XIV. "Owe no man anything, but to love one another."

Romans, xiii, 8

The "loving one's neighbor" meant for Sister Theresa Margaret the bearing with his defects, the being edified by his smallest acts of virtue, the not being scandalized at his weaknesses. Always on the alert to give loving help to her Sisters, she never wearied of assuming the heaviest and meanest tasks. What kind words she knew how to use with religious who seemed upset or disheartened by something disagreeable! With what a surprising ability to console the afflicted had God endowed her! Her manner was so sweet and gentle, so fitted to gain one's confidence that it was impossible to hide from her the least of troubles. It was enough that she have an inkling of knowledge of what was worrying one ... as, at the first breath of spring life smiles and hope dawns once again, so, at the words of this angelic nun, afflicted souls began to smile once more and to enjoy that peace that comes only to those who bow the head to the will of God when the chalice of human ingratitude is bitter to the lips.

This Saint always loved everybody and everything, and revealed by her manner how truly and effectually she loved. Over everybody and everything she opened her tender heart and poured out the flood of her love, the enchantment of her gentleness, the abundance of her sweetness. As Manni sings in his ode to Saint Francis of Assisi, God actually "rained down love in the path of her chaste feet."

The religious saw in Sister Theresa Margaret an angelic comforter who loved them tenderly. For all, all was done, that all might be gained for Christ. An instance ... one day at recreation when she heard some of the nuns criticizing one of the chaplains who had not come to say Mass at the usual hour she took his part, saying that the Sisters must have consideration for him since he had just recovered from a serious illness.[1] Her words had a good effect upon the hearers who, impressed with her logical explanation, became more lenient in their attitude towards the priest, agreeing with the Servant of God that he deserved pity rather than censure.

In 1766, the second year of Sister Theresa Margaret's Novitiate, there entered the Monastery as an aspirant for the lay Sisterhood a young girl who had been suffering for some time from some sort of nasal disease that caused a constant and nauseating odor to come from her nostrils. The nuns would never have admitted the sufferer had they had prior knowledge of her affliction. The young woman was assigned to a place in choir near that of Sister Theresa Margaret, who at once detected the bad odor but gave no sign of disgust. The other nuns had not yet _.noticed the condition, so she felt that she could not speak, that the matter was in God's hands. Her heart beat with the charity of Christ, and she would have suffered this sort of martyrdom a thousand times over rather than have the postulant sent from the Monastery on her complaint. When the inevitable happened and the young girl's malady came to the notice of the community in general, Mother Anna Maria of St. Anthony of Padua asked the Servant of God if she had detected the odor, and, if she had, why she had not reported. The answer was, "Speaking in prejudice of one's neighbor is so profitless that I thought it best to leave even the thought of it to God."[2] What a splendid answer! "In this one occurrence how many lovely virtues meet!", exclaims Monsignor Albergotti in his biography of the Saint, "The soul that works in charity and for charity is never guilty of smallness; the divine virtue of charity makes what is in appearance small, ordinary, and common, great, perfect, and sublime." When the nuns decided to dismiss the postulant, and asked the Servant of God her opinion, she remained silent. It was at this very time, as Mother Anna Maria has attested, that she determined never to speak, except through obedience and necessity, even on those matters about which it was quite lawful for her to speak.

This ardent charity of hers, so the Monastery annals tells us, was not restricted to her Sisters in this life but reached out towards all the dead, particularly towards the poor souls held in Purgatory by Divine Justice. We know, through Mother Anna Maria Piccolomini's testimony, that whenever news of anyone's death came to the Monastery, Sister Theresa Margaret at once knelt and prayed for the repose of his soul, and then urged everyone she met to do the same.

A short time after her profession, she was made infirmarian because the Prioress knew how great was her love for her Sisters ... the duties of the office would be performed with exactness and punctuality, with gentleness and sacrifice! Towards the end of the year 1767, the Saint was taking care of ten sick religious at one time. All were suffering from influenza, prevalent then. Sister Theresa Margaret gave them constant attention, going from one to the other, gently and meekly helping them in their needs, comforting them in their sufferings, relieving all with that potent charity with which God had endowed her. Her mere presence was enough to cheer up those good religious; in her they saw a ministering angel who lavished upon them every kind of tender service, and eased their pain. The findings of the Canonical Process for her Beatification tell us that she "was quick and active, but never flustered or uselessly busy. So compassionate and benign a spirit of affability was united to her air of modest composure, reverence, and respect when she was attending the sick that she seemed to be an angel in the flesh and, as some of the sick religious had put it, "unable to remain in the presence of The Blessed Sacrament in an attitude of greater devoutness and recollection."[3]

One of the first to experience the greatness of that intense and sublime love that flowed from the heart of Sister Theresa Margaret was Mother Theresa Maria of Jesus (Guadagni), once her vigorous Mistress of Novices, now reduced by age and infirmities to helplessness. For her comfort our Saint would take part in all her long prayers and say over again the Divine Office, but this nun, moved, as she herself has confessed, by a hidden purpose, was harsh with the infirmarian, scolding and rebuking her on the slightest provocation. Nevertheless, Sister Theresa Margaret remained the same humble, sweet, and gentle religious, perhaps even gentler with this nun, who had been her Mistress, seeking always to make the state to which she had been reduced less irksome. As the Father Provincial, John Columbine, used to call her, she truly was "a meek little lamb without spot or blemish of resentment."

Like treatment she gave Mother Magdalen of Jesus, now prioress, who was suffering continually from open and running sores. For this religious Sister Theresa Margaret had the greatest compassion. She gave her constant and tender loving care, making herself, practically, the particular servant of this good Mother Prioress. Mother Magdalen had a sweet and gentle disposition, one that could easily be touched by the kind and efficient ministration of the infirmarian, but, as she afterwards stated, against her natural will and inclination, she forced herself to show dissatisfaction with everything and to scold the Servant of God quite frequently, since she knew how dear mortification was to her. However, the sharper the rebukes and the greater the signs of dissatisfaction, the more in evidence was Sister Theresa Margaret's invincible and constant charity ... wherefore the Prioress would pretend to be wearied with attention and tired of an infirmarian who was so fussily attentive. This sort of treatment did not conquer the Servant of God; she showed only greater love and enthusiasm for her work as infirmarian, always keeping close in her heart the charity of Christ, always modeling her work after His, in conformity with the Holy Spirit, Who is all-loving, all-compassionate.

Not satisfied with giving so much of her time to caring for these two sick nuns, she asked and obtained permission to serve another religious, an octogenarian, Sister Theresa Victoria of the Eucharist (Malaspina) who, although crippled and bent, was most zealous in the observing of the Rule and never willingly missed any community exercise. At the end of anticipated Matins, which would be about an hour and a half before midnight, Sister Theresa Margaret would accompany this aged religious to her cell and put her to bed. In winter, while the cell was being warmed up by means of heating-pans supplied by the Servant of God, she would retire to a little alcove to pray, thus diminishing her own already short time for repose. Then, before retiring she would go to the bed-side of the aged nun and of all the sick, and humbly kiss their feet. Sister Theresa Victoria never wearied of proclaiming and praising the infirmarian's patience and diligence. In these days, the Lord, always pleased by evidence of brotherly love, frequently made use of the Saint to show His pleasure. In 1769, Mother Magdalen Theresa of St. Francis de Sales (Vecchietti) was so gravely ill from a fistula in one of the lacrimal glands that she had to undergo an operation. She was no better after the operation, and could rest neither day nor night. Stricken to the heart at the sight of her sufferings, Sister Theresa Margaret took from under her scapular one day a little parchment picture of Our Lady of Good Counsel and applied it to the sick nun's head, saying, "I am sorry that you suffer so ... if you have faith, this will help." There was immediate relief and, in a few days, absolute cure.[4] Several other religious have testified that when, in different illnesses, they had been anointed by Sister Theresa Margaret with oil taken from a lamp that burned before Our Lady's shrine, all felt better, and some of them were cured instantly.

One of the Saint's companion-novices, Sister Theresa Maria of the Immaculate Conception, had been ill and in high fever for months from an internal growth. At the Mother Prioress' request, Friar Joseph Dominic Ferretti had brought to the Monastery an image of Saint Joseph, which, as it happens, is still there. The community immediately began a triduum of prayer during which Sister Theresa Margaret never wearied of urging the sick nun to make acts of faith. On the third day, the Saint assured her that the Patriarch of Mankind would heal her, if only her faith were great enough, and urged her to anoint herself with oil taken from the lamp before the statue. Sister Theresa Maria followed the suggestion, and found herself cured at once and completely.[5] It was current opinion in the Monastery that whenever a sick person was attended by Sister Theresa Margaret, complete recovery or decided relief, either physical or spiritual, or both was bound to ensue.

In her unlimited devotion to the sick, the infirmarian would, as the Italians put it, have "thrown herself into the fire." She seemed to read, without prying into their secret thoughts, their hearts and to strike the very core of their great and actual need. To be ever ready to their call, she would forget sleep and even food. Care for the sick came before her personal and private acts of devotion. She did not scruple to go, without a thought of recollection, from the bedside of a sick nun straight to Holy Mass. One day, when a nun expressed surprise at this, she humbly stated that, in this regard, she felt no scruple because she believed that care for the sick was in itself a good preparation for receiving the Divine Sacrament."

She was now barely twenty years of age, and love of her neighbor had already made the exacting labors of the difficult office of infirmarian seem sweet to her. God Himself, through the wonders He worked through her, made known to her how pleased He was by her love for her Sisters, but, as is often the case with saints, there had come to life in her heart a bitter struggle between her desire to do good and her growing humility. Day by day, this strife became sharper. Instead of working together, her humility and her desire to be an exemplification of the greatest of the divine virtues worked against each other as if they were enemies. While the spirit of ardent charity was always on the increase within her, so, too, was the conviction of her own nothingness, in the great disparity which she saw between her own unworthiness and the excellence of the gifts with which God rewarded her disinterested love for her Sisters. The nuns tell us of one occasion when this conflict became quite evident ... at recreation time, Sister Maria Victoria of the Holy Trinity (Martini) recalled that healing kiss she had received from Sister Theresa Margaret when both were novices. The Servant of God got very red in the face and asked the Mother Prioress' permission to leave the room. To any reference to any good act done by her she could not listen willingly and without confusion.

The great abyss between what she considered her absolute worthlessness and the astounding favors of God was ever before the eye of her soul to startle and alarm her. Her modesty and humility could no longer conceal even from herself the marvels of God's grace. Perhaps her works of love would have yielded before her humility, had she not adopted the best method of solving her difficulty, the method suggested by humility itself, that of seeking and heeding her confessor's advice. The result was that, without restraint, and without feeling, at the same time, that she was violating the virtue of humility, she could, out of the naturally effusive bounty of her heart, spend herself ever more lavishly upon her beloved sick. Sometimes in words, sometimes by a spontaneously tender act a nun would express her gratitude; always Sister Theresa Margaret would insist that she needed no thanks for what she was doing, for she was merely fulfilling her duty in caring for the sick and infirm, a work as heartily recommended by the Rule's chief exponents, Saints Theresa of Jesus and John of the Cross, as it was by the Rule itself.

Her chief characteristic was, then, charity ... charity that filled her heart to overflowing. This charity of hers reached the sublime in action after it had fallen to her lot to care for a poor demented nun. During the first days of her malady, this sick Sister had been cared for by Sister Theresa Magdalen of St. Francis de Sales. Sister Theresa Margaret felt that Sister Magdalen had more than she could handle in this case, so offered to take upon herself a generous share of the labor. Eventually, the Prioress gave Sister Theresa Margaret full charge of the case. The demented nun had been, when sane, one of the best of religious, most meticulous in her observance of the Rule. Now, unbalanced in mind, her fancies carried her into the realm of violent opposition to everything for which the Carmelite life stood. Her chief urge was to eat at any and all times, and to eat what the Rule would forbid and, particularly, what the doctor had prohibited. When crossed, she became ungovernable. At times, she had been docile towards Sister Magdalen, but she could not abide Sister Theresa Margaret, the mere sight of whom was enough to send her into paroxysms of rage. The Saint bore with her patiently, giving her all the time and attention she could. If one of the nuns remarked the strangeness of the Sister's malady, and spoke of the trial she was to the community, Sister Theresa Margaret would come at once to her defense, with the result that the religious commonly called her unhappy Sister Theresa Louise's "patroness."

To a nun's suggestion that she withdraw from this annoying charge, the Saint's resolute reply was that since she had accepted the charge under obedience she could not consider withdrawing. Furthermore, after she had been deprived of the work for a time, she begged to have it restored to her, and looked upon its restoration as the greatest of favors. The story of her temporary loss of this charge is interesting ... she happened to be standing in the demented nun's cell one day, when a religious, in passing, closed and locked the infirmary door. Sister Theresa Margaret could only wait until someone should come to release her. The siesta bell rang, and, rather than hammer on the door and disturb the whole household, she remained in the locked cell with the demented Sister until the vesper bell rang. When the nuns discovered her plight, they were horrified at the thought of the risk she had run and rebuked her for her imprudence. She was at once relieved of the charge. Although convinced of her innocence, she made no excuses and accepted the punishment. Shortly afterward she begged so hard, that the charge was restored to her by the Mother Prioress.

Diligent, punctual, and exact in the carrying out of her own duties, Sister Theresa Margaret never interfered or meddled with what did not concern her. When questioned on delicate matters having to do with the Monastery she had answered more than once that she had read somewhere in a little booklet this bit of advice, "Peace to him in everything who on everything is silent"; she revealed the secret of her own quiet peacefulness in and under God by adding her favorite motto, "He who desires peace, sees, suffers and is silent."[6] The occupations assigned to her in the Monastery were all of a nature likely to distract one, but Sister Theresa Margaret, by attending to them strictly and schooling her mind in detachment from what did not vitally concern her, did well everything she undertook, without impairing in the least her spirit of recollection.

It was the pleasure of God that His Servant should have another extraordinary gift by means of which she could more easily and effectively exercise her charity towards her Sisters ... spiritual insight that was almost the equivalent of prophetic vision. The records give several instances of the effects of this gift. One of Sister Theresa Margaret's fellow-novices, Sister Theresa Maria of the Immaculate Conception, took to bed with violent convulsions. One day when the invalid's condition was much improved, her nurse, the Saint, left her for a time to go to choir for mental prayer with the rest of the community. In the midst of her contemplation, she was suddenly inspired to return to the sickroom and inspect the patient. It was her custom never to leave any community exercise except under necessity or obedience; she considered the mental suggestion to leave a temptation and set herself resolutely to combat it by persevering in her meditation. It was impossible for her to remain in the chapel, for God began to make her see, within, that it was imperative for her to go to the sick nun immediately. She left her place in choir, and, with the Superior's permission, hastened to the sickroom where she found her patient in such violent convulsions as to seem about to die. This occurrence she related to her confessor when, in one of their directional conferences, he asked her if she had failed in any of her community exercises.[7]

For a long time Mother Theresa Adelaide of the Cross (da Verrasano) had been sick and, through sickness and old age, was nearing the end of her days. (She was the sister of that Servant of God, Friar John Mary of Jesus, who died in the odor of sanctity in our Convent of Saint Paulinus, September 17, 1769, at the age of seventy-four. His body lies in the Tertiary chapel of that monastery now.) It is impossible to describe the great care given by Sister Theresa Margaret to Mother Adelaide. The resignation with which the invalid bore her sufferings, her endless patience, the serenity that was hers in common with all true lovers of God, all had their effect on the infirmarian who considered them super-natural, almost divine. These two souls, nurse and patient, enamored as they were with the beauty of the Divinity, seemed created to understand each other. Sister Theresa Margaret would speak ardently of the love of God, reminding the invalid that death was merely the prelude to eternal joy and happiness, calling her fortunate because she was on the threshold of the marriage-chamber of the Lamb. She would quote Saint Paul to the Philippians (i, 21). "For to me, to live is Christ; and to die is gain." The sick nun would smile up at the infirmarian and express the wish that she could stay at her bedside always. The other religious noticed that, even when Sister Theresa Margaret was in one of the more remote parts of the Monastery, perhaps in a room where it would be impossible for her to hear the invalid's voice, the mere whispered calling of her name by Mother Adelaide was enough to fetch her hurrying to the cell, eager to do what she could for her charge. The invalid was almost stone-deaf, but, strange to relate, never needed an instrument to hear her dear infirmarian's voice. Friar Ildephonse of St. Aloysius Gonzaga, himself, witnessed this remarkable phenomenon, when he was giving the last rites to the dying Sister. The moment Mother Adelaide called the name of Sister Theresa Margaret, the latter, far away in another cell, came at once and speedily. The priest could not overcome his wonderment at the fact that, at the mere whispering of the infirmarian's name in a tone that he himself could not hear, a tone that he noticed only because it was brought to his attention by some of the nuns, Sister Theresa Margaret came so promptly. The priest left the cell to allow the infirmarian to attend the dying nun more freely, but, at the suggestion of one of the religious, remained near the door that he might hear what passed between the two saintly women, or, as he himself expresses it, might be "the fortunate observer of the greatness of God in his spiritual daughter." After she had asked Sister Theresa Margaret to smooth her pillows, the dying woman was heard to say, in a tiny whisper of a voice, "Thank you. You have done a lot for me. Now tell me something of Jesus!" Then the Servant of God, in a low voice that she thought could not be overheard by the confessor, suggested to the invalid such fervent acts of faith, patience, resignation, and then, more particularly, of hope and love, in such sweet and tender words that the listening priest was moved to tears. His surprise was boundless when he heard the infirmarian say, at the end of the prayers, "Mother, when you shall be in Paradise, for the love of Jesus remember your promise to me!"[8] The promise the dying nun had made to Sister Theresa Margaret could only have been to ask Jesus to summon His Servant quickly to her reward, for those that love Jesus are, like Him, impatient to be "made perfect in one" (St. John, xvii., 23).

Meanwhile, the confessor, after he had witnessed what so frequently had been brought to his attention by the nuns, withdrew to a distance from the room in order that the Saint might not be confused at discovering that he had overheard. The good Sisters, full of delight at the whole occurrence, turned to him and said, "Well, Father, did you hear our Sister Theresa Margaret?" Then they told him what the dying nun's promise was, and how insistent Sister Theresa Margaret had been in exacting it ... that the Lord would allow "her also, quickly to go where she might love Him forever and ever." The day was not far off when the promise was to be fulfilled by the acquiescence of Jesus.

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