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
manner of prayer written at the command of one of her confessors, we
learn something of the holy ardour which consumed her. "O Love!" she
cried, "how sweet Thou art! how captivating are Thy charms! how light Thy
bonds! Sometimes Thou woundest, sometimes Thou enslavest, but still art
Thou ever sweet. As I am all Thine, so art Thou all mine, mine for ever,
O my most desirable Life! And what do I desire of Thee, O my All? I
desire Thy love, and Thy love alone. O Love! O great Love! Thou art all,
and I am nothing, but it is enough that the mighty All should love the
poor nothing, and that the miserable nothing should love the great All! O
great God! mayest Thou be blessed by every tongue and love by every
heart!"
The impossibility of satisfying her holy eagerness to be inseparably
united to her God, caused her inexplicable suffering. It was death to her
that she could not die. "I long, O Lord," she would say, "to be free from
the prison of the body, that I may fly to Thee, and behold Thee in all
Thy beauty and Divine attractions. O Love! when shall I embrace Thee!
When shall I see Thee without cloud or veil! Knowest Thou not that I love
but Thee? Come then, that I may expire in Thy sacred arms. To a soul
which loves Thee, it is a martyrdom to be separated from Thee, and
meantime to see Thee offended by so many of The creatures who are
insensible to Thy goodness, and indifferent to Thyself. Oh! take me from
this scene of sin and misery where there is nothing but sorrow and
affliction of spirit. My heart sighs for Thy eternal mansions; for Thy
incomparable beauty; for the consummation of that blissful union, of
whose sweetness Thou grantest us a foretaste here below. While the
sensible sweetness lasts, we are happy in Thee, our Treasure, our Life,
our Love, but no sooner are we left to ourselves, than we feel once more
the full force of our poverty and misery. Who will grant to my soul to
burst its prison bars and ascend to Thee! May I be all Thine, as Thou art
all mine! O Sacred Heart of Jesus! be Thou the Altar of sacrifice on
which my heart shall be immolated! O Furnace of charity! enkindle in it
that celestial flame in which I desire to be consumed. Can it rest on an
Altar of fire and not be set on fire?" But notwithstanding her desire to
be dissolved, that she might be with Christ, she loved her Lord's will
too purely to wish for death or life except in conformity to it,
therefore she offered herself to bear the burden of existence until the
day of judgment, if God could be thus more glorified,--satisfied if
meantime she accomplished nothing more than to teach some simple soul to
know and love our Blessed Lady. Her chief relief and support was still,
as ever, in daily Communion, which uniting her really, though invisibly
to her Lord and Treasure, consoled her in some degree for the delay to
the eternal union for which she languished. She says of this most
adorable Sacrament, "that it is a fathomless and shoreless abyss of
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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