The Friends of the Poor Souls -3 Prayers for the dying
This is a very nice story which includes some prayers. The prayers seem to build in intensity and by the time you finish the third it is quite a powerful experience.
While on this site I clicked on the name of Sister Mary Magdalena. She lived an intensely spiritual life and had times of ecstasies as described below:
From the time of her clothing with the religious habit till her death the saint’s life was one series of raptures and ecstasies, of which only the most notable characteristics can be named in a short notice.
- First, these raptures sometimes seized upon her whole being with such force as to compel her to rapid motion (e.g. towards some sacred object).
- Secondly, she was frequently able, whilst in ecstasy, to carry on work belonging to her office–e.g., embroidery, painting, etc.–with perfect composure and efficiency.
- Thirdly–and this is the point of chief importance–it was whilst in her states of rapture that St. Mary Magdalen de’ Pazzi gave utterance to those wonderful maxims of Divine Love, and those counsels of perfection for souls, especially in the religious state, which a modern editor of a selection of them declares to be “more frequently quoted by spiritual writers than those even of St. Teresa”. These utterances have been preserved to us by the saint’s companions, who (unknown to her) took them down from her lips as she poured them forth. She spoke sometimes as of herself, and sometimes as the mouthpiece of one or other of the Persons of the Blessed Trinity. These maxims of the saint are sometimes described as her “Works”, although she wrote down none of them herself.
This ecstatic life in no wise interfered with the saint’s usefulness in her community. She was noted for her strong common-sense, as well as for the high standard and strictness of her government, and was most dearly loved to the end of her life by all for the spirit of intense charity that accompanied her somewhat severe code of discipline. As novice-mistress she was renowned for a miraculous gift of reading her subjects’ hearts–which gift, indeed, was not entirely confined to her community. Many miracles, both of this and of other kinds, she performed for the benefit either of her own convent or of outsiders. She often saw things far off, and is said once to have supernaturally beheld St. Catherine de’ Ricci in her convent at Prato, reading a letter that she had sent her and writing the answer; but the two saints never met in a natural manner.
See the Catholic Encyclopedia
