10. Of the withdrawal of divine consolation, which the Virgin suffered on account of her grief for her dead niece

After the death then of the most chaste dove the maiden Petronilla, the holy virgin Lydwine herself, bereaved of the companionship of so faithful and neces- 1 Jan. 1 4th. This Saint is distinct from St. Pontianus, Pope and Martyr, whose feast is celebrated Nov. ipth.

ST. LYDWINE of SCHIEDAM sary a helpmate, fell into a hurtful sad ness, grieving too much for the loss of her most cordial lover Petronilla, with whom bound by mutual love, she had kept a compact of inviolable chastity. For, loving- one another in the love of Christ, they lived together in such union and peace that they could not be separated from one another without grievous sorrow. Which fond union indeed, ex ceeding the bounds of discretion, was even so displeasing to the Lord that, in vengeance for this undue sadness, the grief-stricken virgin was left without divine consolation until the feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.1 She wept therefore most bitterly, not only for the death of her lost niece, but more for the bereavement of her wonted grace withdrawn from her on account of the want of measure in her grief. And so to those who asked the cause of these tears, she answered her friends: "Why should I not weep, most dear ones ? Lo ! now for the last eleven years 1 have asked nothing of the Lord, but I have been able easily to obtain it ; but now in suspense for so long a time, I receive no consolation at all, by a secret ST. LYDWINE of SCHIEDAM and righteous judgment of God given forth against me." O terrible and un searchable dispensation of God over the sons of men ! Who turneth the sea into dry land and rose blossoms into ab sinthe, and from the right setteth on the left, humbling the exalted even to the earth. If, then, the Lord afflicted a virgin so tenderly loved by Him because she bewailed too intensely the lost pre sence of her faithful niece, how severely are those to be punished who foolishly lament for carnal friends and worldly companions. However, the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation was not unmindful of the tears of His servant Whom He had chosen from eternity, but after most bitter sorrow He restored to her the most sweet com fort of the Holy Ghost so often tasted in the times past. Therefore the virgin, desolate for a time and chastised by her Father, about the feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Mary, Virgin, received a wondrous and superabundant consola tion of divine grace, continuing for nine or almost ten days in constant contem plation and savour of things divine and exultation of mind ; and with such great sweetness was she bathed within that ST. LYDWINE of SCHIEDAM those who visited her marvelled, and perceived the scent of a most sweet odour without. When then they ques tioned whence came an odour of such sweetness, she, desirous out of humility rather to be silent than to reveal the secret, at length overcome by their importunate prayers because the Lord had made this known outwardly by manifest signs, answered that the grace of so inestimable an odour came from the heavenly courts, which grace, as she had merited habitually of old, so now also having been visited afresh, she brought back with her. In a like manner a few years before, at the death of her brother William Peters, she fell into a great sadness and became so heavy with grief that she said she had not known hitherto that she was still so human. Wherefore also a long time she was bereaved of her wonted nourishment of divine consolation, as was revealed to a certain devout solitary in the country of Egypt who had bravely entered the desert by her advice. Of whose holy life, well commenced and happily con summated, is narrated in the following chapter that which may give joy to hear.