There, flinging herself on her knees, her heart kindling
with an ardent flame of charity towards God, she offered up
to Him all the natural affections of her heart, more
especially those which she felt were the strongest within
her for the nearest and dearest of her relations. In this
heroic action she obtained the intervention of the most holy
Virgin, as may be seen by a letter in her handwriting
addressed to a regular priest, wherein she promises, by the
aid of the holy Virgin, to attach herself no more either to
her relations, or to any other earthly object. This
renunciation was so resolutely courageous and so sincere
that from that hour her brothers, sisters, nephews, and all
her kindred became to her objects of total indifference; and
she deemed herself thenceforth so much an orphan and alone
in the world, that she was enabled to see and converse with
her aforesaid relations when they came to see her at the
convent, as if they were persons utterly unknown to her.
"She had made herself in Paradise an entirely spiritual
family, selected from among the saints who had been the
greatest sinners. Her father was St. Augustin; her mother
St. Mary the Egyptian; her brother St. William the Hermit,
ex-Duke of Aquitaine; her sister St. Margaret of Cortona;
her uncle St. Peter, the Prince of the Apostles; her nephews
the three children of the furnace of Babylon.
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