The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation

by Anonymous

CHAPTER X.

LINGERING ILLNESS OF THE MOTHER OF THE INCARNATION.—LAST ILLNESS AND DEATH OF MADAME DE LA PELTRIE.

In 1670, the original little community of three, had multiplied to twenty, but if its numbers had increased, so had its work. Once more, then, it became necessary to call on France for help, and once more the appeal was cordially responded to by two Sisters from the convent at Paris, and two from that of Bourges, who arrived in the spring of the next year. Of the three first pillars of the edifice, one had disappeared; the two remaining were, alas! soon to follow. Dom Claude Martin prefaces his notice of the long illness which preceded the death of his saintly Mother by the remark, that no cross is more holy or more meritorious than that which God Himself imposes. Crosses of our own choice he says, are, no doubt, agreeable to Him, when borne with love and patience, but there is danger that self-will may mingle with them and diminish their value; and again, they are not likely to be always judiciously chosen. But there is nothing to fear in crosses of Providence; they bear the stamp of the will of God alone; and, as He never permits His creatures to be tempted beyond their strength, He either sends light trials suitable to their weakness, or with the, heavier ones, strength in proportion. Sickness being among the precious crosses of Providence, it was not to be expected that the Mother of the Incarnation should have been exempted from it, and thus deprived of the opportunity of increasing her patience and fortifying her other virtues. As far back as 1664, she had received her remote summons to her eternal home. A complication of violent maladies then brought her apparently so near death, that she received the last sacraments amidst the sighs and tears of her loving children. The news of her illness plunged the whole city into mourning; each family felt as if it were about to lose a mother, and day and night heaven was besieged by one uninterrupted supplication that she might be spared yet longer. Finding that remedies only aggravated her excruciating sufferings, the physicians determined at last to leave her in the hands of God, whose will it seemed to be that the remainder of her life should be passed on the cross. That life of crucifixion was destined to endure eight weary years, from the first date of her illness, before the dawn of the eternal day should at last dispel the long night of pain and sorrow. "I cannot shake off the effects of my severe sickness," she wrote to Her son, "and I still find them very trying, although nature has now become familiarized with suffering. But I am happy under my cross, because the cross was the chosen portion of Jesus. Viewed in the light of God, my trials are so welcome, that my only apprehension, is lest I should constrain our Lord to chastise my infidelities by removing, or at least, diminishing them. Some say that it is excess of work which has undermined my health, but I maintain with more truth, that my illness is a precious pledge of the love of my God, for which I heartily thank Him." She was perfectly indifferent as to the result of her malady, desiring, as she said, neither life nor death, but only the God of life and death. During six of these years of lingering malady, she bore the weight of authority for the third time, her Director, who understood the blessing of her government to the community, having opposed her request for permission to resign it. That she could even exist in the state of exhaustion and emaciation to which she was reduced, seemed a miracle, yet she fulfilled all the duties of each day most punctually; she allowed herself no additional rest, rising as usual summer and winter at four o'clock; she assisted at all the observances, applied unremittingly to the functions of her charge; wrote an amazing number of letters, and when fatigue or weakness incapacitated her from more laborious business, she occupied her leisure in painting or embroidery, for both of which she had an exquisite taste. The fruit of her beautiful work in this way went to adorn altars and churches. Burning with zeal for the salvation of the Indians, and wishing in a manner to prolong her apostolate among them after death, she devoted herself untiringly to the preparation of the younger Sisters destined to succeed her in the charge of instructing them. In the winter mornings, she assembled them round her to teach them the Indian dialects, and knowing from experience the difficulty of committing the vocabularies to memory, she determined to leave them as much help from manuscripts as possible. Accordingly, between the commencement of the Lent of 1668, and the feast of the following Ascension, she accomplished the writing of a large volume of sacred history in Algonquin, and a dictionary and catechism in Iroquois. The preceding year she had written a voluminous Algonquin dictionary.

Four or five years before her end, she wrote to her son, "When you receive the news of my demise, I beg you to get as many Masses as possible said for me by the Reverend Fathers of your holy Congregation. To all appearance, I have not, it is true, any immediate prospect of death, but at my age, the end cannot be far off. My infirmities, too, are a perpetual warning to keep myself ever prepared to render an account of my life, especially of the misuse of great graces, for which I shall suffer long in the fire of Purgatory, unless powerfully succoured by the suffrages of the Church. I am very fortunate in being able to calculate on your help and that of your good Fathers, hoping that through your united sacrifices I shall the sooner behold Him whom my heart and soul long to bless and praise for ever. Oh! how happy shall we be when this has become our sole employment! It is now forty years since by an immense favour God called me to praise Him on earth, as the angels and saints praise Him in heaven. This favour has been the source of great and magnificent graces to my soul, but there can be no doubt that, owing to my imperfections and distractions, something of my own spirit has mingled with those Divine praises, hence I continually say, "Who can understand sin? From my secret sins, cleanse me, O Lord" (Ps. xviii 13). 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. I have boundless confidence in the adorable Blood of our Divine Saviour, bequeathed by Him as a rich and permanent legacy to His Church."

But after all, the Mother of the Incarnation was not to be the next of the three foundation-stones removed to the Heavenly Jerusalem. In the designs of God, Madame de la Peltrie was to precede her; the interval between both deaths, however, was to be very short, so that the hearts united in life, should not be long divided after its close. Five months only before the Mother of the Incarnation, the gentle, pious Foundress was called away, after a violent and short attack of pleurisy. The main points of her history, both before and after her vocation to the foreign mission, are already known to us; the hidden virtues of her obscure life in Canada are less easily discerned. Humility and zeal for God's glory seem to have been the characteristics of her sanctity. The meanest offices were those for which alone she felt herself qualified, and which, therefore, she was not only ever ready to embrace, but to plead for. During eighteen years, she had charge of the general clothing, and the only drawback to her enjoyment of the duty was that the articles she could provide were not as good as she would have wished. For herself were reserved the old patched garments too bad for anyone else. The last place in the choir and refectory was the one which she selected. She could not bear to be addressed as the Foundress, saying that she was a worthless creature who did nothing but offend God. Never was she heard to speak of herself, except to depreciate her own merit. She followed the common rule with regard to food and rising, except, indeed, that she often anticipated the hour of the latter, early as it was. Although she had received the gift of uninterrupted prayer, and could speak admirably to seculars who applied to her for advice, among the religious she never touched on spiritual subjects, fearing to appear better than she believed herself to be. Frail and weakly as her health was, she practised austerities which would have tried persons of robust constitution, redoubling them whenever she heard that some particular soul was in unusual danger, and therefore required unusual help. Honouring our Lord in the indigent, she was never so pleased as when she could clothe and console the poor. Of her love for the Indian pupils, we have more than once had occasion to speak, but it would be difficult to do it justice. She seemed to feel that she never could do enough not only to serve, but even to please and gratify her dear children. It was her delight to see herself surrounded by them, to receive and return their caresses, to head their processions, lead them on pious pilgrimages, and even give them little excursions for amusement. The means of carrying out her projects of charity often failed, but the charity never, so it was often said that if her pecuniary resources were only as large as her heart, all the Indian children, and their parents too, would be well provided for. Inseparably united in heart to Jesus in His most adorable Sacrament, she found her sweetest earthly happiness in Holy Communion, and made it her practice to procure as many Masses as possible for the convent, assisting at them all with the respect and fervour of an angel. Her great devotion to the Blessed Sacrament inspired her with a desire to build a church adjoining the monastery, in which she happily succeeded. The foundation- stone was laid in 1656, and two years and a half later the sacred edifice was completed.

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. Seeing near her bed a few delicacies which the hand of affection had provided, she had them immediately removed, saying that dainties were inconsistent with poverty. It would indeed have been difficult to detect anything incompatible with poverty in the humble room, where lay expiring the once envied heiress of large possessions. A poor bed, two straw chairs and a wooden table constituted all the furniture; a picture of the Crucifixion, the only ornament. When asked if she regretted life, she answered that the day of her death was more precious to her than all the years of her existence united. The day which proved her last, happened to be Wednesday, a coincidence which filled her heart with joy. "Oh! how happy I should be," she said, "if God called me on this day, dedicated to St. Joseph!" Every hour seemed to her like a year, so vehement was her desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ. She continually asked how soon she might expect the blissful moment which would unite her to her Sovereign Good for ever, and she begged the loving Sisters who surrounded her bed, constantly to whisper to her the words of the Psalmist, "I rejoiced at the things that were said to me: we shall go into the house of the Lord." (Ps. cxxi.1.) She gently expired at eight o'clock on the evening of November the 12th, 1671, aged sixty-eight years, thirty-two of which she had passed in Canada. Her interment was attended by all persons of position in the city and its environs. Considering herself unworthy to inhabit the monastery which she had founded, she had begged as an alms a last resting-place in the vault destined for the religious. Contrary to her intentions, her remains were inclosed in a leaden coffin. By her own directions, her heart was buried under the altar step of the Jesuits' Church, that it might crumble into its original dust at the feet of the God of the Tabernacle, a holocaust of His love.