25. Of the grace on easter night and the prophecy of her death

And when the Easter solemnity arrived, on the holy night itself of the Lord's resurrection about the fourth hour of the breaking dawn, the aforesaid Master John her confessor came to see the virgin, and both from the scent of her hands and from her words he clearly perceived that she had been visited as usual by her holy angel. For he found such a sweetness upon her that she seemed to have been anointed with the oils of different spices.1 Whereupon, when he gave thanks to the Lord and congratulated her, she, coming back to herself after this visitation, confessed that she had been divinely comforted, but declared that most grievous afflictions i Brugman relates in his second Life that in this Easter vision Lydwine received Extreme Unction from the hands of Christ, quoting as his authority certain private revelations : " id ab eis accepi, quibus ipsa post mortem virgo devota Lydwine personaliter dignata est revelare." This would explain why the Saint, although she foreknew the hour of her death, made no request for this sacrament, but wished to die absolutely alone.

ST. LYDWINE of SCHIEDAM were about to befall her, which she would suffer during this festival. She also said that on the same night she had heard the Alleluia sung in the Heavens, and she hoped that she would shortly sing the same canticle Alleluia with the heavenly spirits in greater joy and consolation, and that she would suffer less from those maladies if the Easter festival were over. Which she seems to have said of the passing of her death, although she did not show that she was soon to die. But each day, to wit, on Easterday itself and the two following, she said to those who came to her that the pains which she was then suffering would not last long; as after wards the issue proved.1 i There is another prophecy of her death which, although it appears in John Gerlac's German MS., was not inserted in Brugman's translation, and thus seems to have escaped our author. Some years before her death Lydwine related to her confessor and friends that her angel had shown her in Paradise a rose tree covered with buds, and had given her to understand that when all these roses were in full bloom the measure of her merits and her days of exile would be accomplished. From time to time her friends would ask how was it with her rose tree, and she would sadly reply that it was as yet far from its full flowering. But in the beginning of