The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret BourgeoisAnonymous
History
The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois
Anonymous
Bourgeoys, Marguerite, Saint, 1620-1700
"Although charged, conjointly with my Sisters, to watch over the welfare
of the house, I knew nothing of what passed in it. For four years I
occupied myself with a little sewing, remaining all the time in the
infirmary. I slept there, took my meals there, on account of my great
age, they said, and that I might be a companion for Sister Crolo, who
could no longer go to the refectory. I held no conversation with the
Sisters, very rarely went to our chapel, as we of the infirmary could
easily hear Mass from our apartment, it being so constructed as to open
directly fronting the altar. Yet my former disquiet returned, and I knew
not what to determine on, because I could not divest myself of the idea
that God required greater perfection from the community than I saw
practised in it. It is true they tried to console me by asserting that
all was well, and that I might set my mind at rest. I answered them
nothing, but I could not conceal from myself that relaxation existed,
and that I was the cause of it. I suffered more in this perplexity of
mind than I can ever explain." She sighed sadly during her stay in the
infirmary, until it pleased God to let peace again dawn upon her soul,
by imparting to her a spirit of sensible and tender devotion, and by
permitting her to return to the ordinary way in living in her institute
during the few remaining years of her life. On the night of July 5th,
1697, as she was meditating on the means of repairing the faults of
which she believed herself guilty, a _thought_, as distinct as a
_voice_, told her she was the Jonas of the Congregation, and that like
him, she deserved to be cast into the sea. To this interior voice she
could only reply that she was willing to do all in her power to
contribute to the glory of God, and do his will. Then the strange
inspiration ceased, but on the following night it returned more strongly
and vividly than at first, making her understand, like Samuel in the
temple, that _God had spoken_; that it was time to renounce the ideal
perfection which tormented her, and that a blind obedience to her
directors was her only remedy. She therefore opened her heart to the
confessor of the community, M. de Valens, and also to M. Caillen, pastor
of Ville-Marie, who decided on sending her to her superior, there to
disclose all the anxious thoughts that agitated her soul, and speak of
whatever she conceived to be for the welfare of the Congregation. The
docile Sister did as directed, and in order to give her useful and
practical occupation, the superior told her to write what the Holy
Spirit would inspire for the guidance of the institute she had so
happily founded. These precious manuscripts are replete with lessons of
divine wisdom, and it is from their pages her children still select the
beautiful instructions and maxims that keep her spirit alive among them.
Her heart being thus freed from its silent agony, she found herself at
last completely delivered from the torture she had so long endured, her
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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