God recompensed her readiness to drink the chalice of sufferings, by making her a partaker of the torments of His passion. On the fourth of April, 1694, as near as can be ascertained, He appeared to her, and presented her with His crown of thorns. In obedience to her confessor, she thus describes her vision. “On the fourth of April, whilst I was in prayer during the night, I fell into a recollection, and in it had an intellectual vision, wherein Our Lord appeared to me, with a large crown of thorns upon His head. Immediately I cried out, ‘My spouse, give me a part of these thorns, I deserve them, not Thou, my Sovereign Good!’ I heard him reply, ‘I am now come to crown thee, my beloved;’ and then He took the crown off his head, and placed it upon mine. The pain I suffered, at that instant, was so excessive, that I have never, as far as I can understand, suffered anything like it. But it seemed to me that such suffering was a great joy to me; I felt as if I should die, if I had not some torment to undergo.”
Finding herself unable to go through her ordinary duties, and being anxious, at the same time, to conceal these divine favors from her companions, she prayed to God,—“My God, I beseech Thee, if it be Thy will, to give me strength to perform the work and other duties prescribed for me, and let these Thy graces never be manifest, but always in secret.” We pray the reader to observe how exactly all the prayers of Veronica, and the effects produced in her soul, are conformable to the rules whereby Benedict XIV. teaches us to judge of the truth or falsehood of such supernatural favors as she received. They are always communicated during prayer; they excite in her a more ardent desire of undergoing still greater torments for the sake of God, —they lead above all to humility and anxiety to hide them from the eyes of the world. Let us now see how another of his criterions corresponds with the reality of her visions and other graces: we mean how they inflamed her with burning charity and zeal for the glory of God, and the conversion of sinners. “This pain (of the crown of thorns) inspired me with such compassion for sinners, that, offering to the Eternal Father all the sufferings of Jesus, and all His merits with those of Our Lady for the conversion of sinners,I prayed more earnestly than ever for sufferings, begging Him to send me more torments. At that instant, I felt a fresh renewal of the crown of thorns, not only round my head, as usual, but all over it; and, for several hours, I remained rejoicing amid thousands of torments. It is only a few days since I had this renewal, and it was signified to me, at the same time, that this was a warning that I was to spend this Lent in continual suffering. God be praised! Everything is little for His sake!”
This crowning was renewed several times during the course of her life. Her directors, being informed that it had taken place, commissioned Sister Florida Ceoli to observe if there were any visible marks of it on her head. She deposed, on oath, as follows:—“I visited her, and saw that she had upon her forehead something like a circle, tending to a red color. Sometimes I have observed upon it certain pimples, about the size of a pin-head, in the form of little buttons. At other times she had her forehead sprinkled with marks of a purple color all round, like the figure of thorns which came down towards the eyes; and, in particular, I saw one of these marks, like thorns, come down towards the right eye, and even passed quite under it, filling it with tears; and I saw that the tears were blood, from the veil wherewith she wiped them away; as I have frequently told her confessors who enjoined me to watch her.”
But not content with these observations made by her companions, and wishing fully to ascertain if such effects proceeded from natural or supernatural causes, the bishop of the city caused her to be placed under the care of physicians and surgeons; but, after they had exhausted all the resources of their art, and applied remedies so cruel and so violent that none of the sisterhood would assist at them, but left Veronica herself to hold the heated instruments for them, they abandoned the attempt; and the bishop and her directors were persuaded that He alone, who had imprinted such marks of love upon His servant, was capable of curing them, and that he had thereby wished to render her more and more conformable to Himself.
The sacred Scriptures use the word espousals to denote a more intimate union formed between God and the soul by the most perfect love. In the book of Canticles the Holy Ghost describes the correspondence of a soul with grace, under the figure of two spouses, and in the New Testament, Our Lord speaks of the virgins whom He admits to His heavenly marriage-feast. This spiritual union with certain devout souls God has been pleased to make manifest to them by more sensible signs, accompanied by formalities like those used in ordinary marriages. Of such we read in the life of the ecstatic St. Catharine of Siena. To this exalted dignity God was pleased to raise Veronica, as he revealed to her, during the crowning with thorns, of which we have already spoken.
One of the commands given to Veronica, after her espousals, was that she should increase her fasting; and about a year after that event, she received a direct injunction from God to fast for three whole years upon nothing but bread and water. But Almighty God, wishing at the same time to put her obedience to her superiors to the test, caused them all to refuse her their permission, without which she could not put the Divine command in practice. And, although He continued to repeat His command and even to reproach her for not fulfilling it; and although her stomach rejected every other food but bread, yet her superiors obstinately refused to accede to her petition. “I was full of joy,” she says, “because in this way I suffered much, but I felt that the flesh could bear no more.” At length, after she had undergone the severest torments, from the refusal of her superiors, the weakness of her body, and her sorrow of mind, at not being able to comply with the will of God, from March to September, God was pleased to support her by milk miraculously supplied in the same manner as is related by the Bollandists of the holy virgins, Lidwige, or Lidwina, in Holland, and Geltrude in Belgium.
The most severe trial to which she was exposed, was from desolation and sadness of spirit, and from the bitter malice and fierce assaults of the devil against her purity, during 1696, the year after her mystic espousals.
Under the 17th of October, we read as follows: “Amongst my other tribulations came this also. Whilst I was in prayer, there came upon me such, and so many evil thoughts of impurity and of grievous sins, and they threw me into such anguish, that at one time they covered me with perspiration, and at another made me freeze, with an internal agony, which confused and disturbed my soul. I did not wish to disquiet myself, nor to give myself trouble and pain, but I could not help it; I felt myself so oppressed and sunk in these filthy thoughts, and my mind so completely obscured, that I could do nothing. The demon tempted me, and I seemed to hear a dreadful voice, which continually repeated, ‘See, these are the fruits of praying for sinners. All their sins are crowding upon thy head. Do good now, if thou canst.’ As he spoke these words, the devil seemed to make merry and rejoice. O God, what torment it gave me! As well as I could, I begged of God the salvation of souls, and I said, ‘My sovereign good, Spouse of my soul, I do not offend Thee in will, and therefore I detest and abhor every wicked thought; and now and for ever, I tell Thee, that my will does not wish to entertain them. Rather death, and a thousand deaths, than that I should ever consent to a single thought that can offend Thee.’ As I said this, though with great difficulty, the devil tormented me by suggesting worse thoughts than ever, and telling me that no hope was left me. I replied, ‘Liar that thou art, I will not yield to thy falsehoods. Jesus will I love, Jesus will I serve; I have no other good but Jesus.’ In this struggle I remained for several hours, always with desolation, dryness, and temptations. God be blessed for all!” The like temptations and assaults, both from her flesh and from the devil, are described under December of the same year, but she repeated with the glorious martyr St. Cecily, fiat cor meum et corpus meum immaculatum ut non confundar, “Let my heart and body be immaculate, that I may not be confounded.” On Christmas eve she made an incision upon her heart in the form of a cross, with a pen-knife. With the blood, which issued from it, she wrote a fervent protestation of love, and a dedication of her will to her infant Saviour. Four other writings of the same kind, made during the course of that and the following year, 1697, all breathe the same feelings of consecration of her will to Jesus, and especially of ardent charity and zeal for the salvation of her neighbors, whose mediatrix she had promised to be. In one of them, she writes, “I intend at this moment to confirm all the protestations which I have made with my own blood. Lo! I am ready to give my life and blood for the conversion of sinners, and the confirmation of the Holy Faith. O my God! with your heart, with your love, I make this invitation. O souls redeemed with the blood of Jesus, I speak to you; O sinners, come all to the heart of Jesus, to the fountain, to the boundless sea of His love. Come, all of you, men and women, come all! leave sin; come to Jesus!” Her loving spouse rewarded her constancy and love.
On Good Friday, the 5th of April, 1697, she received those rich pledges of love which were vouchsafed to the seraphic St. Francis, St. Catharine, and other saints; for Our Lord, after having previously foretold these graces, and after displaying his mercies in other ways, to her, was pleased to imprint upon her hands and feet, the stigmata or wounds of his most sacred passion. These wounds were afterwards renewed upon several other occasions, and their reality was made known to many persons. For the Tribunal of the Holy Office at Rome, having received information thereof, ordered the bishop of the city to make an inquiry into the truth of the report. He repaired to the grate of the convent, with several other ecclesiastics, who severally saw the wounds which her blessed Spouse had made. Those in the hands and feet, as Florida Ceoli and other sisters attest, were on the upper side round, and about the size of a farthing, but less on the under side, deep and red when open, and covered with a thin cicatrix or crust, when closed. The wound in the left side, above the left breast, was between four and five fingers in length, and about one finger broad in the middle, growing thinner towards the two extremities, exactly like the wound of a lance. Veronica was so alarmed at the thought of undergoing these examinations so dreadful to her virginal modesty, that she told sister Florida Ceoli, in confidence, she should have died of confusion, if God had not deprived her of her senses, during them. And her profound humility suggested to her to beg earnestly of her beloved Saviour to leave her the pain, but hide the marks of these wounds from the eyes of the world, as he had done to St. Catharine of Siena, and other saints; but he ordered her to tell her confessor, that these wounds were to remain, that by the rigorous investigations of the Congregation of the Holy Office, it might be known that they had been imprinted by His divine hand; and that for this purpose, they were to remain visible for three years. So in effect it happened; for after three years, on the 5th of April, 1700, the wounds closed, but not until it had been proved to many that they were indeed the work of divine love. But, although they were closed to the eyes of others, it is attested by several witnesses, that the pain still continued, and that they were renewed after that date upon the greater festivals of the church, the feasts of St. Francis and of his stigmata, and as often as her superiors commanded. She herself mentions their being renewed in 1703, three years after their closing; and her confessor, Father Ranier Guelfi, as late as holy Saturday, the 19th of April, 1726, having been informed by her, that Jesus had renewed her wounds twice upon that same day, commanded her to pray that they might be renewed for the third time. She obeyed, and after remaining in ecstasy at his feet for some time, told him that she had obtained the grace. To his astonishment he beheld the wounds open, and blood issuing from them. To have additional witnesses, he pretended to disbelieve her, and ordered her to show them to two of her companions, who both saw them open and covered with blood, as they testify in the process. Besides the testimony of these and the many others, both ecclesiastics and nuns, who saw these wounds, the reality of their existence was proved by the fact that the most diligent endeavors of surgeons to cure them served only to inflame them still more. But the most undoubted proof is, that she was able in spite of them, to live and perform her duties during a space of thirty years; especially when we reflect that the physician and surgeon, who inspected her body, after her death, agreed that the wound in her left side was enough, at any instant, to have caused her death, so that they considered her very continuance in life a miracle.
Veronica foretold that twenty-four marks would be found engraven upon her heart; and, by the order of her confessor, she described the exact form and disposition of them, by cutting them out in red and white paper; and after her death, they were found to correspond in every particular with the account and picture which she had made of them. They were as follows:—a Latin cross, with a C in the top of the upright piece; the centre of the transverse an F; in the right point of the transverse a V; and in the left an O. Above the cross was, on one side, a crown of thorns; on the left of which was a banner upon a staff, which passed transversely over the cross, and the flag of the banner was divided into two tongues, on the upper of which was a large I, and on the lower an m in running hand. At the top of the banner was a flame, and, lower down, a hammer, a pair of pincers, a lance, and a reed with a sponge represented upon the top. On the right of the cross, beginning from above, was a small garment to represent the seamless vest of Our Lord, another flame, a chalice, two wounds, a column, three nails, a scourge, and seven swords; with the letters P.P.V. on other parts of the heart. All these marks were exactly described by her upon paper, which being compared with her heart, soon after death, were found to agree in every particular. Her confessor attests that the meaning of the above letters and emblems is:—The seven swords are the seven dolors of Mary; the banner, the ensign of her victories over the Devil, the world and herself; the two letters, I (J) and m, Jesus and Mary; C, Charity; F, Faith and Fidelity to God; O, Obedience; the two VV, Humility and the Will of God (Umiltà, and Volontà di Dio), P P, Patience and Suffering (Patire); the two flames, the love of God and her neighbor.