time to imprint upon her virginal body the
stigmas of his cross and of his crucifixion, which were to the Jews a
stumbling-block, and to the Gentiles folly, and to many persons who
call themselves Christians, both the one and the other. From her very
earliest childhood she had besought our Lord to impress the marks of
his cross deeply upon her heart, that so she might never forget his
infinite love for men; but she had never thought of receiving any
outward marks. Rejected by the world, she prayed more fervently than
ever for this end. On the 28th of August, the feast of St. Augustine,
the patron of her order, as she was making this prayer in bed, ravished
in ecstasy and her arms stretched forth, she beheld a young man
approach her surrounded with light. It was under this form that her
Divine Spouse usually appeared to her, and he now made upon her body
with his right hand the mark of a common cross. From this time there
was a mark like a cross upon her bosom, consisting of two bands
crossed, about three inches long and one wide. Later the skin often
rose in blisters on this place, as if from a burn, and when these
blisters burst a burning colourless liquid issued from them, sometimes
in such quantities as to soak through several sheets. She was long
without perceiving what the case really was, and only thought that she
was in a strong perspiration. The particular meaning of this mark has
never been known.

Some weeks later, when making the same prayer, she fell into an
ecstasy, and beheld the same apparition, which presented her with a
little cross of the shape described in her accounts of the Passion. She
eagerly received and fervently pressed it to her bosom, and then
returned it. She said that this cross was as soft and white as wax, but
she was not at first aware that it had made an external mark upon her
bosom. A short time after, having gone with her landlady's little girl to
visit an old hermitage near Dulmen, she all on a sudden fell into an
ecstasy, fainted away, and on her recovery was taken home by a poor
peasant woman. The sharp pain which she felt in her chest continued to
increase, and she saw that there was what looked like a cross, about
three inches in length, pressed tightly upon her breast-bone, and
looking red through the skin. As she had spoken about her vision to a
nun with whom she was intimate, her extraordinary state began to be a
good deal talked of. On All Souls' day, 1812, she went out for