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Something incredible once happened to that same Brother John. Some of the friars who were there have told me all about it. This occurred once while he was staying in the friary of Mogliano in the Marches.
It happened during the first night after the eight-day Feast of St. Lawrence (within the eight-day Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary), when John woke up early before Matins. At the Matins service, as he recited the prayers with the others, the Lord filled his soul with supremely good things. And when Matins was over, he went walking through the garden, filled with God’s grace and sweetness, so much so that he began to shout out those words of our Lord, “Hoc est Corpus Meum!” “This is my body!” The Holy Spirit had enlightened him through those words.
Brother John’s soul could see with clarity Jesus Christ and the Blessed Virgin and all the angels and saints. He clearly understood the words of the apostle that we are all one in the body of Christ, each of us is one with the other, and with the saints we may see and understand the inclusive dimensions and depth of Christ’s love.* This love is greater than all knowledge, and we may know it when those words, Hoc est Corpus Meum, bring the Holy Sacrament before us.
By dawn, Brother John walked into the church in this passion and fervor brought on by divine grace. He couldn’t help himself but shouted it out three times. He thought that no one was there or would hear him, but there was one friar praying alone in the choir and he heard.
Brother John remained like this until the time came when he was to celebrate Mass. When he put on his vestments and moved toward the altar, the passion of his devotion and Christ’s affection swelled within him to the point where he had an overwhelming sense of God’s ineffable presence. He was suddenly afraid that these feelings might lead to him interrupting the Mass and so he paused to consider what to do next. Then he recalled that something like this had happened to him once before, and all had gone well, so he thought that he could proceed this time, too. But he was still wary, for the divine can easily interrupt the human.
He got as far in the Mass as the Preface of the Blessed Virgin. Everything was fine, but then the divine sweetness began to overcome him. When he came to the Qui pridie,* he felt completely overwhelmed. He came to the consecration itself and began to say those words over the host, repeating Hoc est . . . Hoc est . . . again and again, unable to continue. He couldn’t say the words, for he believed that he saw Christ before his eyes, together with angels and saints. He felt as if he were going to faint.
At this, the guardian of the friary came running to help. He stood beside Brother John, as did another friar with a lit candle. Meanwhile, other friars, and men and women, and many of the most prominent people of the province who were there to hear Mass, stood concernedly around the altar. Some of them were crying, as women are prone to do.†
Brother John was just standing there, consumed with joy and happiness. He’d paused during the words of consecration, but only because he could see that Christ was not entering the host—or, instead, that the host was not changing into the Body of Christ—because he hadn’t yet spoken the second half of the formula . . . Corpus Meum.
And so, after what seemed a very long time, unable to bear the majestic, mystical revelation of these things, he loudly exclaimed, “. . . Corpus Meum!” Immediately, bread vanished from sight and the host showed only the Lord Jesus Christ. At this, Brother John’s humility and adoration left him unable to continue speaking the remaining words of the consecration. He fell backward and was caught by his guardian who was still standing next to him. The others in the church rushed forward, and they all carried John into the sacristy and laid him down. His body had quickly gone cold. He seemed to be dead. His fingers were stiff and bent so that they couldn’t be opened or even budged. He laid there as if dead until the time of Tierce.*
Now, I was among those present that day, and I wanted to know what had truly happened to him. So as soon as he came to, I went and asked him all about it. He used to confide often in me, and by God’s grace he told me everything. He told me that both before and after the words of consecration, his heart became inside of him like hot wax, and his body seemed boneless, to the point where he couldn’t lift either his arms or hands to make the sign of the cross over the host. Before he ever became a priest, he said, God told him that he would faint like that during Mass. He had said many Masses without it happening and had begun to wonder if the prophecy was not from God. Then, fifty days before this day—before the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, when all of this happened—it was again revealed to him that it would happen, but he’d forgotten.
[#53 of 53]
* These are both passages from the Apostle Paul: “For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another” (Rom. 12:4–5). And, “I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:18–19).
* This is the beginning of the paragraph during the Mass leading up to the Hoc est Corpus Meum, when the priest says “Qui pridie quam pateretur, accepit panem . . .” or “Who, the day before he suffered, took bread. . . .” In other words, Brother John was coming to that portion of the Mass that had previously so profoundly moved him.
† Such a statement would have been common 100 years ago, let alone 700 years ago, when this was written down.
* Probably about two and a half hours later.