User:Lyonski/Magdalena Gornik

Magdalena Gornik, (also Gornikova Lenčka or Alenka), Slovenian Roman-catholic mystic, theologian and stigmatic; * 19 July 1835, Janeži, Sodražica (Austrian Empire), † 23 February 1896, Petrinci, Sodražica (Austria-Hungary, today Slovenia).

Youth
The village Gora near Sodražica rises 885 metres above the Ribnica valley, right on the border between Dolenjska and Notranjska. The habitants of Gora have always been poorer than the rich. Despite their poverty, they have tried to adequately support their spiritual shepherd and the Church of Our Lady of the Snows, which rises on a hill above the village of Petrinci. The church is surrounded by a cemetery where Magdalena Gornik is buried.

Below the village of Petrinci, about a quarter of an hour's walk from the church, is the village of Janeži, where, around 1828, the young Jožef Gornik married Ana from nearby Petrinci, also called Gornik, at the house of the "Šmetovi". They had seven children.

Magdalena was born on 19 July 1835 in the house at 4 Janeži 4, today number 11. This house burnt down and in 1881 Magdalena's brother Alojz built a new house on the same spot. The year mark above the eaves bears witness to this. On the same day, she was carried to the local church of Our Lady of the Snows for baptism by the godparents from Petrinci, Mihael Levstek and Marjeta Košir. She was baptised by Matevž Ravnikar (Poženčan), the then chaplain on Gora. She was named Mary Magdalene. She was also called Lenka, Alenčka or Lenčka, but she signed her name as Magdalena.

First holy communion
The chaplain of the mountains, Jožef Žagar, held firm to the old rule that children could only receive their first Holy Communion at the age of twelve. It was not until the decree of St. Pius X on early Holy Communion Quam singulari of 7 August 1910 that it was commanded that children should be admitted to First Holy Communion already in the "years of discernment", around the age of seven.

Magdalena joined her peers in daily spiritual preparation, led by Chaplain Žagar. She carefully stored every word of the priest, especially about the real presence of Jesus under the species of bread and wine. Magdalena quickly grasped the meaning and acquired the necessary knowledge. Chaplain Žagar, who was also her confessor, allowed her to come to the Lord's Table. So, in 1847, in the company of her peers, the twelve-year-old Magdalene received her First Communion. The writer of her youth, Janez Plaper, writes, that the most holy God, at that first entrance into her pure heart, "kindled such a burning love for her that her bodily strength began to fail. She could hardly manage the few steps to her place in the pew. There she fell to her knees and for a quarter of an hour gazed motionless at the image of Our Lady of the Snows above the altar. When she stood up to leave the church after Mass, she heard a voice:

'Tell no one what you have experienced.'

Astonished by the voice, she thought that the other girls could hear it too.

'No,' she heard the mysterious voice again, 'they don't hear the voice, you do. I am the one you have just eaten.' A short time later, she left the church with the other girls."

Mystic events
The whole of Magdalene's life is linked to unusual mystical phenomena. We call mysterious events that cannot be explained by natural laws, such as: apparitions, stigmata, the reliving of Christ's Passion, living without food for many years, foreseeing events, unusual healings.

We will mention some of these phenomena from her life, which are documented in archival documents, where almost seven thousand pages of various notes on Magdalena are preserved. "In the archdiocesan archives in Ljubljana, all the sources on Magdalena Gornik are accessible to everyone - 6800 pages of them," said theologian Martina Kraljič, author of the book Magdalena Gornik. She also said that her notes and correspondence were kept by the priest Frančišek Lampe, who also took the famous photograph of her with the stigmata during the ecstasy.

Ecstasies
She is said to have experienced her first ecstasy at the age of 13, on 11 August 1848. From 24 August 1848 until her death on 23 February 1896, she was to have an ecstasy every evening, as well as on Fridays in Holy Week and at every Holy Mass. The offsets followed the ecclesiastical year. In the ecstatic state, her body was insensitive to external stimuli.

Later, Magdalena was able to tell everything that had happened in the ecstasy. The shifts were linked to seeing and suffering; it was then that the stigmata would open up to her.

Visions
Magdalena is said to have had visions throughout her life. The content of Magdalena's visions varied widely. They corresponded to the course of the church year. She is said to have had her first apparition in the spring of 1847 and her last one the day before her death.

In her visions, Magdalene is said to have seen and spoken with angels, saints, the Virgin Mary and the Holy Trinity. The angels, she said, instructed her in the adoration of Mary and God and wept over the people's unbelief. The Virgin Mary is said to have spoken to her about the virtues, about prayer, encouraged her to endure suffering patiently and invited her to meditate on the passion and death of Jesus; Mary also showed herself to be an intercessor for the people with her Son.

On Fridays and during Lent, she witnessed the Passion of Jesus. During Lent, she also shared in the Last Supper and witnessed Jesus' crucifixion and death. At Easter she witnessed Jesus' resurrection and then his ascension. Sometimes she is said to have watched the Holy Mass in the local church from her home through a vision.

Mystical communion
Magdalene is supposed to receive both sacramental (as any believer can receive) and mystical communion (as some saints do). Both happened most often in an ecstatic manner. She received mystical communion only in suspension. Then she was given it by Jesus Himself, by a priest-saint or by an angel. Many people, including priests, are said to have seen the Holy Host suddenly appear in her mouth, and shortly afterwards they saw the special chalice. After such an event, Magdalene would always give thanks, and sometimes she would remind those present to do penance.

Stigmata
Magdalene is said to have received the marks of Jesus' wounds in November 1848 as a 13-year-old girl on her hands, feet and side, which she herself wrote about: "The week before Advent 1848, I got wounds. I knew it three weeks before. All three of them - Jesus, Mary and St Francis - told me that I would get them. On Wednesday at eleven o'clock I got the sores. Thin streams of blood came out of the sky and into my arms and legs; a thick stream came out of the sky and into my right side. It hurt a lot. Since then, my wounds have bled every Friday; in 1849, they bled every Wednesday. Every day they hurt from three to four in the afternoon." She kept her wounds so hidden that for a long time even her family did not know about them; by 1855, she bore visible wounds on her body. In a vision, when she saw the Saviour crowned with thorns or otherwise suffering, the wounds of the crown of thorns were said to have opened on her forehead. During Holy Week, the wounds of scourging would also open on her body. The stigmata caused her severe pain, but Magdalene did not complain. The wounds were examined by doctors, observed by priests and visitors, but no one found any deception.

Xenoglosy
In her state of ecstasy, Magdalene is said to understand and speak languages she has never learned or heard spoken. She is said to have mastered Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Chaldean (=Babylonian) and other languages, including non-European languages. Some of the languages she spoke in her stupor were unknown even to the greatest experts.

Prophecies
Prophecy is the foretelling of future events. On 2 August 1848, she is said to have predicted the flight of Pope Pius IX from Rome. At the beginning of November 1848, Magdalene mentioned this to Jernej Krže from Vinice. In the same month, on 24 November 1848, the Pope had to flee Rome for Gaeta because of the political situation. She also reportedly predicted various plagues, disasters and calamities.

Letters
There are many written documents about Magdalena. Among them are her handwritten letters, as well as handwritten reports of people who observed her and wrote reports to the diocese or to newspapers. How she was affected by the opposition and with what spirit she accepted it, is shown by this handwritten letter she wrote to the fifty-year-old Franciscan friar Tobija Vernik in 1851: "'Oh, I know very well that I have many adversaries. Thanks be to God that for His sake I am despised. It is true that God visits us with much suffering, but let us thank Him well that He visits us here, and let us ask Him to purify us here after His pleasure, and to spare us graciously in the other world.'"

Death and veneration
In connection with Magdalena's death, on 23 February 1896, it is remembered that her relatives, all of them poor, were worried about the funeral feast. In vain, the dying woman told them not to worry, because God would see to it that everything would be all right. And indeed, there was so much snow, and the bitter cold pressed down, that only eight mourners gathered at the open grave. Today, pilgrims are gathering at her grave to offer their intercession to God.