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The Life of the Blessed Virgin Mary by Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich
VIII. THE ANNUNCIATION
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[On March 25^th, 1821, Sister Emmerich said:] Last night I saw the
Annunciation as a Feast of the Church, and was once more definitely
informed that at this moment the Blessed Virgin had already been with
child for four weeks. This was expressly told me because I had already
seen the Annunciation on the 25^th of February, but had rejected the
vision and had not related it. Today I again saw the exterior
circumstances of the whole event.
Soon after the Blessed Virgin's marriage I saw her in Joseph's house in
Nazareth, where I was taken by my guide. Joseph had gone away with two
donkeys--I think to fetch either his tools or something that he had
inherited. He seemed to me to be on his way home. Anna's second husband
and some other men had been at the house in the morning, but had gone
away again. Besides the Blessed Virgin and two girls of her own age (I
think they were playfellows from the Temple), I saw in the house Anna
and her widowed cousin, who worked for her as serving-maid and later
went with her to Bethlehem after Christ's birth. The whole house had
been newly fitted out by Anna. I saw these four women going busily
about the house and then walking at leisure together in the courtyard.
Towards evening I saw them come back into the house and stand praying
at a little round table. Then, after eating some vegetables set before
them, they separated. Anna went to and fro in the house for some time
still, busying herself with household matters. The two girls went to
their separate room, and Mary, too, went into her bedchamber.
The Blessed Virgin's bedchamber was in the back part of the house, near
the hearth, which was here placed, not in the center as in Anna's
house, but rather on one side. The entrance to the bedchamber was
beside the kitchen. Three steps, not level but sloping, led up to it,
for the floor of this part of the house rested on a raised ledge of
rock. The wall of the room facing the door was rounded, and in this
rounded part (which was shut off by a high wicker screen) was the
Blessed Virgin's bed, rolled up. The walls of the room were covered up
to a certain height with wickerwork, rather more roughly woven than the
light movable screens. Different-colored woods had been used to make a
little checkered pattern on them. The ceiling was formed by
intersecting beams, the spaces between being filled with wickerwork
decorated with star-patterns.
I was brought into this room by the shining youth who always
accompanies me, and I will relate what I saw as well as such a poor
miserable creature is able.
The Blessed Virgin came in and went behind the screen before her bed,
where she put on a long white woolen praying-robe with a broad girdle,
and covered her head with a yellowish white veil. Meanwhile the maid
came in with a little lamp, lit a many-branched lamp hanging from the
ceiling, and went away again. The Blessed Virgin then took a little low
table which was leaning folded up against the wall and placed it in the
middle of the room. As it leant against the wall it was just a movable
table-leaf hanging straight down in front of two supports. Mary lifted
up this leaf and pulled forward half of one of the supports (which was
divided), so that the little table now stood on three legs. The
table-leaf supported by this third leg was rounded. This little table
was covered with a blue-and-red cloth, finished with a hanging fringe
along the straight edge of the table. In the middle of the cloth there
was a design, embroidered or quilted; I cannot remember whether it was
a letter or an ornament. On the round side of the table was a white
cloth rolled up, and a scroll of writing also lay on the table.
The Blessed Virgin put up this little table in the middle of the room,
between her sleeping place and the door, rather to the left, in a place
where the floor was covered by a carpet. Then she put in front of it a
little round cushion and knelt down with both hands resting on the
table. The door of the room was facing her on the right, and she had
her back to her sleeping place.
Mary let the veil fall over her face and crossed her hands (but, not
her fingers) before her breast. I saw her fervently praying thus for a
long time, with her face raised to heaven. She was imploring God for
redemption, for the promised King, and beseeching Him that her prayer
might have some share in sending Him. She knelt long in an ecstasy of
prayer; then she bowed her head onto her breast.
But now at her right hand there poured down such a mass of light in a
slanting line from the ceiling of the room that I felt myself pressed
back by it against the wall near the door. [See Figure 10.] I saw in
this light a shining white youth, with flowing yellow hair, floating
down before her. It was the Angel Gabriel. He gently moved his arms
away from his body as he spoke to her. I saw the words issuing from his
mouth like shining letters; I read them and I heard them. Mary turned
her veiled head slightly towards the right, but she was shy and did not
look up. But the angel went on speaking, and as if at his command Mary
turned her face a little towards him, raised her veil slightly, and
answered. The angel again spoke, and Mary lifted her veil, looked at
him, and answered with the holy words: Behold the handmaid of the Lord,
be it done to me according to your word.'
The Blessed Virgin was wrapped in ecstasy. The room was filled with
light [80] ; I no longer saw the glimmer of the burning lamp, I no
longer saw the ceiling of the room. Heaven seemed to open, a path of
light made me look up above the angel, and at the source of this stream
of light I saw a figure of the Holy Trinity in the form of a triangular
radiance streaming in upon itself. In this I recognized--what can only
be adored and never expressed--Almighty God, Father, Son and Holy
Ghost, and yet only God Almighty.
As soon as the Blessed Virgin had spoken the words, Be it done to me
according to your word', I saw the Holy Ghost in the appearance of a
winged figure, but not in the form of a dove as usually represented.
The head was like the face of a man, and light was spread like wings
beside the figure, from whose breast and hands I saw three streams of
light pouring down towards the right side of the Blessed Virgin and
meeting as they reached her. This light streaming in upon her right
side caused the Blessed Virgin to become completely transfused with
radiance and as though transparent; all that was opaque seemed to
vanish like darkness before this light. In this moment she was so
penetrated with light that nothing dark or concealing remained in her;
her whole form was shining and transfused with light. After this
penetrating radiance I saw the angel disappear, with the path of light
out of which he had come. It was as if the stream of light had been
drawn back into heaven, and I saw how there fell from it onto the
Blessed Virgin, as it was drawn back, a shower of white rosebuds each
with its little green leaf.
Figure 10. The Annunciation.
While I was seeing all this in Mary's chamber, I had a strange personal
sensation. I was in a state of constant fear, as if I was being
pursued, and I suddenly saw a hideous serpent crawling through the
house and up the steps to the door by which I was standing. The
horrible creature had made its way as far as the third step when the
light poured down on the Blessed Virgin. The serpent was three or four
feet long, had a broad flat head and under its breast were two short
skinny paws, clawed like bat's wings, on which it pushed itself
forward. It was spotted with all kinds of hideous colors, and reminded
me of the serpent in the Garden of Eden, only fearfully deformed. When
the angel disappeared from the Blessed Virgin's room, he trod on this
monster's head as it lay before the door, and it screamed in so ghastly
a way that I shuddered. Then I saw three spirits appear who drove the
monster out in front of the house with blows and kicks.
After the angel had disappeared, I saw the Blessed Virgin wrapped in
the deepest ecstasy. I saw that she recognized the Incarnation of the
promised Redeemer within herself in the form of a tiny human figure of
light, perfectly formed in all its parts down to its tiny fingers.
Here in Nazareth it is otherwise than in Jerusalem, where the women
must remain in the outer court and may not enter the Temple, where only
the priests may go into the Holy Place. Here in Nazareth, here in this
church, a virgin is herself the Temple, and the Most Holy is within
her, and the high priest is within her, and she alone is with Him. O,
how lovely and wonderful that is, and yet so simple and natural! The
words of David in the 45 ^th Psalm were fulfilled: The Most High has
sanctified His own tabernacle; God is in the midst thereof, it shall
not be moved.'
It was at midnight that I saw this mystery happen. After a little while
Anna with the other women came into Mary's room. They had been wakened
by a strange commotion in nature. A cloud of light had appeared above
the house. When they saw the Blessed Virgin kneeling under the lamp in
an ecstasy of prayer, they respectfully withdrew. After some time I saw
the Blessed Virgin rise from her knees and go to her little altar
against the wall. She unrolled the picture hanging on the wall which
represented a veiled human form--the same picture that I had seen in
Anna's house when she was making ready for the Blessed Virgin's journey
to the Temple [see p. 43 ]. She lit the lamp on the wall and stood
praying before it. Scrolls lay before her on a high desk. Towards
morning I saw her go to bed.
My guide now led me away; but when I came into the little court before
the house, I was seized with terror, for that fearful snake was lurking
there in hiding. It crept towards me and tried to shelter in the folds
of my dress. I was in dreadful fear; but my guide snatched me hurriedly
away, and those three spirits reappeared and smote the monster. I still
seem to hear with a shudder its appalling shrieks.
That night, as I contemplated the Mystery of the Incarnation, I was
taught many things. Mary was given the grace of interior knowledge. The
Blessed Virgin knew that she had conceived the Messiah, the Son of the
Most High. All that was within her was open to the eyes of her spirit.
But she did not then know that the Throne of David His father, which
was to be given Him by the Lord God, was a supernatural one; nor did
she then know that the House of Jacob, over which He was, as Gabriel
declared, to rule for all eternity, was the Church, the congregation of
regenerated mankind. She thought that the Redeemer would be a holy
king, who would purify His people and give them victory over Hell. She
did not then know that this King, in order to redeem mankind, must
suffer a bitter death.
It was made known to me why the Redeemer deigned to remain nine months
in His Mother's womb and to be born as a little child, and why it was
not His will to appear as perfect and beautiful as the newly-created
Adam; but I can no longer explain this clearly. I can, however,
remember this much--that it was His will to reconsecrate man's
conception and birth which had been so sadly degraded by the Fall. The
reason why Mary became His Mother and why He did not come sooner was
that she alone, and no creature before her or after her, was the pure
Vessel of Grace, promised by God to mankind as the Mother of the
Incarnate Word, by the merits of whose Passion mankind was to be
redeemed from its guilt. The Blessed Virgin was the one and only pure
blossom of the human race, flowering in the fullness of time. All the
children of God from the beginning of time who have striven after
salvation contributed to her coming. She was the only pure gold of the
whole earth. She alone was the pure immaculate flesh and blood of the
whole human race, prepared and purified and ordained and consecrated
through all the generations of her ancestors, guided, guarded, and
fortified by the Law until she came forth as the fullness of Grace. She
was pre-ordained in eternity and passed through time as the Mother of
the Eternal. [See Prov. 8.22-35.]
At the Incarnation of Christ the Blessed Virgin was a little over
fourteen years old. Christ reached the age of thirty-three years and
three times six weeks. I say three times six, because that figure was
in that moment shown to me three times one after the other.
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