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Updated: May 18, 2025
Sometimes there came to Lithuania a collector of alms from a foreign convent, and after he became more closely acquainted with the lords of an estate, he would show them a gazette, which he cut out from his scapulary. In it would be set forth the number of soldiers and the names of all the leaders in every legion; with an account of the victory of each or of his doom.
After he had given it, however, one of the saints in heaven informed him in a vision, that the holy scapulary must not remain on the neck of so great a sinner; and that it must be restored to the church. She lay down that night with the scapulary round her throat, but in the morning was found dead, with her head cut off, and the scapulary was discovered in the church.
He preached at executions, his black mantle and white scapulary were welcomed in loathsome dungeons, he absolved the dying, he exorcised demons. But there was one sinner he could not absolve, neither by hair-shirt nor flagellation, and that was himself.
"I want you to keep that, please, for a pattern, and to remember me," she said. "I've made yards more than I really want. It's nothing," she added, hastily interrupting the surprised and remonstrating thanks of the other. "And now we must see about that scapulary thing, or whatever it is, for your nun's dress."
This betided him for that, being a man of substance, he gave many a good pittance to the clergy, who, getting of him often, this a pair of hose, that a gown and another a scapulary, taught him in return store of goodly orisons and gave him the paternoster in the vulgar tongue, the Song of Saint Alexis, the Lamentations of Saint Bernard, the Canticles of Madam Matilda and the like trumpery, all which he held very dear and kept very diligently for his soul's health.
He sketched the scheme, laid down the rule, and prescribed the costume, explaining its symbolism, declaring that the white robe of its maidens would do honour to that with which He was mockingly invested in Herod's palace; that their red cloak would keep in memory that which was cast over Him in the house of Pilate; that their crimson scapulary and girdle would preserve the remembrance of the stake and the cords dyed in His blood.
Marie gave me a thick woollen muffler in shades of violet, which she had been knitting for me in secret for several days. My aunt put round my neck a little scapulary which had been blessed, and when my mother and father arrived everything was ready. A farewell dinner was given, to which two of my mother's friends, Aunt Rosine, and four other members of the family were invited.
"It was something admirable," says Houssart, "to see, firstly, his assiduity in being present at the burial of all who died in Quebec, and his promptness in offering the holy sacrifice of the mass for the repose of their souls, as soon as he had learned of their decease; secondly, his devotion in receiving and preserving the blessed palms, in kissing his crucifix, the image of the Holy Virgin, which he carried always upon him, and placed at nights under his pillow, his badge of servitude and his scapulary which he carried also upon him; thirdly, his respect and veneration for the relics of the saints, the pleasure which he took in reading every day in the Lives of the Saints, and in conversing of their heroic deeds; fourthly, the holy and constant use which he made of holy water, taking it wherever he might be in the course of the day and every time he awoke in the night, coming very often from his garden to his room expressly to take it, carrying it upon him in a little silver vessel, which he had had made purposely, when he went to the country.
One day he kissed his mother's hand, without feeling any very great emotion towards the trembling and nearly blind old woman, for the seminary had for him more tender memories than the house of his fathers, smoked his last cigar with his brothers in the garden without revealing his intentions to them, and that night he fled from Toledo with a scapulary of the Heart of Jesus sewed into his waistcoat, and a beautiful silk scarf in his wallet, one of those worked by white hands in the convents of the city.
He pointed to where he had laid it: her white habit, scapulary, wimple, veil and girdle; the dress of a Prioress of the Order of the White Ladies. She turned her startled eyes upon it. Then quickly looked away. "Did you yourself think a vision needed, in order that I might be justified in leaving the Convent, Hugh?"
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