1802, she had a very severe illness, which began by a violent
pain about her heart.

This pain did not leave her even when she was cured, and she bore it
in silence until the year 1812, when the mark of a cross was imprinted
exteriorly in the same place, as we shall relate further on. Her
weakness and delicate health caused her to be looked upon more as
burdensome than useful to the community; and this, of course, told
against her in all ways, yet she was never weary of working and serving
the others, nor was she ever so happy as at this period of her life--spent
in privations and sufferings of every description.

On the 13th of November 1803, at the age of twenty-nine, she
pronounced her solemn vows, and became the spouse of Jesus Christ, in
the Convent of Agnetenberg, at Dulmen. 'When I had pronounced my vows,' she
says, 'my relations were again extremely kind to me. My father and my
eldest brother brought me two pieces of cloth. My father, a good, but
stern man, and who had been much averse to my entering the convent, had
told me, when we parted, that he would willingly pay for my burial, but
that he would give nothing for the convent; and he kept his word, for
this piece of cloth was the winding sheet used for my spiritual burial
in the convent.'

'I was not thinking of myself,' she says again, 'I was thinking of nothing
but our Lord and my holy vows. My companions could not understand me;
nor could I explain my state to them. God concealed from them many of
the favours which he bestowed upon me, otherwise they would have had
very false ideas concerning me. Notwithstanding all my trials and
sufferings, I was never more rich interiorly, and my soul was perfectly
flooded with happiness. My cell only contained one chair without a
seat, and another without a back; yet in my eyes, it was magnificently
furnished, and when there I often thought myself in Heaven. Frequently
during the night, impelled by love and by the mercy of God, I poured
forth the feelings of my soul by conversing with him on loving and
familiar language, as I had always done from my childhood, and then
those who were watching me would accuse me of irreverence and
disrespect towards God. Once, I happened to say that it appeared to me
that I should be guilty of greater disrespect did I receive the Body of
our Lord without having conversed familiarly with him, and I was
severely reprimanded. Amid all these trials, I yet lived in peace with
God and wit