Bicorporeity

( Originally Published 1919 )

Classification of Phenomena—Rita of Cascia—Gorres His History of her Aerial Transportation—Case of the Blessed Lidwine--Example from the Life of St. John of Copertino—The Apparition at the Bedside—Wonderful Example of Bicorporeity Recounted by Count des Mousseaux —Double Appearance of a Living Man—Opinion of St. Thomas.

The phenomena of bilocation, bicorporeity and aerial transportation may be classified into separate groups, having an intimate affinity or relationship to one another.

For example, a person may be carried with incredible velocity to a distant place and then the systême moteur or moving agent acts in an especial manner in producing wonders of this order. Perhaps the most voluminous and accredited writer on Christian Mysticism, as contrasted with naturalism and rationalism, was Joseph von Gorres, who wrote "Die Christliche

Mystik." He was a teacher at the University of Munich, a writer of marked distinction, and one of the most scholarly men of his time, say from 1798 to 1848.

Dealing with the authenticated case of the Blessed Rita of Cascia, he writes in his " Mystik " :

"We record as an example of anal transportation the flight of Rita of Cascia, who enjoyed the privilege of passing through closed doors." This holy woman desiring, after the death of her husband, to become an Augustinian nun, was refused admission to the community.

She then appealed to God in prayer, and while she prayed, was transported through the air, carried into a convent and deposited in the midst of cloistered nuns. Great was the amazement of the nuns when she appeared, for they knew all entrances to the building were barred.

When she made known who she was, how she had been transported, and her wish to dedicate herself to the service of God in prayer and adoration, she was admitted to the privileges of the community.

Another example is that of St. Peter Rogala, who, in sight of a multitude of people, was for three hours suspended in the air, and surrounded by such a luminous halo of glory, that those who saw him thought his body was on fire.

Facts of the second class: The person confined to a certain locality, is in spirit carried to another place and in that place accomplishes the will of God as did Ezekiel and Habacuc. A touching and beautiful example of this second order of phenomena are the mystic voyages of the Blessed Lidwine, who in her aerial flights was often accompanied by her guardian angel.

One day, while her spirit was passing from church to church in the City of Rome, she suffered as if thorns had entered her hand, though her body remained in her own room and did not accompany her in her flight. The next day, returning to her natural self, her finger pained her greatly and, in her finger, the prick of the thorn was quite visible.

Facts of the third order: Among the experiences of the third class are those of actual bilocation. Here we find the individual is in a particular place and is seen and spoken to by others and, at the same time, is seen elsewhere and acts as if he was really and substantially present. This, for instance, was the experience of St. John of Copertino, who lived in the village of Assisi, Italy. When his mother lay at death's door, in Copertino, she bewailed the absence of her son, and in the intensity of her yearning for him cried aloud: " Oh, my son, my son ! Shall I never again meet you on earth?" At once the room in which she was dying blazed with exceptional illumination, and the mother beholding her son coming through the flaming light to her bed, extended her arms and exclaimed in the hearing of those present :

"Joseph ! 0 my son !" Now on this same day and at the same hour there were those in Assisi who saw Joseph leave his house hurriedly and enter the church, ostensibly to pray. Alarmed at his excited appearance and haste, one of the men followed and asked him: "Is there anything the matter?" "Yes, yes," he answered, "my poor mother is dying." The neighbor went out, leaving him -with God.

This apparition of the living man by his mother's side at Copertino was confirmed by letters which, soon after the death of the mother, were received in Assisi, and the fact was afterwards proved by the sworn testimony of those who saw the saintly man at the bedside of his mother.

Let it, however, be understood that, according to the decision of the learned Pope Benedict XIV, and the statements of eminent theologians, these prodigies, and others mentioned in ecclesiastical histories and biographies and in the "Lives of the Saints" are not to be classed with the miracles so intimately associated in the New Testament with the foundation and expansion of Christianity.

We may or may not accept them. But if the evidence in their favor carries legal weight, if the witnesses testifying to what they claimed to have seen and heard are known to be honest men of good, common sense, are reputed among their neighbors to be respectable and trustworthy, and can have no reason for misrepresenting what they witnessed and heard, then a jury of their countrymen will believe them.

Take, for instance, the case critically examined and scrupulously gone into by 'Count Des Mousseaux in his extraordinary book, "Les Hauts Phenomenes," and accepted by him as an actual occurrence which happened in his own lifetime.

"Early in 1864," writes the Count, "I met in Paris the Reverend Father Palgrave, formerly a cavalry officer in the French service, who resigned his command and became a Jesuit missionary in India. Among the passengers who sailed on the same ship with Father Palgrave, when he was returning from India in 1857, was an English officer, who was sailing for England on furlough or military leave of absence. After they had been at sea some fifteen days, the officer said to the captain in the hearing of Pere Palgrave :

" 'Captain, who is this stranger whom you are hiding from us?'

" 'You're joking,' answered the captain.

" `No, on my honor, I saw him yesterday for the first time, but he hasn't appeared today.'

" 'Why, what do you mean, are you serious?

If so, explain yourself.' "

'Well, be it so,' spoke the officer 'last night, when I was thinking of turning in, I saw a strange man make the rounds of the ship, open doors and close them, and shake his head, as if to say, 'what I am looking for is not here.' He then approached me, looked me over and retired with an apologetic air.'

" 'And what,' asked the Captain, smiling, might be the appearance, the dress and the age of this man?'

" The officer described the stranger even to the minutest detail."

" Good God,' exclaimed the Captain, 'if what you say be true, then that man is my father, he cannot be another.'

"When the ship arrived in Liverpool, the Captain learned that his father was dead, and that it was after the apparition was seen that he had died but that on the evening when the French officer saw him, he was for a time delirious and then became unconscious. Regaining his senses, he said to those by his bedside :

" 'Where do you think I have been since I fell asleep? I crossed over a great part of the sea, visited my son's ship, searched high and low for him, but didn't see him.' "

Assuming the truth of this relation, we naturally ask ourselves, "Did the soul of the dying man leave his body ? "

St. Thomas, the "Angel of the Schools," would answer: "No. The will to act which belongs to the soul is shut up in the body, to which the soul is united. Where the body is at one time, the will is with it."