Burning Brides:The Real Reason Nuns Seem So Serene
By: Gwynne Watkins


Like many pre-adolescent girls, I had a nun fantasy. The fact that I was Presbyterian only increased the mystique. At a time when life was complicated, full of feelings and physical sensations I didn't understand, nuns seemed to have it all figured out: they had wisdom (divine wisdom), beauty (divine beauty), and a purpose in life (a divine purpose). Moreover, they never had to worry about boyfriends or strange sexual stirrings, because they had the ultimate boyfriend, for whom their love could be nothing but pure, good and certain. The medieval women below prove that I had it all wrong. These nuns (and a few devout laywomen) are married to Jesus in a true sense: they make sacrifices, they get hurt, they share joy, and most surprisingly, they have sex lives. Divine sex lives. Here, we summarize (from various historical accounts) what you could expect from taking the son of God to prom. — Gwynne Watkins

He's good-looking.
"Ah! Show me your face and let me contemplate your radiance. Lo, your face, which the most beautiful dawn of divinity illuminates, is pleasant and comely. Miraculously, your cheeks blush . . ." — Gertrude of Helfta

He'll make your friends jealous.
"And the companion of the Mary Magdalene [Jesus] loved her more than all the disciples, and used to kiss her often on her mouth. The rest of the disciples said to him, "Why do you love her more than all of us?" — from the apocryphal Gospel of Philip

He's a good kisser.
"I will run and not tire, until You bring me into the wine cellar, until Your left hand is under my head, and your right hand will embrace me happily, [and] you will kiss me with the happiest kiss of your mouth."— Claire of Assisi

He wants you to want him.
"Indeed I just said to you that he who does not hunger for my body . . . does not really desire eternal life." — Jesus' words to Dorothy of Mantau

He's direct.
"Therefore I must be intimate with you, and lie in your bed with you . . . you may boldly, when you are in bed, take me to you as your wedded husband, as your dear darling, and as your sweet son, for I want to be loved as a son should be loved by the mother, and I want you to love me, daughter, as a good wife ought to love her husband. Therefore you can boldly take me in the arms of your soul and kiss my mouth, my head, and my feet as sweetly as you want." — Jesus' words to Margery Kempe

He tastes good.
On the day commemorating Jesus' circumcision, Agnes Blannbekin felt the Lord's foreskin in her mouth. She swallowed the thin, very sweet membrane "about a hundred times."

Really good.
Standing before the crucifix, Lutgardof Aywieres "saw Christ with his wound all bleeding. And she sucked such sweetness with her mouth at his breast that she could feel no tribulation." On another occasion the figure on the crucifix leaned down and picked her up, holding her to his side to nurse.

He knows how to satisfy a woman.
"He came in the form and clothing of a Man . . .took me entirely in his arms, and pressed me to him; and all my members felt his in full felicity, in accordance with the desire of my heart and my humanity. So I was outwardly satisfied and fully transported . . . after a short time, I lost that manly beauty outwardly in the sight of his form . . .I could no longer distinguish him within me. Then it was to me as if we were one without difference." — Hadewijch of Antwerp

Really satisfy a woman.
"She suddenly felt her whole soul, diffused through all the members of her body, so violently caught up that the same little body felt itself in all its individual members strongly gathered into the embrace. Indeed, in the union of this sweet embrace, the Lord applied the heart of his chosen one to his own heart, and he absorbed her whole spirit within himself; and the soul of Beatrice tasted there a heavenly flood of charity . . . At this taste, she fell to earth and her feet could not hold her . . ." — Beatrice of Nazareth, describing her ecstasy

Yes, really.
"I saw he had a long golden dart in his hands, and at the tip of the iron it seemed to have a bit of fire. It seemed that he put this in me through the heart several times, and that it reached my entrails. When he withdrew it, it seemed to me he took them with it, and left me totally afire with the great love of God. The pain was so great that it gave me a few moans, and so excessive was the sweetness which this very great pain caused me that one does not wish it to stop, nor can the soul be contented by anything less than God." — A vision of Teresa of Avila

He's even into the occasional golden shower.
Flora of Beaulieu had a vision in which she was splashed with the liquid from a golden chalice. She fell into ecstasy for days.

Or if that's not freaky enough . . .
"Today I shall give you a drink that transcends in perfection any that human nature can provide . . ." With that, he tenderly placed his right hand on her neck, and drew her toward the wound in his side. "Drink, daughter, from my side," he said, "and by that draught your soul shall become enraptured with such delight that your very body, which for my sake you have denied, shall be inundated with its overflowing goodness." — Jesus, in a vision to Catherine of Siena

Afterward, he's a master of pillow talk.
"Your mouth tastes like roses and your body like violets. My sugar-sweet and honey-sweet love, my tender one, my pure one, you are mine and I am yours." — Jesus' words to Adelheid

You'll feel great the next morning.
"And afterwards, when she came back to herself, the nun put her in bed where she lay for a whole day inebriated in inestimable sweetness of mind, jubilant and exulting, in tranquil peace of conscience, resting with Christ." — Beatrice of Nazareth

And he'll have breakfast already made.
"Honey and milk drip down from your mouth to me." — Gertrude of Helfta n°





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