JMJT
Carmel of Lisieux
July 14 1897.
Jesus
Besides,
You tell me in your last letter (which gave me great pleasure): "I am a baby learning to speak." Well ! me, for five or six weeks, I am also a baby, because I live only lolo, but soon I will sit at the celestial banquet, I will quench my thirst with the waters of eternal life! When you receive this letter no doubt I will have left the earth. The Lord, in his infinite mercy, will have opened his kingdom to me and I will be able to draw from his treasures to lavish them on the souls who are dear to me. Believe, my Brother, that your little sister will keep her promises, and that with happiness her soul, delivered from the weight of the mortal envelope, will fly towards the distant regions that you are evangelizing. Ah! my brother, I feel it, I will be much more useful to you in Heaven than on earth and it is with joy that I come to announce to you my forthcoming entry into this blessed city, sure that you will share my joy and thank the Lord for provide the means to help you more effectively in your apostolic works.
I intend not to remain inactive in Heaven, my desire is to work again for the Church and souls, I ask the good Lord and I am certain that He will answer me. Aren't the Angels continually occupied with us without ever ceasing to see the divine Face, to get lost in the shoreless Ocean of Love? Why wouldn't Jesus allow me to imitate them?
My Brother, you see that if I leave the field of battle already, it is not with the selfish desire to rest, the thought of eternal bliss hardly thrills my heart, suffering has long since become my Heaven here down and I really find it hard to conceive how I can acclimatize in a country where joy reigns without any mixture of sadness. Jesus will have to transform my soul and give it the capacity to enjoy, otherwise I will not be able to bear the eternal delights.
What attracts me to the Fatherland of Heaven is the call of the Lord, it is the hope of finally loving him as I have so longed for and the thought that I will be able to make him loved with a multitude of souls who will bless him eternally.
My Brother, you will not have time to send me your commissions for Heaven, but I guess them and then you will only have to say them to me softly, I will hear you and faithfully bring your messages to the Lord, to Our Immaculate Mother, to the Angels, to the Saints you love. I will ask for the palm of martyrdom for you and I will be near you, supporting your hand so that it effortlessly picks up this glorious palm, and then, with joy, we will fly together in the heavenly Fatherland, surrounded by all the souls who will be your conquest!
Goodbye, my Brother, pray a lot for your sister, pray for Our Mother, whose sensitive and maternal heart finds it very difficult to consent to my departure. I count on you to comfort her.
I am for eternity your little sister Thérèse of the Child Jesus of the Holy Face rel. carm. ind.
