Baptista De Varanis of the Order of Poor Sisters of S. Clare
Acta Sanctorum, May 31
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https://actasanctorum.org/may/day-31/baptista-de-varanis-of-the-order-of-poor-sisters-of-s-clare.html
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ON B. BAPTISTA DE VARANIS OF THE ORDER OF POOR SISTERS OF S. CLARE, AT CAMERINO IN UMBRIA.

YEAR MDXXVII.

PREVIOUS COMMENTARY.

Of her family, title and cult of Blessed, year and day of death, autographs of her Life and Supplement, and other Opuscules.

Baptista Verana, of the Order of poor Sisters of S. Clare, at Camerino in Umbria (B.)

BY THE AUTHOR D. P.

Leander Albertus in his description of Italy p. 425, among the more noble cities of Umbria Camerino numbering, [From the formerly ruling family at Camerino,] long, says he, in it held the Principate the illustrious family of the Varani, from which a man of arms vigorous, and in counsels and prudence much prevailing was, Gentilis (XVIII May in Annotations to the Translation of S. Venantius letter Closed) to whom Rodulph the son succeeded: who Gentilis-Pandulph and Gerard (Camerinensian writers Berard call him) from his first wife; Peter-Gentilis and John, from another he begot. The second through the conspiracy of the first brothers perished … which crime through the city published, with the people's concourse Gentilis-Pandulph and Gerard's children five (for Gerard himself a little before at Tolentino had been killed) were slain, in the year after Christ's birth MCCCCXXXIII. So into liberty herself asserted the city, [with father Julius-Caesar Varanus,] but for years only ten she held it. For the children left from John Varanus Rudolph and Julius-Caesar pitying, with them honorably recalled herself she submitted. Of these the Younger, when under Nicholas V and Sixtus IV of the Pontifical troops the highest command he had held, to the Venetians first, then to Matthias Corvinus King of Hungary in the same office outstanding work performed, as much in the first vigor of manly age useful to outsiders, as afterwards with the elder brother dead to the citizens; praised by Sansovino, that the city with many edifices he adorned and fortified, the temple of D. Mary in the suburb he built, the Citizens with the best institutes, graces, and benefits benevolent he restored; the castles of Serra-vallis, Plorac, Lanciano, Beldilecto, S. Anatolia, Agellus, and other places he renewed; a fishpond in the most spacious plain along the river of Potentia he laid, and with walls everywhere encircled.

[2] He so great and such, from Joanna Malatesta, of Sigismund Prince of Rimini's daughter, [and Joanna Malatesta,] whom scarcely eight years old to himself he had betrothed (whether for confirming his own power's cause he did this, or led into hope of that city also's dominion by right of marriage, if males should fail, sometime obtaining) in process of time begot four sons, and a daughter Camilla, born in the year MCCCCLVIII on the day IX of April, on whose account these things we have touched; [born Camilla, afterwards Baptista] called however in the year MCCCCLXXXI in Religion Baptista, to whom most writers in this century the title of Blessed without scruple attribute. A cult certainly suitable to this name those things prove, which in the year MDCXXX published the most recent writer of the Life Matthaeus Pascuccius, Presbyter of the Congregation of the Camerinensian Hospice, treating of the Body's translation and honor in book 3 ch. 13. For he narrates how on the thirtieth year from death, found intact, [Blessed everywhere called after the body's translation in the year 1593.] and again in earth deposited; in the year then MDXCIII dug up again, into bones indeed dissolved, but most pleasant odor breathing; the tongue however (which most quickly to dissolve in cadavers is wont) intact, succulent, and ruddy. And the bones indeed in a new chest decently placed; the tongue separately in its proper reliquary for veneration placed he says; with consent doubtless of the Ordinary Hieronymus de Bobus, or at least of his then at Rome dwelling Vicars.

[3] Nor is there reason that we fear, by calling Blessed, and a place to her here giving, to strike against the decrees of Urban VIII, about the veneration of those not yet Canonized, [the Relics adorned,] in the year MDCXXV making invalid whatever besides express Apostolic See's license, or immemorial time's privilege, had been by more recent of any authority's indulgence received and by use introduced. If indeed those notwithstanding, of that Pontiff once Secretary first, whom they call of State, D. Scipio Savini, Archdeacon of Camerino, both the Reliquary and the Sepulchre and Chest to be renewed took care, so that they could be seen through crystals placed each. So to have been the same in the year MDCXXXIX religiously visited by the Pontifical family's chief Matrons narrates the same Pascuccius. After these, on the same approaching for similar religious cause D. Anna Colonna, married to D. Taddaeus the Pope's nephew [and by Princely matrons religiously visited,] for honor and veneration's sake accompanied the Most Illustrious Aemilius Alterius Bishop of Camerino: who afterwards Pope Clement X and of the aforesaid conscious, nothing however around them to be changed ordered; that deservedly should be said to proceed all things from the Apostolic See's indulgence, at least tacit; without which it would not be permitted to publish graces and favors at the invocation or relics of B. Baptista wrought, and that with express everywhere title of Blessed, just as also the Most Eminent and Most Reverend D. James, of the title of S. Mary in Aracoeli of the H. R. C. Presbyter Cardinal Franzonus, Bishop of Camerino agreed, that, with things to be observed observed, [and printed miracles,] the book be sent to the press whose title is, Vita della Beata Battista Varani, Princess of Camerino, and Foundress of the monastery of S. Clare. At Camerino in the Episcopal Palace X April MDCLXXX. At Fermo however, of the same Picene city as Camerino, very recently it is written to me, that the Reliquary chest of Baptista is now held within the altar, that lamps burn before it; [Cult under Clement X augmented:] and frequent there hasten, not Camerinensians only, but also outsiders: which make me suspect the same Clement X, who from his singular toward the Camerinensians affection their Patron S. Venantius to the universal Church to be venerated commanded, of this Blessed also the cult to have approved and augmented, although about that nothing certain I have yet learned.

[4] A little more fully these things had to be said, because for the Blessed title to be attributed to Baptista, not only does not make the prescription of memory of men preceding the time, since scarcely a hundred years before Urban's decrees was she dead; but neither of present time a little earlier use among the Franciscan writers does, indeed not even among the Camerinensians. [although the older from the title of Blessed abstained,] For the first who Her Life, which she herself had written, into a better (as Pascuccius says) form reduced, Sister Euphrosyna della Cornia, in the year MDLVII this to her prefixed title: In the name of the most holy Trinity. Begins the life of happy memory of the Illustrious Lady Baptista de Verano, of the Order of S. Clare, who was daughter of the Illustrious Lord Julius de Verano, once Lord of Camerino in Umbria: who her virginity consecrated to the Lord Jesus Christ blessed, true her spouse: and who by her holy life and good works merited with much familiarity of her spouse Jesus Christ to enjoy, and from Him to receive many consolations spiritual and revelations, especially of the eight mental sorrows, which Jesus Christ bore living in mortal flesh; and among other wonderful things a certain epistle on her manner of living in her adversities, dictated by the Lord Jesus Christ, by her, with Christ dictating, with her own hand written. The same almost title, with very few words changed or augmented is to be read before the Life, in the year MDCXXIV at Macerata printed where only is said Venerable Mother, Sister Baptista Varani. [the same caution which Sister Euphrosyna uses Gonzaga the General of the Franciscan Order in the year MDLXXXVII in the work on the Origin of the Seraphic Religion, part 2 in the Province of the March monastery 8 p. 217, has enough first most Noble, then most Pious Sister to call. Nor more does Wadding: for in the Annals at the year 1492 Gonzaga's words he describes: at the year however 1509 placing an elegant summary of the life, only noble and pious Clarissa he calls. The same to Wadding's abridger Harold simply is called, holy, noble, and erudite Virgin; nowhere absolutely Holy or Blessed Baptista, [and is absent from the Franciscan Martyrology.] as everywhere her kind of others. More wonderful furthermore is, that Arturus a Monasterio, neither in the Franciscan Martyrology, nor in the sacred Gynaeceum, of Baptista made mention; otherwise by no means sparing in multiplying his Order's Saints and Blessed, that to him unknown rather than passed over she ought to seem.

[5] First, who used the title of Blessed, seems to have been Bartholomaeus Cimarella: who to the Chronicles of the Minors, by Mark of Lisbon composed and by him into Italian translated added part 4 printed at Venice in the year MDCXXI of which book 7 is prefixed the Life spiritual and inflamed of Christ Jesus's bride, [She began to be so called in this century,] B. Baptista Varana, Princess of Camerino, Nun of the Order of S. Clare: and by this example seems to have happened, that in an exemplar of the Camerinensian edition, which is in our possession, on the first page of the book in old ink is found ascribed, B. in this manner Veneranda Madre B. Suora Battista. After Cimarella with the same license used is found in his History of Camerino MS. Angelus Benigni, Canon of the Collegiate church of S. Venantius, J. U. D. of Camerino, alleged by Ludovicus Jacobillus, around the title of Blessed both following, in Volume I on the Lives of Saints and Blessed of Umbria, printed under the year MDCXLVII at VII April; and again in the year MDCLXI in Volume III, where are supplied the defects of the prior volumes p. 476. Of that Angelus these words are read in Pascuccius: Nor ought I to be silent, what God through the fragile sex deigned to work, [by various writers.] and especially through B. Baptista de Varanis, who to the austerity of life and Christian excellence, which the Order of S. Clare professes, various institutions of regular observance and religious perfection added. Then follow other and other more recent ones, reported by Pascuccius in book 3 of the Life ch. last, and by name Brother Cletus Calcagna, or some other, who compiled the Catalogue of Saints and Blessed of the Franciscan Religion in the Anconitan March; P. Charles Casalichius of the Society of Jesus, in the book whose title is, Useful with sweet mixed, printed at Naples under the year MDCLXXI Decade 5 Argutia 2; P. Antonius Gulielmus, in the book of Reflections upon the mystery of the most holy Trinity, Discourse 29; and others less known to us, and of whom are not alleged express words, as of the prior; that less certain to us it is, whether equally as those with the title of Blessed they affect Baptista.

[6] Besides that which I have exposed above religious veneration of the sacred bones and tongue, even now incorrupt, to no certain time fixed; is not found of any particular day's observance among the Camertes, on which they with public cult yearly might recall B. Baptista's memory: [Day and year of death long uncertain,] indeed uncertain long to them was, on what day she had died. The aforementioned Jacobillus, first the day undertook to determine, had noted VII April, as I have said: which then from another's opinion in the Supplement he judged to be retracted. Equally uncertain everywhere was her death's year: which when the same Jacobillus I know not by what author had numbered MD, which to Christians was Jubilee, namely by Pope Alexander VI opened; followed presently he had Lucas Wadding in the book on the writers of his Order, under the year MDCL published. Nor afterwards, the eighth of his Annals's volume composing himself, and the same in epitome contracting Francis Harold, anything more explored had they; since neither from tradition, [and to April and the 16th century badly attributed,] nor from the writings of the monastery, anything was suggested for removing the uncertainty; both however an epitome of the Life to the year MDIX referred, although they had not yet seen the Brief of Julius II, making it possible for the Firmian citizens in the year MDV, for the foundation of a new monastery to take from Camerino Baptista de Varanis, and Angela de Ottonibus. But if they had been able to see the epistle of the same Blessed, of the Camerinensian monastery now with the highest power of Abbess presiding, given to Brother John of Fano in the year MDXXI, undoubtedly her life they would have prolonged longer.

[7] At length came Camillus Lilius of Camerino, afterwards at Paris dead with the title of Historiographer of the King of France, who in part 2 of the Camerinensian History book 9 in Jacobillus in the Supplement aforesaid thus speaks: [she seemed to have become known from Camillus Lilius:] On the last day of May MDXXIV, with great fame of sanctity died Sister Baptista de Varanis, to whom Duke John-Maria de Varanis, her brother, made solemn obsequies, in mourning together with all his court clothed: and true appeared, what about her had been predicted, that no one else from the family of the Varani so eternal acquired fame, as acquired this religious Princess, of morals and life's sanctity an immortal memory in the minds of the Camerinensians having attained. Credible it seemed, that among the writings of the monastery in vain other had sought, [but also here he erred in the year.] among the very Varan house's ephemerides found had been by Camillus. This year therefore, now to her I was ascribing; moved besides by the authority of Angelus Benigni, by Pascuccius alleged under the same cipher of the year 1524; although the same Pascuccius, in alleging Camillus aforesaid's words, had written 1525, by typographic, as I judged, error; when from the same author of the Life collecting the Supplement, those of the beginnings of the Capuchins reported by the Blessed I saw, which to the more certain knowledge of John de Terra-nova and the Annals as well of the Franciscans as of the Capuchins compared, necessarily evince, that even later the Blessed died and beyond the year MDXXVI prolonged her Life. Therefore the next year I took, that she earlier died than her brother John Maria, the first and last Duke of Camerino, by plague dead in the year MDXXVIII. The day however last of May I retained, lest nothing to Camillus I should attribute; whom I judge in assigning the year only to have erred, because he did not certainly explored have the beginning of the Capuchins, whom not long to have outlived the Blessed was proved otherwise.

[8] But the same Baptista's humility, which made that the heavenly favors, [the later deeds of the life lie hidden,] to her through the last XXIII years of mortal this life expended, lie hidden from us; with eternal silence also would have pressed those, with which before she was heaped divinely, now from the year of her age tenth, born (as she herself writes) in the year MCCCCLVIII on the day IX of April; except in the year MCCCCLXXXVIII so vehement upon her had fallen of diabolical temptations a tempest, that after a horrendous of nearly three years' struggle, at length she had been compelled the whole history of her former life to her spiritual Father to write out; to the same, from whose fruitful sermons she had had the beginning of her first toward the Lord's Passion devotion; and who afterwards Vicar Provincial, her into the Camerinensian monastery had brought: and finally with Brother Peter de Moliano her Confessor dead, as Father spiritual to the same had begun about six months before, [the prior she herself divinely was compelled to write.] when she to him all her heart's secrets opened, in a prolix which from Italian Latin we shall give writing, in the month of March of the year MCCCCXCI. In this since the aforesaid Brother Peter de Moliano is much praised, and indeed as if before half a year dead in nos. 35 and 48, it is wonderful how not only Wadding, to many things distracted; but also Pascuccius, to this one matter intent, so could err; that they would say, that preacher, of whom above, was the very Peter de Moliano, and at his command written by the Blessed was that of which we treat, the Life.

[9] This furthermore to be described, as Pascuccius says from what at Camerino is found of autograph (Protocollon we shall call it) took care P. Sebastian Grandi, of S. Philip Neri's beloved disciple, [It at Macerata first, published from the Camerinensian protocol,] and of the Camerinensian Congregation of the Oratory, which they call of the Hospice, founder most praised, at the request of P. Juvenalis Ancina, of the Roman Oratory Presbyter, afterwards Bishop of Saluzzo; likewise of the Fathers of the Neapolitan Congregation, of an exemplar to obtain desiring. With such occasion using P. Dominicus Passinus of Camerino, of the aforesaid P. Sebastian disciple, the same into chapters nineteen divided, and to the Maceratensian press to be subjected took care in the year MDCXXIV, which was from her death almost the hundredth; and that under the auspices of him who then was Bishop of Camerino, John Baptista Alterius, German brother of his afterwards successor Aemilius, and finally Pope, as we have said. And this edition word for word even agrees, with the MS. which we have ecgraphum of Sister Euphrosyna above praised; only in this excepted, that to this, under the note of the day III of March ended, [and by us from the MS. into Latin rendered.] are missing those things which afterwards she wrote, and are had published under the note of the day XIII. This however to me gave occasion of suspecting, that a double Camerinensian autograph is found, under double dating; of which one indeed transcribed Euphrosyna, the other from the Blessed herself (when to be sent to the spiritual Father, with her own hand again it perhaps had been rewritten) with some at the end added augmented, Passinus published. Therefore which I had ecgraphum MS. following, into Latin myself I made it, in the last place adding those things which besides in Passinus I had found. Why however then I changed my mind, and another from elsewhere received version preferred to my own, receive the cause.

[10] Bartholomaeus Cimarella, three, as at the beginning I said, years before Passinus (which itself perhaps was hidden, to me certainly long was unknown) at Venice had published Part four of the Chronicles of the Order in Italian language, [at Venice also from another autograph inserted into the Chronicles,] and on the front of book 7 had placed the Life of B. Baptista Varana, written by her herself to her Confessor, as the title has. This my long-time Helper Conradus Janningus, then giving work to Theology in the Roman College, finding there in the Library, and by the most pleasant and devout argument's sweetness captivated, at the same time also of his in the Italian language progress about to make experience, into Latin he turned and transmitted to Antwerp; since the book itself to send conveniently he could not, nor quickly hoped to be found a venal other exemplar. That version therefore I conferred with mine, and with the Italian context which here I had: and I found Cimarella's context in several places fuller than the other, in phrase even not rarely diverse, marked by the day, not III, but XX of March: nor could I judge other, than that the first indeed writing by herself at Camerino had been kept among her other little works; [and Latin made by C. Janningus here is given.] just as it transcribed Sister Euphrosyna (for what is said into a better order to have reduced it, nowhere appears) the second indeed, which was to the spiritual Father to be sent, and during transcribing thus had been augmented and changed, in that Convent had remained, where that Father afterwards died, and where it then Cimarella found. Therefore I judged the more weighty to be held the context, which the Blessed with second cares had recognized, and whose from the prior discrepancy could either in Annotations be indicated or with these signs [ ] to the context applied, that may be signified what is so enclosed to be absent from the first writing.

[11] [There is added a supplement from Pascuccius,] Would that to some of the Sisters or Confessors of the monastery, after the Blessed's death, God had injected the mind of completing the rest of the history of her life, after the dispelled clouds of the aforementioned temptations doubtless not less holily, indeed more holily passed, with virtue profiting through adversities! But since this was not done, it remains only that of Pascuccius's most recent labor we enjoy, for completing whatever sort of Supplement, with the parerga omitted, by which his argument he dilated into three books. The same Pascuccius to this his lucubration three of the Blessed herself's opuscules subjoined, namely, The mental Sorrows of O. L. Jesus Christ, devout Considerations upon His Passion, and the Novena of the most blessed Virgin our Lady to be made. Which all, [and the tract on the internal sorrows of Christ:] although most devout are, only however the first, (because received divinely it is, and itself I now have into Latin by me rendered) to the Life I will add. Of the second himself doubts Pascuccius, whether by her it was from B. Henry Suso's works compiled, or indeed it is what at the beginning of her spiritual exercise to have received herself she says from her Confessor, and which among hers always she kept, mindful of the perceived thence fruit.

[12] In the Venetian edition of Cimarella, after the Life prenoted follow other two tracts; [other opuscules are indicated.] of which (as Janningus indicates) shorter is the one, embraces certain admonitions, to Baptista still secular given, which she first to have written says on papers (which she grieves) less decent and abject, at Urbino, five months before her Profession, and to have transcribed in the year MCCCCXCI on the last of January, six months after the death of her glorious Father Peter Moliani; and adds: and now nine it is years since with the habit of S. Clare I clothed myself. The other Tract, which is longer and last, contains an instruction for attaining perfection, sent to a Religious Priest, her spiritual son, to whom she intermixes various things about her life and her efforts toward spiritual progress, with no added to the things which she narrates note of time: and to this Tract is subscribed in Italian, as before, I Sister Euphrosyna della Cagna … rewrote this spiritual life of the Blessed Sister Baptista Varana, at the instance of a certain devout Religious and in Christ Sister most dear in the year of the Lord MDLVIII. Many things pertaining to the history of the Life from this last tract gathered Pascuccius, which thence collected and in some Chapters digested, in Latin we shall give in the Supplement of the Life: and so the whole commentation about Baptista we shall complete. Otherwise to the aforesaid her works could have numbered Cimarella, mostly Latin and Vernacular Carmina (in either language cultivated the Blessed was) and also several spiritual Epistles to devout persons, which he himself here and there picks out in the Life, and Wadding praises in the book on Writers. For us to have indicated those things is enough, and at the same time to have signified to the reader, that what words originally in Latin written are found in the history of the Life, those from the rest from Italian translated will be found by the very character to be distinguished. It pleases also in the margin to note the diverse division of Chapters of the twin edition, under the letters B and D, of either Authors Bartholomaeus and Dominic to signify.

LIFE

By herself to the Spiritual Father written, from the Italian printed of Bartholomaeus Cimarella, Translator Conradus Janningus S. J.

Baptista Verana, of the Order of poor Sisters of S. Clare, at Camerino in Umbria (B.)

[Col. 478F]

FROM THE ITALIAN AUTOGRAPH.

PROLOGUE.

Indicating the occasion and intention of this writing.

Most Reverend Father, in Christ Jesus dearest, with these I signify to you, [She professes that with vehement inspiration compelled,] how I have been turned wholly this month of February in the highest anguishes, and spiritual fight. The cause was a vehement first of all and fervent inspiration, to which with my strength I resisted, doubtful, was it or not a diabolical temptation, of a proud and swollen spirit, to sift me wishing, having received for this from God power, on account of faults and iniquities by me committed. Hence destitute of all human help and consolation, mourning to the customary arms of prayer I turned, praying to the most sweet Mother of God, with as much affection and love as I could, that in such great darknesses and clouding of mind, in which on account of my sins I caught myself, at least that of light to me would be imparted, by which to know might be permitted, was this divine will, or otherwise. And to confess truth, my Father in Christ Jesus, with safe conscience I can say, that wholly this month, as if of mind impotent I have been, with the evil arisen from the assiduous shouting, by which to load heaven I did not cease, that in such struggle to me would be succoured. [for somehow pacifying her soul,] For this cause, that both in dreams and in vigils, both in prayer and in the recitation of the divine Office, some peace I might find; today on the second Sunday of Lent [a], the second-to-last of February, after the sacred altar Synaxis I have communicated, I have decreed altogether to obey and obey the said inspiration: otherwise indeed in vain rest I desire and seek. May God grant, that I have chosen what He himself wishes! and I trust for His goodness and grace, that I have chosen this rather than the opposite. Nonetheless whether so it is, as I say, or otherwise; nothing to me thence both in your, [with the greatest her confusion,] and in the divine sight remains, except shame and confusion: and this reason to obey the inspiration rather urges me, than any other, although many, both useful, and necessary to me have been proposed.

[2] The inspiration furthermore, my Father [b] in the Lord, this is which makes me solicitous for attaining salvation. [she will explain her spiritual life's beginning.] And that better both what I am about to say you may grasp, and of how much weight what I have said you may judge; I will narrate and manifest to your Reverence, what to no man ever I have laid open, namely my spiritual life; what its exordium, what progress up to the present day has been. So I wish. O my Father, until this hour I have stuttered with your Paternity, when whether by writing or word some indication I have given of that, which afflicts me of sorrow: now however the time demands, that, although unwilling, I bring forth what in the deepest bowels lie hidden; and the hidden wound, which now from three [c] years has afflicted this and sinful soul has eaten away, I open. This is and has been the most sharp and pricking little knife, which my heart transfixed; this was and is [d] the lance of the powerful soldier Jesus, which up to the inmost recesses of my heart penetrated. O my Father in the Lord, let it not be grievous to you or tedious to lend ears to me. For as another Magdalene, [together also her present affliction,] at the feet of the good Jesus prostrate, so I to your benign and paternal feet bowed, on the ground I lie, with face poured with tears, with shame and confusion; humbly about to expose the history of my most unhappy felicity. And truly rightly to me I seem to be able to call it most unhappy felicity; because of my sins, infidelity, and ingratitude, into such gall, poison, and bitterness for me has been turned. But, beloved and dear my in Christ Jesus Father, with adjuration I beg you, that with the eye of your enlightened mind paternal and compassionate look upon, consider, and weigh, if there is sorrow as my sorrow.

[3] Since I must speak of so great a matter and so sublime, that is of God, and of divine things, secretly from His goodness alone and grace wrought in my soul; truly to me I seem all sense to lose, and with great fear to narrate and to write I undertake: and because I well know, all I, however great I am, [and that under the seal of Confession.] and that in me is nothing other than falsity and lying; with lamentable and intimate heart's affection I invoke the benign blessed Lord the Spirit of Jesus Christ, that He may deign to assist and be present
to this my narration; for He Himself, I know, is the true and
highest good, the Spirit Himself most truthful and most simple,
without any admixture, and a lover of truth and purity;
that He may give me grace, whereby I may be able without disguise
to narrate to you simply, my Father, the particular gifts and benefits
which from the most clement
God Himself, the Father of mercies, I, unworthy, have received. And
so my mind is disposed to do; disposed, I say, rather to diminish
much, than to add even the least. I wish,
moreover, to speak under the title and seal of confession [e], and therefore
I say: I confess to God almighty and to you, Father.

ANNOTATA.

a. In the year
1491, with Dominical letter B, Cycle of the moon 10, of the sun 16, Easter was celebrated
on April 3; and accordingly Ash Wednesday fell on February 16.




but afterwards also it could have stirred religious scruple in those into whose hands it came,
lest they presume to read through what was sealed with such a seal;
until the fame of her sanctity began to be more widely spread, by the miracle
of her tongue incorrupt after 69 years. The same may have happened both to the Camerino
Protocol and to the transcript of Sister Euphrosyna: and thus there remained unknown
for almost the whole 15th century the mighty works which God had wrought in His handmaid,
and had willed to be written, to be brought forth into public light at a time appointed by Himself,
for the solace of devout souls, walking along the way of divine
love, marked with the bloody footsteps of our Redeemer.

CHAPTER I.

A childish vow concerning the weekly recollecting of Christ's Passion, and hence by degrees a greater devotion and exercises of piety.

[4] Know, sweet and most beloved Father mine in Jesus,
that my whole spiritual life, [Almost ten years old, she hears a sermon on the Passion,] according to
the grace of God, took its beginning and origin
from you alone. It is certain to me that this discourse
will move you to wonder, and perhaps appear
incredible: for I know that all these things are hidden from you;
nor indeed did I ever believe or take into my
mind, that I should be compelled to manifest these things either to you or to any other.
But hearken to the manner, and you will perceive that all things
are possible to God. [a] I would have you persuade
yourself, Father, that when you were last preaching at Camerino
the word of God, I, as my own judgment indeed bears,
was not yet born more than eight or ten years:
but you will reckon this rightly, if you remember
how long ago you preached here. I, on the ninth day of April,
complete the year of our Lord [b] Jesus Christ;
but since I was born [c] in the year 1458, subtract
from the years 33 the number of those which from the last
preaching made here by you have flowed past; what remains
will indicate my age at that time. On Good Friday,
I wished of my own accord to be present at your holy and profitable
sermon; and I was present, not only
(which is the grace of the Holy Spirit) attentive, but altogether
abstracted from the senses, like a person hearing things
he had never heard before; and those things which you said
seemed then to me not already accomplished, but soon
to be accomplished. Whence you well understand, of what age and of what
purity and simplicity I was, who, when you
had said that our Lord Jesus Christ was led
to Herod, and was to be freed by him, if He would speak;
I felt myself moved with such commiseration for Him,
that with prayers I asked of God that it be granted,
that that Jesus of mine should speak, and answer Herod,
whereby He might escape the punishment of death. But when
I heard that He had not willed to give an answer; there came upon me
a great grief, whereby afterwards, that I might somewhat lighten my mind,
I said in my heart, Why does He refuse to answer?
This is a sign that of His own will He wishes to meet death.
So it is, most Benign Jesus, so it is: but I
did not understand. And these things I wished to be said, that you may understand how many
years old I was, when this sweet Lord
began to claim for Himself possession and a seat in this soul
of mine, ungrateful to Him.

[5] At the end of your holy sermon you perorated
with much affection, that you might lead the minds of the hearers to lamentation
and a pious memory of the suffering Christ, [and how meritorious it is to give one tear every Friday:]
entreating each one, that at least every
Friday they should recall the most sacred Passion, and even
draw forth one single little tear for love of it;
affirming efficaciously that this one alone would be much more acceptable
to God and more profitable to the soul than any
other work, however good. This holy
peroration, moreover, just as, by the power of the Holy
Spirit working, it was efficaciously spoken by you; so by the same
power acting, it was so tenaciously impressed upon and clung
to my tender and childish heart, that I never
afterwards laid aside the memory of it: and
thus at length, having become greater in age, turning
and turning over in my mind those holy words of yours, [whereby, now somewhat grown, she binds herself by a vow,] I bound
myself to God by a vow of pouring forth every Friday one tear
for love of the Passion of Christ: and hence my spiritual
life followed, just as below in order
is understood, of which for this cause I just now said that its beginning
and origin is from you, that you may not wonder, but
with me praise God, and let us give thanks to our Creator, from
whom this and all good things proceed.

[6] Let us return to the matter. The said vow being made,
I applied myself with all my strength to its observance, [and she observes it most constantly,] although
with much difficulty. Toward the evening of Friday
there was need of no small effort, before
I could draw forth that little tear, because I found no manner
of drawing it forth; so much did I shun spiritual
things, that not only would I not read them, but I would not even
endure to hear those who read them; and therefore I was greatly
distressed, before that blessed little tear came forth.
But when by a special grace of God
one would flash from my eyes, do not think I waited
(for my scant prudence) for a second;
but hastily rising to my feet, I fled. Sometimes
because of my liveliness I only laughed and engaged in other
trifles, [though with great labor,] so that when I betook myself to expressing it,
I could not delay so long
until it was drawn forth: but then the following week
all things went hard with me, reckoning that something untoward
would on that account befall me. Among these things
in Lent I would meet with Fr. Pacificus
of Urbino, for the sake of expiating my sins;
and these expiated, when he asked whether I was held by any vow,
[I answered that I was not held: but reflecting a little upon myself
and recalling this vow, I said, I was held and from time to time
could not observe it; remaining however with fixed will
to observe it always. And when he asked further what
vow I had vowed; at first I could by no means bring
into my mind to declare it, for this reason,
because the thing was good, which I was ashamed to manifest:
nevertheless] I manifested it at length, when
he did not cease to insist. Then he: My daughter, by this
vow I will by no means absolve you; nay rather I wish that you
observe it: on this condition, however, that whenever you cannot
observe it, provided you have done what is in you,
you be bound by no sin.

[7] Thus bound by the vow, persevering for a long time, and with much,
as I said, labor, by God's will, [afterwards she adds the reading of the 15 mysteries of the Passion,] I fell
upon a certain meditation on the Passion, distinguished into fifteen
parts, and made, as indeed
it appeared, for the use of someone unskilled in meditating
on such a subject. But when I had read through one of the fifteen
articles, I was bidden to recite the Angelic
Salutation: then I approached another, saying:
I give You thanks, my Lord Jesus Christ, that
You did this and that for me: and the rest drawn out at very
great length. I took for myself and kept the book with this
intention, that I might devoutly unfold the whole on my knees before the Crucified
on Friday; which I also did for many
years, taking care that, while reciting those
fifteen Angelic Salutations assigned to their places,
at each one I should draw forth one little tear: and, which
is the grace of God, for the most part I poured forth more abundantly than my expectation.
On a certain Friday until
the eighth hour [d] of the night I had been occupied, when
my Lord parent gave me leave to go to
bed: and I was, [every impediment being set aside.] both because it was deep night and a long meditation,
and because all the rest of the household
had given themselves to rest, most grievously tempted to forgo
that accustomed devotion: but I deliberated much,
four times and more, inclining now to this, now to that
side; God at length granting the victory,
to discharge the accustomed task. If you knew, my
Father in Christ Jesus, in how great a danger through that
night I was, about one hour after I went
to bed, you would be astonished: but if you should ask
what it was, I will tell afterwards: only, lest in writing I be too prolix,
I pass it over. But O blessed that creature,
who, struck by whatever temptation, does not desist
from things well begun! which, taught by experience, I declare:
but for brevity's sake [e] let us return whence we departed.

[8] [she then meditates the same daily,] From the continued reading of the Passion I took such and so great
a delight of mind, that I resolved not
only to read it thenceforth, but also to meditate it;
and not only on Friday, but on all days; and that for
a space of time long enough, as God should inspire the one meditating,
not as the paper should suggest. So great
was the gift of devout tears, granted to me by
God, that very often desiring to recite the Crown
without tears [both by reason of those standing about,
and the lack of a place fit for prayer] I could not
finish it. And this lasted three years
continuously, before I resolved to consecrate myself wholly
to God, the cunning of the devil doing everything, that by whatever
means it might draw me away from this use of tears,
suggesting to those whose sight and
intercourse I could not escape, because we
dwelt together, that they should attribute my weeping now to worldly
things, now to a mad affection for others.
Which taunts and reproaches indeed burned my heart with
grave grief, but by the grace
of God I came off victrix of all, departing nothing from my purpose,
and turning my back to the slanderers, and
turning my mind to God, persevering in my
devotion, I said: [Interpret as you please either well
or ill my deed], I care not a whit. And
thus in those three years I always did so, for the devotion
of the Passion of my sweet Christ, [with which my heart
overflowed.]

[9] [she adds fasts, scourgings, and vigils,] Friday I always spent fasting on bread and water:
on the same day I had vowed to abstain from certain of my defects
and sins; though I afterward through my malice violated the vow
from time to time. Besides, on the
same day very often I raged against my whole body with blows I raged: moreover every night I rose
from bed, that I might say the Crown; but if at any time
through my negligence I had not risen, for one Crown
I recited two. But now, since I have put on
the Nun's habit, I do not [rise, nor] do anything good.
Add, that in the aforesaid three years, on all the feast days
of our Lord and of our Lady, I lived on bread and
water alone: and there occurred from time to time a week, in which
I would spend either three or two continuous days of fasting on bread and
water: [toward the end of prayer she is wont to be rapt into God.] [but now I never fast]. But
all these good works I exercised, not only that in
the other life, but much more that in this I might be happy.
It is indeed true, that when I had reached the end of that long,
devout, and tearful prayer, and wished to
separate myself from God and betake myself to other things, my soul
often rapt enjoyed a singular tranquility and peace,
which not even I myself could tell, of what kind it was. This
I know, that for that small space during which it lasted (it was
sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less
than that in which the Angelic Salutation could be recited twice)
the body was altogether without spirit, no otherwise than a corpse;
but the soul dwelt in a place very tranquil and delightful.
Therefore not seldom I said to God
from my whole heart: My Lord, if You know that for the world's sake
I am to be separated from You even by a nail's breadth, send
me first a thousand calamities [f] and miseries: and I
understood this in this manner: If You know that I shall lose
this little, which I now enjoy, taste of sweetness.
For I had no other access to God:
for indeed, taking away that little, which was above said,
time, all the rest was spent in dancing, singing,
walking, vanities, and other youthful
and worldly delights. [g] [So much in disgust
were devout things to me, that they moved laughter
scarcely begun to be read: and so much did I shun the Religious
of either sex, that I scarcely endured to see them: I was wholly
in my adornment and the reading of vain things.]
While these three years flowed by I always carried about my mind
imprisoned, nor, though I prayed much,
could I obtain by my prayers, that it be claimed into full liberty.
But hear, if you please, in what way at last
I was freed. O God, how benign You are, who in a thousand
ways always know how to help a soul, seriously applying itself to
virtue! [h]

ANNOTATA.

a. Here
first begins chapter 3 of the Macerata edition; but of the other edition,
which we follow as the original, in the course of recopying, there have been added the preceding
lines, as also the rest henceforth to be enclosed in [ ]. b. That is, the 33rd year, for so long Christ lived, and three months besides, as we have shown elsewhere.

it is difficult to define at what time precisely this happened (since the Italians
have no fixed beginning of the hours to be numbered, as have all the other nations, which they
call Transmontane, all of which use astronomical hours,
having a fixed beginning at midday and midnight) yet it can easily be conceived
that this pertains to that part of the year in which the nights at Camerino, a city situated under the 41st
degree of polar elevation, were longer. But the longest
night there, on December 22, at the winter solstice, is of 15 hours: hence
this there is then begun at the middle of 5 in the afternoon: and thus the 8th
hour of night at Camerino would begin at the middle of our 12th hour. Again, since
the same Italians begin their daily actions with respect to the rising
of the sun, and end them after 16 hours from the same rising; it happens that at the time
of the same winter solstice, when the sun rises for them at the 15th hour, the time of going to bed
for them is the 7th hour of night. But as much as the days become longer
and the nights shorter, the more does the 8th hour
run on beyond midnight, and at length about the summer solstice it nearly coincides with the rising
of the sun. So that, that the Blessed is said to have kept watch to one hour beyond midnight,
before she was dismissed by her father; it would have been about the beginning of February, or
after November 9, when the 7th Italian hour falls at midnight. He who wishes more
on these things, let him see Theodosius Rubeus's "Universal
Perpetual Horologe," published at Rome in the year 1660. e. These words were had in the Protocol in Latin: "Let us return whence we digressed." f. In the same place it is, "Give me the inguinary," namely the plague, an imprecation very familiar to the Italians. g. In the same place is added, "In adorning my body and reading vain books": and the things which here follow are all absent. h. Here
Pascuccius inserts fourteen documents concerning the love of God, which Fr.
Petrus of Moliano sent to this his spiritual daughter through a letter,
excerpted from the treatise of B. Vincent Ferrer on the Spiritual Life; as if already
then she had committed herself to his direction, which I do not think.

CHAPTER II.

Long resisting her calling to Religion, at last she generously surrenders herself to Baptista.

B. 3 D. 6

[10] God disposing in His mercy, that I
should break through from the darkness of the world to the true light,
there came to Camerino that blessed soul,
that trumpet of the Holy Spirit, [Francis of Urbino preaching,] Fr. Francis of
Urbino, who now rests in peace, for the sake of preaching the Gospel;
whose words and doctrine seemed to me
to be thunders and lightnings, which he continually hurled against my soul:
for all that Lent
he set forth these words, full of fear, "Fear
God, Fear God": which being repeated again and again, so great a fear of God
invaded my mind; [she conceives a great fear of God,] so clear a knowledge of the offense
and injury inflicted by me upon Him; so great
a dread of the infernal flame; that, if I had not otherwise been taught
that to displease God by despair is, beyond other sins,
truly, truly, my Father in Christ Jesus, I should have despaired
of mercy. That voice alone, which I just now mentioned,
was all my hope and confidence in such anguish:
since I never conferred on that matter with anyone;
[and she doubles her exercises of piety:] but day and night I gave myself to bitter lamentations and
tears, for the great contrition which I felt:
and therefore I applied myself more strongly to prayer
and meditation on the Passion of Christ. Indeed
as soon as I recalled the same once a day, then
I began to contemplate it twice, namely morning and evening: on
Friday, however, I ate three or four little morsels of bread
with a little water, or took absolutely nothing of refreshment:
but at night, out of reverence for the Passion
of Christ, not even lying down in bed, I slept very
little indeed, and could truly say, "I
sleep, and my heart watches."

[11] Meanwhile, continuing the devout and frequent zeal of praying because of the fear,
which I mentioned above,
I felt it again and again [a] whispered to me, that if I wished to escape
the pains of hell, [she feels herself called to Religion:] of which so vehement a fear and dread
had come upon me, I should enslave myself to Religion,
sending away with a farewell worldly things; [b] but if,
as hitherto, I clung to them with vain attachment, it would be that on account of them
I should be condemned. Those voices seemed to me more bitter
than gall; because the contrary disposition of my nature, on account of
its malice uniquely desiring the wallowing-place and mire of the world,
strongly resisted. [while she resists this inspiration,] I indeed alleged
reasons, which could have persuaded me to it,
very many; but in vain: for I could give assent
to none, because of the inordinate affections,
of which whoever wishes to come to serve
God must be free.

[12] At length it pleased almighty God, the true and
sole lover and redeemer of souls, that it should come
into my mind, [for another cause she writes to Francis;] to write to the Father preacher
a letter, as it were out of zeal for promoting another's salvation,
not my own (although it was salutary not to others, but to me alone)
and that secretly from all, and so without
hope of receiving an answer: nor indeed do I remember to have entrusted to him
even one little letter, which could throw a good or bad
opinion about me, except this
which I subjoined at the end, "Remember me in the tranquil
elevation of your mind." And this I subjoined for this reason, that I believed
any servant of God to experience that tranquility of mind
at the end of his prayer, which
I said above I had felt; which I shall suspect of him so much
the more, the more like an angel than a man
he appeared. Now he, [God inspiring,] gave an answer
to me in a way and manner secret enough, as was expedient
for avoiding scandal. And it was of this kind,
That that business, of which I had written, would be his care
publicly and privately, as far indeed as pertained to his office:
then he subjoined these holy
words: [he answering unexpectedly that she conquer herself,] I beseech you, my daughter, to strive to preserve your heart and body
unspotted, by the example of St. Cecilia
the Virgin, until God dispose of you; nor succumb
to carnal and sensual affection, frequently invading your mind;
but in all things generously conquer
yourself. Farewell. Having read these things, from affliction I almost fell into
a swoon of mind; for they seemed to me not words,
but sharp arrows, hurled by God to pierce my heart.
I well knew that I had neither spoken with
nor ever seen him; nevertheless he seemed
not to be ignorant of the captivity of my heart; and I said to God,
when I came to myself: You, Lord, through the mouth of this servant
of Yours speak to me: [she begins generously to do this:] for I know that the secrets
of my heart are hidden from him; and nevertheless he says to me, Conquer yourself,
if you wish to be perfectly free: thus, Lord, thus I resolve
to do. Believe me, my Father; scarcely three or four times
did I withhold my eyes from the pleasures and delights
of the senses; and suddenly, from that affection I was
free. For which reason I conceived such love toward Fr. Francis,
that it might seem excessive; yet necessary, because
worldly and deceitful love was thus turned into holy and spiritual love;
and to him the highest benefit obligated me,
received through his holy discourse.

D. 7.

[13] After I was freed from the servitude of Pharaoh,
God urged more, [yet she struggles against her calling,] that His people should withdraw into the wilderness
to sacrifice; that my soul, I say, should betake itself to
holy Religion. But my perverse nature
drawing out delays, I did not obey the divine voice;
nay more and more obstinate, I found and brought
forward one excuse after another, so that
no one could snatch me from the powerful hands of my father,
holding me so dear and bound fast, that
even if I had wished, I should have despaired of being able to tear myself thence.
O my God! O my God! What have You to do with this
deceitful and sinful soul? what need had You of me,
sweet Jesus, that You should so urgently require me? What
fruit have I rendered to You, my Lord? But now I am silent,
how many and how great things He set before me as promises, whereby from the powerful hands of my father He might snatch me; for too great
a sadness, my Father, overwhelms my heart, and therefore they cannot be
related by me.

[14] Therefore the hardness and obstinacy of my heart
being perceived, the most patient and most wise
God determined to assail and soften it by another way; and to that
end He took care, through the said preacher, [until, desiring to feel something of that love with which the B. V. burned,] on the day before the feast
of the Virgin of the Annunciation, that a sermon should be made on divine
love, with which the Virgin Mary burned, the Angel saluting her.
And indeed, from the fervor with which he preached, you would have judged
that in a single spark of that love, with which the Virgin
overflowed, there was greater sweetness, than in all
the pleasures of the flesh together. The sermon ended, before a certain
altar, my knees placed on the ground, I made a vow to the Virgin
Mary, that I would keep all my senses unspotted,
until God should otherwise dispose of me; on this
condition, however, that He would make me partaker of one
little spark of that love, which she had experienced on the day of the Annunciation;
and I persevered day and night
praying for such things from my whole heart and desire. But since
it was less fitting that a treasure so precious
of divine love should be placed in an unclean vessel, such as was
my soul; thus God willed to cleanse it.

[15] On Holy Saturday [c] the preacher, contrary to the custom
and the pleasure of the Priests set over the church, [and moved by an extraordinary sermon,]
they not wishing it by reason of the ceremonies, which
on that day in the Cathedral church are made very prolix;
resolved to preach, with few hearers
present, since the custom did not so obtain; yet there was present
she, for whose sake God willed the sermon to be made. He asked
moreover pardon of each one, that on such a day he preached;
alleging the inspiration of God, bidding him
unburden his conscience by reason of the following day, on which
Easter would be celebrated. Whence he resolved to speak of the impediments,
which would make Communion unlawful; [to renounce all vanity,]
and he discoursed many things; but to me the following ones. Whoever,
he said, comes to Confession without the purpose
of leaving those things, which are or supply matter
of mortal sin, is forbidden to communicate.
Then I, silent in my bosom: Alas for me! who almost always
have received the Eucharist in such a manner, no
will conceived or disposition applied of sending away
my vanity [d] and folly, except perchance for the present!
This evening, when I expiate my faults by Confession,
of that sin especially I will accuse myself. And
so I did. Fr. Oliverius, to whom I confessed, inquired,
from what time I had received in that manner the Sacraments of Penance
and of the Eucharist. To whom I:
Almost always. And he: Daughter, by no means will I permit,
that tomorrow you refresh yourself with the Lord's body [e]: but
go, seriously and diligently about to weigh your sins, [Paschal Communion being for a while deferred,] and return
the following week, then I will receive your general
Confession. As he bade, so I did, much
though confused and affected with shame before the bystanders,
that on the festal light of Easter I did not with others recline at the sacred
table. But that is most true:
He who does not give what he can, does not receive what he wishes: and this
befell me then. But that Confession being made
(I speak truly) I had, as is fitting, sincere
contrition [as it were all [f] this Lent] by the grace of God:
[nor however do I deny, that, for my lax conscience,
furnished with scant light, I did not reckon any
least matter a matter of conscience for me, as I would reckon
now. But what I did not do then, after the general Confession being made, [and the general Confession being made,] ought afterward
to have been done, as you will further understand: but let it suffice,
that I did, as much as I knew was to be done.] It was the octave of Holy
Saturday, when [Fr. Oliverius in [g] St. Peter's received my
Confession, and offered the sacred Synaxis.
Whence having departed I conferred with my pious Father Fr.
Francis of Urbino, never before having spoken with me.
Who asked me, whether I was meditating Religion?
and I answered, No: and he seemed therefore
from his countenance to be affected with grief, and said: Now you are made
whole, sin no more, go in peace.] And so abounding in solace
I returned home.

B. 4.

[16] When my soul, in the manner I have narrated, had been purged
and cleansed, the divine goodness began
to knock more strongly at the door of my heart: and its voices now
glided not from afar, but resounded close at hand
so clear and distinct, [after a long struggle,] that not seldom I stopped my ears with my hands,
that I might less perceive them: but
in vain, because they spoke not to the body, but to the soul.
Hence when I came to pray, I rather seemed to gird myself
for battle. Nor unjustly; for a contest
more difficult than that is found none: yet
not on that account did I ever forgo accustomed prayer.
It happened sometimes, when more vehemently the benign Spirit of God
urged me, and I no less
strongly resisted Him urging, that He threatened me with these
words: [I am He, whom you desire]: go, if you please, to
the world; never there will you obtain the things desired.
Consider, my dear Father, how my mind was not
quieted by these things: I turned and turned over in my mind the sayings,
nor did I find any rest, nor could I apply
my mind to Religion. Nevertheless I repeated the prayer,
and it was Friday: and there seemed
to me (for I do not certainly affirm it) a certain other to stand
near; when I felt so vehement a conflict of soul,
now willing, [at length she resolves to obey Him who calls.] now unwilling, that from anguish
the sweat broke out through my whole body: but then the free will,
which had always remained mistress of itself and firm,
of its own accord, not by force, acting as it were a judge,
sitting in the chair and beholding the cruel
contest, pronounced sentence against me: and I determined
with the affection of my whole soul to serve God, so much
so that, if for the sake of that thing martyrdom were to be undergone
by me, I would have first and indeed most readily gone to this,
than departed from the proposed sentence. At the same
time a desire was infused into me of setting out
to Urbino, in no other place going to have peace of mind.
As therefore to a wearied and weakened body
a soft [with flowers and roses] little bed is the greatest rest;
so to my agitated mind it was the highest consolation,
at length by assenting to give my conquered hands;
and thenceforth with peace, tranquility, and spiritual joy
perpetually I rejoiced.

ANNOTATA.

these things could have happened in the year 1477, when the Virgin was completing the 19th year of her age,
born April 9 of the year 1458, and Easter was celebrated on April 6,
and accordingly the preceding feast of the Annunciation had fallen on the 3rd weekday after
Passion Sunday. And this is confirmed from the 13 years, which below at no. 24
she says she endured a certain infirmity, given to her already converted for an
ardent desire of suffering much: for from February of the year 1491
going back through 13 years, one comes to February of the year 1478, next
following the said conversion. d. Since from the things to be said below at no. 51 there sufficiently appears the purity of mind and
body, which Baptista preserved all her life; it is not credible
that that levity, of which longer continued she here rendered herself conscious, either
approached the gravity of mortal sin, or afforded a proximate occasion of it.
But neither is it credible that in subjecting the same to Confession
and in eliciting a purpose of amendment the Virgin was so negligent, as to
have made her Confessions invalid. What then? "It belongs to pious minds," says Gregory, "to apprehend a fault there, where there is no fault;" and
the things which preachers sometimes hold out for moving great sinners,
to apply to themselves, on account of the interior light, by which they know how to estimate even those
things which to others seem most trifling. e. Neither
do I believe, that the prudent Confessor judged the Virgin to be altogether obliged
to repeat her Confessions; from her present good disposition, however,
he must have judged, that the delay imposed on Communion, and afterward
the general Confession to be made, would conduce very much to her spiritual progress. f. There cannot here be understood the greater Lent; which was past; but the Lent of the Holy Spirit, which
many in the Franciscan Order observe, from the 2nd weekday after the Sunday in
Albis until Pentecost, of which mention is made among others in the Life of B.
Felix the Capuchin, by Mathias of Salò on May 18, no. 63. g. That was where now is the citadel, says Pascuccius.

CHAPTER III.

The spiritual favors granted to the Virgin, now entirely converted.

[18] O my God, now I beseech You, that You be present
to me, [After she had thus surrendered herself,] hereafter going to relate nothing other than
Angelic and Divine things; and give grace,
that with [this stinking mouth and venomous tongue]
I may explain Your wonderful benefits, granted to wicked me
to my confusion and shame: namely, that
you, my Father, may not once, but a thousand times be able to say:
Well have you deserved, daughter, both that and every evil
of yours; what more could God have done, and did not do?
And so in truth the matter is. For when I had thus wholly
surrendered into the divine will; all the cataracts of heaven
opened to me, and the abyss of divine mercy
absorbed this sinful soul of mine.
Then the benign God came to meet the prodigal son; [God began to embrace her soul.]
then embracing him with paternal arms, sweetly
and lovingly He pressed him; then the kiss of holy peace
with His mouth not once and again, but many times
He gave him. O my heart harder than rock! why are you not broken?
what do you do? why do you draw delays? And the highest
Goodness seemed, in pressing with His most holy and divine
arms my [adulterous and sinful]
soul, unable to be satisfied. Most holily I assert,
very often I fled out of zeal for holy humility,
and supplicated God, that He would not longer hold my soul
constrained in His arms; otherwise I desisted from prayer:
but in vain was flight, in vain
was prayer applied; for there was no truce for me from His embrace,
before it pleased His divine
Majesty to grant them. It happened
moreover not seldom that, prayer being finished, for no small space of time
I wandered, before my soul was
restored to itself. Most sweet and most pleasant were
His voices to me, full of manna and honey, full
of exultation, gladness, and joy, fit to soothe
and to make burn with reciprocal love, a heart
of stone: but I cannot write the whole, because the Prophet
says: "In my heart I have hidden Your words, that I may not
sin against You." [and to address me interiorly, most sweetly,] But truly I could use these words of the Canticles:
"My soul melted, when the beloved spoke":
and those of the Prophet: "How sweet to my jaws
are Your words, above honey to my mouth, [And Your word is fiery
exceedingly, and my sinful soul loved it.]" [a]
And most clearly I understood, that in me were truly fulfilled those words of the Prophet: "On whatever day the sinner
shall be converted, I will no more remember his iniquities." And
therefore I cast and submerged myself wholly
into the ocean of love: * And thus at my peril I learned;
That the beginning of wisdom, that is, the principle of the Savor of divine
sweetness, is the fear of the Lord. And since according to the greatness
of the fear, greater is the sense of divine love,
which follows; this immense and greatest love existed
in me, because that highest fear, by God's gift,
existed.

[19] [as a most beloved spouse,] Then indeed I loosened the reins to my heart for loving,
which for many years from fear of worldly honor
I had with the bridle of discretion not without labor constrained;
and I let it follow its own impulse [b], and I reposed wholly in
my most sweet spouse Christ Jesus the blessed; who
so called me, because so He showed Himself in my soul
and gave Himself wholly, and indeed sometimes under the form
of a most benign father; sometimes with such familiarity,
that He appeared a dear friend and companion; but
for the most part like a most sweet spouse. But when
God, as a spouse, enters a pilgrim soul,
I believe, for the small experience I have,
that sense of divine love to be such,
that in this state of life a sweeter and more pleasant cannot be
given. So that if that sense had lasted for me further,
I would never have wished to be freed from this mortal body;
since I seemed to enjoy eternal life and the heavenly paradise in this
world. [whence steeped in an almost heavenly joy,] Nor would I believe, that anything else lay between
paradise and that sweetness, [except
as much as between the payment of an earnest and of the whole wages;
and] that the one is certain and going to endure perpetually;
the other uncertain and at any moment
losable. But alas for me! not slight is this difference;
nay greatest and infinite.

[20] [she understands herself brought back to primitive innocence;] Wherefore on this side seeing myself so tenderly loved;
on that side knowing, that nothing resided in me except iniquity
and sin; because in Him, where the sun of justice
Christ Jesus lodges as a guest, all things
are illumined with the clearest light; astonished from wonder
vehemently, sometimes out of profound humility
I thus addressed Him: O my Lord,
if demons dare to blaspheme You, it is certain to me,
that they will more boldly call You a lover of iniquity:
I beg and beseech You, my Jesus, that You not, for love
of me, allow Yourself to be called by that name. [I am nothing
other than mere iniquity; and You deign me with such love?
What other name then will they fasten on You,
except that, Lover of iniquity?] To these things my sweet
God, most benignly answering, said:
Know, my daughter, that I am far from being a lover of iniquity:
not in iniquity, but in innocence, in which both
you were born and now live, I delight. Unskilled in words
spiritual, I was wholly ignorant, what
to this word, Innocence, of notion lay beneath: yet
at length [c] finding such a word
[d], and a like benefit conferred on a certain soul by God,
[and that Christ delights in it, because it is from Him.] I asked what these things meant: I will
restore to you the first innocence. And certain handmaids
devout to God declared that this sense lay beneath:
I remit to you your sins, both as to
all guilt, and as to all punishment.
And so I understood, that up to that time the grace
of the guilt and punishment of sins was done me. I supposed
besides, that that innocence was a certain
adornment of the soul: but I did not grasp, what to the aforesaid
Christ subjoined: Just as I delight in My very self,
and not in you; for that innocence of your soul
I have infused, and it is Mine; and therefore not you, but
Myself I love, in My very self I delight and rejoice. And
by these things He declared to me copiously, in what manner He is held by the desire
or love of no thing, except of His very self,
as much in heaven as on earth: namely so much
He loves created things, as He has placed of Himself in them: for no
thing outside Him and without Him has anything
lovable or delightful, whether you search through heaven or earth.
And in this manner leaving me instructed,
He took care that I not be lifted up by pride or vainglory. But this
matter, my Father, is such, that the more about it
I say, so much the more remains to be said: and after
I had said all the things I can, with respect to those
things which in fact happened, I should be thought to have said nothing. Let suffice
the things which have been said, that you may manifestly know,
in how great peace and tranquility, in how great sweetness
and love, in how great confidence and familiarity,
in the holy time of that spiritual jubilee, I lived;
finding myself very often in divine colloquy, among
the dear arms of the heavenly Spouse, in the conversation
of the benign and eternal Father, in the grace and consolation
of the Holy Spirit.

[21] O time most pleasing, most serene, and most joyful,
how into a tempestuous, dark, [she laments herself cast down from that happy state,]
and gloomy one have you been turned for me! O incomprehensible peace,
which surpassed every sense, how
a deadly war have you become for me! O ineffable sweetness,
in what manner into most bitter gall have you been changed
for me! O love, [which almost compelled me to die], what
cruel hatred do you leave behind you! O friendship, O familiarity
[e], into how great discord and enmity
have you been turned! O most sweet arms, how from a place
so sublime into the depth of the pit have you permitted me to fall!
Woe is me, how grievous is this fall!
Now no wonder, my afflicted soul, if all your
bones be broken. Now lament, now
sigh, now though you cry out: "She sits in sadness,
the mistress of the nations, and her tears are on her cheeks, [before God]
and there is none to comfort her. All my friends have gone away
together and have forsaken me desolate, all the day worn out with grief.
Who therefore will give water to my head and to my eyes
a fountain of tears? and I will weep my desolation,
[my widowhood, and my unhappiness]." Alas for me!
the crown of my head has fallen, and my eyes lead forth
streams of waters, because I did not keep unspotted the divine
love of my heavenly Spouse. Let heaven and earth weep
over me: let all rational creatures weep over me:
weep you, my most beloved Father, (if only a heart
of stone be not yours) over your desolate daughter;
and see, as I said, [if there is sorrow as my sorrow, and]
if there is sorrow like to my sorrow. [and to her spiritual Father.] This was and is that
hidden wound, which long ago burst my
heart for me: now I uncover it to you, now I show it;
because to conceal, to cover it longer I cannot: medicine
apply, if you can; if you cannot, exhibit commiseration;
it will be for relief. I desire patience,
I desire tolerance; from sorrow I fail,
[struck with grave fear and bitter bitterness; I am
devoid of sense, not knowing what I say or do:
wherefore if in any word I err, pardon; for this
is my fixed sentence:] As much as she was in delights and
glory, so much give to her torment and grief. But
now let us pursue the begun narration: I will tell,
as I promised, the series of my spiritual life, in what manner
namely it has been carried out, up to the time of my affliction
and desolation; and I will tell with the highest truth
and simplicity, as hitherto I have told, by the grace
of God.

B. 5, D. 10

[22] He, who is the flower of the field, the lily of the valleys, and is fed among
the lilies, [Christ leaves in her heart three lilies,] wishing to leave manifest traces of His presence in my
soul, adorned it with three
flourishing and fragrant lilies. The first
was a hatred of the world so grave, that if anyone had given me power
of choosing what I wished, either
to remain in the world an Empress with the certainty
of obtaining salvation; or to withdraw to Religion
with the danger of incurring damnation: I would have you
believe me, Father [mine in Christ Jesus], with the highest
promptitude of spirit I would have chosen rather Religion,
salvation doubtful; [that is, a great hatred of the world,] than the world with all its pomp
and glory, the same secure: and this I would have chosen
on account of the capital hatred, with which I pursued it;
for the world no longer seemed to me, but that
which it was, a temporal hell and an earnest of infernal
punishments: and so it is, to the confusion of him, who
will not confess it.

[23] The second lily was an interior lowliness of mind,
by which sincerely from my whole heart I confessed and believed, [an inmost humility,]
that a greater and more wicked sinner the earth did not bear
than I, in no other wise to be saved than by the highest mercy of God;
but to be damned, if of His justice
account were taken: and thus I reputed myself the viler always,
the more He heaped me with greater benefits.
And this grace effected this, that I always held all His gifts
as lent on credit, not as given
as a portion: and so it is true, that truth is lovable,
which thus instructed and taught me.

[24] The third lily finally was, an ardent desire of suffering,
so that, if He Himself had wished to call me away into His paradise,
having suffered no inconveniences and afflictions, [an ardent desire of suffering.]
I would have refused to come: but I prayed and besought
again and again with sweet affection, that if so great a benignity,
as He had shown and showed me up to then in fact,
proceeded from a sincere heart, He would set this
sign for me, namely that I be clothed with the same garment,
which His most beloved son was clad with; that is,
that it be granted me to suffer adversities in this world. But behold
so liberal a promise of them was made to me,
that four times and more I was filled with them to satiety.
At that time straightway I fell into a sickness, this
very one, of which, thirteen years having now passed, I have never
been cured; and I bore it with such great pleasure,
that you could scarcely believe; except only in this
last year, in which I seemed to myself not to be
able to bear it longer; though at first with full resignation
I was willingly sick: but this is not in me, but
in the Lord the boasting, since from Him is my patience.
And while, as another Job, with a most grievous and mortal
infirmity of body I was afflicted, by singing psalms
I gave thanks to God from my whole heart.

[25] [Taught to meditate the life of Christ,] Now the seven months being finished, in which at any
moment I seemed about to breathe out my soul, I rose from bed;
and Fr. Gregory [f], who now triumphs glorious
in heaven if it is true, what is said, instructed and taught me
the manner of meditating the life of Christ, while reciting
the crown of the Blessed Virgin, sufficient for filling three hours.
Meanwhile I abounded with such great solace
and sweetness, that to make an end I scarcely or not even scarcely
could, all things being for me turned into honey and sugar and
most sweet manna [g]. But indeed while
contemplating the Transfiguration of Christ our Saviour,
things so sublime and heavenly were promised to me, that I never hear the Transfiguration even named,
but I am wholly suffused with a most sweet pleasure of mind;
thus carrying out what the Prophet prescribes
with these words: "Taste and see." For when I tasted,
I was so kindled with desire of seeing Him,
that all my prayer was nothing other than a perpetual
languor of one loving and desiring to behold His most serene
and most glorious countenance: whether I looked at herbs,
flowers, roses on the earth, they provoked me to contemplate
the beauty of the Lord; [and thinking on the Transfiguration,] or
upward I lifted my eyes to heaven, marked with stars,
I wholly failed with languor, saying: "The heavens
declare the glory of God, and the firmament announces
the works of His hands." O my sweet Jesus, if with such great
elegance shine the works of Your hands, how greatly will resplend
Your radiant face? Show me Yourself,
[show me Yourself, show me Yourself,] most benign
Lord: why do You let me thus languish? You alone are my life
and my hope, alone the love of my heart and soul;
[why do You hide me, why do You conceal from me Your most
holy face]? [she is kindled with desire of seeing Him:] This was that time, in which I no longer
fled Him, as before; but eagerly followed,
in the odor of His ointments; saying to Him: "Better
are Your breasts than wine, and the odor of Your garments
above all aromatics; would that You would kiss me with the kiss
of Your mouth [h]!"

[26] [and having long prayed for this,] When with such desire I had been much agitated and had suffered
[i], He thus rendered me partaker of my vows,
that, while I asked to see His glorious face, He turned
His back to me. Nevertheless sometimes saying to myself:
This Jesus of mine grants me all things obliquely:
truly then obliquely was I heard and understood;
but directly was I rendered partaker of my vows: for I remained
from then in every way pacified and possessed of my desire.
Now hear, if you please, in what manner He for His infinite
goodness and mercy showed Himself to be seen by me.
Devoting myself to prayer sometimes, from signs I perceived
not doubtful, that He Himself was present to my soul;
and when He was preparing departure thence, He said to me:
If you desire to see Me, look back. I looked back: and like a man,
who departing from another, turns his back to him and pursues his
own journey, He fled from my soul. As
soon as I began to see Him, He was distant from me more than six
paces; and He walked straightway through a hall long
enough, at the end of which was a little door, such as
is proper to chambers: and I saw Him as long, until
on account of His tall stature of body with bent
head, He passed out through the aforesaid little door; [nor afterward
either He, or the hall, [at length she follows in a wonderful manner,] or the little door appeared
anywhere to my eyes: and thus I saw the back, not the face
of Him.] He was clad in a most white garment,
and ankle-length, which surpassed whatever of whiteness this world
has; and with a border, adorned with golden letters of the thickness
of one finger, He swept the ground.
The letters however I could not read, both because they were far
off, and because He Himself, although modestly walking,
nowhere stopped. About the loins He was
most slender, girded with a girdle of solid gold,
two fingers wide. With head and neck above all men
He was eminent: His hair seemed gilded, hanging down to
the girdle; gently curled: the top
of His head, however, it was not permitted to see so accurately, that I could
ascertain, whether He wore a crown or a diadem, or a circlet of roses
and flowers woven together. He Himself did not wish, that
these things become known to me: and I believe His head was adorned with so neat
an ornament, that I was not worthy to take it in with my eyes.
But the golden and copious hair, hanging down through broad and well-proportioned
shoulders, the most white and most beautiful
garment increasing the comeliness, [so greatly commended Him,
that beholding I was rapt into admiration and stupor].

[27] In those two and a half years, in which meditating better things
I remained in the world, with many graces and gifts from God
I was prevented; of which here mention
I do not make, judging it better of many
few, than of few many things to say; [and many other favors throughout the two years.] because that conduces to
my greater peace. Know however most certainly,
my Father in the Lord, that in that most tranquil
time there became known to me all, which I have suffered,
straits and afflictions, just as manifestly
it will appear below, that I might prudently and patiently
bear them. But alas, wretched and unhappy me, who
neither the one, nor the other in fact fulfilled! because I governed
myself no otherwise than a sheep: and therefore I cannot
but lament my slothfulness, saying: O all you,
who pass by along the way of divine love, attend and see,
if there is sorrow like to my sorrow. That unhappy soul, which
was the spouse and secretary of the most high God, and lay in saffron,
embraced the dung of the most stinking devil.

B. 6, D. 11

[28] When therefore the fullness of time came
(because all things have a time) in which I was afflicted and tested,
whether I were gold or lead; tested by infirmity, [Prepared for much tolerance,]
tested by temptations, threats, [prison], by all
things, God helping, I repaid to him his own
coin, that is, I despised blandishments, and sickness
and threats with desire I embraced [k].
God willed at length wholly to free me, just as
He had promised, from the Egyptian servitude of the world,
and from the hands of the powerful Pharaoh, who for two
and a half years had a hardened heart, and who
with his own mouth said, that if I did not fear the scourges of God,
he would never permit me to enter Religion. [and the father's assent being at length obtained,] Therefore
having despoiled Egypt, laden, I say, with treasures and spiritual graces,
with dry feet, that is, without even the least
labor or passion, I passed over the Red Sea,
the inflated, I say, and swollen pomp and principality of the world:
which red things indeed appear, that is, the eyes
they delight, as the red color is wont; but in truth
they are not beautiful, because besides smoke and fire
kindled from straw, which quickly perishes, they have nothing.
And when turning myself I looked back behind,
I saw submerged in that very sea with his whole army
Pharaoh; that is, the demon with all
his snares, vices, and sins. And in this manner
I was carried over into the desert of holy Religion, into the sacred
monastery [l] of Urbino, you witnessing, you present: where in
truth, my Father in the Lord, I was filled with so great
joy, [she enters the monastery of Urbino.] when I saw myself escaped from the world and its snares,
that with Mary the Prophetess I could deservedly
say: "Let us sing to the Lord gloriously, for He is glorified,
the horse and the rider He has cast into the sea." And
it might indeed be, that some other should desert the world with as great
pleasure and delight, as
I: but with greater, I cannot believe.
Nor wonder, that I have brought into comparison
the dignity and figure of the Jewish people, with so many gifts of God
and benefits heaped: for there does not occur to me,
to whom I might rather compare myself; both on account of the infinite
benefits, which from God I have received; and especially on account of
my infinite hardness and ingratitude.

ANNOTATA.

"And whatever I thought of did not present itself as past, but as if
I were corporeally present and assisting at all the words and offices of the glorious
Virgin and the boy Jesus, whom I seemed to accompany on their
laborious journeys." h. Likewise these also are subjoined in Latin words: "Show me Yourself: for while I await You, Lord, it suffices me." i. In the same place is added, "For the whole six months." k. Explaining
the matter Pascuccius says, that the father of the Blessed, through the death of Nicholas, his nephew
by an elder brother, made head and lord of the whole House of Varano, likewise
leader of the Venetian forces, and looking to nothing other than the increase of his state,
wished by all means to compel his daughter to a marriage, by which he might augment his
affairs by some powerful alliance. l. Concerning the monastery of St. Clare of Urbino Pascuccius thus writes:
"This monastery was chosen, because there some time before Baptista Malatesta had taken the Nun's
habit, the former wife of Guido of Montefeltro,
afterwards named Sister Hieronyma, by the name of doctrine most celebrated among the writers of that age:
and there also had lived Elisabeth,
the former wife of Petrus-Gentilis Varani, who after the slaying of her husband perpetrated among
the Recanati, made religious at Foligno, and brought into suspicion before Pope Nicholas
V, that under the pretext of leading a monastic life at Foligno she intended
to bring back the city to the dominion of the Trinci,
kinsmen of her former husband; and therefore ordered to migrate; by the intervention
of certain Italian Princes she had obtained the monastery of Monte-Luce, with
twenty-one Religious who had followed her from Foligno: but the seven years there
being spent, by the command of Calixtus III, at the prayers of the Duke of Urbino she had passed
to Urbino, and there had erected the aforesaid monastery from the foundations, and with great
probity had governed it.
But then there were living there Francisca Varana, the daughter of that same Elisabeth,
likewise her cousin Euphrasia Chiavelli of Fabriano, Emerentiana Colonna, Clara
Cappelli, Bernardina Baglioni, and other most noble Virgins. Jacobillus writes Camilla added to them in the year 1481, November 14, which he could have had from the register of the Urbino monastery."

* D. 12 CHAPTER IV.

The novitiate at Urbino completed, Baptista professed returns to Camerino: in both places she suffers certain divine things, here also she beholds St. Clare.

D. 12

[28] And thus far indeed concerning my spiritual life led in
the world, [Having put on the habit,] where through the intercession and merits
of the most glorious Virgin Mary, asked this by me,
I felt a single spark of divine love. And
truly it was only a single one, compared to that fire
of essential love, eternally seething; [yet
which so much and in such a manner blazed, that with my bosom either
to carry or to hold more I could not nor would, and
very often and again I cried out: Nothing more, Lord,
nothing more.] Now further I will pursue the things which
happened to me clothed in the sacred habit of St. Francis. As in
the material desert is found the song of birds, the beauty of flowers,
the secret lairs of animals, as Ubertinus says; so in
the sacred monastery of Urbino I found the most sweet song
of devout prayers, the beauty of good examples,
the secret lairs of divine graces and heavenly
gifts. And moved by the Holy Spirit and provoked,
I blazed with a vehement desire of penetrating to the interior of the desert,
that is, to the most sacred pains of the inmost heart of my
most sweet Jesus. At that time from my heart I sent away
a farewell to all the sweetness of heavenly manna; not that I
loathed it, [she renounces all spiritual taste] like that elect and equally ungrateful Jewish
people; but because out of holy humility I thought myself
unworthy of it, and feared lest it be reckoned to my debt
rather than to my capital. But I prayed from a pure and sincere heart to God, that with the most bitter and
venomous foods of His most holy and myrrhed Passion
He would nourish, satiate, and fill me; for those
alone my soul desired and thirsted, those alone
it coveted and burned for; and it could with the beloved
Spouse in the Canticles say: "A bundle of myrrh is my Beloved
to me, He shall abide between my breasts."

[29] Then I determined, whatever time was spent on prayer,
[wishing to enter into the heart of the patience of Jesus,] to transfer to the meditation of Christ's Passion,
and not wishing to apply my thought to anything else,
with the vigor and impulse of my whole mind into the most bitter sea
of pains, with which the heart of Jesus Christ abounded,
I was loosed, eager to immerse myself in them if I could.
Nor ought it to seem a wonder, that a desire came upon me
of entering Your heart, most sweet Jesus: since there
long ago You had shown my name written in golden [a] letters.
[O how beautifully there appeared in Your reddening
heart the golden letters, capital, ancient, expressing
these things:] I love you, Camilla! [b] And this therefore
You exhibited to me, good Jesus, [in which she had once read herself written,] because I greatly wondered,
that You pursued me with such great love, and that
in excusing Yourself You said, You could not do otherwise,
because You bore me written in Your heart: and lifting on high
Your glorious arm, You bade me read the above-recited
words. O my soul, why are you not comforted
a little, mindful of so great a good and love toward you
of your most beloved Jesus? But you will say, I know, I cannot;
since the memory of those things so far is from corroborating me,
that it is for most sharp arrows, which
pierce my heart; and so I cannot be satiated with lamenting:
O all you, who pass by along the way of divine love,
attend and see, if there is sorrow as my sorrow.

B. 7.

[30] Now indeed, that we may return to our purpose;
when with such desire in prayer and meditation persevering
in those two years, [and at length she finds it bitter beyond measure,] in which before I returned to Camerino
I remained at Urbino, by the admirable
grace of the Holy Spirit I was introduced into the most sacred
bridal chamber of the myrrhed heart of Jesus Christ, the true
and only most bitter sea, to all intellect both angelic and
human unsailable; and in that sea
very often I would have been submerged, if the powerful hand of God
had not helped me. For much more grievously could I bear
the harshness of my sorrows, than the sweetness of love
itself; saying: No more, no more,
Lord Jesus Christ, I cannot any more;
I am submerged, because this sea lacks bound and bottom.
Then to me God, not paradise, appeared, as at first;
but a cruel hell: and indeed [out of holy simplicity]
frequently I called Him by no other
name than of Hell, because I thought nothing else fitting
to Him. But for the present concerning this matter I say nothing more;
it will be said elsewhere: this however I will not omit,
that although there were participated to me so great
mental pains of His, as my soul could tolerate and hold [by
the gift of the Holy Spirit]; nevertheless
with respect to those, which were, I understood mine so
to be related, as a little grain of sand, and if anything smaller than that
can be conceived, with respect to heaven and the whole earth.

[31] In that time [c], in which at Urbino in the sacred monastery
I lived, [she herself well prepared for it by the desire of suffering.] my soul, the sun of divine justice communicating
its heavenly influx, in a wonderful manner
flourished with diverse flowers and desires pleasing to God,
so that it could truly say: "Flowers have appeared in our
land": yet above all there sprang up more gladly and flourished
that flourishing lily, which already from the beginning
of my conversion had been planted in the [barren] earth of my
soul; that inflamed desire, I say,
of suffering adversities. That above all the rest in this most sacred
time by the royal hand of the true Ahasuerus Christ
Jesus the blessed was cultivated, and with the water of His mental
pains irrigated, and largely watered, so that
although very often I was near to death, yet
I frequently prayed God in this manner: O my Lord,
when will You lead me into those fat pastures
and pleasant gardens of pains, where Your elect and beloved
sheep grow fat? O my Lord, much
You defer to confer the things, which You promised! act, shortly, suddenly:
my Lord, further patience fails me: on account of
my many sins let it not repent You to pay Your promises;
deprive me not, Lord, of so great a good.

[32] After these things there followed the calamity of my Profession,
disturbing and shaking the whole Religion
Lords; [There began therefore about the time of her Profession a tribulation,] which what event it had to write
for a certain reason I omit: but I do not wish anything else to be thought,
than that I did not wish to write it.] This I do not wish to keep silent.
Namely that the earth was indeed disturbed by reason of my Profession;
but in the heavens the rejoicing Angels
celebrated a festal day with the highest gladness;
and this hold as most certain, [most beloved] my [in
Christ Jesus] Father: for not from report this
I assert, but from clear knowledge; and would that as certainly
all sinners obtained heaven, as that
is true! Nor however do I bring my mind to believe,
that heaven so exulted for my sake; but rather for the sake of this
monastery, going to receive much profit thenceforth,
[on account of the disturbance moved for her sake,] both on account of my profession, and
on account of the glorious and angelic prey, which snatched from the world,
in that same sacred place ought to abide. And
so it was just, that the demon should sow on earth
the tares of disturbances, whereby in the heavens the Angels should exult.
These things I would have noted, namely that in that year of my tribulation
you were elected Vicar [e], which office
long before you had not borne, nor afterward did you discharge any more;
God so willing, that, just as through His goodness
and grace you had been the cause and beginning of my salvation,
so to the middle and end also you should labor: to
the middle, I say, when with desolation and sickness of mind
I was afflicted; but to the end of those things, which from September
to this very time I both have done and do. [And indeed
it was fitting that you above the rest should then be Vicar, [since he to whom she writes was Vicar,] as
one who had been the cause of so great a good, that you should be partaker also
of so great troubles and disturbances, as throughout
the whole Province among the Brothers and Sisters, and
among seculars both of lower and of first rank, existed.
Hence certainly and evidently I know, that as from
troubles you were not absent, so God willed to yield to you a part
of all the goods, which are done and to be done
in this sacred monastery. And indeed although you greatly strove,
that in the time of your Vicariate the place be not accepted,
God afterward willing you changed your sentence:] and it was
likewise necessary, that you should be the one, and not another, [by whom the place at Camerino received,]
who by your authority and presence should enclose us here,
and give a beginning to this sacred monastery. [O! flee
though Camerino, flee as you please; this is certain, that in no
part of the world has so much fruit and good been done by you,
as at Camerino. Hence the devil, by no means ignorant,
how greatly you have there hindered him, makes you hate
and flee that place. And these few things with filial confidence
I have said.]

B. 8.

[33] After I through the obedience of Your Reverence,
from the Apostolic authority granted to you, [and she herself was enclosed there.] together
with other venerable Mothers into that monastery
Majesty, that I should return hither; another
sign from God for my certainty and consolation
I obtained, more noble and manifest, namely this.
On the second Friday from our entrance into this monastery [g] Sister Constantia,
well known to you, at the fire
was sitting perchance, while I was sewing there; when she
sang [h] a hymn, whose beginning is this: "Anima benedetta dall'
alto Creatore," etc., and I answered her singing and by turns
between us we pursued it, [Rapt into ecstasy,] until there was come to those
words, "Risguarda quelle mani, risguarda quelli piedi,
risguarda quel costato." Then indeed I could no more:
from anguish of heart I sank back into the bosom of the Sister,
closing my side, and thinking it nothing other,
than the usual bodily ailment that often otherwise befell me,
when in truth it was then spiritual: for my soul
was rapt into that mystery of the afflicted mother, embracing
her dead son with maternal embrace.
I perceived present the sonorous, hoarse, and tearful
voices of that most holy Mother: I heard
the most loving and most mournful disciple Magdalen,
with a clear voice crying out, My Master! There beat
upon my ears the bitter lament of the beloved disciple John,
with a shrill and subdued sound saying; [she is present at the mystery of the deposition of Christ from the Cross,] My Father,
my brother and my master: and in like manner the rest of the beloved
Marys lamented. That state of mine lasted
until the first hour of night and more, begun
a little before Compline; and would have lasted the whole night,
had I not myself done violence to myself, that I might recall my mind,
and lighten for the Sisters the sense of grief. For
as long as I was so affected, sometimes I heard the Sisters
most clearly, sometimes less clearly; but when the voices
of the glorious Virgin Mary were intent, nothing at all
did I perceive of this world, as if the soul were exiled from
the body; and from time to time tears burst forth
from my eyes, when I felt the things that were done and
said about me. Returned at length into my very self, so
wearied and afflicted I found myself, my face so changed
and transfigured my body, that for fifteen days
following I seemed to have come forth from a sepulcher.

[34] [and by it she understands her migration to have pleased God.] Now before that happened, either scant or
no memory had I of that mystery, namely of the Virgin
Mary, holding the corpse of her most beloved son
constrained in her arms; but my whole mind tended either to
Him affixed to the cross, or to the Lord praying in the garden;
and this among all the mysteries held the first place. But
from that time I was always most devout to that mystery,
leaving in me this true sign of itself, that
for more than two years I could not behold ladders, hammers, nails, pincers;
although in the time of my rapture, which
indeed I remember, I did not see such instruments.
And this is that sign, which I say, was given to me,
that I might know, that my return into this place pleased God;
and therefore, O all you, who pass by
along the way of divine love, attend and see, if there is sorrow as
my sorrow. * Just as the Apostle says, that
the Hebrew People was baptized in water and fire [i]:
so my soul wished first to be baptized with the water of tears
of contrition and devotion, then with the divine
and seraphic fire. Now you will understand, in what manner God
willed to baptize it with fire and purge it from faults,
[contracted in the time of tribulation], that, what by grace belongs to the divine Majesty,] He afterward heaped it with new gifts and benefits.

D. 13.

[35] The year of my tribulation had expired, in which
I was afflicted with bitter sorrows, God so disposing,
on account of my more copious merit and crown (for
not on account of any other offense, as you know, did it happen,
than that I wished a beginning to be given to this monastery
under the title and Rule of the poor Sisters of St.
Clare; [bidden by Peter Moliano the Vicar to confess generally.] just as by God's grace at present
it obtains) when our Pastor and Vicar elected
was that glorious soul, that holy soul,
and truly blessed, on account of the miracles, which both in life
he wrought, and works after death; Brother, I say,
Peter [k] of Moliano: who coming to our
monastery sometime, after many other things
said to me, the Sisters frequently present: Are you
Sister Baptista Varana? Prepare yourself, Daughter, for
Confession, [he first excuses this,] because I wish to receive it before
about to depart I commit myself to the way. To whom I straightway:
There is no need for me, Father, of Confession.
And he: Daughter, thus it is inspired to me; and therefore
I would have you expiate your faults, knowing, that thus it is for your good. But I
replied, That it was not. Then he again: Dismiss
the Sisters, and bring your step hither: because that
it ought so to be, from inspiration I have known. [l] And when I
would not, he asked: Why do you shun Confession?
And I answered, Because there is no need of it. Which
answer when it seemed to displease him not a little,
he said hissing: Away with such an answer; do
consider the matter better. O my Father! very benign
you were toward this inhuman one.

[36] One day then interposed from his departure,
my whole heart began to be gnawed, [then instructed by a new light,] and itself to reproach me
with my inhumanity, saying: Very
contumeliously [m] I answered the Father Vicar; truly with
him I will lay down my conscience by Confession,
when he returns: and this I wrote to him, asking, that of my obstinacy
he would make me pardon: and in a few days
so much that desire of confessing grew, that with a copious
light disclosing many things, which from neglect of conscience
I had never washed away by Confession, a place
of rest none I found: and therefore I could not
but by letters insist, that he would hasten his return. But
he, as an experienced physician, wove delays, that he might excite
in me a more vehement desire, as afterward
he testified to me. But those delays lasted from
the Chapter until the festal light of the sacred Stigmata
me so great a sorrow of sins (to
be deplored with bitter tears as much as not yet
remitted, [she makes it with great fruit.] as not yet
remitted) sprung from this, that I had offended the infinite goodness
of God, and joined with so great
hatred of myself, that from my whole heart I desired to the Father Vicar
after Confession to be supremely abominable and detestable.
But indeed to me desiring, that
he should detest me, God promised it would be that thence
he should conceive greater love. And indeed my sins being expiated at
his feet by general Confession,
with much divine illustration and hatred of myself, so great
consolation and pleasure he took, that thenceforth
he pursued me with holy love more tenderly, than
any other spiritual daughter in this world.
[And these things I certainly know.] But I after Confession
even with greater, than he, solace and joy
suffused, with tranquil mind thenceforth always was.

D. 14.

[37] A few days interposed, she exhibited herself to be seen by me,
not only at the time of prayer, [Afterward she presents herself to be seen by her,] but almost every
other time also, a certain Sister of our Order, her head covered
with a black veil, as one of us, most beautiful
clearly; and her so clearly I beheld, that never
with bodily eyes have I seen any thing more clearly
and more gladly, the eye by which the soul saw conciliating
a sweetness more limpid, than the corporeal sight
could. She moreover exhibited to me singular affability
and love with a most glad and beaming countenance:
whence I taking very much pleasure, at
such a spectacle I clung, from stupor and admiration
almost estranged from my senses; nor could I imagine, who
she might be: and for this very cause she seemed to applaud herself
and to rejoice, and as if to say; Do you not know me?
As often as she came into my mind, suddenly
from a particular instinct I bent my knees before her,
however much at table, at the fire, [a certain glorious and lovable Sister:] at the gratings I might sit;
and to her wishing for her benignity to lift me up
from the ground, I by no means assented, thinking it
fitting for the cause of veneration, that I be present with bent knee.
Her eyes from beauty, as she was wholly most beautiful,
seemed to dart rays: she exulted and rejoiced
with me, not knowing for what cause or for
what, wholly gracious, wholly benign. And these things often
and often happening lasted longer; fifteen
namely, that I may say something certain, days. In age
she would have lived forty years: and when after
these things she had disappeared, never thenceforth, as not before,
to my eyes was she seen.

[38] Meanwhile I not even by a shadow ever
suspected, that she was St. Clare, our Mother
glorious and standard-bearer, because never
did a desire come upon me of seeing her in this world, [whom she understands to have been St. Clare.] but
only in the other. [But hear, my Father, what this daughter,
or, shall I say, your sheep, thought? Always I resisted,
that any Sister brought from elsewhere be received
here; and that out of good zeal:] I believed therefore
her to be of that kind, and by God's will to be placed here,
and therefore shown to me, that I might be not contrary to her,
but propitious and benign; and I said in my heart:
Will any one live either slothful or less content,
when she shall be received into our monastery?
By the mere nod of her eyes she will console us. Finally
when she altogether vanished from my mind, with so great love
and devotion toward our glorious Mother St.
Clare I was continually inflamed, that of doubting
a place is not left, but that it was she: and if ever
through the merits of Christ's blood I obtain paradise,
her among thousands of thousands I shall know, embrace,
and say; My most sweet Mother, you were she,
who in the world visited me. Alas for me! what I was, and
what I am! and therefore, O all you, who pass by along
the way of divine love, attend and see if there is sorrow as
my sorrow.

ANNOTATA.

of the Blessed had been given in baptism, but was changed in Religion. c. In the same place: "In those two years." d. Pascuccius
thinks the cause to have been, that the father wished his daughter, drawn out from the monastery,
to give in marriage, as in fact was done to her cousin Genevra,
the daughter of Rodulphus Varani and the widow of Mutius Columnensis, the Blessed having entered there.
Rather I would say the father wished, supported by Pontifical
authority, that his daughter to some Camerino convent, of laxer
institute though, and perhaps of another Order, be transferred;
and this from what followed afterward I seem to myself to understand. For he did not
acquiesce sooner, than he saw his daughter at Camerino in a new
monastery of the old observance founded for this (for she herself did not wish to dismiss
poverty dear to her). But when below
at no. 35 she says, that the year of that her tribulation first
expired, when in the year 1484 already established at Camerino, in peaceful
possession she was of the observance there instituted; that tribulation seems
to have begun in January or February of the year 1483; but that it be said to have begun
before Profession, it is necessary that this was deferred to 15 or more months from
the habit taken up. e. B. Peter of Moliano here understands Pascuccius, and others: but they err, as we said above: we await therefore that someone, more versed in the records of the Province, instruct us from elsewhere of the Vicar of this time. f. Jacobillus
in vol. 3 in the Supplement to April 7 writes, that in the year 1484 on January 4
the Nuns were brought thither, where before he says were Tertiaries Gonzaga,
some of whom remained there having taken the Rule, for others provision being made elsewhere.
Pascuccius calls it the monastery of the Belmaneri, under
the Olivetan Congregation, whose remnants were thence translated to the extremity of the Burgh.
Waddingus to the year 1483 thus writes: "Julius Caesar
de Varano, and the citizens of Camerino, this year on the 6th of the Kalends of September asked
the Pontiff, that the Order of St. Benedict being suppressed in the ancient and almost
ruined monastery of St. Constantia, in which only one decrepit Nun
had remained; it might be permitted from the price and the rubble of the same to construct another monastery
of the Order of St. Clare, according to the primitive institutes of the same Order, under
the invocation of St. Mary-the-new, and the governance of the Friars Minor of
the observance, in another more convenient and more honorable place. The Pontiff
assented, on this condition, that the church of St. Constantia be not profaned, but in it
sometimes Masses be celebrated, and the decrepit Nun be provided with suitable
sustenance." Hence those Relics of St. Constantia Virgin and Martyr, which Gonzaga says were had there. But in all eight were first enclosed there, says Jacobillus in the Supplement. g. Therefore
January 16, for in the year 1484 Bissextile with Dominical letters DC, January 4,
on which we said they entered, was a Sunday. The Camerino MS.: "On the first, nay second, (if I rightly remember) Friday." h. The whole hymn Pascuccius recites on p. 96. i. The Protocol: "A double manner of baptism scripture alleges, namely of water and of fire. Matthew 3." k. B. Peter of Moliano is referred to
by Arturus in the Franciscan Martyrology on July 25, and deservedly; for
Jacobillus testifies of him in vol. 2 at the said day, that his body in the twelfth year after
death found whole, and translated to the new convent
within the city, rests under the high altar. But he died on the feast of St.
James, while in the choir the Te Deum was being sung. In placing his death in the year
1489 all err: and the error Waddingus acknowledged and retracted
in the last volume, a letter being found in which the Blessed says, that she
had transcribed many of those things which she had written before and begun at Urbino,
on the last day of January of the year 1491, six months from the death
of the Moliano one having passed: he had died therefore in the year 1490. Of his miracles moreover some Waddingus relates to the year 1489 no. 34. l. The Protocol: "And therefore again I say, I wish to hear your Confession. I know that you have no need." m. In the same place: "Indeed I was plainly an ass and rustic, who thus answered the Father Vicar." n. The feast of the Stigmata of St. Francis is recalled on September 17.

* B. 9. CHAPTER V.

Other divine favors toward Baptista, and the testing and tribulation that followed them.

B. 10 D. 15

[39] Wonderful are Your testimonies, O Lord, and to the soul seeking You too credible. [Under the firmament
of heaven there are not testimonies clearer and truer,
than God's; and to you, Reverend Father, who seek Him
in truth, they are too credible. [Located in spirit by two Angels at the feet of the Crucified,] Therefore
I will not conceal, Lord, Your praises from my devout Father;]
but I will narrate them, to Your magnificence
and my confusion; [yet not to the incredulous and senseless;
but to you, my Father; because I know, that he who tests,
believes.] But you, Angelic spirits, of whom
some things come to me to be remembered, suppliantly I pray, that
you be present to me; that truly into light I may bring forth the affability
and benevolence of you, exhibited to my ungrateful
soul. Few days had elapsed, from when the holy
Mother Clare had withdrawn herself from the sight of my soul;
when there appeared two Angels, clad in most white
garments (such as I had long ago seen Christ
the Lord wear) and comely with gilded wings:
of whom the one took my soul by the right, the other by the left
hand, and lifted it on high, and placed it
at the feet, affixed to the cross, of the incarnate Son of God; and in that
manner for more than two continuous months they held it:
I meanwhile to walk, speak, and do whatever
I wished, seemed to myself without a soul, fixed there, where
by the Angels, never thence departing, it was held. [and there detained two months,]
Nor however do I remember, that I ever before felt a desire
of standing always at the feet of Christ. That time
elapsed, they restored the soul to its body, so great
thenceforth love and devotion toward the Seraphim remaining for me,
that nothing else I wished to speak of, than of them;
always with ardent affection and prayer asking, that
one of them to me, as once to Isaiah the Prophet,
would fly.

[40] And when often through many days having prayed,
of my vows I was not made partaker; I turned sometime
my prayer in the morning time before Prime to the sweet
Mother of God, and with a certain holy impatience
I said: O most sweet Mother, O most benign Queen, [she asks one of the seraphim to be sent to her:]
I know You to be the Empress of the Angels, and that all
obey You as their Lady; I pray You, most sweet
my Lady, command some Seraph, that to me he
fly, just as he flew to [a] the Prophet
Isaiah: You know, my most holy Mother, how greatly
I desire it. And she, not suffering my prayer to be drawn
out at length, suddenly promised of her own accord, that she would send
what was asked: whence very glad with my whole heart
I exulted. After some days at night, Matins finished,
to prayer I gave myself, and a desire came upon me of meditating
more attentively the greatness of divine love toward creatures.
That manner of praying was little used by me, [and the love of God toward creatures being seen,]
but I permitted my mind to follow, where it was drawn by
God; and the beginning of my thoughts was of things lowest
and most abject; but soon in an ineffable manner I was translated
to the sublime and divine, [and I entered a sea
so high and deep, that twice or thrice I wished
to retrace my way, if I could]. Nor was that a reasoning
or a vision, but a certain light, by words altogether
inexplicable [b]. [Yet I will say for your consolation
some things, namely three, for the rest
cannot be said, but only by God's grace considered.
The first is, that contemplating, of what kind and how great
are the benefits afforded us by the most benign and most clement God
out of love of us, we shall find,
that we remain debtors of two things, which by paying we shall never
be able to discharge: namely of the love, with which He Himself
first us, than we Him, loved; and of the passion, which for us
most vile little worms, full of stench and offensiveness,
He underwent: and these two are an insoluble debt. [and more intimately known how great in it,]
The second was, that all our love toward God
is as it were a most evil hatred, all praise as
a curse, all giving of thanks as a blasphemy;
if it be considered in what sublime degree those things are owed
to so great a God. The third finally, which I saw
clearly and most manifestly, is, that the glorious
Mother of God, together with all angelic and human nature,
does not suffice to pay thanks to the divine goodness,
for the creation of one most vile little flower of this
earth, produced for the cause of our utility, on account of the infinite
excellence and greatness of the Creator, and our
vileness and abjection.

[41] Now indeed, my Father, I would have you think, in
how great an abyss I found myself, considering so great
benefits of His conferred on me, to be nothing other than
flowers and herbs. Then namely I truly despaired of myself,
and of every good work of mine: then I repudiated from
my whole heart all spiritual delights, that I might not
add debt to debt and ingratitude to ingratitude;
so that, [she learns that our things are nothing compared to His conferred] if Christ had appeared to me, I would have closed
my eyes, that I might not see. Then with head bowed on the earth
I asked of God grace, that He would continually
to the very end of my life without intermission place me
at the most clement feet of His crucified son; and that
all the time, which I should pass there, be imputed
to me, as if blaspheming God and fornicating
spent (for I was certain, that
both that and every other evil I would have perpetrated, if with His merciful
hand He had not held me) finally that
after death He would send me, where to His honor
greater it should please Him, even in hell
to dwell most willingly, because His will alone,
in me and through me to be fulfilled, was in my prayers;
that was for me as beatitude, that as reward,
that as glory.] I saw so immense and by no
bounds circumscribed, with which God embraces creatures,
a love, that returned into myself I could not
but exclaim: [She has present to her the feet of Christ for a whole five years] O folly, O folly! for
I thought no word could be found
more fitting for so great a love. Then there were granted to me
those most gracious feet, of whose possession
for five years I rejoiced with continual memory
of them and peace so great, that if I should tell it,
I should be thought to speak incredible things. Now of those feet bereft,
now of a garment so rich despoiled, now of the treasure
of my heart so opulent deprived I am. O feet,
O sole and only hope of my soul, how can it be,
that I live without you, who were the life, heart
and treasure of my soul? O my Jesus, at least
for the space of one hour grant them to me, [and though You thrust
me down to the lower regions, gladly so I will go to them]. So great
a copiousness of tears, I know, I would pour forth, so much
I would embrace and kiss those most holy wounds,
that my heart would burst for me, [and afterward she bewails them taken from her.] and so this wretched
and stinking body would be destroyed. O most sacred feet,
for love of you it is a pleasure to me to see the feet of all,
to handle, to kiss, to embrace! O most sweet feet,
into how great bitterness for me are turned
the banquets, over you celebrated for me, [such
were the devout lamentations, filled with love and piety!]
O lovable feet, never had I believed, that this
place was to be interdicted and taken away from me, where
adulteresses and harlots have found asylum! Alas
for me, and a thousand and a thousand times alas for me! how much more calamitous
and unhappy am I than all other sinners!
[O most clement feet, did I not spare
the weariness of him, to whom these things are written, this whole
all-of-it [c] Friday day with such sighs
and lamentations I would give!] Nor wonder at these things,
my Father; because just as gold all the rest of the metals
surpasses in splendor, so this sorrow than all the rest
of the torments is more painful to me; I believe,
because longer this grace than others I enjoyed. And
therefore the cithara of my confidence is turned into mourning. Most pleasant
and most sweet those feet have made me wander from my purpose;
but with the grace of God I will pursue now
and weave to the end, the web which by His grace
and inspiration alone I have begun.

B. 11 D. 16

[42] That light, of which just now, vanishing, so great
a fire settled in my soul, that with the highest
truth I dare to say, [Wholly kindled with divine love] that it truly inflamed
burned with this immaterial flame, just as
material things by a material one are wont. There endured
moreover this fire, if I rightly remember, easily three months
[d]; and it was a desire of going out of the prison
of this body and enjoying Christ, a desire exceeding
measure, a desire so great and so intense,
that, if I should say it, I might fear, lest credit
among hearers I find not. [But God knows,
that I speak true things]. The desire was so seething
and inflamed, that through the summer in my body
I seemed to carry about the infernal pains;
nay these I thought a refreshment, compared with mine, [she desires to die and to be with Christ:]
never thenceforth to be sought by me, except
in the hour of death: because dying with such desire,
not to die, but to a wedding to betake myself with sounding
organs I should seem. Then I could say with the Apostle:
"I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ." And with the Prophet:
"Bring out my soul from the flesh to confess
to Your name; the just await me until You reward me."
Then clearly I knew, that of the Seraphim some had flown
to my soul, just as had promised,
their and equally my most sweet Empress,
the most holy Mother of God.

[43] [who sweetly consoles her concerning the delay,] Meanwhile I vehemently afflicted and tormented,
both in soul, and in body, by this ardent desire,
most bitterly lamented and sobbed, praying
instantly God, that from the misery of this body and the world
He would snatch me. Whence one day at the time of prayer,
to me asking this very thing more instantly of God, there seemed
Christ the blessed to show much commiseration,
and surrounding with one arm my soul
to apply it to His breast, saying again and again, Do not
so greatly weep; but with the other hand the eyes of my soul
He wiped; for that lamentation was of the soul,
not of the body, although also corporeally most copiously I wept.
But indeed so far is it, that those most sweet
words of Christ should diminish my sorrow, [because for His life others prayed.] that rather into
tears wholly they dissolved me, praying more ardently, that
from this custody He would bring out my soul. To which
petition He at length answered; Not yet can I;
and at the same time His most powerful hands He showed me,
in various ways bound and constrained, saying: These
are the prayers of your Sisters the Nuns and
of the Brothers of the Observance, which for you they pour forth, that you not
die: be patient.

[44] What now I am going to relate, I know not indeed whether before
or after it was in the manner said. [She understands why she is tormented by that desire, whence the Seraphim rejoice,] Feeling sometime
so great a spiritual fire that to bear it I was not,
I turned myself, as if destitute of senses, to the Seraphim,
lamenting and as if repenting, that the presence
of them by prayers from God I had asked, saying: O spirits
most sweet, I so fervently your access to me
asked, thinking, that he who in your presence,
the same also in paradise rejoiced, because you to God are most near;
by what fate then after your coming do I endure the pains of hell? I am ignorant indeed, what you
bring with you. Then they with me most familiarly,
just as conversing with an acquaintance and friend,
said, What for you is a cause of pain, for us is of pleasure:
with the flame of vehement desire indeed you seethe,
but as long as you are held by the body, you lack the presence of Him
who is present to us: and therefore so grave a torment is to you,
as the desire is ardent. [and that she has more fire than light.] But for us, an intense
desire always having with the presence of the beloved,
the pleasure is intensified according to the intensification of the desire incomprehensibly.
After these things they declared to me, that the inmost
presence of themselves with God is of such kind, that
God without them, or they without God never either are
or could be. They declared moreover, that so close
between the Seraphim and the Cherubim there intervenes
a conjunction, that neither could ever without the others in
the soul dwell, subjoining: True indeed
it is, that in one soul the Cherubim obtain the first place, in another
the Seraphim; but in yours, to us Seraphim the principality
has fallen; and therefore in you the fire prevails over the light. And so
in truth the matter was. For although the light, as above
I mentioned, was for its intensification incomprehensible;
nevertheless it by three parts surpassed
the fire. And hence most clearly I understand, that those two Angels,
who so long held me brought to the feet of the Crucified,
were one a Cherub, the other a Seraph.
This is that fire, by which I said I was baptized
and purged, a pure and general
Confession being added, made to my glorious and blessed Father Peter of
Moliano.

B. 12 D. 17

[45] Truly the Sacrament of the Eucharist is the bread of Angels.
Thus I speak, [A great hunger for the Eucharist] because after the Angelic visitation
so great an appetite and hunger for the most holy
Sacrament remained for me, that to fill it in no way could I:
and hence for almost two continuous years to the sacred
table on every Sunday I came, desiring
daily to frequent the same: but to me thinking,
that until the eighth day from it I must abstain, from
sorrow my mind failed. Thus three years before [f],
than my tribulation began, I found rest
and rejoiced in my mental and Angelic peace.
Then all the ways of Sion, that is, of holy Paradise, to me
lay open free, level, unobstructed; and I ran through
them swiftly, desire and pious prayer removing every impediment.
[she joins it with continual meditation of the Passion.] Then truly, my Father, either
I had, or seemed to myself to have an angelic and
heavenly rather than a human and earthly heart:
nor any other pride in it did I feel except this; that
if any one then had said, that I would come to that state,
to which to have come you know, never would I have brought
into my mind to believe, that it could be. This, I say,
in my heart pride I felt, of nothing besides
conscious to myself. Then that holy meditation I instituted by a singular
gift of the Holy Spirit, by which I desired,
as I desire now, that all the days of my life into
the holy Friday be turned; kindled with desire
of lamenting always the most bitter Passion
of my sweet Jesus, that in the hour of my death there appear to me
resuscitated and glorious. From that time, neither
of Easter, nor of Christmas, nor of any other festal
light, by the Church wont to be celebrated, a distinction with
me was; nay not even on holy Friday could I do anything other than
attend to the accustomed exercise. True indeed it is,
that my thought rapt me as if unwilling to recall
the mysteries, which the Church militant on feasts represents;
when nevertheless fixed and firm it was for me to persevere
in the meditation of the Passion, that which I had instituted,
when I desired my whole life into the holy Friday
to be turned. And so the last things answer to the first, that is,
just as on holy Friday I began through your holy
sermon [g] to work my salvation; so likewise on the holy
Friday of my meditation, I end the relation of my spiritual
life, to be made to you, who were the beginning.

[46] I had passed in this manner through the desert of this world,
abounding in delights, leaning upon my beloved
suffering one, separated from Him in body, but not in mind. [She is bidden to write the mental sorrows of Christ,] And now
was approaching the time of my unhappiness and spiritual
ruin, which to me (because all past and
future things are known to His eyes) He foretold in this manner; but
I, rude and ignorant, did not understand. One day
scarcely had I given myself to prayer, when suddenly to me it was said;
Go, about to commit to paper those mental sorrows
of the Passion, which you know. And I excusing myself,
answered: My Lord, I do not even know, in what manner
I should begin; nor is it my mind to narrate, those things
to have happened to me. Then I was bidden to set the beginning
in this manner: There was a certain soul most desirous of feeding
itself: and it was thus further dictated, until two verses
of one page were filled: when suddenly rising to my feet
I obeyed the precept, so great a copiousness of words
flowing, that, what was to be written, never
did it behove me to recall in mind. Similarly also now to me
it happens, that as often as to writing I gird myself, [and she understands herself to be afflicted anew,] a trouble
I suffer not light; but thenceforth further even
to me not thinking the discourse abounds: O how much that thing
was adverse to me! For it seemed to wish to say: I see
and foresee, that the vessel of your soul is to be infected
not a little, nay so much, that you will cast out the balsam of my
mental sorrows, and pour it out on others,
since on account of your infection to profit you
any more it will not be able. And these things are true. But that
which now at hand I have, lest either a like event
or a worse even it obtain, vehemently
I fear. As if God should say, Vomit out of your mouth all
my goods, because I wish to vomit you out of my mouth. O my God,
free me from that bitter sentence!

D. 18.

[47] August was the month being passed, in which begun was
my cruel contest; [as it happened to her on the octave of St. Francis:] but I, the wiles of Satan
not knowing, and rejoicing in deep peace of soul, secure of war
I acted, and so every machination of the enemy
I esteemed peaceful and devoid of danger.
Then to the Octave of St. Francis [h] it was come,
when so cruelly by those same enemies I was received and struck,
that to persuade myself I could no longer, that
either they were friends or their machinations good [i]:
nay I knew manifestly, and in fact I experienced, that they were
capital enemies of my soul. Then God opened
my eyes a little, and I saw myself in the middle of the field,
where the battles of this mortal life are fought, surrounded
by powerful enemies; from whose hands
to snatch me alone could the divine power, going to seek
in vain otherwise ways of escaping. Then with irremediable sorrow
I was overwhelmed, and what other counsel I should take being ignorant,
the Octave of St. Francis on bread and water feeding alone
I passed, the help of God and of the said Saint continually
imploring. Then at night in sleep there was represented
to me every labor and affliction, which awaited me.
Here we hung up our organs. [when she saw herself given over to the demon to be vexed:] Here was the end of my goods,
here the beginning of my evils.
Then the pit of the abyss of diabolical depravity, which for ten years
that venomous dragon, with open jaws roaring against
me, with so great impetus and fury, that me alive,
alive I say, to swallow he seemed to wish; and so
as far as pertains to his malign will, he swallowed
and devoured me. But the powerful hand of God, which
never forsook one hoping in it [l], drew me out
whole and unharmed from the roaring jaws of him,
as is known to you; and that by His goodness alone, by no means
indeed by my virtue or prudence. Then I was stripped
and despoiled of every rich and precious garment. Then
were plucked out my eyes; then shorn the hairs of my spiritual
fortitude: moreover they struck, wounded, and
half-alive left me and departed.

[48] In these two years, in which in so wretched a manner
I was afflicted, no help at all or human consolation
I felt, except thrice, when with my holy and
glorious Father Brother Peter of Moliano I conversed. [and Peter of Moliano, who had consoled her, being dead,]
For very much I rejoiced, when him Vicar
I learned to be elected, saying: [If only with him
a power of dealing be granted me], never will the demon effect,
what he intends; but straightway help I will experience.
O my holy Father, you came indeed [even
afterward] [m] into these parts; but your beloved Daughter could not
address you, not even in few words, as one before by death
snatched away. This death afflicted me too much, this me
of myself as it were destitute, and in a manner desperate
compelled firmly to determine, in no man thenceforth
as to this my necessity, to put confidence,
unless God should point him out to me by His grace.
O my Father, [wholly poured back into him from whom she had her beginning,] you wished to leave me an orphan,
because thus you knew it expedient for my salvation.
First suddenly from your death you deprived my enemies of all power,
and brought me back into the way of truth. Then
God inspired me through his [n] intercession,
that just as in him, so in you also [Father
mine, old man] my confidence I should place, and in order
declare to you all my tribulation, as
it had been carried out; and by illuminating He taught, that thus it behoved
for my salvation: nor indeed did that dissonate from truth,
as you know. But there happened to me the said inspiration, so
bitter and to my will contrary, [she feels herself relieved.] that exceeding all human
thought, by God alone could the bitterness
be comprehended. But after, as they had been
done, I narrated all things (not flattering I speak, but truthful)
so quiet and consoled I was, that I would not to any other
of this world, than to your reverend Paternity
to have trusted.

ANNOTATA.

after the 5 years at the feet of the Crucified, to be begun from the year 1484, more than
a three-month space remains, until the beginning of the new temptation; which lasting through
two and a half years, she was compelled to write such things. e. In the Protocol it is only said, "more fire than light." f. That is, from the year 1484: for the tribulation began on October 11 of the year 1487, so
that all the aforesaid visions preceded the autumn of that year. g. Thus
the Protocol: nor could the MS. have it otherwise, which Cimarella followed,
if indeed it was an autograph: but some unskilled person could either in the margin
have noted, or to the text added the name of B. Fr. Peter of Moliano, which
the Venetian edition has and from it Pascuccius; and which drew both this man and others
into error, that they believed this relation to have been written to him, because
it was written to the one, to whose sermon the Blessed attributed the
beginning of her conversion, above no. 4. h. That is, October 11, because the feast of St. Francis is kept on the 4th of the same. i. Hence
it is understood that God permitted, that the ministers of Satan, transforming themselves into
Angels of light, should delude our Blessed for two and more continuous months,
whose fallacious consolations or apparitions she then first
recognized, when
she began to feel their most bitter effects, namely a great
desolation, dryness, and obscurity of mind. For to this makes
that which she said at no. 27, that her soul, which lay in saffron, embraced the dung of the most stinking devil, led
into an error, which in that perturbation she could not discern from
formal sin, when the urging temptation impelled her to judge, that which
she suffered unwilling, to be imputed to her by God for sin, and therefore that she was
treated by Him in hostile fashion, which is the extreme affliction of a pious soul. k. Those ten
years seem to be numbered from the year 1477, in which the Blessed entirely
surrendered herself to God calling her to Religion, after some months perhaps, after
the Confession made at Easter, still struggling. But why does she not say from six years, that
the tribulation she suffered before her Profession might be indicated? I think,
because that was wholly external, nor was then to the devil given power
of afflicting the soul interiorly. l. Therefore she was never drawn into formal sin, at least grave and mortal. m. These words nowhere found, to render the sense clearer, I myself added. n. Thus the Protocol: but Cimarella, while for "his" he reads "your," made it that all the following things were referred to Peter, though already dead, by Waddingus, Pascuccius, and others: nor for any other cause does the same Waddingus seem to have called this writing an obscure work of perturbed order: since
elsewhere hitherto no perturbation appears; nay nor any obscurity
notable, except that the name of him to whom it is written is not expressed. There are wanting
also in Cimarella those words, "my Father," which are in the Macerata edition; and Euphrosyna adds, "Vecchiarello," which signifies "Little Old Man."

CHAPTER VI.

Three letters, after the history of her life successively added.

[49] The Camerino autograph, just as Sister Euphrosyna transcribed it, [To the writings of March 3 she adds the mental sorrows of Christ,] which we call the Protocol
(because we think the Blessed herself reserved it for herself,
after she had written the other somewhat more polished and fuller)
the first, I say, autograph is finished with the date written
on the 3rd day of March, 1491, then consequently is subjoined:
After I have set forth the course of my spiritual life,
only that I may obey the divine inspiration, here
I make an end to the praise of Jesus Christ the glorious. Then
follow the mental sorrows of Christ the blessed, which
I said He commanded me to write. In which observe, that I
say, that one of the Sisters of Urbino conferred such things with me,
that it be not thought that they are of my own
flour: and therefore I speak in the third person: [but afterward she interposes two letters in the new copy,] sometimes
also I say, This holy and blessed soul thus to me
said, the better to obtain from readers belief, and
that they not think that it was I. THE END. This
treatise therefore, separately written in another quire, the Blessed
kept, likewise to be shown to her spiritual Father when he should have come
to Camerino: for she had not yet determined to commit things so secret
to a letter-carrier. But while she awaits him,
two letters successively she wrote: one without a date,
which indeed is found; the other under the date of the 13th day, just as
those autographs are had in the Macerata edition, together
with a thanksgiving to God for her manifestation,
candidly and entirely written. But meanwhile the Father not coming
to Camerino, the Blessed felt herself goaded, that the things she desired
communicated, through a messenger at least she should send him;
and to that end she wrote the second autograph, which Cimarella used.
But in the course of recopying (as is wont to happen)
she changed and added certain things, above indicated by these signs [];
but reserving the clause concerning the mental sorrows to the end
of the new writing, she also erased the note of the 3rd day
of March. Then consequently writing the first and second
letter, she likewise omitted the note of the 13th day,
since that had now equally flowed by as the 3rd day, and there was being passed
the 20th day of the month; [and thereupon also the third.] when she wrote the third letter, either
separately, or at the end of the very quire which she was going to send.
She also wrote a new copy of the aforesaid treatise on
the mental sorrows, the formula of transition somewhat changed,
to be made from one to another subject, as below we shall see.
These things being thus distinguished, I hope nothing of perturbation
and obscurity will remain. Let then the first letter be.

[50] My reverend and most beloved Father. For many
causes I hoped for rest and a truce a little
from the capital fight of two years: but alas for me,
my Father, vain was this my hope! nay after your departure
[The first explains her present calamity,] especially by rising against God, imputing
to Him whatever of defect, of sin, and of error
I committed; expostulating thereupon with Him, ascribing
on account of various things, both to Him, and to sacred Scripture,
a lie, which is the worst iniquity [b]; finally
doing other things, which here with silence I pass over. And I believe,
most devout Father, when you hear these things, you will think
this my poor soul after your departure,
from which six months are now elapsed, to have been in a temporal
hell; and to speak truly, it seemed to me
wholly infernal and diabolical. But what, surpassing every
sorrow, broke my heart, is, that
with no one to confer speech however brief,
or solace the least in so great my necessity
and torment, as you know, was it granted. O my
Father, where in the world were you! O my Father, I was much
tormented in that time, and to address you it was not permitted me,
nor me to you! [aggravated by the Father's absence,] O my unhappiness, O my misfortune,
between whose beginning and end a great interval intervened!
and therefore in all this sorrowful narration
I groaned again and again these tearful voices: O all you
who pass by along the way of divine love, attend and see,
if there is sorrow like to my sorrow! O my Father, you alone
I address, consider and see, whether there be sorrow equal
to mine! [and she sets herself as an example to others,] O would that God gave me a voice so powerful,
that by the whole world I could be understood! I would cry out
and say: O all you servants and handmaids
of God, who tread the way of divine love, learn by my
example and humble yourselves, because even now it can be,
that one converse with God, with the blessed Virgin
Mary, with the Angels and Saints; and then by a miserable
fall plunge into many deadly offenses; as
fell [c] I: let be for you an example this unfortunate and most unhappy
soul, which came into the height of the sea
of divine love and spiritual sweetness; but now
a strong tempest has sunk it into the depth of the abyss and
of hell. Farewell Father etc., perhaps as below, added probably
also the note of the day, which we do not wish by conjecture to append.

[51] The second letter, drawn up in the manner of a testament,
was such. [Eccli. 40,] Sententiously was it said by Ecclesiasticus,
that all the waters, which go out from the sea, to the same return:
so it is just and fitting, [The second commits herself wholly to him,] that since
through the grace of God I ought to Your Reverence the beginning
of my salvation, the same salutary waters through the circle
of time flowing, God disposing, to you return;
and again flow: you planted, the other holy Fathers
watered, but God until now has given the increase.
The cunning of Satan rooted it out, but still in it is something
of greenness, that is, the inwardness and promptitude and love
of the will to good, which God so and in such a manner kept,
that unharmed, untouched and unspotted, corporeally He kept me:
and unspotted, by God's grace, not my virtue, I remain,
and truly with the Mother of God I can say: "I a man
know not." Render therefore with me, most beloved Father, thanks
to my creator, who deigned to keep me as a friend and spouse.

[52] I do not at all doubt, my Father in the crucified Jesus,
but that this thing, new to my soul (for never
did I do anything of this kind) will bring forth either a great
evil, or a great good: but I from my whole heart
beseech God and His glorious Mother, that they
may deign to signify, that this is my last end, [as if by testament and about to die soon,]
and my last testament. But if so, as
truly I desire, it were; I make a testament of my things,
that is, of soul and body, because besides these neither
by love, nor by desire, nor by affection truly anything
do I possess in this world. The body I leave to the earth
and may God grant, that into stench and dust, as
befits its vile matter, shortly it be resolved. The soul
into your arms full of charity I resign, my most beloved Father,
who according to God are the one and only
hope of my salvation: and I am certain it will be, that through the precious
blood of Christ and through your prayers I shall find a place
of peace and mercy: nor will forgetfulness of you ever
seize me. Farewell best Father in my Lord Jesus,
whom for your daughter remember to entreat. In the monastery of St. Mary
the new of Camerino, March 13. In the year of the Lord 1491.
Sister Baptista. Thus the Macerata edition, in which soon separately and in a larger
character follows this Prayer. Infinite thanks I give You, [And she gives thanks to God for the thing accomplished.]
my Lord, that by Your gift, with the highest truth
and simplicity I have narrated Your truth: and I pray
likewise that You bestow Your grace, by which simply these things
be believed to Your praise and glory, and my temporal
confusion and shame.

[53] The third letter finally (of which at Camerino no
copy remained, and which Cimarella found, alone of
all furnished with the note of the day, [and she sends all things to the aforesaid Father.] and an initial salutation and
final commendation) is of this tenor: My reverend
Father in the crucified Jesus. The things which have been said hitherto
about my spiritual life, since to know I seemed it to be by divine inspiration, out of obedience
I have determined to narrate: and I thought indeed at first before
you to relate those things with living voice; but to writing I was driven:
then I determined with my own hand to deliver them written to you;
but it is necessary that I send them: nor do I know for what
reason or end. Would that you rightly understand me! In
the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

[54] The things which follow, are those mental sorrows
of Christ the blessed, [as also the mental sorrows of Christ revealed to her,] which I said it was commanded me
to write: [d] but observe, that when I returned to Camerino,
something of them from time to time to my Sisters I said,
to their and my consolation; and I added,
that one of the Sisters of Urbino about such
things had conferred with me, that they not suspect them to be
of my flour. But Sister Pacifica often and often
prayed me, that those things I should write: but I answered,
that never would I do it as long as that Sister
lived. But since, when it was commanded me that I should [e]
write, more than two years had passed, since
of them to me she had spoken no more; [as in the time of her tribulation,] now compelled to write,
to that same Sister Pacifica I directed my pen,
because she then was my Reverend Abbess, and
I her unworthy Vicar; feigning however always,
as I had said to her, that a certain Sister of the Urbino
monastery such and so devout things conferred with me:
and therefore sometimes I say, This holy soul, This blessed
soul thus to me said: and that in good faith, that
readers not think it to be I. But those things for the utility
of souls, loving Christ's Passion, I relate, as
follows. Then it begins as above she indicated at no. 46.
There was a certain soul: which little treatise it pleases below
to put into Latin: now I proceed to relate certain things written after the same,
and at the same time with all the foregoing printed at Macerata,
among which the chief is the letter, dictated to Baptista herself by
Christ, for the time of her future and so greatly desired
tribulation.

ANNOTATA.

a. There is understood
that Father, to whom after the death of the Moliano one with so great solace of hers
the Blessed had opened herself (as at the end of the Relation premised she had explained), to have not long
after departed from Camerino; and to this also makes, that above at no. 32
she complains of him, as if he hated and fled the place.

in her Life by Puccinus; recounting them for the sake of humbling herself to a certain
Novice, in the Life by Ceparius no. 183, accuses herself as if most grievously in
all those she had sinned. c. Namely
as to the sense, which made all these things to be apprehended as mortal; not
as to the consent of the superior will, always adhering to God, so
however that hardly did she herself perceive it, on account of the vehemence of the temptations; which
the following letter soon proves. d. Namely that she might commit to writing the whole interior state of her soul. e. But she wrote in the year 1487, and so those sermons were given in the first year of her stay at Camerino: this Sister Pacifica seems moreover to have been one of the more advanced ones brought from Urbino.

CHAPTER VII.

A letter, dictated to the Blessed by Christ, forearming her for future temptations, and certain other things pertaining to the same.

[55] My Sister, since often you have said to me,
that God in the beginning of your vocation, to you
promised some great tribulation;
and that you fear, lest when you are in those
pains, [Christ enjoins her, that in the time of her tribulation,] you forget the promise given to you, and therefore
become as it were desperate; I have determined to dictate to you this letter,
as a memorial: nor do I doubt but that even alone
it will bring you great refreshment in your anguish.
Remember therefore first, that your vocation was not
made by human words, but by the voice of God against
your will; and that after the conceived desire
of doing good things, suddenly succeeded another
of tolerating evils, and at once you began to be sick. Remember
also that from childhood I always drew you to
meditate my Passion, in whose likeness
I wish that you pass this life, as much as mortal
fragility will be able to bear. [she remember her vocation.] Begin moreover to announce to yourself
your pains, when you are in prayer; and this
I pray and beseech that you do, because you cannot do anything
more pleasing to me. For just as worldly men
more love to see their beloved in one dress
than in another; so know, that to me it more
pleases to behold you in that virtuous dress.
Consider moreover that when I in prayer
was, it pleased my Father to show me all
the pains, which to suffer and tolerate I ought; and then I
stripping myself of all my own will, said, Be done Your will.
And so much was I kindled with charity in that
my prayer which I said, that I wished in such torment
to die, not for my utility, but only
for the honor of my Father and for the salvation
of souls. [and prepare herself for tolerance by His example,] But I returned a third time to prayer, that I might give
to understand to you and to whoever desires to please me
in truth, that it does not suffice to pray once,
but that the perseverance of praying delights, surpasses,
and conquers me.

[56] [though nature resist,] Remember, that although I God came that
I should suffer; yet the Passion approaching, because
I was also man, I was compelled to pray and say,
Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. So to you
also I say, daughter, that although often you have asked me
that I grant you to suffer; [gladly; by accepting the pains prepared for her,] when however on account of the multitude
of pains you have prayed me saying, Let pass
from me this cup if it is possible; because you will conclude by adding,
Be done Your will; do not think you despair or
displease me: for therefore the same I did inasmuch as
man, that to you and others I might go before by example. But if
the benignity of the Father be so great, that when amid those
pains you will persevere in prayer, He may deign to you
to show all which await you still, as He showed
me; and you so be inflamed that you wish to suffer them,
not for your utility, but only for
the love of God and the salvation of neighbors, as I
did; on account of this likeness of me which you will assume,
my Father will be compelled in the highest degree of true charity
to love you. Do therefore cordially give thanks to God
for the pains, which He has prepared for you out of His benignity;
and grieve bitterly for those which He has not prepared for you
on account of your ingratitude and defect
of spirit: and know His charity to be so great, that
He would wish to send upon you every evil, that occasion
He might have of giving you every good. Acknowledge with giving
of thanks, that you do not merit so great a good,
as it is to be made conformable to His beloved son by
the way of passion: for this is the nuptial garment, with which
I your true spouse have always been clad. But indeed
the most precious gem, after a good will,
which God can give you, is the tolerance of evil.
Which evil indeed just as I could have escaped, [as a most precious thing.]
so also can you avoid it: but know, that
if you flee, you will flee every good: because just as the choice
of suffering, which I made out of mere love and charity,
pleased my Father; so also it is needful that you do, if
you wish to render yourself like me that to my Father you become pleasing.
But when thus inflamed with charity I departed
from prayer, I went forth to meet the enemies: so you
also go to meet them without fear. I was betrayed
by a kiss by a disciple, so also you will be deceived and
afflicted by those, whom you love and to whom you wish well.

[57] Remember that here I teach you five points.
The first, that when you shall be offended, more
you grieve for the offense of God, than for your pain. The second,
pray me cordially, that to those offending you I pardon,
and free them from the deserved pain; as you would wish
to free your eye or any other member of yours
from torment, [The same teaches her how injuries are to be received,] because in truth your neighbor is your eye
and your member. The third, that you know,
that more you are obligated to him who does you evil, than
to him who does good; for such purge your soul, and it
make beautiful, gracious, and acceptable
in my sight. The fourth, consider how great is
my charity, that although you were my mortal enemy
on account of the faults committed, nevertheless every injury
done to you I would reckon to be done to me: and
therefore I wish that you grieve for my offense. With such
hatred I would wish you had hated your enemies, that is, that every
evil which happens to them, you think to happen to you. The fifth,
that you think you receive only a part of those things
which you deserve, and all by my permitting done for your good,
nor to them impute as sin whatever they do.

[58] Consider, that the kiss received, Judas and
the crowd I asked, Whom do you seek? And when
to them I said, I am He, so great was the power of the word, that
into the earth they fell: but by the same word was given to them
power, that they might seize me. That is, just as I
inasmuch as man united my will to the divine, [and in those things the will is to be united to the divine,]
saying, Be done Your will, and therefore could not the enemies
harm me; and thence they ought to have known,
that power to be not human, but divine;
divinely however it was granted them, that what they wished
they might do against me: so if your will in any
thing whatever you deliver to God, saying from the heart, Be done
Your will, in such manner you will be assimilated to me by the union
of your will with the divine, that demons to harm you
in nothing will be able, before to them be given faculty,
but they will fall nor prevail against you.
Not however by demons or other creatures, which from
God have received power, will you be tormented as much,
as I, the only son of God, by all deserted
and forsaken: but you the more you find yourself forsaken,
the more rejoice the more intensely, and to me
give thanks. I was presented to diverse Princes,
with various torments and mockeries, [wishing to assimilate her to His passion.] and that by that
people whom I loved: you therefore if from various persons
injuries, contumelies, reprehensions you endure, exult
and give thanks to me. I remained naked on the cross: and
I wish that you remain naked also on the cross of Religion, that
is, stripped of all love. I was fastened with three nails:
and you also with as many will be crucified, namely by poverty,
obedience, and chastity. Many other things I have told you,
of which I do not wish now to make mention.

[59] [He bids her remember His favors] Remember, that a greater sign of love I have
shown you, when I afflicted you; than while I held you constrained
between my most sweet arms. But
when you shall feel some great pain, remember
how often also you were called Daughter, Spouse, Sister,
and that so sweetly, that thence you languished. Remember,
poor little soul, that God told you so much of Himself,
that, unequal to bearing so great sweetness, you cried out, No
more, Lord; no more; and from humility
you fled. Remember, that God to tame your
great pride, declared to you, that the signs
of love which He showed you, [plainly received gratuitously] were not on account of the good
which you had done, but on account of the mere charity
with which toward you He was borne: and this He explained by this
similitude. When a physician sees a disease to be perilous
and lethal, he does not lead the sick man about through
many remedies, but takes the last and most powerful:
so also God, as a perfect physician,
acted with you: not because you had deserved it, but that by His mere
charity He might free you from your grave and perilous
infirmity.

[60] [and before all merit:] Remember, that, to make you more humble,
clearly to you He demonstrated, that those sweet and
pleasant tastes cannot be obtained by human faculty;
but God by His sole and infinite charity
of them communicated, as much and to whom it pleased,
according to the judgment of His wisdom, and as
He knew expedient for the soul, going to receive them. But to you,
because you are proud, He wished to give them before you
did any good: lest, if to you, in your capital
having many evils and sins, and afterward doing
some good or evil suffering, He had granted them,
you should fall into the snare of pride and to your merits
something impute. Know therefore, that, when you shall have avoided
many sins and many goods done, and many
tribulations endured, much more than
before, you will be obligated to God: for great is the
benefit, not to sin; greater, to do well; greatest
in the superlative degree, to suffer evils for God
or for the love of justice. None of these could you
do without grace, because "without me you can do nothing."
You know, how by experience you have proved, that every
evil you would have done, had not God restrained you; no
good you would have done, had not with His sweet hand He lifted you up;
no pain you would have endured without sin, except by
His charity He had given you strength and will that
you could. But since this light God has given you, therefore
to Him infinitely you are obligated.

[61] Finally remember, that God by His
goodness clearly made you see, [likewise that she remember her infinite obligation for those things,] that although never
you had sinned; and more penance you had done alone,
than ever have done all the Blessed; as much
also you had poured of tears, as for another sea
(if it were possible) to make would suffice; as much finally
of pains you had tolerated, as nature can
hold; yet not would you suffice for giving me
thanks for the least benefit which I conferred on you.
Think now, how you could satisfy for your infinite
and infinite faults; and say, My Lord,
life, sweetness of my heart, since I cannot,
neither by doing goods, nor by tolerating evils,
render thanks to You for so many benefits, or satisfaction
for so grave my faults and shameful
sins, against You wickedly committed; at least
this grace do me, my Jesus, that You reckon me
as if I had done every evil, nor any ever
good: and grant me, that the little which
remains to me of life, I spend according to Your holy
will; but after death thither me
send, where more I shall be of Your honor: for although
to hell You should banish me, there I shall be most content,
because I wish that Your honor, my Lord, be my beatitude
and glory.

[62] Remember the promises, made to you by me:
but how I have made them, I do not write, [and of her own free offering for tolerating many things,] because you yourself
know. Remember the manner, in which to you the tribulation
I promised, and nothing to you will appear difficult; for all things
quickly pass: after sorrow gladness follows,
and serenity after the tempest: but that tempest
will be for you in part an acceptable time and the day
of salvation. Remember, with how generous a mind you prayed me,
saying, At once, quickly, and strongly, my Lord,
I cannot longer wait; too much do You defer
to give me the promised pains? when will You lead me
to those fat pastures of tolerance, where are fattened
Your elect little sheep? Remember, when you shall be in the torment
of that cross which God destines for you, that you not say
ever, O God, why have You forsaken me? The cause
you know, because I forbade it you. Remember moreover,
that I told you, that the more it pleases you,
yourself by me forsaken to see, the more to you I shall be
nearer. For I wish the same with you manner
to keep, which the Father with me: that is I wish to permit,
that as much of pains you tolerate, as your fragility
will be able to bear.

[63] Remember, that God told you, that it would be that
you fall into a great error, or deception, or
temptation, or treason: but do not therefore
despair, because nothing so grievously displeases Him as
despair. Stand therefore in fear and humility, [and that God is to be served gratuitously.]
just as until today you have stood with confidence in God:
for it is needful to turn the leaf: because never so much
to yourself you will seem to be in His love and grace,
as you will seem to Him to be of hatred and displeasure. But
stand strongly and constantly, for to those conquering
is given the crown. Remember the royal offering, which
you made to God, that you would wish to serve Him, not for escaping
hell, or obtaining paradise;
but because He is the highest, infinite, and singular
good, which from every creature merits every
obsequy, love, and praise: and so to serve
Him purely and fervently even unto death, even if
certain you were, that you were to be damned. Remember, that God
has not revealed these things to you, on account of your good and
holy life. Remember this, and be confounded, thinking,
on this side the great goodness of God, on that your
misery and depravity.

[64] I grieve indeed and have compassion on you, O poor little
soul, that after so many sweet embraces, [Meanwhile Christ consoles her by having compassion] so
sweet words, by which you spouse and daughter often
I called, as you know; after so many testimonies of the greatest
love, which not only by words, but by deeds
you have proved; after you have felt and tasted God to be
above all things lovable, delightful, desirable,
gracious, sweet and pleasant, I should permit
that into so lamentable a desolation
you fall. Stand therefore in fear, and do not say any more,
From this may God keep me, from that other I myself
will keep myself. For on account of this God made you with great
expense understand, that a single ant
would suffice to break your neck, did not He restrain you:
and never any more in yourself trust,
although to so great grace you were led, that daily
you wrought miracles. Remember that I taught you, that
when in great mourning with devotion you are, you discharge
some part of your debt. Remember that
this exhortation proceeds not from hatred, [and forearms her by instructing.] but love:
because I do not wish to render you in this world a reward for merits,
as often has been declared to you. Remember,
that God wishes you alone and naked upon
the bed of the cross, in which most sacred bed He wishes with you
to consummate this holy and spiritual matrimony,
by the mediation of love and pain, that you may with
the beloved spouse in the Canticles say, "My Beloved to me
and I to Him, who is fed among the lilies"; among the lilies, I say,
of many pains.

[65] All these things I knew when I was secular, after
a firm and irrevocable purpose of serving
God under perpetual enclosure, in the Order of glorious St.
Clare: but I wrote the same, Christ dictating,
when I was at Urbino, five months before
I made my Profession. Perpetual praise
to Him.

[66] Thus far Sister Baptista, which if a discreet Theologian
and one skilled in spiritual things should weigh, [The error, of which she accuses herself as guilty of mortal sin, seems to have been permitted her by God,] altogether
I believe he will judge, that the error or deception, into
which God permitted her herself to lapse, stuck in the intellect alone,
but had nothing conjoined on the part of the will, which
would be imputable to sin; for otherwise it would not have been a gift of God,
given to her, who out of the highest love the highest
tribulation for herself had wished and asked, and that she would be made partaker of her vow
God promising she had understood. Nay rather
I think, that the sorrow born from the apprehension, though false,
of grave and mortal sins, by her during that
deception committed, on account of which to God she had been made
odious or even reprobate; very greatly conjoined her to Him,
persevering nevertheless in His love,
and rendered her most like Christ. For He, although He could not
apprehend the sins of men by erring as truly His own,
because nevertheless He had taken them upon Himself to be paid, [to make her more conformable to Christ:] so for them
grieved and was confounded before His Father, as much as He could have
if truly He Himself had committed them, and had become Himself the immediate
object of divine hatred and indignation, while meanwhile
never more than then in Him had the Father been pleased with Himself.
For the confirmation of this truth I think God wished,
that that tongue, by which she had believed herself to have blasphemed, should remain
after death incorrupt, as if He said the same of her, just as
of just Job we read it written; "In all these things Sister Baptista did not sin
with her lips, nor anything foolish
against the Lord did she speak; but she spoke
before me what is right, [in which however with Job] as my servant Job;" even
in those things, in which she seemed to be reproved by God, just as he
seems to be reproved through the whole of chapters 40 and 41: who however as
if rebuked for foolish speech, said, that which also seemed to say
Sister Baptista, "Therefore I reprehend myself, and do penance
in dust and ashes."

[67] For the confirmation of this thing it pleases to read the prayer,
which she composed and wrote toward the end of that bitter
three-year period, [she herself accused herself] thus addressing God: O most sweet and most benign
God, Father of infinite mercies,
behold me Your hundredth little sheep, who
almost three years wandered astray, with mind dispersed and vagabond
through the brambles and the fields, fed with most bitter
herbs and venomous husks. But now, sweet
and clement God, from my whole heart I desire to return
to You, the fount of true peace. Receive me and take me up
on Your merciful shoulders, O good and faithful
Shepherd, who laid down Your soul for Your sheep.
Bring me back to the fold of Your infinite mercy,
and turn not Your [face] away from me. O sweet my Jesus,
do not permit that I be sunk within the most secure harbor of Religion; you who labored so much and were
so near to me, that you might snatch me from the tempestuous
sea of this deceitful age. Remember, my Jesus, [and it humbled her,]
how dear I cost you. Remember, most pious
God, what price for me you paid at the table
of the most bitter cross. Remember, my Redeemer,
not what I have done, but what I wished to do for Your
honor. My Jesus, I am that publican, who
on account of his shame dares not, as neither
do I dare, to lift my eyes to heaven; but I stand
with face cast down to the earth, striking my breast and
saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.

[68] O most clement Lord, receive between Your open
arms this prodigal son, who from afar
returns, Your, not his own goods squandered, not living
in truth and rectitude. My Lord, I am not
worthy to be called Your handmaid or bondservant,
because I have persecuted souls by Your precious blood
redeemed. Run to meet me, Lord, with
Your grace; press my afflicted soul with Your most sweet
arms, just as You were wont in the days
of old, and visit the desolate one. O most benign Father,
give me the so greatly desired kiss of Your
holy peace. Put an end, Lord, [and she desired the end of it even through death.] to this deadly
war, which now almost three years has lasted: but if
I do not deserve that it be done in another way, let it be done even through death.
O most sweet Jesus, lead me out from this perilous
life of the darkness of this world: lead me out from the stinking
prison of this wretched body. Draw me to You, pious
God, draw me to You: nor make me remain
longer in this calamitous exile. I cannot longer
remain patiently: all things drive me: infirmity,
demons, other creatures, and mental
tribulations, and they say, Flee, flee: it is not permitted you here
to remain any more. Receive me to You and into You, sweet
my Jesus; for as You know, I will come so gladly, that
by no words could I explain it. Banish me, where
more it shall be of Your honor, until the day of judgment,
provided You separate me not eternally from You, as I have deserved, O
true and highest good! and that for great mercy
I will esteem. Glory to You, Lord. Amen. REVELATIONS
concerning the mental sorrows of Christ. From the edition of Dominicus Pascuccius rendered into Latin.

Baptista Verana, of the Order of the poor Sisters of St. Clare, of Camerino in Umbria (B.)

FROM THE ITALIAN AUTOGRAPH.

§. I. Sorrow from the pains of the damned and the elect.

[1] There was a certain devout soul, much desiring
to be fed and satiated with the foods of the Passion of the loving
Lord and most sweet Jesus: [She feigns she heard from another,] who after many
years, by His admirable favor, introduced to the mental
sorrows of His most afflicted heart, said to me,
that for a long time she had prayed God, that He would lead her
in and submerge her in the sea of His mental
sorrows. Therefore that most sweet Jesus, by a singular
piety, mercy and grace, deigned,
not only once, but often and often her
into that most ample ocean to introduce, in such
manner and mode, that she was compelled to cry out, No
more, Lord, no more, for the vehemence of the pains
I cannot endure: and this I easily
believe, because I know that He is liberal and benign toward
those, who such things from Him know humbly and perseveringly
to ask. But she said to me, that blessed soul,
that placed in prayer with anxiety
of heart she said to God; O Lord, I pray You, that You introduce
me into the most sacred bridal chamber of Your sorrows
mental: immerse me in that most bitter
sea: [which Jesus revealed to her,] for I desire to die in it, my sweet life. Tell
me, Jesus my hope, how great was the sorrow of Your straitened
heart. And that blessed Jesus answered
her: Do you know how great was my sorrow? so great
was it, as the love, with which God and the creature
I pursued. Now that blessed soul said to me,
that already before at another time God had made her
understand, how much it pleased Him in the love with which
the creature He pursues: and upon this point to me
she said beautiful and devout thoughts so many,
that if those also I wished to write, a thing very prolix
would become: I will be silent therefore of them, because now only I intend
to narrate the mental sorrows of the Lord. But that
I may return to my purpose, I say, that when Christ
said to her, that so great was the sorrow as was the love
toward the creature; [that His sorrows were equal to His love toward creatures:] from the knowledge which she already had
of the greatness and immensity of that love, in measuring
the sorrow, all her senses failed; so that it was necessary
for her, this word heard, to recline her head
to some place, on account of the straits of her heart and
the weakness of her whole body. But after she had received somewhat
of strength, she said: O my God, since
You have now said how great was the sorrow, tell
also, Lord, how great were the pains which You bore
in Your heart. To whom He sweetly thus answered.

[2] [and that they were greatest from the pains of the damned,] Know, my daughter, the pains, which I bore in my
heart, were innumerable and infinite: for innumerable
and infinite are the souls, my members,
which from me themselves by sinning separated: but so often
each soul separated itself from me, its true head,
whence it receives life, as often as it sinned mortally.
And this was one of the more cruel pains,
which in my soul I bore and felt, namely such
a disjoining of my members. For consider,
how great a pain he feels who is tortured by the rope,
while certain of his members are moved from their natural place;
and thence gather what was my martyrdom,
from whom so many members were torn away, as souls ever
shall be damned; and indeed each member as often,
as they have mortally sinned. But by so much the more
sorrowful is the disjoining of a spiritual member than
a corporeal one, by how much the soul is more precious than the body;
but by how much this is more precious than that, neither you nor
any man living can understand: [while to Him as members were torn from His mystical body,] because I alone, who
made both, know how great is the nobility of the soul and
the vileness of the body: therefore neither you nor any other creature
can understand the atrocity and bitterness of my pains;
yet I treat now only of the damned
souls. But just as one manner of sinning
is graver than another, and one sin than another; so
more or less of pain gave me the disjoining of one
than of another: and hence arises the quality and quantity
of the pains. And because I saw their perverse
will to be going to endure eternally, therefore to them
is destined an eternal punishment: but because more
and graver sins committed one than another,
therefore in hell more or less is tormented one than
another.

[3] [and indeed never to be reunited,] But a cruel pain, which tormented me, was,
that I saw my aforesaid infinite members, that
is the souls of the damned, never, never to be reunited
to me their true head: and that, Never,
torments and will torment eternally those unhappy
souls, more than all the other torments which they endure
or can endure. But me so much afflicted,
that, Never, Never, that I would readily have chosen
anew to suffer all those disjoinings, and all
their modes which were, are, or will be; not only
once, but many and infinite times; that I might
see that, I do not say all, but even one single
of those souls was to be reunited to the integrity of my other
vital members, that is of the elect,
eternally to live in the Holy Spirit, through
the life proceeding from me; because I am life vital,
that is I am the life of all things using life.
And here note, how dear to me is the soul of man,
since I told you, that for one single I would have wished
to suffer so often repeated and so often multiplied
pains, and indeed infinite times, only that her
I might reunite to me and make my member, I who
am the true head of her. Likewise know, that by
my justice so afflicts those souls that, Never,
Never, that each even would wish by
herself a thousand times and infinitely to endure various and infinite
pains, provided they could hope sometime to be
with me reunited, however long I might bear it: [which torments them also most grievously:] but that
never they will be able, this them supremely torments and
afflicts. And so it is to be reasoned of all sins,
that, as much of pains those souls to me
through each gave, by separating themselves from me, according to
the quality and quantity of each sin; so
also from my true justice will correspond to them the quantity
and quality of their pains. That, Never,
Never, torments and afflicts them above
all the pains which they suffer and eternally will suffer.
And here consider and note, how great a pain
I sustained mentally in my heart for all
the damned together, and indeed even unto death.

[4] That soul said to me, [yet the pains of these now damned] that there was suggested to her
a holy desire, which she believed infused by God,
of proposing a certain doubt; yet with
great fear and reverence, lest she should seem to wish to speculate
divine things and too profound; therefore
with the highest simplicity, purity, and confidence to Him
she said: O sweet and afflicted Jesus, I have often heard it said,
that You endured the pains of all the damned;
I would wish, my Lord, if it pleases You, to know, whether it be true,
that You felt that diversity of infernal pains,
namely of cold, heat, burning, gnashing
of teeth, as suffer all those infernal spirits.
Tell, I beseech, Lord, did You feel those things, my Jesus?
Indeed while only these things I relate in writing, it seems to me
my heart melts, thinking of Your benignity, who
so sweetly and so at length speak to one seeking You
in truth, and willing You. Then that blessed Jesus, [Christ teaches He felt not otherwise,]
graciously answering, seemed to show that acceptable
to Him had befallen such a question, and said:
I, daughter, felt not that diversity of pains,
which the damned feel, in the manner in which you understand
and ask: for they were members dead and
cut off from me, their head and body. But this by
an example thus I explain. If you have a hand or a foot
or any other member ill-affected,
until that foot or hand be separated from you, you feel
in it a great torment and pain: but after
that hand were cut off, if anyone it
into the fire should cast, or to dogs or wolves should expose
to be devoured, no pain or torment in it
would you feel, because it is a member putrid and dead,
and wholly disjoined from the head. But do you know what pain
you would feel? Because it was your member, you would be afflicted,
seeing it cast into the fire, or to wolves or dogs
to be devoured exposed. In quite a like manner, those infinite those members, the damned souls I say, [than one feels the burning of a member now cut off.] were a sorrow to me,
as long as the disjoining itself lasted, and
still remained some hope of vital life; and I felt
ineffable and infinite pains, and all their straits
which they sustained in this life: because until
death there remained hope, that they could, if they wished, to me
their head be reunited. But after their death no
more pain I felt, because as members dead,
putrid and divided from me, and wholly cut off and
separated they are, nor ever henceforth to me of true life
will they be reunited. Yet there was to me a pain incomprehensible
and ineffable, considering that they had been my
true and proper members, and seeing them in the jaws
of the eternal fires, that is in the power of the infernal spirits,
and by other most diverse and innumerable
pains eternally set.

[5] [2. Christ's sorrow from all the elect about to sin mortally,] Another sorrow, which pierced through my heart, was on the
part of all the elect: and know that in all
those manners, in which I said I was afflicted and tormented
in the damned members, similarly afflicted me
and tormented the elect members, which could
mortally sin, by their separation from me
and disjoining. For as great
was the love, which toward them I was to have
eternally, and they toward me; and as great
the vileness, to which they united themselves by sinning mortally; so
great was the sorrow, which in all those my
members I felt. In this however it differed from that
which the damned made me, that of them, as
of dead members, I felt no
more pain, since separated from me by
death; but I felt all the bitterness of the elect
and pain in life and after death: namely
in life, the martyrdoms of all martyrs, the penances
of all penitents, the temptations of all
the tempted, the infirmities of all the infirm;
persecutions, infamies, pilgrimages,
afflictions finally all small and great of all
the elect wayfarers, so distinctly and vividly
did I experience and feel, as you living would experience
and feel, if anyone to you now struck the eye,
the hand, or another member of yours. Now consider
how many were the Martyrs, and each how
various torments sustained in suffering. Add the pains
of all the elect members, [and the afflictions to be tolerated by them in life,] however many there were,
and their diversity: and thus reason,
If you had a thousand eyes, a thousand hands, a thousand feet,
and thus of all other members a thousand, and in
each a thousand diverse pains; but all those
members in one and the same moment of time were thus tormented,
how exquisite would that to you seem
a punishment? But my members, O daughter, are not
reckoned by thousands or millions, but infinite
they were, and without number also are the pains
of the Martyrs, Confessors, Virgins, and of all
the other elect. Hence therefore conclude, that
just as it cannot be known, how great in paradise are the beatitudes,
glories, and rewards prepared for the just elect;
so it cannot be understood, of what kind and how great were
the mental pains, which on account of my elect members
I sustained, to whom by my justice their
reward is proportioned.

[6] But after death every diversity of torments,
which for their sins they ought to sustain
in purgatory, according to the quality
and quantity of each, as each more or less deserved,
I felt and bore; because they were my members
alive, [likewise in purgatory:] and to me spiritually united, but not
putrid and cut off like the damned. Therefore all those
pains, about which you asked me whether I felt them,
I felt not on account of the damned, for the reason already said,
but well on account of the elect: and all the pains
of purgatory, which they will have to sustain for their
faults, I felt and by experience proved, just as
by this example you will understand. If your hand
by some sinister chance were broken or otherwise rendered useless,
and the surgeon had judged it to be burned, crushed,
or to dogs to be put into the mouth; much
it would grieve you, because it is a member still alive,
and you hope it perfectly whole to be reunited to your body:
so all the pains of Purgatory, which all
my elect members had to bear, I bore and
felt in myself, because they were members to me united and
alive, and by that very punishment they had to be perfectly reunited
to me their head. But there is no difference
of the pains of hell and of purgatory, except that the pains of hell
never, never shall have an end;
but shall have it the pains of purgatory;
and therefore the souls being purged in their pains remain
willing and content (although they grieve) because they are purged;
and they suffer in peace, giving thanks to the supreme
justice. And let these things be said of the mental pains
which for the elect I sustained.

[7] Would that now I could remember the devout
words which that soul with heartfelt lamentation
uttered, understanding how greatly displeased God
the gravity of her sins, and how great a pain
she brought to her most beloved Jesus, by separating herself from the highest
good, that she might cleave to things as vile as
are the things of this world, affording occasion of sinning. [whence is understood the gravity of sin.]
I remember however that she said to me, that thus
she had spoken to God: O my God, whether to be saved
or to be damned I am, great pains to You I have brought.
O my Lord, never had I comprehended that
so much offended You sins; but if I had known it,
so easily I would not have sinned. But neither in this to
my words attend, Lord; for I know that I would do
worse than ever before, did not Your most pious
hand restrain me. O sweet and benign Jesus,
my lover! sweet and benign are all those pains,
which to me You speak. §. II. Christ's sorrows from the pains of His Mother, Magdalen, and the Disciples.

[8] Then the loving and blessed Jesus subjoined:
Hearken, hearken, my daughter, [From the sorrows of His mother Jesus thus suffered,] not yet
so speak: for there remain still pains
most bitter to be told; first that sharp sword,
which transfixed and passed through my soul; the sorrow,
I say, of my pure and innocent mother, who
on account of my death and passion was to be so greatly
afflicted, as no other person ever
else. Deservedly therefore in paradise we exalted her
and sublimated her above all angelic and human
creatures; for by how much more some creature
in this world, on account of my love, in itself
is afflicted, depressed, and annihilated; by so much
the more in the kingdom of the heavens, by the rule of divine justice,
is it exalted, glorified, and rewarded. But because
no mother or other person was so much
straitened, as my most sweet and most afflicted
mother; therefore never in paradise on high will any
person be like her: and just as she on earth was
another self of mine by pain and passion, so is she in heaven
another self of mine by power and glory; excepting namely
the Divinity, of which she is not partaker, but
only we three, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Know moreover that in all that respect and manner,
in which I God incarnate grieved and suffered,
also grieved and suffered my most holy mother;
except that I suffered in a more perfect and higher
degree, because I was Man-God, but she a pure
and simple creature. But her sorrow so much me
afflicted, that, if it had pleased the eternal Father, [so that He would have wished to take them all upon Himself.] a great solace
to me it would have been, if, all her sorrows
into me being translated, she could have remained
without sorrow; for that I would have held for the highest refreshment.
But because my incomprehensible martyrdom
had to be without any consolation, therefore
such a grace to me was not granted, although her often
out of filial reverence with many tears I asked for. Then said that soul, whose heart seemed
to fail from compassion toward the glorious
Virgin mother, that placed in a certain perplexity of mind,
nothing else could she utter than
these words: O Mother of God, no more shouldst thou
be called Mother of God, but mother of sorrows, mother
of pains, mother of afflictions, which neither can be numbered
nor comprehended by thought. He is
a certain hell, and thou art another him; what therefore
else can I name thee than mother of sorrows,
and say also thou to be another hell? No
more, no more, no more; my Lord,
do not any more to me speak of the sorrows of Your blessed
Mother, because I cannot longer bear it:
these suffice me for all the rest of life, even if it
still were of a thousand years.

[9] He therefore being silent on such matter, because He saw
her to be incapable, [The same had compassion on Mary Magdalen] began to say to her: How much
moreover do you believe me to have suffered from the affliction of my beloved
and blessed disciple, Mary Magdalen?
Never that can you grasp, nor any person:
because from her and from me had their beginning and
foundation all holy and spiritual loves,
which were ever or will be. But because the perfection
of me her loving Master, and the love and goodness
of her the beloved Disciple, could not be comprehended
except by me: something indeed could grasp
someone, having experience of holy and spiritual
love, active as well as passive: but to its
equality to attain no one can: for never
were found such a Master and such a Disciple:
nor was Magdalen any other ever or will be except
her alone. [loving and grieving above all others,] Let each one say what he will; after
my Mother no one more my death and passion
grieved than she: but if another had grieved more
than she, to her after my resurrection I would have sooner
appeared than to her: but because after my blessed
Mother she was afflicted above all, therefore after
my most sweet Mother first she deserved to be consoled.

[10] I caused that John my most beloved, in that
sweet slumber, in that bitter and desired supper,
upon my most sacred breast, clearly saw
my resurrection, and the most ample fruit
of souls to follow from my passion and death: [even above John]
although however from thence he took more sorrow and pain,
than any other of the disciples, do not believe that he surpassed
my loving Magdalen, who was not
capable of high and sublime things as John.
For he, although he could have, yet would not have
hindered my passion and death, on account of
the knowledge of so great a good which through it and from it
was to follow: but my beloved Magdalen not
so, who when she saw me expired on the cross, believed
heaven and earth to have failed her, because in me was all
her hope, all love, peace, and consolation: and
therefore without measure was her sorrow. Which understanding
I, cordially her bore within my soul: and on her part I experienced all that
tenderness, which from holy and spiritual love
can be perceived, because from her inmost heart she
loved me.

[11] If you desire the aforesaid better to understand, observe,
that the Disciples, [and the other disciples,] as not yet estranged from every
other thing, like that sinful woman, after my death
returned to the nets forsaken: but she did not return
to the proud and disordered life; and burning
wholly, and with holy desire inflamed, whom
alive she did not hope to see, she sought dead;
knowing that nothing could any more be a delight
to her except her dear Master, whether alive
or dead. But how true this was, understand,
considering that, to find me dead,
she despised and dismissed the society and presence
of my most sweet Mother, than which nothing after
me could be conceived more lovable, desirable,
and delightful, the sweet addresses of the Angels for nothing
she held; nor in the sight or presence of any other
could she rest, except in me alone, her beloved
God. Finally so great was the sorrow of that
my blessed and dear Disciple, that often she would have fallen
dead, had not I by my supreme
power sustained her: but that sorrow
continually dwelt in my heart. Much on account of
her was I troubled and afflicted: [so that she would have died, had He Himself not kept her,] but I did not permit
her thus to fail, because to make her I wished
what afterward I made, namely the Apostle of the Apostles,
that she might evangelize the truth of my triumphal resurrection,
just as they afterward evangelized
to the whole world: I wished to make her and made her a mirror,
example, and norm of all blessed and
contemplative life, in that thirty-three years'
solitude, in which unknown to the world she lived;
where she tasted and felt the ultimate effects of love, which
in this mortal life can be tasted and felt. And
these things concerning the sorrows which on account of my beloved Disciple
I sustained.

[12] [He felt also the disciples' desolation the more grievously,] Another mental sorrow, which transfixed my soul,
was the fixed and continual memory of that sacred
college of my Apostles, the columns
of heaven, the foundations of my Church militant,
the sheep without a shepherd, which I wished and knew
were to be dispersed: and I saw all the torments
and martyrdoms, which for my cause and love they had to suffer.
Know moreover that no father ever sons,
brother brothers, master disciples so tenderly
and cordially loved, as I my most beloved
brothers and disciples, the blessed Apostles.
For although all creatures I always loved
with an infinite love; nevertheless conceive easily you
can, that this love was more particular and singular
toward those with whom corporeally I conversed.
Therefore since on their account a particular
also and singular sorrow I felt, [the more He loved them,] on their
account rather than my own I said that bitter and mournful
word, "Sad is my soul even unto death,"
on account of the tenderness of affection which I felt
leaving them without me, their head, father,
faithful master: and so great anguish to me thence was born,
that such corporeal separation to me
seemed another death. Wherefore he who well considered
the words of that last discourse which I had to them,
however hard, would not contain his tears:
because each word, full of compassion, was poured forth
from the bottom of the heart, which to me seemed for
love of them in my very breast to burst.

[13] I saw moreover, how on account of my love
one had to be crucified, another beheaded,
another flayed, [and that they would suffer many things for Him.] all finally by various martyrdoms
to end their life. Hence understand how great a pain to me it was.
For consider, if you had a person who holily
loved you, to whom on your account were said injurious words or
another injury were done, how much and how vehemently to you
it would grieve, that to him who so greatly loved you, you were the cause
of such sorrow; when to him on the contrary you would wish always to come
on your account every good, honor and consolation.
But I, daughter, to them was the cause, I do not say of words
injurious, but even of death; nor to one
of them only, but to all. Wherefore the sorrow,
which on account of them I bore, I cannot by another to you example
explain: enough is said, that you may have compassion on me. §. III. Christ's sorrows from the ingratitude of Judas, the Jewish people, and all creatures. A particular sorrow likewise in the garden.

[14] Another heartfelt sorrow, which continually afflicted me;
and was like a knife, with three venomed
and most sharp points furnished, [To these was added the knowledge of manifold ingratitude,]
for striking my heart assiduously and transfixing it,
was the impiety and ingratitude of my beloved disciple
Judas, and the same my wicked and most evil betrayer;
the hardness, perversity and ingratitude of the Jewish people
chosen by me; the malign blindness and ingratitude
of all however many were, are or will be creatures.
First therefore consider how great was the ingratitude
of Judas, whom I chose into the number of the Apostles,
to whom his sins all I pardoned, whom
I made a worker of miracles, and dispenser
of all offered to me; [first of Judas,] to whom finally I always showed
signs of singular love, that him from the conceived
iniquity I might remove; but the more ample toward
him I indicated affection, the worse he thought
against me. Now moreover consider, with how great
bitterness those and many other things in my heart were turned.
But when I came to that lamentable
and humble act of washing for him and the others
all together the feet, then my heart was poured out
into heartfelt lamentation, and from my eyes a fount
of tears burst forth upon his defiled feet,
because I said in my heart: O Judas, what have I done to you,
that me so cruelly you betray? O unfortunate
disciple! [while Christ washed his feet,] is not this the last sign of love,
which to you I can exhibit? O son
of perdition, for what cause thus do you depart from your father and
master? O Judas, if you desire thirty pieces of silver,
why do you not go to your mother and mine, who gladly
herself will sell, that you and me she may free from peril
and death? Ah Judas, ungrateful disciple, I
with so great love for you wash and kiss your feet, but you
with the execution of treason to me my face
will kiss. O what an evil return you will render me,
dear and beloved son, lamenting your perdition, rather
than my own passion and death, because for
this alone I came.

[15] These and like words said to him my heart,
meanwhile while with copious tears his feet I bathed:
but he nothing of these things noticed, because before
him I was kneeling with bent head, [the tears meanwhile flowing;] as in such
act of washing others are wont; and because, while thus I was bent,
the multitude of my long hairs
my mournful and tearful face covered. But
my beloved John, to whom all the mysteries of my passion
in that sorrowful supper I had revealed, noticed
and observed every act of mine, and singly
my lamentation upon the feet of Judas; and he knew
and understood, that from the tenderness of love
proceeded those my tears. Just as when
some father, having an only son, to him already
now dying performs some service, [which John observing,] and says
in his heart; Farewell, son, this is the last that to you
ever I shall serve; so I altogether did to Judas,
when to him I kissed and washed the feet. But when
them more gently I touched and to my blessed mouth
pressed, each of my gestures and acts noticing
that most keen-eyed Eagle, from stupor and
admiration was to a dead than to a living one more like.

[16] And because that most humble soul had reclined in the last
place, so that to him last I should come,
when I now to him to wash the feet bent,
no longer himself could he contain; and sitting
himself, my neck, bent on the ground, with both arms he clasped,
and me thus somewhat holding, as if a swoon
he suffered, and pouring most copious tears, [he inwardly had compassion on his master.] with his heart's
voice, his tongue silent, to me he spoke and said:
O dear Master, Brother, my God and Lord,
how did the spirit suffice you to wash and
kiss with your most sacred mouth the cursed feet
of that dog the betrayer? O my Jesus, dear Master,
a very perfect example you leave us; but we
wretches, what shall we do without you, who are all our good?
what will your unhappy mother do, when to her
this your humility I shall narrate? And now, that to me
you make my heart be cleft, you wish to wash for me my foul feet and them
to kiss with your sweet and mellifluous mouth. O my God
the new signs of your love to me are the cause of greater
sorrow. And these and many other like things with tenderness
saying, which a stony heart also would have softened,
his unshod feet with the greatest shame
to me to be washed he held out. And these things I have said, that some
notion to you I might instill of my heartfelt sorrow, which
I bore on account of the ingratitude and impiety of the betrayer
Judas; to whom the greater I bore love
and the more signs of affection I showed, the more
me grievously afflicted his most evil ingratitude.

[17] What shall I say of the ungrateful and obstinate people
of the Jews, [At length the ingratitude of the Jews being weighed,] how greatly it pricked me and straitened
their ineffable ingratitude? I had made them a people
holy, a people Sacerdotal; I had chosen them
to me for a portion and inheritance above all the peoples
of the earth, I had led them across with dry feet through the Red Sea,
freeing them from the Egyptian servitude and the hands of Pharaoh,
I had overshadowed them in a pillar by day, and a light
to them I had been by night; I had given them the law on Mount Sinai
and the Evangelical law with my own mouth I had announced;
so many victories over enemies I had granted; and human
flesh from them taking, all the time of my life
with them I had conversed; I showed them the very
way of heaven, and at the same time many benefits I conferred, [and the sorrow of Christ born from this,]
illuminating the blind, giving to the deaf hearing, walking
to the lame, and finally to the dead life: when therefore
I understood that with so great fury they cried out and demanded,
that Barabbas be released, and I to the cross
and death be delivered, it seemed to me my heart would burst asunder.
He does not know, daughter, except who has experienced it, what it is sorrow
and every evil to receive from him to whom one has done every
good. How also hard it is, that against a just
and innocent one it be cried out by all, Let him die,
let him die: but on the contrary of him who is known to have a thousand
deaths deserved, the whole people cry out,
Let him be saved, let him be saved. These things indeed are such that thought
rather they ought than spoken.

[18] Then said that holy soul, that she felt
in her heart so great humility, that truly she confessed
to God and to all His heavenly Court, [Baptista comparing herself with Judas,] that she had received
from God more benefits and gifts than Judas, more than that whole ungrateful people together, and meanwhile
(which is worse) with greater ingratitude Him
had betrayed than Judas; more wantonly crucified
Him and slain than that ungrateful people: and
in this holy confession and consideration, as
a great sinner, she mentally subjected her soul
to the feet of the soul of the damned Judas; and considering
herself to be in that very abyssal place of his, from there, as if truly
placed therein, she gave voices, cries and lamentations to
her beloved, but by her offended God, saying to Him:
O most benign my Lord! how shall I be able worthy
thanks to You to give, that You sustain me, who have done
a thousand times worse than Judas? You made him Your disciple,
but me You made a daughter and spouse; to him
You pardoned his sins, to me also mine by Your
piety and grace You remitted. You gave him the dispensation
of temporal things, to me ungrateful from Your
spiritual treasures so many favors, so many gifts You conferred.
You gave him the power of doing miracles, but me
You made more than a miracle to do, of my own accord
leading me to the place where now I am. O my Jesus,
I sold and betrayed You, not once, like him; but
many times without number. O my God, I know that
worse I have betrayed You than with a kiss Judas, when under
the appearance of spirituality I dismissed You and bound myself with the bonds
of death.

[19] But if that people's ingratitude so grave
and so troublesome to You was: how must have affected You
mine, [and of the Jews,] who worse to You did, than he; and yet
more benefits from You I received than he. O most sweet
my Lord! from my whole heart thanks to You I give, that
You have led me out of the Egyptian servitude of the demon and
of sins, from the hands of that cruel Pharaoh,
who at his pleasure dominated my poor little
soul. You led me through the midst of the waters of worldly
vanity with dry feet, and I passed by Your grace
to the solitude in the desert of Religion, where often and often
You fed me with most sweet and savory manna, which
to me, as to every desirable savor,
seemed to contain whatever delightfulness, [She gives thanks to Christ for His benefits,]
because all worldly delights seemed to me
insipid before Your least spiritual consolation. Thanks
I give You, my Lord, because to me often You gave
the law, with Your own most sweet and holy mouth, on the mount
Sinai of holy prayer, written with the finger of Your mercy
on the stony tablets of my most hard and rebellious heart.
Thanks I give You, most benign Redeemer, for
all the victories, which You gave me against the enemies,
that is the capital vices. As often as I overcame them, from You and
through You, Lord, came to me the victory: as often as I was conquered
or am conquered, that from my malice proceeds and the scant
love, [and she imputes to herself His whole passion,] which I have toward You, my God. You
my Lord, by grace were born in my soul;
and to me You showed the way and light of truth, by which I should come
to You the true paradise. Amid the darkness and gloom
of the world You gave me to see, speak, hear, walk;
because truly to all spiritual things I was blind,
deaf, mute, paralytic. And what more, O
God, could You have done for me which You have not done? I was
altogether dead, and in You the true life I was resuscitated,
who give life to every creature living from You. But who
crucified You? I. Who at the column scourged You?
I. Who with thorns crowned You? I. Who with gall
and vinegar gave You drink? I.

[20] Therefore running through each mystery of the suffering
Jesus, and feeling grace given to her by God,
she concluded with these words: [and she understands and bewails the ingratitude of all creatures.] O my Lord, do You know why
to You I say, that all those things I have done? because I saw a light
in Your light, and I knew that more You afflicted
the mortal sins which I committed, than You then
afflicted those who such pains to You corporeally inflicted.
Wherefore, my God, it is not necessary
that henceforth to me You say, how great a pain to You brought
the ingratitude of all human creatures, because
You have given me the grace of understanding my ingratitude
at least in some part. Now I consider by
the grace of Your light, how much greater is the ingratitude
of all creatures, and in this consideration fails
my spirit, and I am astonished at so great charity
and patience, which You used toward us most ungrateful
creatures, for whom never, never You ceased
to provide in all necessities spiritual and
corporeal. But just as they cannot be understood, much less
explained, the innumerable things, which You did in heaven and
on earth, in water and in all elements, for those
ungrateful creatures; so cannot be understood or explained
my great ingratitudes. Therefore, my God,
I confess and believe, that You alone can them
understand and comprehend, and can know
how great and of what kind was that most bitter arrow of our
ingratitude, which so often transfixed Your heart, as often as
some human creature was, is, or will be, which
that has used against You. For this truth in my
and all creatures' name I acknowledge and
confess, that just as no moment, hour, day
or month passes, in which we do not use Your benefits;
so let none pass without manifold, nay infinite, our
ingratitude: which I believe and feel to be
among the more atrocious sorrows, with which was afflicted Your soul,
my Jesus. Finished are these few words of the mental sorrows
of Jesus Christ, to His praise, on Friday September 12,
in the year of the Lord 1488.

[21] [She notes that these sorrows were more intense in the garden,] What here below I write, was revealed to me,
thinking of the mystery of Jesus Christ praying in the garden,
where He sweated blood: namely that just as the sun,
when it is in Leo, because it is in its own house, more
exerts its strength, than in all the rest of the year; so
also Christ the blessed in that prayer, which He made
in the garden, more vehemently felt His mental sorrows,
than in all the course of His life of thirty-three years:
for then the sun of His sorrows was in Leo, that is
its own house or in the highest. But I say to me
it was revealed, that so great is the difference between him
[who is exercised in recollecting the mental sorrows of Christ,
and another] who stays in the bare humanity
tormented, as great as is between honey or balsam, which
is in a vessel, and that little liquor, by which exteriorly
the same vessel is moistened. Therefore he who desires
to taste Christ's Passion, ought not always to be occupied
licking the outermost rim of the vessel, that is the wounds
and blood, to that most sacred vessel of the humanity
of Christ adhering; for never in such manner will be satiated
he who such food hungers for: but if he desires to be satiated with it,
let him enter into the vessel itself, [and that it be more usefully considered than the corporeal pains.] that is into the heart or sea
of Christ the blessed, and there more than he will wish he shall be satiated.
This moreover was revealed to me, but I would not put it
here where I wrote the mental sorrows of Christ, lest
I take away devotion from him who in the bare humanity contemplated
delights: because not every intellect
is fit for sailing in such a sea, especially we
women, whose capacity is scant, and to whom
the aforesaid sorrows I directed. Yet it is true, that
God renders him capable, who Him in truth
desires and seeks. O my Father, how much sorrow
to me you believe has come, writing these things! Truly as the sea
is my contrition. Thus far she, from whose last words
we understand, that the last article was added in the year
1491, three years after the former had been written, when
the same Baptista transcribed them, to be sent to her spiritual Father,
together with the history of her life. SUPPLEMENT
From the Italian of Matthaeus Pascuccius.

Baptista Verana, of the Order of the poor Sisters of St. Clare, of Camerino in Umbria (B.)

FROM THE ITALIAN OF PASCUCCIUS CHAPTER I.

A Chronological Recapitulation of her Life in the world and in religion up to the end of the XV century. In the year 1458, on April 9, was born
Camilla de Varanis, as she says at no. 4, [The order of her life led in the world,] about ten years old
she was, when she received the first
little fires of more tender devotion toward the Lord's
Passion. Then in the year 1477,
a general Confession being made at the Paschal time, when
she was more vehemently goaded to take up the religious state,
long with herself and with God having struggled, she seems at last to have
given her hands to Him calling in the summer of the aforesaid year; for from this point
can be numbered those ten years, in which at no. 47 she says
the pit of the abyss had been closed, which was opened in October
of the year 1487. Meanwhile after that victory over herself,
and the purpose of entering Religion signified to her father about
Easter of the year 1478, struggling against him she endured
him for two and a half years, as she says at nos. 27 and 28; for these
take their end in November of the year 1481.
After that same victory heaped by God with manifold graces,
and kindled with a great desire of suffering much for her beloved,
she fell into a most grievous sickness, whence the infirmity left to her
for almost thirteen years she says she held at no. 24,
writing in the beginning of the year 1491. But this sickness was
held lethal for the first seven months, indicated at no. 25:
and these have their end before August of the aforesaid year 1478,
when about the feast of the Transfiguration desirous
of seeing her Christ, she began to ask this grace at no.
26, and after six months of ardent prayer obtained it, namely
in the month of February of the year 1479.

[2] In the year 1481 on November 14, Jacobillus
witnessing, [and in Religion up to the year 1487] having put on the habit of St. Clare at Urbino, with her name changed she began to be called
Baptista; and five months before her Profession
she writes the letter dictated to her by Christ, as you have
at no. 65. But her Profession itself she made in the year 1482
or rather '83. For it seems that on account of
arisen difficulties, beyond a year the probation was drawn out;
and when her father Julius about founding a monastery at Camerino
consulted in that same year '83; that it might under regular
observance be instituted, so much had to be labored
by Baptista in that same year, that it at no. 35 she calls the year
of her tribulation, which she says took its end at Camerino,
after a new general Confession made there to B. Peter
of Moliano, then Vicar of the Province. But she had come
to Camerino with her companions and there was enclosed in the year
1484 on January 4. Thence with new favors from God
beginning to be refreshed, first conspicuous to herself she had St.
Clare, no. 37; then for two months she saw herself held at
the feet of the Crucified, no. 39; with the Seraphic fire she burned for
three months, no. 40; and according to no. 45 she communicates almost
every Sunday for two years, that is until the summer of the year 1487, when she was bidden to write the treatise on
the Mental sorrows of Christ; or (as she herself says at no. 54)
more than two years after her return into her fatherland.

[3] That treatise finished, when she enjoyed deep peace, for
her greater testing God permitted, [and again up to the year 1491,] that in the month of August
of that same year 1487 she be deceived by demons,
just as she confesses at no. 47: but on October 11
the same began to afflict her with most grievous temptations,
which she bore hidden for almost three years, as she says at no. 2; until
after the death of B. Peter of Moliano, who died on July 25 of the year
1490, she soon committed herself wholly to him to whom afterward her Life
she wrote in the following month of March, six months after he
had departed from Camerino, as she says at no. 50: but she had hoped
when to him she trusted herself (as in the same place she says) some truce
from the capital fight of two years; namely for completing
the third year of that same fight a two-month space almost
still was wanting. Meanwhile while she seeks a consoler
and finds none, she began many of those things which she had begun at Urbino
to write down, as she confesses in the letter seen by Waddingus, and given
six months after the death of Moliano in the month of January, in the year
1491; which the same we found written after those spiritual
admonitions, [when she wrote about her Life.] of which in the Preface at no. 12 from
Cimarella we treated. She began also in that same year about the beginning
of February to be more vehemently impelled to write the aforesaid
history of her life: whose protocol she finished on
March 3; and the second of the letters added to it,
dated the 13th of the same month. But longer waiting
not being able to bear, her mind, the secret of the grave matter long suppressed,
the things which she had written, to be delivered into the hands of the one present,
she determined to send to the absent one by a Letter, signed on March 20. But
this very disquiet, which the aforesaid letters attest,
even after the mind was somewhat unburdened by that writing of her
secrets, sufficiently indicates, [afterward still tempted until October of the year 1492,] that the consolation that
being completed perceived (as she asserts at no. 48) was not long-lasting;
but only of a few days; nay (if I rightly
understand her words elsewhere) the tempest of the diabolical sea, in which she was immersed,
lasted a continuous five-year period; and so
it first ceased after the middle of October of the year 1492.

[4] The same, wishing, as Pascuccius says on p. 125,
to explain to a certain spiritual son of hers, how
God sometimes takes up to be tested those, whom to
eternal glory He has preordained, an example in herself
set forth, as if of a third person speaking, [as she indicated, writing to her disciple,] relating
the tribulations which she suffered for five years
continuous. Thus far he in his own words, as far as concerns the number
of years taken from the more prolix letter; from which then
in the very words of the Blessed a part he adduces, indicating to us
what we intend, namely that she treats of a tempest, not
of any kind, but a diabolical one: but these things thus sound rendered into Latin.
Therefore that person was compelled again and again
to cry to the Lord, night and day asking help
and saying, God, attend to my help;
Lord, hasten to help me. To You I have lifted up
my eyes, whence will come help to me? My help
is from the Lord. But those voices, the witnesses of her inner
straits, that afflicted soul poured forth, always
iterating; O God, help me. [how amid those straits she conducted herself.] O God do not forsake
me in this last extremity. O God, strength
supply, because my powers fail: I cannot longer
endure: hold out Your helping hand. O
God, You lie asleep within the ship of my soul, and
the tempest of the diabolical sea submerges me. Yet,
Lord Jesus, without You no tranquility can come.
And so through all the space of so perilous a time she rendered
her mind immovable, frequently thinking of God,
who in the time of war does not depart from her. Take care therefore
also you, devout son of Jesus, that in your
blessed soul such a good habit be rooted,
and you will experience the wonders of God within the shortest time.
Say then with the Prophet: I foresaw the Lord
in my sight always. And again: The meditation of my heart
in Your sight always. Other such places of sacred
Scripture you will find many, in which the Prophets and other
holy men profess, that they had a fixed memory
in God.

[5] When such things our Blessed wrote to him, her spiritual son
(whom sometimes also she names Father, [But she wrote in the year 1499.] and
altogether eighteen years, whether in a private or a prelatical condition, just as she herself
at the end of her more prolix instruction testifies: hence
already was passing the penultimate year of the XV century: before
which year since nothing is suggested which to external actions
pertains; it pleases from Pascuccius to gather the principal
fragments of that instruction, in which she herself
of herself as of a third person declares her spiritual life's
excellence, just as it through the various heads of virtues
the author divides. But I will indicate at the margin the numbers
of the page, where the individual places will be able in their original
Italian to be found; since the whole context of that instruction
we have not yet chanced to see, and the whole into this
work to insert perhaps would be less expedient. I will begin from humility,
which is the foundation of all the other virtues.

CHAPTER II.

The Blessed's humility and sincere love toward God: fervor of spirit, and right intention expressed in her own words. p. 110.

[6] That blessed soul so jealous was
of the divine honor, and so much took heed lest anything
of it she should steal for herself, [Reputing herself unworthy of God's gifts,] and so with profound
humility was divinely endowed; that when she esteemed,
the graces of her Lord in a place too vile to be reposed
were held, such namely as she believed herself, most ungrateful
and a sinner; when also she believed it could turn to the greatest
shame and signal disgrace of her Spouse, that so great
a heap of virtues and spiritual gifts He had conferred upon her;
these she concealed as far as she could, with anxious
silence veiling all things. Often under some other
pretext she withdrew herself from the pious reading which was done in common,
fearing lest meanwhile something should happen to her, whence the Sisters
or Brothers should know some grace divinely done to her.
For the same cause also sometimes she admonished the reader,
not to continue the reading of the Lord's Passion,
while the Sisters were eating; [she strives to keep these things hidden:] for, she said, they cannot
conveniently enough swallow food, while they bend their mind to that loving
history. But this she admonished, fearing
lest one should observe her manner of eating under such reading,
or some effect of inner affection meanwhile observe in her: and for the same cause
more rarely to the common refectory she came, with a double
indeed reason (which openly appeared) excused,
yet more from that than any other respect.

[7] This I tell you, my Father and Son in Christ Jesus,
that from her you may learn to conceal the spirit and graces
granted to you, until God shall otherwise have ordained. O
blessed that soul, which of all her workings
wishes no inspector except her
Creator! O how many ditches on that account this your
Mother leaped over! how many unjust contumelies, how many
judgments false, rash and presumptuous she sustained! how often
for that which was worthy of praise before God and men, [which to her was a cause of suffering many things]
revilings and reprehensions she bore before God
and men, Sisters and Brothers. But to such
blows she stood always firm, constant and immovable,
like a most solid tower in her purpose, with
undoubting confidence, that her most faithful spouse
Jesus Christ in the opportune time for her a sharp sword
in His hand would take; and behind His divine shoulders
would cast the shield, with which He covered that
soul for many years, to test her patience and faith:
which in turn in various ways and means manifested
the rectitude of her heart, seeking solely to please
God, despising whatever human judgments, and
for the keeping of His honor caring not a whit for whatever
her own confusion. [to her who looked to nothing except God.] Wherefore, my Son
reverend, beware lest you steal anything from God: for I do not wish you
to have a heart fixed on any earthly thing: because that
would be to your Mother a great disgrace, but to you a greater
loss. Show yourself therefore always most faithful, fear,
love, honor your God; because whatever He willed He has done
in heaven and on earth, in the sea and in all abysses. p. 168

[8] That blessed soul lived also in such humility
and fear, [She asks the same gifts to be transferred to one worthier than herself,] that with her whole heart she prayed God,
that He would deign all the graces and favors which on her
He wished to confer to transfer into any other
creature, better pleasing Him, whence more honor
to Him than from herself would redound. For she could not
persuade herself that there was found in the world some creature,
which more uselessly the divine benefits
possessed than herself. But if she had concerning this by God been
heard, the greatest thence she would have perceived solace; because
God's honor, not her own utility she sought.
To such a soul I think is to be said that Evangelical word,
Well done, good servant, because in few things you were faithful,
over many I will set you; enter into the joy of your Lord:
such a one I think that of the Apocalypse regards, Be faithful
unto death; as if it wished to say, It does not suffice
to be faithful for ten or twenty years; but it behooves
to be faithful unto death: for there follows, [and she commends fidelity toward God,] And
I will give you the crown of life. Faithful is that servant, who not
only in the time of his life, but also at the end of it
renders to the Lord, what to him out of His benignity had been given
to be kept. Beware therefore, my Son reverend,
lest you become a thief: for God would make you hang
by the neck, nor would He care that you were a Priest
or a Doctor, no whit inferior to others set in dignity.
For of this kind it is said: Serve the Lord
in fear, and exult to Him with trembling.

[9] [not wishing to be loved by others] Your Mother, lest she steal love from God,
as long as in Religion she lived up to the present hour,
this always took care, lest to anyone she give herself, nor
any person give herself to her: but a certain general
reason she held, by which she took heed, lest by excess
she be loved. But since she herself is much lovable,
therefore she avoided every occasion of loving anyone,
or of provoking anyone's love toward herself:
and when from time to time she noticed herself by some one
more than others to be loved; the most grievous thence
sorrow drawing, she prayed God with fervent
tears, that in that person such affection
He would temper or extinguish: sometimes she strove
for the same to find another person better than herself,
that to that importunate love she might withdraw herself. But all
this she did, lest from God she should steal the love of her, who would believe her to deserve above others to be loved.
Finally in truth I affirm to you, [lest anything be withdrawn from God.] that never
any creature so much of pleasure, joy, and solace
drew when she was loved; as she herself receives
of sorrow, displeasure, and weariness from anyone's love
toward herself, not regulated according to God, much
and bitterly therefore wont to lament. Thus far the aforesaid
instruction in Pascuccius: in whom on the same
subject also thus he is found to have written. p. 169

[10] A wonderful revelation, which I wish that from God you ask,
is, that He make you know, what you are, [She bids that the knowledge of oneself alone be sought,] how much
you can, how much you know, how much you deserve: for without
this revelation no one ever attains perfection.
This secret is not learned from another, but is reserved
in the most sacred breast of Christ Jesus: nor
to many does He manifest it, but to few; nor to all these
equally, but to one more, to another less, according
to the perfection to which each of them ought to come.
But I believe that this secret cannot
fully be comprehended in this dark life,
but in the other; where fully and in truth we shall know
our vileness, fragility, and folly. And
hence is born humility of heart, not indeed
appearing to human eyes, but pleasing and acceptable
to the divine sight. That your spiritual Mother never
desired another revelation, than to know God and
herself. But the Dispenser of graces,
liberal, courteous, and benign, both many others
to her granted, and that one altogether did not deny.

[11] [such as she herself divinely received] Many years it is, that she, in her mental
prayer before the image of the Crucified, of this truth
the light divinely perceived, that never would she come
to perfection, unless besides the divine
Trinity she should know another trinity. For just as,
that she might be a Christian, she had to believe and confess one
most holy Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit; so, that she might become perfect, it behoved
her to confess and believe this triple truth,
namely that she was nothing other than nothing, wholly foolish,
and wholly odious to God. O most blessed Trinity, neither
known, nor esteemed, nor believed by the ignorant
in spiritual things. O my God! she said, rather
deprive me of corporeal life, than take from me the knowledge
of so lovable a truth; [plainly necessary for one tending to perfection:] and my bones rather
into the minutest dust reduce, than that this teaching of eternal
Wisdom ever depart from my soul.
I cannot vainly glory of power, because my power
is nothing: I cannot lift myself up on account of wisdom,
because nothing in me is found except folly:
nor finally ought I to presume that I deserve
anything in the sight of God, since I am a vile creature
and odious, nay more odious than hatred itself. For he who
commits sin is the servant of sin; and since sin
is nothing, and I have committed it, I have come
to be so much less than nothing, as a servant is less than
a master. But that sin is nothing, can be gathered
from this its property, that it annihilates the image
of God in us, of whom St. John says, "All things
were made through Him."

[12] Hence it is, that while the soul feels itself able
to work well, it knows that the person of the eternal Father
gives strength to the nothingness of its power; when it sees
itself able to speak and instruct others in the spiritual life, [because otherwise no one can refund all things into God.]
soon also it comprehends that the person of the Son
has made wise its folly; when it understands
that it, which is wholly odious, loves and in turn
is loved, it understands that the person of the Holy
Spirit by His most sweet love has loved and lovable
has made its odiousness: therefore into God
refunding all its good, the soul of it remains
free from vainglory, from swollen elation, and from the foul
smoke of pride, which the Angel cast out of Paradise:
whence with the Prophet it can sing and say,
"Lord, my heart is not exalted, nor are lifted up
my eyes," etc. The same holds as irrefragable
this truth, that if any spiritual soul
does not procure in itself to have that light,
that knowledge, that necessary revelation;
never will it be able truly and from the heart to humble itself
to God or to creatures.

[13] [Hence she reveres even the Novice Sisters as Angels,] Know that in exterior actions she is very
reverent and a capital enemy of putrid hypocrisy:
nevertheless not only secretly, but often
also openly she kisses the threshold of the church, which the Sisters
with their feet tread; reputing herself most unworthy
to be one who her sinful mouth there should place,
where they place their virginal and holy feet:
holy, I say, because although perhaps such they are not,
yet they seem to her such. And these things I write to you
with weeping eyes; because I find myself by your devotion
and prayer compelled to that poor little one's secrets
to be revealed to you, which for many years were concealed.
Now moreover, O blessed soul, consider
that she doing this, much more gladly to all would do
reverence, were she not by respect of her dignity or office
hindered: and therefore while to any other
she exhibits reverence, in turn to the same reverently
she inclines herself; nor ever even by thinking does it
occur to her that she should say, I am more than that one. Often
also to the least of the Sisters reverence first she does,
exteriorly indeed as if playful and with smiling face;
but interiorly with her whole heart, considering them to be
spouses of Christ.

[14] Take care therefore, dear soul, with all zeal to be
humble from the heart, [from the heart of Jesus drawing this and other virtues] benign, pious, and meek,
looking as into a mirror into the most pure heart of sweet
Jesus; and conforming yourself to Him, if His most sweet
familiarity and honorable friendship you covet.
From that heart, from that most sacred breast
your Mother drew all the adornment she has, as much exterior
as interior. The meek breast
of that loving Jesus was her school: in this
alone she is taught, because for you she has studied. There nothing
else is read than truth, meekness, commiseration,
sweetness, joyfulness of heart, and jubilation
of conscience: nothing else there is found than love
and charity, love toward God and charity toward neighbor.
O divine heart! I cannot omit but
I name you, because she saw herself written in you in letters
golden, conspicuous, and beautiful. Hither enter,
O soul, if you desire quickly to be perfect. This is
the way short, hidden, secure, and infallible, by which
walks and walked your Mother: follow it therefore,
because conformity generates and conserves love.
Turn yourself to God, and say to Him: This revelation
from You I ask, my Lord, because without
it I cannot be perfect; since however to my dignity
and Sacerdotal excellence necessary perfection
is. Pray Him from the heart, Reverend one, because
certainly it to you He will give: since He is so good, so
liberal, so full of all grace and gift, that even
unasked He always bestows, of the fullness of His goodness
on the just and sinners. Therefore the mercies
of the Lord forever will sing that soul, which you
love.

[15] I wish, blessed soul, that you follow this my
admonition, namely that you serve God, [She teaches that God is to be served out of pure love.] not as
a bondservant, on account of fear of temporal punishment
or of eternal torments; not as
a sinner, on account of any reward; but
as a daughter, render to God love for love,
blood for blood, death for death. These
are the short ways, hidden, and secure; not appearing
to human eyes, but known and admirable to the sight
of God, to whom open and naked are all things. But what
I say consists in affection: [which if it is pure],
before our soul begins to advance, and before
having advanced it knocks at the door of divine mercy,
there is opened to it the immense treasure of that wisdom;
and before it has asked, it receives even more than
it wishes, nay more than it itself knows to ask, from this
that to it by the incomprehensible goodness of God it is offered.
Liberal and most generous is our merciful
and most loving Jesus crucified: to whom much please
those who conform themselves to Him, and open a heart liberal,
magnanimous and munificent, that it
perfectly may possess the King of eternal life. But in a heart
narrow, vile, and rustic, never dwells nor
will dwell God: because great and exalted He is above
all gods. Dismiss, dismiss, most beloved soul,
this deceitful and deceiving world, not
on account of hell as a bondservant, nor on account
of hope of reward as a sinner; but as
a daughter and spouse lovable, on account of the love of your crucified
Jesus, and Him with your arms, that is the affection of your heart
and great love embrace. Thus did your beloved
Mother, who grieved for that which she did not have,
and for that which she was not, that so much the more she might
dismiss for the love of her crucified Jesus,
whom she loved with a pure and ardent heart and intention
perfect.

p. 153

[16] But since the soul, which thither desires
to come, ought to keep its mind fixed in God, [and in Him continually the mind,]
as much as to it by its fragility and divine grace
shall be granted; there is nothing that more usefully
it can, or more necessarily ought to do the servant
of almighty God. This thought, by which one
keeps the mind fixed on God, sanctifies it, kindles
the affection, and illuminates the intellect, and is
as a bridle by which it be preserved from venial sins.
It is the broom of vices and the preparation for prayer,
to which otherwise many come all day, and never
think of God. They feel themselves thence empty,
dry, indisposed, and full of mental weariness;
and therefore they say; I do not have the gift of prayer:
which however is not so, but all this to them
happens, because they have not directed their thought to
God, that they might prepare a seat for mental prayer.
But those who think, how that as well as possible they may do,
without delay come to the desired end:
for such a soul has prepared a place for the Lord, and receives
the grace of tears, compunction, taste,
and devotion. This method use spiritual and
wise Religious in this world, [because this is the best disposition for prayer,] and eternally
will pursue in the heavenly glory. This sign is above
all others infallible, for knowing whether
one is written in the book of life: for frequent thought
of God compels His supreme goodness often
to remember us. But hold for certain, that
the more frequently you shall remember Him, the also
more often He will renew the memory of you. This [to your Mother]
was demonstrated by the Holy Spirit, that her soul
might more be kindled to that Angelic exercise:
and know that she has the grace often of invoking
in her heart the Redeemer, and Him interiorly
to remember. p. 154

[17] Many strive to come to cleanness of heart
by a way very long and laborious, by watching,
fasting, [and by the shortest way to cleanness of heart,] scourging themselves, lying on the ground, cold
or heat tolerating, and the body afflicting; because
they know that by interior purity is possessed consummate
perfection. But this your Mother holds for a most explored
truth, that frequent thought of God
makes so great a good to be acquired more quickly and better,
and less laboriously. Foolish would he be who, able to come
to Rome in one day, and that by a level and most easy
way; on that journey wished to spend four days,
and that through paths far roughest. Choose,
choose that way short, sweet, pleasant, secure,
and hidden, which may lead you to paradise,
no one observing. Embrace Christ, and be certain
you will be enriched, no one knowing where
you transact your business. I finish and say, that he who often of God
thinks, God remains in him: and he who Him by grace
possesses, what could be wanting to him? Take care therefore that the object
of your thoughts and intentions be
God, nor fix yourself on a creature. For example,
if you wish to exercise charity toward your neighbor, good
indeed it is, to have him as an object of mind as a neighbor;
but much better, represented as a member
of Christ: and by how much one is nobler than another
and more excellent, by so much also is more meritorious
one than another. p. 164

[18] Never fall asleep in the sleep of sloth and negligence:
but know that the Kingdom of the heavens suffers violence,
and the violent seize it. [She commends spiritual vigilance] That your Mother says, that
this Evangelical word was by the Holy Spirit impressed
on her heart so markedly, that sleeping and
waking she has it always anxious. I wish to say,
that never in holy Religion let yourself be occupied
by that sleep, by which many are held: who having entered there
forget their first fervor; and whatever
good they work, they do without any consideration
mental. They follow the orders, ceremonies, institutes
of holy Religion altogether like she-goats, which
one dancing leap also themselves, nor know why.
Thus a Religious spiritually asleep, follows
the custom once taken up; nor considers
what reason impels to it. [and a holy intention in all things] There happens to such the same as
to an ass, which carries wine and drinks water: for both
these endure the extreme labor, with little,
little, little fruit. Because just as matter without
form is not beautiful nor useful, so a work done
without a certain intention does not please God, nor
will it bring you anything of utility. For although a work
good in itself be laudable, nevertheless, like
matter to which form is not present, that is a good intention,
it is without fruit; and foolish is he who it thus exercises.
Act in the manner of the prudent and wise, nor
adhere to the footsteps of fools: but in every work,
whether great or small, while the spirit of life is in you,
lift the eyes of the mind to God, sanctifying
there your intention, and for God's love every
adversity tolerating. For the love of the same Lord
make prayer, read a pious book, sing
the office, wash pots, sweep the house, exercise the works of charity
toward the healthy and the infirm: and believe me,
that if you accustom yourself to say in mind while
you do these things, Lord God I do this for
Your love, you will say it even when you do not
think of it.

[19] [because God does not consider how much one does,] Thus did your beloved Mother; for although
to such exercises she could devote very little,
on account of her long infirmity and weakness
of body; yet (which to your edification
be it said) thus she acted, that of her it can with truth
be said, that she did more than she could; just as
God and her conscience know. This counsel therefore
I give you, that you take care to have always a fervent desire
of doing penance: but as to the exterior
manner of acting do not be carried by your own judgment, but
keep the commands of your Fathers, because thus not a little
will you merit before the most holy Trinity, which only
considers and weighs the heart. Therefore busy yourself that it
continually you have inflamed with charity: because to a boiling pot
flies do not approach, but the tepid ones
fly into it and are drowned therein. From a soul seething
with the fire of divine love the demon and all thoughts
unclean far flee: [but with what affection.] but into a soul
made tepid as to love and in charity cooled,
plunge themselves and are drowned the flies of vanities
and of useless thoughts; whence is begotten
that deadly sleep of the negligent soul. Hence
it comes that many sleep in holy Religion, and
sleeping dream they acquire perfection:
but in the hour of death they will know the falsity of their dreams
chimerical; for their hands full
of diabolical illusions they will find. Therefore,
my Reverend Son in Christ, open your eyes,
and do this that you not jestingly spend the few which
remain to you of life's days: be vigilant and fervent, according to
the grace by God granted you, saying with the Apostle,
His grace in me was not void, who watch for You from the light:
and using this method, be certain, that shortly
a great progress you will make.

CHAPTER III.

Baptista's charity toward neighbors, even the slanderous or otherwise injurious, explained in the admonitions given to her Disciple. p. 156

[20] I wish that you be at once most liberal and most avaricious,
that is, most liberal toward the neighbor, [She enjoins the religious to be sparing toward himself, most liberal toward the neighbor,]
and most avaricious about yourself and your
person: contrary to what the world is wont. For worldly
men are most liberal toward themselves,
and for all things necessary anxiously provide for themselves;
but toward the neighbor they are most tenacious, whom if they saw
needing a hundred things, scarcely one to him would they bestow.
O infinite blindness! O deplorable calamity!
The Lord of all is courteous, liberal, munificent,
without measure, and from Him are all things; Because the Lord's
is the earth and its fullness, the world and all
who dwell in it: but the servant and dispenser, to whom
nothing of his own right is in this worldly machine,
who into it entered naked and naked into the earth
quickly will return, shows himself avaricious, narrow, unmerciful,
and cruel to his neighbor and brother. O
supreme Trinity! O most holy Trinity! infinite
thanks to You I render. O power of my impotence! O
wisdom of my folly! O most clement love of my odiousness!
how much can the impotence, how much
savors the folly, how lovable is the odiousness which
are found in me; [in view of God acting in him through Him;] so great thanks to You I give for
me and for my nature; that You by Your
power, wisdom, and infinite clemency
have found a manner and way, by which our arrogance
and human pride into that which is may be reduced, that is
into nothing, because nothing we are and into nothing we return.
Great gladness feels my heart, because
in it I contemplate Your power and wisdom; and
I see that You alone are and eternally will be He who always
were; and conversely I know that sinners,
who in their vanity, pride and accursed avarice
wish to inherit the earth and transitory things, nor
mercy toward the neighbor to exercise, quickly
will return into smoke and into nothing; and that of the unbridled horse of desires always more and more
of having, which by the swiftness of its course contends with
the winds, by the powerful hand of God are to be cut the hams;
whence supine he will fall, not indeed into the earth, but
into the depth of hell, on account of their accursed
avarice. p. 157

[21] Alas! that this most evil vice has now its tail
sent into the holy Religions; [she detests avarice,] whence often
it happens, that those who many things in the world dismissed for
the love of Christ, are so far tempted in this part
by the demon, that grievous it is to them if they see a little lettuce
or one loaf given to a poor person for God's love,
or a cup of wine to the thirsty. O thing shameful and nefarious,
to behold such a machine of vices
among the servants of God! O how great thence displeasure
he draws! how much his heart is afflicted! For how
could the most liberal Lord endure most avaricious
servants? I wish therefore that you, Father reverend
and Son in Christ Jesus most dear, altogether the opposite
do to what seculars do: that is, that
if for your person of four things you have need,
most avaricious be, and with one alone content acquiesce,
leaving to God the care of your body: who, if a firm
faith you have, will inspire someone to provide for you,
nor will anything be wanting to you. [and excessive care of oneself.] Thus did your Mother: and there were
so many divinely inspired to provide,
not only for the internal, but also for the external her
necessities, and indeed without their loss, that she could not
desire more. But I do not believe that
for her person ever she asked anything from her Prelates:
nay rather things offered often she refused to accept,
saying; Mother, I do not need that thing; give I beseech rather
than to me to one in need.

[22] I wish on the contrary that toward neighbors most liberal,
as often as one thing you are asked, [She explains God's liberality toward bodies] fourfold you give.
Your Mother entered, or (that I may say it better) God
drew her by His mercy into the contemplation
of the most liberal charity of God. She saw in
heaven how great things the most liberal Lord made, with the
starry heaven's and to us visible beauty, with so
many shining stars distinguished, with the scintillation of the planets,
admirable by the brightness of the sun, the variety of the moon
she considered how great on earth was born
the sweetness of fruits and variety of leaves, how many
roses and lilies, how great a diversity of fragrant herbs
and utility for curing the health of men;
how great a multiplicity of fishes in the sea, how great a dissimilarity
of birds in the air, how many quadrupeds in the woods,
how many for the domestic uses of men created living things
there are: and all these and many more besides God made
for our foul bodies, asked by
no one; voluntarily also He provided for grain, wine,
oil, and other things out of His most liberal charity, and that
for those things which shortly into nothing are to be reduced.
What then do you believe, my Son reverend, He has done and
prepared for our soul, eternal and perpetual,
founded to His image and likeness? how great
a variety of glory, how great a diversity of beatitude,
how incomprehensible joys, [and hence she understands what He has prepared for souls.] how
inestimable delights, to be found in that supernal
city of Jerusalem triumphant? "Glorious things are said
of you, city of God." The gates shine with pearls, the shrines lying open;
and by the power of merits is led in there, everyone who
for Christ's name here in the world is pressed: and the streets and its walls all of purest gold. O blessed Jerusalem,
you are the vision of peace, the habitation of the contented, the fruition
of eternal glory. But why so many and so great goods
did God found in heaven and on earth, in the sea and in
all the elements, except that to us mortals He might demonstrate
His most liberal charity and infinite
mercy? because He is wholly liberal, benign,
easy and gracious; nor only out of the fullness
of His charity does He communicate something, but also
Himself He bestows in the most holy Sacrament. O most liberal
God! You to us Yourself and all Your things give:
the most evil sinner on the contrary denies to his neighbor things
however least.

[23] From this place your Mother drew her liberality,
[and how He wishes us to be assimilated to Him by liberality.] although in tender age also most manifestly
she declared that with the same virtue she was endowed. Now
moreover she rejoices more to give than to receive, and nevertheless
more and more she feels in this grace herself to profit
and grow. Be therefore very liberal, if you wish
to be conformed to God: for nothing else God loves than
Himself, and His image and likeness in
us. This doctrine that handmaid of God learned in
the school of divine wisdom. If you do not understand it, ask:
and you will find God to be in every thing lovable,
and all things outside Him to be odious. Understand
me: because no one is good, except God alone; who is most liberal,
pious, and merciful; of whose mercy there is no number,
to whom be praise and glory through infinite ages. Amen. p. 161

[24] I omit to say how tender bowels of charity
that same handmaid of God had for having compassion
on the imperfections and infirmities of her neighbor: [She is taught to judge no one,]
because it is not always expedient to open the eyes of the blind:
only I affirm to you, that your Mother was
on this matter divinely instructed, [while still being
in the world]. But since ignorant then she was
of all spiritual things, she did not understand of how great
moment that doctrine was, and of how profound
a significance: but after she was in Religion,
so well she comprehended it, the Holy Spirit her mind
illuminating, that for about eighteen years
in which she lived in it, neither as a subject nor as a prelate
ever did she say anything of evil about any
creature. But if perchance, God permitting it to increase
your crown, and the demon instigating, everyone
of you spoke evil; take care that vengeance
you not leave to your sons, but yourself do it, by praising
to the Visitors the holy conversation of the Brothers,
as if all were Angels incarnate;
nor indicate who spoke evil of him, lest
hatred or indignation in your heart arise, [and to be blind to the defects of neighbors.] by which
two vices abominable to God become spiritual
services: but note well, that this cannot be done,
unless the soul has its heart occupied about
God and full of knowledge of itself. For then
made blind to beholding the defects of neighbors,
not knowing the errors and faults of others, it can
say with truth, All seem to me Angels
incarnate. Hence it seems to me to your Mother came
this grace, that she had not what to say to the Visitors:
nay even I affirm to you in truth, that
often the Novices more such things knew to relate, than
she who was in Religion so many years: but if sometimes
something others relating she heard, as
if abroad she had been absent, she said within herself,
Can it be that I have been ignorant of this? Then take it.

[25] I say moreover that she by God's grace
in this doctrine comprehended a certain diabolical
subtlety, by which many even the perfect are deceived:
wherefore, [She compares the vice of murmuring to leprosy,] because from my whole heart I love you,
it I wish to manifest to you. Know, my Son, that
the murmurings and judgments which are made in Religion,
by the demon are covered and procured to be made under the appearance
of some good: whence it happens that a snare, very
subtle and almost invisible, escapes even the mental eyes
of contemplatives. This is the most evil leech,
which sucks out, snatches, and takes away all the labors and
sweats of Religious men and women. This is
that most evil leprosy, with which was contaminated Mary
the Prophetess, the sister of Moses: nor did it profit her her prophetic
spirit, that she be not chastised:
nay because she had murmured she was struck with a leprosy more
pestilent and sorrowful: and unless Moses, against
whom she had murmured, for her had prayed, within
a few days, as the Scripture says, consumed and dead
she would have been. O noble figure and exemplary mirror,
by the Holy Spirit set forth in the old Testament,
at whose mere sight should tremble
spiritual murmurers!

[26] But this doctrine is little considered and
less understood, which to us a certain argument affords,
that he who in holy Religion is clean
from such leprosy, possesses a secure earnest of Paradise.
Hence it was that your Mother so much had compassion
on the murmurer, [because it infects also the hearer.] and envied him about whom was murmured:
Because to those loving God all things cooperate unto
good. A special property of leprosy is, not only to consume
the flesh of the wretched sufferer, but also by contact
to defile the companion: therefore the Lord commanded that Mary
be cast out outside the camp, lest she infect others: but this
signifies that which is commonly said, As much
does he who holds, as he who flays: for indeed
no more does he sin who murmurs, than he who his ears to murmuring
lends; nay the second more than the first:
for if there were not one who would listen, there would not be
also one who would murmur. One demon in the tongue
of the murmurer resides, and another in the ear of the listener:
both in turn nod and laugh together, mocking
the foolish Religious who murmurs, and the stolid and
senseless one who listens. I wish that you be wise,
and neither murmur, nor to murmurings
lend an ear. But know, that if a face
disturbed and dark you show to one wishing with you
to murmur, two goods at one and the same time you will do:
because you will put to flight the demon, which sat upon his
tongue; and far you will drive away also the other, which was
prepared that it might occupy your ear. But I notice
that I have made a long digression, and I believe
that your assiduous prayers, for your greater utility,
were the cause of it. I will conclude therefore by saying, that
I do not wish that you murmur about any thing or person, [and she bids a sad face be shown to the murmurer.]
neither about good nor about evil, nor on account of good
nor on account of evil. Wherefore remember
this precept, and it in work fulfill: for I do not
speak without cause. Hold, Son, the bridle with your hand, because
according to St. James in his Canonical Epistle, a Religious
not rebridling his tongue, of this man vain is the religion.

[27] That subtle snare, which I had promised you
to show, lies hidden under this Visitation. [She shows the snare set in the time of Visitation by the demon,] For since
the demon knows, that every good our working,
unless it be founded in charity, is odious to God, and to us
unfruitful and vain; therefore that malign spirit
all his industry thither directs, that he make us
[to the Father Visitor] say many and many things, which
related there is no need of, and which more maturely considered
are nothing other, than opinions and suspicions;
for such however they are not apprehended by
the imperfect, having their eye always intent
on What, not on When. Hence grows lukewarm fraternal
charity, and among Religious is broken the bond of peace:
but the suspicions being multiplied there follows
the total cooling and extinction of the same charity.
This since the malign spirits know, they esteem themselves
to be, and indeed are, lifted upon the horse; nor any more
do they care for our obedience, they make little of honesty,
they hiss off poverty, tears, disciplines, [for charity to be violated by delations,]
fasts, and whatever other virtuous works: for only
charity makes us pleasing to God, and gives Paradise.
Wherefore the demon has his bow and arrows
venomed always directed against the root of fraternal
love, and to its destruction with all effort
he intends. Therefore he makes us rashly judge, therefore
he makes us murmur, therefore during the Visitation he fills
minds with suspicions; and finally he scatters tares
in the hearts of others, and exterminates zeal
for the honor of Religion, that to the tongue he may afford opportunity
of saying and relating what is not fitting.

[28] [with great spiritual loss.] Alas for me! alas for me! How great goods on that account
souls lose, by their malice blinded! how many labors
are rendered unfruitful! how great thence is born
the disquiet of consciences! Not even to know
can they what is good, because they are disturbed. If
they make prayer, no taste from it they take,
or in it they do not trust God, because they are not capable
of any spiritual joy: and all these evils
proceed from the tongue. Be silent, be silent of others' things:
for the Prophet says, "I was silent from good things." To you, to you I speak,
my Son. I wish that this manner of conversing
in holy Religion you keep, because by God's grace
thus acted your most prudent Mother; and thence from
God's special gift so great peace she drew, that to one telling it
you could not believe: and the same prerogative I desire
also for your blessed soul. p. 116

[29] Know also that that Religious [whose secrets
I reveal to you] although divinely endowed with many
graces and spiritual gifts, [Above all graces she desires the love of enemies.] and a singular love
and benevolence of God toward herself by arguments plainly
extraordinary having experienced, nevertheless always thirsted
for that, by which she could all who deserved evil of her
with a sincere heart love, and more than those who to her
did well. Which handmaid of God also, in her
holy and devout prayers, was wont often by exclaiming
to say, O my God! O most clement
Lord! if to me You should reveal all the most secret
hidden things of Your heart, and daily should show all
the Angelic hierarchies, and to me should confer the power
daily of resuscitating the dead, I would not on that account
wish to believe, that certain I should be, that You love me with a love
indefectible and infallible; except when I feel
the grace of a sincere heart, to speak well of
anyone doing me evil, and without contradiction of mind
to praise anyone speaking evil
of me, and unjustly slandering me.
Then, eternal and most clement Father, as by
an infallible sign, I will believe, that truly I am a daughter
of Yours, comforting myself by the example of Your most beloved
son Jesus Christ crucified, who is the only good
of my soul, [as a certain sign of divine love.] and hanging on the cross for His crucifiers
prayed. But to God be thanks,
that of that gift a good part attained already
to herself seems that soul; when, whatever to her said
or done injury, no aversion at all she feels
in her heart from its authors, however
very atrocious ones she has borne, which to you I do not write:
God and they themselves know them. Nay with the greatest pleasure
she is affected, by saying or doing something which
can be pleasing to her injurers: only it ill
affects her, the loss, which those unhappy souls do; and from her whole heart for them she prays God, that to them
He impute not this sin: sometimes also in this
play of love, tending to the highest perfection,
she indulges them the prerogative of one or another
Pater and Ave. I wish, O blessed soul,
that also the same you do: that is, that you press on by the secure
footsteps of that your Mother, who so greatly loves you,
that for your edification she writes such things. But I trust
in God and your prudence, that the time
spent on this writing, will not be unfruitful,
but to your heart the greatest will bring utility.
Whatever in one year you can effect, do not divide
into two. Walk, run, fly in the way of God. The upright walk,
the wise run, the loving fly
to the fruition of the divine majesty. If you can run,
do not walk; [and she admonishes the disciple always to strive to advance.] if you can fly, do not run: because
the time is short. In the way of God you must always advance,
go backward never. If to the fire are not added
wood, by itself it is extinguished: so if to the soul be not
added virtue, in itself it fails; and beginning from "I believe
in God," it will end in "the resurrection of the flesh," that is in
secular businesses and cares. But you and every
Christian soul from such a way may the Lord take away. Meanwhile if much you desire to profit, fear
God, and love those who slander you. This to you
I wished inculcated. Attend to yourself, open your eyes,
and at home keep your mind: because few there are who
ardently desire to come to that Evangelical
perfection, which with His most sweet mouth taught
me the most benign Jesus: few there are, I say, who attain
to true perfection, set in this that they
love their enemies. p. 171

[30] I have concluded with God's grace, and finished these salutary
admonitions, Reverend Father and Son mine most beloved,
which I wish that you keep and guard with that
charity, [In concluding, she renders the reason,] with which I send them to you. I wished also
to console you by narrating to you the spiritual life of that
your beloved Mother, covered under the shadow of precepts:
nor grievous to me was it so little a labor
for your sake to undertake, for I trust in my crucified
Jesus, that much thence utility and mental consolation
to you will come. Of your principal things,
such as are obedience, poverty, and honesty, a special
admonition none to you here I have given, and that for two
causes. First, because he who will observe these precepts,
impossible will it be that he be not obedient, poor, chaste:
secondly because to me you seem so well disposed to
subject voluntarily your neck to the yoke of holy
obedience, [why she says nothing of obedience,] that useless I judge to be future and outside
the purpose any on that matter exhortation.
To corroborate nevertheless your will,
I say these few words: that no
sacrifice can you offer to God more acceptable,
than if you offer to Him your will and your judgment,
by the mediation of holy obedience: because it is written;
"Obedience I wish more than sacrifice." p. 92

[31] Of holy poverty also to you I do not speak,
for it from Christ to be obtained so desirous you to be
I know, that for it you would dismiss a thousand worlds: one thing I say,
that truly very blessed is he, who that pearl
oriental knows. This necklace of inestimable price
by your Mother through God's grace was recognized,
and it for herself and others she procured: but on her alone
fell the burden of paying the price, namely of many
afflictions, fatigues, [in poverty,] and tears before
God, and of not few tribulations to be sustained
from the Brothers and Sisters, Princes, Presbyters,
and Seculars: so that she could with truth affirm,
that poverty more to her stood, than to the opulent
are wont to stand riches: and more she sought
and desired to have it, than the avaricious is wont
gain of money to pursue. My Son, your poverty
let this be, to wish while you live nothing other than Jesus
crucified, in whom you will find true and supreme riches.
O how poor is he, [in chastity,] who wishes something other than
God! how rich, who has nothing other than
God! As to chastity, no more about
it with you to converse I wish: for I know that of this
virtue the crown you deserve to wear above all your companions:
and therefore this your Mother with a most special
love pursues you. But it seems to me to be fitting,
that about this point you acquiesce in this my
narration: for since the fragile vessel of your body adorned
is with this precious gem, and illustrated with this
Angelic splendor, I could not omit but with you
I should communicate the secrets of your Handmaid, that in you they be reposed
and conserved. * Of holy prayer another thing
also to you I do not write (since by word of mouth enough about it with you
I have spoken) than this one, that see that you understand, [and in prayer.]
When you cannot reap, snatch violently;
that is, when you cannot with the mind, with the mouth at least pray.

CHAPTER IV.

Baptista's virtue exercised by the adverse and prosperous cases of the House of Varano: the office of Vicaress, the foundation of Fano, the dignity of Abbess.

[32] From these precepts written to her dear Disciple scarcely had passed
a three-year period, when matter for exercising toward enemies
that heroic charity, [In the year 1502 Baptista's father and Brothers are slain,] such as above she explained,
Baptista offered her a furious tempest, which the Varano
family almost utterly overthrew. Since, as relates Leander
Alberti in the description of Italy on p. 425, her Father
Julius, when of the Principality long and happily he had possessed himself
(namely for forty or fifty years, if at Camerino
Baptista was born) at length in the year 1502 by a fate like that by which
Priam perished; when, the Camerians of their own accord into
the power of Pope Alexander VI surrendering, him, with
Venantius, Hannibal, and Peter his sons, in prison enclosed,
Caesar Borgia Duke of Valentinois in the citadel of Pergola
most cruelly slew; so that one plainly of that house
remained, John-Maria, the least of all the brothers; [except the youngest John-Maria:]
whom the father at the beginning of the war to Venice with his treasures, as
his son Polydorus into Thrace Priam, sent away:
but with a happier outcome, which to the merits and prayers of Baptista
you may attribute. For quickly fortune being turned, Alexander VI dying about
the year 1503, the single spark of the Varano house
again she brought forth and made grow into the greatest light.

[33] [who in the year 1503 honorably received at Camerino,] For John-Maria de Varanis, who with
his father Julius, the Lieutenant of King Ferdinand, at Naples
first had been, and then in the army of the Aragonese
with his brother Venantius had set up his military
training; had passed to Venice, and in that school
of prudence was exercised in the arts worthy of a great Prince;
when his father and brothers the power of the Duke of Valentinois
overwhelmed and extinguished, together with the liberty of the Camerians.
But Alexander dying quickly into disgust with them
came Caesar Borgia; therefore it was easy for John-
Maria, supported by the aids of the Venetians, to recover the city,
by his ancestors possessed: whither with Mutius
Columna, the Toparch of Matelica, coming, by all
the people most festively was he received. The dominion of the city
to the same Pius III the successor of Alexander confirmed,
in that brief Pontificate which he held of a month not
entire: and ratified also it held Julius II, in the same
year still substituted into the Chair of Peter. Thus
Pascuccius, p. 128: who then on p. 136 sad things with glad
mixes, from an author of that age transcribing the death and obsequies
of Lady Joanna, from which Baptista to be absent it was not permitted,
that the last office to her best mother she might pay. [her mother having died,] Of both
the words here I add. There dies the most illustrious Joanna,
the daughter of Gismund Lord of Rimini: whom all
trust, for her goodness, justice, and mercy,
received into the place of eternal salvation, to have filled the triad
of the blessed souls of her house, of Rupert, I say,
and of Margaret, who one monastery
at Ferrara founded, and with opulent revenues endowed;
where also made a Nun she died, just as also the most illustrious
Joanna, of the Order of the Observance of St. Francis, whose
soul as we hope, rejoices in the heavens forever.

[34] The obsequies were beyond measure solemn; for the whole
Court and the public State intervened, and also
thirty-six Deputies from the citizens, [she makes magnificent obsequies,] from each
Region of the city twelve. All things mourning and sadness
breathed, but full of majesty. For in the hall
greater the body laid out, an appearance still of one living
showed, in the monastic habit of the third Order which
she had professed, standing about it Matrons innumerable
with grief confounded. There was present also with her
Nuns Sister Baptista, the faculty for this
making he, whose it was in such a case to loose the obligation
of enclosure. And these indeed while the funeral
pomp was led held one side, the other occupied
the courtly Chamberlains and honorary Pages, all
clad in black, following the Collaterals, Doctors,
and Citizens; but the Clergy followed their
General Vicar, whom the Religious Orders and
the Confraternities had preceded, in a column so long,
that when the body was borne out from the gate of the Palace, the first
of the eighteen Crosses had already reached the threshold of the Cathedral
church. The bier bore the Podestà and the Castellan,
and the Captains of the Arts, mutually succeeding each other.
At the entrance of the church, which all draped in black with torches
lighted shone, a confused and great lamentation
arose of the people, the Mother, Lady, Patroness
lost bewailing. [Baptista also intervening.] John-Maria, from the excess of sincere sorrow,
thrice a swoon suffered: Baptista, with
no less edification of all, had her tears
in her power. The body of the deceased in a leaden chest some time
stood upon the arch of the ancient tribune; but elsewhere
afterward it was translated, the Pontiff forbidding, that the deposited remains
of the dead in a place higher than the altars be had.
But this was done about the year 1570, when
Pius V for that matter sent Apostolic Visitors through all the Papal
dominions, of whom we treated on March 13 where of the cult of B.
Eric the Pilgrim among the Perugians at no. 7. There is moreover seen
even today Joanna's effigy, expressed in living colors in
the church of St. Francis, in a panel representing the flight
into Egypt, and beside her in the habit of a Tertiary
with her son John-Maria, so that from the mother's mouth to the Virgin
Mother of God seem to issue in gilded letters
these words: As You Yourself and Your son did save, so me and my son to save
You deigned. And there was subscribed Joanna Malatesta
Varana, the pious wife of the Prince of Camerino.

[35] The year and day of her death it is a wonder by no one to have been
expressed. [It does not seem to have happened before the year 1505,] Pascuccius the aforesaid seems to place before the year
1505, at the beginning of which to the beginnings of the Convent of Fermo to be made
Sister Baptista was asked for; but to this conjecture I cannot
assent. For since already from the year 1482
the Episcopate of his fatherland had held Fabritius de Varanis, the son of Hercules,
the brother of Peter-Gentilis, nor did he die, Ughellus witnessing,
before the year 1506, whatever his fortune was under
the Duke of Valentinois, restored certainly it must have been, on the return
into the city of John-Maria; nor sufficiently credible does it seem,
that a Prelate so connected with the deceased, if he had lived and at Camerino present he had been, [but rather after the year 1506;] would not have a part and a name in
the funeral history, to whom above all others it pertained the mortuary
Sacrifice to celebrate himself, but not through a Vicar. Wherefore
I more incline that these things were done while the See was vacant,
between March 7 on which Fabritius died, and February of the year
1508 in which to him was substituted Franciscus Roboreus, Pope
Julius II's nephew by a brother.

[36] The office of Vicaress Baptista discharged, as above we saw,
when it was commanded her to write about the mental
sorrows of Christ, in the year 1487, [though before this Baptista was summoned to Fermo,] passing of her age
the year 33: there followed then the time of testing
admirable, for five years continued, which by
her briefly indicated, but not historically described we have seen.
Thence nothing of the acts of her life through thirty years to find
Pascuccius could, except a single brief of Pope Julius II,
by which to the Fermo citizens power is made, of bringing her to them,
of this tenor. Julius the second Pontiff, to our beloved
Sons of our city of Fermo. Beloved Sons, greeting and amplified [apparently: Apostolic?] benediction. You have caused to be set forth to us, how in our city
of Fermo lately an ample and honorable monastery
of Nuns, of the Congregation of St. Clare of the Order
of St. Francis, for the increase of divine worship, by the
license and assent of the Apostolic See and of the Superiors,
or otherwise legitimately and according to the order of law the things to be observed being observed,
newly constructed and built exists;
and you Nuns of the said Order and Congregation in the same
monastery desire to be congregated; and it is necessary
and opportune, for instructing the monastery
itself and the novice Nuns flowing thither,
from some other monastery of the same Order, [to begin the monastery there,] some
Nuns of holy life, probity and morals, and
in the Rule and institutions and ordinances of the Order
aforesaid instructed, to call in; and on your part
to Us it was humbly supplicated, that on this opportunely
to provide we would deign. We to such
supplications inclined, to our beloved in Christ daughters,
Baptista de Varanis and Angela de Octonibus,
Nuns of the Camerino monastery of the same Order
and Congregation, with one, two, or more
Nuns of the same monastery, as to them shall seem,
with the consent however of the Superiors, for one or
two years, as to the same Superiors shall seem,
that to the said monastery of the city of Fermo they transfer themselves,
and it with the Nuns flowing to it order,
according to the Constitutions of the Order and Congregation
aforesaid and of the Superiors of the same (upon
which we charge their conscience, under the penalty of excommunication
ipso facto to be incurred) by Apostolic
authority by the tenor of the present we command: not
withstanding, etc. Given at Rome at St. Peter's
under the ring of the Fisherman, the 28th day of January 1505,
of our Pontificate the year 2.

[37] Behold how to the Fermo city, for only one or
two years, Baptista is granted: therefore nothing prevents, [and thence having returned to Camerino.]
that after the death of Bishop Fabritius, and before the institution
of the successor Franciscus, she returned to Camerino, before
her mother incurred the last sickness. But she was
when to Fermo she was destined, and had almost completed
of her age the year 47, from which to the year of the same
age 64 of Christ 1521 nothing found Pascuccius, which
into the history he might insert, except the felicity of the Varano House, to the supreme
almost summit of honor raised, through the aforesaid John-Maria's
marriage with Lady Catharina Cibo, the niece of Pope Leo X
by his sister Magdalena. For he in the year 1515 in the Consistory
of the Cardinals the modesty, justice, and magnanimity
of him being praised, with the consent of the College, with the title of Duke the same
he adorned; [where she saw in the year 1515 her brother created Duke,] having sent one who the Ducal ornaments with the investiture
of the Camerino dominion to the same should confer, Cardinal Innocent
Cibo, his likewise nephew by the aforesaid sister; and finally to the same
the Prefecture of the city of Rome he conferred, besides other benefits
many. The memory of these the new Duke turned
Prefect wished to be extant; and in the public Palace of Camerino,
this title for himself to be set he caused: John-Maria, the son of Julius-Caesar,
in his twenty-first year, the Dominion
assumed: the citadel of Camerino he built, Visso
and St. Genesius he obtained; of Camerino the dignity of Duchy,
Sassoferrato, Civitanova, the Prefecture
of the City, and the County of Senigallia.

Hence besides other things to our purpose we learn that Baptista was
than this her younger brother, born about the year 1482,
by a full 24 years older, and among all
Julius's children perhaps the first-born, so that this her brother
could have her in a mother's place.

[38] No wonder therefore is it, that, by her great with
the Duke her brother authority and favor, the Camerino monastery
to that of dignity and greatness came, that
this place among the principal of the Province was to be numbered, [and by his favor signally she establishes the monastery,]
and forty-six Nuns most well it holds, as testifies Gonzaga, about the year 1580
beginning to write of the Origin of the Seraphic Franciscan Religion.
But especially in the public good of her monastery
must have labored Baptista, after from Fermo returned, and the above-named
Abbess Sister Pacifica dead, by common
votes was asked to the same dignity she herself: nor
do we think to her any was preferred, who between Pacifica
and Baptista herself in that office for some years discharged.
We know not however to divine the year in which she was made Abbess,
[made Abbess.] nor that she was made could we show (for Pascuccius omitted to note it)
unless were brought forth her Letter, written to the Reverend
in Christ Jesus, Father most to be venerated Fr. John
of Fano, of the Order of Minors of the Observance, of the divine
word a most worthy Herald: to which Letter in this manner
she subscribed: Your unworthy daughter, Sister Baptista de Varano,
Abbess, in the monastery of Christ Jesus a useless
handmaid. But while toward the end of the Letter her son also
she seems to call John; a suspicion to me it instills,
that he is that beloved Disciple, to whom are extant
the admonitions above set. * perhaps Apostolic?

CHAPTER V.

Baptista's familiarity with John of Fano; under whom arose the Congregation of the Capuchins: the Blessed's death and the veneration of her body and incorrupt tongue.

[39] Of the various letters which to that holy man Baptista wrote,
one of them wholly written in Latin produces
Pascuccius, which entire here it pleases to weave in;
both because it contributes somewhat to the history, [She congratulates John, who had suffered many revilings,] and that of his Latin
style a specimen may be had. It is then such. JESUS. Upon
the rivers of Babylon there we sat and wept when
we remembered you, Sion. They are the words of the Singer of the Holy
Spirit, for the consolation of the afflicted brought forth,
Lord reverend and most beloved, best Father,
both to the state of tribulation and persecution of Your Reverence
they suit, in my poor judgment. For the elect sit
and rest upon the rivers of Babylon: but the impious,
the reprobate, and sinners are submerged in the rivers
of Babylon. You therefore, soul lovable and renowned, who
are of the fellowship and number of the elect, have sat and rested
upon the rivers of Babylon, that is upon the waters
of tribulation, in hope of the resurrection of your innocence
and virtue. You have sat and rested in God your salvation,
who is the defender and keeper of the innocence of His elect.
The defamers and detractors of Your Reverence
are submerged in the abyss of confusion and of their loquacity.
Always, Father lovable, before the dawn
and the sun darkness goes before. So also after
the mountains, beautiful, pleasant, and flowery plains we find
wont. That heavenly Physician, [a glorious exit,] who for the human
race's salvation on the cross hung, to His elect,
after the rivers of persecution and straits, joyfulness
dispenses and gladness; and after tears, Angelic laughter
the elect learn in the school of the crucified
humanity of Christ: and although the material medicine
with wrinkled brow drinks the sick man, not a little
afterward he rejoices in recovered bodily health. He permits
many times that lovable and most pious One, that all things to us
grow bitter, that He alone may sweet and lovable appear.
O most sweet Jesus, O ineffable love, how sweet
and delightful are Your works to the soul seeking You,
to the soul loving You without fraud and dissimulation, to the soul
which with all affection affectionately rests in the breast
of Your crucified humanity, where the fullness of divinity
corporeally dwells.

[40] Rejoice and be glad, daughter of Sion, O soul loving
God and by God loved exceedingly, [as she had before greatly had compassion on him.] because the stoners and
persecutors not knowing have placed on your head a crown
of precious stone: and believing the reverence
of your Paternity to despoil of honor, dignity, and glory,
they have woven for you an immortal tunic in this life
of honor and glorious fame: for gold, in the fire proved
and examined, more clearly its value and
price demonstrates. You, Father reverend, were a precious
lily closed: now you have spread the leaves of your
patience and virtue, and have given a precious odor
to the whole Religion and Province of the March, which for
three years most modestly and most virtuously you governed, and
with your Angelic most prudent governance the Brothers and
Sisters you have ruled in holiness and peace. We wept,
we all your daughters, while you, cordial Father, sat
upon the rivers of Babylon, while we remembered your benignity
and sweetness, O Sion! O soul with divine charity
full! But now we exult, and jubilate,
and immortal thanks we give to almighty God, who
gave dominion to His servant B. and saved the son
of His handmaid, namely John. He made with me a sign
for good, that those may see who hate you and be confounded,
since You, Lord, have helped him and consoled
me. These above noted inept words, with a feminine running
style, I have penned; that Your reverend Paternity may have
in your prayers memory of me, to whom
humbly and devoutly I commend myself, and your benediction
I cordially ask. Farewell in Him, who is of all
hoping in Him the true and consummate salvation,
whom for your daughter and handmaid remember to entreat. In
the monastery of St. Mary-the-new of Camerino, the 20th day of April
1521.

[41] This is that John of Fano, who about the year 1525
again made Vicar Provincial of the March, [He in the year 1525 first treats a Capuchin more harshly,] Fr.
Matthew of Bascio, from a Chamberlain of Julius-Caesar the father
of Baptista, made among the Observants a preacher of eminent spirit and zeal,
having undertaken to change the form of the hood, and for that
cause going to Rome and from the journey drawn back, in
the Provincial Chapter celebrated at Matelica gravely reprehended,
as guilty of apostasy, and in prison enclosed. That matter announced
to the Duchess of Camerino, very devout to Friar Matthew,
so moved her, that with threatening letters first John
she assailed, then also with words before the Guardian of Camerino
expostulating, she compelled him to dismiss the bound one, as asserts Pascuccius.
But Matthew to Rome betook himself to the Pontiff
Clement VII, to ask the faculty, which also he obtained, [and opposing his companions in the year 1626,]
in the assumed habit where it should please to lead the eremitic
life. Then in the following year 1526 Fr. Ludovicus
and Fr. Raphael, both of Fossombrone and brothers german, led by the same spirit as Matthew, nor yet into his society
received, by themselves also the same hooded habit
assumed; and the Duke and Duchess favoring,
the same faculty which he from the Pontiff they obtained, on the
18th day of May; and so having returned to Camerino, within certain
chambers of the Ducal palace, until a place proper to their institute
should be prepared, for a while they contained themselves, together with others
from time to time joined, whom names Fr. John of Terranova
in the little Tract on the origin of the Capuchins, to be found at
May 18 after the Acts of B. Felix.

[42] It did not please, says Pascuccius, Fr. John
that so prudent a Prince should be so affected toward this new
Religion, [he writes to the Dukes of Camerino,] and to that little flock so powerfully
should patronize. He wrote therefore to him a vehement letter,
asking that from his palace he should expel those, whom
he called contumacious; and compel them to return to obedience,
whence they had departed: he wrote also another to
the Duchess in the same sense, and finally a third to
Baptista, [and to Baptista herself:] exhorting her that with as great efficacy as she could
the same to her german Dukes she should persuade: but from their
answer enough he understood it had been in vain. He himself therefore
to Camerino betook himself, and an opportune time being caught,
he tried with words composed for persuasion
to effect, what he had not been able through letters. But there is no
wisdom, there is no counsel against the Lord; and by the true
event was made plain that sentence of Gamaliel: If this
counsel is from men, the work will be dissolved; but if
it is from God, you will not be able to dissolve it: with which
formal words Baptista to John had answered,
writing back to him. For at the beginning doubtful was she,
whether she should approve or disapprove this novelty, [who answers him wisely.] and to Fr. Matthew
and his companions should show favor: but at last
both she and John himself acknowledged it to be God,
who the hearts of the Camerino Dukes was moving
to protect the Capuchins. Wherefore not only
troublesome to them the Vicar ceased to be, but also his mind
he applied to embracing the same institute:
about which matter with Baptista conferring, with whom he was wont to communicate
about the chief affairs of his soul, goads
from her new he received for the heavenly impulse
to execution to bring.

[43] Thus Pascuccius, who as an argument of the mutual between
John and Baptista confidence, alleges many of her
to him letters, and verbatim also that which above
we have given, [Wrongly is she thought to have been the author for him of passing to the Capuchins,] but far earlier; when rather it ought
to have been her to adduce, if there was any, whence might be proved her of that latter
counsel a partaker truly to have been Baptista; as above he had alleged
the brief answer, which to him about the Capuchins she had given.
Indeed, since from Waddingus most certainly it is established, that John
still among the Observants lived in the year 1532, nor except
two years after he to the Capuchins came holds Boverius,
but the Duke of Camerino, the same Boverius witnessing, died
of pestilence in the year 1528; impossible it becomes that Baptista,
before her brother dead, had a part in the aforesaid
change: [since dead before the year 1528:] nay even probable it is, that she, although the Capuchins
to oppose she would not; for that with which John she pursued
reverence and that with which the Order's quiet she followed
zeal in no matter to them positively favored against his expressed
will. For indeed, this man, as John of Terranova writes,
when he was Minister of the Province of the March, so great a persecutor
of the Capuchins was, that not even their name
could he hear without indignation and threatening:
so that if any of his subjects of good spirit,
showed indication of a will of going to
them, he received him ill, not only with words, but also
with prisons. Let us say therefore that Baptista, for her of judging no one
institute, explained above at no. 25,
amid those troubles of her Order to herself alone and her Sisters intent
only, committed to God the rest, the care of which
in nothing pertained to her.

[44] Would that to the letters in that cause back and forth at the beginning
given, [yet not before the year 1526,] which mentions Pascuccius, and which by himself
seen he seems to indicate, had been subscribed notes of the year and
day. But this seems to have been omitted in that of precipitated
matters haste: for otherwise would have recognized
Pascuccius, that she who still lived when these things were done,
did not die in the year 1524, as he has on p. 183; or 1525, as
he has on p. 146; here the words of Lilius Camillus, there of Angelus Benignus
alleging. For from the said things manifestly it appears,
that Baptista must at least until the year 1526
by living have reached: when if she had died on the last day of May,
only a few days she would have lived after the return of Fr. Ludovicus
and Raphael of Fossombrone, if however they
before May's end returned from Rome. Hardly however is it credible,
that she, with the last sickness struggling and to death near,
either was interpellated for so rough a business by
John, or to the interpellator an answer in writing would have given.
Therefore, [but rather 1527,] when it is not permitted to stand by the numbers of the writers
of Camerino above noted, without injury to the coeval
Capuchins, the year of their origin without doubt more certainly
noting; the mind inclines that without fear I judge,
that in the year 1527, of her age the 69th begun, she died
Baptista, when Easter was celebrated April 21;
[on the feast of Corpus Christi.] and so the day May 31 with the feast of Corpus Christi
concurs, toward which mystery how devout she was she explained
herself at no. 45 of her Life. About her death since nothing he finds
in the Camerino records Pascuccius, except
at the beginning alleged words of Lilius Camillus, asserting the obsequies by
the whole Ducal court magnificently to have been celebrated; nor we of
it can say anything else, than that most piously she passed away.

[45] Her body, says Pascuccius bk. 3 ch. 13, by the Nuns
buried in a decent place was in their choir, [Her body buried in the choir,]
that a more present always they might have of their Foundress
memory, and of the protection from heaven to be hoped
a nearer earnest. But after thirty years in which
it thus buried lay, not bearing the Religious women
longer it under earth to be hidden, with the highest reverence
it from its tomb they drew out. [after 30 years it is raised whole,] Nor can it be said
what joy their breasts inundated, how great
a copiousness of tears from their eyes pressed out the most tender
sense of devotion, when they saw it still
on every side unharmed and uncontaminated, with a face
more glad than pale, as if all it saluted, and
with eyes plainly vivid. Hence it more decently than before
they placed, in greater veneration to be had. [and again it is buried]
But to their will opposed himself of that time
the Confessor; and I know not by what zeal moved, he wished
it again under earth to be hidden: nor without some
(as it seems) indiscretion he caused that sacred pledge
within two boards to be fastened together, and much upon it
earth to be heaped: nay even water copious to be poured on
he commanded, and so the soaked earth by his companion
to be pressed and trodden.

[46] The obedience, which in that place most exact
the Nuns profess, [The bones in the year 1593 found,] effected that none of them a word
should oppose to the zeal of that Religious man: and so
the body buried again, according to God's good pleasure,
remained there hidden until the year 1593;
when it behoved new sepulchers for the bodies of the dead to be buried
to be made. Then indeed the elder
Virgins, from whose memory had never departed
the place, in which lay buried their Mother; commended
to the workmen, that the greatest caution
they should use in removing the earth. But these doing this
unexpectedly there appeared a board, which removed since a most sweet
odor thence was poured, it was recognized
it to be that which to the body of the Blessed had been laid.
Therefore at the news of the thing ran all,
flowing for joy with tears suffused; and they exulted, seeing
after so many years issue of so great sweetness
a fragrance from that body; so that it could not be doubted
but that the soul long ago was into the bridal chamber of the heavenly
Spouse received, after whom living so strenuously she had run
in the odor of His ointments. Admiration
it increased, that the tongue alone, even then moist and
with a bloody color reddening, altogether had remained free of all
corruption. There were present at the uncovering of the sacred
bones (for the rest of the flesh into ashes resolved
had gone, that the vow of her above at no. 15
desiring be fulfilled, that her body, which to the earth she commends,
into dust, as befits its vile matter, shortly
be resolved) there were present, I say, at the sacred bones' uncovering,
not only all the Nuns of the place, [with the tongue still incorrupt,] but
also their Confessor Fr. Evangelista of Fabriano,
commonly called Pharao; who more attentively
considering the tongue fresh, soft and ruddy,
amid pious tears wondering broke forth into
these words of St. Bonaventure, of St. Anthony of Padua the tongue
likewise whole beholding: O blessed tongue,
which always God you blessed, and others to bless
taught! now manifestly appears, your how great
were toward God your services.

[47] [in precious caskets they are placed,] The sacred body of the blessed Mother found, as I said,
with as great solemnity as was permitted it was deposited
within a new marble chest, in the choir of that
monastery, in that form in which even today it is beheld. The tongue
separately reserved, and within a reliquary casket
was enclosed: which casket, as also the chest itself,
more preciously to be adorned in the year 1626 took care
the eminent piety of Lord Scipio Savini Archdeacon
of Camerino. He after to many successively
Pontiffs he had given service in the office of Secretary
of State, as they call it, his soul's greatness and munificent
liberality made attested in the churches
of his fatherland more splendidly to be adorned: and then crystals being added
he caused, that as well the chest as the reliquary
aforesaid to the eyes of beholders were transparent, there running
to behold them men of every condition
and persons, even of first rank and most eminent.

[48] [and religiously visited by chief matrons,] Thus in the year 1639 in the month of October, through Camerino
passing the most excellent Lady Constantia Magalotti
Barberini, the kinswoman of happy memory Urban
Pope VIII, with the most illustrious Ladies Lucretia
Vaïni and Maria Machiavelli, her sisters german,
came to the monastery of St. Clare, to visit
the body of B. Baptista de Varanis: and Mass having been heard at
it and the Relics venerated, and the tongue within
a silver pyx preserved, she entered also with
the aforesaid sisters the monastery: which surveyed,
within the chest of the Blessed she left a gold coin
new, with the image of her kinsman Pontiff impressed
and other alms. In like manner the place visited
Lady Anna Columna Barberini, the wife of the most excellent
Lord Thaddeus, equally the nephew of the aforesaid Pope Urban,
in the month of May of the year… and entering the monastery
herself also, she said, that to her with the Varano family a consanguinity
intervened. [and Relics are sought.] But at this visitation
there was present for honor's sake the most illustrious Lord Aemilius Alterius
Bishop of Camerino, who was afterward supreme
Pontiff and universal Pastor of the Church called
Clement X. Finally many other qualified persons,
for the fame of the devotion continued hitherto, visited
and honored that sacred deposit: and
religious men not a few of great esteem desired
and obtained some cotton, within the chest
placed, which for Relics they might have for themselves.

CHAPTER VI.

Graces obtained at the invocation of B. Baptista.

[49] To the Patriarch Joseph, just as the sacred letters relate,
was entrusted the Royal ring of Pharaoh,
that for signing favors at his own
judgment he might use it: [God through His Saints working miracles,] and although he it as a minister
of the King and acting in his stead handled, always yet
there appeared impressed on the wax the figure of the King himself, and it was reckoned
to be the signature, not of Joseph, but of Pharaoh.
Not otherwise acts with His friends God, granting
to them often the grace of miracles, which
are as the ring of His omnipotence; and they as
ministers it thus use, that they wish them to be known
proceeded from God. Hence it is that frequently at the mere invocation
of the name, or the touch of the sepulcher or body,
or even of the garments, admirable altogether follow
effects. But this prerogative also to B. Baptista
was granted, among other graces gratuitously given.
For the confirmation of this assertion it pleases to gather
some many examples of cures, in these our
times (to say nothing of older ones) obtained
through her intercession, [Baptista is wont to forewarn her daughters of death] whence the divine toward us benignity
more and more may shine forth. But before
I come to the infirmities and diseases, I ought to premise
a certain as it were perpetual grace, which to her beloved
daughters the Blessed imparts. Namely, that
as often as some one of them the common debt of humanity
is about to pay, some days before her death
there is heard within her sepulcher a motion
and a certain noise; that by that sign there be admonished each one,
to the last exit herself to prepare: whence if
any then it happens to be more grievously sick, they are wont
more curiously the holy chest to observe, whether perchance from that
disease she is indicated to be about to die.

[50] [The same invoked are healed, the arthritic,] Now I will come to the cures of diseases, and from
many a few I will relate, especially in her daughters'
diseases shown, that they might accustom themselves in their whatever
necessities to her to recur. Sister
Martha Nemcei with arthritic pains for many now
years tormented, so that with the support of two staves
hardly could she move her step; B. Baptista being invoked
her natural vigor and of moving her feet the
faculty received, and was found whole; as also
otherwise often from infirmities of the head and eyes.
For many months in bed had lain Paula Mazzutelli,
so that none of her members could she of
herself move. [and the paralytic;] She by sorrows aggravated when a vow
of B. Baptista she had made, not only relieved herself she felt,
but also into a sweet slumber having fallen there appeared
her deliveress, and by a touch whole rendered her, as if no
inconvenience ever she had suffered. In her whole body
was tormented Fr. Thomas of Matelica, when having remembered
to invoke Baptista, suddenly whole he saw himself and
from the torments free.

[51] [those struck by lightning rise unhurt;] In the year 1636 Lady Anna Cucchiaroni with
her two daughters had come to the monastery of St.
Clare on the day of St. James the Apostle; when the sky being suddenly
darkened, a furious hail upon the place fell, mingled
with thunders and lightnings, one of which
not far where they stood fell. Hence astounded
both the seculars and the religious women, all as
dead fell to the ground: but soon as into
the parlour the Relics of Baptista were brought, they returned
to their senses who had been consternated:
and the aforesaid Lady in sign of a grateful mind left
an alms, from which afterward was repaired an image
of the Blessed, which even today is kept in the part of the choir
interior. The same Lady Anna, by the most intense pains of the colic
passion invaded, to death most near was judged
by the physicians: but she was preserved, the heavenly
help through the intercession of the Blessed imploring: to whom
afterward a silver votive offering she presented in memory
of the danger escaped.

[52] [a vow being made the Confessor of the place is healed,] Fr. Antonius Massucci of Recanati, the Confessor
of the monastery of St. Clare, finding no remedy
for the grave pains which his whole body lacerated,
nor any rest to him granted
even small; after other things in vain tried, vowed a votive offering
to be affixed to the sacred tomb, and whole without delay
he was. A certain noble Camerino matron,
whose name was Magdalena Ugolini, with an enormous was tormented
headache: of which because the origin was unknown also
was not found a remedy. She went therefore to the monastery
of St. Clare, where she had a sister: and persuaded
to commend herself to B. Baptista and a votive image
to offer, [likewise many from headache,] the vow made freed she said she was, and the vow
she paid. In a like case to the same recurred
Lady Gentileva Ugolini, an image with a silver
head vowing: and quickly made partaker of her vow, it
exactly to fulfill she took care. From the same cause no
part of rest by night and day took Sister Maria-Olympia
Aquini: but the other remedies
failing, a votive tablet if she were healed to the sepulcher of the Blessed
to be hung she promised, and whole she was.

[53] She was occupied in the monastery's utility Sister
Laura Rossetti, [her face poured over with boiling must,] when boiling must being incautiously spilled over
her face and arm, not only did she burn for herself
the skin, but her cheeks also so swollen had,
that with eyes closed with the greatest torment now
nothing but two shapeless masses of flesh skinned
were discerned, not without danger of perpetual
blindness. That therefore of the grace of the Blessed she might partake, to
her patronage humble and devout she ran. And when
brought before the sepulcher fervently there prayers she had poured,
in a short time she recovered entire health.
Sister also Columba Piselli, [an arm useless,] on account of an arm
ill-affected its torments, for every service of the monastery
useless was: but the Blessed invoking, with
the promise of a silver votive offering, she deserved heard
to be healed. To Sister Maria-Angelica Cucchiaroni
so were luxated the teeth, that at every lightest
touch they seemed to fall out: she vowed therefore
a row of silver teeth to the Blessed's sepulcher to be affixed,
and her own soon to be consolidated she felt, [teeth luxated,] nor did she delay
the contracted obligation as quickly as possible to satisfy.
In a like manner consoled herself felt Sister Flavia Voglia,
the same inconvenience suffering.

[54] Sister Venantia Rossetti, with a catarrh upon her eyes
flowing down almost her sight had lost: [eyes darkened,] but a vow being made of
offering two silver eyes, her own for herself
she kept. Similarly in her eyes infirm was Sister Michaela
Maggi, which to her like two fleshy masses
had swollen: but they subsided, after a vow
to the Blessed made. An infirmity in her throat suffered
Sister Venantia Savini, for whom a remedy to make
could not the physicians: [quinsy,] wherefore to the Blessed she devoted herself,
and soon to have better she began, nor much after
entirely whole she was. Sister Benedicta Bonapasta with the epileptic
malady so was agitated, that any day often
to the ground she was dashed. She to the sepulcher of the Blessed went,
and there the malady recurring fallen and half-dead,
she saw her before her standing in habit
religious: [epilepsy,] nor much after raised to her feet,
thenceforth such nothing she suffered, and therefore a silver
votive offering as bound by vow she presented. The same malady suffering
Bartholomaeus Nerucci, almost also to have lost
the use of his mind he seemed; and so persevering
without hope of remedy he invoked the Blessed; promising
if he were healed to visit her sepulcher in thanksgiving:
[madness,] and soon heard to a sound mind
entirely he returned; and whole also in body the vow
he fulfilled.

[55] [dropsy,] Lord Franciscus Candella almost to madness
reduced by the force of disease was: but by the Nuns to the Blessed
commended, into himself he returned and whole he was. A certain
man, whose name has dropped out, with water under the skin
to that point had swollen, to which can dropsy
the body inflate: who the physicians despairing being commended
to the Blessed, [deafness,] to the common stupor of all
subsided and convalesced. They knew not the same
physicians to recognize the malady, by which Sister Hyacintha
Camera's bowels were tormented: the human
remedies therefore being dismissed to the divine recourse was had, and by the intercession
of the blessed Foundress the health of the afflicted returned.
To a certain man of Piceno was placed in his ears a flock
of cotton from the chest of the Blessed, and hearing received those who
were deaf. A certain daughter of Lord Franciscus Piselli so
weak in her legs was, that to raise herself to her feet
she could not or anywhere advance. For her her father
his own a silver leg to the Blessed vowed, and the girl
expeditely walking quickly he saw. A like inconvenience
with a defect of speech for her son feared Joanna-Andrea
Bona, [weakness of the legs;] who already three years old neither a voice
to form nor to stand on his feet could: but
when to him the Relics of the Blessed she had caused to be applied, that
trouble loosed soon was, the boy both to speak and to walk
beginning.

[56] [the faculty of suckling is restored,] A certain little son of Lord Venantius Savini milk to suck
could not: but brought to the monastery, through
the invocation of the Blessed and the touch of the Relics,
of suckling having obtained the faculty, the necessary for him nourishment
thenceforth he used. The hand of Sister Raphaela Maggi
with so doubtful a malady was affected, that by the physicians'
judgment it was thought she would never use it more.
But the Blessed asking that for her she would intercede, in a short
time she obtained the health which she had asked. Her voice
altogether had lost Sister Cecilia Ugolini, on account of a vehement
passion of the stomach: but the Blessed invoking, [a hand dead,]
the same she recovered. By a most savage fever was held
Lady Primavera Monaldi, to whom when arthritic
pains and a flux of blood had been added, for desperate
she was held by the physicians. Therefore to the Blessed she turned, [speech;]
and heard at once she convalesced. By a like fever
afflicted Lord Octavius Strada devoutly commended himself
to the intercession of the Blessed, intending if he were healed to offer
an image: and suddenly to be quenched began the febrile
heats, and daily better to have himself feeling,
at length full health attained grateful he acknowledged. [fevers are healed,]
None the less his little daughter aggravated by fever Lord Gaspar
Forti commended to the Blessed, and the same day whole
he had her.

[57] [an incurable hip,] Lady Sulpitia Nari of Rome had in her service
a young maid, with an incurable malady in one of the hips
laboring: which when at last with nothing profiting
the physicians' art turned to gangrene, invoking
devoutly the Blessed the sick one, promised to the sepulcher
of her a silver image to be sent by her if to be cured
through her she had deserved, [a paralytic woman] and by an evident miracle whole made
the vow she fulfilled. Sister Christina Manarda so
a hindered foot from disease retained, that paralytic
for three months in bed she lay, with great torment
of hers: and when applied to the malady remedies did not profit,
recourse to the Blessed she had leaning on a staff:
which as soon as to the tomb she came, there she laid down,
wholly now strong, [an abscess on the knee,] and as a monument of gratitude
she hung also a silver leg. Sister Columba
Piselli in one of her knees an abscess suffered
and was cured by physicians; so great meanwhile from it pains
sustaining, that by days and nights she could not rest.
Therefore determining the human remedies abdicated
the divine thenceforth to experience, [a dying woman in childbirth] to the sepulcher of the Blessed
to be carried she caused herself, and there at once healed she was. Lady Venantia
Voglia, unmarried of the Piselli, a long time the pains of childbirth
had sustained, from which after childbirth nothing relieved,
now now about to expire she was believed: but a vow to the Blessed
made, hope of life she received, and shortly also health,
and the vow she paid.

[58] To a certain Catharina's little son, gravely wounded,
to prolong at least his life sewn were his bowels: but cotton from the chest taken, [and a boy;] applied to the wound, a surer medicine for him made it, and his life
preserved, he suddenly beginning to have better.
Lord Franciscus Battibocca struck on the head, so
gravely was injured, that it was necessary for his cure
many fragments of bone thence to extract, [a gravely injured head] whence
also into mania he fell, no more either to read
or write being able. That matter when grievous it befell
certain kinsmen of his, Nuns of St.
Clare, they agreed that him to their holy Foundress
they should commend: and the vow obtained, in thanksgiving
a silver head they hung up. Of those whom I said Nuns one,
Sister Maria Battibocca,
her hand had transfixed with a needle so unhappily, [and a hand.]
that no blood appearing she suffered a spasm,
nor for the most intense thence pain found a medicine;
until the Blessed being invoked she drove away the pains, and her
whole made.

[59] [At Rimini, where a relic,] But neither within the bounds of one monastery
or her fatherland city stood the glory of the deceased Baptista:
for God is wont the knowledge of His beloved ones
to propagate farther, by the mediation of particles of Relics,
as seeds of blessing. When
therefore the Mothers of the monastery of the Angels at Rimini a little bone
of Baptista had obtained, it in
their private oratory religiously they placed, a pledge
of obtaining from God graces. And indeed congruous
plainly it was, that a part of herself the Blessed should communicate
to that city, whence through her mother Joanna her lineage
she had drawn. Of this toward the people of Rimini benevolence
the effect was the grace conferred on Sister Angela-Catharina
Ceccoli, [a dying Nun is cured] there a Nun, who with a grave and
malign fever laboring rest took none: the disease being increased
by a swelling, which on her left side appeared
to the size of one loaf. Wherefore desperate
judging the physicians, they advised her to be provided with the last Sacraments.
Into that state therefore brought, in
which neither could she move herself by herself in bed, by nods
more than by voices she begged Sister Maria-Seraphina
de' Malatesta, there at that time Abbess,
that a Relic of B. Baptista to her she would bring.
She obeyed the sick one's desire. Nor was there delay: at once when
into the cell the precious Relic was brought, with great
joy suffused the sick one, to the Blessed from her heart commended
herself: and the swelling with the same Relic duly
signed vanished, the pain departed, and sleep the following night
came, with the stupor of the physicians and Religious women
all. In monument of which thing a relation authentic was composed,
and to Camerino sent, to
the monastery of St. Clare.

[60] [likewise from the stone,] Sister Antonia Fabbri a Conversa, suffering grave
torments, which from the stone were judged to proceed,
and by the same to the extreme term of life
brought, now was being fortified with the Sacraments for her exit;
when to her aid she called the Blessed, and by her Relics
signed, all pain wiped away from herself she felt,
nor it thenceforth was seen to endure. Sister Innocentia-Felix
Alberini, was oppressed by a sudden
catarrh, which continually dripping her respiration impeded
and her speech rendered impossible: and now
in face deformed, and signs prognosticating death
bearing, very few moments of time
remaining were believed to be: [the catarrh choking her,] when Sister Florida
Marchetti, knowing well, with how tender devotion
was affected the sick one toward B. Baptista; applied
to her cotton, from the Reliquary taken, forming
the sign of the Cross; and soon she both to breathe and
to speak expeditely began, health so sudden and unhoped-for
to the Blessed referring. Lord Camillus
Luizani, seized by a most grave fever and a torment of the stomach,
not without suspicion of poison, taking
a little of the aforesaid cotton, [or those in peril from a venomous fever.] to him sent by Sister Maria-Seraphina
de' Malatesta, soon as it to the malady
he applied, free from the fever and every other pain he was,
the physicians wondering.

COROLLARY TO THE WHOLE MONTH OF MAY. ON THE DAY AFTER THE LORD'S ASCENSION
