Chapter VI
To you it has been given to know the Mystery of the Kingdom of Heaven.
(St Mark, IV -11)
The Confidence of Jesus – The Flight
From the beginning of her religious life, Sister Marie-Angélique frequently heard, in the most intimate places of herself, in what she called: her “region of grace,” a voice that seemed to her to be that of Our Lord. She felt Him near her, lived in intimacy. This mysterious voice instructed her in her duties, supported her courage, reassured her against the games of hell, exacted from her a great fidelity, an absolute abandonment, and always expressed itself with as much firmness as unspeakable tenderness.
This inner Word first discovered to the young sister unsuspected self-searches, hidden in the depths of her actions, thoughts, and feelings. It was necessary, to obey Him, that Sister Marie-Angelique fought for a long time the too human reasoning, the natural need to be understood and loved, the fear of suffering, until she triumphed by a total forgetfulness of herself.
The one who was talking to her made her glimpse a long ordeal to climb, disposing her to accept it generously, and promising to accompany her there. He was so gentle in the midst of the ordeals he imposed upon her that his humble disciple spontaneously called him “Mother Jesus.” ”
Formed day by day by these mysterious conversations, Sister Marie-Angélique learned to honor in a very particular way “the Love full of Mercy” of which Our Lord envelops all souls, especially the most deprived and the most neglected. She said that “the Jesus of the little ones” seeks souls of good will who by their humility, their trust and their joyful abandonment, help him to penetrate the heart of the poor sinners with the “Pardon”, which he wants so widely to leave to them.
“The Divine Love,” she said, needs “thousands of sparks to light the consuming fire everywhere,” “to give flames, rays, burning coals.” He wants to see his “Little ones” on fire. “And his desire is that His people, those who by self-denial and the detachment of creatures have deserved to be called his” Little ones, “become sweet” Little Jesus “like Him, in suffering, sacrifice, dependence and the release of everything. ”
Holy Hours
In 1911 she lived her first “Holy Hours”, moments of intimacy during which, during the night of Thursday before the first Friday of the month, the scene of the agony of Our Lord unfolded to her eyes, while she heard the painful complaints of his Sacred Heart revealing to her the reasons for which He was agonizing.
In the year 1920, during her evening prayer, she contemplated the sufferings of Our Lord and prayed to obtain from souls the understanding of his misunderstood Love, when she suddenly felt herself invaded by the feeling of strength, of ardor and, with a filial trust, as one melts away from a deep-seated soul, these words were slowly proclaimed: “My Name is Love, and I am full of Mercy.” Words which were at once very sweet and very painful to her: sweet, by making her know how much men are loved by God; painful, because she saw herself unable to work, in return, to love Love other than by prayer and sacrifice.
At the request of two nuns, she painted some images of the Sacred Heart on which she wrote the sentence she heard. One of these paintings was given to an experienced person, who gave her precious favors, and showed his gratitude by having this image printed to promote its diffusion.
During her last years, Sister Marie Angélique no longer heard the mysterious voice of former times, and she was also delivered from the harassment of the devil.
In silence, her soul was called to contemplate the deep abysses of the Mystery of the Most Holy Trinity, in which it seemed to her to be plunged; it was in this upper region, where she enjoyed a serene peace, that she finished simplifying herself, communicating with the very Source of Life and uniting with Our Lord in the Breast of her Father. She felt then penetrated with a new ardor for humiliation and suffering, from which she could not be satisfied, and the acts which she produced from it, disposed her to penetrate deeper into the Mystery of the Agonizing Heart of Jesus.
From then on she lived only in her “Holy Hours” which were renewed each month. She felt the approach through intense pain endured throughout her body, and sometimes in an intense way in the head and limbs, which made her think of the Mysteries of Flagellation, Coronation of Thorns and Crucifixion of our Lord.
To this physical preparation was added that of an extraordinary compunction which made her cry and hate her slightest deviations. Then, she felt introduced by the Blessed Virgin to the Garden of Gethsemane, where she witnessed in spirit the inexpressible distress of the Savior. With him, she suffered, agonized, supported by the maternal assistance of the Mother of Sorrows. When the Atonement had lasted long enough, the vision changed its appearance and became the image of the glorious Reign of Our Lord over a peaceful world, thanks to the intercession of the Immaculate Virgin and to the holy labors of a renewed priesthood. . After these painful visions, she felt herself shattered, as she had been asked, wrote the story.
The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass was for her the renewal of the Sacrifice of the Cross, and, in the course of her days, she had to make violence, to tear herself away from the interior life which absorbed her, so as to tend to the conversations and the duties of the common life. Sister Marie-Angélique had arrived, as a result of increasing fatigue, to be able to take care of nothing more than to paint her dear images of “Jesus Love and Mercy. At the end of her life the brush fell from her hands and she could only work or write for a few minutes in a row. In front of her desk was one of her first pictures of her “Jesus”, she did not look up without looking at Him with love.
Final Years
Her Sisters knew her well, so they were happy to bring her the first flowers of the garden and to maintain them during the summer season. The gentle invalid who liked so much the beauties of nature, loved to feed the little birds that chirped so sweetly in the neighboring trees. They knew well, the little greedy ones, to find on the edge of her window, crumbs of bread and fresh water to quench their thirst. Their great friend amused herself by following their debates, sometimes so violent, that it seemed to her to intervene to bring peace; they had become her little ones and one of them came to expire at the foot of her statue of the Blessed Virgin.
Every morning, she had to have help to get dressed early, because she could not stand . Sometimes feeling on the verge of fainting, she had to resort to lotions of cold water which revived her enough to allow her to attend the Holy Mass, from which absolute impossibility alone could dispense her. In her infirmary, with a chair and a cane, she dragged herself from one place to another to help herself as much as she could and to spare her Sisters. At noon they came to get her in her little car to take her to the community hall where the recreation was taking place. She arrived there smilingly, allowing herself to be placed wherever they wished, and conversing kindly with her neighbors about all that could interest them, laughing heartily at the amusing little features that were told to her. Then she returned to her loneliness to indulge in the intimacy of heart to heart for all the purposes of Love of her Divine Savior.
The War and Eternal Life
In the month of March 1944, on the Feast of the Compassion of the Most Blessed Virgin … which she particularly honored in this Mystery, she was suffering from a slow pneumonia which put her days in danger. A painful oppression was added to the sufferings of a general condition already very precarious; after a while, however, a relative improvement was felt. But soon we went through the most disastrous period of war for Normandy; the bombardments, the fighting, which preceded the liberation and many were forced to live in the basements. Sister Marie-Angélique, who had to stay there for a long time in her little carriage, could scarcely avoid drafts, since windows were daily broken there, so she suffered the counter-blow. In August her condition worsened, her strength declined rapidly. Like a sweet victim, she waited patiently for the hour of sacrifice, uniting her sufferings as always with those of the Divine Master. To speak of Heaven had always been a necessity for her; In her last days she spoke again with her sisters: “When I am gone,” you will pray for me, will you not,” for with “all the graces I have received I have a lot to answer. On the morning of August 27, her nurse found her weakened. Towards midday, her features deteriorated With the help of her Superior who was standing by her side, she renewed for one last time the offering of her life for the advent of the Reign of Peace of Our Lord and received the last sacraments. For a moment she remained absorbed, giving no sign. What was going on at this supreme hour, when the whole community gathered around her surrounded her with prayers? No doubt a last outpouring of Infinite Love was purifying and enriching her in view of the eternal marriage. At one o’clock she opened her eyes and gazed with a luminous glance at the Image of her “Jesus”, placed before her, then she closed them, exhaling gently her last sigh, to go to see him, face to face, and without a veil, in the Kingdom of his Glory.
The End