to find me
love my littleness, my poverty: it is the blind trust which I
have in His Mercy. . . . There is my sole treasure, dearest
Godmother, and why should it not be yours?

Are you not ready to suffer all that God wills? Assuredly; and so
if you wish to know joy and to love suffering, you are really
seeking your own consolation, because once we love, all suffering
disappears. Verily, if we were to go together to martyrdom, you
would gain great merit, and I should have none, unless it pleased
Our Lord to change my dispositions.

Dear sister, do you not understand that to love Jesus and to be
His Victim of Love, the more weak and wretched we are the better
material do we make for this consuming and transfiguring Love?
. . . The simple desire to be a Victim suffices, but we must also
consent to ever remain poor and helpless, and here lies the
difficulty: "Where shall we find one that is truly poor in spirit?
We must seek him afar off," says the author of the _Imitation._[7]
He does not say that we must search among great souls, but "afar
off"--that is to say, in abasement and in nothingness. Let us
remain far from all that dazzles, loving our littleness, and
content to have no joy. Then we shall be truly poor in spirit, and
Jesus will come to seek us however far off we may be, and
transform us into flames of Love. . . . I long to make you
understand what I feel. Confidence alone must lead us to
Love. . . . Does not fear lead to the thought of the strict justice
that is threatened to sinners? But that is not the justice Jesus
will show to such as love Him.

God would not vouchsafe you the desire to be the Victim of His
Merciful Love, were this not a favour in store--or rather already
granted, since you are wholly surrendered unto Him and long to be
consumed by Him, and God never inspires a longing which He cannot
fulfill.

The road lies clear, and along it we must run together. I feel
that Jesus wishes to bestow on us the same graces; He wishes to
grant us both a free entrance into His Heavenly Kingdom. Dearest
Godmother, you would like to hear still more of the secrets which
Jesus confides to your child, but human speech cannot tell what
the human heart itself can scarcely conceive. Besides, Jesus
confides His secrets to you likewise. This I know, for you it was
who taught me to listen to His Divine teaching. On the day of my
Baptism you promised in my name that I would serve Him alone. You
were the Angel who