Autobiography

19. “To live in an act of perfect love.” — St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus

I began this fourth part of my story with a statement by the Little Flower. In fact, to offer oneself to Love as a victim is to ask Jesus to raise us up upon his Cross and suffer all the pains which He did before and after the crucifixion.

In the dialogue taking place between the soul and Himself, Jesus asks, “Can you drink my chalice?” And the soul replies, “Yes, I can, for I want to be like my Master; for I have understood that if the grain of wheat does not die, it does not bear fruit; for I have understood that only when one is raised upon the cross, are souls attracted to God; for I have understood, above all, your thirst, your thirst which no drink can quench, but only our love.”

To offer oneself to Love means, then, to offer oneself to Pain.

But is it pain to suffer together with Christ and for the sake of Christ? No, it is joy, very deep, inexhaustible joy. I can definitely say so, having been inundated with all pains for so many years!

I confess to you, Father, that while I have not struggled too much to overcome my reluctance to speak of my past, now that I am coming to the best part, I must make an appreciable effort. I am afraid I will express badly what I feel so well. Secondly, there are pages of light in the lives of souls which should be read only by God, who has written them therein.

Alright. I shall think of you as a minister of God, and whoever speaks in the name of God is as if he were God. I shall thus obey and go forward, pushing aside my temptation to end my story here with a recapitulatory statement, such as, “I offered myself to God, and God accepted me.”

I am very happy to know that you are quite devoted to the sweet little saint of Lisieux. You will thus understand me better.

After arriving in Viareggio, I continued my life with the same rule as in Florence. In addition, some dashes to the sea and the pines early in the morning or around noon—at the hours when sea and pinewood have fewer people contemplating them. I have always been a loner, and crowds have unfailingly bothered me. Beauty is ruined for me if I’m surrounded by vain chattering. I thus seek—that is, I sought—to go and admire the beauty of the sea and the pinewood when they were unfrequented.

Viareggio provided me with another gift as well: going out every day to do the shopping. In Florence Mother was usually the one to go out. Here I was. And this helped me to make little visits to Christ in the Blessed Sacrament without drawing down maternal wrath.

In December 1924 I felt a very intense inspiration to have the complete volume with the four Gospels and the Life of St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus. I must acknowledge that since I had returned to God, I had always been faithful to the inspirations which came to me. A prompt, cheerful faithfulness, even if the inspiration spurred me on to difficult actions.

Among other things, I was then engulfed in gratitude to the good Lord for a favor He had granted me. A material favor, but one I had requested very trustingly. When Mother had gone to look for the house, I had intensely asked Jesus to enable her to find a small dwelling, suitable for the three of us, which would be sound and in good condition, with a lot of space in front and in back. Our house now has ample gardens behind it and, at that time, Villa Rigutti in front, with its enormous park. The Apuane could be seen and all the little towns scattered over the nearest hills. I would have liked to have seen the sea as well, but one cannot have everything, and so I asked only for a house with a lot of space around it, on account of my life constantly quite shut inside. Except for shopping and going to church and the fleeting trips to the sea, I never went out. The Promenade did not witness my going up and down like a pendulum.... If you notice, even now my house is the only one facing a green background. All the others, built on the terrain of the former Rigutti Villa, are at street level.

A small thing, isn’t it? But I was increasingly convinced that Jesus loved me so much that He granted me even these trifles to content his Maria. Just imagine what He gave to my soul...!

Drawing on my meager purse (Mother would give me five lire every other month and they had to suffice for all my personal needs as regarded alms, purchasing books and music, and so on), I turned to a friend of mine—who is so devout that she’s practically a sister and spends her time among priests and nuns—and commissioned her to buy and send me The Story of a Soul and the Four Gospels. On January 28, 1925 a big package arrived with the books requested and a volume added on by my dear former schoolmate which was a collection of Gospel commentaries intended for young people. I think it was by a priest, Fr. Baudernom, if I remember rightly. I point this out because an angelical creature—who became a nun and later died after a few years of conventual life—liked it so much that I gave it to her when she entered the novitiate.

I immediately read The Story of a Soul. I felt I was going back to school. But at school the Sisters had stopped at the life proper and the remembrances and counsels. With the complete works in hand, I went ahead.

My soul was melting with love. I had found the harpist capable of making the strings of my spirit resound. I wanted to make them sing to God, but still could not manage to. Little St. Thérèse with her small hand took mine and guided it over the strings, teaching me the canticle of love and self-giving.

When I read the act of offering to Merciful Love, I wept with joy.... I had found what I was seeking. If to enter the Franciscan Third Order I had imposed a trial period on myself, now I did not wait an instant. For two years I had been looking for a spiritual master who would act as my godmother at my rite of sacrifice to God. I had found her at last...!

I decided to make a very good confession and a fervent Communion, even better than usual, and then pronounce my act of offering.

I am impulsive in certain cases. I am such when I finally find something I have long been looking for. Then I do not reflect further, for I have already reflected before. It must not be forgotten that I had set myself the goal of imitating the Magdalene. Jesus had inspired me to do so. And when she met Jesus, Mary of Magdala did not stand thinking much—she started to follow Him. Who knows for how long, nauseated by her life of vice, she had been looking for someone to give her the strength to come out of it. Once she had found the Master, her passionate soul had felt that He was the one sought after, and with the impulsiveness of certain characters—extreme in both good and evil—she had chosen Him to be her King.

A little malignant voice, which may perhaps have been a devil, insinuated, “Be careful about what you’re doing! Think it over! And if you die afterwards?” But I drove him away with a shrug.

In the evening, in the room I’m in now, with my heart pounding I read my act of offering, kneeling on the floor. And I have been renewing it every day since then.

Since that day sorrows have come raining down upon me, but if it were granted man to cancel the time transpired and I were to return to January 28, 1925, the day I received those books, I would do over again what I have done, and even more joyfully, for in these eighteen years, amidst the sea of sufferings in which I have been immersed, with my “better part” I have always savored a spiritual joy which I believe is a foretaste of that which we shall enjoy in the Heavenly Jerusalem, “where rejoicing lasts forever.”

With the Little Flower, I, too, can say, “From that evening on the new period in my life began, the loveliest of all, the most brimful of heavenly graces. Charity entered into my heart with a need to forget myself to give myself, and from then on I was happy.”

Oh, I can repeat so many things said by the sweet little Saint! I have also suffered and suffer when thinking of the Blood of Christ, dripping in vain for so many. Jesus’ cry, “I’m thirsty!” always echoes in my soul, that sees the thirst of its God and wants to quench it. And I also see, with boundless pity, the poor souls—thirsty, in turn—that cannot find the fount of living water slaking all thirsts.... And I live dying every minute to bear souls to God and God to souls.

When in the early stages of the offering I sometimes hesitated to carry out a sacrifice, I seemed to be seeing Jesus’ imploring gaze.... How could I resist that gaze asking me, me, a poor creature, to have mercy on his desire? Then I would overcome all hesitation and, breaking myself in all that was human, I would effect a new sacrifice to make my Jesus smile. Jesus’ smile repaid me for all my sacrifices, but at the same time my thirst for sacrifice constantly increased out of desire for his smile.

To be consumed by love! To be consumed for the sake of love! Can there be a sweeter or more powerful joy than this? Human words cannot describe it, for they remain impotent to decribe the infinite, and the joy of being a victim is an infinite joy!

I proceeded that way, then, loving, being loved, and having love as my only goal and guide. “I had no guide or light except that which shone in my heart,” says St. John of the Cross. Nor did I have any guide or light except for the one provided by the divine eyes of Jesus, who now lived in me.

The eyes of Jesus! Don’t tell me I’m mad. Understand me. I now had the sensation of that gaze opened in my heart and seeing through me. I felt I was looking at things and people with the eyes of Jesus because my personality was absorbed in his, and I saw, spoke, and acted through Him.

How often I have felt that my words as a poor creature were being transformed at my lips’ threshold into other words which, on account of the charity informing them, I could no longer call my own, but his—Jesus’! How often my glances, when I felt some adversity was causing them to resemble—a falconet’s, softened their instinctive aggressiveness into a loving light which was not mine, but his—Jesus’! How often an act of mine not exactly in keeping with the law of charity was mysteriously transformed into an act of kindliness whose origin was certainly not to be found in me, such a poor, mean soul, but in Him—in Jesus, who was in me!

And I did not lack the means to experience this life of Jesus in me.... At home I had to ask my King every minute, “You act. Break me as glass is broken to annul my personality, which takes offense at so many injustices, and reform me in Yourself, as You would act at this moment!”

The Little Flower had taught me that God is loved with rose petals—with the small sacrifices made out of love. Out of love, I asked Jesus to give me the strength to make them continually so as to love Him that way.... And, seeing that I wasn’t worth a cent on my own, He took my place.

Oh, I cannot boast about the good I have done! It is Jesus who has done it: I have contributed nothing except complete submission to every operation of his. Jesus would say, “Act this way,” and I would; “Say this,” and I would; “Perform this other action,” and I would. Oh, if souls only understood how useful it is for them to abandon themselves to the divine operations!

At that time I would have wanted to enter the Company of St. Paul. Just to be able to tell the multitudes that Jesus should be loved with absolute devotion, to find heavenly happiness beginning on this earth. To be able to speak of the benefits of God, to be able to sing the song of thanksgiving and love for this compassionate God, whose joy is to lead us to heaven! But many obstacles interfered with this desire of mine. Mother’s selfishness, first of all, pity for my father, and my permanently broken health.

The palpitation of the heart did not subside with the passing of the years. It was always the same and painful, as were the spinal aches. But with all this I worked even to excess, as the doctors later said. Just to keep Mother content, and in the—vain—hope of winning her benevolence, I worked and worked like a machine. Household chores, shopping, cooking, whitewashing walls, raising pigeons, remaking mattresses, and people to be served, for in the summer we had—paying—guests who were offered board—everything fell upon my shoulders. And also making suits, sweaters, and linen—I even made Father’s summer jackets....

But it was too much. The chief physician in Florence had recommended to Mother and me that I not fall into complete idleness, but utterly avoid arriving at physical fatigue, with the threat of cardiac collapse. But who thought of that? Not fearful by nature, I got over the pain of my heart and damaged vertebras by laughing. I was assisted by strophanthus and Bertelli plasters and got along. And then the idea of a holocaust for the sake of love now appealed to me. St. Thérèse had worked well, though at the end of her strength...!

My mother, who saw me with good color, even a bit plump, and always on the go, did not imagine even incidentally that this might do me harm. And she went on demanding and demanding ever more vigorously. If I sometimes said I had more intense pain in my heart or spine, she would come out with a whole repertoire of her—imaginary—ailments, and that would take care of me.

Just imagine that she tormented me for three years by saying she had hemorrhages caused by an internal tumor. She always wanted large nettle poultices over her lower abdomen, for I don’t know who had told her or where she had read that they were a surefire cure for neoplasmas...! If only they were! A poem on nettles would have to be composed! I thus went every day to get my hands and arms stung gathering nettles and then prepared them—additional pricks like those before—and in the evening, when she decided to go to bed, I made that rather unaromatic poultice and took it to her upstairs. The end result was that at midnight I was still up and about, dead tired, and I would get up at six in the winter and five in the summer. It later turned out that the alleged tumor was nothing but a bothersome, but not dangerous disturbance from which at least three-fourths of humanity suffers. And she was really cured effectively when, abandoning nettle “therapy,” she decided to apply a cream designed for those varicose veins...! But how many tears out of fear that I would lose my mother! And how many exhausting sprints through pinewoods and fields in search of nettles...!

And that was one ailment. But, to hear her, she was beset by them all, except for leprosy and tuberculosis. As you observe, in spite of all her ills, she is still alive at age eighty-two. She now has trouble walking—but if only I could walk as she does! I would feel like a queen.

So you can rightly think that I was certainly not spared then. Quite the opposite of never reaching the point of fatigue! I reached and surpassed superfatigue! In such a way that when evening approached, I even walked stooping over and keeling towards the right. Broken...! But no one was concerned about it.

No possibility of the Company of St. Paul, then. Another sacrifice offered to Jesus. But I kept busy just the same. The guests, friends, and all who by pure chance approached me were able to take the place of the masses that I could not instruct as a “Pauline.” Provided one wants to, one can always be an apostle. And if one cannot have the display of a grandiose, recognized apostolate—which may, however, bring along with it the trimmings of pride and human dissipation—one can always have the glory of a humble, hidden apostolate, known only to God and corroborated more by our suffering than by our acting.

Yes, I acknowledge that the good Lord has permitted me to catch many souls in the net I secretly cast, waiting patiently for the little fish to draw near to the crumbs of my apostolate so that I could capture them. I say “crumbs.” I indeed had to crumble it so as not to attract the attention of Mother, who would have vetoed it. It’s tiring, you know, to work that way...!

But if they were crumbs of an apostolate, the loaves of love I distributed each day were, instead, truly enormous.... No one could keep me from loving. Don’t you think? And with a prodigal hand I gave and gave my love to my neighbor as an act of kindness towards Jesus. I always said to myself, “Men, who are ever quick to shower attentions on the most powerful, in the hope of receiving some benefit, do not take care to be kind to the good Jesus. I will be for them. To show kindness to Jesus must be my task.” And kindness is shown to Jesus in a thousand ways, going from a word left unsaid to a patient acceptance of offenses without reacting, from prayer to forgiveness, and from lending a hand to our neighbor in all his corporal and spiritual needs to the secret holocaust in which we offer our very lives for the sake of love. And I did all of this with simplicity, out of love.

Having seen my desire to become a “Pauline” fall through, I thought of Catholic Action.

When we are brimful of love and ever new love descends into us from heaven and flows into us from our heart, we must necessarily overflow. Every dike is broken when the pressure of the waters has reached its peak. And the force of love when it has swollen to excess is something uncontainable. One must either find an outlet for it or be choked to death. I strove to lighten the mass pressing against the walls of my heart, occasioning myself a real martyrdom of love, but the little I could do was not enough for me.

Ruysbroeck is quite right in saying, “The soul that has been in the presence of Christ feels sweetness, and from this sweetness there arises a chaste enjoyment which is the embrace of divine love. Gather together all the pleasures of the earth and make them one single pleasure and hurl it whole and entire upon a single man—all of that is nothing in comparison to the enjoyment of which I am speaking, for here it is Jesus who pours Himself wholly into us, with all his purity, and our soul is not only full, but overflowing. Such enjoyment makes man no longer the master of his joy. Such joy produces spiritual intoxication. I say spiritual intoxication when the enjoyment goes beyond the possibilities glimpsed by desire. The superabundance of joy forces one sometimes to sing and sometimes to weep. To relieve the pangs man seeks aid sometimes in motion, sometimes in crying out, and sometimes in the profound silence of ardent, unspeaking delights.”

But in the ardent, unspeaking delights one can resist but little with our humanity. The ardor grows in silence and dazzles us. I know.

I then thought of Catholic Action. In my parish Catholic Youth did not exist. I asked to found it. And I was rejected. It was said that, with the Group of Catholic Men and Women already in existence, there was no need to introduce anything else. I insisted to no avail. I offered my own house for the initial meetings. Useless. Never mind.

It pained me to be leaving the gifts of intelligence and culture received from God inert. It caused me suffering not to be able to lead to God so many young women I saw going astray in pursuit of paganism barely masked by Catholicism. I also offered this sacrifice to God. And with every sacrifice made, I felt love grow. I constantly told myself, “I’ve reached the summit. One can go no higher!”

Oh, how I deceived myself! To rise towards Perfection is to rise perpetually. I think that if we were permitted to live a thousand years, continuously ascending on the way of infinite Love, we would find that at the end we had gone only a short distance.... The way goes higher and higher, and the further you proceed, the more you see it keeps on ascending.

But the good Lord every now and then grants wings to the generous souls who have grown weary in the ascent so they can go a long way in a short time and reduce the distance separating them from Him, and then, at the hour of death, He comes and takes the generous soul at the point where death halted it and bears it on high, with Himself.... How sweet is the final flight in this way, resting on the heart of the Master, who says, “Come, blessed one, into my Kingdom!” The wings are the greatest sacrifices made out of love.

In the spring of 1927 God gave me a pair of very large wings. They must have been an archangel’s! How much space I covered in an hour that morning of Palm Sunday 1927!

In January—January 5, to be exact—a young navy officer had come on leave to visit his father, a major general, and his mother. During the night he was hit by an initially inexplicable malady which was later seen to be a septicaemia in the final stage.

The general, our friend, rushed to us on January 6, begging me to go there, for they had by now lost their heads. They had been in Viareggio for only three months. I went there and stayed on until April 9, 1927. I defied the danger of infection which all fled. Many went to my family to say, “Pull the young lady out of there. That fellow is consumptive!” But how could my parents refuse their distressed friends that favor? And why was I, who had cared for so many, to deny that patient care? For three months I contended with death for him, without weariness or aversion. At his side from seven in the morning until nine in the evening and beyond, and during the nights when he hovered between life and death, at night as well. I would come home tired and still work so as not to weary my mother.

The young man finally improved. The different physicians said I deserved over half the credit, for I had not only cared for him correctly, but dosed the medicines judiciously. I had really become scrupulous about this later, but cannot speak to you about it because your brother in religion, Father Antonino Silvestri, told me not to speak of it any further. I obey his will, even now that he has gone to God.

You wouldn’t believe the joy I experienced the day I could have my patient get up for the first time! His parents rejoiced and exclaimed, “How can we ever thank you?” But I had already received my thanks from God, for I had cared for that life with the intention of helping him towards a Christian death, if he was destined to die, or making him grateful to God, if God made him get better. And I felt I had succeeded.... I wanted nothing as a reward: I courted only a rosary the young man had bought at the Convent in the Garden of Olives in Jerusalem.

Unfortunately, the family doctor, on the evening of April 8, departed with the following consideration: “Now you’ll make this young lady a fine present! In addition to the way she has looked after him, she has enabled you to save an enormous sum of money. With paid nurses, 3000 lire would not have sufficed.” The doctor could have done without saying this, but if he said so, I am not to blame. Don’t you think? Alright. I replied, “Oh, for goodness’ sake! I have had the satisfaction of saving a life. That’s enough. At most the lieutenant could provide me with a rosary like the one his mother Adalgisa has. I would gladly accept that.”

The next morning I went as usual to the general’s house to help my still very weak patient to get up. I ws going then from nine to twelve and from three to seven. I had bought the blessed palm and was also taking it to them, who, after having received so much from God, were not grateful to God. With that holy branch I hoped to remind them of approaching Easter....

I went in. I saw his mother first of all. I greeted her, offering her my olive branch. She turned her back to me without returning my greeting. Since I knew she was very eccentric, I did not pay much attention. I thought she had quarreled with her husband, which happened quite frequently.

I entered the patient’s room. He had already gotten up and was sitting in an armchair between his father and his brother. All three of them were quite embarassed.... “Already up? Wonderful,” I said. A little smile was all the reply I got.

I went towards the kitchen to see if his mother needed anything. I was still holding my olive branch. I was assaulted by a blast of reproaches. My poor olive branch was hurled into the garbage, and I nearly joined it. I was accused of wanting to impose myself and establish myself in a home, of having made insinuations to the doctor to put forward claims which, if frankly stated at the outset, would have been rejected. I was finally told that I was too old in regard to the young man to be able to think of “conquering” him.

Not at all true. I had gone because they had asked for me insistently. I sought nothing, much less to conquer that fellow. I now belonged to God, and forever.

I felt a great urge to pay that ungrateful and uncouth woman back in her own coin. But it seemed to me that Jesus was asking me for the sacrifice of my self-respect on that day when his Passion was beginning.... I left the kitchen without a word. If I had opened my mouth, I would have said too much. I then preferred to remain silent.... It is not cowardice to keep silent in certain cases, but, rather, heroism.

I went back into the patient’s room and, as if nothing had happened, remade his bed and set everything in order. In the meantime my feelings calmed down. I then told the general I deemed it fitting to refrain from coming to their house at that point. He stammered—that’s the right term—some lame excuse which confirmed my judgment of the regrettable incident, whose real cause was the fear of having to compensate me somehow. How little they knew me and my father and mother!

The woman, who had gone out shopping, returned. I greeted her and, subduing my self, which rebelled against going so far, I apologized for what I had not done. I confess to you that I was sweating.... I, who had always acted correctly since childhood, so as not to have to apologize, was now humbling myself in this fashion, without having done anything wrong, but, rather, after doing good!

But it was Palm Sunday.... What better preparation could I make for now impending Easter? For Jesus, who was going to die, in mystical commemoration of his sacrifice to free man from sin, and especially from the sin of pride, which had ruined our first parents and their descendants, was I not to offer this act of love?

I went back home, saying nothing except that since the patient was now in a position to get along on his own, I would not be visiting him any more. I said nothing else so as not to unleash my mother’s wrath, which would not have respected either the general or his wife. I thought that if those two repented of their mean way of acting, they could still make reparation, and it was thus best to remain silent. I spoke only ten days later, for my parents were astonished at the others’ not coming to express their gratitude; in this regard they were inferior to dogs, that manage to wag their tails when benefited. And that’s how the matter ended.

Externally, it ended that way. But not internally. My Savior divinely compensated me for having managed to be meek and humble in his likeness and out of love for Him. I had offered my humiliation to Him as a sudarium for his Face, close to mortal sweating. Out of that sudarium He made me a sail to take me far off, on the wide sea of his mercy, to meet the Sun of his Divine Essence. It was a real bath of love in which that human remnant which might still be in me disappeared definitively. Since then I have lived entirely protected in the supernatural, having supported only the tips of my toes on the earth, like certain winged Victorias thoroughly hurled into flight.

After this sacrifice I was seized by a real thirst for immolations. Immolations involving self-esteem, fond sentiments, corporal penances, small and large material sacrifices. I sought out and practiced all that was a means to immolate myself. And a real river of peace inundated me. How sweet it was to be carried along by this river! I said it inundated me. No, it bore me on its surges of confidence, peace, and love. And, like a straw on the water, I abandoned myself to the Will carrying me along, suggesting to me hour by hour what I should do. It was as if the Divine Master were holding his chalice to my lips, asking me to drink it out of love for Him. And I drank it, though the taste was often quite bitter, increasingly bitter on my lips, but it was a bitterness which changed into a very sweet honey in my heart.

1927 and a good part of 1928 passed this way.

In the autumn of 1928 I felt I could ask to enter the Franciscan Third Order. I now saw that all that had disturbed me in the past had been overcome forever and that I was another person, transformed as I was by love.

Then I went to the Franciscans and set forth my case. It was necessary to accept me as I was—that is, no meetings and no invitations for the time being so as not to hurt Mother’s feelings. They replied that it could be done, but that this would delay my taking the habit. Never mind! I would prepare myself more and more for that ceremony, which I wanted to be a truly enduring seal.

In the spring of 1929 I went to Cremona to take a boy to boarding school that had been entrusted to a brainless mother who was turning him into a little rascal. My dear former schoolmate, the one who had provided me with the books, had helped me to find a refuge for this unfortunate lad. I stayed for fifteen days as my friend’s guest, in a family that seems like a copy of the Martin family, in which my favorite Saint grew up.

My companion, who was also Diocesan President of Young People’s Catholic Action, asked, “Why don’t you also enter Catholic Action?”

Of course! Easier said than done! I explained the opposition encountered and the fact that my priests did not want Catholic Youth in the parish.

“But there are members.”

“No, there aren’t.”

“What do you mean? They even sent an offering for the Catholic University! Look here: Our Lady of Lourdes Circle, St. Paolino’s Parish, Viareggio.”

I was struck dumb with astonishment. I had begged so for the Circle to be founded, and came to know that it existed when I was so many kilometers away.... They had not wanted me. That was all. I decided I would ask to enter on returning.

While performing that work of mercy—for such it was—to assist the poor boy, I had the first symptoms of myocarditis.

In the summer of 1928 I had had a serious angina, which I had gotten over while remaining on my feet, with fevers of 40 degrees and more, because we had guests. A month of suffering had really worn me out. In the very harsh winter of 1928-1929 I had a terrible flu, with a cough and high fevers and, as soon as I was better, a fractured rib, broken by the crowd pushing me against an iron bar at the tax office. I had even had to spit blood. The rib may have injured the pleura. But as usual no one had been concerned about it. I felt my heart was heavier, though, swollen, more seriously ill. On the way there, when I reached the Cisa Pass, between Pontremoli and Borgotaro, I had a slight indisposition. Brief rather than slight, for it lasted just a moment, but I thought I was dying. It turned into a nosebleed.

In Cremona, the same evening I had taken the boy to school, I felt ill. I made an effort so that my friend would not notice. But I again thought I would die. Coming back, on the train, also between Borgotaro and Pontremoli, that brief but painful indisposition appeared all over again. It is clear that my heart was giving way, and both the excessively thin air at that point and the emotion of separating myself from the child, who had clung to my neck, calling for his mother, had done me harm.

Indeed, my friend, on seeing me quite worn out and ill, wanted to detain me further—more than one night I had been very sick with my spinal pain, which even gave me vomiting and abdominal cramps—but a peremptory telegram from my mother forced me to leave, even in such bad condition. The fox loses his fur, but vice never does, and my mother acts the same. She always remains the same—nothing changes her. She should have been happy over my resting for a while with dear friends. But no, Sir! I had to stay chained, at all times.

That summer I toiled wearily to take care of the bathers. In the fall I even walked entirely bent over towards the right.

The parish priest had again rejected me for the Young Catholics. Another priest had said, “Oh, don’t be concerned about Catholic Action! It’s not worth it!” And a third had put me in Catholic Women, where I was out of place. My mission was to instruct the young women. But it was denied me. Years before I would have gotten upset. Now I prayed, and that was all. My will was to do the Will of God, and I did not grow fuddled if things went amiss. On the other hand, having been so unhealthy, I hoped that God would accept my self-offering as a victim and was preparing to consummate it.

How this attracted me and consoled me for everything! If poor men, who work themselves into a rage over momentary things, could grasp and savor how sweet and pacifying detachment from life and all its attractions is, how amazed they would be! They think sacrifice and pain—whatever form they may take—are grievous to undergo for the generous soul, as they are for their souls, afraid of everything, if not outright wretched. But they are quite mistaken.

Sacrifice is no longer an effort, and pain is no longer a torment for the generous soul, that lives in a special light and atmosphere clothing sacrifice and pain in a garment different from the one appearing to the eyes of the faint-hearted. Everything loses human value for the victim-soul and takes on supernatural value. Health and illness, the success or failure of a given enterprise, and joy and pain are indifferent from a human standpoint and only welcome if a supernatural good can be obtained from them. The generous soul is, rather, concerned about one thing alone—the question of not suffering.

In this is found the reversal of values. For the common man the subject of suffering, the subject alone, is a source of terror. For the generous soul, the subject of not suffering enough is the cause of fear and of redoubling one’s entreaties so that God will grant the joy of suffering. All its labor here below is summed up in the desire to do something pleasing not to itself, but to God, and if to reach this goal, it is necessary to suffer, blessed be suffering!

Hence the generous soul’s inability to suffer in the bitter way characterizing the ungenerous. Pain remains, for it is inevitable, but not as an enemy—as a friend helping us to keep rising higher and higher. Just the thought that this pain, abhorred by so many, makes us similar to Christ and continuators of his work gives us an unquenchable thirst for ever newer and more profound sufferings. And reflecting that infinite Mercy grants us, poor, ephemeral creatures prone to sin, the honor of becoming like Him in the work of Redemption, of mixing our blood with his Divine Blood in the chalice, leads us to dizzying heights of love and gratitude.

Our only fear is not, indeed, that the chalice of pain will be brought to our lips by the hand of God, but that it will be removed from our lips, which no longer want to taste anything but this, savored for the first time by the Redeemer.

The generous soul has annulled its will so such an extent that of itself it is not concerned with seeking either suffering or joy. It has donated itself, with its hands and feet tied, to its sweet Immolator, and entreats Him only not to spare it. Every new wound is an unequaled jewel in its sight, and if tears fall, because pain crushes our fibers and the flesh moans, other droplets of weeping join themselves to those tears—tears of joy for the grace of suffering God grants to us.

The first torment of the Immolator is that of Love. Such an exclusive, potent love that it alone suffices to consume life. The second is Pain: such a proteiform pain that without God’s help it would kill any human creature. The third, the torment of torments, is to see pain taken from us, because this makes us fear that God no longer finds us worthy of suffering with Him, for Him, and for souls.

I have lived this way for years, having found my peace in this life.

To be victim-souls means to be penitent souls, like the Magdalene, and Agnes as well—for suffering purifies—and trusting, like St. Thérèse; to be victim-souls means to be in the hands of Jesus as an instrument that does not complain about being used; to be victim-souls means to have understood where the safe way to eternal life is found.

This certainty softened everything for me. Even my always seeing myself rejected by everyone. Rejected at home, rejected away from home, rejected by priests and by lay people. They all seemed to have reached an agreement in this regard. But Jesus remained for me, and so....

At the end of December 1929 there were Spiritual Excercises for the members of Catholic Action in my parish. They were directed by Monsignor Sanguinetti. I attended them with pleasure after so many years in which I had been deprived of them. At the close, in a long confession, I opened myself to him. I received the grace of being understood by this priest. A rare grace, for until that moment it had always been denied me, and Jesus alone had been my Director.

Monsignor Sanguinetti had me speak at length and then—imposed me as the culture delegate for the Young Catholics. Now they had to accept me!

I managed to win the love of the membership. The officers loved me less, out of fear that I would supplant them in those blessed posts, so longed-for by their little hearts seeing things from a human standpoint. But the members loved me greatly and at once. They saw me as just. I required order, study, punctuality, and obedience to the rules. But I was the first to observe this order, study, punctuality, and obedience to the statute, and so they followed me. Woe if those below us see us committing the faults we reproach them for! It’s all over!

That year the competition centered on the ABC’s of Christianity. It was a small triumph. The representatives of Diocesan Catholic Action, who had examined completely unprepared youths the year before, were astonished. I was happy for the girls. There is nothing like success to spur people on, especially when they are still little souls, as were my girls.

I rewarded them with books—that is, I rewarded the best, the ones who had earned the highest grades—certain that they would do even better the next year. Those under us should be governed with a firm hand, but one which is covered with velvet. With gentleness they must feel they have a great deal to do, without realizing that under that gentleness there is a strength which makes itself felt if need be.

But when we truly love those entrusted to us by God, we obtain from them what we desire without resorting to force, especially when our wards are young souls devoid of envy, which is the venomous snake in human society. God reaches where we cannot, and teachers and pupils grow in wisdom and grace in his sight.