In the night which followed this saddest of all sad days, Mary, His
mother, could not sleep. And yet she saw a vision such as could not have
been seen by anyone awake.
Crouching down, leaning against the stone, her eyes resting on the cross
that rose tall and straight into the sky, she seemed to see a tree
covered with red and white blossoms. It was as if that branch of the
Tree of Paradise which the angel had once handed over the hedge had
bloomed. It stood in the midst of a beautiful rose-garden filled with
pleasant odours, running water, and songs of birds, with a wonderful
light over all. Innumerable companies of men and women passed into that
Eden from out a deep abyss. They ascended slowly and solemnly out of the
gloomy depths to the shining heights. In front of all came a couple, our
first father, Adam, walking with Eve. Just behind them Abel, arm-in-arm
with Cain. Then crowded up the patriarchs, the judges, the kings, the
prophets, and the psalmists, among them Abraham and Isaac, Jacob, and
Joseph, Solomon and David, Zachariah and Josiah, Eleazar and Jehoiakim,
and quite at the back--an old man, walking alone, supporting himself on a
stick from which lilies sprouted--Joseph, her husband. He was in no
hurry; he stopped and looked round at Mary.
So all passed into Paradise.
That was what Mary saw, and then day dawned.