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CHAPTER XX.
REGULARITY; SILENCE.
"In silence and hope shall your strength be." — RULE, Chapter III.
It may perhaps seem superfluous to give any further account of the regularity of this servant of God, after all we have said of her perfect obedience. But it will be well for us to examine more closely this beautiful model, not only in the observance of her vows, which is usual with all religious, but in her fidelity to the constitutions of the Order, and to the particular customs of her monastery. From the time of her entrance at Carmel, all the Sisters, each one delighting to speak of it, considered our Sister a type of monastic perfection. In order to be the first in the choir, she awaited the sound of the bell standing near her cell door, her hand on the latch. When infirmarian, she deprived herself of sleep in order to be able to visit the sick and yet go to meditation as promptly as usual. This was a great sacrifice, above all at her age; for she was the last to retire in the evening on. account of caring for dear sick Sisters. Sometimes the charitable solicitude of the Mother Prioress obliged her to take a little rest, as is customary when a Sister is overpowered with fatigue. Our Venerable Sister feared nothing so much as these attentions, which were, however, necessary and dictated by prudence. She became eloquent on such occasions and pleaded her cause with persuasive grace. She knew well how to conceal her weariness, and how to say that others were in greater need than she, and pass over to them the relief of which she most certainly had much greater need.
Let us cast a glance at the modesty and fervor with which this privileged soul assisted at prayer and the Divine Office. Her countenance was like that of an angel, in which could be seen the intensity of her recollection and the concentration of her faculties on God alone. It was impossible to consider without a shudder that though she had a tumor on her knee, she continued to kneel, always motionless and without support. What heroic mortification!
The fast at Carmel commences on Holy Cross day, the 14th of September, and ends at Easter. Besides this fast of the Order, and those of the universal Church, all Fridays of the year, the vigils of the feasts of the Blessed Virgin and the Rogation days are sanctified by monastic fasts, which, though not so strict as the vigils of precept, are none the less strictly observed by our Sisters. Notwithstanding her youth and delicate constitution and the fatigue of her employments, Sister Teresa Margaret was burning with zeal to observe to the letter all these fasts as ordered by our holy Founders. She earnestly begged the Sister in charge not to give her on fast days for her collation any bread beyond the weight fixed by the Rule. This did not prevent her always abstaining from a part of it through mortification.
In the holy Rule, solitude and silence are the divine way by which the spirit of prayer is preserved and cultivated; and intimate colloquies with God are the characteristic occupation of the reformed Carmel. All were greatly edified to see the mastery of our dear Venerable Sister over the usual inclination to interest oneself in affairs outside the monastery. Silence was for her a golden bit and bridle; it was impossible to discover in her a single imperfection on this point. During those parts of the day when the rule of silence is not so strictly binding, she never said anything unnecessary; but in times and places of strict silence, she never spoke at all — except in cases of very severe illness. In all unavoidable communications she made use of signs as far as possible, a practice so much in favor with the Monks of the Desert, and scrupulously practiced by Saint Romuald, Saint Bernard and many other brilliant stars in the contemplative life. To such elect souls signs and silence have the same charm as any holy thing; and they give to one a sweet air of grace, ease, and ingenuousness; far from causing weariness and displeasure, they delight and edify. Here is an example: Having been invited to the parlor to congratulate a young lady who was soon to receive the habit in our monastery, she would not consent to leave her sweeping, for which the signal had just been given. So she answered in these words: "I can easily go to the parlor some other time, but if I omit this task now, I will no longer have time to perform it."
Towards the end of her life, her superiors thought it prudent to dispense her from all reading. But during the time appointed for it she always held in her hands the Rule written by Saint Albert, our Legislator, the Constitutions of our holy Mother Saint Teresa, the Instructions to Novices, and the Discipline of the Cloister, little books which contain all the laws of Carmel. Our angelic little Sister held them in such great veneration that she would willingly, she said, have given her blood and her life for the observance of the least of their prescriptions. Every evening when she went to render an account to the Mother Prioress, or to the Mistress of Novices, of the faults she believed she had committed during the day, against some point of our holy rule, she asked as a penance to recite several Ave Marias, kneeling on her fingers, even in the most severe weather when chilblains hurt her feet and chaps in her hands caused her great suffering.
What we have now briefly told is sufficient to show the wonders of this life, in which we behold a religious made perfect by the exact observance of all her Rules.
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