festered, and became wormy, was visible on her forehead for fifteen years. The worms and the offensive smell, similar to that which once tormented Job, increased the pain of the wound and disgusted others. But these things formed the delight of the patient nun, whose one desire was to become like her Saviour, who, as the prophet Isaias says,[1] was become for her and for the human race the most abject of men and the Man of Sorrows, whose look was hidden and despised--a prophecy so exactly fulfilled that He was unrecognisable when the streams of blood flowed down His face from the wounds the thorns had made in His head. When Rita was asked, as she sometimes was, what the worms were that occasionally fell from her forehead, she used to reply, with a joyous smile, 'They are my little angels,' letting it thereby be seen that the more she was humbled and afflicted in the flesh, the more she rejoiced in spirit, as was also the case with St. Francis of Assisi and St. Catherine of Siena, whose great privilege of the stigmata is celebrated by feasts of the Church, and also with another Augustinian nun, St. Clare of Montefalco, on the living flesh of whose heart miraculous representations of the Passion were impressed. Rita rejoiced the more in this gift, inasmuch as it procured for her more frequent occasion of exercising herself in humility, patience, retirement, silence, prayer, and the love of that God who had conferred on her so marked a distinction. From thenceforward as long as she bore that mark of the Redemption on her forehead, which was as long as she lived, she never ceased to thank Him for it and to praise and bless Him. She, too, was become an outcast from amongst men, but instead of being afflicted thereby she was only the more strongly united to God, in whom all her desires and all her hopes of consolation were centred. She considered that singular effect of Divine grace which is not offended by unsightliness of body as abundant compensation for any sufferings she had to bear and as a pledge of an ample eternal reward in heaven. [1] Isa. liii. 3. CHAPTER IX RITA GOES TO ROME TO GAIN THE INDULGENCE OF THE JUBILEE If Rita's life till the time when she received the wound in her forehead may be called a hidden life, from thenceforward it was a buried life, and invisible to the eyes of men. On that account, passing in silence over an interval of eight years, our history proceeds to describe the events of her life in the year 1450. The intervening years were not, however, years of idleness for our holy nun, or if she did enjoy repose it was not very dissimilar from that of the blessed in heaven, and perhaps of more advantage to the Church than any active efforts of hers. The Western Church, as a matter of fact, had just then, through the prayers of the saints, arisen from its state of dejection and abasement.