Pauline’s Reception of the Habit

Poor Marie was obliged to come and live at Uncle’s because it was impossible to bring me back at the time to Les Buissonnets. However, Pauline’s taking of the Habit was approaching.⁵² They avoided talking about it in my presence, knowing the pain I felt, but I spoke about it often and said I would be well enough to go and see my dear Pauline. In fact, God did not want to refuse me this consolation; or rather, He wished to console His dear Fiancée who suffered so much because of her little girl’s sickness. I have noticed that Jesus doesn’t want to try His children on the day of their espousals, for this day must be without any clouds, a foretaste of heaven’s joys. Has He not shown us this five times?⁵³ I was, then, able to kiss my dear Mother, to sit on her knees and give her many caresses. I was able to contemplate her who was so beautiful under the white adornment of a Bride. Ah! how beautiful that day was, even in the midst of my dark trial, but it passed by quickly. Soon I had to climb into the carriage which took me to Les Buissonnets, far from Pauline and from my beloved Carmel.⁵⁴ When we reached home, they put me to bed in spite of my assurances that I was perfectly cured and needed no further attention. Alas! my trial was only commencing! The next day I had another attack similar to the first, and the sickness became so grave that, according to human calculations, I wasn’t to recover from it. I can’t describe this strange sickness, but I’m now convinced it was the work of the devil. For a long time after my cure, however, I believed I had become ill on purpose and this was a real martyrdom for my soul.

I told Marie this and with her usual kindness she reassured me. I told it too in confession and my confessor tried to calm me, saying it was not possible to pretend illness to the extent that I had been ill. God, willing no doubt to purify and especially to humble me, left me with this interior martyrdom until my entrance into Carmel, where the Father of our souls,⁵⁵ as with the wave of his hand, removed all my doubts. Since then I amd perfectly calm.

It isn’t surprising that I feared having appeared sick when I wasn’t sick in reality because I said and did things that were not in my mind. I appeared to be almost always delirious, saying things that had no meaning. And still I am sure that I was not deprived of the use of my reason for one single instant. I often appeared to be in a faint, not making the slightest movement, and then I would have permitted anyone to do anything he wished, even to kill me, and yet I heard everything that was said around me and can still remember everything. Once it happened that for a long time I was without the power to open my eyes and to open them an instant when I was alone.

I believe the devil had received an external power over me but was not allowed to approach my soul nor my mind except to inspire me with very great fears of certain things,⁵⁶ for example, very simple remedies they tried in vain to make me accept. But although God permitted the devil to come near me, He also sent me visible angels. Marie was always by my bedside, taking care of me and consoling me with a mother’s tenderness. Never dis she show the slightest sign of annoyance, and still I gave her a lot of trouble, not even allowing her to be away from me. She had to go and ear her meals with Papa, but I never stopped calling her all the time she was away. Victoire, who was taking care of me, was at times obliged to go and get my dear “Mama” as I was calling her. When Marie wanted to go out, it had to be either to attend Mass or go to see Pauline, and then I said nothing.