But the most wonderful fact recorded, of this kind, is the conversion from incredulity of the same Sister Euphrasia’s own sister, Gabriella Mascalzoni. She was also devotedly fond of the saint, and suffered greatly at heart from feeling unable to believe in her ecstasies. One day Catherine, meeting Gabriella at the door of a little oratory in the convent, asked her the time; and when she replied that she did not know, begged her to go and look at the clock and bring back word. The saint then went into the Oratory, began to pray, and fell almost at once into an ecstasy. When Sister Gabriella came back and found her in this state there being no one else present to notice she fell on her knees before her holy companion, and fervently entreated our Lord to have pity on her, and to remove from her heart the hardness that made her always doubt about these raptures. Then, raising her eyes to Catherine’s face, what did she behold but the Face of Jesus Christ Himself, with the long hair and the beard belonging to our representations of Him! Seized with fear, the sister would have fled at the sight; but the saint without breaking through her ecstasy placed both hands on Euphrasia’s shoulders and held her back, looking straight into her eyes. Then she said: “Who do you think I am? Jesus, or Catherine?” The poor child, yet more frightened now, gave a cry that was heard by many of the community; and all who had heard came hastily running into the Oratory, whilst Euphrasia felt constrained to make answer: " You are Jesus!" Three times did she have to give the same reply to the same question asked by the Estatica; and then an immense joy suddenly flooded her heart, for she had in that moment gained the absolute certainty of Catherine’s great sanctity and the reality of her ecstasies. She afterwards told her companions that never in her whole life had she beheld any beauty to compare with the beauty of Christ’s Face, as she saw it in the place of Catherine’s.*
