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Mary Follows Her Son's Footsteps
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Temple. They were not really alive, nor did they have again to die, for they were laid down by their souls without any forcible separation from each other. I saw that the souls of the ancient Patriarchs did not accompany the Lord's body to Heaven.
I remarked a trembling in the rock of the sepulcher. Four of the guards had gone to the city to get something; the three others fell to the ground unconscious. They ascribed the shock to an earthquake, but knew nothing of the cause. Cassius, however, was very much agitated and frightened, for he had a clear view of what had happened without fully understanding it. He kept to his post, and with great devotion awaited what would next take place. Meanwhile the absent soldiers returned.
When the spices were prepared and packed in linen cloths ready to be taken to the tomb, the holy women again retired to their recesses and lay down on their couches to rest, because they wanted to start before daylight for Jesus' tomb. They had more than once expressed their anxiety as to the success of their design. They were full of dread lest the enemies of Jesus might waylay them when they went out. But the Blessed Virgin consoled them. She bade them take some rest and then go courageously to the tomb, for no harm would befall them. And so they went to rest.
It was about eleven o'clock at night when the Blessed Virgin, moved by love and ardent desire, could no longer remain in the house. She rose, wrapped herself in a gray mantle, and went out alone. I thought: Ah! How can they allow that Blessed Mother, so full of sorrow and alarm, to go out alone under such circumstances. I saw her going sadly to the house of Caiaphas and then to Pilate's palace, which was a long way back into the city. And thus she traversed alone the whole way passed over by Jesus bearing His cross. She went through the deserted streets and paused at every spot upon which
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some special suffering or outrage had befallen the Lord. She looked like one seeking something lost. She frequently knelt down, felt around on the stones with her hand, and touched her lips to them, as if reverently touching and kissing something sacred, namely, the blood of Jesus. She beheld around her everything sanctified by contact with Jesus bright and shining, and her soul was entirely lost in love and adoration.
She went on until she approached Mount Calvary, when she stood quite still. It was as if the apparition of Jesus with His sacred, martyred body stepped before her. One angel preceded Him, the two adoring angels of the tomb were at His side, and a multitude of released souls followed Him. He seemed not to walk, but looked like a corpse floating along, environed with light. I heard a voice proceeding from Him, which related to His Mother what He had done in Limbo. Now, He continued, He was about to come forth from the tomb alive, in a glorified body, and He bade her await Him near Mount Calvary, on the stone upon which He had fallen. Then I saw the apparition going to the city, and the Blessed Virgin kneeling and praying on the spot indicated by the Lord. It may now have been past twelve o'clock, for Mary had spent a considerable time in the Way of the Cross.
Then I saw the Lord's procession going over the whole of the same dolorous way. In a mysterious manner, the angels gathered up all the sacred substance, the flesh and the blood, that had been torn from Jesus during His Passion. I saw that the nailing to the cross, the raising of the same, the opening of the sacred side, the taking down from the cross, and the preparing of the holy body for burial, were shown to the souls in Jesus' train. The Blessed Virgin also saw it all in spirit. She loved and adored.
Afterward it was as if the Lord's body rested again
The Resurrection
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in the holy sepulcher. With it was all that had been torn from it during the Passion and replaced in an incomprehensible manner by the angels. I saw it as before, wrapped in the funereal bands and winding sheet, environed with dazzling splendor, the two adoring angels at the head and the foot of the tomb.
When the morning sky began to clear with a streak of white light, I saw Magdalen, Mary Cleophas, Johanna Chusa, and Salome, enveloped in mantles, leaving their abode near the Coenaculum. They carried the spices packed in linen cloths, and one of them had a lighted lantern. They kept all hidden under their mantles. The spices consisted of fresh flowers for strewing over the sacred body, and also of expressed sap, essences, and oils for pouring over it. The holy women walked anxiously to the little gate belonging to Nicodemus.
The blessed soul of Jesus in dazzling splendor, between two warrior angels and surrounded by a multitude of resplendent figures, came floating down through the rocky roof of the tomb upon the sacred body. It seemed to incline over it and melt, as it were, into one with it. I saw the sacred limbs moving beneath the swathing bands, and the dazzling, living body of the Lord with His soul and His Divinity coming forth from the side of the winding sheet as if from the wounded Side. The sight reminded me of Eve coming forth from Adam's side. The whole place was resplendent with light and glory.
And now I had another vision. I saw the apparition of a dragon with a human head coiling itself up out of the abyss, as if right under the tomb upon which the Lord had been lying. It lashed its serpent like tail, and turned its head angrily toward the Lord. The risen Redeemer held in His hand a delicate white staff, on whose top floated a little standard. He placed
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one foot upon the dragon's head, and struck three blows of the staff upon its tail. At each stroke, the monster seemed to contract, and at last sank into the earth, first the body, then the head, the human face still turned upward. I saw a similar serpent lurking around at the moment of Christ's conception. It reminded me of the serpent in Paradise and, I think, this vision bore reference to the Promise: "The seed of the woman shall crush the serpent's head." The whole vision appeared to me symbolical of victory over death, for while I was watching the crushing of the serpent's head, the tomb of the Lord vanished from my sight.
Now I saw the Lord floating in glory up through the rock. The earth trembled, and an angel in warrior garb shot like lightning from Heaven down to the tomb, rolled the stone to one side, and seated himself upon it. The trembling of the earth was so great that the lanterns swung from side to side, and the flames flashed around. The guards fell stunned to the ground and lay there stiff and contorted, as if dead. Cassius saw indeed the glory that environed the holy sepulcher, the rolling away of the stone by the angel, and his seating himself upon it, but he did not see the risen Saviour Himself. He recovered himself quickly, stepped to the stone couch, felt among the empty linens, and left the sepulcher, outside of which, full of eager desire, he tarried awhile to become the witness of a new and wonderful apparition. At the instant the angel shot down to the tomb and the earth quaked, I saw the risen Lord appearing to His Blessed Mother on Mount Calvary. He was transcendently beautiful and glorious, His manner full of earnestness. His garment, which was like a white mantle thrown about His limbs, floated in the breeze behind Him as He walked. It glistened blue and white, like smoke curling in the sunshine. His wounds were very large and sparkling; in those of His hands, one could easily insert a finger. The
The Holy Women
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lips of the wounds formed the sides of an equilateral triangle which met, as it were, in the center of a circle, and from the palm of the hand shot rays of light toward the fingers. The souls of the early Patriarchs bowed low before the Blessed Mother, to whom Jesus said something about seeing her again. He showed her His wounds, and when she fell on her knees to kiss His feet, He grasped her hand, raised her up, and disappeared.
The holy women, when the Lord arose from the dead, were near the little gate belonging to Nicodemus. They knew nothing of the prodigies that were taking place; they did not know even of the guard at the sepulcher, for they had remained shut up in their house the whole of the preceding day, the Sabbath. They anxiously inquired of one another: "Who will roll away for us the stone from the doors?" Full of longing desire to show the last honors to the sacred body in the tomb, they had entirely lost sight of the stone. They wanted to pour nard water and precious balm over the sacred body and scatter their flowers and aromatic shrubs upon it; for to the spices of yesterday's embalming, which Nicodemus alone had procured, they had contributed nothing. They wished therefore to offer now to the body of their Lord and Master the most precious that could be obtained.
Salome had shared with Magdalen in defraying most of the cost. She was not the mother of John, but another Salome, a rich lady of Jerusalem, a relative of St. Joseph. At last the holy women concluded to set the spices on the stone before the tomb and to wait till some disciple would come who would open it for them. And so they went on toward the garden.
Outside the tomb the stone was rolled to the right, so that the doors, which were merely lying to, could now be easily opened. The linens in which the sacred body had been enveloped were on the tomb in the following order: the large winding sheet in which it had been wrapped lay undisturbed, only empty and
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fallen together, containing nothing but the aromatic herbs; the long bandage that had been wound around it was still lying twisted and at full length just as it had been drawn off, on the outer edge of the tomb; but the linen scarf with which Mary had enveloped Jesus' head lay to the right at the head of the tomb. It looked as if the head of Jesus was still in it, excepting that the covering for the face was raised.
When, as they approached, the holy women noticed the lanterns of the guard and the soldiers lying around, they became frightened, and went a short distance past the garden toward Golgotha. Magdalen, however, forgetful of danger, hurried into the garden. Salome followed her at some distance, and the other two waited outside.
Magdalen, seeing the guard, stepped back at first a few steps toward Salome, then both made their way together through the soldiers lying around and into the sepulcher. They found the stone rolled away, but the doors closed, probably by Cassius. Magdalen anxiously opened one of them, peered in at the tomb, and saw the linens lying empty and apart. The whole place was resplendent with light, and an angel was sitting at the right of the tomb. Magdalen was exceedingly troubled. She hurried out of the garden of the sepulcher, off through the gate belonging to Nicodemus, and back to the Apostles. Salome, too, who only now entered the sepulcher, ran at once after Magdalen, rushed in fright to the women waiting outside the garden, and told them of what had happened. Though amazed and rejoiced at what they heard from Salome, they could not resolve to enter the garden. It was not until Cassius told them in a few words what he had seen, and exhorted them to go see for themselves, that they took courage to enter. Cassius was hurrying into the city to acquaint Pilate of all that had taken place. He went through the gate of execution. When with beating heart the women entered the sepulcher and drew near the holy tomb,
“They Have Taken the Lord from the Tomb!”
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they beheld standing before them the two angels of the tomb in priestly robes, white and shining. The women pressed close to one another in terror and, covering their faces with their hands, bowed tremblingly almost to the ground. One of the angels addressed them. They must not fear, he said, nor must they look for the Crucified here. He was alive, He had arisen, He was no longer among the dead. Then the angel pointed out to them the empty tomb, and ordered them to tell the disciples what they had seen and heard, and that Jesus would go before them into Galilee. They should, continued the angel, remember what the Lord had said to them in Galilee, namely, "The Son of Man will be delivered into the hands of sinners. He will be crucified and, on the third day, He will rise again." The holy women, shaking and trembling with fear, though still full of joy, tearfully gazed at the tomb and the linens, and departed, taking the road toward the gate of execution. They were still very much frightened. They did not hurry, but paused from time to time and looked around from the distance, to see whether they might not possibly behold the Lord, or whether Magdalen was returning.
Meanwhile Magdalen reached the Coenaculum like one beside herself, and knocked violently at the door. Some of the disciples were still asleep on their couches around the walls, while several others had risen and were talking together. Peter and John opened the door. Magdalen, without entering, merely uttered the words: "They have taken the Lord from the tomb! We know not where"—and ran back in great haste to the garden of the sepulcher. Peter and John followed her, but John outstripped Peter.
Magdalen was quite wet with dew when she again reached the garden and ran to the tomb. Her mantle had slipped from her head down on her shoulders, and her long hair had fallen around loose. As she was alone, she was afraid to enter the sepulcher at once, so she waited out on the step at the entrance.
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She stooped down, trying to see through the low doors into the cave and even as far as the stone couch. Her long hair fell forward as she stooped, and she was trying to keep it back with her hands, when she saw the two angels in white priestly garments sitting at the head and the foot of the tomb, and heard the words: "Woman, why weepest thou?" She cried out in her grief: "They have taken my Lord away! I know not where they have laid Him!" Saying this and seeing nothing but the linens, she turned weeping, like one seeking something, and as if she must find Him. She had a dim presentiment that Jesus was near, and even the apparition of the angels could not turn her from her one idea. She did not appear conscious of the fact that it was an angel that spoke to her. She thought only of Jesus; her only thought was: "Jesus is not here! Where is Jesus?" I saw her running a few steps from the sepulcher and then returning like one half-distracted and in quest of something. Her long hair fell on her shoulders. Once she drew the whole mass on the right shoulder through both hands, then flung it back and gazed around. About ten steps from the sepulcher and toward the east, where the garden rose in the direction of the city, she spied in the gray light of dawn, standing among the bushes behind a palm tree, a figure clothed in a long, white garment. Rushing toward it, she heard once more the words: "Woman, why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou?" She thought it was the gardener. I saw that he had a spade in his hand and on his head a flat hat, which had a piece of something like bark standing out in front, as a protection from the sun. It was just like that I had seen on the gardener in the parable which Jesus, shortly before His Passion, had related to the women in Bethania. The apparition was not resplendent. It looked like a person clad in long, white garments and seen at twilight. At the words: "Whom seekest thou?" Magdalen at once answered: "Sir, if
Magdalen Beholds the Risen Lord
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thou hast taken Him hence, show me where thou hast laid Him! I will take Him away!" And she again glanced around, as if to see whether he had not laid Him someplace near. Then Jesus, in His well-known voice, said: "Mary!" Recognizing the voice, and forgetting the crucifixion, death, and burial now that He was alive, she turned quickly and, as once before, exclaimed: "Rabboni!" (Master'). She fell on her knees before Him and stretched out her arms toward His feet. But Jesus raised His hand to keep her off, saying: "Do not touch Me, for I am not yet ascended to My Father. But go to My brethren, and say to them: I ascend to My Father and to your Father, to My God and to your God." At these words the Lord vanished. It was explained to me why Jesus said: "Do not touch Me," but I have only an indistinct remembrance of it. I think He said it because Magdalen was so impetuous. She seemed possessed of the idea that Jesus was alive just as He was before, and that everything was as it used to be. Upon Jesus' words that He had not yet ascended to His Father, I was told that He had not yet, since His Resurrection, presented Himself to His Heavenly Father, had not yet thanked Him for His victory over death and for Redemption. I understood by those words that the first fruits of joy belong to God. It was as if Jesus had said that Magdalen should recollect herself and thank God for the mystery of Redemption just accomplished and His conquest over death. After the disappearance of the Lord, Magdalen rose up quickly and again, as if in a dream, ran to the tomb. She saw the two angels, she saw the empty linens, and hurried, now certain of the miracle, back to her companions.
It may have been about half-past three o'clock when Jesus appeared to Magdalen. Scarcely had she left the garden when John approached, followed by Peter. John stood outside the entrance of the cave and stooped down to look, through the outer doors of the sepulcher, at the half-opened doors of the
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tomb, where he saw the linens lying. Then came Peter. He stepped down into the sepulcher and went to the tomb, in the center of which he saw the winding sheet lying. It was rolled together from both sides toward the middle, and the spices were wrapped in it. The bandages were folded around it, as women are accustomed to roll together such linens when putting them away. The linen that had covered the sacred face was lying to the right next the wall. It too was folded. John now followed Peter to the tomb, saw the same things, and believed in the Resurrection. All that the Lord had said, all that was written in the Scriptures, was now clear to them. They had had only an imperfect comprehension of it before. Peter took the linens with him under his mantle. Both again went back by the little gate belonging to Nicodemus, and John once more got ahead of Peter.
As long as the sacred body lay in the tomb, the two angels sat one at the head, the other at the foot, and when Magdalen and the two Apostles came, they were still there. It seems to me that Peter did not see them. I heard John afterward saying to the disciples of Emmaus that, on looking into the tomb, he saw one angel. Perhaps it was through humility that he forbore to mention it in his Gospel, that he might not appear to have seen more than Peter.
Now, for the first time, I saw the guards arise from where they were lying on the ground. They took their lances, also the lanterns that were hanging on poles at the door of the entrance and shedding their light into the cave, and hurried in evident fear and trepidation to the gate of execution and into the city.
Meanwhile, Magdalen had reached the holy women and told them of the Lord's apparition. Then she too hurried on to the city through the neighboring gate of the execution, but the others went again to the garden, outside of which Jesus appeared to them in
Cassius Reports the Resurrection to Pilate
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a white flowing garment that concealed even His hands. He said: "All hail!" They trembled and fell at His feet. Jesus waved His hand in a certain direction while addressing to them some words, and vanished. The holy women then hastened through the Bethlehem gate on Sion, to tell the disciples in the Coenaculum that they had seen the Lord and what He had said to them. But the disciples would not at first credit Magdalen's report, and, until the return of Peter and John, they looked upon the whole affair as the effect of women's imagination.
John and Peter, whom amazement at what they had seen had rendered silent and thoughtful, met on their way back James the Less and Thaddeus, who had set out after them for the tomb. They too were very much agitated, for the Lord had appeared to them near the Coenaculum. Once I saw Peter, as they went along, suddenly start and tremble, as if he had just got a glimpse of the risen Saviour.
About an hour after the Resurrection, Cassius went to Pilate, who was resting on his couch. Full of emotion, Cassius related all that had passed, the trembling of the rock, the descent of the angel, the rolling away of the stone, the empty winding sheet. Jesus, he said, was certainly the Messiah, certainly the Son of God. He was risen, He was no longer in the tomb. Pilate heard every detail with secret terror but, letting nothing appear, he said to Cassius: "Thou art a visionary! Thou didst act very unwisely by standing in the tomb of the Galilean. His gods have thereby acquired full power over thee, and it was they who conjured up all kinds of magic pictures before thee. I advise thee to say nothing of all this to the High Priest, else it will be worse for thee." He pretended to believe that Jesus had been stolen away by the disciples, and that the guards had reported what
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they did in order to hide their own negligence; or because they were bribed, or even perhaps because they too had been bewitched. When Cassius left, Pilate again offered sacrifice to his gods.
Four of the soldiers returned from the tomb and went directly to Pilate with the same report. But he would listen to nothing more, and sent them to Caiaphas. The other guards went to a large court near the Temple in which a number of aged Jews were gathered. These latter consulted together and came to the conclusion that they would, with money and threats, force the guards to report that the disciples had stolen the body of Jesus. But when the guards objected that their companions, who had informed Pilate of the whole affair, would contradict them, the Pharisees promised to make it all right : with Pilate. Meanwhile the four guards who had been dismissed by Pilate arrived, but they adhered strictly to the account they had given to the Governor. The report of Joseph of Arimathea's deliverance, in some unaccountable way, through the closed prison doors was already noised abroad and when the Pharisees, wishing to cast upon the soldiers the suspicion of having had an understanding with the disciples for the carrying off of Jesus' body, threatened them with severe punishment if they did not forthwith produce it, the men replied that they could no more do that than could the guard in Joseph of Arimathea's prison bring him back after he had disappeared. They defended themselves stoutly, and by no species of bribery could they be reduced to silence. Yes, they spoke even freely and openly of Friday's iniquitous judgment, and declared that it was on that account the Paschal ceremonies had been interrupted. The four soldiers were seized and imprisoned. Jesus' enemies spread the report that His body had been stolen by the disciples; and the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herodians caused the lie to be everywhere propagated, to be published in every synagogue
The Jews Purify the Temple
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in the whole world, accompanying it with slanderous abuse of Jesus. Their lies profited them little, for after Jesus' Resurrection, many souls of holy deceased Jews appeared here and there to those of their descendants still susceptible of grace and holy impressions, and frightened their hearts to conversion. To many of the disciples also who, shaken in faith and disheartened, were dispersed throughout the country, similar apparitions appeared to console and strengthen them in faith.
The rising of the dead bodies from their tombs after the death of Jesus had no similarity whatever with the Lord's Resurrection. Jesus arose in His renewed, glorified body, walked for some days alive upon the earth, and, in that same body, ascended into Heaven in the sight of His friends. But those other bodies were only corpses given to the souls merely as so many coverings. They were again laid down by them to await with us all the Resurrection of the last day. Lazarus was raised from the dead, but he really lived and afterward died for the second time.
I saw the Jews beginning to purify, to wash and scour the Temple. They strewed aromatic herbs, also ashes from the bones of the dead, and offered expiatory sacrifices. They cleared away the rubbish, covered the marks of the earthquake with boards and tapestry, and finished the Paschal solemnities interrupted on the day of the feast.
With threats of punishment and excommunication, they tried to suppress all remarks and murmurs. They explained the disturbance of the feast and the damage done the Temple as effects of the earthquake and the presence of the unclean at the sacrifices. They brought forward something from a vision of Ezechiel upon the risen dead, but I do not now remember how they applied it. Thus they quieted the people, for many had taken part in the crime. But it was only the great crowd of the obstinate and the
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incorrigible; all the better disposed were converted. They kept silence until Pentecost, when they proclaimed aloud their faith, later also in their native places through the teaching of the Apostles. The High Priests consequently began to lose courage. As early as the time of Stephen's ministry as deacon, Ophel and the eastern quarter of Sion could no longer contain the multitude of believers, so that they had to extend their huts and tents beyond the city, across the Vale of Cedron to Bethania.
Annas was like one possessed. He was obliged to be confined, and he never again appeared in public. Caiaphas became like a madman devoured by secret rage. Simon of Cyrene went to the Apostles after the Sabbath, asking to be received among the baptized followers of Jesus.
In the open entrance hall outside that of the holy Last Supper, Nicodemus prepared a repast for the Apostles, the holy women, and the disciples. Thomas was not present at it. He kept himself in absolute retirement. All that took place at this feast was in strict accordance with Jesus' directions. During the holy Last Supper, He had given Peter and John, who were sitting by Him and whom He ordained priests, detailed instructions relative to the Blessed Sacrament, with the command to impart the same to the other Apostles, along with some points of His early teachings.
I saw first Peter and then John communicating to the eight other Apostles, who were standing around them in a circle, what the Lord had entrusted to them, and teaching them the way in which He wished this Sacrament to be dispensed and the disciples instructed. All that Peter taught was repeated in the selfsame manner by John. The Apostles had
The First Agape After the Resurrection
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put on their festal garments. Peter and John had, besides, a stole crossed on their breast and fastened with a clasp. The eight Apostles wore a stole over one shoulder and across the breast and back. It fastened under the arm with a clasp crosswise. Peter and John had been ordained priests by Jesus; the others looked still like deacons.
After that instruction, the holy women, nine in number, entered the hall. Peter addressed them in some words of instruction. I saw John at the door receiving into the house of the master of the feast seventeen (as I counted) of the most trusty disciples, those that had been longest with the Lord. Zacheus, Nathanael, Mathias, Barsabas, and others were there. John served them while they were washing their feet and putting on festal garments, long white robes and girdles. Matthew was sent back to Bethania after Peter's discourse, in order there to reproduce, at a similar repast given in the house of Lazarus, the instructions just heard and the ceremonies witnessed. There were many disciples present at this feast.
And now a table was prepared in the entrance hall. It was so long that the seats of some of the disciples extended beyond the hall and into the courtyard, planted with trees, that surrounded the Coenaculum. Three avenues were left open to the tables, in order to approach them with the viands. The holy women now sat together at one end of the same table with the men. They too wore long white garments. They were veiled, but without their faces being concealed. They sat cross-legged on little stools that had a kind of upright at the backs. Peter and John sat opposite each other at the center of the table. They closed the men's row, and then began the women's. The couches used at this feast were not like those at the Last Supper. They were low cushions. They looked as if they were woven, and were scarcely long enough to receive the upper part
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of the body, for they hardly reached below the knees. Each had before him a cushion raised upon two higher feet, which were fastened into cross-uprights. It stood in an oblique direction. All reclined near the table, the feet of one at his neighbor's back. At Simon's house and at the Last Supper, the guests reclined on stools of a different kind, the feet turned entirely out.
The meal was conducted with ceremony. The guests prayed standing and ate lying, while Peter and John taught. At the end of the meal, a flat, ribbed loaf was placed before Peter, which he divided into small pieces as marked by the ribs. These he distributed right and left on two plates. A large cup was next sent round, and out of it each one drank. Although Peter blessed the bread, yet it was not a sacrament, only an agape, a love feast. Peter said that they should all desire to be one as was the bread that they were eating and the wine they were drinking. After that they sang Psalms, standing.
When the tables were moved aside, the holy women retired to an apartment in the form of a half circle at the end of the hall. The disciples ranged on either side, while the Apostles walked up and down teaching and imparting to these ripe disciples all they durst concerning the Blessed Sacrament. This was like the first catechetical instruction after Jesus' death. I saw also that they walked around among one another extending hands joyously declaring that they would have all things in common, would resign all things for one another, and would live perfectly united. A feeling of deep emotion stole over them. I saw them flooded with light and, as it were, dissolving into one another. All seemed to resolve into a pyramid of light in which the Blessed Virgin appeared to be not only the apex, but the radiant center of all. All graces flowed in streams from Mary down upon the Apostles, and from them back again through her to the Lord. This vision was symbolical
The Blessed Sacrament
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of their union and the reciprocal relations existing among them.
Matthew, in the court of Lazarus' house, taught a great many more of the disciples who were not so well instructed as the others. They had the same kind of a meal and went through similar ceremonies.
Early in the morning, Peter and John went with Andrew into the hall of the Last Supper and vested in their priestly robes, while the other Apostles entered the ante hall. Pushing aside the folds of woven tapestry, the three Apostles entered the Holy of Holies, which was curtained in so as to form a little chamber. The ceiling, which was not so high as that of the hall, could be opened by a hanging cord ornamented with tassels, to admit light from the windows in the roof of the hall. The Holy Communion table stood therein. The chalice with the remains of the Wine that Jesus had consecrated and the plate with what was left of the consecrated Bread were standing in the compartments formed like a tabernacle in a niche in the wall. A lamp was hanging, one branch of it lighted, before the Blessed Sacrament. They lighted the lamp of sacrifice that was suspended in the center of the hall, carried the Communion table forward into the hall, placed the Blessed Sacrament on it in its case, and extinguished the lamp in the Holy of Holies. The other Apostles, Thomas among them, took their places around the table. Of the Bread consecrated by Jesus, the Blessed Sacrament of His Body, there was still a great deal on the little plate, which stood on top of the chalice, the whole concealed under a bell-shaped cover surmounted by a knob. A white veil was thrown over it. Peter drew out the leaf from the base, spread the cover upon it, and placed on it the plate with the Blessed Sacrament. Andrew and John were standing
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behind him in prayer. Peter and John, bowing reverently, received the Blessed Sacrament. Then Peter sent the plate around, and each one communicated himself. Into the chalice, in which there was not so much of the Wine consecrated by Jesus, they poured some wine and water, and drank of it. After that they sang Psalms and prayed, covered the chalice, and carried it, along with the table, back to its place. This was the first divine service that I saw celebrated.
Thomas went after that to some little place near Samaria with a disciple from that part of the country.
Luke had been among the disciples only a short time, but he had, before joining them, received John's baptism. He was present at the love feast and the instruction upon the Blessed Sacrament delivered by Matthew in the evening at Lazarus', in Bethania. After the instruction he went, troubled and doubting, to Jerusalem where he spent the night in John Mark's house.
There he met several other disciples, among them Cleophas, a grandson of Mary Cleophas' paternal uncle. He had been at the instructions and the love feast given in the house of the Last Supper. The disciples were talking about Jesus' Resurrection and expressing their doubts. Luke and Cleophas, especially, were wavering in faith. As, moreover, the commands of the High Priests were again made known, that no one should harbor the disciples of Jesus or supply them with food, both resolved to go together to Emmaus. They left the assembly. On leaving John Mark's house, one turned to the right and went around out of the city in a northerly direction, and
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the other took a route on the opposite side, as if not wishing to be seen together. One went straight out of the city, the other made his way between the walls and out by the gate, beyond which they again met upon a hill. They carried each a staff, and a bundle at his side. Luke had a leathern pocket. I saw him frequently stepping aside from the road and gathering herbs.
Luke had not seen the Lord during those last days, and had not been present at His instructions at Lazarus'. He had been more in the disciples' inn at Bethania and with the disciples in Machaerus. He had not long been a declared disciple, though he had always gone around with the rest and was very desirous of knowing what was going on.
I felt that both these disciples were anxious and doubting, and that they wanted to talk over all they had heard. They were especially put out at the Lord's being so ignominiously crucified! They could not understand how the Redeemer and Messiah could have been so shamefully ill-treated.
About the middle of their journey, Jesus drew near to them from a side path. As soon as they saw Him, they went more slowly, as if wanting to let the stranger go on ahead, as if fearing to be overheard. But Jesus likewise slackened His pace, and stepped out on the road only after they were somewhat in advance. I saw Him walking behind them for a little while, then drawing near and asking of what they were talking.
Where the road branched off outside of Emmaus (a pretty, clean little place) Jesus appeared as if He wanted to take that which ran southward to Bethlehem. But the two disciples constrained Him to go with them into a house that stood in the second row of the city. There were no women in it, and it appeared to me to be a public house, for it looked as if a feast had lately been held in it. Some signs of it were still to be seen. The room was quadrangular and very
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Life of Jesus Christ
neat. The table was covered, and reclining cushions lay around it, of the same kind as those used at the love feast on Easter day. A man put on it a honeycomb in a woven basket-like vessel, a large, four cornered cake, and a small, thin, almost transparent Passover loaf. This last was set before the Lord as being the guest. The man that put the cake on the table appeared to be good, and he wore an apron, as if he were a cook or a steward. He was not present at the solemn breaking of the Bread. The cake was marked by lines, the spaces between them being about two fingers wide. A knife was lying on the table. It was white, as if made of stone or bone, not straight, but bent crooked, and only as large as one of our large blades. Before eating the bread, they notched along the lines with the sharp edge of the knife, which edge was only at the point. For this reason they had to hold it near the point. The morsel previously notched they then broke off.
Jesus reclined at the table with the two disciples and ate with them of the cake and honey. Then taking the small cake, the ribbed one, He broke off a piece that He afterward divided into three with the short, white bone knife. These He laid on the little plate, and blessed. Then He stood up, elevated the plate on high with both hands, raised His eyes, and prayed. The two disciples stood opposite Him, both intensely moved, and as it were transported out of themselves. When Jesus broke the little pieces, they opened their mouth and stretched forward toward Him. He reached His hand across the table and laid the particle in their mouth. I saw that as He raised His hand with the third morsel to His own mouth, He disappeared. I cannot say that He really received it. The morsels shone with light after He had blessed them. I saw the two disciples standing a little while as if stupefied, and then casting themselves with tears of emotion into each other's arms.
This vision was especially touching on account of
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