Well it is my New Year's resolution to eat better. Thanks!
Here Anne Catherine is given a glance at paradise and relates a few of the many things she sees. It is a real place and still exists, though out of the reach of man. Just a foretaste of what awaits the one who waits on God.
1) "Unicorns still exist and herd together. I know of a piece of the horn of one of these animals which is for sick beasts what blessed objects are for men."
2) "I have often seen that unicorns still exist, but far remote from the abodes of men, away up in the valleys around the Mountain of the Prophets. In size, they are something like a colt with slender
legs; they can climb steep heights and stand on a very narrow ledge, their feet drawn close together."
3) "They cast their hoofs like shells or shoes, for I have often seen them scattered around. They have long yellowish hair, very thick and long around the neck and breast; it looks like wreathes. They live to a great age."
4) "On their forehead is a single horn, an ell in length, which curls up toward the back of the head, and which they shed at certain periods. It is sought after and preserved as something very precious."
5) "The unicorns are very timid, so shy one cannot approach them, and they live in peace among themselves and with other animals. The males and females dwell apart and come together only at certain times, for they are chaste and produce not many young."
6) "It is very difficult to see or catch them, as they live far behind the other animals over which they exercise a wonderful empire; even the most venomous, the most horrible seem to regard them with a species of respect. Serpents and other frightful things coil themselves up and lie humbly on their backs when a unicorn approaches and breathes on them."
7) "They have a kind of alliance with the most savage beasts, they mutually protect one another. When danger threatens a unicorn, the others spread terror on all sides whilst the unicorn hides behind them but it, in its turn, protects them from their enemies, for all withdraw in affright from the secret and marvellous power of the unicorn's breath."
8) "It must be the purest of all the lower animals, since all have so great reverence for it. Wherever it feeds, wherever it drinks, all venomous things withdraw."
9) " It seems to me that it is looked upon as something holy, since it is said that the unicorn rests its head only upon the bosom of a pure virgin. This signifies that flesh issued pure and holy only from the bosom of the Blessed Virgin Mary; that degenerate flesh was regenerated in her, or that in her for the first time flesh became pure; in her, the ungovernable was vanquished; in her, what was savage was subdued; in her, unrestrained humanity became pure and tractable; in her bosom was the poison drawn from the earth."
10) "I saw these animals also in Paradise, but much more beautiful. Once I saw them harnessed to the chariot of Elias when he appeared to a man of the Old Testament. I have seen them on wild, raging torrents, and running swiftly in deep, narrow, rugged valleys; and I have also seen them in far distant
places where lie heaps of their bones on shores and in underground caves." |
