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154 154 ST. CATHERINE kissed the poor sufferer whom others were afraid to touch, and said that if they would allow her to remain she would supply her with everything she required, and would come daily and minister to her with her own hands. From that day she came every morning' and evening, dressed the wounds of the patient, and attended to all her wants with as much care and reverence as if it had been her own mother. At first Cecca was pleased, but she soon became very ungrateful and insolent, and reviled her charitable nurse with unseemly words. Catherine bore it all with her usual un- ruffled sweetness, overcame the objec- tions of her mother to the risk she ran, And assisted not only with her hands, but with prayers and exhortations until Cecca died. Meantime, this saintly nurse had caught leprosy in her hands. She "viashed the body and reverently carried it to the grave, laid it in, and covered it with earth. When this was done, the hands that had served Qod in the person of His afflicted one were cleansed of their leprosy, and were ever after very fair and delicate-looking. It was probably late in the year 1378, after another such great victory over the rebellion of body and spirit against loathsome labours and slanderous in- sinuations, that she had the blessed vision of the Saviour offering her two crowns. He bade her choose between one decked with precious stones and one made of very sharp thorns, and asked which would she have in this life that she might have the other in the life to come. '* I choose in this life to be ever more conformed and made like to Thee, my Lord and Saviour, and cheerfully to bear crosses and thorns for Thy love, as Thou hast done for mine." Thus saying, she took from His hands the crown of thorns, placed it on her head, and pressed it down so forcibly that she felt for a long time a sensible pain in her head from the pricking of the thorns. In 1374 the pestilence called in Eng- land the ** black death" raged in Tuscany, and Catherine devoted herself to the care of the bodies and souls of the victims in her native city. Among the patients whose lives she saved by exertions and prayers was her biographer Eaymond of Capua. When her services were no longer urgently needed in Siena, the people of Pisa sent for her. There she healed many and converted such numbers that Pope Gregory XL, who was then at Avignon, commissioned three Dominican friars, of whom Raymond was one, to hear the confessions of Catherine's con- verts. They were occupied day and night in shriving penitents, many of whom had never confessed before. It was at Pisa, in the chapel of St. Chris- tina, that Catherine received the stigmata while praying before the crucifix painted by Gninta Pisano in 1260. Her sanctity, charity, and discretion were now so well known as to procure for her — a tradesman's daughter, without health, wealth, beauty, or ambition — an influence in the ecclesiastical and politi- cal world, which has often been bought too dearly or sought in vain by queens and princesses. One use she made of it was to preach a Crusade against the Turks. But she saw that the discords at home must first be healed. Florence was in open revolt against the Church, and in 1374 the Pope laid the city under an interdict. The people of Florence sent for Catherine, and, after fully in- structing her in the case from their point of view, appointed her ambassador ex- traordinary to go to Avignon and effect a reconciliation with the Pope. He received her with the greatest respect, but she did not succeed in concluding a Bolid peace. However, she took advantage of her visit to His Holiness to urge him to go to Bome, where, for lack of a ruler, anarchy and great misery prevailed, and grew daily worse. Many writers have asserted that the return of the Popes from Avignon to Rome was brought about by Catherine, but Gregory XL had already perceived that it was his duty to take this step, and had resolved to do it. She encouraged him in his pious intention, and adjured him not to be turned from it by any difficulty, nor to listen to the persuasions of those whose interest it was to keep him away from the holy city. After three months at Avignon, she