The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ | Page 7

me choose which I would have. I chose the crown of
thorns; he placed it on my head, and I pressed it down with both hands.
Then he disappeared, and I returned to myself, feeling, however,
violent pain around my head. I was obliged to leave the church, which
was going to be closed. One of my companions was kneeling by my
side, and as I thought she might have seen what happened to me, I
asked her when we got home whether there was not a wound on my
forehead, and spoke to her in general terms of my vision, and of the
violent pain which had followed it. She could see nothing outwardly,
but was not astonished at what I told her, because she knew that I was
sometimes in an extraordinary state, without her being able to
understand the cause. The next day my forehead and temples were very
much swelled, and I suffered terribly. This pain and swelling often
returned, and sometimes lasted whole days and nights. I did not remark
that there was blood on my head until my companions told me I had
better put on a clean cap, because mine was covered with red spots. I
let them think whatever they liked about it, only taking care to arrange

my head dress so as to hide the blood which flowed from my head, and
I continued to observe the same precaution even after I entered the
convent, where only one person perceived the blood, and she never
betrayed my secret.'
Several other contemplative persons, especially devoted to the passion
of our Lord, have been admitted to the privilege of suffering the torture
inflicted by the crown of thorns, after having seen a vision in which the
two crowns were offered them to choose between, for instance, among
others, St. Catherine of Sienna, and Pasithea of Crogis, a Poor Clare of
the same town, who died in 1617.
The writer of these pages may here be allowed to remark that he
himself has, in full daylight, several times seen blood flow down the
forehead and face, and even beyond the linen wrapped round the neck
of Anne Catherine. Her desire to embrace a religious life was at length
gratified. The parents of a young person whom the Augustinian nuns of
Dulmen wished to receive into their order, declared that they would not
give their consent except on condition that Anne Catherine was taken at
the same time. The nuns yielded their assent, though somewhat
reluctantly, on account of their extreme poverty; and on the 13th
November 1802, one week before the feast of the Presentation of the
Blessed Virgin, Anne Catherine entered on her novitiate. At the present
day vocations are not so severely tested as formerly; but in her case,
Providence imposed special trials, for which, rigorous as they were, she
felt she never could be too grateful. Sufferings or privations, which a
soul, either alone or in union with others, imposes upon herself, for
God's greater glory, are easy to bear; but there is one cross more nearly
resembling the cross of Christ than any other, and that is, lovingly and
patiently to submit to unjust punishment, rebuffs, or accusations. It was
the will of God that during her year's novitiate she should,
independently of the will of any creature, be tried as severely as the
most strict mistress of novices could have done before any mitigations
had been allowed in the rules. She learned to regard her companions as
instruments in the hands of God for her sanctification; and at a later
period of her life many other things appeared to her in the same light.
But as it was necessary that her fervent soul should be constantly tried
in the school of the Cross, God was pleased that she should remain in it
all her life.

In many ways her position in the convent was excessively painful. Not
one of her companions, nor even any priest or doctor, could understand
her case. She had learned, when living among poor peasants, to hide the
wonderful gifts which God had bestowed on her; but the case was
altered now that she was in familiar intercourse with a large number of
nuns, who, though certainly good and pious, were filled with
ever-increasing feelings of curiosity, and even of spiritual jealousy in
her regard. Then, the contracted ideas of the community, and the
complete ignorance of the nuns concerning all those exterior
phenomena by which the interior life manifests itself, gave her much to
endure, the more so, as these phenomena displayed themselves in the
most unusual and astonishing manner. She heard everything that was
said against her, even when the speakers were at on end of the convent
and she at the other, and her