Chapter 66
THE SIXTEENTH SHOWING
Now I have told you about fifteen showings, as God had the graciousness to minister them to my mind, renewed by the illuminating and touching of the same Spirit (I hope),
Who showed them all. Of these fifteen showings, the first began early in the morning, at about the hour of four. The revelations, shown by a most beautiful process, each soberly following the other, lasted until past None [the ninth hour; about 3:00 P.M.] that day.
Chapter 66 THE SIXTEENTH SHOWING is 4 conclusion and confirmation of all the preceding fifteen; of her frailty and mourning in discomfort, after the great comfort of Jesus, in saying she had raved (which because of her great sickness was, I suppose, only a venial sin); but yet the devil, after that, had great power to vex her nearly to death.
And after this, the good Lord showed the sixteenth showing, on the following night, as I shall explain later. This sixteenth showing was the conclusion to and confirmation of the preceding fifteen.
But first I must and ought to tell you about my feebleness, wretchedness and blindness. I said at the beginning, "And then, suddenly, all my pain was taken from me." I had no grief and no discomfort from this pain as long as the fifteen showings continued to be shown. At the end of them, everything was closed and I saw no more. Soon I felt that I would live and suffer longer, and immediately my sickness came back again, first in my head, with a sound and a din. Suddenly my entire body was completely filled with sickness, just as it had been before, and I was as barren and dry as if I had never had any comfort. Like a coward, I mourned in depression on account of my feeling of bodily pains and the failure of spiritual and bodily comfort.
Then a religious person came to me and asked me how I was getting along. I said I had raved [hallucinated] that day, and he laughed aloud and within himself. And I said that it seemed to me that the cross that stood in front of me bled
THE REVELATION OF DIVINE LOVE
a great deal. With that remark, the person I was speaking to grew very serious, and marveled.
Immediately, I was very ashamed and astonished at my recklessness. And I thought, "This man, who never saw any of it himself, takes seriously the least word I can say." And when I saw that he accepted it so seriously and with such great reverence, I wept and grew most deeply ashamed at my own unbelief. I wanted to be forgiven in confession, but at that point I couldn't tell it to any priest, for I thought, "How can a priest believe me when I do not believe our Lord God
(as I showed when I said, 'I raved')?"
Notwithstanding the fact that I believed Him truly while I saw Him, and that my will and my intention then was to continue to do so forever, without end, nevertheless, like a fool, I let the reality pass out of my mind. Ah! Look what a wretch I was! This was a great sin and a most unnatural thing that I, because of the trifle of feeling a little bodily pain, so unwisely abandoned, for the time, the comfort of all this blessed showing from our Lord God.
Here you can see what I am of myself. But in this our courteous Lord willed not to leave me. I lay still until night, trusting in His mercy, and then I began to sleep.
In this sleep, at the beginning it seemed to me that the devil set himself at my throat, putting forth his visage very near my face. It was like a young man's, and it was long and extremely lean. I never saw anything like it. Its color was red, like a tilestone when it is newly fired, with black spots on it like black freckles, filthier than a tilestone. His hair was red as rust, uncut in front, with side locks hanging on the temples.
He grinned at me with a shrewd look and showed me white teeth — so much that I thought him even more ugly. He had no shapely body or hands, but with his paws he held me by the throat, and would have stopped my breath and killed me, but he could not.
This ugly showing was given me while I was asleep, as no other was. During all this time, I trusted to be saved and presented by the mercy of God. Our courteous Lord gave me the grace of waking up, and I scarcely had any life left. The peo-