"Sister Saint-Denis says, “…I have realized how much simpler it is to pray and keep united with God when I see Him as the source and sum of everything I do. When I walk, I owe it to God that I still can. When I sleep, it is with His permission. My breathing, my happiness, even my being a woman – all are His gifts to me. So it is my prime intention that whenever I do these practical things, they will be contemplative acts of praise and thanksgiving repeated over and over again. Even when it seems impossible to believe that some pain or misery is from God, I try to believe it and thank Him for it. You should try such a prayer…”
And:
"Oh, what a blissful abandonment it is! Everything in my being tells me to stay there. Every thought I have is of his infinite perfection. Every feeling I have is of his kindness and heavenly love. Every dream I have had is realized in him. Hours may pass, but I have no sense of tiredness or pain or needs of any kind. Exquisite contentment enthralls me. I have no use for speech except to praise him. I have no desires except to be held there by him forever. I have a vision of him but I cannot see his face or his form, only infinite light and goodness. I hear his voice in an interior way; he words have sweetness and charm by no sound, and yet they are more felt and permanent in my soul than if I heard Jesus pronounce them."
1 comment:
well..in our personal lives we could hardly be more different. But do read "Mariette in Ecstasy." Just finished. One of the most elegant and moving books i've read.
The story follows the trails and trials of a 17 yr old Catholic girl
in upstate NY, the younger daughter of a doctor, who ~ 1906 enters a
convent of the Sisters of the Crucifixion. The order is small, having
moved from France to the US in the late 19th C. in the face of legal
persecution in their homeland. Mariette's much older sister, Annie, is
Mother Celine, the convent's prioress when Mariette becomes a
postulant..
Beautiful, pious and Jesus obsessed, Mariette becomes disconcerting
touchstone among the sisters. Many are taken with her humility, quiet,
self-possession and, yes, physical glory; others see her as prideful
and dangerous - spiritually and morally. But as much as anything else,
Mariette is a mirror in which the sisters see themselves - graced or
distanced by and from their hopes and desires for holiness.
Whether by grace of god or hand of fraud, Mariette's fervor becomes
manifest by stigmata. And the bulk of this short, elegant, novel is
concerned with the social consequences of possible appearance of the
holy where it's sought - but not expected. The factions, believers and
skeptics, divide the order. The convent's priest as well as the
prioress who replaces Mariette's sister after Annie's death from
cancer, try to work through the heart of the matter in every regard.
While a decision as to what to DO w/ Mariette is reached - by the hand
of her doctor father, who utterly resisted losing a second daughter to
Christ - the truth of the matter remains problematic and untouched, I
think.
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