Volume 2

Mary of Suphan
317
mate children had been retained by their father when he
repudiated his unfaithful wife, their mother. She was living
at this time in a house of her own at Ennon. For a
long time she had conceived sentiments of sorrow for her
disorders and had done penance, her conduct being so
reserved and proper that she had won the esteem of even
the most respectable women of Ennon. The Baptist's
preaching against Herod's unlawful connection had
strongly affected her. She was often possessed by five
devils. They had again seized upon her when, as a last
resource. she had gone to the court where Jesus was curing
the sick. The rebuff of the Pharisees and their words,
which in her deep dejection she had taken as true, had
driven her to the brink of despair. Through her descent
from Orpha, Ruth's sister-in-law, she was connected with
the House of David, the ancestral line of Jesus. It was
shown me how this stream, deviating in her fronl its
course and troubled by her abominable sins, was purified
anew in her by the grace of Jesus and flowed once more
in its direct course toward the Church.
Jesus went into the entertainment hall in which were
the Pharisees and the rest of the disciples, and took His
place with them at table. The Pharisees were somewhat
displeased that Jesus had left them and gone to seek the
woman whom they had so harshly repulsed that morning
before so many people. But they said nothing, fearing to
receive a reproof themselves. Jesus treated them with
much consideration during the meal, and taught in
nunlerous similitudes and parables. Toward the middle of
the entertainment, the three children of the Suphanite entered
in their holiday dresses. One of the little girls bore
an urn full of odoriferous water, the other had a similar
one of nard, and the boy carried a vessel. They entered
the hall by the door opposite the unoccupied side of the
table, cast themselves down before Jesus, and set their
presents on the table in front of Him. Mary herself