In august of 1704, dona beatriz kimpa vita, a twenty-year-old Kongolese woman, lay deathly ill upon her bed. For seven days she had been sick. Sweat poured from her feverish body and wild visions flashed in her head. She knew now she was dying. Then, suddenly, she became calm, and a clear vision appeared to her. It was a man dressed in the simple blue hooded habit of a Capuchin monk, so real that he seemed to be standing in the room with her. She turned to him, transfixed.

“I am Saint Anthony, firstborn son of the Faith and of Saint Francis,” he told her, “I have been sent from God to your head to preach to the people. You are to move the restoration of the Kingdom of Kongo forward, and you must tell all who threaten you that dire punishments from God await them.” He told her he had tried for a long time to help Kongo, going from one province to another. “First I had gone into the head of a woman who was in Nseto, but I had to leave as the people there did not receive me well. Then I left Nseto and went to Soyo where I entered the head of an old man. But there was a Reverend Father stationed there, and the people wanted to beat me, so again I fled. Then I went to Bula, and the same thing happened again. I am trying once more, this time in Kibangu, and I have chosen you to do this.”