A Firm Decision to Fulfill God’s Will Always and in Everything

The Servant of God practiced the virtue of temperance to a heroic degree. She knew how to keep her senses under strict discipline. The grace of God let her know very early the measures to be taken and perfectly adapting herself to these inspirations, she achieved to let order and harmony reign in her faculties and to show perfect measure in everything.

The main occasion for disorder came from her temper which had a certain violence, a stubborn, obstinate character. From the age of six, she felt that this was the obstacle she had to overcome in order to better find God: “A violent stubbornness seized my soul when I did not get what I wanted, but it did not last long. Immediately I came back to myself; I thought that this was not good, I cried about my faults. I said to myself: ‘Where will I go if I behave like this? I am not to disobey my parents’.”
So she won through obedience; she imitated “the obedience of the Infant Jesus”. Later, the love for prayer could make her disobey, but Jesus said to her: “I do not want your prayer but your obedience. What I like most is obedience.”
Although she felt strong impatience coming up in her, she made efforts to gently correct her brothers and sisters; she reached a state of calm so that Father Busson could say: “She deplores abuses and lapses, but she talks about them regretfully. When she sometimes insists, she does it sighing, without vivacity and bitter reproaches … No imperative forms in her words. She hardly gives advice. Her language is that of wish and supplication.”
The Servant of God loved the poverty of her environment and never longed for any comforts of life. What is more, she avoided everything that could have given any satisfaction to her senses. She loved hard work in the fields out of love for God, who required it from her. She looked for occasions making her body suffer because thus she could overcome herself: she slept on a plank and prayed kneeling on sticks […].
“I also felt a strong desire for exercise of physical penitence. I started this by kneeling more often on something hard while praying. With tears in my eyes, I prayed: ‘Oh, my Jesus, grant me the grace not to spend a single hour of the day without loving You!’”
She lovingly accepted the inconveniences of all kinds caused by her long illnesses in her hardworking family and by her state of physical sufferings, which lasted almost all her life.
“During practicing those small physical mortifications, I often repeated this request in my heart: ‘Won’t You give me now, my Jesus, what I ask of You? Won’t You let me know what I have to do to bring You joy and not to make You sad?’”

She showed great temperance as far as the consumption of food and drink is concerned. As a child she mortified herself at table. Later she vowed to eat only what her confessor permitted. Father Reichard attested that she took very little food. She wanted her Daughters’ food to be that of the poor.

She felt strongly attracted to solitude and silence. As a child, it was her constant need to withdraw herself to a hidden place to pray and to meditate. When she was a young girl, this need only increased.
“My love for solitude became more ardent.”
Father Reichard testifies: “More and more she searched for solitude in order to be able to communicate more freely and more lovingly with her Divine Spouse.”
Inspired by heaven, she took this rule of conduct: 1) speak little and only when it is necessary – 2) close the ears to useless conversation – 3) keep the eyes from any curiosity.
Her conversation was full of reticence and dignity. Bishop Raess testifies: “She answered everything with admirable precision and clarity. There is never a word too much, nothing embarrassed or obscure in her responses.”
If she had to receive so many visitors, it was in order to obey the divine will and her spiritual director; it was suffering to her, which bit by bit turned into the joy of working for the glory of God. In her instructions she particularly insisted on silence and modesty. She said: “My children, she said, in order to know what spirit reigns in a religious house, one only has to observe whether silence is respected.”

The Servant of God, whose dominant fault was to be obstinate, started to apply self-denial to her will, as soon as she recognized her fault: “In order to make progress in mortification and to reduce my stubbornness, I tried to do the contrary of what I wanted to do.” She took refuge to prayer and promised “to offer You all my present sufferings in order to receive the graces to overcome myself”. She obeyed her parents and Father Reichard in what was hardest for her. She made much progress that her confessor could write to Bishop Raess: “She practices the most sublime virtues, a profound humility with great interior and exterior mortification.” Above all she had to renounce her own will when she felt lost, rejected by God and when her spiritual director told her to continue to pray. She renounced herself so well that she even prolonged her prayer, despite the aversion she experienced. Inner pains remained her lot during all her life. This state imposed upon her hard inner mortification, which she generously accepted, not letting anyone notice anything, and there she found her peace and joy.

She had to endure much opposition. Her sensitive and stubborn nature was surely shaken by this, but she was never seen troubled or impatient. Opposition from her parents with regard to her devotion – “She is accused of being a burden to her family”, Father Reichard said; “that increases her suffering.

Local people make fun of her calling her “St. Lizbeth”. She endured it all”, Father Reichard said, “with unchangeable patience; she never complained about those who made malicious remarks about her, she did not consider any of the many injuries caused to her.” Many priests very strongly disapprove of her. One bishop insults her.
“They would despise us, they would persecute us, if God permitted it”, Father Reichard said. “They try from different sides”, Bishop Raess said, “to introduce discontent in the Congregation, and I notice with bitterness that the attack is directed against the Superior”.
The most painful opposition came from the houses of Würzburg, Vienna, and Sopron and the Episcopal authorities of these regions. Our Lord had announced all these sufferings and contradictions to the Servant of God.
“Suffer, be silent and pray”. That was the instruction she scrupulously observed.

The Servant of God very much loved the simplicity of life in everything. She gave it as a seal to the Congregation; she demanded great simplicity in the fitting out of the Sisters’ houses: only the strict necessary, but she insisted on cleanliness. She wanted the habit to be simple; she recommended that the Sisters should pay attention to keep it from stains so that it would not be worn-out by lack of care, “because it is very expensive, and we have to save money in order to be able to better help the poor”. In all this, the Servant of God shows her great concern for details and for the right measure in everything.