Page:Lifeofsaintcatha.djvu/243

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with her celestial bliss; hence she ardently desired to visit her relics, in order to enjoy even in this life, a foretaste of the happiness of being her companion in eternity. But that the reader may know who Sister Agnes of Montepulciano was, and that he may comprehend the prodigies I purpose relating, I must inform him that by order of my superiors, I was during more than three years, director of the monastery in which reposes the body of that holy virgin. From the manuscripts that I have found there, and the relation of four sisters who had been under her direction and who are still living, I found materials for writing her history, and I intend recapitulating in a few words that work of my early youth, to give an idea of the virtues and the sanctity of the Blessed Agnes, who has not yet been inscribed in the catalogue of the Saints. Divine Goodness had so anticipated her with benedictions that at the moment of her entrance into the world, a great supernatural light filled her mother's house, and did not cease until after her birth, to notify with how many merits God had adorned the little girl that just entered life. Indeed each successive year of her existence adorned her with virtues always greater and more beautiful; she founded two convents of Nuns, and in the second where she reposes, she performed during her lifetime, numerous and brilliant miracles which she multiplied and surpassed after her death. Among these prodigies, there is one ever subsisting; her virginal body has never been interred and is miraculously and entirely preserved. It was intended to embalm her body an account of the admirable deeds she had accomplished during her life, but from the extremities of her feet and hands, a precious liquor issued drop by drop and the Convent sisterhood collected it in a vase