Part 24 (2/2)
MY BELOVED LITTLE SPOUSE,--I am well pleased with thee! All the year round thou hast amused Me by playing at _ninepins._ I was so overjoyed that the whole court of Angels was surprised and charmed. Several little cherubs have asked me why I did not make them children. Others wanted to know if the melody of their instruments were not more pleasing to me than thy joyous laugh when a ninepin fell at the stroke of thy love-ball. My answer to them was, that they must not regret they are not children, since one day they would play with thee in the meadows of Heaven. I told them also that thy smiles were certainly more sweet to Me than their harmonies, because these smiles were purchased by suffering and forgetfulness of self.
And now, my cherished Spouse, it is my turn to ask something of thee. Thou wilt not refuse Me--thou lovest Me too much. Let us change the game. Ninepins amuse me greatly, but at present I should like to play at spinning a top, and, if thou dost consent, thou shalt be the top. I give thee one as a model. Thou seest that it is ugly to look at, and would be kicked aside by whosoever did not know the game. But at the sight of it a child would leap for joy and shout: ”What fun! it will spin a whole day without stopping!”
Although thou too art not attractive, I--the little Jesus--love thee, and beg of thee to keep always spinning to amuse Me. True, it needs a whip to make a top spin. Then let thy Sisters supply the whip, and be thou most grateful to those who shall make thee turn fastest. When I shall have had plenty of fun, I will bring thee to join Me here, and our games shall be full of unalloyed delight.--Thy little Brother,
JESUS.
I had the habit of constantly crying about the merest trifles, and this was a source of great pain to Soeur Therese. One day a bright idea occurred to her: taking a mussel-sh.e.l.l from her painting table, and, holding my hands lest I should prevent her, she gathered my tears in the sh.e.l.l, and soon they were turned into merry laughter.
”There,” she said, ”from this onwards I permit you to cry as much as you like on condition that it is into the sh.e.l.l!”
A week, however, before her death I spent a whole evening in tears at the thought of her fast-approaching end. She knew it, and said: ”You have been crying. Was it into the sh.e.l.l?” I was unable to tell an untruth, and my answer grieved her. ”I am going to die,”
she continued, ”and I shall not be at rest about you unless you promise to follow faithfully my advice. I consider it of the utmost importance for the good of your soul.”
I promised what she asked, begging leave, however, as a favour, to be allowed to cry at her death. ”But,” she answered, ”why cry at my death? Those tears will certainly be useless. You will be bewailing my happiness! Still I have pity on your weakness, and for the first few days you have leave to cry, though afterwards you must again take up the sh.e.l.l.”
It has cost me some heroic efforts, but I have been faithful. I have kept the sh.e.l.l at hand, and each time the wish to cry overcame me, I laid hold of the pitiless thing. However urgent the tears, the trouble of pa.s.sing it from one eye to the other so distracted my thoughts, that before very long this ingenious method entirely cured me of my sensibility.
Owing to a fault which had caused Soeur Therese much pain, but of which I had deeply repented, I intended to deprive myself of Holy Communion. I wrote to her of my resolution, and this was her reply: ”Little flower, most dear to Jesus, by this humiliation your roots are feeding upon the earth. You must now open wide your petals, or rather lift high your head, so that the Manna of the Angels may, like a divine dew, come down to strengthen you and supply all your wants. Good-night, poor little flower! Ask of Jesus that all the prayers offered for my cure may serve to increase the fire which ought to consume me.”
”At the moment of Communion I sometimes liken my soul to that of a little child of three or four, whose hair has been ruffled and clothes soiled at play. This is a picture of what befalls me in my struggling with souls. But Our Blessed Lady comes promptly to the rescue, takes off _my soiled pinafore,_ and arranges my hair, adorning it with a pretty ribbon or a simple flower... . Then I am quite nice, and able, without any shame, to seat myself at the Banquet of Angels.”
In the infirmary we scarcely waited for the end of her thanksgiving before seeking her advice. At first, this somewhat distressed her, and she would make gentle reproaches, but soon she yielded to us, saying: ”I must not wish for more rest than Our Lord. When He withdrew into the desert after preaching, the crowds would come and intrude upon His solitude. Come, then, to me as much as you like; I must die sword in hand--'the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of G.o.d.'”[18]
”Advise us,” we said to her, ”how to profit by our spiritual instructions.” ”Go for guidance with great simplicity, not counting too much on help which may fail you at any moment. You would then have to say with the Spouse in the Canticles: 'The keepers took away my cloak and wounded me; when I had a little pa.s.sed by them, I found Him whom my soul loveth.'[19] If you ask with humility and with detachment after your Beloved, the _keepers_ will tell you. More often, you will find Jesus only when you have pa.s.sed by all creatures. Many times have I repeated this verse of the Spiritual Canticle of St. John of the Cross:
'Messengers, I pray, no more Between us send, who know not how To tell me what my spirit longs to know. For they Thy charms who read--For ever telling of a thousand more--Make all my wounds to bleed, While deeper then before Doth an--I know not what!--my spirit grieve With stammerings vague, and of all life bereave.'”
”If, supposing the impossible, G.o.d Himself could not see my good actions, I would not be troubled. I love Him so much I would like to give Him joy without His knowing who gave. When He sees the gift being made, He is, as it were, obliged to make a return... . I should wish to spare Him the trouble.”
”Had I been rich, I could never have seen a poor person hungry without giving him to eat. This is my way also in the spiritual life. There are many souls on the brink of h.e.l.l, and as my earnings come to hand they are scattered among these sinners. The time has never yet been when I could say: 'Now I am going to work for myself.'”
”There are people who make the worst of everything. As for me, I do just the contrary. I always see the good side of things, and even if my portion be suffering, without a glimmer of solace, well, I make it my joy.”
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