Dominican nun, Maria Villani of Naples (1584–1670), who has had few rivals in her profound works on mysticism.
Very many other examples might be given, but we will now mention a few instances in which the irradiation continued even after the soul had left the body. Such was the case with S. Alfrida, a daughter of King Offa of Mercia; whilst the bodies of S. Juventius and S. Maximus reflected so penetrating a brilliance that nobody could bear to gaze upon them. Similar circumstances are said to have occurred at the tomb of S. Wilfred who was enshrined in the Church of S. Peter at Ripon, and also at the tomb of S. Kunigunde, who is buried in the Cathedral of Bamberg.
Of Blessed Walter the Premonstratensian Abbot of Ilfeld in Hanover, who died in 1229, the Nobertine chronicle tell us that when the holy body was being carried on its bier to the tomb, so great a glory shone all around it that the religious who were inceding in solemn procession after the remains of their dead father were fain to veil their eves. “B. Walterus … Moriens cum ad sepulchrum deferretur, tanta lux diuinitus immissa defuncti corpus irradiauit, ut religiosi adsistentes eam uix ferre possent.” Upon this an old poet wrote the following lines:
De B. Waltero circa cuius feretrum coposia lux resplenduit.
Corporis hos radios pia gens stupet, immemor ante
Illius aetherea cor rutilasse face.
Et quid-ni stupeat, solem dum mergitur undis,
Clarius exstinctam spargere posse facem?
Ecce suae carnis Waltervs lege solutus,
Ad tumulum moestis fratribus abripitur.
Non patitur uirtus, indignaturque sepulcro
Claudier, in cincres, non abitura leues:
Ucrum oritur, radio circumfulgente Feretrum,
Ut solet Eois Lucifer ortus aquis.
O uir Sancte, tuis si lux hic tanta fuisti,
In coelo qualis quantaque stella micas!”[69]
It is not surprising that persons whose holiness and asceticism had been so great during their lives, that their bodies were subjected to so extraordinary a phenomenon as irradiation, should after death have remained incorrupt. The connexion between the two is very obvious, and it should be remarked that incorruption is one of the commonest circumstances
