The Book of Visions and Instructions of Blessed Angela of Foligno

PREFACE

Father Faber Father Frederick William Faber (1814–1863) was a prominent English Catholic priest and theologian whose writings focused heavily on the internal lives of Jesus and Mary. remarks that the sorrows of the Virgin Mary were increased by the power she possessed to look at them directly without distraction, instead of fleeing from them as other creatures do, aided by their own weakness.

Angela of Foligno Saint Angela of Foligno (1248–1309) was an Italian mystic known for her "Memorial," which records her intense visions and "ineffable" (indescribable) spiritual experiences. sees the ineffable sorrow of Jesus, which was granted and dispensed to him, along with divine light, by the hand of God. This light—through which he himself saw what he was in himself, and what sin had made of him; this terrible light by which he saw in all their horror his death and the crime of his death, as well as sin and Calvary: the site outside Jerusalem where the crucifixion took place—this light which, she says, transformed Jesus Christ into sorrow, and into ineffable sorrow, seems to have revealed to the contemplative: a person dedicated to a life of deep, focused prayer and spiritual meditation something of what it revealed to the human soul of Jesus. And, in the thirst that devours her—a thirst for knowledge and love that grows more parched the more she drinks—she turns to question all creatures one by one about the Passion: the period of suffering and the ordeal of the crucifixion endured by Jesus of their crucified God. Challenging them in turn to describe it to her as she sees it, she lets out this sublime cry:

"If someone told it to me, I would say: 'It is you, it is you who suffered it.'" And in the security of her transports In mystical theology, "transports" or "raptures" refer to states of intense spiritual ecstasy where the soul feels carried away by God., if an angel predicted the death of her love, she would respond: "It is you who fell from heaven." This implies that any messenger claiming God's love could die or fail must be a fallen angel (a demon), as such a claim is a lie against the nature of divine love.