1150 A.D.: Belgian Woman Christina the Astonishing Is Born, and Lives As An Object Lesson?
In 1150 A.D. a girl was born in what is today Belgium, and it was her destiny to live one of the strangest of all lives of a saintly person, specially empowered. But in her early years she lived a more normal life until sad events found her orphaned at about 12 years old. She obtained work watching flocks as they grazed, but when she was about 21 she had a seizure which left her in so unresponsive of a state that she was declared dead by fellow towns-people who found her. And why would they not recognize a dead person?
But then she came back to life...with strange and miraculous powers! Her mission - agreed to with Jesus while she was dead, she said - was to literally live out and experience (in front of others) the horrors she had seen sinners undergoing while she had been dead, yet she did this when back on Earth, without any long lasting visible harm to her flesh! Jesus had asked her if she would like to choose to come back and be a warning to others. So she did come back. And then she began to do such things as throw herself into fires, emerging not burnt. She plunged into icy rivers and stayed in them for long periods...the local people reported that she had remained submerg for 6 days on one occasion...but emerged alive. Bitten by packs of dogs...she sustained no visible wounds. One time, though, a man sent into the forest to hunt her down and bring her in to be questioned by the church reportedly broke her leg with a cudgel when capturing her. But it healed very much faster than normal during her captivity.
Hers is probably the oddest of saintly tales...but confirmed by eyewitnesses from many occupations who lived where she did during her time. Search Christina Mirabilis or Christina the Astonishing or Thomas of Cantimpre combined with Christina to read literal translations from her chronicler, Thomas, who gathered eye witness accounts less than a decade after her death. She is known by some today as the Zombie Saint!
She began this strange assignment by sitting up at her funeral, looking about herself surprised, then rising as if weightless to the ceiling of the church. The funeral attendants vacated the church except for the Priest and Christina's siblings. She did not wish to come back to the ground because she said she found that she could now smell the stench of sin on people and it was an absolutely horrible smell. She did come down though when directed to by the Priest. Her siblings were happy but rather alarmed. The rest of the congregation and the townspeople were divided...and not just a little put off. Some of them called it a miracle from God, but some of them deemed it to be a case of possession by evil spirits. She explained that her mission was from Jesus and that she was allowed back to warn people of the things they would experience in the afterlife if they did not quit sinning!
The smell of sin was horrible almost beyond bearing to her and she soon became a homeless wanderer in the area around her town. She lived sometimes in trees and bushes it is said. Tree branches seemed to barely bend beneath her weight, people reported, as if she weighed no more than a bird. This was very well attested to by locals: she became very light in weight upon her return from the dead.
She would walk through town giving warnings at times. At the bakery she would sometimes crawl right in to the large oven when it was baking the bread. There are other sorts of fires she entered so that people could see her writhing in agony but denied the release of death. She always emerged unharmed it is reported, though her agony was genuine. She would begin to scream in agony from the heat, but would later emerge without burn or blister...not even her hair burnt off. She was living proof that there might be a place of punishment for the sinner where you could feel the pain of being burned and yet never receive the merciful comfort of death.
She could go into the freezing river and submerge, staying underwater...even in freezing water...for ridiculously long periods of time. One instance is reported to have lasted 6 days. But then she would emerge from the water having not drowned or suffocated, and not having succumbed to the cold. She could endure the pains felt by the drowning without drowning! And those who watched realized that the afterlife might hold such a punishment for them if they did not cease sinning. She was reported to go underwater in the river and get caught up in the spinning waterwheels of local mills. She would go in circles, screaming, under the water, above the water, under the water, above the water for long periods of time...but then she would free herself and be apparently unharmed by the experience.
In the first years the people of her area would sometimes become terrified by her antics and convince the authorities to arrest her. She was arrested on a couple of occasions and held for a while. There was no doubt that some spiritual power was at work. But when she was examined she was judged to not be trapped in the possession of demons, so she would be released. Some of these investigations involved torture, because such people as witches were known to confess the actual source of their power under torture. Even her own siblings did not know whether to think her holy or unholy at times. They, as a family, were cast under a cloud because of Christina's extreme strangeness. Sometimes they may have cared far more for the damage to their reputation than about the holy mission their sister was assigned to and the pains she underwent because of it.
Christina was known to jump into large boiling cauldrons of water around the village without harming herself. She would even pour the water over her head so that the unsubmerged parts should have also been burned. Even boiling water left her unharmed, though it was written that she screamed in agony when in the cauldron, as loud as if undergoing child birth is one term that was used.
She also was a prophet at times. She once prophesied a famine that came to pass, and she announced the capture of Jerusalem by European forces on the very day it occurred, though she was in Belgium. There were other prophesies also, Thomas of Cantimpre says!
Look up "Thomas of Cantimpre: The Collected Saints' Lives" It is on line. You can read his report in English on Christina as well as a couple of other saints.
But there came a time when Christina was so ostracized and so sickened by the stench and hurtful behavior of others that she was almost starving to death. Then she was captured and tied to a wooden yoke for a time and fed like a dog. And then came a very great miracle the reports assure us. She was a virgin but she began to lactate...though not milk. Her breasts began to produce a clear oil that was edible and it did not apparently reduce her weight to make it as it is is reported to have improved her health! She could add this oil to the scant nourishment of her meager meals and she was able to sustain her flesh and life! Also it soothed those minor wounds that she did occasionally receive from the rubbing of the yoke. It was at this point that the tide of public opinion swung in her favor. People heard about it and believed that such a thing could only come from God!
Did she preach? The report from those who lived with her was that she cried out loudly and often about the importance of doing penance for your sins and to be ready at every hour to meet your judge and Savior.
People began to see Christina as a confirmed holy woman. For nine years of her life Christina lived with another very holy woman and so had a place of her own in some sense, and presumably a friend. And also reported as helpful, her family at some point prayed very fervently that the Lord might use their sister Christina in way that were a little less bizarre and punishing to their poor sister's body, and this seemed to occur. She actually lived to be a fairly old woman, and was famous and celebrated for her holiness by old age. Various important figures and nobility would come to seek her advice, prayer and blessing. People eventually saw her as the strange and unusual gift that she was.
As mentioned, there are some very good writings on the internet about this one of a kind Christian woman. She proved to be a powerful example to the people of her time. But it was never her power...that came from Jesus. Yet she had willingness to work and suffer for the welfare of her neighbor, and any of us might offer that to our Lord Jesus! If the Devil's followers will work hard for him, shouldn't every Christian be willing to do much more than that for the true rightful King, who is Jesus our Savior?
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https://www.medievalists.net/2016/06/christine-the-astonishing/
https://weirdcatholic.com/2020/07/24/the-astonishing-christina/