be appeased, save by
the most perfect sacrifices. But the law of fear has given place
to the law of love, and Love has chosen me, a weak and imperfect
creature, as its victim. Is not such a choice worthy of God's
Love? Yea, for in order that Love may be fully satisfied, it must
stoop even unto nothingness, and must transform that nothingness
into fire. O my God, I know it--"Love is repaid by love
alone."[15] Therefore I have sought, I have found, how to ease my
heart, by rendering Thee love for love.

"Use the riches that make men unjust, to find you friends who may
receive you into everlasting dwellings."[16] This, O Lord, is the
advice Thou gavest to Thy disciples after complaining that "the
children of this world are wiser in their generation than the
children of light."[17]

Child of light, as I am, I understood that my desires to be all
things, and to embrace all vocations, were riches that might well
make me unjust; so I set to work to use them for the making of
friends. Mindful of the prayer of Eliseus when he asked the
Prophet Elias for his double spirit, I presented myself before the
company of the Angels and Saints and addressed them thus: "I am
the least of all creatures. I know my mean estate, but I know that
noble and generous hearts love to do good. Therefore, O Blessed
Inhabitants of the Celestial City, I entreat you to adopt me as
your child. All the glory that you help me to acquire, will be
yours; only deign to hear my prayer, and obtain for me a double
portion of the love of God."

O my God! I cannot measure the extent of my request, I should fear
to be crushed by the very weight of its audacity. My only excuse
is my claim to childhood, and that children do not grasp the full
meaning of their words. Yet if a father or mother were on the
throne and possessed vast treasures, they would not hesitate to
grant the desires of those little ones, more dear to them than
life itself. To give them pleasure they will stoop even unto folly.

Well, I am a child of Holy Church, and the Church is a Queen,
because she is now espoused to the Divine King of Kings. I ask not
for riches or glory, not even the glory of Heaven--that belongs by
right to my brothers the Angels and Saints, and my own glory shall
be the radiance that streams from the queenly brow of my Mother,
the Church. Nay, I ask for Love. To love Thee, Jesus, is now my
only desire. Great deeds are not for me; I cannot preach the
Gospel or shed my bl