The Lady of the Hidden Kingdom
The Appearance of the Appearing
Read the entire House of New Bethany series here.
Where shall I begin? Perhaps with a story.
In February of 2013, I venerated a relic of Mary Magdalene—a fragment of her shin bone—while it toured the United States. Six months later, she appeared to me in a dream. The apparition did not name herself, nor did she speak.
I stood in a crowded room when suddenly everyone vanished, leaving only her. She was clothed in the ancient style of the Holy Land, serene and radiant. Without a word, she looked into my eyes and smiled—a smile that seemed to contain the quiet of centuries. Then I awoke.
Upon waking, I knew her—not by deduction but by a luminous knowing that unfolded within and around me. It was Magdalene. She had appeared as one of hidden primacy, veiled yet sovereign in a story already written before the foundations of my being.
As I continued to write under the light of Joan and Thérèse, Magdalene’s mystery began to reveal itself as the silent Being of a kingdom—a realm I somehow already knew but had not yet entered. Through devotion to her Being, always guided by the twin flames of Joan and Thérèse, the mystical kingdom began to appear as an ever-unfolding phenomenon—emerging from the glimmering concealment behind her figure on the shores of Provence.
Within that Kingdom, Magdalene’s silent Being shone as a revelation of Our Lady’s relationship with the Holy Trinity—the heart of all creation reflected in her stillness. The vision stood before me, radiant and wordless. I felt drawn into it, immersed in the sense that I must give this light its language.
Gathering the insights granted through Joan and Thérèse, Magdalene beckoned me toward a transformational mode of being in Christ—a comportment aligned with the Logos, primordial to all Being. Through her, Veritas—the metaphysics of the Church—illumined the kingdom as Aletheia, the unconcealment of divine truth.
She led me into the story of which she was first herald and queen, by the grace of Jesus Christ, at whose feet she once knelt in inceptual wonder. Her Aletheian charism—a grace flowing from God through the Immaculate Heart of Mary—reconstituted my entire being in Christ: heart, mind, and soul.
For years, through the Trail of the Dogmatic Creed, I had been walking unknowingly toward this horizon, guided by Joan and Thérèse. They had been preparing me to receive this phenomenon of the Kingdom’s appearing—the unveiling of Being through Magdalene’s silent light.
For it is through this aletheian appearing of Being that God calls us, in union with the saints. We journey not only through the Veritas of metaphysical understanding but through the Aletheian unfolding that God sets before us—truth made radiant and living.
The combined hearts of Joan and Thérèse stand as twin guardians of this path: Veritas and Aletheia, truth and its unveiling, doctrine and its revelation. They walk before, behind, and beside us as we follow the soft, unwavering light of Magdalene’s path toward the Kingdom beyond the Sky-Veil.
Through them, we remain anchored to the Trail of the Dogmatic Creed, which preserves the primacy of the divine story. For Joan and Thérèse guide us along this sacred trail—through the upright heart of goodwill, in perfect union with the magisterial teachings of the Holy Catholic Church, under the radiant eyes of Our Lady, Queen of Heaven.
“Let the hearts of those who seek the LORD rejoice.’ Although man can forget God or reject him, He never ceases to call every man to seek him, so as to find life and happiness. But this search for God demands of man every effort of intellect, a sound will, ‘an upright heart’, as well as the witness of others who teach him to seek God.” (CCC, para 30.)