• Starting today August 7th, 2024, in order to post in the Married Couples, Courting Couples, or Singles forums, you will not be allowed to post if you have your Marital status designated as private. Announcements will be made in the respective forums as well but please note that if yours is currently listed as Private, you will need to submit a ticket in the Support Area to have yours changed.

  • CF has always been a site that welcomes people from different backgrounds and beliefs to participate in discussion and even debate. That is the nature of its ministry. In view of recent events emotions are running very high. We need to remind people of some basic principles in debating on this site. We need to be civil when we express differences in opinion. No personal attacks. Avoid you, your statements. Don't characterize an entire political party with comparisons to Fascism or Communism or other extreme movements that committed atrocities. CF is not the place for broad brush or blanket statements about groups and political parties. Put the broad brushes and blankets away when you come to CF, better yet, put them in the incinerator. Debate had no place for them. We need to remember that people that commit acts of violence represent themselves or a small extreme faction.

A Meal of Toads and Other Gruesome Punishments

Michie

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
Feb 5, 2002
185,511
68,147
Woods
✟6,159,890.00
Country
United States
Gender
Female
Faith
Catholic
Marital Status
Married
Politics
US-Others

Some chilling warnings to the faithful from Caesarius of Heisterbach's hagiographical compendium, including a whispering ghost girl, hellbound jousters, and other tormented souls​


Caesarius of Heisterbach (d. 1240) was one of the most popular hagiographers of the Middle Ages. The prior of the Cistercian Heisterbach Abbey, he’s most famous for his Dialogue on Miracles, which was rivaled only by the Golden Legend in popularity. Over the course of a dozen thematic books, Caesarius tells hundreds of miracle stories categorized by themes like Contrition, Confession, Demons, and so on, but the final chapter is what concerns us today: “Of the Punishment and the Glory of the Dead.”

Some glory. Mostly punishment.

These stories are shaped as exemplum: short anecdotes with a pithy moral to them. The telling varies, with most offering simple pious lessons. For instance:

After a deacon had read the gospel for confessors, that is, “Watch, for ye know not at what hour your Lord will come,” in Aulne, a house of our Order, as he finished those words, a monk in the choir fell down and expired. And all were afraid considering the effect of the Lord’s words. There-fore, brothers, because we know not at what hour our Lord will come, let us watch faithfully, let us watch while working that when he comes and shall afflict us with death, we may at once open to Him. May our Lord Jesus Christ deign to grant us that, who will come to judge the living and the dead and the world by fire. Amen.
Useful information! As a Deacon I’ll keep in mind to be prepared should I drop dead after proclaiming the word.

Some, however, are remarkably vivid. To wit:

Continued below.