Anonymous

“ All the children both French and Indian were standing on the snow, barefooted, very scantily clad, shivering and trembling, and pressed close together for greater warmth. Madame de la Peltrie, so frail; so delicately nurtured, so sensitive to cold, sharing their sufferings; worst of all, the Mother Sister Joseph in her failing health, pierced through by the biting air, and looking as if she would expire momentarily. It was a scene well calculated to display the virtue of the Mother of the Incarnation, which never shone out more brightly. ”

“ Far from attaching any importance to the benefits which she had conferred on the monastery, she looked on herself as useless, sincerely believing that she was tolerated in the house of God only through charity. "I know nothing," she wrote; "I do nothing in comparison with my Sisters; although I teach others, I am the most ignorant of all." That these were no mere empty words was proved by her insatiable thirst for humiliation, to which her humble soul was drawn by the consideration of God's greatness and her own nothingness, as a stone to its centre by its natural weight. ”

“ The Christian mother's prayers fall on the soul of her prodigal child like genial sunshine on the drooping plant; her tears like cool dew on the parched earth—they revive, they warm, they soften. He cannot resist them, for they come laden with the heavenly grace which they have been the blessed means of winning from the all-merciful Heart of Jesus. This it was Claude Martin's happiness to experience. While he thought only of plunging into the vortex of the world, the Mother of the Incarnation prayed, and wept, and suffered without intermission to obtain his entire conversion. ”

“ She made it her especial study to carry out even the least direction public or private, of her mistress of novices, the perfection of the accompanying interior spirit elevating these trivial acts to the height of sublime virtue. While her external life exhibited in every feature a living model of that beautiful work of grace, a perfect novice, her heart was filled with so deep a joy, that it almost seemed to her as if no trouble could reach her more; no storm ever break on the peaceful haven to which the hand of God had at last guided her. ”

“ In reading of the success which crowned her labours, and the universal love and reverence which her great qualities inspired, we are tempted to imagine, that whatever may have been her interior crosses, she must at least have been a stranger to the mortifications which come to us from others. But it was not so. She loved humiliation in her heart of hearts, as the appropriate homage of the nothing to the All, and God loved her too much to spare it, therefore all through life, in youth as in mature age, in Canada as in France, in religion as in the world, it followed her like a shadow. ”

“ Her sisters dared not interrupt the colloquy, which only the angels were privileged to hear.
But this ray from Thabor, served as usual but to light her back to her ordinary abiding place on Calvary. Again her soul was plunged into an apparently fathomless abyss of desolation, and inundated as by a deluge of temptations; temptations to despair and blasphemy; temptations to pride and vanity; temptations against faith, against charity, against obedience, and against the angelic virtue,—sometimes assailing her one by one, sometimes overwhelming her all at once. ”

“ Compassion for the poor seemed so identified with her nature, that she could not see a want without trying, according to her opportunity, to relieve it, and when the power to do this failed, she endeavoured to make up for the disappointment by an ever-ready and most tender sympathy. She seemed to have no taste for the toys and sports of children, preferring for her recreation the exercises of devotion, which she had learned by observing them in others. In admiration of her early piety, her parents loved to fancy that heaven must surely have some singularly blessed destiny in store for her. ”

“ Finding in them no impediment to its action, no check to its liberality, it is free to pour out the wealth of its exhaustless treasury, and so it leads them from virtue to virtue, from height to height, even to the sublimity of perfection and the consummation of divine union, when, resplendent with heavenly light, and dazzling with interior beauty, they excite the admiration, nay, perhaps even the wonder of the angels. ”

“ Poor mother! great is thy sorrow, yet not as that of another Martyr-Mother, whose story of anguish thou knowest well. It was at the foot of the cross that she bade adieu to her Son; there, too, must thou bravely stand by her side to say farewell to thine. The virtue of the cross will strengthen thee as it strengthened her; and when thy sacrifice is accomplished, thou wilt find a balm for thy wounded heart by uniting it to the broken heart of Jesus on the cross, and of Mary standing in its shade. ”

“ In the exalted degree of union with Himself by which the Almighty recompensed her generosity, we adore His own immense, gratuitous liberality;—in the heroism with which, aided by Divine grace, she died to every human feeling, we admire the grandeur of her own utter detachment from self, and the beauty of her thoroughly spiritualized nature.
Her humility, she had early established on the fundamental principles, that God is all, and the creature nothing. From these two truths, as from two great fountain heads, came the one absorbing desire of her life, that the All should engulph the nothing ”

“ To the last breath of life she would cling to the friends whose difficulties and troubles she had so generously shared from the first, and among the most precious of her legacies to the Ursulines would be ranked the example of her zeal, her charity, her humility, and her admirable self-abnegation. Without assuming the obligations of a religious, she conformed in all respects to the rule and discipline of the house, and so remarkable was her punctuality, that the signal for regular observance was never given with greater exactitude, than when it happened to be her turn to ring the bell. ”

“ Then the page of triumph would come, and on it would be inscribed, how, like its own flower-enamelled meadows, bursting into bloom and beauty from beneath their pall of snow, Canada had emerged from its long moral winter, neither paralysed by the chill, nor depressed by the gloom, but glowing to its inmost heart with warm young life, and throbbing in every pulse with irrepressible energy and vigour. ”

“ Francis, she placed so little limit to her austerities, that she might with strict truth have been called a living victim of perpetual penance. Her life became one almost unbroken fast, and she was often known to pass a week at a time without any other food than the heavenly manna of daily communion. To such perfection did she carry her spirit of poverty, that after making the simple vow in the Third Order, she would live only on alms, taking her rest on a mat or a bundle of faggots, with a stone for her pillow. ”

“ Her visit to Brescia proved a source not only of immense consolation to her sorrowing friends, but of spiritual benefit to the whole city. To win all to God by prayer, instruction, and example, was still as ever, the aim of her life. Attracted by the reputation of her sanctity, as well as of her natural abilities and supernatural enlightenment, persons of every rank came to her for advice, and all withdrew benefited by her counsels, filled with admiration of her wisdom, and edified by her equally striking charity, sweetness and humility. ”

“ But although my soul is ever absorbed in my God, it never loses sight of its own misery; the abyss of His greatness engulphs the abyss of its nothingness." Not satisfied with all the love of the angels and saints, she desired that her heart could burn even with infinite love, that so she might love her God adequately. She prayed our Lord to place her heart on His, that on that altar of fire it might be made a perfect holocaust of love. "I ask of Him," she said, "no earthly riches, treasures or joys, but only that I may die of His love." ”

“ O dear Mother! how powerful is the Divine Master of our hearts. If you could see the effects of His interior operations on our Canadian band, you would bless His goodness a thousand times. Every soul is on fire with love, and, at the same time, annihilated in its own unworthiness and abjection.... Madame de la Ville aux Clercs has presented us with some rich ornaments for our future church in Canada; she is, then, our first benefactress next to you, most dear Mother, who will always rank before all others, since, not to speak of other gifts, you have bestowed ourselves. ”

“ Amidst the turmoil of life and the distraction of business, she is alone with God in her heart, enjoying His sweet company, conversing with Him familiarly, transformed as it were into a paradise, of which His smile is the light and the bliss. Vainly would she endeavour to explain what passes in that interior heaven, for the subject is too sublime to come within the reach of weak, defective human language. She is so elevated above the world, that all its combined splendours appear to her but as a contemptible atom of dust. ”

“ As she advanced in years, the love of God which inflamed her soul sought a vent not only in her almost uninterrupted communications with the divine Object of her affections, but in exterior active works of charity towards her neighbour. The tabernacle and the poor were the two magnets that attracted her heart, and next to the hours spent before the altar, none yielded her such pure delight as those passed among the lowly, suffering members of her dear Saviour. She found no company so congenial as theirs; no occupation so agreeable as the humble services which their desolate condition required. ”

“ It would seem as if even the ingenuity of charity had left nothing undone for the gratification of the poor savages, but it was not so. One day that Father Lalemant visited the school-room, the children gathered round him with an air of mystery and importance, as if burdened with some weighty secret. "Look at our clothes, Father," they said; "you can see that they are faded and worn, and, as our Mothers do not give us new ones, we cannot look as smart as the French girls, which makes us sorrowful." ”

“ The saints who see Thee in heaven, silently adore Thee, and their silence speaks. Why, O Lord, cannot we burn like them with silent love? If Thou art their love, Thou art also ours. They see Thee as Thou art, and in this are more favoured than we on earth, but when we are released from this prison, we shall behold Thee like them; we shall praise, embrace, possess Thee like them; we shall be absorbed in Thee as they are,—in Thee who art my Love, my only Love, my great and glorious God, my mercy and my All! ”

“ A living model of the virtues which she inculcated, she encouraged her dependents even more by example than by precept, to love and serve God faithfully. Always calm and self-possessed, affable and kind, she practically illustrated the beauty of peace and union. Patient and self- controlled, she taught the heroism of Christian endurance. As solicitous for the interests and as intent on the happiness of others, as if her own heart had not been wrung with anguish, and oppressed with care, she exemplified the unselfishness of true charity. ”

“ Prove yourself the worthy child of God, the best of Fathers; keep His commandments, trust in His Providence, and you will find that He never disappoints those who fear Him. If I bid you adieu for the second time, it is again to obey His voice. If you really love me, you will rejoice that I have been chosen to labour for His honour among the infidels." She continued for some time thus to speak to him in the language of faith and love. As she raised his thoughts to heaven, his better feelings prevailed, and when she concluded, he knelt at her feet in tears and asked her blessing. ”

“ Her death sickness lasted but seven days, yet short as was the interval, it sufficed to exhibit her virtues in all their lustre. In death, even more if possible than in life, she showed herself humble, affable, patient, obedient, mortified, united to God, and resigned to His holy will. In death too, she clung with all her old love to the evangelical poverty which had long had irresistible charms for her, for the sake of Him who became poor, that we might be enriched. ”

“ If you fear and love Him, you will be rich enough. I entrust you to a heavenly Mother who will amply make up to you for my loss, for her power to serve you is far greater than mine. Love that dear Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary; be faithful to her; call on her as your Mother; turn to her in all your wants, reminding her that you are her child, and that she is bound to take care of your interests, and be sure that she will never forsake you. ”

“ Without a word of complaint they would bear the pangs of hunger for ten or fifteen days, sometimes in compliance with a superstition, but very frequently from necessity too. They would glory in dying without a groan amidst inconceivable agonies. They seemed insensible to cold, heat, fatigue, sickness, and every other species of physical suffering. To inure themselves early to the torture of fire, boys and girls of ten and twelve would place a live coal on their joined arms, the palm of courage being, of course, for the one who bore the pain longest without letting the coal fall. ”

“ It was but natural that her mature years and her reputation for sanctity should have elicited a certain degree of deference from her youthful companions, but nothing confused her more than any external manifestation of the feeling. The more her sisters would have distinguished her, the more she tried to pass unnoticed in the crowd, and far from considering herself an example to the others, she was never tired of admiring their spirit of self-denial and exactitude to regular observance, which she looked on as a lesson to herself. ”

“ In spirit I go round the wide world, in search of the souls redeemed by the precious blood of Jesus. I present them all to Thee through Him, and by His merits I ask for their conversion. O Eternal Father! wilt Thou permit them to remain in ignorance of my Jesus? Wilt Thou suffer that they should not live for Him who died for all? Thou seest, O heavenly Father! that they live not yet; grant them then life, by this Divine Heart. Through this adorable Heart, I present Thee all who labour for the extension of the Gospel, that by its merits, they may be replenished with Thy Holy Spirit. ”

“ Our Lord has ever led me by the spirit of love and confidence, never by that of fear, but when I consider that through the frailty of my fallen nature, I may at any moment lose the Divine friendship, I am seized with dread, and overwhelmed with humiliation. I could not exist if I retained this apprehension of separation from God,—that all-good God from whom I have received more graces and favours than there are grains of sand in the ocean bed. ”

“ The accounts from Canada might naturally have been expected rather to check than to encourage vocations for the Ursuline mission, but on the contrary, each letter from the Mother of the Incarnation to her Sisters of Paris and Tours, served only to stimulate a holy emulation to share in her sacrifices. "To enter," she says, "into the true spirit of a missioner to Canada, the soul must die to all things created; on this point, the Almighty Master is inexorable. Interior death is no doubt the sure road to life in God, but who can describe what it costs nature thus to die!" ”

“ Enlightened and judicious in her views, orderly and systematic in her arrangements, active and energetic in the practical details of business, she taught by her conduct, more forcibly than by any words, that "piety is good for all things." It need not be added that she won the love of her domestics, who looking on her more as a gentle mother than as a mistress, sympathized in her sorrows as if they had been personal, and manifested on all occasions their compassion for her afflictions, their admiration of her fortitude, and their reverence for her person. ”

“ These chosen souls, He inundates with celestial gifts,—revealing glimpses of His glory and beauty, transforming them into Himself, so as in a manner to divinize them, and even sometimes imparting visible external marks of their sublime spiritual exaltation. It would seem as if He desired to manifest to men in their persons, the immensity of His goodness, the infinitude of His condescension, and the magnificence of His riches. They are the specially favoured among the favoured: they form a class apart, in which God, wonderful in all His saints, is wonderful surpassingly. ”

“ The earnestness with which she sought the entire crucifixion of nature, appears in the rules which she laid down for her particular guidance after having made her vow to do in all things what she believed most perfect. By these she bound herself to make no excuse when unjustly accused; to watch so carefully over mind and heart, that no complaint should escape her under any provocation; never to speak a word to her own advantage, and to be always ready to applaud what was commendable in others; to show special sweetness to those for whom nature felt least inclined ”

“ If prayer is an elevation of the soul to God, it may be said without any exaggeration, that her whole life was spent in this heavenly exercise. At the time of actual prayer, she appeared like a seraph of love, her very aspect sufficing to excite devotion in the coldest heart. This was an opinion often expressed by the pupils, who delighted in observing her at prayer, and sometimes managed even to approach near enough to kiss her feet or her habit unperceived. It is not given to us to speak of the sublimity of her prayer, especially towards the end of life. ”

“ Inflamed with a holy zeal for the vindication of the rights of Divine justice, as well with an insatiable ardour for the triumph of God's pure love in her soul, she humbly bowed beneath the hand that crucified her, confessing herself deserving of all chastisement, and, praying that the last remnant of the love of self might be exterminated from her heart at any cost of suffering and humiliation. ”

“ I have not only numerous external defects, but a vast number besides of hidden and internal, for all of which I shall be rigorously punished, unless you obtain my pardon through the Holy Sacrifice. The purity which God requires of a soul elevated to a close and constant union with his Adorable Majesty, is infinitely precious, and it is the high standard at which I estimate it, which renders me fearful, but underlying the fear is a peace profound beyond words to describe. Pray that this peace may be solid, because in the spiritual life, there is much false peace. ”