12. Of the happy death of master wermbold, priest, this Virgin's faithful friend

Among many devout fathers and men versed in spiritual grace, at Utrecht in the days of the venerable lord bishop Frederick, was a certain priest of chaste life and zealous for souls, by name Wermbold, beloved of God and men, and known far and wide to many religious in the diocese of Utrecht and in the country of Holland. He was a native of a certain town of Holland near Goudam, and for many years he shone as director and confessor of the Sisters of the Third Order at St. Cecily in Utrecht. Who, deeply versed in the divine scriptures, often preached the word of God in the church, and, fervently watching in prayers and devout medita tions for the purity of his heart he merited also to be visited from on high by frequent consolations and divine revelations. To the knowledge of this so famous a father, not by human information but by divine revelation, ST. LYDWINE of SCHIEDAM the holy virgin Lydwine, still living in poverty in a poor hut, attained in this manner. For when on the feast of the Lord's Annunciation1 the aforesaid virgin, having completed barely half her illness, was rapt to contemplate the things of Heaven, it happened also that the most devout priest of Christ, Wermbold, was likewise raised at the same hour to behold heavenly things; and then from having this one and like contemplation, they both com menced divinely that mutual acquain tance which they had not had before. Wherefore the same venerable father, urged by an affection of pious devotion, wished to know also and see with the eyes of the body the servant of God, whom he had known already in the spirit. Coming in, therefore, to her little house where she lay sick, and beholding her misery wherewith she was burdened, as the Samaritan in the gospel he was moved with com passion towards her, and wounded to the heart with the arrow of pity. And without delay, after holy converse on God, he stretched out his hands to 1 Lady Day is thus named elsewhere also in the writings of the Windesheimers.

ST. LYDWINE of SCHIEDAM works of charity. And first he gave her about thirty groats of Flanders to buy two linen coverings. Then the priest, set on fire with the spirit of God, entered the church, and, mounting the pulpit, made a discourse to the people, in which with harsh reproaches he chastised them as they deserved for their niggardliness and want of mercy, inasmuch as they did not succour God's ailing creature who was lying in such want and pain. And justly indeed did the eloquent priest speak with severity for the zeal of God, for tried virtue reproves the foolish. After wards, however, many moved to mercy by the inspiration of God, with a generous heart bestowed their alms on the holy virgin. This reverend father therefore, among other discourses of charity with the sick virgin, who then had accomplished about a half of her diseases, began to say to her that before Easter a revelation had somehow been made to him as if he were to pass to the Father before this Easter. To whom the virgin replied, that he would have to wait until the next Pentecost, and that again after Easter he should visit her. And how true ST. LYDWINE of SCHIEDAM was this saying the issue of the affair proved. For he died shortly after these words in the year of the Lord 1413, on the vigil of Pentecost, at the twelfth hour of midnight, on the third of the Ides of June, on which day was kept the feast of St. Barnabas, apostle.1 And being dead, the devout and com passionate father Wermbold was de tained from the sight of the glory of the divine countenance for nearly nine days, as was divinely revealed to this virgin. But when this venerable father was speaking with the virgin before his death, paternally consoling her, and when she complained somewhat that she was much burdened by the number of her infirmities, the priest responded, encouraging her to bear more and, as it were, foretelling that it would be necessary for her to em brace still greater endurance, inasmuch as perhaps she had barely fulfilled half the term of her sufferings. And this so befell as he foretold. For he said that she had set in Heaven a foundation very broad and wide, and that the superstructure to be built thereon could not be perfected in a 1 June nth.

ST. LYDWINE of SCHIEDAM short while. And the virgin lived after the death of this dear father twenty years in the great pains and many sufferings foretold her, whom God nevertheless consoled and strengthened with frequent raptures by the inspira tion of the Holy Ghost and the visit of heavenly citizens.