My Gardener has given me a lily. First the violets. My dear violets, which had all been uprooted by the overbearance of others and which have sprouted spontaneously, after over three years during which they were no longer to be seen in the flower boxes on the terrace.
But as long as they are violets, there is not much to be surprised at, is there? The wind itself can bear the seeds; a little bird can drop them from its tiny beak... But a lily! The lily plant spreads only through bulbs, and a lily bulb is too large and heavy to be carried by the wind with its wings or a bird in its beak. And yet it has sprouted in the flower box on the balcony.
A lot of people might say I’m a lunatic, but I maintain that there is something miraculous about the sprouting of a lily in this way, and I see in this miracle an exquisite kindness and a gratifying response on the part of my Jesus. He knows how I love the lilies and how I suffered on seeing them all pulled up from the flowerbed in my courtyard. He knows I love them as a flower and as a symbol and knows what fear and regret was in my heart at the thought that maybe my lily was no longer pure white, and whole. And He makes a lily arise from a bit of turf which is now barren, meager, hardened, and neglected.
He can well do so - He who has created the lilies of the dales and who mentions them so lovingly in his Gospel! Why should I doubt the origin of this flower? Can the Jesus who gave Thérèse5 the snow for the day she took the habit not give Maria one flower of snow? Woe betide us if a human hand should sever it! It would strike me as an act of sacrilege, and I would be supremely pained by it.
I also write this, which to some might seem a trifle, but which to me is quite profound. This, too, is a caress by my God, an act of kindness by Him, which confirms and validates the sweet feeling of last March 2,6 a feeling I have experienced again, though more faintly, in the last few days. Oh! Paradise! What must you be like if just slightly brushing against you here is such bliss?
I am weary and worn out, and my heart is anxious about so many things. I think of my relatives in Calabria... I have written a great deal to them in recent days, openly speaking of God and the duties of a Christian in the face of death. I think of Clotilde, paralyzed... I think of Paola, of Giuseppe, with his - odd - theories. I think of them all.7 How will they die - if they are to die? May the Hand that has sown lilies and violets for poor Maria descend upon those hearts and draw them to Itself...
The Trappist Abbess wrote to me, and I wrote back. I am happy to have prayed and to pray in this way for the unity of the Churches. I did not know that there was prayer for this. Jesus, my only Master, has guided me, as always, in this, too. Just as He has guided me towards his servant Sister M. Gabriella.8 I really have the feeling that my hand is being held by Him, who is leading me where I can find goodness or souls that, since they are already in glory, can help me, with their doctrines of holiness, to increase my work of sanctification.
I can state that I have never had occasion to seek to know a “Life” wherein I have failed to find a likeness to my own. A likeness which is much greater and more perfect, but which is still a likeness. I have read numberless “Lives,” but have myself bought the ones with points of contact with my paltry life, and from the effects they have on me - while the others excite my sterile admiration, and nothing else - I understand that I am also on the same path (though far behind) of loving boldness, immolation, and trust.
In the “Life” of Sister M. Gabriella I find expressions just like mine, even in the slightest turns of phrase. And this moves me deeply. I feel that where Jesus - the absolute master of our self - reigns, souls, like harps plucked by the same hand, make the same sound - louder or softer according to their perfection, but also with the same notes.
5 St. Thérèse of Lisieux.
6 As explained in the annotation of May 13.
7 Her Belfanti relatives, the owners of hotels in Reggio Calabria. Giuseppe was a cousin of Iside Fioravanzi, the writer’s mother. Paola was the daughter of Giuseppe. Clotilde was the wife of one of Giuseppe’s brothers.
8 Sister Maria Gabriella, Trappist at Grottaferrata (1914-1939).