elanya

Okay, so maybe I'm not doing wuite so much work as I could be/should be, but damnit, I'm on vacation here! Anyway, yesterday I went to the library adn came home with a bag full of fifteen books (yes, many, many books o_O) plus arcticles, most on Margery Kempe stuff that I was referred to from one of the oline bibliographies thaqt curtana sent me! I also got about 5 or so books on my dissertation topic, including one from interlibrary loan, all the way from the exotic university of Edinburg. woo!

Anyway, Margery Kempe was as nutty as a fruit cake. She heard Jesus and the saints talking to her in her 'mind and soul'. Read an excerpt of the kinds of things Jesus said to her

Chapter 36
(From the Penguin Classics Translation by Barry Windeatt)

'Fasting, daughter, is good for young beginners, and discrete penance, especially what their confessors gives them or enjoins them to do. And to pray many beads is good for those who can do no better, yet it us not perfect. But it is a good way towards perfection. For I tell you, daughter, those who are great faster and great doers of penance want it to be considered the best life; those also who give themselves over to saying many devotions would have that be the best life; and those who give very generous alms would like that considered the best life.
'And I have often told you, daughter, that thinking, weeping, and high contemplation is the best life on earth. You shall have more merit in heaven for one year of thinking in your mind than for a hundred years of praying with your mouth; and yet you will not believe me, for you will pray many beads whether I wish it or not. And yet, daughter, I will not be displeased with you wherther you think, say, or speak, for I am always please with you.
'And if I were on earth as bodily as I was before I died on the cross, I would not be ashamed of you, as many other people are, for I would take you by the hand amongst the people and greet you warmly, so that they would certainly know that I loved you dearly.
'For it is appropriate for the wife to be on homely terms with her husband. Be he ever so great a ord and she ever so poor a woman when he weds her, yet they must lie together and rest together in joy and peace. Just so must it be between you and me, for I take no heed of what you have been but what you would be, and I have often told you that I have clean forgiven you all your sins.
'Therefore I must be intimate with you, and lie in your bed with you. Dauighter, you greatly desire to see me, and you may boldly, when you are in bed, take me to you as your wedded husband, as your dear darling, and as your sweet son, for I want to be loved as a son should be loved by a mother, and I want you to love me, daughter, as a good wife ought to love her husband. Therefore, you can boldly take me in the arms of your soul, and kiss my mouth, my head, and my feet as sweetly as you want. And as often as you think of me or would do any good deed to me, you shall have the same reward in heaven as if you did it to my own precious body which is in heaven, for I ask no more of you but your heart, to love me who loves you, for my love is always ready for you.'
Then she gave thanks and praise to our Lord Jesus Christ for the high grace that he showed to her, unworthy wretch.
This creature had various tokens in her hearing. One was a kind of sound as if it were a pair onf bellows blowing in her ear. She - being dismayed at this - was warned in her soul to have no fear, for it was the sound f the Holy Ghost. And then our Lord turned that sound into the voice of a dove, and afterwards he turned it into the voice of a little bird which is called a redbreast, that often sang very merrily in her right ear. And then she would always have great grace after she heard such a token. She had been used to such tokens for about twenty-five years at the time of writing of this book.
Then our Lord Jesus Christ said to his creature, 'By these tokens you may well know that I love you, for you are to me a true mother and to all the world, because of that great charity which is in you; and yet I am cause of that charity myself, and you shall have great reward for it in heaven.'

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Right. Scary lady. She also though she saw Jesus when she saw a cute guy, so she would start crying. Or at least, she went through this phase when she was visitin Rome, I'm not sure if she kept it up. Why did Jesus look like a hot Italian guy? I'm not sure, really. As I said before, nutty as a fruitcake :o