#elsbeth von oye

[cithaerons]

David F. Tinsley, The Scourge and the Cross: Ascetic Mentalities of the Later Middle Ages

[cithaerons]

David F. Tinsley, The Scourge and the Cross: Ascetic Mentalities of the Later Middle Ages

[cithaerons]

Elsbeth von Oye, from the Zurich Manuscript (14th c.) (trans. Wolfram Schneider-Lastin)

[cithaerons]

David F. Tinsley, The Scourge and the Cross: Ascetic Mentalities of the Later Middle Ages

[cithaerons]

Elsbeth von Oye also longs to receive the stigmata, but God answers her prayers differently. "The more I wished for God to make visible my thirst for this thing [the stigmata], the more unbearable the pain became. I often thought that God wished to bring my longing to perfection by means of inner pain..." Notable here is that Elsbeth's stigmata neither reach physical manifestation nor do they signal any kind of spiritual ascension. They merely constitute a further permutation of her agony. God denies her the earthly comfort of visibility, sending her Christ's pain in place of Christ's signs.

David F. Tinsley, The Scourge and the Cross: Ascetic Mentalities of the Later Middle Ages

[cithaerons]

David F. Tinsley, The Scourge and the Cross: Ascetic Mentalities of the Later Middle Ages