Like the Prophets and Doctors, I would be a light unto souls, I would travel to every land to preach Thy name, O my Beloved, and raise on heathen soil the glorious standard of Thy Cross.  One mission alone would not satisfy my longings.  I would spread the Gospel to the ends of the earth, even to the most distant isles.  I would be a Missionary, not for a few years only, but, were it possible, from the beginning of the world till the consummation of time.  Above all, I thirst for the Martyr’s crown.  It was the desire of my earliest days, and the desire has deepened with the years passed in the Carmel’s narrow cell.  But this too is folly, since I do not sigh for one torment; I need them all to slake my thirst.  Like Thee, O Adorable Spouse, I would be scourged, I would be crucified!  I would be flayed like St. Bartholomew, plunged into boiling oil like St. John, or, like St. Ignatius of Antioch, ground by the teeth of wild beasts into a bread worthy of God.[12]

With St. Agnes and St. Cecilia I would offer my neck to the sword of the executioner, and like Joan of Arc I would murmur the name of Jesus at the stake.

My heart thrills at the thought of the frightful tortures Christians are to suffer at the time of Anti-Christ, and I long to undergo them all.  Open, O Jesus, the Book of Life, in which are written the deeds of Thy Saints:  all the deeds told in that book I long to have accomplished for Thee.  To such folly as this what answer wilt Thou make?  Is there on the face of this earth a soul more feeble than mine?  And yet, precisely because I am feeble, it has delighted Thee to accede to my least and most child-like desires, and to-day it is Thy good pleasure to realise those other desires, more vast than the Universe.  These aspirations becoming a true martyrdom, I opened, one day, the Epistles of St. Paul to seek relief in my sufferings.  My eyes fell on the 12th and 13th chapters of the First Epistle to the Corinthians.  I read that all cannot become Apostles, Prophets, and Doctors; that the Church is composed of different members; that the eye cannot also be the hand.  The answer was clear, but it did not fulfill my desires, or give to me the peace I sought.  “Then descending into the depths of my nothingness, I was so lifted up that I reached my aim."[13]

Without being discouraged I read on, and found comfort in this counsel:  “Be zealous for the better gifts.  And I show unto you a yet more excellent way."[14] The Apostle then explains how all perfect gifts are nothing without Love, that Charity is the most excellent way of going surely to God.  At last I had found rest.