XI. "The fruit of humility is the fear of the Lord, riches, and glory, and life."

Proverbs xxii, 4

Crucifix in hand, Anna Maria crossed the threshold of her dear Monastery, to spend the rest of her life in this world, on March 10, 1765. Her father and many Florentine nobles, her relatives, escorted her to the convent. The next day she received the brown habit and white mantle of Carmel and, at the same time, the name Sister Theresa Margaret of the Heart of Jesus. Of the Heart of Jesus! Moved by that love which had infused into her heart such ardent devotion to the Divine Heart, a cult that was not in high favor in those days, she had humbly insisted that that be her name. "Margaret" was to be her incentive to sanctify. She called the saint of Paray-le-Monial her mistress, and, in imitation of the great Margaret Mary of Alacoque, she was to aspire, in her short life, to nothing else but total immolation of self to that love that lives on humiliations and sufferings.

It would be impossible to describe Anna Maria's exultation in seeing herself clothed in Our Lady's sacred scapular. We are told that her joy was so great that she almost fainted from it. All her biographers say that, from the very beginning, her ideals had the blessed quality of unity ... she would make herself like unto her Crucified Love through a life of penance and mortification, she would, as her Jesuit uncle had suggested, make herself a saint, she would, through obedience, self-abnegation, and prayer, offer herself continually and forever to the Divine Heart as a victim of love and expiation for other sinners.

During the first week after her clothing, she showed how dear to her was that life of mortification which the Lord had inspired her to enter by her activity in the Monastery's meanest and most servile tasks, such as sweeping, washing dishes, working in the kitchen and refectory, tasks from which custom would have excused the recent Spouse of Christ.

The new religious not only did not take advantage of custom to be released from unnecessary duties but also refrained from seeking comfort that ordinarily might have been given to one in new and irksome attire. Oftentimes, sandals constrain the unaccustomed foot; when Sister Theresa Margaret's superior asked her one day if her sandals bothered her, she had, perforce, to answer that they did, but insisted that she must become used to them, expressing a sincere unwillingness to accept any concession. The superior told her to feel free to sit down in choir whenever she felt that she must ease her feet, but she availed herself of this privilege so infrequently, and was always so prompt in her every movement that the nuns concluded that her feet had ceased to trouble her. However, on Holy Thursday when, according to custom, the Mother Prioress washed the feet of' the religious, Sister Theresa Margaret's were found to be very much inflamed. After the ceremony, when the Prioress asked her if the inflammation was caused by the sandals, the Servant of God blushingly acknowledged that it was, but added that her feet did not hurt her and that she was sure that the inflammation would soon be cured.[1]

At that time the Mistress of Novices was Sister Theresa Mary of Jesus, of the Guadagni family. She was the sister of the Servant of God, Friar Anthony of St. Bernard, Discalced Carmelite, Bishop of Arezzo, and Cardinal. During the pontificates of Clement XII., his uncle, of Benedict XIV., and of Clement XIII., he was Vicar General of Rome. He died in Rome on January 15, 1759, at the advanced age of eighty-four. Through his intercession God has worked miracles and given remarkable favors. The fame of his sanctity became so great that the authorities instituted the canonical process for his beatification. His sister resembled him in the austere life she led. She had had great experience of the religious life and was a prudent woman, so became a remarkably successful Novice-Mistress. This nun soon discerned in Sister Theresa Margaret great fortitude and generosity of soul and, spurred on by God Who desired a rapid ascent in sanctity on the part of this particular novice, determined to use in her treatment of the Servant of God every kind of trial and mortification that could help in the forming of her heart and mind into organs ready to work for personal sanctification. To judge from the Mistress of Novice's remarks, Sister Theresa Margaret was doing badly, very badly, -- either she showed no sign of improvement or such sign was taken as evidence of inherent pride! The novice endured all humiliations courageously, bore all trials heroically, never thought of evading severe tests. Always mindful of the promise she had made to become like unto Jesus, she would recall, on every occasion of humiliation, the slights, insults, and tortures that He had suffered, slights, insults, and tortures that had reached the fearful culmination of death on the cross. She reflected that he who does not strive to bring his will into conformity with the correct will of the superior can never become perfect, therefore welcomed the humiliation that would show the abyss that lay between her will and that of others that she might bridge that abyss.

Early in Sister Theresa Margaret's novitiate, Friar Columbine, who, as the nuns' confessor, had been her director, went to Florence on business for the Order. The moment the Servant of God heard of his departure she asked permission of the Mother Prioress and the Mother Mistress of Novices to place herself under Friar Ildephonse's spiritual direction. Permission was granted at once. The reasons she gave when the new confessor asked her why she did not wish to remain under Friar Columbine's direction (the Friar was soon to return to Florence) are well worth remembering ... she explained that, since Friar Columbine was Father Provincial, he was a very busy man and that, when he came to the Monastery to hear confessions, all the nuns were his penitents and it was quite unfair for her to take up so much of his time, time that belonged to the other nuns who often had to wait a long time to make their confessions since she needed so much time for direction. Then, in a compassionate tone, she added and then, too, God alone knows whether he will have much more time to give us!"[2] These words undoubtedly made an impression on Friar Ildephonse, although at the time he gave little thought to them. No one could have foreseen the nearness of the Father Provincial's death-day. He was in the prime of life, in the best of health, and apparently robust. However, that summer he went into a decline, and, in his death, Friar Ildephonse saw fulfilled the Servant of God's vague prophecy.

Meanwhile Sister Theresa Margaret continued her novitiate with the same unabated spirit of fervor, and, as her biographers affirm, with constantly increasing good will, making herself an admirable and beloved example of all the virtues. The rather severe methods of the Novice Mistress excited the compassion of the other nuns but their attitude had no effect on Sister Theresa Mary of Jesus, who, outwardly rigid and austere, gave secret and joyful thanks to God, as she acknowledged to her confessor later, for entrusting to her such a novice as Sister Theresa Margaret who was "obedient, faithful, constant, always in peace of heart as one could see from her natural cheerfulness of countenance." This was to be Sister Theresa Mary's last year in office, and she felt that she had a special reason to force her novices into an exact, minute, and completely rigorous observance of the Rule. This sort of obedience she intended to demand from the Servant of God above all others; she knew that God had given His servant a special inclination towards mortification and humiliation, and felt that He was using her, as Novice Mistress, in furthering His designs.

One day Sister Theresa Margaret was told to learn, during recreation, how to embroider fine linen and to make lace for church use. At once the young novice left her seat to kneel, that she might see better, at the feet of the Assistant Mistress of Novices. She followed with the greatest of interest and attention every movement made by that clever lace-maker. After a short time, she looked up into the older nun's eyes and said eagerly, "Let me try ... I already know how it is done." Hardly had she spoken when the Mother Mistress approached and said, "Sister Theresa Margaret, I thought you were more humble than you now show yourself to be. Drop that work and begin all over again." Thinking herself guilty and deserving of rebuke, the novice prostrated herself to the ground while the Mistress continued, "Do you not know that humility is the foundation of perfection? Strive to remember that and arise." The Servant of God made no defense, and did not seem very much upset. She arose and thanked the Mother, saying, "May Our Lord repay you for your charity." Then she knelt down again near the Assistant Mother Mistress to learn anew, as she had been commanded. "I made her sit down near me," the Assistant Mistress states in her deposition in the process for Beatification, "and we continued our conversation cheerfully, as if nothing had happened. I thought that she had performed a most virtuous act in enduring that bit of mortification, which seemed unmerited to me, without showing any displeasure, on the contrary, in fact, manifesting the most placid contentment, if one were to judge from the cheerfulness of her countenance. I noticed, furthermore, that, besides having spoken to the Mistress respectfully and cheerfully, she made a point of telling me, as we were about to leave the room for our cells at recreation's end, that she had recommended herself to the Lord God that He might take pride from her. Pride is a defect that I never saw in her."

Silently prostrating herself on the ground, in accordance with Carmelite usage, was her sole response to every rebuke. Such prostrations are ordinarily of brief duration, but in Sister Theresa Margaret's case, were prolonged enough, so much so that the poor novice frequently arose with face suffused with color. On these occasions, she would repeat Saint Margaret Mary's words, "Take what the Sacred Heart sends you to unite you to Him!"

Sister Theresa Margaret had hardly entered the novitiate when she asked her director's permission to make in private those vows that would be publicly pronounced at the year's end. Her longing to make these vows was so great and so urgently expressed that the director allowed her to utter them on Easter, April 7. At that time her director was the ordinary confessor, Friar Gregory Maria of St. Helena, who later became provincial of the Tuscan province of the Order.

A few days after the Servant of God had been allowed to make these private vows, she wrote the following protestation of loyalty and obedience, binding herself by formal, yet still private, vow to observe with the greatest exactness every article of her written manifestation: "My God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, prostrate before Your Infinite Majesty, I, Theresa Margaret of the Heart of Jesus, the lowest of creatures and the least of Your servants, humbly pray You to accept this act of renewal of the vows already made by me, in private, on the day of solemn commemoration of the most glorious Resurrection, vows that are not perpetual but to endure only for that time set me by obedience. It is my intention that this written renewal cover every good act performed from the time of taking the vows until the end of the period set by obedience. In the possession of that love and that humility which Your divine goodness has put into my heart, in Your presence, dear God, before You, Jesus, my Spouse, before you, Most Holy Mary, my Mother, I summon as witnesses my Guardian Angel, my Protector, Saint Joseph, my dear Mother, Saint Theresa, all the saints who are my advocates, all the Angels, all the Elect, that they may know for time and eternity that the protestation I now make, although temporary, may, I hope and desire, become perpetual; furthermore, I call to witness not only all Paradise, but also all hell and its fallen angels, that those powers of perdition may have direct knowledge of the greatness of my love for my crucified Spouse, Jesus.

"Spontaneously, then, my dearest God, freely, voluntarily, with the full accord of my will, with greatest joy of heart, I hereby renew, ratify, and re-promise in writing, under the form of vow, made directly to You, Obedience, Chastity, and Poverty in that form and for so long a time as he, who stands in Your place, permits me and prescribes for me; I firmly promise that, under Your will, I shall make these holy vows in perpetuity on the day of my public profession, for which I long with fulness of desire and eagerness of hope. Give me, dear Jesus, help, strength, and courage to make myself worthy of public profession of my vows on that day when I shall be forever united to You, on that day when I shall make final and complete sacrifice of myself to You, the one and true God.

"Meanwhile, dear God, deign to accept this most sincere protestation which, that it may be more pleasing to You, I offer to You through the hands of Most Holy Mary, my dear Mother, in union with her most exemplary poverty, immaculate virginity, and admirable obedience."

Humility, evident in every line of Sister Theresa Margaret's written protestation, was her chief, outstanding, and life-long virtue. One might almost say that it was innate in her, for she manifested it as a little girl as soon as she reached the age of discretion, and, as a young girl, gave no evidence of experiencing difficulty in its practice. As a novice the virtue developed in her to a startling degree, but never was it obtrusive or offensive. It had to do, in fact, mainly with her inner life. She had always been easily impressed, particularly with her own unworthiness. Now she began to see herself as a creature literally composed of defects. In every talk with her confessor and spiritual director she expressed her supreme fear of the divine judgment, not only because of the grievous defects she believed that she had discovered within herself, but also, and mainly, because she believed she was failing to respond to the graces God was continually and generously giving her. Her constant appeal to her confessor was to "recommend her to God that He have mercy on her and not take into consideration her ingratitude and unfaithfulness, that she be really converted before her last end, and, above all, that there not appear before her, to her confusion, at the last day, many souls miserably abandoned, through the inscrutable judgment of God, to their natural weaknesses, without having had showered upon them any of that heavenly dew that had been lavished on her in such abundance in this earthly paradise" (the Monastery).[3]

Such impressions did not cast Sister Theresa Margaret into that state of discouragement which in reality is a diabolical illusion and a sign of pride. She avoided such a disaster by her sensible nourishment of her soul with hearty trust in God; humility and self-abasement served only to spur her on to greater and more meritorious works for the honor and glory of her beloved Heavenly Spouse. She would often say, "Of myself nothing, in God everything. The poorer and more wretched I am in myself, the richer and more exalted am I in Him. The more glorious is He in His mercy, the more vile and despicable I am in my nothingness, sinfulness, weakness." She was frequently heard to exclaim, "Whence, O Lord, so many mercies to me? Except by being entirely Yours, what good have I done You up to this moment? How depreciated and decayed do I return to You what is Yours, my God! Yet, dear God, do Thou still sustain me on this earth...."

Scores of times a day, we are told by her biographer, Monsignor Albergotti, she would ascend and descend this mystical Jacob's ladder within her soul and, emerging from each experience always more humble and always richer in virtue and merit, would express the desire to be known by all as what she thought she was before God, to be deemed of little worth by creatures, to be trampled in the earth as if she were the vilest kind of refuse.

"Why is it, Father," she said to her confessor one day, "that the Lord permits that I be not known for what I am by even these angels in the flesh (the Sisters) , that I be not known as the unworthy creature that I am in the sight of the Divine Majesty? Is it, perhaps, because He does not wish to scandalize them? Or is it, rather, because they are so good themselves that they can see good alone in what is really evil? Why is it that God allows them to have me in this, their paradise, and to do me so much good while I am here? Father, for the love of Jesus, teach me how to make these holy religious know what I am in God's sight; if you think it will not scandalize them, I beg you to tell them, everyone, all my defects, all my misery of soul, so that they may truly realize what I am; then great good may come to me, for they shall be moved to pity me, to recommend me to God, to ask Him not to hand me over to wretched confusion on the day of judgment."

That each and every person was better than she was Sister Theresa Margaret's sincere and firm conviction; therefore she either excused or gave a favorable interpretation to all the acts of others. As for the religious living in the Monastery, she had them in a constant state of dismay, for she could never cease praising them. "Actually," she would say, "they are saints, even angels. They are true daughters of Our Holy Mother, Saint Theresa. I believe that everyone of them could be canonized. To me it seems that there is not an act in them which is not heroic. They make me afraid, they make me tremble, because I see myself so unlike them, so far from following their example. I am absolutely unworthy to lie under their feet and to serve them as a footstone. This is the pure and simple truth. Furthermore, I am convinced that I am to all of them the cause of the greatest practice of the virtues, particularly patience, because of my continual bad example. I do not know how they can stand me. I bow my head in shame. I do not dare to lift it and look into their faces."

She used this sort of language honestly, in the persuasion that her impressions were true and actual. Her confessor marveled, thanking God for having chosen him to guide so candid a soul in which there were harbored at one and the same time contempt of self and a great and growing love of God.

The favorite themes of her meditations were the sweet words of Jesus, "Learn of Me, because I am meek and humble of heart" (Matt., xi., 29), and those of Saint Paul, "He humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross" (Phil., ii., 8). Her confessor soon learned that he must be extremely cautious in putting these and similar texts to his penitent for consideration, for mere mention of them or of the humbler phases of Our Lord's life was enough to exalt Sister Theresa Margaret, momentarily, out of her senses, or, at the very least, to fill her with confusion and make her say hurriedly, "Yes indeed, Father, that is humility; that is true virtue, and excess of virtue. How can we not humble ourselves, when a God has so humbled Himself for us!"

These two virtues, humility and love of God, were the foundation of this Sister's sanctity, the corner-stone of her greatness and glory. It was humility that suggested to her a holy practice, one she kept up until her death, -- every evening she would go to the Mother Prioress and to the Mistress of Novices to accuse herself of her supposed defects and humbly to beg them to give her counsel and advice, urging them (these are her words) "through the love they bore Jesus and through the zeal, as such good women, they should have for her salvation, to do her this act of kindness for which she would be grateful all her life, more grateful than for anything else in the wide world" ... they were forced to satisfy her by receiving her accusation. To appease her humble longings and at the same time to avoid speaking of the defects they could not find in her, they would frequently speak to her of the perfection to be attained by the regular observance of the Carmelite life, or of the excellence of some particular virtue. With this kind of spiritual conversation she would be content in the belief that she was being lectured on her own defects. In the same manner she took to herself all the counsels given by the superior in chapter, and, humbling herself before God, would say, "To the rest warning of defects is given that they may practise the virtue of humility, but I am truly, and with guilt, defective." A few months in the novitiate served to raise her to a high plane of humility; in imitation of Jesus, in deeds rather than in words, she was already "humble of heart."

An incident certified to in the Canonical Process for her Beatification, that happened about a year before her death, can be related here because it has a bearing on this chapter's matter. At recreation one day a young nun, who was of rather a cheerful and vivacious character, Sister Theresa of Jesus Crucified, played a joke on the Saint. She whispered in the ear of the Mother Prioress and then, evidently with permission, said aloud, "Sisters, this evening I have a remarkable relic which you all must kiss." Then making the round of the nuns, she proffered to each for kissing a little paper package. All kissed the supposed relic devoutly. When she came to Sister Theresa Margaret, she told her she must sink to her knees and kiss the relic. The Saint, always meek and humble, knelt down smilingly and pressed her lips to the little paper container. Thereupon Sister Theresa of Jesus Crucified exclaimed, "Do you wish to know whose relics you all have kissed? Sister Theresa Margaret's ... you kissed her hair!" The religious all took the joke pleasantly enough but poor Sister Theresa Margaret blushed in confusion and humiliation and ran away to hide. It was rather a strange and poor joke, but it has seemed to have in it the element of prophecy. The only remarkable relic of the Saint which can be handled and kissed is her hair, for, since her body is incorrupt and intact, no one may touch it! After a short time, Sister Theresa Margaret returned to the community exercises, still confused, and still humble. She never referred to the incident until, one day when they were alone, Sister Theresa of Jesus Crucified herself brought it into the conversation. The Saint merely remarked, "I never expected such a joke from you!" The envelope in which was enclosed the Saint's hair is still kept in the Monastery reliquary. Near the opening the handwriting of Sister Theresa of Jesus Crucified is discernible. It reads, "Precious relics which, if applied with great faith to any evil, will work perpetual cure."

In all things having to do with the spirit, Sister Theresa Margaret was as reticent as she was with regard to the joke incident. The great gifts she received from God she never mentioned, so set was she on her plan of imitating Jesus in His hidden life. Her facial expression, always so serene and composed as to make her appear entirely withdrawn from things of this world and wholly occupied in mind with continual meditation and recollection, caused some of the Sisters to suspect that she was becoming melancholy. The suspicion led to fear for her physical health. These Sisters mentioned their suspicion and fear to the Father Provincial, Friar Vincent of the Blessed Sacrament, who, after examining the Servant of God, reassured the worried, telling them to "hold their souls in peace, because this was not melancholy and could do no harm to her health: in fact, he would be quite content if all the nuns were suffering from the same melancholy as that afflicting Sister Theresa Margaret!"[4] On another occasion, the Father General said to the nuns, "Sisters, I wish you were all like Sister Theresa Margaret. Her abstraction is the effect of continual interior conversation with God."[5] One of the nuns of the time has left us this testimony, "I believe that her continual presence before God was the cause of her being so abstracted in thought as to seem at times almost bewildered, even almost stupid; to make us think that her abstraction was really the result of stupidity, she would tell us smilingly that she had been afflicted that way all her life and that, when her father saw her lost in such abstraction, he would say, to arouse her, 'Here, Miss Anna, come back to us!' A few months before she died, she went to the speak-room one day to talk with Signora Alexandra Borghese. Before the lady could leave, Sister Theresa Margaret knelt and asked her blessing. Afterwards she referred to the incident as another example of her 'stupidity,' saying that she thought, for a moment, the Signora was her mother and for that reason had knelt and asked her blessing."

Gifted with extreme simplicity of manner, Sister Theresa Margaret always refrained from any demonstration of affection, and always avoided being made the object of public esteem. To love God and to feel that she was loved by Him was enough for her. Once, at a clothing, the Grand Duchess of Tuscany, Maria Louisa, and some of the court ladies visited the Monastery. They at once noticed Sister Theresa Margaret's singularly modest behavior, and were particularly intrigued by that white gleam of sanctity which, her contemporaries tell us, shone forth from her countenance. They spoke to her most courteously, manifesting for her a reverential sort of esteem. The Saint became confused and began to blush painfully. She could find no words for conversation, and, as quickly as she could, without showing impoliteness or disrespect, withdrew from their presence and hid herself behind the other nuns. She could never bring herself to the point of speaking, with a particle of worldly pride, of her family or relatives, all members of the nobility. If, in order not to seem discourteous, she were forced to speak of them, she would say what she must, animated always by the spirit of the Seraphic Mother, Saint Theresa, who left this counsel to her daughters: "Never shalt thou say anything about thine own to draw praise ... for example, about thy knowledge, thy virtue, thy lineage, unless perchance it be the probable occasion of spiritual gain, and then shalt thou speak with humility and circumspection, inasmuch as these all are gifts from the hand of God" ("Counsels," 12) .

The flower of humility was, then, in full bloom in this pious novice. She was already in full possession of the spirit of this great virtue which, according to Saint Francis de Sales, consists not so much in the doing of some act as in the delighting in humiliation and the receiving good and bad in the spirit of abjection and lowliness. This is the height and the depth of humility, humility spurred on to heroism! This angelic young novice was now attaining, in Saint Paul's words, "the measure of the age of the fulness of Christ" (Eph., iv., 13) for her humility was indeed showing its fruit, "the fear of the Lord, riches, and glory, and life."

[1] Canonical Process.

[2] Can. Proc. Deposition of Friar Ildephonse.

[3] Deposition of Friar Ildephonse.

[4] Can. Proc. Deposition of Friar Ildephonse.

[5] Can. Proc.

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