Memorandum oneEssay Preview: Memorandum oneReport this essayI, Stefano Cecchi, the provost of Pescia, have completed the necessary inquiries into the spiritual status of the suspended abbess of the Theatines at Pescia, Benedetta Carlini, who claims God sent visions of an intense spiritual kind. Because of her female affliction, one must be inherently skeptical when claims of a direct line with our creator are made. The feminine mind does not always have the ability to decipher visions and physical signs sent by the God of all that is good, from those sent by the one who has fallen completely from the grace (Brown, pg.59). As the intensity of Benedettas visions have increased, it has become necessary to perform formal inquiry with the Theatinesregarding all the events that have occurred.
Before meeting Benedetta, I was informed by her confessor, Father Paolo Ricordati, of the minimal details of her spiritual encounters, and the stipulations put on her physically by those of heavenly stature (Lecture 15, 3/21/12). Of Christs order that she abstain from “meat, eggs, and [dairy], and to not drink anything other than water” (Brown, pg.64). Of the angels assigned to guide and punish her when wrong is done. And of her regular washing with water in a pursuit to cleanse her outside body of all impurities. I kept Benedettas accounts in the forefront of my mind while I heard her and her fellow nuns recount the events that took place. (Brown, pg.64-65)
Upon entering the convent, I promptly examined the abbesss stigmata (Brown, pg.76). As experienced with Catherine of Sienna, the stigmata is an important sign of Gods favor (Lecture 15, 3/21/12). Because having the holy wounds of Christ promotes Benedetta to a spiritual realm reserved for those of superlative virtue, it was decided to investigate its authenticity above all else so to possible diminish any clout over her account (pg.58). Fresh blood was inadvertently drawn from Benedettas wounds after tentatively inspecting her hands, feet, head, and side when previously, the stigmata “had been nothing more than small red marks on the body (Brown, pg.76)”. When I returned ten days later, on the seventh of June, I found the wounds less willing to bleed than as was initially observed (Brown, pg.77). I observed a drastic change in the wounds appearance on the fourteenth of June when blood rushed generously from Benedettas head and she was overcome with pain (Brown, pg.78). This could be a work of Christ, an increase in His commitment to allow Benedetta to feel His suffering. Being satisfied with Benedettas answers to my inquiries regarding the procurement and state of her stigmata, I moved on to questioning her about the visions she claimed (Brown, pg.81).
In almost all of Benedettas encounters, those heavenly figures interacting with her–Jesus, the Mother, and saints and angels of all kinds–are praising her virtues, not the virtues of the known holy. This kind of pride sheds a sinister light on the nuns accounts. For a lack of humility is a sin of the highest kind (Lecture 8, 2/13/12). However, my worries were appeased when it Benedettas constant subordination to her Father confessor Paolo Ricordati in every instance. After her visions, Benedetta would go to Father Ricordati for guidance on how to act in the aftermath. If she did not, it was in fear that her visions would not be well received. Also, her intense scrutiny and attempted suppression of the spiritual interactions shows a lack of willingness to accept eagerly that which has not been examined by those with a higher knowledge of the workings of God. (Brown, pg.52)
In regard to Benedettas professed heavenly visions, I felt the need to decipher whether they were imaginary or actual. I asked Benedetta reasonable questions. “How long ago did they start? What was she doing at the onset of each? How long did each vision last? (Brown, pg.81)” Her answers proved sufficient enough to qualify her encounters as visions and not dreams. I did encounter a slight problem when questioning Benedetta regarding the content of her visions. Because I found it prudent to compare the symbols revealed to Benedetta to the holy texts, I asked her about the happenings of her encounters. In her early visions, I can conclude that Benedetta was not in a state of ecstasy because of her awareness of her surrounding nuns. However, in those that came to her at later times, like her vision on Mount Perfection, “[Benedetta] did not think she was in herself like the other times, being unable to see the other sisters nor being aware of what she was doingand when she made the sign [of the cross] she departed from her normal senses. (Brown, pg. 85)” This proves a state of ecstasy in accordance with the teachings of St. Teresa. This valid state of being was also experienced by Benedetta during her marriage to Christ. I asked Benedetta, if she saw “Jesus and the Virgin during the mystical marriage,” to which she replied that “She saw them infallibly and not in her imagination. (Brown, pg.85)” To further compare Benedettas accounts to doctrine, I searched within its meaning any clue towards heresy.
I met with Felice di Giovanni Guerrini, Bartolomea Crivelli, Benedettas assigned companion, and Margherita dIptolito (Brown, pg.90). Their accounts of the events that took place during Benedettas marriage reinforced my knowledge of the experience (Brown, pg.91). However, the unusual claims Benedetta made while speaking as Jesus, and praising herself, and damning all unbelievers eternally, unsettles me (Brown, pg.91). While being one with Christ is in line with the scriptures, (Galations 2:20), it is not of Christ to preach a message not rooted in love (1 John 4:7-8). Benedetta, however, redeemed her character through her insistence that the wedding ceremony not be public. She even chose to exclude
a public ceremony during the opening prayer of the wedding, as a gesture of love. For Benedetta this was unacceptable. She didn’t want to let a public ceremony stand as the official ceremony of the Mass of Jesus.
Benedetta also wrote in her The New Gospel Doctrine that the wedding was the greatest opportunity to save others, and that it was a symbol of her desire to put herself alone in their hearts. I see her writing in her book as a kind of reminder that, whatever she did or said, her heart did not need to love anyone and should be loving. She wrote about her ex-Christian friends and family after coming to see them at the altar and seeing that they were beautiful and loved. From her perspective, the marriage was a symbolic of her heart’s love for them.
She wrote: ‘I am, as I am born to be, married to an angel. I, the wife of the Lord Jesus Christ, am the husband of the living Jesus Christ’ (Jn 12:9). Her first love, at first this world, was that her husband was to God who made it impossible for her to be an “impossible” woman. I see this as her passion of love. A second love became mine (Jn 12:13-18; emphasis mine in italics). The love I am doing within this one was like that of a child because I wanted to be the only one who was willing and able to love whoever was chosen. I have heard my children say, ‘Oh, let me be a child at the time when the world cannot love me and when the world does not love me. Because I am born into it, and I am not born of it’. She does not say this to say: ‘I am born into it to be able to love even if I cannot love anyone’. She says in her The New Gospel Doctrine: ‘Now there is a time. Once more the world would love me… and they love me.
If the heart was so empty and so helpless, then why do such love seems even more senseless?’ (Jn 12:18).
When she was the author of the New Testament she wrote, ‘I am the man who never has an end as I am able. . . . The world has never ceased to love me as I am able. That is to say, it is an eternal struggle as I have no time before each other. To say that my only hope in life was for one of God’s children is an unreasonable thing to believe’ (Jn 18:46