Date: September 30, 2007

Podcaster: stlocds

Episode Description:

Blessed Anne of St. Bartholomew
Chapter VII (Method of Prayer) pg 66
The kind of prayer I practiced at that time, on certain days, was a consciousness accompanied by deep reverence, of a light which was in my soul. All my faculties were so penetrated by it that they seemed to have no existence but that which they received from this light. It was not a vision of Jesus Christ as I saw Him usually, nor any other presence; but it was as if the Most Holy Trinity Itself dwelt in me; and though my soul perceived nothing, I felt for the Adorable Trinity the same reverence as if I saw it present.
On other days my soul was like a silkworm. It is treated with the greatest care by those who raise it. They feed it on tender leaves; having reached maturity it commences to spin with its mouth a thread of very delicate silk and makes its cocoon. It finds so much pleasure and comfort in this, it does not realize it will ever cease to exist; finally its strength being exhausted, it remains fastened up in its cocoon and dies there. I saw, or rather was shown, something similar in my soul With the like sweetness and the same silence the soul goes on spinning silk and giving to God what she has received from Him. After the example of the little silkworm, she shuts herself within herself as in a tomb, which separates her from creatures, and with tender love, which she draws unceasingly from the depths of her heart, she longs to leave this life. Death is the true life of such a soul, and she would wish to have a thousand lives to sacrifice for God and thus merit greater favors from Him. Everything then disquiets and wearies her; nothing can satisfy her except to give her life for the Well-Beloved.

TIME 4:30Autobiography of the Blessed Mother Anne of Saint Bartholomew Inseparable Companion of Sainit Teresa of Avila and Foundress of the Carmels of Pontoise, Tours and Antwerp: French Translation of the Unpublished Autograph of the Vernerable Servant of God, Preserved by the Carmelites of Antwerp, with Commentary and Historical Notes. By Reverend Marcel Bouis, S.J.: Trnaslated from the French by a Religious of the Carmel of St. Louis, MO., U.S.A. Imprimatur: Joannes Josephus, Archiepiscopus, Sti. Ludovici. 20 December, 1916