Be not afraid. . . .  He is here at hand.  He is watching, and it is He who begs from us this pain, these tears. . . .  He needs them for souls, for our souls, and He longs to give us a magnificent reward.  I assure you that it costs Him dear to fill us with bitterness, but He knows that it is the only means of preparing us to know Him as He knows Himself, and to become ourselves Divine!  Our soul is indeed great and our destiny glorious.  Let us lift ourselves above all things that pass, and hold ourselves far from the earth!  Up above, the air is so pure. . . .  Jesus may hide Himself, but we know that He is there.

II

October 20, 1888.

MY DEAREST SISTER,—­Do not let your weakness make you unhappy.  When, in the morning, we feel no courage or strength for the practice of virtue, it is really a grace:  it is the time to “lay the axe to the root of the tree,"[1] relying upon Jesus alone.  If we fall, an act of love will set all right, and Jesus smiles.  He helps us without seeming to do so; and the tears which sinners cause Him to shed are wiped away by our poor weak love.  Love can do all things.  The most impossible tasks seem to it easy and sweet.  You know well that Our Lord does not look so much at the greatness of our actions, nor even at their difficulty, as at the love with which we do them.  What, then, have we to fear?

You wish to become a Saint, and you ask me if this is not attempting too much.  Celine, I will not tell you to aim at the seraphic holiness of the most privileged souls, but rather to be “perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect."[2] You see that your dream—­that our dreams and our desires—­are not fancies, since Jesus Himself has laid their realisation upon us as a commandment.

III

January, 1889.

MY DEAR LITTLE CELINE,—­Jesus offers you the cross, a very heavy cross, and you are afraid of not being able to carry it without giving way.  Why?  Our Beloved Himself fell three times on the way to Calvary, and why should we not imitate our Spouse?  What a favour from Jesus, and how He must love us to send us so great a sorrow!  Eternity itself will not be long enough to bless Him for it.  He heaps his favours upon us as upon the greatest Saints.  What, then, are His loving designs for our souls?  That is a secret which will only be revealed to us in our Heavenly Home, on the day when “the Lord shall wipe away all our tears."[3]

Now we have nothing more to hope for on earth—­“the cool evenings are passed"[4]—­for us suffering alone remains!  Ours is an enviable lot, and the Seraphim in Heaven are jealous of our happiness.

The other day I came across this striking passage:  “To be resigned and to be united to the will of God are not the same; there is the same difference between them as that which exists between union and unity; in union there are still two, in unity there is but one."[5] Yes, let us be one with God even in this life; and for this we should be more than resigned, we should embrace the Cross with joy.