Page:Lifeofsaintcatha.djvu/136

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I entreated him to take away my will and give me His and he in mercy heard my prayers; for thus he answered me !" Dearest daughter, I give thee my will, and this shall be the proof of it, that no exterior event can trouble thee or change thee." This promise God fulfilled; all who were acquainted with her can testify to it, from that moment Catherine was satisfied in every circumstance and occurrence, and no event however contradictory ever disturbed her.

Catherine said to her Confessor, on this occasion: "Father, do you know what our Lord did today in my soul? He acted as a tender mother towards her much loved babe, she extends her arms from a little distance so as to excite a desire, and when her son has wept a few instants, she smiles, seizes him, clasps him closely to her heart, and then satisfies his craving thirst. Our blessed Lord did the same with me; he showed me in the distance the wound of his side; the desire that I felt to cement my lips to it excited me to burning tears; he laughed during some moments of my grief; then he hastened to me, and took my soul in his arms, and placed my mouth upon his sacred wound, and then my soul was able to satisfy its desires, to hide itself in his sacred breast, and there find heavenly consolations. Oh I did you but know, you would be amazed that my heart is not consumed with love, and that I yet live after experiencing those holy ardors!"

In the same year, on the eighteenth of the month of August, God manifested his power again, in Catherine. She communicated in the morning, and, at the moment in which the Priest, holding the sacred Host, invited her to say: "Lord, I am not worthy thou should enter" into my heart, etc., she beard a voice answering: "And