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186 186 ST. CLARA 6be might see in spirit all that He had suffered on Calvary and on the road to Calvary. Her wish to realize what He had undergone was fulfilled. She felt the thorns piercing her head with agonizing sharpness, the taste of vinegar and gall was in her mouth, she felt the nails tearing through her hands and feet, the pain and weariness of the scourging, the shame of nakedness, the shrinking from death. All these she realized, so that more than any other saint she bore about in her body the marks of the death of Jesus Christ. Once a nun interrupted Clara's exhor- .tation by saying, " You promised that if we would meditate diligently on the Passion, we should have the comfort of realizing the sufferings of our Lord ; but I have never experienced anything of the sort" Upon this, Clara had a mo- mentary feeling either of vanity or impatience. She did not consent to the temptation, but she did not repel it so instantly and entirely as one so favoured ought to have done. That moment her Lord withdrew from her the grace she had for a moment abused. An appalling spiritual desolation took possession of her soul; she was beset by scruples, weariness, suggestions of the devil, blas- phemous or unclean. In vain she re- doubled her austerities. Li vain she begged the prayers of pious souls. Gk)d seemed to have forsaken her. She took no delight in prayer, she had no visions, •she had no certainty that she was not a lost soul. This went on for eleven years, and then her punishment was over, and there was a great calm in her soul. Tisions and revelations were granted to her ; she wrought miracles ; she pro- phesied events which afterwards occurred. She lived for months entirely without food. She again had those ecstasies which had ceased for so many years. One of them lasted for twenty-seven days. Sick and even dead persons were brought to be restored by her prayers. Such was the fame* of her sanctity, her miracles, and the wonders she saw in heavenly visions, that numbers of persons came from all parts of the country to see her. Christ told her He would plant His cross in her heart, and she told her nuns they would find the cross of Jesus engraven there. She was told in her visions that her years of anguish had preserved many persons from impenitent death, and that her repentance had washed away all stain of sin. In August, 1308, she lay dying for many days, happy at the gates of Paradise. Twice during her life she received the Holy Com- munion from the hands of Christ Him- self. After her death her dead body was opened, and the heart was found to have a skin of unnatural hardness. On being cut open, it displayed on the right side a little picture of Christ on the cross, about the size of a thumb ; on the left, miniature effigies of the other instruments of the Passion, not mere pictures, for the lance was quite sharp. BerengariuB, the vicar-general, commis- sioned by the Bishop of Spoleto to assist at the examination, pricked his finger with it. In her intestines were found three globules of equal weight. This phenomenon showed her devotion to the Holy Trinity, as the state of the heart showed her constant contemplation of the Passion of our Lord. She was locally worshipped as a saint from the time of her death. Her canoni- zation was begun in the 14th century, by John XXIL Urban VIII. (1G23- 1644) published the bull for her beatifi- cation. Her canonization was only com- pleted in 1881, under Pius IX., nearly 600 years after her death. Her body lies in a shrine behind the high altar of the church dedicated in her name at Monte- falco, where the sacristan will allow the devout traveller to see her thin form in the black dress of her order, the face visible, beautiful, and peaceful, with eyes closed as if in living, breathing sleep. The miraculous heart and other relics are also shown. Whenever a great calamity threatens the Church, her blood, which is dried up in a bottle, liquefies and bubbles — the greater the calamity, the longer it boils. This happened at the beginning of the Beformation of Luther and Calvin, and at the beginning of the Revolutions of 1847-49. In the process of her canonization under Pius IX, it was proved that she