The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the IncarnationAnonymous
Religion
The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation
Anonymous
Canada -- History -- To 1763 (New France); Indians of North America; Marie de l'Incarnation, mère, 1599-1672
As she advanced in years, the love of God which inflamed her soul sought
a vent not only in her almost uninterrupted communications with the
divine Object of her affections, but in exterior active works of charity
towards her neighbour. The tabernacle and the poor were the two magnets
that attracted her heart, and next to the hours spent before the altar,
none yielded her such pure delight as those passed among the lowly,
suffering members of her dear Saviour. She found no company so congenial
as theirs; no occupation so agreeable as the humble services which their
desolate condition required. She fed, clothed and consoled them, and even
sometimes partook of their poor fare, reserving for her own share their
remnants and refuse. She would have been glad to suffer in their stead,
and says, that but for the uprightness of her intention, she might
sometimes have erred by excess of liberality towards them.
Going one day, as usual, on a mission of charity, she inadvertently
passed too near a cart which some workmen were in the act of loading. Not
seeing her, they raised the vehicle so suddenly, that her sleeve was
caught in the shaft, and after being lifted into the air, she was dashed
back violently to the ground. The terrified spectators concluded that she
must have been killed, but she had not received the least injury, a
favour for which, as the Almighty revealed to her, she was indebted to
her love for the poor.
After some years, we hear of the first notable imperfection of her
childhood and youth, and nothing perhaps gives a more accurate idea of
her innocence, than the gravity which that imperfection assumed in her
estimation. The singular degree of supernatural light vouchsafed her, the
sublimity of interior purity to which she was called, and the height of
the virtue to which she had already attained, explain the reproaches of
the Holy Spirit, and her own keen remorse for an infidelity which appears
trivial to us because of our want of enlightenment in the ways of God.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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