ry, we read:--
"One day at chapel she heard supernaturally sung the words, '_Sanctus,
Sanctus, Sanctus_.' The Son of God, leaning towards her like a sweet
lover, and giving to her soul the softest kiss, said to her at the
second _Sanctus_, 'In the _Sanctus_ addressed to My person, receive with
this all the sanctity of My divinity and of My humanity.'... And the
following Sunday, while she was thanking God for this favour, behold the
Son of God, more beauteous than thousands of angels, takes her to His
arms as if He were proud of her, and presents her to God the Father, and
in that perfection of sanctity with which He had endowed her."[101]
Of Juliana of Norwich, who was granted a revelation in 1373, we are told
that she had for long 'ardently desired' a bodily sight of the Lord upon
the cross; and that finally Jesus appeared to her and said, "I love thee
and thou lovest Me, and our love shall never be disparted in two."[102]
So, again, in the case of Sister Jeanne des Anges, Superior of the
Convent of Ursulines of Loudun, and the principal character in the
famous Grandier witchcraft case, we have a detailed account, in her own
words, of the lascivious dreams, unclean suggestions, etc.--all
attributed to Satan--and alternating with impressions of bodily union
with Jesus.[103] Marie de L'Incarnation addresses Jesus as follows:--
"Oh, my love, when shall I embrace you? Have you no pity on the torments
that I suffer? Alas! alas! My love! My beauty! My life! Instead of
healing my pain, you take pleasure in it. Come, let me embrace you, and
die in your sacred arms."[104]
Veronica Juliani, beatified by Pope Pius II., took a real lamb to bed
with her, kissed it, and suckled it at her breasts. St. Catherine of
Genoa threw herself on the ground to cool herself, crying out, "Love,
love, I can bear it no longer." She also confessed to a peculiar
longing towards her confessor.[105]
The blessed Mary Alacoque, foundress of the Sacred Heart, was subject
from early life to a number of complaints--rheumatism, palsy, pains in
the side, ulceration of the legs--and experienced visions early in her
career. As a child she had so vivid a sense of modesty that the mere
sight of a man offended her. At seventeen she took to wearing a knotted
cord drawn so tightly that she could neither eat nor breathe without
pain. She compressed her arms so tightly with iron chains that she could
not remove them without anguish. "I made," she says, "a b
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