e Catherine
immediately after some of her visions. Lidwina began her ecstatic
journey by following her good angel to the chapel of the Blessed Virgin
before Schiedam; Anne Catherine began hers by following her angel
guardian either to the chapel which was near her dwelling, or else to
the Way of the Cross of Coesfeld.

Her journeys to the Holy Land were made, according to the accounts
she gave of them, by the most opposite roads; sometimes even she went
all round the earth, when the task spiritually imposed upon her
required it. In the course of these journeys from her home to the most
distant countries, she carried assistance to many persons, exercising
in their regard works of mercy, both corporal and spiritual, and this
was done frequently in parables. At the end of a year she would go over
the same ground again, see the same persons, and give an account of
their spiritual progress or of their relapse into sin. Every part of
this labour always bore some reference to the Church, and to the
kingdom of God upon earth.

The end of these daily pilgrimages which she made in spirit was
invariably the Promised Land, every part of which she examined in
detail, and which she saw sometimes in its present state, and sometimes
as it was at different periods of sacred history; for her
distinguishing characteristic and special privilege was an intuitive
knowledge of the history of the Old and New Testaments, and of that of
the members of the Holy Family, and of all the saints whom she was
contemplating in spirit. She saw the signification of all the festival
days of the ecclesiastical year under both a devotional and a
historical point of view. She saw and described, day by day, with the
minutest detail, and by name, places, persons, festivals, customs, and
miracles, all that happened during the public life of Jesus until the
Ascension, and the history of the Apostles for several weeks after the
Descent of the Holy Ghost. She regarded al her visions not as mere
spiritual enjoyments, but as being, so to speak, fertile fields,
plentifully strewn with the merits of Christ, and which had not as yet
been cultivated; she was often engaged in spirit in praying that the
fruit of such and such sufferings of our Lord might be given to the
Church, and she would beseech God to apply to his Church the merits of
our Saviour which were its inheritance, and of which she would, as it
were, take possession, in its name, with the most touching simp