XII. Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world."

I John, ii, 15

Seemingly by a definite divine law the gift of perfect chastity is granted only to humble souls. This supernatural and necessary connection between the virtues of humility and chastity has always been recognized by the greatest masters of the spiritual life. Sister Theresa Margaret was singularly humble of heart, therefore singularly pure. To her had been granted that rare privilege of ignorance of the vice opposed to purity.[1] From the testimony of her confessors and that given at the different processes that led to her canonization we know that she never experienced the effects of that rebellion of the flesh against the spirit which is one of the consequences of original sin. She seemed to be exempt even from any kind of thinking that could in the least tarnish her purity. In her every thought, word, act, she was serious, reserved, modest. A mere word suggestive of something slightly contrary to the angelic virtue could cause her to fall in a faint. Frequently, to judge from her facial expression, a light or foolish remark that threatened to approach the vulgar, pained her. Early in her novitiate she had reached the stage of modesty that causes one to pay little attention to physical surroundings and personal contacts. When obedience forced her to go to the grill and to lift her veil, she never looked at those with whom she had to speak. It was impossible to gaze into her eyes, for she kept them either closed or fixed upon the ground.[2] Her visitors used to resort to all sorts of artifices to make her raise her eyes, if only for an instant. Sister Theresa Margaret's quick reddening of countenance showed how much such silly maneuvers embarrassed her.

The soul that has attained such a high degree of modesty and has become such a lover of chastity has already passed within the portals of that life of the spirit that is as rhythmically beautiful as an epic poem, a poem of tireless sacrifice, of angelic exaltation, of divine tenderness, of delightful intercourse with God Himself. The soul that has reached this happy state can truly be called "angelic."

Cornelius à Lapide tells us that the angels love chastity and are proud to be its guardians. They keep a special watch over those who are virgins, but no one is deprived of the friendly offices of these invisible beings who "never sleep at their posts," who "keep us in all our ways," who "bear us up in their hands" lest we "dash our foot against a stone" (Psalm xc). Sacred History gives us many instances of the protection of mankind by angels. We need mention only Saints Agnes and Cecilia, whose liturgical Office and Mass tell us that never absent from their side were angels ready to defend their virtue and virginity. Many instances too have we of pure and humble souls who have held daily converse with God's angels. One of these was Sister Theresa Margaret Redi. Frequently, when enumerating to her confessor her great obligations to the heavenly spirits, she would give no uncertain evidence that she had received signal favors from them and that she had emphatic proof of their interest in her. Her father relates a fact of her childhood that shows what sweet familiarity existed between the child, Anna Maria, and the Lord's messengers. With that candid simplicity that is a mark of holy childhood she told her father one day how, after the maid before going to Mass had locked her in her room, she had seen at her side, as she knelt in prayer, two singularly beautiful young men. Not the least bit afraid, she was about to talk with them when one of them said to her, "Anna Maria, always be cheerful and happy, for Jesus is to be your Spouse."[3] They then disappeared, leaving Anna Maria's little heart flooded with that ineffable sweetness that always accompanies the startling gifts of God.

She regarded Saint Joseph, Patriarch of Mankind, as her "first angel," the chief guardian of her innocence. In his humble, persevering, and whole-souled love for Jesus and Mary she saw his esteem for virginity. It was he, himself, who guided her steps towards the covering shade of his protection. By his own absolute purity he drew her to him.

Our Lady, greatest of all virgins, was seldom absent from her thoughts, but there were times when she particularly addressed herself to Her; on the eve of Our Lord's great feastdays, she was accustomed to recommend herself with special emphasis to the Blessed Virgin in the hope of obtaining some new grace. On these occasions she would shut herself up in her cell and, on her knees, write her petitions and present them to the Blessed Mother with the plea that she receive everything for which she had asked in writing. Several samples of this sort of petition remain intact. One of them reads, "Most Holy Virgin, Mother of God, and my Mother, behold me, full of confidence, offering myself to you with this petition that begs you earnestly for a favor on this dear and solemn day. I desire great fervor of spirit and absolute detachment from anything that can impede my putting into execution the purposes the Lord had in calling me to the religious life. I consider myself very needy, and, knowing that you hold close to your heart the honor of God and my sanctification, I hope that you will hear and answer. From my beloved cells ..."

So sweet was the joy she experienced in prayer that Sister Theresa Margaret was often heard whispering, between deep sighs of ecstasy, "What shall I render unto the Lord for all that He hath rendered unto me?" (Psalm cxv., 12) . When she thought that she was not cooperating sufficiently with the graces continually bestowed upon her in prayer, she would mention the matter in confession and, in tears, beg the confessor to remember her at holy Mass. Frequently, without seeming to realize it, she gave voice to sublime utterances that revealed the great graces and supernatural gifts with which God was enriching her. She would say that so boundless are the favors that God is always showering upon us that we literally "swim in them, always, like so many little fishes in the great ocean." Then she would continue, "What great good is our dear God always doing us! What can we do in return? Can we ever say enough or think enough about Him?" She would then lapse into silence as if overwhelmed by the thought of our immense indebtedness to God.

One must not think that this Saint's heart, in giving itself so wholly to its God, was bereft of all natural tenderness. Quite the contrary. "In the world," writes Monsignor Bougaud, "one is told that the love of God makes foolish emotion of all human love and that human love either destroys or puts to flight the love of God. All false! It is true that today the heart of man is growing cold. The great star of love is either extinct or has been driven back into the shades of darkness. Today, no one loves, because God is no longer loved. The Saints have learned that by loving their 'neighbor' tenderly, deeply, and in a Christian manner, they can attain to the most sublime and heroic love of God." The short life of Sister Theresa Margaret Redi gives us many proofs of this truth. Day by day as her heart became more and more aglow with the fire of divine love, the most beautiful, the sweetest of all virtues, charity, took deeper and deeper root in her soul, guiding her every action.

To give an instance of the love of God inspiring this Saint with the proper love for mankind ... a novice, Sister Mary Victoria of the Holy Trinity (Martini) had been afflicted for some years, even before she took the habit, with toothache that gave her rest and peace neither day nor night. Because of this affliction the nuns had hesitated a long time before accepting her into the community. One day early in her novitiate, in the refectory, she actually shook with the painful aching of her teeth, so much so that Sister Theresa Margaret was moved to pity at the sight. Stirred by one of her usual charitable impulses she approached the suffering religious and kissed her on the cheek directly over the spot where the pain was most severe. All pain ceased at once, and the novice was never again troubled with toothache. One might remind us that Carmel's rule forbids kissing. Granted; but will anyone deny that that kiss of charity, in the light of its astounding and permanent effect, was not inspired by God's own love?

The Apostle John wrote, "And this commandment we have from God, that he that loveth God love also his neighbor" (I John, iv., 21). Sister Theresa Margaret loved her companions deeply and sincerely, and gave striking proofs of that love. If anyone were reproved for some little fault, the Servant of God would always seek to excuse the culprit, declaring that she herself was just as guilty and deserved like punishment. She could neither think nor imagine evil of anyone; whenever she heard someone's defects mentioned she would either withdraw from the group with good grace or, if forced to speak, would say, "I am sure no harm was meant; no one could do such things intentionally and with malice," always interpreting everything in the best light, always excusing, always defending! The flower of her charity was, later, to send its sweet and acceptable perfume straight to the Divine Heart of Jesus!

A few days before the Christmas of her novitiate, Sister Theresa Margaret received good and delightful news. Her brother, Francis Xavier, wrote her, "It has pleased God to take our sister Cecilia for His Spouse. Thank Him for that favor, and pray hard and without ceasing for me in the making of my choice whilst I, praying and sighing, say to Him with all my heart, 'What wouldst Thou have me do?' " God was now bringing into reality the girl Anna Maria's pious young dream. Many a time had she exclaimed, "Dear God, You know my every desire." The sign given her was sweet to her heart. Having no doubt about her brother's vocation to the priesthood, she wrote him, urging him to lose himself in the holy love of God, stating that she had no other thought than to be helpful to him by the constant use of prayer, good works, and mortification.[4]

What a joyful day Christmas is in Carmel! What memories arise that day in the minds of the children of Theresa of Jesus and of John of the Cross! These two great souls were enamoured of the mystery of the Incarnation. The beauties of the Incarnate Word enraptured their hearts and inspired them to sing heavenly melodies and canticles to the Babe of Bethlehem. In all Carmels, the Christmas holidays form a joyful period during which childlike and crystal-pure souls float around the Child Jesus in a mystical sea of poetry. Not an evening passes without the sound of lovely hymns arising around the sacred crib. Such a joyful Christmas was Sister Theresa Margaret's first in Carmel. Together with the rest of the Sisters she worked at setting up the crib and, when it was evening and the hymns to the Holy Child began to fill the air during the hours of vigil, her soft and gentle voice began to tell Jesus all her love and all her longing. The thought that God had so humbled Himself for us moved her to the depths of her being. That tender Babe Himself, lying there on the rough straw, played on her responsive heart-strings, calling forth from her heart the plaint of sweetest love, the lament of ineffable longing.

Reverting to the grief felt by Mary and Joseph when they were refused lodgings by the people of Bethlehem, she would turn towards them and seek to console them in the bitterness of their sorrow. Then would come to her mind the words of God given to us through His poet-prophet, "I am become a stranger to my brethren, and an alien to the sons of my mother" (Psalm lxviii., 9) , and those of Christ Himself, "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay His head" (Luke ix., 58). Then she would turn to the Christ-Child and, sighing, speak to Him in words like those we find in Saint John's Gospel, "You, O my Spouse, have come into Your own house, into Your own realm, and Your own, those whom You have created and redeemed, have received You not," and, glowing with that sacred fire ever alive in her heart, she would remain still and motionless for a long time in deep contemplation of the mystery. For the childhood of Jesus, she had shown the tenderest of devotion, even when she was a small girl. As a religious, she kept in her cell a little piece of wax work, in the center of which stood Jesus; there circled around Him a narrow winding road that was lined with little wooden crosses; up the road there was walking a nun. Sister Theresa Margaret always desired to be this nun, beset by crosses and trials, walking towards the Divine Spouse.

That year, Christmastide was full of unusual joy for the religious. The Saint would have it that something extraordinary must be done for the Divine Child. No preacher was to be had who could show them in touching language the marvelous secrets of the Grotto of Bethlehem and the divine beauties of the Incarnate Word. What should they do? To whom should they go? The farsighted novice had seen to everything! With her Superior's permission she had written to her brother at Collegio Cicognini di Prato, begging him to compose a sermonette on the birth of Christ which she might deliver during the sacred hours of vigil. Her brother wrote the little speech and received as reward two cards etched with her own hands.[5]

When the religious were told, one evening, that they were to hear a special sermon, they were filled with joy and expectation. Wrapped in her white mantle, the pious novice knelt before the crib and, after a short prayer, commenced to preach her little sermon, the introduction to which invited the nuns to betake themselves in thought to that stable where "benignity was born," where Grandeur Itself, that is, the Word of God, humbled Itself for the sole purpose of being loved by man! Then she spoke of Mary, of the pain in her virgin heart when she saw the poor little baby body pinched with cold, irked by contact with the rough straw. What an example ... so ran the concluding words ... what a spectacle of poverty, of sacrifice, of detachment, God has given us! What an example of humility Jesus has given us!

Thus passed Christmastide, and now was approaching with rapid strides the great day of her profession. The novice's peace was upset anew by hateful doubt ... perhaps her faults and defects would decide the community not to accept her? The Lord, as if to bring her anxiety before the nuns and to make her trial quite public, afflicted her with another ulcer on the knee. Concealing her affliction, she reminded herself that she now wore Mary's habit, that she was Mary's daughter ... could not Mary now free her from this threatening danger just as she had once saved her when, as a child, she had fallen down those steep stairs? Full of faith, she had recourse to Mary in fervent prayer and, before the other religious even knew that she was suffering, she was cured. Obsessed with the sense of her own unworthiness, although she had been told to prepare for the solemn day, she hardly dared believe that she really was to be admitted to profession, and asked to take vows as a lay sister. Her petition was refused, but the humble desire was never banished from her heart ... always, in the house of God, she was to choose for herself the most abject and humiliating of tasks.

During the retreat in preparation for her profession, when she examined her heart before God and could find nothing that needed bettering, she was taken with the notion that perhaps her tender love for her father stood in the way of her being a perfect holocaust. To acknowledge this love and, at the same time, to sacrifice it to the Lord was the work of an instant; she wrote, "Dear father, I wish to detach myself wholly from you that I may belong entirely to Jesus,"[6] and then went on to explain how this detachment would make their union in the Divine Heart more intimate. She proposed to him a sacred agreement by which they should strive to outrival each other in the love of God, the loser to forfeit to the winner the merit of three Communions a week. The conditions were accepted, and the act of detachment was the occasion for both of them of an approach to the Heart of Jesus that was greater, more intimate, wellnigh perfect. Lest we think that the Saint was forgetting her beloved mother at this time, Cavalier Redi assures us that the mother, too, received from Sister Theresa Margaret a most loving letter.

The Sub-Mistress of Novices, who, during those holy days of retreat, held long spiritual discourses with the Servant of God, made this deposition at the Canonical Process ... "Two days before that on which she was to make her profession I found her so inflamed with love of God as to be almost beside herself; so much so that I have no words with which to describe her state, but it was overwhelming to the degree that even I felt myself to be on fire with an ever-mounting flame of this same divine love, so that I became doubtful of my ability to bear the burden of the discourse I was holding with her."

Sister Theresa Margaret's exalted state of heart and soul can best be gauged by the reading of her retreat resolutions, just as she wrote them... . "Reflecting on the purpose for which You, my God, have called me out of nothing into the happy state of Religion, I propose and resolve to devote myself, in future, with great courage, to a complete reform of myself, and truly and utterly to despoil myself of all my inclinations that I may adhere more closely and only to You.

"As to the means which You, my God, have given me for my sanctification, I resolve, in future, to regard them with greater esteem, irrespective of their possible minuteness, and to make use of them in all diligence for no other end than Your own great glory, and that I may the better serve You and love You in that way and manner which You, my Jesus, through Your love for the Father have set for me ... in this I shall be constant, for without perseverance there is no salvation.

"Having weighed carefully the truth that one cannot be called Your true Spouse, my Jesus, unless the predominant passions be checked, I resolve with all my heart to practise, at all costs, continuous abnegation of my own will and entire and immediate obedience in all things great and small, for I have learned from You, my God, that You made Yourself obedient under unbearably harsh conditions, conditions under which I shall never be placed.

"In the reflection that a spouse cannot please the Divine Spouse unless she determine to make herself, with special diligence, like unto Him in all things, I resolve now and forever, Jesus, my Spouse, most zealously and effectively to imitate You, and, by a more exacting mortification of all my faculties, my passions, and my feelings, to crucify myself wholly and entirely with You.

"In consideration of the fact that my neighbors, O my God, are images of You, made like unto You, the products of Your divine love and the price of Your blood, I shall never, in future, look upon them with other than eyes of true charity, in accordance with Your own command; I now propose to sympathize with them on all occasions, to hide and excuse their defects, to speak of them always with esteem, and finally never to fail, knowingly, in love for them in thought, word, or deed.

"Realizing that, in Your divine sight, my Jesus, I am nothing but a mass of wretchedness because of my thousands of defects, nothing but a heap of ingratitude, I hereby resolve to show abhorrence to and to fly from praise of myself, and never to say anything that can occasion it either directly or indirectly.

"In view of the fact, my God, that You have given me the clearest indication that a soul cannot be wholly Yours unless it free the mind and heart of every worldly care, I firmly resolve never to speak of things of this world, never to be curious about them, no matter how indifferent they may be, but to interest myself solely in that which can lead me only to You; furthermore, to strengthen myself in this resolution I propose, my God, in the Monastery to attend to myself alone, never to notice what my Sisters do, always to be silent about what they do, deaf to all they say, blind to all that I may accidentally see ... all with the desire to employ all my faculties at all times only to serve, praise, and bless You, my God, my only Good.

"Knowing, my Jesus, that He who stands with You cannot perish, and that Your divine and sweet companionship makes us despise the things of this world, I resolve with all my heart never to separate myself from You, and, always to enjoy Your divine blessings, in the future to be more zealous and diligent in the living in Your Divine Presence, and to be fonder than in the past of Prayer, never quitting it except through obedience or under gravest necessity, and, finally, to suffer with humility and resignation spells of dryness, periods of constraint, fears, desolation, all such trials indeed as You, for Your own most holy purpose, may please to send me.

"Understanding that he who hears Your ministers hears You, my Jesus, and that he who wounds them wounds You, and moved by this understanding, I resolve firmly to thrust to one side and to conquer all that repugnance that now and then I feel on opening my heart and conscience to him who stands in Your place for my spiritual guidance; in this regard I promise You firmly that I shall follow the teaching of our Holy Mother who says, 'To your confessor and superior reveal all your temptations, imperfections, repugnances, that they may give you advice and remedies to cure' ... to him who stands in Your place I shall render, in the direction of my soul and spirit, simple, ready, blind, constant obedience."

These are the resolutions that Saint Theresa Margaret Redi made on the eve of her profession, resolutions that she always kept faithfully, resolutions in which only one underlying ambition is apparent, that of quick attaining to a high plane of sanctity.

On the night before she was professed, in accordance with a pious custom of the Monastery, Sister Theresa Margaret appeared in the refectory and, on her knees, begged pardon for any faults she had committed, and asked the religious to help her with their prayers in the solemn act she was about to perform, that God might grant her the grace of renewal of spirit upon her entrance into a new and holy life.

[1] Testimony of Canonical Process.

[2] Can. Proc.

[3] Can. Proc.

[4] Can. Proc.

[5] Can. Proc.

[6] Deposition of Cavalier Ignatius Redi, at the Canonical Process.

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