Mine is not an unfeeling heart, and it is just because of its capacity to suffer deeply that I desire to offer to Jesus every kind of suffering it can endure. HIST. D’UNE AME, CH. IX Life is full of sacrifices, it is true; but why look for happiness in it? Is it not simply “a night to be passed in a bad Inn” as says our Holy Mother Saint Teresa? My heart has an ardent thirst for happiness, but well do I see that no creature is capable of allaying this thirst. On the contrary, the more I might drink of the waters of that enchanted spring the more burning would be my thirst. I know a fountain where _they that drink shall yet thirst_,[91] but with a thirst most sweet, a thirst one can always satisfy; this fountain is the suffering that is known to Jesus alone!... II LETTER TO SR. MARIE DU SACRÉ-CŒUR Our Lord never asks of us any sacrifice above our strength. Sometimes, in truth, the Divine Master makes us taste the full bitterness of the chalice which He presents to our soul. When He asks the sacrifice of everything most dear to us in this world, it is impossible unless by a very special grace, not to cry out as He did in the Garden of the Agony: “_My Father, let this chalice pass from Me...._” But let us also hasten to add: “_Nevertheless not as I will but as Thou wilt._”[92] It is very consoling to think that Jesus--Divine Strength itself--has experienced all our weakness, that He trembled at the sight of the bitter chalice, the chalice He had longed for so ardently. I LETTER TO HER MISSIONARY “BROTHERS” Since our Well-Beloved has “_trodden the wine-press alone_”[93]--the wine which He gives us to drink--in our turn let us not refuse to wear garments dyed with blood, let us press out for Jesus a new wine which may slake His thirst, and _looking around Him_ He will no longer be able to say that _He is alone_; we shall be there _to help_.[94] Neglect, forgetfulness ... this it is, it seems to me, which still pains Him the most. VIII LETTER TO HER SISTER CÉLINE Here on earth, where all changes, one sole thing changes not, the King of Heaven’s mode of acting as regards His friends. Ever since He uplifted the standard of the Cross, it is in its shadow that all must fight and gain the victory. VI LETTER TO HER MISSIONARY “BROTHERS” It is indeed more through suffering and persecution than through eloquent preaching, that God wills to establish His Kingdom in souls. VI LETTER TO HER MISSIONARY “BROTHERS” I want to forget this world; here below, all things weary me, I find no joy save one, that of suffering ... and this joy, though unfelt, is above every other. V LETTER TO HER SISTER CÉLINE