To attest to the heroicity of the virtues of the Servant of God, in the apostolic process of NSP Pope Benedict XV, I affirm to support all that I have already said of the virtues of the Servant of God, in my depositions of the Diocesan Process .
From the age of eight, when I knew this child of blessing, she appeared to me to be more of an angel from heaven than a little girl from earth. The Holy Spirit rested in her, God already possessed her, and one would have said that an angel was guarding the entrance to this little soul enveloped in a celestial atmosphere, so calm and silent, recollected and reflective, was she. One felt oneself in the presence of a child who was not ordinary and who was nevertheless destined to delight and lead souls to God by the simplicity of her holiness, which consists in the heroic practice of the most ordinary virtues, which she did until her death, which was the seal of her life.
As she entered, the Servant of God surprised the community with her bearing, imbued with a kind of majesty that one was far from expecting in a fifteen-year-old child. She threw herself into everything with a charming grace, was the model of the novitiate, and surpassed all her companions by her virtue. She was full of regard for me, her obedience was as prompt as it was blind, she had such an intuition of virtue, of religious perfection, that there was, so to speak, only to instruct her in the Rule, of our Constitutions, and of the usages proper to our Holy Order. I don't remember ever really complaining to him.
I had it for nearly 4 years in the novitiate, which I left 5 months after my Profession, [she is mistaken] responsible in her turn for the novitiate, which she was well worthy of, she performed it like the most experienced nun. She would have been just as capable of fulfilling the offices of the City, even the office of Prioress.
WAS
The faith of the Servant of God shone from her earliest childhood in her love of prayer, various feasts, divine offices, pious readings, especially the Imitation of NSJC and the Holy Gospel. We know with what edifying care she prepared for her first communion, and what was her love for the Eucharist. When she entered the Carmel, her faith showed itself in the joy she felt at having finally found the place of her rest, after which she had longed so much and which was for her only the house of God and the gate of heaven. From the beginning, it comes there only supernaturally, seeing there only God in everything, in everyone. She only considered Our Lord in authority, it was for her only the image of the Crucifix, and if it had only been of copper, she would have given him the deepest respect just as much as if he had golden summer. Her faith, so enlightened, made her see only the will of God in the great trial of her Father's illness, she adored him with a redoubled love. The more the sufferings and the humiliations increased, the more generously she embraced each other.
In this immense pain as in all the crosses of her religious life, she always tasted a deep peace, which explains her imperturbable calm, when the most poignant news was brought to her: It is on the occasion of this pain that she said one day to Mother Agnès of Jesus: "Everything sings in my heart, as in that of Saint Cecilia".
The inspiring faith of her whole life, of her writings, of her poetry, was subjected to many trials, to cruel, very long and terrible temptations: "I have been suffering from it for months, she said, and I am still waiting the hour of my deliverance. You must have traveled under this dark tunnel to understand its darkness!"
And the demon, to despair her even more, said to her: "A deeper night still awaits you, that of nothingness...." It is doubtless from these hours of extreme anguish that the good Lord brought her those floods of light which were to give her the understanding of her "little way of abandonment, of spiritual childhood" which she practiced so admirably, taught to her novices, discovered to all the souls who read her life, and left especially to "little souls" as a doctrine of simplicity and love, which was to attract to him the universal admiration of our Holy Fathers Popes Pius X and Benedict XV, cardinals, bishops, religious, priests and missionaries of the most learned, one of whom told us in the parlor "having found in the reading of his life, what he had been looking for in vain for a long time."
Our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XV, speaking to a religious who was very devout to Sr Thérèse, said to him last spring when speaking of her: "It is his mission to teach priests to love Jesus Christ". She carried on her the text of the Creed which she had written with her blood. She also always had the Holy Gospel in order to have it constantly at her disposal; she delighted in it, and it was there that in her sorrows, in all circumstances, she would draw light and consolation, like the strength she needed. She had a rare understanding of the Holy Scriptures, moreover one can judge of it by her manner of explaining them, and of discovering their meaning in the story of her soul which one can say is a marvel, for these lively pages were only a spurt from his pen, never having made any draft.
She saw God in all nature, the beauty of which revealed her infinite love and raised her soul to Him. The flowers above all delighted her, having for her soul a particular language. She had a real cult for them and I wonder if there were ever saints who used her like her to glorify God.
I can affirm that the Servant of God heroically put into practice during her short and very full life, these words of our holy Rule: "Arm yourselves everywhere with the shield of faith, so that you can deaden all the arrows of fire that the The enemy keeps pulling you, for without faith it is impossible to please God." This sacred shield never left her, with it she triumphed over everything that could have prevented her from reaching the degree of admirable holiness she has reached in such a short time.
CONFIDENCE
Her confidence was only the practical feeling of her faith in the infinite goodness of God who had enveloped her from the cradle. She had experienced it so much that her soul was towards God like that of a little child towards the most tender father, and who lets himself be carried in his arms, abandoning himself to Him for all that concerns him. Difficulties also did not frighten her, as she proved in those she encountered for her vocation, because her confidence was based on the profound certainty of God's fidelity to help her. It was therefore this blind confidence which gave her the admirable courage which she showed in her pilgrimage to Rome, not letting herself be intimidated by any of the contradictions which she encountered, and which would have disconcerted so many other souls.
It is still this same hope that sustained her all her life, as much on her entry into the Carmel, during her postulancy, her novitiate, which were not without trials, as during illness, and even in the arms of death.
On her return from Rome, she had nothing but new disappointments every day, she thought she would receive permission to enter Carmel without delay, but Christmas passed, etc." Jesus said, she left her little ball on the ground without even take a look at her." However, she never ceased to hope against all hope because she said that "for a soul that has faith like a mustard seed, God grants miracles to strengthen it" this was for her the lesson of this ordeal. . In the illness of her venerable Father, her confidence did not change, she placed it among the days of grace, and underlined it with the name of "great wealth." She had unlimited confidence in prayer and often said that God had always answered her, that he could refuse nothing to fervent prayer. She never doubted his mercy, loved to pray for sinners, still a child, for the great criminal Pranzini, condemned to death for his appalling murders. She had the certainty of being heard so much she had confidence in the divine mercy, she asked for a single sign of repentance, and we know that it was granted to her.
She didn't fear death, which she said was the only way to go to God, nor Purgatory, which she told me one day was the least of her worries.
She wrote to Mother Agnès of Jesus: "Ah! from now on, I recognize it, all my hopes will be fulfilled...Yes, the Lord will do wonders for me which will infinitely surpass my immense desires...."
Our Lord said one day to Saint Mechtilde: "It is a great pleasure for me
that men expect great things from me...It is impossible for man not to receive what he has believed and hoped for...that is why it is useful for him to expect much from me and to entrust yourself to me.” These words of Our Lord are indeed the explanation of the marvels that he works in the universe through the servant of God since his death.
Where better can I place than here the following words of Pius X, in a private audience with a personage of the high Roman nobility, he said in speaking of Sr Thérèse: "It is extraordinary to see the condescension that Our Lord shows to all the desires of this soul."
CHARITY towards God.
From her earliest childhood, the servant of God loved Him with the most ardent love, as everything says in the history of her soul. She heroically practiced mortification of the heart from her postulate, knowing that the smallest thread as well as a chain, prevents the bird from flying. She had, I was witness to it, to fight hard not to let her heart stick, especially to her Prioress whom she loved very much, but God helped her, allowing that she often had for her only severities that broke her heart, and all the more so as she could only grasp in his way of acting towards her a human feeling that she kept deep in her heart. She therefore only went to her religiously as much as affectionately, depriving herself of all natural satisfaction and her outfit was very edifying.
She had a great fear of the smallest faults and this word "No one knows if he is worthy of love or hate", made her shed many tears one day until she was consoled by the explanation which was given to him. She went to God by pure faith, cheerfully accepted her spiritual desolations and offered them to God so that He might give consolations to the souls whom He might thus win to His love.
Everything that had to do with God was his delight in Carmel, as in his childhood. Her joy was to adorn the altar of the novitiate dedicated to the Child Jesus, and the height of happiness was for her to be charged with putting flowers on the pious statue of the Child Jesus in our cloister. He smiled at her joy as at her desires by sending her, as no one had ever seen, flowers galore, both the most beautiful and the flowers of the fields, objects of his predilection. During the last two weeks of Lent, she put on her little Jesus, little instruments of the Passion that she had made, and what an interior spirit she animated in all her care given to her divine King.
She spared no effort to make a nativity scene in the novitiate, still postulant, carrying, carrying without counting with her strength and from far enough away, heavy stones to make it. She then showed great virtue, for another, missed
that year, which we wanted to surprise her, was waiting for her, giving her to understand that hers, so pretty, would not see the Cté .... She didn't let her disappointment show.
She cherished solitude, admirably understood these words: "the kingdom of God is within you", and those others that she sang so admirably in her canticle Living on Love: If Someone Loves Me, He Will Keep my word and my Father will love him and we will come to him and make our home in him...
She put into practice this advice from the Imitation of JC: "Close the door of your heart on you and call your beloved Jesus to you!"
Being a sacristan, she only touched the sacred vessels with redoubled fervor, remembering these words: "Be holy you who touch the vessels of the Lord."
Her supreme devotion was the Holy Face of Our Lady, who told her again of all the love with which He had loved her in his Passion; it was while contemplating her that she caught fire
of love and zeal for the salvation of souls: she always had it before her in her office book and in her stall during her prayer. She hung from the curtains of her bed during her illness; her sight helped her to sustain her long martyrdom, she could repeat to him this touching stanza of the canticle she had composed in his honour:
My love discovers the charms
Of your eyes embellished with tears
I smile through my tears
When I contemplate your pains
Another of her most beautiful hymns dedicated to the Sacred Heart tells us again what devotion she had for the Sacred Heart which she said was "all her support, and whose tender love loved her despite her weakness".
She found him in the Eucharist where he never left her, so communion every day was her dream; Father Youf, who held this privileged soul in such high esteem, granted him this favor for several months.
Is it not a seraph who speaks when she says in the eleventh chapter of her life, having found her vocation, that her vocation is love, that she has found her place within the Church, that it is God who gave it to him, that in the heart of the Church it will be love!...
She said to our Mother a few days before her death: "a single attraction makes my heart beat, it is the love that I will return and the one that I will be able to give...my little way to souls is about to begin...I want spend my heaven doing good on earth!”
Here is the thought that occurs to me about the servant of God: in the heart of Sr Thérèse of the EJ, divine love was on earth a fire hidden under the ashes of the dark life of Carmel and the heroic practice of all the religious virtues without fail. After having already chosen Ste Mechtilde,
Ste Gertrude, and Bse Marguerite Marie to reveal to the world the love with which he loves her, does not Our Lord want to use the servant of God to set fire to the earth? for her death was only the explosion in heaven of the divine fire of love which consumed her here below, and aren't the rains of roses that she throws down from above are they not so many flaming sheaves for rekindle the love of the good God within the Church in these last times when it is so chilled!
What could confirm my thought would be the extract from a letter from a priest from Argentina, Augustin Barrera(?), from Buenos-Ayres1894(?), and that here is: "As I thank God for the good He does throughout the world through the posthumous apostolate of his little servant! "Here she is preaching to all at once, in their own language, the Gospel of salvation, the little way of spiritual childhood. What a miracle of divine omnipotence is this renewed and enlarged Pentecost! What a lesson for our age! proud, and also for us, ministers of the Lord, and who to reach souls, count more on our science than on our holiness...."
CHARITY towards the neighbor
The love of God developed in the heart of the servant of God that of the poor and of all those who suffered. His great joy was that he was entrusted with the task of carrying alms to the unfortunates who came to stretch out their hand. This charity grew in his heart with age and flourished in Carmel. As soon as she entered, she showed a touching charity in the novitiate in the good that she endeavored to do to one of her companions. With what charity she also consoled me in many of the difficulties I encountered and which she felt were so painful to me. Already she had the conversion of sinners at heart, and undertook that of the unfortunate Father Hyacinthe, of whom she was still thinking at the end of her life, offering her last communion for him. I don't remember ever hearing him say a single word against charity or ever a bitter response, if at times someone said something painful to him. If she was needed for any service, it didn't matter if it bothered her, she never showed either boredom or fatigue. If there was a knock on her cell door when she was busiest, she was still going to answer with a smile.
She liked to put her little talents of painting and poetry at the service of the Sisters, she happily devoted her free time to it! found more. She offered herself to all the hard work:
washing especially, did her best to renounce herself, going to the cold water in the winter, which cost her a lot, and in the summer, on the contrary, she preferred to stay in the laundry room: there, she suffered in silence that the sister who was opposite her, threw in her face, without realizing it, the dirty water from the laundry she was washing.
She observed at recreations as elsewhere the following point of our constitutions
"Let them have no particular friendship, but all love each other in general, as NJ Christ commands His Apostles...The point of loving one another in general is of great importance ".
At recreation, she did not seek the company of her sisters according to nature despite her affection for them. She imposed this sacrifice on herself so that her lively charity towards her Carmelite family would not suffer.
Coming out of a retreat, she arrived at recess without having gone to say hello to her dear little Mother Agnès of Jesus, which she had been upset about. It seemed to her that at least she would stand next to her, but it was not so, she went to stand near the first comer. This was told to Mother Geneviève who scolded her, telling her that it was not hearing true charity.
Father Auriault, to whom I quoted this fact, said to me: "Oh! I find that magnificent!" has a sublime mission to fulfill in the Holy Church", added to me, speaking to me of the perfection of the Servant of God, "Really, we have never seen that".
She endured in silence all that was a matter of exercise to her, and triumphed over a natural antipathy, which she herself relates, towards a sister; the devil making her see so many disagreeable sides in her, so she did not give in to the temptation, telling herself that charity does not consist only in feelings but in works. She therefore acted with this sister as with the most beloved person and rendered her all the services in her power. She prayed for her, offered her virtues, her merits to God. "I felt, she said, that this greatly rejoiced my Jesus". changed the conversation. This sister asked her one day what could attract her to her so much that she gave her her most beautiful smile each time she met her?..."Ah, she said, what attracted me was Jesus hidden in the bottom of his heart".
She herself asked to be a companion in employment with a sister near whom a true and difficult apostolate awaited her. What patience and what charity she had to practice on this ground bristling with more than one thorn, but she worked with so much kindness, intelligence and wisdom that she managed to do him a lot of good. She practiced another heroic act of charity witnessed by the Cté, in the service of charity which she offered to render to the good Sr. St. Pierre, who walked only with crutches; she had to be led at the end of the evening prayer, from the choir to the refectory, which was no small matter!
What a mine of exercise and patience did she find there! It cost her a lot and for this very reason she did not want to lose such a great opportunity. She did everything to please the poor cripple, pushing virtue to the point of offering to cut her bread for her, which completely won her good graces. , for she crowned it all with her most gracious smile.
I was still witness to his charity when the influenza came to throw consternation in the community, claiming three victims from him. All but two or three of the sisters, of which she was one of the most able-bodied, were bedridden. The Office was suspended, there was dead silence in the Cté: it multiplied then, near the dying and sick sisters, as well as in the sacristy, with its calm, a presence of mind, an intelligence which never were not ordinary. Our Superior M. Delatroëtte, who because of his young age had been so hostile to his entry, was struck by it each time he came to see his daughters. He then saw in this child a subject of great hope for the future of the Community.
It was also very touching to see with what tender charity she surrounded, despite the trouble she often caused her, the good Mother Marie de Gonzague: the servant of God with her remarkable delicacy of mind, grasped the shortcomings that arose. united with so many beautiful qualities in this Mother, and which made us love her in spite of everything! Perfectly aware of what made her suffer, she knew by her childlike manner so kind, to wrap her in tenderness, to console her, to enlighten her, and no word could better be applied to the servant of God than this one. "The truth comes out of the mouths of children".
It was especially on the occasion of an election that she knew had been very painful to the unhappy Mother, that she wrote her a very beautiful letter, it seems, which was a good seed sown in her heart. She knew how to say things well, not in the form of advice, but giving them meaning.
CAUTION
What can be said of the prudence of the servant of God, except that it was that of an old man who had experienced life, with its trials. She was very reserved in all things, in her words as well as in her smallest acts, in the small and great difficulties that multiplied under her feet. She observed everything, thought deeply, her eyes always fixed on God.
Her prudence showed itself in the difficult and delicate negotiations she had to make for her vocation. The difficulties were such that without the wisdom and prudence she showed, they would certainly have failed. His means was prayer and trust in God. She was not impatient, had no bitter words for those who thwarted her desire.
How marvelous it was to see the energy she showed on the trip to Rome! What courage did she not need, and as she said herself "to dare to speak to the Pope" a thought that made her shudder, and a step that the Vatican had not yet seen in a child of fourteen at the time!
An event so extraordinary that the newspaper recounted it in its article on the pilgrimage to Rome, which caught the attention of more than one reader, an event which led the venerable Brother Simeon, Director and Founder of St Joseph's College in Rome, to say that Mrs. Martin knew and told him: "You don't see that in Italy!"
When she entered the Carmel, what caution accompanied her first steps, in the reserve she used to avoid becoming humanly attached to her Mother Prioress. In the troubles that came to her from this poor Mother, she always acted as if nothing had happened, smiling at her in spite of everything and paying her the same respect. Sometimes a witness to the painful difficulties that Mother Marie de Gonzague caused to Mother Agnès of Jesus who had become Prioress, she suffered cruelly in silence. One day, however, she said to me, her heart full of tears and a sadness that was painted on her face. "I now understand what Our Lord suffered from seeing his Mother suffer in his Passion."
In the novitiate, with what prudence does she act to do good to one of her companions! I again witnessed her prudence when, being a sacristan, she had to ask me to show her little novices to the confessional, embarrassed to ask M. Marie de Gonzague! Having experienced what a soul suffers from the lack of freedom of conscience, she worked with as much prudence as wisdom to spare her novices this suffering. She went to the parlor only as a duty of charity; were her advice requested, she gave it with as much simplicity as humility, she showed herself there as everywhere, an angel of peace!
She liked the solitude, her little cell. She truly had contempt for the world, was a person of prayer, what our holy Constitutions demand.
FORCE
Christian strength was everyday in the life of the servant of God. From her early childhood she managed to dominate her nature and to keep her even and benevolent temper. She received the gift of strength on the day of her confirmation, she needed it to withstand the trials that awaited her.
His strength showed itself from the beginning, in his energy to support the austerities of the Rule and its spiritual desolations. She courageously accepted the severities of her Mother Prioress after her Taking of the habit and her Profession, despite the illusion of several Sisters on the way she was treated, and who generally believed her to be spoiled anyway, but she recognized that Jesus found it necessary that her little flower be watered with the life-giving water of humiliation in order to take root, and He did not let her lack it...When she met Our Mother, she only heard reproaches which she bore in silence. Having left a spider's web in the cloister, she told him in front of the whole Cté, "we can see that our cloisters are being swept away by a 15-year-old child! 'spider and become more careful in the future".
During her directions, where she remained close to our Mother for an hour, she was scolded almost all the time, and what pained her the most was that she did not understand the way to correct her faults. The servant of God had the principle that one must go to the end of one's strength before complaining: "I can still walk, I must do my duty."
The more one looks at her in the journey to Rome, the more she is astonishing and excites admiration, for for a young girl so charming and who attracted the eye
pilgrims, before the beauties of nature, a thousand seductive things that surrounded him, how many at his age would have resisted! but his heart and his mind were lifted high above the things of this world, and this trip only made him see more than ever the vanity of all that passes.
The day of her entrance, she heard only sobs when she went to the closing gate; she didn't shed a tear, walked first, her heart was beating so hard that she wondered if she wasn't going to die of it: what agony, she said, you have to have been through it to understand it. Our Mother St Thérèse says that when she tore herself from her Father's arms, she felt her bones break... what must it have been for a child of fifteen to whom the good Lord asked, for the third time to impose such a sacrifice on his venerable Father?
Still a postulant when, at the end of June, the paralysis trying to fix itself, made fear a dreadful misfortune for her Father, she surprised me saying to me and casting an angelic look towards heaven: "I suffer a lot, but I can still suffer more.” The ordeal awaited him; a few days after taking the habit, she drank from the most bitter of chalices: "I could not, she wrote, say then that I could suffer more, words cannot express my anxieties and those of my sisters."
As a postulant, the temptations were sometimes violent to enter our Mother's house to find a little joy there, so she passed quickly in front of her cell and clung to the banister of the stairs so as not to retrace her steps, rejecting the pretexts that came to his mind to give in to his nature.
The strength of the servant of God was in silence and hope. "She worked there, she prayed there, she suffered there and in the trials of her life like our Lord in his Passion, "she was silent". silence is a defenseless city, and he who keeps silence keeps his soul".
TEMPERATURE
The mortification of the Servant of God was heroic, for she made it consist in courage and patience in supporting the thousand and thousand little sufferings that make up religious life, in mutual support, the continual collision of one against another, and that one constantly encounters as a result of the difference of character, of education, in even the most perfect communities. These frequent occasions were a gold mine for the servant of God who did not fail to exploit it for heaven and all the better because she suffered them in silence, which gave them immense merit.
She never complained of anything, neither hot nor cold, although it was learned later that she had suffered from the latter to death; so it would have been her strict duty to say it... She took things as they were given to her
either to dress it or to eat it, and on this last point she had to suffer a great deal, for she often had nothing but leftovers, which a flimsy stomach would have found difficult to support, whereas at her tender age she would have needed to be supported by a very fortifying food, as it must be done with any subject so young and of such fragile and delicate health... She did not therefore put her mortification in the great austerities that she would have loved many, if she had had permission, but in which self-love and pride often find their food. It placed it above all in the renunciation of itself and of its own will. Besides, that's what she had understood from childhood, when she was already trying to break her will, her sensitivity, to hold back a useless word and a thousand other things of this kind.
Arrived at the Carmel, she set to work and I can affirm that her beginnings were very painful. It cost her a lot to go and pull herbs in the garden where I sent her every day at 4 a.m. to get some fresh air, but she was careful not to tell me, especially since it was a good opportunity. for her to meet our Mother, who did not fail to humiliate her, saying to her: "what is a novice who must be sent out for a walk every day?" And she heard him say again: "This child does absolutely nothing!" Later she thanked our Mother for this precious education!
Our Mother having reproached her for her lack of devotion in the offices, she thought herself obliged to work during her free time without telling anyone.
When she went in the direction of our Mother, when it was Mother Agnès who was Prioress, which happened to her less often than to the other sisters, if the portress or some other sister came to disturb her, she never complained. , although deep down she suffered noticeably. This faithful and constant mortification in which she grew up and which extended throughout her life, enabled us to see her always smiling at suffering. Two months before her death, Mother Agnès of Jesus, hearing her patience praised, came to visit her one day, having the desire to surprise her in a moment of crisis; at the same moment her face took on an expression of joy and was animated by a celestial smile ... she asked him that she could be the cause, she replied: "It's because I feel a sharp pain. I have always tried to love suffering and to welcome it". She still said: "suffering has long since become my heaven here below, and I find it difficult to understand how it will be possible for me to acclimatize myself in a country where joy always reigns without any mixture of sadness".
JUSTICE
The servant of God never ceased to practice justice towards God and the Saints by the worship she rendered them. The ceremonies, the festivals, the frequentation of the sacraments, everything delighted her. In the Carmel, she had the greatest devotion to the divine office. At the end of her life, the Office, she said, was my happiness and my martyrdom both by my great desire to recite it well and not to make mistakes. I don't believe that anyone can recite the Office perfectly and attend it well in choir more than I can.
Sister Thérèse who had been cured in her childhood by ND des Victoires always had a very tender devotion for Mary. So I caught her one day lovingly kissing the Immaculate Virgin of our cloisters without embarrassment. She exclaimed one day: "How I love the Virgin Mary, if I had been a priest I would have spoken well of her! She is shown to be inaccessible, She is more Mother than Queen! I have heard that she eclipses all the Saints like the rising sun makes the stars disappear...My God, how strange it is, a mother who eclipses her children!
The rosary, remember, was his daily prayers. Her first canticle that she composed was in her honor, it was "the virginal milk of Mary" and likewise her last, entitled "Why I love you oh Mary";
Saint Joseph was also particularly dear to her: she asked him above all that Holy Communion be granted frequently to the Carmel of Lisieux, she was granted by the decree of Leo XIII. She also sang a hymn in his honor.
The Holy Angels also had their share in her poetry because she loved them with tender piety. Above all, she loved the holy Gospel, the holy books, the Song of Songs, the Works of St John of the Cross. One day, I don't know if she was 17, she spoke to me about certain passages of her mysticism with an intelligence so above her age that I was quite surprised.
Shortly after leaving the novitiate, she told me in license some magnificent things that she expressed later in her splendid canticle "Vivre d'Amour.
Postulant and novice, her piety showed itself in the little celebrations of Christmas and Easter and others, so graciously and poetically prepared, composed by Mother Agnès of Jesus. It was enchanting to see and hear the Servant of God reciting them, as much by the expression of her angelic face as by the tone of piety so penetrated which expressed the sentiments of her heart. It was to bring tears to my eyes. One Christmas day when, representing the Blessed Virgin, she held the Child Jesus in her arms. He would have been alive had she not been more recollected and touching.
She was always very submissive to the direction of her Superiors and confessors whom she had in great esteem and who themselves gave her a very similar one. All the first Father Youf who knew her from her entrance, and confessed her until her death. What fine testimony would he have given to his virtues,
to the two trials which would have delighted him so much!
Father Baillon, chaplain of Providence, and who was said to be one of the most educated priests in the diocese and whose knowledge she loved to consult, also had the greatest consideration for the servant of God. The Reverend. Father Armand Lemonnier also considered her only as a predestined soul, spoke of her only with deep respect, of the little Flower, as he called her....and the advice of "the little Flower" was all for him.
She practiced justice in her way of understanding and practicing silence because she observed it according to this point of our Holy Rule: "The apostle recommends silence to us when he recommends that we work in it, and as the prophet says : the ornament and finery of justice is silence.
On the orders of obedience she put all her piety and her still inexperienced talent, to make a fresco of Angels surrounding the tabernacle of the oratory. The functions she assigned to each portray the desires of her soul. To sing the praises of God, to make known the gift of God, by his ardent desire to be a missionary, to throw flowers, to scatter like roses under the feet of Our Lord by his thousand little sacrifices.
The singular cult she had for flowers seemed extraordinary to me and I wonder if no Saint ever used them like her to fuel their piety. Also, seeing her die on September 30, I thought that the Blessed Virgin had come to fetch her that day, as a reward for the touching piety with which she had used the roses to testify her love to Our Lord. She opened heaven to her for the month of the Holy Rosary so that she could pick there even more beautiful roses than those on earth, and throw them as a shower of graces on the five parts of the world as she does every day. .
HUMILITY
As soon as she entered the novitiate, the servant of God put into practice this point so recommended in our Constitutions and so essential to perfection: "Let them
take great care not to apologize, unless it is something where it is necessary, because they will find in this a great advancement in humility". One day, I was scolding her in the novitiate for a small said she didn't have an order She wasn't guilty, it cost her a lot not to tell me but she cut her pain.
She never put herself forward for what might have appeared and only gave her opinion very humbly, and only when she was asked to. There was no self-seeking or touchiness in her.
At the evening vigil which precedes the dawn of the great day of Holy Profession in the choir, her vocation seemed to her like a chimera, a ruse of the devil suggesting to her that the life of the Carmel did not suit her, that she was deceiving the Superiors. . She ran humbly to reveal to me her temptation, leading me out of the choir to tell me the state of her soul. I reassured her quickly, revealing to her Satan's trap, which she saw flee immediately, but to better humble herself, she also confided to our Mother what had happened to her.
Filled with the graces of God, she did not attribute them to herself, but humility being the truth, she recognized them, bringing all the glory to him, keeping herself small in his eyes, not afraid to say like the Blessed Virgin "that the Lord had done great things in her, and she added: "and the greatest is to have shown me my littleness and my impotence for all things". others .... so I want to bow under the abundance of divine gifts recognizing that everything comes from above. She sought neither looks nor esteem nor praise from men. God alone was her everything, she only aspired to God.
She wrote the sublime pages of the Story of her soul, out of obedience, in the simplicity of her heart and without suspecting that this book was destined to be published. And was it not her right to place before the eyes of her Superiors the treasures of light and grace with which she was filled? God wanted it so that the whole world could benefit from it, as evidenced by the rapid and prodigious diffusion of these marvelous lines which delight, transport their readers and teach them to go to God through trust, love and abandonment.
She studied humility in her beloved Holy Face, she understood there better than ever what true glory is. He whose kingdom is not of this world
showed her that royalty, the only enviable thing, consists in wanting to be ignored and counted for nothing, in delighting in self-contempt ... She only wanted one thing, it was that her face was also hidden in all eyes, let no one on earth recognize her. There is, she said, only the last place which is not vanity and affliction of spirit.
In her agony, our Mother encouraged her with these words: "O my child, you are quite ready to appear before God, because you have always understood the humility of heart." She answered: "Yes I feel it, my soul has only sought the truth, yes I have understood the humility of the heart"
I cannot compare the servant of God better than to the mustard seed of the Gospel, the smallest of the seeds, which when it has grown is taller than all the plants and rises like a tree so that the birds of the sky come and live in its branches." Yes, really, isn't it marvelous to see in this horrible war the admirable protection that our valiant army leaders find in it, our brave soldiers of whom it is such a sweet hope? and the confidence that the families in tears have in her. Ah, it is that she was meek and humble of heart, and according to the word of Our Lord, she truly possesses the earth! She is in the air where a aviator has placed her on the wings of his aeroplane, all over the globe where she is becoming more and more known and learning to love the, good God, she is at sea in the boat of poor sinners whose life she miraculously promotes. fishing, she plies the seas aboard ships in the captains cabin depending on whether thereports this new and very touching passage, taken from the letter of Mr. Augustin Bavier already quoted: "The other day, I had lunch on board a four-masted ship in the harbor in Buenos-Ayres, do you know what struck my eyes when entering the Commandant's office? The portrait of Sr Thérèse!
There were two copies of her life on board, all the officers had read it, and our conversation revolved around it for a good part of the meal... How many times have I spoken of Sr Thérèse on ships crossing the seas, and what holy thoughts it will arouse! True, there is only hell where she is not loved and imitated...." and I think I can say that she is the rage and despair of the demons there.
CHASTITY
The servant of God was in Carmel as in her childhood, enveloped in an atmosphere of innocence and candor which imposed reserve and respect. Something in her seemed to say: "Do not touch me", moreover her first communion companion, boarder with her at the Cté des Bénédictines,
(Miss Louise Delarue) said to me one day that she could not forget the air of innocence, of extraordinary, extraordinary candor, she repeated, emphasizing this word very strongly. She had childlike manners that were so natural to her, that they suited her admirably. The good Curé d'Ars said: "The Holy Spirit rests in a pure soul as in a bed of roses, from a soul where the Holy Spirit resides, a good smell comes out like that of the vine when it is in flower. : it is the good smell of Christ." This admirable word cannot be better applied than to the servant of God, who perfumes souls throughout the universe with the perfume of her virtues. Her purity was revealed in her whole face by her calm, modest, recollected demeanor, which Father Youf was able to admire when, during the influenza, he came in to confess the bedridden sisters: "Oh, said to me -il, look at little Sr Thérèse of the EJ, she shows you all with her so religious outfit".
And our gardener, able to see her pass under our cloisters when he was working in the courtyard, recognized her despite her veil, by her outfit, he was so edified not to see her take one step faster than the other; She went with her eyes lowered, not trying to find out the news. She lived only for the good God, she saw him in everything, in everyone, and this bliss "Blessed are the pure in heart" was well done for her. I cannot compare the Servant of God better than to those little streams in our valleys which flow in the shade and without noise, and whose limpid water is never troubled. His soul was always lifted up to God on the wings of purity and simplicity, an extraordinary simplicity which is within the reach of adults and children alike. Here is an unusual testimony given to the Servant of God by a Zouave who has great admiration for her. Thanking a lady who had given him her biography and a relic, he said to her: "I was four years with General Gaurand, he is like Sr Thérèse, pure as an angel, strong as a lion!" – This lady of the most honorable transmitted to us these beautiful words which she thought we should rejoice. Is it not said that the ermine dies if it sees a stain on its fur which makes the coat of kings; most certainly, I affirm it, the servant of God would also have preferred death a thousand times to the slightest defilement which could have tarnished her royal garment of innocence, which already made her proclaim "Queen" on earth.
POVERTY
One could say of the Servant of God that her kingdom was not of this world, and this saying of St. Francis de Sales had in it its perfect fulfillment: "I desire very few things, and the little that I desire, I hardly desire it." From the outset, she wanted to be freed from all attachment to earthly things, to not only walk, but run, fly in the ways of the greatest perfection according to these words of her canticle "Vivre d'amour":
To the divine heart overflowing with tenderness,
I gave it my all lightly I run,
I have nothing left but my only wealth,
Love always!"...
During her postulancy, she liked to have neat things for her use, and to find at her fingertips all that she needed for her work; but little by little Jesus gave her the light and she was faithful to it. So she happily sacrificed her pretty little cell jug for another large, chipped one that replaced it... She was then in love with the ugliest, most inconvenient objects... belonged. One evening, their lamp was taken from him by mistake; she had precisely a lot to work on and was delighted to have her silence to do so...She was therefore tempted to become impatient and to protest as if to complain, if it had not been for the great silence. But the light of grace illumined her in such a way in the midst of the darkness of her cell, that instead of having sorrow, she was happy to understand that poverty consists in loving to be deprived of things not only pleasant but even essential. She didn't want to claim what was for her use since it didn't belong to her; getting down to work, had what she needed disappeared, she would have grown impatient, but then she took her patience with both hands and kept silent so as not to protest. She could claim these essential things, but then with humility, like the good poor who hold out their hand to receive what is necessary. She thus faithfully put into practice this point of our holy Constitutions: "that the Sisters do not possess any thing in particular." (ch.8, art 3)
She would never have taken time off from work to flower her little Jesus, she only devoted her free time to it. It was the same for her poems, which she composed while working, and which she had to remember until evening, which was very tiring for her, but to ask permission to transcribe them immediately would have been grant himself a relief that would have made life too easy for him. I surprised her one evening, dismantling an altar decoration threaded with large stitches, she could have cut the thread, but no! and gently with a small tool, she carefully pulled it out, by virtue of her vow of poverty, in order to use it again.
For clothes she took them as they were given to her, asking for nothing extra. For food, it was the same and more than once, she had to suffer on this point.
She understood poverty of spirit with great perfection, and practiced it as she had the intelligence. The goods of the mind and the heart belonged to her no more than those of the earth, she had renounced the latter.
by the vow of poverty, and the former were only lent to him; God could dispose of it as he pleased, so it had to be detached from personal thoughts, from the flames of intelligence, riches which indeed seem to be a property. If, therefore, a sister seized upon one of her thoughts, one of those pertinent words, she
let fly without complaining, despite the desire she had. His thoughts belonged to the Holy Spirit, He was free to dispose of them as he pleased. "Yes, she said now I can say it, I have received the grace of not being more attached to the goods of the mind and the heart than to those of the earth, I find it quite natural that my sisters "take hold of it. The good Lord is very free to use me to give a good thought to a soul, it is not my property."
She wrote to one of her sisters: "The mere desire to be a victim of love is enough, but you have to consent to always remain poor and without strength, and that is the difficult thing, because the truly poor in spirit, where the do we find " says the author of the Imitation .... very far, that is to say in baseness and humiliation
The Servant of God constantly had before her these words of our holy Constitutions: "May they always have before their eyes the poverty which they profess in order to spread the odor of it everywhere". She was truly that poor man of the Gospel to whom the Kingdom of Heaven belongs.
OBEDIENCE
From her entry into the novitiate the servant of God was submitted to me in everything, and in her obedience as in all her other virtues, she surpassed her companions. She never made an observation to me, and her obedience was as prompt as it was blind, not only with me but also towards her Mother Prioress.
One day, I thought I was making prayer easier for her by suggesting a thought that I thought I could help her, but I knew that for her it was only a fatigue; she said nothing to me and would have stayed that way if I hadn't been told.
One very cold winter evening, she was at the fire during recess to dry her damp woolen stockings which she had taken off according to the custom of Carmel. The doorbell rang at the sacristy, and as she was a sacristine, she immediately got up, taking only the time to put on her rope shoes, in other words "alpargates", and thus left in haste crossing the cloisters without worrying about the recklessness she was doing.
She would not have wanted to ask her sisters to teach her to paint without having authorized myself my permission, it was the same with her desire to write poetry and her joy was great to bring me her first attempt which was the charming canticle on the "virginal milk of Mary". Knowing that a postulant can do nothing without the permission of her mistress, she came to me very embarrassed, looking unhappy, because she did not know how to tell me that our Mother wanted her to keep this correspondence for herself. I put her very quickly at ease but I saw there what was the delicacy of her conscience which did not want to hide anything from me, and just as much the kindness of her heart which would have been afraid to hurt me by not telling me the something that I found quite natural.
Our Mother often made recommendations which she herself no longer remembered some time later, which caused the sisters to believe that they could also dispense with following them. For the Servant of God it was not so, she continued to practice them faithfully.
Having left the novitiate, I had him for some time to help me in the sacristy; I could still admire in this office what was his humility, his deference, his obedience; she would never have offered herself for what could have put her forward, keeping herself very small and would not have touched the sacred vessels without my permission.
But here is the most heroic act of obedience that I have seen him practice in his religious life: Father Auriault of the Society of Jesus to whom I have related it exclaimed: “Ah! and I saw that he was very edified. It was when the Servant of God received from her Mother Prioress the harsh refusal not to return to the confessional to find the Reverend Father Alexis, when it was her right like that of the other sisters. This religious saint had put peace in her troubled soul, she then suffered a real interior martyrdom which was inexplicable to her: he had divined it marvelously and had told her to come back... But she dared not break the defense of the Mother Prioress, and returning like the other sisters to the confessional, and how painful this refusal was to her, which bound freedom of conscience and which had only painful motives. She had confided her pain to me as she had come running to tell me her joy, I was moved by both; I advised her to insist near our Mother, but for greater perfection, she preferred to remain silent and obeyed with Our Lord, obedient even to the cross.
This admirable child then put into practice what she had done all her life, this point which ends our holy Rule: You also religious, honor your Prior with complete humility, recognizing him for Jesus Christ more for what he is in self, since it is JC who established it over you, and said to the prelates of the Church: He who listens to you listens to me, and he who despises you despises me
SUPERNATURAL GIFTS
The servant of God was favored at the age of 8 years (10 years) by the appearance of the Blessed Virgin who came to cure her of a serious illness: the Blessed Virgin advanced towards her and smiled at her. This statue which had come to life and shown itself to be so beautiful is now placed and honored in the small oratory of Sr Thérèse of the EJ
She had a transport of love during her novitiate but I have only a vague knowledge of it, perhaps Mother Marie de Gonzague had told her not to speak to me about it.
During her illness, they had brought her roses to cover her crucifix with, which was her devotion; a few petals having fallen on the ground, we picked them up to throw them away, but lowering our voices, with a mysterious air "oh, don't throw them away, she said, they will be able to make people happy..." and this word was realized by the miracles wrought by these petals. Another day, she said to Mother Agnès of Jesus: "After my death you will have small joys, at the mailbox, on the side of the tower!
In addition to the consolations given to the Cte by the holiness of Sr Thérèse, in the glory with which the Holy Church takes care to cover it at present, there are other immense graces which still reflect on our Carmel. Very noticeable is the progression of its perfection, of the regularity, of the silence, which some time ago struck one of our suppliers who, leaving the Cté, entered our port sisters, pale and moved, asking them to sit down, and saying to them: "O my sisters, what is there in your Community? What silence, what calm, oh how beautiful it is!" A retreat preacher said to our Mother after hearing the Sisters: "Mother, we see that a saint has passed through your Carmel."
The bishops, the priests who enter our cloister only leave it edified and delighted, as if they had breathed an air of the supernatural, at the oratory of Sr Thérèse, visiting her relics and our monastery, which she embalmed with her virtues. .
The venerable dean of our Carmel, our good Sr St Stanislas, who died last year (1914), told our R. Mother the following conversation that one day had while walking in Lisieux with her sister, her nephew Monsieur xxx : Seeing the servant of God who gave her good Father Mr. Martin her arm, he said to her: "Look at Miss Martin, she's an angel! .. do you want me to tell you: she will be canonized one day!"
Several times, Sr Thérèse of the EJ favored me with her perfumes, once by preparing small papers intended to receive her relics, and which perfumed my Sr Jeanne-Marie even more, when she opened the box which contained them in order to finish them. Since then, more than two years ago, at the very moment of receiving Holy Communion, and the time to kneel down and retire, a perfume of an exquisite odor that I cannot define enveloped me so strongly that I was seized with surprise, because I was very far from thinking about it
...For a few days I smelled the odor of violets as I withdrew from the holy table. These various perfumes were explained to me by various events, of trials as of consolation, concerning my family.
The streams of letters amounting to 500 every day, and of which so many come from the front, testify to the boundless confidence of the soldiers in the servant of God. The officers take her as protector of their regiments or their company, this is how Colonel Etienne only calls his regiment "the regiment of Sr Thérèse". Several squadrons also bear his name; a soldier rushed to the attack, exclaiming: "Long live Sr Thérèse!"... a wounded soldier was picked up by her, ... and we really had trouble meeting all the requests for images and memories addressed to us.
A soldier passing through Lisieux said to the good Mother St Ignatius, so venerated by the whole city of whom she is "the angel of the unfortunate": It is frightening at the time of the assault to hear the soldiers cry out a voice: "Sr Thérèse, save us!"
From morning to evening, I work only for her, I have made thousands of images; I hardly receive any letters in which I am not told about her, and I hardly write any without doing the same. I don't have a parlor that isn't for hearing about it and discussing it with the people I'm with, and with whom I'm happy to make it known and loved more.
His portraits, images, charm those who see them, among all, the beautiful heliogravure which is at the beginning of his life. (It has already been made 8 million images and a million relics)
Miss Mac Shecky [Miss Mac Shecky who looks after Sr Thérèse's little shop] recently wrote to Sr Geneviève: "the customers go into ecstasies before the magnificent painting of Sr Thérèse with roses; they say that her sister certainly had a vision and I I am of their opinion, because Sr Thérèse speaks to you and follows you with her eyes; one is penetrated to the bottom of the soul by looking at her.
The little babies (sic) to whom she shows herself recognize her in her image when we introduce her to them.
On the night of his death, a dove made its moans heard at the window of his infirmary where his mortal remains lay.
When Mother Agnès of Jesus opened her manuscript for the first time to examine it, a little robin fluttered on the edge of her window and chirped as if to rejoice.
No one thought of opening the window of his cell, and now a little bird seemed to want to warn of this oversight, by the pecks it gave in the panes.
ILLNESS AND DEATH
When illness led the Servant of God to the infirmary, she there heroically showed the virtue she had acquired in health, which our Constitutions demand: her courage and her patience were equal to her physical and moral sufferings, for the trials of the soul were also his part there.
The Cte rarely went to see her so as not to tire her, she was so weak, but it was only to find her cheerful, amiable, having nothing but an angelic smile for all. God permitted our holy and devoted doctor not to think of giving him those alleviations which might have alleviated his cruel sufferings. She supported them until the end in all their intensity. He was very edified and said: "If you knew what she is suffering from, you wouldn't want to hold her back... I couldn't heal her, she is a soul that is not of the earth".
After receiving Extreme Unction, she said: "I found happiness and joy on earth but only in suffering, because I suffered a lot here below, it will be necessary to tell souls! in my childhood I I wanted suffering, but I didn't think I would enjoy it. It's a grace that the good Lord gave me later.
Her soul was so delivered to love that suffering had become sweet to her, and yet she asked that we pray for her because she felt her weakness and abandoned by heaven, and it was then that she redoubled her confidence in God. The words which came out of her lips were so many flaming arrows, she could then repeat what she said in her postulate: "everything sings in my heart as in that of Saint Cecilia", but then it was the song of the swan which will die. She had lived like an angel in our carmel, she died there as a seraph.
On September 30 the agony began at 3 am. The Cté meets near her, all the little birds had arranged to meet at the window of her infirmary to give her a concert of their chirping. At 7 o'clock in the evening, the sisters, who had gone out for a moment, were called back by a loud ringing of the doorbell; I ran and arrived in time to see her leaning her head to the right again, moving her lips saying then: "Oh I love Him, ..... my God........ I love you! This were her last words. She sank down, half-opened her eyes, cast a brilliant and magnificent gaze towards the image of the Blessed Virgin as if seeing something supernatural and her soul flew up to heaven...she was dying of death. love as she had dreamed!...
She was very beautiful displayed at the grille of the choir, but this beauty was very weak compared to the extraordinary beauty which she radiated when the Cte made the lifting of the body under the cloister, at the door of the infirmary. I was seized by it and wondered if she was really dead ... she seemed so alive to me that I would not have been surprised to see her smile at her little Jesus as she passed near him. She looked like a martyred virgin stretched out on her reliquary, rather than a poor Carmelite on her coffin.
Having taken it on September 30, I thought that the Blessed Virgin had come to fetch it that day, as a reward for the touching piety with which she had used the roses to testify her love to Our Lord. She flew to heaven for the month of the Holy Rosary to pick there even more beautiful roses than those on earth, in order to throw them as a rain of grace over the whole world according to her promise: "I will put my heaven to make good on earth".
A few days before the death of the Servant of God, her bed had been rolled under the cloister. Sr Marie du Sacré-Coeur, gardener of the courtyard, being near her, said to her: "Here is a dying offshoot of a rhododendron, I am going to pull it out. - Oh! my Sr Marie du Sacré-Coeur she replied in a plaintive and pleading tone of voice, I don't understand you ... well for me who is going to die, I beg you, let this poor rhododendron live.." He had to insist again, but his wish was respected... - Now, this poor offspring was the only survivor of the magnificent rhododendrons which had been given, and which in one of the baskets of the courtyard, made the charm of it, but for a very short space of time. Among them, there were some, from my family, which hardly flattered my self-esteem, because removed from a clump, they had neither form nor beauty!
In a short time all died, except the offspring in question, who was one of those who had come from among us, and who, at the word of Sr. Th. of the EJ, escaped shipwreck! So we saw it come back to life, grow branches, extend them, take on a graceful form that it had never had, so much so that today it is one of the prettiest shrubs in the courtyard, and which, this year has yielded over a hundred flowers, and progresses every year in beauty as the cause itself progresses.
The mysterious interest that the Servant of God showed in this offspring seemed to me to be a sign of her protection for my family, but that was all... and for some time now it's as if she opened my eyes, and even gives certainty in the marvelous protection with which it covers my soldiers, so good Christians, and who have such great confidence in it, and by many other graces as well. But above all, and with joy, I gather the lesson that the servant of God gives me through these rhododendrons, which is that all that shines is only vanity and affliction of spirit, and passes away in the blink of an eye like the adversity, but this difference that those who drink here below the water of the torrent with Christ, like Him, will lift up their heads.
And what is to be noticed is that a good number of rhododendrons are now succeeding in the garden!
Origin of the rhododendron: there was in the forest of Montpinçon bordering the dwelling of my parents, a poor beggar who had made a lodging there of tree branches, and a bed of fern leaves, where he came to warm himself near from him poor snakes. One winter day when the snow was falling heavily, not seeing him come to take his meal at home as was his habit, three times a week, my parents sent to see what was happening to their good old man, and it was in this sad state that the servant found him; this one sorry came back to report what he had seen, they immediately sent for him and they installed him on the ground floor; but a year later he fell ill, and my sister de Lagivière, who was then 3 or 4 years old, told me that she still saw our parents and the priest surrounding him and giving him the last rites. She had slipped at the foot of the bed from which they wanted to take her away, but he said: "Let the little one approach, the blessing of the poor brings good luck! Twenty years later, my sister, then married, bought this same forest from which this rhododendron came and which, of all the beautiful and numerous properties which the ruin into which her husband has thrown her has forced her to sell, it is also the only one which has escaped sale.
Misfortunes have, like the good old man, reduced her to the greatest distress, and today, before she dies, she sends me her blessing for the City at the request I made of her, and in her gratitude, desiring in turn that his blessing bring him happiness as a reward for his charities towards him. May this happiness be, as I hope, the Beatification of Sr Thérèse of the EJ in this Carmel of Lisieux where it will be 49 years since my sister brought me and led me to the altar; Isn't that what his mysterious protection for this poor offspring seems to tell me? [still alive and thriving in 2012].
My Sr Thérèse of the EJ knew my Sr Ste Fébronie perfectly. It is a word of this good Sr that I am quoting to you, we entrust this very intimate detail to you." rights of divine justice, and our angel, those of infinite mercy, but the latter seeing that she was gaining nothing and still remaining in her feelings, ended up saying to her seriously, and we would say almost divinely: "My Sister, you want justice from God, you will have justice from God. The soul receives exactly what it expects from God."
Now the year of the death of this sister, the first days of January, the feast day of her patroness at the baptism of St Julie, Sr Thérèse of the EJ saw in a dream a procession of Carmelites among whom was my Sr Fébronie. .. She painfully turned her head and without saying anything, fixed on our holy child a long and sad look! His attitude was pleading, even more expressive than his words. This dream was reported to our Mother, it had strongly impressed the little apostle of love and mercy: "O my mother said to her, my Sr F.
came last night asking to be prayed for; she is in Purgatory no doubt, for not having relied enough on the Mercy of God! by her pleading air and her deep look, she seemed to say to me: "You were right, all justice is done on me, but it's my fault, if I had believed you, I would have been straight to heaven!! "
My Sr Geneviève, unable to recognize what Sr Thérèse's large veil had been, asked her to give her a sign, allowing the one she would place on the sick leg of a Sr of the white veil, covered with about thirty boils, effected his healing. She was answered and this sister (Marie madeleine) was so healed that from that day on, 7 years ago on June 1, she never stopped cooking on her own, an obedience so painful that she is ordinarily given each week in turn to our white veil sisters.
One of our sisters was suffering from a very violent crisis of insanity, they were forced to send her to undergo treatment in a nursing home. She came back to us fairly well, but some time later, the illness announced that it wanted to return with alarming symptoms. Our Holy Mother asked for prayers from the Cté, but Sr Thérèse of the EJ assured them that they would not be answered, because she had seen him in a dream entering the recreation room, carrying on his shoulder a cross very long and very bright. The dream came true, our poor sister
was forced to leave us again and still carries her heavy cross which will certainly bring her great glory in Heaven, because we can assure you that we have lost in her one of the pearls of our carmel (Sr Marguerite Marie)
.Where could the holiness of the servant of God come from? perhaps it would be permissible to think that it could have taken its source in the reversibility of the virtues of his ancestors, especially of his own parents, true patriarchs, whose salvation of their children was their first concern.
And who was able to attract this privileged soul to our Carmel? We are allowed, I believe, to think that the holiness of our foundresses whom I have known, can have a lot to do with it: I can say loudly that our first Mothers, fundamental stones of the Community, passed through the most crucifying and humiliating hardships that one can imagine, and which could have sunk the foundation, and the most terrible of which was the illness of our foundress-benefactress, Sr Marie de la Croix, who offered herself as a victim for the promulgation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, had to accept the sacrifice of her intelligence that God asked of her. But this ordeal, as in its principle, was only for the glory of God, being only a source of merit both for the poor victim and for the whole community, which had to suffer so much humiliation and suffering that will only be well known in heaven. But how consoling is it today to see how much are rewarded for the wisdom, the fortitude, the heroic virtue of our first Mothers, especially our venerable Mother Geneviève, she resisted everything, and today oday, these so perfect Carmelites see in heaven our little Thérèse covering our Carmel with glory, filling it with joy, and wrapping it in blessings. Can we not apply to him these words of Our Lord to his Apostles: "Didn't Christ have to suffer all this to enter into his glory?"
What could confirm my thought is this last tear of Mother Geneviève collected after her death, by the servant of God, a tear which she had seen shining on her eyelid when she died, the last tear of all those she had shed , and which were changed to joy forever
One night after the death of this venerable Mother, Sr Thérèse saw her in a dream giving each of her daughters something that had belonged to her, she came to her empty-handed, and looking at her with tenderness, she said to her: "Your , I leave my heart."
In closing, as in my depositions of the diocesan trial, I say again that it is for me when I consider the servant of God, what it is with every eye that looks at the stars of the sky, the more it fixes them, and the more he discovers. This time again, the more I contemplated this small and so brilliant star, the more than ever it threw its luminous rays on me, and the more I recognized it and proclaimed it a saint. I like to quote a passage from a letter written in 1898 by Father Thomas de Jésus Agonisant, of the Order of the Passionists, especially from the magnificent work entitled "The Operations of the Holy Spirit", which thus speaks of the servant of God :
(This letter was written to one of our Carmels who sent it to us) What glory for Carmel and what hope for all...this little star under the breath from above came out of its little cloud, and already it shines like a rainbow, announcing the end of the storms...; I have the intimate conviction, this little star will become more and more radiant in the Church of God. It is still only the morning star in the midst of a small cloud, but one day it will fill the house of the Lord. If God sent her to us in our days of darkness, in days of clouds and whirlwinds, let us believe that it is to bring us peace, light, hope from heaven. No, in heaven, none of the aspirations of this apostolic virgin are forgotten, and the divine Spouse, by making his little Queen a great Queen, has already placed in her hand the scepter of his omnipotence. It is now that in the arms of her love she repeats with a love that delights Him: "I want to spend my heaven doing good on earth...!!"
