Ms A 80v

[80v°] to religious souls. God wanted to show me that He was the Director of my soul, and so He made use of this Father specifically, who was appreciated only by me in the community. At the time I was having great interior trials of all kinds, even to the point of asking myself whether heaven really existed. I felt ^[5] disposed to say nothing of my interior dispositions since I didn’t know how to express them, but I had hardly entered the confessional when I felt my soul expand. After speaking only a few words, I was understood in a marvelous way and my soul was like a book in which this priest read better than I did myself. ^[10] He launched me full sail upon the waves of confidence and love which so strongly attracted me, but upon which I dared not advance. He told me that my faults caused God no pain, and that holding as he did God’s place, he was telling me in His name that God was very much pleased with me.

Oh! how happy I was to hear those consoling words! Never had I ^[15] heard that our faults could not cause God any pain, and this assurance filled me with joy, helping me to bear patiently with life’s exile. I felt at the bottom of my heart that this was really so, for God is more tender than a mother, and were you not, dear Mother, always ready to pardon the little ^[20] offenses I committed against you involuntarily? How often I experienced this! No word of reproach touched me as much as did one of your caresses. My nature was such that fear made me recoil; with love not only did I advance, I actually flew.

O Mother, it was especially since the blessed day of your election that I have flown in the ways of love. On that day Pauline became my living Jesus.

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