But is this not blasphemous, O Lord? Hast Thou not created youth
and joy? Is it Thy wish that Thy creatures should enjoy neither the sun,
nor the smiling Nature which Thou hast created, nor the human affections
with which Thou hast endowed their flesh? She dreaded the feeling of
revolt which maddened her at times, and wished also to strengthen herself
against the disease which made her groan, and she crucified herself in
thought, extending her arms so as to form a cross and unite herself to
Jesus, her limbs against His limbs, her mouth against His mouth,
streaming the while with blood like Him, and steeped like Him in
bitterness! Jesus died in three hours, but a longer agony fell to her,
who again brought redemption by pain, who died to give others life. When
her bones ached with agony she would sometimes utter complaints, but she
reproached herself immediately. "Oh! how I suffer, oh! how I suffer! but
what happiness it is to bear this pain!" There can be no more frightful
words, words pregnant with a blacker pessimism. Happy to suffer, O Lord!
but why, and to what unknown and senseless end? Where is the reason in
this useless cruelty, in this revolting glorification of suffering, when
from the whole of humanity there ascends but one desperate longing for
health and happiness?
In the midst of her frightful sufferings, however, Sister Marie-Bernard
took the final vows on September 22, 1878.
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