Quam dilecta tabernacula tua, Domine!
O Kate! what a day. And the vigil—the pious tears, the pardons, the benedictions, the watching of the arms in the chapel—how sweet it was! This morning Berthe asked me to be the mother of Madeleine. The sweet child was clad in her
virginal robes in my room. She was touched, but not afraid. When ready to go down, she asked my blessing. Oh! it is I rather who would have wished for hers. Then the Mass, the hymns, the exhortations; then, as in a dream, these fair apparitions prostrate before the altar, and God within our souls. What happiness for one day to contain!
The saintly châtelaine was there, absorbed in God. The day has gone by like a flash of lightning. It is now eleven o’clock, and I say with you the Te Deum. One of our neighbors was telling me this evening of a lady whose little daughter, pious as an angel, shed tears, the evening of her First Communion, for regret that the day was at an end. This circumstance inspired the happy mother to write a charming poem, which ended something as follows:
Peu de jours dans la vie offrent assez de charmes
Pour qu’on pleure le soir en les voyant finir![125]
Marcella wept in the chapel. Happy mother; beloved children; blessed house; incomparable day!
The saint is really a saint. Hear this: “Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament visits me every morning; I know not how it is that I do not die of love. God has allowed me everywhere to meet with souls who understand mine, and who have loved me!”
Good-night, my sister.
I whispered to my daughter: