Chapter 45: Of perfect resignation of ourselves to the Divine will

Gertrude being once ill of a fever, which sometimes in creased after perspiration and sometimes diminished, find ing herself one night bathed in perspiration, began to desire very anxiously to know if she would be better or worse after it. Then our Lord Jesus Christ appeared to her radiant with beauty, and bearing health in His right hand and sickness in his left : He presented them to her, that she might choose whichever she preferred. But the Saint re fused both, and, casting herself into the arms of her Lord, she approached His loving Heart, in which the plenitude of all good abides, that she might learn His adorable will. Our Lord received her with much sweetness, and embraced her lovingly, allowing her to rest on His bosom ; but she turned her face away from Him, and, inclining her head backwards, exclaimed : " I turn my face from Thee, and I entreat Thee with my whole heart not to consider my inclin ation in anything, but to accomplish Thy adorable will in all that concerns me."

From this we may learn that the faithful soul ought to confide all that concerns her to God with perfect confidence, and that she should prefer being ignorant of His designs towards her, so that His will may be more fully accom plished in her.

The Lord then poured into the bosom of the Saint two streams of living water, which came forth from the two sides of His Heart, as from a mystic vessel, and said to her : " Since you have turned your face from me, and renounced your own will in all things, I will pour forth on you all the sweetness of My Divine Heart." " My sweet

Lord," replied Gertrude, "since Thou hast so often, and in such different ways, bestowed Thy Deified Heart on me, I desire to know what I shall gain from this new gift." He replied : " Does not the Catholic faith teach you that I bestow Myself, with all the riches that are contained in the treasures of My Divinity and My Humanity, for the salvation of those who communicate even once 1 — and that the oftener men communicate, the more their beatitude is increased and perfected ? "