After long languishing, at length I regained my former health. About
this time my dear mother departed this life in great tranquility of
mind. Beside her other good qualities, she had been particularly
charitable to the poor. This virtue, so acceptable to God, He was
graciously pleased to commence rewarding even in this life. Though she
was but twenty-four hours sick, she was made perfectly easy about
everything that was near and dear to her in this world.
I now applied myself to my duties, never failing to practice that of
prayer twice a day. I watched over myself, to subdue my spirit
continually. I went to visit the poor in their houses, assisting them
in their distresses. I did (according to my understanding) all the good
I knew.
Thou, O my God, increased both my love and my patience, in proportion
to my sufferings. I regretted not the temporal advantages with which my
mother distinguished my brother above me. Yet they fell on me about
that, as about everything else. I also had for some time a severe ague.
I did not indeed serve Thee yet with that fervor which Thou didst give
me soon after. For I would still have been glad to reconcile Thy love
with the love of myself and of the creature. Unhappily I always found
some who loved me, and whom I could not forbear wishing to please. It
was not that I loved them, but it was for the love that I bore to
myself.
A lady, an exile, came to my father's house. He offered her an
apartment which she accepted, and she stayed a long time. She was one
of true piety and inward devotion. She had a great esteem for me,
because I desired to love God. She remarked that I had the virtues of
an active and bustling life; but I had not yet attained the simplicity
of prayer which she experienced. Sometimes she dropped a word to me on
that subject. As my time had not yet come, I did not understand her.
Her example instructed me more than her words. I observed on her
countenance something which marked a great enjoyment of the presence of
God. By the exertion of studied reflection and thoughts I tried to
attain it but to little purpose. I wanted to have, by my own efforts,
what I could not acquire except by ceasing from all efforts.
My father's nephew, of whom I have made mention before, was returned
from Cochin China, to take over some priests from Europe. I was
exceedingly glad to see him, and remembered what good he had done me.
The lady mentioned was no less rejoiced than I. They understood each
other immediately and conversed in a spiritual language. The virtue of
this excellent relation charmed me. I admired his continual prayer
without being able to comprehend it. I endeavored to meditate, and to
think on God without intermission, to utter prayers and ejaculations. I
could not acquire, by all my toil, what God at length gave me Himself,
and which is experienced only in simplicity. My cousin did all he could
to attach me more strongly to God. He conceived great affection for me.
The purity he observed in me from the corruptions of the age, the
abhorrence of sin at a time of life when others are beginning to relish
the pleasures of it, (I was not yet eighteen), gave him a great
tenderness for me. I complained to him of my faults ingenuously. These
I saw clearly. He cheered and exhorted me to support myself, and to
persevere in my good endeavors. He would fain have introduced me into a
more simple manner of prayer, but I was not yet ready for it. I believe
his prayers were more effectual than his words.
No sooner was he gone out of my father's house, than thou, O Divine
Love, manifested thy favor. The desire I had to please Thee, the tears
I shed, the manifold pains I underwent, the labors I sustained, and the
little fruit I reaped from them, moved Thee with compassion. This was
the state of my soul when Thy goodness, surpassing all my vileness and
infidelities, and abounding in proportion to my wretchedness, granted
me in a moment, what all my own efforts could never procure. Beholding
me rowing with laborious toil, the breath of Thy divine operations
turned in my favor, and carried me full sail over this sea of
affliction.
I had often spoken to my confessor about the great anxiety it gave me
to find I could not meditate, nor exert my imagination in order to
pray. Subjects of prayer which were too extensive were useless to me.
Those which were short and pithy suited me better.
At length, God permitted a very religious person, of the order of St.
Francis, to pass by my father's dwelling. He had intended going another
way that was shorter, but a secret power changed his design. He saw
there was something for him to do, and imagined that God had called him
for the conversion of a man of some distinction in that country. His
labors there proved fruitless. It was the conquest of my soul which was
designed. As soon as he arrived he came to see my father who rejoiced
at his coming. At this time I was about to be delivered of my second
son, and my father was dangerously ill, expected to die. For some time
they concealed his sickness from me. An indiscreet person abruptly told
me. Instantly I arose, weak as I was, and went to see him. A dangerous
illness came upon me. My father was recovered, but not entirely, enough
to give me new marks of his affection. I told him of the strong desire
I had to love God, and my great sorrow at not being able to do it
fully. He thought he could not give me a more solid indication of his
love than in procuring me an acquaintance with this worthy man. He told
me what he knew of him, and urged me to go and see him.
At first I made a difficulty of doing it, being intent on observing the
rules of the strictest prudence. However, my father's repeated requests
had with me the weight of a positive command. I thought I could not do
that amiss, which I only did in obedience to him. I took a kinswoman
with me. At first he seemed a little confused; for he was reserved
toward women. Being newly come out of a five years' solitude, he was
surprised that I was the first to address him. He spoke not a word for
some time. I knew not to what attribute his silence. I did not hesitate
to speak to him, and to tell him a few words, my difficulties about
prayer. Presently he replied, "It is, madame, because you seek without
what you have within. Accustom yourself to seek God in your heart, and
you will there find Him."
Having said these words, he left me. They were to me like the stroke of
a dart, which penetrated through my heart. I felt a very deep wound, a
wound so delightful that I desired not to be cured. These words brought
into my heart what I had been seeking so many years. Rather they
discovered to me what was there, and which I had not enjoyed for want
of knowing it.
O my Lord, Thou wast in my heart, and demanded only a simple turning of
my mind inward, to make me perceive Thy presence. Oh, Infinite
Goodness! how was I running hither and thither to seek Thee, my life
was a burden to me, although my happiness was within myself. I was poor
in riches, and ready to perish with hunger, near a table plentifully
spread, and a continual feast. O Beauty, ancient and new; why have I
known Thee so late? Alas! I sought Thee where Thou wert not, and did
not seek Thee where thou wert. It was for want of understanding these
words of Thy Gospel, "The kingdom of God cometh not with observation...
The kingdom of God is within you." This I now experienced. Thou
becamest my King, and my heart Thy kingdom, wherein Thou didst reign
supreme, and performed all Thy sacred will.
I told this man, that I did not know what he had done to me, that my
heart was quite changed, that God was there. He had given me an
experience of His presence in my soul; not by thought or any
application of mind, but as a thing really possessed after the sweetest
manner. I experienced these words in the Canticles (Song of Solomon):
"Thy name is as precious ointment poured forth; therefore do the
virgins love thee." I felt in my soul an unction which, as a salutary
balsam, healed in a moment all my wounds.
I slept not that whole night, because Thy love, O my God, flowed in me
like a delicious oil, and burned as a fire which was going to devour
all that was left of self. I was suddenly so altered that I was hardly
to be known either by myself or others. I found no longer those
troublesome faults or reluctances. They disappeared, being consumed
like chaff in a great fire.
I now became desirous that the instrument hereof might become my
director, preferable to any other. This good father could not readily
resolve to charge himself with my conduct although he saw so surprising
a change effected by the hand of God. Several reasons induced him to
excuse himself. First, my person, then my youth, for I was only
nineteen years. Lastly, a promise he had made to God, from a distrust
of himself, never to take upon himself the direction of any of our sex,
unless God, by some particular providence, should charge him therewith.
However, upon my earnest and repeated request to him to become my
director, he said he would pray to God and desired that I should do so.
As he was at prayer, it was said to him, "Fear not that charge; she is
my spouse." When I heard this, it affected me greatly. "What (said I to
myself) a frightful monster of iniquity, who has done so much to offend
my God, in abusing His favors, and requiting them with ingratitude, now
to be declared his spouse!" After this he consented to my request.
Nothing was more easy to me than prayer. Hours passed away like
moments, while I could hardly do anything else but pray. The fervency
of my love allowed me no intermission. It was a prayer of rejoicing and
possessing, devoid of all busy imaginations and forced reflections; it
was a prayer of the will, and not of the head. The taste of God was so
great, so pure, unblended and uninterrupted, that it drew and absorbed
the power of my soul into a profound recollection without act or
discourse. I had now no sight but of Jesus Christ alone. All else was
excluded, in order to love with the greater extent, without any selfish
motives or reasons for loving.
The will, absorbed the two others, the memory and understanding into
itself, and concentrated them in LOVE;--not but that they still
subsisted, but their operations were in a manner imperceptible and
passive. They were no longer stopped or retarded by the multiplicity,
but collected and united in one. So the rising of the sun does not
extinguish the stars, but overpowers and absorbs them in the luster of
his incomparable glory.