And now the earthly task of the dying saint was accomplished. After lingering yet a few days among her sorrowing children, she received the last rites of the Church in presence of the whole Ursuline family, numbering one hundred and fifty members, and, after the solemn ceremony, exhorted them to charity, obedience, humility, observance of rule and love of God. "O Jesus!" she said in conclusion, "bless this company of virgins irrevocably consecrated to Thy service. Grant that as they increase in numbers, they may also grow in grace, in fervour and in wisdom before Thee and before Thy servants." At her own desire she had been clothed in the habit of the Third Order of St. Francis, and that she might die in the practice of her beloved poverty, she had herself removed, tradition says, from the poor bed she had occupied in her illness, to the rush mat on the ground which had formed her ordinary resting-place in health. Her dying words were fervent acts of the theological virtues, but she seemed to dwell, by preference, on the act of charity, returning to it continually. "Yes, my God, I love Thee!" she said. "Why cannot I love Thee infinitely? Holy Virgin! Blessed Spirits: lend me your hearts to love Jesus. How long shall I be banished from Thy presence, O Lord? Who will give me wings to fly to Thee, the only Object of my love? Break the chains of my captivity. Receive the soul which languishes for Thee; which can no longer live without Thee." Then, with Jesus on the cross, she exclaimed, "Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit!" They were her last words, no sooner spoken than she gave up her soul to God--"peacefully," says her historian, "as a child composing itself to sleep in its mother's arms." She died on the 27th of January, 1540, at half-past nine in the evening, aged sixty-six or sixty-seven.