Sinking beneath the weight of life and of the task imposed upon her
she often besought God to deliver her, and she then would appear to be
on the very brink of the grave. But each time she would say: 'Lord, not
my will but thine be done! If my prayers and sufferings are useful let
me live a thousand years, but grant that I may die rather than ever
offend thee.' Then she would receive orders to live, and arise, taking up
her cross, once more to bear it in patience and suffering after her
Lord. From time to time the road of life which she was pursuing used to
be shown to her, leading to the top of a mountain on which was a
shining and resplendent city--the heavenly Jerusalem. Often she would
think she had arrived at that blissful abode, which seemed to be quite
near her, and her joy would be great. But all on a sudden she would
discover that she was still separated from it by a valley and then she
would have to descend precipices and follow indirect paths, labouring,
suffering, and performing deeds of charity everywhere. She had to
direct wanderers into the right road, raise up the fallen, sometimes
even carry the paralytic, and drag the unwilling by force, and all
these deeds of charity were as so many fresh weights fastened to her
cross. Then she walked with more difficulty, bending beneath her burden
and sometimes even falling to the ground.

In 1823 she repeated more frequently than usual that she could not
perform her task in her present situation, that she had not strength
for it, and that it was in a peaceful convent that she needed to have
lived and died. She added that God would soon take her to himself, and
that she had besought him to permit her to obtain by her prayers in the
next world what her weakness would not permit her to accomplish in
this. St. Catherine of Sienna, a short time before death, made a
similar prayer.