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I ALWAYS had a great attraction for the exercise of prayer, but knowing that I could not become a daughter of prayer without being a friend of mortification, I worked with great courage to acquire this virtue and to destroy my passions. To help me succeed, I decided to keep a daily record of my faults and also of my acts of mortification, for which purpose I always kept at my side two little strings of beads. The string of my mortifications was composed of fifteen beads in honor of the fifteen mysteries of the holy rosary and I believe that often when night came I was able to offer Mary a crown complete, with every bead marked for her. From whatever was pleasant for me to see, I would deliberately turn my eyes away. Similarly, if I felt a strong desire to say something, I would not say it, and so forth.

I made my general examination of conscience and a particular one with the aim of conquering my predominant passion which was pride, and I received the grace to subdue it. Having thus given myself unreservedly to our Lord, who never allows Himself to be outdone in generosity, I will now relate in what manner our Lord now gave Himself entirely to me. I had already during the course of my life on several occasions been granted extraordinary favors, yet if I may thus express it, these were but samples of the heavenly favors with which He was to enrich my soul in such profusion. It was during Holy Communion which I now had the happiness to receive three times each week and on Sundays that our Lord would communicate Himself intimately to my soul.

Since my director had commanded me to tell him with the simplicity of a child everything that transpired within me, I gave him a written account of these supernatural happenings. However, on learning of them, my confessor did not appear at all surprised.

"My daughter," he said, "does not your soul belong to God? Let then this good Master do as He wills in His own house."

As time went on and as these interior words of our Lord and His heavenly communications continued to be showered on me, I in turn was faithful in continuing to submit written accounts of them to my confessor for thus I knew I would be preserved from illusion. My director, however, never spoke to me of these things which pleased me very much for feeling myself unworthy of such divine favors, to speak about them to anyone, even my father confessor, caused me extreme confusion.

Then one day, as I was handing my director one of these notes, it occurred to me that my humiliation would be much deeper were I to read aloud the contents of the letter I wrote, which in spite of my unworthiness, set forth such wonderful proofs of our Lord's affection for me. I told my confessor what was going through my mind and he ordered me to begin reading the account, which I did, at the cost of excessive violence to myself.

But our Lord desired at this time to counteract these extraordinary graces by a stroke of His mercy, for an unbroken succession of celestial favors might have caused in my soul sentiments of vanity. One day after Holy Communion, I beheld what seemed to me to be a wall, about to fall and crush me. Although it is quite a long time ago since this took place, I will explain as best as I can what happened in my soul. Our Lord told me not to fear anything. I understood that the falling wall would crush only my self-love. I have since then realized that what I saw represented a long series of humiliations and mortifications, very distasteful to self-love, which was to be the road on which our Lord would soon have me enter.

Since without grace we can do nothing, our divine Saviour embued me at this time with a strong desire for sufferings and humiliations. Answering the call of grace, I now actually began to pray for humiliations in order that the wall of my pride which prevented perfect union with God might be entirely destroyed, and that the violet of humility which attracts Jesus to people's hearts might now bloom within me. I made my desires known to my confessor and I prayed him not to spare me.

"Father," I said to him, "do not listen to the cries of nature. Help me conquer my pride."

Since he was never in any haste to form conclusions, he waited, undoubtedly, to see if this was a mere passing fervor, too common among young people, or if it was really the work of God. But, finally, seeing that our Lord continued to give me this desire to purify my soul of all the faults of pride into which it had fallen in the past, my director ended by telling me:

"My daughter, I believe our Lord wants you to walk outside the usual way, and is leading you in an extraordinary manner. Therefore, go before the Blessed Sacrament and reflect in His presence what you could do to humiliate yourself. Choose whatever would cause you the deepest humiliation."

Then began for me the painful voyage on the road of humiliation. Each time that I went to see my director to ask him for books, or to return those he ordinarily loaned me, he always had the charity to serve me a large plate of humiliations. But grace never left me. At times I had to beg him to continue the good work which he was doing.

"Ah, well," he would then say to me, "what does our Lord ask of you today? Have you any favor to ask of me?"

Since extreme simplicity was one of my characteristics, and since our Lord gave me the grace to walk in this way, I would think of a great many things which, in my judgment, would cause me deep humiliation. I knew, of course, that most of them were not practical, yet I saw that the mere mention of them, as also asking my confessor's permission to perform them became in itself the keenest humiliation of all, and therefore I would begin to stammer my suggestions. At times when my confessor would discern how deeply it hurt me to tell him everything, he would scold a little but always with sweetness:

"Be as simple as a little child," he would say to me. "Look at a child, and take note that he says everything that comes to his mind without examining it."

Then, after weighing my suggestions, he would allow me to perform those acts of humiliation which seemed practical to him. As for the others, he would pretend at first to give his consent, and after he was assured of my willingness to perform them, he would later forbid me to carry them out.

"Oh, my father," I would sometimes exclaim, "how much it costs me to walk in this path!"

"My daughter," he would answer, "if it costs you to be humiliated, I assure you that it costs me also to be obliged to humiliate you. But have courage."

After I had trodden my pride under foot, our Lord filled my soul with spiritual consolations. However, I must add that this was quite necessary for me, for without this all-powerful grace, I would never have been able to walk on a road so replete with pain. Whenever I would feel inspired to perform some unusual act of humility, I experienced within me so strong a movement of grace, that it was impossible for me not to perform that mortification without fear of being unfaithful.

"Let us go," I would say to encourage myself, "only one heroic act is necessary to bring about a victory. I can do all things in Him that strengthens me." I would then feel sure that grace demanded this act of mortification from me. Therefore, in spite of all the repugnance which I experienced, I would ask my director often again to nourish me with this bread so disagreeable to the taste of nature. He sent me a few times to the house of two pious young ladies where I found occasions of practicing humility. One of my friends complained to me that a certain person had said something humiliating to her. "Oh," I then answered her, "you are very fortunate to find humiliations already prepared for you. There are some souls who have to look for them."

But during this time of trial, I found strength and consolation in visiting our good Saviour present in the Most Blessed Sacrament, where I went especially at mid-day when He was more alone than at other times, and there opened my soul to Him.

Then, too, I had a very great devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, to whom I often made acts of reparation. I implored Him to break the bonds which held me in the world so that I could take my flight to a Carmelite monastery.

Next I would go to that chapel where I had previously received marvelous graces concerning my religious vocation and, kneeling at the feet of the Blessed Virgin's statue, I would pour out my heart to her as does a child to the one it loves. I used to pray to her continually: "Behold," I would say to her, "look around and see, my companions are one after another getting married. When will the time then come, my mother, when you will give me your Son for my spouse, since you know I want no other but Him?"

To this kind mother I also made a novena asking her to obtain for me the cure of a physical ailment. She promptly granted me my favor in thanksgiving for which I had fifteen masses offered in honor of the fifteen mysteries of the holy rosary, as I had promised.

While awaiting to be received into the Carmelite convent, I still continued to work at my pious aunt's dressmaking shop where she employed quite a few young women. It now fell to my lot to assume the role of mistress or spiritual directress among several of these companions, who began now to consult me. Noticing that although through the grace of God I practiced virtue, and yet I appeared ever cheerful and contented, as my director had counseled, these young women would approach me with much confidence. Since they would consult me on all their little qualms of conscience and on the practice of devotion, I taught them how to make mental prayer and how to exercise various acts of virtue.

Miserable sinner that I was, since I had received so much from God, it was only just that I should give myself in charity towards the others. In a short time, one of these young persons made so much progress that she greatly surpassed her little directress, and in fact she entered religion, becoming a nun even before I did.

Our conversations always centered around our Lord, the Blessed Virgin, St. Joseph and the practice of various virtues. Then reflecting on the way they would consult me, who myself had such a great need of counsel, I feared that, perhaps, this was contrary to the virtue of humility. I, therefore, spoke of this to my director, but he advised me to continue the work I had begun since the virtue of these young companions would serve to stimulate my own spiritual progress. I was, therefore, at peace, and never mentioned to my companions what passed through my heart, keeping the secret as my own.

It was easy for me to teach them how to practice prayer because I enjoyed a great facility in performing mental prayer by simply considering our Lord present in the midst of my soul. In fact, this presence of the divine Saviour, for a certain period of time, was so real and sensible, that it seemed to me that I actually saw Him in the center of my heart.

It now happened that one of these companions was stricken with a very extraordinary illness. Seeing that the remedies which the physicians prescribed brought her no relief, I believe that I had an interior light that if we had recourse to the Blessed Virgin, the patient would be cured of her strange malady. I, therefore, had her wear a miraculous medal around her neck, and we then made a novena to the Most Blessed Virgin, after which the young lady was entirely cured of her illness. Consequently, these graces which we received from Mary inflamed us with love for her.

I prayed to her continually to shatter the bonds which held me captive in the world. Often too I burned candles in front of her altar, and made novenas in preparation for her feasts, offering her garlands of artificial flowers and other ornaments. In fact, I did everything possible to honor and touch her maternal heart so that she would give me her Son for my spouse.

Although my poor prayers must have fallen short of pleasing so great a Queen of Heaven, yet she did not remain indifferent to them. She began auspiciously to lift one of the obstacles which somewhat prevented me from leaving the house of my father.

As I have already mentioned, my mother died when I was twelve years old, and my elder sister, since that time, was in charge of the household. My good father who thought of nothing else except of God and of his employment, worked in peace at his trade of locksmith. Never thinking about remarrying, his life truly resembled that of St. Joseph. He went to Mass every morning and to Benediction in the evenings whenever he could. In spite of his hard manual labor, he observed all the fasts and abstinences prescribed by the Church, and approached the sacraments with a very lively faith and much fervor. He also carried with great patience some very trying crosses which God had sent him.

At this time my father became very worried, for my elder sister who had been managing our house was struck with a lingering illness, and my dear father had the idea that I wanted to leave him in order to embrace the religious life. He could not reconcile himself to the thought of entrusting his household to a hired domestic servant, and he would tell me about his worries, saying that he feared that some day I would fly away from him. I myself never spoke openly to him about my vocation because my confessor, still trying me, gave me little hope in spite of my longings, so that I did not know when he would grant me permission to leave for Carmel. In the meantime, my respectable father made the following overture. He spoke about his worries to the pastor, to whom I had already confided also my own longings to become a nun. This pastor who loved my father very much, and who used to say that he was his best parishioner, undoubtedly advised him to remarry. My father's disposition was somewhat timid and aloof and I think he was embarrassed at the pastor's idea. However, taking himself full initiative in the matter, the pastor interested himself in my father's remarriage, and finally, by the grace of God and Mary's intercession, he found my father an excellent wife. We received her very well, all of which made my father extremely happy.

After that I received my director's permission to speak openly of my intentions to enter Carmel, for until then I was not free to even speak of it either to my father or to my aunts. At last I felt that I was approaching the end of all my troubles and that the door of Carmel would soon open to me.