RELIGIOUS EXAMPLE

"Remember," wrote Sister Theresa Margaret on a small card, "that in entering the religious life you undertake to express in yourself the life of the Crucified. Therefore you must picture the cloister as Calvary; the regular observance of the Rule as your cross, your three vows as the nails, and mortification your executioner." She was heroically faithful to all these resolutions.

Meditating on how much Jesus has suffered for love of us, she endeavored to make an exchange for so much love by cheerfully meeting any mortification. She was always ready to kiss the Cross and to say: "God has suffered so much for me, it is well that I should suffer a little for Him". When it seemed to her that her frail humanity bent under the weight of humiliations and penance, all confused she would say to herself, "Jesus would not have acted thus for me".

As to the observance of the Rule, she had very high ideals. She was wont to say that no one could profess to follow a rule in life unless she fully understood every part of it. With regard to this she maintained that many secular people could easily be an example to Religious by the way they serve the princes of this world; they consider no personal discomfort when it is a case of doing their best for their worldly charges.

One day, at the hour when the community has the task of sweeping the monastery, a girl who had already been accepted by the Carmelites came to the parlor. One of the Sisters invited Theresa Margaret to come to the grille to congratulate the new postulant; but she would not leave her task until she had finished it. Then she gently explained: "I can go to see the new bride another time, when there would be no loss of duty, but if I neglect this observance of the Rule, I may never be able to make it up". Her will was in complete conformity with that of the Mother Prioress, at whose slightest bidding, as the saying goes, she would have thrown herself into the fire. All that was said to her was looked upon as a direct command.

She had promised herself, before God, to live by pure obedience and for this she could indeed say in truth: "I work by obedience".

"This virtue," says Father Ildefonse, "was for her the most beautiful, the most continuous and richest in merit, because it was a habit with her to hear the voice of God, be it in observing the Rule or obeying an express command; these words of Christ were engraved in her heart: 'He who heareth you heareth Me'. So in following some dictate from her superiors or some observance of the Rule of the Novitiate she would say: 'Enough, Christ commands it'." Father Ildefonse adds: "Protesting very earnestly, while kneeling at my feet, that her one desire was ever to live, in all her actions, interior and exterior, by pure obedience, she would quote the above phrases and would aver that for this obedience she was ready to shed her very blood even to the last drop."[1]

The same Father attests that he always found her not only admirably putting into practice most conscientiously every counsel or command he ever gave her, but also every word or suggestion he uttered. He never had to repeat a word of advice; on the contrary, he found her well advanced in the exercise of virtue, and many a time had to put a check on her activities.

She had felt the call of poverty on Mount La Verna, and now it was her desire to imitate St. Francis of Assisi in every way and to repeat with him, "Deus meus et omnia".

She loved manual labor. She was careful even in little things, never wasting anything, not a thread of silk or a drop of oil, or even a small piece of paper. She never liked to see crumbs of bread trodden under foot; she liked to gather these to feed the convent chickens. Sister Theresa Margaret never showed any desire to keep anything for herself; in fact, she tried to go even without necessaries, otherwise, she believed she could not feel the sweet burden of religious poverty. She tried invariably to select the worst tools to work with, the most inferior or worn out ones, and yet she would take the greatest care of them. Little bits of paper, even if they had been used, she would treasure to write down her thoughts and her resolutions; some of these are still preserved in the convent.

One day she was being chaffed about her parsimony over crumbs of bread. To this she retorted that Nuns, who are Christ's poor, should render an account even of such little things. "These little crumbs are of no use to any one, so I scatter them on the terrace and feed the sparrows, who have come to expect them, and yet I am not sinning against holy poverty," she said.

She was most diligent in the observance of silence. Hence she wrote her idea of this virtue on a little card and placed it behind her cell door. "The duty of the Discalced Carmelite is to never speak even one word without necessity; never to look at anything that is not her business. If she does this all her life, let her know that it does not show any excess of virtue but merely a performance of her duty."

The exact fulfilling of her duty and the perpetual presence of God were her rule of perfection. Her most ardent desire was that every creature should become a victim of charity, and she was full of zeal for souls to love God greatly.

Sister Theresa of the Crucified wrote: "She was always trying to instill in me the desire to be a Seraph of love and to be rich in all the virtues which she herself practiced. It happened that once after I had been severely reproved by the Superioress in the presence of the whole community, Sister Theresa Margaret followed me to a room where I was alone, and despondent. She said to me: 'Now is the time to accumulate merit for our Blessed Eternity by offering your trouble to Jesus and making a posy of it, taking the mortification in penance for all the transgressions that occur in religion'. Her love for God was very great, the names she had taken at her profession were her symbol and her guide ... Jesus, the Heart of Jesus and the Saints who had so passionately loved Him".

The center of her love was the Holy Eucharist. For Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, Theresa Margaret was twice a Carmelite, by nature and by profession. She was heard more than once thanking the Lord for having called her to an Order which had such a profound devotion to the Holy Eucharist and which celebrated with such great solemnity the Feast of Corpus Christi.

She would pass hours in profound adoration before the Tabernacle, with her hands joined, motionless, with such infinite reverence and great humility, that it used to warm the faith of all who saw her, and increased their love and devotion to the Blessed Sacrament.

Mother Anna of St. Anthony of Padua said that one day she came into the choir when the Blessed Sacrament was exposed and saw Sister Theresa Margaret kneeling there with her eyes raised and oblivious to everything around her. She seemed absorbed in the hidden God.

"Her angelic composure," says another, "was sufficient to make one think deeply, and at the same time try and emulate her sereneness and piety.

During Mass and more especially after Holy Communion, her face would glow so that she looked completely rapt in God.

We can well imagine her joy when she was elected sacristan and how lovingly she performed this office. Her love for Jesus found her a way of being, as often as she could, near the Tabernacle, at the expense, if she was able to get permission, of her hour of rest. They would often find her in a room near the choir, sitting on a small stool with her head resting on a stone.

Almost, as it were, to reward her for so much love and veneration of the Holy Eucharist, God granted her the singular privilege to perceive a sweet perfume and experience celestial taste each time she approached the Sacred Banquet.

1. Testimony for Process of Canonization, Father Ildefonse of St. Louis Gonzaga.

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