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
That humiliation of mind might keep pace with subjection of the flesh,
she one day brought her director a written confession of the sins and
imperfections of her whole life with her name affixed, beseeching him
after he had read, to attach it to the church door, that all might know
the extent of her infidelity to God. Repeated rebuffs from her confessor
served only to manifest the sincerity of her humility; she received them
with her habitual love of contempt, and although the paper was burned,
instead of being exhibited as she desired, her fidelity to inspiration
was rewarded by a new flood of graces. Among the rest, she learned by
revelation the exact nature of the celestial favour previously promised
only in general terms, our Lord condescending to intimate to her
explicitly, that she was destined for that highest degree of divine
union, accorded, as we have just seen, only to a privileged few even of
the saints. Although the wondrous promise was not to be realized for the
present, the prospect of its accomplishment at a future day, filled her
with holy joy, nerving her at the same time to new efforts for the
removal of every obstacle to the consummation of her hopes.
After she had spent three or four years in the house of her brother-in-
law in the manner already noticed, Divine Providence permitted that he
should open his eyes to her capabilities and his own injustice. By a
tardy concession to her merits, he asked her at last, to undertake the
management of his affairs, foreseeing that they could not but prosper in
her hands. Besides holding the rank of an artillery officer, he was
charged with the commissariat of the whole kingdom, and under favour of
these two appointments, he embarked in a variety of enterprises which
obliged him to maintain a very large establishment; including numerous
servants and vehicles. His charitable sister, in undertaking her new
duties, still retained the old, from which her heart refused to part,
because of their attendant humiliations. She got through all, and
satisfied everybody; meantime so perfectly maintaining her union with
God, that she seemed like one of those celestial Spirits of whom our Lord
declared that "they ever behold the face of the Father in heaven." She
tells us that she spent the greater part of the day in a stable which
served as a store, and that sometimes she was still on the quay at
midnight, sending off, or receiving goods; that her ordinary companions
were carters, porters and other workmen; that she had to look after fifty
or sixty horses; that during the frequent absences of her brother and
sister, she had their personal affairs to attend to in addition to the
rest, and still, that as this multiplicity of occupations had been
undertaken only from a motive of charity, God permitted that instead of
proving an obstacle to the spirit of recollection, it tended on the
contrary to nourish and strengthen it. She says that when she found
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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