VI. "And I am the least in my Father's house."

Judges vi, 15

While Anna Maria was still in her seventeenth year, her father came to Saint Apollonia's to fetch her home. It was rather painful for Anna Maria to leave the holy place where she had received such great graces from the Lord, but, nevertheless, she returned to her father's house in serene contentment. At her homecoming everyone was overjoyed, particularly the servants who had only words of praise for the kind young girl whose gentleness, goodness, and beauty they had never forgotten.

More frequently and more enthusiastically than all the others did the old gardener speak of her, for he had watched her grow from babyhood to virtuous girlhood. True, she had been rather a little pest, for many a flower, many a plant had she destroyed for him; however, he did not hold this against her because, as he would say, "Picking flowers for the Blessed Virgin is a good sign." He took special delight in telling the other servants how, one day before she had been sent to school, a Discalced Carmelite, Brother Mansuetus of Our Lady of Grace, on one of his regular begging trips, had discovered Anna Maria stretched out on a bench in the servants' quarters and had told her that that was not a decent couch for a young lady of her class. Very humbly, she had answered that she "had done it to see whether or not, after she became a Carmelite, she could stand sleeping on a hard place."[1]

Telling each other anecdotes of Anna Maria's childhood, these good servants made the house ready, impatiently awaiting the return of their dear little mistress. Finally she arrived; what joy for the servants, for her mother, for Anna Maria herself! How she had grown! They all smiled on her, and she had for all only words of kindness, appreciation, encouragement. Her eyes mirrored her tenderness of heart, her cheerfulness of soul. These good servants were delighted with her. Naturally, above all others, her mother was pleased with her; she sent up heart-felt thanksgiving to God for having kept her little daughter so safely in goodness and virtue.

After spending the day of her homecoming in happy visiting with her parents and in renewing her acquaintance with all parts of the house, Anna Maria settled down into her customary calmness of spirit. It was at once apparent to all observers that she had advanced to a high grade of spiritual perfection during her years of schooling. Deep in recollection, with her mind always fixed on God, she would hide herself in a corner of the garden or in her own room where she could drop to knees unobserved and, in that posture, open up her heart to God. What was to be the outcome of it all she, herself, did not know. She was just content to have her heart consumed in the presence of God, as a lighted candle, with the sole purpose of returning Him love for love. She held herself aloof from the things of this world, abhorring pomp, luxury, splendor of dress, "while," as Monsignor Albergotti tells us, "in accordance with the purity of her mind, she loved cleanliness, decency, punctuality."

Anna Maria had developed into such a humble, kindly person that it was her pleasure to relieve the servants at their daily tasks, in spite of their decided opposition. Her kindliness was most evident in her treatment of her small brothers for whom she had always had great love. We know that, before she went away to school, one of them had often struck her. On these occasions, regardless of how deeply she may have been wounded in spirit, Anna Maria always managed not to cry, so that the offender might not be punished by their parents. Now, when one of her brothers would come to her, after a scolding, she would take his trouble to heart and strive to console him, even going so far as to carry him a portion of the evening meal, in secret, if he had been deprived of it.

For Francis Xavier she had a special affection. He had been the companion of her childhood, and was as devoted to her as she was to him. Later, when she had been a novice seven months, he, at college (Cicognini di Prato) was to send her a sad little poem, lamenting the separation that was to last until the end of time, recalling the happy days of their childhood, hoping that the thread of their intimacy by exchange of letters may not become tenuous and finally snap.

Anna Maria's spirit of recollection and love of silence and prayer were so great that when she did not wish to be disturbed by her younger brothers at play in the next room she would say to them in the gentlest of ways, "Children, please run away from there, and make no noise; if you are good, I'll give you a pretty medal." The desire of obtaining the promised medal would prompt them to leave. Anna Maria would then half shut the door. The children would return on tip-toe, peer in at their sister on her knees in prayer, and exclaim in their edification, "How good she is!"[2]

What tales could that little room tell of Anna Maria's self-imposed mortifications! How often in silence and in prayer did she, in that small chamber of hers, discipline her virginal body that God might always and only be the Lord of her whole being, that the rebel flesh might never get the better of her angelic soul! The silence, the solitude, the chaste beauty of her room captivated her. In that room, in imitation of Jesus Crucified, her severity with herself was extraordinary; as young as she was, she frequently afflicted her body with those painful punishments that the world abhors and calls foolish. Many times a week she used on her body the discipline, many times a week girded her waist with knotted ropes. This angelic girl used this kind of mortification and penance especially when, on her parents' order, she left the house for visiting or recreation, also on the vigils of feastdays or on her Communion days. "Every eight days," a manuscript of her father tells us, "she used to go to Communion in the Jesuit church, and stayed in the house of God always on her knees on the bare floor, appearing as calm and recollected as an angel in the flesh." The depositions of the Canonical Process for her Beatification tell us that, in the seclusion of her own little room, she practised more and more frequently the minor mortifications of kneeling at great length upon her hands, of prostrating herself with her forehead on the floor, of bearing down hard on the more uncomfortable angles of her prie-dieu.

All these mortifications, however, were nothing compared with those she practised at night, to discover whether she could stand the rigors of the life of a Carmelite. When she was sure that all were asleep, she would take the mattresses off the bed and lie down upon the bare frame. This meant great sacrifice for her, for in the morning she was forced to awake and arise early in order to put the bed back into its normal state that the maid might not discover the austere practice.[3] At table she either left everything untouched or took only the less appetizing viands, and, if now and then she was given something that was particularly tasty, she would deprive herself of it and find a way of sending it, in secret, to one or another of the neighboring needy families. Her father observed and studied the hidden life of his daughter and her great love for prayer, and, astounded, could only acknowledge that his dear Anna Maria was endowed with an extraordinary spirit of mortification. What of her mother? Again and again, unobserved, she tenderly watched Anna Maria prostrate on the floor of her room in prayer, and, again and again, exclaimed, with tears in her eyes, "My God, what is going to happen to this child?" God consoled this good mother, and gave ground to her hopes, for she saw her Anna growing ever more virtuous, good, and obedient, and that was supreme joy to her maternal heart. She was now reaping the fruit of the good education she had instilled into that child's responsive soul.

In this manner, the pious young girl had been able to find again in her own home the tranquillity of the cloister and, at the same time, the opportunity to bring to maturity the great plan that had come to life in her mind. Adapting herself easily and gracefully to the social demands that her family's position imposed upon her, ready and eager always to obey the commands or desires of her parents in this regard, nevertheless, she had always been able to find a way to practise mortification and penance which God alone could see. Contented with everything, she accepted with what amounted to indifference even the clothes, and these modest enough, which her mother allotted her. As she came from her room dressed, thus she stayed, changing not even a pin, even though it annoyed her.

Unconscious, or rather careless, of the rare gift of beauty with which nature had endowed her, she applied herself solely to the acquiring of that interior beauty which could make her dear to God. This very carelessness in regard to her natural beauty actually seemed to add a heavenly sort of attractiveness to an already almost angelic loveliness.

Thus our young girl grew up, pure and beautiful, but hidden from the eyes of men, with no other desire in her soul except that of attaining perfection in the sight of God. Carmel was the object of her ardent longing. Her vocation had for her that certainty that breeds will and power for greater sacrifices. She now felt that all she had to do was to make up her mind, definitely, and then tell her parents of her determination ... after that, everything would be easy, the gates of Carmel would open to her and she would walk in! However, the matter did not come off so easily as that; if it had, and if her desires had been granted, the moment they were manifested, without delay or opposition, her vocation would not have been the prey of those trials which, in the sight of God and before men, give to sacrifice the worth of a sweet-smelling holocaust.

[1] Can. Proc.

[2] Can. Proc.

[3] Can. Proc.

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