The Book of Visions and Instructions of Blessed Angela of Foligno

PREFACE

Passion, as if she were questioning the depths to wrench from them that unknown reason for worship which hides in the heights, she counts one by one the instruments of the Passion: the physical and spiritual suffering of Jesus leading up to and during his crucifixion, and since the narratives do not say everything, since the Gospel is very restrained, and since known details increase her thirst instead of quenching it, she approaches the cross of Christ face to face, in the secrecy of prayer: specifically 'oraison,' an internal, contemplative form of prayer performed without spoken words. There, as if in a private arena, alone with him, in the secret of the vision, she asks every thorn of the cross how the blood flowed from the brow of the Fils de l'Homme: Son of Man, a title used by Jesus to emphasize his humanity and his role in salvation. Questioning every instrument of torture about the nature of the torments, discerning through the intuition of love several unknown tortures behind the known ones, calling successively upon speech and silence to her aid, she recounts some of the compassions In this mystical context, 'compassions' refers to the shared suffering or deep empathy felt between Jesus and those around him during his ordeal. that accompanied the Passion: Jesus's compassion for himself, for his disciples, for his mother, and for his father. The inventions of love—for love is the greatest of inventors—lead Angela: Saint Angela of Foligno (1248–1309), the Italian mystic whose visions are recorded here, if one dares to speak this way, into the interior of the wounds of Jesus: the marks left on Jesus's body by the nails and spear during the crucifixion; with the audacity of adoration, she gazes fixedly, and her eye does not falter. For love is stronger than death, and if it knows the tremors of desire, it is ignorant of those of fear.