About eight or nine months after my recovery from the smallpox, Father
La Combe, passing by our house, brought me a letter from Father de la
Motte, recommending him to my esteem, and expressing the highest
friendship for him. I hesitated because I was very loath to make new
acquaintances. The fear of offending my brother prevailed. After a
short conversation we both desired a farther opportunity. I thought
that he either loved God, or was disposed to love Him, and I wished
everybody to love Him. God had already made use of me for the
conversion of three of his order. The strong desire he had of seeing me
again induced him to come to our country house about half a league from
the town. A little incident which happened opened a way for me to speak
to him. As he was in discourse with my husband, who relished his
company, he was taken ill and retired into the garden. My husband bade
me go and see what was the matter. He told me he had noticed in my
countenance a deep inwardness and presence of God, which had given him
a strong desire of seeing me again. God then assisted me to open to him
the interior path of the soul, and conveyed so much grace to him
through this poor channel, that he went away changed into quite another
man. I preserved an esteem for him; for it appeared to me that he would
be devoted to God; but little did I then foresee, that I should ever be
led to the place where he was to reside.
My disposition at this time was a continual prayer, without knowing it
to be such. The presence of God was so plentifully given that it seemed
to be more in me than my very self. The sensibility thereof was so
powerful, so penetrating, it seemed to me irresistible. Love took from
me all liberty of my own. At other times I was so dry, I felt nothing
but the pain of absence, which was the keener to me, as the divine
presence had before been so sensible. In these alternatives I forgot
all my troubles and pains. It appeared to me as if I had never
experienced any. In its absence, it seemed as if it would never return
again. I still thought it was through some fault of mine it was
withdrawn, and that rendered me inconsolable. Had I known it had been a
state through which it was necessary to pass, I should not have been
troubled. My strong love to the will of God would have rendered
everything easy to me. The property of this prayer was to give a great
love to the order of God, with so sublime and perfect a reliance on
Him, as to fear nothing, whether danger, thunders, spirits, or death.
It gives a great abstraction from one's self, our own interests and
reputation, with an utter disregard to everything of the kind--all
being swallowed up in the esteem of the will of God.
At home, I was accused of everything that was ill done, spoiled or
broken. At first I told the truth, and said it was not I. They
persisted, and accused me of lying. I then made no reply. Besides, they
told all their tales to such as came to the house. But when I was
afterward alone with the same persons, I never undeceived them. I often
heard such things said of me, before my friends, as were enough to make
them entertain a bad opinion. My heart kept its habitation in the tacit
consciousness of my own innocence, not concerning myself whether they
thought well or ill of me; excluding all the world, all opinions or
censures, out of my view, I minded nothing else but the friendship of
God.
If through infidelity I happened at any time to justify myself, I
always failed, and drew upon myself new crosses, both within and
without. But notwithstanding all this, I was so enamored with it, that
the greatest cross of all would have been to be without any. When the
cross was taken from me for any short space, it seemed to me that it
was because of the bad use I made of it; that my unfaithfulness
deprived me of so great an advantage. I never knew its value better
than its loss.
I cried punish me any way, but take not the cross from me. This amiable
cross returned to me with so much the more weight, as my desire was
more vehement. I could not reconcile two things, they appeared to me so
very opposite. 1) To desire the cross with so much ardor. 2) To support
it with so much difficulty and pain.
God knows well, in the admirable economy he observes, how to render the
crosses more weighty, conformable to the ability of the creature to
bear them. Hereby my soul began to be more resigned, to comprehend that
the state of absence, and of wanting what I longed for, was in its turn
more profitable than that of always abounding. This latter nourished
self-love. If God did not act thus, the soul would never die to itself.
That principle of self-love is so crafty and dangerous, that it cleaves
to everything.
What gave me most uneasiness, in this time of darkness and crucifixion,
both within and without, was an inconceivable readiness to be quick and
hasty. When any answer a little too lively escaped me, (which served
not a little to humble me,) they said "I was fallen into a mortal sin."
A conduct no less rigorous than this was quite necessary for me. I was
so proud, passionate, and of a humor naturally thwarting, wanting
always to carry matters my own way, thinking my own reasons better than
those of others. Hadst thou, O my God, spared the strokes of thy
hammer, I should never have been formed to Thy will, to be an
instrument for Thy use; for I was ridiculously vain. Applause rendered
me intolerable. I praised my friends to excess, and blamed others
without reason. But, the more criminal I have been, the more I am
indebted to Thee, and the less of any good can I attribute to myself.
How blind are men who attribute to others the holiness that God gives
them! I believe, my God, that thou hast had children, who under thy
grace, owed much to their own fidelity. As for me, I owe all to Thee; I
glory to confess it; I cannot acknowledge it too much.
In acts of charity I was very assiduous. So great was my tenderness for
the poor, that I wished to have supplied all their wants. I could not
see their necessity without reproaching myself for the plenty I
enjoyed. I deprived myself of all I could to help them. The very best
at my table was distributed. There were few of the poor where I lived,
who did not partake of my liberality. It seemed as if Thou hadst made
me thy only almoner there, for being refused by others, they came to
me. I cried, "it is Thy substance; I am only the steward. I ought to
distribute it according to Thy will." I found means to relieve them
without letting myself be known, because I had one who dispensed my
alms privately. When there were families who were ashamed to take it in
this way, I sent it to them as if I owed them a debt. I clothed such as
were naked, and caused young girls to be taught how to earn their
livelihood, especially those who were handsome; to the end that being
employed, and having whereon to live, they might not be under a
temptation to throw themselves away. God made use of me to reclaim
several from their disorderly lives. I went to visit the sick, to
comfort them, to make their beds. I made ointments, dressed their
wounds, buried their dead. I privately furnished tradesmen and
mechanics wherewith to keep up their shops. My heart was much opened
toward my fellow creatures in distress. Few indeed could carry charity
much farther than our Lord enabled me to do, according to my state,
both while married and since.
To purify me the more from the mixture I might make of His gifts with
my own self-love, He gave me interior probations, which were very
heavy. I began to experience an insupportable weight, in that very
piety which had formerly been so easy and delightful to me; not that I
did not love it extremely, but I found myself defective in that noble
practice of it. The more I loved it, the more I labored to acquire what
I saw failed in. But, alas! I seemed continually to be overcome by that
which was the contrary to it. My heart, indeed, was detached from all
sensual pleasures. For these several years past, it has seemed to me
that my mind is so detached and absent from the body, that I do things
as if I did them not. If I eat, or refresh myself, it is done with such
an absence, or separation, as I wonder at, with an entire mortification
of the keenness of sensation in all the natural functions.