IV. "Forsake her not, and she shall keep thee; love her, and she shall preserve thee."

Proverbs, iv, 6

Anna Maria increased in piety and knowledge at school, and could be well named a "model pupil." Not that she sought such a title; on the contrary, in her humility, she did everything in her power to appear to be like all the others. She avoided any appearance of singularity, anything that would distinguish her from the rest. Humility was her road to sanctity. Through her love for this virtue, and too, perhaps, because she knew that her companions did not consider her to be any better than they were, even in confession she took only the time necessary to receive the sacrament worthily and with dignity. Her very fear of singularity, therefore, actually prevented her from opening her heart completely to any spiritual director.

God alone knew how matters were with her. From the moment that she had made her First Holy Communion, she had the feeling that her soul had only one thought, only one object, only one love, only one word ... Jesus, the Immaculate Spouse Who asked for all her heart's affections. What should she do? How follow the divine impulse without fear of wandering, when she lacked a guide to direct her along the wondrous paths the Lord was calling her to tread? She herself had begun to recognize the necessity of revealing her heart to some wise and prudent person and, especially, of consulting him about the difficulty arising from the conflict between her wish to avoid singularity and her ardent longing to practise all virtues in such wise as to be always pleasing to God. "Thus embattled between humility and love," one of her biographers, Msgr. Albergotti, tells us, "the good young girl did not know which way to lean in order to favor love without prejudice to humility." She gave the matter deep thought and then, recalling the good and virtuous instructions she had received from her father, determined to correspond more frequently with him in the hope that his letters might, to some extent, dull the edges of her need of a spiritual director. In his deposition in the Canonical Process for his daughter's Beatification, Cavalier Redi states that she wrote him letters "full of the finest Christian perfection, replete with the most exalted thoughts of God," letters which, after reading, he dutifully burned at the oft-repeated and humble request of his daughter.

How good and faithful God always is! What ways He opens and what means He provides for those souls that seek Him with simplicity of heart! Yet, there is no doubt that he who begins to lead the perfect life needs a spiritual director, and Anna Maria began to feel the urgency of such a need. It is true that opening her heart to her father was most advantageous to her. To that fact she herself gave witness when she stated, in words quoted in the canonical process, that "she had found so much profit to her soul because of the good effects experienced that always, so long as she lived, she considered herself under obligation to her father for things that meant far more than mere life in this world." However, now that God had sent at this time to the monastery a pious and learned confessor, one Father Peter Pellegrini, she was given an opportunity to reveal her heart and mind to an experienced director of souls. On the advice of her father, Anna Maria made haste to consult this priest who was astounded, as his testimony in the process showed later, by her absolute innocence, innocence so great that he could never find in the Servant of God matter for absolution! The result of his examination into her ordinary way of life was the discovery that she was already being guided by God in a marvelous way towards the heights of perfection.

Father Peter began to plan how he might help that soul "that was so well disposed" (these are his own words) "to fly in the way of God," and finally determined, with discerning courtesy, not to strip from her that peace she found in living secretly the perfect life by forcing her to listen to long spiritual conferences that could not escape the notice of the other pupils, but to leave her that peace and at the same time to give her some sort of spiritual culture, that she might make greater and more rapid progress in mental prayer and in the practice of the virtues. Therefore, availing himself only of the ordinary round of confessions that was part of the life of all the students, he gave her briefly and without any outward show such instruction as seemed to be proper, knowing by experience that, in Anna Maria's case, a very few words would quickly accomplish even more than he himself could desire. In this simple, quiet, and ordinary way of directing, he approved some of the mortifications which she had practised in her father's house from the days of her childhood. Amongst others, after many appeals, he permitted her the occasional use of the discipline. Not having this instrument of mortification and not knowing how the nuns used it, Anna Maria made a point of bringing the matter into a conversation she had with Mother Teresa Louise Ridolfi, of whom she was extremely fond. The Mother was so taken with Anna Maria's viewpoint that she not only allowed her to do, as Anna Maria expressed it, "what the nuns did," but also gave her the use of an out-of-the-way room, so that she might practise more freely this act of mortification without anyone being the wiser.

What quenchless thirst for humiliation and penance is always arising in these loving souls! How holy are they in their endless business of washing and purifying their minds and hearts! And to their ordinary mortifications they add the world's hatred, its contempt, and finally, their own complete sacrifice of everything that is not Jesus or for Jesus! Anna Maria already felt a distaste for everything that was not Jesus and was already beginning to "disdain everything else with those eyes that would one day dwell upon Christ."[1]

Anna Maria was particularly accustomed to practise mortification and penance during novenas and triduums that preceded the feasts of Our Lady to whom she was most devoted. For Our Lady she had a special tenderness. She was always her dear "heavenly mother," and she loved her with a love that was truly a daughter's, delighting in showing her acts of homage, in giving her marked signs of love. All her mortifications were for Jesus and His Mother, perhaps particularly for the Mother, in imitation of her heroic example in sacrificing her smallest desires, however holy, when they did not originate in obedience. Of this Mother she spoke often, and when she passed before one or another image of Mary (and there were many statues of Our Lady, naturally, in the monastery), she could never refrain from giving some external sign of her inner devotion, stopping as if in ecstasy, gazing at the statue tenderly, wafting the tenderest love of her heart towards the Queen of Angels.

From her babyhood days, she had had in her little room a small statue of the Madonna. Before this statue she had spent many hours of the night begging Our Lady to make her good, virtuous, saintly. The Blessed Virgin could not let go unrequited such love and, now and then, gave proofs of her maternal predilection. One evening the little girl was going downstairs carrying a brazier of burning coals. Suddenly she slipped and, feeling no stairs under her feet and realizing her danger, called to the Madonna in a loud voice, and, marvelous to relate, found herself at once, not knowing how she came there, safe and sound at the foot of the stairs in front of an image of Our Lady.[2] In commemoration of so signal a favor, there was affixed to this statue a votive offering of silver. The fact remained so impressed in the young girl's memory that she spoke of it frequently during her short life.

Mary, her Mother, had then helped her, had saved her! This thought overwhelmed the young girl with delight, and in her heart she promised to do all in her power to make of herself a replica of so good a Mother's holiness. How dear to Mary must have been that promise! What torrents of grace must have rushed down over that privileged soul! And, since Mary is the only creature who can work her will on the Heart of God, as Dante Alighieri sings ... "Sweet Queen, who canst do what thou wilt ... I pray thee, love,"[3] how pleadingly must she have besought her Son to transplant this flower in her beloved Carmel!

Already a tiny, almost hidden, voice was whispering in the heart of this young girl. A desire, clear and vivid, was urging her to fly this mad, sad world, and to withdraw to the safe shadow of the cloister. Was this the voice of the Beloved? Was it a true vocation? If it was, where was God calling her?

[1] St. Jerome "de S. Joanne Baptista."

[2] Deposition of Sr. Gertrude, Blessed Theresa Margaret's sister.

[3] "Amor ti prego, Regina, che puoi, cio che tu vuol" (Par. XXXIII, 34-35).

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