These were the beginnings of those high gifts of prayer and contemplation to which she afterwards attained; but it must not be supposed that the exercise of them was at all times attended with comfort and delight to her soul; for her writings mention the violent repugnance of the flesh, the strong temptations, the obscurity of mind, and dryness of affection, with which she had to contend in the struggle between the world and grace.
Besides these interior trials, her perseverance and constancy to her Virgin Spouse were put to the most severe test, in the endeavors made by her father and other relations to induce her to join in the vain and idle occupations of others in her state of life, and to yield to their repeated arguments and even snares, to induce her to enter the married state. “Our father wished,” she writes, “that I should be more finely dressed than others, and one day I wore one vanity, and another day another. He was so fond of me, that, when at home, he would always have me beside him. All this I complied with. But I began to perceive that he was not willing that I should become a nun, and he told me I must marry, and that as long as he lived I must not leave him. But this news filled me with sorrow, because every time he spoke in this manner, I felt a stronger desire of being a nun. I told others so, but no one would believe me, and everybody was against my intention, especially my father, who even shed tears, and told me positively that he would never consent; and in order to drive the thought out of my head, he brought other gentlemen into the house and then called me. In their presence, he promised me all sorts of pleasures and amusements, and they did the same. They talked about the things of the world, in order to persuade me to set my fancy upon them, but their discourses led me to a contrary desire. At that moment, worldly things appeared so disgusting, that I could not hear them mentioned; and more than once I told these persons that they must not speak again on such subjects, because the more I heard, the more my soul was withdrawn from them. But all that I said, availed me nothing; every day my martyrdom was renewed. I had patience for some time; but at last, I declared in their presence that such discourses disgusted me, and before them all, I expressed my deep commiseration for the wretchedness of the unfortunate persons who are attached to worldly things. I spoke as little as possible, because I knew that my father took great delight in hearing me talk, and I did everything in my power to diminish his attachment, by avoiding all those actions in which he took delight; but all to no purpose; his affections seemed to increase daily. At times, he said to me, ‘I wish to content you in everything; the only thing I beg of you is, that you will not turn nun.’ With these words, he wept through affection. I said to him, ‘If you wish to content me, I do not want any other favor from you, except that you would put me in a convent; all my desires are there. Content me in this, and you will content me in everything else, and depend upon it, it will be a source of comfort to yourself afterwards.’”
Her father, finding all his efforts unsuccessful, sent her to live with her uncle, whom he secretly instructed to use all his influence and artifice to dissuade her from her design. Here she had an illness, for which the physicians could discover no remedy; until some of her attendants, perceiving that she grew sensibly better, whenever they talked of nuns and convents, informed her father, who thereupon gave up his opposition to her entreaties, and, as soon as he had allowed her to choose the convent in which she would be professed, she rose from her bed, and all symptoms of sickness immediately disappeared.
She then begged him to allow her to enter the rigorous convent of capuchine nuns at Città di Castello, and was conducted by her uncle to the bishop of the diocese, to obtain his permission. He told them that all the places in the convent were filled up, and they left him, to return home. But Ursula besought her uncle to return with her to his presence, where, falling on her knees, she prayed him in such earnest accents to comfort her by granting her request, that he was inclined to make an exception in her favor. He put several questions to her, and asked her amongst the rest, if she knew Latin. Her uncle at once replied in the negative, but Ursula, full of confidence in God’s aid, took up the breviary, and read it with the most correct pronunciation; and although she had never studied Latin, she was able, during the rest of her life, to quote the texts of Scripture with perfect aptness and propriety. The bishop accordingly granted her leave to enter the convent, into which she was admitted on the 17th of July, 1677, and was vested on the Feast of SS. Simon and Jude, in the same year. The devil sought to weaken her love of her new state, by representing it as one leading to despair: at one time, he filled her imagination with the remembrance of the many proposals of marriage and the young men that she had rejected; at another, he made the time of prayer tedious and disgusting to her. “It seems,” she says, “as if all hell were let loose against me, but I heeded it not. When I felt more than usually agitated by their attacks, I went alone into my cell, and there poured out my soul in prayer to God, and represented my necessities to him. Sometimes I offered up acts of prayer, and besought Him not to desert me; and said to him, full of faith, ‘My God, Thou knowest that I am Thy spouse, grant, therefore, that I may never be separated from Thee. Now, for ever, I place myself in Thy hands; I am ready for whatever Thou shalt command. I am Thine, I am Thine, that is enough.’” God did not fail to strengthen her, by saying to her heart, “Fear not, thou art mine. It is my will that thou shouldst suffer and combat; fear not.” At her reception, she took the name of Veronica, by which we shall henceforth call her.
We pass over the numerous instances of suffering and obedience which she gave during her novitiate; at the end of which she was admitted to make her profession on All Saints’ day, 1678. Her writings contain many allusions to the joy which she derived from the recurrence of this day of solemn renunciation of the world and dedication of herself to her Heavenly Spouse. The first years she passed in the order were distinguished by the most extraordinary marks of Divine grace; all of which produced in her, compunction and sorrow for her sins, and love of mortification, and the cross of Christ. One of her raptures she thus describes: “The first time that I had these recollections with a vision, it seemed to me that I saw, on a sudden, Our Lord with a heavy cross on His shoulders, when He invited me to take a part in that precious treasure. This invitation was given by communication rather than by words. At that instant I felt a strong desire of sufferings, and it seemed that the Lord planted the cross in my heart, giving me to understand the value of suffering. This understanding I received in the following manner. It appeared as if all sorts of torments were represented to me, and, at the same moment, I saw them transformed into jewels and precious stones, all of which were made in the figure of the cross. During this time, I was given to know that God wished pure suffering in me; and then the vision disappeared. When I came to myself, I felt a violent pain in my head, which has never since left me, and so eager was my desire of suffering, that I would willingly have faced every torment that can be conceived. From that moment I have ever had in my mouth these words, ‘The cross and sufferings are jewels and joys.’” From this account it may be collected, that, on this occasion, Jesus impressed that visible mark of the cross upon her heart, which was seen, after her death, by several persons, when her body was opened for that purpose.
Veronica was successively appointed to fill every office of the community, in all of which she displayed the same wonderful examples of virtue, and love of obedience and suffering; and many signs of Divine favor proved to her sisters how pleasing her actions were to Almighty God. She was appointed Mistress of the Novices, in her thirty-fourth year, and continued for twenty-two years in that office, until she was chosen abbess, in 1716; and even then, so extraordinary had been the efficacy of her prayers, and zeal in the discharge of it, that her sisters forced her, contrary to the usual order, to retain it during the eleven years she was abbess. More than once, to free them from sickness, and other inconveniences, she obtained of God, that she might suffer in their stead; and some of them were relieved by her, in their anxiety and trouble of mind, which had been supernaturally made known to her. On one occasion was revealed to her the severe judgment which God will make of superiors and directors of religious communities, by whose fault any relaxation of fervor creeps amongst those committed to their care. On the 9th of November, she fell dangerously ill, and during the agony which succeeded, was carried in spirit before the throne of the Divine Judge. She beheld Christ, with a severe countenance, seated on a throne of majesty, surrounded by angels; Our blessed Lady on one side, and her patron saints on the other. When her good angel presented her to the awful judgment, she expected to be condemned to hell,—so severe, she tells us, were the reproaches of the Judge, and so unprovided was she with good works; but so earnest were the prayers of Mary, and of her holy advocates, that the divine countenance of Christ at last grew calm; and, after giving her various salutary admonitions, He dismissed her.
On the morning after her agony, she called her novices; and, having obtained leave from her confessor to speak to them respecting their failings, and her own negligence in correcting them, which had been revealed to her during her vision of judgment, she whispered to them with such earnestness, that they burst into a flood of tears, and, at the end, she said to them, “Do not learn of me, who have been the scandal of all in all my conduct; for in the observance of the rules, as well as in obedience, love and charity, I have been ever proud and devoid of humility.” The nuns interrupted her with tears and sobs, charging themselves with the fault, in not having followed her instructions, but she rejoined, “take heed of little things, for, before God, things are very different from what we suppose.”
We must now pass to the sublime novitiate and preparation of grace, by which she became, during the last thirty-five years of her life, an exact image of Our crucified Lord. In the year 1693, she beheld, in a vision, a mysterious chalice or cup, which she knew to be the presage of the Divine passion, whereof she was to be a perfect copy. This vision was repeated in various forms during the following years. At one time, the chalice appeared upon a bright cloud, surrounded with glory; at another, without any ornament: sometimes the liquor contained in it, boiled and ran over in great abundance; at other times, it issued from it, drop by drop. Her spirit was ready to quaff it to the bottom, but the flesh shuddered and drew back, as did our Lord’s in the garden; but she subdued it by severe mortifications. “I must not be too confident,” she writes, “because I know that, as yet, it is not dead. The spirit I have always found eager and desirous of drinking it, and willing to taste of such bitterness, in order to fulfil the will of God. At times I felt these desires, and I exclaimed: ‘When will the hour come, O my God, when Thou wilt allow me to drink of Thy cup? I await Thy will, but Thou alone knowest my thirst: I thirst, I thirst, but not for comforts, but for bitterness and sufferings.’ I felt that I could wait no longer. One night, whilst I was in prayer, being quite out of myself, it seems that Our Lord appeared to me, and, holding the cup in His hand, said: ‘This is for thee, and I present it to thee, that thou mayest taste, as much as I have tasted, for thy sake, but not yet. Prepare thyself, for thou also shalt taste it.’ He then disappeared, leaving the remembrance of that chalice so deeply impressed on my mind, that it has ever since remained there.”
The anxiety and dread inspired by the constant appearance of this cup before her mind’s eyes, threw her into a violent fever, which was succeeded by such weakness of body, that her superiors forced her to submit to the prescriptions and treatment of physicians, which served only to increase her torments.
But the most sensible torment was, the privation of the light of God. “All these sufferings were a mere nothing in comparison with what I experienced in myself, deserted, abandoned in blackest darkness, at such a distance from God, that I could not even breathe nor sigh to God.... O, intolerable agony of the soul! to see herself stript of every support, and utterly separated to a distance from its Sovereign Good. She sighs, but is not heard; she calls her Spouse, but He comes not; she seeks Him, but he flies still farther off; she prays to Him, but he will not hear.... My soul was in such torment, that the agony of death cannot, I think, be more bitter. I had no relief, save in seeing the cup approach nearer and nearer.... God be praised! for His love, all is little. Welcome the naked cross, welcome pure suffering. I am ready for all things to give delight to my Lord, and to fulfil His divine will.”