She was led on this journey by her guardian angel, who told her that
these corporeal wounds signified that she had been ravished in body and
spirit.

Similar hurts were also to be seen upon the body of Anne 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