and place all her thoughts in him, according to the words of the Psalmist. This does not hinder her from doing all that is possible to her, because this holy confidence proceeds from love — love produces in the soul a desire of the object beloved; that desire provokes to the performance of all acts that are capable of satisfying it. Activity is in relation with love, but that does not hinder her giving her confidence to God, and rejecting all self reliance, as she is taught by the knowledge that she has acquired of her own nothingness and of the perfection of her Creator.
She frequently spoke to me of the state of a soul which loves her Creator, and she told me that, "that soul finished by no longer perceiving herself and forgetting herself together with all creatures," As I requested an explanation, she told me: -"The soul that comprehends its nothingness, and is convinced that all its good comes from the Creator, resigns itself so perfectly and plunges itself so totally in God, that all its activity is directed towards him, and exercised in him. She is unwilling to come forth from the centre in which she has found the perfection, of happiness: and that union of love which daily augments in her, transforms her, so to speak, into God so that she is incapable of entertaining other thoughts, or other desires, or other love than love of him, indeed the remembrance of all things else forsakes her. This is the lawful love of ourselves and of creatures, a love that cannot err, because the soul of necessity follows the divine will, and does nothing, and desires nothing out of God."
In this union of the soul with God, Catherine found another verity, which she taught continually to those whom the directed: "The soul united to God," said she,
