Fragments of Letters

My dear Madame

Your little friend's heart longs to let you know how intensely she prays for you.

Like Magdalen at the feet of my Master, I shall intercede for you and tell Him : " He whom Thou lovest is sick."

Jesus gives His cross to His true friends that He may draw nearer to them. I see a very deep love for you in His heart.

I unite myself to the angel you have lost, who is watching over you from heaven, so that 1 may touch the Heart of the good God.

I have just .heard that God has offered you His cross by asking of you the saddest of sacrifices, and I beg Him to be Himself your strength, your support, your Divine Comforter.

I share all your sorrow ; you will read between these lines what my heart cannot utter. God alone can speak to us during such trials, for He is the supreme Consoler. The divine Master, Whose Heart is so intensely compassionate, is near you ; it is He Who received in heaven the soul we love so dearly, which will have a share in our prayers and sacrifices here every day. Dwell with it in that region which is so close to us. Let us lift the veil by faith and follow him who has vanished to where all is peace and light, where suffering is transformed into love.

I beseech God to be all that He has taken from you, and to wipe the tears from your eyes with His divine hand.

I know that you work with indefatigable zeal for the greater glory of God. That, under one form or another, ought to be the employment of our life, it is our" predestination" according to the words of St. Paul. May this new year be a year of love, consecrated to the glory of God. How happy we should be at the last day if we could say with our adored Master : " I have glorified Thee on the earth ; I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do."¹ What a consolation to give God to souls, and souls to God ! With such an aim, life becomes another thing. Shut in our cell, I follow you everywhere, and recommend to the Father of the household <c those two " who labour so effectually for His harvest, while I am their little Moses on the mountain. . . .

My dear Madame

Your kind letter pained me, for I feel how profoundly sad you are. ... I have prayed much for you, and communicated with the Word of Life, with Him Who came to bring solace for sorrows, and Who, on the eve of His Passion, in that discourse after the Last Supper in which He poured forth all His soul, said, in speaking of His own : " I come to Thee . . . that they may have My joy filled in themselves. t It is self-surrender, dear Madame , which gives us to God. I am very young, yet it seems to me that I have suffered keenly at times. Oh ! then, when all was dark, when the present was so painful and the future seemed still more sombre, I closed my eyes, and put myself, like a child, into the arms of the Father Who is in heaven.

Dear Madame , will you allow the little

Carmelite who loves you so dearly to tell you something on the part of the Divine Master ? It is what He said to St. Catharine of Siena : " Think of Me and I will think of thee.'* We look at ourselves too much ; we want to see and comprehend, and have not sufficient confidence in Him Who enfolds us in His charity. We must not stand before our cross to examine it, but, drawing back into the light of faith, we must rise above it, and consider it as the instrument used by divine love. "But one thing is necessary. Mary hath chosen the better part, which shall not be taken away from her."* This " better part," which seems my privilege in my loved solitude in Carmel, is offered by God to every Christian soul.

He offers it to you, dear Madame , among all your cares and anxieties. You must believe that all He wishes is to lead you ever farther and farther into Himself. Yield yourself up to Him with all your troubles ... I have found my heaven on earth, since heaven is God, and God is in my soul. On the day that I understood that, I saw everything in a new light, and I want to tell all those I love of it, so that they, too, may adhere to God whatever happens, and Christ's prayer may be realized : " That they may be made perfect in one."f

Footnotes

1. St. John xvii. 4. t Ibid., 13. ↩