Autobiography

22. “There is a baptism I must still receive, and what constraint I am under until it is completed”

Immediately after offering myself to the martyrdom of love, there was added a martyrdom of suffering sharpened in the flesh and increased in the spirit by a severity which seemed to weigh upon me.

I shall explain or try to explain. It was not that I felt abandoned by God. No, his love was always upon me. But if Jesus caressed me, the Father made his hand heavier on my heart. A period of compact penance then began. Everything related to sense in supernatural love disappeared. I am referring to the sweet dreams which had been my joy for years and to the confidence that God would spare us all we are undergoing now. The hour of Gethsemane had at once come fully and somberly—and I may say that it lasted ten long years, for only since 1941 has its severity relented.

Do not think that I have experienced aridity in my heart. No, never. Just as I have never been left without the comfort of Christ’s love. But I have suffered intensely and morally over an exact perception of all that was about to happen in the world.... I have shed all my tears for this reason. I wept so much, beseeching the Eternal to avert this tremendous scourge, mortifying myself with harsh penances to placate, appease, and soothe Divine Justice, that when the scourge arrived and all more or less lost their heads, I hadn’t a single tear left. I had already tortured myself in advance, seeing the full unfolding of the tremendous tragedy.... I have suffered physically from a break out of maladies, each more frightful than its predecessor, and the series has not yet come to an end.... I have experienced all pains in my body, which has become a compendium of infirmities! And, what’s worse, these maladies have not left the spiritual part immune, but have disturbed it with an unbridling of sensations which in themselves alone are a martyrdom.... But I’ll speak of this when the time comes. Justice has certainly not spared me in any way. And you, too, will observe this.

In the meantime the heart crises occurred frequently. To these was added a lack of balance in walking and standing erect on account of which walking on my own was really hard work. If I was close to walls, I still walked with moderate assurance, for from time to time I would lean against the walls themselves, cling to the rainpipes, and so on. But in vast expanses I was shaky and had to stop with my eyes closed to regain my balance. A balance in a manner of speaking, though, for I bent towards the right.

I had already been under treatment for a year. At first the nervous exhaustion was treated. What exhaustion, when I slept placidly all night long and had a tenacious memory and an oft-proved mental resistance, without noticing the slightest disturbance of intellectual fatigue? Heaven knows! After stuffing me with glycerophosphates and seeing that I was doing worse, they did away with them. Excess blood and excess weight. Hence iodides and iodates to thin out my blood. Worse than ever. Then they eliminated everything and had me down sedatives for the heart. No wine, coffee, or meat. It couldn’t have been worse! The crises were the order of, if not the day, at least of the week, and they were more and more intense.

But, except for me, who experienced them and knew they were a death each time, no one was concerned. Inside and outside of the house, everyone wanted to be assisted and served by me. And if only they had been grateful to me! But at home there was the usual selfish, despotic treatment. Outside there were the instances of envy, so common and so deplorable in certian so-called “religious” circles.

You would not believe how much they did to me out of envy at my success! Not only the President, who, after her fear lasting over a summer, during which she had remained like a tortoise hiding away in its hole, with its head under its lorica, had now popped out again, with things put back in their place following September 4, and had regained boldness and overbearance—but also my friends from the Women’s Group. Friends who had known me as a child, who had loved me, and who had spurred me to do something, and now that I was acting, and doing more than they, they cast upon me all the slaver of their envious malice. I was pained at it, for every friendship which is broken causes me pain and pain makes me observe that one who seemed good to me shows himself to be bad.

But I continued with my work just the same. In spite of everything, I resumed the talks in addition to the circle activity. The first was on St. Elizabeth of Hungary. I went completely doubled over by the terrible spinal pain. The second was on my Seraphic Father, St. Francis of Assisi.

And that day I saw my guardian angel.

My great suffering last night made me suspend my account. This morning, before beginning again, I reread everything I have said in this chapter and saw that I have explained quite badly, in such a way as might mislead you.

I wrote, “I have never been left without the comfort of the love of Christ.” That might lead you to think that I continued to enjoy his caresses, in contrast with what I said a few lines before: “Everything constituting the sensible part of supernatural love disappeared.”

The matter is as follows. And let us hope that I can succeed in explaining it properly. There were no more dreams, no more caresses, no more soundless words which were nonetheless so perceptible to the soul. No more. As if Jesus had gone very, very far away with his love. But I felt that He was in me as never before. He was simply silent. He loved me as before and even more, but did not make Himself felt in any way. The hour of darkness had come for me; I had wanted it—no one had forced me to undergo it. I, I alone, had imposed it upon myself by asking the Father for it. Now I had to suffer it with whatever most painful aspects might be joined to it.

Jesus, when his time came, remained alone, separated from the Father. It was the Man, the Man alone, who was undergoing his punishment. The Father had withdrawn to the depth of Heaven in his anger, and the Victim had to suffer alone. I believe that even more than all the evil which He, the Innocent One, felt flowing over Him with all the sins—from the first Adam to the last Adam—more than the imminence of the torments, more than the persuasion of the uselessness of his sacrifice for so many, and more than the anguish of seeing Himself betrayed and denied by those He had loved and benefited most, what made Him sweat blood from his veins, pressed upon by an appalling weight of pain, was this having to suffer alone.

It’s terrible. In all sufferings. Pain, when it is shared by the heart of a compassionate Cyrenean, loses its crushing weight. But when we alone are the ones who have to bear it, it compresses us to the point of suffocation.... If this happens with human pain, it takes place much more when this pain rises to spheres that are more select than the human ones. And Jesus suffered out of pain, out of pain involving a very select cause. He was the Hero who sacrificed Himself for a sublime cause, the Holy One who poured forth his charity for all, and the Martyr who paid for all. And He lacked the comfort of the Father.

If we look closely, during those tremendous hours going from the Supper—for his martyrdom began there, in having to suffer the closeness of the betrayer, in having to seek to stop him from carrying out his crime, though aware of the uselessness of his final call: “He who eats my bread has upraised his heel against Me.... In truth I tell you: one of you will betray me,” and, above all, in having to give Himself, in the mystical Bread, to the one who had sold him—Jesus never lost his august majesty in suffering.

“Tell me the way you are able to suffer, and I will tell you what kind of man you are,” an old saying goes. Jesus suffered in such a composed manner that He showed what his real nature was. Never a lament, never an attempt at defending Himself. The loftiest silence at all times. Exclusively to glorify the Father, to bear witness to the truth, and to confess his mission He uttered a few words before the Sanhedrin, Herod, and Pilate.

But after those words at the Last Supper, which I can never read or repeat by memory without crying, after that prayer following them—which to me is the most beautiful page ever written, from the Annunciation until today, and will always remain such because nothing can surpass it, unless Christ returns to articulate another, even more sublime one, a discourse and prayer of divine calm—we hear the unsettled cries of the Tortured One in Gethsemane: “My soul is sick unto death.... My Father, if it is possible, let this chalice pass from me!” And the Father does not reply.... We hear the agonizing cry of the Dying One on Calvary: “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” The Innocent One who is dying feels so abandoned by the Father that He no longer even calls Him “Father”...! In this difference, which few note—a difference rendered even greater by the moment when the words are pronounced, since someone dying cries out to his father and mother for help in his final convulsion, and Jesus was in such a convulsion—I comprehend the full extent of this desolate suffering by Christ.... And not even at such a moment does the Father respond.... Death in all its physical, moral, and spiritual anguish had to be tasted by the Guiltless One for the sake of us, the guilty.

Jesus did the same with me. I had offered myself as an expiatory victim. And I had to live as an expiatory vicim. He would not and could not speak. He would not and could not make me feel that He was there and was helping me only by being there. But this apparent inertia of his, this sleeping of his, in the hour when the storm tossed my little boat in a thousand ways, did not diminish my love for Jesus. And in this lay my comfort.

I loved Him all alone, with the maximum trust. I would say, “You don’t speak, You don’t move in me, but I know that You’re there just the same, that You hear me and see me. I will love You doubly, for You and for me; I’ll be the one to speak, to fill up the pauses left by your absolute silence; I’ll be the one to act while You remain motionless. I have never loved You so much as now, when I receive nothing from You, nothing for my human senses, nothing for my superhuman senses. I know that what You do not give me for the time being will be found entirely by me in Heaven, deposited in the divine bank of the heavens and increased a hundredfold, since You, my Love, are a banker of unequaled prodigality.” I would say, “Poor Jesus! Perhaps You are weary. You knock at the door of so many hearts to enter and find rest for your divine weariness as a Pilgrim who has nowhere to lay his head, since your delight is not to remain in the heavens, but to be amongst men, whom You have bought back with your suffering. And no one wants to welcome You. They already have their hearts full of earthly concerns.... You are the stranger, and it is apparently grasped at once that You do not bring human wealth and earthly honors. That’s why they close the door in your face, when they don’t also come out against you with mastiffs and cudgels to drive You further away. And You are weary.... You have found a shelter in a poor heart which is completely open to receive You, and You have fallen asleep with your affliction in your heart. Sleep, Jesus. Sleep wipes out the memory of what causes pain. Sleep and rest. Remain as the Master of the house, of the poor house of my heart, while I go around seeking hearts for You, saying Who You are.... Do as You please, my Love. I’ll make as little noise as possible so as not to awaken You; I won’t even moan if something wounds me.... I am satisfied to be able to serve You by working, to be able to love You without your preventing me, and to be able to contemplate You, O Divine Beauty, while You sleep in my heart.” I have never loved Jesus in such superhuman fashion as when He failed to reciprocate my love sensibly....

The Father meanwhile increased the weight of his hand.

Jesus’ sleeping, his gaze veiled in sleep, allowed the devil, whom I had vanquished the previous year, to approach suddenly to torture me in a thousand ways. As I told you, by unbridling infirmities which none of the twenty-nine—that’s right, twenty-nine—Aesculapii who have come over these twelve years to tap, press, pierce, rummage, and listen has ever managed to understand. By unbridling fiercer envies and more biting calumnies. By prompting more intense selfishness, coldness, harshness, and indifference in the family. By persuading my fellows that I was not ill, but obsessed. That’s right: I had a paranoic obsession, a mania—and I was told so in every tone of voice.... Into others he instead infused the conviction that my work for the good Lord, which I went on carrying out, in spite of the fact that I complained of being very ill, was the best possible proof that I was nothing but a pseudomystic, a case of hysteria, which should be commonly read as “a lunatic.” This was also said to me.

And there was one—a priest who, because he had dealt with me quite closely and seen my balance, should have at least been the one to defend me most—who said so precisely in these words: “Why, your problem, rather than an illness, must be a hysterical disorder. You know—women! You’re always dominated by hysteria. In you everything takes place only by the impulses of certain organs. It’s there that the doctors should look.”

“You know, it’s not,” I replied. “The doctors, too, have had to agree that there’s nothing there, nothing at all.”

“Then,” and here there was a little smile more stinging than a prickly pear bush, “they must be mystical disorders....”

I confess that my blood rose to my head, and I had to make a tremendous effort to limit myself to replying, “I’m not female enough to be dominated by certain organs or holy enough to be worthy of mystical disorders. I am simply a poor, sick woman.”

How cruel men are! Cruel and profaning! Why wish to lift up the most sacred veils of the spirit? And why deride a soul where God is at work?

Finally, the devil took revenge by trying to disturb my spirit through leading it towards despair, showing it all the evil which was about to come into the world: the wars and the carnage, the famine, the bombings of civilians.... But he did not succeed. The last of his acts of revenge was to unleash a malady which has repercussions on all one’s being.... I have already spoken to you of it and shall speak to you again.

But nothing has grazed my trust, my faith, my will. Nothing, I assure you.

And we come back to January 4, 1932, the day I saw my angel.

It was Sunday. I had begun the day with Holy Mass and Communion. Later, after having tidied up the house, I was off to Association headquarters for the meeting: religious reflection and the contest. At twelve back home.

I entered and perceived unbreathable air. Mother, who, lucky for her, has a cast-iron heart not bothered by carbonic acid, had prepared four braziers, kept a huge fire in the stoves, and shut the windows so as not to feel the cold. The air in the house was even bluish.

“Why, you could asphyxiate here!” I cried, for with my infirm heart I cannot bear carbonic acid in even minimal doses. And I made a move to open the window.

“Leave it open,” howled Mother. “You have all your ailments at home. You’re always fine outside!” An utter lie! I had felt ill in the shops, in the pinewood, on the streets, in church, at the market, from Mantellate [women Servants of Mary], to the tax office, and in the homes of women friends.... But when was Mother ever a “mother” to me?

I made no further reply and breathed that mephitic air, feeling my heart to be increasingly heavy and throbbing.

While we were having coffee, a poor creature came to see us. Poor because she was dying at age thirty of consumption. We had a chat while I washed up everything. As soon as this sick woman left, Mother felt ill, and since she was dizzy, there was, of course, a spectacle of “ah’s“ and “oh’s.” I called our next-door neighbor because Mother did not wish to be alone while I went to heat up some coffee and then get smelling salts.

I ran to the right and to the left, went up and down stairs.... In the end I felt ill. I sat down in a little room and—had a syncope. No one heard the thud of my body on falling; no one was concerned about my not returning; no one even heard the racket caused by the glass I broke with the fall. Mother, who had already gotten over the slight dizziness just by breathing pure air, was blissfully jabbering with the neighbor....

I regained consciousness after almost half an hour and found myself on the floor with my mouth full of blood, because on falling I had cut my tongue in seven places with my teeth; the backs of my hands were totally flayed by the blow and the glass on which I had fallen, my knees were scraped, and then my heart....! I got up with effort and very slowly went downstairs....

“Oh, you’re finally back? Give a cup of coffee to Elia [the neighbor]. The poor thing hasn’t had any yet. And then get going, for it’s late, and they’ve already come to call you for the talk.”

I then showed my wounds and told about the rest. Except that while falling I had seen my guardian angel at my side. How handsome he was! What splendor in his face and clothing, which seemed to be made of lily petals strewn with silver dust and diamonds! What a smile! I would be willing to suffer every day like that to see him again! It must have been he who guided my fall so that I would not end up getting pierced by the flasks, which would have cut my throat.

And my mother’s caprice thus obtained for me the vision of my angel. And it also obtained a state of cardiac exhaustion.

The next day we heard that the poor sick woman had also fallen to the ground right after leaving our house. Only then did Mother yield to the evidence that the air was saturated with gas. And she did so, above all, because she, too, felt ill.

In spite of what had happened, however, I went to the Circle just the same. God helped me. I have never spoken so well as that day.

When at the end I was complimented and asked why I, who was always as punctual as a monarch, had been so late, I showed my hands, which I had not taken out of my gloves, and my tongue, all cut up, and told about what had occurred. They were all astonished and even uttered gentle reproaches for my imprudence.

But what does being prudent matter if prudence is to hide the faces of God and his angels from us?