The priest who attended her frequently said: "My daughter, you
must make the sacrifice of your life"; and one day, quite out of
patience, she sharply answered him: "But, Father, it is no sacrifice." A
terrible saying, that also, for it implied disgust at /being/, furious
contempt for existence, and an immediate ending of her humanity, had she
had the power to suppress herself by a gesture. It is true that the poor
girl had nothing to regret, that she had been compelled to banish
everything from her life, health, joy, and love, so that she might leave
it as one casts off a soiled, worn, tattered garment. And she was right;
she condemned her useless, cruel life when she said: "My passion will
finish only at my death; it will not cease until I enter into eternity."
And this idea of her passion pursued her, attaching her more closely to
the cross with her Divine Master. She had induced them to give her a
large crucifix; she pressed it vehemently against her poor maidenly
breast, exclaiming that she would like to thrust it into her bosom and
leave it there. Towards the end, her strength completely forsook her, and
she could no longer grasp the crucifix with her trembling hands. "Let it
be tightly tied to me," she prayed, "that I may feel it until my last
breath!" The Redeemer upon that crucifix was the only spouse that she was
destined to know; His bleeding kiss was to be the only one bestowed upon
her womanhood, diverted from nature's course. The nuns took cords, passed
them under her aching back, and fastened the crucifix so roughly to her
bosom that it did indeed penetrate it.
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