JMJT
Jesus Alone Monday, July 23, 1888
dear sister,
Your Therese has understood your whole soul, she has read even more of it than you have written to her. I understood the sadness of Sunday, I felt everything... It seemed to me while reading that the same soul animated us, there is something so sensitive between our souls, which is so similar. We have always been together; our joys, our sorrows, everything was common. Ah! I feel that this continues in Carmel, never, never will we be separated. You know, only the yellow lily could have separated us a little, I'm telling you because I'm sure that a white lily will always be your share, since you chose it and it's for you. chose the first... Do you understand the read...
I sometimes wondered why Jesus had taken me first; now I understood... You know, your soul is an immortal lily, Jesus can do whatever he wants with it, it matters little whether he is in one place or another, he will always be immortal; the storm cannot make the yellow of the stamens fall on his fragrant white chalice, it is Jesus who made him so, he is free and no one has to ask him why he gives his graces to a soul rather than to a another one. Next to this Lily Jesus placed another, his faithful companion, they grew together but one was immortal, the other was not, Jesus had to take his lily before the flower opened so that both would be for him... One was weak and the other was strong, Jesus took the weak, he left the other to be embellished with a new radiance... Jesus asks everything of her two lilies, he wants to leave nothing but their white dress, everything, has the immortal understood her little sister?...
Life is often heavy, what bitterness... but what sweetness! Yes life costs, it is painful to start a day's work, the weak button has seen it like the beautiful lily; if we still felt Jesus, oh! we would do everything for him, but no, it seems a thousand miles away, we are alone with ourselves, oh! the boring company when Jesus is not around. But what is this sweet friend doing, he does not see our anguish, the weight that oppresses us? where is he, why doesn't he come to console us, since we only have him as a friend? Alas! he is not far, he is there very close, watching us, begging us for this sadness, this agony, he needs it for souls, for our souls, he wants to give us such a fine reward, his ambitions for we are so big. But how will he say "my turn" if ours hasn't come, if we haven't given him anything? Alas! it costs him to shower us with sadness but he knows that it is the only way to prepare us to “know him as he knows himself and to become Gods ourselves”. Oh ! what a destiny, how great is our soul...
Let us rise above what is passing, keep ourselves at a distance from the earth, the higher the air is pure, Jesus hides but we guess it, while shedding tears we wipe his, and the Blessed Virgin smiles , poor Mother, she suffered so much because of us, it is right that we console her a little by crying and suffering with her...
I read this morning a passage of the Gospel where it is said: “I did not come to bring peace but the Sword”, it only remains for us to fight; when we don't have the strength, that's when Jesus fights for us... Let's put together the ax at the root of the tree...
Poor draft from Thérèse, what a letter, what a tumult...
Oh ! if I had been able to say everything I think, that Céline would have had a lot to read...
Jesus is good to have made me meet a mother like the one we have. What a treasure, little sister, if you had seen her this morning at 6 o'clock bringing me your letter, I was moved...
Jesus asks you everything, everything, everything, as much as he can ask the greatest Saints.
Your poor little Sister Thérèse of the Child Jesus died.
