And in other news...

I did a little bit of work on my book this past Monday, the first substantive effort I have put into it since hitting the wall back in 2009...and promptly came down with the stomach flu.  I blame the Enemy.  He attacked Mary of Agreda, too, just when she was trying to get started on the second volume of her work on the Virgin Mary. 

As she recorded her experience: "In addition to all the contradictions and temptations already mentioned, and many others not possible to describe, the demon sought to deprive me of my health, causing many aches, indispositions and disorders of the whole body.  He harassed me with insurmountable sadness and conflicting thoughts; he seemed to confuse my understanding, hinder correct thinking, weaken my will power, and sift me body and soul."*

I might find this more comforting, I suppose, if I hadn't had to spend the past several days wary of eating for fear I would throw my guts up.  

*Mary of Agreda, The City of God: The Incarnation, trans. Fiscar Marison (1912), Introduction, paragraph 7, p. 6.

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