Page:Lifeofsaintcatha.djvu/142

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I have recounted these details to collect them with other celestial favors received by this holy soul, and I add that it must be remarked that sinners who pray for their salvation, are heard by Him who wills in his love, the salvation of the whole world.

Were I to recount all Catherine's ecstacies, time rather than materials would fail me. I therefore hastened to arrive at a circumstance which surpasses all the others, and which will terminate this chapter. I found four written books of Friar Thomas her Confessor, entirely filled with her admirable visions and revelations the most sublime. Sometimes our Lord introduced her soul into the wound of his side, and initiated her into the mysteries of the adorable Trinity: sometimes his glorious Mother imparted refreshing beverage to her from her virginal breast, and filled her with unspeakable delight; and again Mary Magdalen came to converse familiarly with her, and related to her the divine communications which she received seven times a day in the desert. Sometimes the three came together to pay her a friendly visit, and infused into her soul ineffable consolations. Other saints did not neglect her, particularly Saint Paul, whose name she never heard pronounced without evidencing a visible delight. St. John Evangelist, sometimes St. Dominic, frequently St. Thomas Aquinas and still oftener the blessed Agnes of Monte Pulciano, whose life I wrote twenty-five years ago. It had been revealed to her that she would be her companion in Paradise, as we shall see in the sequel. But before giving my promised narration, I ought not, for the utility of my readers, pass in silence, a circumstance relative to St. Paul. Catherine had an ecstacy on the day of that Saint's conversion, and her spirit was so absorbed in the contemplation of heavenly