Catholic Saints and Our Lady: A Mystic’s Journal: Entry February 9, 2005

Thursday, February 10

A big storm is predicted for today - little flakes are scurrying around in the wind, possibly preparing the way ... Myra came over to pick up some CDs of Visions to sell at her upcoming concert. Two other friends stopped by. We were talking about my Wednesday night meditations & class - & I told them Trudy’s story. I thought that I would include it here ...

I was in the back garden, a year or so after my car accident, a warm early summer day. I was sitting on the wooden bench we have under the crab apple tree, near Christ’s statue, & suddenly I saw a very bright soul standing before His statue. I couldn’t tell who it was, it was too bright - & a few moments later Trudy came by to visit. Trudy is a very special person & an old friend, but up until that moment we had never spoken of anything spiritual. As she came into the garden I looked up & asked: "Trudy, would you like to learn how to meditate?" - & to my surprise she said "Yes." It was her soul that I had seen standing before the statue of Christ. She has come to class now for over ten years ... Her devotion to Our Lord is so great that whenever we speak about Him in class, her eyes fill with tears. Perhaps partially because of this, often in our Wednesday night group meditations Christ seems to be present ... In any case, I clairvoyantly perceive that He is present.

Last night, during meditation, I began to smell the strong scent of roses. I thought to myself, "Someone must be wearing perfume tonight" - which seemed strange because in all the years I have been teaching, no one has ever worn perfume that I was aware of. The scent was so powerful that here & there, I again would become aware of it, even while deep in my meditation. As sometimes happens, while in meditation, the inner Light was so strong it more felt like my eyes were open with every Light in the universe on.

After meditation, as I crossed the room to get the book we would be studying in class, the scent of roses again surrounded me. I asked if anyone was wearing perfume - because, in the back of my mind, I thought Our Lady might be there.

This strong scent of roses had happened to me once before, at the television studio. I was editing a show on Our Lady’s appearances in Naju, Korea, from videotapes I had been sent from there. The machines kept breaking down, & I had to reedit the show twice. As I finished the final edit, the strong scent of roses filled the small editing room. I had heard of this phenomena, but had never experienced it. A friend who came to take me home from the studio later said that she, as well, had smelled roses - I had given her a few tapes to carry for me & the scent was still on them.

No one in class last night was wearing perfume.

Perhaps because of the weather, only five people had come to meditation. Three of us continued to smell roses, or myrrh or some unrecognizable fruit off & on until the end of class. These sometimes pungent & sometimes faint perfumes began to fill the entire downstairs of my house. It seemed that there were at least two distinct & separate perfumes, perhaps three. The strong and pungent scent of roses or myrrh, & another, very faint scent which seemed more fruitlike in nature, some unidentifiable fruit not known to us.

To add to the extraordinariness of this mystical occurrence, last night we began class speaking about Our Lady, & then studied writings by the Desert Fathers & other early Christian Contemplatives - a volume I had only discovered the night before. (The Book of Mystical Chapters, trans. John Anthony McGuckin; Shambala, 2003). I had opened the book at random, read one short passage in the form of a poem, & decided that it would be a good book to study in class.

I gave the book to T. to read aloud, & she began somewhere in the center of the volume. She read eight quotes during class; the very first quote she read mentioned incense. By the end of class, two poems mentioned incense. The words fragrance & perfume were used once each. The final poem, written by Theodoros the Ascetic, spoke of perfume in a jar permeating the entire house as a metaphor for the sanctity of a pure & saintly soul. In all, the first five we read were written by Evagrios of Pontus, the last two by Theodorus.

I wonder how many people reading this now will also smell the odor of roses ...

A number of Catholic saints have exuded this "odor of sanctity", as it is called by the Church, while alive on earth. Some people have said that they were also aware of Padre Pio’s "perfume" after his death, either when praying to him or at other times. Last night, I was not allowed to clairvoyantly see any Divine Being in the room - although it was obvious that a Divine Visitation was given to us, during the hour of meditation & then the hour of class. So I cannot say who it was with total certainty. However, the perfume seemed very similar to what I experienced in the edit room many years ago, & I do believe that it was Our Lady, the Madonna.

It is also possible that the other scent, the fainter, fruitlike scent, was one of the Desert Fathers paying us a visit.

Perhaps Theodorus was speaking metaphorically in his poem, perhaps not. In any case, last night three of us experienced the perfume, the fragrances of saintly souls as vividly & as tangibly as though a jar of perfume had been opened, to then permeate the house.