her breast; but, as a token of the miracle, he left there a scar that her companions have frequently assured me they had seen, and when I questioned her pointedly on this subject, she avowed to me that the incident was really true, and that from that period she had adopted the custom of saying: "My God, I recommend to thee thy Heart."
When Catherine had obtained that heart in so sweet and wonderful a manner, the abundance of grace which her soul possessed, rendered her exterior actions more and more perfect and multiplied the divine revelations in the interior. She never approached the altar, without seeing some beautiful vision superior to the senses, above all when she received holy communion. She often perceived in the priest's hands a new born infant, or a lovely youth, sometimes a furnace of fire, into which the priest seemed to enter at the moment in which he consumed the adorable Eucharist. Commonly she perceived so delicious and penetrating an odor, when she received the sacred Host, that she was on the point of swooning away. As soon as she approached the Holy Sacrament of the Altar, an ineffable joy was awakened in her soul, and caused her heart to beat so violently, that persons who surrounded her could distinctly hear it. Friar Thomas was advertised of this, and being her Confessor, he verified this circumstance with great care and affirmed it in his writings. This noise, occasioned by the beating of the heart, did not at all resemble any thing that could have been produced by the organs; it was something singular and supernatural, effected solely by the power of the Creator. Did not the Prophet say — "My heart and my flesh shall exult in the Lord." Cor meum et caro mea exultaverunt in Deum vivum. (Ps. lxxiii. 3) The Prophet
