Book 5 CHAPTER XXI.

SAINT JOHN, HAVING OBTAINED GREAT FAVORS FROM THE MOST HOW MARY, IS ORDERED BY THE HOLY GHOST TO GO FORTH ON HIS PUBLIC PREACHING. HE FIRST SENDS TO THE HEAVENLY LADY HIS CROSS.

231. I have already spoken of some of the favors conferred on saint John by the blessed Mary during her sojourn in Egypt; also of her solicitude for her cousin Elisabeth and saint John, when Herod resolved to take away the lives of the holy Innocents. I have also mentioned, that the future Precursor of Christ, after the death of his mother, remained altogether in the desert until the time appointed by the divine wisdom, and that he lived there more the life of a seraph than of a man. His conversation was with the holy angels and with the Lord of all creation; this was his sole occupation and never was he idle in the exercise of his love and of the heroic virtues, which he began in the womb of his mother. Not for one moment was grace in him unprofitable, nor did he fail in the least point of perfection possible. His senses, being altogether withdrawn from earthly things, did not in any way hinder him ; for they did not serve him as windows, through which the images of the deceitful vanities of the creatures are wont to bring death to the souls. Since this saint was so fortunate as to be visited by the divine light before he saw the light of created sun of this world, he overlooked all that is seen by eyes of flesh, and fixed his interior gaze immovably upon the being of God and his infinite perfections.

232. The divine favors received by saint John exceed all human intelligence, capacity and thought ; his holiness and exalted merits we shall understand in the beatific vision and not before. As it does not pertain to the object of this history to relate what I have seen of these mysteries, and what the holy doctors and other authors have written of his prerogatives, I must confine myself to re late that which is necessary for my present purpose; namely, what refers to the share of the heavenly Lady in his exaltation ; for through Her saint John received most inestimable favors. Among them not the least was her sending food to him every day until he reached the age of seven years, which She did by the ministry of the holy angels, as I mentioned above. From his seventh year until he reached the ninth, She sent him only bread ; but after that year she ceased to send him any food. For She understood that during the rest of his stay in the desert, it was the will of heaven and of himself, that he nourish himself by roots, wild honey and locusts, which he accordingly did until he came forth to preach. Yet, though Mary did not any more send him food, She continued to send to him her holy angels in order to con sole him and inform him of the doings and mysteries of the incarnate Word ; but these visits happened no oftener than once a week.

233. These great favors, besides serving other ends, encouraged saint John to bear with his solitude: not that the desolation of his abode and the severity of his penance caused him any discouragement; to make these desirable and sweet to him, his own wonderful holiness and grace were sufficient. But these tokens of love served to counteract the vehemence of his love, which drew him toward Christ and his Mother and to make their absence and the want of their intercourse bearable to him. For there is no doubt, that restraining his desire for this intercourse was a far greater pain and suffering to his loving soul, than all the inclemencies of his habitation, his fasting and penances, and the horrors of the lonely mountains, and would have been impossible if his heavenly Lady and aunt had not assisted him by continually sending her holy angels to bring messages from his Beloved. The great Hermit inquired into all the particulars of the Son and Mother with the anxious solicitude of a loving bridegroom (Cant. 1, 6). He transmitted to them the messages of his ardent love and of the sighs, that came from his inmost heart wounded by the absence of the Objects of his love. He besought the celestial Princess through her messengers to send him their blessing and he asked the angels to adore and humbly reverence the Lord in his name. He himself ceased not to adore Him in spirit and in truth from his solitude. He asked also the holy angels, who visited him and the others that attended upon him, to do the same. These were the ordinary occupations of the Precursor until he arrived at the perfect age of thirty years and in this manner he was prepared by divine Providence for his appointed task.

234. The destined and acceptable time decreed by the eternal wisdom for sending forth saint John, the Harbinger of the incarnate Word, the Voice resounding in the desert, had now come (Is. 40, 3). As related by the Evangelists, in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Cassar, under the high priests Annas and Caiphas, the command of God came to John, the son of Zacharias in the desert (Luke 3, 1). And he came to the banks of the Jordan, preaching the baptism of penance for the remission of sins and preparing the hearts for the reception of the promised Messias, pointing Him out with his finger, who had been expected for so many ages. This command of the Lord saint John heard in an ecstasy, in which, by an especial operation of the Divinity, he was enlightened and prepared by the plenitude of the light and grace of the holy Spirit. In this rapture he obtained a deep insight into the mysteries of the Redemption, and he was favored with an abstractive vision of the Divinity, so wonderful that he was transformed and changed to a new existence of sanctity and grace. The Lord commanded him to issue forth from the desert in order to prepare the way for the preaching of the incarnate Word by his own, thus exercising the office of a Precursor and all that pertained to it; for he was now instructed and filled with most abundant grace for his work.

235. The new preacher saint John came from the desert clothed in camel skin, girded with a cincture or cord made likewise of leather. His feet were bare, his features thin and emaciated, his appearance wonder fully graceful, modest and humble, his soul was rilled with invincible and magnanimous courage, his heart inflamed with the love of God and man, his words rang forth strong and forceful, piercing to the souls of his hearers like the sparks from the immutable and divine essence of the Almighty. He was gentle toward the meek, loving toward the humble, wonderful in the sight of angels and men, terrible to the proud, dreadful to the sinners, and an object of horror to the demons. He was a Preacher fit to be the instrument of the incarnate Word and such as was needed for this people of the Hebrews, who were so hard-hearted, thankless and stubborn, and who were now cursed with heathen governors, avaricious and proud priests, without enlightenment, without prophets, without piety, without fear of God, though they had been visited by so many calamities and chastisements for their sins. He was now sent to open the eyes of his people to their miserable state and prepare their hearts to know and receive their Savior and Teacher.

236. The anchoret John, many years before, had made for himself a large cross, which he had placed at the head of his couch : with it he performed some exercises of penance and he was accustomed to place himself upon it in the form of one crucified, when he was engaged in prayer. He did not wish to leave this treasure in the desert; therefore, before issuing forth, he sent it by the hands of the holy angels to the Queen of heaven and earth and requested them to tell Her that the cross had been his greatest and most beloved companion in his long banishment ; that he sent it to Her as a precious treasure, because he knew what was to be wrought upon it by the Son of God, and also because the holy angels had told him, that her most holy Son and Redeemer of the world often made use of a cross like this, when per forming his prayers in his oratory. The angels had made this cross fashioning it from a tree in the desert at his request; for the saint had neither the necessary strength nor the instruments for this kind of work, whereas the holy angels wanted not the skill and needed no instruments on account of the power they have over material creation. With this present and message of saint John the holy princes returned to their Queen, and She received this token from their hands with innermost emotions of sorrow and consolation, at the thought of what mysteries were in so short a time to be enacted upon the hard wood of the Cross. She addressed it in words of tenderness and placed it in her oratory, where She kept it ever afterwards together with the other cross which had been used by her Son. At her death the most prudent Lady left these crosses, with other remembrances, to the Apostles as a priceless heritage, and by them they were carried through different countries where they preached.

237. In regard to this matter I had some doubts, which I proposed to the Mother of wisdom, saying to Her: “Queen of heaven and my Mistress, most holy among the saints and chosen among creatures as the Mother of God himself: being an ignorant and dull woman, I find a difficulty in what I have here written ; if Thou give me permission, I would like to mention it to Thee, for Thou, O Lady, art the Mistress of wisdom and hast deigned to be my Teacher in the doctrine of eternal life and salvation. My difficulty is this: I see not only saint John but also Thee, my Queen, reverence the Cross before thy most holy Son had died upon it ; whereas I have always believed, that until the hour in which He wrought our salvation upon sacred wood of the Cross, it had served as a gibbet of shame for the punishment of criminals and that therefore it was considered as a token of con tempt and ignominy; and even the holy Church teaches us, that all its value and dignity came to the Cross by its contact with the body of the Redeemer and through its connection with mystery of man’s Redemption.”

ANSWER AND INSTRUCTION GIVEN ME BY QUEEN OF HEAVEN, MOST HOLY MARY.

238. My daughter, gladly will I satisfy thy desire and answer thy doubt. What thou sayest is true : the Cross was ignominious before my Son and Lord honored and sanctified it by his Passion and Death and solely on account of this Passion and Death the adoration and reverence shown to it by the Church is now due to it. If anyone, who was ignorant of the mysteries, which were connected with it and which were so well known to me and saint John, would have given it such worship and honor as I have before the Redemption, he would have been guilty of error and idolatry ; for he would have worshipped a creature of which he did not know that it was worthy of such honor. But we showed this veneration to the Cross for several reasons : We knew for certain, that the Redeemer was to accomplish his work upon the Cross; we knew also that, before dying upon it, He had begun to sanctify this sacred emblem by his contact in placing Himself upon it during his prayers and in offering Himself freely to die upon it. The eternal Father moreover had accepted these foreseen works of the Cross from his divine Son by an unalterable decree. All the actions and the contacts of the incarnate Word were of infinite value and thus sanctified the sacred wood, making it worthy of the highest veneration. Whenever I or saint John showed this reverence to the Cross, we had before our minds these mysteries and truths : we did not adore the Cross in itself, nor the material of which it was made; for the divine worship was not due to it until the works of the Redemption should have been completed upon it; but we waited for the formal execution of the work intended to be performed upon it by the incarnate Word. This was the real object of our reverence and worship of the Cross. And this is also now the meaning and intent of the practice of the adoration of the Cross in the holy Church.

239. Accordingly thou must ponder well thy obligation and that of all the mortals in regard to the reverence and esteem due to the holy Cross; for if I and the holy Pre cursor, even before the Death of my divine Son upon it, so eagerly imitated Him in his love and reverence of it and in the exercises which He performed in connection therewith, what should not the faithful children of the Church do after they have seen their Creator and their Redeemer crucified upon it, and when they have the image of the Crucified before their very eyes? I desire, then, my daughter, that thou embrace the Cross with bound less esteem, that thou use it as the priceless jewel of thy Spouse, and that thou accustom thyself to perform those exercises upon it, which are known and practiced by thee, without ever of thy own will forgetting or neglecting them as long as obedience will permit thee. Whenever thou approachest such sacred exercises, let it be with a profound reverence and with a deep pondering of the Passion and Death of the Lord, thy Beloved. Try to introduce the same custom among thy religious, zealously exhorting them thereto; for no exercise is more proper to the spouses of Christ, and if performed with devotion and reverence, it will be most pleasing to their Lord. In addition to this, I wish that thou, in imitation of saint John the Baptist prepare thy heart for all that the holy Spirit wishes to work in thee for his own glory and for the benefit of souls. As far as depends upon thee, love solitude and withdraw thy soul from the confusion of created things. Whenever thy duty to God forces thee to deal with creatures, seek always thy own sanctification and the edification of thy neighbor, so that in thy outward conversation and intercourse the zeal of thy spirit may shine forth. His exalted virtues now known to thee and those resplendent in the lives of other saints, should serve thee as a spur and as an example : seek, like a busy bee, to build up the sweet honeycomb of sanctity and innocence so much desired in thee by my divine Son. Distinguish well between the labors of the bee and of the spider : the one converts her nourishment into sweetness useful for the living and the dead, while the other changes it into snare and venom. Do thou gather the flowers of virtue from the saints in the garden of the Church, as far as thy weak endeavors with the aid of grace will permit ; imitate them eagerly and incite others by thy eloquence, thus drawing blessings upon the living and the dead while thou anxiously flyest from the harm and damage of sinful deeds.