took upon yourself, for the time, her feelings of hatred, she died in
good dispositions, and now you seem tolerably well again. Are you still
suffering on her account?' 'No, indeed!' she replied; 'that would be most
unreasonable; but how can any person avoid suffering when even the end
of this little finger is in pain? We are all one body in Christ.' 'By the
goodness of God,' said her friend, 'you are now once more somewhat at ease.'
'Not for very long, though,' she replied with a smile; 'there are other
persons who want my assistance.' Then she turned round on her bed, and
rested awhile.

A very few days later, she began to feel intense pain in all her
limbs, and symptoms of water on the chest manifested themselves. We
discovered the sick person for whom Anne Catherine was suffering, and
we saw that his sufferings suddenly diminished or immensely increased
in exact inverse proportion to those of Anne Catherine.

Thus did charity compel her to take upon herself the illnesses and
even the temptations of others, that they might be able in peace to
prepare themselves for death. She was compelled to suffer in silence,
both to conceal the weaknesses of her neighbour, and not to be regarded
as mad herself; she was obliged to receive all the aid that medicine
could afford her for an illness thus taken voluntarily for the relief
of others, and to be reproached for temptations which were not her own;
finally, it was necessary that she should appear perverted in the eyes
of men; that so those for whom she was suffering might be converted
before God.

One day a friend in deep affliction was sitting by her bedside, when
she suddenly fell into a state of ecstasy, and began to pray aloud: 'O,
my sweet Jesus, permit me to carry that heavy stone!' Her friend asked