XVII. "Be you therefore patient, and strengthen your hearts; for the coming of the Lord is at hand."

St. James, v, 8

Sister Theresa Margaret's most sacred self-imposed obligation, after that of striving to live a life of perfect and patient love, was to contemplate and study the impulses and dispositions of the Divine Heart, that after that Heart she might model her own. There often echoed in her mind Jesus' sweet words, "Learn from me because I am meek and humble of heart"; humility became her dearest desire, mortification her daily bread. In the Divine Heart she stored her resolutions and intentions, writing them with her own blood. One of them reads, "My Jesus, no matter how sluggish I may be at times, no matter how repugnant what I must do may seem, I always wish to be Yours, I always wish to do Your will"; another, "The intellect, memory, and the senses must be mortified into the state of spiritualization, so that they all, together with the soul, find their only delight in God; then can we exclaim with the Psalmist, 'My heart and my flesh have rejoiced in the living God' (Psalm 83, 2)."

In almost perfect understanding of the mystery of the Cross and thorns which she saw and contemplated in the Divine Heart, she determined to make her own the pains and insults mystically represented in those instruments of torture. How was she to live without the Cross? What she longed for was a heavy Cross like Jesus', an ignominious Cross, one without consolation or human comfort. Let all others have the greatest imaginable consolations, even though they be spiritual! For her it was enough to ascend Calvary with her Crucified Spouse, eager only to share in His grief, the Nails, the Thorns, the blows. "All my consolation," one of her writings tells us, "I desire from God, not here on earth, but in Heaven; little care I about living happily, provided I live as a good religious. With good will do I surrender my heart as prey to afflictions, sorrows, trials. I rejoice in not rejoicing, because in this life fasting must precede that Table which awaits me in eternity. I do not seize, rather do I defer joy for my heart, because then, since there shall be no fear of being deprived of it, it shall become more delightful. Outside these walls I abandoned, together with all my worldly goods, every desire that is not spiritual; every longing I now hold in check and under foot, giving it no chance of ever rising in my breast again. Nothing do I desire more ardently than the grace of persisting in not desiring anything; and to earthly consolations stands closed the door of my heart."

These are feelings wholly worthy of a heart which proposed to become a perfect copy of that of Jesus Crucified! What a happy lot it would have been for this ardent soul to be able always to suffer in silence and finally to die on the Cross, weighed down with wretchedness of body and soul! Gladly would she have remained in this state even to the end of the world, to satisfy her hunger and to sate her thirst! As she once told her confessor, "it would not matter if she were condemned to hell for all eternity provided the Lord granted her the grace of loving Him even there as much as she could." Her confessor was astounded and asked her how anyone could think of bearing, along with the other unspeakable pains of hell, the incomprehensible woe of not seeing the dear, good God for all eternity. Without hesitation, she answered quite firmly, "I believe, Father, that love would make those pains bearable, and perhaps even sweet, because it is love alone that makes us conquer everything, as we clearly see in the case of those who die martyrs."

As if through divine inspiration she obligated herself "never to let slip any occasion offered to suffer, and to suffer as much as she was able, always in silence between herself and God." She kept this promise scrupulously to the day of her death. This lover of the Divine Heart willed, even to the last breath of life, to make use of a thousand artifices to enable her to suffer always in silence and to die on the Cross together with her Crucified Spouse, thus making her life one continuous and uninterrupted practice of mortification and penance.

The Order of Discalced Carmelites is one of the Church's austerest. The exact observance of the Rule is assuredly the leading of a life that is truly penitential and, at the same time, more than ordinarily severe. For the insatiable appetite for austerity on the part of Sister Theresa Margaret that of the Carmelites was not enough; her love knew how to find ingenious methods of making Carmel's austerity more rigorous. We have already seen how, as a child both in Saint Apollonia's Convent and at home, she had begun to mortify her innocent flesh by denying it delicacies, by spending many hours of the night in prayer, and even by using instruments of penance such as the discipline. After she became a religious, there was no kind of mortification that she did not eagerly adopt. The necessity of eating and sleeping was for her a true cross. She made a point of never leaving the table with hunger satisfied. Between meals she would never drink a drop of water, no matter how fatigued she might be or how depressing the weather. Frequently at table she deprived herself of fish or eggs.[1] We read in the depositions that "she asked permission to deprive herself of ordinary and allowable things so modestly, so gently, yet so insistently that it was almost impossible to refuse." Furthermore, the little she did eat she made bitter and unpalatable by sprinkling it with either ashes or powdered wormwood!

The rough woolen cloth of which the Carmelite habit is made causes it to be an uncomfortable garment. Furthermore, it is not heavy enough to give much protection against cold in winter, while, in summer, its woolen texture increases the heat of the body in that hot season. The sandals, too, are uncomfortable; they are merely strips of coarse hempen cloth sewed together, and offer the foot a covering that is furrowed and uneven. The sandals cause the nuns some suffering, particularly in the beginning; but Sister Theresa Margaret was not content with this mild suffering! She invented a novel method of tormenting her feet; between them and the sandal-soles she would insert small stones or cherry-pits, to increase the pain of walking. She used to perform this penitential act frequently, especially when she knew that she was to walk with the rest of the nuns in the garden.

In summer she perspired freely and was always bathed in moisture which she removed with a woolen handkerchief rather than with one of linen. In winter she suffered from chapped and swollen hands. Instead of trying to cure them, she would keep them inflamed by wiping them with a woolen towel, washing them in cold water, then warming them over a lighted candle to close the gaping cracks, so that the nuns, noticing their state, might not force her to do something to assuage the pain. One of her most agonizing acts of mortification was to kneel upon her sore hands at night when saying her last prayers. Blood would run; stains can still be seen on some of the leaves of her breviary. She would always have the hottest cell in summer, the coldest in winter. All this, however, was nothing in comparison with the torments with which she now began to afflict her virginal flesh. It now seemed to her a mere matter of routine that she had preserved her baptismal innocence in spite of Satan's onslaughts, quite ordinary that she should have striven valiantly from her youth to belong wholly to Jesus by avoiding coming under the shadow of even the slightest imperfection, only commonplace that she had always mortified her body with fasting and penance. All former sufferings, mortifications, sacrifices had begun to seem mere nothings to her. Now, an eight-inch cross, studded with sharp bits of iron, had become her favorite device of carving into her heart the memory of her Savior's sufferings, now, two tables formed the bed where she sought brief repose, a hard stone her pillow! Her confessor was frequently in doubt as to whether to approve of such austerities, but she nearly always prevented the feared refusal by saying humbly, "But, Father, have I nothing to do to gain Paradise?" The confessor would then try to make her understand that such mortifications were not at all in proportion to her physical strength. Sister Theresa Margaret would express her love for obedience, but return immediately to her request, with the words, "With Jesus everything is possible!" Almost always, the confessor yielded!

Sister Theresa Margaret often said that she enjoyed recreations in the Monastery garden's fresh air, but, in the last year of her life, she frequently deprived herself of even that healthful pleasure. In her own handwriting on a sheet of paper that was found among her manuscripts after her death are jotted down some acts of mortification that the Superior had permitted her to perform. "Every Saturday the discipline, and the wearing of the chain-belt, every day thirty-three genuflexions, five crosses with the tongue on the floor, the saying of five 'Our Father's' and five 'Hail Mary's' while the arms are outstretched in the form of a cross, giving up fruits three times a week..." On another leaflet she asks the Superior's permission to wear the chain-belt every day or, at least, on those days on which she received Communion, and to use the discipline twice on Saturdays and on those days on which she communicated. On this leaflet there are, in all, fifteen kinds of penances enumerated. When, occasionally, the Superior was loath to give permission for these extraordinary mortifications, Sister Theresa Margaret, to gain her consent, would repeat the beautiful thought held by both Saint Bernard and Saint Mary Magdalen de' Pazzi that "it ill befitted the head that was beneath That Which was crowned with thorns, whipped, and crucified, to be handled with care and crowned with roses".[2] "She spoke thuswise," writes Monsignor Albergotti, "because no matter how much she did, to herself she seemed to be doing nothing for Jesus, therefore, as a supplement, she offered in all humility all her desires, and renewed quite frequently her resolution to let slip no chance, either great or small, of suffering everything offered to her as if it came directly from Him to her."

While meditating upon Jesus Crucified she dwelt most frequently upon the thought of the sins of others and upon the monstrous hardness of sinners' hearts, and would become almost inconsolable in her pity, grief, and compassion for Him and them. During Holy Week, when the Church reminds us of the Passion and death of Our Lord, Sister Theresa Margaret could never dry her tears over the cause of so much suffering of the Son of God, and would offer to the Eternal Father Jesus' pains and His Most Precious Blood, for the ransom of straying brethren. For this purpose she would do her utmost, during these days, to augment in every way her penances and mortifications.

Mother Theresa Louise of the Most Holy Conception tells us that, during Holy Week's last three days, the Saint disciplined herself in private for a quarter of an hour each day besides taking part in that act of mortification as practised by the whole Order on those days. On one occasion when this Mother advised moderation, the Servant of God humbly answered, "If you see me committing so many faults daily, ought you not to know sometimes that I am doing penance?" This love of suffering had given birth to a sort of holy jealousy of the indispositions and illnesses with which some of the other nuns were visited by God, and she would often say, "It is evident that Jesus treats them as His true spouses, since He gives them part of His Cross; He must find nothing pleasing in me, since He gives me nothing to suffer, and I enjoy perfect health!"

Wearied by the labors of the day and the long watches of the night, she would become, during Matins which would be recited about nine in the evening, very sleepy and wholly unable to recite the Office with desired fervor. This was martyrdom to her heart. The holy young woman set about remedying the situation. In some unknown way a couple of tiny forceps, with strong springs, so finely indented as easily to be able to pierce the flesh, fell into her hands. She asked her confessor if she might attach these little instruments to her ears, under her neck-band. Friar Ildephonse testifies[3]... "They were so sharp that they could cut into the flesh in a short time, and they produced such certain, sensible, and penetrating pain that no one, wearing them, could fall asleep; after her death, I took one of them in my hand and experimented with it for just a few moments, to obtain some conception of the degree of the pain."

It is quite evident that this angelic young woman's chief aim in life was to follow in Jesus' footsteps as closely as she could. Her sole contentment lay in suffering in silence, in cloaking herself in humility, in leading a holy life that was hidden even from her Sisters ... she had learned that only in our own hiddenness and obscurity can we find Jesus! Well she knew that to be near God one must model one's life on that of Jesus ... one can do this only after realizing that the life of greatest worth is the hidden and interior life, one can do this only in the conviction that one is well grounded in humility, the spirit of sacrifice, and the love of God and one's neighbor. Our Savior's life was absorbed in conversation with the Father according to Whose holy will it was formed ... it was a life full of humiliations and mortifications, a life of humility in the crib, of obscurity in Nazareth and on Calvary, a life of silence in the sepulchre and in the Mystery of His Holy Love.

Jesus is truly the root-source of humility, and the flowers that live on the sap flowing from Him blossom in the shadows of obscurity. Sister Theresa Margaret, in emulation of her Savior, lived this interior life hidden in God, this life of heroic penance and mortification. Her life can be summed up in her own unforgettable words, "Patire e tacere per Te, Dio Mio!" ... "To suffer in silence for Thee, dear God!"

[1] The Carmelite Rule forbids the eating of meat, except in case of illness.

[2] Can. Proc.

[3] Can. Proc.

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