[5] Eccl. 2:11.

[6] Celine entered the Convent on September 14, 1894, and took the name of Sister Genevieve of St. Teresa.

[7] Spiritual Canticle:  Stanzas 18 and 20.

[8] Hymn to the Deity.

[9] Luke 17:21.

[10] Revelation of Our Lord to Bd.  Margaret Mary.

[11] Cant. 8:7.

[12] Psalm 103[104]:1.

[13] Luke 15:31.

[14] Cf.  Psalm 35[36]:6.

______________________________

CHAPTER IX THE NIGHT OF THE SOUL

Dear Mother, I thought I had written enough, and now you wish for more details of my religious life.  I will not argue, but I cannot help smiling when I have to tell you things that you know quite as well as I do.  Nevertheless, I will obey.  I do not ask what use this manuscript can be to any one, I assure you that even were you to burn it before my eyes, without having read it, I should not mind in the least.

The opinion is not uncommon in the Community that you have always indulged me, ever since I entered the Convent; however, “Man seeth those things that appear, but the Lord beholdeth the heart."[1] Dear Mother, once again I thank you for not having spared me.  Jesus knew well that His Little Flower needed the life-giving water of humiliation—­it was too weak to take root otherwise, and to you it owes so great a blessing.  But for some months, the Divine Master has entirely changed His method of cultivating His Little Flower.  Finding no doubt that it has been sufficiently watered, He now allows it to expand under the warm rays of a brilliant sun.  He smiles on it, and this favour also comes through you, dear Mother, but far from doing it harm, those smiles make the Little Flower grow in a wondrous way.  Deep down in its heart it treasures those precious drops of dew—­the mortifications of other days—­and they remind it that it is small and frail.  Even were all creatures to draw near to admire and flatter it, that would not add a shade of idle satisfaction to the true joy which thrills it, on realising that in God’s Eyes it is but a poor, worthless thing, and nothing more.

When I say that I am indifferent to praise, I am not speaking, dear Mother, of the love and confidence you show me; on the contrary I am deeply touched thereby, but I feel that I have now nothing to fear, and I can listen to those praises unperturbed, attributing to God all that is good in me.  If it please Him to make me appear better than I am, it is nothing to me, He can act as He will.  My God, how many ways dost Thou lead souls!  We read of Saints who left absolutely nothing at their death, not the least thing by which to remember them, not even a single line of writing; and there are others like our holy Mother, St. Teresa, who have enriched the Church with their sublime teaching, and have not hesitated to reveal “the secrets of the King,"[2] that He may be better known and better loved.