Of her great debt to the Lord for making her resigned to her great trials, of how she took St Joseph, the glorious, as her mediator and advocate, and of the great profit that she derived from this
AFTER my four days of insensibility I was in such a state that only the Lord knows the unbearable torments I suffered. My tongue was bitten to pieces, and my throat was so choked from having eaten no food and from my great weakness, that I could not even swallow water. My bones seemed to be wrenched out of their sockets, and there was a great confusion in my head. As a result of all those days of torture I was all twisted into a knot, and unless someone moved them for me, could no more move arm, foot, hand, or head than if I had been dead. All that I could move, I think, was one finger of my right hand. It was impossible for anyone to see me, for I was in such pain all over that I could not bear it. They used to move me in a sheet, one taking one end and one the other; and this state of things lasted till Palm Sunday. My sole relief was that so long as I was not touched my pains often ceased, and then when I had had a little rest I considered myself well. I was afraid that my patience would fail, and so I was extremely pleased when I found myself free from these sharp and continuous pains, even though the cold fits of an intermittent fever from which I still suffered remained almost unendurably severe. I continued to have a great distaste for food.
I was then in such a hurry to return to the convent that I had myself carried there as I was. So instead of the corpse they had expected, the nuns received a living soul, though the body was worse than dead and most distressing to look at. My extreme weakness is beyond description; I was nothing but bones. As I have said, I remained in this state for more than eight months, and my paralysis, although it grew less, continued for almost three years. When I began to crawl on hands and knees, I praised God. I spent all this time in great resignation and, except at the beginning, in great joy. For all this was trifling compared to the pains and torments with which it had started. I was quite resigned to God’s will, even though He should leave me in this state for ever. My sole anxiety, I think, was to get well in order to pray in solitude, as I had learnt to. There was no possibility of this in the infirmary. I made very frequent confessions, and spoke much about God, in such a way as to edify all the sisters, who were amazed at the patience which the Lord had given me. For, unless it had come from His Majesty’s hand, it appeared impossible that anyone could bear so much with so great a joy.
It was a great thing that He had given me the grace of prayer, as He had done, since this made me understand what it meant to love Him. In that short time I felt these virtues renewed within me, though in no great strength, since they were not sufficient to sustain me in righteousness. I would not speak the slightest evil of anyone, and it was my practice to avoid all gossip. I kept it always in mind that I must not allow others to say, or to say myself, anything about another that I would not like said about me. I kept this rule most rigidly on all possible occasions, though not so perfectly that I did not break it now and then when difficult situations occurred. But on the whole I kept it; and this so impressed the sisters who were with me and talked to me that they adopted the habit too. It came to be understood that where I was it was safe to turn your back; and it was the same with my friends and relations, and those who learnt from me. Still, I have certainly to account to God for having given them a bad example in other respects. May it please His Majesty to pardon me, for I have been the cause of much wrong-doing, though with no such wickedness in my intentions as appeared in the resulting acts.
I still desired solitude, and still loved to discourse and speak of God. If I found anyone with whom I could do so, it gave me greater joy and satisfaction than all the politeness – or, to be correct, coarseness – of worldly conversation. I took Communion and confessed more frequently still, and this out of a real desire. I greatly loved to read good books, and was most repentant for having offended God. I remember that very often I did not dare to pray, because I was afraid of the great distress that I should feel for having offended Him; it was like a heavy punishment. This fear so grew on me later that I do not know what torment I can compare it to. This torment did not increase or diminish with any fear of mine, but would come when I remembered the favours which the Lord was granting me in prayer, and how much I owed Him, and how badly I was repaying Him. I could not bear it; and I would get very angry with myself for all those tears I shed on account of my faults, when I saw how little I improved, and how neither my resolutions nor the efforts I made were enough to prevent my falling again, when I allowed an opportunity to occur. My tears seemed to me a fraud, and my guilt appeared even greater afterwards, since I saw how good the Lord had been in allowing me to shed them, and in giving me such great compunction. I would contrive to go to confession as soon after my fault as I could and, as I thought, did all that I could to return to grace. The whole trouble lay in my not cutting off the occasions for sin at the root, and in my confessors for giving me so little help. If they had told me the risks I was running, and that I must abstain from these conversations, things would most certainly have been remedied, since I could not on any account have borne, even for one day, to go in mortal sin with the knowledge that I was doing so. All these signs of the fear of God came to me through prayer, and the greatest of these was that I went about enveloped in love, for the thought of punishment no longer occurred to me. All the time that I was so ill, my conscience remained very much awake against mortal sins.
O my God, how I longed for the health to serve You better, and this was the cause of all my undoing! When I saw myself so paralysed and still so young, and how the physicians of the world had dealt with me, I decided to invoke those of heaven to heal me. For though I bore my illness most joyfully, I still wanted to get well. But sometimes I reflected that I might regain my health and yet be lost, and that it would be better to stay as I was. But I always thought that I should serve God much better if I recovered. This is our mistake, never to resign ourselves absolutely to what the Lord does, though He knows best what suits us.
I began by having Masses said, and prayers that had been approved. For I was never a lover of those other kinds of devotion to which some people – especially women – resort, together with ceremonies that I could never bear but which greatly move them. I have since been told that these practices are unseemly and superstitious. I took as my lord and advocate the glorious St Joseph, commending myself earnestly to him, and I clearly saw that out of this trouble, as out of other and greater troubles involving my honour and the salvation of my soul, this my lord and father delivered me, doing me greater benefits than I knew how to ask for. I do not remember to this day ever having asked him for anything that he did not grant me. I am amazed at the great mercies which the Lord has done me through this blessed saint, and from what perils, both of body and soul, he has delivered me. The Lord seems to have given other saints grace to help in some troubles, but I know by experience that this glorious saint helps in all. For His Majesty wishes to teach us that, as He was Himself subject to him on earth – for having the title of father, though only his guardian, St Joseph could command him – so in heaven the Lord does what he asks. This has also been the experience of some other persons whom I have told to commend themselves to him; and there are many more who have lately come to revere him, through having newly discovered that this is true.
I managed to observe his feast with the greatest possible solemnity. But, though my intentions were good, I would celebrate it with more vanity than spirituality, being anxious for splendour and effect. For I had this fault that if the Lord gave me grace to do anything good, my way of doing it was always full of imperfections and defects; and as for wrongdoing and meticulousness and vanity, I had great skill and diligence in them. May the Lord forgive me! I wish that I could persuade everyone to venerate this glorious saint, for I have great experience of the blessings that he obtains from God. I have never known anyone who was truly devoted to him and offered him particular service who did not visibly increase in virtue, for he gives very real help to those souls who commend themselves to him. For some years now I have always made some request of him on each of his festival days, and it has always been granted. If my petition is wrong in any way, he corrects it for my greater good.
If I were a person who had authority to write, I would enlarge on this statement, and most minutely describe the benefits which this glorious saint has done to me and other persons. But in order not to do more than I have been commanded, I shall have to write much more briefly man I would wish about some things, and at unnecessarily great length about others, and so appear to be lacking in discretion. I only beg for the love of God that anyone who does not believe me shall try for himself. Then he will learn by experience what great good comes of recommending oneself to that glorious patriarch, and paying him service. Persons who practise prayer, in particular, should always be his devotees. I do not know how anyone can think of the Queen of the Angels, during the time when she suffered so much with the infant Jesus, without giving thanks to St Joseph for the help he then gave them. If anyone cannot find a master to teach him prayer, he should take this glorious saint for master, and he will not go astray on the road. May it please the Lord that I have not done wrong in venturing to speak of him. For though I publicly profess my devotion to him, in serving him and imitating him I have always failed. But he was true to his nature when he cured my paralysis, making it possible for me to rise and walk; and I was true to mine in making but poor use of this benefit.
Who could have said that I should fall so soon after receiving so many gifts from God; after His Majesty had begun to give me virtues, which themselves roused me to serve Him; after having been so near to death and in such great peril of losing my soul; after He had raised me up, in soul and body, so that everyone who saw me was amazed to find me alive? What a perilous life this is, O my Lord, that we must lead! Here as I write this, it seems that, with Your favour and Your mercy, I might say with St Paul, though I am not perfect like him: ‘Nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me’.1 For some years now, as it seems to me, You have led me by the hand, and I find in myself desires and resolutions – in some ways and to some extent tested by experience during that time – to do nothing, however trifling, that is contrary to Your will, though I must commit many offences against Your Majesty without knowing it. It seems to me too that nothing can be presented to me that I would not undertake with great resolution for love of You. In some things You have Yourself helped me to succeed, I do not love the world or the things of the world, and nothing seems to give me pleasure unless it comes from You; everything else is to me like a heavy cross. Yet I may be deceived, and it may be that my desires are not as I have said. But You know, O Lord, that to the best of my belief I am not lying, since I am afraid, and with good reason, that You may abandon me again. I know now how little my strength and small virtue can achieve if You are not always granting me Your grace and helping me not to forsake You. May it please Your Majesty that I be not forsaken by You even now, when I imagine myself to be in this state.
I do not know how we can wish to live, seeing that all things are so uncertain. Once, my Lord, it seemed to me impossible that I should forsake You utterly. But now that I have forsaken You so often I cannot help being afraid. Whenever You withdrew only a little way from me, I immediately fell to the ground. May You be blessed for ever since, although I have forsaken You, You have never so utterly forsaken me as not to raise me up again by continually giving me Your hand. Very often, Lord, I did not want it, nor did I want to hear how repeatedly You called me again, as I shall now relate.