1858-1914
Any Visitandine will tell you that the name “Mother Ponnet” is synonymous with the “Commentary on the Spiritual Directory”, our guide to the interior life.
But this profound commentary was only possible because of Mother Ponnet’s own deep, mystical interior life. We have shared the life of this Visitation Nun in previous posts: http://visitationspirit.org/2014/01/today-is-100th-anniversary-of-mother-ponnets-death/
During Lent we will share some of her interior thoughts and the interior locutions she is said to have had from Our Lord.
We begin with Suffering and in future will present Love.
Mother Ponnet’s Thoughts on Suffering:
“The work of our perfection is done through the cross. It is necessary that our piety rests on the cross that we embrace. This cross we love so that His name may be for us a synonym of sweetness, happiness. You will be sure to have the cross in life – because that has to be – for us it will be an immeasurable enjoyment.
Jesus made me understand that to be happy here on earth with true supernatural joy, enjoyed in Him, we should live with sacrifice and immolation.
O my Savior, I thank you when you allow that I do not lose sight of the intimacy of the “empty feeling” of everything, when you make me walk here with that longing for you and heaven.
I suffer, my Jesus, but I do not notice it : I suffer for you.
The suffering keeps me in disgust of all that is on earth and creates intimacy between my heart and your heart.
If it is necessary, for mysterious reasons that we do not understand yet adore, that our God afflicts them that are His, we know that He does so with the bowels of mercy, with a tenderness and an infinite compassion.
The religious mission is to wipe away tears and teach to sanctify pain.
Isolation, the absence of God, the suffering of mind and heart, born between Jesus and me, is beloved because it is the prelude of heaven, eternal reunion, the duet of our loves.
Jesus wants us to suffer solitude of heart. He wants above all that I pity the isolation of his Heart. He told me: ‘Keep me company. The best way to console my Heart is to tap into me and effuse Me in all”