CHAPTER 3

Of the pleasure which God took in making His abode in the soul of Gertrude.

WHILST Thou didst act so lovingly toward me, and didst not cease to draw my soul from vanity and to Thyself, it happened on a certain day, between the Festival of the Resurrection and Ascension, that I went into the court before Prime and seated myself near the fountain; and I began to consider the beauty of the place, which charmed me on account of the clear and flowing stream, the verdure of the trees which surrounded it, and the flight of the birds, and particularly of the doves—above all, the sweet calm—apart from all, and considering within myself what would make this place most useful to me, I thought that it would be the friendship of a wise and intimate companion, who would sweeten my solitude or render it useful to others: When Thou, my Lord and my God, Who art a torrent of inestimable pleasure, after having inspired me with the first impulse of this desire, Thou didst will to be also the end of it, inspiring me with the thought that if by continual gratitude I return Thy graces to Thee as a stream returns to its source; if, increasing in the love of virtue, I put forth, like the trees, the flowers of good works; furthermore, if, despising the things of earth, I fly upward, freely, like the birds, and thus free my senses from the distraction of exterior things, my soul would then be empty and my heart would be an agreeable abode for Thee.

As I was occupied with the recollection of these things during the same day, having knelt after Vespers for my evening prayer before retiring to rest, this passage of the Gospel came suddenly to my mind: “If any man love Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and will make Our abode with him.” (John 14:23). At these words my worthless heart perceived Thee, O my most sweet God and my delight, present therein. Oh, that all the waters of the sea were changed into blood, that I might pass them over my head, and thus wash away my exceeding vileness, which Thou hast chosen for Thine abode! Or that my heart might be torn this moment from my body and cast into a furnace, that it might be purified from its dross, and made at least less unworthy of Thy presence! For Thou my God, since that hour, hast treated me sometimes with sweetness and sometimes with severity, as I have amended or been negligent; although, to speak the truth, when the most perfect amendment which I could attain, even for a moment, should have lasted my whole life, it could not merit to obtain for me the most trifling or the least condescending of the graces which I have ever received from Thee, so great are my crimes and sins.

The excess of Thy goodness obliges me to believe that the sight of my faults rather moves Thee to fear Thou wilt see me perish than to excite Thine anger, making me know that Thy patience in supporting my defects until now, with so much goodness, is greater than the sweetness with which Thou didst bear with the perfidious Judas during Thy mortal life; and although my mind takes pleasure in wandering after and in distracting itself with perishable things, yet, after some hours, after some days, and, alas, I must add, after whole weeks, when I return into my heart, I find Thee there, so that I cannot complain that Thou hast left me even for a moment, from that time until this year, which is the ninth since I received this grace, except once, when I perceived that Thou didst leave me for the space of eleven days, before the Feast of St. John Baptist—and it appeared to me that this happened on account of a worldly conversation the Thursday preceding, and Thy absence lasted until the Vigil of St. John, when the Mass Ne timeas, Zacharia,4 is said. Then Thy sweetest humanity and Thy stupendous charity moved Thee to seek me, when I had reached such a pitch of madness, that I thought no more of the greatness of the treasure I had lost, and for the loss of which I do not remember to have felt any grief at that time, nor even to have had the desire of recovering it.

I cannot now be sufficiently amazed at the mania which possessed my soul, unless, indeed, it was that Thou didst desire me to know by my own experience what St. Bernard said: “When we fly from Thee, Thou pursuest us; when we turn our backs, Thou dost present Thyself before us; when we despise Thee, Thou dost entreat us; and there is neither insult nor contempt which hinders Thee from laboring unweariedly to bring us to the attainment of that which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, and which the heart of man cannot comprehend.”

And as Thou didst bestow on me Thy first graces without any merit on my part, so now that I have had a second relapse, which is worse than the first, and renders me yet more unworthy to receive Thee, Thou hast deigned to give me the joy of Thy presence without interruption, until this very hour: for which be praise and thanksgiving to Thee as the Source of all good; and that it may please Thee as the Source of all good, and that it may please Thou to preserve this precious grace in me, I offer Thee that excellent prayer which Thou didst utter with such amazing fervor when sweating blood in agony, and which the burning love of Thy Divinity and Thy pure devotion rendered so efficacious, beseeching Thou, by virtue of this most perfect prayer, to draw and unite me entirely to Thyself, that I may remain inseparably attached to Thee, even when I am obliged to attend to exterior duties for the good of my neighbor, and that afterwards I may return again to seek Thee within me, when I have accomplished them for Thy glory in the most perfect manner possible, even as the wind, when agitated by a tempest, return again to their former calm when it has ceased; that Thou mayest find me as zealous in laboring for Thee as Thou hast been assiduous in helping me; and that, by this means, Thou mayest elevate me to the highest degree of perfection to which Thy justice can permit Thy mercy to raise so carnal and rebellious a creature, so that Thou mayest receive my soul into Thy hands when I breathe my last sigh, and conduct it with a kiss of peace where Thou dwellest, who reignest indivisibly and eternally with the Father and the Holy Spirit for endless ages. Amen.