Chapter V: Letter to Her Sister Céline

NOTWITHSTANDING the trial which deprives me of every feeling of enjoyment I can yet exclaim, _"Thou hast given me delight, O Lord, in all Thou dost."_ [3] For is there a greater joy than to suffer for Thy Love? The more intense the suffering and the less apparent to human eyes, the more lovingly dost Thou smile upon it, O my God. And even--supposing an impossibility--if Thou wert unaware of it, I would still be happy to suffer, in the hope that by my tears I might perhaps prevent, or make reparation for one single sin against faith.

HIST. D'UNE AME, CH. IX

[3] Ps., xci, 5.

MINE is not an unfeeling heart, and it is just because of its capacity to suffer deeply that I desire to offer to Jesus every kind of suffering it can endure.

HIST. D'UNE AME, CH. IX

LIFE is full of sacrifices, it is true; but why look for happiness in it? Is it not simply "a night to be passed in a bad Inn" as says our Holy Mother Saint Teresa?

My heart has an ardent thirst for happiness, but well do I see that no creature is capable of allaying this thirst. On the contrary, the more I might drink of the waters of that enchanted spring the more burning would be my thirst.

I know a fountain where _they that drink shall yet thirst,_ [4] but with a thirst most sweet, a thirst one can always satisfy; this fountain is the suffering that is known to Jesus alone! . . .

II LETTER TO SR. MARIE DU SACRÉ-CŒUR

[4] _Cf_. Eccles., xxiv, 29.

OUR Lord never asks of us any sacrifice above our strength. Sometimes, in truth, the Divine Master makes us taste the full bitterness of the chalice which He presents to our soul. When He asks the sacrifice of everything most dear to us in this world, it is impossible unless by a very special grace, not to cry out as He did in the Garden of the Agony: _"My Father, let this chalice pass from Me. . ."_ But let us also hasten to add: _"Nevertheless not as I will but as Thou wilt."_ [5] It is very consoling to think that Jesus--Divine Strength itself--has experienced all our weakness, that He trembled at the sight of the bitter chalice, the chalice He had longed for so ardently.

I LETTER TO HER MISSIONARY "BROTHERS"

[5] Matt., xxvi, 39.

SINCE our Well-Beloved has _"trodden the wine-press alone."_ [6]--the wine which He gives us to drink--in our turn let us not refuse to wear garments dyed with blood, let us press out for Jesus a new wine which may slake His thirst, and _looking around Him_ He will no longer be able to say that _He is alone_; we shall be there _to help_. [7]

Neglect, forgetfulness . . . this it is, it seems to me, which still pains Him the most.