Page:Lifeofsaintcatha.djvu/128

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One day, in the fervor of her prayer, she said with the Prophet: "Create within me God a new heart," etc. And supplicated our Lord to condescend to take away her own heart and her own will. It seemed to her that her Spouse presented himself to her, opened her left side, took out her heart and carried it with him, so that in reality she no longer perceived it in her breast. This vision was striking and her attendant symptoms agreed with it so well, that when she spoke of it to her Confesssor, she assured him that she had really no heart. Her Confessor began to laugh, and rebuked her for saying any thing of the kind, but she only renewed her assurance. "Really, Father," said she to him, "as far as I can judge of what I experience in my person, it seems to me that I have no heart. The Lord appeared to me, opened my left side, drew out my heart, and went away." And, as her Confessor declared to her that it would be impossible to live without any heart, she answered that nothing was impossible with God, and that she had a heart no longer. Some days later, she was in the Chapel of the Church of the Friar Preachers, in which the Sisters of Penance of St. Dominic assemble: she remained there alone so as to continue her prayer, and was disposing herself to return home, when on a sudden she saw herself environed with a light from Heaven, and amid this light, the Saviour appeared to her, bearing in his sacred hands a Heart of bright red and radiating fire. Deeply affected with this presence and this splendor, she prostrated herself on the ground. Our Lord approached, opened anew her left side, placed in t the Heart which he bore, and said to her: "Daughter", the other day I took thy heart, to-day I give thee mine, and this will henceforward serve thee." After these words he closed