You're listening to the SSPX Podcast.

We're happy to present another installment of true heroes, stories of the lives of the saints, delivered by Father Thomas Tam.

Father is also put together a video of each of these episodes.

You can see the video at SSPX Podcast.com.

Now here's Father Tam.

Trials are nothing else but the forge that purifies the soul of all its imperfections.

Hello, my friends, and welcome to true heroes. Today we are going to look at the life of St. Mary Magdalene of Posse, a Carmelite whose life was one of constant suffering and union with God. Let us begin her story.

Catherine, which was her name before she took the name Mary Magdalene, was born into a noble

family in Florence in 1566. The normal course would have been for her to have married into wealth and enjoyed comfort,

but she chose to follow her own path.

At nine years old, she learned to meditate from the family confessor.

She made her first communion at the then early age of ten, and made a vow of virginity one month later.

At 12 years old, she experienced her first ecstasy while looking at a sunset which left her

trembling and speechless. This will be a common theme. She seemed to live in ecstasies for her entire 41 years.

With this foundation in prayer and in mystical experience, it isn't surprising that she wanted to enter a contemplative monastery of the Carmelite Order.

She chose the monastery of St. Mary's of the Angels

because the nuns took daily communion, which was unusual at that time. She was only 16 years old.

In 1583, she had her second mystical experience when the other nuns saw her weeping before

the crucifix, as she said, quote, O love, you are neither known nor loved, unquote.

A month after being refused early religious profession, she fell deathly ill.

Fearing for her life, the convent had her professed from a stretcher

at the altar. After that, she experienced 40 days of ecstasies that coexisted with her suffering.

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