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Henry Suso was a Dominican who lived in the 1300s. Beatified in 1831, his feast day is on March 15.
Henry Suso speaks of himself as “the servant” in this account.
“This servant’s mother had also experienced much suffering all her days. This came about because of the vexing dissimilarity between her and her husband. She was full of God and hence would have liked to live in a religious manner. He was full of the world and opposed this with unrelenting severity. From this arose the suffering. She had the custom of attaching all her sufferings to the bitter sufferings of Christ and thereby overcoming her own sufferings. She confessed to her son before her death that for thirty years she had not attended mass without weeping because of the sincere compassion she had for the torments enduring by our Lord and his devoted Mother.”
“Once she went into the cathedral at the beginning of lent where the descent from the cross stood carved in wood over an altar. In front of this piece of art she somehow felt the intense pain that the gentle Mother had felt beneath the cross. Because of this anguish the good woman suffered so much pain out of sympathy that her heart palpably burst, as it were, within her, so that she sank down to the ground in a faint and could neither hear nor speak. After she had been helped home, she lay sick until three o’clock on Good Friday when she died as the passion was being read.
At this time her son, the servant, was studying in Cologne. She appeared to him in a vision and said with great joy, “My child, love God and trust in him completely. He will never, ever, forsake you in any adversity. Look, I have departed from this world but am not dead. I shall live forever in God’s presence.” She gave him a motherly kiss on the mouth, blessed him lovingly, and disappeared. He began to weep and called after her, “O dear saintly mother of mine, be true to me before God.” And thus weeping and sighing he came to himself.”
Henry Suso speaks of himself as “the servant” in this account.
“This servant’s mother had also experienced much suffering all her days. This came about because of the vexing dissimilarity between her and her husband. She was full of God and hence would have liked to live in a religious manner. He was full of the world and opposed this with unrelenting severity. From this arose the suffering. She had the custom of attaching all her sufferings to the bitter sufferings of Christ and thereby overcoming her own sufferings. She confessed to her son before her death that for thirty years she had not attended mass without weeping because of the sincere compassion she had for the torments enduring by our Lord and his devoted Mother.”
“Once she went into the cathedral at the beginning of lent where the descent from the cross stood carved in wood over an altar. In front of this piece of art she somehow felt the intense pain that the gentle Mother had felt beneath the cross. Because of this anguish the good woman suffered so much pain out of sympathy that her heart palpably burst, as it were, within her, so that she sank down to the ground in a faint and could neither hear nor speak. After she had been helped home, she lay sick until three o’clock on Good Friday when she died as the passion was being read.
At this time her son, the servant, was studying in Cologne. She appeared to him in a vision and said with great joy, “My child, love God and trust in him completely. He will never, ever, forsake you in any adversity. Look, I have departed from this world but am not dead. I shall live forever in God’s presence.” She gave him a motherly kiss on the mouth, blessed him lovingly, and disappeared. He began to weep and called after her, “O dear saintly mother of mine, be true to me before God.” And thus weeping and sighing he came to himself.”
In "The Life of the Servant," published in "Henry Suso," ed Frank Tobin (Paulist Press, 1989), p. 167.