XVIII. "Dearly beloved, think not strange the burning fire which is to try you."

St. Peter, ii, 4, 12

Her whole being now completely obsessed by her love for God, Sister Theresa Margaret was governed by one spiritual ambition; she would become a faithful copy of Love Crucified. In divine foresight of the shortness of her life on earth, her Heavenly Spouse made haste to liken her unto Himself by means of that purification that penetrates to the very depths of the soul, that purification that God reserves for His specially beloved. The clear radiance which until now had lighted up her soul, the seraphic love which until now had given her a foretaste of Heaven, the exaltation of spirit which until now had frequently taken full possession of her suddenly went out of existence! The light of faith within her seemed to have suffered an eclipse, the hope that had shone from her eyes seemed to have faded, the ardent love she felt for God seemed to have retreated into the realm of distant and elusive memory. From out of the depths of her desolation she would cry with her Father, Saint John of the Cross, "Ah, where hast Thou hidden Thyself, my Beloved, leaving me to my wailing?"; Trembling, she would ask her director, "Father, shall I be saved?", and then, without waiting for his answer, would murmur, "Ah, yes, for salvation at least do I hope through the love and infinite bounty of my good Father and through the merits of His and my Jesus."

One observing her during that period, hastening eagerly to choir, lending herself generously and willingly to every act of charity, showing herself to be the usual affable and cheerful nun in her companionship with her Sisters, would not have been able to surmise what was happening in her soul. The only relief she allowed herself during this martyrdom of love was an occasional appealing glance towards Heaven. Friar Ildephonse, an adept in mystical theology, had the thought at the very beginning of this "burning fire" to which his penitent was being subjected that her young life was drawing to a close. This thought had become a settled conviction when he realized that this saintly young nun had reached that state of intimate union with God in which, without His special grace and favor, one cannot live many years.

The learned priest has left a clear and beautiful expression of his convictions: "I was convinced that she had attained this last stage of absolute, confident union with God by the following signs, (1) the evidence of the sublimity and simplicity of that union which, without aid of either senses or imagination, carried her aloft into abstract and absolutely clearminded consideration of the most hidden and sublime perfections of the Divinity, and into the forming of the most exalted concepts, many of which came to my knowledge either through her manifestation of conscience to me in spiritual direction or through her inadvertent revelation of the thoughts and feelings of her innermost mind and heart: (2) the evidence of the ease and naturalness of this close union with God which, instead of being obstructed and impeded by the many heavy and diverse material duties (of office imposed by obedience or of supererogation suggested by charity) that fell to her lot during these two last years of life, seemed aided and helped by them most excellently; the nuns have told me that during this period she appeared, if anything, calmer, less distracted, more expert than ever: (3 ) her way of making a special request each of the last two years of her life. She asked that she be allowed to imitate the hidden life of Jesus Christ; in my acceding to her appeal the first time I clearly showed that my understanding of the hidden life encompassed the thought of not appearing to live that life, while actually striving to the utmost to avoid entanglement with what was merely external and material; the following year she made the same request, with greater insistence, reminding me, in all modesty, of what she had formerly told me, namely, that all external things, created and human, whether hers or someone else's, of every kind imaginable, through the mercy of God gave her no concern or trouble whatsoever. So far as she was concerned, they need not exist, for in this world one had to take account of nothing else but God and his own soul. I well remember taking the opportunity of explaining to her this life mystically hidden in Jesus by using the Apostle's inspired words, 'You are dead, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.' She then showed me that she had fully understood what I had said the previous year when first she made her request, and that she had lived according to my direction. She showed so deep and penetrating a knowledge of the mysticism and asceticism cloaked by the Apostle's thought, and made such an excellent comparison between that thought and Christ's 'No one comes to the Father, except through me' and 'He who sees me, sees also my Father,' and finally the same Apostle's 'But the just shall live by his faith,' that I became certain that now she had been called to emulate, as far as a mere creature can, the life and internal actions, hidden from the intellect and the will, that is to say, the very sublimest of the cognizances and affections of Jesus Christ's Most Sacred Humanity united hypostatically to the Word! Hence, it was with greater fervor and conviction than she had shown on many former occasions that she now often said to me, 'Oh, father, what a beautiful ladder, or rather, what a precious ladder, whose top one never can reach'; she meant that our good Jesus is a height to be ascended but never scaled! (4) the evidence that to the freedom of her spirit even the most devout books which formerly she had read with avidity had now become a hindrance, so much so that, during her last year of life, I was forced to permit her to confine herself solely to the reading of the 'Instruction to Novices,' 'Cloister Discipline,' and manuscript 'Customs' (Observances peculiar to each Monastery... Translator's note) of the novitiate, for all of which she had preserved a strong liking because of the information and direction they gave in regard to the exterior practice of the virtues and to the most minute points of observance of the Holy Rule: (5) the evidence of absolute purity of conscience and of ever-increasing horror of the slightest spiritual defect: (6) the evidence of humble submission to the will of God in accepting and willingly suffering her apparent dryness of spirit, attributing it to her own lack of merit and to her supposed defects (defects they seemed to her, but in others they would have seemed to be acts of great virtue!) : (7) the evidence of strength and greatness of soul that urged her on daily more and more to undertake arduous tasks for her God."[1]

The letters the Saint had written Friar Ildephonse revealed the agonies suffered in those dark and cheerless days of aridity. In one of them (December, 1769) she writes, "So great is that state of interior abandonment in which I find myself that nowhere can I see the tiniest ray of light; merely to think that I must set about doing what God would have me do is torture! You can imagine, then, what the actual doing must be to me! Finding myself in the dark and fearing that I would offend God very much in this state, I thought it best to open up my mind to you that I might receive some advice ... my former longings rarely make themselves felt, and, if by means of spiritual reading they are brought back to my mind, I can hardly await the hour for the end of the reading because of the strife I experience within me... At the bottom of my heart I feel that God would have me all His, but I remain deaf to His words, particularly in the practice of the virtues, to which I find I have great repugnance." Joyousness, the habitual smile of love, the roses and flowers of spring were, it would seem, in her faded and without sweet odor. As Saint John of the Cross would say, "The fresh and gentle breezes had passed away, and to her only grief remained."

She trembled, grieved, and wept in her secret heart. She wept much because she loved much; she felt that there was a yawning abyss in her soul, and sighed in longing for a new way by which she might cross it and reach Jesus. Father Ildephonse tells us that "The most cruel torture of her spirit was that very same divine charity of hers, which, the greater it grew within her, the farther it withdrew from the eyes of her mind. She loved without believing that she loved, and, in proportion to the growth of holy love within her soul, there increased the desire to love God, her Eternal Good, and the mortal pain of believing that she did not love Him. I ascertained from her continuous manifestations of mortal distress because of this pain of believing that she did not love God as much as she really did, that she was no longer able to live without loving Him in the way and as much as she desired, and that death would have been a great relief to her ... in fact, from knowing her to be wholly transformed by that great excess of love, and this continually, I realized that, since the excellence and the infinite merit of the Beloved were always vividly before her mind, the greater that love grew to be within her, the more tenuous and empty it seemed to her."[2] The intolerable dryness she experienced in prayer tormented her more than anything else. God had permitted the angel of darkness to approach and to tempt her, and that foul fiend was daring to reprove her for her unfaithfulness towards Him Who had given her so many proofs of His love! She suffered much, and, seeing herself absolutely unable to love the Lord as she would, she exclaimed, "What is to become of me? Shall I be saved?"

This was the dreary spiritual state to which Sister Theresa Margaret was reduced in the last few months of her life. Yet, bound to the Cross of Christ always, she accepted this martyrdom of love with resignation. She bent her head to every pain, and grief, and trial, bearing everything patiently and gently, always in adoration of the supreme Will of God Which was purifying her ever more and more rapidly in order to enfold her, within a short time, in the Divine Heart. She would say that she did not love and that she no longer knew how to love, yet her every breath was drawn only in zeal for His glory. For love of Him she undertook work that was beyond her strength, for love of Him her endurance of pain and suffering was beyond belief, for love of Him she was always seeking new ways to show her love. One of her biographers, Friar Theodore of St. Mary, a Discalced Carmelite, tells us that "Her thoughts dwelt always in God. Her defects, for the most part imaginary, certainly not real, seemed to her to be the evidence of base and horrible ingratitude for which she would say that the Lord was punishing her by sending upon her this terrible dryness of spirit; and, in fact, the pain she experienced was most poignant. In this state, which is that which mystics compare with the most painful that can be ours even in the next life, Sister Theresa Margaret agonized only for a short time it is true, but long enough to earn for herself the title 'martyr of love.' In this short period of time, almost from moment to moment there increased within her the love of God by the continuous nourishment she gave it through her constant application of mind and heart to God and her uninterrupted performance of holy deeds. In proportion, then, as souls in this state advance in love, they find themselves exposed to more rigorous pains and sufferings, since, knowing God better they see in Him a more profound infinity which, so to speak, in the light always makes the shadows deeper. Loving always more ardently, desiring to love to the limit of human possibility, while seeming to themselves not to be balancing their love and desire to love and concluding that even their most ardent longing to love cannot satisfy the demands of the God Who would be loved, they suffer pain so excruciating as to earn for it the epithet 'purgatorian' from Saint Theresa, Saint John of the Cross, and other mystics."

It is natural, and, too, quite in accordance with the testimony of the greatest Saints that, in this agonized desolation of spirit, the mystic should long to be torn from the envelope of this body and be "dissolved" in God. Deprived of the vision of God's smile, the Saints of this earth are so sore afflicted by the loss as almost to die of it. Their hearts beat, their souls throb for only one end ... to be dissolved and to be with Christ!

During this painful experience, this most "searching of burning fires," Sister Theresa Margaret was actually loving God to the limit of her ability ... the thornier, the more grief-laden the paths which her great soul trod, the more she sought to hide herself within the Divine Heart in Whose pure depths she might breathe out her last sigh of love. We ought not to be surprised, then, if we find that, in this fearful dryness of spirit, externally she preserved her cheerful behavior, was apparently her usual meek, humble, and sweet self, and was never heard to utter a word of complaint. In truth, as one of her biographers puts it, she "was enabled to become a real and secret martyr of love because of her prodigious strength of will."

Wasted and consumed by these divine flames, Sister Theresa Margaret awaited in patience the day on which she was to fly whither love's longing was calling her. Was not this the grace for which that dying religious whom the Saint had attended so lovingly had prayed? She had promised Sister Theresa Margaret, as the reader will recall, that, in recompense for her attention, she would obtain for her from Jesus the early privilege of going where she might "love God at once and forever, and enjoy Him." The holy nun had not forgotten, and her prayer had not gone unheard. It would seem that Sister Theresa Margaret had a foreboding of her early death ... she could no longer control that rush of impetuous love which was completely enveloping and consuming her ... her body, far more quickly than she herself could conjecture, was to yield to the super-human longing of the soul that struggled to be free and to be dissolved in God! A few weeks now, and her race shall have been run! We are now reviewing the last and most moving period of the life of this angelic young woman. The last days of her stay here on earth are like the setting of the sun just before a summer twilight, placid, tranquil, serene, ... from the mountain tops it seems to say farewell to us and then to hide itself from our sight in furry little clouds of gold, and crimson, and violet. She herself foretold her near demise. God appeared to return to her in those last days, for a little while, and to smile upon that great soul, to reveal to it His hour of triumph. The Divine Spouse Who called her opened to her the future and made her certain of speedy passing from this world. She counted the days yet remaining to her on this earth and knew that on which she was to leave it.

Even before she had taken the veil the Lord had made known to her that hers was to be a short life; one day, on a visit to one of the nuns (Paoli) in the Monastery of Saint Salvi she had said, "We two shall go to Paradise, but I must be the first." Now that she was sure of the imminence of her death, she spoke of it much more resolutely, showing certainty that it would be the day of her supreme joy, the day of her mystical nuptials with the Lamb.

During those last few days of her life there came to pay her a visit in the monastery Signora Theresa Rinuccini, whose intention it was to take the veil at Saint Apollonia's Monastery. She remarked, one day, to Sister Theresa Margaret, "Before I take the habit, I wish to return and visit with you once more." The Saint replied, "If you shall see me!" The young woman was surprised at such an answer and asked, "Perhaps the Mother Prioress will not allow me to see you?" The Servant of God feared that she had said too much, and merely repeated the same words, "If you shall see me!"[3] Actually Signora Rinuccini was unable to "see" her, for before she received the Visitandine habit, her friend, Sister Theresa Margaret, was dead.

Those last days, there shone forth from her countenance an inner joy; although she was suffering bitter pain of spirit, nevertheless she seemed to have already a foretaste of the bliss due her in reward for her constancy. From her heart there ascended a constant hymn of sincere praise and fervent love. In her was now realized what her seraphic father, Saint John of the Cross, had written in the "Spiritual Canticle," in regard to souls already prepared to receive the reward of their merits, "From that period the will of the spouse (that is, of the soul) is wholly and entirely shorn of everything created, the ties of love join it closely to its God, and the sensitive part of the soul, with all its forces, its powers, its inclinations, is completely submissive to the spiritual. All its past resistance has been eliminated by its new and perfect realignment and, thanks to its frequent and lengthy usage of spiritual exercises of all kinds, thanks to that battle courageously waged against him, the devil has been conquered at last and driven afar. The soul, united to God and transformed into Him, enjoys a marvelous abundance of riches and heavenly gifts, and possesses, therefore, all the dispositions, all the force necessary to traverse the desert of death and to ascend finally to the glorious throne prepared for the spouses of Christ."

In those days, in fact, the expressions dearest to Sister Theresa Margaret's heart were those of souls who, although thirsting for eternal love, are, nevertheless, condemned to a long and hard exile. With the Psalmist, she would repeat, "Woe is me that my sojourning is prolonged! I have dwelt with the inhabitants of Cedar; my soul hath been a long sojourner" (Psalm cxix, 6, 7). "How lovely are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts! My soul longeth and fainteth for the courts of the Lord" (Psalm lxxxiii, 2), "As the hart panteth after the fountains of water, so my soul panteth after thee, O God. My soul hath thirsted after the strong living God; when shall I come and appear before the face of God?" (Psalm xli, 2, 3).

Truly, she was like a mystical dove which, not knowing where to alight, clings to the window of the ark. Her plaint was like the fervid cry of St. John, "Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly" (Apoc. xxii, 20) and the Divine Lover answers this soul as He did the Virgin Apostle, "Yes, I come quickly," and that burning heart seems to throb yet once more, "Yea, come ever more quickly."

What else remained to her now except to prepare herself for the coming of the Spouse? She prepared, and what a preparation was hers! How much more beautiful, how much more admirable, how much more lovable seemed the light of her virtues in those last days! How much does she give us on which to think and meditate! Those days comprise all the past and forecast the future! A greater need of purifying and of sanctifying herself still more, a new impulse towards everything that is sacrifice and mortification, ... these the sole thoughts of that great soul! Her prayer began to have some new and majestic, some new and supernatural quality! Her face was lighted up with a new and more powerful inner glory! She could now say, in full security, with Saint Margaret Mary, "I have no other need than to be immersed in the Heart of Jesus. O my God, what happiness to die!"

[1] Can. Proc.

[2] Can. Proc.

[3] Deposition of Sister Gertrude Redi, sister of the Saint. Can. Proc.

Contents  Next