Everyone knows that Catholics love the Blessed Virgin Mary and everyone knows that Protestants love the Apostle Paul. But did you know that a 17th century woman saint was shown in a vision the life of Mary? Venerable Mary of Agreda (ok, almost a saint) was a Spanish Franciscan nun. She was given the private revelation of the entire life of Mary (from her Immaculate Conception to past her Assumption and Coronation) all of which she recorded in a book called The Mystical City of God (not to be confused with a similar title of St. Augustine, written 1200 years earlier.) This Franciscan nun’s private revelation of the life of Mary is over 2000 pages! Jansenists did not like her book. However, Pope Innocent XI, decreed on 9 November 1681, that the Mystical City of God could be freely spread among the clergy and laity.Jesus’ mother Mary never sinned and yet Saul was responsible for killing Christians. Did they ever meet? Yes, according to the visions of the Venerable from Agreda. In this revelation, God revealed to the Spanish nun an intimate relationship between Saul-become-Paul and the Mother of God. The italics below show how Mary loves and prays for sinners, even sinners guilty of killing her only Son, Jesus, as well as a new love of her spiritual-children. We should take great hope that Mary still intercedes for the conversion of those who kill Christians, that Mary cares for those who have had abortions, that Mary pursues those farthest from God, so that each one of us might approach the life giving waters of baptism. Mary is not afraid of our filth, even though she is the Pan-hagia, the All-Holy as the Greek Fathers call the Theotokos, the mother of the Redeemer.In our factionalized Christianity, we need to realize that there was a unity in the early Church: Pentecostal gifts and Marian contemplation were not separated. Neither were joy and hierarchical authority, poverty and Apostolic power of miracles. Personified, this is most importantly seen in the nearly-unknown relationship between St. Paul and St. Mary.

Originally published in Padre Peregrino. Read original article