "Tomorrow I must go to the church, and bid farewell to the church; because I shall never again go to it in this corruptible life." On the next day therefore she rose very early in the morning, led to the church on Easter day, she receives the holy Eucharist: and was led to the church, in which, having heard Matins and Lauds and many Masses, she received the Body of the Lord with all devotion from the hand of her venerable host the Cantor, who was celebrating Mass, without any hindrance of bodily distress. Having returned from the altar, she was led back to her place of prayer, not departing from the church until the evening. But who is now sufficient, I will not say to relate, but to think, what marrow-deep holocausts of devotion she sacrificed on the altar of her heart to her so beloved Guest? Who indeed can estimate what and how great tributes of praise Juliana on this day offered to the rising Lord? She did not set her mouth against heaven, yet she kept solemn festival with fatness of spirit, and what she could not do with her body she did with her mind, as it is written: "For the thought of man shall give praise to thee: and the remainders of the thought shall keep holiday to thee." Ps. 75:11 Some on that day, for the joy of so great a solemnity, were raising their voices in measured songs; the Virgin of Christ within herself, in psalms, hymns, and spiritual canticles, was singing and chanting to God in her heart, solemnizing with the jubilation of mind. The celebration of the Lord's Resurrection therefore thus accomplished by her, she is anointed; she was led back to the house, when now the sun was setting. At length she asked to be anointed with the holy Oil. And as she was being anointed she was all dissolving in tears, so that the priest anointing her marveled greatly at her most abounding devotion: stupefied not a little also over this, that the Virgin of Christ, at each of the members which were anointed, said a prayer properly fitting to it.
[48] On the fourth day of the week, that is, on the vigil of Saint Ambrose a, when she appeared so weak that she was now thought to be in her last agony, the venerable Abbess of Salzinnes, who was then present, desiring to be present at her beloved Juliana's funeral, wished to spend the night in her cell.
When she was several times asked by the sick woman to withdraw in peace, but, from fear and expectation of her passage, which she thought to be now imminent, she utterly refused to do this, the Virgin of Christ chose rather to reveal under a covering of words what she knew about herself, than to let the Abbess, so dear to her, who was afraid of her being taken away, remain through the night in the straits of the cell. For she said to her: "Withdraw, my Lady, withdraw in peace; for neither today, nor even tomorrow, she indicates the time of her death: am I to migrate from this world." This she said truly; for she survived until the third day. Hence it is clear in some measure that she knew well the day of her dissolution, who, though she was believed to be now dissolving, expressed such an opinion about the prolongation of her life. Yet this, to avoid all admiration, she would by no means have uttered, if by her simple admonition the Abbess had been willing to depart. She then returned home more securely, when the Virgin of Christ indicated that she would survive until the third day. On Thursday, when she was now pressed by the straits of death so near, that she could not perform her accustomed Hours as on yesterday and the day before, yet she wished them to be said in her presence: which she performed with those saying them, as much as she could and what she could: for indeed she praised the Lord all her life, and blessed him at all times. At last, when she could say nothing more, she most frequently repeated these words of the Apocalypse: "Blessed are the dead, who die in the Lord."
[49] At last, when the frame of her earthly habitation, now loosed on every side, was giving to her longing soul a free departure, that great day shone forth, on which a perpetual day arose for her. At her passing the aforesaid venerable Abbess of Salzinnes, Lady Hymana, with some nuns, and also the praiseworthy Cantor of Fosses with some other persons, Sister Ermentrude being always present, had gathered together—namely a small multitude of the faithful. At the very moment of that day and hour, the Abbess said to her beloved one dying, or rather to her more truly approaching the life of all: "Since, being hindered by illness, you cannot receive the Body of the Lord, at least we will have it brought and presented to you, that you may commend yourself to him." But she answered: before the venerable Eucharist "No, my Lady: for it would be presumption." This she said from her most profound and familiar humility, reckoning it just that not her Lord should come to her, but rather that she should go to him. When the Abbess still insisted and said that it must be done by all means, that he whom she would see no longer in this world she might yet behold once, her Saviour, she said again: "It is not necessary, my Lady, to see in the present life him whom I am to see in the eternal." At length, one of the nuns saying that she ought to subject her will to the Abbess's, she consented that what they wished should be done. Then the aforesaid Cantor of Fosses, clad in white, brought the Body of the Lord. And when she heard the little bell sound, which was wont to sound when the Body of the Lord was brought to communicate someone, she roused herself in a wonderful way to rise up. Therefore, resuming her spirit, and doing violence to nature, she rose in the middle of her little bed, and sat up. Then the Cantor, approaching, and holding the Body of the Lord taken from the little vessel reverently before her, said to her: "Behold, Lady, your Saviour, who for you deigned to be born and to die: pray him to defend you from enemies, and to be your guide." She, fixing her eyes with most keen gaze upon him who was presented to her, answered: "Amen, and for my Lady likewise." She was speaking of the venerable Abbess standing by her, for whom, with the innermost affection of her heart, she longed for the same blessings that she desired for herself. And having said nothing more than these things, she bowed her head upon her little bed, she breathes her last: and immediately breathed her last. Therefore on Friday, at the ninth hour of the day, that holy soul was loosed from the flesh; preserving indeed the day and the hour at which her beloved Bridegroom Jesus Christ, hanging on the cross, gave up the spirit. Who would not judge this to have been done by the mystery of divine dispensation? Truly it was meet and just that Juliana—who in her earliest years, not as though by necessity, but voluntarily, but devoutly, but most ardently had borne her cross, that she might follow Christ, Virgin the Virgin's Son; and who was ineffably and always affected by the memory of his Passion—should at her precious death obtain the day and hour of the Lord's Passion. Happy and serene that day, on which Christ the full midday shone upon you, O blessed Virgin! That day, awaited by you all the days of your life with such great desires, sought with sighs, frequented with meditations, fortified with vows and devout prayers. That day, the end of your labors, the goal of your tribulations, the terminus of your persecutions, the removal of tears and sorrows, the expulsion of all cloudy sadness. Now you advance, rejoicing and praising, for the days in which you were humbled, for the years in which you saw evils. Turn therefore, blessed Virgin, unto your rest; for the Lord has done good unto you.
[50] Now when the faithful soul happily entered into the holy of holies, the body, duly prepared, was laid in a coffin; being laid there, it was guarded with all reverence by the aforesaid multitude of the faithful; and around it also by night watch was kept with a frequency of psalms. On the next day, that is on Saturday, the Sacrifice having been offered in the church of Fosses for the deceased, the body of the Virgin, placed upon a cart, was conducted by her faithful friend Sir Gobert, who had come summoned, to the house b of Villers, as the Virgin of Christ, while she was still alive, had arranged. For when before her death she was asked by the venerable Abbess she is buried in the monastery of Villers to choose her burial in her own house of Salzinnes, she refused to do this, on account of what she knew was to come to that house; but she entreated her that after her passing she would charge the aforesaid Sir Gobert to procure that her body be brought to the house of Villers, in which she wished by all means to be buried. Now the said Sir Gobert had formerly been c a very powerful knight in the world, very rich and famous, sprung from the nobler families of the kingdom of France; but now by a divine calling he had become nobler in fleeing the world, richer and more famous in the contempt of earthly things, and more powerful in overthrowing the enemies of the soul. He, having for some time been made a monk in the aforesaid house of Villers, in his life had greatly loved the Virgin of Christ Juliana, for the holiness of body and spirit which he had known in her. Therefore the lifeless body was carried by him to the said house, the venerable Abbess with her companions accompanying it thither. It was received by the convent of the house with all reverence, and by special grace was reserved until the next day; but also on that very night watches were kept by the monks around the body. On Sunday, by the will of God, a certain Cleric came, even though not asked: who delivered to the convent of the house an elegant sermon concerning the reverend Sacrament of the altar, which your handmaid, O Christ, had so loved for love of you. After this, the solemnities of the Mass being celebrated, and all things duly performed, the virginal body was given burial among the holier bodies of the house. Yours, O Christ, is the deposit which has been entrusted to the House of Villers: yours is the treasure there hidden, to be released at the time when you see fit to demand it back. In the year of grace d 1257, therefore, the Virgin of Christ Juliana happily fell asleep in the Lord: in the sixty-sixth year of her age, on the Nones of April, on Friday, at the ninth hour. On the third day, that is Sunday, she was buried in the house of Villers, in the place where she was well pleased. e
[51] Remember, blessed Virgin, those whom formerly, while living in the flesh, you had as friends and familiars, whom you left in the exile of this wearisome pilgrimage. Once you comforted the mournful with consolations, you strengthened the fainthearted with exhortations, you helped those in danger with prayers, you were present with those who labored, you succored the distressed, you obtained grace for the desolate. And all these things indeed on the way; why not do them much more and more effectively in the homeland? Invoked by the Writer. You have entered into the powers of the Lord, and now you are more powerful to obtain. Give them confidence, your kindness often experienced great from of old, but much more now heaped up, and charity increased immensely. For if "he who adheres to God is one spirit with him," and "God is charity"; the more closely you are joined to God, the fuller you are of charity. Moreover, God is impassible, but not incompassionate, whose property is always to have mercy and to spare: for he is merciful, nay, mercy itself, and mercy from eternity and unto eternity. Therefore you too must of necessity be merciful, who cleave to the Merciful One, though now you are by no means miserable: and though you do not suffer, yet you have compassion. Your affection therefore is not diminished, but changed: nor, because you have put on God, have you put off the bowels of mercy. What was weak, you have cast off, but not what was dutiful. Finally, charity never fails: therefore you do not forget them to the end. And not only them, but do not forget each and every one who as suppliants pray for the grace of your intercession, who in their tribulations or necessities desire to be aided by your patronage. Remember, too, me, your humble writer, who now, even if late, desire to obtain your grace, which, while you were still living in the flesh, on account of the tenderness of my age—or to say it more truly, on account of lack of wisdom—I did not care to seek. Now on bended knees, with suppliant hands and the little gift of the present work, which I have edited at the request of your people, that you might not remain wholly hidden, I extend myself to you. Receive the gift, receive the one praying, that in the number of those for whom you obtain grace with God, you may deign also to count me, with liberal ease, or with easy liberality. There was a time when I could have had opportune access to you, grieving that as a younger man he did not care to know her. through the mediation of those whom, while living in the flesh, you specially loved; who at one and the same time knew and loved both you and me; though very differently, because of the great dissimilarity of merits. For you, a chaste Virgin, holy in flesh and spirit, they knew and loved to be loved by your own merits; but me not by my own merits, which were none, but rather by the favor and grace of certain of my friends. Through those mediators whom I have mentioned, therefore, I could at some time, while you were still living in the body, have obtained your grace, if then I had had care to provide for my soul and for salvation. Gen. 8:21 But at that time I was experiencing in myself what Scripture says: "The senses and thoughts of man are prone to evil from their youth." For I was then carnal, neither perceiving nor desiring nor seeking the things that were of the Spirit of God, gaping after transitory things, insisting on fleeting things, falling daily into the precipices of vices. And while I was fixed in the mire of the deep, and there was no standing,
it pleased him who had set me apart from my mother's womb, to call me by his grace; and he brought me up out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and directed my steps. Pray now, blessed Virgin, your beloved Bridegroom, that he may perfect my steps in his paths, that in prosperity or adversity my footsteps may not be moved, and that I, who now by his bounty have put my hand to the plow, may not look back; but forgetting the things which are behind, I may stretch forth to those which are before; that by running the way of his commandments, I may advance from virtue to virtue. May your Beloved therefore, by your merits and prayers, give me strength in my acts, discipline in my morals, consolation in my tribulations, devotion in my prayers, direction and sweetness in my meditations, ordering in my affections: may he also give me in the present the grace of his charity, that in the future he may deign to bestow the glory of supernal blessedness, Jesus Christ your Bridegroom, our Lord, who above all things is God blessed for ever. Amen. f
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER IX.
Miracles after her death.
[52] After the passing of the Virgin of Christ Juliana, when a certain person of venerable life was engaged in prayer at the time of the Sacrament, by a kind of human duty, over the taking away of her whom she had once most tenderly loved, she began to weep most copiously. In the midst of her tears, with most devout prayers she besought the Lord, the eternal blessedness of Juliana is revealed: that of his clemency he would deign to show her how it was with her, and whether she was in need of any help or aid. Nor did the kind Lord any longer suspend the desire of his suppliant; but suddenly infused into her mind this antiphon, which is sung on the feast of Saint Agnes: "Behold what I desired, I now see; what I sought, I now hold; to him I am joined in heaven, whom on earth I loved with all devotion." At once so great a serenity of confidence flowed into her mind that she no longer doubted that her beloved had obtained in the homeland that most blessed vision of God which she had in her life so much thirsted and hungered after.
[53] A certain woman had an infant, suffering from a long-lasting illness: the infirmity of an infant is healed, whom when at length she had wrapped in a certain cloth which had been given to her, which had belonged to Christ's handmaid Juliana, after a little time the infant was restored to health. Two Beguines who were suffering excessive pain of teeth came to a certain religious person, who was keeping with great care a sudarium and some other linens which had been the Virgin of Christ's. the toothache of the Beguines, And when she had touched their cheeks and faces with these, those Beguines in a short time were entirely freed from the said pain of teeth. A certain lay brother of the House of Herkenrode was so pressed by the pains of rupture the hernia of a certain lay brother, that it was very burdensome and grievous to him, even for the great necessities and advantages of his house, to ride. When he had once come to the house of Villers and to the tomb of the said Virgin, he prayed her that, if she was of such merit with God as was said, she would deign to obtain for him some remedy for such great a burden as he was suffering. After he had made his prayer, he felt himself almost wholly freed from the former strait; so that he could walk and ride suitably, and manage the affairs of his house.
[54] A certain person of venerable and approved life, who had not a little loved the Virgin of Christ Juliana when she was living in the body, at one time was very weak, and desired much wine, and food more carefully prepared; on the vigil of the solemnity of the Sacrament, when she had committed her weak members to sleep, it seemed to her that the Virgin of Christ stood by her, and said: "Be prepared, that you may deserve to receive the grace which God is going to give you tomorrow." The said person, as best she could, did as she had been admonished in her dreams, not neglecting to prepare the inner receptacle for the grace to come. [through Blessed Juliana appearing the grace of God to be conferred on another is made known,] When on the day of the solemnity itself, at the time of Mass, she was engaged in prayer, she was suddenly rapt into an ecstasy of mind. And she saw, and behold, the Lord Jesus, clad in priestly vestments, was most reverently celebrating Mass; whom his handmaid Juliana was serving with virginal hands. Now it seemed to her, who had thus been rapt, that she was approaching the altar; and that highest Priest, with his Virgin standing by, was offering her a drink from a most beautiful and excellent chalice. The truth of this thing was so fulfilled that, when that person came back to herself, she was so inebriated with the abundance of divine grace, and so given drink from the torrent of supernal sweetness, that the superabundant and prevailing refreshment of the spirit drove away the desires of food and drink, which we have said the weakness of the flesh had brought on.
[55] A copy of the Bull a which Lord Urban Pope, the fourth of this name, granted to the aforesaid Recluse of Saint Martin of Liège, who was the companion of the venerable Juliana, and of one accord in will to promote the celebration of the feast of the Sacrament of the altar, to Eve the Recluse, concerning which the Bull itself sings, which is originally preserved in the church of Saint Martin of b Liège, where this holy Recluse lies buried.
[56] Urban Bishop, servant of the servants of God, to our beloved daughter in Christ Eve, Recluse of Saint Martin of Liège, greeting and Apostolic benediction. We know, O daughter, that your soul has desired with great desire that the solemn feast of the most sacred Body of our Lord Jesus Christ might be instituted in the Church of God, Pope Urban rejoices over the new feast to be celebrated by the faithful of Christ in perpetual times: and therefore we signify to you for your joy, that we have worthily thought fit, for the strengthening of the Catholic faith, to decree, that of this wondrous Sacrament, besides the daily commemoration which the Church makes of it, a more special and more solemn memorial should be celebrated, appointing a certain day for this, namely the Thursday next after the Sunday of the feast of Pentecost next following, that on that Thursday the devout throngs of the faithful may for this cause come together affectionately to the church: and that that day may be joyful for all Christians with new festivity, and festive with abundant joy, as is more fully contained in the Apostolic letters celebrated by himself at Rome, which we are directing on this matter through all the world. And know that we have judged this feast to be celebrated with all our brothers, namely the Cardinals of the Roman Church, as well as with all the Archbishops and Bishops and other Prelates of the Churches who are then staying at the Apostolic See, to the end that by those who see and hear, a salutary example may be given of the celebration of so great a feast. Let your soul therefore magnify the Lord, and let your spirit rejoice in God your Saviour: because your eyes have now seen your salvation, which we have prepared before the face of all peoples. Rejoice further, because the almighty Lord has granted you the desire of your heart, and he sends her an Office about it, and the fullness of heavenly grace has not defrauded you of the will of your lips. And because we are sending to you, under our Bull and by the bearer of these presents, a quaternion in which the Office c of this feast is contained, we will and by Apostolic writings we command you, that you receive the quaternion itself with devotion, and give a copy of it freely and willingly to persons asking for it: and urge with devout supplications before him who left on earth so salutary a memorial of himself, that he may grant us from on high grace to rule the Church committed to our governance usefully, to the praise and glory of his name, and to govern it salubriously. Given at Orvieto, on the sixth day before the Ides of September, in the fourth year of our Pontificate. d