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RE: The Life of the Blessed Virgin Mary by Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich - Stone - 02-11-2023
IX. ADVENT105
The actual date of Christ’s Birth, as I always see it, is four weeks earlier than its celebration by the Church; it must have happened on St. Catherine’s feast-day.106 I always see the Annunciation as happening at the end of February. Already at the end of October I saw it being announced in the Promised Land that an enrolment and taxing of the people was to be made by decree of the Emperor. After that I saw many people travelling up and down the country.
[Sunday, November 11th, 1821:] For several days in succession I have seen the Blessed Virgin with her mother Anna, whose house is about an hour’s journey away from Nazareth in the valley of Zabulon. The only woman remaining in Our Lady’s house at Nazareth is Anna’s maidservant, who looks after St. Joseph while Mary is with Anna. In fact, as long as Anna was alive they had no completely separate household, but always received their provisions from her. For several weeks already I have seen the Blessed Virgin busy with preparations for the Birth of Christ. She is sewing and knitting coverlets, cloths and swaddling-bands. There is more than enough of everything.
Joachim is no longer alive; I see another man in the house. Anna has married again. Her second husband was employed in the Temple in connection with the beasts for sacrifice. I saw Anna sending him out food when he was with the flocks and herds; there were little loaves and fishes in a leathern wallet with several divisions in it. There is a rather tall little girl, about seven years old, in the house, who helps the Blessed Virgin and is taught by her. I think she might be a daughter of Mary Cleophas. Her name was Mary, too. Joseph is not at Nazareth, but must soon be coming, for he is on his way back from Jerusalem, where he has taken beasts for sacrifice.
I saw the Blessed Virgin in the house. She was far advanced in pregnancy, and sat in a room working with several other women. They were preparing coverlets and other things for Mary's confinement. Anna, who possessed pastures with flocks and herds, was well-todo. She supplied the Blessed Virgin with plenty of everything that it was customary for a person in her rank of life to have. As she thought that Mary would be in her (Anna’s) house for the birth of her child, and that all her relations would come to visit her there, she made all the preparations in a very lavish manner, with specially beautiful coverlets and rugs. I saw a coverlet of the kind that was in Elisabeth’s house when John was born. It was embroidered with all kinds of texts and emblems, and had a kind of inner lining sewn into it in which the mother could wrap herself. She could fasten this lining round her with tapes and buttons, and be as it were in a little boat or like a baby in its swaddling-bands. She could recline comfortably in it, supported by cushions, when visited by friends, and the latter sat round her on the edge of the coverlet. All these things, as well as many swaddling-bands for the child itself, were prepared in Anna’s house. I saw gold and silver threads being used.
Not all the coverlets and other things were for Mary’s own use; much was intended as presents for the poor, who were always remembered on happy occasions of this kind. I saw the Blessed Virgin and other women sitting on the floor round a big chest, knitting and working at a big coverlet lying in the chest between them. They used two little sticks on which coloured threads were wound. Anna was very busy; she went hither and thither fetching and distributing wool and apportioning their tasks to her maidservants.
[November 12th:] Joseph will arrive back in Nazareth today. He was in Jerusalem, taking beasts there for sacrifice. He left them at the little inn a quarter of an hour on the road from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. The house was kept by a devout old childless couple. It was a suitable lodging for quiet people. Joseph went from there to Bethlehem, but did not visit his relations in that town. He only wanted to find out about an enrolment and taxation of the people which made it necessary for everyone to betake himself to his birthplace. He did not, however, have himself inscribed as yet, because he intended to journey with Mary to the Temple in Jerusalem after the days of her purification, and then to go to Bethlehem and settle there. I do not know for certain what were his reasons, but Joseph did not like being in Nazareth.107 He therefore looked about him in Bethlehem and made inquiries about stones and timber, for he had it in his mind to build himself a house there. Having found out what he wanted, he returned to the inn near Jerusalem, took his sacrifice to the Temple, and hurried home again. As he was crossing the field of Chimki,108 six hours from Nazareth, at midnight last night, an angel appeared to him and warned him that he was to go to Bethlehem with Mary at once, for it was there that she was to bear her child. He also indicated everything that she was to take with her for her use, explaining that they were to be few and simple things, and in particular no embroidered coverlets. Also, besides the ass upon which Mary was to sit, he was to take with him a she-ass one year old that had not yet had a foal. He was to let her run free and was always to follow whatever path she took. This evening Anna went with the Blessed Virgin to Nazareth; no doubt they knew that Joseph was arriving. But they do not seem to know that Mary would journey to Bethlehem from Anna’s house. They thought no doubt that Mary would bear her child in her own house in Nazareth, for I saw them taking there, packed in saddle-bags, many of the things they had prepared. I saw amongst them several shawls of blue material with hoods. I think they were meant for wrapping the child in. Joseph arrived at Nazareth in the evening. [November 13th:] Today I saw the Blessed Virgin and her mother Anna in the house in Nazareth, where Joseph revealed to them what had been told him the previous night.
Thereupon they returned to Anna’s house, and I saw them preparing to leave immediately. Anna was distressed. The Blessed Virgin must have known that she was to bear her child in Bethlehem, but had been silent out of humility. She knew it from the writings of the Prophets about the birth of the Messias, all of which she treasured in her little cupboard at Nazareth. (She had been given them by her women-teachers in the Temple and had been instructed in them by these holy women. She used to read them very often and pray for their fulfilment. Her prayers were ever full of yearning for the coming of the Messias; she ever extolled as blessed her who should bear the holy child, and hoped only to be allowed to serve her as her lowest maidservant. Never in her humility had she thought that she herself might be the chosen one.) Since she knew from those passages in the Prophets that the Saviour was to be born in Bethlehem, she yielded joyfully to the Divine Will and began the journey, which was difficult for her at that time of the year, when it was often decidedly cold in the valleys between the ranges of hills. This evening I saw Joseph and the Blessed Virgin, accompanied by Anna, Mary Cleophas, and some menservants, starting off from Anna’s house. Mary sat on the comfortable side-saddle of a donkey, which also carried her baggage. Joseph led the donkey. A second donkey was taken for Anna to ride back on. Her husband was away in the fields when they started on their journey.
[November 14th:] This morning I saw the holy travellers arrive at an open field called Ginim,109 six hours’ journey from Nazareth, where the angel had appeared to Joseph two days before. Anna had a pasture here and the menservants were told to fetch the young sheass which Joseph was to take with him. She sometimes ran in front of them and sometimes beside them. Anna and Mary Cleophas here took a tender farewell of the travellers and returned home with the menservants. (This field Ginim is several miles long and is shaped like a pear. Another field, called Gimmi, lies nearer Nazareth not far from a shepherds’ village high up in the hills called Gimmi or Gimchi, where Jesus taught shepherds from the 7th to the 9th of September before His Baptism. These shepherds had lepers hidden among them. He also healed here the dropsical woman of the house where He stayed, and was mocked by the Pharisees. Farther away from this place and to the south-west of Nazareth, beyond the river Kishon, is a settlement of lepers, consisting of scattered huts round a lake formed by the river. Jesus healed here on September 30th before His Baptism.110 The field Ginim, traversed today by the Holy Family, is separated from the other field Gimmi by a little river or river-bed. The names are so alike that I may easily have confused them.)
I saw the Holy Family going on their way and climbing Mount Gilboa.111 They did not pass through any town; they followed the young she-ass, which always took lonely by-ways. I saw them stopping at a house in the hills belonging to Lazarus, not far from the town of Ginim and in the direction of Samaria. The steward, who knew them from other journeys, gave them a friendly welcome. Their family was on intimate terms with Lazarus. There are beautiful orchards and avenues here. The house stands high, so that one has a very wide view from the roof. Lazarus inherited it from his father; Our Lord Jesus often stayed here during His ministry and taught in the surrounding country. The steward and his wife conversed in a very friendly way with the Blessed Virgin. They were surprised that she should have been willing to undertake such a long journey in her condition, when she might have had every comfort at home with her mother Anna.
[Thursday to Friday night, November 15th -16th:] I saw the Holy Family some hours’ journey beyond this last place, going at night towards a mountain through a very cold valley. It looked as if there was hoar-frost on the ground. The Blessed Virgin was suffering from the cold and said to Joseph: ‘We must rest, I can go no farther.’ Hardly had she spoken when the she-ass that was running with them stood still under a terebinth tree, very big and old, near which was a spring of water. They stopped under this tree; Joseph spread coverings for the Blessed Virgin to sit on, after helping her to alight from the donkey, and she sat down under the tree. Joseph hung a lighted lantern, which he carried with him, on the lower branches of the tree. (I often saw travellers in that country do this at night.) The Blessed Virgin prayed earnestly to God that He would not suffer her to take harm from the cold. At once she was filled with so great a warmth that she held out her hands to St. Joseph to warm his. They refreshed themselves here with fruit and little loaves of bread which they had with them, and drank water from the spring nearby, mixing it with balsam which Joseph had brought with him in a little jug. Joseph spoke very comfortingly to the Blessed Virgin: he is so good, and so sorry that the journey is so difficult. When Our Lady complained of the cold, he spoke to her about the good lodging which he hoped to find for her in Bethlehem. He said he knew of a house with very good people where they would find a comfortable lodging at very little cost. It was, he said, better to pay something than to be taken in for nothing. He spoke highly of Bethlehem in general, and comforted Our Lady in every possible way. (This upset me, because I knew well that things would turn out quite differently. Even this holy man, you see, indulged in human hopes.)
So far they have crossed two little streams in the course of their journey: one of these they crossed on a high foot-way, while the two donkeys waded through the water. It was strange to see how the young she-ass, who was free to go where she would, kept running round the travellers. Where the path narrowed, as for instance between hills, and so could not be mistaken, she ran sometimes before and sometimes behind them, but where there was a parting of the ways she always appeared again and took the right path. Where they were to rest, she stood still, as here by the terebinth tree. I do not remember whether they spent the night under the tree, or whether they went on to another shelter.
This terebinth was a very old and sacred tree, of the grove of Moreh near Sichem. When Abraham was journeying into the land of Chanaan, he had here a vision of God, who promised him this land for his descendants. (Gen. 15.) He then built an altar under the terebinth. Before Jacob went to Bethel, to sacrifice to the Lord, he buried under this terebinth all the strange gods of Laban and the jewels which his family carried with him. (Gen. 35.4.) Under this tree Josue built the tabernacle for the Ark of the Covenant and made the people assembled there renounce their idols. (Josue 24.26.) It was here that Abimelech, the son of Gedeon, was hailed as king of the Sichemites. (Judges 9.6.)
[November 16th:] Today I saw the Holy Family arriving at a big farm, about two hours’ journey south of the tree I have mentioned. The woman of the house was absent, and her husband turned St. Joseph away, saying that he could easily go on farther. After they had gone on for some distance, they found that the she-ass had run into an empty shed, which they also entered. Some shepherds, who were busy cleaning it out, showed them great friendliness, and gave them straw and little bundles of reeds and twigs to make a fire with. These shepherds went to the house where the Holy Family had been turned away and told the woman of the house, who had now come home, how kind and God-fearing Joseph was, and what a beautiful and wonderfully holy wife he had; whereupon she upbraided her husband for having turned away such good people. I saw, too, that the woman at once went to the place where the Holy Family was sheltering, but was too shy to go in, and went home again to fetch some food.
(The place where they were was on the north side of a hill somewhere between Samaria and Thebez. Almost to the east of it, beyond the Jordan, is Succoth; and somewhat more to the south, but also beyond Jordan, is Ainon, this side of Salem. It must be about twelve hours’ journey from Nazareth.)112 After a time the woman, accompanied by two children, came to the Holy Family with some provisions. She apologized and was very friendly and sympathetic. After they had refreshed and rested themselves, the husband also came, and asked Joseph to forgive him for having sent him away. He advised him to continue uphill for an hour, where before the Sabbath began he would find a good inn in which he could spend the Sabbath. After this they started off again. After having climbed for about an hour, they came to a rather considerable inn, which consisted of several buildings, surrounded by trees and pleasure-gardens, in which were shrubs of balsam on espaliers, though the inn was on the northern slope. The Blessed Virgin had alighted from her donkey, which Joseph was leading. They came up to the house, and when the innkeeper came out Joseph asked him for lodging. He excused himself, saying that his house was full. His wife also came out, and when the Blessed Virgin came up to her and begged so humbly and simply for shelter, she was deeply moved, and the innkeeper himself could not gainsay her. He made comfortable quarters for them in a nearby shed and put their pack-donkey in a stable. The young she-ass was not there, she was running free in the country round; she always went off when she was not needed to show the way. Joseph prepared his Sabbath lamp here, and kept the Sabbath praying beneath it with the Blessed Virgin with the most touching devotion. They ate a little, and then rested on mats spread out on the floor.
[November 17th:] I saw the Holy Family spending the whole day here and praying together. I saw the mistress of the house and her three children with the Blessed Virgin, and the farmer’s wife of the day before also came with her two children and paid Our Lady a visit. There was real intimacy among them as they sat together; and the two women were greatly impressed by Mary’s wisdom and modest behaviour. They listened with great attention to Our Lady, who talked much with the children and taught them. The children had little parchment rolls, from which Mary made them read to her. She spoke to them in such a lovely way about what they read, that they could not take their eyes off her. It was sweet to see and sweeter still to hear. In the afternoon I saw St. Joseph walking about with the innkeeper in the country round, looking at the gardens and fields, and talking of holy things, as I saw was always the Sabbath practice of devout people in that land. They remained here for the following night as well.
[Sunday, November 18th:] The good people of this inn have become extremely fond of the Blessed Virgin, and have an intense sympathy with her and with her condition. They begged her in the most friendly way to stay and await her confinement here. They even showed her a comfortable room which they would make ready for her. The woman offered her, with all her heart, to care for her and look after her in every way. However, they started again on their journey early in the morning, and went down a valley on the south-eastern side of the mountains. They went farther away from Samaria, towards which the first part of their journey seemed to be directed. As they descended the hill, they could see the temple on Mount Garizim, which is visible from a great distance. There are many figures of lions or other animals on the roof which gleam white in the sunshine. I saw them travelling about
six hours today, and towards evening I saw them arrive at a large shepherd’s house in a field, where they were well received. This was about an hour’s journey to the south-east of Sichem.
The man of the house was a steward of the orchards and fields belonging to the neighbouring town. The house was not right down in the plain, but on a slope. All the country here was better and more fertile than during the first part of their journey, for this was the sunny side, and in the Promised Land at this time of year that makes a considerable difference. Between here and Bethlehem lay many other shepherds’ dwellings, scattered about in the intersecting valleys. The people here belonged to those shepherds whose daughters later married some of the followers of the three holy kings who remained behind when their masters left. From one of these marriages came a boy who was healed by Our Lord in this house at the Blessed Virgin’s request in the second year of His ministry, on July 31st (the 7th day of the month Ab) after He had talked with the Samaritan woman. Jesus took
him with two other youths as companions on His journey to Arabia, after the raising of Lazarus, and afterwards he became a disciple. Jesus often stayed here and taught. There were children in the house, and Joseph blessed them before he went away.
[November 19th:] Today I saw them travelling in more level country. The Blessed Virgin sometimes goes on foot. They often stop to rest and refresh themselves. They have little loaves with them, and a drink which is both cooling and strengthening. This is contained in delicately made little jugs shining like bronze, with two ears. It is balsam, which they mix with water. They sometimes pick berries and fruits which may still be found hanging in sunny places on the trees and bushes. Mary’s saddle on the donkey has a foot-rest hanging on each side, so that her feet do not hang down as is usual in our country. She sits sometimes to the right and sometimes to the left of the pack-donkey, which moves very quietly and evenly. Joseph’s first action, whenever they rest by the way or stop for the night, is to make ready a comfortable place for the Blessed Virgin to sit and rest. He often washes his feet, and Mary does the same. They have the habit of washing often.
It was already dark when they came to a house standing by itself. Joseph knocked at the door and asked for lodging. The master of the house refused, however, to open, and when Joseph explained Mary’s condition and said that she could go no farther, adding that he was not asking for lodging without payment, the hard-hearted man retorted angrily that his house was not an inn, and that he wanted to be left alone and not disturbed by knocking, which he could not bear. He told Joseph to go on his way, and was so relentless that he did not even open the door, but shouted his harsh words from behind it. So they went on a little way and turned into a shed where they found the she-ass standing. Joseph kindled a light and prepared a bed for the Blessed Virgin, with her help. He brought the pack-donkey in, too, and found some straw and fodder for him. They prayed, took some refreshment, and slept for a few hours. It must be about six hours’ journey from the last inn to this place.
They must be some twenty-six hours from Nazareth and ten from Jerusalem. Until now they have not taken any high-roads, but have cut across several trade-roads leading from the Jordan to Samaria and running into the highways which go from Syria to Egypt. The byroads which they took are very small, and in the mountains sometimes so narrow that a man must pick his way very carefully so as not to stumble. The donkeys, however, are very sure-footed. Their shelter here was on level ground.
[November 20th:] The day had not yet broken when they left this place. Their way led uphill again. I think they were near the road leading from Gabara113 to Jerusalem and that the frontier between Samaria and Judaea was here. They were again roughly refused admission at another house. When they were several hours north-east of Bethany, it happened that Mary was greatly in need of rest and refreshment; so Joseph turned off the road for about half an hour to a place where he knew there was a beautiful fig-tree, which as a rule was full of fruit. This tree had benches round it for people to rest on. Joseph knew it from a former journey. When, however, they got there, they found no fruit at all on the tree, which distressed them very much. I have a dim recollection that afterwards Jesus had something to do with this tree. It never bore fruit any more, but was green, and I think that the Lord cursed it as He passed by when escaping from Jerusalem and that it withered away.114 After this they came to a house where the man was at first very harsh to Joseph when he humbly asked him for lodging. He shone his light on to the Blessed Virgin’s face and scoffed at Joseph for taking so young a woman about with him; he was, he supposed, jealous. The woman of the house then came up and took pity on the Blessed Virgin, showing her a room in a side-building in a very friendly way, and bringing little loaves of bread for them to eat. The man, too, was sorry for his rudeness, and became very friendly towards the holy travellers. After this they came to a third house. It was inhabited by young people, but I saw an old man with a stick walking about in it. Their reception here was tolerably good but not particularly friendly. Nobody took much trouble about them. The people here were not real simple shepherds; they were like rich peasants with us who are more or less entangled in the world and in trade and so on. Jesus visited one of these houses on October 20th (the first day of the month Tishri) after His Baptism, and found the restingplace of His parents decorated and used as a praying-place. I am not sure whether it was the one where the man had at first jeered at Joseph. I have a dim remembrance that the people there had arranged it like this immediately after the wonders accompanying His Birth.
Towards the end of their road Joseph made many halts, for the journey grew more and more difficult for the Blessed Virgin. They followed the way taken by the she-ass, and made a day and a half’s detour eastwards of Jerusalem. Joseph’s father had owned pastureland round here, so he knew the country very well. If they had travelled due south, across the desert behind Bethany, they would probably have reached Bethlehem in six hours, but that way was hilly and at that time of year very difficult; so the she-ass led them through valleys which brought them nearer to the Jordan.
[November 21st:] Today I saw the holy travellers entering a big shepherd’s house while it was still full day. This must be about three hours from John’s baptizing place on the Jordan and about seven hours from Bethlehem. It is the same house in which thirty years later Jesus spent the night of October 11th before the morning on which he passed near the Baptist for the first time after His Baptism. Near the house, and apart from it, was a shed in which were kept the agricultural implements and the shepherd’s things. In the court was a fountain with baths round it, supplied with water from the fountain by pipes. The master of the house must have owned much land; it was a large establishment. I saw many menservants coming and going and having their meals there. The master of the house received the travellers in a very friendly way and was very ready to help. They were shown a comfortable room, and their pack-donkey was well looked after. A manservant was told to wash Joseph’s feet at the fountain and to give him other clothes while his own were cleaned from dust and smoothed out. A maid did the same for the Blessed Virgin. They ate and slept here. The mistress of the house was rather perverse in character. She lived in a separate room and kept herself apart. She had surreptitiously examined the travellers, and as she was young and vain she was vexed by the beauty of the Blessed Virgin: she was also afraid that Mary might appeal to her to let her stay and be confined there, so she kept away in a hostile spirit and insisted that they should leave the next day. (This is the same woman whom Jesus found there in this house, blind and crippled, thirty years later on October 11th, after His Baptism. After reproaching her for her inhospitality and vanity He healed her.) There were also children in the house. The Holy Family spent the night here.
[November 22nd:] I saw the Holy Family leaving their place of shelter about midday. Some of the inmates of the house accompanied them for part of their way. After a short journey of about two hours westward they came to a place where scattered houses, with gardens and forecourts, stand in a long row on either side of a main road. Some relations of Joseph’s lived here. They were, as far as I remember, sons by a second marriage of a stepfather or stepmother. I saw the house, it had a good situation and was quite large. They went, however, right through this place, and then turned right for half an hour, in the direction of Jerusalem, until they reached a large inn, in the court of which there was a big fountain with many pipes. A large company was assembled here, attending a funeral. The interior of the house, in the centre of which was the fireplace and its chimney, had been made into one large hall by the removal of the low wooden screens which at other times divided it into separate rooms. Black curtains hung behind the hearth, in front of which stood a veiled black object like a coffin. A large assembly of men were praying round it. They wore long black garments with short white ones over them, and some had black fringed maniples hanging on one arm. In another room women completely veiled were sitting on the floor in low boxes and mourning.
The owners of the inn themselves, who were busy with the funeral, welcomed the travellers only from a distance. The servants of the house, however, gave them a very friendly reception and showed them every attention. A separate lodging was prepared for them by letting down mats which had been rolled up to the ceiling, so that they were in a kind of tent. There were many beds in this house rolled up against the wall, and mats could be let down to make many separate cells. Afterwards I saw the people of the house visiting the Holy Family and conversing with them in a friendly manner. They no longer wore the white garments over their black ones. After Joseph and Mary had refreshed themselves and taken a little food, they prayed together and retired to rest.
[November 23rd:] Joseph and Mary left here for Bethlehem about midday. They still had some three hours’ journey before them. The mistress of the house urged them to stay where they were, for, she said, it seemed to her that Mary might be delivered at any moment. Mary, however, dropping her veil, said that she had still thirty-six hours before her. (I am not sure that she did not say thirty-eight.) The woman was very anxious to keep her, not in the house itself, but in another building. As they left, I saw Joseph talking to the innkeeper about his donkeys. He spoke very highly of them, and said he had brought the she-ass with him in order to pawn her in case of necessity.
When the people of the house spoke of the difficulty of finding lodging in Bethlehem, Joseph said he had friends there and would certainly be well received. (It makes me always so sorry when he talks so certainly of being well received. He talked to Mary in that way, too, as they went along. One sees by this that even such holy people can be mistaken.) The journey from the last inn to Bethlehem must have taken about three hours. They made a circuit round the north side of Bethlehem and approached the town from the west.
They made a halt under a tree some little way off the road. Mary alighted from the donkey and arranged her clothing, after which Joseph went with her to a large building a few minutes outside Bethlehem, surrounded by courtyards and other small buildings. There were trees in front of it, and round about it were crowds encamped in tents. This was the old ancestral house of David and once Joseph’s family home. Relations or acquaintances of Joseph’s still lived there, but they treated him as a stranger and as a person whom they did not want to know. This house was now being used for the receipt of the money from the Roman taxation. Joseph, leading the donkey by the bridle, went at once to this house with the Blessed Virgin, because every new arrival had to report himself here and was given a paper, without which he could not be admitted into Bethlehem.
[After several pauses Catherine Emmerich spoke as follows in her visionary state:] The young she-ass that runs free has not gone with them here, she has run off round the outside of the town towards the south, where it is flatter and there is a sort of open valley. Joseph has gone into the house. Mary is with some women in a little house beside the courtyard: they are very friendly to her and are giving her some food. These women are cooking for the soldiers. They are Roman soldiers, with strips of leather hanging round their loins. The weather here is very pleasant and not at all cold. The hill between Jerusalem and Bethany is in full sunshine; one has a fine view of it from here. Joseph is in a big room with an uneven floor. They are asking him who he is and are referring to long scrolls of which a great many are hanging on the walls. They unroll them and read aloud to him his ancestry and also Mary’s: he did not seem to know that she also descended so directly from David through Joachim; he himself descended from an earlier offspring of David’s. The man asks him: ‘Where is your wife?’ Owing to many disorders the people of the country have not been properly registered for seven years.115 I see the figures V and II, making seven [she forms this figure with her fingers]. This taxation has been going on for several months.
Some payments were made here and there during those seven years, but nothing regular. The people were made to pay twice over. Some of them stayed here for as long as three months. Joseph came rather late to the tax office, but was treated in quite a friendly way. He has not paid anything yet, but was asked about his means, and stated that he had no land and lived by his handicraft and from the assistance given him by his wife’s mother. There are a great number of scribes and high officials in many of the rooms. On the upper floors are Romans and many soldiers. There are also present Pharisees and Sadducees, priests, elders and every kind of official and scribe, both Jewish and Roman. There is no such commission in Jerusalem, but they are established in several other places, such as Magdala on the sea of Galilee, where the inhabitants of Galilee are taxed, and also those of Sidon, I think because of their commercial dealings. Only the people who are not resident anywhere and have no land on which they can be taxed have to present themselves at their birthplace. From now on the tax has to be paid in three months in three instalments.
Each of these three instalments goes to a different object. The first is shared by the Emperor Augustus, Herod, and another king who lives near Egypt. He has rendered some service in war and has a right to a district up in the north, so they have to apportion something to him. The second instalment has to do with the building of the Temple; it seems as if it were used to pay off a debt. The third instalment is intended for widows and poor people, who have had nothing for a long time, but of all this little reaches the right people, just as happens today. The money is meant for nothing but good causes, and yet remains in the hands of the great. All this business of writing made a terrible fuss and commotion.
Joseph was now allowed to go, and when he got downstairs the Blessed Virgin was called before the scribes in a passage, but they did not read anything aloud to her. They told Joseph that it was unnecessary for him to have brought his wife with him, and seemed to be bantering him on account of her youth. Joseph was ashamed of this being said before Mary; he was afraid she might think that he was not respected in his birthplace. After this they went on into Bethlehem, the buildings of which were at some distance from each other. The entrance was through ruined walls as if the gate had been destroyed.
Mary remained with the donkey at the very entrance of the street while Joseph sought a lodging in the nearest houses—in vain, for Bethlehem was full of strangers, all running from place to place. Joseph returned to Mary, saying that as no shelter was to be found there, they would go on farther into the town. He led the donkey on by the bridle, and the Blessed Virgin walked beside him. When they came to the beginning of another street, Mary again stopped by the donkey, and Joseph again went from house to house in vain seeking a lodging, and again came sadly back. This happened several times, and the Blessed Virgin often had long to wait. Everywhere the houses were filled with people, everywhere he was turned away, so he said to Mary that they would go to another part of Bethlehem where they would surely find lodging. They went a little way back in the direction in which they had come and then turned southwards. They went hesitatingly through the street, which was more like a country road, for the houses were built on slopes. Here, too, their search was fruitless. On the other side of Bethlehem, where the houses lie farther apart, they came to a lower-lying open space, like a field, where it was more solitary. There was a sort of shed here, and not far from it a great spreading tree, with shady branches like a big lime-tree. The trunk was smooth and the spreading branches made a kind of roof. Joseph led the Blessed Virgin to this tree, and made her a comfortable seat against its trunk with their bundles, so that she might rest while he sought for shelter in the houses near. The donkey stood with its head turned towards the tree. At first Mary stood upright, leaning against the tree. Her ample white woollen dress had no girdle and hung round her in folds: her head was covered with a white veil. Many people passed by and looked at her, not knowing that the Redeemer was so near to them. She was so patient, so humble, so full of hopeful expectation. Ah, she had to wait a long, long time; she sat down at last on the rug, crossing her feet under her. She sat with her head bent and her hands crossed below her breast.
Joseph came back to her in great distress; he had found no shelter. His friends, of whom he had spoken to the Blessed Virgin, would hardly recognize him. He was in tears and Mary comforted him. He went once more from one house to another; but as he gave the approaching confinement of his wife as his chief reason for his request, he met with even more decided refusals. Although the place was solitary, the passers-by at last began to stand still and look curiously at the Blessed Virgin from a distance, as one may well do if one sees somebody waiting in the dusk for a long time. I think some of them even spoke to her, asking her who she was. At last Joseph came back. He was so upset that he came up hesitatingly. He said he had had no success, but he knew of one place outside the town, belonging to the shepherds, who often went there when coming with their flocks to the town. There they would, in any case, find a shelter. He said that he knew the place from childhood; when his brothers had tormented him, he had often escaped there to hide from them and to say his prayers. Even if the shepherds did come there, he would easily come to an understanding with them; but at this time of year they were seldom there. As soon as he had settled her there in peace and quiet, he would look round again for something else.
They then went outside Bethlehem to the east of the town by a lonely footpath, going to the left. It was like a path along the ruined walls, ditches, and banks of some little town. At first the path ascended slightly, and then descended after crossing a hill. On the east of the town, a few minutes outside it, they came to a hill or high bank, in front of which was an open space made pleasant by several trees. There were pine-trees (cedar or terebinth) and other trees with small leaves like our box-trees. The place was such as one might find right at the end of the old ramparts of some little town.
[In order to avoid continually interrupting the narrative, we will here describe as fully as possible the surroundings of this hill and the interior of the Cave of the Nativity according to the repeated accounts given by Catherine Emmerich.] Among many other different grottoes or cave-dwellings there was, at the south end of this hill, round which the road wound its way to the Shepherd’s Valley, the cave in which Joseph sought shelter for the Blessed Virgin. From the west the entrance led eastwards into the hill through a narrow passage into a larger chamber, half semicircular and half triangular. The walls of the cave were of the natural rock, and only on the south side, which was encircled by the road to the shepherd’s valley, was it completed by a little rough masonry. On this south side was another entrance into the cave, but this was generally blocked up, and Joseph had to clear it before he could use it. If you came out of this entrance and turned to the left, you came upon a wider entrance into a lower vault, narrow and inconvenient, which stretched under the Cave of the Nativity. From the ordinary entrance to the cave, which faced westwards, one could see nothing but a few roofs and towers of Bethlehem. If you turned to the right on coming out of this entrance, you came to the entrance of a lower cave, which was dark and was at one time the hiding-place of the Blessed Virgin. In front of the main entrance, supported on posts, there was a light roof of
reeds, extending round the south of the cave to the entrance on that side, so that one could sit in front of the cave in shade. On the south side there were, high up, three openings for light and air, closed by gratings fixed in masonry. There was a similar opening in the roof of 115 the cave. This roof, which was covered with turf, formed the extremity of the ridge on which Bethlehem stood.
[According to Catherine Emmerich’s repeated descriptions the interior of the cave was arranged as follows:] From the west one came through a light wickerwork door into a moderately broad passage opening into a chamber which was partly angular and partly semicircular. Towards the south it broadened out considerably, so that the ground-plan of the whole can be compared to a head resting on its neck. As you came out of the neck of the cave, whose roof was lower, into the higher part of the cave with its natural vaulting, you stepped down to a lower level. The floor of the whole cave was, however, higher at the sides, round which ran a low stone bench of varying breadth. The walls of the cave as nature had made them were, though not quite smooth, clean and pleasant and had something attractive about them. I liked them better than the rough, clumsy masonry which had been added on, for instance on the upper part of the south wall of the entrance, where three openings for light and air had been made. In the centre of the roof of the cave there was another opening, and, if I remember rightly, I saw besides this three slanting holes piercing the upper part of the cave at intervals from south to east. From the north side of the passage an entrance led into a smaller side-cave. Passing this entrance you came upon the place where Joseph lit his fire; after that the wall turned north-east into the higher and bigger cave, and it was here that Joseph’s pack-donkey stood, by the broad part of the stone bench which ran round its walls. Behind this, in the thickness of the rock wall to the north, was a small chamber just big enough to hold the donkey and containing fodder. The wall of the cave then turned south-east, encircling the chamber (which grew broader towards the south) and finally turned north to end at the main entrance.
The Blessed Virgin was in the eastern part of this cave, exactly opposite the entrance, when she gave birth to the Light of the World. The crib in which the child Jesus was laid stood on the west side of the southern and more roomy part of the cave. This crib was a hollowed-out stone trough lying on the ground and used for cattle to drink from; over it stood a longish rectangular manger or rack, narrower below and broader above, made of wooden lattice-work and raised on four feet so that the beasts could comfortably eat the hay or grass in the rack and lower their heads to drink the water in the trough beneath. When the three holy kings presented their gifts, the Blessed Virgin was sitting with the child Jesus opposite the crib on the eastern. side of this part of the cave. If you go from the place where the crib is out of the cave in a westerly direction into the so-called neck of the cave, you come first of all, following the southern wall, to the southern entrance mentioned above and later opened by Joseph, and then arrive at St. Joseph’s own room, which he later partitioned off on the south side by wicker screens in this passage. On this side there was a hollow in the wall where he put away all kinds of things.
The road to the Shepherds’ Valley ran past the south side of the cave. Here and there were little houses standing on hills, and scattered about in the fields were sheds thatched with reeds on four, six, or eight posts, with wicker walls. Towards the east of the cave the ground fell into a closed valley shut off on the north side and about a quarter of an hour’s journey wide. Its slopes were covered with bushes, trees, and gardens. If one walked through the tall luxuriant grass in the meadow, watered by a spring, and through the trees planted in rows, one came to the eastern ridge of this valley. By following this very pleasant path in a south-easterly direction from the Cave of the Nativity, one came to a projecting spur of the ridge containing the rock-tomb of Maraha,116 the nurse of Abraham, which was called the Milk Cave or the Sucklings’ Cave. The Blessed Virgin came here several times with the child Jesus. Above this cave was a great tree with seats in it, and from here one had a much better view of Bethlehem than from the Cave of the Nativity.
I was told much that had happened in the Cave of the Nativity of symbolical and prophetical significance in Old Testament times, but can only remember that Seth, the child of promise, was here conceived and born by Eve after a seven years’ penance. She was told here by an angel that this seed was given by God in place of Abel. Seth was hidden and suckled by his mother in this cave and in Maraha’s cave, for his brothers were hostile to him just as Jacob’s sons were to Joseph. In these caves, inhabited by men in earlier times, I have often seen places hollowed out by them in the rock in which they and their children could sleep in comfort on skins or grass. So perhaps the hollow in the stone bench beneath the crib may have been a sleeping-place of Seth’s or of a later inmate. But I cannot say this for certain now. I also remember from my visions of the ministry of Jesus that the Lord on October 6th, after His Baptism, was keeping the Sabbath in the Cave of the Nativity, which had been made into a place of prayer by the shepherds; and that He told the shepherds that His Heavenly Father had appointed this as the place of His Birth as soon as Mary had conceived.
Abraham had a nurse, Maraha, whom he greatly revered; she lived to a great age and he always took her on his journeys, riding on a camel. She lived with him for a long time in Succoth. Afterwards, towards the end of her life, she was here in the Shepherds’ Valley, where he had his tents near to this cave. When she was more than a hundred years old and her death was at hand, she asked Abraham to bury her in this cave, prophesying about it and naming it the Cave of Milk or the Cave of the Sucklings. Some miracle, which I have forgotten, happened here, and a spring of water burst forth. The cave was then a high narrow passage of a white and not very hard substance. A mound of this blocked up part of the passage but did not reach to the roof. If one climbed over this mound, one came to the entrances of other caves higher up. There were also several deep passages running into the hill under the cave. Later it was enlarged. Abraham made Maraha’s tomb out of the mound lying in the passage. Below was a massive block of stone on which rested a kind of heavy stone trough on short thick feet. The trough had a jagged top. One could see between the trough and the block under it. I was surprised to see nothing of it at the time of Jesus’ Birth.
This cave with the nurse’s tomb was symbolically prophetic of the Mother of the Saviour giving suck to her child while pursued by enemies; for in Abraham’s youth a symbolically prophetic persecution took place, and his nurse saved his life by hiding him in a cave. As far as I can remember, the king in Abraham’s country had a dream or was told by prophecy about a child to be born who would become a danger to him. The king took measures to prevent this. Abraham’s mother concealed her pregnancy and gave birth to him in secret in a cave. Maraha, the nurse, suckled him in secret. She lived as though she were a poor slave, and worked in a wilderness near the cave in which she suckled the child Abraham.
Afterwards his parents took him back, and on account of his being unusually big he was thought to have been born before that prophecy. However, when he was a boy, he was again in danger as the result of some supernatural utterances, and the nurse again saved him by hiding him away. I saw her carrying him off in secret, tied to her waist under her big cloak. Many children of his size were murdered at that time.
This cave had been a place of devotion since Abraham’s time, particularly for mothers and their babies. This was prophetic, for the reverence paid to Abraham’s nurse was symbolic of that paid to the Blessed Virgin. In the same way Elias had seen Our Lady in the rain-bearing cloud, and had made a place of prayer in her honour on Mount Carmel. Maraha had contributed to the coming of the Messias by nourishing with her milk the ancestor of the Blessed Virgin. I cannot, alas, explain it rightly, but it was like a deep spring of water running through the whole of life and always being replenished, until there burst forth from it the clear stream of Our Blessed Lady. [This was the expression used by Catherine Emmerich in her state of ecstatic sleep.]
The tree which stood beside this cave was like a great lime-tree, with big shady branches. It was a terebinth, pointed at the top and broad below. It had white seeds, which were oily and could be eaten. Abraham met Melchisedech under this tree, but I cannot remember on what occasion. Joseph enlarged the cave still more and closed the passages leading downwards from it. The tree stands on a hill; beneath it is a door, set at a slant, leading into a passage or kind of vestibule where another door, set straight, opens into the tomb-cave itself. The latter is round rather than square. The shepherds often used the passage to shelter in. This big old tree cast a wide shadow. It was regarded as sacred by the shepherds and others in the neighbourhood, and also by devout travellers. It was the custom to rest and pray there. I do not remember the history of the tree, but it had some connection with Abraham: he may perhaps have planted it. Near it was a fireplace which could be covered over, and there was also a spring in front of the tree, from which the shepherds used at certain times to draw water supposed to have a special healing property. On each side of the tree there were open huts to sleep in. It was all surrounded by a fence.
[While Catherine Emmerich was recounting this, she was in great pain; and when the writer said to her, ‘So this was a terebinth tree?’ she answered in sudden absence of mind: ‘Tenebrae, not Terebinth, under the shadow of Thy Wings, that is a wing – Tenebrae— under Thy Shadow will I rejoice.’ The writer did not understand the significance of these words, perhaps she was applying the words of the Psalm to the tree. She spoke with great intensity of feeling and seemed to be comforting herself with these words.] St. Helena built a church here and Mass has been said here: I think it seemed to be in a chapel dedicated to St. Nicholas.
[November 23rd:] The sun was already low when they reached the entrance of the cave. The young she-ass, which had left them at Joseph’s ancestral house to run round the outside of the town, met them as soon as they arrived here and gambolled joyfully round them. ‘Look,’ said the Blessed Virgin to Joseph, ‘it is certainly the will of God that we should go in here.’ Joseph was, however, very distressed and secretly ashamed at having spoken so often of their good reception in Bethlehem. He put the pack-donkey under the shelter by the entrance of the cave and prepared a place for Our Lady to rest there while he kindled a light, opened the wicker-work door of the cave and went into it. The passage into the cave was narrow, for it was full of bundles of straw like rushes, stacked against the walls with brown mats hanging over them. Behind, the cave itself was encumbered with a quantity of things.
Joseph cleared out as much as was necessary to make a comfortable resting-place for the Blessed Virgin at the eastern end of the cave. Then he fastened a burning lamp in the wall of the dark cave and led the Blessed Virgin in. She sat down on the couch of rugs and bundles which he had prepared. He apologized most humbly for the poorness of the shelter, but Mary was joyful and contented in her inmost spirit. As she rested there, Joseph hurried with a skin which he had brought with him into the valley-meadow behind the hill, where there was a tiny brook. He fastened the skin with two pegs under the spring so that the water had to run into it, and then brought it back to the cave. Then he went to the town and fetched
little bowls, some fruit, and bundles of twigs. The Sabbath was approaching, and because of the many strangers in the town, who were in urgent need of all kinds of things, tables had been set up at the street corners where indispensable necessities could be bought at reduced prices. Those who sold were menservants or people who were not Jews. I cannot quite remember about this. Joseph came back bringing burning coals in a sort of closed metal basket with a handle like a stalk under it. He emptied these out by the entrance to the cave on the northern side and made a little fire. He had the fire-basket and other small utensils with him on the journey. The bundle of wood was of thin sticks neatly tied together with broad rushes. Joseph then prepared a meal: it consisted of a kind of porridge made from yellow grains and a cooked fruit, thick, and when opened for eating, full of seeds.
There were also little flat loaves of bread. After they had eaten and prayed, Joseph prepared a sleeping-place for the Blessed Virgin. He first made a mattress of rushes, and then spread on it a coverlet of the kind I have described as having been prepared in Anna’s house. At the head he put a rolled-up rug. After bringing in the pack-donkey and tying him up out of the way, he closed the openings in the roof to keep out the draught, and then prepared his own sleeping-place in the entrance. As the Sabbath had now begun, he stood with the Blessed Virgin under the lamp, reciting the Sabbath prayers with her, after which they ate their little meal in a spirit of great piety. Joseph then left the cave and went into the town, while Mary
wrapped herself up to lie down to rest. During Joseph’s absence I saw for the first time the Blessed Virgin kneeling in prayer. She knelt on her couch, and then lay down on the coverlet on her side. Her head rested on her arm, which lay on the pillow. Joseph did not come back till late. He was distressed and I think he wept. He prayed and then lay down meekly on his couch at the entrance of the cave.
[Sunday, November 24th: Catherine Emmerich was very ill today and could communicate only the little that follows:] The Blessed Virgin spent the Sabbath in the Cave of the Nativity in prayer and meditation and in great spiritual fervour. Joseph went out several times, probably to the synagogue in Bethlehem. I saw them sharing the food which had been prepared the day before, and praying together. In the afternoon of the Sabbath, when it is the Jewish custom yo go for a walk, Joseph took the Blessed Virgin through the valley behind the cave to the tomb of Maraha, Abraham’s nurse. They spent some time in this cave, which was roomier than the Cave of the Nativity, and in which Joseph had prepared a place for Our Lady to sit.
The rest of the time they spent under the sacred tree near it, in prayer and meditation, until some time after the close of the Sabbath, when Joseph took her back again. Mary had told St. Joseph that tonight at midnight would be the hour of the child’s birth, for then the nine months since the Annunciation would have been completed. She begged him to do all that was possible on his part so that they might show as much honour as they could to the child promised by God and supernaturally conceived. She asked him, too, to join with her in praying for the hard-hearted people who had refused to give them shelter.
Joseph suggested to the Blessed Virgin that he should summon to her assistance some pious women whom he knew in Bethlehem. She declined, however, saying that she needed no human help. Just before the close of the Sabbath Joseph went into Bethlehem, and as soon as the sun had set, he quickly bought a few necessary things—a stool, a little low table, a few little bowls, and some dried fruit and grapes. With them he hurried back to the cave and then to the tomb of Maraha, and took the Blessed Virgin back to the Cave of the Nativity, where she lay down on her couch in the easternmost corner. Joseph prepared some more food, and they ate and prayed together. He then completely divided off his sleeping-place from the rest of the cave by surrounding it with posts and hanging on them mats which he had found in the cave. He fed the donkey, which was standing to the left of the entrance against the wall of the cave; then he filled the manger above the crib with rushes and fine grass or moss, and spread a covering over it which hung down over the edge.
On the Blessed Virgin telling him that her time was drawing near and that he was to retire into his room and pray, he hung up some more burning lamps in the cave and went out, as he had heard a noise outside. Here he found the young she-ass, who until now had been wandering about loose in the valley of the shepherds. She came joyfully running up and gambolled round him. He tied her up under the shelter before the cave and strewed fodder before her.
When Joseph came back into the cave and stood at the entrance to his sleeping-place looking towards the Blessed Virgin, he saw her with her face turned towards the east, kneeling on the bed facing away from him. He saw her as it were surrounded by flames, the whole cave was as if filled with supernatural light. He gazed at her like Moses when he saw the burning bush; then he went into his little cell in holy awe and threw himself on his face in prayer.
104. AC’s account of St. Joseph’s worry in silence accords with Matt. 1.19-20, in strong contrast with the unseemly doubts fancied in the Apocryphal Gospels, especially in Protev. 13. (SB)
105. This chapter represents the journey of Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem for the enrolment: Luke 2.1-6. (SB)
106. St. Catherine of Alexandria’s feast-day is November 25. In this case, when AC says “four weeks,” she does not mean 28 days, but rather a full month. The actual date of the Birth of Jesus Christ, as revealed to AC, was November 25, a full month earlier than the date in the liturgical calendar of the Church. (RC)
107. AC several times explains that Joseph only lived a short time at Nazareth in the house provided by Anna, and did not at first intend to remain there. This intention throws light on Matt. 2.23, from which it would appear that he deliberately chose Nazareth as a dwelling-place on his return from Egypt, the alternative being the plan (explained by AC) of settling at Bethlehem, his birthplace. This plan he deliberately rejected, since Bethlehem was in Judaea and ‘he was afraid to go thither’ (Matt. 2.22) because of Archelaus. (SB)
108. The Field of Chimki is identified by AC with Ginim; see next note. (SB)
109. The Field of Ginim, six hours from Nazareth, is presumably Engannim or Ginaea, the modern Jenin, eighteen miles south of Nazareth, near the corner of the Plain of Esdraelon. Engannim is mentioned in Jos. 15.34 and 19.19, and is probably to be identified with Beth-haggan (Douay ‘the garden house’) of IV Kings 9.27. Cf. Cath. Comm., 275i. (SB)
110. Christ was baptized in early October. (RC)
111. This would refer to the foothills to the west of Mt. Gilboa. (SB)
112. The geographical indications here are fairly correct according to the latest available maps (in Cath. Comm.,1953). A place between Samaria and Thebez (about ten miles apart) would find Succoth about twenty miles east-south-east, but Aenon near Salim (the Ennon of John 3.23) would lie farther north, about fifteen miles north of Succoth, though another place nearer Succoth may be intended, and is so marked by Fahsel. (SB)
113. Gabara is in Galilee, north of Nazareth. (SB)
114. Catherine Emmerich was so exceedingly ill from Nov. 19th to 21st that when she recounted these events on Nov. 22nd she could not give the exact situation of this tree, but could only say that it was somewhere near the path of the Holy Family. It is in any case not the cursed fig-tree mentioned in the Gospels. (CB)
The barren fig-tree of Matt. 21.19 and Mark 11.13 stood between Bethany and Jerusalem. (SB)
115. The question of the successive registrations in the Roman Province of Syria is very intricate, together with the identification of the one in the year of Christ’s birth; but there is evidence for censuses in Egypt and Gaul earlier in the reign of Augustus (cf. Cath. Comm., 749a). AC’s reference to the sharing of the revenue of the taxation remains entirely obscure. (SB)
116. Maraha, Abraham’s nurse, is not known in any available document. (SB)
RE: The Life of the Blessed Virgin Mary by Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich - Stone - 02-13-2023
X. THE BIRTH OF OUR LORD 117
I saw the radiance round the Blessed Virgin ever growing greater. The light of the lamps which Joseph had lit was no longer visible. Our Lady knelt on her rug in an ample un-girt robe spread out round her, her face turned towards the east. At midnight she was wrapt in an ecstasy of prayer. I saw her lifted from the earth, so that I saw the ground beneath her. Her hands were crossed on her breast. The radiance about her increased; everything, even things without life, were in a joyful inner motion, the stones of the roof, of the walls, and of the floor of the cave became as it were alive in the light. Then I no longer saw the roof of the cave; a pathway of light opened above Mary, rising with ever-increasing glory towards the height of heaven. In this pathway of light there was a wonderful movement of glories interpenetrating each other, and, as they approached, appearing more clearly in the form of choirs of heavenly spirits. Meanwhile the Blessed Virgin, borne up in ecstasy, was now gazing downwards, adoring her God, whose Mother she had become and who lay on the earth before her in the form of a helpless new-born child.118 I saw our Redeemer as a tiny child, shining with a light that overpowered all the surrounding radiance, and lying on the carpet at the Blessed Virgin’s knees. It seemed to me as if He were at first quite small and then grew before my eyes. But the movement of the intense radiance was such that I cannot say for certain how I saw it.
The Blessed Virgin remained for some time rapt in ecstasy. I saw her laying a cloth over the Child, but at first she did not touch Him or take Him up. After some time I saw the Child Jesus move and heard Him cry. Then Mary seemed to come to herself, and she took the Child up from the carpet, wrapping Him in the cloth which covered Him, and held Him in her arms to her breast. She sat there enveloping herself and the Child completely in her veil, and I think Mary suckled the Redeemer. I saw angels round her in human forms, lying on their faces and adoring the Child. It might have been an hour after His Birth when Mary called St. Joseph, who was still lying in prayer. When he came near, he threw himself down on his face in devout joy and humility. It was only when Mary begged him to take to his heart, in joy and thankfulness, the holy present of the Most High God, that he stood up, took the Child Jesus in his arms, and praised God with tears of joy.
The Blessed Virgin then wrapped the Child Jesus in swaddling-bands. I cannot now remember how these bands were wound round; I only know that the Child was wrapped to His armpits first in red and then white bands, and that His head and shoulders were wrapped in another little cloth. Mary had only four sets of swaddling-bands with her. Then I saw Mary and Joseph sitting side by side on the bare earth with their feet under them. They did not speak, and seemed both to be sunk in meditation. On the carpet before Mary lay the new-born Jesus in swaddling-clothes, a little Child, beautiful and radiant as lightning. Ah, I thought, this place enshrines the salvation of the whole world, and no one guesses it. Then they laid the Child in the manger, which was filled with rushes and delicate plants and covered with a cloth hanging over the sides. It stood above the stone trough lying on the ground, to the right of the entrance, where the cave makes a big curve towards the south.
This part of the cave was at a lower level than the place where Our Lord was born: the floor slanted downwards in a step-like formation. After laying the Child in the crib, they both stood beside Him giving praise to God with tears of joy. Joseph then arranged the Blessed Virgin’s resting-place and her seat beside the Crib. Both before and after the Birth of Jesus, I saw her dressed in white and veiled. I saw her there in the first days after the Nativity, sitting, kneeling, standing, and sleeping on her side, wrapped up but in no way ill or exhausted. When people came to see her, she wrapped herself up more closely and sat upright on her lying-in coverlet.
In these pictures of Christ’s Birth, which I see as an historical event and not as a Feast of the Church, I do not see such radiant and ecstatic joy in nature as I do on Christmas night when the vision that I see expresses an interior significance. Yet I saw in this vision an unwonted joy and an extraordinary movement at midnight in many places even to the uttermost parts of the earth. I saw the hearts of many good men filled with joyful yearning, while all the wicked were overcome by great fear. I saw many animals filled with joy; in some places I saw flowers, herbs, and shrubs shooting up, and trees drinking in refreshment and scattering sweet scents. I saw many springs of water gush forth and increase. In the night of the Saviour’s Birth, an abundant spring welled up in the cave in the hill to the north of the Cave of the Nativity. Next day St. Joseph captured it and made an outlet for it. The sky was dull over Bethlehem and had a dull reddish glow; but over the Cave of the Nativity and over the valley by Maraha’s tomb and the Shepherd’s Valley lay a shining mist of dew.
In the Shepherd’s Valley there was a hill about an hour and a half’s journey from the Cave of the Nativity, where the vineyards begin which stretch from there towards Gaza. On this hill were the huts of three shepherds who were the rulers of the shepherds’ families in this region just as the three holy kings were rulers of the tribes belonging to them. About twice as far away from the Cave of the Nativity as this hill was the so-called Shepherds’ Tower. This was a very high pyramid-shaped erection of wooden beams, built among green trees on a base of big stones on a hill in the midst of the fields. It was surrounded by stairs and galleries, and in places there were little covered stands like watch-towers. It was all hung with mats. It resembled those tower-like edifices which were used in the land of the three holy kings to observe the stars at night; from the distance it looked like a tall many-masted ship under sail. One had from it a very wide view of the whole region; one saw Jerusalem, and also the Mount of Temptation in the desert of Jericho. The shepherds stationed men up there to watch the flocks as they moved about and to give warning of danger by blowing horns if they saw in the distance robbers or armed bands. The families of the various shepherds lived round the tower within a circle of some five hours in circumference; their farms were separate and surrounded by fields and gardens. The tower was their general meeting-place, as it was also for the watchers, who kept their belongings here and got their food from here. There were huts built on the slopes of the hill on which the tower stood, and separate from these there was a large shed, divided into many partitions, where the wives of the watchers lived and prepared food for them. Here by the tower I saw tonight some of the flocks and herds out in the open, but by the hill of the three shepherds I saw them in a shed.
When Jesus was born, I saw the three shepherds standing together before their hut, marvelling at the wonderful night. They looked about them, and were astonished to see a wonderful radiance over the place where the Cave of the Nativity was. I also saw the shepherds at the more distant tower in great commotion. I saw some of them climbing the tower and gazing at the strange radiance over the cave. As the three shepherds thus gazed up into the sky, I saw a cloud of light sinking down towards them. As it drew near, I perceived a movement in it, a changing and transformation into figures and forms, and I heard a song which gradually grew louder. It was sweet and gentle and yet clear and joyful.
The shepherds were at first afraid, but forthwith an angel stood before them and spoke to them: ‘Fear not,’ he said, ‘for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy that shall be to all the people; for this day is born to you a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord, in the city of David. And this shall be a sign unto you. You shall find the infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger.’ While the angel was announcing this, the radiance round him increased, and I now saw five or seven beautiful great shining forms of angels standing before the shepherds. They were holding in their hands a long scroll on which was written something in letters as big as one’s hand, and I heard them praising God and singing ‘Glory be to God in the highest: and on earth peace to men of good will’. The shepherds at the tower saw the same vision, but somewhat later. The angels also appeared to a third party of shepherds near a spring three hours from Bethlehem and to the east of the shepherd’s tower; I did not see the shepherds hasten at once to the Cave of the Nativity, which was about an hour and a half distant from the three shepherds and twice as far from the tower; but I saw them at once consulting together as to what they should bring as a present to the new-born Child, and getting their gifts together with all speed. They did not arrive at the Crib until early in the morning.
At the time that the Child Jesus was born my soul made countless journeys to all parts of the world, to see the wonderful happenings at the birth of Our Saviour. As, however, I was very ill and tired, it often seemed to me as if the pictures came to me instead of I to them. I have seen countless events, but have forgotten most of them because of much suffering and many disturbances; all that I can remember are the following fragments.
I saw last night that Noemi, the teacher of the Blessed Virgin, and the prophetess Anna, and the aged Simeon in the Temple, and Our Lady’s mother, Anna, in Nazareth, and Elisabeth in Jutta, all had visions and revelations about the birth of the Saviour. I saw the child John, in Elisabeth’s house, moved by wonderful joy. Though they all saw and recognized Mary in these visions, they did not know where the miracle had taken place, not even Elisabeth. Anna alone knew that Bethlehem was the place of salvation.
Last night I saw a wonderful happening in the Temple. All the written scrolls of the Sadducees were several times hurled out of their shelves and strewn about the floor. This caused great alarm; they ascribed it to sorcery and paid much money to keep it secret. [She here recounted some obscure story about two sons of Herod’s who were Sadducees and had been placed in the Temple by him119; and how he was always engaged in some dispute or other with the Pharisees and was always trying by underhand means to obtain more power in the Temple.]
I saw much in Rome last night, but of all the pictures I saw I have forgotten many and may easily have confused some of them. I will tell them as I remember them. When Jesus was born, I saw that in Rome, on the other side of the river, where many Jews lived [she here described not very clearly a place like a hill surrounded by water, forming a kind of peninsula], a spring as of oil burst forth and caused general astonishment.
A magnificent idol of Jupiter also broke in pieces in a temple of which the whole roof fell in. They made sacrifices in great alarm, and asked another idol—of Venus, I think—what this signified, and received the answer (which must have been spoken by the devil out of the mouth of the idol): ‘This befell because a virgin without a husband conceived a son and has now given birth to him.’ This idol spoke also of the fountain of oil that had sprung forth. Where it sprang forth, there now stands a church dedicated to the Mother of God.120 I saw the heathen priests consulting their records in great alarm. Seventy years before, when that idol was being magnificently adorned with gold and precious stones, and was being honoured with solemn sacrifices, there lived in Rome a very good and pious woman (I am not sure whether she was a Jewess or not) whose name sounded like Serena or Cyrena. She had enough money to live on, saw visions, and was impelled to prophesy. I have forgotten a great deal about her, but I think she used often to tell people the cause of their unfruitfulness. This woman had openly proclaimed that such costly honours should not be paid to the idol, for one day it would burst asunder. The priests called her to account because of this declaration, and demanded that she should say when this would happen; and as she could not at once reply, she was imprisoned and tortured until she obtained by her prayers to God the reply that the idol would break in pieces when a pure virgin should bear a son. This announcement was received with derision, and she was released as being out of her senses. Now, when the collapse of the temple did indeed shatter the idol, they recognized that she had prophesied truly, and were astonished at her having fixed a time for this event. They knew of course nothing of Christ having been born of the Blessed Virgin.
I saw that both the Roman consuls called for reports about this event and about the appearance of the fountain of oil. One of the consuls was called Lentulus and was an ancestor of the martyred priest Moses and of the Lentulus who was a friend of St. Peter in Rome. I also saw something connected with the Emperor Augustus, but can no longer remember it distinctly. I saw the Emperor with some other men on a hill in Rome, on the other side of which was the temple that had fallen in. There were steps leading up the hill, which had a golden gate on it. Business matters were settled there. When the Emperor descended the hill, he saw on the right-hand side, over the top of the hill, an apparition in the sky. It was a vision of a virgin above a rainbow, a child was soaring up from her. I think that only he saw it. He asked for an explanation of this apparition from an oracle that had long been dumb, and it gave an answer about a new-born child before whom all must give way. Thereupon he caused an altar to be set up on the hill over which he had seen the appearance, and dedicated it with many sacrifices to the First-born of God. I have forgotten much of all this.
I saw also in Egypt an event which proclaimed the birth of Christ. Far away in the country beyond Matarea, Heliopolis, and Memphis a great idol, which until then had uttered oracles of many kinds, fell suddenly silent. The king then ordered that great sacrifices should be offered throughout the country in order that the idol might explain its silence. The idol was thereupon obliged by God to say that it was silent and must give way because a virgin had given birth to a son, to whom a temple would here be erected. On hearing this, the king of that country decided to build a temple in his honour near the temple of the idol. I cannot clearly remember what happened, but I know that the idol was taken away and a temple was built here in honour of the virgin with the Child whom it had proclaimed, and that she was there honoured after their heathen fashion.
At the hour when the Child Jesus was born I saw a wonderful vision which appeared to the three holy kings. These kings were star-worshippers and had a tower shaped like a pyramid with steps. It was made partly of timber and was on the top of a hill; one of them was always there, with several priests, to observe the stars. They always wrote down what they saw and communicated it to each other. On this night I think I saw two of the kings on this tower. The third, who lived to the east of the Caspian Sea, was not with them. They always observed one particular star, in which they saw various changes; they also saw visions in the sky. Last night I saw the picture which appeared to them; there were several variations of it. They did not see it in one star, but in a figure composed of several stars, and these stars were in motion. They saw a beautiful rainbow over the moon, which was in one of its quarters. Upon the rainbow a Virgin was enthroned; her right foot was resting on the moon. To the left of the Virgin, on the rainbow, was a vine, and on the right a sheaf of wheat. In front of the Virgin I saw the form of a chalice, shaped like the one used by Our Lord at the institution of the Blessed Sacrament. It seemed to rise up or to issue more clearly out of the radiance surrounding it. I saw a little child coming forth out of this chalice, and above the child a transparent disc, like an empty monstrance, from which rays like ears of wheat proceeded. It made me think of the Blessed Sacrament. On the right-hand side of the child issuing from the chalice a branch grew forth on which an octagonal church blossomed like a flower. It had a great golden gate and two small side-doors. The Virgin moved the chalice, the child, and the host with her right hand, guiding them into the church before her.
I saw into it, and as I did so it seemed to become quite big. I saw an appearance of the Holy Trinity in the back of the church. The tower of the church rose above this appearance, which at last turned into a city radiant with light, like the heavenly Jerusalem. In this picture I saw many things developing out of each other as I looked into this church; but I can no longer remember in what order I saw them, nor can I recollect in what manner the kings were informed that the child had been born in Judaea. The third king who lived farther away saw the same picture in his own home in the same hour. The kings were filled with inexpressible joy at this vision, and immediately gathered together their treasures and presents and began their journey. It was only after several days that all three met. Already in the days just before the birth of Christ I noticed that they were in a state of great activity on their observatory tower and saw visions of many kinds.
How great was God’s compassion towards the heathen! Shall I tell you from whence this prophecy came to the kings? I will recount now only just the end of it, for at this moment I cannot remember the whole. The ancestors of the three kings, from whom they descended in an unbroken line from father to son, lived as long ago as five hundred years before Christ’s birth. (Elias121 must have lived eight hundred years before Christ.) Their ancestors were richer and more powerful than the three kings, for their possessions and inheritances had not been so much divided up as later on. Even in those times they lived in cities of tents—except the ancestor to the east of the Caspian Sea, whose city I now see; its foundations are of stone and the tents are set up on these, for it lies beside the sea, which often overflows. (Here on the mountains one is so high up; I see a sea to my right and one to my left; it is like looking into a black hole.) These chieftains were already at that time star-worshippers; but besides that they practised dreadfully evil ceremonies; they sacrificed old men and cripples and slaughtered children as well. The most cruel of all their practices was to put the children, dressed in white, into cauldrons, and to boil them alive. But at last all this was changed for the better, and in spite of it God allowed these blind heathens to know of the birth of the Redeemer so long beforehand. In those days three daughters of these early chieftains were living at the same time. They were learned in the science of the stars, and all received at the same time the spirit of prophecy.
They all three saw at the same time in a vision that a star should rise out of Jacob and that a virgin should give birth to the Saviour without knowing man. They wore long cloaks, and went about the whole country preaching amendment of life and announcing that the messengers of the Redeemer would one day come to them and bring them the ceremonies of the true religion. They also prophesied many things about our own and even later times. The fathers of these three virgins then built a temple in honour of the future Mother of God to the south of the sea, where their three countries met, and made sacrifices to her—some of them in that cruel manner of which I have spoken. The prophecies of the three virgins included something definite about a picture in the stars and various transformations in it: whereupon they began to look for this picture from a hill near the temple to the future Mother of God. They took note of everything and according to what they observed they kept on making various alterations on and in their temples, in their ceremonies and in their decorations. They varied the colour of the tent-roof of the temple, which was sometimes blue, sometimes red, and sometimes yellow or still another colour. They transferred (and this seemed to me remarkable) their weekly feast-day to the Sabbath. Before it used to be Thursday, and I still remember its name. [Here she stammered something which sounded like Tanna or Tanada, but was not clearly audible.]122
[In the course of her visions of Christmas night Catherine Emmerich saw much that indicated the exact date of Christ’s birth, but she forgot a great deal of it owing to illness and the disturbance of receiving visitors on the following day, which was her name-day, the feast of St. Catherine. That evening, however, shortly after these visits, she repeatedly gave utterance, in a state of trance, to the following fragments of these visions. It should be noted that she sees all dates written in Roman figures, i.e. with letters; and finds some difficulty in reading them; though she nearly always makes herself clear by repeating them several times in the order in which they appear or by showing them on her fingers. Today she did both.
This is what she said:]
Now, you can read this: look, there it is: Christ was born when the year of the world 3997 was not yet quite completed. Afterwards people forgot the period of three years and a portion of a year which intervened between His birth and the year 4000, and then reckoned our new era as beginning four years later, so that Christ was born seven years and a portion of a year earlier than according to our reckoning.123 One of the consuls in Rome at that time was called Lentulus; he was an ancestor of the priest and martyr Moses, of whom I possess a relic here, and who lived at the time of St. Cyprian. The Lentulus who was a friend of St. Peter in Rome also descended from him. Christ was born in the forty-fifth year of the Emperor Augustus.124 Herod reigned forty years in all until his death.125 He was, it is true, only a vassal-king for seven years, but harassed the country grievously and committed many cruelties. He died about the time of Christ’s sixth year.126 I think that his death was kept a secret for some time. His end was dreadful, and in the last days of his life he was responsible for many murders and much misery. I saw him crawling about in a room padded with cushions. He had a spear, and stabbed at anyone who came near him. Jesus must have been born about the thirty-fourth year of Herod’s reign. Two years before the entry of Mary into the Temple, just seventeen years before the Birth of Christ, Herod ordered that work should be done in the Temple.127 It was not a rebuilding of the Temple, but alterations and embellishments were made here and there. The Flight into Egypt took place when Christ was nine months old, and the Massacre of the Innocents was in His second year.128 [She mentioned, in addition, many other things—incidents, features, and journeys—from Herod’s life, which showed how clearly she saw everything, but it was impossible to collect and arrange these very numerous communications, some of which she recounted only in fragments.]
The Birth of Christ occurred in a year which the Jews reckoned as having thirteen months.129 This must have been some such arrangement as our leap-years.130 I think I have forgotten something about the Jews having months of twenty-one and twenty-two days twice a year.131 I heard something about feast-days connected with this, but have only a dim recollection of it all. I also saw how at different times something was altered in their calendar. It was after their coming out of a captivity, and the Temple was being added to at the same time. I saw the man who altered the calendar and I knew his name. [Here she tried to remember and said in her low German dialect with a smiling pretence of impatience, ‘I can’t remember the fellow’s name’.] I think Christ was born in the month Kislev.132 The reason why the Church keeps the feast exactly a month later than the actual event is because at one time, when an alteration in the calendar was made, some days and seasons were completely omitted. I once saw it very plainly, but can no longer recall it properly.
[Sunday, November 25th (morning):] In the early dawn after Christ’s Birth the three chief shepherds came from their hill to the Cave of the Nativity with their presents, which they had gathered together beforehand. These presents were little animals not unlike roe-deer. If they were kids, those in that country look very different from ours here at home. They had long necks, very clear beautiful eyes, and were very swift and graceful. The shepherds led them behind and beside them on long, thin cords. The shepherds also had strings of dead birds hanging over their shoulders, and carried some bigger live birds under their arms.
When they knocked shyly at the door of the cave, St. Joseph came towards them with a friendly greeting. They told him what the angel had announced to them that night, and how they were come to worship the Child of the Promise and to present their poor gifts to him. Joseph took their gifts with humble gratitude, and made them take the animals into the little chamber the entrance of which is by the southern door of the cave. Then he accompanied them into the cave itself, and led the three shepherds up to the Blessed Virgin, who was sitting on the coverlet on the ground by the Crib, holding the Child Jesus before her on her lap. The shepherds, holding their staffs in their hands, threw themselves humbly on their
knees before Jesus, weeping for joy. They remained a long time speechless with bliss and then sang the angels’ hymn of praise which they had heard in the night, and a psalm which I have forgotten. When they got up to go away, the Blessed Virgin put the little Jesus into their arms one after the other. They gave Him back to her with tears and left the cave.---
[Sunday, November 25th (evening): During the whole day Catherine Emmerich was in great distress of body and mind. She had hardly fallen asleep in the evening when she at once felt herself transported to the Promised Land. During this year she had been also contemplating the first year of Our Lord’s ministry, and particularly His forty-days’ fast, and she exclaimed in childlike wonder: ‘What a moving sight! On one side I see Jesus as a man thirty years of age fasting and tempted in a cave in the wilderness, and on the other I see Him as a new-born child in the Cave of the Nativity, adored by the shepherds from the shepherds’ tower.’ After these words the visionary rose from her couch with astonishing rapidity, ran to the open door of her room and called in an ecstasy of joy to some friends who were in the outer room: ‘Come quickly, quickly to adore the Child, He is in my room.’
She returned as rapidly to her couch, and began, quivering with rapture and devotion, to sing in a clear, inexpressibly moving voice the Magnificat, Gloria in Excelsis, and some other unknown hymns of praise. These were simple but profound and were partly in rhyme. In one hymn she sang second. She was in an unusually joyful and excited mood and said next morning:]
Yesterday evening several shepherds and shepherdesses and children from the Shepherds’ Tower, which is four hours away, came to the Crib with presents. They brought eggs, birds, honey, woven stuffs of different colours, little bunches of what looked like raw silk, and bushes of a rush-like shrub with big leaves and ears full of thick grains. After handing their presents to St. Joseph, they came up humbly to the Crib, beside which the Blessed Virgin sat. They greeted her and the Child, and then, kneeling round her, they sang some lovely hymns, the Gloria in Excelsis, and a few short verses. I sang with them; they sang in parts. In one of the hymns I sang second. I remember the words more or less: ‘O little child, red as a
rose, like a herald comest thou forth.’ When they made their farewell, they bent over the Crib as though they were kissing the Infant Jesus.
[November 26th:] Today I saw the three shepherds taking it in turns to help St. Joseph to arrange things more comfortably in the cave, round about it and in the side caves. I also saw several devout women with Our Lady, assisting her in various ways. These women were Essenes, and lived not far from the cave, as you went round to the east of the hill. They lived near each other in the deep part of the valley, in little chambers high up in the rock at a place where the hill had broken away. They had small gardens beside their dwellings and gave lessons to children belonging to their sect. St. Joseph had asked them to come; he knew this community since his childhood, for when as a boy he hid himself from his brothers in the Cave of the Nativity, he sometimes visited these pious women in their rock-dwellings. They took it in turns to come to the Blessed Virgin, bringing her bundles of wood and other small necessities, and cooking and washing for the Holy Family.
[November 27th:] Today I saw a very touching scene in the cave. Joseph and Mary were standing by the Crib, looking at the Infant Jesus with great devotion, when the donkey threw himself suddenly on his knees and bent his head down to the ground. Mary and Joseph wept. In the evening came messengers from Anna, Our Lady’s holy mother. An elderly man and Anna’s maidservant, a widow who was related to her, arrived from Nazareth. They brought all kinds of little things which Mary needed. They were greatly moved at seeing the Infant, and the old manservant wept tears of joy. He soon started home again to bring Anna news. The maidservant remained with the Blessed Virgin.
[November 28th:] Today I saw the Blessed Virgin with the Infant Jesus and the maidservant leaving the cave for several hours. I saw that after coming out of the door she turned to the right under the projecting thatched roof, then took a few steps and hid herself in the side cave. This was the cave where the fountain of water sprang up at Christ’s birth and was captured by Joseph. She remained four hours in this cave, but later she spent a few days there. Joseph had been there at dawn to make a few arrangements for her comfort. They were given an inner warning to go there, for today there came to the cave from Bethlehem some men, emissaries of Herod, I think, because of the rumour, spread abroad by the shepherds’ talk, that some wonderful thing had happened there connected with a child. I saw these men exchanging a few remarks with St. Joseph, whom they met in front of the Cave of the Nativity in the company of the shepherds. When they saw how poor and simple he was, they left him with supercilious smiles. The Blessed Virgin remained with the Infant Jesus about four hours in the side-cave, and then returned to the Crib. The Cave of the Nativity is pleasantly situated and very quiet. No one comes here from Bethlehem, except the shepherds whose duties bring them here. In general no one in Bethlehem pays any attention to what happens out here, for owing to the many strangers there is a great press of people coming and going in the town. There is much buying and slaughtering of beasts, as many of the people present pay their taxes with beasts. There are also many heathen there, who work as servants.
[This evening Catherine Emmerich said suddenly in her sleep: ‘Herod has had a pious man murdered who had an important post in the Temple. He invited him most warmly to visit him at Jericho and had him murdered on the way. He was opposed to Herod’s pretensions regarding the Temple. In spite of Herod being accused of this murder, his power over the Temple increases.’ She again insisted that Herod had appointed two of his natural sons to high places in the Temple; that these were Sadducees and that they betrayed to him everything that went on there.]
[November 29th:] Early this morning the friendly innkeeper from the last inn, in which the Holy Family spent the night from November 22nd-23rd, sent a servant with presents to the cave, and in the course of the day he came himself to worship the Child. The appearance of the angels to the shepherds in the hour of Christ’s Birth has made the story of the wonderful Child of the Promise known to all good folk here in the valleys, and these people have come to worship the Child whom they had sheltered unknown to themselves.
[November 30th:] Today several shepherds and other good people came to the Cave of the Nativity and worshipped the Infant Jesus with great fervour. They were dressed in their best and were on their way to Bethlehem for the Sabbath. Among these people I saw the surly shepherd’s good wife, who had given shelter to the Holy Family on November 20th. She might have taken a more direct road from her home to go to Jerusalem for the Sabbath, but she made a detour by Bethlehem in order to pay respect to the Holy Child and His dear parents. The good woman was full of happiness at having shown them loving-kindness.
Today I also saw St. Joseph's relations, near whose dwelling the Holy Family had passed the night of November 22nd, come to the cave and greet the Child. Among them was the father of that Jonadab who at the Crucifixion brought Jesus a cloth to cover His nakedness. He had heard from the innkeeper of his village about Joseph’s journey through the place and about the wonderful happenings at the birth of the Child, and had come here with presents for Him on his way to the Sabbath at Bethlehem. He greeted Mary and worshipped the Infant Jesus. Joseph was very friendly with him; he accepted nothing from him, but gave him the young she-ass (who had been running free with them) as a pledge, on condition that he could redeem her on repayment of the money. Joseph needed the money to pay for the presents and the meal at the circumcision ceremony. After Joseph had finished this business and everybody had gone to the synagogue in Bethlehem, he hung up in the cave the Sabbath lamp with seven wicks, lit it, and put beneath it a table covered with a red-and-white cloth on which lay prayer-scrolls. Here under the lamp he celebrated the eve of the Sabbath, reciting prayers with the Blessed Virgin and Anna’s maidservant.133 Two shepherds stood farther back in the entrance of the cave. The Essene women were also present, and afterwards they prepared the meal. Today, the eve of the Sabbath, the Essene women and the maidservant prepared several dishes for the next day. I saw the plucked and cleaned birds being roasted on a spit over the glowing embers. While roasting them they rolled them in a kind of flour made by pounding grains which grew in the ears of a rush-like plant. This plant grows wild only in damp, marshy places in that country and on the sunny side.
In some places it is cultivated. It grows wild near Bethlehem and Hebron, but I never saw it near Nazareth. The shepherds of the tower had brought some of it to Joseph. I saw them making the grains into a thick shiny white paste, and they also baked cakes with the flour. I saw open holes under the fireplace, very hot, where they baked cakes as well as birds and other things. They kept for themselves very little of the many provisions given by the shepherds to St. Joseph. Most of it went as presents and as food for others, especially for the poor. Tomorrow evening, during the meal at the circumcision ceremony, there will be a great distribution.
117. Matt. 2.1; Birth, Adoration of the Shepherds, Circumcision: Luke 2.7-21. (SB)
118. AC’s delicate description of the painless, miraculous birth of Christ finds parallels (especially in the cave being filled with light) in Protev. 19 and Ps-Matt. 13, though both these apocryphal sources introduce a midwife, whose services are not required. (SB)
Saint Bridget of Sweden also describes the Birth of Christ as entirely miraculous: Revelations of St. Bridget, TAN Books and Publishers (Rockford, Illinois: 1984), p. 25-28. (RC)
119. Herod’s two sons, placed in the Temple, are mentioned by AC as natural sons. History is, however, silent in their regard. (SB)
120. The tradition about strange portents in Rome at the birth of Christ is very ancient. Its first appearance in a document seems to be in the Universal History of Orosius (A.D. 418), the friend of St. Augustine. We find here the fountain of oil, the idol speaking, the vision of Augustus, and so forth. The story was elaborated by the time of the fourteenth-century Byzantine historian Nicephorus Callistus. The matter is fully studied in Graf, Roma nella memoria e nella immaginazioni del medio evo, Turin, 1882, Vol. I, pp. 308-331, where the texts are reproduced. The Church of Our Lady in question is Santa Maria in Ara Coeli, on the Capitol Hill, where Augustus is said to have put up a new altar.
The mention of the consul Lentulus need not be associated with the fictitious letter of Lentulus (a supposed Roman official in Judaea) about the appearance of Christ. But there was a consul Lucius Lentulus after the death of Julius Caesar (44 B.C.), mentioned by Josephus (Ant., XIV, x, 13). Lentulus the friend of Peter in Rome is unknown, and is not likely to be Lentulus Getulicus who was involved in a plot against Caligula in A.D. 41 and was executed, since Peter probably did not come to Rome until A.D. 42. The priest Moses was one of the first martyrs under Decius, and died in 251 (Ramsgate Book of Saints). (SB)
121. Elias makes his appearance in III Kings 17.1 in the reign of King Achab, 874-853 B.C. (SB)
122. Here her story was interrupted by so strange and sudden an occurrence that we feel bound to communicate it, so characteristic is it of her condition. It was about six o’clock in the evening of Nov. 27th, 1821, when she spoke these last words in her sleep. It must be remembered that for many years her feet had been paralysed; she could not walk, and could with difficulty raise herself to a sitting position, so that she was, as always, lying stretched out on her couch. The door stood open between her room and the room adjoining it in which her confessor was at that moment sitting by the lamp reading his Breviary. She had just said these words with such truth of expression that it was impossible to doubt that she was seeing it all actually happening before her eyes.
Hardly, however, had she stammered out the word ‘Tanada’ than the enfeebled and paralysed sleeper suddenly sprang up from her couch with lightning speed, hurried into the adjoining room, and rushed to the window, striking out with hands and feet as if she were attacking and warding off something. Then, turning to her confessor, she said, ‘That was a great big brute, but I gave him a kick and sent him off’. After these words she sank down as if fainting, and lay very quietly and calmly on the floor of the room before the window. The priest at his Breviary was, like the writer, staggered by this highly surprising incident, but without wasting words he said to her, ‘Sister Emmerich, under obedience, go back to your bed’; whereupon she at once got up, returned to her room, and lay down again on her bed.
When the writer asked her, ‘What was that strange incident?’ she told him the following. She was wide awake and in full consciousness, and though she was tired, she was in the cheerful state of mind of someone who has won a victory. ‘Yes, it was indeed odd. I was so far, far away in the land of the three kings. I was standing on the high mountain ridge between the two seas, looking down into their tent-cities (just as one looks out of the window here into the poultry-yard), when I suddenly felt myself called home by my guardian angel. I turned round and saw here in Dülmen, passing in front of our little house, a poor old woman whom I knew. She had come out of a little grocer’s shop. She was in a very bad and evil-tempered mood, and was grumbling and cursing to herself in a quite abominable way. Then I saw that her guardian angel abandoned her and that a great black devil-shape laid itself across her path in the dark, to make her stumble over him and break her neck and so die in her sins. When I saw that, I let the three kings be (‘liess ich drei Könige drei Könige sein’), prayed earnestly to God to help the poor woman, and was back here in my room. Then I saw that the devil was beating against the window in dreadful fury and was trying to break into the room; I saw that he had a whole bundle of nooses and knotted strings in his claws. He was trying, out of revenge, to start a great complication and annoyance here with all these; so I rushed at him and gave him a kick which made him stagger back. That will have given him something to remember! And then I lay down before the window across his path, to prevent him from coming in.’ It is indeed strange that while she is looking down from the Caucasus and seeing and recounting things that happened five hundred years before Christ’s birth as though they were before her eyes, she should at the same moment see the danger surrounding a poor little old woman close to her house at home and should hurry energetically to help her. It was an amazing spectacle to see her rushing in like a living skeleton and fighting with such violence, whereas in her waking state, she can, since Sept. 8th, hardly move forward a few steps on her crutches without fainting. (CB)
123. The date of Christ’s birth is usually fixed by modern scholars in 8 B.C. (e.g. Fr. T. Corbishley, S.J., in Cath. Comm., 676a), or at latest 6-4 B.C. (ib., 749a), but the argument is from contemporary history (such as the death of Herod in 4 B.C.), and not, as AC suggests, from the computation of the Annus Mundi. Yet it is interesting that AC’s date 7 B.C. is so near the conclusions of present-day studies. (SB)
There is currently no agreement among scholars as to the date of Christ’s Birth. The year 8 B.C. was formerly considered a probable year for the Birth of Christ, because there was a census that year. However, modern scholars generally believe that the census of 8 B.C. only applied to Roman citizens, not to the Jews (See Finegan, Handbook of Biblical Chronology, n. 523). If Christ was born seven years and a portion of a year earlier than 8 B.C., (a date commonly reckoned as the year of Christ’s Birth during the time AC lived,) then Christ was born in 15 B.C. (RC)
124. AC’s statement that Christ was born during the 45th year of Caesar Augustus is incorrect. Christ would not have been born 7 years earlier than a date which was reckoned at the year of Christ’s birth, if He had been born as late as Augustus’ 45th year as emperor. Also, Christ could not have been born in the 34th year of Herod’s reign and in the 45th year of Augustus’ reign, because Herod’s reign (over Galilee) began shortly before the death of Julius Caesar and so before the start of Augustus’ reign. See Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, 14.158ff (Herod given Galilee) and 14.217, 14.270 (Julius Caesar’s death). (RC)
125. AC’s statement that Herod reigned for 40 years must include the 6 or 7 years that Herod reigned over Galilee before capturing Jerusalem and becoming king of the Jews. (RC)
126. Christ was about 6 years old when Herod died. Christ was born in Herod’s 34th year; Herod reigned about 40 years, (including about 6 or 7 years reign over Galilee). Many commentators on Mt 2:13-23 incorrectly assume that Herod died almost immediately after the flight to Egypt, but this is not so. The Holy Family spent a number of years in exile in Egypt awaiting the death of Herod. (RC)
127. Work on the Temple began in spring of 32 B.C. The Sanctuary of the Temple was completed 1 year and six months later, in fall of 31 B.C. AC says that the entrance of Mary into the Temple occurred two years after work on the Temple was ordered. The very first entrance of the Virgin Mary into the Temple of Jerusalem occurred at her Immaculate Conception, in a passageway under the consecrated part of the Temple, in fall of 31 B.C. (See Conte, Important Dates in the Lives of Jesus and Mary, chapter 8.) (RC)
According to AC, Jesus was born in Herod’s 34th year and work on the Temple began 17 years earlier, which would be Herod’s 17th year. But AC counts the length of Herod’s reign as 40 years, adding about 6 or 7 years before he became king over Jerusalem. Thus, in the usual way of counting the years of Herod’s reign, work on the Temple began in Herod’s 11th year. Josephus says that the work took 8 years to complete. If Herod’s 11th year was the first, then Herod’s 18th year was the completion of the rebuilding of the Temple, not the start of the work. (RC)
128. Both of those statements cannot be correct. The Holy Family fled to Egypt to keep the Christ Child safe from being killed by Herod, so the Massacre of the Holy Innocents could not have occurred over a year after the Flight to Egypt. AC describes the Christ Child as being able to walk during the flight to Egypt. Therefore, the Flight to Egypt occurred when the Christ Child was in His second year (between His first and second birthdays) and the Massacre occurred some days or weeks afterwards. (RC)
129. The twelve Hebrew lunar months (of alternatively twenty-nine and thirty days) gave a year of 354 days, so that every few years an error accumulated which was corrected by the insertion after the twelfth month, Adar, of a thirteenth or ‘intercalary’ month, called second Adar. The need for this intercalation was, at the time of Christ, still determined empirically, in such a way that the celebration of the Pasch at the full moon or fourteenth day of the first month, Nisan, should always occur after the spring equinox. The intercalary month was of the same length as the other months, running from new moon to new moon. (Cf. Handbook of Biblical Chronology, Jack Finegan). AC herself admitted the likelihood of confusion on her part about this technical matter. (SB)
130. The statement that Christ was born in a Jewish leap year offers two possibilities. Either Christ was born during the Jewish year with 13 months, or Christ was born in a Christian calendar year which included part of a Jewish leap year. The Jewish calendar year begins in the spring with the month of Nisan.
131. Not true (see the previous two footnotes). However, the Jewish calendar was based on the cycles of the moon. Twelve lunar months is just over 11 days short of a solar year. Every two years, the lunar calendar is about 22 days short of the solar year. The Jewish calendar adds a leap month of 29 or 30 days, every two or three years, to correct for this.
132. Kislev was the ninth month, corresponding approximately to our Nov./Dec. (SB) AC never states the day of the month of Christ’s Birth in the Jewish calendar. (RC)
RE: The Life of the Blessed Virgin Mary by Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich - Stone - 02-15-2023
X. THE BIRTH OF OUR LORD
Section II
THE CIRCUMCISION
Section II
THE CIRCUMCISION
[December 1st:] This afternoon I saw several more people who were keeping the Sabbath come to the Cave of the Nativity, and in the evening, after the Sabbath was over, I saw the Essene women and Mary’s maidservant preparing a meal in an arbour in front of the entrance to the cave. Joseph had begun to put up this arbour with the shepherds several days before. He had also cleared out his room at the entrance to the cave, covering the floor with rugs and decorating everything as festively as his poverty allowed. He had made all these arrangements before the Sabbath began, for tomorrow at daybreak is the eighth day from the birth of Christ, when the child must be circumcised according to God’s commandment.
Towards evening Joseph had gone to Bethlehem, and returned with three priests, an elderly man, and a woman who seemed to act as a kind of nurse at this solemn ceremony. She brought with her a chair specially kept for these occasions, and a thick octagonal stone slab containing what was necessary. All these things were put down on mats spread out at the place where the ceremony was to take place. This was at the entrance to the cave, not far from the Crib, between the partition lately removed by Joseph and the hearth-place. The chair was really a box and could be drawn out to form a sort of low couch with an arm at one side. It was covered with red material. It was more for lying than sitting on. The octagonal stone slab must have been over two feet in diameter. In its centre there was an octagonal cavity covered with a metal plate; in it were three boxes and a stone knife in separate compartments. This stone slab was placed beside the chair on a three-legged stool, which until now had always stood, covered with a cloth, on the place where Our Lord was born. When all had been arranged, the priests greeted the Blessed Virgin and the Infant Jesus. They spoke friendly words to her and took the Child in their arms with emotion. A meal was then eaten in the arbour before the entrance, and a crowd of poor people (who, as always happens on such occasions, had followed the priests) surrounded the table and were given presents throughout the meal by Joseph and the priests, so that soon everything was distributed. I saw the sun go down; it looked bigger than here at home. I saw its low rays shining through the open door into the Cave of the Nativity.
[Sunday, December 2nd. She does not mention whether after yesterday’s meal the priests again returned to the town and did not come back till next morning, or whether they passed the night at or near the cave:] There were lamps lit in the cave and I saw them often praying and singing during the night. The circumcision took place at dawn, eight days after the birth of Our Lord.134 The Blessed Virgin was distressed and anxious. She had herself prepared the little cloths to catch the blood and to bandage the Child and had kept them at her breast in a fold of her mantle. The octagonal stone slab was covered by the priests first with red and then with white. This was accompanied by prayers and ceremonies. One of the priests then placed himself in the chair, leaning back rather than sitting in it, while the Blessed Virgin, who was veiled and holding the Infant Jesus in her arms at the back of the cave, handed the Child to the maidservant together with the bandages. St. Joseph took Him from the maidservant and gave Him to the nurse who had come with the priests. She laid the little Jesus, covered with a veil, upon the cloth on the octagonal stone slab.
Prayers were again offered, then the woman unwrapped the Child from His swaddling clothes and placed Him on the lap of the priest in the chair. St. Joseph bent down over the priest’s shoulders and held the upper part of the Child’s body. Two priests knelt to right and left, each holding one of the Child’s feet: the one who was to perform the holy ceremony knelt before the Child. The cover was removed from the stone to disclose the three boxes with healing ointments and lotions. The handle and the blade of the knife were both of stone. The smooth brown handle had a groove into which the blade could be shut down; the latter was of the yellow colour of raw silk, and did not seem to me to be sharp. The cut was made with the hook-shaped point of the blade, which when opened must have been nine inches long. The priest also made use of his sharp finger-nails for the operation.
Afterwards he sucked the wound and dabbed it with healing lotion and some soothing substance from the boxes. The part that was cut off he placed between two round discs of some precious material, shining and reddish-brown in colour, and slightly hollowed out in the centre, making a kind of flat box. This was handed to the Blessed Virgin. The nurse now took the Child, bandaged Him and wrapped Him again in His swaddling-clothes. Up till now these, which were red beneath and white above, had been wound round up to under the arms.
Now the little arms were also wrapped round, and the veil was wrapped round His head instead of covering it. He was then again laid on the octagonal slab of stone, which was covered with its cloths, and more prayers were said over Him. Although I know that the angel had told Joseph that the child was to be called Jesus, yet I remember that the priest did not at once approve of this name, and therefore fell to praying. I then saw a shining angel appear before the priest, holding before his eyes a tablet (like that on the Cross) with the name of Jesus. I do not know whether he or any of the other priests saw this angel as I did, but he was awestruck, and I saw him writing this name by divine inspiration on a parchment.
The Infant Jesus wept loudly after the sacred ceremony, and I saw that He was given back to St. Joseph. He laid Him in the arms of the Blessed Virgin, who was standing with two women in the back of the cave. She wept as she took Him, and withdrew into the corner where the Crib was. Here she sat down, wrapped in her veil and soothed the crying Infant by giving Him her breast. Joseph also gave her the little blood-stained cloths: the nurse kept the little bloody shreds of stuff that remained. Prayers were again said and hymns sung; the lamp was still burning, but day was breaking. After a while the Blessed Virgin came forward herself with the Child and laid Him down on the octagonal stone; the priests held out their hands to her, crossed over the Child. After this she retired, taking the Child with her. Before the priests left, taking with them all that they had brought, they ate a light meal in the arbour with Joseph and a few shepherds who had been standing at the entrance to the cave. I learnt that all those who took part in this holy ceremony were good people, and that the priests were later enlightened and obtained salvation. During the whole morning generous presents were given to poor people who came to the door. During the ceremony the donkey was tied up farther away. Today crowds of dirty, swarthy beggars went past the cave, carrying bundles, coming from the Valley of the Shepherds. They seemed to be going to Jerusalem for some feast. They were very violent in demanding alms, and cursed and raged horribly at the Crib because they were not satisfied with Joseph’s presents. I do not know what was wrong with these people; I felt a great dislike for them. Today the nurse came again to the Blessed Virgin and bandaged the Infant Jesus. In the night that followed I saw the Child often restless with pain and crying a great deal. Mary and Joseph took Him in their arms in turns, carrying Him about and comforting Him.
[December 3rd:] This evening I saw Elisabeth coming from Jutta to the Cave of the Nativity. She was riding on a donkey led by an aged manservant. Joseph received her very warmly, and she and Mary embraced each other with intense joy. She pressed the Infant Jesus to her heart with tears. Her couch was prepared beside the place where Jesus was born. In front of this place there stood sometimes a high stand like a sawing-trestle, with a little box on it. They often laid the Infant Jesus in this box, standing round Him in prayer and caressing Him. This must be the custom there, for I saw in Anna’s house the child Mary lying on a similar stand. Elisabeth and Mary talked to each other in the sweetest intimacy.
[December 4th:] Yesterday evening and again today I saw Mary and Elisabeth sitting together in sweet converse, and I felt myself to be with them and heard all their talk with heartfelt joy. The Blessed Virgin told her everything that had happened to her, and when she described their difficulty in finding a lodging in Bethlehem, Elisabeth wept in sympathy. She also told her much about the birth of the Infant Jesus, and I can remember something of this. She said that at the time of the Annunciation she had lost consciousness for ten minutes and had felt as if her heart had grown to double its size and as if she were filled with inexpressible grace. At the hour of the Birth of Christ she had been full of endless yearning, and had been rapt in ecstasy, feeling as though she were uplifted, kneeling, by angels; then she had felt as though her heart was split in twain, and that one half had gone from her. She had remained thus for ten minutes without consciousness, then she had had a feeling of inner emptiness and an intense yearning for an infinite salvation outside herself, whereas before she had always felt that it was within her. She had then seen a glow of light before her, in which the form of her Child seemed to grow before her eyes. Then she had seen His movements and heard His crying, and coming to herself, had taken Him up from the ground to her breast. At first she had been as in a dream, and had not dared to lift up the little Child surrounded with radiance. She also said that she had not been conscious of having given birth to the Child. Elisabeth said to her: ‘You have been more favoured in giving birth than other women: the birth of John was a joy indeed, but it was otherwise than with you.’ That is all that I remember of their talk.
Today I saw many people visiting the Blessed Virgin and the Infant Jesus. I also saw a lot of ill-behaved folk like the day before going by and stopping at the door to demand alms, cursing and raging. Joseph did not give them any presents this time. Towards evening Mary again hid herself with the Infant Jesus and Elisabeth in the cave at the side of the Cave of the Nativity, and I think Mary remained there the whole night. This happened because all kinds of inquisitive and important people from Bethlehem crowded to the Crib, and the Blessed Virgin did not wish to be seen by them. Today I saw the Blessed Virgin leave the Cave of the Nativity with the Infant Jesus and go into another cave to the right of it. The entrance was very narrow, and fourteen steep steps led down first into a small cellar-like chamber and then into a vaulted chamber which was more spacious than the Cave of the Nativity. The space near the entrance was semicircular, and Joseph divided this off by a hanging curtain, leaving a rectangular room beyond. The light fell not from above but through side-openings pierced in the thick rock. During the last few days I saw an old man clearing out of this cave a lot of brushwood and bundles of straw or rushes such as Joseph used for kindling. It must have been a shepherd who helped in this way. This cave was lighter and more spacious than the Cave of the Nativity. The donkey was not kept here. I saw the Infant Jesus lying here in a hollowed trough on the ground. In the last few days I often saw Mary showing her Child to visitors who came singly. He was covered with a veil, but otherwise had nothing on but a bandage round His body. At other times I saw the little Child all swaddled up again. I see the nurse often visiting the Child. Mary gave her a generous share of the gifts brought by the visitors, which she distributed amongst the needy in Bethlehem.
134. The conduct of the rite is accurately described (cf. Jewish Encyc., art. ‘Circumcision’, pp. 95 sqq.), though it seems that the mohel was usually a surgeon rather than a priest. (SB)
RE: The Life of the Blessed Virgin Mary by Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich - Stone - 02-17-2023
XI THE JOURNEY OF THE THREE HOLY KINGS TO BETHLEHEM135
Section I
[Catherine Emmerich had already, in the course of 1819 and 1820, communicated a series of visions of the three holy kings’ journey to Bethlehem; but as at that time she was following the dates of the feasts of the Church in her contemplations, the period of thirteen days from Christmas to the Epiphany was too short for their long journey, and she communicated only some descriptions of single halting-places. As, however, in 1821 she dated the day of Christ’s birth a month earlier, that is to say on November 25th, and saw the departure of the kings for Judaea on that day, there remained a space of about a month’s time for the journey. She said, in defining its length, ‘I always saw the kings approaching Bethlehem when I was putting out the Crib in the convent’—that is to say, about December 25th.]
[November 25th:] I have already related on Christmas Day how I saw the Birth of Christ being announced to the kings on Christmas night. I saw Mensor and the dark-skinned Sair gazing at the stars from a field in Mensor’s country.136 Everything was prepared for their departure. They were on a pyramid-shaped tower looking through long tubes at the Star of Jacob, which had a tail. The star split asunder before their eyes, and I saw a great shining virgin appear therein, before whom a radiant child hovered in the air. At his right hand a branch grew forth, bearing, like a flower, a little tower with several entrances. This tower was finally transformed into a city. I cannot remember the picture completely. Immediately after seeing this picture they both started off. Theokeno, the third king, lived a few days’ journey farther to the east. He saw the same star-picture in the same hour, and set off at once in great haste in order to overtake his two friends quickly, which he succeeded in doing.
[November 26th:] I went to sleep with a great longing to be with the Mother of God in the Cave of the Nativity, and to be given by her the Infant Jesus to hold in my arms for a little and to press Him to my heart. I did come there, at night. Joseph was asleep behind his partition to the right of the entrance, his head resting on his right arm. Mary sat at her usual place beside the Crib; she was awake, and held the Infant Jesus to her breast under her veil. When she sat watching in the daytime, a piece of her coverlet was rolled up to make a pillow behind her back as a support; now, at night, she lay back on her couch so that her head was lower. I fell on my knees and prayed with great longing that I might hold the Child for a little. Ah, she knew well what I wanted: she knows everything and accepts everything with such loving, touching sympathy if one prays with real faith; but she was so still, so quiet and so full of adoring mother-love, and she did not give me the Child—I think because she was suckling Him. I would not have either. But my longing increased continually, and joined in the stream of longing of all the souls who yearn for the Infant Jesus.
This burning desire for Our Saviour was, however, nowhere so pure, innocent, childlike, and true as in the hearts of the beloved holy kings from the East, all of whose ancestors had for centuries waited for Him, in faith, hope, and love. So my longing drew me then to them, and when I had finished my adoration, I crept softly and reverently out of the cave, so as to make no disturbance, and was taken on a long journey, in the train of the three holy kings. On this journey I saw many things—many strange countries and dwellings and many different peoples, their clothes and their manners and customs as well as many idolatrous ceremonies that they performed; but I have forgotten most of it. I will relate as well as I can what still remains clear in my memory. I was taken eastwards to a region where I had never been before. It was mostly sand and desert. On some of the hills lived people in groups of five to eight, like families, inhabiting huts made of brushwood. The brushwood roof was built against the hill out of which the living-rooms were hollowed. On going in, I saw that the huts were divided into rooms by partitions. The front and back rooms were larger than the central ones. Nothing at all grew in that region but low bushes, and here and there a little tree bearing buds out of which the people pulled white wool. Besides these I saw a few larger trees under which they had placed their idols.
These men must have been still in a very wild state, for they seemed to me to eat little but meat, and even the raw flesh of birds. They seemed to live partly by robbery. They were as dark as copper and had foxy yellow hair. They were small, thick-set, and rather fat, but very skilful, agile, and active. They seemed to have no domestic animals and no flocks or herds. They wore, I saw, but little clothing. The men had short aprons hanging in folds under their girdle before and behind, and wore on their breast a sort of narrow diagonally ribbed scapulary, fastened across the shoulders and round the neck. This narrow breast-covering seemed to be elastic and could be pulled out longer. Their whole back down to the girdle was uncovered except for the strap across the shoulders. On their heads they wore hoods tied round with a band, and having a sort of rosette or knot on the forehead. The women wore short skirts half-way down to the knee; the breast and the lower part of the body was covered with what looked like the front of a jacket, the edge of which came down to the girdle. This garment was closed at the neck with a strip of stuff of the shape and size of a stole; it was scalloped round the shoulders, but plain over the breast.
Their head-covering was a cap crowned by a button shaped like a truncated goblet. This cap was drawn down to make a point over the forehead, and covered the ears and part of the cheek. Behind the ears and at the back of the head this cap had loose flaps of stuff between which cushions of hair could be seen. The breast-covering of the women was coloured, and was quilted or embroidered with yellow and green designs. It was decorated in front down the middle with buttons and scalloped on the shoulders. The embroidery was rather coarse, as on old vestments. Their upper arms were covered with bracelets.
These people made blankets or something like them out of the white wool, which they took from the buds of the little trees. Two of them tied a wad of this wool round their bodies, and each walked backwards away from the other, spinning from the wool round the other one’s body a very long cord as thick as a finger. These cords they then plaited together to make broad strips. When they had prepared a great number of them, they went in troops, bearing great rolls of these blankets on their heads, to sell them in a town.
Here, and there in this region I saw their idols under great trees. They had heads of horned oxen with wide-open mouths, and lower down in their body was a wider opening where fire was lit, to burn the offerings placed in the smaller openings. Round these idol trees stood little stone pillars on each of which were small figures of other animals, such as birds, dragons, and a figure with three dogs’ heads and a coiled snake’s tail.
At the beginning of my journey I had the feeling of there being a great piece of water to my right from which I was, however, always going farther away. After I had left the region inhabited by these people, my path continually ascended, and I had to cross a mountain ridge of white sand, covered in many places with all kinds of little broken black stones, like broken pots and dishes. On the farther side of this ridge I came down a valley into a region covered with many trees growing in almost regular rows. There were trees there with scaly trunks and enormous leaves, also pyramid-shaped ones with very big, beautiful flowers; these last had yellowish-green leaves and branches with buds. I also saw trees with quite smooth heart-shaped leaves.
Thereafter I came into a region consisting of wide endless pasture-lands between hills, where there were countless flocks and herds of different kinds. Vines grew on the slopes of the hills, and were cultivated, for there were rows of them on terraces, protected by little wattle fences. The owners of the herds lived in tents with flat roofs; the entrance was closed by a door of light wickerwork. These tents were made of the white woollen stuff woven by the wild people I had seen, but they were covered over with pieces of brownish stuff overlapping each other like scales and hanging down in a shaggy edge. They looked as if they were made of moss or fur. One big tent stood in the middle, and many smaller ones in a wide circle round it. The flocks and herds, divided according to their kind, went out into the wide pastures, interspersed here and there in the distance with expanses of bushes, like low woods. I was able to distinguish herds of very different kinds of animals. I saw sheep with fleeces of long twisted wool and long woolly tails, and also very agile animals with horns like he-goats: these were as big as calves; others were the size of the horses which run wild on our moors at home. I also saw droves of camels and animals like them only with two humps. In one place I saw some elephants in an enclosure, white ones and spotted ones; they were quite tame and were used only for domestic work.
In this vision I was thrice interrupted by having my attention turned in other directions, but I always came back—though at another time of day—to this picture of pastoral activity. These herds and pasturages seemed to me to belong to one of the kings now on their travels: I think it was Mensor and his family. They were tended by under-shepherds wearing coats reaching to the knee, rather like the coats worn by our peasants, only that they fitted tight round the body. I think that now that their chief was going away for some long time, all the herds were being examined and counted by overseers, and the under-shepherds had to render account, for from time to time I saw more important people arriving in long cloaks and inspecting everything. They went into the big central tent, and the herds were then driven past between it and the small tents to be counted and looked at. The persons who received the reckonings had in their hands tablets, I do not know of what material, on which they wrote something. I thought as I watched them: ‘How I wish our bishops would examine as diligently the flocks in the care of their under-shepherds.’
When I again returned to the pasturages after the last interruption, it was night. A deep stillness rested on the place. Most of the shepherds were asleep under the small tents, only a few crept about, watching over the sleeping herds. These lay at rest in great enclosures, divided according to their kind, some crowded together and some less so. It was for me a deeply moving and edifying sight—this great pasture full of peacefully sleeping herds, the servants of mankind, and above them the immeasurable expanse of the deep-blue pastures of heaven, filled with countless stars—stars which had come forth at the bidding of their almighty Creator. They follow the voice of their shepherd like true sheep with greater obedience than the sheep of earth give to their mortal shepherds. And when I saw the waking shepherds wandering to and fro and turning their eyes more to the starry flocks above than to the earthly ones below who were entrusted to their care, I thought within myself: they are right to look up in astonishment and gratitude to where their ancestors have for centuries turned their expectant gaze in longing and prayer. The good shepherd seeks for the lost sheep and rests not till he has found it and brought it home; so does the Heavenly Father, the true Shepherd of all these countless flocks of stars in immeasurable space. When man, whom He had made lord of the earth, sinned, and as a punishment the earth became cursed to him, God sought out fallen man and his home the earth like the lost sheep. He even sent down His only-begotten Son to become man, to bring the lost sheep home, to take upon Himself, as the Lamb of God, the sins of mankind, and by dying Himself to make satisfaction for those sins to the divine justice. And now the coming of the promised Redeemer was at hand, and the kings of these shepherds, led by a star, had set forth the night before to pay homage to the new-born Redeemer. That was why the watchers of the flocks looked up in awe and adoration to the heavenly pastures, for the Shepherd of the shepherds came down from above, and His coming was announced first of all to the shepherds.
While I was meditating on all this in the wide pasture-land, I was aware of the stillness of the night being broken by the sound of hoofs hurriedly approaching: it was a troop of men riding on camels. They passed quickly by the sleeping herds to the main tent of the shepherds’ encampment. Woken by the noise, some of the camels got up from their sleeping position and stretched their long necks towards the riders, and lambs woke up bleating. Some of the new-comers alighted from their beasts and woke the sleeping shepherds in the tents, while the nearest herdsmen came up to greet the riders. Soon all were awake and gathered round the new arrivals; there was much talking, and all looked and pointed at the stars. They were speaking of a star or of some apparition in the heavens, which must have already disappeared, for I did not see it. These new-comers were Theokeno and his train. He was the third king and the one who lived farthest away. He had seen in his home the same picture in the skies, and had at once set forth and journeyed to this place. He asked how far ahead of him Mensor and Sair might be, and whether the star whose guidance they had followed could still be seen. After receiving the news for which he asked, Theokeno and his followers went on their way quickly without any delay. This was the place where the three kings, coming from their separate homes, used generally to meet to observe the stars. The pyramidal tower, from which they looked at the stars through long tubes, was close by.
Theokeno lived farther away than the others, beyond the region which was Abraham’s first dwelling-place. They all lived near that region. In the intervals between the visions of the three days during which I saw what was happening on that wide pasture-land, I was shown much about the places in which Abraham lived, but have forgotten most of it. Once, in the distance, I saw the mountain on which Abraham was preparing to sacrifice Isaac. Another time I was shown very clearly Agar and Ismael in the desert, although this happened a long way from here. I cannot remember in what connection this was. Abraham’s first dwelling-place was high up, and the lands of the three kings were below and round it. I will here describe the picture of Ismael and Agar.137
At the side of Abraham’s mountain, more towards the lower part of the valley, I saw Agar and her son wandering about in the bushes; she seemed quite beside herself. The boy was only a few years old and was wearing a long dress. His mother was wrapped in a long cloak which covered her head; under it she wore a short dress, the upper part of which was tight round her body, and her arms, too, were tightly wrapped round. She laid the child under a tree on a hill, and made signs on his forehead, on the middle of his right upper arm, on his breast, and on his left upper arm. When she went away I did not see the mark on his forehead, but the other marks, which had been made on his clothing, remained visible as if drawn in red-brown colour. These marks were in the form of a cross, but not an ordinary one. They were like a Maltese cross, only the points of the four triangles were arranged in the shape of a cross round a ring. In the four triangles she wrote signs or letters, like hooks, whose significance I could not clearly retain in my mind; I saw her also write two or three letters in the ring, in the middle. She drew this very rapidly with some red colour, which she seemed to have in her hand (or perhaps it was blood). As she did this she kept her thumb and forefinger pressed together. Thereupon she turned round, gazed up to heaven, and did not look round again at her son. She went about a gun-shot’s distance away and sat down under a tree. She heard a voice from heaven; rose up and went farther away. Again she heard a voice, and saw a spring of water under the leaves. She filled her leather water-bottle at the spring, and going back to her son gave him to drink and led him to the spring, where she put another garment over the one she had marked with crosses. That is what I remember of this vision. I think that I saw Agar in the desert twice before, once before the birth of her son, and the second time with the young Ismael as now.
135. Communicated in 1821. Matt. 2.1-12.
136. The names of the three kings as given by AC, Mensor, Sair, and Theokeno, find no documentary parallel, nor is there anywhere any information about their homelands or their subsequent history. The apocryphal Protev. 21 adds nothing to St. Matthew’s account. (SB)
137. Agar and Ismael: Gen. 21.14-21. (SB)
RE: The Life of the Blessed Virgin Mary by Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich - Stone - 03-28-2023
XI. THE JOURNEY OF THE THREE HOLY KINGS TO BETHLEHEM
Section II
[The night of November 27th -28th. When Catherine Emmerich communicated in 1821 these visions of the journey of the three holy kings, she had already related the whole of Jesus’ earthly ministry, and had amongst other things seen how, after the raising of Lazarus (which she saw happening on September 7 th of the third year of His ministry), He withdrew beyond the Jordan. During His sixteen weeks’ absence there, He visited the three holy kings who on their return from their journey to Bethlehem had settled all together, with their attendants, nearer to the Promised Land.138 Only Mensor and Theokeno were alive then.
The dark-skinned Sair was in his grave when Jesus came there. It seems necessary to inform the reader about these events (which were thirty-two years later in date but described earlier by Catherine Emmerich) in order that certain references to them in what follows may be understandable.]
In the night of the 27th to the 28th of November I saw, as day began to dawn, Theokeno and his retinue overtake Mensor and Sair, after whom they had been hurrying, in a deserted city with great rows of isolated high columns. By the gates, which were square ruined towers, and in other places stood many large and beautiful statues not so stiff as in Egypt but in beautiful living attitudes. This region was very sandy and rocky. In the ruins of this deserted city people who looked like bands of robbers had settled themselves. They wore nothing but a skin round their bodies and carried spears in their hands. They were brown in colour, short, and stocky, but remarkably agile. (I had a feeling that I had been in this place before, perhaps on those journeys which I made in my dreams to the mountain of the Prophet and the river Ganges.) After the three kings and their followers had met here, they left at dawn in haste to continue their journey. Many of the rabble who lived here joined them because of the kings’ generosity. (After Christ’s death two disciples, Saturninus and Jonadab, the half-brother of Peter, were sent by St. John the Evangelist to this deserted city to preach the Gospel.139)
I now saw all the three holy kings together. The last arrival was the one who lived farthest away, Theokeno. His face was of a beautiful yellowish colour. (I recognized him as the one who was lying ill in his tent, when thirty-two years later Jesus visited the kings in their settlement nearer the Promised Land.) Each of the three kings had with him four near relations or friends of his family, so that, counting the kings, there were fifteen important people of the party, besides the crowd of servants and camel-drivers that followed them. Amongst the many youths in their retinue, who were quite naked from the waist upwards, and were astonishingly agile in leaping and running, I recognized the young Eleazar, who later became a martyr and of whom I possess a relic.140
[In the afternoon, when her confessor again asked her for the names of the three holy kings, she answered, ‘Mensor, the brown-faced one, after Christ’s death received the name of Leander on his baptism by St. Thomas. Theokeno, the old, yellow-faced one, who was ill when Jesus visited Mensor’s camp in Arabia, was baptized Leo by St. Thomas. The brownskinned one, who was already dead when Our Lord made His visit, was called Seir or Sair.’ Her confessor asked her: ‘How then was he baptized?’ She answered smiling and without hesitation: ‘He was already dead and had received the baptism of desire.’ Her confessor then said: ‘I have never heard these names in my life: how then did they get the names of Kaspar, Melchoir, and Balthasar?’ She replied: ‘They were called this because it goes with their character, for these names mean: (1) He goes with love; (2) He wanders about, he approaches gently and with ingratiating manners: (3) He makes rapid decisions, he quickly directs his will to the will of God.’ She said this with great friendliness, and expressed the meaning of the names by making pantomimic gestures with her hand on the bed-coverlet. It must remain for the language experts to decide how far these words can be made to bear these meanings.141]
[November 28th:] It was not, I think, until a half-day’s journey from the deserted city with its many columns and statues that I first really joined the three kings and their train. It was in a more fertile region. One could see shepherds’ dwellings here and there, with walls of black and white stones. The travellers came to a spring of water in the plain near which there were several large sheds, open at the side. Three stood in the middle with others round them. This seemed to be a customary halting-place for caravans. I saw that the whole procession was divided into three separate parties; each had five leaders, one being the chief or king, who, like a master of the house, saw to everything, gave orders, and apportioned the work. The members of each of these three parties had faces of different colours.
Mensor’s tribe was of a pleasing brownish colour, Sair’s was brown, and Theokeno’s a bright yellow. I saw none shining black in colour except some slaves, who were in all three parties. The leaders sat on their high-loaded beasts between bundles covered with carpets. They had staffs in their hands. They were followed by other beasts, almost as big as horses and ridden by servants and slaves with luggage. When they arrived at the halting-place they dismounted, unloaded the beasts completely and watered them at the spring, which was surrounded by a little rampart on which was a wall with three openings in it. The cistern was at the bottom of this enclosure; it had a fountain with three water-pipes closed by pegs. The cistern was covered with a lid, which a man who had come with them from the deserted city opened in return for a fee. They had leather vessels, which could be folded up quite flat, with four partitions. These were filled with water, and four camels always drank from them at the same time. They were very careful with the water, and not a drop was allowed to be wasted. After drinking, the camels were led into open enclosures near the spring, each in a separate compartment. Fodder which had been brought with them was shaken out into the stone troughs in front of them; it consisted of grains of the size of acorns (perhaps beans). Amongst the baggage there were also big square bird-cages, narrow and high, hanging by the sides of the camels under the larger packages. In these were birds, single or in couples, according to their size; they were as big as pigeons or hens, and were kept in separate compartments as food on the journey. They carried their loaves of bread, which were all of the same size, in leather cases, packing the slabs tightly together and taking out only so much as they needed each time. They had with them very costly vessels of yellow metal, some of them ornamented with precious stones. These were almost exactly like our chalices and incense-boats in shape; they drank from them and handed round food on them. The rims of most of these vessels were set with red jewels.
The three tribes differed somewhat in their clothing. Theokeno, the yellow-skinned, and his family, as well as Mensor, the light-brown one, wore high hoods embroidered in colours with a strip of thick white stuff wound round them. Their coats, which were very simple, with few buttons or ornaments on the breast, reached almost to their ankles. They wrapped themselves in light cloaks, very full and flowing, so that they trailed on the ground behind them. Sair, the brown-skinned one, and his family wore caps with little white pads and round hoods embroidered in colours on which was a disc of another colour. Their cloaks were shorter than the others’, but longer at the back than in front; their coats were buttoned to the knee and were decorated at the breast with braid and tinsel and thickly set with shining buttons. On one side of the breast they wore a shining little shield like a star. All wore sandals, the soles of which were fastened round their bare feet with cords. The more important ones had short swords or long knives in their girdles, with many pouches and boxes hanging from their waists. Amongst the kings and their families were men of fifty, forty, thirty, and twenty years of age. Some had long and some short beards. The servants and camel-drivers were dressed much more simply, some wearing only one piece of stuff or an old blanket.
When the camels had been watered, fed, and stabled, the travellers, after drinking, made a fire in the middle of the shed under which they had camped. The firewood consisted of pieces some two and a half feet long brought by poor people from nearby in very neat bundles; they seemed to have a store of it ready for travellers. The kings made a triangular fireplace and piled up the long pieces round it, leaving an opening on one side for the draught. It was very cleverly arranged. I am not sure how they made fire: I saw that one of them kept turning one piece of wood in another, as if in a box, and then pulled it out alight.
They then lit the fire, and I saw them kill some of the birds and roast them. Each of the three kings acted towards his tribe like the head of a family: he distributed the food, laying the carved-up birds and little loaves of bread on small bowls or plates standing on short feet, and handed them round. In the same way he filled the goblets and gave drink to each. The lower servants, among whom there were Moors, lie on a blanket on the ground at one side of the fire, patiently awaiting their turn. They, too, receive their due share. I think that these are slaves.
Oh, how touching is the good temper and childlike simplicity of these beloved kings! They give to those who come to them a share of all they have; they even hold the golden vessels to their lips and let them drink out of them, like children. Today I learnt much about the holy kings, including the names of their countries and cities, but in my helpless and agitated condition I have quite forgotten everything. I will tell what I know. Mensor, the brown-skinned one, was a Chaldaean, his city had a name like Acajaja142 land was surrounded by a river, like an island. Mensor spent all his time in the fields with his herds. Sair, the dark-skinned one, was on Christmas night all ready to start on his journey from home. The name of his country is connected in my memory with the sound ‘Partherme.’143 Beyond his country, and higher up, was a lake or sea. It was only he and his tribe who were so brown, with red lips; the people round were white. His country was quite small, no bigger than the province of Münster. Theokeno, the pale one, came from a country still higher up, called Media, lying between two seas.144 I have forgotten the name of the city in which he lived; it was an assemblage of tents erected on foundations of stones. Theokeno, the richest of the three, was the one who left most behind him. I believe that he could have taken a more direct way to Bethlehem, and had to make a detour in order to travel in company with the others. I almost think that he had to go by Babylon to join them.
Sair, the dark-skinned one, lived three days’ journey from the home of Mensor, the brown one, and Theokeno five days’ journey. Each day’s journey was reckoned as lasting twelve hours. Mensor and Sair were together in the former’s camp when they saw the vision of the star of Our Lord’s Birth, and started off the next day with their followers. Theokeno, the pale one, saw the same vision in his home, and hurried after them in great haste, catching up with the other two in the deserted city. I did know the length of their journey to Bethlehem, but have partly forgotten it. What I remember, more or less, is that their journey was about 700 hours and still another figure with six in it. They had about sixty days’ journey, each reckoned at twelve hours, but they performed it in thirty-three days owing to the great speed of their beasts and to their often travelling day and night.
The star which led them was really like a round ball with light streaming out of it as from a mouth. It always seemed to me as if this ball, which was as it were swinging on a shaft of light, was guided by the hand of a supernatural being. In the daytime I saw a light brighter than daylight going before them. If one considers the distance they had to travel, the speed of their journey seems astonishing; but the pace of their beasts was so light and even that I see them moving onward with the order, rapidity, and rhythm of a flight of migrating birds.
The homes of the three kings were at the three points of a triangle. Mensor, the brown one, and Sair, the dark, lived nearer to each other than Theokeno, the pale one, who was the farthest away of the three. They have, I think, already passed Chaldar where I once saw the enclosed garden in the temple. Theokeno’s distant city has only its foundations of stone; above, it is all tents. There is water round it. It seems to me about the size of Münster.
After the kings had rested here until the evening, the people who had attached themselves to their company helped them to pack their baggage on to their beasts, and then carried home with them everything that was left behind. It was towards evening when they started off. The star was visible and was today reddish in colour, like the moon in windy weather. Its long tail of light was pale. They went on foot for a while beside their beasts with uncovered heads, praying. On this part of the way it was impossible to go fast; later on, when they came to level ground, they mounted their beasts, which moved at a very quick pace. Sometimes they went more slowly, and then they all sang as they journeyed through the night; it was very moving to hear.
[November 29th to December 2nd:] I was again with the kings on their journey in the night of Thursday, November 29th, and during the following day. I cannot say enough how much I admired the order, nobility, and joyfulness which inspires all that they do. We are journeying through the night, always following the star, whose long tail reaches down to earth. These good men follow it with their eyes quietly and joyfully, talking to each other from their high saddles. Sometimes they sing short sentences by turns, in a very slow and beautiful melody, sometimes very high and sometimes deep in tone. It is very moving to hear it in the quiet night, and I feel all that they sing. They travel with perfect orderliness; first comes a big camel with boxes on each side of his hump covered with large carpets on which sits the leader with a goad in his hand and a sack at his side. Then follow smaller beasts, such as horses or big donkeys, carrying packages and ridden by the men belonging to this leader. Then comes another of the leaders on a camel and so on. The creatures walk so delicately with big steps, and put down their feet as if they were trying not to crush anything.
They carry their burdens with so little motion that it seems as though only their legs were alive, and the carriage of their heads on their long necks is wonderfully calm and quiet. The men, too, seem to do everything without having to take thought about it. Everything happens as in a quiet dream, peaceful and sweet. (I cannot help reflecting here how these good people, who as yet do not know the Lord, journey towards Him in such order, peace, and sweetness, whilst we, whom He has redeemed and loaded with graces, are so disorderly and disrespectful in our processions!) I think the region through which they passed tonight might well be the district between Atom, the home of Azarias, and the castle of the idolater, where I saw Jesus at the end of the third year of His ministry when He was journeying through Arabia on His way to Egypt.
On Friday, November 30th, I saw the procession halting at night by a fountain in the fields. A man from a hut, of which there were several nearby, opened the fountain for them. They watered their beasts and rested for a short time without unloading. On Saturday, December 1st, I saw the kings, whose road had been going uphill the day before, on higher ground. On their right was a mountain range, and when their road descended again, they seemed to be in a place where houses, trees, and fountains often stood beside the road. It seemed to me to be the home of the people whom I had seen, last year and again lately, spinning and weaving cotton. They had stretched the threads between the trees and plaited broad coverings out of them. They worshipped images of oxen. They were generous in giving food to the rabble that followed the procession of the kings, but it surprised me to see that they never used the bowls again from which these had eaten.
On Sunday, December 2nd, I saw the three holy kings near a place whose name I remember as something like Causur, a city of tents on stone foundations.145 They were given hospitality here by another king, to whom this city belonged. His tent-dwelling stood a little distance before it. Since their meeting in the deserted city, they had now travelled fifty-three or sixty-three hours. They told the king of Causur all that they had seen in the stars. He was very astonished, and looked through a tube at the star that was guiding them and saw in it a little child with a cross. He begged them to tell him everything on their return, when he would erect altars to the King and make sacrifices to Him. I am curious to see if he will keep
his word when they return. I heard them recounting to him the origin of their star-watching, and remember of their conversation what follows.
138. No such visit of Our Lord to the abode of the three kings in Arabia is recorded in the Gospels. (SB)
139. She saw the procession of the kings passing through this town on the feast of St. Saturninus (Nov. 27th) of whom she possesses a relic; that is why she mentioned his connection with this place. The writer read later in the legend of this saint in Fleurs des Vies Saintes that Saturninus preached the Gospel in Asia as far as Media.(CB)
140. There is no available evidence about the martyr Eleazar. (SB)
141. According to the Ramsgate Book of Saints (1947), the names Melchior, Kaspar, and Balthasar were attributed to the Magi in the eighth century. The names themselves are not known before this, although Balthasar appears as a by-form of Belshazzar (Dan. 5.1), which is a pagan Babylonian name Bel-shar-usur (‘Bel protect the king’), and Melchior, if a Hebrew name Malki-or, could mean ‘My king is light’. The meanings given by AC are most obscure. The Legenda Aurea (Jan. 6th) gives their names as Appellius, Amerius, and Damascus in Greek; Galgalat, Malgalat, and Sarathin in Hebrew; and Melchior, Kaspar, and Balthasar in Latin; and adds that their bodies were found by Helena and taken to Constantinople, whence later to Milan, and finally to Cologne. (SB)
142. In 1839, eighteen years after this word Acajaja was pronounced by Catherine Emmerich, the writer found in Funke’s dictionary: ‘Achajacula, a castle on an island in the Euphrates in Mesopotamia (Ammian, 24, 2).(CB)
The reference is to the history by Ammianus Marcellinus covering the twenty-six years from Constantius to Valens, entitled Res Gestae, in thirty-one books of which eighteen are extant. The twenty-fourth book deals with the campaigns of the Emperor Julian (A.D. 363), and in XXIV, ii, 2, the place Achaiachala, an island fortress in the river Euphrates, is mentioned. (SB)
143. The name Partherme is otherwise unknown. It occurs again (of the same land), infra. (SB)
144. It would seem that Mensor, the Chaldaan, was from Mesopotamia, Theokeno from Media (Persia), and Sair from the mountain country between Mesopotamia and Persia. But the geographical information is not precise enough to determine anything. (SB)
145. Perhaps ‘Geshur in Syria’, Absalom’s retreat in II Kings (Sam.) 15.8. Fahsel notes Gessur, a Roman garrison town on the road from Damascus to Galilee, just south of Mount Hermon. (SB)
RE: The Life of the Blessed Virgin Mary by Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich - Stone - 03-30-2023
XI. THE JOURNEY OF THE THREE HOLY KINGS TO BETHLEHEM
Section III
The ancestors of the kings descended from Job, who once lived in the Caucasus and possessed other far-off lands.146 About 1,500 years before the birth of Christ only one tribe of them remained there. The prophet Balaam came from that region,147 and one of his disciples spread abroad and expounded in that land his master’s prophecy, ‘A star shall rise out of Jacob’ [see Numbers 24.17]. He had many followers, and they built a high tower upon a mountain, where many wise men and those learned in the stars lived by turns. I have seen that tower; it was like a mountain itself, broad at the base and pointed at the top. I saw, too, the openings in it where they lived. All that they discovered in the stars was noted and handed down by word of mouth. There were times when this observation of the stars fell into disuse owing to various happenings, and later it degenerated into the idolatrous horror of sacrificing children in order to hasten the coming of the promised Child.
About 500 years before the birth of Christ the observation of the stars had lapsed. At this time the race consisted of three tribes, founded by three brothers who lived with their families apart from each other. They had three daughters to whom God had given the spirit of prophecy and who wandered about the land in long cloaks prophesying, and teaching about the star and the Child that was to come out of Jacob. In this way the observation of the stars and the longing for the Child was again revived in these three tribes. The three holy kings were descended from these three brothers in a direct line of fifteen generations, covering some 500 years. Their complexions had, however, become different from each other as the result of intermarriage with other races.
For 500 years the ancestors of the kings had met at a building which they shared in common for the observation of the stars. According to what they saw, various alterations were made in their temple and its services. Unfortunately, for a long time they continued to sacrifice children and other human beings. As they watched the stars, they were shown in wonderful visions all the special events and times connected with the coming of the Messias.
I saw many of these visions as they conversed, but can no longer describe them clearly. Since Mary’s conception, fifteen years before, these visions had pointed ever more distinctly to the nearness of the Child. At last they had seen several indications of the Passion of Jesus.
They were able to calculate very exactly the coming of the star prophesied by Balaam, for they had seen Jacob’s Ladder and were able to reckon precisely, as in a calendar, the approach of our salvation by the number of rungs in the ladder and by the pictures appearing on each. The end of the ladder led to the star, which was the uppermost picture on it. They saw Jacob’s Ladder as a tree in the midst of which three rows of rungs were fastened, and on these appeared a series of pictures which they saw in the star as each was fulfilled, so they knew exactly which must be the next picture, and the intervals between the pictures told them how long they must wait for it. At the time of Mary’s conception they had seen the Virgin holding a sceptre and an evenly balanced scales with wheat and grapes.
A little below her they saw the Virgin with the Child. They saw Bethlehem as a beautiful palace, a house where much blessing was stored and distributed. In it they saw the Virgin and Child surrounded by a great glory of light, and many kings bowing before Him and making offerings to Him. They also saw the heavenly Jerusalem, but between it and Bethlehem was a dark street, full of thorns, strife and blood.
All this was real to them. They thought that glory such as this surrounded the new-born King, and that all peoples were bowing before Him; that was why they came, bringing their gifts with them. They took the heavenly Jerusalem to be His earthly kingdom and thought they would come to it. The dark street they thought meant their own journey, or that some war was threatening the King; they did not know that it meant His Via Dolorosa. At the foot of the ladder they saw (as did I) an elaborate tower, like the one I saw on the mountain of the Prophet. They saw how the Virgin once took refuge in a storm under a projecting portion of this tower, which had many entrances. I cannot remember what this signified.
(Perhaps the Flight into Egypt.) There was a whole series of pictures on this Jacob’s Ladder, amongst others many prophetic symbols of the Blessed Virgin, such as the sealed fountain and the enclosed garden. There were also pictures of kings, some holding out sceptres and others branches to each other.
All these pictures they saw appearing in their turn in the stars as they were fulfilled. In the last three nights they saw these pictures continuously. The chief one of the three sent messengers to the others, and when they saw the picture of the kings making offerings to the new-born Child, they hurried on their way with their rich gifts, not wishing to be the last to arrive. All the tribes of the star-gazers had seen the star, but these were the only ones who followed it. The star which went before them was not the comet, but a shining brilliance borne by an angel. By day they followed the angel.
Because of all this they were full of expectation as they journeyed, and were afterwards astonished to find nothing like it. They were dismayed by Herod’s reception of them and by the ignorance of all men about these things. When they came to Bethlehem and saw a desolate cellar instead of the glorious palace they had seen in the star, great doubt assailed them; but they remained true to their faith, and at the sight of Jesus they realized that all they had seen in the stars was fulfilled.
These observations of the stars were accompanied by fasting, prayer, religious ceremonies, and various forms of self-denial and purification. The visions did not come from looking at one single star, but from a grouping of certain separate stars. This starworship exercised an evil influence on those who had a tendency towards evil. Such people were seized with violent convulsions in their star-gazing, and it was they who were responsible for the misguided sacrifices of children. Others, like the three holy kings, saw the pictures clearly and calmly, in a spirit of inner piety, and grew ever better and more devout.
[December 3rd to 5th:] When the kings left Causur, I saw that they were joined by a considerable number of distinguished travellers who were going the same way. On December 3rd and 4th I saw them crossing a wide plain. On the 5th they rested by a fountain but without unloading. They watered and fed their beasts and prepared food for themselves. [In the last few days Catherine Emmerich while asleep in the evening often sang several short verses with very strange and moving melodies. When she was asked the reason for this, she said:] I am singing with my dear kings, they sing with great sweetness many short verses, such as:
Over the hills let us make our way
Our homage to the new King to pay.
They take it in turn to invent and sing these verses: one begins, and the others repeat the verse he has sung. Then another starts another verse, and so as they ride along they keep up their sweet and heartfelt singing. In the heart of the star, or rather of the globe of light, which went before them to show them the way, I saw the appearance of a Child with a Cross. When they saw the appearance of the Virgin in the stars at the birth of Jesus, this globe of light appeared in front of the picture and suddenly began to move gently forward.
[December 5th:] Mary had had a vision of the approach of the three holy kings while they were resting in the tent of the king of Causur. She also saw that the latter intended to erect an altar in honour of her Child. She told this to St. Joseph and Elisabeth, and asked that they should clear out the Cave of the Nativity and make everything ready in time for the reception of the kings.
The people because of whom Mary had yesterday retreated into the other cave were visitors who had come out of curiosity. There were many such in the last few days. Today Elisabeth went home to Jutta with a servant who came to fetch her.
[December 6th to 8th:] These were quieter days in the Cave of the Nativity, and the Holy Family was generally alone. Only Mary’s maidservant, a robust, serious, and unpretentious person of some thirty years, was there. She was a childless widow, related to Anna, who had given her a home. Her late husband had been very severe with her because she went so often to the Essenes, for she was very devout and was hoping for the salvation of Israel. So he was angry with her, just as today bad men are angry because their wives go to church too often. He left her and afterwards died.
In the last few days there came no more of those insistent beggars who had demanded alms at the cave with curses and abuse. They were on their way to Jerusalem for the Maccabees’ Feast of the Consecration of the Temple.148 This feast really begins on the 25th day of the month Kislev, but as this fell on the evening of Friday, December 7th, in the year of Jesus’ birth, that is to say, on the eve of the Sabbath, it was postponed to the evening of Saturday, December 8th, or the 26th day of Kislev. It lasted eight days. (Thus the sixth day after the Circumcision was the 25th day of Kislev, so that the Circumcision happened on the nineteenth day of Kislev, and Our Lord’s birth on the twelfth day of Kislev.)
Joseph kept the Sabbath under the lamp in the Cave of the Nativity with Mary and the maidservant. On Saturday evening the Feast of the Consecration of the Temple began. Joseph had fastened lamp-brackets, in three places in the cave, on each of which he lit seven little lamps. All is quiet now; the many visitors came because they were on their way to the festival. The nurse came to Mary every day now. Anna often sends messengers with presents who take news back to her. Jewish women do not suckle their children for long without other nourishment, and even when He was only a few days old the Infant Jesus was given a pap made of the pith of some rush which is light, nourishing, and sweet to taste. In the day-time the donkey is generally outside at pasture and only spends the night in the cave.
[December 10th:] Yesterday, Sunday, December 9th, I did not see the nurse coming to the cave any more. Joseph lights his little lamps for the Consecration feast every morning and evening. It is very quiet here since the feast began in Jerusalem. Today a manservant came from Anna. He brought Our Lady, amongst other things, materials for making a girdle, and a most beautiful little basket of fruit, covered over with fresh roses among the fruit. The basket was high and narrow, and the colour of the roses different from ours: it was paler, almost flesh-coloured. There were also big yellow and white roses, some open and some in bud. Mary seemed delighted with them and placed the basket beside her.
[Journey of the kings:] In the last few days I often saw the kings on their journey. The road was more hilly, and they came over the hills which I had seen covered with little pieces of stone like broken pottery. I should very much like to have some of them, they are so beautifully smooth. On other mountains in that region are many white transparent stones like birds’ eggs, and a quantity of white sand. I saw the kings now in the place where they afterwards lived when Jesus visited them in the third year of His ministry. They were not in the city of tents, for at that time it did not exist.
[December 11th to 13th:] It seems to me as if Joseph would like to stay in Bethlehem and live there with Mary after the Purification. I think he was looking out for a house there. About three days ago some rather distinguished people came to the cave from Bethlehem; they wanted to take the Holy Family into their house. Mary hid herself from them in the other cave, and Joseph declined their offer. Anna is soon going to visit the Blessed Virgin. I saw her very busy lately, dividing up her herds again for the poor and for the Temple. The Holy Family, too, always gave away at once whatever they had. The Consecration festival was still celebrated every morning and evening, but on the 13th a new festival must have started. I saw various alterations being made in the festival in Jerusalem. I saw the windows in many houses being closed and curtained. I also saw a priest with a scroll in the cave with Joseph. They were praying together at a little table hung with white and red. It was as if he had wanted to see whether Joseph was keeping the feast, or as if he was announcing a new feast to him. [It seemed to her to be a feast-day, but she also thought that the feast of the new moon must now have begun. She was uncertain about this.] The Crib was quiet in these last few days, without visitors.
[December 4th to 18th:] With the Sabbath the Feast of the Consecration of the Temple came to an end, and Joseph ceased lighting the little lamps. On Sunday the 16th and Monday the 17th people from the neighbourhood once more came to the Crib. The unruly beggars, too, were heard at the entrance. This was because people were now returning from the festival.
On the 17th two servants came from Anna with food and other things. Mary is much quicker than I am in distributing things, and everything was soon given away. I see Joseph beginning to tidy and clear up in the Cave of the Nativity, the side-caves and grave of Maraha, and he has brought in provisions. They are awaiting Anna’s visit, and Mary is expecting the kings to arrive soon.
[December 17th:] Today, late in the evening, I saw the kings arrive in a little town of scattered houses, many of which were surrounded by high fences. It seemed to me that this was the first Jewish town they came to. Bethlehem was in a straight line from here, but they went off to the right, I suppose because the only road led in that direction.149 As they approached this place they sang particularly loudly and beautifully, and were full of joy, for the star shone unusually brightly here. It was like moonlight and one could see quite clearly the shadows which it cast. The inhabitants seemed either not to see the star or to take no special interest in it, but they were good people and extremely helpful. Some of the travellers had dismounted, and the inhabitants helped them to water their beasts. (It made me think of Abraham’s times, when all men were so good and helpful.)
Several of the inhabitants, bearing branches, led the travellers through the town and went some of the way with them. I did not see the star always shining brightly before them; sometimes it was quite dim. It seemed to shine more brightly in places where good people lived, and when the travellers saw that it was very brilliant, they were greatly excited and thought that perhaps the Messias might be in that place.
[December 18th:] This morning they passed by a dark, misty city without stopping, and soon after crossed a river flowing into the Dead Sea. In the last two places many of the rabble which had followed them stayed behind. (I had a distinct impression that someone had taken refuge in one of these two places in a conflict before the reign of Solomon.150) They crossed the river this morning and now came on to a good road. [December 19th to 21st:] This evening I saw the kings on this side of this river.151 Their generosity had attracted so many followers that their train must have numbered 200. They were nearing the town which was approached by Jesus on its western side on July 31st in the second year of His ministry, though He did not enter it. Its name sounded like Manathea, Metanea, Medana, or Madian.152 It had a mixed population of heathens and Jews; they were evil people, and though a high road led through the town, they would not let the kings go through. They led them outside the town, on the eastern side, to a place enclosed by walls, where there were sheds and stables. The kings put up their tents here, fed and watered their beasts, and prepared a meal for themselves. On Thursday the 20th and Friday the 21st I saw the kings resting here, but they were greatly distressed because here, as in the last town, nobody knew or cared about the newborn King. I heard them telling the inhabitants in a very friendly way a great deal about the cause of their long journey and all the circumstances attending it. Of what I heard I recollect this much.
They had received the announcement about the new-born King a very long time ago. I think it must have been not long after Job’s time and before Abraham went to Egypt, when an army of some three thousand Medes from Job’s country (they lived in other parts as well) came as far as the region of Heliopolis in a campaign against Egypt.153 I cannot now clearly recollect why they had advanced so far, but I think their campaign was in aid of someone. It was not, however, for a good purpose, they were attacking something holy; whether holy men or a religious mystery connected with the fulfilment of the promise, I cannot remember. Near Heliopolis an angel appeared to several of their leaders at once, warning them to go no farther. He spoke to them of a Redeemer who was to be born of a Virgin and would be worshipped by their descendants. This was connected, I cannot remember how,
with a command that they should advance no farther but should go home and observe the stars. After this I saw them arranging joyful feasts in Egypt, setting up triumphal arches and altars, and decorating them with flowers. Then they went home. They were Median starworshippers, exceptionally tall, almost like giants, of very noble stature and of a beautiful yellowish-brown colour. They journeyed with their herds from place to place and imposed their will everywhere by their great strength. I have forgotten the name of their chief prophet. They were much given to prophesying and the taking of omens from animals.
Often on their journeys animals would suddenly place themselves across their road, standing with outstretched legs and letting themselves be killed rather than go away. That was an omen for them, and they turned away from these roads. The kings said that these Medes, returning from Egypt, were the first to bring the prophecy and to start the watching of the stars. When they passed away, it was continued by a disciple of Balaam and renewed 1,000 years after him by the three prophetess-daughters of the three kings who founded their dynasties. Now, 500 years after them, the star had come which they were following in order to adore the new-born King. All this they explained to the inquisitive listeners with the most child-like sincerity, and were distressed that they did not seem at all to believe in what their ancestors had so patiently waited for during 2,000 years. In the evening the star was covered in mist, but when it appeared again at night large and clear between moving clouds, they rose from their camp and awoke the inhabitants living near to show them the star. These gazed in wonder at the sky, and some showed emotion; but many of them were vexed with the kings, and in general they merely sought to take advantage of their generosity.
I heard the kings saying what a long way they had travelled from their first meeting-place to here. They reckoned by day’s journeys on foot, each of twelve hours. But their beasts, which were dromedaries and were faster than horses, enabled them to do thirty-six hours’ journey each twenty-four hours, including the rest-hours. Thus the most distant of the three kings was able to accomplish his sixty hours’ journey to the meeting-place in two days, and the two who were nearer did their thirty-six hours’ journey in a day and a night. From the meeting-place to where they were now they had travelled 672 hours’ journey, and had spent about twenty-five days and nights since starting off at the moment of the Birth of Christ.
[December 20th and 21st:] The kings and their train rested here both these days, and I heard what they told. On the evening of Friday the 21st the Jews who lived here began their Sabbath and crossed a bridge leading westwards across the water to a small Jewish village with a synagogue. At the same time the kings prepared for their departure and made their farewells. I noticed that the inhabitants looked at the star (when visible) which led the kings and expressed much astonishment, but it did not make them more respectful. They were shamelessly importunate, pestering the kings like swarms of wasps. In reply to their demands the kings with great forbearance gave them little triangular pieces of their gold and also grains of some darker metal. They must have been very rich.
They were escorted by the inhabitants when they left. Skirting the walls of the town (in which I saw temples surmounted by idols), they crossed the river by a bridge, and passed through the Jewish village, hurrying on towards the Jordan by a good road. From here they still had about twenty-four hours’ journey to Jerusalem. [December 19th to 22nd:] On the evening of December 19th I saw Anna, accompanied by her second husband, Maria Heli, a maid, and a manservant with two donkeys stopping for the night not far from Bethany on their way to Bethlehem. Joseph has finished the arrangements which he has been making in the Cave of the Nativity and in the side-caves in order to receive both the guests from Nazareth and the kings, whose arrival Mary had foreseen a short while ago when they were at Causur. Joseph and Mary had moved with the Infant Jesus into the other cave. The Cave of the Nativity had been entirely cleared out, and only the donkey, I saw, had been left in it. Even the fireplace and the things for preparing food had been moved out. Joseph had, if I remember rightly, already paid his second tax.
There were again many inquisitive visitors coming to Mary from Bethlehem to see the Child. Some He allowed to take Him in their arms, from others He turned away crying. I saw the Blessed Virgin calm and peaceful in the new dwelling, which had now been arranged very comfortably. Her couch was against the wall. The Infant Jesus lay beside her in a long basket woven from broad strips of bark; it had a shelter for the head and stood on trestles. Our Lady’s couch with Jesus’ cradle was separated from the rest of the room by a wicker screen. In the daytime, except when she wished to be alone, she sat in front of this screen with the Child beside her. Joseph’s resting-place was some way off at the side of the cave, and was divided off in the same way. A vessel holding a lamp stood on a piece of wood projecting from the wall high enough to light both these screened-off partitions. I saw Joseph bringing Our Lady a bowl of food and a jug of water.
[December 20th:] This evening was the beginning of a fast. All the food for the next day was prepared beforehand, the fire was covered over, the openings of the cave hung with curtains, and all the household utensils put away. (The 8th and 16th days of the month Shebet are Jewish fast days.) Anna has come to the cave with her second husband, Mary’s elder sister, and a maidservant. I had seen Anna on her journey several days before. These visitors were to sleep in the Cave of the Nativity; this was why the Holy Family had moved into the side-cave, though the donkey had remained behind. Today I saw Mary lay the Infant in her mother’s arms; Anna was greatly moved. She had brought with her coverlets, clothes, and provisions. Anna’s maidservant was strangely dressed. Her hair was plaited and hung down to her girdle in a net; she had on a short dress reaching only to the knees. Her pointed bodice was fastened tightly round her hips and breast; it came high up above the latter as if to make a place for hiding something. She carried a basket hanging on her arm. The old man (Anna’s husband) was very shy and humble. Anna slept where Elisabeth had slept, and Mary told her everything, as she had Elisabeth, in happy intimacy. Anna wept with the Blessed Virgin; they often interrupted their talk to caress the Infant Jesus.
[December 21st:] Today I saw the Blessed Virgin once more in the Cave of the Nativity and little Jesus once more in the Crib. When Joseph and Mary are alone with the little Child, I often see them adoring Him; and now I see Anna and the Blessed Virgin standing by the Crib with bowed heads, and gazing at the Infant Jesus with great devotion. I am not quite sure whether Anna’s companions slept in the other cave or whether they had gone away. I almost think they had gone. Today I saw that Anna had brought the Mother and Child various things such as coverlets and swaddling-bands. Since she came here, Mary has been given a good many things; but she has very little of anything, because she at once gives away anything that is not absolutely necessary. I heard her telling Anna that the kings out of the East would soon be coming, bringing great gifts, and that this would cause a great sensation. I think that while the kings are on their way here, Anna will go to her sister, three hours’ distance from here, and come back later.
[December 22nd:] This evening, after the Sabbath had ended, I saw Anna and her companions going away from the Blessed Virgin for a little time. She went three hours’ journey away from here, to the Tribe of Benjamin, to a younger married sister who lived there. I do not remember the name of the village, which consisted only of a few houses and a field. It is half an hour away from the last resting-place of the Holy Family on their journey to Bethlehem, where Joseph’s relations lived. They spent the night of November 22nd/23rd there.
The kings and their train left Mathanea and hurried through the night, following a highroad. They passed through no more towns, but skirted all the little places in which, at the end of July in the third year of His ministry, Jesus blessed the children and healed and taught; for example, Bethabara,154 the place of the ferry across the Jordan, which they reached early in the morning. As it was the Sabbath, they met few people on their way.
Early in the morning, at seven o’clock, I saw them crossing the Jordan. Generally people were ferried across the river on a raft of beams, but for large companies a sort of bridge was put together. This was generally done by the ferrymen who lived on the bank and received payment for it, but as these could not work on the Sabbath the travellers did it themselves, with the help of some of the ferrymen’s heathen servants, who were paid for it. The Jordan was not broad here and was full of sand-banks. Planks were placed against the raft generally used for crossing, and the camels were led up them on to the raft. I saw that this sort of bridge was ferried backwards and forwards till all the train were landed on the western bank. It was quite a long time before all were safely across.
[In the evening at half-past five, she said:] They have left Jericho on their right and are now in a direct line with Bethlehem, but are turning more to the right in the direction of Jerusalem. There must be as many as a hundred men with them. In the distance I see a little town, which I know, beside a stream coming from Jerusalem in an eastward direction. I am sure they will have to pass through this town. They go on for some time with the stream on their left hand. I saw Jerusalem as they went; it sank out of sight and reappeared as the road rose or fell. [Later she said:] They did not pass through that town after all; they turned to the right towards Jerusalem.
146. The Bible tells us nothing whatever about the historical setting of the Book of Job, except that Job lived ‘in the land of Hus (or Uz)’ – a place otherwise unknown. (SB)
147. That Balaam should come from a northern land is no surprise in view of Num. 22.5 in the Hebrew text, where we read that the king of Moab ‘sent messengers to Balaam, son of Beor, to Pethor which is by the river of his people’s land’, and this Pethor is usually identified with Pitru of the Assyrian inscriptions, a city on the Euphrates (cf. Cath. Comm., 206d). (The Vulgate reads ‘soothsayer’ for Pethor, and ‘Ammon’ for ‘his people’.)
Balaam’s remote and pagan origin makes him a character of particular interest in the history of Israel. (SB)
148. Maccabean Dedication Feast (SB)
149. Medeba is about eighteen miles north of the brook Arnon, which flows into the Dead Sea, and Bethlehem lies due west from here across the Dead Sea, so that travellers would have to turn north to go round it. (SB)
150. Medeba was the scene of David’s battle with the Ammonites (I Par. 19.7), and also (but after Solomon’s time) one of the cities captured during the revolt of Mesha, King of Moab (IV Kings 3.4 sqq., Isa. 15.2), as recorded on the Moabite Stone. (SB)
151. Since the Arnon flows east to west, we should understand ‘northern side’ here. (SB)
152. St. Jerome mentions a Methane near Arnon, which gave its name to the Mathanites. See I Par. 11.43. (CB)
Nothing else is recorded in the Bible about the Mathanites. Fahsel marks a village Madian on the north bank of the Arnon. (SB)
153. According to AC this took place about 1500 B.C., when ‘Medes (?) from Job’s country’ (the Caucasus according to AC) invaded Egypt. (SB)
RE: The Life of the Blessed Virgin Mary by Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich - Stone - 04-04-2023
XI. THE JOURNEY OF THE THREE HOLY KINGS TO BETHLEHEM
Section IV
Today [Saturday evening, December 22nd] I saw the three holy kings and their train arriving before Jerusalem. I saw the city towering up to heaven. The guiding star had here almost disappeared, it had become quite small and glowed only dimly behind the city. The travellers became more and more depressed the nearer they came to Jerusalem, for the star was not nearly so bright before them, and in Judaea they saw it but seldom. They had expected, too, to find everywhere great rejoicings and festivities at the new-born Saviour, for whose sake they had made so long a journey. When, however, they found nowhere the smallest trace of excitement about Him, they were distressed and full of doubts, thinking that they had perhaps gone completely astray. Their train numbered, I am sure, more than 200 men, and took a quarter of an hour to pass by. A distinguished company had joined them as far back as Causur, and since then others had been added. The three kings rode on dromedaries (camels with two humps), with baggage all round them, and there were three other loaded dromedaries with their riders.
Each king was accompanied by four men of his tribe; among them I noticed two young men (one of them was Azarias of Atom), whom I saw later as fathers of families when Jesus visited Arabia. The rest of the company rode mostly on very swift yellowish animals with delicate heads; I am not sure whether these were horses or donkeys. They looked quite different from our horses. The ones ridden by the more distinguished persons had richly ornamented saddles and bridles, and were hung with little gold chains and stars. Some of the company went up to the gate of the city and came back accompanied by guards and soldiers. Their arrival by this road with so large a train caused great surprise, as there was no festival and they were bringing no merchandise with them. When questioned, they explained why they had come, speaking of the star and the new-born child, but not a soul there understood what they were talking about. This depressed them extremely; they thought that they must certainly have made a mistake, for they could find nobody here who seemed to know anything about the Saviour of the World. Everyone gazed at them in astonishment, and could not understand what they wanted. However, the gate-keepers went back into the city to report when they saw the generous alms given so kindly to the importunate beggars, and heard not only that the kings sought a lodging and would pay liberally, but also that they asked to speak with King Herod. Then followed an exchange of reports, messages, inquiries, and explanations between the kings and the authorities. While this was going on, the kings talked with the various people who had collected round them.
Some of them had heard a rumour of a child said to have been born at Bethlehem, but it could not, they said, be He, for His parents were common people and poor. Others only laughed at them; and as they gathered, from what little the people said, that Herod knew nothing of a new-born child, and that, in general, they had no very high opinion of Herod, they became even more dejected, for they were troubled in their minds as to how to deal with the matter when speaking to Herod. However, calming themselves, they fell to praying and took courage again, saying to each other: ‘He who has led us here so quickly by the star will bring us happily home again.
When the gate-keepers at last came back, the kings and their train were taken round the outside of the city walls for some way and brought into it through a gate near Mount Calvary. They and their baggage-animals were taken to a circular enclosure not far from the fish-market. It was surrounded by houses and stables, and there were guards at the entrances. The animals were taken into the stables, while the kings established themselves in sheds near a fountain in the centre of the court. The baggage-animals were watered at this fountain. One side of this circular court was on the slope of a hill; the two other sides were open, with trees in front. Officials now came two by two with torches and examined what the kings had in their baggage. I suppose they were customs officers.
Herod’s palace was on higher ground, not far from here, and I saw the way thither illuminated with torches and braziers on poles. Herod sent a servant down and caused the oldest of the kings, Theokeno, to be brought to his palace in secret. It was after ten o’clock at night. He was received in a lower room by one of Herod’s courtiers and questioned as to the object of his journey. He related everything in the most child-like manner, and begged him to ask Herod where to find the new-born King of the Jews whose star they had seen and followed in order to worship Him. When the courtier reported this to Herod, he was much startled, but he dissembled and sent in reply a message saying that he would cause inquiries to be made, but that in the meantime the kings were to rest: early next morning he would speak with them all himself and tell them what he had discovered. Theokeno was thus unable to give his companions any special encouragement when he returned to them, and they made no preparations for resting, but on the contrary ordered the repacking of much that had been unpacked. I did not see them sleeping that night at all; they were wandering about separately in the city with guides, looking at the sky as if they were seeking for their star. In Jerusalem itself all was quiet, but there was much talk and coming and going at the guard-house before the court. The kings were of the opinion that Herod probably knew everything but wished to keep it secret from them.
Herod was giving a feast when Theokeno was in the palace; the rooms were illuminated and full of guests, among them brazen-faced women in fine dresses. Theokeno’s questions about a new-born King disturbed Herod greatly, and he at once summoned all the high priests and scribes. I saw them coming to him with their scrolls before midnight, wearing their priestly vestments and breast-plates and their girdles with letters. I saw as many as twenty of them about him. He asked them where Christ was to be born, and I saw them unrolling their scrolls before him and answering, pointing with their fingers: ‘In Bethlehem of Juda, for so it is written by the prophet Micheas: “And thou Bethlehem in the land of Juda art not the least among the princes of Juda; for out of thee shall come forth the captain that shall rule my people Israel.”’ Then I saw Herod walking about on the roof of the palace with some of them and looking in vain for the star of which Theokeno had spoken. He was in a strange state of unrest, but the learned priests made every effort to persuade him not to pay any attention to what the kings had said. These romantic people, they said, were always full of fantastic ideas about their stars; if such a thing had really happened, Herod and they themselves, in the Temple in the Holy City, would of course be the first to know of it.
[Sunday, December 23rd:] Very early this morning Herod secretly summoned the three kings to his palace.155 They were received under an archway and taken into a room, where I saw green branches and bushes arranged in vases to welcome them, with some refreshments. They remained standing for a while until Herod came in, and then, after bowing before him, they again asked him about the new-born King of the Jews. Herod concealed his uneasiness as well as he could and even pretended to be overjoyed. He still had some of the scribes with him. He inquired of the kings as to what they had seen, and Mensor described to him the last picture they had seen in the stars before setting off on their journey. This, he said, was a Virgin with a Child before her: on the right-hand side of the picture a branch of light grew forth, bearing on it a tower with several gates. This tower had grown into a great City, over which the Child had appeared as a king with crown, sword, and sceptre. They had then seen themselves and the kings of the whole world come and bow down before the Child in adoration, for His kingdom was to conquer all other kingdoms.Herod told them that a prophecy of this kind about Bethlehem Ephrata did indeed exist and asked them to go there at once very quietly, and when they had found and adored the Child, to come back and bring him word, that he, too, might go and adore Him. The kings, who had not touched any of the food set out for them by Herod, went back again. It was very early, for I saw the torches in front of the palace still alight. Herod spoke to them in secret because of all the talk in the city. The day then began to break, and they made all preparations for their departure. The stragglers who had followed them to Jerusalem had dispersed about the city the night before.
Herod was in a state of ill-humour and vexation in these days. At the time of Christ’s birth he had been in his palace near Jericho and had committed a vile murder. He had insinuated adherents of his into the higher posts of the Temple to find out what was going on there so as to warn him of anyone opposed to his designs. One of these in particular was a high official in the Temple, a good and upright man. He invited this man with friendly words to visit him at Jericho, but caused him to be waylaid and murdered in the desert on his way there, making it appear as the work of robbers. A few days later he came to Jerusalem in order to take part in the feast of the dedication of the Temple on the 25th day of the month Kislev, and there he became involved in a very disagreeable affair. He wanted to do something in his own way which would please the Jews and do them honour. He had a golden image made of a lamb, or rather of a kid, for it had horns. This was to be set up for the festival over the gate leading from the outer court of the women into the Court of Sacrifice. He proposed to force this arrangement on the Jews and yet expected to be thanked for it. The priests opposed it, so he threatened them with fines; whereupon they declared that they would pay the fine, but that their law forbade them ever to accept the image.
Herod, bitterly angered, tried to put up the image in secret; but when it was brought into the Temple, it was seized by a zealous official and flung to the ground, so that it broke in two.156 A tumult ensued, and Herod had the official imprisoned. This affair had so angered him that he regretted coming to the feast. His courtiers endeavoured to distract him with all kinds of entertainments.
Now came the rumours of Christ’s birth to add to Herod’s uneasiness. Of late there had arisen among certain devout Jews a lively sense of the near approach of the Messias. The events attending the birth of Jesus had been spread abroad by the shepherds, but all this was looked on by important people as nonsensical gossip. It had come to Herod’s ears, and he had secretly made inquiries at Bethlehem. His messengers came to the Crib three days after Christ’s birth, and after talking with St. Joseph, a poor man, they reported, as all arrogant people like them are wont to do, that there was nothing to be seen but a poor family in a miserable cave, and that the whole thing was not worth talking about. To begin with they were too arrogant to talk properly to St. Joseph, all the more as they had been warned not to cause any sensation. Now, however, Herod was suddenly confronted by the three kings and their numerous company, and was filled with fear and dismay, for they came from a long way off and their story could not be dismissed as idle talk. When however they inquired so particularly about the new-born King, he feigned a desire to worship Him too, much to their joy. He was in no way reassured by the blind arrogance of the scribes, and was determined in his own interests that the event should remain as unnoticed as possible. He did not at once oppose the statements made to him by the kings, nor did he at once lay hands on Jesus, for by so doing he feared to give the impression to the people (who were already in a difficult frame of mind) that the kings’ announcement was true and of serious consequence to himself.
He therefore planned to gain more accurate information from the kings before taking steps himself about it. When the kings, warned by God, failed to return to him, he announced that their flight was a proof that they had either been disappointed in their search or had been lying. He caused it to be spread abroad that they had been ashamed and afraid to come back, because they had so greatly deceived themselves and others; what other reason could there be for their secret flight, when they had been received by him in so friendly a manner? In this way he stopped all further rumours and merely let it be known in Bethlehem that no one should have anything to do with that family and that no attention should be paid to misleading rumours and imaginations. When the Holy Family returned to Nazareth a fortnight later, it put an end to the talk about an event which had never become clearly known to most people. The devout ones hoped in silence. When all was calm once more, Herod planned to do away with Jesus, but heard that the family with the Child had now left Nazareth. For a long time he caused search to be made for the Child, and when he was forced to give up hope of finding Him, his anxiety increased, and he had recourse to the desperate measure of the Massacre of the Innocents. He took stringent precautions and ordered a number of troop movements in order to prevent any insurrection. I think the children were murdered in seven different places.
I saw the kings and their train moving southwards out of the city gate. A crowd of people followed them as far as a brook outside the walls, and then turned back. After crossing the stream, the kings made a short halt to look for their star. When they saw it they broke into cries of joy, and went on their journey, singing their sweet songs. The star did not lead them by the direct road to Bethlehem, but by a westerly detour. They passed by a little town I know well, and towards midday I saw them stop in a pleasant place near a little village behind the town. A spring of water burst forth before their eyes, at which they were overjoyed. They dismounted and hollowed out a basin round the spring, surrounding it with clean sand, stones, and turf. They stayed several hours here, watering and feeding their beasts, and refreshing themselves with food; for in Jerusalem they had been too disturbed and anxious to rest. In later years I saw Our Lord stopping sometimes by this spring with His disciples and teaching there.
The star, which at night shone like a ball of fire, now looked like the moon in daylight. It was not a perfect round, but had as it were a jagged edge; I often saw it hidden by clouds. The direct road from Jerusalem to Bethlehem was full of travellers with donkeys and baggage, probably returning home from Bethlehem after the taxation, or going to the market or the Temple in Jerusalem. The way taken by the kings was very quiet, and no doubt God led them by it so that they should not cause too much sensation and should not arrive in Bethlehem before the evening. When the sun was already low, I saw them starting off again. They travelled in the same order as when they first met. Mensor, the brownish one and the youngest, went first; then came Sair, the dark-brown one; and then Theokeno, the white skinned one and the eldest.
Today, Sunday, December 23rd, at dusk, I saw the three holy kings and their train arrive at the same building outside Bethlehem where Joseph and Mary had been registered. It was the former ancestral house of David of which some masonry still remained; once it had belonged to Joseph’s parents. It was a large house with several smaller ones round it; in front of it was a closed court, giving on to an open place with trees and a fountain. In this place I saw Roman soldiers; they were there because of the tax office which was in the building. When the kings and their train arrived, a crowd of inquisitive onlookers began pressing round them. The star had disappeared, and they were somewhat uneasy. Some men came up to them and questioned them. They dismounted, and were met by officials from the house bearing branches, who offered them a light refreshment of bread, fruit, and drink. This was a usual welcome for strangers like these. Meanwhile I saw their beasts being watered at the fountain under the trees. I thought to myself: these strangers are more courteously received than poor Joseph, because of the little gold pieces they distribute. They were told that the Shepherds’ Valley was a good camping-place, but remained for some time undecided. I did not hear them ask for the new-born King of the Jews; they knew that according to the prophecy this was the place, but because of what Herod had said to them they were afraid of causing any comment. When, however, they saw a light shining in the sky beside Bethlehem, as though the moon were rising, they mounted again and rode beside a ditch and some ruined walls round the south side of Bethlehem towards the east, approaching the Cave of the Nativity from the field where the angels had appeared to the shepherds. On entering the valley behind the cave, near the grave of Maraha, they dismounted, and their people unpacked much of the luggage and set up a great tent which they had with them. They made all arrangements for an encampment with the help of some shepherds, who had pointed out the places to them.
The camp had been partly arranged when the kings saw the star appear bright and clear above the hill where the Cave of the Nativity was, the light that streamed from it descending in a vertical line on to the hill.157 The star seemed to grow larger as it drew near until it became a body of light which looked to me as big as a sheet. I saw them at first gazing at it in great astonishment. It was already dark; they saw no house, only the outline of a hill, like a rampart. Suddenly they were filled with great joy, for they saw in the radiance the shining figure of a Child, like the one they had seen before in the star. All bared their heads in obeisance, and the three kings, going up to the hill, found the door of the cave. Mensor opened the door and saw the cave full of heavenly light, and in the back of it the Virgin sitting with the Child, just as they had seen them in their visions. He went back at once and told this to his companions; in the meantime Joseph, accompanied by an aged shepherd, came out of the cave to meet them. They told him, in childlike simplicity, how they had come to adore the new-born King of the Jews, whose star they had seen, and to bring Him gifts. Joseph welcomed them warmly, and the old shepherd accompanied them to their encampment and helped them with their arrangements; some of the shepherds who were there gave them the use of some sheds. They themselves prepared for the solemn ceremony that was before them. I saw them putting on big white cloaks with long trains. The material had a yellowish sheen, like raw silk, and was beautifully fine and light. They wore these fluttering robes for all their religious ceremonies. All three wore girdles on which many pouches and gold boxes (like sugar-basins with knobs) were suspended by little chains among the ample folds of their cloaks. Each of the kings was followed by four members of his family. Besides these there were several of Mensor’s servants holding a small tablet like a tray, a rug with tassels, and some strips of thin stuff.
They followed St. Joseph in an ordered procession to the shelter at the entrance of the cave, where they covered the tray with the tasselled rug. Each king then placed on it some of the golden boxes and vessels which he took from his girdle; this was the offering which they made in common. Mensor and all the others took their sandals from off their feet, while Joseph opened the door of the cave. Two youths from Mensor’s following went before him, spreading out a strip of stuff on the floor of the cave before his feet and then retiring. Two others came close behind him with the tray of presents, which he took from them when he was before the Blessed Virgin, and falling on his knee placed them at her feet on a low stand. Those who had carried the tray went back. Behind Mensor stood the four members of his family, humbly bowing down. Sair and Theokeno with their followers stood at the entrance and under the shelter outside. They were all as though drunk with ecstasy and seemed transfused by the light which filled the cave, though no light was there save the Light of the World. Mary was lying, rather than sitting, on a carpet to the left of the Infant Jesus; she was leaning on her arm. The Child lay in a trough covered with a rug and raised on a high stand, opposite the entrance to the cave and at the place where He was born. As the kings entered, the Blessed Virgin raised herself into a sitting position, covered herself with a veil and took the Infant Jesus on to her lap under her ample veil. When Mensor knelt down and spoke touching words of homage as he put down his presents, humbly bowing his bared head and crossing his hands on his breast, Mary undid the red-and-white wrappings from the upper part of the Child’s body, which gleamed softly from behind her veil.
She supported His head with one hand and held Him with the other. He was holding His little hands before His breast as if in prayer. He was shining with welcome, and now and then made friendly little gestures with His hands. Oh what heavenly peace surrounds the prayers of these good men from the East! As I saw them, I said to myself: how clear and untroubled are their hearts, as full of goodness and innocence as the hearts of pious children. There is nothing violent in them, and yet they are all fire and love. I am dead, I am a spirit, otherwise I could not see it, for it is not happening now—and yet it is now, for it is not in time; in God is no time, in God everything is present. I am dead, I am a spirit. As these strange thoughts came to me, I heard myself being told: ‘What is that to thee? Be not troubled, look, and praise the Lord who is eternal and in whom are all things.
I now saw Mensor bringing out of a pouch hanging at his girdle a handful of little thick shining bars. They were as long as one’s finger, pointed at the top, and speckled with little gold-coloured grains in the middle. He offered these to Our Lady as his gift, laying them humbly on her knee beside the Child. She accepted the gold with loving gratitude, and covered it with a corner of her cloak. These little bars of natural gold were Mensor’s gift, because he was full of fidelity and love and was seeking for the holy truth with unshaken fervour and devotion. He then withdrew with his four companions, and Sair, the darkbrown one, came forward with his following and, falling with great humility on both knees, offered his present with touching words of homage. This was a little golden incense-boat full of little greenish grains of gum, which he laid on the table before the Infant Jesus. Incense was his gift because he embraced the will of God, and followed it willingly, reverently, and lovingly. He knelt there for a long time with deep devotion before withdrawing. After him came Theokeno, the white-skinned one and the oldest. He was very old and heavy and was not able to kneel down; but he stood bowing low and placed on the table a golden vessel containing a delicate green plant. It seemed to be rooted; it was a tiny green upright tree, very delicate, bearing curly foliage with little delicate white flowers. It was myrrh. His gift was myrrh, because it symbolizes mortification and the overcoming of passions; for this good man had conquered extreme temptations to commit idolatry, polygamy, and to give way to violence. He remained standing in deep emotion before the Infant Jesus with hisattendants for a very long time, and I grew sorry for the other servants before the Crib having to wait so long to see the Child. The addresses made by the kings and their followers were extremely touching and childlike.
As they knelt down and offered their presents, they said: ‘We have seen His star, we have seen that He is king over all kings, and we come to worship Him and to pay Him homage with our gifts’—or something like this. They seemed to be in an ecstasy, and with childlike and rapturous prayers committed to the Infant Jesus themselves and their families, their lands and their peoples, all their goods and possessions and everything of value that they owned. They besought the new-born King to accept their hearts and souls and all their thoughts and deeds, begging Him to enlighten them and to grant them every virtue and, while they were on earth, happiness, peace, and love. While thus praying, they were overflowing with loving humility; and tears of joy coursed down their cheeks and beards. They were blissfully happy, they thought that they had now reached the very star for which their ancestors had watched for centuries with faithful yearning. All the joy of promises fulfilled after many centuries was theirs. The Mother of God accepted all these gifts with humble gratitude. At first she said nothing, but a gentle movement under her veil showed the joy and emotion that she felt.
The Child’s bare body, which she had wrapped in her veil, seemed to shine from under her cloak. Afterwards she spoke a few, friendly, humble words of gratitude to each king, throwing her veil back a little as she did so. Ah, I said to myself, I have been given another lesson. With what sweet and loving gratitude she accepts each gift—she, who needs naught, who possesses Jesus Himself, accepts with humility every loving gift. From this I can surely learn how loving gifts should be received; I, too, in future will accept every kindness with thankfulness and all humility. How kind Mary and Joseph are; they kept nothing at all for themselves, but gave it all away to the poor.
When the kings with their attendants had left the cave and gone to their encampment, their servants came in. They had put up the tent, unloaded the baggage animals and, after arranging everything, were waiting in patient humility before the entrance. There must have been at least thirty of them, as well as a host of boys who had nothing on but loin-cloths and little cloaks. The servants always came in fives, led by one of the important personages to whom they belonged. They knelt round the Child and venerated Him in silence. Afterwards the boys came in all together, knelt round and worshipped the Infant Jesus with childlike innocence and joy. The servants did not stay long in the cave, for the kings came back again, making a solemn entry this time. They had put on other cloaks of thin stuff which floated round them in ample folds; they carried censers in their hands and censed with great reverence the Child and the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph and the whole cave, withdrawing afterwards with low obeisances. This was a customary form of worship amongst these people.
During all this Mary and Joseph were as full of sweet joy as I ever saw them; tears of happiness often ran down their cheeks. The recognition and solemn veneration of the Infant Jesus, whom they had been obliged to lodge so poorly, and whose infinite glory was a secret hidden in their humble hearts, brought them endless consolation. By God’s almighty Providence they saw the Child of the Promise being given, in spite of the blindness of mankind, what they themselves could not give him—the worship of the great ones of the earth with all the sacred splendour due to Him, prepared since centuries and sent from a far country. They worshipped Jesus with the holy kings, happy in the honour paid to Him.
The kings’ encampment was set up in the valley behind the cave, stretching as far as the tomb of Maraha. The beasts of burden were fastened in rows to posts between ropes. Beside the big tent, which was near the hill of the Cave lf the Nativity, was an enclosure roofed with mats where part of the baggage was stored, though most of it was taken into Maraha’s tomb. The stars had come out when all had left the Crib, and they all assembled in a circle near the old terebinth tree which stood above Maraha’s tomb and there, with solemn hymns, held their service to the stars. I cannot express how movingly their singing echoed through the quiet valley. For so many centuries their forebears had gazed at the stars, prayed, and sung; and today all their yearning was fulfilled. They sang in raptures of gratitude and joy.
Meanwhile Joseph, helped by two of the old shepherds, had set out a light meal in the kings’ tent. They brought plates with bread, fruit, honey-comb, bowls with vegetables, and flasks of balsam, arranging it all on a low table on a carpet. Joseph had got together all these provisions for the kings in the morning, having been forewarned of their arrival by the Blessed Virgin. When the kings and the members of their families returned to the tent after their evening hymn, I saw Joseph receiving them with great friendliness and begging them to be his guests and accept this modest meal. He reclined among them round the low table as they ate. He was not at all shy, and was so happy that he shed tears of joy. (When I saw this, I thought of how my dead father, who was a poor peasant, was obliged to sit at table with so many grand people when I was clothed at the convent. He was very humble and simple and had dreaded this sorely, but afterwards he was so happy that he wept for joy. Without wanting it he became the guest of honour.) After this slight meal Joseph left them. Some of the more important persons accompanying the kings betook themselves to an inn at Bethlehem, the others lay down to rest on their couches spread out in a circle in the big tent.
When Joseph returned to the Crib, he put all the presents in a corner of the wall to the right of the Crib, placing a screen before it so that what was kept there could not be seen. Anna’s maidservant, who had remained behind to wait on the Blessed Virgin, had stayed all this time in the small side-cave, of which the door was in the entrance to the Cave of the Nativity. She did not come out until all had left the Crib. She was very serious and modest. I never saw either the Holy Family or this maidservant showing any worldly pleasure at the sight of the kings’ gifts. Everything was accepted with humble gratitude, and given away again with gentle charity.
When the kings had arrived that evening at the tax-collecting office in Bethlehem, I had seen a certain amount of disturbance there and much movement in the town; some people followed the kings to the Valley of the Shepherds, but soon came back again. Afterwards, while the kings, radiant with holy joy, were worshipping and offering their gifts at the Crib, I saw some Jews lurking at a distance in the country round and murmuring angrily, and then going about in Bethlehem spreading all kinds of rumours. These miserable men made me shed bitter tears; I was grieved at heart for the evil people who, nowadays as in those distant times, stand about muttering and grumbling and spreading lies in their wrath; salvation is so close to them, and they thrust it from them. How unlike they are to the good kings who, in their trusting faith in the Promise, have come from so far and have found salvation. How I pity the hard-hearted and blind! In Jerusalem during this day I saw Herod again with several scribes. They were reading from scrolls and talking of the statement made by the kings. Afterwards it was no more spoken of, as though the whole matter were to be ignored.
[December 24th:] Very early today I saw the kings and some of their followers pay separate visits to the Infant Jesus and the Blessed Virgin. During the whole day I saw them busy in their camp beside their beasts of burden distributing all kinds of things. They were full of joy and happiness, and gave away many gifts, as I have always seen done on joyful occasions. The shepherds who had rendered services to the kings and their train were given many presents, and I saw many poor people receiving gifts. I saw them hanging coverlets over the shoulders of some poor old women who crept up to them all bent. Several of the kings’ followers took a great liking to the Shepherds’ Valley, wishing to stay there and join the shepherds. They submitted this wish to the kings, who allowed them to leave their service and gave them rich presents. They were given blankets, household utensils, grains of gold, and also the donkeys on which they had ridden. When I saw the kings distributing a quantity of bread, I at first wondered where so much bread came from. Then I remembered having seen that sometimes, when they halted, they used their provision of flour to bake little thin flat loaves like rusks in iron moulds, which they carried with them. These loaves they packed tightly in light leather boxes, which they hung on their pack-animals.
Today many people came from Bethlehem and pestered the kings for gifts of all kinds. Some of these searched their baggage, and on various pretexts made greedy demands of them. Here, and in Jerusalem too, the sensation caused by their numerous following had been a great annoyance to the kings. They had arrived in a kind of triumphal procession, thinking to find general rejoicings over the new-born King, but after what had happened they now resolved to start their return journey quietly and with a smaller following, which would enable them to travel more rapidly. They therefore dismissed today many of their followers; some of whom remained behind in the Valley of the Shepherds, while others went on ahead to meeting-places arranged beforehand. I was surprised to see how much their train had diminished by the evening. The kings no doubt intended to travel the next day to Jerusalem and to tell Herod that they had found the Child; but they wanted to do this more quietly, and this was why they sent many on ahead, thus making the journey easier. They and their dromedaries could overtake them without difficulty.
In the evening they went to the Crib to say farewell. Mensor went in first, alone. Mary placed the Infant Jesus in his arms; he shed tears and his face was shining with joy. After him the two others came and wept as they said farewell. They brought yet more gifts, many pieces of different stuffs, some looking like undyed silk, some red and some with flowered patterns, and a number of beautiful thin coverlets; they also left behind their ample, thin cloaks. These were pale yellow and seemed to be woven of the finest wool; they were so light that they moved with every breath of air. They also brought many bowls standing one on the other, and boxes filled with grains, and a basket with pots of little delicate green bushes with small white flowers. There were three of these in the centre of each pot, so arranged that another pot could be placed on the edge; the pots were built up above each other in the basket. This was myrrh.
They also gave Joseph long narrow baskets containing birds; they had had a number of these hanging on their dromedaries for killing and eating. They all shed many tears when they left the Child and Mary. I saw the Blessed Virgin standing up beside them as they said farewell. She held the Infant Jesus in her arms wrapped in her veil, and went a few steps with the kings towards the door of the cave. There she stood still, and in order to give these holy men a remembrance, she took from her head the thin yellow veil covering the Infant Jesus and herself and handed it to Mensor. The kings received this gift with deep obeisances, and their hearts overflowed with awe and gratitude when they saw the Blessed Virgin standing before them unveiled with the Infant Jesus. They were weeping with joy as they left the cave. Henceforth the veil was the holiest treasure that they possessed.
The manner in which the Blessed Virgin accepted presents, although it did not show pleasure in the things themselves, was particularly touching in its humility and in its real gratitude towards the giver. During this wonderful visit I saw in her no trace of self-interest, except that to begin with, out of love for the Infant Jesus and out of pity for Joseph, she allowed herself in all simplicity the joy of hoping that now they might perhaps find a shelter in Bethlehem and not be so contemptuously treated as on their arrival. She had been truly sorry for Joseph’s distress and confusion at this. After the kings had said farewell it grew dark, and the lamp was lit in the cave. The kings went with their followers to the great old terebinth tree above Maraha’s grave, there to hold their evening service as they had the day before. A lamp was burning beneath the tree. When they saw the stars coming out, they prayed and sang their sweet songs. The voices of the boys sounded particularly lovely among the others. After this they went into their tent, where Joseph had once more prepared a light meal for them; and then some returned to the inn in Bethlehem, while the rest lay down in the tent.
At midnight I suddenly saw a vision. I saw the kings lying asleep in their tent on rugs, and I saw the appearance of a shining youth among them. It was an angel. Their lamp was burning, and I saw them sitting up, half asleep. The angel woke them and told them to leave immediately, and not to go by Jerusalem but through the desert round the Dead Sea. They sprang in haste from their couches; some hurried to rouse their followers, one went to the cave and woke St. Joseph, who hastened to Bethlehem to summon those who were in the inn. These, however, met him on his way there, for they had had the same vision. The tent was taken down, packed, and the rest of the encampment removed, all with wonderful speed. While the kings were taking once more a touching farewell of Joseph before the Crib, their followers were already hurrying southwards through the desert of Engaddi along the shores of the Dead Sea. They travelled in separate parties so as to progress more quickly.
The kings begged that the Holy Family should fly with them, for danger most certainly threatened them, or at least that Mary should hide herself with the Child so as not to be molested because of them. They cried like children, embracing Joseph and speaking in the most moving manner. Then they mounted their dromedaries, which carried but little baggage, and hastened away across the desert. I saw the angel with them out in the fields, showing them their way; they seemed to be gone in an instant. They took different ways, about a quarter of an hour’s distance apart from each other. First they went for an hour towards the east, and then southwards into the desert. Their way home led through the region which Jesus traversed on His return from Egypt in the third year of His ministry.
[December 25th:] The angel had warned the kings just in time, for the authorities in Bethlehem—perhaps on a secret order from Herod, but I think from their own zeal of office—meant to arrest today the kings who were sleeping in the inn at Bethlehem and to imprison them in the cellars deep under the synagogue. They were then going to denounce them to Herod as disturbers of the peace. However, when their departure became known this morning, they were already near Engaddi, and the valley where they had encamped was quiet and deserted as usual, with nothing but the trodden grass and a few tent-poles to show that they had been there. In the meantime the appearance in Bethlehem of the kings and their train had caused a considerable stir. Some regretted that they had refused Joseph a lodging; others said that the kings were strange fanatical adventurers; while others connected their arrival with the rumours of what the shepherds had seen. The authorities of the place (perhaps as the result of a warning from Herod, but of this I am not sure) decided that steps must be taken to deal with the situation. In the centre of the town, in an open place with a fountain surrounded by trees, I saw near the synagogue a large house with steps leading up to it. All the inhabitants were summoned to the square in front of the house, and I saw a warning or command being given to them from the steps. They were told that all perverse talk and superstitious rumours must be stopped, and from now onwards there must be no more running backwards and forwards outside the town to the dwelling of the people who had been the cause of all this talk.
After the assembled people had dispersed, I saw St. Joseph summoned by two men and being examined in that house by some aged Jews. I saw him go back to the Crib and then again go to the court-house. When he went there the second time, he took with him some of the gold from the kings’ gifts and gave it to them, upon which they let him go in peace. It seemed to me that the whole examination was a sort of blackmail. I saw, too, that a path leading towards the Crib was blocked by the authorities by felling a tree across it. This was not the path through the town-gate, but the one which led over a hill or rampart to the Cave of the Nativity from the place where Mary had waited under a big tree on arriving at Bethlehem. They even put up a guard-house by the tree, and stretched ropes across the road which were attached to a bell in the guard-house, so that they could hold up anyone who tried to pass. In the afternoon I saw a band of sixteen of Herod’s soldiers talking to Joseph; they were probably sent on account of the kings, who had been accused of being disturbers of the peace. Finding, however, everything quiet and lonely, with nobody but a poor family in the cave, and having been warned not to alarm these in any way, they went quietly back to report what they had found. The presents and other things left by the kings had been hidden away by Joseph partly in Maraha’s grave and partly in some secret places in the hill of the Cave of the Nativity, which he knew of since his boyhood when he had often hidden there from his brothers. These separate hiding-places dated from the time of the patriarch Jacob, who had once set up his tents here on this hill.
At that time there were only a few tents on the site of Bethlehem. This evening I saw Zacharias of Hebron coming to see the Holy Family for the first time. Mary was still in the cave. He wept with joy, took the Infant Jesus in his arms, and repeated (in part or somewhat altered) the hymn of praise which he had uttered at the circumcision of John.
[December 26th:] Today Zacharias went away again, but Anna came back to visit the Holy Family with her eldest daughter, her second husband and the maidservant. Anna’s eldest daughter is bigger than her mother and really looks older than Anna. Anna’s second husband is taller and older than Joachim was. His name is Eliud, and he had a post at the Temple connected with the supervision of the sacrificial animals. Anna had a daughter by him, also called Mary. At Christ’s birth she must have been six or eight years old. This Eliud died soon after this, and it was God’s will that Anna should marry for the third time.
Of this marriage there was a son, who was called one of Christ’s brethren. The maidservant brought by Anna from Nazareth a week ago is still with the Blessed Virgin. While Our Lady was living in the Cave of the Nativity, this maidservant lived in the little cave at the side; but now, as Mary is in the cave at the side, the maidservant sleeps tinder a shelter put up for her by Joseph in front of the cave. Anna and her companions sleep in the Cave of the Nativity.
The Holy Family is now deeply joyful. Anna is blissfully happy. Mary often lays the Infant Jesus in her arms for her to nurse. I did not see her do that with anyone else. I saw, to my great wonderment, that the Infant’s hair, which is yellow and curly, ends in little fine rays of light intersecting each other. I think they make his hair curly, for I see them rubbing his head after washing it. They put a little cloak round him the while. I always see in the Holy Family the most touching and devout honour being paid to the Infant Jesus, but it is all quite simple and human, as it always is with holy and elect ones. The Child turns to His Mother with love such as I have never seen in one so young.
Mary told her mother all about the visit of the three holy kings, and Anna was greatly moved on hearing that the Lord God had summoned them from so far to acknowledge the Child of the Promise. She was shown the gifts of the kings, which were hidden in a wicker basket in a covered niche in the wall. She recognised them as tokens of homage and gazed at them with deep humility. She helped to give away some of them and to arrange and pack up the rest. All is now quiet in the neighbourhood; all the paths except the one through the gate of the town have been closed by the authorities. Joseph no longer goes to Bethlehem for what he wants; the shepherds bring him everything needful. The kinswoman with whom Anna stayed in Benjamin is Mara, the daughter of Elisabeth’s sister Rhode. She is poor, and had several sons, who became disciples. One of them was called Nathanael and was later the bridegroom at Cana. This Mara was present at the Blessed Virgin’s death at Ephesus.
This Nathanael is not the one whom Jesus saw under the fig-tree. Nathanael, Mara’s son, was present as a boy at the children’s festival given by Anna for the twelve-year-old Jesus, when He came home after His first teaching in the Temple. The boy Jesus told on this occasion a parable of a wedding where water was to be turned into wine, and of another wedding, where wine was to be turned into blood. He told the boy Nathanael, as if in jest, that one day He would be present at Nathanael’s wedding. The bride of Cana came from Bethlehem, from Joseph’s family. After the miracle at Cana the bridegroom and the bride made a mutual vow of continence. Nathanael at once became a disciple and received the name Amator in baptism. Later he was made a bishop and was in Edessa; he was also in the island of Crete with Carpus. He then went to Armenia, and because of the many conversions he made he was captured and sent into exile to the shares of the Black Sea. On being set free he came into Mensor’s land, where he worked a miracle (which I have forgotten) on a woman and baptized so many people that he was done to death, in the city of Acajacuh on an island in the River Euphrates.158
Today Anna sent away her husband Eliud with a loaded donkey and the maidservant, her relation, with two big packs. She carried one on her back and one in front. These contain part of the kings’ gifts, stuffs of various kinds and golden vessels, which in later years were used at the first Christian religious services. They are sending everything away in secret, for some sort of investigation is always going on about here. It seems as though they are only taking these things to some place on the way to Nazareth whence they will be fetched by servants, for in earlier visions I saw Eliud back in Bethlehem at Anna’s departure thence, which will soon take place. Anna was now alone with Mary in the side-cave. I saw that they were working together, plaiting and knitting a coarse blanket. The Cave of the Nativity is now completely cleared out. Joseph’s donkey is hidden behind wicker screens.
Today there were again officers of Herod in Bethlehem, searching in a number of houses for a new-born child. Soldiers came, too, looking for a new-born son of a king. They were particularly persistent in their questioning of a distinguished Jewish woman who had lately given birth to a son. They did not go near the Cave of the Nativity; they had been there before and found only a poor family, so took for granted that it was nothing to do with these. Two old men, shepherds I think, came to Joseph and warned him of these inquiries. That was why I saw the Holy Family and Anna escaping into Maraha’s grave with the Infant Jesus. There was nothing left in the Cave of the Nativity to show that it had been lived in; it looked quite deserted. I saw them going through the valley in the night with a covered light. Anna held the Infant Jesus before her in her arms, Mary and Joseph walking beside her. The shepherds accompanied them, carrying the blankets and other things to make resting-places for the holy women and the Infant Jesus. (I had a vision meanwhile; I do not know whether the Holy Family saw it, too. Round the Infant Jesus at Anna’s breast I saw a glory of seven figures of angels, intertwining and superimposed on each other. Many other figures appeared in this glory, and beside Anna, Joseph, and Mary I saw figures of light who seemed to be leading them by the arms.) On reaching the passage into the cave, they shut the door and then went into the cave itself and prepared their resting-places there.
[December 27th:] The Blessed Virgin told her mother all about the three kings, and they looked at all the things that the latter had yesterday left behind in Maraha’s grave. I saw two shepherds come and warn the Blessed Virgin that people were coming from the authorities to look for her Child. Mary was in great distress at this, and soon after I saw St. Joseph come in and take the Infant Jesus from her arms. He wrapped Him in a cloak and took Him away; I can no longer remember where to. I now saw the Blessed Virgin for at least half a day alone in the cave without the Infant Jesus and full of a mother’s fear and anxiety. When the time came near for her to be called to give suck to the Child, she did as all good mothers are wont to do after being alarmed or upset: before suckling the Child she pressed out from her breast the disturbed milk, letting it fall into a little hollow in the white stone bench in the cave. This she told to a good devout shepherd who came to her (probably to lead her to the Child). He, deeply sensible of the holiness of the Mother of the Redeemer, afterwards scooped carefully out with a sort of spoon the virgin milk enclosed in the little white hollow of the stone. In his simple faith he brought it to his wife, who was suckling a child but had not enough milk to feed it. The good woman drank this holy nourishment with reverent trustfulness, and at once her faith was rewarded, so that she was able to feed her child abundantly. Since then the white stone in this cave was given a similar healing power, and I saw that right up to our own day even Mohammedans, though unbelievers, use it as a remedy in this as mother bodily ailments. The earth from this place was for ages cleansed and pressed into small moulds by the guardians of the Holy Land and distributed throughout Christendom as a pious remembrance. These relics bear the inscription ‘de lacte sanctissimae Virginis Mariae’ (‘of the milk of the Most Holy Virgin Mary’).
Joseph did not remain hidden in the grave of Maraha. I saw him making all sorts of arrangements in the Cave of the Nativity with the two old shepherds. I saw the shepherds carrying in wreaths of leaves and flowers, but did not at first know why they were doing this; afterwards I saw that they were the preparations for a very touching ceremony. I saw Eliud, Anna’s second husband, there once more, and also the maidservant. They had brought two donkeys with them. They had probably met Anna’s menservants when the latter had come only part of the way from Nazareth with the animals, and had then sent the men and the baggage back to Nazareth and brought the donkeys to Bethlehem themselves. When I saw them on their way back here, I thought for some time that they were people from an inn outside Jerusalem where I saw the Holy Family staying later. Joseph had made use of the absence of the Blessed Virgin in Maraha’s grave to decorate the Cave of the Nativity, with the help of the shepherds, in honour of the anniversary of their wedding.
When all was in order, he fetched the Blessed Virgin with the Infant Jesus and Anna, and led them into the decorated Cave of the Nativity. Eliud and the maidservant and the three old shepherds were already there. How moving it was to see their joy when the Blessed Virgin carried the Infant Jesus into the cave! The roof and walls of the cave were hung with wreaths of flowers, and a table was set for a meal in the centre. Some of the three holy kings’ beautiful carpets were spread on the floor and table and hung on the walls. On the table a pyramid of foliage and flowers rose to an opening in the roof: on the topmost twig there was a dove which had, I think, been made for the occasion. I saw the whole cave full of lights and brightness. They had put the Infant Jesus sitting up in His basket-cradle on a stool. Mary and Joseph, crowned with wreaths, stood beside Him and drank out of one goblet. Besides the relations the old shepherds were present. They sang hymns and partook happily of a light meal. I saw choirs of angels and heavenly powers appearing in the cave. All present were filled with emotion and fervour. After this ceremony the Blessed Virgin with the Infant Jesus and Anna again betook themselves to the grave of Maraha.
[December 28th to 30th:] In the last few days and again today I have seen St. Joseph making various preparations for the approaching departure of the Holy Family from Bethlehem. He got rid every day of some of his household belongings. He is giving the shepherds all the light wicker screens and other contrivances for making the cave comfortable, and they are taking them all away. This afternoon there were again many people at the cave on their way to Bethlehem for the Sabbath, but finding it forsaken they soon went on. Anna is going back to Nazareth after the Sabbath. Today they are arranging and packing up everything. Anna is taking with her on two donkeys many of the gifts of the three holy kings, especially carpets, coverings, and stuffs. They kept the Sabbath this evening in Maraha’s grave, and continued keeping it next day (Saturday), when all was quiet in the neighbourhood. When the Sabbath was ended, all preparations were made for the departure for Nazareth of Anna and Eliud and their servants. Once, and again tonight for the second time, I saw the Blessed Virgin carry the Infant Jesus in the dark from the grave of Maraha into the Cave of the Nativity. She laid Him on a carpet at the place of His birth and knelt down in prayer beside Him. I saw the whole cave full of heavenly light as at the moment when Our Lord was born. I think that the dear Mother of God must have seen that, too.
[Sunday, December 30th:] At early dawn I saw Anna, with her husband and servants, start for Nazareth after taking a tender farewell of the Holy Family and the three old shepherds. Anna’s maidservant went with them, and I was again astonished by her strange cap, which was almost like a ‘cuckoo-basket’ the name given by our peasant children at home to a pointed cap they plait from reeds in their games. (The reason why I thought for some time that Anna’s husband and maidservant were people from the inn outside Jerusalem may have been that I had seen them spending the night in that inn and conversing with its owners.) They took all that still remained of the kings’ gifts and packed them on their beasts. While they were doing this, I was very much astonished to see them taking with them a package belonging to me. I felt that it was there, and could not at all make out what had induced Anna to take my property away with her.
[Soon after this expression of surprise that Anna should take away from Bethlehem something belonging to her, Sister Emmerich, the following dialogue took place between the latter (who was in a visionary state of great intensity) and the writer. [Sister Emmerich: ‘When Anna went away, she took with her many of the kings’ gifts, especially stuffs. Some of these were used in the first Christian Church, and pieces have survived until our own time. A piece of the cloth that covered the little table on which the kings laid their presents and a piece of one of their cloaks are among my own relics.’159 Since some of these relics were in a little cupboard beside her bed, while others were in the writer’s house, he asked: ‘Are these relics of stuff here?’
[Catherine Emmerich: ‘No, over there in the house.’
[The writer: ‘In my house?’
[Catherine Emmerich: ‘No, in the pilgrim’s house (her usual name for the writer). They are in a little bundle, the piece of the cloak is faded. People will not believe it, but it is true, all the same, and I see it before my eyes.’ When the writer brought the relics kept in his house in what might certainly he described as ‘little bundles’, she opened one of these at once and identified a little piece of dark red silk as part of the kings’ stuffs, without, however, giving any more precise explanation about it. She then said: ‘I am sure I have another little piece of the kings’ stuffs. They had several cloaks, a thick strong one for bad weather, a yellow one and a red one of very thin light wool. These cloaks blew in the wind as they went. At their ceremonies they wore cloaks of shining undyed silk, embroidered at the edge with gold. These had long trains which had to be carried. I think that a piece of a cloak like this must be near me, and that is why tonight and before that I was watching silk being produced and woven in the country of the kings. I remember that in an eastern land, between Theokeno’s and Sair’s countries, there were trees full of silkworms, with little ditches of water round each tree to prevent the silkworms from escaping. I sometimes saw them strewing leaves under the trees, and I saw little boxes hanging from their branches.
Out of these boxes they took little round things more than a finger in length. I thought, at first, they were some strange kind of birds’ eggs, but I soon saw that they were the cocoons which the worms had spun round themselves, for I saw people winding off threads as fine as gossamer. I saw them fastening a mass of this on their breasts and spinning from it a fine thread, rolling it up on something they held in their hands. I saw them also weaving among trees: the loom looked white, it was quite simple, and the woven stuff must have been about the breadth of my sheet.’
[A few days later she said: ‘My doctor has often questioned me about a piece of very curiously woven silk. A short time ago I saw a similar piece in my room, but do not know what has become of it. I have been thinking over it, and realized that I had a vision of the women weaving silk in a country to the east of the countries of the three kings. It was in the country that St. Thomas visited. I made a mistake, it does not belong to the holy kings’ stuff, the pilgrim must cross that out. Somebody gave it to me as a senseless sort of test, without considering what I was contemplating internally at that moment: this causes sad confusion.
Now, however, I have seen the relics again and know where they are. Several years ago I gave a little packet, sewn together like a knob, to my sister-in-law who lives at Flamske. It was before her last confinement, and she had begged me for some kind of holy relic to support her; so I gave her this little bundle, which I saw shining and as though it had once been in contact with the Mother of God. I cannot remember whether I looked through its whole contents at the time, but the good woman got great comfort from it. It contains a little piece of dark red carpet and two little pieces of thin woven stuff, like crêpe, of the colour of raw silk; also a piece of some stuff like green calico, a tiny piece of wood, and a few little splinters of white stone. I have sent a message to my sister-in-law to bring them back to me.’
[A few days later her sister-in-law paid her a visit and brought the little packet, which was about the size of a walnut. The writer undid it very carefully at home, and separated the remnants of stuff which were twisted together in it, moistening them and pressing them flat between the leaves of a book. These consisted of about two square inches of thick coarse woollen stuff woven in a very faded flowered pattern, in colour dark reddish brown and in places dark purple; there were also strips, two fingers in length and breadth, of loose, thin woven stuff like muslin, of the colour of raw silk; and a little piece of wood and a few splinters of stone. In the evening he held the pieces of stuff, which he had put inside notepaper, in front of her eyes. Not knowing what it was, she said first: ‘What am I to do with these letters?’ Then, as soon as she had taken the closed letters one by one in her hand, she said: ‘You must keep that carefully and not allow one thread of it to be lost. The thick stuff that looks brown now was once a deep red; it was part of a carpet as big as my room; the servants of the kings spread it out in the Cave of the Nativity, and Mary sat on it with the Infant Jesus while the kings swung their censers. Afterwards she always kept it in the cave, and she put it on the donkey when she went to Jerusalem for the Presentation of the Infant Jesus in the Temple. The thin crêpe-like stuff is a piece of a short cloak of three separate strips of stuff which the kings wore fastened to their collars. It was like a ceremonial stole and fluttered over back and shoulders. It had a fringe with tassels. The splinters of wood and stone are of a later time: they come from the Promised Land.’
[During these days she saw, in her consecutive visions of the Ministry of Jesus, the events of January 27th in the year of His death. She saw Our Lord on His way to Bethany in an inn near Bethoron160 with seventeen disciples. ‘He taught them about their calling and kept the Sabbath with them: the lamp was burning the whole day. Among these disciples is one who has lately followed Him from Sichar. I saw him so plainly, some of his bones must be among my relics, a little thin white splinter. His name sounds like Silan or Vilan, those are the letters I see.’ Finally she said: ‘Silvanus’, adding after a while: ‘I have once more seen the little pieces of stuff which I possess belonging to the three kings. There must be another little bundle there; among its contents are a piece of King Mensor’s cloak, a piece of a red silk covering which was beside the Holy Sepulchre in old days, and a piece of the red and white stole of a saint. I also see the little bone-splinter of the disciple Silvanus in it.’161 After an interval of absence of mind, she said: ‘I see now where that little bundle is. Eighteen months ago I gave it to a woman here to hang round her neck. She is still wearing it, and I will ask her to give it back to me. She was so sympathetic when I was arrested162 that I gave it to her to wear to console her. I did not then know its exact contents, I only saw that it shone, that it was a holy relic and had been in contact with the Mother of God. Now that I have seen everything to do with the three holy kings so clearly, I recognize everything round me that has to do with them, including these relics of stuffs. I had forgotten where all these things were.’
[A few days later, when the little package returned, she gave it to the writer to open, as she herself was ill. He undid the little old bundle (which had been firmly sewn up years before) in the room opening into Catherine Emmerich’s, and found the following objects in it, tightly wrapped round each other:
(1) A narrow little strip (like a rolled-up hem) of natural-coloured woven material of some very soft wool too fragile and thin to unfold.
(2) Two pieces of yellowish cotton material, loosely woven but quite strong, a finger in length and half that in breadth.
(3) A square inch of patterned crimson silk material.
(4) A square quarter-inch of silk brocade, yellow and white.
(5) A little piece of green and brown silk material.
(6) In the middle of all this was a folded paper containing a white stone the size of a pea.
[The writer put all these objects in separate pieces of paper, except No. (6), which he left in its old paper. When he brought them to Catherine Emmerich, who did not seem to be in a visionary state, she coughed and complained of violent pains, but then said: ‘What are those letters you have? They are shining: what treasures we possess, more valuable than a kingdom.’ She then took the closed letters (the contents of which it was impossible for her to know) one by one, weighing each in her hand. She was silent for a few moments, as though looking within herself, and, as she handed each back, gave the following information about their contents without making a single mistake (for the writer tested what she said by at once opening the letters, which were all exactly alike, as she handed them back).
(1) This comes from a coat of Mensor’s, it is of very fine wool. It had arm-holes and no sleeves. A piece of stuff hung from the shoulder to the elbow like the half of a slit-up sleeve. She then exactly described the shape, material, and colour of the relic.
(2) This is from a cloak left behind by the kings. She again described the nature of the relic.
(3) This is a piece of a covering of thick red silk which was spread out on the floor of the Holy Sepulchre when the Christians were still in possession of Jerusalem. When the Turks conquered the city, this silk was still as good as new. It was cut into pieces when the knights divided everything, and each one received a piece as a remembrance.
(4) This is from the stole of a very holy priest named Alexius. I think he was a Capuchin, and he was always praying at the Holy Sepulchre. The Turks mishandled him grievously. They stabled their horses in the church, and made an old Turkish woman go and stand before the Holy Sepulchre where he was praying. He paid no attention and went on with his prayers. Finally they walled him up there, and made the old woman give him bread and water through an opening. I remember this much from a great deal that I saw lately when I saw the little bundle and its contents without knowing for certain where they were.
(5) This is not a holy relic, but is worthy of respect. It is taken from the seats and benches on which the princes and knights sat in a circle in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This, like the red silk, was divided up amongst them.
(6) In this is a little stone from the chapel above the Holy Sepulchre, and also the little splinter of the bone of Sylvanus, the disciple of Sichar.
[When the writer said that there was no bone-splinter in it, she said ‘Go and look’. He went at once into the next room to the light, opened the folded-up paper carefully, and found in a fold of it a fine white splinter of bone, of the thickness of a finger-nail, irregular in shape and the size of a sixpenny piece, exactly as she had described it. She recognized it at once. All this happened in the evening in the darkness of her room. The light was burning in the ante-room.]
154. Bethabara (thus named by AC) (= ‘place of crossing’) by the Jordan is mentioned in some codices of John 1.28 (‘where John was baptizing’), while other codices have Bethania (= ‘place of the ship’) - probably two names for the same place. (SB)
155. That the second visit of the Magi to Herod was in private is recorded in Matt. 2.7. (SB)
156. This is probably the same story as that recorded by Josephus (Wars, I, xxxiii, 2-4): Herod had put up a golden eagle over the main gate of the Temple. Some young Jews climbed up at noonday and smashed it with axes. About forty men were arrested. (SB)
157. Cf. Matt. 2.9: The star ‘came and stood over where the child was.’ (SB)
158. Nathanael under the fig-tree: John 1.45-51; the Marriage of Cana: John 2.1-11. Of the subsequent events there is no documentary record, unless Carpus in Crete is to be identified with St. Paul’s friend at Troas (II Tim. 4.13). For the city of Acajacuh, see supra. (SB)
159. Catherine Emmerich was in the highest degree sensitive to the hidden qualities of all material objects consecrated by the Church, and in particular to relics of the saints. In the presence of their bones, or of stuff which they had worn, she was able to give their names and often the smallest details of their stories. She identified numbers of relics rescued from destroyed churches, private houses, and even old curiosity shops,
sometimes first telling where they were to be found. She was given many of these, including two large reliquaries full of relics from early times, which were presented to her by one of her spiritual directors. (CB)
160. Bethoron is about twenty miles north-west of Jerusalem. (SB)
161. Silvanus: is this St. Paul’s friend, called Silas in Acts (15.22, etc.) and Silvanus by St. Paul (1 Thess. 1.1; II Cor. 1.19) and by St. Peter (1 Peter 5.12)? (SB)
162. ‘Arrested’ - AC was a nun at the Augustinian Convent at Dülmen, when in 1812 Jerome Bonaparte, King of Westphalia, closed the convent and dispersed the nuns, who were compelled to live as seculars and find refuge in private houses. (SB)
RE: The Life of the Blessed Virgin Mary by Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich - Stone - 04-05-2023
XII THE PURIFICATION163
Section I
Section I
The days being nearly fulfilled when the Blessed Virgin must, according to the Law, present and redeem her first-born in the Temple,164 all was prepared for the Holy Family’s journey first to the Temple and then to their home in Nazareth. On the evening of Sunday, December 30th, the shepherds had been given everything left behind by Anna’s servants. The Cave of the Nativity, the side-cave, and Maraha’s grave were all completely swept out and emptied. Joseph left them all quite clean. In the night of Sunday, December 30th to Monday, December 31st, I saw Joseph and Mary with the Child visiting the Cave of the Nativity once more and taking leave of that holy place. They spread out the kings’ carpet on Jesus’ birthplace, laid the Child on it and prayed, and finally laid it on the place where He had been circumcised, kneeling down in prayer there, too. At dawn on Monday, December 31st, I saw the Blessed Virgin mount the donkey, which the old shepherds had brought to the cave all equipped for the journey. Joseph held the Child while she settled herself comfortably; then he laid Him in her lap. She sat sideways on the saddle with her feet on a rather high support, facing backwards. She held the Child on her lap wrapped in her big veil and looked down on Him with an expression of great happiness. There were only a few rugs and small bundles on the donkey. Mary sat between them. The shepherds accompanied them part of their way before taking a moving farewell of them. They did not take the way by which they had come, but went between the Cave of the Nativity and the grave of Maraha, round the east side of Bethlehem. Nobody noticed them.
[January 30th:] This morning I saw them going very slowly on the short journey from Bethlehem to Jerusalem: they must have made many halts. At midday I saw them resting on benches round a fountain with a roof over it. I saw some women coming to the Blessed Virgin and bringing her jugs with balsam and small loaves of bread. The Blessed Virgin’s sacrifice for the Temple hung in a basket at the side of the donkey. This basket had three compartments, two of which were lined with something. These contained fruit. The third was of open wicker-work and a couple of doves could be seen in it. Towards evening I saw them enter a small house beside a large inn about a quarter of an hour from Jerusalem. This was kept by an old childless couple who welcomed them with particular affection. I now know why I mistook Anna’s companions yesterday for the people from an inn in Jerusalem: I had seen them stopping here with these good old people on their way to Bethlehem, when they had no doubt arranged about a lodging for the Blessed Virgin. The old couple were Essenes and related to Joanna Chusa. The husband was a gardener by trade, trimmed hedges, and was employed in work on the road.
[February 1st:] I saw the Holy Family with these old innkeepers near Jerusalem during the whole of today. The Blessed Virgin was generally alone in her room with the Child, who lay on a rug on a low ledge projecting from the wall. She was praying all the time, and seemed to be preparing herself for the coming ceremony. It was revealed to me at the same time how one should prepare oneself for receiving Holy Communion. I saw the appearance of a number of holy angels in her room, worshipping the Infant Jesus. I do not know whether the Blessed Virgin also saw these angels, but I think so, because I saw her rapt in contemplation. The good people of the inn did everything possible to please the Blessed Virgin: they must have been aware of the holiness of the Infant Jesus.
About seven o’clock in the evening I had a vision of the aged Simeon. He was a thin, very old man with a short beard. He was an ordinary priest, was married, and had three grown-up sons, the youngest of whom might have been about twenty. I saw Simeon, who lived close to the Temple, going through a narrow dark passage in the Temple walls into a small vaulted cell, built in the thickness of the wall. I saw nothing in this room but an opening through which one could look down into the Temple. I saw the aged Simeon kneeling here rapt in prayer. Then the appearance of an angel stood before him and warned him to take heed of the little child who should be first presented early next morning, for this was the Messias for whom he had so long yearned. After he had seen Him, he would soon die. I saw this so plainly; the room was illuminated, and the holy old man was radiant with joy. Then I saw him going to his house and telling his wife with great joy what had been announced to him. After his wife had gone to bed, I saw Simeon betake himself to prayer again. I never saw devout Israelites and their priests praying with such exaggerated gestures as the Jews today. I did, however, see them scourging themselves. I saw the prophetess Anna praying in her cell and having a vision about the Presentation of the Infant Jesus in the Temple.
[February 2nd:] This morning, while it was still dark, I saw the Holy Family, accompanied by the people of the inn, leaving the inn and going to Jerusalem to the Temple with the baskets of offerings and with the donkey laden for the journey. They went into a walled courtyard in the Temple. While Joseph and the innkeeper stabled the donkey in a shed, the Blessed Virgin and her Child were kindly received by an aged woman and led into
the Temple by a covered passage. A light was carried, for it was still dark. No sooner had they entered this passage than the aged priest Simeon came, full of expectation, towards the Blessed Virgin. After addressing a few friendly words to her, he took the Child Jesus in his arms, pressed Him to his heart, and then hurried back to the Temple by another way.
Yesterday’s message from the angel had so filled him with longing to see the Child of the Promise, for whom he had sighed so long, that he had come out here to the place where the women arrived. He was dressed in long garments such as the priests wear when not officiating. I often saw him in the Temple, and always as an aged priest of no elevated rank. His great devoutness, simplicity, and enlightenment alone distinguished him. The Blessed Virgin was led by her guide to the outer courts of the Temple where the ceremony took place, and she was here received by Noemi, her former teacher, and Anna, who both lived on this side of the Temple. Simeon, who now once more came out of the Temple to meet the Blessed Virgin, led her, with her Child in her arms, to the customary place for the redemption of the first-born. Anna, to whom Joseph gave the basket with the offerings, followed her with Noemi. The doves were in the lower part of the basket; above them was a compartment with fruit. Joseph went by another door into the place set apart for men.
It must have been known in the Temple that several women were coming for the presentation ceremony, for everything was arranged. The room where the ceremony took place was as big as the parish church here in Dülmen. Many lamps were burning on its walls, forming pyramids of light. The little flames are at the end of a bent tube projecting from a golden disc which shines almost as brightly as the flame. Hanging from this disc by a woven cord is a little extinguisher which is used to put out the light without making any smell and removed again when the lamps are lit.
An oblong chest had been brought out by several priests and set before a kind of altar with what looked like horns at each corner. The doors of this chest were opened to form a stand on which a large tray was laid. This was covered first with a red cloth, and then with a transparent white one, which hung down to the ground on each side. Burning lamps with several branches were placed at the four corners of this table, in the middle of which was an oblong cradle flanked by two oval bowls containing two baskets. All these things had been brought out of drawers in the chest, with priests’ vestments, which were laid on the other permanent altar. The table which had been set up for the offering was surrounded by a railing. On each side of this room were seats, raised one above the other, in which were priests saying prayers.
Simeon now approached the Blessed Virgin, in whose arms the Infant Jesus lay wrapped in a sky-blue covering, and led her through the railing to the table, where she laid the Child in the cradle. From this moment I saw an indescribable light filling the Temple. I saw that God Himself was in it; and above the Child I saw the heavens opening to disclose the Throne of the Holy Trinity. Simeon then led the Blessed Virgin back to the women’s place.
Mary wore a pale sky-blue dress, with a white veil, and was completely enveloped in a long yellow cloak. Simeon then went to the permanent altar on which the vestments had been laid out, and he and three other priests vested each other for the ceremony. They had a kind of little shield on their arms, and on their heads were caps divided like mitres. One went behind and the other in front of the table of offering, while two others stood at the narrow ends of it praying over the Child. Anna now came up to Mary and handed her the basket of offerings, which contained fruit and doves in two separate compartments, one above the other. She led her to the railing in front of the table, and there both remained standing.
Simeon, who was standing before the table, opened the railing, led Mary up to the table, and placed her offering on it. Fruit was placed in one of the oval dishes and coins in the other: the doves remained in the basket.165 Simeon remained standing with Mary before the table of offering, and the priest who stood behind it lifted the Infant Jesus from the cradle and held Him up towards the different sides of the Temple, making a long prayer the while. He then gave the Child to Simeon, who laid Him once more in Mary’s arms and prayed over her and the Child from a scroll hanging on a stand beside him. Simeon then led the Blessed Virgin back to where Anna was waiting for her in front of the railing, after which Anna took her back to the railed-off women’s enclosure. Here some twenty women were waiting to present their first-born. Joseph and the other men were standing farther back in
the place for men.
The priests at the permanent altar now began a service with incense and prayers. The priests in the seats took part in this service, making gestures, but not such violent ones as the Jews of today. At the close of this ceremony, Simeon came up to where Mary was standing, took the Infant Jesus from her into his arms, speaking long and loudly over Him in raptures of joy and thanking God that He had fulfilled His Promise. He ended with his Nunc Dimittis [Luke 2.29-32]. After the Presentation Joseph came up, and he and Mary listened with great reverence to Simeon’s inspired words to Our Lady [Luke 2.34]. When Simeon had finished speaking, the prophetess Anna was also filled with inspiration, and spoke long and loudly about the Infant Jesus, hailing His Mother as blessed. I saw that those who were present were greatly moved by all this, and the priests, too, seemed to hear something of what was happening; but no sort of disturbance was caused thereby. It seemed as if this loud inspired praying was nothing unusual, as if it often happened, and as if it must all be so. At the same time I saw that the hearts of all the bystanders were much moved, and all showed great reverence to the Child and His Mother. Mary was like a heavenly rose in radiance. The Holy Family had, in appearance, made the most humble offering; but Joseph gave Anna and the aged Simeon many of the triangular yellow pieces in secret, to be used specially for poor girls who were being brought up in the Temple and could not afford the expense.
I saw the Blessed Virgin and her Child being accompanied by Anna and Noemi back to the outer court, whence they had fetched her, and there they took leave of each other. Joseph was there already with the two people from the inn; he had brought the donkey which carried Mary and the Child, and they started at once on their journey from the Temple through Jerusalem to Nazareth. I did not see the presentation of the other first-born children that day, but I feel that they were all given a special grace, and that many of them were among the massacred Innocents.
The Presentation must have ended about nine o’clock this morning, for it was at this time that I saw the departure of the Holy Family. That day they travelled as far as Bethoron, where they spent the night at the house which had been the last stopping-place of the Blessed Virgin when she was brought to the Temple thirteen years before. The owner of this house seemed to me to be a school-teacher. Servants sent by Anna were waiting here for them. They went to Nazareth by a much more direct road than on their way to Bethlehem, when they had avoided all towns and had only stopped at lonely houses. Joseph had left in pledge with his relations the young she-ass which had shown him the way on their journey to Bethlehem, for he still intended to return to Bethlehem and build a house in the Shepherds’ Valley. He had spoken to the shepherds about it, and told them that he was taking Mary to her mother only for a time until she should have recovered from the discomfort of her lodging. With this plan in his mind, he had left a good many things with the shepherds. Joseph had a strange kind of money with him; I think he must have been given it by the three kings. Inside his robe he had a kind of pouch, in which he carried a quantity of little thin shining yellow leaves rolled up in each other. Their corners were rounded and something was scratched on them. Judas’ pieces of silver were thicker and tongue-shaped; the whole pieces were rounded at bath ends and the half pieces at one end only.
At this time I saw all three kings together again beyond a river. They had a day of rest and kept a feast. At this place there was one big house with several smaller ones. The direction taken by the kings on their way home lies between the road they followed on their journey to Bethlehem and that by which Jesus came out of Egypt in the third year of His ministry. At first they travelled very quickly, but after this resting-place their pace was much slower than when they came. I always saw a shining youth going before them and sometimes talking with them. They left Ur on the right.
[February 3rd:] Simeon had a wife and three sons, of whom the eldest was about forty and the youngest twenty years old. All three served in the Temple, and were later secret friends of Jesus and His followers. All became disciples of Our Lord, but at different times: before His death or after His ascension. At the Last Supper one of them prepared the Paschal Lamb for Jesus and the Apostles; but these were perhaps grandsons, not sons, of Simeon; I am not sure. Simeon’s sons did much to help the friends of Our Lord at the time of the first persecutions after the Ascension. Simeon was related to Seraphia, who was later given the name Veronica, and also, through her father, to Zacharias. I saw that Simeon fell ill yesterday immediately on returning home after his prophecy at the Presentation of Jesus, but he spoke very joyfully with his wife and sons. Tonight I saw that today was to be the day of his death. Of the many things I saw I can only remember this much. Simeon, from the couch where he lay, spoke earnestly to his wife and children, telling them of the salvation that was come to Israel and of everything that the angel had announced to him.
His joy was touching to behold. Then I saw him die peacefully and heard the quiet lamentation of his family. Many other old priests and Jews were praying round his bed. Then I saw them carry his body into another room. They placed it on a board pierced with holes, and washed it with sponges, holding a cloth over it so that its nakedness could not be seen. The water ran through the board into a copper basin placed beneath it. Then they covered the body with big green leaves, surrounded it with bunches of sweet herbs, and wrapped it in a great cloth in which it was tied up with long bandages like a child in swaddling bands. The body lay so straight and rigid that I thought the bands must have been tied right round the board.
In the evening Simeon was buried. His body was carried to the grave by six men bearing torches. It lay on a board more or less the shape of a body, but surrounded by an edge higher in the middle of its four sides and lower at the corners. The wrapped-up corpse lay on this board without any other covering. The bearers and those who followed them walked quicker than is usual at our burials. The grave was on a hill not very far from the Temple. The door of the sepulchre was set slanting against a little hill; it was walled inside with a strange kind of masonry, like that which I saw St. Benedict working at in his first monastery.166 The walls, like those in the Blessed Virgin’s cell in the Temple, were decorated with stars and other patterns in coloured stones. The little cave in the middle of which they laid the corpse was just large enough to allow them to pass round the body. There were some other funeral customs such as laying various things beside the dead man—coins, little stones, and I think also food, but I am not sure.
In the evening I saw the Holy Family arrive at Anna’s house, which is about half an hour’s distance from Nazareth in the direction of the valley of Zabulon. There was a little family festival like the one when Mary left home for the Temple. A lamp was burning above the table. Joachim was dead, and I saw Anna’s second husband as master of the house. Anna’s eldest daughter, Maria Heli, was there on a visit. The donkey was unloaded, for Mary meant to stay here for some time. All were full of joy over the Infant Jesus, but it was a tranquil inner joy; I never saw any of these people giving way to very violent emotions. Some aged priests were there, and all present partook of a light meal. The women ate separately from the men, as is always the custom at meals.
I saw the Holy Family still in Anna’s house a few days later. There are several women there, Maria Heli, Anna’s eldest daughter, with her child Mary Cleophas, a woman from Elisabeth’s home, and the maidservant who was with Mary in Bethlehem. This maidservant did not wish to marry again after the death of her husband, who had not been a good man, and came to Elisabeth at Jutta, where the Blessed Virgin made her acquaintance when she visited Elisabeth before John’s birth. From here this widow came to Anna. Today I saw Joseph in Anna’s house packing many things on donkeys and going in front of the donkeys (of which there were two or three) towards Nazareth, accompanied by the maid.
I cannot remember the details of all that I saw today in Anna’s house, but I must have had a very vivid impression of it all, for while I was there I was in an intense activity of prayer, which is now hardly comprehensible to me. Before I came to Anna’s house I had been in spirit with a young married couple who supported their old mother; they are both mortally ill, and if they do not recover, the mother will perish. I know this poor family, but have had no news of them for a long time. In desperate cases like this I always invoke St. Anne, and when I was in her house today in my vision, I saw, in spite of the season of the year, and though the leaves had all fallen, many pears, plums, and other fruit hanging on the trees in her garden. When I went away I was allowed to pick these, and I took the pears to the young couple who were ill and so cured them. After that I was made to give some to many other poor people, known and unknown to me, who were restored to health by them.
No doubt these fruits signified graces obtained through the intercession of St. Anne. I fear that these fruits mean much pain and suffering for me, which always comes after visions in which I pick fruit in the gardens of the saints; this has always to be paid for. Perhaps these souls are under the protection of St. Anne, and are thus entitled to fruit from the garden; or perhaps it happened because, as I have always recognized, she is a patroness in desperate cases.
[When asked what sort of weather she saw in Palestine at this time of the year, she answered:] I always forget to mention that, because it seems to me all so natural that I always think everyone knows about it. I often see rain and mist, and sometimes a little snow, but this melts at once. I often see leafless trees with fruit still hanging on them. I see several crops in the year, and I see them beginning to harvest in our spring. Now that it is winter I see people going along the roads wrapped up, with their cloaks over their heads.
[February 6th:] This afternoon I saw the Blessed Virgin going from Anna’s house to Joseph’s house in Nazareth. She was accompanied by her mother, who carried the Infant Jesus. It is a very pleasant walk of half an hour among hills and gardens. Anna sends provisions from her own house to Joseph and Mary in Nazareth. How beautiful is the life of the Holy Family! Mary is at once the mother and the humblest handmaid of the Holy Child and at the same time she is Joseph’s servant. Joseph is her faithful friend and humblest servant. When the Blessed Virgin rocks the Infant Jesus to and fro in her arms, how marvellous to see the all-merciful God, who made the world, allowing Himself out of His great love to be treated like a helpless little child! How dreadful in comparison the coldness and self-will of deceitful and hard-hearted men!
163. Luke 2.22-39. (SB)
164. The laws about ‘Purification’ and offerings after childbirth are in Lev. 12.4-8, and the sanctification of the first-born is directed in Exod. 13.2 and Num. 3.13. (SB)
165. In 1823, when recounting Jesus’ stay in Hebron during the third year of His ministry, some ten days after the death of the Baptist, Catherine Emmerich said that she saw Our Lord teaching; on Friday the 29th day of the month of Thebet (i.e. Jan. 17th), from the Sabbath reading taken from Exodus, Chapter 10 to Chapter13.17. He taught about the Egyptian plague of darkness and about the redemption of the first-born. In connection with the latter she recounted once more the whole ceremony of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, including the following, omitted from the description given in the text:
‘The Blessed Virgin did not present Our Lord in the Temple until the forty-third day after His birth. Because of the feast, she waited for three days with the good people of the inn outside the Bethlehem gate of Jerusalem. Besides the customary offering of doves, she presented to the Temple five triangular pieces of gold from the kings’ gifts, as well as several pieces of beautiful stuff for embroidery. Before leaving Bethlehem, Joseph sold to his cousin the young she-ass which he had given him in pledge on Nov. 30th. I have always thought that the she-ass, on which Jesus rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, was a descendant of hers.’ (CB)
166. In a vision of the life of St. Benedict which Catherine Emmerich had on Feb. 10th, 1820, she saw amongst other things that as a boy he was shown by his teacher how to use coloured stones to make all kinds of ornaments and arabesques in the sand of the garden in the manner of the old pavements. Later she saw him, when a hermit, decorating the roof of his cell or cave with a reproduction in rough mosaic of a vision of the Last Judgment. Still later she saw St. Benedict’s followers imitating and extending this form of decoration. After contemplating in its smallest details the whole history and development of his Order from its foundation, she said: ‘Because in the Benedictines the inner spirit became less active and alive than its outer shell, I saw their churches and monasteries becoming too much ornamented and decorated. I thought to myself, that comes from the picture Benedict made in his cell; it has shot up like a weed, and when once this superstructure collapses, it will bring descendant of hers.’ (CB)
RE: The Life of the Blessed Virgin Mary by Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich - Stone - 04-10-2023
XII THE PURIFICATION
Section II
CANDLEMAS
The Feast of Candlemas was represented to me in a great picture, but one very difficult to describe, although I recollect much of what I saw. I saw a feast being celebrated in the Church, transparent and floating above the earth, as I always am shown the Catholic Church when I am to contemplate it, not as some particular local church, but as the Universal Church itself. I saw this Church filled with choirs of angels surrounding the Most Holy Trinity. Since, however, I saw the Second Person of that Most Holy Trinity being presented and redeemed in the Temple, incarnate in the form of the Infant Jesus and yet present in the Most Holy Trinity, it seemed to me, as it did a short time ago, that the Child Jesus was sitting near me and comforting me at the same time that I saw a vision of the Holy Trinity. I saw the appearance of the Word become Flesh, the Infant Jesus, at my side, connected with the vision of the Trinity as it were by a path of light. I could not say, ‘He is not there, since He is with me’, nor could I say, ‘He is not with me, since He is there’; and yet in the instant when I had a vivid sensation of the Child Jesus being near me, the representation of the Most Holy Trinity was shown to me, but in a different form from that in which I see it when it is a picture of the Godhead alone.
I saw an altar appear in the centre of the Church—not an altar like those in our churches today, but just an altar. On this altar stood a little tree of the same kind as the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden, with broad hanging leaves. Then I saw the Blessed Virgin rise before the altar with the Infant Jesus in her arms as if she had come up out of the earth; and I saw the tree on the altar bow before her and then wither away. And I saw a great angel in priest’s vestments, with only a ring round his head, approach Mary. She gave him the Child, whom he placed on the altar, and in the same moment I saw the Child thus offered up pass into the picture of the Holy Trinity, which I now saw once more in its usual form. I saw, too, that the angel gave the Mother of God a little bright globe surmounted by the figure of a child in swaddling-bands, and that Mary floated with this gift towards the altar. I saw crowds of poor people coming to her from all sides bearing lights: she handed all these lights to the Child on the globe, into whom they passed. And I saw a light and a radiance being thrown by these lights on Mary and the Child, illuminating everything. Mary had a flowing mantle which spread over the whole earth. The picture was then transformed into a festal ceremony.
I think that the withering of the Tree of Knowledge at Mary’s appearance, and the passing of the Child on the altar into the Holy Trinity signified the reunion of mankind with God. That is why I saw all the scattered individual lights handed to the Mother of God and given by her to the Child Jesus: for He was the light enlightening all mankind, in whom alone all the scattered lights became one light to enlighten the whole world, symbolized by the globe, the orb of a king. The lights presented to Our Lady signified the Blessing of the Candles at today’s feast.
RE: The Life of the Blessed Virgin Mary by Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich - Stone - 04-10-2023
XIII THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT AND ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST IN THE DESERT167
Section I
Section I
[On Saturday, February 10th, 1821, Catherine Emmerich, who was ill at the time, was worried by material cares about where she was to live. She fell asleep full of these cares, but soon woke up quite happy. She said that a good friend of hers who had lately died (a pious old priest) had just been with her and had comforted her. ‘How wise that wise man now is, and how well he can now speak! He said to me: “Do not be anxious about a dwelling for yourself; take care only that you are swept and garnished within to receive Our Lord when He comes to you. When Joseph came to Bethlehem, he sought a lodging for Jesus, not for himself, and swept the Cave of the Nativity till it was beautifully clean.” She told of several other profound utterances of this friend, all characteristic of one who knew her temperament so well. She added that he said to her: ‘When St. Joseph was told by the angel to flee into Egypt with Jesus and Mary, he did not worry about a dwelling-place, but set off at once as he was told.’ As she had seen something of the flight into Egypt the year before at this time, the writer thought that this was happening again, so asked her: ‘Was it today that Joseph started for Egypt?’ to which she answered very clearly and decisively: ‘No, the day he started on the flight was what is now February 29th.’ Unfortunately there was no opportunity of obtaining precise information from her about this, as she was very ill during these communications. Once she said: ‘The Child may well be more than a year old, I saw Him playing about by a balsam-bush at one of the halting-places on the journey, and sometimes His parents led Him by the hand for a little way.’ Another time it seemed to her that Jesus was nine months old. It must be left to the reader to conjecture the age of Jesus from the various circumstances of Catherine Emmerich’s account, and in particular from a comparison with the age of the little John the Baptist, which seems to confirm the theory of Our Lord being nine months old.]
[Sunday, February 25th:] I saw the Blessed Virgin doing knitting or crochet work. She had a roll of wool fastened at her right hip and she held in her hands two needles (of bone, I think) with little hooks. One must be half a yard long, the other is shorter. The needle is prolonged beyond the hook, and it is round this prolongation that the thread is looped to make the stitch in working. The part already knitted hangs down between the two needles. She did this work standing or sitting beside the Infant Jesus lying in a basket. I saw St. Joseph plaiting long strips of yellow, brown, and green bark to make panels for screens or for walls and ceilings. He had a store of these panels lying on top of each other in a shed near the house. He wove various patterns into them—stars, hearts, and other things. I felt sorry for him; he had no idea that he would soon have to flee into Egypt. Our Lady’s mother comes regularly every day to visit her; it is nearly an hour’s walk from her house.
I had a view of Jerusalem, and saw Herod having numbers of men summoned, as when soldiers are called up with us. These were led into a large courtyard and given clothes and weapons. They wore something like a half-moon on one arm. They carried spears and short broad swords like chopping knives. They wore helmets, and many of them had wrappings tied round their legs. All this must have been connected with the Massacre of the Innocents. Herod was in a very uneasy frame of mind.
[February 26th:] I still see Herod exceedingly uneasy, just as he was when the three kings asked him about the new-born King of the Jews. I saw him taking counsel with several old scribes, who read from very long parchment scrolls, fastened on rods, which they had brought with them. I saw, too, that the soldiers who had been given new clothes two days ago were sent to Bethlehem and to various places round Jerusalem. I think they were sent to occupy the places whence the children were to be brought by their unsuspecting mothers to Jerusalem. The soldiers were intended to prevent any insurrection when the reports of the massacre reached the children’s homes.
[February 27th:] Today I saw Herod’s soldiers who had started yesterday from Jerusalem arriving at three places. They came to Hebron, Bethlehem, and another place, lying between those two in the direction of the Dead Sea. I have forgotten its name. The inhabitants had no idea why these soldiers had been sent to them and were somewhat disturbed. Herod was crafty, he kept his own counsel and sought in secret for Jesus. The soldiers stayed in these towns for some time; then, when Herod completely failed to find the child born in Bethlehem, he massacred all the children under two years of age.
[This evening at dusk Catherine Emmerich fell asleep and after a few minutes said, without any apparent reason: ‘God be thanked a thousand times that I came at the right moment! What a blessing that I was there! The poor child is saved; I prayed that she should bless and kiss it, and after that she could no longer have thrown it into the pond.’ The writer, on hearing this sudden exclamation, asked, ‘Whom do you mean?’ She continued: ‘It is an unfortunate girl who has been seduced. She was going to drown her new-born child not far from here. During the last few days I have besought God so earnestly that no poor innocent child should die without being baptized and blessed. I prayed thus because the time of the martyrdom of the Holy Innocents is drawing near. I adjured God by the blood of His first blood-witnesses. One must profit by the times and seasons, and every year, when
the rose-buds open in the garden of the Church Triumphant, one must pluck them on earth.
God has heard my prayer and enabled me to help the mother and her child. Perhaps one day I shall see that child.’ This is what 3he said immediately after her vision, or rather after the action she took in spirit. Next morning she said: ‘My guide took me quickly to M. Near there I saw a girl who had been seduced who had just given birth to her child behind a bush. She carried it in her apron towards a deep pond on which green scum was floating, meaning to throw the child into the water. I saw a tall dark figure beside her from which a dreadful kind of light was thrown; I think it was the evil one. I went close up to her, praying with my whole heart, and saw the dark figure withdraw. Then she took the child and kissed and
blessed it, after which she could no longer bring herself to drown it. She sat down again, weeping most terribly and not knowing where to turn. I comforted her and gave her the idea of going to her confessor and begging him to help her. She did not see me, but her guardian angel gave her this advice. Her parents were, I think, far away. She seemed to belong to a middle-class family.]
[February 28th:] This evening I saw Anna and her eldest her house to Nazareth with the maidservant who was related to her—the one she had left with the Blessed Virgin in Bethlehem after Christ’s birth. The maid had a bundle hanging at her side, and carried a basket on her head and another in her hand. They were round baskets, and you could see through one of them. There were birds in them. They were taking provisions to Mary, who did no house-keeping and was provided for by Anna.
[February 28:] This evening I saw Anna and her eldest daughter with the Blessed Virgin. Maria Heli had with her a sturdy little boy four or five years old, her grandson, the eldest son of her daughter Mary Cleophas. Joseph had gone to Anna’s house. I watched the women sitting there, talking confidentially to each other, playing with the Infant Jesus and pressing Him to their breasts or giving Him to the little boy to hold in his arms. Women are always the same, I thought; it was all just as it is with us today.
Maria Heli lived in a little village some three hours to the east of Nazareth. Her house was almost as good as her mother’s: it had a walled courtyard with a fountain and pump. You trod on something beneath it, and water poured out at the top into a stone basin. Her husband was called Cleophas, and her daughter Mary Cleophas, who was married to Alphaeus, lived at the other end of the village.
In the evening I saw the women praying. They stood before a little table covered with a red-and-white cloth and standing against the wall. A scroll lay on this table, which the Blessed Virgin unrolled and hung up on the wall. A figure was embroidered on it in pale colours; it looked like a dead man in a long white cloak, wrapped up like a child in swaddling-bands. The head was wrapped in the cloak, which was wider round the arms. The figure held something in its arms. I had already seen this figure at the ceremony in Anna’s house, when Mary was taken to the Temple. It reminded me then of Melchisedech, for he seemed to have a chalice in his arms; but another time I thought it represented Moses.
A lamp was burning during the prayer. Mary, with her sister beside her, stood in front of Anna. They crossed their hands on their breasts, folded them, and then extended them. Mary read from a scroll lying before her, unrolling it as she read. They prayed in a particular tone and rhythm which reminded me of the chanting in the convent choir.
[The night of Thursday, March 1st, to the morning of Friday, March 2nd:] They are gone, I saw them start forth. Joseph came back early in the morning of yesterday, Thursday, from Anna’s house. Anna and her eldest daughter were still here in Nazareth. They had all only just gone to bed when the angel came to warn Joseph.168 Mary and the Infant Jesus had their bedroom to the right of the hearth; Anna’s was to the left, and her eldest daughter’s room was between hers and Joseph’s. These rooms were compartments divided off and sometimes roofed by wicker screens. Mary’s room had yet another curtain or screen dividing it off. The Infant Jesus lay on a rug at her feet, and she could pick Him up without getting out of bed.
I saw Joseph in his room lying on his side asleep with his head on his arm. I saw a shining youth come up to his bed and speak with him. Joseph sat up, but was heavy with sleep and lay down again. The youth took his hand and pulled him up, when Joseph came to his senses and got up, on which the youth disappeared. Joseph then went to the lamp burning in front of the fireplace in the centre of the house and lit his own lamp at it. He knocked at the Blessed Virgin’s room and asked whether he might come in. I saw him go in and speak with Mary, who did not open the screen before her bed; then I saw him go to his donkey in the stable, and afterwards into a room where all kinds of things were kept. He prepared everything for their departure. As soon as Joseph had left the Blessed Virgin’s room, she got up and dressed for the journey, before going to her mother and telling her of God’s commands. Anna got up, as did Maria Heli and her little boy, but they let the Infant Jesus go on sleeping. For these good people God’s Will came first of all; sad at heart though they were, they hastened to make all preparations for the journey before allowing themselves to give way to the sorrow of parting.
Anna and Maria Heli helped to get everything ready for the journey. Mary did not take nearly so much with her as she had brought from Bethlehem. They packed up nothing but a moderate-sized bundle and a few blankets, which were taken out to Joseph to be loaded on the donkey. Everything was done quietly and very quickly, as was proper for a journey undertaken secretly after a warning at dead of night. When Mary fetched her Child, she was in such haste that I did not even see her wrap Him in fresh swaddling-clothes. Then came the farewells, and I cannot describe how moving it was to see the distress of Anna and her eldest daughter. They embraced the Infant Jesus with tears, and the little boy, too, was allowed to take Him in his arms. Anna embraced the Blessed Virgin again and again, weeping as bitterly as if she were never to see her more. Maria Heli flung herself on to the ground in tears.
It was not yet midnight when they left the house. Anna and Maria Heli accompanied the Blessed Virgin on foot for a short part of the way from Nazareth, Joseph following with the donkey. The way led towards Anna’s house, but rather more to the left. Mary carried the Infant Jesus, wrapped in swaddling-clothes, before her in a sort of sling, which went round her shoulders and was fastened behind her neck. She wore a long cloak which wrapped both herself and the Child, and a big square veil, fastened round the back of her head and hanging in long folds beside her face. They had not gone far when Joseph came up with the donkey, which was carrying a skin of water and a basket with several compartments containing little loaves of bread, small jugs, and live birds. The baggage and blankets were packed round the side-saddle, which had a foot-rest hanging from it. They embraced again with tears, and Anna blessed the Blessed Virgin, who then seated herself on the donkey, led by Joseph, and they started off. (Whilst Catherine Emmerich was describing the grief of Anna and Maria Heli, she wept copiously herself, saying that in the night, too, when she saw this vision, she could not help shedding many tears.]
[March 2nd:] Early in the morning I saw Maria Heli with her little boy going to Anna’s house and sending the master of the house and a manservant to Nazareth, after which she went to her own house. I saw Anna putting everything in order in Joseph’s house and packing away many things. In the morning there came two men from Anna’s house; one of them was dressed in nothing but a sheepskin, and had on his feet thick sandals strapped round his legs. The other had a long robe on; he seemed to me to be Anna’s present husband. They helped to arrange everything in Joseph’s house, and to pack up what was movable and take it to Anna’s house.169
167. Matt. 2.13-18. (SB)
168. Since Matthew alone gives the account of the Magi and of the Flight into Egypt, and Luke alone that of the Presentation, it is not easy to decide the exact order of events. According to AC the Magi came to Bethlehem before the Presentation, and the angel’s warning came to Joseph at Nazareth some time after it, if Jesus was by then nine months old. In this case the words of Matt. 2.13, ‘And after they [the Magi] were departed, behold an angel…’, refer to the passage of over seven months and a removal to Nazareth. This interval between the visit of the Magi and the Flight into Egypt certainly offers an explanation of a chronological problem. (SB)
169. According to this account Joseph evidently intended to give up the house at Nazareth, and presumably to carry out his plan of moving to Bethlehem. All this helps to explain why we get the impression from Matt. 2.22-23 that Joseph really wanted to settle in Judaea but came to Nazareth almost faute de mieux. (SB)