The entire middle ages ought to be committed

[highlyeccentric]

I also heard a story about Gertrude of Helfta, a fifteenth century nun who had a vision that she was in a deep valley of despair, and Christ hovered above her; he then lowered down a long, thin golden tube, "like a drinking straw," down which he issued "many pleasant things" to her. Then, eventually, he sucked her up through the straw into heaven. She wrote (or at least, I think it was her - my notes are a little vague on this) that she wished that she could be disassembled for god; that her veins be woven into a little dress for the Christ child, and her blood drained to be his bathwater. Oh my god, the middle ages, THERAPY.

In context, Toft is a committed student of the middle ages

Comments

[quinfirefrorefiddle]

If I remember my saints correctly, this is far from being the weirdest thing somebody from the Middle Ages said about God. I'm pretty sure it was one of the Teresas (not of Avila, I think, another one) who compared God's love to breast milk.

You kind of had to be there. And I really wasn't.

[highlyeccentric]

Catherine of Sienna. Married to christ, with his foreskin as a ring.

[quinfirefrorefiddle]

Ahh, yes. I had forgotten that last part- thanks. :)

And I thought the "Jesus-is-my-boyfriend" music was bad now....

[highlyeccentric]

Oh, I don't know if it was the same person as the breast-milk person... there was LOTS of that sort of insanity metaphor going on...

[holyschist]

OH MY GOD, MIDDLE AGES AUGH.

[foxfirefey]

I'm trying to figure out how fabric woven out of veins would feel. I'm assuming they'd stay alive and squishy and rubbery. Wow. This is fascinating.

[jalendavi_lady]

I'm trying to figure out how anyone thought the little Christ child would be slightly interested in any such thing made from human parts.

Aztec gods, yes. Baby Jesus? Urm...

[laughingrat]

Aw, I've always been intrigued by the weird combination of body-consciousness/body-abnegation, plus sentimentality, that goes with some of these visions. <3

[wychwood]

toft also posted a while back about some guy who had a vision in which Jesus and a couple of angels turned up and pushed him down the stairs. FTW.

[archersangel]

if not therapy, then heavy medication

[lady_deirdre]

Which is probably what lead to this in the first place.

Seriously, most of those medieval saints were doing some heavy-duty drugs...