obey us. " Catherine remembering the advice she had received answered: "I have chosen sufferings for my consolation; not only will it not be difficult for me, but even delightful to undergo similar afflictions and even greater ones, for the love of my Jesus, and as long as his majesty wills!"
Instantaneously the demons fled in overwhelming shame, and a great light from above descended into her room filling it with heavenly brightness: in the midst of its brilliancy appeared our Lord Jesus Christ, such as he was on the Cross, when he opened heaven with his sacred Blood. "Catherine my daughter," said he, "consider how I have suffered for thee, and it will never be painful for thee to suffer for me." Then he assumed a less dolorous form in order to comfort Catherine, and he spoke to her of the victory that she had just gained; but she, like St. Anthony, said to him; "Lord where were you, when my heart was so tormented?" "I was in the midst of thy heart." "Ah I Lord, thou are the everlasting truth and I humbly bow before thy majesty; but how can I believe that thou were in my heart, when it was filled with such detestable thoughts ?" "Did these thoughts and temptations, give thee pleasure or pain ?" "An excessive pain and sadness." "Thou were sad and in suffering because I was hidden in the midst of thy heart. Had I been absent, these thoughts would have penetrated thy heart and would have filled thee with joy; but my presence rendered them insupportable to thee: thou wanted to repel them because thou held them in horror, and it was because thou did not succeed that thou were borne down with sadness. I acted in thy soul, I defended thee against thy enemy; I was in the interior and I only permitted these attacks from without, inasmuch as they could
