country that St. Thomas visited. I made a mistake, it does not belong to the holy kings’ stuff, the pilgrim must cross that out. Somebody gave it to me as a senseless sort of test, without considering what I was contemplating internally at that moment: this causes sad confusion. Now, however, I have seen the relics again and know where they are. Several years ago I gave a little packet, sewn together like a knob, to my sister-in-law who lives at Flamske. It was before her last confinement, and she had begged me for some kind of holy relic to support her; so I gave her this little bundle, which I saw shining and as though it had once been in contact with the Mother of God. I cannot remember whether I looked through its whole contents at the time, but the good woman got great comfort from it. It contains a little piece of dark red carpet and two little pieces of thin woven stuff, like crêpe, of the colour of raw silk; also a piece of some stuff like green calico, a tiny piece of wood, and a few little splinters of white stone. I have sent a message to my sister-in-law to bring them back to me.’ [A few days later her sister-in-law paid her a visit and brought the little packet, which was about the size of a walnut. The writer undid it very carefully at home, and separated the remnants of stuff which were twisted together in it, moistening them and pressing them flat between the leaves of a book. These consisted of about two square inches of thick coarse woollen stuff woven in a very faded flowered pattern, in colour dark reddish brown and in places dark purple; there were also strips, two fingers in length and breadth, of loose, thin woven stuff like muslin, of the colour of raw silk; and a little piece of wood and a few splinters of stone. In the evening he held the pieces of stuff, which he had put inside notepaper, in front of her eyes. Not knowing what it was, she said first: ‘What am I to do with these letters?’ Then, as soon as she had taken the closed letters one by one in her hand, she said: ‘You must keep that carefully and not allow one thread of it to be lost. The thick stuff that looks brown now was once a deep red; it was part of a carpet as big as my room; the servants of the kings spread it out in the Cave of the Nativity, and Mary sat on it with the Infant Jesus while the kings swung their censers. Afterwards she always kept it in the cave, and she put it on the donkey when she went to Jerusalem for the Presentation of the Infant Jesus in the Temple. The thin crêpe-like stuff is a piece of a short cloak of three separate strips of stuff which the kings wore fastened to their collars. It was like a ceremonial stole and fluttered over back and shoulders. It had a fringe with tassels. The splinters of wood and stone are of a later time: they come from the Promised Land.’ [During these days she saw, in her consecutive visions of the Ministry of Jesus, the events of January 27th in the year of His death. She saw Our Lord on His way to Bethany in an inn near Bethoron160 with seventeen disciples. ‘He taught them about their calling and kept the Sabbath with them: the lamp was burning the whole day. Among these disciples is one who has lately followed Him from Sichar. I saw him so plainly, some of his bones must be among my relics, a little thin white splinter. His name sounds like Silan or Vilan, those are the letters I see.’ Finally she said: ‘Silvanus’, adding after a while: ‘I have once more seen the little pieces of stuff which I possess belonging to the three kings. There must be another little bundle there; among its contents are a piece of King Mensor’s cloak, a piece of a red silk covering which was beside the Holy Sepulchre in old days, and a piece of the red and 160
Bethoron is about twenty miles north-west of Jerusalem. (SB)
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