Chapter II
I have come so that my sheep have life and have it abundantly.
(St John, X-10)
The student – the teenager
With her two sisters, Charlotte attended the boarding school of the Sacred Heart of Granville. Intelligent, used to thinking about the raison d’être of all things, she liked study and learned easily, but so frequent were during class, what was called her “artist daydreams”, that she often left the first places to her companions; however, thanks to a “necklace” given from time to time she found herself at their level. The piano lessons seemed to favor her “distractions”: the patient professor often had the opportunity to wake his pupil by giving the piece of furniture a small stroke of the rule that put an end to endless organ stops. Where, then, were the thoughts of the young pupil flying so frequently? To the “Divine Mystery” and the “Divine Martyr” that attracted her more and more, to the silent cloister, in the shadow of which she was already dreaming of hiding to immolate herself in secret.
With her brothers and sisters, she let her expansive nature overflow; amiable, helpful, always in the same mood, she showed herself in the midst of them a real teaser. During the summer holidays, spent in the family home of Saint-Jean-Ie-Thomas; In front of Mont Saint-Michel, she took part in the common joy and all the walks, baths, games or fishing parties. During these hikes, her piety sometimes took on an original turn by making her occupy, for example, in the deserted churches she visited, the place of the preacher or of the confessor, in order to obtain, by her prayers, to the priest who would ascend in the pulpit or enter the confessional, the grace of touching souls.
FIRST COMMUNION
Charlotte prepared herself for the much desired day of her first Communion by a more intense recollection, a heart to heart with her Jesus. The soul full of the great Mysteries of Divinity and Redemption, she had at that moment found a relief to pour out in a heart friend, who was able to understand it. But, doubtless stopped by a divine permission, she could not follow this movement, and experienced that feeling of interior solitude in which Our Lord is accustomed to establish the souls in which He reserves to form Himself.
At the dawn of the big day the pious little girl felt herself filled with a celestial sweetness at the thought of receiving in her heart the Divine Host that so often devoured her eyes in the monstrance. Deeply moved, happy beyond all expression, she approached the Holy Table, and after having received her Divine Treasure, lavished herself on the feelings of adoration and thanksgiving with which she was penetrated, but all gently the thought of repair took hold of her, Jesus is captive to the Tabernacle; on the Altar He is immolated! The sanctuary where the faithful were assembled, the group of the First Communicants who surrounded it disappeared in her eyes, and it seemed to her to be in the Garden of Gethsemane. The agony of Our Lord saw the wave of the iniquities of the world surge on Him, recognizing in the midst of this torrent her personal faults for which the Agonizing Divine also suffered, she could not bear the grief of her God and burst into tears.
This grace, precious among all, was to be renewed to her at each of her communions, during which she always felt a few moments of a holy and profound sadness.
When a pure soul has tasted the Bread of Heaven, she is hungry to feed on it again. In the evening of this unforgettable day Charlotte approaching her mother asked him: “Mother, when will I commune now? ”
“My little one,” replied Madame Millet, “you know very well that until your second solemn communion, you will be able to communicate only four times a year, at great feasts only.” “Oh! Mother, “said the poor child, crying,” I will not be able to wait so long, I will die! ”
In front of this despair that nothing could calm, the parents obtained for their young girl the permission to communicate every first Friday of the month. The following year the daily communion was granted to her.
Guided by an experienced confessor, Charlotte saw in the moments of anguish that embraced her during her thanksgiving, only a means which Our Lord used mercifully to hold her to guard against sin, especially of mortal sin which alone made her shudder to the point of taking away her sleep. In 1891, this priest having changed residence, she did not find the same support with the one who replaced him, and the demon took advantage of it to disturb her deeply, suggesting to her the thought to recognize in this supernatural sadness, the proof that she was no longer in a state of grace. What torment she endured for four long years, obsessed on the one hand by a fear that gnawed her, forcing her to face her schoolwork and to hide her pain from those around her, in the guise of frank gaiety. Far from moving away from the sacraments, she approached it on the contrary with increasing fervor, so much did her delicate soul need to cry out her love to Him from whom she feared to be rejected. In vain did a holy friend of the family, a very clear-sighted priest in the spiritual ways, seek to reassure her by paternally urging her to rise above her apprehensions.
SPIRITUAL DRECTION
At the beginning of the school year in 1895, Charlotte resolved to put an end to her torment by opening up to the Religious who preached to the pupils of the boarding school the exercises of the retreat, and making a general confession. He thought he had received the confession of a soul who, after having multiplied the sacrileges for five years, touched by grace, expressed his repentance. While he exhorted her to thank the good God of her conversion, the humble girl was internally penetrated by a very bright light, which showed him clearly how, on the contrary, she had to appreciate the grace of participation in the world. Soon. then, completely free from her scruples, she thought only of consoling by her love and immolation the one who had deigned to admit her, without merit on her part, in the intimacy of the heart painfully wounded.
Part One here: https://visitationspirit.org/2018/11/in-the-radiation-of-gethsemane-sr-angelique-millet-vhm/