The train of thought of this discourse has
lead us oh Magdalene to your desert but it cannot lead and elevate us to the
knowledge of your love. This is a secret reserved to your guardian angel and to
no man. Blessed angel for having assisted such a soul and such love. It is a
secret that heaven will reveal to us and that the earth must ignore. Waiting
for the lights of heaven that will one day unveil this secret, we have to be
content with saying that you live in a desert but which is a desert happier and
more delicious than the paradise of the first Adam. In it you live an angelic
life in a human spirit; you have a heavenly life on earth, a seraphic life in a
mortal body. In it you live and die of love.
In it you live and die only of love and of
a celestial love. In it Jesus is your end, your love, your life. In it you
honor and participate of those thirty years with your thirty years, in His
hidden life with your hidden life, in His exile with your exile, in His
privations with your privations, in His cross with your interior and divine
crosses, in His glory with your dejection in the hope of participating in His
glory and in His joy. In Him you live (am I permitted to think and say this?).
You live on earth of the life of Jesus, like the saints live in heaven of the
life of God. In Him you have the imprint and work of His heart in your heart,
of his spirit in your spirit, of His life in your life. Like the sun impresses
its clarity, its splendor, its vivid and illuminating light in a polished
crystal, likewise Jesus, Son of glory and of justice imprints in you His life,
His light, His spirit. And you are no more than a pure capacity of Him, full of
Him, and filled with His grace, His love, and His glory.
But this Son is in heaven and you continue on
earth. Your love cannot support this separation. This situation creates a new
class of life, of love, of the cross in your life. It is necessary to live and
live so many years in this separation. And it is necessary that you live dying
and suffering since Jesus is in heaven and you are in this desert. Oh
dwellings! Oh states so distinct! His is in heaven and you are on earth. He is
rejoicing and you are suffering. He is in possession and you are in want. He is
at the right hand of the Father and you are at the right hand of the cross. He
is in a state in conformity with the grandeur of His Person and you are in a
state in conformity with the grandeur of your love. But a love that separates,
a love that deprives, a love that consumes the spirit and body in a living
dejection, a dejection that makes you live and die at the same time. Jesus is
the love and the delight of heaven and of earth. He is your love. Oh Magdalene
and He separates Himself from you and makes you feel the bitterness of this
separation. He makes you feel it in proportion to the love you have for Him.
And in this way, you live for His love since His love is life, and you die for
His love since this love separates you from Him who is your love and your life.
Oh life! Oh cross! Oh dejection! Oh love!
