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!”
The Mother Prioress asked her whether this transport was the first in her life, she answered simply:
“Mother, I have several times had transports of love; once especially during my novitiate when I remained one entire week far indeed from this world; for me, there was as it were, a veil thrown over all things of the earth. But I was not consumed by a real flame, I was able to sustain those delights without expecting that their intensity would cause my earthly fetters to snap asunder, whilst on the day of which I speak, one minute, one second more and my soul must have left its prison.... Alas!—and I found myself again on earth, and aridity immediately returned to my heart!”
HIST. D’UNE AME, CH. XII
FOOTNOTES:
[84] Prov., x, 12.
[85] Cant., 1, 3.