The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ | Page 8

heart was most deeply wounded as if by
poisoned arrows. Yet she bore all patiently a lovingly without showing
that she knew what was said of her. More than once charity impelled
her to cast herself at the feet of some nun who was particularly
prejudiced against her, and ask her pardon with tears. Then, she was
suspected of listening at the doors, for the private feelings of dislike
entertained against her became known, no one knew how, and the nuns
felt uncomfortable and uneasy, in spite of themselves, when in her
company.
Whenever the rule (the minutest point of which was sacred in her eyes)
was neglected in the slightest degree, she beheld in spirit each
infringement, and at times was inspired to fly to the spot where the rule
was being broken by some infringement of the vow of poverty, or
disregards of the hours of silence, and she would then repeat suitable
passages from the rule, without having ever learned them. She thus
became an object of aversion to all those religious who broke the rule;
and her sudden appearance among them had almost the effect of
apparitions. God had bestowed upon her the gift of tears to so great an
extent, that she often passed whole hours in the church weeping over
the sins and ingratitude of men, the sufferings of the Church, the
imperfections of the community, and her own faults. But these tears of
sublime sorrow could be understood by none but God, before whom
she shed them, and men attributed them to mere caprice, a spirit of
discontent, or some other similar cause. Her confessor had enjoined

that she should receive the holy communion more frequently than the
other nuns, because, so ardently did she hunger after the bread of
angels, that she had been more than once near dying. These heavenly
sentiments awakened feelings of jealousy in her sisters, who sometimes
even accused her of hypocrisy.
The favour which had been shown her in her admittance into the
convent, in spite of her poverty, was also made a subject of reproach.
The thought of being thus an occasion of sin to others was most painful
to her, and she continually besought God to permit her to bear herself
the penalty of this want of charity in her regard. About Christmas, of
the year 1802, she had a very severe illness, which began by a violent
pain about her heart.
This pain did not leave her even when she was cured, and she bore it in
silence until the year 1812, when the mark of a cross was imprinted
exteriorly in the same place, as we shall relate further on. Her weakness
and delicate health caused her to be looked upon more as burdensome
than useful to the community; and this, of course, told against her in all
ways, yet she was never weary of working and serving the others, nor
was she ever so happy as at this period of her life--spent in privations
and sufferings of every description.
On the 13th of November 1803, at the age of twenty-nine, she
pronounced her solemn vows, and became the spouse of Jesus Christ,
in the Convent of Agnetenberg, at Dulmen. 'When I had pronounced
my vows,' she says, 'my relations were again extremely kind to me. My
father and my eldest brother brought me two pieces of cloth. My father,
a good, but stern man, and who had been much averse to my entering
the convent, had told me, when we parted, that he would willingly pay
for my burial, but that he would give nothing for the convent; and he
kept his word, for this piece of cloth was the winding sheet used for my
spiritual burial in the convent.'
'I was not thinking of myself,' she says again, 'I was thinking of nothing
but our Lord and my holy vows. My companions could not understand
me; nor could I explain my state to them. God concealed from them
many of the favours which he bestowed upon me, otherwise they would
have had very false ideas concerning me. Notwithstanding all my trials
and sufferings, I was never more rich interiorly, and my soul was
perfectly flooded with happiness. My cell only contained one chair

without a seat, and another without a back; yet in my eyes, it was
magnificently furnished, and when there I often thought myself in
Heaven. Frequently during the night, impelled by love and by the
mercy of God, I poured forth the feelings of my soul by conversing
with him on loving and familiar language, as I had always done from
my childhood, and then those who were watching me would accuse me
of irreverence and disrespect towards God. Once, I happened to say that
it appeared to me that