The Life of the Blessed Virgin Mary by Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich

8. ARRIVAL OF SIMON THE APOSTLE.

[August 11 ^th, 1821:] Today I saw a ninth Apostle, Simon, arrive. James the Greater, Philip and Thomas were the only ones missing. I also saw that several disciples had arrived, among whom I remember John Mark and the aged Simeon's son or grandson, who had killed Jesus' last Easter lamb and had the duty of supervising the sacrificial animals in the Temple. There were now some ten men assembled there. There was again a service at the altar, and I saw some of the new arrivals with their garments girt up high, so that I thought they must be intending to leave immediately afterwards. In front of the Blessed Virgin's bed stood a small, low, three-cornered stool, like the one on which the kings had laid their presents before her in the Cave of the Nativity. On it was a little bowl with a small brown transparent spoon. Today I saw nobody in the Blessed Virgin's room except one woman.I saw Peter again bringing her the Blessed Sacrament after the service; he brought it to her in the cross-shaped vessel. The Apostles stood in two rows reaching from the altar to her couch, and bowed low as Peter passed between them bearing the Blessed Sacrament. The screens round the Blessed Virgin's couch were pushed back on all sides.After witnessing all this in Ephesus, I had a longing to see what was going on in Jerusalem at this time, but shrank from the long journey there from Ephesus. Whereupon the holy virgin and martyr Susanna [189] came to me and encouraged me, saying that she would be my companion on the journey. (Today is her feast day, and I have a relic of her, and she was with me the whole night.) So I went with her over sea and land, and we soon reached Jerusalem. She was, however, quite different from me, as light as air, and when I tried to take hold of her I could not do it. As soon as I came to a definite place, as for instance Jerusalem yesterday, she disappeared; but in all my passages from one vision to another, she was there to accompany and encourage me.

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