nointed My body for My burial. I tell
you in truth that in the whole world, wherever the Gospel is preached,
shall be told what she has done, and she shall be praised."

She then described how Jesus had cast out the seven devils that had
raged within her.

She added:

"Since then, enraptured and consumed by all the joys of faith and love,
I have lived in the shadow of the Master as in a new Eden."

She told her of the lilies of the fields upon which they had gazed
together, and of that infinite happiness, the happiness born of faith
alone. Then she described how He had been betrayed and put to death for
the salvation of His people. She recalled the ineffable scenes of the
passion, the burial and the resurrection.

"It was I," she cried, "it was I who of all was the first to see Him. I
found two angels clad in white seated, one at the head, the other at the
feet, where we had laid the body of Jesus. And they said to me: 'Woman,
why weepest thou?' 'I weep because they have taken away my Lord, and I
know not where they have laid Him.'

"O joy! Jesus came towards me, and at first I thought He was the
gardener. But he called me 'Mary' and I recognised His voice. I cried
'Master' and held out my arms, but He replied gently, 'Touch me not, for
I am not yet ascended to my Father.'"

As she listened to this narrative Laeta Acilia lost little by little her
sense of joy and contentment. Recalling the past and examining her own
life, it seemed to her very monotonous in comparison to the life of
the woman who had loved a god. Young and pious and a patrician, her own
red-letter days were those on which she had eaten cakes with her girl
friends. Visits to the circus, the love of Helvius and her needle-work
also counted in her life. But what were these all in comparison to the
scenes with which Mary Magdalen kindled her senses and her soul? She
felt her heart stifling with bitter jealousy and vague regrets.

She envied this Jewess, whose radiant beauty still glowed under the
ashes of penitence, her divine adventures, and even her sorrows.

"Begone, Jewess!" she cried, forcing back her tears with her hands.
"Begone! But a moment since I was so contented, I believed myself so
happy. I did not know that there were other joys than those which were
mine. I knew of no other love than that of my good Helvius, and I knew
of no other holy joy than to celebrate the mysteries of the goddesses
in the manner of my mother and of my grandmo