Marie Rosalie Gueret 1824-1914
Peace and very humble greetings to Our Lord who, in the Octave of the Ascension, came to associate with his triumph, we trust, our beloved sister Marie-Rosalie SAINT-STANISLAS OF THE SACRED HEARTS professes and dean of our community, aged 90 years, 19 days, and of religion 69 years, one month, 17 days.
This venerable sister having asked earnestly not to have a circular, we believe we must accede to her humble desire; but it is impossible for us not to say at least a few words about its dominant virtue: charity. Our older sisters do not remember having seen Sr Saint-Stanislas, in the various offices of the monastery which she fills with extraordinary understanding and activity, ever refusing a service, even if she was overloaded with work, and that immediately, with perfect good grace.
This charity shone, especially in the job of nurse which she exercised for many years. She thus had the consolation of lavishing her care on our dear Sister Thérèse of the Child Jesus: "If you only knew," said the Servant of God to her novices, "like the care I receive from Sr Saint -Stanislas remind me of the goodness of God! She heals the wounds with such gentleness! I see her choosing the finest linens and applying them with a velvet hand. It makes me praise God for giving me, through this good sister, an idea of the infinite delicacy with which he bandages and heals the wounds of our souls. »
For her part, the venerated dean was edified by the patience of her young patient; and the memory of her virtues inspired her with the following lines which we transcribe here, according to her wish: "It is in the presence of the Most Holy Trinity that I, Sr. Sr Thérèse of the Child Jesus, I affirm that I have always seen her practice virtue in a heroic way and that I have not been able to discover any imperfection in her. She never gave me any thought about what I asked her to do, being her first job, and her perfect regularity constantly edified me. About her father, she suffered a lot, but in silence, and in all the painful circumstances in which I saw her, I admired in her a great strength of soul. In the illness that led her to the tomb, despite her great sufferings, I saw nothing on her face that could make them guess, and I never heard her utter a single complaint. I wrote this, in case I should die, in order to make it known, for the greater glory of God and the glorification of his Servant, on the eve of the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, of the year 1906.” Sr Saint Stanislas of the Sacred Hearts.
Our venerated sister did not write, doubtless out of humility, of the favors obtained from the one she sometimes called, with a smile of pride, her "little daughter". She told us, however, that after her death she saw a luminous crown to rise in the sky, and another crown to follow it at some distance; but lost in the mist and whose flowers she could not distinguish! This last. crown was it not his, that. 17 years of growing deprivation and infirmity were due. complete?
Another time, in a moment of anguish, she tells us that she saw in the evening the portrait of her "little girl" hanging on the wall of the infirmary, giving off a ray of light that came to her and comforted her.
Finally, in these last months, while his charitable nurse helped by one of our sisters of the white veil, gave him his care, all three smelled a mysterious perfume of roses, attesting in some way to the presence and also the assistance of the Servant of God.
Another day, his devoted nurse, very tired herself, finding herself alone washing her wounds, the smell of which was revolting, suddenly felt a sweet and very intense perfume of violets embalming her. Wasn't this again a thank you, and an encouragement from her who had once found the hand of the venerable cripple so sweet?
Our good Sister Saint-Stanislas was very patient during the last days of her life. Suffering for several years from various infirmities due to her advanced age, she had the flu last Sunday. As she had a lot of trouble expressing herself because of her suffocation, if we asked her what she wanted, she kept answering: “God's mercy! »
The illness worsening from hour to hour, we had her administer the last sacraments, which she received with great piety.
It was only on the eve of her death, Friday May 22, after the reception of Holy Viaticum, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, that the venerable patient lost consciousness little by little. However, around 9 o'clock in the evening, she kissed her crucifix again with touching piety. Finally, after a most painful agony which lasted until the next day, Saturday, at a quarter past five in the morning, she breathed her last, the nursing sisters and us present.
Our dear dean had made and renewed many times THE ACT OF OFFERING of Sr Thérèse of the Child Jesus to MERCIFUL Love, as well as the heroic vow in favor of the souls in Purgatory. Everything leads us to hope that the hand of the good Lord will have been only very gentle and blessing for this upright and pure soul, so grateful for the graces received, especially at the time of her two jubilees, and of a truly remarkable delicacy of conscience.
However, my Reverend Mother, we beg you to return to her the suffrages of our Holy Order as soon as possible; and by grace, according to what she herself asked of us, a communion of your fervent community, the indulgence of the Way of the Cross, that of the six Pater, an invocation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Magnificat and Te Deum.
We have the consolation of saying to each other with religious and fraternal respect,
My Reverend and most honored Mother, Your humble sister and servant,
Sr AGNES OF JESUS,
rc ind.
From our Monastery of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Conception of the Carmelites of Lisieux, May 24, 1914
