: Essays on God and Freud by Vaknin Samuel Rangelovska Lidija Editor - Religion; God; Psychoanalysis; Freud Sigmund 1856-1939

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Editor: Lidija Rangelovska

Copyright 2002, 2009 by Lidija Rangelovska

Beatrix was still young, but shame and hunger had left on her brow the imprint of those hideous marks that reveal premature ageing. When her pale and mute face timidly begged help from passers-by, when her white and delicate hand opened jerkily to receive their gifts, there were none who did not feel that her life must have been very different at some stage. Those who were the most indifferent to her halted before her with a harsh look that seemed to say: Oh my daughter! How was it you fell from what you were? And yet her own look could no longer reply to them, for it had been a long time now since she had been able to weep. She walked on and on, on and on: her journey seemed as though it would only ever end with her death. One particular day she had been climbing since sun-up, at a bare mountain's back, a rough and rugged path, without a single house in sight to assuage her weariness. All she had eaten were some flavourless roots torn from cracks in the rocks. Her shoes, worn to shreds, had just come away from her bloodied feet. She felt herself faint with fatigue and need when, night having come, she was all of a sudden struck by the appearance of a long line of lights that were indicative of a large building. Towards these lights she made her way with all the strength left to her, but, at the chime of a silvery bell, the sound of which awoke in her heart a strange and vague memory, all the lights went out at once, and all that now remained around her were silence and night. She nevertheless took a few more steps with outstretched arms, and her trembling hands rested on a closed door. She leaned against it for a moment as if to catch her breath and tried to hold onto it so as not to fall. Her debilitated fingers let her down. They gave way under the weight of her body. "Oh holy Mary!" she cried. "Why did I leave you?" And the unhappy Beatrix passed out on the threshold.

May the wrath of heaven go easy on the guilty! Nights like this expiate a whole lifetime of sin! The keen coolness of the morning had scarcely begun to bring back to life in her a blurred and painful sense of her own identity, when she perceived that she was not alone. A woman knelt at her side was raising her head carefully, and staring at her with anxious curiosity, waiting for her to come round completely.

"God be praised," said the good sister at the convent gate, "for having sent to us so early in the day an act of mercy to perform and a sadness to alleviate! It's a happy omen for the glorious feast of the Holy Virgin that we celebrate today! But how is it, my dear child, that you did not think to pull on the bell or to use the knocker? At no time would your sisters in Jesus Christ not have been ready to receive you. Well, there we are! Don't answer me just yet, you poor lost sheep! Fortify yourself with this beef broth that I warmed up in a hurry as soon as I saw you. Taste this full-bodied wine that will put the heat back in your stomach and help you move your sore limbs again. Let me see that you're better. Drink, drink down all of it, and now, before you get up, if you don't feel strong enough to yet, put this cloak on I've thrown over your shoulders. Put those little, oh so cold hands of yours in mine so that I can restore blood and life to them. Can you feel already the circulation coming back into your fingers as I breathe on them? Oh! You'll soon be yourself again!"

Beatrix, imbued with tender feeling, grasped the hands of the worthy nun, and pressed them several times to her lips.

"I am myself again," she said, "and I feel well enough to go to thank God for the favour he has done me by guiding my steps to this holy house. Only, so that I can include it in my prayers, can you please tell me where I am?"

"And where could you be," the keeper of the gate replied, "if it is not at the convent of Our Lady of the Flowering Thorns, since there is no other monastic building in this wilderness for more than five leagues around."

"Our Lady of the Flowering Thorns!" exclaimed Beatrix with a cry of joy followed immediately by marks of the deepest consternation: "Our Lady of the Flowering Thorns!" she repeated, letting her head fall onto her bosom. "May the Lord have mercy on me!"

"What's this, my daughter?" said the charitable angel of mercy. "Didn't you know? It's true that you seem to come from far away, for I have never seen a lady's clothing that looks like yours. But Our Lady of the Flowering Thorns does not limit her protection to those who live locally. You must know, if you have heard speak of her, that she is good to everyone."

"I know her, and I have served her," answered Beatrix, "but I come from far away, as you say, reverend mother, and you must not wonder that my eyes did not recognize at first this place of peace and blessing. And yet here is the church and the convent, and the thorn bushes where I gathered so many flowers. Even now they still flower! But I was so young when I left them! It was during the time," she continued, lifting her forehead to heaven with that determined look that imparts self-denial to Christian remorse, "it was during the time when Sister Beatrix was the custodian of the holy basilica. Do you remember that time, reverend mother?"

"How could I have forgotten it, my child, since Sister Beatrix has never stopped being the custodian of the holy basilica? She has stayed among us till today, and will remain for a long time, I hope, a subject of edification for the whole community, since, apart from the protection of the Holy Virgin, we know of no surer support under heaven."

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