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SECOND PART


Chapter I

Our Lord Commands Catharine To Employ Herself For The Good Of Her Neighbor.

Our blessed Lord, had lavished on his favorite Spouse the sweetness of his grace. He had exercised her soul in combat and in victory; he had bestowed on her admirable instructions and enriched her with superior virtues. So shining a light was not destined to remain hidden, but to display its rays abroad. The spouse was about to return with interest the talents that the Lord had entrusted to her: "open to me" was said to her, open to me, by thy zeal, the door of souls, so that I may enter; open the way by which my sheep will go to seek pasture. Open to me, for my honor, the celestial treasure of truth and of grace, so as to shed it upon the faithful. " Open to me, my sister," by conformity of nature; my friend, by interior charity, my dove, by simplicity of spirit; my immaculate one, by purity of soul and body. And Catherine responded to this call, yet, she often acknowledged to me that every time that our Lord ordered her to quit her cell and converse with men, she experienced so lively a sorrow, that it seemed to her, her heart must break.

After the mystic alliance that our Lord deigned to contract with Catherine, he gradually introduced her to