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To Madame ***

Letter 1

There is no wood like the wood of the cross for enkindling the fire of love in the soul, and Jesus wants to be loved and to find in the world that so offends Him souls given to Him — that is, wholly yielded up to Him and His good pleasure.1

11 My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me."2 Our Lord was the first to say this. The soul in communion with Him enters into the feelings of His divine soul, and its one ideal is to fulfil the will of the Father Who has loved us from all eternity.

As you have given me leave to speak freely to you and to read something of the secrets of your heart, allow me, dear Madame , to tell you that

I see the will of God manifested in your sufferings. He has deprived you of the power of action, of seeking amusement, or doing any work, so that your one occupation may be to love and to think of Him. I tell you, from Him, that He thirsts for your soul. You are specially consecrated to Him, for, to my great joy, you wished to be His entirely while living in the world. It is very simple ! He is always with you. Be always with Him, in your actions, your sufferings, and when your body is exhausted. Remain in His sight ; see Him present with you, living in you.

Were I not in Carmel, I should envy your solitude — you are so secluded among your beautiful mountains. You seem to me in a little Thebaid. How delightful to wander about alone through those vast woods, to leave your books and work, and dwell with the good God, heart to heart, in closest intimacy, gazing upon Him with overflowing love ! You should enjoy such happiness ; it is heavenly.

Letter 2

You ask me how I can bear the cold. Believe me, I am not more generous than you, but you are ill and I am in good health. I do not feel that the weather is cold, so you see I have not much merit. I used to suffer far more from the winter at home than I do at Carmel without a fire. The good God gives us grace. Besides, it is well for us when we feel such little things, to look at the Divine Master Who also suffered the like because of " His exceeding charity " towards us ; then we long to return Him love for love. We meet with many such sacrifices at Carmel, but they are sweet when the heart is made captive by love.

I will tell you what I do when I feel a little tired : I look at the crucified God, and when I see how He gave Himself for me, it seems as if I cannot do less than spend myself, wear myself out, that I may repay Him some little of what He has given me.

Dear Madame , let us communicate in His spirit of suffering in the morning at Holy Mass. We are His brides : we ought to be like Him. Let us keep ourselves in Him during the day. If we faithfully live His life, if we identify ourselves with all the feelings of the soul of the crucified God, we need no longer dread our own weakness ; He will be our strength, and who will dare to take us from Him ? I believe that He is greatly pleased with you, and that your sacrifices must console His Heart. During Lent I appoint as our meeting-place the infinity of God, His charity. Shall not that be the desert where, with our Divine Spouse, we will live in profound solitude, since it is in this solitude that He speaks to our hearts ?

Letter 3

It is well for us to look into the hearts of the saints and to follow them, in faith, until they enter heaven. There they shine with the light of God, Whom they contemplate face to face. This heaven of the saints is our own country, the Father's house, where we are expected and loved, to which some day we too may take our flight, to repose in the bosom of infinite Love ! When we fix our eyes upon this divine world, which surrounds us already even in our earthly exile, in which we can spend our life, how the things of this world disappear ! They are the things that are not, that are less than nothing. The saints well understood this true wisdom, which makes us leave all things, ourselves above all, to fly to God and dwell in Him alone. Dear Madame

, He abides in us to sanctify us. Let us ask

Him to be Himself our sanctity. We are told in the Gospel that when our Lord was on earth a secret virtue went out from Him — the sick recovered health, the dead were raised to life when brought in contact with Him. Yet He is still living — living in the tabernacle, in the adorable Sacrament, living in our souls. He Himself has told us so : " If anyone love Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and will make Our abode with him."3 Since He is there, let us bear Him company as a man does his friend. This divine union is wholly interior : it is the essence of the Carmelite life which makes our solitude so dear to us ; for, as is said by our Father St. John of the

Cross (whose feast we keep to-day) "Two hearts that love one another prefer solitude to all else."

On Saturday, the Feast of the Presentation of our Lady, we had the beautiful ceremony of the renewal of vows. Oh ! dear Madame , what a happy day it was I What a joy to bind oneself to the service of so kind a Master, to tell Him that one is His till death, the bride of Christ ! I am very glad to know that you, too, are given to Him. I think our great St. Elizabeth in heaven must bless and seal the union of our souls.

I shall never go to see your beautiful mountains, but in heart and soul I shall follow you there, asking Him Who is our " Trysting-place " to draw us to those other mountains, to those divine summits so far distant from earth that they nearly touch heaven. It is there that I remain united with you under the rays of the Sun of Love I

Letter 4

Before entering the strict silence of Lent, our Reverend Mother has given me leave to tell you how earnestly I and my dear community are praying for you. I understand your dread of an operation, and beg our Lord to relieve and calm your fears Himself. The Apostle St. Paul says that " God worketh all things according to the counsel of His will ;" * consequently we ought to receive everything as coming directly from the divine hand of our Father, Who loves us, and Who, amidst all our trials, is following out His own end — that of uniting us more closely to Himself. Launch your soul upon the ocean of trust4 and submission to His will ; remember that whatever troubles and frightens you does not come from the good God, for He is the " Prince of Peace,"5 that peace which He has promised to men of goodwill. When you fear, as you tell me, that you have abused His graces, that is the time to redouble your trust in Him, for, as the Apostle says elsewhere : " Where sin abounded, grace did more abound ";f " God is rich in mercy, for His exceeding charity wherewith He loved us." £ Then do not dread the hour through which we all must pass. Death is the sleep of the babe upon its mother's heart. At last the night of exile will have fled for ever, and we shall enter into possession of "the lot of the saints in light." § St. John of the Cross says that we shall be judged by our degree of love, which corresponds with what our Lord said of St. Mary Magdalen: " Many sins are forgiven her, because she hath loved much." | I often think that I shall have a very long purgatory, for much will be asked of those who have received much, and He has been so overflowing in generosity to His little bride ! However, I confide in His love, and sing my hymn of His mercies while I am still on earth.

If we were to grow more like God every day, with what confidence we should regard the hour in which we must appear before His infinite sanctity 1 I think you have discovered the secret. It is by self-denial that we reach this divine end ; by this we [die to self and give place to God.^ Do you remember the beautiful page in St. John's gospel where our Lord

I Eph. ii. 4. § Col. i. 12.6

says to Nicodemus : " Amen, amen, I say unto thee, unless a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God"?7 Let us renew ourselves in the depths of our soul — " Stripping yourselves of the old man with his deeds, and putting on the new, . . . according to the image of Him Who created him."f [It is to be done gently and simply by separating / ourselves from all that is not God."] Then the soul ' no longer fears nor desires anything, the will being completely lost in that of God, which produces union.

Let us pray much for one another during the holy time of Lent, retiring into the desert with our Master, and asking Him to teach us to live His life.

Letter 5

February, 1904.

I have felt closely drawn to you lately while reading the life of St. Elizabeth, your Mother and my heavenly patroness. I am so fond of those words addressed to her by our Lord : c< Elizabeth, if thou will keep with Me, 1 will keep with thee, and nothing will be able to separate us." Dear Madame

, did not the Divine Spouse say so to us in the silence of our soul when He invited us to follow Him more closely, to be one with Him by becoming His brides ? During these days in which we keep the " Forty Hours," the Blessed Sacrament is exposed here. To-day, Sunday, I have spent nearly the whole day before our Lord, trying by my love to make Him forget the sins committed during the carnival.

Lent will begin on Wednesday : shall we make a Lent of love together ? " The Son of God loved me, and delivered Himself for me."# This, then, is the way love expresses itself: it gives itself, it empties itself entirely into Him Whom it loves. "Love makes the lover go out of himself, transporting him, by an ineffable ecstasy, into the Heart of Him it loves." Is not that a beautiful thought ? Let it be the guiding watchword of our souls, so that they may suffer themselves to be borne away by the Spirit of love, and beneath the light of faith may, while still on earth, join the hymn of love eternally sung by the blessed before the throne of the

Lamb. Yes, dear Madame , let us begin our heaven on earth, our heaven in love ! He Himself is this love, as St. John tells us: "God is charity." f Shall not this be our trysting-place ?

Letter 6

January, 1905.

In the epistles of St. Peter I came across a quotation which will express the good wishes of your little Carmelite for you : " Sanctify the Lord Christ in your hearts."^ To do that we must carry out the idea of St. John the Baptist : "He must increase, but I must decrease. "8 Dear Madame , let us make God increase in our souls during this new year which He gives us to sanctify ourselves and to unite ourselves more closely to Him. Let us keep Him " alone and separate"; let Him be really King. As for us, let \self disappear and be forgotten, that we may be9 nothing but the " Praise of His glory," according to the Apostle's beautiful expression,

I also wish you all the blessings of health which you need, as you suffer so severely for want of them. Remember what St. Paul said : " Gladly, therefore, will I glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may dwell in me."10 It is all the will of the good God. Rejoice, rejoice, dear

Madame , in the bodily pains which affect your soul as well, and remember that if you bear your state of helplessness faithfully and lovingly you can load Him with glory. Our holy Mother St. Teresa said : " When we know how to unite ourselves to j God and to His holy will, accepting whatever He decrees, we possess everything."

I wish you this deep peace in the divine good pleasure. I understand what sacrifices your health must impose upon you, but it is sweet to say to ourselves: "He wills it." He said one day to one of His saints: " Drink, eat, sleep, do whatever J you like, as long as you love Me." It is love that makes His yoke so easy and His burden so light. Let us ask the Infant God to consume us by this divine flame, by the fire that He willed to bring on earth. . . ."

Letter 7

May 1906 be, for your soul, a chain of fidelity whose every link, soldered by love, may bind you more closely to the Divine Master and make you indeed His captive, " fettered to Him," as St. Paul says. The saint, with his large and generous heart, desired for his disciples " that Christ might dwell in their hearts, that they might be rooted and founded in charity."11 That is what I wish for you, too, dear

Madame : that the reign of love may be supreme within you, that its influence may make you 'totally oblivious of self, and may conduct you to that mystic death of which the Apostle spoke when He exclaimed : <c I live, now not I ; but Christ liveth in me."f The Divine Master, in His discourse after the Last Supper, that last song of the love of His soul, utters to the Father the beautiful words : " I have glorified Thee on the earth, I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do." J We who are

His brides, dear Madame , ought consequently to identify ourselves completely with Him, and ought to be able to repeat these words at the close of each j day. Perhaps you will ask me \how we are to glorify Him. It is very simple. Our Lord told us the secret when He said : " My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me."12 (Cling closely to the

, will of this adorable Master ; look upon each joy and each suffering as coming directly from Him, and your life will be a continual Communion, for all things will be like a Sacrament coming from God to you. This really is the fact, for God is not divided. ( His will is His whole being. He is wholly and entirely in all things,^and these things are, to a certain extent, nothing but an emanation of His love! You see how you can glorify Him in the states of suffering and languor which are so hard to bear. Forget self as much as possible ; that is the secret of peace and happiness. St. Francis Xavier exclaimed : " What

LETTERS 28 r touches me, touches me not ; but what touches Him, touches me to the quick." Happy the soul that becomes so utterly detached ; that is love indeed ! . . .

Footnotes

  1. 1 Cor. ii. 11. f 1 St. John ii. 20. J I Cor. ii. 10. ↩

  2. St Jokn iv. 34. ↩

  3. St. John xiv. 23. ↩

  4. Eph. i. 11. ↩

  5. Isa. ix. 6. f Rom. v. 20. ↩

  6. St. Luke vii. 47. ↩

  7. St. John iii. 3. T Col. iii. 9, 10. ↩

  8. Gal. ii. 20. t 1 St. John iv. 8. ↩

  9. 1 St. Peter iii. 15. § St. John iii. 30. ↩

  10. 2 Cor. xii. 9 ↩

  11. Eph. iii. 17. t Gal. ii. 20. ↩

  12. St. John xvii. 4. § UU.% iv. 34. ↩

Chapter 3 of 5