“Mother, darling, I DO love you; but I belong to God, and I dare not go back.”
Tears blind me, even now while I write, as I think of that awful struggle, which I had been taught was right and pleasing to God. At last my mother was able to speak, and she said:
“This is the second time I have tried to get you away, and you refuse to come. Now, mind, I shall never come to see you again, or write to you, but you will live to repent the day you ever shut yourself up in a convent, and remember that I will have nothing more to do with you while you are here; but if ever you should want a home, while I have one, it is yours also.”
She went on to say:
“Father Ignatius will get tired of you some day, then what will you do if your mother is no more?”
My reply was (remembering what a great pet he made of me, and also how I had read and been told that “the love of spiritual parents was so much stronger than that of any earthly parent”):
“You are, dear mother, very kind; but I am sure the reverend Father will never change.”
And so I truly thought.
This wrench from all home-ties well nigh broke my heart; yet I dared not even think of leaving the convent, though in my heart of hearts I deeply wished I had never taken up that “golden plough.” Ah! had I only not taken it up, there would have been no sin in wishing for home again; but now it was far different, for it seemed to me, at the time, that in God’s great goodness the path had been shown to me down which I must walk, and that I must with determination choose the good, and cast aside every thought of returning to the world. And so I chose what I had been taught was the good, and no one until now knows the bitter struggle I passed through. How often did I recall this day, or rather I could not drive it from my memory whilst sleeping or waking! It often drove sleep from my eyes, and my constant thought was, “If only I could put my arms round my mother’s neck, and kiss her just once more!”