Craig Turner - Words of Faith: Revelations of Our Lord to Saints: Teresa of Avila, Catherine of Genoa and Margaret Mary Alacoque

Copyright 2014 by Craig Turner.

All rights reserved. With the exception of short excerpts used in articles and critical review, no part of this work may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in any form whatsoever, printed or electronic, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Cataloging-in-Publication data on file with the Library of Congress.

Typeset by Lapiz Digital Services.

Cover design by Caroline Kiser.

Cover image: Bloch, Carl (1834-90). Jesus Speaks with Samaritan Woman , oil on copper plate, (Frederiksborg Palace Chapel, Copenhagen, Denmark).

ISBN: 978-0-89555-716-2

Published in the United States by

TAN Books

P.O. Box 410487

Charlotte, NC 28241

www.TANBooks.com

Printed and Bound in the United States of America.

A NOTE TO THE READER

The primary texts used in this book from which the visions were taken include:

Birgitta of Sweden: Life and Selected Writings (Classics of Western Spirituality) , by Bridget of Sweden, edited by Marguerite T. Harris, Albert Tyle Kezel and Tore Nyberg (BS)

The Dialogue of St. Catherine of Siena , by Catherine of Siena, published by TAN Books. (CS)

A Tuscan Penitent: The Life and Legend of St. Margaret of Cortona , by Father Cuthbert, Burns Oats and Washbourne, London, 1900. (MC)

The page numbers in parentheses after each quote refer to the page or pages from which the quote was extracted. Quotes were used as they appear in the original works with the exception of some modernization of the usage of words. For example, thee and thy were updated to read you and your.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A NUMBER of different people deserve credit for their invaluable assistance in the production of this book. In addition to the research and work I did on this book, I must also recognize the people who compiled quotes from original sources and either researched or wrote biographies of particular saints. These people include:

Saint Bridget of Sweden
Kasandra Barker and Laura Brestovansky

Saint Catherine of Siena
Kathleen Lane and Tom Sherry

Saint Margaret of Cortona
Cathy Crisp and Tom Sherry

In addition, Bob French, who assisted with the editing of this work, gave important and useful editorial suggestions, as did Dawn Beutner, who assisted in a similar capacity. I would also like to give thanks to the Blessed Virgin Mary who intercedes for us in a variety of ways and never tires in her work on behalf of aching humanity.

It is My will that the favors I have granted
you, and shall yet grant, be announced
abroad and published to the world.

Jesus to Saint Margaret of Cortona

CONTENTS

THE VISIONARIES

T HE book Words of Faith centers upon three souls whose intimacy with God is undeniably great. The majority of the conversations recorded deal with the spiritual life and the souls relationship with God. But other matters are also addressed and recorded: prophecies that God gives to the recipient, explanations of certain events (either global or private), directions about when and where the recipient is to make a pilgrimage, etc. Each of these saints, just like each of us, has a unique story to tell. But often we find that saints do not tell their own stories. And so it is left to us to tell them.

St. Margaret of Cortona (12471297)

On the windswept hills of the Italian village of Laviano, surrounded by olive groves and small brooks descending the hills of Tuscany, Margaret of Cortona was born. Her mother died when she was only seven, and, devastated, she was then raised by her father and stepmother. The foster-mother held little, if any, affection for the little girl, and tragically, love was absent from Margarets life. If it is true that cracks within marble later show upon its face, then the fractures in Margarets love, too, would ultimately be revealed.

By the time she was seventeen she was stunningly attractive, a dazzling beauty with olive skin and dark hair, and it was to this beauty that a young cavalier, the son of a lord from a nearby region of Italy, induced a romance. She ran away with the man, partly to escape her home, and began a life of promiscuous living as she dwelled with him in his castle. For nine years she lived a life of luxury and opulence with the man, at times mocking the nearby villagers as she rode into town upon her handsome steed, declaring boldly that her licentious living and unchaste lifestyle were the best that one could hope for in life.

Margaret requested marriage to the man frequently, only to be rebuffed with a charming smile and a false promise that he would, one day, marry her. Nevertheless, she was perfectly content with her lifestyle. Thoroughly convinced that mans actions carry no consequences, she continued her indiscreet living, attended to by servants and ultimately bearing a son to the man of the castle. But her days of luxury were numbered, for one day the mans favorite hound returned to the castle without its master, and as it desperately indicated some sort of misfortune, Margaret followed the hound into the woods to the dead body of her lover. He had been murdered, possibly by thieves.

Utterly distraught and horrified, she returned to the castle and mourned the loss of her companion, reflecting upon her own life and her actions up to that point. She then quickly amended her life, returning all jewelry and property that had been given to her over the years. She left the castle with her little son and returned to her fathers house, but the stepmother refused to keep her, and she was forced to leave. Adrift with a son and nowhere to turn, she heard faintly within her soul a voice that directed her to the small city of Cortona. She set off for the village, and after she arrived, two women came to her aid by providing her food and lodging, and ultimately introducing her to the Franciscans at the Church of San Francesco. It was here that she would begin her new life of devotion, prayer and penance.

For the first three years Margaret struggled with serious temptations. She was drawn to the frivolity of the world and the fleeting happiness of pleasures, and it was a great effort for her to overcome these feelings. But she fasted vigorously to quench the temptations, perpetually abstaining from meat and subsisting most of the time on bread and herbs.

After three years of probation, she became a Franciscan tertiary, and it was around this time that she was given the chance to beg in the streets of Cortona for her sustenance. She hardly looked upon this humiliation as a disgrace, because it not only provided her with a chance to grow spiritually, but allowed her the opportunity to become one of the poor, subsisting on alms. During this period, she began to experience the singular grace which today has made her famous: her visions, which were later dictated by her at the insistence of her spiritual directors and recorded for posterity. In 1277 she was in the local church of the Franciscans when she faintly heard the words: What is your wish, poverella? The voice, identified by her later as Jesus, addressed her with a word that means little poor one. Margaret, reflecting upon the question, then responded, I neither seek nor wish for anything but You, my Lord Jesus.

Jesus continued from this time to speak to Margaretnot simply through inspiration but with actual wordscontinuing to refer to her as poverella. Around this time an unusual and singular event occurred in Margarets life that, while already extraordinary in many ways, still deserves mention. Margarets life followed the model of great penitents who came before herthe radical conversion, rejection of all worldly belongings, renunciation of attachments and even personal pleasures, and the subsequent reception of the highest mystical gifts. Yet, Margaret experienced one episode that is markedly different from nearly every other saint.