called, as if beside herself; Sweetest, most amiable youth, Son of God and she sometimes added: And of the blessed Virgin Mary. These words were the flowery couch of her love, and on it she reposed without sleep and without food. But the Spouse who had excited in her soul this enthusiasm, so as to influence her more and more, visited her incessantly. Catherine all vehement with sacred desires said to him: "Oh ! why, my beloved Master does this miserable body deprive me of thy heavenly embrace ? Alas I in this melancholy life naught can afford me pleasure. I seek but thee; for if I indeed love any thing, it is simply on thy account. I implore thee, let this miserable body no longer prove an obstacle to my happiness. Oh ! the best of Masters draw my soul from this prison and deliver me from this body of death." The Lord thus answered these words that were interrupted with sobs: "Beloved daughter, when I dwelt among men, I accomplished not my will but my Father's; my disciples have rendered testimony of this; I desired greatly to eat with them the last Supper, and yet I waited with patience the moment fixed by my Father. Therefore notwithstanding the ardent desire that you have to be entirely united to me, you must wait my hour with resignation. " And Catherine replied: "Since thou wilt not consent, thy holy will be done. But yet, deign I conjure thee to hear a simple prayer: whatever be the duration thou shalt fix to my existence, grant me to participate in all the sufferings that you have endured until death. If I cannot be with thee now in Heaven, let me be united to thee at least in thy Passion on earth."
God accepted her prayer, and what she had asked was liberally granted to her; for she began, as she acknowledged to me, to suffer more and more in her soul and in
