During the general retreat following my profession I received great graces.  As a rule I find preached retreats most trying, but this one was quite an exception.  I anticipated so much suffering that I prepared myself by a fervent novena.  It was said that the good Priest understood better how to convert sinners than to direct the souls of nuns.  Well then, I must be a great sinner, for God made use of this holy religious to bring me much consolation.  At that time I had all kinds of interior trials which I found it impossible to explain to anyone; suddenly, I was able to lay open my whole soul.  The Father understood me in a marvellous way; he seemed to divine my state, and launched me full sail upon that ocean of confidence and love in which I had longed to advance, but so far had not dared.  He told me that my faults did not pain the Good God, and added:  “At this moment I hold His place, and I assure you from Him that He is well pleased with your soul.”  How happy these consoling words made me!  I had never been told before that it was possible for faults not to pain the Sacred Heart; this assurance filled me with joy and helped me to bear with patience the exile of this life.  It was also the echo of my inmost thoughts.  In truth I had long known that the Lord is more tender than a mother, and I have sounded the depths of more than one mother’s heart.  I know that a mother is ever ready to forgive her child’s small thoughtless faults.  How often have I not had this sweet experience!  No reproach could have touched me more than one single kiss from my Mother.  My nature is such that fear makes me shrink, while, under love’s sweet rule, I not only advance—­I fly.

Two months after this happy retreat our Venerable Foundress, Mother Genevieve of St. Teresa, quitted our little convent to enter the Heavenly Carmel.  Before speaking of my impressions at the time of her death, I should like to tell you what a joy it was to have lived for some years with a soul whose holiness was not inimitable, but lay in the practice of simple and hidden virtues.  More than once she was to me a source of great consolation.

One Sunday I went to the infirmary to pay her a visit, but, as two of the older nuns were there, I was retiring quietly, when she called me and said, with something of inspiration in her manner:  “Wait, my child, I have just a word for you; you are always asking me for a spiritual bouquet, well, to-day I give you this one:  Serve the Lord in peace and in joy.  Remember that Our God is the God of peace.”

I thanked her quite simply and went out of the room.  I was moved almost to tears, and was convinced that God had revealed to her the state of my soul.  That day I had been sorely tried, almost to sadness.  Such was the darkness that I no longer knew if I were beloved of God, and so, dear Mother, you can understand what light and consolation succeeded this gloom.

The following Sunday I asked her whether she had received any revelation about me, but she assured me that she had not, and this only made me admire her the more, for it showed how intimately Jesus lived in her soul and directed her words and actions.  Such holiness seems to me the most true, the most holy; it is the holiness I desire, for it is free from all illusion.