Mary & Me

"In the house of Pilate, through the ministry of the holy angels, our Queen was placed in such a position that she could hear the disputes of the iniquitous judge with the scribes and priest concerning the innocence of Christ our Saviour, and concerning the release of Barabbas in preference to Him.  All the clamors of these human tigers she heard in silence and admirable meekness, as the living counterpart of her most holy Son.  Although she preserved the unchanging propriety and modesty of her exterior, all the malicious words of the Jews pierced her sorrowful heart like a two-edged sword.  But the voices of her unspoken sorrows resounded in the ears of the eternal Father more pleasantly and sweetly than the lamentation of the beautiful Rachel who, as Teremias says, was beweeping her children because they cannot be restored [Jeremiah 31:15].  Our most beautiful Rachel the purest Mary, sought not revenge, but pardon for her enemies, who were depriving her of the Only-begotten of the Father and her only Son.  She imitated all the actions of the most holy Soul of Christ, and accompanied Him in the works of most exalted holiness and perfection; for neither could her torments hinder her charity, nor her affliction diminish her fervor, nor could the tumult distract her attention, nor the outrageous injuries of the multitudes prevent her interior recollection: under all circumstances she practiced the most exalted virtues in the most eminent degree."

--The Venerable Mary of Agreda (d. 1665), The Mystical City of God, bk. 6, chap. 6, trans. and abridged by Fiscar Marison (Rev. George J. Blatter) (TAN Books, 2008), pp. 405-6.

I even look like her, apparently: "her eyes large and serious, of incredible and ineffable beauty and dovelike sweetness, dark in color with a mixture tending toward green..." (ibid., bk. 3, chap. 2, p. 167).

Kinda spooky, eh?