offer me tribulation; for my Passion, to which I went joyfully, they call me a liar and a fool. — Lib. i., c. xxx.
CHAPTER XXIII.
LIFE OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN AFTER OUR LORD’S ASCENSION.
The Blessed Virgin speaks.
I lived a long time in the world after the Ascension of my Son; and God so willed it, that many souls, seeing my patience and life, might be converted to him, the Apostles of God and other elect confirmed. And even the natural constitution of my body required that I should live longer, that my crown might be increased. For all the time that I lived, after the Ascension of my Son, I visited the places in which he suffered and showed his wonders. So rooted, too, was his Passion in my heart, that whether I ate or worked, it was ever as if fresh in my memory. So, too, my senses were withdrawn from earthly things, because I was only inflamed, as it were, with new desires, and in turn, torn by
