om saw the serpent: soon,
however, it made its appearance, with a crown upon its head. This
odious reptile was of gigantic size, apparently possessed of unbounded
strength, and led forward countless legions of the enemies of Jesus in
every age and of every nation. Being armed with all kinds of
destructive weapons, they sometimes tore one another in pieces, and
then renewed their attacks upon our Saviour with redoubled rage. It was
indeed an awful sight; for they heaped upon him the most fearful
outrages, cursing, striking, wounding, and tearing him in pieces. Their
weapons, swords, and spears flew about in the air, crossing and
recrossing continually in all directions, like the flails of threshers
in an immense barn; and the rage of each of these fiends seemed
exclusively directed against Jesus--that grain of heavenly wheat descended
to the earth to die there, in order to feed men eternally with the
Bread of Life.

Thus exposed to the fury of these hellish bands, some of which
appeared to me wholly composed of blind men, Jesus was as much wounded
and bruised as if their blows had been real. I saw him stagger from
side to side, sometimes raising himself up, and sometimes falling
again, while the serpent, in the midst of the crowds whom it was
unceasingly leading forward against Jesus, struck the ground with its
tail, and tore to pieces or swallowed all whom it thus knocked to the
ground.

It was made known to me that these apparitions were all those
persons who in divers ways insult and outrage Jesus, really and truly
present in the Holy Sacrament. I recognised among them all those who in
any way profane the Blessed Eucharist. I beheld with horror all the
outrages thus offered to our Lord, whether by neglect, irreverence, and
omission of what was due to him; by open contempt, abuse, and the most
awful sacrileges; by the worship of worldly idols; by spiritual
darkness and false knowledge; or, finally, by error, incredulity,
fanaticism, hatred, and open persecution. Among these men I saw many
who were blind, paralysed, deaf, and dumb, and even children;--blind men
who would not see the truth; paralytic men who would not advance,
according to its directions, on the road leading to eternal live; deaf
men who refused to listen to its warnings and threats; dumb men who
would never use their voices in its defence; and, finally, children who
were led astray by following parents and teachers filled with the love
of the world a