Lehodey: The ways of mental prayer, chapter XI

 
CHAPTER XI
JOYS AND SUFFERINGS

ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS describes the rough ascent which leads to Carmel, the pains which purge the soul and prepare it for the divine union. St. Teresa sets more in relief the joys of contemplation. They do not contradict, but rather supplement each other, and in order to have the whole truth, we must take them conjointly. Besides, St. John of the Cross does not conceal the consolations, and St. Teresa clearly sets forth the crucifying trials of the contemplative way.

I. There are joys of the mind, which, having no longer to labour so hard and possessing the truth, enjoys a sense of repose; the lights the intellect receives are at times so vivid that it remains dumb with admiration. There are the joys of the will : ” the soul experiences in her inmost depths a pure calm, a profound peace, a very great contentment of her will, an interior and exterior satisfaction, a very sweet unction of which she can give no precisf
description. She does not know whence nor how this has come to her, but she finds herself so happy that it seems to her she wants for nothing.” This is what St. Teresa in many places affirms to be the case, even in the state of quiet.  She shows its clearly supernatural and infused character, and points out the differences which distinguish the sweets of contemplation from the consolations which spring from meditation. The soul has found
Him whom she was seeking, and, finding herself in possession of God, she feels that she loves and is deeply loved in return. What a happiness to be clasped to the heart of God in a loving and spiritual embrace, though it were for a few instants only ! But when this delight is prolonged it produces a sort of spiritual inebriation, which sometimes resembles the state of a person half asleep, and at other times is full of ardour. And these joys go on increasing
in proportion as the prayer ascends to the higher degrees ; the union of all the powers is more full of consolation than a simple state of quiet, and ecstasy still more than either. At certain moments the soul believes herself to be at the very gates of Paradise ;
 half-an-hour, or even fifteen minutes, of these de lightful interviews with her Well- Beloved makes her forget all past sufferings, and strengthens her wonderfully for trials to come. For such is the role of these sweetnesses : they detach the soul from earth, and attach her to God; they are the harbingers of new sufferings, and predispose contemplatives to embrace them generously. “I know,” says St. Teresa, ” that the tribulations, through which God makes them pass, are intolerable-, they are of such a nature that if God did not strengthen
these souls by this delightful interior nourishment, they would never have the strength to support them. . . . Thus it is necessary that Our Lord should give them, not the water which refreshes, but the wine which inebriates, in order that, under the influence of a holy inebriation, they in some sort no longer feel their sufferings. . . . Persons who are engaged in the active way, when they witness some favour granted to souls raised to the contemplative prayer, imagine doubtless that there is nothing but sweetness and delight in this state;
but I can tell them that perhaps they could not beareven for one single day the sufferings which contemplatives have commonly to endure.”

Contemplation, then, is not the way of delicate and soft souls, but rather that of brave and generous hearts, who love their crucified Saviour, and have no fear of the cross; tribulation and anguish are their daily bread ; though, from time to time, God sends some sweetness to comfort them, and to show the boundless extent of His enduring love for them.

We may remark with Father Poulain, that “the pleasure experienced in the prayer of quiet is
affected by the dispositions in which the soul is at the time. If she is passing through a period of peace and joy, it is more marked. It is so, likewise, when these graces have a certain novelty. If, on the contrary, she is passing through a state of sorrow and of trial, the pleasure imparted by the prayer of quiet may be in some degree troubled or veiled.”

II. As for sufferings, contemplatives have still to endure many of those which they formerly suffered. Besides physical pains, separation from their dearest friends, loss of temporal goods and other common trials, they have still temptations to overcome, inclinations to subdue, passions to govern, virtues to perfect. They suffer on the part of God who seems to have abandoned them, on the part of their superiors who reprehend them, of their brethren
who have neither the same views nor the same tastes, of the world which misunderstands them, of the demon who tempts them, of the elements which afflict them : all this is the lot of poor humanity, even in the cloister. It may even happen, through a special design of God, who wishes to render these souls more pure, more humble and more detached, that many of these ordinary trials afflict them with an uncommon persistency and severity.

Just as contemplation has its own joys, so also it has its own peculiar sufferings.

We have already sufficiently described the trials, so various and so prolonged, of the passive purgation of the senses, and the rarer, but much more acute, pains of the passive purgation of the spirit. We need not further revert to them here.

Mystical contemplation, taken in general, introduces the soul, in an evident manner, into the midst of the supernatural; it has something mysterious about it which strikes the mind, especially at first, and causes trouble in a soul as yet inexperienced in this way. We become still more anxious, should we meet with no one able to give us an explanation as to what it all means. What, then, will happen if you clip this poor soul s wings, if you hinder her from flying whither God is calling her, under the pretext of preserving her simplicity and avoiding singularity ? At bottom, it is the Holy Ghost whom you are lecturing and forbidding to lead that soul by any other way than such as is in accordance with your own narrow views.

When the state of quietude is weak, the soul suffers. St. Teresa declares that “while her will
was united to God, her memory and imagination waged so fierce a war against her that she conceived a horror of them, and was altogether worn out by their assaults.” We shall, therefore, have to struggle against distractions, weariness and disgust, and to strive to supplement the divine action, which it is not in our power to increase, by the efforts of our own activity ; now, at such a time we shall be able to make nothing but little, dry, short, monotonous acts devoid of all relish. God’s company becomes a downright fatigue, His conversation has no charm for us; yet, if we fly from Him, our state becomes still worse, for, in spite of all, the soul has need of God and cannot do without Him.

 

The soul hoped to ascend, ever to ascend higher, and now she must remain months, perhaps even years, in the same degree; hence, she is inclined to become discouraged and to look back.

 

Even when the soul has attained to a high degree of prayer, and when she is passing through one of those periods in which a mere nothing sets her all on fire, she still has to suffer ; for, however closely she may be united to God, she will always long for a closer union. The visits of her Well-Beloved appear to her so short and so few; . . . she thinks she holds Him fast, and, behold, He escapes from her grasp ; it seems to her that she is flying upwards to a higher union, and lo ! she falls back again; . . . her desire is impetuous, her need imperious, but never satisfied. The soul comes at last to experience a real hungering after God, a painful thirst for Him, without being able ever fully to satisfy it; sometimes it is a wound of love, which the entire possession of God alone can heal ; and yet He hides Himself from her, and, by His absence, enlarges the wound and renders it more painful. Should He give Himself to her to the full extent of her desires, she is too weak to bear so excessive a joy. She ends by conceiving such a taste for God ” that she would wish to be at once freed from all necessities; eating is death to her, sleeping is a torment; she beholds the precious time of life consumed in providing for countless necessities, and yet she can find no satisfaction but in God alone.

The contemplative soul suffers also from the ever-varying fluctuations of this state which constantly toss her about, being sometimes raised to the heights of mystical union, at another time brought down to an almost imperceptible union, or even plunged once more into all the horrors of the passive purifications. How full, then, of desolation is this soul so loving, this soul that hungers so after God, desires only Him, and yet nowhere finds Him ! Above all, when these trials are prolonged, and when He, who is the sole object of her love, persists in abandoning her and seems to despise her! At times this is a merciful chastisement, at others, it is an artifice of her Divine Spouse, who wishes to make her seek more earnestly after Him, in order that the increasing ardour of her desire may inflame the fervour of her love.

 

St. Bernard was well acquainted with these painful trials, and bewails them in the bitterness of his soul. ” When we seek Christ our Spouse in watchings and in prayer, at the cost of many efforts, and amidst a torrent of tears, He comes to us; but suddenly, whilst we think to keep Him, he escapes from us. Yielding again to the tears and pursuit of our soul, He allows Himself to be laid hold of, but by no means to be retained; for suddenly He escapes a second time from our hands. If the devout soul perseveres in prayers and tears, He will return again and not disappoint the desires of her heart; but soon again He will disappear and she shall see Him no more, unless she recalls Him again by the whole strength of her desires. Thus, then, even while the soul is in this body, she may taste frequent, but not full, delight in the presence of her Spouse, for, though His visits give her joy, those vicissitudes make her suffer.” 

 

Finding it impossible to keep her Well-beloved with her, and impossible also to rekindle the fire of her love, she bewails her negligence and bitterly accuses herself in the language of St. Bernard : ” I was running well, but lo ! I struck against a stumbling-block in the way, and I have fallen. Pride has been found in me, and the Lord has turned away in anger from His servant. Hence, this barrenness and this dearth of devotion which I now experience. How has my heart become so dry, like curdled milk, like to a land without water? . . . I can find no tears of compunction, so great is the hardness of my heart. The psalms have lost their savour, reading pleases me not, prayer has no charm, I can no longer make my customary meditations. What, then, has become of that inebriation of the soul ? Where, then, is that serenity of mind, that peace and joy in the Holy Ghost? This is the reason why I am so lazy at manual work, so drowsy at watching, so prompt to anger, so slow to forgive, so weak in my preaching. Alas ! the Lord visits all the mountains round about, but never draws near to me . . .

 

 ”The soul suffers also, when God shows her in contemplation His terrifying justice, the multitude of her personal sins, her own long life so empty of virtues, the countless offences which outrage His sanctity, the rage of those who hate Him, the loss of so many souls, the evils of the Church, the sufferings of His Passion, the little return we make for the love of our Divine Master, and many other such like subjects for sorrow. ” Six years had passed away since St. Teresa had had her vision of hell, and yet such was the terror that seized her, when writing about it, that the very blood froze in her veins.” When the same saint considered what she was, the favours of her God used to throw her into inexpressible confusion ; the memory of her good works seemed to be blotted out, her imperfections alone presented themselves to her mind, and she needed more strength to receive such graces than to carry the heaviest crosses. 2 She used to suffer almost continual pain and look upon herself as the greatest sinner in the world, when she thought how little gratitude she had shown towards Him who had heaped upon her so many favours. 3 She was overwhelmed with shame, that she was able to make only so poor a return to that God who had given her so much, and this inability was for her the greatest of penances. 4 She suffered from being exposed to the complaints, criticisms, and suspicions of some persons, and to the praise and admiration of others, when the favours she had received from God became public. 5 Add to this the fear of losing God and of being a prey to those illusions, which have made so many victims. St. Teresa suffered all this during long years; her humility and the delicacy of her conscience rendered her fears only the more alarming. In the midst of so many afflictions, she sought for a long time in vain for some guide who would understand and console her. If she met with any such who reassured her for the time, her fears quickly revived to assail her once more. It often happens in the designs of Providence that no one can assuage our pains.

 

To sum up, then, ” at all times, in the beginning, in the middle, at the end of our career, we all have our crosses, though of different kinds; ” for this is the royal way traced out for all by our Crucified Saviour; in this way alone, we shall find Him and become united to Him ; there would be no security in a way always exempt from trials and strewn with roses. Suffering, by purifying the soul, assures advancement in the path of prayer; moreover, it is amply compensated for, and is by no means an un mitigated evil. From the hour that St. Teresa gave herself entirely to God, she never had to endure a pain that did not bring with it its own consolation. If God sent her something to suffer, He afterwards lavished upon her His favours. ” It seems to me,” she adds, ” that to suffer is the only thing worth living for, . . . and I sometimes say to God from the bottom of my heart : O Lord, let me suffer or die.”

Lehodey: The ways of mental prayer, chapter XII

 CHAPTER XII

DANGERS AND ILLUSIONS

I. DANGERS.

THERE are some dangers when the graces of prayer abound, others when these graces are withdrawn.

I. In the midst of the joys of divine consolations we have to fear vain complacency and spiritual gluttony. These faults may be met with in simple meditation ; but when the soul feels herself sought after by God, tenderly loved by her Divine Master and treated with marked predilection, she has a more specious pretext to look upon herself with complacency, and to believe herself to be something. In another way, spiritual consolations are so sweet, that one is led to seize upon them with a greediness which turns into poison the generous wine of contemplation. Mystical action, however, strongly urges the soul towards humility and detachment. Far from being the cause of those miseries, it is only their innocent occasion, the whole fault comes from ourselves. It would, therefore, be unjust to regard that action with suspicion and to avoid it, on the pretext that it exposes us to the malice of the demon and of nature ; it would, in fact, be just as reasonable to omit the practice of virtue throughfear of pride, which finds therein its most delicate nourishment.

But the more God elevates us, the more ought we to humble ourselves. These things are graces and not our merits; they are powerful instruments of perfection, not perfection itself; in spite of them, a man may be much inferior to his brethren, may grow tepid, and be lost. God will require more from him to whom He has given more. In the same way, we must renounce our greediness for consolations, and combat it with unremitting energy. It is better to accustom ourselves to will only God’s good pleasure, to remain in a holy indifference with regard to sweetness or bitterness, consolations or trials. Provided that we belong entirely to God and God to us, what signify the ways and the means , consolations or aridities, sweet contemplations or passive purgations ? The one thing essential is to arrive at our end by the shortest and best way. After all, it is God we wantrather than His gifts. His will and not our pleasure is the rule of what is good, the sole road ofprogress, and we should study to serve Him with disinterestedness and at our own expense.

Can the inebriation, produced by the strength and sweetness of divine love, occasion any disorder in the senses? St. Teresa never experienced any thing of the kind ” in the supernatural phenomena ” which she has described, and this kind of thing seemed to her not even possible.  Quite different is the opinion of St. John of the Cross, when there is question of souls imperfectly purified; and that of St. Gregory the Great is not less formal on this point. ” It often happens,” says this latter, ” that the soul is elevated by the Divine Spirit even to the heights of prayer, and, nevertheless, the flesh makes painful assaults upon her. At the very moment when she is led to the contemplation of heavenly things, imaginations of illicit actions present themselves to her, and the sting of the flesh makes itself painfully felt in him, who had been raised above the flesh by contemplation. It seems as if heaven and hell were here mingledtogether, since the same soul finds herself at once illumined by the lights of contemplation and clouded over by importunate temptations.”

In such a case, let the soul strive to avoid all danger of consenting to such temptations; let her moderate, if she can, the excess of sensible devotion ; let her humble herself on account of her misery, and not be discouraged. This purely material disorder is not willed by her, either as an end or as a means, and is superabundantlycompensated for by the fruits of contemplation. This painful condition, therefore, ought not to lead us to abandon so desirable a form of prayer.

For a stronger reason, contemplatives are not exempt from this kind of humiliation outside the times of mystical union. ” Contemplation lifts them above themselves,” says St. Gregory  elsewhere, ” and, behold, immediately temptation comes upon them from their growing vain of these gifts. Compunction, in fact, or contemplation raises them up towards God, but the weight of temptation makes them fall back again upon themselves. Temptation depresses them in order that contemplation may not puff them up ; and contemplation elevates them lest temptation should utterly cast them down.”

An humble and detached soul has nothing to fear in mystical ways. ” God forbid,” says St. Teresa,” that any one could say that there is danger in the ways of prayer. It is the demon, never doubt it, who has invented all these fears. . . . The danger really to be feared is that of failing in humility and the other virtues.” The soul, therefore, should practise humility, detachment, and strive to become better; otherwise God will be obliged to withdraw His favours which we abuse, and to crush our pride under the severest humiliations, and, perhaps, by even allowing us to fall heavily into sin.

II. When the graces of prayer are withdrawn, especially if for any length of time, the resultingaridityexposes the soul to discouragement. One may weary in the pursuit of God, when one constantly fails to get hold of Him. The blessings of contemplation, however precious they may be, lose their relish for a soul that is wanting in generosity, and appear to her to be too dearly purchased at the cost of so many trials. Oh, let us never give way to discouragement; it is the worst of all scourges. Great graces and sublime virtues are not imparted to cowardly souls. Our Lord loves the brave hearts who have no fear of His cross. We are the brothers of the Crucified God, we must be willing to be crucified with Him, if we would resemble and please Him. Besides, if we profit much during the outbursts of divine love, perhaps we may derive as many advantages from trials and abandonments well borne. Let us allow God to lead us by the ways which seem to Him to suit us best ; let us place our perfection in following Him with love and docility, especially when He leads us by paths wherein self-love perishes and falls exhausted for want of food.

II. ILLUSIONS.

One of the first illusions is to believe ourselves more advanced than we really are. We possess a theoretical knowledge of mystical ways, and then we let ourselves believe that we are already in these ways, merely because we have received some more vivid light in prayer, or some more marked devotion. The holy mountain of contemplation is still really very far away, and yet we think we have already reached it; we have hardly begun to ascend this mountain when we imagine we are upon its summit. This illusion is the daughter of pride. St. Bernard tells us  that  “if there are amongst monks contemplatives who imitate Mary, they are not to be looked for amongst novices,  who, having only just died to sin, are labouring, in groanings and the fear of judgment, to heal their still fresh and bleeding wounds. No, but they are found to be those who, after a long co-operation with grace, have arrived at a better state, wherein they are less occupied in turning over and over the sad picture of their sins than in making it their joy to meditate day and night on the law of the Lord, without ever being able to have enough of it.” Generally speaking, therefore, a person must havepractised meditation and affective prayer for a long time, and must have made great progress in virtue, before contemplation is reached. The slow and painful passive purgation of the senses is the gate of contemplation ; its every degree is a long stage, which usually requires years for its accomplishment; and very few are the souls that get beyond the simple state of quietude. Progress in prayer should give rise to an ever-ascending progress towards perfection. If tangible results are not obtained, the soul is nursing herself in illusions, or she is abusing grace ; and, instead of feeding herself with vain fancies, she has need to strengthen herself in humility, in self-renunciation, and in obedience.

It is an illusion to think that these mystical states cannot come to an end. Actual contemplation is always of short duration. The severities of the passive purgations alternate with the sweets of consoling prayer. The mystical state itself may be lost, either by infidelity in corresponding with it, or by the special will of God, who ever remains master of His gifts, and alone knows whether they are injurious or useful to us. It is an illusion to dream of visions, revelations, locutions, and the other phenomena of distinct contemplation. Usually the lives of the saints are full of these facts which entertain both the writer and the reader. Certain modern authors go to the opposite extreme and suppress the supernatural, as far as possible, in the life of a saint. The truth is, that the greater number of the great servants of God have been favoured largely with these gifts. Heaven honoured its elect, in order to accredit the mission with which they were charged, to awaken the faith of the masses, or in view of their own personal sanctification. Their sanctity did not consist in these extraordinary favours, but in their being completely dead to self, and in the heroism of their virtues; and the graces of prayer contributed much more than visions, to lead them on to perfection. Besides, visions, revelations and other facts of this nature, easily open a door to a thousand illusions; even canonised saints in their life-time have not always been able to avoid the deceits of the demon or the reveries of the imagination. Who does not know how urgently St. John of the Cross exhorts his readers to distrust visions, revelations, or locutions; to resist them, and to get rid of them ? St. Teresa gives her readers the same counsel : ” In such matters there is always reason to fear, until the soul is certain that they proceed from the Spirit of God. This is why I say that, in the beginning, the best course to adopt is always to combat them. If God is their author, this humility of the soul in guarding herself agains such favours will only the better dispose her for receiving them, and the more she puts them to the test, the more they will increase.” The saint, when speaking of Our Lord’s apparitions, adds: “Never ask Him, never even wish Him, to lead you by this way. This way is, no doubt, good, and you ought to hold it in high esteem and respect ; but it is unseemly either to ask or desire it.”

It is an illusion to dream of mystical states, in which there will be nothing but enjoyment ; for in them there will always be a much greater share of suffering; or, again, of states, in which the soul will have nothing to do but to passively receive favours. The soul, indeed, at times, will be more passive than active, yet, even then, she must keep her mind in a state of simple attention to God, and her heart in a loving disposition, or in acts of love. Far from remaining merely passive, she is really more active than at other times, but in a simple way and by direct acts, even when the mystical union is at its height. When the contemplative act has passed away, the soul should return to active prayer and exercise herself therein, in spite of the dryness she may experience.

It is an illusion to believe that in this state we cannot fall into sin any more. These favours do not confirm a soul in grace ; she remains always weak, and even capable of being lost through mortal sins, except, perhaps, when she has reached the state of spiritual marriage. She must, therefore, distrust herself, take care to avoid the danger, and keep herself in humility and detachment. Let us not forget what St. Teresa says of the union of all the powers : ” The soul in this state is not strong enough to expose herself without peril to occasions of sin.”

It is an illusion to believe that the mystical state dispenses us from cultivating Christian virtues, from discharging the duties of our state, from observing our rules, &c. On the contrary, the more God gives us, the greater must be the return we make Him ; if He confides ten talents to us, He rigorously requires that this capital shall not remain unproductive. Humility, abnegation, obedience, recollection, the spirit of prayer, and, above all, charity towards Himself and towards our brethren should increase in proportion to our gifts; these virtues are the end to which God wishes to lead us, mystical states are only the way; if our means of locomotion are more perfect, all our virtues also should increase their pace towards perfection. An elevated state of prayer, without this well-marked progress, is either an illusion or a buried talent. We must, therefore, accept of these mystical states with humility, correspond to them with generosity, fear them while desiring them, abase ourselves in proportion as God elevates us, hide the divine gift from those who have no right to be informed of it, love more than ever our rule, which is our safeguard, fly exemptions and singularities, put our trust not in mystical graces, but in humility, self-renunciation, obedience, and the other virtues which should be their fruit.
It is an illusion to neglect the duties of our state, in order to give more time to contemplation.  “It is certain, on the contrary,” says Father Balthasar Alvarez, ” that we ought to quit contemplation to fulfil the duties of our charge or to help our neighbour in his necessities. … I have come to know by experience,” he adds elsewhere, “that God gives more to a mortified soul, in one hour of prayer, than in many hours to another that is not so, and that the occupations, with which obedience burthens us, are more profitable to my soul than spiritual reading or repose.”

It is an illusion to believe that, in the guidance of mystical souls, everything should be out of the ordinary course, as if God had taken upon Him to guide them Himself by interior inspirations, and that they have no need of a superior or a spiritual father. Deplorable illusion, the daughter of pride !  Very presumptuous is he who believes himself to be inspired, and presumes to lay down the law for himself and others ! Very foolish he, who welcomes inspirations but little conformable to common sense and to faith ! Very rash he, who bases his conduct upon so shaky a foundation ! ” This person,” says St. Teresa, speaking of herself, ” never regulated her conduct by the inspirations she received in prayer; and, when her confessors told her to act in a way opposed to them, she used to obey without the least repugnance.”  She teaches elsewhere, that “such is the will of Our Lord,” but adds: “Whenever interior words tend only to console you, or to admonish you of your faults, whoever be their author, and even were they an illusion, they cannot do you any harm.” God loves contemplative souls with predilection, is prodigal of His graces in their regard, and leads them, more than He does others, by the royal road of suffering and humiliation ; but He has not undertaken to guide them miraculously. It is the law of Providence that men should be guided by other men. Have not these souls at their service the spiritual writers with all their knowledge and experience? Above all, God has given them superiors and a spiritual director, and to these they ought to manifest their interior with docility, in order to subject what passes therein to due control. God sent an angel to Cornelius to refer him to St. Peter. Our Lord Himself appeared to Saul, but sent him to consult Ananias.

Many other illusions might be pointed out. It is easy to see that they all arise from pride, or from an inordinate desire of enjoyment. A soul in such dispositions is exposed to a thousand errors, to the most diverse faults. With humility, detachment and docility she has less to fear in the state of obscure contemplation than in meditation. God,  who leads by these ways men of good will, owes it  to Himself not to let them go astray.

Lehodey: The Ways of Mental Prayer, chapter XIII

CHAPTER XIII
THE DESIRE OF CONTEMPLATION

WE have just said what we are to think of visions, revelations, and the other phenomena of distinct and particular contemplation. The saints recommend us to reject such things, as far as it is in our power, if they occur to us of themselves ; for a stronger reason, they should not be desired. The same line of conduct should be followed as to ecstasies in public, miracles, and other open manifestations.

But with regard to the graces of mystical union, whose nature and degrees we have described, may we desire and pray for them ?

If a soul has already received a beginning of mystical union, it has always been admitted that she may desire further progress in these ways. God has given a true vocation and deposited a germ ; to desire that this should be developed is to will what God wills. This is applicable even to those who are as yet in the passive purgation of the senses; they have only one foot in the ordinary kinds of prayer, the other is already planted in the mystical way; God is calling them, and wishes to lead them on to further heights.
Many authors clearly assert that it is not permissible to desire ecstasy. We do not see why a soul, already arrived at the state of quiet, or at that of full union, might not desire an increase of light and of infused love, even though the alienation of the senses should be the result. Her intentions are pure, this hope animates her to practise virtue, and, after the favours already received, is in no way presumptuous, nor does she desire this to take place in public ; in what, then, is she to be blamed ?

If a person has not yet entered upon mystical contemplation, may he desire and ask it ?

Some celebrated authors maintain that not only he may, but that he ought to do so. Scaramelli admits that this desire is permissible, but immediately surrounds it with a multitude of restrictions. St. Liguori teaches  that it is safer for souls, who have not yet been raised to mystical union, to desire only the active union. But the common and almost universal opinion is, that they may desire and ask the gift of supernatural contemplation, provided that this desire does not arise from pride or sensuality, and that it is accompanied with an humble submission to the Divine Will.

These graces of prayer spring in fact from love; they have for principle the Holy Ghost and His better gifts; for object, God ; for end, divine union, God tasted and possessed; they enrich the soul with many merits, urge it on to heroic virtues, dispose it to do great things for God and for one’s neighbour, are a powerful lever to raise her from earth and to unite her to the sovereign good; they are even a foretaste of the occupations and the happiness of our heavenly home. How, then, is it possible not to desire them ?

It is objected that these favours make us quit the common ways and indulge in strange familiarities with God; ought not humility then prompt us to avoid them ? No more than it should prompt us to avoid Holy Communion and all commerce with God by prayer. For, who would venture to believe himself worthy to converse with Infinite Majesty, or to be united intimately with the God of the Eucharist ? The voice of our needs cries out more loudly than that of our respect. Let us adore, and let us also desire.

Contemplation introduces us into a world so very supernatural. In this state, indeed, the supernatural is certainly more manifest. But is it not true that a merely Christian life, grace, the sacraments, infused virtues, the gifts of the Holy Ghost, are all a supernatural world quite as real, though not so manifest ?

In contemplation, God shows us so much love ! Should we dare to receive His caresses? We dare to receive Holy Communion. During prayer, too, as well as at the Holy Table, we adore, we humble ourselves, we make ourselves quite little; but, nevertheless, we love and eat because we need to do so.

One may misuse contemplation ! One may also misuse the consolations of ordinary meditation. Poverty and riches, offices and employments, rest and work, consolations and aridities, health and sickness, life and death, the sacraments, the Holy Scripture, all the gifts of God, without exception, may be abused and turned aside from their end. It is supremely unjust to condemn what is good on account of possible abuses. Let us guard against
dangers and illusions, by humility, abnegation and obedience to a wise director. Let us keep our intention right, our heart detached, our will submissive to Divine Providence, and then we may desire ardently, and ask with confidence these graces of prayer.

But there is a danger for humility. ” On the contrary, no kind of prayer is better calculated to crucify self-love and to penetrate a man with the sense of his own nothingness, none other is more apt to exclude every movement of pride.” 

” At present,” says Father Louis Lallemant, ” if any one aspires to some gift of prayer a little above the common way, he is clearly told that these are extraordinary gifts which God gives only when He pleases, and to whom He pleases, and that we must neither desire nor ask them ; thus the door is closed for ever upon these gifts. This is a great abuse.”

This, too, is the opinion of St. Thomas. St. Teresa maintains the same in more than twenty passages of her writings. St. John of the Cross composed his work for the sole purpose of  leading souls to the summit of mystical union. We must also mention St. Peter Damian, Richard of St Victor, Louis of Blois, Blessed Albert the Great, Ruysbroeck, Lanspergius, St. Ignatius, Alvarez de Paz, the Ven. Louis da Ponte, &c.

Let us be satisfied with citing our own great St. Bernard. Everywhere he admits the lawfulness of this desire. He extols it, arouses it, gives it as one of the dispositions which attract the visits of the Spouse; he even admits that one who has been unfaithful may still hope to attain to mystical union. For the sake of brevity, we refer the reader to his sermons, especially those on the Canticle of Canticles.

However, it is to be noted, that the more a soul advances the better she knows the greatness and sanctity of God and her own nothingness and misery. The graces of prayer appear to her in the highest degree precious and she has an ardent desire of them, while at the same time she feels that she does not deserve them. Sometimes this desire predominates, and she exclaims: “Oh that He would give me one kiss of His mouth ” ; at other times, humility prevails, and she says: ” O Lord, I am not worthy.” It is this alternating rhythm of desire and humility, which ravishes the heart of God.

The view of the responsibilities which so elevated a state entails, the humble fear of failing to correspend sufficiently with its graces, the danger of illusions, may all serve to lead the soul to moderate this desire by a complete abandonment of herself into the hands of God who knows what is best for us. This filial and loving abandonment does not exclude desire ; but, fearing to be deceived in a matter so far above her own feeble lights, she leaves herself to the wisdom and goodness of Him, who possesses all her love and confidence. No other disposition seems to us so calculated to charm God and induce Him to bestow His gifts.

Lehodey: The Ways of Mental Prayer, chapter XIV

CHAPTER XIV

CONCLUSION

If the reader has had the patience to read to the end this unpretending work of ours, he has seen how God leads the soul from meditation to affective prayer, and from this, to the different degrees of mystical contemplation, in order, by means of this ladder of prayer, to raise her up to the sublime heights of perfection. It only remains for us, dear reader, to express our sincere desire that God, in His infinite bounty, may deign to lavish upon you graces of prayer, which may enable you to lay down steps of ascent in your heart, and make you rise from virtue to virtue. May it pkase Heaven, that every one of our brethren in religion may walk in the footsteps of our wiser forefathers, who were great in holiness because they were eminent in prayer ! May it please God, that they may apply themselves to purify their conscience, their mind, their heart and their will, that they may avoid pouring themselves forth entirely upon external things, that they may attend to these rather only through a sense of duty, and, their task once done, they may hasten to re-enter the solitude of their soul ! There, closing the doors of the sanctuary, and banishing from God’s house the tumult of cares and preoccupations, may they place their happiness in being alone with God alone, in pouring forth their heart in His presence, and altogether united to Him may they taste how sweet is the Lord. Earth has so little to say to him, who knows how to listen to God’s voice ; it is so easy to despise the vile things of this nether world, when one has once relished the Sovereign Good; and a heart, which is enamoured of the divine love, finds so great a charm and so much facility in conversing with Him whom it loves and serves !

Those who aim at perfection,” says the Ven. Louis Dupont, ” ought to commence and continue their career, by walking in the way of meditation (and the other kinds of ordinary prayer), until God, by a special vocation, raises them to a more elevated degree ; but as soon as this call is certain, it should be faithfully obeyed. To wish to raise oneself to contemplation, without being called thereto, or, to resist this attraction when God has deigned to give it, are the two extremes between which are to be found truth and virtue.” One must therefore beware of wishing to abandon too hastily meditation for affective prayer, or, prematurely, to leave this for mystical contemplation. The form of our prayer is an instrument of perfection, and every instrument should be proportioned to our size and our strength. No doubt we may desire and ask progress in prayer; but we should much more earnestly ask and desire progress in virtue; and, while waiting in humble patience for the divine invitation, the spouse should employ her time in healing her wounds and adorning herself with all virtues, to the end that, when the hour of the spiritual banquet comes, she may not be found unprovided with the nuptial garment.

We would also exhort our brethren not to lose courage, not to turn back, notwithstanding the difficulties, the aridities, the disgusts and other pains, which are wont to beset the man of prayer. Does it cost a warrior nothing to win glory, a labourer nothing to fertilise the soil, a merchant nothing to make a fortune? Should we then fear fatigue and sacrifice, when there is question of working the golden mine of prayer? “If there are many who begin well, there are but few who reach the term, and yet, perseverance alone shall be crowned, it alone shall receive the prize. There is no virtue to be had without trouble, great rewards are not to be obtained but by great labours.”

Above all, we wish in conclusion to remind our brethren, that prayer, whatever be its kind or degree, is not perfection ; it is only a most potent means, a wonderfully fertile soil; hence, we must labour to make it produce, both while it lasts and after it is ended, the rich harvest of virtue it promises. It is a tree, that should always bear an abundance of flowers and fruits. The various, and sometimes very intense, acts, which are made during it in great numbers, are fruits already garnered, merits really acquired ; but, moreover, we are instructed as to our duty, we have taken resolutions, our petitions have made grace abound, and all these are blossoms to be afterwards developed into fruits. The best prayer is not that which is most savoury, but that which is most fruitful; not that which consoles, but that which transforms us ; not that which elevates us in the common or the mystical ways, but that which makes us humble, detached, obedient, generous, faithful to all our duties. Assuredly, we highly esteem contemplation, provided, however, it unites our will to God’s, transforms our life, or, at least, advances us in virtue. As the Sovereign Judge has declared: ” the tree is known by its fruits.” We should, therefore, desire to advance in prayer, only in order to make progress in perfection. Instead of curiously examining what degree our communications with God have attained, we should rather consider whether we have derived from them all possible profit, in order to die to ourselves and  develop in our soul the Divine life.

 

THE END.

Die Wunder von Lourdes (Schott, 1887): III. Die Geheimnisvolle Dame

Die geheimnisvolle Dame

I.

 

Es war in der südlich gelegenen Gegend von Lourdes bald Frühjahrszeit, am 11. Februar 1858, doch war das Wetter kalt und trüb. Die Wolken standen unbeweglich am Himmel und kein Windhauch bewegte die Luft. Es war etwa 11 Uhr Vormittags und die arme Familie des Taglöhner Soubirous hatte kein Holz, um das Mittagsmahl zu kochen, während sonst in der Stadt die Lustbarkeiten des Carnevals, als am Donnerstag vor Aschermittwoch, gerade ihren Anfang nahmen. Es war aber auch der Tag, an welchem die Diöcese Tarbes, wozu Lourdes gehört, in ihrem Officium das Gedächtniß der heiligen Hirtin Genovefa, der Patronin Frankreichs, feierte.

„Geh’ Holz holen!“ sagte die Mutter zu ihrer zweiten Tochter Marie. Bernadette, welche wegen ihrer schwächlichen Gesundheit übergangen war, wollte aber auch gern mit und endlich erlaubte es die besorgte Mutter. Ein Nachbarmädchen, Jeanette mit Namen, schloß sich auch noch an und so machte sich die kleine Gesellschaft fröhlich auf den Weg zur Gave, wo es den Armen der Gemeinde erlaubt war, Baumzweige, Reiser oder Spähne, welche den Fluß herabtrieben und zwischen den Kieselsteinen hängen blieben, aufzusammeln. Nur hatte Bernadette auf Befehl der Mutter zum Schutz gegen die Witterung, vorher ihr „Capulet“, eine mantelartige Kopfhülle, die zugleich Hals und Schultern beschützt, anziehen müssen, sowie sie auch Strümpfe trug, während die andern Mädchen einfach barfuß in ihren Holzschuhen giengen.

Die Kinder giengen über die Brücke an das linke Ufer der Gave, dann durch die Mühle, die am Canal lag, und gelangten so auf die Insel, wo sie am Uferkies Holz lasen. Doch war die Ausbeute gering und so kamen sie bald bis zur Spitze der Insel hinab, während die schwächliche Bernadette etwas zurückblieb. Da standen sie nun der Felswand und der Grotte gerade gegenüber und bemerkten mit Freuden, daß drüben am Fuß des Felsens viel dürres Reisholz lag, welches der Wind hergeweht haben mochte. Nur der gewöhnlich sehr starke Mühlbach trennte sie von diesen herrlichen Schätzen; aber zum guten Glück diesmal war er gerade abgelassen und rieselte nur als seichtes Bächlein, leicht durchschreitbar, über die Kieselsteine. Flink und thätig, wie Martha im Evangelium, hatten die beiden Mädchen im Augenblick ihre Holzschuhe ausgezogen und waren schon drüben, als die nachfolgende Begleiterin wegen ihrer Schwächlichkeit erst am Ufer stand, indem sie ihr nur noch zuriefen, daß das Wasser „sehr kalt“ sei. Bernadette wagte es nicht recht, durch das kalte Wasser zu gehen, auch mußte sie erst ihre Strümpfe ausziehen und so zögerte sie eine Zeit lang, bis sie endlich sich anschickte, ihre Strümpfe abzulegen, an einen großen Sein sich anlehnend.

Dies war der merkwürdige Augenblick, als die nun folgende Wunderbegebenheiten eintraten.

 

II.

Bernadette vernahm plötzlich ein Geräusch, wie von starkem Windestoßen, sie richtete den Kopf empor: aber wie sonderbar! Die Pappeln am Mühlbach standen ganz ruhig und kein Lüftchen regte sich.

Sie wollte sich wieder an die Arbeit machen, indem sie verwundert zu sich selbst sagte: „ich muß mich geirrt haben“. Doch abermals erhob sich das geheimnisvolle Windesrauschen und schien sich diesmal in der Felsenhöhle zusammenzuziehen. Das Mädchen schaute auf, zum Felsen hinüber, aber welch’ ein Anblick! Es wollte einen Schrei ausstoßen, doch die Aufregung erstickte seine Stimme, bestürzt, sprachlos, überwältigt, sank es auf die Knie.

Gleichzeitig, es war gerade 12 Uhr, läutete es von den Kirchthürmen der Stadt und Umgegend zum englischen Gruß, zum „Ave Maria“.

 

III.

Die Erscheinung von Lourdes ist seitdem durch endlose gelehrte und schafsinnige Forschungen, durch unzählige scharfe Verhöre des Kindes und spitzfindige Kreuz- und Querfragen bis in alle Einzelheiten aufs Genaueste bekannt geworden. Lasserre, der ausgezeichnete Geschichtsschreiber dieser Ereignisse, durfte deßhalb gewiß mit vollem Recht sagen, daß er dadurch in den Stand gesetzt sei, „mit sicherer Hand sowohl die einzelnen Züge, als das überraschende Gesamtbild des erhabenen Wesens zu zeichnen, welches vor den Blicken der bestürzten und doch so glücklichen Bernadette stand“. Die wesentlichen Züge des unvergleichlichen Bildes, welches das Hirtenkind schaute, waren nach dessen unzählige Mal wiederholten Beschreibungen folgende:

In der oben beschriebenen Felsennische stand eine wunderschöne „Dame“, wie sich das Kind ausdrückte, so über alle Beschreibung schön, daß Nichts auf Erden sich damit vergleichen ließe, und sie war umstrahlt von einem ebenso unbeschreiblichen Lichtglanz, der aber nicht im Mindesten die Augen blendete, wie das Sonnenlicht, sonder im Gegentheil den Blick anzog und entzückte. Es war ein so ruhiges, liebliches und erquickendes Licht wie der Morgenstern. Diese wunderbare Frau hatte in ihrem Anblick auch durchaus gar nichts Unbestimmtes oder traumartig Verschwimmendes, sie stand vielmehr in voller klarer Wirklichkeit vor den Augen des Kindes, so unzweifelhaft und lebensvoll, wie jede andere leiblich dastehende Frau, nur durch die unvergleichliche Schönheit und den Strahlenkranz unterschieden.

Sie trug ein langes glänzendes weißes Gewand, mit einer azurblauen Schleife umgürtet, und einen weißen Schleier, der, Kopf und Schultern umhüllend, bis zur Erde herabwallte. Die unbedeckten Füße berührten leicht den Rosenstrauch und über jedem Fuß erschloß sich eine Rose von goldfarbenem Glanz, die „mystische Rose“.

In Antlitz und Gestalt lag die Harmonie aller Lebensalter. Ihre Schönheit hatte den Zauber der frischesten Jugend und doch zugleich einen Charakter von ewiger Dauer. Die vier Jahreszeiten des Menschenlebens vereinigten sich in diesen wunderbaren Zügen, so daß jedes Alter mit idealer Schönheit und Vollkommenheit sich ausdrückte und doch alle in dem Einen Bild harmonisch sich verschmolzen. Es lag darin die Unschuld und Einfalt des Kindes, die Anmuth und Reinheit der Jungfrau, die Milde und Reife der späteren Jahre und eine Würde und Weisheit des Alters, wie von Jahrhunderten. Die Form der Züge war die reinste Schönheit in ihrer Vollendung und ebenso hatte der Ausdruck dieser Züge eine ideale Vollkommenheit, welche sich mit Nichts auf Erden vergleichen ließ, weil es hier nichts Vollkommenes gibt. Wir fügen daher nur noch hinzu, daß die „fremde Dame“ blaue Augen hatte, aus denen eine unendliche Liebe und eine sanfte Milde sprach, wodurch das Herz eines Jeden, den dieser himmlische Blick traf, hätte verfließen müssen, und aß nicht minder eine unbeschreibliche Güte und ein beglückendes Wohlwollen von den liebliche Lippen lächelte, während auf der glänzenden Stirne eine erhabene Weisheit, eine vollkommene Heiligkeit ruhte, welche zugleich zur tiefsten Hingebung und Ehrerbietung hinzog.

Die Erscheinung hatte die Hände mit dem Ausdruck des innigsten Gebets über der Brust zusammengefaltet und sie hielt einen Rosenkranz mit milchweißen Perlen, die sich an goldener Kette reihten und mit einem Kreuz, leuchtend wie das Gold der Rosen, endigten. Doch ihre Lippen bewegten sich nicht. Die „Mutter der Christen“ mochte wohl im Herzen, wie die Berichterstattung beifügt, das ewige Echo des englischen Grußes und alle die zahllosen Gruße und Bitten auf Erden vernehmen, die sie vor dem göttlichen Throne darbrachte. Soeben läutete es ja auch in der ganzen Gegend zum Angelus.

Die kleine Bernadette war, wie gesagt, sofort wie zerschmettert auf die Kniee gesunken, als sie über der Höhle in der Nische die wunderbare Frau vor ihren Blicken stehen sah. Diese lächelte ihr aus der Mitte des Lichtglanzes lieblich zu und schien sie mit beiden Händen und dem Kopf, den sie gütig neigte, zu grüßen. Die Kleine in ihrem Schrecken wollte indessen, um sich zu schützen, das Kreuzzeichen machen, aber sie war zu aufgeregt und als sie die Hand zur Stirne führen wollte, fiel ihr der Arm wie gelähmt herab. Doch im nämlichen Augenblick nahm die wundersame Dame mit ihrer rechten Hand den Rosenkranz, der am linken Handgelenke hing, und machte mit dem goldenen Kreuz in großen Zügen das Zeichen der Erlösung, zugleich mit einem unaussprechlich sanften und gütigen Lächeln, welches dem Kinde zu sagen schien „thue wie ich!“ Jetzt gehorchte der Arm des Kindes, es machte voll Andacht das heilige Kreuzzeichen, nahm den Rosenkranz, den es aus der Tasche gezogen hatte, und betete. So verharrte das Mädchen unbeweglich, den entzückten Blick unverwandt zu der himmlischen Frau emporgerichtet, auf seinen Knieen.

Die beiden andern Mädchen, welche unterdessen, niedergebückt zur Erde, emsig dürres Holz auflasen, gewahrten nicht das Mindeste und bekümmerten sich auch nicht viel um ihre zurückgebliebene Begleiterin. Nur einmal blickte Marie über den Mühlkanal zurück und sah ihre Schwester daknieen, wobei sie auch die doppelte Bewegung ihres Armes und ihr bleiches Aussehen wahrnahm. „Da sieh’ einmal Bernadette,“ sagte sie zu Jeanette, „sie betet!“ „Welch’ ein Einfall“, erwiederte diese, „hierherzukommen, um zu beten! Doch laß sie machen, sie kann ja doch nichts als beten!“ Dieses Urtheil Jeanettens, welche freilich dürres Holz zu lesen verstand, war mustergültig oder klassisch in seiner art und so recht ein Beispiel von dem verkehrten Urtheil der Welt.

Bernadette kniete ungefähr eine Viertelstunde lang mit regungslosem Entzücken in den Anblick der überirdischen Erscheinung versunken. Die so schöne und sanfte geheimnisvolle Dame lächelte ihr freundlich zu und winkte ihr anmuthig mit dem Finger, sich zu nähern, doch das Kind wagte es nicht, sich zu bewegen und verharrte, immer betend, auf den Knieen. Endlich, als Bernadette die fünf Gesetze ihres Rosenkranzes eben mit dem „Ehre sei Gott“ vollendet hatte, da breitete die himmlische Frau die Arme aus, neigte sich lächelnd, wie zum Lebewohl … und Bernadette sah nichts mehr als den öden Felsen vor ihren Augen, den kahlen Rosenstrauch und die Höhle, wie gewöhnlich. Es war ihr zu Muth, wie wenn Jemand aus sonniger Himmelshöhe in dunkle düstere Tiefen herabgeworfen würde. Es war wohl Alles wie früher, aber die Wasser des Flusses schienen ihr dunkler, das Geräusch der Wellen härter, das Tageslicht matt und trübe und die ganze Landschaft öd und farblos. Die „Pforte des Himmels“, vor welcher sie bewundernd gekniet war, hatte sich wieder geschlossen.

Bernadette zog nun schleunigst ihre Schuhe aus, eilte über das Bächlein zu den Begleiterinnen und fragte dieselben mit noch ganz bewegter Stimme: „habt Ihr Nichts gesehen?“ Da aber diese Nichts wußten, so schwieg sie anfänglich und wollte ihnen Nichts sagen, bis sie endlich auf dem Heimweg, mit Fragen bestürmt, Alles erzählte.

Marie und Jeanette zweifelten nicht an der Wahrheit der außergewöhnlichen Begebenheit, welche sie vernahmen; denn die schuldlose Kinderseele ist noch von Natur aus gläubig, auch flößte ihnen der lebhafte Ton und der bewegte Ausdruck, womit Bernadette sprach, eine unwillkürliche Ehrfurcht ein. Aber es war zugleich eine gewisse Scheu und ein Schrecken damit verbunden, wie dies bei Begegnissen aus einer andern Welt natürlich und gewöhnlich ist. War ja auch Bernadette selbst, als sie Ueberirdisches gewahrte, im Anfang auf’s heftigste erschrocken!

Als aber die Kinder zur Mutter heimkamen und diese auch von der Sache hörte, wollte sie gar nicht so ohne weiteres daran glauben. Sie sagte, es sei Alles närrische Einbildung und Kinderei, fürchtete auch möglicherweise einen Spuck des bösen Feindes, der sich in solche Sache leicht einmischt, und verbot der Kleinen zur Grotte und zum Felsen von Massabielle zurückzukehren.

Dieses Verbot war für Bernadette sehr hart, und als beim Abendgebete ihre Lieblingsausrufung vorkam: „o Maria, ohne Sünd empfangen, bitt für uns,“ brach sie in Tränen aus. Das arme und niedere Hirtenkind hatte damals noch keine Ahnung davon, daß ihm die hohe Himmelskönigin selbst sich genaht hatte. Doch hatte sie schon keinen heißeren Wunsche mehr, als die „schöne Dame“, deren Anblick sie mit solchem Entzücken erfüllte, wiederzusehen.

 

IV.

Das himmlische Gesicht mit seiner unbeschreiblichen Lieblichkeit stand in den folgenden Tagen unverrückt vor der Seele Bernadettens und bildete den Inhalt ihrer Gespräche mit Marie, Jeanette und andern Kinder. Sie fühlte einen unwiderstehlichen Drang zur Rückkehr nach der Grotte, und wenn man ihr von andern schönen Damen sprach, die damals in Lourdes berühmt waren, ob eine von ihnen wohl jener gleiche, die sie gesehen habe, dann lächelte sie sanft und sagte: „keine von allen hat eine Aehnlichkeit, die Dame ist so schön, daß man sie unmöglich beschreiben kann“.

Endlich am folgenden Sonntag (14. Februar) gab Frau Soubirous den vereinigten Bitten der Kinder nach und erlaubte es Bernadette, wieder zum Felsen zu gehen. So machten sich denn die Mädchen, wieder um die Mittagszeit, voll Freuden auf den Weg. Es war diesmal ein wunderherrlicher Tag über der Alpenwelt der Pyrenäen aufgegangen.

Die anderen Mädchen konnten jedoch bei ihrem Unternehmen auch einiger Besorgniß sich nicht entschlagen. Sie meinten, die Erscheinung könne auch vielleicht auf einer bösen List des Teufels beruhen, und versahen sich vorsorglich mit Weihwasser, das sie im Vorbeigehen aus der Kirche mitnahmen. Da sie besser unterrichtet waren, als die unwissende Schäferin von Bartrès, so gaben sie ihr das Weihwasserfläschchen mit dem Bemerken in die Hand: „damit mußt Du die Erscheinung besprengen, wenn sie wieder kommt, und sagen: “wenn Du von Gott bist, so nähere Dich, wenn Du vom Teufel bist, so weiche!“ Bernadette versprach, es so zu halten.

Die kindliche Gesellschaft war nunmehr vor der Höhle und dem Felsen angelangt, aber es zeigte sich Nichts. „Wir wollen hinknieen und beten,“ sagte Bernadette. Die Mädchen knieten nieder und fiengen an den Rosenkranz zu beten.

Kaum begonnen, verklärten sich plötzlich die Züge Bernadette’s, ihre Augen erglänzten und hefteten sich mit einem Ausdruck von unendlichem Glück auf die Felsennische oberhalb der Grotte. „Da ist sie“, sagte sie voll inniger Freude.

Aber die Begleiterinnen sahen Nichts. Ihre Blicke waren nicht wunderbar von der irdischen Umhüllung gelöst, welche die Sterblichen hindert, verklärte Körper und himmlische Erscheinungen zu schauen. Doch aber sahen sie die wunderbare Verklärung, die wie ein Abglanz des Himmels auf dem Gesichte ihrer Begleiterin sich malte und zweifelten deshalb gar nicht an der Wahrheit der Erscheinung.

„O seht,“ fügte Bernadette jetzt bei, „seht, sie lächelt, sie grüßt“ …

Eines der Mädchen gab ihr wieder das Weihwasserfläschchen in die Hand. Sie faßte sich ein Herz, erhob sich von den Knieen, sprengte das Weihwasser und sagte wiederholt, mit lauter Stimme sprechend. „wenn Du von Gott bist, so nähere Dich!“ Aber, wie merkwürdig! Ihre Begleiterinnen hörten nicht das Mindeste, so laut sie auch sprach.

Bei den Worten des Kindes neigte sich die heilige Jungfrau mit einem Ausdruck von unbeschreiblichem Wohlwollen zu ihm nieder, und näherte sich bis zum Rande des Felsens. Sie schien über die Vorsichtsmaßregeln und Schutzwaffen der Kinder zu lächeln und bei dem geheiligten Namen Gottes strahlte ihr Antlitz in einem höheren Glanze von Verklärung.

Bernadette hätte nach der Anweisung der Kinder nun freilich auch den zweiten Theil ihrer einstudierten Anrede beifügen sollen: „wenn Du vom Teufel bist, so weiche!“ Aber diese Worte kamen ihr jetzt, in Gegenwart der wunderbaren Dame, ganz abscheulich vor, und sie vermochte sie nicht über die Lippen zu bringen. „Seht Ihr sie denn nicht?“ sagte sie wieder zu den Begleiterinnen, „sie schaut uns an … sie lächelt … sie wendet den Kopf … seht ihre Schleife, sie hat den Rosenkranz um den Arm gewunden … o sie ist so schön! Jetzt nimmt sie den Rosenkranz und macht das Kreuzzeichen.“

Da warf sich Bernadette wieder auf die Knie, machte ein großes Kreuz und verharrte unbeweglich im Gebet. Sie kniete sie da mit dem Rosenkranz in den gefalteten Händen, blaß, mit entfärbten Lippen, starren Blickes, mit emporgerichteten Augen und lag gestrecktem Körper, wie von einer höheren Macht sie in die Höhe gezogen, ihr sanftes Gesicht schien wie aus Wachs und sie war in diesem Zustand mit der Statue einer Heiligen zu vergleichen. Doch lächelte ihr Antlitz und Thränen rannen über ihre Wangen herab.

Als das Gebet beendigt war, verschwand wieder die Erscheinung, zum Abschied gütig sich neigend, gerade wie das vorigemal. Voll unendlicher Freude, mit tiefbewegtem Herzen begab sich Bernadette mit ihren Begleiterinnen auf den Heimweg.

Diese aber waren vor Furcht erfüllt. Sie hatten zwar nicht das überirdische Wesen selbst, wohl aber die offenbaren Wirkungen von dessen Anwesenheit wahrgenommen, indem sie Bernadette in dem außerordentlichen ekstatischen Zustand so starr und verklärt emporblicken sahen und von ihr gehört hatten, daß die wunderbare Dame wieder da sei. „Bernadette, wir fürchten uns,“ sagten sie, „wir wollen nicht mehr an diesen Ort zurückkehren, es könnte uns ein Leids geschehen.“ Alles, was über die Natur geht, erschreckt. Aehnlich sagten die Juden im alten Testament: „Entferne Dich, Herr, damit wir nicht sterben.“ Aehnlich wurden auch die Jünger des Herrn von Furcht befallen, als sie ihn wandelnd auf den Wassern des Meeres erblickten.

Die Wunder von Lourdes (Schott, 1887): I. Beschreibung des Gnadenortes

 Die Erscheinung der allerseligsten Jungfrau Maria bei Lourdes in Frankreich

 

Beschreibung des Gnadenortes

I.

Die kleine Stadt Lourdes, der Schauplatz der hier erzählten Begebenheiten, liegt im südwestlichen Frankreich, am Fuße der Pyrenäen, des schroffen Hochgebirges, welches Frankreich von Spanien scheidet. Ueber der Stadt, auf einem mächtigen Felsenvorsprung erhebt sich ein uraltes Schloß und an Stadt und Schloß fließt der Fluß der Gave vorüber.

Die ewige Weisheit scheint diesen Ort aus mehreren, in die Augen fallenden Gründen besonders erwählt zu haben, um gerade hier das außerordentliche Ereigniß, das wir berichten wollen, sich vollziehen zu lassen.

Scheinbar ganz abgelegen im fernen Pyrenäengebirge, war Stadt und Gegend von Lourdes doch schon im Jahr 1858, da das Wunder sich ereignete, der Mittelpunkt eines großartigen Verkehrs, ja man kann sagen Weltverkehrs, denn alle Straßen, welche zu den berühmten Pyrenäenbädern jener Gegend, nach Bagnères, Barèges, St. Sauveur, Cauteret führten, trafen hier zusammen, und die unzähligen Reisenden aus allen Ländern, die alljährlich in den Pyrenäen, ähnlich wie in der Schweiz, zusammenströmen, kamen daher vielfach auch nach Lourdes, wo man zur schönen Jahreszeit immer eine unendliche Menge von Kutschen, Post- und Stellwagen vor dem Gasthof „zur Post“ halten sah. So kam es, daß das erstaunliche Wunder gleichsam unter den Augen der Welt sich zutrug und durch die Tausende von Reisenden, meist großen Herren, auch gleich in aller Welt bekannt wurde.

Ein besonders glücklicher Umstand war es auch, daß es an einem Orte wie Lourdes gar nicht an Ungläubigen und Freigeistern fehlte, um das Wunder aufs Aeußerste zu bekämpfen und es durch die Vergeblichkeit ihres Ankämpfens desto heller ins licht zu stellen. Außer seinem lebhaften Fremdenverkehr hatte Lourdes überhaupt alles, was zum sogenannten „modernen Fortschritt“ gehört und in einem Städtchen, das in Kultur und Civilisation gehörig voran ist, nicht zu fehlen pflegt. Es hatte viele gebildete Leute, Beamte, Doktoren u. dgl. In seiner Mitte, einen Gerichtshof mit zahlreichem Personal, eine kleine Garnison, sieben Gensdarmen, worunter ein berittener, ein Gefängniß und ein Spital, gute Schulen, ein eigenes Lokalblatt von liberaler Richtung, auch fehlte es nicht an den großen Pariser Blättern, welche sowohl in den Cafés und Wirthschaften, als Privathäusern fleißig gelesen wurden. In einem solchen Städtchen, wenn es sonst auch religiös ist, giebt es doch immer viele glaubensfeindliche Elemente oder „fortgeschrittene“ und heller erleuchtete Leute, wie sie meinen, denen alles Wunderbare ein wahrer Gräuel ist und die alles, was auf Unsichtbares, Höheres hinweist, sofort als blinden Unsinn, Schwindel und Aberglauben erklären und nicht genug verwerfen können. Diese Gegner erhoben sich mit Macht, als das Wunder bekannt wurde, und es war wieder eine besondere Fügung Gottes, daß auch solche von der schärfsten und bedeutendsten Art darunter waren, welch Alles, was Menschenwitz vermag, was Geist und Wissen, List und Gewalt als Waffen in die Hand gaben, dagegen aufboten – und doch vergebens. So wirkten die Gegner wider Willen aus allen Kräften mit, daß das geheimnißvolle Ereigniß durch gehörige Untersuchung und Kritik auch die nothwendige Prüfung bestand und durch die gänzliche Ohnmacht alles Widerstands sich als wahres göttliches Wunder erwies, worin die unsichtbare Macht und höchste Vernunft, welche die Welt regiert, dem heute lebenden Menschengeschlecht sich offenbarte.

Ein leicht begreiflicher Grund, warum der Himmel diesen Ort so hoch begnadigen mochte, läßt sicht aber auch aus der besonderen Frömmigkeit entnehmen, wodurch das Volk von Lourdes und Umgegend vor vielen andern Theilen Frankreichs und der Christenheit sehr vortheilhaft sich auszeichnet. Abgesehen von jenen ungläubigen Elementen, die an einem Verkehrsmittelpunkt schon wegen des Zuzugs von auswärts nicht fehlen können, ist der Grundstock der dortigen Bevölkerung von Alters her gut christlich gesinnt und dem heiligen katholischen Glauben treu ergeben. Natürliche Eigenschaften des Volkscharakters sind lebhaftes, südliches Temperament – und wie gewöhnlich bei Gebirgsvölkern – Geradsinn und Offenheit, Anhänglichkeit an die alten Sitten und heller, gesunder versand, der schon in den 50er Jahren durch gründlichen und allgemeinen Schulunterricht, wie damals noch selten in Franreich, unterstützt und gehoben wurde. Auf diesem günstigen Boden entwickelten sich in seltener Fülle auch die höheren Tugenden des Christenthums, wie lebendiger Glaube an Gott und die himmlischen Dinge, hohe Sittenreinheit, Bruderliebe und frommes christliches Leben in allen Beziehungen. Mit „wenigen Ausnahmen,“ sagt ein französischer Schriftsteller (Lagreze) gehört die ganze Einwohnerschaft von Lourdes den frommen Genossenschaften an. Die Handwerker und Tagarbeiter, welche in einer Bruderschaft vereinigt sind, stellen sich unter den Schutz eines himmlischen Patrons und helfen einander durch Werke christlicher Nächstenliebe. So besteht die Bruderschaft „von unserer lieben Frau der Gnaden“ aus Bauern, die der heiligen Anna aus Schreinern, die der heiligen Lucia aus Schneidern, die von der Himmelfahrt aus Steinbrechern u.s.w. Solche sociale Organisationen bestehen in Lourdes schon seit vielen Jahrhunderten, noch aus dem Mittelalter her, und sie sind gewiß auch in zeitlicher Hinsicht die größte Wohlthat für eine Bevölkerung, indem dadurch nicht nur Nächstenliebe und Christenthum, Frohsinn und Gemüthlichkeit befördert und gehoben, sonder auch Vertrauen und Credit, Ruhe und Sicherheit der Existenz, flotte Arbeit und solider Lebenserwerb begründet wird.

Eine dieser Genossenschaften, wie sie in Lourdes bestehen, hat außerdem für das Verständniß des Wunders ihre ganz besondere Bedeutung. Es ist die Congregation der erwachsenen Mädchen oder Jungfrauen, deren Mitglieder die „Marienkinder“ genannt werden. Sie ist ebenfalls, doch nur in geistiger Hinsicht, ein Unterstützungsverein, indem die Mitglieder sich gegenseitig verpflichten, solche weltliche Lustbarkeiten, durch welche der fromme Sinn leicht verloren gienge, zu meiden, niemals übertriebenen Moden zu huldigen und die sonntäglichen Versammlungen regelmäßig zu besuchen. Schon als Schulkinder sprechen die Mädchen mit Freude von ihrem dereinstigen Eintritt in diese Genossenschaft und die Aufnahme gilt als hohe Ehre, die Abweisung oder Ausschließung als ebenso große Schande; auch geht es mit der Aufnahme nicht so leicht, eine schon erprobte Tugend ist Vorbedingung, und ebenso muß man dieselbe als Mitglied auch bewahren. Wie unendlich viel Gutes durch eine solche Genossenschaft bewirkt wird, welche Reinheit und Frische der Jugend, welches Familienglück und Gedeihen in der Ehe, welches Wohlergehen und welche Moralität überhaupt in der ganzen Bevölkerung, das läßt sich nicht berechnen, doch leicht begreifen.

Auch ist die ganze Gegend von Lourdes, wie die Marienkinder dem Dienste der heiligen Jungfrau mit besonderer Anhänglichkeit und Verehrung zugethan. Zahlreiche Kirchen und Kapellen im Gebirge umher geben davon Zeugniß und auch sämmtliche Altäre in der Stadt sind ihr geweiht.

Ferner muß man annehmen, daß diese besondere Marienverehrung auch nicht von ungefähr vorhanden, sondern in der geschichtlichen Vergangenheit der Gegend begründet ist. In der That hat sich auch noch eine uralte Ueberlieferung erhalten, welche auf einen tiefen Hintergrund in der Vergangenheit zurückweist und von einem wunderbaren Vorgang aus ferner Vorzeit berichtet, wodurch auch auf die neuesten Begebenheiten ein bedeutsames Licht fällt. Als nämlich Kaiser Karl der Große, so erzählt diese Ueberlieferung, vor mehr als tausend Jahren gegen die ungläubigen (muhamedanischen) Mauren über die Pyrenäen nach Spanien zog, da vermochte er das allzustarke Felsenschloß von Lourdes, ungeachtete aller Tapferkeit der christlichen Heerscharen, nicht in seine Gewalt bringen. Die ganze Kriegsmacht des gewaltigen Kaisers, vor dessen siegreichen Waffen es sonst keinen Widerstand gab, erlahmte an dem unbezwinglichen Felsen der die Pyrenäen sperrte, und endlich wollte der Kaiser unverrichteter Sache, die Belagerung aufgeben. Doch gerade im letzten Augenblick, als alle menschlichen Machtmittel sich erschöpft hatten und die Belagerer eben abziehen wollten, geschah etwas höchst Wunderbares, in dessen Folge die uneinnehmbare Veste ganz von selbst in die Hand des Kaisers kam: Der tapfere maurische Befehlshaber, der dieselbe so erfolgreich vertheidigt hatte, des Namens Mirat, bekehrte sich, durch ein Zeichen vom Himmel gerührt, plötzlich zum Christenglauben, übergab das Schloß und weihte sich als christlicher Ritter mit der ganzen Grafschaft dem Dienste der heiligen Jungfrau.

Mit diesem geschichtlichen Charakter der Gegend, als von alten Zeiten her der „Königin der Jungfrauen“ geweiht, vereinigt sich endlich die wunderbare Schönheit der Natur in dem Gebirge umher, wodurch sich das menschliche Herz auch ohne weiteren Anlaß zum Lobe Gottes und der Schönheit Mariens erhoben fühlen muß. Es ist ja überhaupt eine bedeutungsvolle Wahrnehmung, daß auch die Natur an Wallfahrtsorten durch besondere Anmuth in der Anbetung Gottes, des Schöpfers, mitzuwirken pflegt; hier aber bei Lourdes scheinen sich alle Arten von Naturschönheit zum Preise des Allerhöchsten und Maria’s, des höchsten seiner Geschöpfe, in harmonischer Vereinigung zusammenzufinden. Die Landschaftsbilder sind wechselnd und mannigfaltig, bald wildromantisch und großartig, bald freundlich und anmuthig, hier lachende Thäler, reiche Fluren und liebliche Wiesengründe, oder weite Fernsichten in das fruchtbare Frankreich hinab, dort wieder dunkle Wälder, mächtige Felsen und himmelhohe Berge theilweise mit ewigem Schnee bedeckt, von denen die wasserreichen Ströme niederrauchen, wie z. B. die Gave, deren Ufer die Gnadenstelle, wo die Jungfrau erschien, nunmehr zum Besuche einladet.

Wir wollen uns dieselbe, zum besseren Verständniß des Wunders, zunächst genau ansehen.

 

II.

Die Stätte der Erscheinung war ein wilder und rauher Felsen, Massabielle genannt, der am Ufer der Gave emporsteigt und in seinem Innern eine ziemlich geräumige Höhle besitzt. Obgleich nur in geringer Entfernung unterhalb der Stadt Lourdes gelegen, gab es doch im Jahr 1858 in der ganzen Umgegend des so belebten Städtchens kaum einen einsameren und öderen Ort, als diesen schwer zugänglichen Felsen und die Höhle, über die er sich wölbt. Denn er war durch den Fluß und überdies durch den Mühlkanal, der hart an ihm vorüberströmte, von allem Verkehr abgeschnitten, während auf der Rückseite schroffe Felsenhöhen, mit wilden Gestrüpp bewachsen, den Zutritt überaus schwierig und mühselig machten. Weiter hinab am Flußufer dienten die öden Abhänge, welche Stadteigenthum waren, zuweilen als Weideplatz für Schweine und Hirten, wie auch die Fischer, die hier herum ihr Handwerk trieben, flüchteten gern in die Höhle, wenn sie vom Regen überrascht wurden.

Auf dem gegenüberliegenden Ufer breitete sich eine Wiese aus, die eine langgestreckte Insel, das „Chalet“ genannt, zwischen dem Fluß und Mühlkanal bildete. Letzterer vereinigte sich wenige Schritte unterhalb wieder mit dem Fluß, so daß Felsen und Höhle gerade am Vereinigungspunkt und der unteren Inselspitze gegenüber lagen.

Die Höhle selbst zeigte eine ganz eigenthümliche Gestaltung. Es waren scheinbar drei Höhlen von ungleicher Größe, welche in dem unteren Theil der schroffen Felsenmassen, übereinander liegend, sich öffneten, doch aber im Innern, etwa wie die Löcher eines Schwammes, miteinander zusammenhingen. Die erste und Haupthöhle öffnete sich zu ebener Erde und hatte die Form eines Backofens, der jedoch in der Mitte senkrecht durchschnitten, nur eine halbe Wölbung bildete, und sich ungefähr 4 Meter hoch, 12-15 breit und ebenso lang in den Felsen hineinzog. Vom Eingang betrachtet, senkte sich der Felsen dachförmig nach dem Hintergrund. Ueber dem Eingang dieser Haupthöhle, etwas rechts, befanden sich die Nebenöffnungen, die von dem Hintergrund nach oben sich abzweigten und an der Außenseite als besondere Höhlen hervortraten. Die größere, die bald die höchste Bedeutung in der Erzählung gewinnen wird, hatte von außen gesehen eine ovale, nischenartige Form, wie ein an den Ecken abgerundetes Fenster, und theilte sich wieder nach innen, so daß die eine Höhlung sich zur Haupthöhle nach unten senkte, während die andere sich nach oben wand und als dritte Oeffnung ans Licht trat. Diese letztere hatte nur die Bedeutung, daß sie dazu beitrug, die ganze Nebenhöhle in allen ihren Theilen vollkommen zu erleuchten.

Ein wilder Rosenstrauch, einer Felsenritze entsprossen, breitete seine herabhängenden Zweige vor der zweiten nischenförmigen Oeffnung aus.

Wer solche Felsengewölbe schon gesehen hat, wird sich leicht denken können, wie es im Innern der Höhle aussah. Der staubige Boden zeigte nur Dürre und Trockenheit, ebenso die Wände, und nur an der Wetterseite, wo Westwind und Regen von außenher an die Felsen schlugen, wurde die Wand, rechts vom Eingang, bei anhaltendem Regenwetter etwas feucht, wie es in solchem Fall ganz natürlich ist. Aber gerade dadurch wurde die sonst vollständige Trockenheit der ganzen Grotte nur noch mehr hervorgehoben.

Ueber den Höhlen stiegen die Felsenmassen von Massabielle, fast senkrecht, noch hoch empor, und überall, wo nur der geringste Schutz, die kleinste Fuge es gestattete, hatte der todten Stadt Leben genommen, mit lebendiger Pflanzenwelt sich bedeckt, und mit Moos und Gras, Kräutern und Blumen, Büschen und Bäumen aufs Mannigfaltigste sich bekleidet. Das Gestein selbst bestand aus Granit und Marmor, die man als besondere Beispiele von Härte und Kälte unter den Steinen gewöhnlich anzuführen pflegt. So gewährte dieser Fels, wo die himmlische Erscheinung stattfand, ein anschauliches Bild von der Härte und Kälte der Menschen, die dem Glauben an Göttliches, der Liebe zum Himmlischen so abgewand sind und dem übernatürlichen Leben in ihrem Herzen nur so spärlich und kärglich Raum gewähren, während doch überall, in jeder Fuge, wo es nur sein kann, die göttliche Gnade herzubringt, Leben entfaltet und Früchte bringt. Ueberhaupt muß man wohl beachten, daß auch die Natur und die ganze äußere Umgebung, die mit dem Wunder in Beziehung stand, eine bildliche oder symbolische Bedeutung hatte, wie dies bei allen heiligen Begebenheiten, auch bei denen der heiligen Schrift, gewöhnliche Regel und in der mystischen Wissenschaft allgemeine Lehre ist. Auch aus diesem Grunde, wie wegen der klaren Anschaulichkeit mußten die äußeren Oertlichkeiten aufs Genaueste beschrieben werden.

Jesus teaches us how to pray

Paragraphs 2607 to 2622 from the Catechism of the Catholic Church

Jesus teaches us how to pray

2607 When Jesus prays he is already teaching us how to pray. His prayer to his Father is the theological path (the path of faith, hope, and charity) of our prayer to God. But the Gospel also gives us Jesus’ explicit teaching on prayer. Like a wise teacher he takes hold of us where we are and leads us progressively toward the Father. Addressing the crowds following him, Jesus builds on what they already know of prayer from the Old Covenant and opens to them the newness of the coming Kingdom. Then he reveals this newness to them in parables. Finally, he will speak openly of the Father and the Holy Spirit to his disciples who will be the teachers of prayer in his Church.

2608 From the Sermon on the Mount onwards, Jesus insists on conversion of heart: reconciliation with one’s brother before presenting an offering on the altar, love of enemies, and prayer for persecutors, prayer to the Father in secret, not heaping up empty phrases, prayerful forgiveness from the depths of the heart, purity of heart, and seeking the Kingdom before all else.⁶⁴ This filial conversion is entirely directed to the Father.

2609 Once committed to conversion, the heart learns to pray in faith. Faith is a filial adherence to God beyond what we feel and understand. It is possible because the beloved Son gives us access to the Father. He can ask us to “seek” and to “knock,” since he himself is the door and the way.⁶⁵

2610 Just as Jesus prays to the Father and gives thanks before receiving his gifts, so he teaches us filial boldness: “Whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you receive it, and you will.”⁶⁶ Such is the power of prayer and of faith that does not doubt: “all things are possible to him who believes.”⁶⁷ Jesus is as saddened by the “lack of faith” of his own neighbors and the “little faith” of his own disciples⁶⁸ as he is struck with admiration at the great faith of the Roman centurion and the Canaanite woman.⁶⁹

2611  The prayer of faith consists not only in saying “Lord, Lord,” but in disposing the heart to do the will of the Father.⁷⁰ Jesus calls his disciples to bring into their prayer this concern for cooperating with the divine plan.⁷¹

2612 In Jesus “the Kingdom of God is at hand.”⁷² He calls his hearers to conversion and faith, but also to watchfulness. In prayer the disciple keeps watch, attentive to Him Who Is and Him Who Comes, in memory of his first coming in the lowliness of the flesh, and in the hope of his second coming in glory.⁷³ In communion with their Master, the disciples’ prayer is a battle; only by keeping watch in prayer can one avoid falling into temptation.⁷⁴

2613  Three principal parables on prayer are transmitted to us by St. Luke:

- The first, “the importunate friend,”⁷⁵ invites us to urgent prayer: “Knock, and it will be opened to you.” To the one who prays like this, the heavenly Father will “give whatever he needs,” and above all the Holy Spirit who contains all gifts.

- The second, “the importunate widow,”⁷⁶ is centered on one of the qualities of prayer: it is necessary to pray always without ceasing and with the patience of faith. “And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

- The third parable, “the Pharisee and the tax collector,”⁷⁷ concerns the humility of the heart that prays. “God, be merciful to me a sinner!” The Church continues to make this prayer its own: Kyrie eleison!

2614 When Jesus openly entrusts to his disciples the mystery of prayer to the Father, he reveals to them what their prayer and ours must be, once he has returned to the Father in his glorified humanity. What is new is to “ask in his name.”⁷⁸ Faith in the Son introduces the disciples into the knowledge of the Father, because Jesus is “the way, and the truth, and the life.”⁷⁹ Faith bears its fruit in love: it means keeping the word and the commandments of Jesus, it means abiding with him in the Father who, in him, so loves us that he abides with us. In this new covenant the certitude that our petitions will be heard is founded on the prayer of Jesus.⁸⁰

2615  Even more, what the Father gives us when our prayer is united with that of Jesus is “another Counselor, to be with you for ever, even the Spirit of truth.”⁸¹ This new dimension of prayer and of its circumstances is displayed throughout the farewell discourse.⁸² In the Holy Spirit, Christian prayer is a communion of love with the Father, not only through Christ but also in him: “Hitherto you have asked nothing in my name; ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.”⁸³

Jesus hears our prayer

2616  Prayer to Jesus is answered by him already during his ministry, through signs that anticipate the power of his death and Resurrection: Jesus hears the prayer of faith, expressed in words (the leper, Jairus, the Canaanite woman, the good thief)⁸⁴ or in silence (the bearers of the paralytic, the woman with a hemorrhage who touches his clothes, the tears and ointment of the sinful woman).⁸⁵ The urgent request of the blind men, “Have mercy on us, Son of David” or “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” has-been renewed in the traditional prayer to Jesus known as the Jesus Prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner!”⁸⁶ Healing infirmities or forgiving sins, Jesus always responds to a prayer offered in faith: “Your faith has made you well; go in peace.”

 

St. Augustine wonderfully summarizes the three dimensions of Jesus’ prayer: “He prays for us as our priest, prays in us as our Head, and is prayed to by us as our God. Therefore let us acknowledge our voice in him and his in us.”⁸⁷

The prayer of the Virgin Mary

2617  Mary’s prayer is revealed to us at the dawning of the fullness of time. Before the incarnation of the Son of God, and before the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, her prayer cooperates in a unique way with the Father’s plan of loving kindness: at the Annunciation, for Christ’s conception; at Pentecost, for the formation of the Church, his Body.⁸⁸ In the faith of his humble handmaid, the Gift of God found the acceptance he had awaited from the beginning of time. She whom the Almighty made “full of grace” responds by offering her whole being: “Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be [done] to me according to your word.” “Fiat“: this is Christian prayer: to be wholly God’s, because he is wholly ours.

2618  The Gospel reveals to us how Mary prays and intercedes in faith. At Cana,⁸⁹ the mother of Jesus asks her son for the needs of a wedding feast; this is the sign of another feast – that of the wedding of the Lamb where he gives his body and blood at the request of the Church, his Bride. It is at the hour of the New Covenant, at the foot of the cross,⁹⁰ that Mary is heard as the Woman, the new Eve, the true “Mother of all the living.”

2619  That is why the Canticle of Mary,⁹¹ the Magnificat (Latin) or Megalynei (Byzantine) is the song both of the Mother of God and of the Church; the song of the Daughter of Zion and of the new People of God; the song of thanksgiving for the fullness of graces poured out in the economy of salvation and the song of the “poor” whose hope is met by the fulfillment of the promises made to our ancestors, “to Abraham and to his posterity for ever.”

IN BRIEF

2620 Jesus’ filial prayer is the perfect model of prayer in the New Testament. Often done in solitude and in secret, the prayer of Jesus involves a loving adherence to the will of the Father even to the Cross and an absolute confidence in being heard.

2621 In his teaching, Jesus teaches his disciples to pray with a purified heart, with lively and persevering faith, with filial boldness. He calls them to vigilance and invites them to present their petitions to God in his name. Jesus Christ himself answers prayers addressed to him.

2622 The prayers of the Virgin Mary, in her Fiat and Magnificat, are characterized by the generous offering of her whole being in faith.

 

 Original link with referenced footnotes at: http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p4s1c1a2.htm

The Unfolding of the Little Flower: chapter IX “The First Espousals”

CHAPTER IX

THE FIRST ESPOUSALS

It was during this season of peace our Lord first visited the heart of His little spouse in the Holy Communion. Seldom had any of God’s saints in infancy gone through such a searching preparation. In considering the normal, but extraordinarily precocious stages of union with God in the still in many ways almost baby mind of Theresa, it is well thus early to give some indication of the type of perfection we shall find later on in her. Star differeth from star in glory, and in a similar manner do God’s saints. In each different temperament, diverse graces of vocation combine to produce a different type of sanctity. Some are active, others contemplative some work miracles others accomplish marvellous works of charity others are made use of to show forth to men wonderful mystical signs, such as ecstacies, bilocation, and the stigmata. All these things one and the same Lord worketh, dividing to each one according as He will.

Another class of saints stands apart, remarkable only for its want of singularity : Our Blessed Lady may be looked upon as its type and exemplar. They are often the hidden Saints, the saints of the common, everyday life the saints, the beauty of whose lives brings down many an unsuspected blessing and mercy on a faithless world ; the saints whose sanctity would remain unknown till the last day but for some chance undesigned lifting of the veil, as in the case of the subject of our biography. We owe much, therefore, to the wise Mother Prioress who put Sister Theresa under obedience to write the story of her life ” much, had she not spoken, would have been dumb ; not dead, but living voiceless” known only to God.

Father Faber, in a striking passage, speaks of the life of every human soul, no matter how undistinguished, as having in it the material of an epic poem, or, as another has it, ” a mystic unfathomable song,” and enlarging later on this thought he loves to dwell on the idea that all the entrancing beauty of earth, of mountain, valley, wood and water, all slumbering peacefully in the glorious sunshine, is as nothing to the ineffable unimaginable beauty of one simple soul peacefully serving God in humility and singleness of heart.

But for her providential revelation of herself Sister Theresa would have been one of those ordinary hidden saints, leading most perfectly the ordinary everyday life of faith in the loving performance of ordinary everyday duties. As we follow her life year by year, we are to expect no accounts of visions, ecstacies, miracles or other extraordinary favours. To the end she will live out her life on the beaten track of faith and enjoy the beatitude of those who have not seen, yet have believed. There is equality of opportunity for all in the service of God no great conspicuous deeds are necessary in order to attain great sanctity. A great leader of God s people like Moses, who lives in an atmosphere of great events, working miracles daily, instituting covenants and priesthoods, and ruling God s people, may, in the performance of these great deeds, be found wanting through slight imperfections as compared with the little soul who does little deeds perfectly.

It is, therefore, as St. Paul says, not a case of one favoured soul bearing away the crown, but the prize is open to all, without reference to the course, whatever the struggle, whatever the test may be. It is open to all to be “a faithful, unconquerable one that is the question of questions.” And when a life of simple everyday duties has thus been spent consistently, unremittingly, seeking God alone, continually making such little sacrifices as the opportunities of such a life may afford, such a life in its ” free flowing outlines, grand in the sincerity of its simplicity, in its epic melody,” may well seem modelled on the flawless perfection of her the stainless, sinless one, whose hidden life of peerless holiness was spent in the perfect accomplishment of the daily round.

Nor must we be led away into expecting that such faithfulness in trifles would carry with it any visible striking aureola of sanctity. The trial of the Pharisees faith was that our blessed Lord s look was as one hidden and despised. Our Lady s unique sanctity, her exemption from the stain of the slightest venial sin, was also a hidden sanctity. By the age of ten we have seen what searching trials have already been doing their work in Theresa s soul, but externally she is in so many ways so perfectly natural, and one might say normally babyish, that it is possible that those who were nearest to her may have had no suspicion of the great work already in progress in her soul. So later, when in her sublime humility she speaks of herself as not being fitted for great holiness, of only being able to follow ” a little way ” of her own, suited to little childlike souls ; when we read of all the graciousness and charm that accompanied and disguised the completeness of her surrender of herself to God, we must be on our guard not to be misled by her humility and sweet spontaneous ways, and in estimating her sanctity we must carefully weigh the evidence of disclosures she often makes unconsciously as to the extraordinary nature of her apparently all but complete correspondence with the inspirations of grace. We must never dismiss from our thoughts the unconscious obiter dictum that dropped from her during her last days on earth that from the age of three, she had never con sciously refused our Lord anything He had asked of her. Now at the age of ten she has been leading such a life of surrender for seven long years. Never did she relax until her ” little barque came safely into port.” Other saints, great saints, may have had their seasons of relaxation they may have said with St. John the Apostle, as a pretty tradition has it ” that the bow cannot always remain bent.” Not so with Theresa. Nothing is too trifling for her, nothing too small, she grinds fine, she never seems to relax her vigilance, but is ever on the watch, transmuting all the small opportunities of life into the finest gold, minting money as Father Faber so aptly puts it in ” All for Jesus.” Thus does she express her resolve : “I will let no tiny sacrifice pass, no look, no word. I wish to profit by the smallest actions and to do them for love.” Here we have no ordinary character ; the soul shows its metal in little things just as in great ones ” La force qui n’est pas le bruit, pas le bavardage, pas le defi, mais l’acte simple, accompli pour realiser un ideal ” ” Force of character which does not consist in making a stir, nor in bluster nor defiance, but just in doing a thing, and doing it in order to realise an ideal.”

It was during this period of comparative peace and freedom from trial, that our divine Lord came to the soul of His little spouse for the first time. Theresa made her First Communion in the Chapel of her school, the ” Abbaye,” the Benedictine Convent, on May 8th (St. Michael’s day), 1884, a year all but two days after the cure of her mysterious illness by our Lady’s smile. She was confirmed five weeks later on June 14th, 1884. Three months were also spent by her as a boarder at the Benedictine Convent, in preparation for her Communion, but the main preparation of her soul by our Lord had already been accomplished by the trials she had gone through. Her soul was like the little snowdrop that flowers in the midst of the storms and snows of winter. Her sisters provided her with pictures and books, and besides these, she was already beginning to receive the interior intellectual illuminations that were to enable her, guided by the light of faith, to walk in the way of perfection so surely and with so little danger of self-deception. Much must have gone before, to enable this baby of ten years of age to grasp such words as the following : ” About this time I received what I looked upon as one of the greatest graces of my life, for at that age, I was not favoured with lights from on high as I am now. Our L,ord made me understand that the only true glory is that which will last for ever ; and that to attain it there is no necessity to do brilliant deeds, but rather, to hide from the eyes of others, and even from oneself, so that the left hand knows not what the right hand does. (Math. vi. 3.) Pondering then the thought that I was born for glory, and seeking the means to attain it, it was made known to me interiorly that my glory would never be visible before the yes of men, but that it would consist in becoming a Saint ” and she goes on to say later ” This aspiration may very well appear rash seeing how imperfect I was, and am still, after so many years spent in holy religion, still all the same I ever feel the same daring confidence of becoming one day a great Saint.” She also adds in her reminiscences of this period of her childhood “At that time I did not think it was necessary to suffer a great deal, in order to attain sanctity ; but God very soon disclosed this secret to me by means of the trials I have mentioned above.”

Little Theresa was also taken away by her father for a holiday after her recovery. In the midst of friends and pleasant surroundings her bright nature realised all the attractiveness of life as led by good Catholics in easy circumstances, but already the little baby, as she seemed, was counting up how many years at the best such happiness could be expected to last for ; she was wondering whether delightful homes and beautifully laid out grounds would be any great comfort at the hour of death, and there and then made her ” great refusal.” The memory of her own dear mother s death was still the beacon beckoning her onward, and young as she was effectually saved her from illusions. ” After all,” she muses later, ” perhaps our Lord wished me to gain know ledge of the world before He paid His first visit to my soul ; so as to let me choose more surely the way which I was to promise Him to follow.”

These illuminations, coming down from the Father of lights, were reinforced by the tender loving example and exhortations of her eldest sister and godmother, Marie. Nothing can be more touching and, to our insular minds, quaintly spontaneous, than the way in which the elder sisters of this saintly family with a wisdom and discretion beyond their years, taking up their mother’s mantle, set about the training in perfection of their little sister.

In describing this delightful season of calm preparation Sister Theresa tells us ” Then too I had Marie, who took Pauline’s place. Every evening I stayed a long time with her, listening eagerly to all she said. What touching things she told me ! I seem to feel that all that was noble and generous in her character was infused into my soul by her. As the warriors of old trained their children in the profession of arms, so she trained me for the battle of life, by rousing my ardour and by pointing to the victor’s glorious palm. She spoke too of the imperishable riches which are so easy to amass each day, and of the pity of trampling them underfoot, when as it were, one has but only to stoop and gather them. Oh, how eloquent my beloved sister was ! I would have given anything not to be the only one to listen to her earnest teach ing, for in my simplicity I believed that if the greatest sinners only heard her, they would be converted, and that putting aside the perishable riches of this world, they would seek only the riches of heaven.”

Marie, it seems at this period thought her little charge not yet suited for mental prayer and so, only let her say vocal prayers. The little one, in all ignorance, would often get away on holidays when she was not required, and finding a corner of the room would shut herself in with bedcurtains so as to indulge in the luxury of quiet thinking. One of the teachers at the Abbey felt curious when she heard of this novel way of spending a half holiday. ” What do you think about ? ” said the good Sister, laughingly. The reply surprised her, ” I think about God, about the shortness of life and about eternity ; I just think.” Without knowing it, as she recognised later, it was her divine Master Himself Who was. instructing her in mental prayer.

Coming to her immediate preparation in this spirit, her stay at the Benedictine Convent was a period of very great joy, and Sister Theresa ever afterwards recurred with the greatest pleasure and gratitude to this time of quiet waiting. Her First Communion day, on May 8th, was a double feast, as the same day was also fixed for the end of her sister Pauline’s noviciate and the taking of her vows.

As can be well understood, Sister Theresa, so full of detail about the more trifling incidents of her life, and their effect upon her, can find very little to say about her First Communion. She was writing, it was true, under obedience, and so had to describe as best she could, but in the writing she felt that words were but imperfect instruments to express deep feeling. She can only say it was recognition and union. From the dawn of thought her mind had been full of Him, and He had been making Him self known to her so His sacramental coming had no strangeness for her it was but a recognition and the mystical union was such that she seemed to lose herself in it. We were no longer two, Theresa had disappeared like a drop of water lost in the immensity of the ocean ; Jesus alone remained. He was the Master and the King. Had not Theresa asked Him to take away her liberty which frightened her. She felt herself so weak and frail, that she wished for ever to be united to the divine strength.” This joy of union became so intense and overpowering that the little one burst into tears. It was put down by her companions first to scruples of conscience, then to regret that she had neither her mother or favourite sister to be present and witness her making her First Communion. But they little knew ; Theresa had gone through so much, that she was already beyond all that. In fact, knowing her dead mother was completely united to our Lord she felt that her own union with the same Lord and Master was the end of their separation. After her Communion she went home to a little family feast after first paying a visit to her newly-professed sister at the Carmel. Their happiness was perfect, she says, and nothing spoilt the perfection of the day nor troubled the peace of her soul. It is, however, a pathetic little face that looks out upon us from her photograph taken on the occasion, and underneath all the winsomeness of childhood we can detect the tracings of the heavy bufferings she has come through, and we must ever bear in mind that she was still in the second sad period of her life that began on her mother’s funeral day. ” It was the most sorrowful period of my life, especially after Pauline, my second mother entered the Carmel; and it lasted from the time I was four years old until I was fourteen, when I recovered much of my childish buoyance, while at the same time entering more fully into the serious side of life.”

Theresa’s Confirmation which took place about a month later, was also a day of chastened and spiritual joy. Even though she had only just completed a three months retreat before her Communion, she once more went into retreat, and was rewarded, as all such preparations for God’s graces are always rewarded, by a sensible feeling of God the Sanctifier, not as the mighty wind of Pentecost, but as the gentle breeze which the prophet Elias felt on Horeb, together with the special gift of fortitude in suffering ” a gift I needed sorely, for the martyrdom of my soul was soon to begin.”

Theresa made her second Communion, kneeling at the rails between her father and her sister Marie on Ascension Day, 1884, During her retreat before this second Communion, she fell a victim to the severe attack of scruples that persisted for two years. All her thoughts and actions were a source of trouble and anguish to her. She would gain temporary relief by going with her troubles to her sister Marie, but as soon as one difficulty was laid, another one sprung up in its place and the martyrdom began again.

Otherwise no notable development took place in the little one s mind after her First Communion. She went back to her school life with its tasks, its interests, and its friendships. As was only natural with her ardent affectionate character, she ideal ised two little school-friends of her own age. But in the case of one of them who had to leave school for a few months, she found this short absence was sufficient to make her indifferent to Theresa s advances on her return. Strangely enough too, possibly owing to the suffering she had gone through leaving its mark upon her character, or through an instinctive perception of her early sanctity, none of the nuns seem to have made a pet of Theresa. At the time she felt this, but later she recognised it as a mark of special pro tection, as with her affectionate temperament she felt she might very easily have fallen a victim to human affections and have been unable later to “fly away and be at rest” (Ps. liv. 7.) She still loved personal adornment, and at the age of twelve and a half, during a holiday at Trouville with her aunt, she remembered later the pleasure she took in tying some pale blue ribbon in her hair, though once she had done so, it became the subject matter of a fresh scruple that was only laid by going to Confession. She also for a change, wished to secure some sympathy for her headaches which still recurred every day, so she tried to imitate the tactics of her little cousin who secured much sympathy whenever she had such an attack. Alas, for poor Theresa, such complaining not being in her line no one would believe her. Every one was convinced it was a fresh scruple of conscience that was tormenting her. She was chidden for her want of frankness and adjured to tell the truth and shame the devil so poor little Theresa there and then gave up seeking for human sympathy any more than for human affection.

Her scruples, however, were so serious that her health was seriously injured and though a bright successful little student at school she had to be taken home when she was thirteen and given private lessons. A little later, in order to be enrolled amongst the Children of Mary she was able to go back to the Convent twice a week, but this was a strain. No one seems to have taken much interest in the sad, pensive, silent little one. All conversation, even on sacred subjects, wearied her, and when lessons were fin ished, she used to wait in the tribune of the chapel until her father came to fetch her home. Deep sadness was settling down on the little one s mind, and her sole comfort were the words her father had formerly quoted to her, ” time is thy barque, and not thy dwelling place.”

In this state of mind fresh partings came that threw her more than ever back upon herself. Her sister and counsellor Marie, ” the only support of my soul,” she calls her, followed Pauline and entered also into the Carmel of Lisieux. It was a severe blow and she shed many tears over it, but tears cost her little in those days, when her endurance was all but worn down by scruples and the effect of all the mental strain she had gone through since her babyhood. It was but one more blow, and she had already suffered so much that she was benumbed. She, however, made the practical resolution of taking no further pleasure in anything here below. In all these things it is easy to trace the finger of God leading her in spite of herself along the path of perfect detachment. These constant troubles also ended by making her abnormally sensitive. She was always worrying, taking offence, giving offence, and fretting about it, and then fretting because she had worried. Marie’s absence brought about a sort of crisis her scruples still remained, but she had no one to tell them to so in despair she made confidants of her two little brothers and the sisters who had gone to heaven in their baptismal innocence, begging them to take pity on and succour their poor suffering little sister. She talked to them with childish simplicity, telling them that as she was the youngest of the family she had always been loved and petted by all the others, and that they, if they had remained on earth would have given her the same marks of affection. All she asked of them, as she seemed bereft of almost all remaining earthly sympathy, was that they might obtain for her the grace of peace and in doing this prove they still loved her. It was evident she was losing her hold on earth and that she was approaching a crisis of some sort. As if to encourage her to turn her thoughts finally away from earth her appeal was heard : soon sweetest peace flooded her soul, and in the glow of her new-found tranquillity of heart and mind began to turn solely to heavenly desires, and to hold communion continuously with the little brothers and sisters, already citizens of the heavenly kingdom, by her telling them of all the sorrows of her exile and of her wish to join them soon in their heavenly home.

The Unfolding of the Little Flower: chapter XIV “The Dark Night of the Soul”

THE UNFOLDING OF THE LITTLE FLOWER

A Study of the Life and Spiritual Development of the Servant of God, Sister Theresa od the Child Jesus, 

by  William M. Cunningham, Rector of the Church of Saint Thomas the Martyr, Sevenoaks, Kent, Vicar Forane for the County of Kent, Notary Public and Archivist to the Diocesan Curia of Southward   (1916)

 

CHAPTER XIV
THE DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL

The innate generosity of Theresa s soul always impelled her when in suffering to willingly offer herself to suffer still more. This was the case in June, 1888, two months after her entry as a Postulant into the Carmel. Her father had fallen a victim to a first stroke of paralysis, and another was feared, yet Theresa surprised her Novice Mistress by saying” I am suffering a great deal, Mother, yet I feel I can suffer still more.” She comments on this that she did not then foresee the trial awaiting her, nor that on February 12th, 1889, a month after her clothing day, her beloved father would drink so deeply of such a bitter chalice. When the blow fell she no longer said she could suffer more words could not express her grief nor could she ever trust herself to put her feelings into words.

Similarly, when in June, 1895, she became so penetrated with the feeling of how the Divine Love of the Creator was neglected and rejected by His own creatures, she offered herself up once more, not merely as a victim, but a holocaust. God took her at her word and flooded her soul for the time being with sweetness, but merely in order to strengthen her for the supreme ordeal she was to go through in union with our divine Lord as a willing victim of love.

She already knew this clearly, for it was an old saying of hers that to dedicate oneself as a victim of love is not to be dedicated to sweetness and consolations it is to offer oneself to all that is painful and bitter, because love lives only by sacrifice and the more we surrender ourselves to love the more we surrender ourselves to suffering. As we have seen suffering in one shape or form was no new experience for her. Even spiritual trials had been her daily bread ever since she entered the Carmel.

Even as a postulant and novice her soul had for its daily food the bread of spiritual dryness. Later, in the very midst of the grievous trial of her father s malady she had to chronicle “though my sufferings seemed to have reached their height, my desire for suffering in no way abated. Soon my soul also had to bear its burden of trials as well as my heart. My dryness of soul increased to such a degree that I could find comfort neither in heaven nor on earth ; yet in the midst of these waters of tribulation, that I had so thirsted for, I was the happiest of living beings/

Similarly in approaching the experiences of this closing stage of her life’s pilgrimage, she prepares her Mother Prioress for the full disclosure by reminding her of her lifelong experience of sorrow. ” My soul has made acquaintance with trials of all kinds ; I have truly suffered much here below. In my childhood I was afflicted with sadness now that it is in peace and joy I have to taste bitterness of all kinds. I must admit that but for your knowing me through and through, dear Mother, you would smile in reading these pages, for never has a soul seemed less tried than mine. But were the martyrdom I have gone through during the past year made manifest to all, how astonished everyone would be ! Now since it is your wish I should do so, I shall try to set it all down in writing, but words cannot be found to correspond to these experiences, and anything I shall say must needs always fall short of the reality.”

This account was written in the early part of the year 1897, and refers to the entire deprivation of all sensible hope or conso lation experienced by her shortly after receiving the first warning of her approaching end. This warning came in the shape of a sudden haemorrhage which occurred in the early hours of Good Friday morning, 1896.

As already intimated, the strain of the mysterious rapture that so soon followed the oblation of herself to the Divine Mercy, made by Theresa on June 9th, 1895, was in all human probability a wound unto death. Though it just missed snapping the bonds that bound soul to body, it is quite permissible to conclude that the natural powers of resistance of the body were so undermined by the strain, that it fell an easy prey to the first chance infection it encountered. In spite of all she had gone through, Theresa, physically speaking, was endowed with a healthy and sturdy constitution, authentic portraits of her showing that she was far from being a weakling. No human frame, however, can long resist such preternatural strain, and through her constant contact with the youthful novices and postulants, phthisis being more prevalent amongst the young in France than in England, Theresa was not unlikely to be soon exposed to the germs of the malady that was destined to be the minister of God s love, in finally uniting Him to His faithful and ever expectant spouse.

The fact that a focus of infection was sufficiently advanced in the spring of 1896 to cause haemorrhage, evidently points to a first obscure onset of the malady some time possibly in the summer or autumn of 1895, following therefore very closely on the rapture of the summer of the same year.

In this same autumn of 1895 a lifelong wish of Theresa s heart was gratified. With her lively faith in our Lord s eternal priesthood she had always grieved over the deaths of her two baby brothers. Time after time she pictured the joy it would have been to her had they become priests, to feel day by day they were remembering her specially in the Holy Sacrifice, and to have letters from them telling her of their labours for souls, and begging her prayers for the blessing of God on their work. Even in this as with what she calls her childish wishes, her yearning was gratified. Towards the end, as we shall see later, her consuming love of God could brook no limits to her thirst to serve Him in every possible way. She not only yearned to be a martyr of Christ, but also to make Him known to all men. It was not sufficient she felt to be a daughter of Carmel, a spouse of Jesus, and so a mother of souls. Even when as practically a schoolgirl she entered the convent, she stated in her formal petition for reception, that she wished to be a Carmelite in order ” to pray for priests.” Now as the end approached and time seemed short, she felt all vocations calling her, and chafed at her inability to fulfil them all. ” I feel within myself the vocation to be a warrior, a priest, an apostle, a doctor of the Church, a martyr. … I would like to accomplish deeds of heroism I feel within myself the courage of a crusader, and I long to die on the field of battle in defence of the Church. The vocation of a priest, too ! With what love, my Jesus, would I have borne Thee in my hands when my voice had called Thee down from heaven ! With what love I would have given Thee to souls ! And yet, while longing to be a priest, I admire and envy the humility of St. Francis of Assisi, and I feel drawn also to imitate him in his vocation of refusing the sublime dignity of the priesthood. How then can I reconcile these conflicting wishes ? Like the prophets and doctors I am drawn to enlighten souls.

Were it possible I would penetrate into every corner of the earth to preach Thy name, O my Beloved, to raise on heathen soil the glorious standard of Thy Cross ! But one mission alone could not satisfy me. I would wish to preach the Gospel in all parts of the world simultaneously, not missing out even the most remote islands. I would wish to be a missionary, not merely for a number of years, but were it possible starting from the beginning of the world and continuing my work till the consummation of time. Above all I yearn for the martyr s crown. It was the dream of my childhood s days, and the desire has come to maturity and waxed strong within me as I have grown up in my little cell in the Carmel. But here too is fresh foolishness since I do not sigh for one kind of torture only ; to be satisfied I would want them all. L,ike Thee, O adorable Spouse, I would be scourged, I would be crucified. I would wish to be flayed like St. Bartholomew, plunged into boiling oil like St. John, or like St. Ignatius of Antioch ground by the teeth of wild beasts into a bread worthy of God. With St. Agnes and St. Cecilia I would wish to offer my neck to the sword of the executioner, and like Joan of Arc, I would murmur the name of Jesus at the stake.” . . . . ” And yet precisely because of my weakness Thou hast been pleased to gratify my little child like wishes, and to-day it is Thy good pleasure to realise those other desires of mine, vaster than the universe. Thus, these as pirations having become a veritable martyrdom for me, I opened one day the Epistles of St. Paul with the thought of seeking some relief in my sufferings. My eyes fell on the I2th and I3th Chap ters of his First Epistle to the Corinthians. Therein I read that all cannot become apostles, prophets and doctors ; that the Church is made up of different members ; that the eye cannot be also the hand. The answer was clear but it did not gratify my desires or give me the peace I sought. Then descending into the depths of my own nothingness (as St. John of the Cross says) I raised myself up so high that I was able to reach my mark. Without being discouraged I read on, and this lesson consoled me : Be zealous for the better gifts : and I show you a yet more excellent way/ (I. Cor. xii. 31). The Apostle then explains how all gifts, even the most perfect have no value without love ; that Charity is the most excellent way of surely going to God. Then at last I found rest and content ! Meditating on the mystical body of Holy Church, I could not recognise myself amongst any of its members as enumerated by St. Paul, or was it not rather I wished to identify myself with them all ? Charity gave me the clue to my vocation. I understood that since the Church is a body composed of different members, the noblest and most important of all the organs would not be wanting. I realised that the Church has a heart, that this heart burns with love, and that it is love alone which imparts energy to its members. I know that if this love were extinguished, the Apostles would no longer preach the Gospel and the martyrs would refuse to shed their blood. I understood that love includes all vocations, that it is everything, and that it stretches out through all time, and through all space, because it is eternal/

” Then, beside myself with joy, I cried out : O Jesus, my Love, at last I have found my vocation. My vocation is love ! Yes, I have found my place in the bosom of the Church, and this place, O my God, thou hast Thyself given to me : in the heart of the Church my Mother, / will be love / . . . Thus I shall be all things ; thus will my dream be realised/ Why do I speak of rapturous joy ? This expression is not accurate. Rather is it peace which has become my portion the calm settled peace of the sailor when he catches sight of the beacon which lights the entrance to the port/ . . . “To love Thee, Jesus, is now my only thought. Glorious deeds are not for me. I cannot preach the Gospel or shed my blood. What matters it ? My brothers work in my stead, and I, little child as I am I stay close to the throne, and love Thee for all who are in the strife/

” But how shall I show my love since love proves itself by deeds ? Well, the little child will strew flowers . . . she will perfume the divine throne with their fragrance, she will sing love s canticle in silvery tones. Yea, my Beloved, it is thus my short life shall be spent in Thy sight. The only way I have of proving my love is to strew flowers before Thee that is to say, / will never let pass any tiny sacrifice, any look, any word. I wish to profit by the smallest actions and to do them all for love. I wish to suffer in loving, and in loving even to rejoice : thus shall I strew the flowers. Not one shall I ever come across without scattering its petals before Thee. . . . and then I will sing …. I will sing always even if my roses must be gathered from amidst thorns ; and the longer and sharper the thorns, the sweeter shall be my song.”

THE DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL 103

Though she had such a marked contemplative vocation, yet the strong, keen, active mind, consumed with the love of our Lord, at times felt impelled to be out and doing, wherever the conflict was fiercest, instead of being caged within the convent walls. Then came the illumination that love of God joined with prayer and intercession are integral parts of the Church s work : that the contemplative vocation includes all others. Nevertheless, in order that one more wish of His little spouse might be gratified even in this life, on the feast of St. Theresa, 1895, her sister Pauline (Mother Agnes of Jesus), who was then Prioress, received a letter from a Seminarist in a missionary college, saying that he had been inspired by St. Theresa to ask for a Sister who would devote herself especially to his salvation and the salvation of his future flock. He promised always to remember this spiritual sister when saying Mass. To Theresa s intense delight she was chosen to correspond with him and some of her very last letters on earth are addressed to him and show how later when he was ordained Theresa was able to know of and enter into all the joys and disappointments of a zealous missionary s work for souls just as though she at last had a brother ordained a priest. This joy, as we have seen, came during the last short season of respite before her final trial began. The unlocked for fulfilment of her desire of having a priest brother who would tell her of his labours and trials, reawakened for a while in her heart the joys of her childhood s days when pleasures were so keen that her heart seemed too small to contain them. Years, she says pathetically, had passed since she had tasted a like happiness, so fresh, so unfamiliar, as if forgotten chords had been stirred within her.

Later, as if to fulfil all her early wishes to the very letter, Mother Mary Gonzaga, who again was Prioress in May, 1896, placed Theresa under obedience to write to another young priest as well as to the former, telling her that obedience would double, not halve, the value of the work she was doing for them both so now before she left the earth, she who had suffered so much through losses and separations, found herself already beginning to reap the hundredfold reward with her two priest brothers and all her little sisters the novices, in whose destinies she was interested and of whose trials and struggles she was ever the willing confidant. With her ties to this new spiritual family, she was saved from being thrown back too much on herself, and thenceforth in all her prayers she ever made special remembrance of those whom she looked upon as having been given to her by our Blessed Lord Himself.

These were the last gleams of earthly happiness for her. Soon the shadows began to settle down, first on the body, and then even on her soul shadows that would only be dissipated by the dawning of the eternal day. She was now approaching the be ginning of her last year on earth.

The first distant signs of the end appeared in Holy Week, 1896. Theresa had kept Lent this year quite strictly, and possibly owing to the last efforts of resistance the system was making to the insidious early inroads of phthisis, she experienced a feeling of bien etre she noticed at the time as unusual. She had even wished on Maundy Thursday to spend the whole night watching before the Altar of Repose, but as it was thought better she should not overstrain herself, she returned to her cell at midnight. She had scarcely got into bed before she felt a hot stream rise to her lips. Her lamp being already extinguished, she, as a seasoned religious was able, as by second nature, though she suspected the cause, to repress her curiosity, and went peacefully to sleep. In the morning to her delight, she saw her prevision had come true on finding her handkerchief soaked with blood. She was convinced that on this anniversary of His death her Beloved had allowed her ” to hear His first call, like a sweet, distant murmur heralding His joyful approach/

After Prime and Chapter she hastened to cast herself at the feet of the Mother Prioress to tell her of her happiness. Feeling no pain, she easily obtained permission to finish Lent as she had begun it, and she shared in all the special austerities of the Carmel for Good Friday without any relaxation. She was full of the thought of soon entering heaven, and was transported with joy. The same evening of Good Friday the haemorrhage recurred. Theresa was still more elated at this, as she feared the first might have been only some chance accident. Full of confidence in the good things laid up for those who are faithful, she felt such a clear and lively faith that the thought of heaven was her sole delight. She could not believe it possible for men to be utterly devoid of faith and she was convinced that those who deny the existence of another world really lie in their hearts.

Having led a sheltered life, preserved from the society of unbelievers, with her mind untarnished by books and arguments against faith, Theresa, though she had led a life of constant dry- ness, had yet always felt the firmest of convictions as to the unquestioned reality of the supernatural and of the historical teachings of faith.

As the special apostle of God s love in these latter days it was necessary for the fulness of her perfection as well as for the efficacy of her mission that she should, while sustained by God, descend and sound the very depths of the mysterious and widespread unbelief that sterns a sort of spiritual pestilence in these days of unrest. Day by day science seems to be throwing fresh light on the mysterious kinship of all human beings, and especially of those who live in organised communities. These researches will, in all probability, ultimately throw much light on the mysteries of the Mystical Body of Christ and the Communion of Saints, lyooked at in this light Theresa seems almost a victim of expiation for the faithlessness and apostasy of so many of her fellow- countrymen who, living in a land so highly favoured by God, have yet turned away from the teachings of faith.

This last crowning mysterious trial of Theresa also did its work in putting the finishing touches to the resemblance between herself and her divine Spouse, especially as her constant prayer had ever been that she should die like He did, a death of desolation.

For the moment however, Theresa s mind, was occupied only with the nearness of heaven, and having been present at peaceful and painless deaths, very likely thought, the end might come to her swiftly and painlessly from some sudden heart failure.

By slow stages during the following Paschal days her mood of ecstatic exaltation at the thought of the near approach of heaven began to be quenched. By subtle suggestions our divine Lord began to infuse into her soul knowledge of the fact that there really are in truth souls bereft of faith and hope souls who through abuse of grace have lost these precious treasures, the only source of pure and lasting joy. Then came experimental knowledge of this terrible state. Our lyord allowed her soul to be overwhelmed with darkness, and the thought of heaven which had ever been her consolation from her earliest childhood, now became the subject of temptations to doubt, bringing in their train conflict and torture. These were never to leave her : assailed by them, yet sustained by the grace of blind faith, she persevered heroically to the end and by that same light, steered her little barque safely into the harbour of eternal salvation. Her trial was so mysterious, her doubt so dark, and her desolation so extreme, that she frankly says it is beyond her power to explain what she went through. She can only make use of a feeble comparison to illustrate it by imagining the plight of certain of the human race who, living in a land of perpetual fogs and mist, would find it difficult to believe there are lands where bright sunshine is a common occurrence.

She also too seemed clearly to apprehend that this suffering was being endured by her as an expiation for the unfaithful of her own race, who, being once enlightened, have rejected the light, and now sit in darkness ” Dear L,ord,” she cries, ” Thy child has understood Thou art the light divine : she asks Thy pardon for her unbelieving brethren, and is willing to eat the bread of sorrow as long as Thou mayest wish. For love of Thee she will sit at the table of bitterness where these poor sinners take their food, and she will not stir from it until Thou givest the sign. But may she not say in her own name and the name of her guilty brethren : O God be merciful to us sinners ? Send us away justified. May all those on whom Faith does not shine see the light at last.

my God, if that table which they profane can be purified by one that loves Thee, I am willing to remain there alone to eat the bread of tears, until it shall please Thee to bring me to Thy King dom of light ; the only favour I ask is that I may never offend Thee again/

” I have told you, dear Mother, that from the time of my childhood I felt gifted with the feeling of certainty that one day I should manage to get away from this my land of darkness. I believed it, not only because I had been told so by others, but also because I felt down in the depths of my heart, by reason of deep longings that I felt part of my very self, that there was in store for me another and more beautiful country, one that would be my abid ing dwelling place, much the same as the genius of Christopher Columbus gave him the intuition of a new world. But suddenly the mists that were about me, penetrated into my very soul, and have enveloped me in such fashion that I cannot even recall to my mind the consoling image of my own land … all has faded away. When, too, I would wish to give some rest to my heart weary of the surrounding darkness by recalling encouraging thoughts of a life to come, my anguish increases. It seems to me that these dark shadows, taking on the voice and tones of the demons, jeer at me saying : You dream of the light of a land of fragrance ; you dream of making your own for ever the pos session of the Creator of these wonders ; you think one day to escape from these mists where you languish. Begone, begone Nay, rejoice in death, which will give you, not what you hope for, but a night darker still, the night of utter nothingness !

” Dear Mother, this description of my trial is as inadequate compared with the reality, as the first rough outline is from the model ; but I cannot bring myself to write more ; I fear to blas pheme. . . . . Even now I fear I may have said too much. May God forgive me ! He knows well that though I have none of the consolations of faith, I strain every nerve to do what it teaches. I have made more Acts of Faith in this last year than during all the rest of my life/

” Each time that the enemy would provoke me to a fresh combat, I behave as a gallant soldier. Knowing that a duel is an act of cowardice, without ever looking him in the face, I turn my back upon the foe ; then I hasten to my beloved Jesus, and vow that I am ready to shed my blood in witness of my belief in heaven. I tell Him if only He will deign to open heaven to poor unbelievers, I am quite content to give up even the power of picturing with the eyes of my soul the heaven that awaits me. Also in spite of this trial which robs me of comfort, I still can say : Thou hast given me, O I/ord, delight in all Thou dost/ (Ps. xci. 5). For what joy can be greater than to suffer for Thy love ? The greater the suffering and the less it appears before men, the greater the pleasure it gives Thee, O my God

Even if, by an impossibility, Thou shouldst not deign to heed my sufferings, I should be still happy to bear them, in the hope that my tears might, perhaps, prevent or atone for even one sin against faith/

” No doubt, dear Mother, you will think I exaggerate some what the night of my soul. If you judge by the poems I have composed this year, it must seem as though I have been flooded with consolations, like a child for whom the veil of faith is almost rent asunder. And yet it is no longer a veil it is a wall which rises up to the very heavens, and shuts out the starry sky/

” When I sing of the happiness of heaven and the eternal possession of God, I do not feel great joy therein, for I sing only of what I wish to believe. Sometimes, I confess, just a little ray of sunshine enlightens my dark night, and I enjoy peace for an instant, but later, the remembrance of this ray of light, instead of consoling me, makes the darkness thicker still.”

” And yet never have I felt so clearly how sweet and merciful is the Lord. He has laid His heavy cross on me just at the very time when I was able to bear it ; had it come earlier I fear it might have disheartened me. Now all it does is only this it takes away from me a feeling of natural satisfaction I might feel in my longing for heaven/

These searching trials also had their effect in still more re fining and spiritualising all her aims and desires. The suggestion was made that should she get better, she should be sent to China to reinforce a Carmelite community in that remote land. Though it meant leaving the home of her childhood, her beloved France, and her sisters, and going to a convent where she would be un known, she willingly accepted exile. As a matter of fact it soon became unthinkable, but yet so long as it was thought possible, Theresa, by an act of her will, had made her sacrifice. Next it was suggested two of her own sisters should go to Saigon, also in French Cochin-China, a foundation from Lisieux, but though her heart ached, she would not say a word to hold them back. Our Lord again accepted her good will as being sufficient, and she remained with them to the end.

Another result of the martyrdom of doubt and anxiety she was continually enduring was increased light on the law of charity towards our neighbour. As is the case with those who have few temptations in the service of God, Theresa in her earlier years was at times tempted to observe, and perhaps criticise the slight failings or imperfections of those with whom she lived. This season of con tinual disquiet and doubt, had its use in bringing home to her the possibility that those whom she had blamed so lightly for trifles, had perhaps all the time been enduring some agonizing load of anxiety, and were really making heroic efforts to fulfil the simplest duties. Realising this, a new fount of tenderness for her poor afflicted Sisters welled up in Theresa s heart, and she seemed to see in quite a new light that the duty of the love of our neighbour is most closely bound up with the love of God, and that it is our duty to endeavour to love our struggling neighbour, with something of the same intense compassionate love that wells up for him from the infinite depths of our Lord s Sacred Heart.

Viewed in this light she saw imperfection even in the former tender and spiritual love she gave her Sisters in religion. She seemed to feel she had not loved them as our Lord loves them, and she realised more clearly that true charity consists in bearing all our neighbours defects not being surprised at their weaknesses, but edified at their smallest virtues. Finally she realised that charity must not remain shut up in the heart for ” no man lighted a candle and putteth it in a hidden place nor under a bushel ; but upon a candlestick, that they who come in may see the light.” (St. Luke xi. 33).

Thus with constant renewal of her acts of faith and redoubling of her acts of love of God by exercising it continually in loving her neighbour as though it were Jesus within her who was loving her fellow creature she strove to fight the tempest of doubt and darkness that raged in her soul. It was at its worst, beginning with Easter, 1896, and continued without any intermission till the month of May of the last year but one of her life when she had a consoling dream in which she seemed to see the Venerable Mother Anne of Jesus, foundress of the Carmel of France. Theresa made bold to ask the question ” Dear Mother, I entreat you tell me, will our Lord leave me much longer in this world ? Will He not soon come to fetch me ? ” And the answer was Yes, soon very soon I promise you.” Once more Theresa in her distress strove for reassurement, just as in her baby days, she nightly wished to be assured of her sisters 1 approval. ” Dear Mother,” she asked again ” tell me if He does not want more from me than these poor little acts and desires I offer Him. Is He pleased with me ? ” And the reassuring answer seemed to come The Good God asks no more of you. He is pleased, quite pleased.” And then it seemed to her that Mother Anne of Jesus took her face in her hands and kissed her so tenderly that her heart was flooded with joy.

Then in some measure the tempest in her soul was stilled and this renewal of hope enabled her to battle through the last months of physical pain and spiritual desolation and she expressed her gratitude saying ” O Jesus, thou didst command the winds and the sea and there came a great calm.”

Thus in the midst of her sufferings she realised the littleness of the creature that by the efforts of its own faculties and powers it can effect nothing that there is but one act which performed with a pure intention can transcend all the natural weakness of human nature, and more than fully atone for all indeliberate infirmities and failings. So she cried out ” O my Jesus, I love Thee. I love my mother the Church ; I bear in mind, as St. John of the Cross says, that the least act of pure love is of more value to her than all other works put together. But is this pure love really in my heart ? Are not my boundless desires but dreams but foolishness ? If this be so, I beseech Thee to en lighten me ; Thou knowest I seek but the truth. If my desires be rash, make them die away, for these desires are for me the most grievous of all martyrdoms. And yet I confess if I reach not some day those heights to which my soul aspires, I yet shall have tasted, in this very martyrdom and in this foolishness, more sweetness than I feel I could ever experience in the joys of heaven ; unless by a miracle Thou takest away from me all memory of the hopes I entertained on earth. Jesus, Jesus, if the mere desire of Thy love awakens such delight, what will it be to possess it, to enjoy it for ever.”

” How can a soul so imperfect as mine aspire to the plenitude of love ? In what does this mystery consist ? O my only Friend, why dost Thou not reserve these infinite longings for great and noble souls, for the eagles that soar to the heights ? Alas, I am but a poor little unfledged bird, covered only with down. I am not an eagle, all I have are the eagle s eyes and heart. Yet, notwith standing my exceeding littleness, I dare to gaze upon the divine Sun of love, and I burn to dart upwards unto Him ! I wish to fly, if I could I would imitate the eagles ; but all that I can do is to flap my little wings it is not within my feeble power to fly. What is to become of me ? Must I die of sorrow at seeing myself so helpless ? Oh, no ! I will not even grieve. With daring self-abandonment, there will I remain until death, my gaze fixed upon that divine Sun. . . . And should impenetrable clouds roll up and hide the Orb of Love, and should it not seem possible for me to believe that there is any other existence beyond the darkness of this life, that would then be the hour of perfect joy, the hour in which to push my confidence to the utmost bounds. I should not dare to move from where I am, well knowing that beyond the dark clouds the sweet Sun still shines.”

” Yet shouldst Thou still be deaf to the plaintive cries of Thy feeble creature, shouldst Thou still be veiled, then I am content to remain bedraggled in the wet, I am resigned to be benumbed with cold, and once more I rejoice in this well-deserved suffering.”

” O Sun, my only Love, I am happy to feel myself so small, so frail in Thy sunshine, and my heart is at peace

I know that all the eagles of Thy heavenly court have pity on me, they guard and defend me, they put to flight the vultures the demons that fain would devour me. I fear them not, these demons, I am not destined to be their prey I am reserved for the divine Eagle/

” O Jesus ! forgive me if I tell Thee that Thy love reacheth even unto folly. And in face of this folly, what wilt thou, but that my heart leap up to Thee ? How could my trust have any limits ? “

” I know that the Saints have made themselves as fools for Thy sake ; being eagles they have done great things. As for me I am too little to do great things, and my folly is to hope that Thy love accepts me as a victim : my folly is to count on the aid of angels and saints in order that I may fly unto Thee with Thine own wings, O my divine Eagle ! For as long as Thou wiliest I shall remain my eyes fixed upon Thee. I long to be fascinated by Thy divine gaze ; I would wish to become the prey of Thy love. I have the hope that Thou wilt one day swoop down upon me, and bearing me away to the source of all love, Thou wilt plunge me at last into that glowing abyss, that I may become for ever its happy victim.”

” O Jesus, would that I could tell all little souls of Thine unspeakable condescension ! I feel that if by any possibility, Thou couldst find one weaker than my own, Thou wouldst take great delight in loading her with still greater favours, provided she abandoned herself with entire confidence to Thine infinite Mercy. But, O my Spouse, why these desires of mine to make known the secrets of Thy love ? Is it not Thyself alone Who has taught them to me, and canst Thou not unveil them to others ? Yea, I know it and this I implore Thee !…./ entreat Thee to let Thy divine eyes rest upon a vast number of little souls : I entreat Thee to choose in this world a legion of little victims worthy of Thy love.”

This was Theresa’s swan-song, penned in the hour of her darkest desolation. A few months more only were to elapse and in response to her prayer, the divine Eagle would at last swoop down and bear away from this earth the cherished little Apostle of His love.

As the end approached, in addition to acute physical sufferings, the darkness closed still more upon her. During her religious life she had been preserved from any vain glory she might have experienced through taking upon herself and undergoing voluntary physical penances. Once under obedience she tried to wear a small iron cross studded with sharp points, but she was so highly organised, the pain made her fall ill, and she was forbidden to attempt any further austerities. Such a failure was, in a certain sense a humiliation to one who aimed at being a model religious, but Theresa took it in her usual spirit of supernatural common- sense and said ” Such a trifle would not have caused me illness if God has not wished thus to make me understand that the greater austerities of the Saints are not meant for me nor for the souls that walk in the path of spiritual childhood.” But as all super natural progress is only attained through suffering she was des tined during these last months of her life to go through a cruci fixion far more agonising than that of extreme physical pain. lyike our blessed L,ord, she had spent her short life doing good as she passed through the world, like Him she was forgotten and unknown during life, and now following in His footsteps she was entering on the way to Calvary. By slow relentless stages the insidious malady that had first made its presence known by the haemorrhage of Good Friday, 1896, was ever sapping Theresa s health. She would at first accept no dispensations or mitigations of the Rule. The Mother Prioress also seeing her so cheerful and brave did not yet forbid her to undertake community exercises that were beyond her strength. At the end of the long day she would once more, as in her babyhood, toil up the stairs one step at a time, stopping between each step to take breath ; but now there is no calling out for sympathy as in the old days. When at last she reached her cell she would be so exhausted that it would often take her quite an hour to undress to take her rest upon the hard pallet. Her cell was also away from that of the other Sisters, but though her nights were so bad, she would never consent to have one of the Sisters near her. ” No,” she would say, ” on the contrary, I am only too glad to be in a cell away from my Sisters, that I may not be heard. I am content to suffer alone as soon as I am pitied and loaded with attentions, my happiness leaves me.”

God alone knows what she went through during those long sleep less nights of pain.

Eventually it became necessary for special care to be given to her the Mother Prioress ordered her a more strengthening diet, and the symptoms moderated for a while. Then when she expressed her willingness to go to China to the Carmel of Hanoi, were she cured, a no vena was begun to the Blessed Theophane Venard to obtain her cure, but this novena only proved the be ginning of a more serious stage of her malady. Later, on June 5th, 1897, the community began a fresh novena to Our Lady of Victories, encouraged by the thought of her cure as a child that followed the novena of Masses offered for her in N. D. des Victoires, Paris, but once again the only sign received was more rapid pro gress of the malady.

At last, about the beginning of July, 1897, her state became serious and she had to be removed to the infirmary. It was almost her last parting on this earth she was leaving her beloved cell for the last time. Her sister, Mother Agnes of Jesus, looking forward to the days when it would be no longer her sister s cell, was more affected than Theresa. The little sufferer endeavoured to comfort her ” For consolation, little Mother, you can think how happy -I am up there, and remember that much of my happi ness was acquired in that little cell, for I have suffered so much there and I should have been so happy to die there.” It will never be known till the last day how continual and how intense were her sufferings. It was her secret, as she always appeared bright, contented, and even joyous, though at times her sufferings were almost unbearable. Once she pointed to her bitterest medicine, which was of a bright red colour, and said” that is the image of my life : to others it has seemed all rose colour . . . yet to me it has been full of bitterness and yet not entirely bitter, for I have learned to find my joy and sweetness in all that is bitter.”

At another time replying to her novices, who were heartbroken at seeing the sufferings of their Mistress, she said : ” Do not grieve for me. I have reached a point where I can no longer suffer, because all suffering is become so sweet.” Then she gave her wonderfully wise recipe for patience ” If I did not simply live from one moment to another, it would be impossible for me to be patient ; but I look only at the present I forget the past and I take good care not to forestall the future. When we yield to discouragement or despair, it is usually because we think too much about the past and the future. But pray much for me, for it is often just when I cry to heaven for help that I feel most aban doned.” Then she revealed the wonderful character of her abso lute resignation to God’s will, in explaining that in order not to give way to discouragement when her sufferings were most acute, she was accustomed to turn to God and all His Saints and thank them, notwithstanding her apparent abandonment. ” I believe/ she added, ” they want to see how far my trust may extend. But the words of Job have not entered my heart in vain : Although He should kill me, I will trust in Him. I own it has taken me a long time to arrive at this degree of self-abandonment ; but I have reached it now, and it is the Lord Himself who has brought me so far.”

All the while her soul was enveloped in thickest darkness, and her ever present temptations against faith deprived her of any feeling of happiness at the thought of her approaching death. She herself was dismayed and at a loss to understand this crowning process of purification Were it not for this trial, which is im possible to understand, I think I should die of joy at the prospect of soon leaving the earth.” As a matter of fact it was this mys terious trial that put the finishing touches to her sanctity, purifying her soul from the stains of the slightest faults and eliminating every trace of self-seeking from her character. The consequence was that as the end approached, she was not merely purified from sin, but was every moment making more rapid progress in her ” little way of confidence and abandonment.” Her words repeat edly made this clear. ” I desire,” she often said, ” neither death nor life. Were our Lord to offer me my choice, I would not choose. I only will what He wills ; it is what He does that I love. I do not fear the last struggle, nor any pains, however great, my illness may bring. God has always been my help. He has led me by the hand from my earliest childhood, and on Him I rely. My agony may reach the furthest limits, but I am convinced He will never forsake me.”

Her misgivings as to the excruciating character of her closing mental sufferings were destined to be realised to the full. Like our Lord, she was to drink the chalice of suffering and drain it to the dregs. As her illness progressed she confided to her sister, Mother Agnes of Jesus, that one night she was seized with a terrible feeling of anguish. She was, she felt, lost in the darkness and from out of it came an accursed voice saying ” Are you certain God loves you ? Has He Himself told you so ? The opinion of creatures will not justify you in His sight.” Later on for several days during the month of August, 1897, about a month before her death, Theresa remained in a manner beside herself, and implored that prayers might be offered for her. It seemed to her she was abandoned by all. She felt herself abandoned even by our Lord Himself, as from August i6th till September 3Oth, 1897, the day of her happy death, she was unable to receive Holy Communion on account of her continual sickness. She had never been seen in this state of visible distress before, and in her unspeakable anguish she could only keep on repeating ” Oh, how necessary it is to pray for the agonising ! If one only knew.”

On another occasion in the evening she entreated the infir- marian to sprinkle her bed with holy water, explaining ” I am besieged by the devil. I do not see him, but I feel him : he tor ments me and holds me with a grip of iron that I may not find a ray of comfort ; he increases my agony so that I may be driven to despair and I cannot pray. I can only look at our Blessed Lady and say Jesus ! How needful is the prayer of the hymn we use at Compline : May evil dreams and phantoms of the night be driven far from us. Something mysterious is happening within me. I am not suffering for myself but for some other soul and the devil is angry.” The infirmarian sprinkled her bed as she was asked, and also lit a blessed candle ; the evil poisonous in fluence seemed to withdraw at once, but it made no difference to the desolation and anguish of the patient sufferer.

Quite occasionally there would come some transient rays of encouragement that flickered over the troubled waters in which her soul was plunged. Once she came on the sight of a hen mothering her little brood, and she was reminded of our Lord s most loving comparison. It occurred to her that her own experience on looking back through life bore out this teaching completely she had never really been entirely abandoned in fact she had been hidden under the shadow of His wings all her short life. It is true His Face seemed shrouded from her for a time, but it really was in mercy and He had all through been merely looking from ” behind the lattices.” At another time she was so utterly bruised and buffeted by her trial, that the very heavens held no message for her : she could only gaze at them in dumb resignation like a stricken animal. It gave her unaffected sim plicity and common sense a shock to find one of the Sisters was edified at this, through being under the impression that Theresa was letting her thoughts rest on the contemplation of heaven when, as a matter of fact, as far as feelings went, the true heaven seemed more than ever closed against her. In her trouble of mind the illumination came to her soul that after all were she only gazing at the material blue sky without any thought of heaven, yet, notwithstanding this, her gaze was really an act of love. She had never gone back on the act by which she delivered up her soul to L/ove entirely, so that each and every action, even the most indifferent, might be marked with the seal of love and so from this thought for the moment a ray of pure intellectual consolation beamed across her soul.

Shortly before she had to give up receiving Holy Communion, in consequence of her illness taking a more serious turn, she received Extreme Unction on July 3Oth. She did not fail to re ceive in common with the rest of the faithful great graces of comfort and hope from the reception of this sacrament of peace. She seemed to feel it was a presage of the long desired end. ” The door of my prison feels ajar,” she said, ” I am steeped in joy, especially since our Father Superior has assured me that to-day my soul is like that of a little child after baptism/

Her physical sufferings nevertheless, went on increasing and her spiritual desolation kept pace with her bodily suffering. The doctor himself was distressed at witnessing her extremity of pain. ” If you only knew,” he exclaimed, ” what she has to endure ! I have never seen anyone suffer so intensely and with such a look of supernatural joy. . . . I shall not be able to cure her ; she was not made for this earth.”

In her extremity of physical pain joined with deprivation even of Holy Communion, it reveals much of the beauty of her soul to learn how sometimes the heavy cross was lifted for a moment by the exquisite beauty of what are looked upon as the simple works of God s Hands. One such comfort was the con templation of the beauty of flowers, which were constantly being sent in to her by friends outside the convent. Another source of consolation were the spontaneous visits made her by a little red breast who, flying into her cell, loved to play about her bed, and who remained faithful in his visits to the end. In all these things she saw the loving hand of God, especially as they were the works of His own Hands but yet such transient little joys were merely passing alleviations ” Mother,” she said, ” I do feel deeply the many touching proofs of God s love for me. I am laden with them nevertheless, I continue in the deepest gloom ! I suffer much very much ! and yet my state is one of profound peace. All my longings have been realised. . . I am full of confidence.”

All through her illness she never missed any chance of exer cising most heroic patience she might be burning with fever, and parched with thirst she never complained she never asked for alleviation. Once in this state of extreme thirst, a hot water bottle was brought for her feet, and iodine was put on her chest. There was every prospect of her remaining thus for the whole night but she would not ask the infirmarian for any alleviation. ” My Jesus,” she cried to Him, ” Thy little child is so thirsty Thou seest I am already burning and they have brought me more heat and fire Oh, if they had brought me even half a glass of water, what a comfort it would have been ! But no, she is glad to have this opportunity of resembling Thee more closely, and thus helping Thee to save souls.” The infirmarian left her, and Theresa resigned herself to passing a night of agony from thirst in addition to all her other suffering. But as so often was the case with her childlike soul, our L,ord accepted the will for the deed, and in a few moments the infirmarian came back with a cooling drink, saying that the afterthought had struck her that her patient might be thirsty.

As the weeks passed her sufferings became daily more intense and her weakness in the same measure increased. She was unable to make the slightest movement without assistance. The slightest sound increased her discomfort, and the fever and oppression were so great that it was only with great difficulty she could utter a word. Yet she had a smile for all she would never if she could help it give any of the sisters extra trouble, and until two days before her death she would never allow anyone to remain in the infirmary with her during the night. How were these long nights spent ? Sometimes the infirmarian, in spite of her entreaties, would look in during the course of the night. Theresa would be found awake, with hands joined and eyes raised to heaven. ” You ought to try and go to sleep,” would say the good Sister but the reply would be ” I cannot, Sister, I am suffering too much to sleep, so I am praying ” ” And what do you say to Jesus ” was the infirmarian s question ” I say nothing I only love Him.”

On another occasion she said “Oh, how good God is! Truly He must be very good to give me strength to bear all I have to suffer.” Another evening she just had strength to send her Mother Prioress the following note in pencil, to keep her promise to her and let her know the state of her soul : ” O my God ! How good Thou art to the little victim of Thy merciful Love ! Now even when Thou joinest these bodily pains to those of my soul, I cannot bring myself to say the anguish of death has encom passed me. (Ps. xvii. 5). I would rather cry out in my gratitude: I have gone down into the valley of the shadow of death, but I fear no evil, because Thou, O Lord, art with me. ” (Ps. xxii. 4).

In reply to her ” little Mother,” Mother Agnes of Jesus, who asked if she were afraid of death she said ” That may easily come to pass. I do not rely on my own feelings for I know how frail I am. It will be time enough to bear that cross if it comes, meanwhile I wish to rejoice in my present happiness ” (at dying). When the chaplain asked me if I were resigned to die, I answered Father, I need rather to be resigned to live I feel nothing but joy at the thought of death/ Do not be troubled, dear Mother, if I suffer much and show no happiness at the end Did not our Lord Himself die a Victim of Love, and see how great was His agony ! ” vNotwithstanding her extremity of suffering, she still bravely carried on her work of instilling in all around her confidence in the goodness of God, and as it were to confirm her teaching, half unconsciously, she began to let fall hints as to her coming power and privileges once the day of release had dawned.

Thus in spite of her humility one day in this last autumn of her life regarding a drooping ear of corn bending under its weight, she said to the Mother Prioress ” Mother, that ear of corn is a picture of my soul : God has loaded me with graces for myself as well as for the good of others.” Following on this came other sayings pointing to knowledge that had been given to her, even in the midst of her uncertainty and abandonment, that she had all along been prepared for a special mission by the happenings of her life. ” I have never given God aught but love, so He will repay me in love : after my death I shall let fall a shower of roses.” There was also in her mind a consciousness that her life work was only just about to begin, recalling Father Faber s dictum that the longest life and largest opportunities really afford next to no scope for the soul really to show its metal. Speaking of the future life she explained to one of the Sisters that what attracted her was not the bliss of heaven so much as the extended opportunities of loving God. L,ove, she said, was her aim ” to love, to be loved in return, and to come back to earth in order to secure that Love should be beloved.”

” I feel that my mission is at last going to commence ; my mission of getting God to be loved the same as I love Him . to put before souls my little way. I wish to spend my heaven in doing good upon the earth. This is no impossibility, as from the very bosom of the beatific vision, the angels are watching over us. No, I shall take no rest until the world comes to an end but when the angel shall have cried out time is no more/ then shall I take my rest, I shall at last be able to rejoice, because the number of the elect will be complete.”

In view of these final confidences her Mother Prioress wished to learn definitely what she wished them to understand by her ” little way.” Theresa answered : ” the little way is the way of childhood of soul the path of confidence and entire giving up of self. I wish to point out to souls the little means of attaining this, that have succeeded so perfectly in my own case to tell them there is only one thing they need do here on earth, and that is, to cast at the feet of Jesus the flowers of little sacrifices, to win Him by caresses ! It is just in this way I have won Him myself, and it is just for this reason, I shall be made so welcome by Him.” Speaking on this same subject to one of her novices she added : ” Should I be leading you into error with my little way of love, do not fear I shall leave you to follow it very long. I should appear to you soon to tell you to take a different way ; but if I do not come back, then believe in the truth of what I tell you : one can never have too much confidence in God, who is so powerful and yet so merciful ! We are given by Him just as much as we hope for.” And then in reply to their question as to how they were to pray to her if they needed her aid, came the touching reply : ” call me the little Theresa.”

These same intimations also peep out in the last letters she wrote on earth those outpourings of her heart to her brother missionaries who were by now striving to win souls in spite of discouragements and suffering. To one she writes ” What really attracts me towards the heavenly country is the call of our Lord ; the hope of loving Him at last as much as ever I have wished, and also the thought that I shall be able to gain Him the love of a multitude of souls, who will praise Him for all eternity.” And again” Brother I am so happy to die ! Truly I am ever so happy, not because I shall at last be freed from sufferings here below : suffering joined with love is now the only thing that seems worth having in this vale of tears. My real reason in wel coming death is that I shall then be of far more help to souls that are dear to me, than I am now while on earth.” And again in a letter to China ” I have every hope of not remaining without active occupation in heaven : my yearning is to still go on toiling for the Church and souls. I am pleading with God to let me do this, and I am certain He will give me what I ask. You can see that if I am now retiring so soon from the field of battle, it is not with the selfish desire of finding rest, for ever so long back suffering has been my only heaven here on earth, and I find it hard to imagine how it will be possible for me to settle down in a land where joy unmixed with any sorrow prevails everywhere. It must be that Jesus will work some sudden change in my soul, other wise I shall not be able to endure unending bliss.”

Her loving anxiety that souls should find peace and confi dence in her ” little way ” would not allow her to admit that any soul, no matter how highly placed, should, if simple and humble be deprived of the rights of a child of God. Within a week or two of the end, one of the Sisters was telling her that at recreation there had been talk of the exceedingly grave responsibilities of those who have care of souls at which she seemed to revive for the moment and said with emphasis ” To him that is little, mercy is granted/ (Wisd. vi. 7). // is quite possible to remain little while filling the most responsible positions ; and is it not written that at the end of all things, the Lord will arise to save the meek and lowly ones of the earth ? It is not said, to judge, but to save.”

This was also the explanation of her devotion to the Blessed Theophane Venard during the closing days of her life. She ex plained that his life and virtues appealed to her because all his life he had been a little saint and on September 6th of the last month of her life she received quite unexpectedly a relic of him, a treasure she had long wished to have, and it remained with her to the end as her constant comfort.

Truly she needed comfort, because over and above her phy sical pain and interior trials, through sickness, she had been deprived of the comfort of receiving Holy Communion during the last six weeks of her life, from August 16th ??? till she gave up her most pure and sorely tried soul to God on September 30th of the same year.

At length the long expected day arrived the day of the joy of her heart, for the gentle childlike soul that faint and pursuing had at last reached her goal. It was Thursday, September 3Oth, 1897. The previous night, her last upon earth, had been one of sleepless agony without a single ray of consolation nevertheless she said she had spent the night in prayer, especially begging our blessed Lady s protection. All the morning she suffered from dyspnoea. About half -past two in the afternoon she started up in bed, so intense was her distress, though for weeks previously she had not been able to move, and exclaimed ” Dear Mother, my cup is full up to the very brim I should never have dreamt it was possible to suffer so excruciatingly. I can only attribute it to my intense desire to save souls.” Later on, she added : Everything I have written about my desire to endure sufferings is quite true. / do not regret having made an oblation of myself to Love.” These last words she kept repeating. Then in her extremity she appealed to the Mother Prioress to help her to pre pare for death. The venerable Prioress encouragingly reminded her ” My child, you are quite ready to appear before God, be cause you have always understood the virtue of humility.” Theresa herself answered with this touching confirmation Yes, I feel it is so ; all my life I have only striven for the truth yes, I have understood humility of heart.”

At half past four in the afternoon, signs of the last agony began to appear. The community was summoned to join in prayers for the dying Theresa gave them a last smile of grateful welcome, and then, holding the crucifix in her drooping hands, and given over entirely to suffering for love s sake, she faced the final struggle. The sweat lay thick upon her brow, and tremors ran through her frame ; but like the pilot within but a stone’s throw of the harbour, rinding himself caught in the thick of a furious storm, in no way loses his nerve, so this soul that had always lived by faith, seeing close at hand the beacon light of the eternal shore, threw her whole soul into the last efforts to make the port.

As the Convent bells rang out the Angelus she gazed lovingly at the long-loved statue of our blessed L,ady that had followed her from her home to the Convent, and had now been carried to the infirmary. No doubt there came to her mind the words of the very last hymn to her heavenly Mother, which she had lately written with the needs of this last hour before her mind ” Thou who didst come to smile on me in the morning of my life, come once more to smile on me O Mother, now that it is eventide.”

A few minutes after seven o clock, being still racked in agony, the poor little sufferer turned to the Mother Prioress asking ” Dear Mother, am I not yet in my agony am I not really dying ? ” Yes, my child,” was the answer, “it is the agony, but perhaps Jesus wishes it should still last some hours.” As had been so often the case of late, the patient little sufferer, once more made her act of prefect resignation ” Oh, very well, then I am quite willing I would not wish to suffer less,” and with a loving glance at her crucifix, she added ” Oh ! I love Him My God I love Thee ! “

These were destined to be her last words. Hardly had she uttered them but, to the surprise of those present, she sank down quite suddenly, her head falling to her right side, in the attitude of the virgin martyrs offering themselves to the stroke of the sword.

After a few moments in this position, she raised herself up once more as if in response to some mysterious voice, but this time her eyes were wide open, and shining with heavenly peace and ineffable joy, she gazed up fixedly at some object just a little above the statue of our blessed Lady. She remained in this state of ecstasy for about the length of time it would take to recite the Creed, and then her blessed soul, having become the prey of the heavenly Eagle, fled to heaven.

A few days before her death she had said ” The death of love I desire so much, is the death of Jesus on the Cross.” Her prayer was heard to the full ; darkness and anguish were the portion of her agony yet in spite of all this suffering, her death just as much as her life ever was, seems typical of souls consumed by the fire of divine love, judging by the description given by St. John of the Cross, who tells us ” Such souls die in wonderful raptures and thrilling transports due to love, like the swan whose song is sweetest as death approaches. This is what was in David s mind when he said Precious in the sight of God is the death of His Saints/ (Ps. xxv. 15), for then it is that the flood of divine love bursts forth from their souls, and precipitates itself into the ocean of divine love.”

After her death the rapturous smile of her last moments still remained on her face, and never left it ; a fresh palm branch was placed in her hand and the lilies and roses strewn around her were symbolic of her who carried to heaven the white robe of her baptism not only unstained by sin, but empurpled by the blood of her martyrdom of love. She was buried on the feast of St. Francis, October 4th, 1897. She still lies in the soil of her beloved France, the symbolic grain of wheat that must first die before it bringeth forth fruit. Who shall tell how many rich sheaves shall yet come to harvest from this sowing ? ” Amen, amen, I say to you, unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, itself remaineth alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” (John xii. 24, 25),

The Unfolding of the Little Flower: chapter XIII “The Ascent of Mount Carmel”

THE UNFOLDING OF THE LITTLE FLOWER

A Study of the Life and Spiritual Development of the Servant of God, Sister Theresa od the Child Jesus, 

by  William M. Cunningham, Rector of the Church of Saint Thomas the Martyr, Sevenoaks, Kent, Vicar Forane for the County of Kent, Notary Public and Archivist to the Diocesan Curia of Southward   (1916)

CHAPTER XIII

THE ASCENT OF MOUNT CARMEL

We are now approaching the most mysterious and difficult period of Sister Theresa’s life, a period in which all the generosity and willing acceptance of sorrow upon sorrow in her early years bore visible fruit even on this earth. She was now a fully professed religious : with her father’s death and the entry of her sister, Celine, into the Carmel of Lisieux, all the home ties of her childhood were broken for good, and the Convent was now her only home.

The keeping of the rule that she had learned so slowly at first had now become second nature to her. All through her father’s long and painful illness she kept up bravely and showed no sign of all she was enduring. Nay more, this cross being a means of sanctification, had its share in her formation as a perfect religious.

In the early years she experienced keenly all the irksomeness, the petty trials, combined with the monotony of community life, a sort of spiritual hair-shirt that makes community life itself a keener trial and a heavier burden than physical austerities.

She could scarcely have been human had she been free from the necessity of encountering and conquering the difficulties arising inevitably from the living together of so many different types of character. In spite of all that had gone before Theresa was eminently human, and so the eventual killing out of all natural likes and repugnances was no small undertaking. Within a few years she succeeded in a task that many earnest religious never completely accomplish. Thus the restlessness, or gauche ways of other of the Sisters often got on the nerves of the overstrung, exquisitely balanced mind of  Theresa, but few ever suspected it, she seemed always so equable and bright. If a Sister on washing day splashed Theresa in her vigorous putting forth of energy, Theresa, by force of not even wiping the warm soap suds from her face, began actually at last to find pleasure in the sprinkling if a Sister near her in the chapel fidgetted, by sheer force of will, she soon became oblivious of it. There was also the opposite danger of her taking a special liking to those members of the community to whom she naturally felt more attracted ; but from the beginning there was never any indication of her showing the slightest sign of any such preference. Though two of her own sisters were already members of the community, Theresa had begun by making clear to herself she had not entered religion to enjoy their presence. No one in the community could ever detect any signs of preference for her sisters company when even she was permitted by the rule to speak to them, she made no advances. Later on she was appointed as aid to Sister Agnes of Jesus, her sister Pauline but this only entailed on her more than usual self-abnegation, as Theresa, in accordance with the rule, never would speak to her sister except for strictly necessary matters. She not only kept clear of any particular friendship with any of her fellow novices, but used her influence with them to make them carefully discriminate in the affection they owed their Mother Prioress, between the supernatural love due to her as the representative of our Lord, and any merely natural regard for her on the score of her personal qualities.

Even as a child she had long ago acquired the habit of never excusing herself or complaining. This characteristic still remained, only it was carried to a still higher point of perfection.

In all things she never wished to do her own will, but by preference was always on the watch to learn the wishes of others in order to make them the rule of her action.

She in every way always endeavoured to make herself the servant of all not only openly, but even in secret, endeavouring to do hidden kindnesses for the Sisters, which could be seen by God’s eye alone.

Perhaps the most idyllic interlude of this life of constant loving service of others is Sister Theresa’s own inimitably humorous account of her experiences as a novice in looking after the comfort in the refectory of a certain infirm old Sister Peter, who was fast getting beyond looking after herself. It was with much misgiving Theresa volunteered for the task, for no one could ever succeed in winning the good Sister’s full approbation. The first stage of the proceedings was that of leading her forth from the choir at ten minutes to six, so as to be in good time for supper at six. So at the appointed sign, the petite young novice of sixteen, enveloped in her huge habit many sizes too big for her, cut with a view to her growing up, her eyes dancing with suppressed merriment, taking her courage in both hands, would decorously present herself at the good Sister’s side first the stool had to be taken up in a certain sacrosanct manner and then the procession to the refectory started. Little Theresa walked behind the good Sister, the stool in one hand, the other firmly holding her belt. Alas, there were ever many vicissitudes on the journey. Did the dear old Sister make a false step as she shuffled along, she would stop to exclaim against the atrocious way she was being held up. ” Oh, my dear child,” she would complain ” you are going ever so quick I am sure I shall fall and break my poor old bones.” Then poor little Theresa, exercising all her delicacy of touch, would retain a firm hold without the good Sister feeling it ; so next panic would seize her ” Oh, my dear, don t let me go by myself I don t feel your hand you haven t got hold of me at all I shall go right down I m sure of it Oh, dear, I always knew you were much too young to look after me ! ” The ancient Sister was disappointed in one thing, for the much prophesied catastrophe never came off, and the perilous passage to the refectory was always accomplished in safety. Then opened a fresh chapter the invalid had to be set up in her place, made comfortable, and her sleeves turned back, all according to a certain fixed ritual, after which the little novice was dismissed. Soon Theresa noticed that the good Sister was getting past even cutting up her bread, so without being asked, Theresa undertook this additional service. It was this that finally won the dear old Sister s heart, especially as it had been done without her asking (she being reluctant to admit her inability), but no small contributory factor to the Sister’s satisfaction, was that as Theresa left her the little novice s merry eyes and mobile mouth all had their share in her parting beaming smile.

All this was but the carrying out in her daily life of the ideal she had set before herself so early as the day of her religious pro fession. ” My God,” she said, ” give me martyrdom of soul or body . . or rather give me both the one and the other.” Our lyord Who heard all her prayers, granted this in more abundant measure than the rest, causing ” the floods of divine tenderness pent up in His divine Heart to overflow into the soul of His little Spouse.” This she spoke of as the ” martyrdom of love,” understanding by it that ” to dedicate oneself as a victim of love is not to be dedicated to sweetness and consolations ; it is to offer oneself to all that is painful and bitter, because L,ove lives only by sacri fice . . and the more we would surrender ourselves to love, the more we must surrender ourselves to suffering.”

Therefore because she aimed at nothing less than ” the loftiest height of love,” the only way to attain its summit was by the path of continual and intense suffering. It was along this path we shall see her divine Master led her, and when eventually she reached her goal nothing then stood between her and death. But we anticipate : many and great and mysterious are to be her trials in the ascent of Mount Carmel. We only at times catch imperfect glimpses of the dread operations that afflicted her most pure but gifted soul in the crucible of suffering we, however, see enough to make plain to us how little has been revealed about all she went through ; but such as it is, it is sufficient to make us tremble at the thought that is only by such processes of purifi cation and refining either here or in purgatory, that the natural soul of man can be fitted for the vision of God.

We have mentioned that Theresa took her place with the professed Sisters of the Carmel on September 24th, 1890, the feast of Our L,ady of Ransom. Within a year occurred the death of the venerable foundress of the Carmel of Lisieux, Mother Genevieve of St. Theresa, a native of Poictiers, who left her pleasant convent home in the south to go amongst strangers and found the new Carmel at Lisieux in hard, remote Normandy. Truly she saw her reward before the end came !

Towards the close of that same year, 1891, the virulent epi demic of influenza that swept across Europe claimed its victims even in the Carmel of Lisieux as elsewhere. Theresa took it but slightly, and then while still only convalescent, this child of eighteen, with the help of two other Sisters, dragged herself about endeavouring at one and the same time to keep up the religious observance and nurse the dying Sisters. On January 2nd, 1892, her nineteenth birthday she, with the infirmarian, was alone present at the death of Mother Sub-Prioress two more deaths quickly followed. Theresa now, in addition to all her other duties, was obliged to do the sacristy work single-handed. A few weeks later, rising before the others to see to her duties, she entered the cell of another of the Sisters to find her already dead, lying dressed on her bed ; she had died all alone. Theresa was by now the trained practical religious ; she in no way lost her nerve, but ran down to the sacristy for a blessed candle, and placed on the dead Sister s head a wreath of roses, according to the Rule.

This terrible visitation that swept in that year through all civilised countries, leaving so much of suffering and death behind it, was also in the designs of God one factor the more in the formation of Theresa s character and sanctity. She was, as it were, brought prematurely face to face with death in all its forms with scarcely any one to support or encourage her.

As she was almost the only one of the whole community able to attend choir, she had the unusual privilege for those days of receiving Holy Communion every day, and when the time of affliction was past and things settled down into the old groove, Theresa often found herself tempted to wish for all her troubles back again if only she could receive our I/ord every day.

She also learnt another lesson, not to fear death. Much as she was tried by the sight of the agony or sudden deaths of the Sisters, she noticed with encouragement how in all cases ” the Sisters left this life for a happier one without any struggle ; an expression of heavenly joy shone on their faces, and they seemed only to be enjoying a pleasant sleep.”

As a result of all she had gone through during the years 1891 and 1892, Theresa had acquired a religious experience and self- reliance beyond her years. Her calm, sensible, practical mind, and maturity of judgment were especially remarkable. Her Mother Prioress had especially marked her out as one who in a marked way had all the qualifications of an ideal religious Superior, and began already to count on having at her side for many years to come, the advantages of her discretion and governing qualities, and of her becoming perhaps later the pioneer of some new foundation.

It was about this period too that Theresa had another ex perience that brought into relief her rare power of self-repression. We have already mentioned how the presence of her two beloved sisters in the Convent was for her only an occasion of fresh sacri fices. She behaved towards them exactly as she would have done to other excellent religious who were her seniors. She tells us on one occasion, how, having continually to meet her sister Pauline when the Rule enjoined silence, she at last almost persuaded herself that even her dearest ” little mother ” had become alienated from her.

At length her own ” little mother ” was actually elected Prioress, and she might well have rejoiced that henceforth she could always speak to her freely, as according to the Rule, she could at any time consult her and pour out her soul to her. But she is a different Theresa now to the old days ; sacrifice has now become her daily food. Her only ambition was that she should be the lowest and the least and no one saw less of the Mother Prioress.

With these few exceptions the intermediate years of Theresa s life in the Convent passed without outward incident. The opera tions of sanctity were going on steadily in her soul, but beyond her earnestness, her singleness of purpose, her humility, self- denial, love of others and minute fidelity to her Rule, there was little to distinguish her outwardly from any other fervent saintly religious.

She was going through a clearly marked definite stage of the spiritual life, a stage that through her unique concentration and earnestness would be comparatively short but still a necessary preliminary to the higher things God had in store for her before she reached the end of her short pilgrimage.

All through this period, as at other times, she was ever a martyr to dryness. She lived and walked by faith and intellect alone, not by emotional exaltation, and no amount of such in tellectual discernment, though it provided the driving power for her life of constant and supernatural endeavour, was sufficient as a rule, to stir up in the lower part of her soul sensible sweetness in the service of God. As a matter of fact in the natural order the Holy Spirit was working on a soul that was singularly free from any excess of emotion a soul that was in its essence simple to a degree, because it saw all things so clearly, and acted according to the cold light of fact, not on make-believe. Quite unconsciously time after time she tells us of trifles that reveal the bent of her mind, showing how with all its training, experience and keen outlook on life, the inner self ever remained that of an unspoilt child. Speaking of her dreams she says charmingly : ” I attach no importance to my dreams, and indeed they seldom have any special meaning, though I often wonder how it is that whereas I think of God all the day, my mind does not dwell on Him more in my sleep. Generally I dream of the woods and the flowers, the brooks and the sea, and nearly always of pretty children ; or I chase birds and butterflies such as I have never seen. But if my dreams are sometimes poetical, they are never mystical.”

We have said this absence of any emotional exaltation was, as a rule, Theresa’s ordinary state. There were, however, some few exceptions she alludes to as standing out in contrast to her ordinary experience, mentioned by her under obedience in reply to the questions of her Mother Prioress. She described these experiences as ” transports of love.” The first she remembered, took place during her noviciate, and lasted a whole week. This might be set down by some as being partly due to joy and natural exaltation at being at last safely started in her religious vocation, so that she felt like walking on air. Her own account to some extent tallies with this. She explains “it seemed as though a veil were thrown over all earthly things. But I was not then consumed by a real fire. I was able to bear those transports of love without expecting to see the ties that bound me to earth give way.” This experience was repeated she says ” several times,” but as soon as the feeling of exaltation was over, she came down to earth once more, and dryness returned to her heart, just as if she had never known or experienced anything beyond the bare life of faith.

It was during these early years of her religious life from about her seventeenth till her twentieth year she made the works of St. John of the Cross her study, and received from them many spiritual lights on her progress, which at this stage coincided with the experiences he describes in the ” Spiritual Canticle ” and his Hymns. L/ater on it is illuminating to know that she had got beyond even these advanced mystical works and could find assistance only in the Sacred Scriptures and the Imitation of Christ ; ” Later on, even now all spiritual authors leave me cold and dry. However beautiful and touching a book may be, my heart does not respond, and I read without understanding, or if I understand, I cannot meditate. In my helplessness the Holy Scriptures and the Imitation are of the greatest assistance ; in them I find a hidden manna, genuine and pure.”

We are now to some extent able to picture to ourselves her religious life of perfection at this stage. She is still building on the original foundation of the illumination received on her ” con version ” at Christmas, 1886, that God is all in all, and that all created things are but fleeting and negligible. This was a cold, clear, intellectual conclusion taught her from above ” I had no guide and no light but that which shone within my heart/ Joined with this was also the unquestioned settled conviction that God loved her and all creatures with a consuming unalterable love that she had no alternative but to return that love with all her mind and all her soul, even if she felt no emotional feelings. She also realised that this love of our divine Lord, Who does not despise the work of His own hands, and Who knows the clay of which we are made, is infinite Mercy. Knowing our frailty and native weakness He is only too willing to overlook our scarcely deliberate venial sins provided in the main the attitude of our minds is to return His love. Even these slight falls may be a gain if for each infidelity we redouble our acts of love and purpose amendment in the future ; and so in this spirit she practised her ” little way ” as she called it of the service of God, in the spirit of complete surrender to our Lord s good pleasure, and detached even from all anxiety for self -improvement^

It was only in the first months after her conversion that any beginnings of conflict between her higher and her lower nature troubled her ; but after a while she was able to suppress them as well as the slightest outward manifestation without much trouble, as soon as they tended to arise.

We can well imagine how perfect then her religious life must have appeared to the keen and experienced eyes of her first Prioress, Mother Mary Gonzaga. When self-seeking is non-existent, per fection is not far off. Theresa then during these early years was a model religious in every way, and her very life was an inspiration to her religious Sisters who soon finding how dependable she was, and that she was in no way the creature of whim or impulse, felt they could always rely upon her under all and every circum stance, as a living example of a perfect religious.

She, therefore had the name of being regular, exact, and mortified in all things never asking for dispensations or exceptions divested of all earthly affections always willing to fulfil any duty no matter how humiliating or unpleasant never seeking to do pleasant things or even things to which she was attracted spiritually never over eager, never impulsive always bright, always cheerful no matter how great her sufferings and trials always only too willing to help others and to shoulder their burdens, and withal ever sensible, matter of fact, practical, with a saving sense of humour in all she said or did, and especially gifted far beyond her years as a wise counsellor.

The sufferings of her early years were still bearing fruit in her soul. From them she had early learnt the lesson that suffering is an indispensable condition of spiritual progress and union with God, and so came to love and desire suffering with her higher intellectual mind as the quickest way of attaining Him her heart’s desire. So it was that though suffering caused her exquisite pain, yet she never felt easy in her mind unless it were present with her eventually she placed all her joy in suffering, and yearned for its continuance and increase until in the end she died a willing victim of love.

It was this love of suffering for God s sake as the instrument of His loving desire to unite us more closely to Himself, that counterbalanced the martyrdom Theresa endured especially during the last two or three years of her dear father s life when he whom they loved so tenderly was as helpless as a baby.

Her letters to her two sisters in the Carmel throw much light on the very unusual and perfect dispositions in which she set out on her religious life. Thus, in September, 1890, just before her Profession, she wrote an account of her mind to her elder sister, Pauline. This is what she said. ” Before starting my Beloved asked me in what land I wished to travel, and what route I wished to follow. I told him I had only one desire, that of reaching the summit of the mountain of Love.” ” Thereupon roads innumerable spread before my gaze, but so many of these were perfect that I felt incapable of choosing any of my own free will. Then I said to my divine Guide Thou knowest the spot I desire to reach, and for whose sake I would climb the mountain ; Thou knowest Him whom I love, and whom alone I wish to please. For Him only I set out on this journey ; lead me, therefore by the paths of His choice ; my joy shall be full if only He be pleased.

” And our Lord took me by the hand and led me into an underground passage …. My Spouse speaks not a word, and I say nothing save that I love Him more than myself ; and in the depths of my heart I feel this is so, for I am more His than my own. I cannot see that we are advancing towards our jour ney s goal since we are going along underground ; and yet without knowing how, it seems to me we are nearing the summit of the mountain.”

” I give my thanks to Jesus for making me walk in darkness, in it I enjoy profound peace. Willingly would I consent to remain through all my religious life in this gloomy passage into which He has led me. I desire only that my darkness may obtain light for sinners. I am happy, nay, most happy, to be without all consolation. I should be ashamed were my love like that of those earthly brides who are ever glancing towards their bridegrooms hands, to see if some present has been brought them ; or else at the face to catch the loving smile which fills them wdth delight.”

Theresa, the little Spouse of Jesus, loves Him for Himself ; she only looks on the Face of her Beloved to catch a glimpse of the tears that delight her with their hidden charm. She longs to wipe away those tears . . . Jesus . . . Jesus . Oh, I would so love Him ! Love Him as he He has never yet been loved. At all costs I must win the palm of St. Agnes ; if it cannot be mine through blood, I must win it by love.”

In the following year 1891 she again writes in the same strain to her sister. ” Love can take the place of a long life ” (she is always prophetically insisting on this variant of ” consummatus in brevi,”) ” being made perfect in a short time.”- Wisd. iv. 13 Jesus does not consider time for He is eternal. He only looks at love . . . I do not desire what can be felt ; if only Jesus feels it, that is enough for me.” And as regards her faults she adds : Jesus can grant me the grace never to offend him more, or rather never to commit any faults, but those which do not offend Him or give Him pain ; faults which avail but to humble me and strengthen my love. There is no one to lean on apart from Jesus.”

A little later writing again she still pursues this same subject of our Lord occupying the whole of her thoughts. What hap piness it is for us to be so entirely hidden that no one gives us a thought to be unknown even to those with whom we live ! My little Mother, I long to be unknown to every one of God s creatures ! I have never desired glory amongst men, and if their contempt used to attract my heart, I have realised that even this is too glorious for me and I ardently desire to be forgotten.”

To her eldest sister, Marie, she is, if anything, more explicit about her deprivation of consolation. Writing during the retreat before her profession she explains ” It has been a dreary journey (for your child) towards her bridal day. It is true her Beloved has led her through fertile and striking scenery, but the dark night prevents her admiring, much less appreciating these wonders. Perhaps you think she is unhappy about this. Oh no, on the contrary, she is happy to follow her Beloved for His own sake, and not for the sake of His gifts …. Weary of earthly consolation your little child wishes for her Beloved alone. I believe the work of Jesus during this retreat has been to detach me from everything that is not Himself. . . . Did you but know how great is my joy at giving pleasure to Jesus through my having nothing of my own. . . . Truly this is the very refine ment of all joy joy we do not feel.”

Later again she writes to her same sister, Marie, explaining in illuminating fashion the place of consolation and emotional enthusiasm in the service of God. ” How can you ask, if it be possible for you to love God as I love Him ! My yearnings for martyrdom are as nothing ; it is not to them I owe the boundless confidence that I feel within my heart These aspir ations are a consolation Jesus sometimes grants to weak souls like mine and there are many such ! But when he withholds this consolation it is a special grace. Remember these words of a holy monk the martyrs suffered with joy, and the King of Martyrs in sorrow/ In truth Jesus cried out My Father, remove this chalice from me. How then can you think now that my desires are a proof of love. Indeed I know well that it certainly is not this that gives pleasure to God in my soul. What does please Him is to find me love my littleness, my poverty ; it is the blind trust I have in His mercy. . . . Are you not ready to suffer all that God wills ? Yes, I know that this is so ; and so if you wish to feel joy in and be attracted towards suffering, you are really seeking your own consolation, because once we love anything suffering disappears. I really do assure you that if we were to go together to martyrdom, you would gain great merit, and I should have none, unless it pleased our Lord to change my dis positions. Dear Sister, I do beg you understand this that to love Jesus and be His victim of love, the more weak and wretched we are the better are we fitted for this consuming and transfiguring love. The mere desire to be a victim is sufficient ; but we must be resigned to remain poor and without natural strength. We must seek Him . in abasement and nothingness. Let us then remain very far from all that is brilliant, loving our littleness, and content to have no fine feelings. Then we shall be truly poor in spirit, and Jesus will come to seek us however far off we may be, and He will transform us in the fire of love. . . . It is confidence and confidence alone that will lead us to love. Does not fear lead to the thought of the strict Justice that is set before sinners ? But this is not the justice Jesus will reserve for such as love Him. . . . Dearest Godmother, you would like to learn still more of the secrets that Jesus confides to your little child, but human speech finds itself unable to repeat what the human heart itself can scarcely conceive. Besides, Jesus imparts knowledge of His secrets to you likewise, for was it not you who taught me.”

These chance liftings of the veil undoubtedly disclose a life of more than ordinary detachment and union with God, and there can be little question that such was the opinion of her Mother Prioress who in 1894 apparently before her father s death on July 29th of that year, appointed Theresa when she was only 21 to the effective position of Novice Mistress. She had not been long in this new position before the long threatened blow fell and good M. Martin after his long and painful purgatory was called by God to Himself. If anything his death was the cessation of a strain for his loving children, but none the less it was the final snapping of all the ties and memories connected with the home of bygone days, their ” dear nest.” From one point of view his holy death seemed to give Theresa back her father. For some time previously perhaps their greatest cross was the thought he could no longer bear them in mind. Now it was otherwise they felt sure he knew all, and watched over them now with redoubled love. Theresa, writing to Celine to console the sister who for the long five years had stood on Calvary with their father, says : ” Our dear father makes his presence felt in a way which touches me deeply. After a death lasting for five long years, what joy to find him again as he used to be, nay, more a loving father than ever ! Oh, how he will make up to you for all the care you lavished on him ! You were his angel, now in his turn he will be yours.”

Only one earthly wish now remained, and that was that her sister Celine should enter the Garmel ; this was soon granted, she believed, as a result of her father s intercession. Celine being now safe in the noviciate of the Carmel at lyisieux, and so in our hands, Theresa felt done with this world, and nothing remained for her but to run her course. She celebrates this occa sion with a perfect paean of joy in which for the moment she makes her own the words of St. John of the Cross, who so far has been her guide in the ” ascent of Mount Carmel.”

” Now have I no desire left, unless it be to love Jesus to dis traction ! It is love alone that allures me. I no longer desire either suffering or death, but all the same I love both dearly. Long have I called on them as messengers of joy. Suffering I have had in full measure, and I have thought I was on the point of reaching the everlasting shore. From earliest childhood I have ever ima gined that the little flower would be plucked in its springtime ; now self-abandonment alone is my guide. I have no other com pass. I wish never again to pray for anything with eagerness, save the perfect accomplishment of God s holy will in my soul. I feel able to make my own these words of the canticle of our Father, St. John of the Cross :

In the inner cellar of my friend well-beloved, I drank, and when I came forth again, in all this plain I recognised naught. I found too I had lost the flock that erstwhile I tended. My soul with all its powers is now devoted to His service, no more I tend my flock. I am now quit of all my tasks, for all my energies are swallowed up in love/ (Spiritual Canticle).

” Or rather as he again says :

Since I have known it, love is so powerful in work that it can turn to good account, all within me whether good or evil, and transmute my soul into itself. (Hymn to the Deity).

” Oh, how sweet is the way of love ! Doubtless one at times may fall and be found wanting to grace ; but love knowing how to turn everything to account, quickly consumes everything that can displease Jesus, leaving in the depths of the heart only a deep and humble peace.” There is no question that to the eyes of all in the Carmel a great and wonderful change had come over the youthful inexperienced child postulant of six years before, who now though only just out of her teens, had become the image of the perfect religious. She herself found her position altered, as with the course of years she was now no longer as it were the baby of the Convent, but a religious of standing and experience, and the trusted adviser and support of the Mother Prioress. Theresa herself felt the change, but it made no difference to her sanctity, now safely based on humility. She knew full well she was not in reality so very different from the novice of a few years back, and deep down in her heart she treasured, as she says, those pre cious drops of dew, the mortifications of other days to remind her that she is still small and frail. Jesus, she explains, well knew that at first His little flower needed the life-giving water of humili ations it was too weak to take root otherwise, and it was to her wise Mother Prioress she owed this great blessing. But, she continues, ” finding it is sufficiently watered, He now allows it to expand under the warm rays of a hot sun ; He now wishes it should enjoy His smile, and this He gives it through you, dear Mother. Far from withering it, this bright sun makes the little flower grow in a wonderful way. . . . Even were all creatures now to draw near to admire and flatter it, that would not add the least drop of vanity to the true joy it experiences at realising that in God s eyes it is but a poor, worthless thing and nothing more. When I say, that I am indifferent to praise, I am not speaking of the love and confidence you show me ; on the contrary, I am deeply touched by them, but I feel that I now have nothing to fear, and I can now rejoice in them without misgiving, attri buting to God all the good He has been graciously pleased to dower me with.”

The confidence she alludes to is that in the year 1894, the Mother Prioress wished to appoint her Novice Mistress, but Theresa, while accepting the duties under obedience, would not take the title, and insisted on the Mother Prioress being nominal Mistress ” Meanwhile I know your will, dear Mother. You wish me to carry out at your side a work which is both sweet and easy, and this work I shall complete in heaven. You have said to me as our Lord said to St. Peter : Feed my lambs. I am amazed, for I feel I am so little. I have entreated you to lead to the pasture your little lambs yourself, and to keep me as a favour among them. You have complied, in some slight degree, with my reasonable wish, and have appointed me as their leading companion rather than their Mistress. . . How is it, dear Mother, that my youth and inexperience have not frightened you. … or perhaps you remembered that our Lord is often pleased to give wisdom to little ones. On this earth it is rare to find souls who do not apply to God s infinite power the measure of their own narrow thoughts. … It has long, I know, been the custom amongst men to reckon experience by years for in his youth the holy King David sang to the Lord, I am young and despised (Ps. cxviii. 141) , but in the same Psalm he does not fear to say : I have had under standing above old men because I sought Thy Commandments, Thy word is a lamp to my feet and light to my paths ; I have sworn and I am determined to keep the judgments of Thy justice” (Ps. cxviii. 100-106). And you did not even consider it imprudent one day to assure me that the Divine Master had enlightened my soul and given me the experience of years. I am too little now to give way to vanity. I am likewise still too little to know how to use a lot of fine-sounding phrases, so as to give the impression that I am full of humility. I prefer to own in all simplicity that He that is mighty hath done great things in me, and the greatest is that He has shown me my littleness and how incapable I am of anything good.”

You know it has ever been my desire to become a saint, but I have always felt in comparing myself with the Saints that there is between them and myself as great a difference as there is between the unnoticed grain of sand which the passer-by tramples under foot and the mountain whose summit is lost in the clouds. Instead of being discouraged, I said to myself, God will never inspire desires which cannot be realised, and so I may aspire to sanctity in spite of my littleness. I shall never really grow up ; it’s quite out of the question. I must then put up with myself such as I am and with my endless imperfections, but I do want to find out a means of getting to heaven by a little way, quite straight and very short Well, now, I mean to try and find a lift by which I may be raised up to Jesus, for I am too tiny to climb the steep stairway of perfection. I have sought to find in the Sacred Scriptures some suggestion as to what this lift might be which I so much desired, and I read these words uttered by the Eternal Wisdom Itself : Whosoever is a little one, let him come to Me” (Prov. iv. 4). Then I drew near to God, feeling sure I had discovered what I sought ; but wishing to know further what He would do to the little one, I continued my search and this is what I found : You shall be carried at the breasts and upon the knees ; as one whom the mother caresseth, so will I comfort you” (Is. Ivi. 12, 13).”

” Never have words more tender and sweet-sounding ever come to rejoice my soul. Thine arms, O Jesus, are the lift which must raise me up even unto heaven. To get there I need never grow up ; on the contrary, I must remain little, and keep on growing smaller and smaller. O my God, thou hast gone beyond my expectation, and as for myself I will sing Thy mercies ! Thou, hast taught me, O Lord, from my youth and till now I have declared Thy wonderful works, and thus into old age and grey hairs. (Ps. Ixx. 17, 18). What will this old age be for me ? It seems to me it can be just as well now as later. . . But do not think, dear Mother, that your child is anxious to leave you, through deeming it a greater grace to die in the morning rather than in the evening of life ; what she really values and alone desires is to give pleasure to Jesus.”

It is not within the scope of this short study, which aims at following out the stages of her spiritual development, to give any account of the wisdom and maturity of the direction Sister Theresa gave the novices during the few short years they were in her charge. Her wisdom and sayings in the discharge of this important office represented the flower and fruit of all her own long years of obedience to and correspondence with the inspirations of grace.

All the while, however, her own sanctification was going on apace from virtue to virtue ; for, as she says, our Lord was continually leading her onwards in the science of love. Having given all her substance for it, she still felt like the spouse in the Canticle that she had given nothing. She can only sing with the Psalmist ” that the Lord is good, that His mercy endureth for ever.” (Ps. ciii. i). She also adds that if everyone were to receive similar favours from God, He would be feared by none, but loved to excess and that no one would ever commit the least wilful fault and this through love, not fear. It was under such happy circumstances that the year following her father s death was passed (1894-5). It was, as one might say, the second period of respite given in her short life, before the last great ordeal was to commence ; the first period being the season of comparative peace that followed Christmas, 1886. She had now become habituated to keeping the Rule, she was comforted in the thought that once more her beloved father knew and took interest in all she did and was able more effectually to pray for her ; her sister Celine too, was now safe in the Carmel along with her other sisters, and she herself felt without vanity or elation that she was a real help to the Mother Prioress in leading the fresh young souls of the novices to our Lord’s feet.

She also knew and realised how our Lord was continually leading her on in His grace and service, and by intellectual spiritual illuminations deepening and extending her knowledge of divine things. Especially was she consoled by what she learnt as to the infinite Mercy and Love of God, Who only asks in return for the goodwill and love of His erring creatures. She felt too she had learned how His Justice had become reconciled with His Mercy, that is to say, His Justice takes our weakness into account, seeing that He knows perfectly the frailty of our nature. This revelation of God s loving mercy and goodness took practical form in her soul in the month of June, 1895, by her consecrating herself specially to the merciful Love of God as a holocaust. She was led to this by the thought of holy souls who for the sins of their brethren offer themselves as victims to divine Justice. This did not appeal to Theresa, who, by now felt she had to some degree sounded the depths of God s infinite Goodness, which, alas, is ignored and rejected. She saw how hearts on which God was only waiting to pour out the riches of His Love, turned themselves to creatures to seek their happiness in the miserable satisfaction of a moment, instead of casting themselves into the divine Arms, into the un fathomable furnace of infinite Love.

In order then that the love of God that filled her own heart should not merely remain hidden there, she offered herself as a living victim of divine Love in order that such Love might be better known and might spread over the whole earth, inflaming every where the cold hearts of men.

She embodied this consecration in a solemn written act on the 9th of June, 1895. As a consequence, what she describes as oceans of grace flooded her soul, and from that day onward she was penetrated and surrounded with love. ” Every moment this merciful Love renews me and purifies me, leaving in my soul no trace of sin. I cannot fear Purgatory ; I know I do not merit to enter even into that place of expiation along with the Holy Souls, but I also know that the fire of Love is more sanctifying than the fire of Purgatory. I know that Jesus could not wish useless sufferings for us, and He would not inspire me with the desires I feel, were He not willing to fulfil them.”

She soon too experienced another sign that a new stage of her spiritual progress had commenced with this solemn oblation of herself to God s merciful Love. A few days later she narrates being in choir beginning the Way of the Cross, she felt herself suddenly wounded by a dart of fire so ardent that she thought she should die. Similar experiences had already previously happened to her as we have already mentioned, but this transport was of an entirely different character. The former experiences were bearable and in no way seemed to tend to the wrenching apart of soul and body but in the present case she explained that no words could convey any idea, or could suggest any comparison to express the intensity of the flame. It was as though an invisible force had plunged her wholly into fire. At any moment, had it persisted, she expected to see the ties that bound her to earth give way ; but withal, with the intensity of the flame, her soul was also penetrated with sweetness. The next moment she felt herself on earth once more and dryness had returned to her heart. It is true for the moment the Divine Hand had withdrawn the fiery dart, but the wound was to death it was the beginning of the end.