The Revelations of St. Elizabeth of Hungary

[Stone]

The Revelations of St. Elizabeth

XII.

Moreover the handmaid of Christ, Elizabeth, was praying on when suddenly with the eyes of her mind she saw a hand which had long fingers and a wide broad palm. In the midst of the palm was a bleeding wound. She immediately understood that it was the hand of Christ. She was wondering why it was so slender and long: immediately she was given the answer that it was so slender because when Christ was living in the flesh, during the night he held his hands stretched out in prayer, and during the day while preaching the kingdom of God through the towns and villages, he toiled with his hands, feet, and whole body.

After this she heard a voice saying to her, "Elizabeth, for the third time I say to you, your sins are forgiven you and you have my grace." She replied to this voice, "Lord, if I am made as holy as you say, why is it that I cannot stop myself from offending your majesty in some way every day?" The voice said to her, "Because if you did not sometimes offend, you would not be so humbled and consequently you would not love me so much and you would become worse than the devils, who believe and tremble (Jas 2:19). Therefore I have not sanctified you to such an extent that you are unable to sin. But it is enough for you that I have given you so much grace that, rather than willingly offend me mortally, you would allow yourself to be killed, and to die."

Having said this, Christ appeared fully to her. It seemed to her that frothing, foaming blood flowed abundantly from his side. She began to wonder at this, and Christ said to her, "Do not wonder, daughter, for when I was hanging on the cross, because of the extremity of pain all my limbs were dislocated, my vital organs were shattered and my veins opened. And so the blood from my side was abundant like this, and flowed out foaming."

All that has been said above, the handmaid of Christ, Elizabeth, asserted around the time of her death (which took place in the year of our Lord 1231) she had seen and heard. She used to say that she had such great certainty concerning all these things that she would rather choose death than doubt that even the smallest part of it were not true.