Observations placeholder
Blessed Elizabeth von Reute – Given the Host by an angel
Identifier
024224
Type of Spiritual Experience
Environmental influence
Hallucination
Background
Friar Herbert Thurston was a Catholic priest, a member of the Jesuit order and an historian. He wrote extensively on Catholic mysticism and psychic phenomena and was a member of the Society for Psychical Research. He was also widely read on this subject. He is described as ‘an honest skeptic’., and once said ‘the role of Devil’s advocate is a thankless one and does not make for popularity’.
A description of the experience
Friar Herbert Thurston - The Physical Phenomenon of Mysticism
Blessed Elizabeth von Reute (die gute Beta) was a mystic who died in 1420, and whose Life was written by her confessor, one Konrad Kugelin, almost immediately afterwards. He lets us know that Elizabeth lived with three companions, and that he, when he had said Mass, used to communicate these and afterwards take the fourth Host to Elizabeth in her sick room.
On one occasion when he had given the three Communion, he set out for the suffering ecstatica's cell carrying the remaining particle on the paten.
The server went before, with a candle and a bell, but as he (Konrad) followed he suddenly missed the Host from the paten in his hand.
Retracing his steps he made a great search but without result, though he was convinced that he had consecrated four Hosts. Finally, he made up his mind to go to the good Beta herself and tell her of the loss and of his sorrow and anxiety. When he entered her cell he found her radiant and smiling.
"You laugh," he said to her, "whilst I am in deep distress."
On this she at once replied: "Do not be troubled any more; our Lord has already revealed to me that you fear you have lost the sacred Host. You have not lost It. I must tell you that Jesus Christ, my beloved Spouse, came to me in human form, preceded by an angel magnificently clad, and that He gave me the Blessed Sacrament with His own Hand."