words: 'I thought that I was standing at the door with you, when the holy
nun came out of the door of the next house, and I told you to look at
her. She stopped in front of us, and said to me: "Ah, Gertrude, you look
very ill; I will send you some rye-flour and eggs, which will relieve
your chest." Then I awoke.' Such was the simple tale of the poor man; he
and his wife both eagerly expressed their gratitude, and the bearer of
Anne Catherine's alms left the house much overcome. He did not tell her
anything of this when he saw her, but a few days after, she sent him
again to the same place with a similar present, and he then asked her
how it was she knew that poor woman? 'You know,' she replied, 'that I pray
every evening for all those who suffer; I should like to go and relieve
them, and I generally dream that I am going from one abode of suffering
to another, and that I assist them to the best of my power. In this way
I went in my dream to that poor woman's house; she was standing at the
door with her husband, and I said to her: "Ah, Gertrude, you look very
ill; I will send you some rye-flour and eggs, which will relieve your
chest." And this I did through you, the next morning.' Both persons had
remained in their beds, and dreamed the same thing, and the dream came
true. St. Augustine, in his City of God, book 18, c. 18, relates a
similar thing of two philosophers, who visited each other in a dream,
and explained some passages of Plato, both remaining asleep in their
own houses.

These sufferings, and this peculiar species of active labour, were
like a single ray of light, which enlightened her whole life. Infinite
was the number of spiritual labours and sympathetic sufferings which
came from all parts and entered into her heart--that heart so burning with
love of Jesus Christ. Like St. Catherine of Sienna and some other
ecstatics, she often felt the most profound feeling of conviction that
our Saviour had taken her heart out of her bosom, and placed his own