h all his creatures. When I was working in the garden, the
birds would come and rest on my head and shoulders, and we would
together sing the praises of God. I always beheld my angel-guardian at
my side, and although the devil used frequently to assault and terrify
me in various ways, he was never permitted to do me much harm. My
desire for the Blessed Sacrament was so irresistible, that often at
night I left my cell and went to the church, if it was open; but if
not, I remained at the door or by the walls, even in winter, kneeling
or prostrate, with my arms extended in ecstasy. The convent chaplain,
who was so charitable as to come early to give me the Holy Communion,
used to find me in this state, but as soon as he was come and had
opened the church, I always recovered, and hastened to the holy table,
there to receive my Lord and my God. When I was sacristan, I used all
on a sudden to feel myself ravished in spirit, and ascend to the
highest parts of the church, on to cornices, projecting parts of the
building, and mouldings, where it seemed impossible for any being to
get by human means. Then I cleaned and arranged everything, and it
appeared to me that I was surrounded by blessed spirits, who
transported me about and held me up in their hands. Their presence did
not cause me the least uneasiness, for I had been accustomed to it from
my childhood, and I used to have the most sweet and familiar
intercourse with them. It was only when I was in the company of certain
men that I was really alone; and so great was then my feeling of
loneliness that I could not help crying like a child that has strayed
from home.'

We now proceed to her illnesses, omitting any description of some
other remarkable phenomena of her ecstatic life, only recommending the
reader to compare the accounts we have already given with what is
related of St. Mary Magdalen of Pazzi.

Anne Catherine had always been weak and delicate, and yet had been,
from her earliest childhood, in the habit of practising many
mortifications, of fasting and of passing the night in watching and
prayer in the open air. She had been accustomed to continue hard labour
in the fields, at all seasons of the year, and her strength was also
necessarily much tried by the exhausting and supernatural states
through which she so frequently passed. At the convent she continued to
work in the garden and in the house, whilst her spiritual labours and
sufferings were ever on the incre