Among the thousands of mulieres sanctae who vexed, fired, and frightened the thirteenth-century Church with their extravagant piety, several dozen earned the admiring love of hagiographers, providing us with an unprecedented wealth of vitae matrum.² Juliana of Mont-Cornillon (1193-1258) is by no means the most famous of these women, yet it is she who has had the most profound and lasting influence on the Church, for her name is inseparably connected with the feast she devoted her life to promoting the “Feast of the Sacrament,” or Corpus Christi as it was later dubbed. One of the most popular late mediaeval feasts, this new observance overcame initial resistance to become a focal point for devotion to the Body of Christ both in and apart from communion.

Juliana’s eucharistic piety was by no means unique. She rode the crest of a wave of fervour compounded of many elements: devotion to the Saviour’s earthly and carnal humanity, compassion in the face of His Passion, awe at the mystery of transubstantiation (defined in 1215), reverence for the growing mystique of the priesthood, and ecstatic solidarity with a mystical fellowship that transcended order and gender.³ All these sentiments were shared by her brothers and especially her sisters in the ardent diocese of Liège. Cistercians, regular canons, Dominicans, nuns, beguines, and recluses were all numbered among Juliana’s spiritual friends, and neither she nor her biographer seemed to care about their official status. What made Juliana unique in this varied circle was not her passionate devotion to the Eucharist, but her determination to make a special place for it in the liturgical cycle which, as our author says, constituted her “emotional year” (I. 16).

Since Juliana was not only humble but painfully shy, she went far beyond natural and conventional resistance to the divine call, waiting fully twenty years before she dared to act on the vision that required her to inaugurate such a feast. Even then she “keenly desired that someone else should be regarded as the founder of the new feast” (II. 8), and this task was delegated to three of her closest friends: the recluse Eve of St. Martin, the beguine Isabella of Huy, and the canon John of Lausanne (her confessor). When she asked the latter to approach scholars and theologians about the matter, she was especially insistent that he do so “without mentioning her name” (II.7). During her lifetime, Juliana’s efforts behind the scenes met with only limited success. The canons of St. Martin of Liège, spurred by John of Lausanne and Eve, became zealous advocates of the Feast, but the canons of St. Lambert, the cathedral chapter, opposed it. Bishop Robert of Liège was won over but, on the verge of solemnly proclaiming the Feast at a diocesan synod, he died and was replaced in 1247 by the unenthusiastic Henry of Guelders. Only after Juliana’s death did the new feast win papal support in the person of Urban IV (1261-64), formerly Archdeacon of Liège, who decreed its celebration for the universal Church in the bull Transiturus only a few months before his death.⁴

It is in large part the wavering institutional fortunes of the Feast that account for our vita Julianae.⁵ Its author did not transmit his name, but he asserts that his work was commissioned by John of Lausanne, a close friend recently deceased, and he seems almost as eager to establish John’s claim to sanctity as Juliana’s. Moreover, he purports to be translating a fragmentary French source written “through the diligence of a very religious person” close to Juliana – probably Eve of St. Martin.⁶ From these indications he has been plausibly identified as a canon of St. Martin, and because he refers to the papacy of Urban IV but makes no reference to Transiturus, the vita must have been written between 1261 and 1264.⁷ Unlike most saints’ lives, its primary purpose was not to diffuse the subject’s cult, attract pilgrims to her shrine, or even secure her canonization, but to promote the cause she herself served. Thus the author states explicitly that even in heaven, “Christ’s virgin ... still desires the exaltation of this feast more than she desires a perpetual memorial of the life she lived in the body – holy, well-pleasing to God, and perfect as it was” (II. 20).

His purpose in writing, then, was to present Juliana’s exemplary life and virtues as arguments in support of the Feast she promoted, the fate of which hung in the balance. This explains the three long chapters devoted to its uncertain progress, as well as the exceptional inclusion of an official document (a decree of the cardinal Hugh of St. Cher) in II. 15. One could argue that the author’s efforts were crowned with success in 1264, and still more with the effective promotion of Corpus Christi by the Council of Vienne in 1311. The vita Julianae itself remained little-known; only seven manuscripts have been traced, and three of these are lost.⁸ Nor was Juliana officially canonized, despite sporadic efforts to promote her cause.⁹ Nevertheless, her vita survives as a fascinating testament to the thirteenth-century religious milieu.

The vita is divided tidily into two books, the first exalting Juliana’s virtues and revelations, the second covering the intertwined themes of her “persecutions” at Mont-Cornillon and her promotion of Corpus Christi. Since the author was a contemporary if not an acquaintance of Juliana, boasted of mutual friends, and had access to reliable sources, one might expect more than usual accuracy in matters of historical fact. However, both the thematic arrangement of material and the author’s lack of interest in mundane affairs preclude a straightforward chronological account of her life. It may be helpful, therefore, to summarize its major events and to review the political and institutional conflicts which so frequently thwarted the saint.¹⁰

Born of well-to-do but not noble parents, Juliana was orphaned at the age of five and raised, at the wish of her relatives, by a “spiritual sister” fittingly named Sapientia. With her sister Agnes, she grew up on the farm of Boverie, a dependency of Mont-Cornillon where Sapientia and later Juliana were to serve as prioress. The structure of this house was complex and, in the event, unworkable. Founded and funded by the burghers of Liège as a hospice for lepers, its staff included both men and women. Personnel of both sexes, whether healthy or sick, were expected to wear the same habit and obey the same prior. Under the prior was a prioress with authority over the sisters only, and to complicate matters, the magistrates of Liège asserted control over the property and temporal affairs of the house. This prerogative was contested by ecclesiastical authorities, however, and throughout Juliana’s life the two factions vied for control. When she entered the house in 1207, it is not clear what vows she took or what rule, if any, the community was observing. In 1222 she became prioress, however, and with the help of the sympathetic prior Godfrey, she attempted with great difficulty to impose monastic discipline.

After Godfrey’s death in 1237, Juliana’s troubles increased with the election of Roger, a simoniac prior who not only opposed this regimen, but demanded a free hand with the community’s property which had been substantially increased by Juliana’s dowry. Prior and prioress now fought over physical possession of the charters, but the burghers backed Roger, and Juliana was eventually forced to flee from the house. In 1242 she was vindicated, however, when an investigation by Bishop Robert disclosed Roger’s simony and deposed him. The bishop invited Juliana and her loyal followers to return, built a new oratory for her to replace one the angry citizens had wrecked and, most important, granted her a charter which firmly imposed the Augustinian Rule and the three religious vows on Mont-Cornillon.¹¹ Prior John, the young and “deeply innocent” new superior, supported Juliana’s aspirations and even agreed to compose an Office for Corpus Christi.

But new storms broke after Bishop Robert’s death. In November 1247, Henry of Guelders – a notorious lay bishop – restored the magistrates’ rights over Mont-Cornillon and permitted the brothers to depose Prior John and recall Roger from his exile in Huy.¹² With the bishop, the prior, and the burghers united against her, Juliana once again had to flee, this time for life. Now in her fifties, she took three faithful companions – Agnes, Ozilia, and Isabella – and fled helplessly from one Cistercian nunnery to another, unable to find a permanent home. At her fifth station, the abbey of Salzinnes near Namur, she was finally welcomed by the aristocratic abbess Imène and, for the sake of religious propriety, vowed obedience to her. But she preferred to live in a private house with her companions after the manner of beguines, and was eventually persuaded to enter the convent (which she found too luxurious) only after two of them had died.

Juliana lived peacefully at Salzinnes until 1256, the year of Isabella’s death, when a new political crisis violated her hard-won refuge. Salzinnes was under the patronage of Baldwin of Courtenay, styled Latin Emperor of Constantinople under the title of Baldwin II, and Abbess Imène was his kinswoman. Since the Emperor was busy in the East, his wife Marie de Brienne had come to rule Baldwin’s hereditary county of Namur and took up residence for a time at Salzinnes. But Marie’s financial exactions antagonized the burghers, who called on Henry II of Luxembourg – another claimant to this war-torn county – and in 1256 Henry’s troops laid siege to Marie’s castle in Namur.¹³ In the vita Julianae, the broader causes of this civil war are overlooked and, to put the burghers in the worst possible light, the conflict is blamed on a riot stemming from the suppression of a brothel (II.35). In any case, Imène’s friendship with the unpopular empress endangered Salzinnes, as Juliana clearly perceived, and the convent was forced to disperse before the citizens laid waste to the house.

This was the final blow that ruined Juliana’s fragile health; at that time, the biographer tells us, she suffered a heart attack and began to spit blood (II. 43). Abbess Imène and a kindly canon of Fosses found a cell where she was able to live out the few remaining days of her life, dying (as the author happily informs us) on a Friday at three o’clock, imitating Christ’s Passion in her death as in her life. She who had lived by turns as a humble milkmaid, a hospital sister, an Augustinian prioress, a wandering beguine, and a Cistercian nun ended her days, like her beloved friend Eve, as a recluse. By her own wish she was buried at Villers, a Cistercian monastery celebrated for its close relations with mulieres sanctae and its penchant for hagiography.¹⁴

As always, it is difficult to distinguish between Juliana’s own piety and that of her biographer. As an adolescent, he claims, she learned to read Latin fluently and steeped herself in the writings of Augustine and Bernard, going so far as to memorize twenty of the latter’s sermons on the Song of Songs (I. 6). The vita itself is suffused with Bernard’s influence, which is apparent not only in bridal spirituality (Juliana is always referred to as “Christ’s virgin” or “Christ’s handmaid”), but also in pervasive Biblical echoes and an impassioned, frequently polemical style. Juliana and her biographer seem to have shared the spiritual ideal described by Simone Roisin as Cistercian and beguinal, though its influence was clearly not bounded by religious orders.¹⁵ The vita highlights patience, humility, voluntary suffering, and above all, an intense devotional life centered on the human Christ. Aside from the “wonderful inner sweetness” she tasted in the eucharist, Juliana wept or swooned at the memory of Christ’s Passion, honoured the Virgin by repeating her Magnificat nine times a day, and scourged herself in contrition for the sins of mankind. The author assures us that she also had profound mystical experiences, especially while receiving communion, but to his embarrassment, he cannot relate them. Many reasons are offered for this hagiographic failure: Juliana was too humble or too shy to reveal God’s secrets (I. 12); or she wished to do so but had no confidante at her deathbed (II. 45); or she did in fact disclose certain mysteries, but the witnesses predeceased her (prologue). These explanations allow us to cherish the image of Juliana as a great mystic while at the same time admiring her humility and respecting God’s privacy. While Juliana’s contemplation of the Trinity, described in I. 20, may have been real enough, the language obviously bespeaks the author’s scholastic education rather than the subject’s visions.

Unlike many saintly women of her time, Juliana apparently did not engage in active care of the poor and sick, despite the fact that Mont-Cornillon was a leprosarium. Here again, the author is somewhat apologetic (I. 14). The reason, he says, is that Juliana ruined her health as a young woman through overwork and “the violence of intense love for her Creator” (I. 18). It seems obvious that prolonged fasting also contributed to her physical collapse. Her extreme and to some extent involuntary fasting follows the pattern delineated by Caroline Bynum in Holy Feast and Holy Fast: not only did she subsist throughout her life on one scanty meal a day, but even when she wished she found it difficult to swallow food and “had to pray God for the ability to eat” (I. 15). After receiving communion, she would have preferred to abstain from ordinary food for a month at a time, but eventually broke her fast only to display “solidarity with human nature.”¹⁶ We are told that, just as she desired to eat nothing but God, she also wished to speak of nothing but him. In her love of fasting and silence she strove to become a perfectly sealed and sacred vessel from which only grace could overflow.

Of all the charisms our author ascribes to Juliana, he attributes the greatest importance to prophecy, under which (following Gregory I) he includes the gifts we would now call telepathy and clairvoyance. By means of this charism Juliana could read the secrets of hearts, discern others’ hidden sins or virtues, and foretell personal and political disasters. She had a special awareness which informed her when distant friends were sick or dying so she could pray for them. The miracles ascribed to her are in no way grotesque or fantastic, like those in the lives of some of her contemporaries.¹⁷ Most of them suggest only a highly developed empathy, a fervent prayer life, and a genius for friendship. One anecdote, for instance, tells of a nun who was driven half-mad by grief (I. 37). Juliana restored her sanity simply by repeating pious commonplaces that the nun must have heard a dozen times before, but with compassion of jolting intensity. This overflowing caritas combined with psychic abilities must have made Juliana’s presence a source of towering reassurance to those around her, accounting for her wide circle of friends and the unswerving loyalty of her followers.

Nevertheless, she made enemies as well. It is easy to see how: although she did her best to avoid ostentation, as her biographer tells us, her long fasts and vigils inevitably drew attention which was not uniformly favourable. Her exaggerated humility also caused trouble. On one occasion she alienated a distinguished visitor – perhaps a potential donor – by letting him think she was an extravagant sinner (I. 9). Unlike more famous prophetic women – Hildegard of Bingen, Catherine of Siena, even Mary of Oignies – she was intimidated by bishops and dignitaries and tried to avoid the kind of attention others would have welcomed. It was no doubt natural for an orphan raised in humble circumstances to lack self-assurance, but perhaps the more worldly members of her community resented the absence of that savoir-faire expected of a superior.

During her term as prioress, she also antagonized her sisters by getting up in the middle of the night (the devil woke her, as the vita says) to see if they were having trysts with their lovers (II. 3). Her view of chastity was uncompromising: in her own words, “she had never been tempted by the pleasure of carnal desire any more than she had been tempted to eat the bones of the dead” (II. 2). By her rigour as well as her sometimes embarrassing modesty, Juliana courted the persecution and disgrace she desired as a lover of Christ’s Passion (II. 25). Her virtues and weaknesses conspired with circumstances beyond her control to secure this longed-for fate.

As a literary work, the vita Julianae invites comparison with the monuments of Cistercian hagiography from the diocese of Liège – among them the lives of Ivetta of Huy (d. 1229) by Hugh of Floreffe; Lutgard of Aywières (d. 1246) by Thomas of Cantimpré; and the anonymous vitae of the three Idas (Ida of Nivelles, Ida of Leeuw, and Ida of Louvain).¹⁸ Not only do these saintly women present a common spiritual profile, but their hagiographers use very similar literary techniques. As Roisin has observed, they are concerned almost exclusively with the subjects’ inner lives. Even in the vita Julianae, where it is necessary to describe the virgin’s wanderings and the messy conflicts that occasioned them, the author says as little as possible about exterior events, concentrating by choice on Juliana’s patience in adversity, her love for enemies, and so forth. Like the biographers of Ida of Nivelles, Beatrice of Nazareth, and Gobert of Aspremont, our author makes a specious claim to brevity, allowing readers to imagine that the full story of the saint’s visions and exploits would fill volumes.¹⁹ He turns directly to the reader in edifying digressions, diatribes against the enemies of Juliana and her feast, and rapturous panegyrics. While rhetorically eschewing rhetoric, he spices his rather ponderous prose with rhetorical exclamations and dialogues. The work is crowned with a double peroration – first a eulogy in which he invites Juliana, now enjoying the bliss of heaven, to remember her “insignificant scribe” and other devotees, then a spiritual autobiography spun from a cascade of scriptural allusions. A brief appendix cites posthumous miracles, and one fifteenth-century manuscript appends the text of Pope Urban’s letter of congratulation to Eve of St. Martin.²⁰

I, 18. How devoutly and lovingly Juliana observed the special feasts of the year, and with what inward sweetness and delight she kept the festivals of the glorious Virgin and the male and female saints, it is not for my puny and impoverished self to declare. For who could find words to tell (leaving other things aside for now) the spiritual mirth and fervent love with which she received the newborn Christ Child in her arms on his birthday? Who could worthily express, or even imagine, the rich devotion with which she fattened the burnt offerings of her meditations and prayers [Ps. 65: 15] as she considered Christ being born, or nursing, or shedding his limpid blood in circumcision? And who could describe the violent grief and compassion Juliana felt when she remembered Christ’s Passion? To express the feelings she had on such occasions, the genius of Origen would fall short and the torrent of Cicero’s eloquence would run dry. Indeed, for every saving deed that Christ’s singular Majesty manifested in the flesh, she had the most intense emotions, for by meditating and reflecting on them often from her earliest years, she had impressed them firmly on her heart.

When the holy Church commemorated any event at the proper time, Juliana conformed herself entirely to the season. Hence when the Church sings of Christ’s Passion, she was moved with such great compassion that she could scarcely contain herself for sorrow. When she attended services she wept so profusely that the rain of tears from her eyes, squeezed from the wine-press of the Cross, copiously watered the part of the church where she was sitting. And when she heard them begin the hymn “Vexilla regis prodeunt,”²¹ Christ’s Passion was suddenly renewed for her and she cried aloud, until she had to be carried swiftly out of the church. At the remembrance of the Passion she actually melted and could not contain herself unless she was able to revive a little through such outcries, which burst forth not with the consent of her mind but from the sudden movements of her passionate heart. Many times, it is said, she expressed a desire to suffer death on a cross for Christ’s sake in the presence of all living, so that in this way she might return at least some measure of the love Christ showed by dying on the Cross. But since she could not physically die on a cross as she wished, she often stretched herself spiritually, with unbelievably fervent love, on the same cross where Christ had suffered. In that condition it seemed to her that if Christ would permit her spirit to advance as far as it wished in the mysteries she was allowed to see and experience for love of his Passion, she would never be able to return to human life.

From her childhood, in her frequent and holy meditations she gazed with the pious eye of her mind on King Solomon in the crown wherewith his mother crowned him [Cant. 3: 11]. She saw him bound, scourged, spat upon, provoked with mockery, pierced with nails. She saw him as the brazen serpent lifted high on the rod of the Cross in the desert of this exile [Num. 21: 9], given myrrh for his drink, his side pierced by the lance. These marks of the suffering and dying Christ were ever present to Juliana’s heart. Now see whether she could worthily sing that verse from the Song of Songs: “My beloved is to me a bag of myrrh that shall lie between my breasts” [Cant. 1: 12].²² Worthily indeed! From all the anguish and bitter sufferings of her beloved, which are designated by myrrh, she gathered for herself a little bundle as if from sprigs of fragrant myrrh and laid it between her breasts, setting in the core of her heart that saving bitterness which our Saviour deigned to suffer for the salvation of the world, and strictly committing to memory the memorials of the suffering and dying Christ. The memory of them had made her heart so vulnerable and tender that often she could neither hear another speaking of Christ’s Passion nor speak of it herself without being moved to incredible heartache by her extreme compassion.

As people who knew her well have maintained, there were three things that exhausted Juliana’s physical strength from her youth up. One was the strenuous exertion she undertook at Boverie. The second was frequent remembrance of the Lord’s Passion, and the third was the violence of intense love for her Creator.

I, 19. On the feast of the Lord’s Ascension Juliana was sometimes unable to remain indoors: she had to be led or carried outside where she could look into the sky. It seemed to her that she saw Christ in our human form piercing the heights of heaven as he had once ascended before the eyes of his disciples, borne up by his own power [Acts 1: 9]. In this blessed vision of hers she was said to take marvellous delight. Once when she had gone to visit a close friend on this feast day, she was so filled and overflowing with grace that her narrow body could not contain its fulness, and her hostess was afraid that Juliana’s body would burst and split down the middle. She was ready to help the afflicted one when she heard Juliana’s voice proceeding from her chest alone, strange to say, while her mouth remained closed. To let some of the painful inner heat escape, her friend urged her to let out a cry, saying no one would hear it. And Juliana cried out and said, “My Lord has departed!” Is it not as if she had said, “God has gone up with a shout of joy” [Ps. 46: 6]? When she had finished the office of the Ascension, as it were, she returned to herself with a heavy sadness, as if she had been left a lonely orphan. But afterward she took great comfort in the Sacrament of the altar, and also in the consoling words that Jesus left to his disciples together with all the faithful: “Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the world” [Mt. 28: 20].

I, 20. A person of venerable life tells how Juliana once came to visit her in friendship, and they began to recite one of the Hours. When Juliana had said the hymn appointed for that hour up to the phrase, “Grant, O Father, through the Son; grant through the gracious Spirit,” she fixed her eyes on heaven and was unable to say more, but fell into an ecstatic vision of the Trinity. Rapt in ecstasy, she was drawn up to contemplate the sublime and admitted to ineffable knowledge of the mysteries of that celestial city which the river of God makes glad [Ps. 45: 5]. Because of her outstanding purity of mind and holiness of body, this happened to her quite often. In her blessed ecstasy she used to contemplate the state, the bliss, and the glory of that celestial Jerusalem, and in an interior draught she enjoyed no small foretaste of the blessed mirth and exultation of those who feast in the sight of God and delight in gladness. Passing through the mansions and chambers of that house not made with hands, which are many and diverse because of the diversity of merits [Jn. 14: 2, 2 Cor. 5: 1], she arrived at that supreme Divinity whom her soul loved.

With the eyes of a pure heart, therefore, she contemplated the Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity: three with respect to the persons and one in its simple substance, essence, nature. She beheld, and in beholding marvelled, how that divine being does not refuse division in persons, although in its most simple substance, essence, and nature it admits no partition. She saw how that supreme Deity, by the Incarnation of the Father’s only-begotten Son, descended wholly to earth yet nevertheless remained wholly in heaven. She saw the blessed spirits and the souls of the saints – how they existed in themselves and how in God, and how God was in them. She saw how Christ shows himself whole, unbroken, and perfect in the bread to everyone who receives him unto salvation. Nevertheless, she saw that he remains unbroken and perfect in himself.

These and many other mysteries concerning the excellence of God and the glory of the saints, she contemplated in her blessed ecstasy. She understood most of them with an intelligence so pure and clean that she seemed to have a share in the undiluted truth of our future knowledge. As for all the articles pertaining to the Catholic faith, she had been so fully instructed by him who teaches knowledge to mankind [Ps. 93: 10] that she had no need to consult masters or books about them. Indeed, taught by the Holy Spirit’s anointing, she had received such unshakable firmness in the orthodox faith that she once said whatever might happen (that is, whatever heretical traps were set before her), she could never stray from the correctness of her faith.²³ Nor did the sage’s proverb that “the searchers of majesty shall be oppressed by glory” [Prov. 25: 27] apply to her. I think the rash searchers are to be understood not as those who are ravished into glory, but as those who force their way in. Juliana, however, did not rush in to scrutinize the secrets of divine majesty through her own rashness; she was snatched up and admitted to them by the condescension of God’s Son. Hence she was not oppressed by the glory to which she had been admitted with Christ as guide, but imprinted by it, so that she might glory and delight in the true glory. Moreover, when she had returned to herself from this blessed state, a ray of celestial light usually shone upon her, illumining her intellect so that the pure understanding of her mind could perceive many spiritual goods no less clearly and plainly than we perceive bodily things with our eyes.

II, 6. From her youth, whenever Christ’s virgin gave herself to prayer, she saw a great and marvellous sign. There appeared to her the full moon in its splendour, yet with a little breach in its spherical body. When she had seen this sign for a long time she was astonished, not knowing what it might mean. But she could not marvel enough over the fact that, whenever she was intent on prayer, the sign constantly impressed itself on her vision. After she had tried with all her might to make it go away, as she wished, and could not succeed, she began to trouble herself unduly in fear and trembling, thinking that she was being tempted. So she prayed and asked people she trusted to pray that the Lord would rescue her from a temptation she was suffering, as she said. But when she could not drive the importunate sign away by any effort, nor by any prayer of her own or other Christians, she finally began to wonder if perhaps, instead of trying so hard to drive it away, she should seek to discover some mystery in it.

Then Christ revealed to her that the moon was the present Church, while the breach in the moon symbolized the absence of a feast which he still desired his faithful upon earth to celebrate. This was his will for the increase of faith at the end of a senescent age, and also for the growth and grace of the elect: that once every year, the institution of the Sacrament of his Body and Blood should be recollected more solemnly and specifically than it was at the Lord’s Supper, when the Church was generally preoccupied with the washing of feet and the remembrance of his Passion. On this feast of the memorial of the Sacrament, what was passed over lightly or negligently on ordinary days should be celebrated with greater attention. Christ revealed these things to his virgin, therefore, and commanded her that she herself should inaugurate this feast and be the first to tell the world it should be instituted.

But Juliana, considering the sublimity of the matter and observing her own lowliness and frailty, was more astonished than words can tell. She replied that she could not do what she had been commanded. Yet every time she prayed, Christ admonished her to accept the task for which he had chosen her above all mortals. And she always answered, “Lord, release me, and give the task you have assigned me to great scholars shining with the light of knowledge, who would know how to promote such a great affair. For how could I do it? I am not worthy, Lord, to tell the world about something so noble and exalted. I could not understand it, nor could I fulfil it.” But he responded that by all means, she should be the one to initiate this feast, and from then on it should be promoted by humble people. And once while she was praying, beseeching the Lord with all her heart to choose another for this task, she heard a voice saying, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding of this world, and revealed them to babes” [Lk. 10: 21]. Even then she did not consent at once, but answered, “Rouse yourself, Lord, and raise up great scholars; and let me depart in peace, the least of your creatures” [Lk. 2: 29]. And the voice came to her again, saying, “He has set in my mouth a new song, a song of praise to our God. I have not hidden your righteousness in my heart, I have told of your truth and your salvation: I have not hidden your mercy and your truth from the great congregation” [Ps. 39: 4,11].

II,7. Thus more than twenty years after this vision, when out of excessive humility Juliana had again prayed with unspeakable groaning [Rom. 8:26] that Christ would give the task to someone else, but could not in the least obtain what she asked, she discerned that it was hard to kick against the goad of God’s will [Acts 9: 5] and submitted her will to his. For she had persisted in prayers and tears so long that she had no more tears to weep, and her eyes shed pure blood instead. Let no one be scandalized that Christ’s virgin appeared to consent so belatedly to the divine admonition, for the cause did not lie in negligence or in any lack of devotion toward the Sacrament, but only in the most profound humility. For she always maintained that she was most unworthy in the sight of the Lord to proclaim so great a feast to the world, excusing herself as well on account of her lack of experience and power. But the more she reckoned herself unworthy, the more Christ, who loves and teaches humility, reckoned her worthy.

II, 8. Now the handmaid of Christ keenly desired that someone else should be regarded as the founder of the new feast. She also longed to have a neighbor who would share her thoughts and feelings, to whom she could tell her desire and impart at least some of the things she could not conceal because of the fulness of her heart. She knew by reputation of a beguine named Isabella, living at Huy, who was held in the highest esteem by all the religious who knew her, for she was of marvellous patience, outstanding humility, and unbounded charity – in short, abounding in grace and virtue. The gracious Lord, who chastises every child that he receives [Heb. 12: 6], had led her to this peak of perfection through many trials, and by mighty physical scourging he had made her worthy of so many spiritual gifts. Having heard of her reputation, therefore, Juliana arranged for this Isabella to be received as a sister at Mont-Cornillon.

Christ’s virgin often tested her in conversation to make sure that the Lord had enlightened her mind in the understanding of divine and spiritual things. At last she wanted to find out whether God had shown Isabella any of the celestial mystery concerning the institution of a new feast of the Sacrament. When they had been talking for a while about the marvels of this Sacrament, Sister Juliana asked Isabella what she would think of establishing a special feast of thanksgiving for this Sacrament to increase its glory and honour. But Isabella, who had not yet received the special gift of sharing Juliana’s sentiments, was on this occasion not careful enough to draw honey from the rock and oil from the hardest stone [Deut. 32: 13]. To speak more plainly, she was not prudent enough to extract what lay hidden in the cavern of her questioner’s heart, for in her excessive humility Juliana had concealed the great mystery. So Isabella simply replied, “What is the daily feast of pious hearts, my lady, if not this Sacrament?” Then Sister Juliana, perceiving from this response that the secret revealed to her had not yet been imparted to Isabella, behaved as if her heart had been pierced by a two-edged sword [Lk. 2: 35]. For Juliana was inwardly distressed that her friend had not received the comfort of a similar revelation, as she had believed.

But Sister Isabella, recognizing by Juliana’s face and manner that her simple response (or rather ignorance) had caused great pain, realized that she did not feel what the other felt. So she prayed to the Lord insistently for a year, and asked many other religious to pray also, that he would open the eyes of her understanding. After a time she had to go for some reason to visit the recluse of St. Martin. When she approached the hermitage and saw that the doors of the church were open, she went in to pray and prostrated herself before the crucifix. And behold! In an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, she was rapt up to heaven [1 Cor. 15: 52] and the Lord showed her how this special feast of the Sacrament had always been hidden in the Blessed Trinity. He revealed to her that the time had now come for this most sacred solemnity to be declared to men, upon whom the ends of the ages had come [1 Cor. 10: 11]. And she saw all the ranks of the heavenly hosts beseeching the Lord with devout and perpetual prayers that at last he would hasten to disclose to an imperiled world the new feast he had kept hidden until these times, in order to strengthen and confirm the faith of the Church Militant and increase the grace of the elect. After she had returned from heaven to earth, she followed the example of the blessed spirits who yearned and besought the Lord to make this feast known to the world, and she had such a desire for this that she once said she alone would work to establish this feast in the Church even if the whole world opposed it. What gave her confidence was the vision she had received by the will of the Lord. When she told Sister Juliana what she had seen in her ecstasy, Juliana rejoiced with exultation because the Lord had made her friend and companion a most certain witness of the divine will, not by hearing from any human being, but by revelation and pure knowledge. From then on, Juliana and Isabella talked frequently and intimately, in honeyed speech, about the institution and promotion of this holy festival.

II, 9. So Juliana, strengthened by divine and human counsel, began to wonder whom she could get to compose the Office for so great a feast. When she realized that she could not have on hand the literary men, the distinguished scholars, who seemed appropriate for the task, she trusted in the aid of divine wisdom alone and decided to choose a certain John, a brother of her house – a young man but deeply innocent.²⁴ He was the one, in fact, of whom Christ’s virgin had long ago predicted to the recluse of St. Martin that he would help her bear the weight of trials to come. Although she was aware that he lacked literary knowledge, she knew that the power and wisdom of God, whose work she wanted to accomplish, could speak worthily through an uneducated person. So she zealously encouraged him to assemble and compose an Office for the new feast. At first he was diffident and began to excuse himself on the ground of his ignorance, but Juliana heartened the nervous and timid young man and promised divine assistance. What more should I say? Though he had no doubt that such a task exceeded the measure of his talent and knowledge – for he was indeed of very modest learning – he was overcome by the prayers and authority of the virgin, whose sanctity he well knew. So he set out to compose and arrange an Office.

He set out, I say, trusting in the help of him who says through the prophet, “Open your mouth and I will fill it” [Ps. 80: 11]. The young brother and Christ’s virgin agreed that when he began to write, she would begin to pray; in this way each would be helped by the other for their mutual comfort. Thus the brother, perusing the books of many saints like a clever bee, culled the flowers of divine quotations that were fragrant with the sweetness of the Sacrament of Christ’s Body and Blood. From these he inwardly confected a honey of antiphons, responsories, hymns, and other items pertaining to the Office and stored it in the hive of his wax tablets. In these honeycombs he made the confection sweeter than before. So, more easily and skilfully than he could have hoped at the outset, he accomplished what he pleased. But he ascribed his success to the prayer of Christ’s virgin rather than his own industry or labour, and when he had composed any part of the Office he would bring it to her and say, “This is sent to you from on high, my lady. Look and see whether anything needs to be corrected in the chant or in the text.” With the wondrous knowledge infused in her, she did this with such shrewdness and subtlety when the need arose that, after her examination and correction, even the greatest masters did not need to polish it any further. And what Christ’s virgin had approved, he retained or submitted to her correction.

So it happened that the whole Office for the new feast – the Night Office and the daytime Hours, with the hymns, antiphons, responsorial readings, chapters, collects, and all the other propers – was completed, while Christ’s virgin prayed, the young brother composed, and God wondrously assisted. All these texts and melodies are of such beauty and sweetness that they should be able to wring devotion even from hearts of stone. But before the Office was published, it was shown to those great theologians I named earlier, and to many other men of no meagre learning, so that they could check and see whether there was anything they wanted to correct or polish. Scrutinizing everything carefully in the light of truth, they could find nothing tasteless, irregular, or crude. Many of them asked in amazement who could have done such excellent work. When they were told that this young brother had done it, those who knew him answered, “Truly, it is not he but the Holy Spirit who has done this,” and they had splendid praise for the whole Office, because even the most painstaking readers found nothing that required an editor’s file.²⁵