Opera nuper in lucem prodeuntia

If, however, they find in it anything that cannot be testified to by the Scriptures, since it is not against the Gospel and divine Scripture, let them commit it to the grace of God, for He reveals, as He wills, the uncertain and hidden things of His wisdom and goodness to those who love Him. We ask also all who are going to read or hear it that they offer some praise to the Lord Jesus for that happy person, or at least have gratitude for this, that God, while the world is growing old and men are hardened by so much time in every evil, deigns to renew them with such incitements.

Here begins the Book of Spiritual Grace of the Visions and Revelations of the Blessed Mechthild, a most devout Virgin and Nun.

A woodcut depicts a bearded priest in liturgical vestments, standing before an altar, holding a chalice and a book.

Certain virgins were anticipated by God in blessings from infancy, so much so that when she seemed to breathe her last, they brought her in haste to the holy and just priest who was then about to celebrate Mass, so that she might be baptized. When he had baptized her, he said with a prophetic mouth, as we piously believe: "Why do you fear? This girl will by no means die, but she will be a holy and religious virgin, and God will work many miracles in her and she will complete the days of her life in a good old age." But as to why her baptism was so accelerated, it was because the Lord Jesus Himself later revealed that her soul might be dedicated as a temple to God without delay, and that by inhabiting her totally from her mother's womb, He might possess her by His grace.