[4] Matt., v, 13.
A NOVICE was grieving about her numerous distractions during prayer: "I too, have many," replied Sœur Thérèse de l'Enfant Jésus, "but I accept all for love of the good God, even the most extravagant thoughts that come into my head."
COUNSELS AND REMINISCENCES
HER prayer was continual though she was habitually plunged in aridity. One day a novice entering her cell, paused, struck by the celestial expression of her countenance. She was sewing with alacrity yet seemed lost in profound contemplation.
"Of what are you thinking?" asked the young Sister. "I am meditating on the Pater," she replied. "It is so sweet to call the good God our Father." And tears shone in her eyes.
HIST. D'UNE AME, CH. XII
I DO not well see what more I shall have in Heaven than now, she once said. I shall see the good God, it is true; but as to being with Him, I am wholly with Him already upon earth.
HIST. D'UNE AME, CH. XII
A LIVING flame of Divine Love consumed her.
"A few days after my oblation to God's Merciful Love," she relates, "I had commenced in the Choir the Way of the Cross, when I felt myself suddenly wounded by a dart of fire so ardent that I thought I must die. I know not how to describe this transport; there is no comparison which would make one understand the intensity of that flame. An invisible power seemed to plunge me wholly into fire . . . but oh! what fire! what sweetness!"