The Family of Teresing continued to pressure her to leave the carmelite convent but it seems that her determination to live as a Carmelite nun was as strong as a bedrock. Her brothers did not persuade her, her parents did not persuade her, even at gun point she was sturdy and firm. But will Teresing give in when another form of oppression arrives in a manner that is totally weird and only seen on movies? will she budge? will she tremble? will she surrender?. In this part of this series, you will read a very horrifying experience of Teresing that not even you can imagine that it happened in the most unlikely place where prayer, fasting and sacrifice was the daily bread of the holy nuns. Brace yourselves for the Part 3 of the Petals in Lipa…

Before you go on you might want to read first the Part 1 here

The Voice

Teresing heard three very loud knocks at her door while praying in her cell¹ on the night of July 31, 1948. As as a foul and unpleasant odor scented her room, she heard a horrible, deep, hoarse and guttural man’s voice that sent chills down her spine. The voice was very hard to understand but later she realized that the voice was telling her to have pity on her parents and that she has obligations to her parents that she has to fulfill.

Teresing stood motionless and scared. She didn’t know what to do since it was her first time to experience such manifestations. Teresing doesn’t know the identity of the owner of the voice for she was not aware that such things can happen to her. So she just ignored the voice and prayed the rosary.

Until when she looked at the floor of her cell, she saw footprints. She noticed that the footprints were human in nature but was hoofed. It had one big toe and one little two. Only twotoes imprinted on the floor. After that she went to the cell of her Mother Superior, Mother Cecilia of Jesus O.C.D. and asked her if she could come to her room. When they arrive at Teresing’s cell, the Mother superior examined the footprints with her finger and she noticed that it was made of black soot. The Mother Prioress instructed St. Teresing not to remove the footprints until the next day.

Before Sr. Teresing convinced the Prioress to take a look at the footprints, the Mother Prioress was incredulous and doubtful and only gave in to her request upon insistence.

The next day immediately after the Mass, the Mother prioress consulted the matter to Bishop Alfredo Obviar who was then the Auxiallary Bishop of Lipa and Chaplain of the Carmel. Together, they both examined the footprints and later wiped them away. The good Bishop hurriedly informed then Archbishop Alfredo Versoza of the Archdiocese of Lipa who gave instructions to observe the Postulant and gave her adequate food and rest.

For the entire month, Teresing was infested by the horrible voice for several times. Sometimes the voice would taunt and ridicule Teresing’s vocation, sometimes it would describe how her family was suffering because of her absence and most of the times, the voice questions her loveand obedience for the Mother Prioress and the Bishop. But as the voice continued to malign her, her courage grew and was able to resist its poisonous tongue. But Tersing one night asked the voice:

“why do you have to pester me here? I’m already in Peace!”

The Face

When the visitor failed to convince Teresing, he soon revealed himself to her two times by showing her face on the wall. Teresing described that the face was very ugly, has an inch of fire width of fire surrounding it could not look straight on her eyes but kept looking at the left side where the door towards the hall was located. Even the most horrible face did not deter Teresing from staying in the convent. The Devil, as Teresing now identified, was so frustrated that he used an even stronger form of persuasion…

The Body

One night, as Teresing was fast asleep, she was awakened by a violent rocking motion on her bed and saw the devil shaking with all his might her bed. Teresing describes the devil as approximately 5’5 tall and very similar to the face she saw on the wall. The fire was not only in the head but around its whole body and was shaking his index finger.

This was not just a tale from a delusional because the Mother Prioress has documented on her accounts that Teresing would often run to and from her room weeping, bearing ugly red welts on her hands, bleeding scratch wounds and abrasions, or black and blue bruises marked with soot. When asked, Teresing would claim that the enemy would often times hit her and worst drag her towards the door leading outside the convent.

Teresing was confused on what was happening to her. She even came to the point of telling herself that if she only knew that it will happen to her, she would not have the courage to enter the convent.

This diabolical harassment is not rare but actually normal when the soul is in the state of Grace. I had similar experience like this before I entered in the seminary which I blogged about in 2007. Though I did not experience any physical harrasment, but the motive of the perpetrator is one and the same: to lead the soul away from God.

Many saints have also experienced this form of harassment. Most popular of this is Job in the bible who was allowed by God to be pestered and infested by the Devil to test Job’s faithfulness. Even the Stigmatic Priest from my former order Padre Pio of Pietrelcina was also harrassed by the devil himself that sometimes, the saint had literally no sleep in the night due to the physical attack of the devil and his minions. St. Paul the hermit was also harassed by demons during his isolation in the desert. These things are natural, though not a proof of sanctity, but a proof that evil exists in our midsts in the most literal and concrete sense.

The events that transpired in Teresing’s life in Lipa is so incredible and spectacular that even the author of the Book “Lipa”, namely June Keithley, was hesitant to tell the events as they were told by numerous witnesses precisely because they deemed it disturbing and somewhat dark. We can all recall that during the late 80′s and early 90′s (the time they interviewed Teresing and other witnesses for a Marian documentary), Philippine Television then was conservative and filtered that showing this kind of material will either interest people or disgust the viewers. Nevertheless, they showed and even written the events of Lipa as it is.

Many people doesn’t know that June Keithley played a big part on the reopening of the case of the Virgin Mary of Lipa for had she not produced and filmed the documentary, maybe we are still in the dark as to what really happened in the grace filled year of 1948. And as she said in her book… “from hereon, the events simply becomes more and more incredible, and that Carmel was on the brink of a most extraordinary year…”

TO BE CONTINUED…

—Bluepanjeet Footnotes—————————————————————————————

1. CELL – is a convent jargon for room. In religious life, every person is given her own cell with limited furnitures. Usually only bed, a pillow, a blanket, a crucifix, a small table and a chair. Some strict and ascetic orders doesn’n provide mattresses for their members and considers the hard wood on the bed as their form of sacrifice. The cell is not just considered a sleeping room but a place where one can fully examine his conscience and be alone with God.