| The Life of Ida of Nivelles, “Send Me God” translated Martin Cawley ocso, pp. 62-63.
21. The Christ Child at the Christmas Masses
(21a) Once on that most sacred night when the Lord of majesty (Ps. 28.3) deigned to be born of the Virgin (Antiphon: Christmas), bodily illness confined Ida to the infirmary regime.[i] When vigils were over she sat out in the cloister, waiting expectantly for the Lord to send her a grace-filled blessing.[ii] Then, at the first mass, when the celebrant was elevating the host, she saw in his hand a little boy, newborn it seemed and truly fair beyond the beauty of little ones anywhere.
(21 b) But on seeing him, there came over her a fear and a trembling (Ps. 54.6), because never had she had any longing to see him in that human guise. She was concerned lest her faith prove incomplete and fall short of believing in the wondrous mystery of this sacrament and thus lessen her merit with God, inasmuch as human reason, or rather human sight, would be providing experiential evidence. But the Lord knew full well the firmness of her faith and he did not let her be upset for long, for at that very moment he inwardly bade her rid her mind of all such scruples. Reassured thus by the Lord, her attention went to the priest who was singing the mass and to the status of his soul, as she watched his manner of dividing that little boy into the three parts (EO 53.100), and to his trembling reverence as he consumed that delightful and salutary banquet-fare. She lingered on in the cloister,"[iii] seated again at the same spot, until the end of lauds, inwardly relishing the sweetness of that wondrous vision, and ever jubilantly joyous of mind.
(21 c) After lauds had been sung, Ida washed her hands and rinsed the inside of her mouth,"[iv] and so entered the church with the other infirm nuns (EO 4.10), and sat down in a corner to the rear of the choir. Then, while the second mass was being sung, she again beheld in the priest's hands that little boy, so refined and so gracious of countenance, whose inner joyousness showed outwardly like an overflow of honey.
(2Id) When the other infirm sisters were going in procession up to the altar to communicate (EO 57 and 58), Ida was somewhat terrified and withdrew her foot (Gregory, Dial n Prol. 1), lest she be caught within the procession still unable to ingest that living babe."[v] Hence with ardent yearning she begged her Beloved to show the goodwill of his mercy by tempering these wondrous visions of his sacramental body and enabling her to partake of it unimpaired and to welcome his whole self into her entrails and into the very marrow of her soul.[vi] She lingered at the same spot until high mass. Even then, just as in the earlier masses, she again beheld the little boy, slightly taller this time in stature. He was coming down from the altar to offer her his embrace and his kiss, and in his sweet warm mercy he was delightfully surrendering himself to be embraced and kissed by her in return. And then in a gracious whisper he told her: 'Oh, sweet friend, I have been showing you my humanity such as it underlies the form of the bread. This I have done, not from any doubt about your faith or your readiness to believe, but from my own wish to let you know with what love, what concern, what zeal I regard yourself!' Hearing this, Ida answered in the silence of her thoughts: 'But oh, my sweetest one, what gratitude, what joyous exultation would fill my inmost heart if you would instead show me how praiseworthy, how love worthy you are in your divinity.' The sweet boy replied to her thought saying: 'Do not ask such things of me, daughter, since no mortal can, in this life, come to know what I am like in my divinity. For the present, peace to you, oh friend of peace; have peace in me; for when I make all things new and gather you to myself (Apoc. 21.5), then can you come to know the glory of my divinity face to face (Gen. 32.30).' (21 e) Then, lest her sisters be scandalized that on a day of such solemnity she not receive Christ's sacrament, she asked her beloved Jesus"[vii] to deign to allow her the possibility of receiving his body without difficulty. Accordingly, the vision came to an end and she approached the altar with the rest of her sisters and received with all peace the very author of peace. And the wondrously abundant and agreeable savour (Ps. 144.7) which divinely inebriated her that day, was to persevere in her soul up until Candlemas. |
[i] In infirmitorio cogebat detineri: for participation in the liturgy by those in the infirmary, see EO 91 and 92. Ida was attending the Christmas hours in church, seated behind the choir.
[ii] In infirmitorio cogebat detineri: for participation in the liturgy by those in the infirmary, see EO 91 and 92. Ida was attending the Christmas hours in church, seated behind the choir.
[iii] In eadem autern loco claustri in quo residebat. [. . .} usque adfinem laudum permansit: a chilly spot on Christmas night for someone sick, but the community as a whole was expected to sit there for the intervals between the Christmas offices and masses. Individually, however, they also had the option of warming up in the calefactory, though not that of going back to bed (EO 4).
[iv] I do not find this personal oral ablution mentioned elsewhere.
[v] The nuns' embarrassment over this elaborate ritual is illustrated in Lew 19.
[vi] Et totum totis animae suae medullis inviscerare posset. Literally: 'be able to inviscerate the whole him with the total marrows of her soul', See Arn I.3b, n. 21
[vii] Rogavit dilectum suum Jesum: for Goswins rather rare uses of the name Jesus, see Niv 2e, n. 16: Niv 29b--3: Arn II.5b: Ab l l e. The less emotionally-charged name, 'Christ', can come without supportive terms of reverence or endearment, and can be written as a simple 'x', imitating the Greek monogram. The grammatical ending is then added as a superscript. But not so here, as Ida invokes Jesus in prayer, she embellishes the name with a term of affection (beloved). In B fol. 19vb Jesus is spelt out in full, and its Greek monogram worked in: ihesum. In A fo1. 164r there is simply monogram ihm (the 'm' being for the grammatical case) but an extra term of affection is slipped in: the adjective pium, (her loving, kind, beloved, Jesus).
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