Saint Christina the Astonishing

In the midst of the fields, far from the commerce of the world, she was not long in being continually in the company of God and the angels. Everything she saw, everything she heard, raised her young soul toward the Creator. Thus the young virgin had but one thought, the Lord; her soul, absorbed in divine contemplation, burned with the continual flame of the purest love. She also had the liveliest tenderness for the B lessed Virgin sainte Vierge Object of the blessed one's meditation and devotion. ; but as it was little for her to lavish her homage upon Mary in solitude, she let no opportunity escape to win hearts for her, to propagate her devotion and her cult. This tender love of God and of Mary necessarily produced the liveliest love of neighbor. Christine loved all men without exception; prayers and sighs escaped continually from her heart for their present well-being and their eternal happiness; but the richest share of her good works belonged to the destitute, to the unfortunate, especially to the souls in purgatory and to miserable sinners.

The state of continual contemplation in which Saint Christine found herself did not take long to undermine her weak constitution; this is why she fell ill and died in the prime of her life, in 1182. Her body was carried the next day to the church of Our Lady église de Notre-Dame de Saint-Trond Site where the funeral and the miracle of levitation took place. of Saint-Trond for the funeral service, in the midst of an immense, crowded, and prayerful throng that had flocked from all parts to attend her burial. During the Mass, at the moment when the priest was finishing the last Agnus Dei, the body of the deceased began to move; then suddenly it stood up, rose with speed, and went to rest motionless on one of the crossbeams of the building. At this sight, terror seized the congregation; all rushed out of the church, except for the officiating priest and Christine's older sister. When the Mass was finished, the priest ordered her, in the name of the living God, to come down; she obeyed instantly. These are the terms in which she recounted to her relatives and friends the unheard-of and incomprehensible event they had witnessed:

« Scarcely had my soul left my body when the angels of God took me in their arms and transported me to a place of darkness and horror, filled with an innumerable quantity of souls who were enduring frightful and unheard-of torments: it was Purgatory... They then trans Purgatoire State of post-mortem purification central to commemoration. ported me before the throne of the eternal God. I was then transported with an unspeakable joy, for I thought that from that moment I would enjoy his adorable presence forever. But the Lord said to me: Throughout all eternity, you will swim in this ocean of glory that your eyes behold, but for the moment I propose to you, either to remain with me now and enjoy beatitude forever in my bosom, or to return to your body on earth and suffer there the pains of an immortal soul in this mortal body, which sufferings, however, will not be able to destroy. By these torments you will deliver all the souls of purgatory who have inspired in you such painful compassion. Furthermore, by the spectacle of your holy and suffering life, you will turn living souls away from evil and bring them back to me. When you have accomplished these things, you will appear before me again, laden with an immense treasure of merits. Thus spoke the Lord; without hesitating for an instant, I chose his second proposal. And God, blessing me for my choice, ordered his angels to carry my soul back into my body at that very instant... »

The extraordinary life and unheard-of sufferings of Saint Christina exceed all human conception. Immediately after her return to life, she wished to live only for the sole purpose marked for her second existence: to suffer for the conversion of sinners and for the deliverance of the unfortunate souls held in purgatory. Fleeing with extreme care all commerce with men, she had contact with her fellow beings only when religion and charity required it, to help the needy, convert sinners, and especially to assist the dying. Here are some striking peculiarities of her daily life: Each morning she heard Holy Mass, and every Sunday and feast day she approached the holy table. To this ardent love for Jesus, she joined the liveliest tenderness for Mary. She had the greatest esteem and boundless respect for priests, looking upon them, with the eyes of faith, as the envoys and replacements of her heavenly bridegroom. She barely knew sleep; almost all her nights were spent in prayer or expiatory mortifications. She usually walked with her head bowed and her eyes cast down. One could very often hear her heave heart-breaking sighs, and streams of bitter tears flowed almost continuously from her eyes. She loved poverty above all else, which she practiced to the most heroic degree; she lived only on the alms she went to beg for herself from door to door. Her clothes were poor and miserable. Her usual dwelling was in the most remote and solitary places, in the most inaccessible and wild woods. Often she would place herself on the highest trees, on the tops of towers, on the roofs of churches, on the ridges of castles and houses, when she wished to pray or immerse herself in heavenly meditations: her body then had the agility and suppleness of a bird.

As extraordinary as this mode of existence of Christina's must appear, it seems to be little in comparison to her prodigious sufferings. Having returned to earth to suffer in her mortal body the horrible and unimaginable pains of the souls in purgatory, in order to pay for them, and to obtain for sinners graces of conversion and salvation, we are going to see her, led by the Spirit of God, submit herself to terrible, frightening, inconceivable torments.

The principal torment she inflicted upon her body was that of fire; she had chosen it above all others for her habitual suffering, applying it to herself in the most terrible way, in order to be more like the souls in purgatory. She often threw herself into burning ovens, intended for baking bread. When ovens were unavailable, she would enter houses and run to the hearths; according to their dimensions, sometimes she would throw her whole self into them, sometimes she would hold her arms or legs, her hands or feet, in them long enough to reduce them to ashes, were it not for a striking miracle of divine omnipotence. At other times, she would rush into boiling cauldrons, immerse herself in them as much as she could, then sprinkle the rest of her body with the scalding water. She thus suffered unheard-of pains; but, according to God's promise, her body, which such torments should have annihilated, was found healthy and intact.

Water provided her with another mode of torture. During the most rigorous cold, she often rushed into the icy waters of ponds and rivers, and remained plunged there for entire nights and days. At other times she placed herself under the wheels of water mills; there, the water and ice chunks fell with violence upon her head and all her limbs. At other times still, she threw herself into the current which carried her to the wheels by which she was at once carried around and as if crushed with horrible sufferings.