rage on it with such cruelty, that those who witnessed it, declared to me that it would be impossible to conceive an idea of it without having seen its evidences.
Those cruel sufferings increased daily; her skin adhered to her bones and her body appeared like one issuing from the tomb; she walked, prayed and worked without intermission; but those who saw her, would have believed her to be a phantom rather than a living soul: her tortures multiplied and visibly consumed her body. Far from interrupting her prayers, Catherine increased their length and their fervor; her spiritual family who were surrounding her at that time, saw very distinctly the exterior signs of the tortures heaped upon her by hell; but no one could apply a remedy. The will of God opposed it, and besides, notwithstanding the wasting of her corporeal frame, her soul rose joyfully and courageously above trouble: the more she prayed, the more she suffered: I was informed by the spectators, and indeed she wrote to me herself, that in the midst of her martyrdom, she heard the devils shriek: "Cursed, you have always pursued us, and thou continuest thy pursuit: now we intend satiating our vengeance: thou designest to force us to go hence, but we will take thy life." And while saying that, they redoubled their blows.
Catherine suffered thus, from Sunday of Sexagesima until the last day of April on which she died, and her sufferings continually increased until her spirit winged its heavenward flight. She wrote me a very remarkable circumstance which took place about that time. Hitherto on account of pain in her side, and other infirmities which (lever forsook her, she deferred hearing Mass until the hour of Tierce; thus she continued during the entire season of Lent, and went every morning to the church at St. Peter's.
