Else Von Neustadt (XIV Century).

She became seriously ill at the age of 70 and could not move.

She said, "I have forgotten all things, but I can still remember God. I am also abandoned by all the world, but God has not abandoned me; he deals with me kindly and faithfully in every way. (...) I am as happy as human being can be on earth. God has repaid me for my poor life and will do so more and more. How could one who sees God be vexed? He makes the time short and pleasant for me." Buber, Ecstatic Confessions, P.77.

She said, "I cannot even remember myself very well. Where the mind and heart go, save only into him, I do not know. My soul then places itself in God and knows all things in him, and then I see the purity of my soul and that it is without any stain." Ibid., P.78.

She said, "He appears to me like a beautiful loving youth, and the chamber becomes crowded with angels and saints. (...)." Ibid., P.78.

She had resigned her will so completly to his will that she desired neither to live nor to die (...). "God is in me and I in him; he is mine and I am his; he belongs to me and I to him. My soul is beautiful and splendid and blithesome for God has opened up his grace to me, and I am loved by him. (...) His speech is so loving that no one can tell of it. He can speak so that it goes through the soul and through the bottom of the heart. (...) When one loves him with complete fidelity and casts off all sin and everything becomes a praise of God - that is how it happened. (...) He has said to me that he will take me to him, and all the fear and terror that I had of death and pain are entirely gone from my heart." Ibid., P.78-79.

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Last updated: 1999/04/05