Spirit. The saint was
chosen, very young, first, mistress of the novices, then sub-prioress,
and, in the twenty-fifth year of her age, was appointed perpetual
prioress. The reputation of her extraordinary sanctity and prudence drew
her many visits from a great number of bishops, princes, and cardinals,
among others, of Cervini, Alexander of Medicis, and Aldobrandini, who
all three were afterwards raised to St. Peter's chair, under the names
of Marcellus II., Clement VIII., and Leo XI. Something like what St.
Austin relates of St. John of Egypt, happened to St. Philip Neri and St.
Catharine of Ricci. For having some time entertained together a commerce
of letters, to satisfy their mutual desire of seeing each other, while
he was detained at Rome she appeared to him in a vision, and they
conversed together a considerable time, each doubtless being in a
rapture. This St. Philip Neri, though most circumspect in giving credit
to, or in publishing visions, declared, saying, that Catharine de Ricci,
while living, had appeared to him in vision, as his disciple Galloni
assures us in his life.[1] And the continuators of Bollandus inform us
that this was confirmed by the oaths of five witnesses.[2] Bacci, in his
life of St. Philip, mentions the same thing, and pope Gregory XV., in
his bull for the canonization of St. Philip Neri, affirms, that while
this saint lived at Rome, he conversed a considerable time with
Catharine of Ricci, a nun, who was then at Prat, in Tuscany.[3] Most
wonderful were the raptures of St. Catharine in meditating on the
passion of Christ, which was her daily exercise, but to which she
totally devoted herself every week from Thursday noon to three o'clock
in the afternoon on Friday. After a long illness, she passed from this
mortal life to everlasting bliss and the possession of the object of all
her desires, on the feast of the Purification of our Lady, on the 2d of
February, in 1589, the sixty-seventh year of her age. The ceremony of
her beatification was performed by Clement XII., in 1732, and that of
her canonization by Benedict XIV., in 1746. Her festival is deferred to
the 13th of February.

* * * * *

In the most perfect state of heavenly contemplation which this life
admits of, there must be a time allowed for action, as appears from the
most {408} eminent contemplatives among the saints, and those religious
institutes which are most devoted to this holy exercise. Th