Calm and Serenity in Difficult Moments

She impressed her surroundings by her calm and serenity in spite of the difficulties and responsibilities of her charge. Various witnesses confirm this. Father Reichard writes: “Her suffering because of her weakness never reduced her ardor and her calm. Nothing disturbs her, nothing can distract her, not even for a few moments. For each matter she asks for God’s help and recommends it to Him as His own affair.” She is serious and dignified. One always notices in her a soft serenity, which attracts and delights. Mother Alphonse Maria says in one of her instructions: “I will carry this heavy burden as God wants me to because I have burdened myself with it only by obedience to His holy will”. And Father Busson confirms for his part: “She is always herself. Nothing changes in her outward behavior. The same gentleness, same amiability, same concern and vigilance, same fervor for maintaining the religious spirit everywhere”.
Having to endure sufferings of all kinds – physical and spiritual, contempt, contradictions – she always manifested a calm and joyful soul. She said: “During my sufferings, I always remembered the promise made to God from my childhood on: that I would keep my heart pure, that I would reach holiness and that in everything I would fulfill the holy will of God. In those sufferings I said to myself: ‘O! I want to suffer willingly, if only I reach this’.” And Father Reichard said: “Her physical sufferings are painful. At their peak, she feels such a joy that if you could take those sufferings away from her, she would not let You do it”. In her instructions to her Daughters, the Mother puts it like this: “Your sufferings may make sad neither your faces nor your thoughts. Sufferings can make a soul glad already here on earth. I went through sufferings of all kinds. I can assure you that a soul that has come to accept and to assume them as her share is glad, yes, really glad. She would not want to live even one moment without suffering”.

The hope of the Servant of God shined forth above all in circumstances where she recognized the will of God, whatever it was. She committed herself with all her trust that this will, even if it appeared hard, was the greatest good both for herself and her work, both for the glory of God and for the salvation of souls.