My Reverend and Most Honored Mother,
Peace and very humble greetings in Our Lord Jesus Christ who has just tried our hearts very painfully, recalling to Himself our beloved Sister Marie-Thérèse of Saint-Augustin, professed member of our Community, in the seventy-sixth year of his age, and the fifty-second of his religious life, which leaves us with very great examples of virtue.
Although, in her humility, our dear Sister would have liked not to have a circular, it is a need for our hearts to speak to you for a few moments of the subjects of edification that she gave us during her long existence; but we will do it so briefly that it will still pay homage to his memory, full of humility and fidelity to the ancient traditions of the Order.
Our dear Sister belonged to a distinguished family in our city. She was born in Joigny (Yonne), on July 16, 1818. By a providential coincidence, the one who later was to bear the name of Thérèse of Saint-Augustin in the cloister and retrace the virtues of Madame Louise of France, also bore in the world the name of Louise, and was born on the same day which gave France this illustrious and holy princess.
Granddaughter of a General and daughter of a superior officer, she was raised to the Legion of Honor of Saint-Denis and received there the education, both serious and brilliant, which suited her rich nature. Then, she came to resume her place in the paternal home, with a tenderly loved mother, a dear brother and a father endowed with the noblest qualities whose intellectual culture completed her own.
She was fully enjoying this family life which sufficed for her happiness, when the ordeal came to fall on this blessed home: this beloved father was mortally wounded. Strengthened by the help of our holy religion, full of the resignation inspired by the fulfillment of all duties, he himself upheld the courage of the beloved beings whom he was about to leave, and until the last hour he spoke with effusion of the supreme goal towards which we must strive so that affection survives, and that it is given to us to glimpse beyond the shadows of this life the place of eternal reunion.
The blow was terrible for the whole family; but, for our dear Sister, it was the means that God used to draw her to Himself. Broken in her dearest affections, a deep disenchantment seized her soul, and she understood by an intimate light that in this world there is no stable happiness, and that the law of sacrifice and pain weighs heavily. all its weight on poor humanity. Valiant and generous soul, this so hard law became her attraction: she resolved not only to submit to it, but to make it the condition of her existence here below, in order to obtain for herself and for her family the happiness that nothing can reach or lessen. Beneath her frail envelope hid a character endowed with all the energy, a will that no obstacle could stop, and a courage which, through sacrifice, would always make her triumph over all obstacles.
Precisely then, and just opposite his home, our little Carmel had just settled in Autun. After having given to her beloved mother the consolations of her filial tenderness, to her brother, those of a friendship which was to become the support of her life, desiring to follow the divine call without delay, our courageous Sister had no only to cross the street to knock on the door of our monastery.
But who will say the heartbreak that cost him the decisive step? Ah! my Reverend Mother, the Angels alone who collected her tears, those of her poor mother, and bore them silently to the throne of God!
It was the Reverend Mother Marie of the Incarnation, of sweet and holy memory, who received this soul bruised by pain, eager for immolations and sacrifices, and whom a robust faith had already raised to the supernatural regions of generous love. and selfless. At the school of this venerable Prioress, whose holiness was essential, our dear Sister was formed in the most austere virtues of poverty, detachment, charity, mortification and humility of which she was to leave us examples more edifying than the sensitivity of his heart, the extreme delicacy of his complexion and his habits of well-being made the practice of it more meritorious to him.
There was formed between these two souls, so well made to understand each other, an attraction of grace which time increased each day, and which was to our dear Sister a powerful help in the daily struggle which she courageously undertook against herself.
Mother Marie of the Incarnation first inspired her with respect and love for our holy Rule, for the Constitutions and for the great traditions of the past which were to become the cult of her whole life.
She gave her inner life the basis of the spirit of faith, which, supernaturalizing the thousand subjections of common life, was to make them more easily embraced, but which nevertheless remained for her, until the end, an incessant opportunity to sacrifice.
Charity shone brightly in our beloved sister; as her love for God grew, her heart expanded for her Sisters: she loved them all, gave herself to all, and would have sacrificed herself for each one. This need to devote herself led her to help them in their work, to get them out of their little difficulties, and for that she did not hesitate to sacrifice her personal occupations and even her rest. She had to be held back, because she would have exceeded in the exercise of this charity which would have led her to go beyond the limits of the possible, to improve everything around her, in order to facilitate the fulfillment of her duties by her Sisters.
As much as she was good for all, so was she rigorous for herself: her mortification had no other bounds than the limits of obedience; taking the leftovers of everything in the services, and even so sparingly, that one sometimes wondered how his poor body could be satisfied with so little.
She heroically practiced poverty, never using anything but old things that were out of use, which others, less industrious and less mortified, could not have used, mending them herself from shapeless bits and pieces she gathered with bits of wire found by the house. Wanting nothing to be lost, she picked up everything she came across in the courtyards, gardens, attics and used it with pain, time and fatigue. Everything she did bore the stamp of this blessed poverty and bears witness to her persevering labors: also, all that remains to us of this beloved Sister is both a memory and a lesson for us.
A profound humility heightened all his virtues; ignoring herself in her gifts of nature and grace, she recognized in herself only the slight vivacities, escaped from her ardent character, to always accuse herself of them and find there before God and before her Sisters incessant opportunities to humble themselves. It was impossible for us to get her to agree to give the slightest publicity to the celebration of her golden wedding anniversary, which we had to celebrate secretly last year; his dear family, our venerable Father Chaplain, no more than our Port Sisters must not even have been informed.
One of the most endearing features of her moral physiognomy would be missing here if we did not tell you, my Reverend Mother, what she was for her family and for her friends who remained in the world. At the hour of trial, all came to seek from her the holy and encouraging words which could best sustain them; by her prayers she assisted them in all their troubles. His existence was living proof that the love of God does not extinguish human affections, which are also holy and willed by God. As a great Christian so aptly put it: "The heart that belongs to God becomes more tender and more intimately occupied with those it loves, as it embraces itself in a more passionate embrace with the Heart of Jesus. . »
Elected sub-prioress on different occasions, our dear Sister brought great zeal for the recitation of the Holy Office and the study of the rubrics which her knowledge of the Latin language facilitated. During the war of 1870, when communications with Paris were interrupted, she made the Ordo for our Community, which was without fault.
It is to her, my Reverend Mother, that we owe the enshrinement of almost all our relics, carving shrines herself to enclose them and devoting herself day and night to these pious labors, generally destined for the feasts of her Mothers. Prioresses. She was the soul of these little family celebrations, by her gracious couplets and the affectionate charity from which each received the touching expression.
She worshiped memories; so she created a hermitage to bring them all together. She dedicated it to the Souls in Purgatory, under the protection of Our Lady of Seven Sorrows, of which she modeled a statue herself. It is there that we like to find the wax busts of our venerable Mothers L.-Maurice de Saint-Raphaël, this novice of our "Venerable Mother Thérèse of Saint-Augustin who, after the revolutionary turmoil, gathered in a house of rue Cassini, in Paris, the nuns of the former Carmel of Saint-Denis; and that of Mother Marie de l'Incarnation who, after the death of Mother Raphaël in 1838, transferred the monastery to Autun where it was requested by Mgr d'Héricourt It is also in this hermitage that the obituary inscriptions of all those of our Mothers and Sisters who preceded us in this dear monastery are.
A few years ago, my Reverend Mother, preoccupied with the fatigue and distraction caused to our Sacristan Sisters by the decoration of a altar for Maundy Thursday, she herself sculpted a portable altar which is the admiration of those who come to pray in our chapel, and the rest of our Sacristan Sisters who now only have to have it transported to the sanctuary. This masterful work, which really exceeded his physical strength, seemed to be the crowning achievement of this existence completely dedicated to the glory of God and to facilitating his service to others through the practice of silence, recollection and regularity. Suffering, in 1890, from acute pleurisy following the excessive fatigue of this laborious work, she thought the time had come for her to sing her Nunc dimittis. Her bursts of love were vehement, and in the intervals of fits of delirium, she repeated to us, in an inimitable language, what must be the joys of heaven, the possession of God and the happiness of the elect. She had received Extreme Unction and we believed that the hour of sacrifice was about to strike for us, when an unexpected improvement appeared. God wanted to give him time to put to good use the new lights with which his soul had been illumined during this illness.
By drawing closer to God, love purifies itself, grows and in some way assimilates the perfection of uncreated love. He disposed in the heart of our dear Sister new ascents, as the Psalmist speaks, to arrive at this complete transformation of the soul through charity, and hour by hour, day by day, eyes fixed on the divine ideal, she worked tirelessly on it. Slow progress at first accelerates; we loved to see the triumphs of grace in that soul. For some weeks especially, his feelings, his words, his actions breathed nothing but charity, indulgence and kindness, excusing everything and seeing nothing but God everywhere and in everything.
Also when on Tuesday, the 14th of this month, she sent for us, suddenly feeling seized by the evil which was to so quickly remove her from us and which the doctor nevertheless judged not serious, we understood that the great sacrifice could be asked of us, the bride being ready, her lamp lit, to respond to the call of the Bridegroom. She herself had no hesitation and persisted in asking for Extreme Unction for the next day, a grace which was granted to her by our good Father Confessor, assisted by the Vicar General, our extraordinary confessor, who constantly the other to give us proofs of their paternal devotion.
With her deep and touching humility, our dear Sister asked the community for forgiveness; she answered all prayers, and received the grace of Holy Viaticum and Holy Unctions with visible happiness; she felt that this time, if the divine Master came to her, it was to take her with Him. At the time of retiring, our Father Confessor having asked her if she was happy: “Happy? Oh! my Father, enchanted! And there was in this word an accent of joy and almost of triumph by which we were deeply moved. Those of our Sisters who had the consolation of surrounding her with their care will keep an unforgettable memory of these last days. The dear invalid left the care of herself to them; if his physical sufferings were acute, his soul soared in higher regions: Saint John of the Cross wrote that the perfect love of God makes death agreeable and makes one find the greatest sweetness there. ! ! We had this spectacle in front of us. Our beloved Sister glimpsed God on the other side of death and this holy hope relieved her of all fear of the solemn passage. Leaning entirely on the mercy of God, she rested confidently in his arms.
However, the insidious pneumonia dully continued its ravages, the weakness increased rapidly, and it was only too evident that the denouement was approaching. We did the soul commendation prayers and would have liked to be able to procure for him once again the grace of holy Viaticum; but already his tongue was beginning to get embarrassed. At least our good Father Extraordinary Confessor wanted to grant him the benefit of a final absolution and assist him with his prayers. From then on, she no longer emerged from her great silence. We placed the blessed candle in her hand, suggesting pious invocations to her, and to her: “Sweet Heart of Mary, be my salvation! a smile moved her lips and she gently surrendered her soul to God. It was November 17, a Friday, at six-thirty in the evening. All her life she had honored with special devotion the mysteries of the Passion and she had chosen this day for her monthly retreat which she had made the previous Friday. Our Lord, in calling her to Himself on this day when He shed His blood for the redemption of humanity, did not seem to want her to participate more fully in the merits of redemption.
(This same date of November 17 was the date on which, fifty-six years earlier, the venerated Mother Raphael, our foundress, died at the monastery in rue Cassini.)
In our dear Sister Thérèse of Saint-Augustin has disappeared the one who linked the present to the past: she had known these venerable old women who, at the risk of their lives, had endured exile, braved so many dangers to preserve, with their vocation, the spirit, the customs, the traditions and all the memories they had been able to save from their religious cradle.
And we who survive this beloved Sister, the last of all those we found when we arrived in this dear Carmel, we are heartbroken by this painful separation, but, at the same time, our souls are well consoled by the graces of peace, of joy that flooded her in her last moments.
May this dear Sister have left us only to throw herself into the bosom of that divine mercy which she had always invoked with so much confidence, and in which she had placed all her hopes!
We had the consolation of keeping his mortal remains until Monday morning, and during these three days we surrounded him with our best prayers. And when the hour of the last separation came, if it was very hard on our hearts to see his coffin cross the closing door, in our souls, a celestial joy mixed with pain. We were on the eve of the Feast of the Presentation and we said to ourselves that, while we were going to renew our vows under the shadows of faith, for our dear Sister it would be the consummation of union in eternal clarity.
However, whatever the virtues of our dear Sister Thérèse of Saint-Augustin, as no one knows how far the demands of infinite Holiness go, we beg you, my Reverend Mother, to kindly add, by grace, to the votes already requested, a communion of your Holy Community, a day of good works, the indulgence of the Via Crucis, that of the six Paters, the recitation of the Salve Regina, with some invocations to Saint Louis, Saint Thérèse and Saint Augustine, his patrons. She will be very grateful to you, as well as to us who have the grace to tell us at the foot of the Cross,
