These sufferings, and this peculiar species of active labour, were like a single ray of light, which enlightened her whole life. Infinite was the number of spiritual labours and sympathetic sufferings which came from all parts and entered into her heart—that heart so burning with love of Jesus Christ. Like St. Catherine of Sienna and some other ecstatics, she often felt the most profound feeling of conviction that our Saviour had taken her heart out of her bosom, and placed his own there instead for a time.
The following fragment will give some idea of the mysterious symbolism by which she was interiorly directed. During a portion of the year 1820 she performed many labours in spirit, for several different parishes; her prayers being represented under the figure of most severe labour in a vineyard. What we have above related concerning the nettles is of the same character.
On the 6th of September her heavenly guide said to her: ' "You weeded, dug around, tied, and pruned the vine; you ground down the weeds so that they could never spring up anymore; and then you went away joyfully and rested from your prayers. Prepare now to labour hard from the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin to that of St. Michael; the grapes are ripening and must be well watched." Then he led me,' she continued, 'to the vineyard of St. Liboire, and showed me the vines at which I had worked. My labour had been successful, for the grapes were getting their colour and growing large, and in some parts the red juice was running down on the ground from them. My guide said to me: "When the virtues of the good begin to shine forth in public, they have to combat bravely, to be oppressed, to be tempted, and to suffer persecution. A hedge must be planted around the vineyard in order that the ripe grapes may not be destroyed by thieves and wild beasts, i.e. by temptation and persecution." He then showed me how to build a wall by heaping up stones, and to raise a thick hedge of thorns all around. As my hands bled from such severe labour, God, in order to give me strength, permitted me to see the mysterious signification of the vine, and of several other fruit trees. Jesus Christ is the true Vine, who is to take root and grow in us; all useless wood must be cut away, in order not to waste the sap, which is to become the wine, and in the Most Blessed Sacrament the Blood of Christ. The pruning of the vine has to be done according to certain rules which were made known to me. This pruning is, in a spiritual sense, the cutting off whatever is useless, penance and mortification, that so the true Vine may grow in us, and bring forth fruit, in the place of corrupt nature, which only bears wood and leaves. The pruning is done according to fixed rules, for it is only required that certain useless shoots should be cut off in man, and to lop off more would be to mutilate in a guilty manner. No pruning should ever be done upon the stock which has been planted in humankind through the Blessed Virgin, and is to remain in it for ever. The true Vine unites heaven to earth, the Divinity to humanity; and it is the human part that is to be pruned, that so the divine alone may grow. I saw so many other things relating to the vine that a book as large as the Bible could not contain them. One day, when I was suffering acute pain in my chest, I besought our Lord with groans not to give me a burthen above my strength to bear; and then my Heavenly Spouse appeared, and said to me, … "I have laid thee on my nuptial couch, which is a couch of suffering; I have given thee suffering and expiation for thy bridal garments and jewels. Thou must suffer, but I will not forsake thee; thou art fastened to the Vine, and thou wilt not be lost." Then I was consoled for all my sufferings. It was likewise explained to me why in my visions relating to the feasts of the family of Jesus, such, for instance, as those of St. Anne, St. Joachim, St. Joseph, etc., I always saw the Church of the festival under the figure of a shoot of the vine. The same was the case on the festivals of St. Francis of Assisi, St. Catherine of Sienna, and of all the saints who have had the stigmas.
'The signification of my sufferings in all my limbs was explained to me in the following vision: I saw a gigantic human body in a horrible state of mutilation, and raised upwards towards the sky. There were no fingers or toes on the hands and feet, the body was covered with frightful wounds, some of which were fresh and bleeding, others covered with dead flesh or turned into excrescences. The whole of one side was black, gangrened, and as it were half eaten away. I suffered as though it had been my own body that was in this state, and then my guide said to me "This is the body of the Church, the body of all men and thine also." Then, pointing to each wound, he showed me at the same time some part of the world; I saw an infinite number of men and nations separated from the Church, all in their own peculiar way, and I felt pain as exquisite from this separation as if they had been torn from my body. Then my guide said to me: "Let thy sufferings teach thee a lesson, and offer them to God in union with those of Jesus for all who are separated. Should not one member call upon another, and suffer in order to cure and unite it once more to the body? When those parts which are most closely united to the body detach themselves, it is as though the flesh were torn from around the heart." In my ignorance, I thought that he was speaking of those brethren who are not in communion with us, but my guide added: "Who are our brethren? It is not our blood relations who are the nearest to our hearts, but those who are our brethren in the blood of Christ—the children of the Church who fall away." He showed me that the black and gangrened side of the body would soon be cured; that the putrefied flesh which had collected around the wounds represented heretics who divide one from the other in proportion as they increase; that the dead flesh was the figure of all who are spiritually dead, and who are void of any feeling; and that the ossified parts represented obstinate and hardened heretics. I saw and felt in this manner every wound and its signification. The body reached up to heaven. It was the body of the Bride of Christ, and most painful to behold. I wept bitterly, but feeling at once deeply grieved and strengthened by sorrow and compassion, I began again to labour with all my strength.'
Sinking beneath the weight of life and of the task imposed upon her she often besought God to deliver her, and she then would appear to be on the very brink of the grave. But each time she would say: 'Lord, not my will but thine be done! If my prayers and sufferings are useful let me live a thousand years, but grant that I may die rather than ever offend thee.' Then she would receive orders to live, and arise, taking up her cross, once more to bear it in patience and suffering after her Lord. From time to time the road of life which she was pursuing used to be shown to her, leading to the top of a mountain on which was a shining and resplendent city—the heavenly Jerusalem. Often she would think she had arrived at that blissful abode, which seemed to be quite near her, and her joy would be great. But all on a sudden she would discover that she was still separated from it by a valley and then she would have to descend precipices and follow indirect paths, labouring, suffering, and performing deeds of charity everywhere. She had to direct wanderers into the right road, raise up the fallen, sometimes even carry the paralytic, and drag the unwilling by force, and all these deeds of charity were as so many fresh weights fastened to her cross. Then she walked with more difficulty, bending beneath her burden and sometimes even falling to the ground.
In 1823 she repeated more frequently than usual that she could not perform her task in her present situation, that she had not strength for it, and that it was in a peaceful convent that she needed to have lived and died. She added that God would soon take her to himself, and that she had besought him to permit her to obtain by her prayers in the next world what her weakness would not permit her to accomplish in this. St. Catherine of Sienna, a short time before death, made a similar prayer.
Anne Catherine had previously had a vision concerning what her prayers might obtain after death, with regard to things that were not in existence during her life. The year 1823, the last of which she completed the whole circle, brought her immense labours. She appeared desirous to accomplish her entire task, and thus kept the promise which she had previously made of relating the history of the whole Passion. It formed the subject of her Lenten meditations during this year, and of them the present volume is composed. But she did not on this account take less part in the fundamental mystery of this penitential season, or in the different mysteries of each of the festival days of the Church, if indeed the words to take part be sufficient to express the wonderful manner in which she rendered visible testimony to the mystery celebrated in each festival by a sudden change in her corporal and spiritual life. See on this subject the