Of all these mysteries the
great Queen of heaven was aware and She participated in them from her retreat
in the Cenacle (upper room house). In the same instant in which the mostly soul
of Christ entered and gave life to his body the joy of her immaculate soul,
overflowed into her immaculate body. And this overflow was so exquisite in its
effects, that She was transformed from sorrow to joy, from pain to delight,
from grief to ineffable jubilation and rest.
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| The resurrected Christ and the souls from limbo |
In this new joy and under
the divine influences of her supernatural vision the great Lady began to
prepare Herself for the visit of the Lord, which was near at hand. While
eliciting acts of praise, and in her canticles and prayers, She immediately
felt within Her a new kind of jubilation and celestial delight, reaching far
beyond the first joy, and corresponding in a wonderful manner to the sorrows
and tribulations She had undergone in the Passion; Moreover She perceived
within Herself another, third and still more different effect, implying new
divine favours. Namely She felt infused into her being the heavenly light
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| She behold the resurrected Christ Her son |
The blessed Mary being thus
prepared, Christ our Saviour, arisen and glorious, in the company of all the
Saints and Patriarchs, made his appearance. The ever humble Queen prostrated
Herself upon the ground and adored her divine Son; and the Lord raised Her up
and drew Her to Himself. In this contact, which was more intimate than the
contact with the humanity and the wounds of the Saviour
sought by Magdalen, the Virgin Mother participated in an extraordinary favour,
which She alone, as exempt from sin, could merit. Although it was not the
greatest of the favours She attained on this occasion, yet She could not have
received it without failing of her faculties, if She had not been previously
strengthened by the angels and by the Lord himself. This favour was, that the
glorious body of the Son so closely united itself to that of his purest Mother,
that He penetrated into it or She into his, as when, for instance, a crystal
globe takes up within itself the light of the sun and is saturated with the splendour
and beauty of its light. In the same way the body of the most holy Mary entered
into that of her divine Son by this heavenly embrace; it was, as it were, the
portal of her intimate knowledge concerning the glory of the most holy soul and
body of her Lord. As a consequence of these favours, constituting higher and
higher degrees of ineffable gifts, the spirit of the Virgin Mother rose to the
knowledge of the most hidden sacraments. In the midst of them She heard a voice
saying to Her: “My beloved, ascend higher!”(Luke 18, 10). By the power of these
words She was entirely transformed and saw the Divinity clearly and
intuitively, wherein She found complete, though only temporary, rest and reward
for all her sorrows and labours. Silence alone here is proper, since reason and
language are entirely inadequate to comprehend or express what passed in the
blessed Mary during this beatific vision, the highest She had until then
enjoyed.
For some hours the heavenly
Princess continued to enjoy the essence of God with her divine Son,
participating now in his triumph as She had in his torments. Then by similar
degrees She again descended from this vision and found Herself in the end
reclining on the right arm of the most sacred humanity and regaled in other
ways by the right hand of his Divinity (Cant. 2, 6). She held sweetest converse
with her Son concerning the mysteries of his Passion and of his glory. In these
conferences She was again inebriated with the wine of love and charity, which
now She drank unmeasured from the original fount. All that a mere creature can
receive was conferred upon the blessed Mary on this occasion; for, according to
our way of conceiving such things, the divine equity wished to compensate the
injury (thus I must call it, because I cannot find a more proper word), which a
Creature so pure and immaculate had undergone in suffering the sorrows and
torments of the Passion. For, as I have mentioned many times before, She
suffered the same pains as her Son, and now in this mystery She was inundated
with a proportionate joy and delight.
Then, still remaining in
her exalted state, the great Lady turned to the holy Patriarchs and all the
just, recognizing them and speaking to each in succession, praising the
Almighty in his liberal mercy to each one of them.
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| Christ showing His mother to the souls from limbo |
She was filled with an
especial delight in speaking to her parents, saint Joachim and Anne, with her
spouse, saint Joseph, with saint John the Baptist, and with them She conversed
more particularly than with the Patriarchs and Prophets and with the first
parents, Adam and Eve.
All of them prostrated themselves before the heavenly
Lady, acknowledging Her as the Mother of the Redeemer of the world, as the
cause of their rescue and the Coadjutrix of their Redemption. The divine wisdom
impelled them thus to venerate and honour Her. But the Queen of all virtues and
the Mistress of Humility prostrated Herself on the ground and reverenced the
saints according to their due. This the Lord permitted because the saints,
although they were inferior in grace, were superior in their state of
blessedness, endowed with imperishable and eternal glory, while the Mother of
grace was yet in mortal life and a pilgrim and had not as yet assumed the state
of fruition. The presence of Christ our Saviour continued during all the
conference of Mary with the holy Fathers.
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| Angels praising the resurrected Christ |
The most blessed Mary invited all the
angels and saints there present to praise the Victor over death, sin and hell.
Whereupon all sang new songs, psalms, hymns of glory and magnificence.
