Lutgardis

ON ST. LUTGARDIS, VIRGIN, NUN OF THE CISTERCIAN ORDER, AT AQUIRIA IN BRABANT,

IN THE YEAR 1246,

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

On the cult, life, age, and Relics of the Saint.

St. Lutgardis, Virgin, Nun of the Cistercian Order, at Aquiria in Brabant.

BY THE AUTHOR G. H.

The memory of St. Lutgardis, Virgin, in Brabant, is inserted at this June 16 in the present tables of the Roman Martyrology, having already before been found in the manuscript Florarium and other manuscripts augmented for the use of the Belgian Churches, The memory in the Calendars. likewise set forth by Greven and Molanus in their Additions to Usuard, and by the latter in his Index and in the Natales of the Saints of Belgium. These were followed by Miraeus in the Belgian Calendars, Canisius in the German Martyrology, Wion, Dorganius, Menardus, Bucelinus in the Benedictine Martyrologies; Henriquez, Chalemotus, in the Cistercian Menologies; Saussay, in the Gallican Martyrology; Balinghem, in the Marian Calendar, and others. Now there is a twofold Aquiria, one in the diocese of Liège, more ancient, the other in that of Namur, formerly situated in that of Cambrai, both commonly called Awieres, concerning which Miraeus in his Cistercian Chronicle has these things: the places of her dwelling and cult: About four miles from Brussels is situated the Abbey of the Virgins of Aquiria. It was first founded in the year 1202 in the village called Aquiria or Aviria, two miles from the city of Liège, and when it had stood there four years, wars having arisen between the Prince of Liège and the Count of Namur, the Nuns betook themselves into Brabant, then at peace; and in the village of Allodium, commonly Aloux, one mile from Nivelles, in the year 1210 established their dwelling: but when there was a scarcity of water there, in the year 1217 they migrated to the place which they hold today, and called it by the old name Aquiria, and are subject in spiritual matters to the Abbot of Aulne. Here lived and died St. Lutgardis; not as Abbess, as Molanus by error has it, but private and free from every burden of governance.

[2] Her Life written by Thomas of Cantimpré, Her Life was written by Thomas of Cantimpré, so called from Cantimpré of the Canons Regular at the walls of the city of Cambrai, from whose institute he passed over to the Preachers; of these, when he was writing this, Prior at Louvain, afterward Suffragan of the Bishop of Cambrai: who declares in his preface that he received very many things from the mouth of Lutgardis herself, as her most intimate friend; the rest he gathered from persons worthy of trust, sometimes by name alleging joint witnesses. He inscribed it to Halvidis, Abbess of the monastery of Aquiria, whom he writes to have died in the year 1248, that is, four years after the death of the Saint, does Bartholomew Fisen, in the Flowers of the Church of Liège, page 278. Certainly from the fewness of the miracles noted after [her] death, and from other things, it is easily gathered, a contemporary and intimate, that all were written within the second or third year from the Saint's death. Yet Thomas himself nowhere calls her Saint or Blessed, but always the Pious Lutgardis. Dionysius the Carthusian, in his book on the Four Last Things, article 50, calls Thomas of Cantimpré a literate man, a religious of the Order of St. Benedict (not correctly), and in his book on the plurality of benefices, article 7, says he was nobly born according to the flesh, but more nobly conversed according to the spirit, and adorned with great knowledge, who was also a Suffragan Bishop. The praises of the same Thomas of Cantimpré are pursued by Henry of Ghent, on the Writers of the Church, chapter 51, where he mentions the Life of St. Lutgardis written by him; John Trithemius, Leander Alberti, Wilhelm Eysengrein, Antonius of Siena, Robert Bellarmine, Justus Lipsius, and others, whose testimonies Georg Colvener brings forth, after the Life of Thomas of Cantimpré illustrated by him.

[3] This Life was published long ago by Laurentius Surius, declaring in his preface that the simpler style was here and there somewhat emended by him: I add, that it was also contracted, many things being omitted. it is edited from 3 manuscripts We give the whole text of the Author in its original phrasing, from

three codices especially, namely one very notable, of our College at Bruges; another, of the Library of the Canons Regular at Rouge-Cloître near Brussels, where it is read in the second part of the Hagiology of the Brabanters; and a third, communicated to us by Aubert Miraeus, formerly Dean of the Cathedral Church of Antwerp, and most fond, while he lived, of our studies. Now from the mutual collation of these we learned that the Author, some years after he had written the Life as it is found in the Bruges Codex, and when it had perhaps already been transcribed by several persons, gave the same to be reviewed to a certain man, also most intimate with the Saint herself, Brother Bernard, of the Order of Preachers, and Penitentiary of the Lord Compendia various are indicated. Pope Innocent IV. He, by adding, suggested various points; which from the two other manuscripts we transferred into the more ancient text, marked with these brackets [ ]; as also certain other things, added by the Author on that occasion, who from time to time also changed something in the phrasing, hardly worthy enough for us to dwell on noting it more scrupulously. Now we can presume such an interpolation to have been made after the death of Innocent IV, which occurred in the year 1254, six years later than the Abbess Hadwigis; when namely Bernard had returned from the Curia, and yet Thomas of Cantimpré was still living, who survived until 1263. We have also the same Life, but more contracted, from the Utrecht manuscript of the Church of St. Salvator. The same Life is held, published in Spanish by our Bernardino de Villegas under this title The Bride of Christ instructed from the Life of St. Lutgardis, or the Life of St. Lutgardis with exhortatory digressions to Nuns, at Madrid in the year 1625: which most useful work, afterward rendered into Italian, came out at Venice in the year 1661. Various compendia also of the same Life were published [by] the above-cited Fisen, in the Flowers of the Church of Liège; Chrysostomus Henriquez, in the Lilies of Cîteaux, on the deeds of the Sacred Cistercian Virgins; Angelus Manrique, in the Cistercian Annals; Lippeloo, Haraeus, and others, who published Lives of the Saints in whatever vernacular languages and everywhere took them from Surius together with the errors committed by him; one of which, concerning her age, we observe below.

[4] Often below in the Acts mention is made of Sibylla de Gages, The opinion concerning the sanctity of Sibylla who, as is said in book 2, number 30, had been accustomed to serve her most devoutly from her entrance into the Order. Concerning her, in the Gazophilacium Belgicum, page 60, Rayssius writes these things: Her bones were taken from the tomb in the year of the Lord 1611, on the seventh of the Ides of October, by Henricus Welpen, Abbot of Aulne, with the permission of the Superiors. A great concourse of people grows daily, even from distant places, to her Sepulcher. There is seen, from the time of the elevation, a fountain beside her tomb: from which arriving pilgrims, when they have drunk something of it, in a wondrous manner perceive relief from infirmity. Beside which, as I said before, the tomb is seen, and is enclosed in a certain empty space hollowed out in the very thickness of the wall of the church, and closed above in the form of a vault or arch: iron lattices or gratings then being applied, which guard and secure the very entrance of the sepulcher. And in the very curvature of the vault, we copied these verses inscribed:

The ninth light of October was radiating throughout the whole world, When Abbot Henricus, with the pious applause and pomp of the people, Laid the bones of the wise Sibylla. D. P.

[5] Besides Sibylla, under the same title of Blessed, and the note of the same October and the 9th day, because no other more fitting occurred, and Elisabeth de Wans, companions of St. Lutgardis. there is also reported by Rayssius Elisabeth de Wans, who once (as is said here in book 3, chapter 21) had been Abbess in Champagne in France at St. Desiderius, and, having renounced her prelacy, had passed over to Aquiria. Concerning her, Thomas of Cantimpré, book 2, chapter 5, §4, says that, noble by birth and life, from almost the cradle she was most devoted to Christ: to whose sanctity her parents, simply envying it, handed her over, although unwilling, in marriage to a most approved Knight, with whom, spending a whole year in one bed, she nevertheless remained an unpolluted virgin. Rayssius adds from the manuscript Hagiology of the Saints of Brabant the following. A statue of Christ affixed to the Cross gradually followed her on every side for about three years; and if ever she was vexed by unclean and foul thoughts, she would place a hand stretched out from the cross upon her breast, and immediately drove away all the perverse thoughts of her mind: she often also enjoyed angelic conversations. One day she was carried up to the pleasant places of the verdant paradise; where indeed, both of the living and the born, as well as of those to be born, who were to obtain eternal glory; and, what is more admirable, in what state, of virginity or marriage, each was to be glorified, she knew by the revealing Spirit. These therefore, when she afterward saw in this life, whose likenesses she had seen in the heavens, although they had previously been unknown, she recognized most especially by their face; and suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye, discerned in each the difference of merits and states. Once, when she saw Elisabeth of Asca, of Namur, very well dressed and adorned, inasmuch as her parents had it in mind to join her by the bond of matrimony for the sake of propagating the stock; she said constantly to her: In vain are you clothed in such precious garments; since I have certainly known that you will live in the state of virginity: which, as she said, so it came to pass. This Elisabeth also merited to see St. Lutgardis, gleaming with glory, after her death. It is established also that she had the spirit of prophecy; since, contemplating most lucidly from the beginning of the world those things which are to be at the end, she most evidently foretold them. At last, when she had shone with many distinctions of virtues, she was called to the bridal chamber of the heavenly bridegroom, with whom she was to live, [and] forsook this sad world. The place of her burial seems to have come into oblivion, [for] otherwise I believe she would have been decorated with the same honor of elevation as the aforesaid Sibylla, by the same author and on the same occasion.

[6] These things being interposed, I return to Lutgardis. Of her John Molanus deserved exceedingly well, inasmuch as his Additions to Usuard brought to Baronius, who esteemed his writings most highly, the chief impetus for inserting her name in the calendars of the Roman Martyrology; he among other things prepared for the press left, when he died in the year 1585, the Natales of the Saints of Belgium. Baronius could not see these when he was writing the Notes on the Martyrology; for they were first published twelve years after the author's death; and so Baronius could not have read what Molanus there noted after the compendium of the Life; It is not, however, he says, because of the lack of her merits, as is believed, that she is subscribed in the Catalogue of the Saints by the Roman See, or raised from her place of burial to a more decent [one]. That complaint does not seem entirely just: since among the Relics, by the gift of Margaret of Austria, wife of Octavius Farnese, Duke of Parma, and Governess of Belgium for the Catholic King, A Relic of St. Lutgardis at Antwerp. brought in the year of the Lord 1565 to Henry the Cardinal, King of Portugal, are numbered some of St. Lutgardis, Cistercian Virgin: and they are said, in the letter of Antonius, calling himself King of Lusitania, and handing them over to his son Emmanuel in the year 1594, to be a part of the spine of the back and of the skull, and that quite notable, just as we ourselves saw it in the Abbey of St. Salvator at Antwerp; where, from the gift of the said Emmanuel, they are held, together with the notable Relics of thirty-four other Saints. All of which may be read more distinctly in our April, day 11, at the Acts of St. Mary of Egypt; and in the Appendix to the same day. But perhaps when Molanus was writing, it was unknown even at Aquiria where the body was; afterward, however, it was sought and found, so that Rayssius could write about it in his Hierogazophylacium, published about the year 1628, page 60, Her bones were elevated, and are stored in a chest under the altar which was erected to her honor. Thus he seems modestly to correct Molanus, while however concealing the year, the author, and the circumstances of that Elevation.

[7] That the Saint died, the Life says, book 3, chapter 16, in the year from the Incarnation of the Lord one thousand two hundred and forty-six, She died in the year 1246, in the month of June, on the sixteenth of the Kalends of July June 16, in the fourth Indiction, in the sixty-fourth year of her age, around the hour of evening; or as the manuscripts of Rouge-Cloître and Miraeus have it, at the hour of Vespers. This last, from Thomas's later correction, I do not doubt to be right. But I by no means believe that it was done by his correcting himself, that in the same manuscripts it should be read that Lutgardis flew to the heavens in the forty-fourth year of her age. I rather judge that, by the error of the copyist, from whose transcript those two readings were taken over, for LX there crept in XL, by an easy slip of the pen; but one which the manuscripts themselves bid be corrected in several places, where they might here deceive. For they, as well as the Bruges manuscript, book 1, chapter 9, bid the Nuns of Aquiria see cum she had lived 40 years at Aquiria, of how great merit among them the woman dwelt for forty years: and in book 2, chapter 1, Thomas marvels that she scarcely knew anything of speaking French, who had barely reached the time of twenty-four years when she entered Aquiria, and afterward lived forty years among her French companions. She had therefore come to them in the year 1206. Nor can a scruple against this reckoning be raised, having entered there at age 24, in [the year of Christ 1206; And born in 1182,] by what is narrated in book 1, chapter 2, of the Abbot of St. Trond, who, coming from the Lateran General Council, was received by her, while she was still Prioress near Tongeren at St. Catharine's, with a procession. For if no General Council was celebrated by Pope Innocent III, when in the year 1204 he decreed that the Cross be preached against the Albigensian heretics; and dispatched for that purpose Legates, whom Odoricus Raynaldus names at that year, number 57; if, I say, in the year 1204 no council was celebrated, but that most famous and truly General council held in the year 1215 must be understood, at which up to eight hundred Abbots were present; rather must Thomas be said to have lapsed in memory, concerning the reason for which the Abbot had gone to Rome; than it be believed that he erred in a matter so well known to the nuns of Aquiria, and ascribed forty years for twenty to Lutgardis as she dwelt at Aquiria; for thus it would have been necessary for this girl of fourteen years (inasmuch as in that reckoning she was born in the year 1202) to have been not only veiled, not 1226; nor did she die at age 44, nor was she born in 1202. but even elected Prioress of the Monastery, not accustomed to have an Abbess, as is said in the previous chapter. What of the fact that the age of twenty-four years, before the Virgin changed her place and order, is most clearly distinguished in book 1? In whose chapter 1 it is said, that, having attained the age of a little more than twelve years, among the Nuns of the Order of St. Benedict she devoted herself to the divine service: and nonetheless, since because of her age she could not yet be consecrated, for many years she endured an importunate suitor, chapter 4. These years must be estimated at least five or six, so that, born in the year 1182, she could be consecrated at sixteen or eighteen; nor in such a reckoning could she even have been elected Prioress except, around the twenty-third year of her age, in the year of Christ 1204; and a little after, when she had been a Nun in the monastery of St. Catharine for almost

twelve years (as is said in chapter 22), [and] had received from divine will the counsel, indeed the command, of changing her place and Order, she was now almost twenty-four years old.

[8] Molanus in the aforecited Natales of the Belgian Saints says that the Saint, as Abbess, presided over the monastery: She was not Abbess of Aquiria. but this lapse of his senile memory Miraeus noted in his Cistercian Chronicle; and our friend the Generous Lord Jacobus Baron le Roy, to prove this correction, in his historical Topography of Gallo-Brabant, after most accurately describing the origin and progress of the place, added also this new diligence, that he gave a series of the Abbesses of Aquiria, transcribed in his own hand from the papers of the place itself, in which there is no place for St. Lutgardis. He gave there too an image of the monastery, elegantly engraved with the burin, An Icon of the Abbey. as it offers itself to view from the North; and at the same time both there and throughout that whole work displayed his magnanimous diligence, sparing neither labor nor expense, that he might write things most ascertained and most certain. A specimen, kindly lent to this place by him, you would here have, had he not gone abroad: when he has returned, a place will perhaps be given it in an appendix or supplement. The series of Abbesses collected by him is this:

Maria, created in the year 1202 Woaris, died 1238 Agnes Hadwidis 1258 Margarita of Itter 1271 Lutgardis 1275 Benedicta Maria 1341, March 3 Extranea 1365, March 18 M. Maria del Haye 1371 Joanna del Haye 1389 Joanna … 1401 Catharina Halbaizo 1413 The series of Abbesses. Catharina Alpus 1414 Catharina Marike 1422 Margareta Bertenchampt 1434 Maria du Bray 1437, June 13. Catharina Camprenoille 1510, February 15. Joanna Bernage 1533 Maria Marlecque 1593, February 11. Margareta de Marbais Ludovica de Blaton 1632, February 28. Joanna Boulart. Lutgardis de Lonchin 1670, October 28. Joanna Marsillo 1675, July 10. Benedicta de la Motte, in the year 1693 to this point surviving.

LIFE

By the Author Thomas of Cantimpré, a contemporary, from three manuscript Codices.

St. Lutgardis, Virgin, Nun of the Cistercian Order, at Aquiria in Brabant.

BHL Number: 4950

BY THE AUTHOR THOMAS OF CANTIMPRÉ.

PROLOGUE.

To the Reverend Lady, and in Christ much to be esteemed, Hawidis; by divine concession Abbess at Aquiria, and to the whole most holy Convent with her, Brother, by office Subprior, but least of the Friars Preachers, sends greeting; and wishes this well, which he wishes for himself.

The office of the person and of the Order; and although not the proper name, I have placed in the salutation; namely that authority may be commended in the Office and Order; nor yet that the following work should be cheapened by the insertion of a name. Just as not only your charity, The Life is distinguished into 3 books; but indeed the charity and love of many monasteries, which I had most especially toward [her] person, most ardently incited me. The Life of the pious Lutgardis I have described as best I could; distinguishing the whole work into three books; according to the threefold state in the soul, of beginners, of the proficient, and of the perfect. The first, indeed, how in the Order of St. Benedict she began the sanctity of her conversion: the second, how she made progress by passing over to the Cistercian Order: but what in the eleven years before [her] death, and in death, and after death, the Lord deigned to work through her, the third book will obtain and contain as a degree of perfection. Nor do I believe that the life of anyone, which contains in itself so many distinctions of virtues and prerogatives of marvels and miracles, has been described for many years past. But if it be asked how I make faith to the readers concerning all those things from the mouth of St. Lutgardis or received from those worthy of trust which I have written: I say briefly, that Christ Himself is witness and judge, that very many of them I received from the mouth of the pious Lutgardis herself, as her most intimate friend: and in these I believe no one so rash as to contradict her testimonies: but the rest I profess to have gathered from such persons as would by no means deviate from the path of truth. Many things also, and indeed magnificent, I did not consent to write; either because they would not be intelligible to the unlearned, or because I did not find suitable testimony. Since therefore charity believes all things, endures all things; I ask of those into whom God has poured the spirit of His charity, that they believe these things, if there be any holy, if any useful, if any consonant with truth, that are set forth; and at the same time patiently endure, if I shall have placed any things less aptly, less learnedly, or indiscreetly: which however are for these reasons less duly rejected by the wicked. For of good talents, as the most glorious Augustine says, it is a notable disposition, to love the truth in words, not the words. For neither is gold less precious, which is taken from the earth; nor wine less savory, which is received from cheap wooden vessels. Therefore not only you, but the assemblies of virgins of all the monasteries of Brabant, let them receive the Life of the pious Lutgardis; On the Doctrine of Christ: Book 4, chapter 11. that she who in the fame of virtue was most known to all, may by the very insertion of this little book become more fully known; and may increase in the readers virtue and merit, to whom an example of virtue will be set before them. May your holy and sincere kindness fare well, and may the Divine piety, mindful of me in your prayers, keep you unharmed; Amen.

THE OLD DIVISION.

Book I, Chapter I. On her birth and infancy.

II. How she was courted by a certain young man; and through a vision of Christ converted utterly, and suddenly freed.

III. How a certain devout and noble matron foretold that she would be, as it were, a second Agnes.

IV. How a certain Knight courted her: and she manfully repelled him, and confounded him.

V. How the same Knight wished to carry her off by force, and she miraculously escaped.

VI. How she foretold a most grievous misfortune to the Knight's attendant who raged against her.

VII. How she withstood confusion, when at St. Trond the people met her as she returned.

VIII. How the Blessed Virgin consoled her, when she feared at certain words of the Nuns.

IX. How Blessed Catharine appeared to her.

X. How she was seen by the whole convent suspended in the air.

XI. How a solar brightness was seen to descend to her by night.

XII. How the Lord, to her who had compassion on the sick, gave the grace of healings; and afterward that she might understand the Psalter; and afterward how, these being lost, she obtained the grace of God, as long as she should live.

XIII. How, troubled in something, she was caught up in spirit, and sucked from the side of the Lord a wondrous sweetness.

XIV. How John the Evangelist appeared to her in the manner of an eagle, and what was shown to her through that eagle.

XV. How Christ appeared to her affixed to the cross, and she kissed His wound.

XVI. How it seemed to her that her hands distilled oil.

XVII. How she was consecrated, and how a golden crown was seen to be placed upon her head; and this with two seeing [it].

XVIII. How perfectly she followed Christ the Lamb.

XIX. How, as she sang, Christ was seen to applaud her, in the form of a lamb.

XX. How she was made Prioress in the monastery of St. Catharine.

XXI. How Christ placed His hand in the middle, when she suffered violence in the kiss of a certain Abbot in the same monastery: and how greatly the kisses of men are to be shunned by religious women.

XXII. How she passed over to the Cistercian Order, from the Order of St. Benedict.

Book II, Chapter I. How Blessed Mary appeared to her, when she feared to be elected Abbess; and that she miraculously could not learn French.

II. How the Blessed Virgin complained of the gravity of the Albigensians, and on this account she was bidden to fast continuously for seven years on bread and beer, only that the Lord might be propitiated toward His people.

III. How she freed Master Jacques de Vitry from a certain most grievous temptation.

IV. How she freed a certain Simon, Abbot of Foigny, from Purgatory, by most violent prayers made to God.

V. How she wished to be certified concerning her state; and there appeared to all who saw [it] a splendid youth to console her.

VI. How she desired to die, and the wounds of Christ appeared to her, crying out to her on behalf of sinners.

VII. How Pope Innocent III, having died, immediately appeared to her.

VIII. How Master John of Liro appeared to her immediately upon dying; and what Christ said to her, while she lamented him dead.

IX. How it was revealed to her a second time, that she should fast another seven years for sinners: and just as Christ Himself daily offered Himself to the Father for sinners in the sacrifice of the sacrament, so should she too offer herself to Christ.

X. How a demon appeared to her, and said that he had deceived a certain Nun; and how that Nun was freed.

XI. How certain Nuns were freed from the demons dwelling in them through her.

XII. How a certain Yolendis, a Nun, forewarned before death by her, appeared after her death.

XIII. How her dead sister appeared to her.

XIV. How she was forbidden to approach the Sacrament of the Altar every Sunday.

XV. How a demon appeared to her at the death of a certain Sister.

XVI. How demons frequently appeared to her, and how they feared her.

XVII. How she feared that she had not always well said the due Hours: and on this account a certain one sent by the Lord made her secure.

XVIII. How a flame was seen to issue from her mouth, while she sang.

XIX. How, having communicated of the Body of the Lord, she did not wish to go without dinner; but said to the Lord that He should occupy a certain weak Nun with the remnants of [her] thoughts: and so it was done and proved.

XX. How the same Elisabeth was cured, while she prayed.

XXI. How she desired to sustain martyrdom for Christ, and by that desire a vein was burst opposite the place of her heart, and she shed blood in wondrous abundance; and so the Lord said to her, that thence she would receive the merit of Agnes in martyrdom.

XXII. How a certain Lady Machtildis, a Nun, received her lost hearing, by the imposition of her finger.

XXIII. How, mindful of the Passion of Christ, in contemplation she was seen by a certain Priest, as if wholly suffused with blood.

XXIV. How she converted to the Lord a certain Lord Tymerus, a Knight, a wicked man, by most violent prayers.

XXV. How she freed a Nun from temptations; and the same [Nun] miraculously obtained what she prayed for.

XXVI. How she foretold to a certain grievously tempted woman, that she would have to die on Good Friday.

XXVII. How a certain man, at the mere sight of her, was contrite for his sins, and, making satisfaction, was freed.

XXVIII. How she healed an epileptic.

XXIX. How on the feast of All Saints a multitude of Saints appeared to her.

XXX. How to the Lady Sibylla, burdened by her service, an answer was given by a voice in the night.

XXXI. How a certain despairing man, speaking to her, saw a most lucid brightness over her, and was comforted.

XXXII. How in the Canticle, We praise Thee, O God Te Deum laudamus, the Blessed Virgin appeared to her.

XXXIII. How to her who had compassion on a certain poor little woman, the Lord said to her, My portion.

XXXIV. How in many things she shone with the prophetic spirit: how both the name and the merit of a certain Virgin Osanna were designated through her, which for many years had been unknown.

XXXV. How she foretold the return of a certain apostate to the Order.

XXXVI. How she foretold the death of the Duchess of Brabant.

XXXVII. How she foretold to a certain woman a hidden temptation, and freed her.

XXXVIII. How she freed by prayers a certain one vexed in hearing Confessions.

XXXIX. How two Angels were seen to lead her to the altar; and at another time before death the Blessed Virgin Mary and Blessed John the Baptist to stand by her on either side.

XL. How she had knowledge of an unknown tongue in consoling a certain woman, who had despaired: and how the woman was freed through her.

XLI. How to her weeping long for sinners the Lord appeared, and with His own hand wiped the tears from her eyes.

XLII. How for five years she was daily visited by Angels, and frequently by the Mother of the Lord or the Apostles; and yet nothing sufficed her but God alone.

XLIII. How she lived in a threefold state: and this was to lie in the threefold little bed of the Song of Songs.

Book III, Chapter I. On this, that eleven years before death she was made blind; whence she obtained a more splendid inner light.

II. How Jordan of holy memory, Master of the Order of Preachers, appeared to her; and said that he was among the choirs of the Apostles and the Prophets.

III. How a third time she completed seven years of fasting.

IV. How Cardinal Jacques, having died at Rome, appeared on the fourth day to her caught up to heaven; and said that he was freed from Purgatory.

V. How for five years she foretold the day of her death.

VI. How in the same year on the Vigil of the Nativity of the Lord the said Master Jordan appeared to her; and said that her death was at hand.

VII. How in the fourth year before her death, the nation of the Tartars raging through many kingdoms, when it was feared that it would come through all Germany, she foretold that it would not come, but would go back.

VIII. How Lord Baldwin de Barbenchon, Prior of Oignies, was shown to her after death.

IX. How she contemplated the face of Christ, according to that verse of the Canticle; My soul melted as the beloved spoke, etc. They found me.

X. How, a Nun hearing, a voice was made over her, My delights are to be with the sons of men.

XI. How in the one year before her death, Christ required only three things of her.

XII. How at Paschal time before death, the Lord Christ appeared to her, with Mary His mother; and foretold to her her death.

XIII. How fifteen days before her death, there appeared to her the Blessed Virgin Mary and Blessed John the Baptist, and certain special friends of hers who had already died, foretelling to her her departure by death: and her most glorious answer, how she could know and discern among the Saints, who appeared in a multitude.

XIV. How she rebuked the Sisters who were in the infirmary; and foretold that after her death the Lord would chastise them: and how this was done.

XV. How a certain secular friend of hers had grievously sinned, and merited indulgence through her prayers; and that not only he, but all whom she loved, and who loved her, and had hope in her, the Lord would do good to them for her sake.

XVI. How she died, and what she did in death: and how she said that the heavenly host was in the cloister, when death entered.

XVII. How before death she opened her eyes and afterward did not close them again: and what some felt at her death: and what her face was like in death, and after death.

XVIII. How a certain Sister had a powerless hand; and through the touch of her body, where it was being washed, was healed.

XIX. How for many years she had foretold, that her little finger ought to suffice me after her death, who had been fond of her hand, and how miraculously this was fulfilled.

XX. How her body was buried.

XXI. How she appeared to a certain Nun, and how she said that she had passed over without Purgatory, and had freed many souls from Purgatory; and foretold that another would die, and that one died immediately after.

XXII. How she was seen, in the vision of a certain Nun, to have quelled the plague, which had come among the Nuns according to her prophecy.

XXIII. How the noble girl Beatrix was healed through her veil.

XXIV. How Lord Alardus the Chaplain was healed.

XXV. How Oda the Subprioress was healed.

XXV. How a certain Nun proved her virtue in lilies placed at her tomb.

XXVII. How Maria de Andena was suddenly healed from a most violent pain of the head through her veil.

XXVIII. How by her girdle a certain matron was freed, laboring dangerously in childbirth: and many others experienced this same thing.

These things thus premised, it pleases [us] to keep and follow the numbers of the Chapters in the text through the longer chapters, as we are accustomed, continuing; but to form the marginal synopsis more briefly according to our manner.

BOOK ONE

On the life of St. Lutgardis carried out in the Benedictine Order.

CHAPTER I.

The mind, called away from marriage and the love of men, is bound by divine love.

[1] The pious Virgin Lutgardis, from that once most famous city of Tongeren, of a noble mother, Born at Tongeren, and destined by her father for marriage, of a father who was a citizen, drew her origin. And so the father, most tenderly loving his daughter, and desiring her to prosper according to the pomp of the world; entrusted twenty marks of silver, while she was still a little infant, to a certain merchant, that from these in the meantime, while the little one grew, the wealth being multiplied, the dowry-goods of the daughter who was to marry might be increased in her dowries. But the girl, growing, and recognizing what was being done for her, insofar as such an age could wish, was eager for marriage. But the pious Lord, provident of things to come, who calls those things which are not as those which are, the father's counsel being frustrated, disposed otherwise concerning Lutgardis, who was to be betrothed to Him. from these she is turned away by her mother: For he who had taken the money allotted to Lutgardis to be increased through trade, frequently crossing into England, and being broken by various misfortunes, utterly squandered the twenty marks down to one mark. Nor yet would these things have recalled the intention of the father or the brazen shamelessness of the daughter from their purpose; had not the insistence of the pious mother overcome the daughter's mind, now by threats, now by blandishments. For the mother said to her daughter, and this she more often inculcated: moved inwardly by God, If you will marry Christ, I will prepare for you a most honorable monastery, wherever you wish. But if you choose a mortal man, you will have no other than a keeper of cows. By these therefore and words of this sort that excellent woman inclined both the husband's wish and the daughter's will to the purpose of a better condition. She was, however, in adornment of garments, as long as she lived with her father; but she fled unseemly jests, and amatory conversations, and utterly girlish trifles: and in a wondrous manner, although she did not yet know the Lord (nor had He then been revealed to her in any respect), yet in her heart, she enters the Order of St. Benedict: when she was alone, she felt inwardly something divine, I know not what. And truly from then the Lord was preparing for Himself in Lutgardis a most worthy temple of His habitation. She obtained therefore, with divine grace, the maternal right over the daughter: and, having attained the age of a little more than twelve years, in the monastery of St. Catharine, near the town of St. Trond in Hesbaye, among the Nuns of the Order of St. Benedict, she is devoted to the divine service.

[2] When a young man, abounding in riches and birth, courted her, she began at times to incline her mind gently by his words. And when the young man watched the time and place, he secretly by night tried to approach the house from the love of an insolent young man in which the virgin lay. Nor was there delay: when he had drawn near, seized by a sudden fear, he fled. The devil therefore strove in wondrous ways to incline the girl's mind to consent: but in vain, because the Almighty did not permit it. And when the simple girl was at one time sitting at conversation with the young man, Christ appeared to her in that very form of humanity in which He had once conversed among men; and drawing back the garment from His breast, with Christ appearing she is freed: with which He seemed covered, He showed the wound of His side, as if bloodied with fresh blood, saying: Seek no longer the blandishments of foolish love: here continually contemplate what you love, and why you love: here I promise you the delights of all purity to be obtained.

[3] and like St. Agnes, Lutgardis therefore, terrified by such an oracle, at once clung with the eyes of her heart to take in what she had seen: and like a dove meditating, in a window at the entrance of the solar light, she steadfastly watched the crystalline door of the ark of the typical body of Christ. Soon, the flower of her flesh being consumed, her face grew pale, as every lover does: and, illumined inwardly by the supernal splendor, she felt herself to have lost the darkness of all vanity. Whom when one day a certain noble and devout matron had seen, she pronounced by the spirit of prophecy what I append: You, she said, as I see, good Agnes, will be even truly a second Agnes. Nor was there delay: the young man came, she repels him with a word, and from the proposed discourse began to repeat his discourse. To whom she, as once the most blessed Agnes, with open mouth replied: Depart from me, food of death, nourishment of crime, since I have been forestalled by another lover.

[4] But also a certain other young man, a vigorous Knight in arms, nonetheless fell in love with Lutgardis, as afterward a certain knight: now more sincerely clinging to God. He, when for many years now he courted her resisting in mind; she at first decently, and afterward more seriously, turned away. And when she saw the Knight persistent in his folly, he was at that time repelled by her with reproachful words.

[5] The Knight therefore, grieving that he was despised, devises what he might do; escaping the force attempted by him and it happened that Lutgardis, summoned by messengers from her sister, took to the road: whom the young man, meeting her with a band of attendants, strove to carry off. Soon the girl, leaping from the horse on which she sat, wrenched herself violently from the young man's hands; and fleeing the whole night, through unknown parts of the woods, by angelic guidance, came in the morning to the house of her nurse. Whom when the nurse saw, suspecting rape, she said: Surely that young man did not violently oppress you this night? To whom she: No, she said. Nor is it a wonder if the nurse suspected this, as we said: For her servants, when they saw the previous evening the young man coming upon them with a strong hand, fled; and as is the custom in such cases, they cried out against the young man as a ravisher. And he, terrified by the voice of those crying out, ceased from the pursuit of the Virgin, and fled. On the occasion therefore of this outcry and flight, the innocent girl came under the suspicion of men.

[6] and foretelling a misfortune to his attendant, But in this event a certain thing was done, which by no means is to be passed over in silence. A certain attendant, when the Knight had dismounted from his horse at a distance to carry off [her], in holding the horse rendered the service of a servant. Him the Virgin Lutgardis, seeing the strength of the Knight frustrated, [yet] persistent in mind; not so much imprecating as foreseeing, cried out to: With the hand, she said, with which you hold the reins of the horse of the Knight who is harassing [me], you will soon do works by which you will be confounded temporally in this world.

shameful things by which in this world you may be temporarily confounded. See then, reader, how quickly this came truly to pass. For returning home, with that very hand by which he had held the bridle, he soon slew his own wife; and because of this, expelled from his country, he was deprived of all his goods.

[7] She casts off troublesome shame for Christ's sake. Not long after, returning from her sister to the town of St. Trudo, she came on horseback with her servants. When the crowd of people had gathered around her rather curiously, she there began to be wearied by an immense weight of bashfulness, and at once she recalled Christ to mind; and bravely commanding her spirit, she soon, casting her hand upon it, drew the veil away from her face. Speaking thus to Christ: For us, O most innocent of all Lords; for us, O most beautiful, You were stripped of Your garments, bound to the column, and in mockery of the raging people clothed in a purple cloak; and crowned with a crown of thorns, You hung naked on the gibbet: finding therefore nothing to repay, I offer You this shame, despised for Your sake. Wondrous thing! Scarcely had she completed her words; and at the unveiling of her face the confused multitude of people departed. She herself, returning to the monastery, advancing from that day onward and thereafter in the more excellent goods of the Lord, exulted. b [Indeed to brother Bernard, a Friar of the Order of Preachers, and Penitentiary of the Lord c Pope—not, to be sure, as to me, since to a worthier spirit and one more fit to grasp it, for which she had wished to be confounded. she revealed wholly all the secrets of her heart. Yet I believe that she told this to me, though less worthy, no less wholly: and I myself consent that long before she had asked the Lord that He would sometime send her a confusion in which she might presentially imitate the confusion of the Lord's Passion.]

[8] Hence therefore, withdrawn from almost all speech and consolation of men, fearing for the perseverance of her fervor, she yearned wholly for heavenly things. And when certain rivals carped at her stricter life, which they could not imitate, they said: Let her be for now, while the fervor is in its course: afterward you will see, when she has grown lukewarm, her returning with a blush to those things which she now foolishly despises. When Lutgard heard this, she began humbly to be afraid concerning herself; and to dread with groaning whether perhaps the things would come to pass which those more advanced in age said about her. To her the Blessed Virgin Mary, appearing with the countenance of one congratulating her, said: No, dearest daughter, it will not be as you fear; nor be you afraid of a relapse: with my solicitude protecting you, you will be made firm unto salvation, nor will the act or grace of virtue be diminished in you; but from day to day it will always be heaped up for you unto a crown. A most splendid and ineffably embraceable promise indeed. Nevertheless, while she was being sweetly joined to the Lord in prayer or contemplation, and some pressing business called her away, she is made secure through the Mother of God, she would speak to the Lord, as one familiarly speaking to a friend, with great simplicity and purity of heart, saying: Lord Jesus, wait for me here: I shall soon return to You, the business being quickly dispatched. O wondrous simplicity of one beguiling! O wondrous clemency of the Redeemer toward her! For she found Him ready for her in every place of His dominion, ready in every business.

[9] About the same time the most blessed virgin Catherine, and she is strengthened by St. Catherine, Virgin and Martyr, the Protectress and Patroness of that very monastery, appeared, in the greatest glory of brightness, to her as she likewise wept and prayed. When she most timidly besought her to entreat the Lord for her, the Blessed Catherine answered and said: Trust, daughter, for the Almighty will always increase grace in you, until through the highest summit of life you obtain the merit most foremost among the Virgins. This, as well as very many other things, she herself related to me before her death, bound to me by an oath. But that the word of truth might stand in the mouth of two witnesses, the Blessed Catherine appeared to a certain most blessed woman, saying: Seek Lutgard as your intercessor and mother. who indicates to another that she will be her equal in glory. She will obtain from the Almighty Lord a merit equal to mine in heaven, and a place. See therefore, O you Nuns of Aywières, of how great merit was the woman who dwelt among you for forty years: discern how much you have profited through her: examine more diligently whether you have all paid her worthy reverence. For I am certain that for those who honor her merit she will obtain it, and for the negligent, if they have grieved, pardon.

[10] That therefore greater things than these concerning her may equally be believed and proven, she is seen by the whole convent suspended in the air, I shall relate to many a most glorious miracle and offering. On the holy day of Pentecost, when "Come, Creator Spirit" was being sung in the choir by the Nuns, it was most manifestly seen by those who were in the choir that Lutgard was raised up in the air two cubits from the ground. Nor is it a wonder if the body was suspended from the earth toward heaven, whose soul, already made more sublime than the world, possessed heaven according to the promise of the Lord; "Every place," He says, "which the sole of your foot shall tread upon shall be yours." Josh. 1:3 With the foot of affection she trod heaven, placeless and without space, which therefore, trodden by a heavenly mind, she also took up by the gesture of the body according to her capacity. Happy therefore is Lutgard through so great a miracle, whose body and soul exulted in the living God.

[11] And this too was a most solemn miracle, which I add. More perfectly, according to what had been promised her by the Mother of the Lord, by night she is illumined from heaven. from day to day she gave herself to the Lord as a free holocaust, afflicting her body with fasts, and not relaxing her spirit from prayer. But lest in the hearts of the Sisters, who seemed somewhat to envy her, any scruple of suspicion should remain, Christ adorned His bride with a miracle of this kind. As Lutgard therefore was frequently continuing her vigils, it happened one night that over her a radiance of light, brighter than the splendor of the sun, was seen by the Nuns for a great space of the night. This light, poured within, increased the grace of the spiritual life not only in her, but also in those who saw it.

[12] By the spirit of piety she was wondrously moved over the sick and weak, so much so that with the afflicted she herself was the more tormented in spirit. Concerning the grace of healings given her: God therefore gave her so universally the grace of healings that if there were a blemish in the eye, or some other ill in the hand, foot, or other members, at the touch of her saliva or hand they were straightway healed. And when she was overwhelmed by this grace with a multitude of people, who often hindered her in prayer, she said to the Lord: What to me, Lord, is this grace, by which I am frequently hindered from being free for You? Take it from me, yet in such a way that the grace be changed for me into something better. And the Lord: What do you wish, she understands the Psalter, He said, that be given you in place of this grace? And she said: I wish that, for greater devotion, I may understand the Psalter, through which I pray. And so it was done. For, as was proven at that time, she understood the Psalter the more clearly, the more she had been illumined by a radiant light. After this, when she found that she did not yet profit in this grace as much as she had thought (for the reverence of a veiled mystery is the mother of devotion, and a thing concealed is sought more eagerly, and a hidden thing is beheld more venerably), she said to the Lord: What is it to me, an ignorant and rustic and lay d Nun, to know the secrets of Scripture? To her the Lord: What do you wish? I wish, she said, and that her heart be exchanged with the heart of Christ. [your heart. And the Lord, Nay, rather I wish your heart too. To which she: So be it, Lord: but yet in such a way,] that You temper the love of Your heart to my heart, and that I may possess my heart in You, now secure for all time by Your protection. [There was made from then a communication of hearts, or rather a union of the uncreated and the created spirit through the excellence of grace, and this is what the Apostle says: "He who cleaves to God is made one spirit."] Attend, Reader, I am about to tell wondrous things: From that day, therefore, just as a nurse guards a little infant in the cradle with a fan, lest the boldness of flies disturb it, so Christ clung at the door of her heart for its protection: so that neither temptation of the flesh, nor even a base thought, disturbed her mind for the space of a moment. What wonder? Cor. 6:17 What new thing? He is the same One who said of old: "He who touches you, touches the apple of My eye." We are wont to guard our eyes more than the other members. Zech. 2:8 What new thing therefore, if Christ guarded the pious soul of Lutgard, which He compared to the apple of His eye? I have said less than I ought. Any faithful soul is worthier than the bodily eye of Christ, whose eye dimmed in dying, and who offered His whole body for the soul as a sacrifice of redemption.

[13] About the same time, when she was still most tender in body and age, on a certain night around the time of Matins, a sweat so violent and natural seized her. bidden to rise for Matins, When therefore she had resolved in her heart to rest from Matins, that afterward she might be stronger in the service of God (since indeed she judged that sweat to be useful for her body), suddenly a voice of this kind called out to her: Rise quickly: why do you lie? You ought now to do penance for sinners, who lie in their own filth, not to indulge in sweat. But she, terrified at a voice of this kind, quickly rose; and, Matins having already begun, hastened to the church. And without delay. At the very door of the church Christ, fixed to the cross and bloodied, met her: and lowering His arm fixed to the cross, He embraced her as she came, and applied her mouth to the wound of His right side. There she drank in so much sweetness, she kisses the wound of Christ's side, that ever after she was stronger and more eager in the service of God. Those who proved these things at that time and long after, she herself revealing them, used to report that the saliva of her mouth tasted more sweetly than all the sweetness of honey. What wonder? "Your lips, O Bride, are a dripping honeycomb"; and the honey of the divinity, and the milk of the humanity of Christ, even with the tongue silent, her inner heart was ruminating. e

ANNOTATIONS OF D. P.

it will be evident, that at his suggestion various things were added to this Life, since the author, about to revise it, had given it to him to be read over again.

Thus below, in book 2, num. 8 and 10, it is said that she understood certain words of Scripture, divinely heard, only when interpreted by another, like a lay Nun. Do not therefore here understand "lay" in the way that now everywhere the Lay Sisters, the Conversae, are called, who are taken on for domestic services, as they are distinguished from those assigned to the Choir and veiled: but as "lay" is opposed to "lettered": which is also held more clearly in num. 16, where it is said that Lutgard understood neither the Psalms nor anything of the Scriptures: and again in chap. 20, she is introduced indicating to the lettered Nuns with what words of Scripture the Lord had made use of toward her, and requesting an explanation of these same words; and finally in book 3, chap. 20, it is clear that the lettered women, such as Sibyl was, the author of the Epitaph, were most learned in the Latin tongue and versed in the reading of good Authors.

CHAPTER II.

Various ecstasies and divine visions. The passage from the Benedictine to the Cistercian Order.

[14] The afflicted woman is relieved by the sight of the Crucified. When she was burdened by some discomfort of heart or body, she would stand before the image of the Crucifix: and when she had for a long time gazed upon the image with fixed eyes, with eyes closed and her limbs sinking to the ground, after the manner of Daniel the man of desires, she could not stand upon her feet; but, languishing utterly, she was carried away in spirit, and beheld Christ with the bloodied wound of His side; and thence she sucked so great a sweetness with the applied mouth of her heart, that she could in no way at all be troubled. Whence sometimes it happened that, laboring with a most acute fever, immediately when on the appointed day the crisis had passed, rising from her bed, without any difficulty, she would enter the convent and the choir to sing.

[15] She is illumined by St. John the Evangelist in the figure of an eagle; Then, at the recollection of that most acute vision of the eagle, namely of John the Evangelist, who drank the streams of the Gospel from the very sacred fountain of the Lord's breast, there appeared to her in spirit an eagle, shining with so great a brilliance of feathers that the whole world could have been illumined by the rays of that brightness. Stupefied therefore at the vision of it with too great an admiration, beyond what can be told, she awaited that the Lord, according to the capacity of her weak sight, should temper the glory of so great a beholding. And so it was done. Having therefore contemplated the manner of the vision more moderately, she saw that the eagle laid its beak upon her mouth, and filled her soul with the flashing of so ineffable a light, that, according to what is possible for the living (since it was said to Moses, "Man shall not see Me and live"), no secrets of the divinity were hidden from her. Ex. 33:20 For she drank the more abundantly from the torrent of pleasure in the house, for the knowing of heavenly things, the more magnificently the eagle found the vessel of her heart, stretched out with desire. In this, moreover, according to my conscience, as I hope, I shall bear no erroneous testimony about her; that although she herself in common speech seemed and was somewhat rude and most simple, yet I never found from the mouth of anyone words so sincere, so most ardent, so cut according to the spirit of truth, in the secrets of spiritual conference; so much so that I very often reckoned myself utterly rude and dull to the understanding of her words. Still mindful of the place and time, I profess that I was sometimes so astounded at the subtlety of her words, that if that sweet and ineffable admiration had held me long, it would have rendered me either truly out of my mind, or utterly extinct. But this was not at this time, of which I write at present, but before her death, about b sixteen years.

[16] There is a town in Hasbania which is called c Los; she once seemed to herself to drip oil from her fingers. near the church of this town a certain Recluse d, by the merit of her life most familiar to the pious Lutgard, served the Lord. With her she stayed fifteen days; and it happened that after the contemplation of prayer, she was filled with so great a sweetness of spirit, that, having called the Recluse, she showed the fingers of her hand, and, pressing them, said: Behold, sister, how the Almighty deals with me; for from superabundant grace, I am filled within, even my fingers outwardly, to signify the grace, now drip as it were with oil. And saying these things, as if drunk—and truly drunk—with a wondrous gesture and dancing, she was carried through the recluse's cell. What wonder? For, brought by the bridegroom into the wine-cellar, she had been invited; and after, as a dear one, she ate—that is, with labor she eats the bread of penance; and, as a dearer one, she drank an abundance of graces; at last, as a most dear one, she was made drunk; and therefore, exceeding measure, she rejoiced ineffably with the spirit of those who are out of their senses.

[17] Then she began to pant, that by the ministry of consecration through the hands of a Bishop she might be more perfectly joined to the one husband Christ the Lord; to be blessed by the Bishop along with others, and occasion was given that the Lord e Huard, Bishop of Liège, should appoint to consecrate very many Nuns gathered together. Lutgard too was therefore brought to the assembly of Virgins to be consecrated: and when the said Prelate, in sign of a golden crown, was binding upon their heads a wreath made of bands, and had come in order to Lutgard, it was most manifestly seen by a certain holy and simple man who stood by, that the Bishop placed a very great golden crown upon Lutgard's head, she is seen to receive a golden crown in place of the linen fillet, and honored her singularly above the others. Thinking that this was seen by all, he asked the priest standing by: why the Bishop placed a golden crown upon Lady Lutgard alone. The priest, ignorant of the matter, mocked him, saying: Have you your eyes turned around, that you call golden the crown which all see to be linen? The blessed man therefore was silent and laughed, and noted in Lutgard a singular merit. But here too the truth had two witnesses, since a certain one of the consecrated Nuns saw this same thing. Wonders succeed wonders.

[18] She perfectly imitates the virtues of Christ: Henceforth, cleaving more perfectly to her Bridegroom, she followed the Lamb wherever He went: If we preach the humble way of Christ; you may see Lutgard following so humble, whom pride never provoked. If I behold the way of poverty; you may understand Lutgard so poor that, though laboring daily with her hands, she did not think about the nourishment of daily bread. If I regard the way of Christ in mercy and piety; I have seen nothing more merciful than Lutgard in this life. If I proclaim the way of Christ in tribulation; think of the wearying of Lutgard in fasts and afflictions, which it will be proven that she led above all the men and women of our age throughout her whole life. If we venerate the way of Christ unto glory; let us incomparably extol Lutgard, placed by her conversation in the heavens, as it may be seen at present. In all these things most perfectly did Peter, in these also did Mary Magdalene, follow the Lamb; yet not wherever He went. But Lutgard, having virgin cohorts as her followers, followed the Lamb by that way of incorruption by which He went before.

[19] [singing a verse about the Blessed Mary, she saw Christ in the appearance of a lamb:] But since we have said that Lutgard followed the Lamb in all things, you may see what the Lamb repaid. For it is fitting that the bridegroom repay his bride her turn. But see in what manner He repaid it. In the monastery of St. Catherine, every Friday at the evening of the following Saturday, deservedly assigned to the veneration of the most blessed Virgin Mary, when the Versicle over the Responsory f was sung (the versicle of which Lutgard alone was wont to sing, on account of the grace of her devotion), it seemed to her, meanwhile as she sang, that Christ in the appearance of a Lamb placed Himself upon her breast in such a manner, that He laid one foot upon her right shoulder, the other upon her left, and put His mouth upon her mouth; and thus by sucking drew from her breast the sweetness of a wondrous melody. Nor could anyone doubt in this singing that a divine miracle was present, since in that one Versicle alone the voice was heard infinitely more pleasing than usual. Whence also the hearts of the hearers were meanwhile wondrously moved to devotion.

[20] Moreover, since it was not fitting that so great a lamp should lie hidden under a bushel, she is made Prioress: it was placed upon a candlestick; that the splendor of her grace might appear to all. She was therefore elected and granted, by the unanimous consent of all, as Superior, that is, Prioress of the handmaids of God in the monastery of St. Catherine: for they were not accustomed to have an Abbess in that monastery. But because she reckoned a most grievous injury done to her in this, from then on she arranged to change her place and purpose. g

[21] Meanwhile it happened that the Abbot h of St. Trudo, namely the spiritual Father of the monastery of St. Catherine itself, coming from the general Lateran i Council, was received by the Nuns with a procession. [having suffered violence in the Abbot's kiss, she is preserved by the interposed hand of Christ:] Having made his prayer in the Church, he summoned the whole convent to the Chapter, and, as among simple folk is the custom less cautiously, gave a kiss to each one. And when it had come to the Prioress Lutgard, that she should give the Abbot a kiss, she steadfastly refused. But, with all in jest, held by the hands, and suffering violence, she endured it. But Jesus of supreme benignity so placed the hand of His mercy between them, that she felt not even the contagion of a first motion in the kiss of the man. Let it blush, alas! the devotion of our time, criminal rather than blind, in which men, having the appearance of piety, think they kiss women and virgins with impunity and without offense to divine grace and law. They take the defense of their error from the words of the most blessed Apostle Paul, where, writing to the Corinthians, he says: "Salute one another with a holy kiss." This indeed ought not to be understood so that men kiss women; but, according to Augustine, that men kiss men, and women kiss women, in the kiss of holy peace: otherwise the most circumspect preacher of chastity would have given a most manifest occasion of unchastity: whence elsewhere he said: "Abstain yourselves from all evil appearance." 2 Cor. 13 Or is it not an evil appearance, where through the contact of bodies follows the corruption of souls: and would that only of souls! or is it not also of bodies! I am certain that, if it be brought into custom, it will be of bodies too. For if by Augustine, the greatest Doctor of all, in the Rule of Canons, a fixed eye is forbidden, and on account of this someone is commanded to be cast out from the monastic society, and he gives an example of avoiding such things, because by such a thing anyone, even removed from a woman, k is corrupted in mind; what penalty would he have decreed against those who conceive an incitement to baseness through mere kisses of women, where indeed there is contact of bodies? 1 Thess. 5 In the book on the nature of things Pliny says: That the claucius l fish bites the baited hooks from the opposite side: in which indeed are signified those who avoid the very work of fornication as a hook, but catch the softness of delight as a bait: and while, as lovers of chastity, they despise the baseness of adultery; yet through kisses and unlawful fondlings they slip into that which is graver

Whence concerning such persons Paul said: "God gave them up to a reprobate sense, that they should do those things which are not fitting." I judge therefore, with truthful reason, that such persons are baser than fornicators, and through this blasphemers against the Holy Spirit; who against chastity, being enemies of chastity, feign themselves lovers of chastity. You therefore, O Virgin, bride indeed of Christ, or any lover of chastity, flee such persons with Lutgard: abhor the wickedness. Rom. 1:28 If anyone shall wish to solicit you as if to a holy kiss; if anyone shall attempt to approach with his hand to your bosom, to your breasts, or to the other parts, return spittle for a kiss, and a fist to meet the one fondling you; nor in this defer to a Cleric or to any person: because it is lawful to defend the chastity of the mind even with a blow, just as the life of the body. Such a one, I say, do not consider a servant of Christ, but of Satan; not spiritual, but animal; not a follower of modesty, but truly a most vile m glutton.

[22] Now the illustrious Lutgard was a Nun in the monastery of St. Catherine for almost twelve years: and there was at that time Master n John of Liro of the diocese of Liège, a man indeed foremost in all sanctity: by the admonition of John of Liro, who, knowing the most perfect purpose of that blessed woman, admonished her that she should pass over to Aywières, a convent of the Cistercian Order, leaving behind her place and Prelacy. And when she objected to the diversity of language among the French Nuns there; and would have preferred to enter the monastery of the same Order in o Herkenrode, where the Teutonic tongue was used, the Lord said to her: I wish that you go finally to the place of Aywières, and unless you do so I shall forsake you. But also a certain most blessed virgin, named p Christina, whom the venerable Jacobus mentions in the Life of the blessed Mary of Oignies, by heavenly instinct, and by the exhortation of the wondrous Blessed Christina, whose Life also we ourselves have described; compelled in spirit divinely, came to her, bursting forth into these words: Why do you delay, she said, to fulfill those things which are commanded you by divine instinct? When the pious Lutgard objected to her with that diversity of language which we mentioned, reasonably enough as regards man; Christina, straightway inspired, answered: I would rather be in Hell with God than in heaven with the Angels without God. Luke 23:45 Truly she answered well and worthily. For wherever Christ is, there also is paradise: and this because the Truth could not lie, who said to the thief on the cross: "This day you shall be with Me in Paradise." For it is established that on that day the soul of Christ in no way ascended into the empyreal Paradise, or the terrestrial; but with the Divinity descended into hell, and with Him the soul of the thief, whom He foretold would be with Him; and through this, wherever He was, by necessary argument, by place from cause, He proved Paradise to be. For the presence of Christ renders a place, however hateful, supremely delightful and more notably to be desired … For granted that Hell cannot simply be equated with Paradise, she passes to Aywières of the Cistercian Order, yet the response was to be approved; since it is more to be chosen to be in any place whatever with the supreme and uncreated good, than to be in a place however good, whether terrestrial or empyreal Paradise, with any created good whatever. Worthily therefore, confirmed by the words of Christina, the pious Lutgard offers herself ready for all things: nor indeed was it difficult to persuade Lutgard of anything in which the holiness of a more perfect life might be seen. Obeying therefore the admonitions of the said Master, she passed with all tranquility of mind to the monastery of the Cistercian Order, which is called Aywières, in the land of the Duke of Brabant. Hearing this, the Nuns of St. Catherine grieved inconsolably: but Lutgard, learning of their grief, nevertheless useful to her former monastery. had compassion on the troubled. And when she besought the Lord for their peace, the glorious Virgin Mary appeared to her, the sweetest consoler; and congratulated her that she had entered a House and Order specially dedicated to herself: but the House, for which she herself would pray, she would promote both spiritually and temporally by her prayers: which to this very day, without any doubt, we see in that very House of St. Catherine, since, while almost everywhere the discipline of that Order grows lukewarm, that monastery flourishes in virtue more now than ever before, and has been more copiously increased in temporal things. I counsel you, moreover, O college of nuns of St. Catherine, that you still entreat the mother on your behalf, that what she once did here on earth, the same she may do in the heavens.

Let this first book concerning those things which the pious Lutgard did in the Order of St. Benedict here take its end: that to the second book we may proceed in a more expeditious order.

ANNOTATIONS OF D. P.

p The Life of St. Christina the Astonishing will be given on July 24. Jacobus de Vitriaco mentions her, but with name suppressed, in the Prologue to the Life of the Blessed Mary of Oignies, below at the day of June 23: to which Life is also referred the Life of Jacobus himself, about the year 1226, as was said above.

BOOK II.

Life accomplished in the Cistercian Order.

CHAPTER I.

Souls in purgatory helped by a twice-seven-year fast. Those vexed by demons set free.

[1] Therefore, when the virtue of the pious Lutgard was growing famous everywhere, Fearing to be elected Abbess, new monasteries began to be constructed in the French parts, and there began in manifold ways a panting after her election, though she had learned but little of the French. When the pious Lutgard learned this, she greatly shuddered; and, turning to the glorious virgin Mary, she besought her with tears that she would avert this: to whom the blessed Mother, appearing, said: In no way be afraid in this matter: for I will oppose the shield of my protection. And see, Reader, in what manner this was averted, and you will see how pure was the truth of her who answered. she could not learn the French idiom. She had scarcely reached the age of twenty-four years, when

she entered Aywières; and yet such was she, that in the forty years during which she afterward lived among her French companions, she could scarcely learn so much of the French speech as to ask for bread in the right way in French, when she was hungry. When this became openly known to all, the beloved fawn of Christ was permitted to repose in the sleep of contemplation; nor did anyone rouse her, nor make her awaken to the pastoral care, until she herself willed; nor did it ever happen that she willed this.

[2] With the most grievous pestilence of the Albigensian heretics threatening, the most blessed Virgin Mary appeared to her with a mournful countenance, and a face blackened. To her in the vision Lutgard, compassionate, on account of the Albigensian heresy, by the admonition of the Mother of God, with a great roaring of heart and voice asked her: What have you, she said, O most pious Lady, that your face, full of all graces, should be so squalid with pallor? And the blessed Virgin: Behold, she said, by heretics and evil Christians my Son is again crucified, again spat upon. You therefore take up lamentation, and fast for seven continuous years, that the wrath of my Son may be quieted, which generally threatens the world. Henceforth therefore for seven continuous years Lutgard fasted on bread and beer alone. she fasts for 7 years on bread and beer: And see the greatness of the miracle. Obedience often forced her to take some bit of pottage into her mouth: but nothing of these prevailed to pass her throat to the size of a bean. And although she herself labored continually with a certain wondrous and incredible abstinence; yet she rejoiced when the Convent fared better in food; so much so that for a month she would say she fared better whenever the convent had once an abundance of pittance. For she knew that what divine piety had conferred upon her by a singular gift for the remedy of many could not be common to all in the exhibition of grace: and this against those who feign labor in the precept, and establish for all in common to be observed what they themselves, either with grace assisting or with nature helping, could observe without trouble. [She herself, moreover, the more she continued the fasts, the more robust she was in body and heart.]

[3] When Master Jacobus de Vitriaco, as he himself relates in the * book of the Life of the Blessed Mary of Oignies, Jacobus de Vitriaco had received the grace of preaching through the prayers of that venerable woman; it happened that he loved a certain religious woman languishing in bed, not with a base love, but too humanly. Therefore, intent assiduously on her consolation, he sluggishly omitted the office of preaching. The pious Lutgard, therefore, feeling in spirit the bond of his heart and the wiles of the devil, set about to beseech the Lord for him with many tears. And when she made no progress in praying, and reproached the Lord over this as cruel; the Lord answered: To your prayers, He said, the man for whom you ask strives in the contrary direction: Saying this, the Lord deferred to fulfill what was asked. She frees him from an excessive affection toward a certain sick woman. When the pious Lutgard saw this, acting more impatiently, she cried out to the Lord with great voices: What is it, she said, that You do, most benign and most just Lord? either separate me from You, or free the man for whom I ask, even unwilling. Wondrous thing! No delay whatever intervened between the request and the deed, but, wholly and straightway freed, he blessed his Liberator and His handmaid; and with opened eyes he perceived after his liberation the danger which before, blinded by human love, he could not see. Nor did much time pass after this, when the same venerable Jacobus was elected to the Bishopric of Acre b in the parts beyond the sea.

[4] About the same time a certain Simon, a noble man born of Teutonia, and most excellently instructed in letters, entering the Cistercian Order, was afterward made Abbot of Foigny c: who, although fervent in desire, She obtains the soul of the Abbot yet, inveighing with a bitter zeal against his subjects, was prevented by an untimely death. He, when he had held the pious Lutgard most dear for the holiness of her life, by his death gravely forsook her, troubled. For him, soon making afflictions and fasts, she asked the Lord that He would free the soul of the deceased. And when she insisted much with prayers, the Lord answered her: Be consoled, for on account of your grace I will do well to him, by importunate prayers for whom you pray. But she, insisting more importunately, received a second answer, that the man ought soon to be freed: And she; [Whatever consolation You wish to give me, bestow it on that soul in purgatory. And she added:] In no way, O Lord, will I cease from weeping, nor will I ever be consoled by Your promises, unless I see him freed for whom I ask. Nor did the Lord suffer her to be troubled further, but the Lord appeared to her, and straightway brought with Him the soul freed from purgatory in His presence, saying: Be consoled, beloved: for behold the soul for whom you ask. And without delay: freeing him from purgatory. the pious Lutgard, prostrate on her face, blessed the Lord over the liberation of the soul. The soul, moreover, exulting and praising, gave thanks to the pious Lutgard; and passing to better things, penetrated the heights in the great glory of the heavens. This same Simon afterward appeared frequently to the pious Lutgard; and among other things told her that he would have spent forty years in purgatory, had not her prayer aided him with the merciful Lord.

[5] With the spirit of the fear of the Lord, too, the pious Lutgard was humbly marked, she is made secure that she pleases God. she feared the Lord over herself as swelling waves, and dreaded all her works, as if done in doubt. Long therefore wailing daily she prayed the Lord that He would render her certain even in the present. Established more at length in this desire, on a certain day she heard a voice most manifestly made to her: Be now secure, dearest, for your life pleases the Lord. For the hour, therefore, the pious Lutgard, exulting, began nonetheless to be afraid as before. But again a voice made to her divinely said: Do you wish to have Lady Mary of d Roavia as a witness of your security? And she: No, she said, she is too timid, and would now for a long time anxiously defer to reveal to me what she knew. To her the divine voice: Meanwhile, it said, rest, dearest: soon you will be made manifestly and perfectly secure. Thence scarcely the space of four days passed, when behold a notable man, unknown to all, entered the parlor where the Nuns sat. Having therefore briefly greeted all, he asked that the pious Lutgard be summoned quickly. When she came, he greeted her; and, with all hearing, said: This the Almighty commands you: live now secure for the rest; for the Lord is well pleased in you. Saying this, the youth disappeared without delay; nor did it remain further to ask whence he had come, or who he was. [Not long after, a certain man of most holy life, receiving a divine revelation, came to Aywières, and strengthened her in the aforesaid consolations.]

[6] Hence therefore, desiring with a more fervent spirit to migrate through the passing of death to eternal things, daily her eye dripped to the Lord: and behold the Lord, hastening to mitigate her clamors, appeared to her, and with the wounds of His hands, feet, and side laid open, said: Behold, contemplate, dearest, by the sight of Christ's wounds she is taught to pray for sinners that My wounds cry out to you; lest I have shed My blood in vain, lest I have endured death in vain. Seeing and hearing this, the pious Lutgard, wondrously terrified, with fear and horror asked what was the cry of the wounds of Christ? and it was answered her: By your labor and weeping you will mitigate the kindled wrath of the Father, that He may not destroy sinners unto death, but that through the mercy of God they may be converted and live.

[7] About this same time the Lord Pope Innocent the third, after the celebrated Lateran Council, migrated from this life e: nor did delay intervene after his death, when the Pope himself appeared visibly to the pious Lutgard. She, moreover, when she saw him appearing, surrounded by a very great flame; to Pope Innocent III appearing to her from purgatory asked who he was thus: And he: I am, he said, Pope Innocent. And she with a groan; What is it, she said, that you, the Father of us all, are tortured with so great a torment? To her he: There are, he said, three causes for which I am thus tortured: by these, moreover, I was most worthy to be handed over to eternal torment: but through the intercession of the most pious Virgin Mary, to whom I built a monastery, I repented at the end, and escaped eternal death. Yet I shall be tortured with most atrocious pains until the day of the final judgment. But this very thing, that I have been able to come to you to ask for suffrages, the Mother of mercy obtained for me from her Son. When he had said these things, he suddenly disappeared. Lutgard, moreover, indicated to the Sisters the death and the need of the deceased, that they might succor him. She herself, moreover, having compassion in mind on so great a sin, she succors him, and asks that he be succored, afflicted herself with a wondrous punishment for him who appeared. Note, moreover, Reader, that from the revelation of the pious Lutgard we have received those three causes; but on account of the reverence of so great a Pontiff we pass them over in silence.

[8] A vision similar in kind, but in sin much dissimilar, appeared to Lutgard about the same time. The aforesaid venerable John of Liro, living, had entered into a pact with Lutgard, that whichever of them first departed from the world should appear after death to the survivor. Therefore that same John, going to the Roman Curia for the affairs of religious women, she sees John of Liro in glory after death, who were troubled throughout Brabant by rivals; coming near the mountains of the Alps, died. And without delay, at the moment of his death, he appeared visibly to Lutgard, standing in the precinct of the cloister. Believing him therefore to be living, she beckoned with her hand that he should enter the parlor: where, namely, she might speak according to the Order. To her he: I, he said, am dead and have passed from this world: and that I might fulfill the truth of God, which by pact had been agreed between us, I have appeared to you, deceased. And soon she, prostrate on the ground, asked: What, moreover, does the threefold garment signify, with which, possessing so great glory, you are clothed? And he: The garment, he said, and she understands what his threefold garment designates, white as snow, signifies the innocence of my virgin flesh, which I kept undefiled from the womb: the ruddy one truly demonstrates aptly the labors and endurances by which I was brought to death, which for a long time I sustained for justice and truth: the blue one, with which I am clothed on the surface, signifies the perfection of the spiritual life. Saying these things, he vanished from the eyes of her who wondered. She, moreover, indicated both the vision and the death of the said Master to his carnal sister and to the other nuns. Nevertheless, when the pious Lutgard herself bewailed the said venerable man, though given to God, as taken from her; and she is forbidden to weep for him. in the very mourning the Lord answered her through these words: Why do you weep, Lutgard? and wherefore is your heart afflicted? Am I not better to you than f ten sons? When she, therefore, like a lay Nun, since she did not understand, had heard it interpreted, she no longer mourned the deceased;

but in his death blessed the Lord in all things.

[9] Moreover, when the aforesaid seven years were completed, during which she fasted on bread and beer, She is bidden to fast for another 7 years on bread and herbs it was again revealed to her that she should fast universally for sinners. This she gratefully accepted; and she fasted another seven years, yet on bread and herbs. The Lord, moreover, added a vision, and, rapt in spirit, she saw the Prince of our salvation, Jesus, with His wounds as if fresh and red, standing before the face of the Father, and supplicating the Father for sinners. He, turning to Lutgard, said: Do you see how I offer Myself wholly to the Father for My sinners? So also I wish that you offer yourself wholly to Me for My sinners, and avert the zeal kindled against them unto vengeance. This same thing the Lord Jesus said to her almost daily in the sacrifice of the Mass: for sinners. But that the prayers and fasts and labors of Blessed Lutgard had great virtue, that most blessed Mary of Oignies bore witness in death; where, veiling and binding her own head with Lutgard's veil, touched by the spirit of prophecy, she foretold: Under heaven, she said, the world has none more faithful than Lady Lutgard, and more efficacious in prayers for freeing souls from Purgatory, and as an intercessor for sinners. Spiritual miracles she now works in her life; corporal ones she will effect after death. How true these things are, many have experienced both in her life and after death; as the present writing will afterward testify, she does not cease to work.

[10] When a certain most religious Nun was being deceived by the devil in revelations, as if made to her by God, the pious Lutgard praying to the Lord for her, the Lord answered: Enlighten those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death. And when she did not understand these words of the Lord, being a laywoman; she asked them of a certain Nun, and received them understood. Therefore, as she more insistently supplicated the Lord, the demon appeared to her, saying; she recognizes the nun deceived by the demon, I am the lying spirit who deceives that Nun. To him she said: Go to Brother Simon, dwelling in the monastery of Aulne; and say the same to him, that I may have a witness of the truth. And without delay, the devil obeyed; and Brother g Simon came to Aywières. Now this same Simon was a man of God full of the Spirit; and (as his book of life testifies), to whom the Lord revealed very many things. and she learns of it together with Blessed Simon Agreeing therefore in one, according to the revelation of the Lord, the pious Lutgard and Brother Simon straightway summoned h the Nun. And without delay the hands and limbs of the Nun were contracted with a most strong rigidity, and her mouth was closed so strongly that it could not at all be opened with a knife. Those who saw, therefore, were troubled with a horrible fear; and, with knees bent in prayer, they besought the merciful Lord for so great a sin. What then happened? In no way was it lawful that the inexorable Lord be found amid the prayers of so great ones. Soon therefore, as the suppliants rose from the prayer of God, and she frees her, the Nun's limbs returned to their former state; and she opened her mouth, and, taking food, was strengthened; and from that day onward freed from the spirit of deception. With such great prerogatives of life-merits, moreover, she was afterward gifted, as I myself saw, that she could be called not only enlightened in darkness; but might also enlighten many others, existing in darkness, by the examples of her morals.

[11] I myself saw a Nun of the Cistercian Order who, vexed for many years by a demon, she frees another wearied by an incubus, was brought to her; and by the greatest insistence of her prayers was freed. I saw also another who, wondrously wearied for very many years by a demon-incubus, was rescued and cleansed through her prayers: now it was, as she herself most frequently testified to me, that most wicked demon, who had vexed her and so defiled her body with so great filthiness, that unless it had been repressed by the greatest violence of prayers, she would more often have offered herself to public prostitution. Freed, moreover, through the prayers of Lady Lutgard, she passed her life in such great peace, as if the goad of demoniac vexation had never agitated her. Wondrous indeed, and very wondrous, is the permission of the Savior and Redeemer; that Satan receives power over a clean body, and this a virgin body: which power is not only exercised unto the defilement of the flesh, but moreover can scarcely come about without proceeding to the corruption of the mind, and the detriment of the soul. What is cleaner than the bride of Christ? what cleaner than a Virgin, who is holy in body and spirit? and yet we have perceived that these things happen in such a one. What then remains but to exclaim with the Apostle: O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how incomprehensible are His judgments, and His ways unsearchable! Yet we believe that by the hidden and just judgment of God, women are led to this defilement, through the unlawful excess of temptation: how otherwise, however, we do not see.

[12] A certain Yolendis, a black Nun, in a monastery upon the Sambre, given to the allurements of the world, hastened to the monastery of Aywières at the exhortation of the pious woman; she was, moreover, noble by birth, and a woman of most delicate body. she brought another to a pious life, For her the pious Lutgard with wondrous insistence of prayers besought the Lord that He would forgive her sins, and infuse the grace of devotion. Nor could Christ deny what she asked: but He brought the woman to the state of holy conversation. When therefore she there served the Lord for several years, she knew of her death by the Lord's revealing it: and she came to her pious mother Lady Lutgard: Most insistently, she said, beseech the Lord for me, since the end of my life is now at hand. To her the pious Lutgard: Steadfastly, she said, await the Lord, for I am certain that He will deal mercifully with you: and soon will snatch you from the pains which you fear: But after death return to me; and bidden to return from death, and on returning say to me first: "Bless"; then you shall recite the Our Father with the Angelic Salutation, lest the devil, as usual, bring some figment. She died therefore, as she foretold, in wondrous fervor of spirit, i a Nun: and not even the space of thirty days passed, when behold, as the pious Lutgard prayed, the deceased Yolendis appeared to her; and as she had been asked in life, she said first "Bless," and the rest which I have foretold: The pious Lutgard therefore answering, "The Lord," she straightway added; How is it, she said, with you? And the deceased: The Lord, she said, did not abhor me for the enormity of my sins, she understands her to be saved, but on account of your grace I have obtained great mercy. And with this said she disappeared. Lutgard, moreover, with many tears blessed the divine mercy over sinners.

[23] But her own carnal sister too, passing from the world to purgatory, she succors her own sister in purgatory, before the death of the sister was indicated to the pious Lutgard, suddenly in the air a horrible and lamentable voice cried out to her: Have mercy, dearest sister, have mercy on me, and mercifully bestow on me the same mercy which you have shown to other souls. She understood, moreover, prostrate in prayers, that the soul of her sister was requesting the suffrages of her prayers: and soon she demanded of all that the Convent help her with many disciplines and prayers.

[14] About the same time a matter held by many for admiration of mind occurred, which I add. For when the pious Lutgard, according to the counsel of Augustine, received the Body of Christ every Lord's Day, the pious Lutgard was forbidden by Lady k Agnes, using less discreet counsel, then at that time the Abbess l, to take the sacraments every Lord's Day. [To her the pious Lutgard said: I shall indeed be obedient, dearest Mother, but this I most certainly foreknow, that in your flesh Christ will avenge this injury.] And without delay: in vengeance for the deed, she was so afflicted by the Lord with an intolerable infirmity, that she could not enter the church; nor did the pain cease, growing by moments, until she acknowledged the guilt of her indiscretion, and, penitent, relaxed the prohibition upon the pious Lutgard: but also those who had been against her in this matter were either notably taken from this light, or turned themselves to her with a spirit of humility. Worthy is the zeal of the Bridegroom toward the wicked disturbers of His bride.

[15] Her spirit was borne over the dying always with great mercy: she therefore visited them, admonishing and urging to the confession of sins, promising sure hope to the penitent, and glory once penance was done. [she knows that a dying woman, by the prayers of the sisters, has caused the demons to withdraw,] When therefore a certain Sister was in her agony, and vexed with a most grievous end, a demon appeared to her, insulting, and said: Behold, I have vexed that Sister: but when the people had come, I prevailed nothing further over her. Now she called the people the Convent, which, coming to commend the soul of the Sister, enervated his powers by their prayers. It is therefore holy and pious to assist the dying, and to aid them by prayers against the demons, who always lie in wait at the heel of our end.

[16] Frequently too demons came to her, and announced something baneful or sad: but she spat upon them, and drove off the importunate ones with the sign of the Cross. So much did the demons fear her, that they avoided even touching the place of her prayer, as if it were glowing iron. And she indeed, though she understood neither the Psalms nor anything of the Scriptures, yet in the rumination of that Psalm; and she easily drives them from herself. "O God, attend unto my help": and of certain other verses in the Psalter, she saw the demons flee with wondrous horror, and cease from the suggestion of evil. Whence she understood that by the virtue of words, even those not understood by her, the presences of the demons were repelled, and their power in temptations enervated. [Brother Bernard reports that he heard her saying in secret, that she feared the devil in nothing, nor in any mode of deception could he in any way prevail against her; but, according to the Lord's promise, she most powerfully crushed, with the foot of virtues, the head, that is, the beginning of his temptations.]

ANNOTATIONS OF D. P.

* num. 69

he should carry the Pastoral staff to the Chapter of Fosses and pay to it yearly one gold denarius, or ten silver ones.

CHAPTER II.

The efficacy of prayer: the desire of Martyrdom: aids rendered to the tempted and to sinners, indeed also to the sick.

[17] The pious Lutgard therefore, since she wondrously panted after all perfection, began in a wondrous way to insist that she might repel from herself every thought, Concerning a scruple over distractions in the Hours, not only evil ones, but also good ones, in saying the Hours; and—what in the state of mortal life is impossible—occupy her mind by that alone which she said. And when she could in no way effect this, she began to disturb herself with a great scruple of mind; and, as if she had said nothing, to repeat each of the Hours a second or third time. She mourned therefore in this necessary defect of life, and could be consoled in this by none of her friends. Prayers were made to God for her, that the Lord would free her from this scruple. Nor did the Almighty fail them. For unexpectedly the Lord clothed a Shepherd, she is freed by a herdsman divinely sent, following his little sheep, after the manner of the Prophet Amos, and the pious Father placed in his mouth a word of consolation. Soon therefore the rude shepherd, dismissing his sheep, came thirteen miles to Aywières: and, having summoned the pious Lutgard, with others also hearing, he said: Thus says the Lord: Be no longer tortured with grief or scruple over the saying of the Hours: your prayers are pleasing and gratefully accepted in My sight. As soon as the shepherd said this, he suddenly fled away: nor was there opportunity to ask who he might be, or to know anything further: yet afterward it became known who he was, or had been. and by Christ. [But the Lord also through Himself said to her; Fear nothing further, since in you I will supply that defect.] The pious Lutgard, moreover, perceiving the word uttered from the mouth of the Lord on both sides, rested in peace of conscience, nor afterward did an inordinate scruple weary her over this.

[18] And so it could not easily be believed with how great an alacrity of spirit she served the Lord in singing the Hours. while singing she is seen to emit a flame from her mouth. When therefore on a certain day she sang in the choir at Vespers, a certain Nun, who stood on the opposite side in the choir, with the visible eyes of bodily light saw a flame ascend from her mouth, and penetrate into the high air. At the unaccustomed sight of which the timid and terrified girl became almost lifeless. Vespers therefore being finished, the pious Lutgard, having sweetly consoled the Nun, at last said to her who was still afraid: I do not wish you, dearest daughter, to be terrified by that vision; for in truth understand it to have been made divinely. Note therefore, Reader, that it is read to have happened to many: and the corporal flame seen in them figured the desire of fervent prayer. [Many less spiritual persons wondered how, in deeds so magnificent, she could trample upon human glory. And I answer: She was so (as she herself told me) full of spiritual and solid glory within, that no empty glory could vex her from without; but as a column the Holy Spirit fixed her immovable.]

[19] After communion she is about to refresh her body, Since Augustine, the greatest of all the Doctors, in the book on the City of God says that in all of us discretion ought always to preside, and as it were, by moderating, to discern individual wills; we know that the pious Lutgard flourished with the greatest discretion, which is clear in this chapter which I add. On a certain Lord's Day, when she had received the salutary Sacrament of the body of Christ, and the remnants of thought kept a feast day in her to the Savior, so that it was grievous for her to come to the table of bodily food, she said; Lord Jesus, it is not now a fitting time for me to be occupied with Your delights, but go to Elizabeth who cannot abstain from food for one hour, and occupy her heart: but permit me to eat and be refreshed. she asks Christ to turn aside elsewhere; For there was there a certain Nun, who labored with an infirmity of this kind, that she had to be refreshed several times in the day and several times in the night. At the word therefore of the pious Lutgard, Christ soon obeying, suddenly passed over to the Nun, and filled her heart with so great a sweetness, that, contrary to custom, she abstained from bodily food without any trouble for a long space of time. In this therefore can be noted the great discretion of the pious Lutgard, that she did not wish to weaken her body by occupation even spiritual: judging it more useful to preserve it for the many other labors useful to souls, than to weary it uselessly out of season (since all things have their time) unto its own destruction. and she teaches that amid the delights of the spirit And this indeed against those who, having once or twice tasted the sweetness of the spirit, cruelly cast off the body as their own enemy; and while through this they tend toward God with a stronger spirit, they destroy the body given as the aid of the spirit; and thus they allow the spirit, made impotent through the destruction of the body, to be weighed down with wondrous miseries: For the body which is corrupted weighs down the soul. Against whom the most experienced Doctor Paul speaks: No man, he says, ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it: He nourishes it indeed, the destruction of the body is to be guarded against. not unto delight, but unto sustenance. Eph. 5:29 Abraham, ascending the mount of vision, after offering the sacrifice, returned to the ass: upon which Solomon orders a load to be placed, and afterward straw to be given. Concerning these things let the Reader think out what to make: but we, for the sake of brevity, pass on to the rest.

[20] Concerning the same Elizabeth a most unbelievable miracle happened, which I add. For, as we have said, Laboring with canine hunger and always bed-ridden, she had to eat almost every hour, not only by day, but sometimes also by night: and yet she was so weak that she could in no way stand on her feet, but lay continually in bed. When therefore she had recognized in the pious Lutgard the virtue of prayer clearer than light; she asked her with great insistence of heart, that she would beseech the Lord for her, that He would grant her before death the ability of rising, and of frequenting the convent, that through this before the end of her life she might more fully serve the Lord Jesus Christ. She assented therefore to beseech the Lord for her. To her the Lord answered in these same words: Lift yourself up, He said, lift yourself up, arise, O daughter of Jerusalem, who have drunk from the hand of the Lord the cup of His wrath. she obtains health for many years. When she had indicated this answer of the Lord and the cause of the answer to the lettered Nuns, they understood that Elizabeth was to be lifted from the bed of sickness, and would arise into a healthy state; in which were to be loosed the bonds of her neck, and her captivity struck off, by which the weak in the infirmary must be subjected to ministers not only modest, but even ill-tempered, the willing alike with the unwilling. And it was done as the Lord had said to her: and Elizabeth, lifted from the bed of sickness, in which she had lain for many years, arose to the burden of the Order untiringly, and with most perfect health served Christ the Lord long afterward.

[25] She was thinking again of Him who sustained such tribulation from sinners, and was kindled in a wondrous way to repay Christ His turn, and to sustain martyrdom for Him. But, because the time of Martyrdom passed like winter, the rain went away and departed; Christ prepared for her another kind, even of bodily martyrdom. For it happened on a certain night that, Compline having been said, she stood before her bed in the dormitory, desiring martyrdom, occupied in prayers. Behold there fell upon her a thought concerning the aforesaid things, and she began in a wondrous and ineffable way to desire that for Christ, like the most blessed Agnes, she might sustain martyrdom. And when she so burned in such desire, that she already believed herself to be dying from desire; a vein burst in her against the seat of the heart on the outside; from a burst vein she emits copious blood, and thence so much blood flowed, that her tunic and cowl were most copiously drenched. Weakened therefore she sat down a little: and straightway Christ appeared to her, with the countenance of one congratulating, and said: For the most desirous fervor of martyrdom which you had in the shedding of this blood; you will receive in heaven the same merit of martyrdom which the most blessed Agnes received, for My faith, in the cutting off of her head: in this to be equaled to St. Agnes, because you have compensated her martyrdom by your desire in blood. This agrees with that which we placed at the beginning of the first book, where a certain noble and devout matron is reported to have said to the pious Lutgard, still a young girl *: You, she said, good Agnes and truly another Agnes you shall be. O plainly most blessed woman, whom Christ Himself in a time of peace adorned with the crown of martyrdom. Of this most glorious deed two of the Nuns were witnesses, Margaret and Lutgard surnamed Limmos, most devout women; who, after the shedding of the blood, washed the garments of the pious Lutgard. A witness too was the scar of the burst vein, until the day on which her happy soul migrated from this world. A witness was the cessation of the vexation, by which God in the sex of Eve mitigated pride: she was, moreover, twenty-eight years old when these things are said to have happened to her.

[22] Machtild, a noble matron, born in the parts of Liège, leaving sons as knight-heirs, served the Lord at Aywières. Worn out, moreover, with old age and weakness, she heals a deaf woman by prayers and by her saliva: as is wont to follow from this, she utterly lost her hearing. At solemn Vespers on a certain day, when the Nuns sang with a high voice, and a certain Nun signaled this by a sign to the said deaf matron; and she, understanding the sign, bewailed her deafness; the pious Lutgard, coming, asked by a sign why she wept. And she: I, she said, most wretched, why should I not weep, who am so deprived of hearing that I cannot hear the solemnity of the singing by which God is served. Soon the pious Lutgard, compassionate to the weeping woman, and bowed a little to prayer,

rose; and anointing her two fingers with spittle, placed them upon the deaf ears. Wondrous thing! Suddenly the woman, hearing the obstruction of her ears burst within with a crash, soon, with her ears fully opened, heard: and feeling in so great a miracle the virtue of the pious Lutgard, magnificently blessed the Lord.

[23] As often as, rapt in spirit, she was mindful of the Lord's Passion; it seemed to her that essentially throughout her whole body she grew red, suffused with blood. When a certain religious Priest had heard this rather secretly, observing her at the opportune time, in the contemplation of Christ's passion, when there was no doubt that, according to the season, she would be mindful of Christ's passion; he set about to see her: where, leaning against the wall, she lay in contemplation. And behold, he saw her face and hands, which alone lay bare, glow as if suffused with fresh blood: she is beheld suffused with blood, and her tresses, as if with the drops of night, infused with blood. Seeing which, he secretly bore off a part of them with shears into his portion; and bearing them in his hand to the light, when he wondered beyond measure, astounded, the pious Lutgard returning from the rapture of contemplation to the outward sense, the tresses too in the hand of the astonished man straightway returned to their natural color. He, at once, beyond what can be believed, terrified at so great a spectacle, almost fell backward. Note, moreover, Reader, that the pious Lutgard was assuredly seen to grow red with blood, as also the hairs then secretly cut off. because she was most especially in her life among those who washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb: for from the intellectual consideration of the mind within, the body without drew a likeness.

[24] A certain knight, powerful in birth and riches, had a daughter as a Nun at Aywières: who, since she knew her father to be ensnared in various wicked deeds, she converts a man given to wicked deeds, induced him to this, that he should ask prayers of the pious Lutgard; and request to be received by her, as is the custom in such cases, as a spiritual son. She assented, and went to beseech the Lord for him. And behold Satan appeared to a certain Nun in that same monastery, saying: Behold, Lady Lutgard strives to snatch from my bonds the knight Tymerus, who has served me for so many years. Let her be: who, having lost all his goods, it is no work of a short time that she has begun: but I, even if nothing else, will yet effect this, that in the furnace of poverty I will make his heart seethe, and his soul will waste away, just as flesh is wont to be fried in a pan. And you, Reader, see how wondrous a truth in a liar. And indeed, although the knight himself at that time abounded in the greatest possessions and riches, in the succession of a short time he so collapsed, that he spent the ready money up to fifteen hundred pounds: and, having afterward sold his possessions, he came to such poverty that he scarcely had bread in extreme necessity. In all these things, however, he is known to have had so great patience, that no one doubted that the prayers of the pious Lutgard had aided the knight. he becomes a monk of Affligem. Him therefore we saw as a monk at Affligem, the most well-ordered convent of all that Order: and venerated by all for his wondrous conversation at such an age and his patience. In such and like manner the pious Lutgard by her prayers snatched many from the snares of the devil, and led them to a more corrected state of a good life.

[25] A certain girl of the Cistercian Order, when she was burdened with a most grievous trouble of temptations, saw, many years before, the pious Lutgard appear to her in dreams, and it was told her that she ought to be freed by her prayers. She frees a girl from a grave temptation. Long afterward therefore she came to her at Aywières, and recognized her face, previously known in dreams; whom also, according to what we have foretold, she freed by the greatest insistence of prayers from all trouble of temptations. Then she, having experienced the virtue of the pious Lutgard in her own liberation, asked her that she would obtain from Almighty God by her prayers, that she might be able to sustain the labors of her Order, and to lack the eating of meats: for from infancy the girl had been sickly, and could scarcely abstain from meats on the days of fasting. The pious Lutgard, moreover, when she objected to the too tender age of the girl in such abstinence, and yet the girl most insistently prayed that her vow be fulfilled, at last, overcome by her tears, said: and she makes her abhor meats. Go hence: and from this day you will have the power both to lack meats, and to keep your Order, and add what shall please you. Truly a wondrous and stupendous miracle: the girl returning to her place, when, according to what was customary, meats were set before her in the infirmary: as soon as she looked upon them, in the very likeness of one made bashful, scarcely were they set on the dish than she soon shuddered at the sight, so that, with face turned away, she could in no way eat. When this was often tried, she conceived so great an abomination of meats in her mind, that she never after the words of the pious Lutgard ate meats; and not only the labors of the Order, but also whatever she wished to sustain unto the mortification of her body, was most easy for her without any trouble. This same girl, now become quite an old woman, and placed in the governance of a monastery as Abbess, related to me with the greatest shame: but the praise of the pious Lutgard compelled her to narrate this.

[26] A certain religious girl, Hespelendis, in an excess of temptations despairing from too great sadness, when she had asked the suffrages of the pious Lutgard's prayers, and she had poured out for her prayers and tears copiously; she frees another from despair, by the Lord's revealing it answered: You ought to be consoled, dearest: for on Good Friday, when after the adoration of the Cross the Priest, exalting the Cross, shall say, "Behold the wood of the Cross"; you shall be freed from every onslaught of temptations, and shall obtain the confidence of consolation. And so it was done: for she in the hour in which it was foretold is freed, and through the confidence of consolation is granted divine grace.

[27] The venerable John, Abbot of Affligem, when he had brought with him a certain man to the pious Lutgard; he, at the sight of her, by her mere look she strikes horror of sin. was struck back with an anxious countenance. The Abbot therefore, wondering, when he had come to more remote parts, said to the man: Did you see, he said, that holy woman? And he, drawing sighs from the depth of his breast; I saw her, he said, and at the sight of her, as at the sight of the Divine majesty, I was struck with so great a horror of sins, that with the aid of her suffrage I shall be released from my sins, nor, God granting, shall I relapse. That this was so done, the said memorable Abbot recalls.

[28] A certain woman had an epileptic son, named John, for whom she was for a long time anxiously sorrowful: and it happened that in dreams a word of this kind was said to her: Go to Lady Lutgard, dwelling at Aywières, she heals an epileptic with the sign of the Cross. and your son will be freed through her. In the morning, then, she came with her son to Aywières, and offered the son to the pious Lutgard. She straightway, after sending up a prayer, placed her finger in his mouth, and fixed a cross on his breast with her thumb: and from that day onward she freed the boy from all trouble of epilepsy.

[29] At a certain time when the feast of All Saints was kept, on that very feast a very great multitude of Saints appeared to the pious Lutgard through a vision; she is filled with the grace of all the Saints. and the Holy Spirit revealed to her that she was full of the spirit of all and the grace of all. What wonder? For if according to virtues are the gifts, of what gift or grace ought she to be without, who shone full of every virtue?

[30] When at a certain time the pious Lutgard was sick with weakness of body, Lady Sybil de Gages, who from her entrance into the Order had been accustomed to serve her most devotedly, she strengthens from heaven the woman ministering to her, at the instigation of the spirit of wickedness, almost failing from the long labor, was wearied in heart and body; and said once in her heart: Why do I thus labor in the service of Lady Lutgard? Never did my mother in her life serve anyone so much, nor does it befit me to be devoted to such great servitude. And without delay; on that very night she heard a certain voice, saying to her: I came not to be ministered to. When she heard this, she gravely reproached herself, and afterward served the pious Lutgard with the greatest cheerfulness and delight.

[31] A certain man, despairing in the stain of crimes, was brought to her, she amends a despairing man: that at least he might be consoled by her conversations. And without delay, when he had sat down beside her, and begun to hear her words; he saw above her, beyond all brightness, an inestimable clarity. Gladdened at this sight, the man, indeed strengthened to the hope of pardon, departed.

[32] Frequently it happened that, while she ruminated the Psalmody, the Holy Spirit revealed to her the virtue and understanding of the verses. [She understands words pleasing to the Mother of God, "you did not abhor the Virgin's womb."] It happened therefore on a certain night, that while in the Canticle "We praise You, O God," she said that verse, "You, taking upon Yourself to free man, did not abhor the Virgin's womb," the most blessed Virgin Mary appeared to her, as if congratulating: and she understood that this verse was most pleasing to the most blessed Virgin, by which she is remembered to have received the Son of God. This therefore she herself revealed to me as to a beloved son; and admonished me that as often as I said this verse, I should bow myself with my whole body to the praise of the glorious Virgin. Which I both long did and do, and admonish all readers to do the same.

[33] Beholding a certain very needy little pauper-woman, she was admonished to do her good by a wondrous spirit of compassion, and soon the Lord said to her in spirit: In the Psalm you read, and say to Me; "My portion, [compassionate to a little pauper-woman, she is bidden from heaven to pray for her.] O Lord, I have said I would keep Your law." Which you should understand thus: Your portion am I, you have nothing else, and therefore answer the needy one: "Gold and silver I have not, but what I have, this I give you"; pray, moreover, for her, and you have given her what is yours; saying this, you have kept My law. At these words of God, therefore, illumined within in a wondrous manner, she came to Lady Sybil de Gages, and indicated what the Lord had said to her. She, having examined the glosses upon that place of the psalter; "My portion, O Lord, I have said I would keep Your law," found most clearly, according to the gloss, that the Lord had answered the very same. It is established therefore that the sacred Scriptures are expounded by that same spirit by which they were also set forth. In like manner, when a certain monk of Affligem was being sent into a most dissolute parish, and asked her suppliantly that in so great a danger she would beseech the Lord for him, she answered him, saying: With expectation I have waited for the Lord, and He attended to me. Which she saw to have been so done most evidently, that she hesitated nothing at all but that the pious Lutgard had answered him from the Spirit of God.

* Bk. I, n. 3

CHAPTER III.

By the spirit of prophecy things to come, absent, and hidden are indicated.

[34] It is established by many things and through many that the pious Lutgard was illustrious with the spirit of prophecy. A certain Priest by order, coming to the French parts in the monastery of a Jouarre in France, when at night he prayed in a certain crypt where the bodies of Saints rested; he learns the name of St. Osanna Virgin from her revelation

and when he unexpectedly opened the tomb of a certain female Saint, made of alabaster stone; and could not know her name or merit; he afterward asked the pious Lutgard that she would beseech the Lord for the revelation of her name. Assenting therefore to the man's prayers, she gave herself wholly to prayer, and straightway obtained what she asked. For the aforesaid Saint, appearing to her, said: I am called b Osanna virgin, daughter of a former King of Scotland, and brought by a miracle of the Lord to the parts of France, I lived holily: and having died there and been buried solemnly, the inhabitants at last through the negligence of time forgot me. These things therefore, when the pious Lutgard related them to the said man, she added: I would wish that the Lord should show you these same things in testimony of the truth: and he; I am not, he said, worthy that such things should be demonstrated to me. To him she: Even if perhaps you are less worthy, yet she is worthy, whose praises are worthily revealed. And without delay, the pious Lutgard praying the Lord over this, on the same night the Virgin appeared to the said man in sleep three times, and indicated that she was called Osanna. He who saw bore testimony, and we know that his testimony is true.

[35] There was in c Parc-des-Dames, near Louvain, a devout Nun, who inconsolably bewailed her carnal brother, of the Order of Friars Minor, an apostate for twelve years. The pious Lutgard was therefore asked, she predicts the return of an apostate to his Order that she would pray the Lord for the said apostate, since his sister was thought to be losing her senses from grief. She indeed, having compassion on both, prayed to the Lord: and returning from prayer, said: Let it be told to that good girl, that she be confidently consoled, for her brother is to return this year to his holy Order. Which we perceived to have been so done quite unexpectedly, as of one who had been ensnared in manifold ways in the deeds of the world. Nor let it move readers, if of the Order of Friars Minor or of others some have fallen away through apostasy: for neither is any of these greater, nor by far so great, as that very dwelling of Christ, in which eleven good ones tolerated the faithless Judas; or better than heaven itself, whence the Angels fell.

[36] About the same time the illustrious Duchess of Brabant, d daughter of a former Philip King of France, was gravely sick: and for a long time, holding the pious Lutgard dear, she ordered her to beseech the Lord for her. She straightway, after making prayer, sent word to her, that she should in no way rise from her bed, but prepare herself in all things through Confession, [she predicts death to the Duchess of Brabant herself, that she might prepare herself,] and await the Lord with the greatest confidence of heart. And without delay, as she foretold, the Duchess died. After death, moreover, the Duchess appeared to the pious Lutgard; and indicated by most certain signs that, through the intercession of the glorious Virgin Mary, whom in life she had wondrously loved, she was rescued from the pains of purgatory beyond what was hoped. and she sees her quickly freed from Purgatory. These things indeed I learned and wrote down from the report of the venerable and God-devoted Margaret, Lady of Velpia. But the same also happened concerning the noble man Lord Godfrey, absent, she indicates the death of another. son of Lord Godfrey the Castellan of Brussels; whose death, before it was known elsewhere, she announced to the Sisters.

[37] A Recluse of the Court of St. Stephen, feeling in her girlhood a most grievous trouble of temptation, came to the pious Lutgard that she would pray for her. When she herself asked her trouble, and the other feared to tell it; the pious Lutgard said to her: Behold, the Lord has revealed to me what you are ashamed to tell: knowing hidden sins, she persuades her to confess them and saying this, she laid open the whole state of the girl's heart, which she had not wished to reveal even to Priests. Having therefore exhorted her to confess, she left her so perfectly healed and consoled from every trouble by the Confession of sins and the correction of morals, that afterward she served the Lord with the greatest alacrity and joy of spirit. The same and in almost all respects similar is proven to have happened to brother Werric, a Lay-brother, of Aywières. What wonder? For she had with her in spirit Him whose eyes are brighter than the sun: which appeared in the deed which I add. A certain man had committed a sin in a most hidden place, taught by the eye that sees all hidden things. which he feared to reveal to a Priest. And behold, not long after, a certain man in the appearance of a pilgrim asked him that, for the sake of remission of the sin which he most feared, he ought to wash his head. When he had now begun to do this, he found on the top of the pilgrim's head a most bright eye, and cried out: O man, against nature having an eye on the crown of his head! To him the pilgrim: This is, he said, the eye, which saw you sinning in secret, and from which no secrets can hide. Saying this, he vanished from the eyes of the one who wondered.

[38] The pious Lutgard was solicitous beyond measure to admonish more frequently, with a wondrous grace of speech, the Priests she knew, To the Writer himself, while still a youth, to procure solicitously the flock entrusted to them, and to free the souls which Christ redeemed from the servitude of demons. I, moreover, although unworthy, when I had come to the Order of Priesthood at a youthful age, not yet being constituted in the Order of Preachers, was compelled unduly and beyond my strength to hold the office of a Bishop in hearing Confessions. When, moreover, I had begun this in great dread of heart, I began, vexed outwardly in my ears from what I heard, to be agitated by inner goads of temptations. Seized therefore with the greatest fear and horror, I came to the pious Lutgard, as to a most special mother to me, and, touched with grief, opened to her my burden. She, having compassion on me, gave herself to prayer; and returning, with great confidence said: and therefore dreading to hear Confessions, Return, son, to your place, and expend the due labor on the care of souls; Christ will be your protector and teacher: who will both powerfully snatch you in hearing Confessions from the darts of the enemy, and in the lack of knowledge which you dread will add ampler grace. Wondrous thing; and although I myself with shame report concerning myself, yet to the praise of Christ and His handmaid, what was done I will not be silent. From that day therefore, as long as I have used the enjoined office up to the present, he obtains security of mind. in which sixteen years have flowed in between, I have experienced the prophecy of the pious Lutgard most true in me: although outside the time, when I was not intent on hearing confessions, I was frequently vexed intolerably. And the more unclean the things are which I hear, the less I care for them, and the less I am moved in hearing.

[39] But that to some, who perhaps felt less worthily about her at Aywières, the merit of the pious Lutgard might be shown, this solemn miracle happened, which I narrate. She was wont [About to communicate, she is supported by Angels, the Mother of God, and John the Baptist.] to be refreshed every Lord's Day with the Sacrament of the Lord's Body. And when no one supported her, going to the altar, in aid of her weak body, some, to whom it was given to see, manifestly saw two Angels holding her in the middle, and leading her to the altar. In like manner, on another occasion, it was most manifestly seen that the glorious virgin Mary, and the blessed John the Baptist, accompanied her in attendance: but this long afterward, namely when the time was at hand in which she was to be transferred from this world.

[40] She strove with wondrous solicitude to strengthen and fortify the troubled and tempted: And truly in a wondrous manner God Himself had conferred grace on her in this, that no one departed from her, whether tempted or troubled, without relief. There came therefore a certain woman, utterly despairing of all hope of pardon, in the French tongue unknown to her she helps a despairing woman: and entered the parlor. The Nuns asked that she would receive consolation, and place her hope in God, who wills not the death of a sinner, but that he be converted and live. She, moreover, with vain labor strove to flee: yet, held back, they asked her to wait for the pious Lutgard; who, even if she could not speak to her unto consolation, being a Teuton, would yet beseech the Lord for her: now the woman was utterly French. And without delay the pious Lutgard, brought in, withdrew to a remote place with the woman: for she felt in spirit that the woman was troubled beyond measure. All began to wonder and to laugh, how they could agree in conversation, the language being mutually unknown to them. After they had therefore sat there a longer while, the woman rose, recalled to the fullest confidence of hope; and returning to the parlor said to the Nuns: Why did you say that this most holy Lady was a Teuton, whom I have wholly experienced to be French? For there is no other under heaven who could have recalled me by her words to the hope of pardon. Nor is it a wonder if for the hour they agreed in conversation, in a tongue mutually unknown to them, since Lutgard was full of that Spirit and she speaks to the Bishop of Cambrai: who filled the disciples, gathered into one, with the diversity of tongues. [Father Bernard reports that he saw her, and a venerable man and worthy of God, Master Guiard, Bishop of Cambrai, e who utterly did not know the Teutonic tongue, as she did not know French, conversing mutually, and understanding one another.] I saw one who on the day of Pentecost from the third hour until evening had the knowledge of all tongues: but this one I do not yet wish to reveal, because she still lives in life.

[41] Afflicting herself for a longer time with laments for sinners, her face was so daily bedewed, [for the woman weeping for sinners Christ wipes away the tears, she is forbidden to weep;] that, according to the Prophet Jeremiah, her eyes seemed to bring forth a fountain of tears. This grief, this groaning was so ineffable to those who saw, that scarcely could anyone behold it without grave grief of heart. When therefore it pleased the Lord of mercies to mitigate her in such things, He appeared to her as she wailed in weeping; and congratulating her that she had long faithfully done the business of the wretched; with that very hand which He stretched out on the cross for sinners, He wiped the tears from her face, saying: I wish you to be consoled in these laments for My sinners; but she is bidden to pray. nor will I suffer you to be wearied any longer in weeping: but with a placid fervor of heart you shall persist in prayer; and through this, as once through tears, you shall worthily avert the wrath of the Father. This state in her remained immovable until the day of death.

[42] Hence five years flowed, during which (as she told me with great tears) she was visited almost daily by the very Mother of Christ, or by the Apostles, Visited by the dwellers of heaven, or by other special Saints, besides the continual visitations of Angels: and yet in all these she did not find perfect rest for her spirit, until she should find that very Holy of the Holies alone, ineffably sweeter than all, as being the sanctifier of all. And what wonder? what new thing? The pious Lutgard is affected with the bride in the Canticles, whose soul was melted; she more covets the present Christ, she is wounded, languishes, pants, rises, seeks through the streets the Saints of new grace, and through the squares the Patriarchs of the old testament. A little she passed these by, because not far

is He from each one of us: she found Him whom her soul loves, with the keenness of her mind directed more sublimely. Cant. 3:6 Thus Peter, passing through the watches of the city, found Elias, Jeremiah, or one of the Prophets, even John the Baptist himself, as the friend of the bridegroom cleaving more closely; whom he loved; to whom he said: You are Christ the Son of the living God. Christ, the Son of God about to die, Peter found: Christ, who rose from the dead and now dies no more, Lutgard found: Him, denied in the passion, Peter lost: Him, reigning in the heavens, the pious Lutgard found and held. She held Him, I say: she held Him indeed; and so held Him, that she will not let Him go. For the more ardently she sought, the more tightly she holds: happy in seeking, but happier in holding. She held Him, nor will she let Him go. She held Him by faith, nor did she let Him go with change: but now let us see the threefold manner of her seeking.

[43] Three little beds are distinguished in the Song of Songs according to the threefold state in the soul. and she holds Him in the threefold bed of the spiritual life, The first is where it is said: "In my little bed by night I sought Him whom my soul loves." The second is that little bed of Solomon, which sixty valiant men of the most valiant of Israel surround. Cant. 3:1, Cant. 3:3 The third is that of which it is said: "Our little bed is flowery." The first little bed is compared to the state of penance, which is the state of beginners: the second, to the state of battle, which is the state of those advancing: the third, to the state of the contemplative life, which is the state of the perfect. Cant. 1:16 In the first, one lies wounded; in the second, wearied; in the third, refined. In the first therefore, that is in the little bed of penance, although she was never wounded with the wound of any mortal sin, yet the pious Lutgard sought the Beloved perfectly; when, according to the Psalmist, on every night she singularly bewailed the sins of her ignorance, and most diligently washed the little bed of her conscience, and bedewed her couch with a wondrous abundance of her tears. In the second little bed too, that is, in the state of penance, which is that of battle, the pious Lutgard sought the Beloved, when, fighting against the flesh, she subdued it with wondrous abstinence and labor; she conquered the world with extreme poverty and humility; she cast down the devil with remedial tears and prayer. Ps. 6:7 This little bed sixty valiant men of the most valiant of Israel surrounded, of pious battle, when not only the Angels, as we have already written, but even the very Mother of Christ, with the bands of the other Saints, protected her. In the third little bed, moreover, which is that of rest, the pious Lutgard sought the Beloved perfectly, when she leaned neither on the Angels themselves nor on the Saints, and of contemplative rest. but in the embrace of the Bridegroom alone sweetly rested through contemplation. Whence with Isaiah she could say: "For the couch is straitened, so that one falls off; and the short coverlet cannot cover both." Is. 28:20 This little bed is called flowery, sprinkled with the springtime manifoldness of virtues, and with the most fragrant sweetness of reputation; and "Ours," that is, common only to the Bridegroom and the bride: in that she could say: "My beloved to me, and I to him, who feeds among the lilies." And that: "I to my beloved, and his turning to me." What wonder? Love knows not a lord; love knows not to lord it. However high one may love, he loves not without an equal. Cant. 2:16 & 7:10 But since we have extended in length the book of this second edition with manifold matters, and, as we think, useful ones, that we may pass more gratefully to the history of her precious death, let us breathe again in the interval of a little pause.

ANNOTATIONS OF G. H.

BOOK III.

Acts in the last years of life in blindness. Death. Miracles.

CHAPTER I.

Apparitions of Blessed Jordan, General of the Preachers, of Jacobus de Vitriaco, and of others. The third fast of seven years.

[1] Now therefore, the second book having been faithfully carried out, we likewise begin the third also, concerning her passing. Blind for XI years before death About the eleventh year before she migrated from this life, she received a certain prelude both of a most quiet life and of a happy death. For, like the Patriarchs Isaac and Jacob, deprived of both her eyes, she obtained the splendor of heavenly light more perfectly than usual. For it was unworthy that her mind, adorned within with a most radiant light, she is illumined with heavenly light, should be in some manner darkened without by the darkness of that light. For who would doubt that the spiritual keenness of the mind is not blunted by the images of corporal things, which through the eyes are proven to flow from without into the mind? Blinded therefore without, she was borne wholly within in mind into the light. This alone the pious Lutgard bewailed in this blindness, that she would no longer see her spiritual friends in this life: but this affection of wondrous simplicity Christ soon removed from her by His piety, and therefore immunity from Purgatory is promised her. and she prayed to see them only in the fatherland. And in this chapter Brother Bernard added, what he heard from her mouth, that the Lord answered her, Accept patiently the blindness which I have sent upon you: because I promise you that I will take you from the body without purgatory. The friends, moreover, whom you complain you will no longer see in this life, I will preserve for you to be seen in the eternal fatherland.

[2] About the same time, but a little after, Jordan of blessed memory, a Master of the Order of Preachers, when he had long had the desire of visiting the Holy Land, returning by sea, by the hidden judgment of God, with a very great multitude of men, and with two of the Friars of the Order, was drowned. to Blessed Jordan, General of the Preachers, And without delay, from the highest summit of heaven down to the ship, in which he lay drowned, a very great column of light, divinely kindled for the space of five hours, shone by night: and the sacred body being cast upon the shore, the lamp of heaven shone over him a third time, and a fourth over his companion Friar Gerald: and thus the lamp, returning, was received into a cloud. Witnesses of these things were Catholic Christians, Greek schismatics, and Gentiles. Concerning these things a certain one of ours in the prose, which contains his deeds, among other things plainly described, saying:

He went to the Holy Land to visit the brethren there, drowned near the Holy Land, But when he returned by sea. Sinking, he began to chant, And to bless Christ, And so he soon entered heaven, As is given to believe by signs. And without delay: soon there glowed A very great column of light, Which, while it gleamed from heaven, Lit up the most holy limbs; And whither the soul had passed It willed those seeing to know. In a most manifest matter, The sacred shore being reached, The lamp of heaven flashed forth: Which, thrice standing over the body, A fourth time also shone, Upon this one whom it had with it. And so by swift return Snatched into a cloud, it was not seen. The body, wondrously fragrant, Is tended by the faithful. By the Greeks are given uniquely, With the Latins and Gentiles, Praises to Christ with weeping. And so the truth magnificently, Under three witnesses, is made plain.

These things we heard through the Friars of the Teutonic House, who deserved to see them with their eyes. But also in the letters of the Prior of the Friars Preachers at Venice we read these same things attested.

[3] a In the same year therefore, on the vigil of the Nativity of the Lord, when Blessed Lutgard prayed from the first hour of the day until the sixth, and in spirit felt as it were darkness, in the Nativity of the Lord, with [Jordan appearing,] she began to be wearied so much, that she burst forth into these words: Lord, what is it that I feel? What is it that I suffer? Surely, if I had any friend in heaven or on earth, who would pray for me, I would not feel such hardness in my heart. As she said these things with tears, behold, suddenly, before the eyes of her mind, a certain spirit so bright and so glorious appeared, that she did not recognize him for the greatness of his brightness. To him she said: Who are you, Lord? And he; I am, he said, Brother Jordan, formerly called master of the Order of Friars Preachers. I have passed from this world to glory, and, exalted among the choirs of the Apostles and Prophets, I have shone forth: behold, I am sent to you that in this most pleasing feast I might console you. You, moreover, be now secure of the reward: for it is at hand that you be crowned by the Lord. But the Psalm, "May God have mercy on us," with the Collect of the Holy Spirit, which while I lived and asked you promised to say for our Order, observe diligently until the end of your life. And when the pious Lutgard, she is made secure of his eternal salvation asked him concerning a certain Friar of the Order; he answered: For the obedience which he showed to me, and the love which he showed to you, God will soon do well to him: saying this he disappeared, and left her in as great consolation as she had ever before had. These same things almost, though in a different manner, the said venerable Father revealed to a Friar of the Order after his death; and demonstrated by an honorable scheme that he was placed in the Order of sublime Prelates in heaven. Therefore Lutgard had wondrously loved the said venerable man in life, always devoted to the Order of Preachers. and he trusted her above all women, so much so that he constituted her mother and nurse of the whole Order of Preachers: whom also we saw devout and zealous above all Orders toward the Friars; whence also for them especially she daily exhibited zealous service to God.

[4] The second seven years being accomplished, which she fasted on bread and herbs alone, for the third time by divine command she begins a fast of 7 years, it was again revealed to her, that for a third time she should undertake votive fasts, through which God would avert that evil, which she most certainly feared to be imminent through a certain enemy of the Church of Christ. From that time therefore until the end of her life she so continued the fasts, that she passed not a single day, not even the most solemn day of Easter itself, without a fast. She died, moreover, as we shall afterward more fully expound, in the seventh year of this salutary fast. Nor without fruit of the fast,

as we now most certainly hope. For she said to me, when I gravely dreaded the aforesaid danger, namely in the year preceding that in which she departed from this life: You will be able to be consoled, dearest, as I trust, in regard to him who is called the hidden plotter against the Church, that either he will be humbled by the prayers of the faithful, or, soon departing from life, will leave the peace of the Church, which he was thought to be about to confound. We have not yet seen what she foretold, but we truly trust it is now to be fulfilled. For not one of all the things which she foretold as future have we seen fall to the ground by annihilation, inasmuch as her words, which are most fully proven to have been drawn from the Spirit of God.

[5] About the same time that venerable and God-worthy Jacobus, formerly Bishop of Acre, Jacobus de Vitriaco but then Cardinal of the Roman Curia, of whom we made mention above, on the vigil of SS. Philip and James passed from this world at Rome b. On the fourth day therefore of his burial, that is on the feast of the Cross, the pious Lutgard, ignorant of the matter (being constituted thirty days' journey from the place, namely in the parts of Brabant), was rapt to an ecstasy of mind into heaven and saw that at the same hour the soul of the said Bishop was carried into paradise. To whom the spirit of the pious Lutgard, congratulating in heaven, said: O most reverend Father, I did not know you were deceased: but when did you depart from the body? And he: It is now the fourth day: for three nights and two days I have already spent in purgatory. Soon she with wonder asked: And why, she said, immediately after death did you not indicate it to me surviving, that your punishment might be loosed by the prayers of our Sisters? And he: The Lord did not wish, he said, that you be saddened by my punishment: on the fourth day she sees him freed from purgatory: but, purgatory accomplished, that you rather be consoled by my liberation and glorification. You, moreover, will soon follow me. With these said, the pious Lutgard returned to herself: and announced to the Sisters with the greatest exultation the day of his death, the purgatory, and the glorification. But here too the truth had two witnesses; since to a Friar of the House of Preachers at Rome, where he had first been buried, the Lord revealed the same that we have said concerning the purgatory and glorification on the fourth day after his death. [Brother Bernard, moreover, perceived, she herself revealing it, that this same thing had happened to her concerning several of her intimates:] What more evident than this deed? what Jew, what Gentile, by his incredulity, will be able to weaken a truth so evident? Scarcely did he die at Rome, and on the fourth day in Brabant she knew this. Let that most vile detractor blush, who said and wrote that those should be understood as profane, who wrote the fantastic visions of little women. This he wished to note of the said venerable Jacobus, who wrote in elegant speech the most blessed life of the blessed woman Mary of Oignies.

[6] In the fifth year before her death c on the third Sunday after the day of Pentecost, the Gospel, "A certain man made a great supper," [she predicts she will die on the 3rd Sunday after Pentecost, a quinquennium before] was read in the Church: touched within therefore by the spirit of prophecy, she said to Lady Sybil de Gages, to whom in all things, as to a more lettered nun, she had been committed to be cared for: You ought to know, dearest, that on that Sunday, when this Gospel shall be read, I shall be transferred, already deceased, to the supper of the nuptials of the Lamb. With this said, the aforementioned Sybil awaited the said Sunday, as the future day of the pious Lutgard's passing, with the highest expectation. Which day when it had come, she was not seen to die when the time of that year was revolved; the said Sybil, believing it fantastic, for a time forgot the prophetic vision. But when the fifth year, on the same Sunday which she had foretold, was revolved, the deceased body of the pious Lutgard being placed on the bier, the Gospel which we foretold was read at the morning Convent Mass in the church. At the hearing of which, the memorable Sybil, recalling what we have already said, was astounded: and indicated, with the admiration of all, how five years before the pious Lutgard had foretold this with a prophetic spirit.

[7] In the fourth year before her death the most cruel race of the d Tartars, bursting out from their seats, having destroyed greater Hungary of the East, in the irruption of the Tartars, and lesser Hungary of the West, also the greatest part of Turkey and Greece, namely Bulgaria and Rascia, the most powerful Duke of Poland also being slain, and land and people destroyed; when they had already begun to invade part of Teutonia, namely Bohemia; the greatest fear was throughout all France and Germany, lest they invade and lay waste these too, she predicts they would not come into Germany as also other lands. Therefore Brother Bernard, a Friar of the Order of Preachers, and Penitentiary of the Lord Pope, struck no doubt by the fearful rumor, asked the pious Lutgard that she would instantly pray the Lord, and avert the scourge of the Tartars from the borders of Germany. And she: I have not begun, she said, just now to ask the Lord concerning this business; I am now certain that now the Tartars will not advance into these lands. Which he received as if it had sounded divinely from heaven.

[8] About the same time the venerable e Baldwin, called of Barbenzon, Prior of Oignies, Baldwin, Prior of Oignies, being dead, formerly for several years Chaplain at Aywières, a most solemn Preacher of the word of God, against the counsel of his friends meddled less worthily in temporal affairs. [He, seized with a grave infirmity, the day before he died, ordered the finger of blessed Mary of Oignies to be exhibited to him: in whose presence he said: O venerable Lady, while still living in the body, by Blessed Mary of Oignies appearing, you promised to succor in the hour of death: succor therefore now, O Lady, succor: now is the time. Baldwin therefore died there, and there at Oignies was buried with worthy veneration. At his obsequies and funeral rites, therefore, when our brother Bernard had been present, and, the body being straightway buried, had arrived at Aywières; soon, having greeted her, at his very arrival, the pious Lutgard said to him; Is Lord Baldwin dead? And he, wondering at so unexpected, so sudden a question: He is dead, he said, and already buried. What then is it? To him she: Behold, just now my Lady Mary of Oignies appeared to me, saying: Rise, rise, hasten, she is admonished to pray for him: dearest, to ask the Lord, for at this hour the soul of our friend Lord Baldwin is being presented by the divine judgment, about to render account to the Lord of things committed and omitted. Behold how truthful in testimony, how faithful in promise, O venerable Mary, you proved yourself, who wished the pious Lutgard to approach for the suffrage of prayers for all mortals; that whom, while still living in the body, you attested to be most powerful in freeing souls from purgatory, you, exalted in heavenly joys, might entreat her aid for a deceased friend. Blessed therefore through all be God, who wished to declare the sanctity and merits of His bride by so most evident a testimony f].

See therefore, Reader, with how severe a judgment those are to be examined, who, according to Isaiah, forge the sword of the word of God into the plowshares of temporal labors; and instead of the lances of invectives against sins, now hasten to reap the fruit of transitory peace, that they may be free for delights.

ANNOTATIONS OF G. H.

CHAPTER II.

The manner observed in contemplation. Preparation for the foreknown death. The illness of her death.

Being asked by a certain spiritual and special friend of hers, how she was wont to see the face of Christ in contemplation; she answered: In a moment, she said, there appears to me an inestimable splendor, The saint confesses that she sees the face of Christ and as if a lightning-flash I see His ineffable beauty of glorification: which, unless it passed swiftly from the sight of my contemplation, I could not, with the present life, sustain it. After this flash, moreover, an intellectual splendor remains; and when in that very splendor I seek Him whom I had swiftly seen, I do not find Him. Note therefore, reader, she was wont to see only in rapture, that this is the same that is said in the Canticles: "My soul melted, as the beloved spoke: I sought and did not find Him; I called and He did not answer me." What is it for Christ to speak in the soul, except to represent to it the riches of His goodness, wisdom, and beauty? Cant. 36 That from these the soul may measure how good, and how savorily wise, and adorned with virtues He ought to be, who could merit her love in perpetual charity. Hearing Him therefore, the soul melts in desires, and strives to obtain Him whom it beholds: but because the time of perfect vision has not yet come, Him whom it had as if present, it suddenly loses: that it may seek the more diligently, the more ardently it loves; she was otherwise not to die and that the mind may be prepared the wider for possessing, the more frequently it is renewed for seeking. Then she said that the eyes of Christ flashed with so radiant a light, that if it were possible for that very light to be poured over with the splendors of the sun, it would, like the sun the stars, infinitely more obscure the rays of the sun. And this is what a certain religious Priest, desiring to know what it was to say: "His eyes are fairer than wine"; to His immense splendor. there was shown to him in the holy chalice, where he celebrated the divine mysteries, the face of Christ; whose eyes radiated with so great a splendor of light, that they could illumine the whole world, even constituted in darkness, more than a thousand suns. Concerning that very spirit of truth, moreover, a certain most experienced preacher of the spiritual life, instructed, said: That he never knew anyone in life like the pious Lutgard, so perfectly passing through faith into understanding and affection. Which I myself also attest, as

I conjecture in part both from the Scriptures and from the report of certain spiritual persons, she is bedewed with tears, although I am a poor little man inexperienced in such light. [And indeed it could not easily be believed with how great desires of seeing Christ she burned. I myself sometimes saw in this such great tears of hers, that scarcely could anyone sustain them without tears: it happened, moreover, two years before she migrated from the world, that our Brother Bernard, coming to Aywières, found her already sick for a month, and prepared as if daily for her departure by the Sacrament of Unction. For out of the most ardent desire of seeing Christ it had settled in her mind, that she ought then to pass over to the Lord. The said Friar, therefore, finding no sign of death in her, said to her, suspended with so great a desire: It does not seem to me, dearest, and she desires to die. that you are passing now from this world. Whom she, beating back with an anxious countenance; Do not, she said, dearest, say so, for I greatly desire to contemplate Christ the Lord with unveiled face. And he smiling: Truly not, dearest Mother, it will not be in this manner: To whom she, with eyes lifted to heaven; If, she said, it will not be now, may His will be done tomorrow. Then I will rise from my little bed, and receive His body for solace.]

[10] On a certain day when the soul of the pious Lutgard, inclined to piety, was more sincerely joined to Christ in contemplation, a voice was made over her, a certain most devout Nun hearing, saying: [in contemplation she hears, "My delights are to be with the sons of men."] My delights are to be with the sons of men. What wonder? what new thing? Augustine, the greatest of contemplatives, called the faithful and devout soul a paradise of paradises, and deservedly: For in the creation of heaven and earth, He only said the word, and they were made: but in the recreation of the soul, fallen through the sin of Adam, how great a labor for thirty-three years up to the ignominious death Christ sustained, who will suffice to estimate? That true God and true man sustained these things indeed I do not doubt: but how greatly that one is to be esteemed, for whom this One sustained such and so great things, no one will ever suffice fully to admire; especially since that one, repaying His turn according to ability, does not cease to fill up in his flesh those things which are lacking to the passion of Christ. That Lutgard did this greatly, no one doubts who knew her; none hesitates who reads these things. According to the foregoing therefore, what among our temporal things could be more delightful to Christ the Son of God than Lutgard? If there was one, I do not know; God knows. One thing I know, I have believed, on account of which I have spoken, that I do not remember to have read or heard of any such.

[11] In the year a little more than one before her death the Lord Jesus Christ appeared to her, applauding her with the countenance of one congratulating, and said: Now the end of your labor is at hand: three things Christ requires of her in the last year of her life. I do not wish you to be separated from Me any longer. Three things only I require of you in this year. First indeed, that you give thanks for the benefits already obtained; and in this seek the suffrages of the Blessed: the second is, that for My sinners you pour yourself out wholly in prayers before the Father: the third is, that you covet to come to Me without any other care, with gaping desire. Weigh therefore, Reader, of how great merit before God she was, whose heel, when the ancient serpent ought to have lain in wait for it, God occupied her mind with only three cares.

[12] In the Paschal time next before her death a the Lord Jesus Christ appeared to her, with His glorious Mother in the greatest glory of brightness. And when the pious Lutgard, (as almost always) complained of the exile of the present life, and the desire of the supernal fatherland, by Him and by the Mother of God she is admonished of the death soon to follow, they said to her: It is not necessary for you, dearest, to be wearied any longer from this present time: now a remedy of perpetual peace is being arranged for you unto a crown; nor do we wish you to wait any longer henceforth. These things the pious Lutgard foretold to the oft-named Sybil de Gages, immediately as she received the Lord's revelation, with the greatest fear and exultation: for as she had none dearer in all things, so she had none in all things more intimate. And deservedly: because, according to the precept of the aforesaid venerable Jacobus, she was governed in all things by the counsel of the same Sybil, as the more lettered.

[13] Fifteen days before her death the glorious virgin Mary appeared to her, and the most blessed Baptist John, whom she loved with a most special love: who also said to her: again visited by the Mother of God and the saints XV days before her death, Now your consummation is at hand, there remains for you the crown of justice: we do not wish you to be here any longer, for all the heavenly citizens await you. But also the Saints appeared to her in that year frequently in a great multitude, and foretold to her the passing which she was more insistently to complete. And also certain of her special friends, who had already gone before, appeared to her; protesting that they rejoiced magnificently that she would be associated with them, soon to migrate. When she had said these things to certain of her friends, she was asked how she could discern among the Saints. And she: From Christ Himself, she said, the Holy of the Saints, a certain splendor shining into the soul goes forth, in which I perfectly recognize each of the Saints she recognizes them in the splendor of Christ: who appears to me. Note therefore, Reader, that I understand that splendor to be nothing other than the mirror of the Trinity or of eternity. For as the book of Wisdom in the seventh chapter says: "It is the brightness of eternal light, and the spotless mirror of God's majesty, and the image of His goodness; and being one, it can do all things, and remaining in itself it renews all things, and through the nations it transfers itself into holy souls, constituting the friends of God and prophets." Wis. 7:16 Therefore the Saints, when they appeared to her, she asked more earnestly, that they would give thanks to God for her, and for the benefits conferred on her by Him.

[14] Frequently she had reproved the Nun Sisters in the infirmary, because they discharged less well and less attentively the Canonical Hours divinely appointed to God. those whom she had vainly admonished in life concerning the divine office, And when half a year before her death she did not see the full correction, according to what befitted Divine Reverence, in the others; she said: I know that after my death the hand of the Lord will avenge this defect in the Sisters; and then, mindful of my word and of the scourge, they will be humbly corrected, and soon the Lord will withdraw the hand which He had stretched out in vengeance. With how truthful a spirit these things were prophesied, she predicts they will be corrected when she is dead, there is none who doubts. For as soon as the pious Lutgard died a blessed death, a grave pestilence soon raged in the convent of Nuns, and within the briefest space of time, to the number of fourteen, most approved Nuns died. For I came there at that time, and two sisters in spirit and flesh, migrating in one space of a moment, having celebrated Mass for them, I buried in one tomb. And without delay after these things, when the weak in the infirmary had most fully corrected themselves in saying the Hours solicitously; the Lord mercifully recalling His hand, according to what the pious Lutgard had foretold, as was done, fourteen of them being carried off by the plague. the pestilence soon ceased. I ask you therefore, O Ladies and Sisters of Aywières, that you observe the pious Lutgard in all the sayings which you will be able to observe: and cleave to the traces of her examples, and I hope that by her prayers you will arrive at the palm, and in this take as an example what I add.

[15] Of her special friends a certain secular man had fallen into a grave sin. praying often for a friend fallen into sin, Making therefore his confession, he indeed did penance for the sin, but deserved to feel no consolation of indulgence in prayer. Wherefore he almost fell into the abyss of despair: coming, moreover, to the pious Lutgard, as to his own mother, with grave grief he complained of what he had done, and what he was suffering for his crime. But she, once, again, and a third time pouring out prayer for the sinner, received no answer from the Lord, as she was wont. He, however, felt himself better in nothing. Seeing this, the pious Lutgard wrestled in prayer with the Lord with wondrous insistence of spirit. At last, when she could not overcome in His wrath the Lord who keeps mercies, she said: Either blot me out of the book of life, or remit to him this offense. And without delay: she understands that remission was made on her account: at this voice the Lord, inclined to mercy, said: Behold, I have remitted it to him, because he trusted in you: and not only to him, but also to all who have hope in you, and are loved by you, will I do well on account of you. At these words of God, therefore, soon that man, perfectly receiving the hope of pardon, came, the Lord being propitious, to a more gracious and more peaceful state than before his fall.

[16] Hence therefore, as regards herself, follows a day of exultation and praise; but to us, and to all those who lived by the solace of her patronage, on June 9 seized with a fever, a day of mourning, a day of groaning, and of sorrow; a day, I say, which I, the most unhappy of all, could neither anticipate by death, as I had often asked her, nor can I follow it, left more wretched than any orphan. There came therefore the day, namely the vigil of the Octave of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, and she lay down with a very grave but slow fever, the undivided veneratress of the Triune God. As the disease grew, moreover, she was exercised. On the following Monday a certain Lay-brother of Affligem, named William (for she loved especially the Friars of that monastery, on June 11 visited by a Lay-brother of Affligem, on account of the observance of religion), entered to her for the sake of visitation, and among other words said: Would that our Lord Abbot knew that you are so gravely sick. And she: Tomorrow, she said, he will come, that dearest of mine, and will see me. At which he, since he reckoned the answer unbelievable, fell silent in wonder. And in the morning, when the said b venerable Abbot was passing nearby within two miles, and was utterly ignorant that the pious Lutgard was sick, he said to those who were with him: on June 12 by the Abbot. Let us go to see Lady Lutgard, for I have not seen her now for a long elapsed time. He came therefore to Aywières: and when he had entered to her, she most sincerely congratulating, and raised up from her little bed, sat up; and holding his hand said; Now I withdraw, dearest, and I leave nothing under heaven dearer than you: but know that concerning you I have been consoled by the Lord. With this said, the Abbot, distracted by other matters, departed: and she until Thursday remained with great alacrity of spirit. On Thursday therefore, when she had heard the voice of the oft-named Sybil de Gages entering, she said: Sit here beside my heart: behold the cloister is full of the soldiery of the heavenly host: on June 14 she sees the dwellers of heaven in the cloister, the souls of the Blessed are present, and many of our Sisters, who from this world

have gone before. Saying these things she fell silent; and thereafter through the whole Friday, with a most gracious countenance, rapt in spirit in the contemplation of God alone, she remained. on June 15 rapt into ecstasy, On Saturday, moreover, when the hour of death was at hand, she opened her eyes to the heavens: and, fortified with the sanctifying Sacraments, in the midst of young timbrel-players mingled with the princes of the heavenly host, who chanted, the happy soul, exulting unto the free airs, flew away to the heights; on the 16th, fortified with the Sacraments, she dies, in the year from the Incarnation of the Lord one thousand two hundred forty-six, in the month of June, on the sixteenth of the Kalends of July: in the fourth Indiction, in the sixty-fourth year of her age c, about the hour of evening, reigning our Lord Jesus Christ, in the year 1246 at age 64. to whom is honor and glory with the Father and the Holy Spirit, through immortal ages of ages. Amen.

[17] But when the pious Lutgard breathed forth her last spirit, some of the Nuns, to whom this best gift was granted by God, were filled with so great a sweetness of spirit, with the consolation of those standing by, with so great an alacrity, that they could not contain themselves for amazement; and assuredly they perfectly perceived that, with the immense exultation of the heavenly ones, the very Prince of our salvation, Jesus, presentially called her soul to the delights of paradise. Moreover it is proper by nature to the dying, that in death they blacken with a livid pallor: but the pious Lutgard, she retains whiteness in her face, her eyes open, in sign of virgin innocence, displayed in her face in death a whiteness with the brilliance of a lily. Her eyes, closed (as was said) long before the impending hour of death to heaven, she opened, nor could she afterward have them closed in death or after death: because that very gesture of the eyes indicated the path through which her spirit had passed. and her skin smooth. The skin, moreover, of her whole body was found by those handling it to be of such great smoothness, that under the touching hand it would most fully be believed to be fine linen, equally white and smooth: assuredly this simple dove without gall had eyes washed with the milk of purity, which gazed sitting beside the most full streams.

ANNOTATIONS OF G. H.

CHAPTER III.

The burial. Miracles.

[18] Therefore when the sacred lifeless body was being washed, The use of a hand is restored by the touch of the body: a certain Sister, who for several years had utterly lost the use of her hand, by chance and not by intention touched the body with her lost hand while washing it, and suddenly was restored to health, into the full use of every work. Behold how suddenly, how plainly, as we said above, the word of the prophecy of the venerable Mary of Oignies was fulfilled, where, in death, acting concerning the pious Lutgard, she foretold: Spiritual miracles she now works in life; corporal ones she will effect after death. Worthy indeed, and truly most worthy, that Him whom the pious Lutgard in her life preached as wondrous in His Saints, that God should also exhibit her, by evident signs, wondrous after death.

[19] For several years before her death I had instantly asked many Nuns and lay Brothers, the writer who had once asked that the hand of the dead woman be given to him, that if it should happen, as alas! it did happen, that I should not be present at the death of the pious Mother Lutgard; they would reserve her cut-off hand for me, for the sake of her sacred memory: and in this I had obtained the license of the venerable Hawidis, Abbess of that same place. But, as the nature of women is, utterly unable to conceal things to be concealed, according to that common proverb, "Namely, that a woman keep silent, if any can"; the Nuns indicated to the pious Lutgard what I had arranged concerning the cutting off of her hand. Nor long after, when, coming to Aywières, I had begun to have a conversation with her; and to whom she, living, had said a finger would suffice, she, looking at me with a serious countenance, said: I have heard, dearest son, that you are now arranging to cut off my hand after death: but I greatly wonder what you intend to do with my hand. I therefore, suffused with a blush; I believe, I said, that your hand will come to me for the good of my soul and body, if I obtain it, as I intend. Then she, smiling with the serene countenance she had, and laying the little finger of her right hand on the windowsill, in which we were conversing, It will suffice you enough, she said, when you can have this finger after my death. Then I, now inveighing more confidently: Nothing of your body, Mother, will be able to suffice me, unless I have the hand or head, by which then, bereft, I may be relieved of you. With these said, we descended to other words, saying nothing of this to anyone, and weighing or noting nothing. Therefore, she being dead, when, the body not yet borne up into the church, it was kept in the infirmary, a certain most devout youth Guido, and another companion of his, lay Brothers, were thinking to cut off the hand of the pious Lutgard; but since they did not dare to presume this, they amputated that same little finger of the right hand, which she had said would suffice me, hearing it was amputated, he asks for it, and drew sixteen teeth from her mouth. Now, having learned of her death, and hearing the finger amputated, nor understanding which of the fingers it was; Now, I said, I shall see more clearly, whether the pious Lutgard will truly be proven to be a Prophetess: who foretold to me many years ago that the little finger of her right hand would suffice me. I came therefore to Aywières and found that same one, as she had foretold, amputated, and that it would suffice me in all things, and that I would be happy if I could obtain it, I solicitously considered. Over it therefore, approaching the Abbess, I poured out suppliant prayers with tears: but, to my great grief, I soon found the Abbess herself alone inexorable: yet I believe it was not without the dispensation of supernal counsel: and at last he obtains it: for the Almighty was arranging to prove, that according to the promise of the pious Lutgard I should obtain her finger, which an unknowing simplicity had denied. A second time, moreover, in due time I came to Aywières, and promising to write the life of the pious Lutgard, with immense joy of heart I received, above gold and silver, the desired gift. and he proves the deed by examples. Nor let any envious person bite me in this or judge me to be reprehended: if I embrace with so great love the finger of the pious Lutgard, not yet canonized: because the most blessed a Natalia cut off the arm of Adrian the Martyr soon after he was slain. The finger too of the venerable Mary of Oignies, not yet canonized, b cut off at her death, the one of pious memory once Bishop of Acre, and afterward Cardinal of the Roman Curia, suspended for many years from his neck, gave as a very great gift to Pope Gregory the ninth of solemn memory, to be carried against the spirit of blasphemy, by which he was atrociously tempted. The thumb too of Blessed c Elizabeth, Landgravine of Thuringia, who died in our time soon after, was cut off along with the index finger. But that which in St. Natalia, and in the memorable man Jacobus the Cardinal, and in Gregory the Pontiff of the Roman city, and in many others worthy of faith, preceded with so great authority; no one will judge in me as a foolish and impious deed, unless one plainly foolish and impious.

[20] Henceforth, when her sacred body lay to be buried on the bier; a question was raised, where so great and so solemn relics should be laid. And it happened that by divine ordination the venerable d Abbot of Aulne, Father according to the order, the Visitor of that monastery, from three days before the burial of the pious Lutgard, was even awaiting her departure. The question being raised, therefore, From the response of the Abbot of Aulne, where so most precious a treasure should befittingly be entombed; the Abbot answered: And where, he said, except in the Church, where it can worthily be frequented by all. Surely in all things he answered both providently and worthily, according to those things which she herself had foretold in life. For when her more intimate Nuns at Aywières had asked her in life what they should do, she herself being dead, who were so thwarted the suffrage of her prayers; she answered; To my tomb, she said, flee; there I shall be present to you dead, as living. How truly and with what prophetic spirit she foretold these things, and from the Saint's prediction, I doubt that anyone is now ignorant, who has with faithful heart invoked her aid. But where this ought more fittingly to be done, except in the appointed place, where she was wont to cleave to God in prayer and contemplation. she is buried on the right side of the choir, The word of the Abbot therefore obtained the consent of all, and on the right side of the choir, near the wall where she was wont to pray, in a solemn and honorable place, she is buried. The said Sybil de Gages, moreover, versifying in the manner of an epitaph, said:

Lutgard wept; she led a life without crime; with an epitaph. With Christ she dwells, whom this stone covers. Hungering and thirsting after heavenly things, she wept; The pure day, the face of the spouse, has now shone for her. She, the mirror of life, the flower of the cloister, the gem of sisters; In her shone piety, compassion, glory of morals.

[21] And without delay, after she was buried, she appeared to a certain e Elizabeth of Wans, a nun at Aywières, who once in Champagne of France had been Abbess at f St. Desiderius. Appearing in great glory, she questioned her, saying; O most sweet Lady, appearing, she says she was saved without purgatory, many being freed from it. did you for any space of time endure purgatory? And she; Not only did I pass without purgatory to rest, but also, when I had passage before purgatory, having compassion on the afflicted there I blessed them; and many souls, by the divine benefit, exempted from pains, I transferred with me to the pleasantness of Paradise. As she said these things, it seemed to the said Elizabeth, that to a certain young nun, Machtild by name, still living, the pious Lutgard said: Follow me. By which she, understanding that the young woman should follow her through death, offered herself also to follow Elizabeth, saying: Let it be permitted me also to follow you, a young woman invited by her died after 9 days. sweetest Mother. And the pious Lutgard, You cannot, she said, follow me now, but afterward, daughter, you shall follow me, your mother. Which vision straightway had its effect: for the young woman, who was invited by the pious Lutgard to follow, died within nine days: but Elizabeth, who offered herself to follow, and to whom it was not granted to follow, survived.

[22] Moreover, when, according to the prophecy of the pious Lutgard, Aywières is freed from the plague, among the nuns of Aywières a dire plague of the dying was raging; a certain

of the Nuns saw in a vision, that many were insolently rushing into the church of the monastery. And when no one had been able to prohibit them from their insolence, she saw that the pious Lutgard rose from the tomb, and drove them all from the church with the greatest violence. And without delay the blessed vision obtains its effect, and from the insolence of the pestilential contagion the monastery of Aywières is freed.

[23] Hastily each one of the Nuns distracted whatever they could have of girdles, of mantles, veils, and an anthrax on the neck is driven off by the touch of the veil. and other things, as for Relics, and truly the greatest Relics. But the most noble girl Beatrix of Roania, a Nun, who from her patrimony most copiously relieved the monastery of Aywières from poverty, having an anthrax, which the physicians call a carbuncle, on her neck, placed the head-veil of the pious Lutgard around her neck: and the perniciously swelling inflammation visibly soon fled away. Justly indeed, O pious Lutgard, and worthily in all things you did this, that after death she should reap your spiritual things, whose temporal things you received in this life.

[24] Lord Alard, there for very many years a Chaplain, when he was grieving with an inflamed thumb in great anxiety, they are cured, the thumb binding the Relics of the pious Lutgard to his inflamed thumb, soon perceptibly experienced a remedy of the pain and of the inflammation.

[25] Oda, Subprioress of Aywières, when she gravely grieved with an inflamed hand, binding around it the Relics of the pious Lutgard, and a hand inflamed; felt continually the remedy of most perfect health.

[26] A kinswoman of mine of the same name, born in the town of g Brania, a Nun, when from a weakness of the head, by which she was long vexed, she could not at all bear the smell of a lily, a weakness of the head, and lilies were placed at the tomb of the pious Lutgard; she indeed shuddered at the very sight, but when she had only placed her head to test the entrance of the door, and perceived no burden; soon, having entered more confidently, she clung to the place, approached the tomb, brought the lilies to her nostrils, and felt no pain of the head at all. The same Nun, when on a certain night in the darkness she prostrated herself at the sepulcher of the pious Lutgard for the sake of praying; struck her eye against the sharp iron of a candlestick, and soon cast her hand over her eye, a grave injury of the eye, that she might hold its little ball as if dislodged from its place, lest it utterly fall. Constrained therefore by intolerable pain she said: What is this, O holy mother Lutgard, that has happened to me? Falling down in veneration of you, I have lost the eye which you ought to have guarded; and thence I have brought away trouble, whence I was awaiting a remedy. Saying these things she rose, and in the momentary space of one hour, most fully restored to health, she suffered nothing of languor or of pain.

[27] a most grave pain of the head. Mary of Audena, a Nun of Aywières, when she was tortured with a most grave pain of the head, so that she could not for a moment rest in any member of her body at all, and she rolled herself impatiently over the ground; all wondering, who thought she would soon lose her senses, by the veil of the pious Lutgard she is soon visibly cured to such a degree, that no pain at all remained in her.

[28] A certain noble matron, when in childbirth she had labored most long and most perilously, women in childbirth are freed by the application of the girdle. a girdle made of horsehair being brought, which the pious Lutgard had been wont to use against her flesh for the maceration of her body, she placed it over her womb; and, all being astonished, without any condition of pain she is freed unto the safety of herself and of her offspring. This same thing has been efficaciously proven in various places, and in various persons.

ANNOTATIONS OF G. H.

June III: 17. June