I am now rising again from a tremendous crisis. You have seen it, and that is sufficient. But what may perhaps interest you is that, precisely when I felt I was dying and asked you for Holy Communion as a Viaticum, not only was my pain relieved and my condition rendered less serious, but I was comforted first by Jesus alone, then by Mary, and then, in the order of their presence, by St. John the Apostle, St. Peter the Apostle, my Guardian Angel, St. Francis, and, finally, St. Joseph. I would have so wished for St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus. But she did not come at all. And they remained even after you left. Jesus at the head of the bed on my right, Mary at the head of the bed on my left, saying, “Let us provide care for our daughter who is ill.” The angel was worshipping. Strange! I always see him alongside the Virgin. Standing close to my desk, St. Joseph, with his very gentle, somewhat sad look. Sitting on a chair, bending forward slightly, St. Peter, next to St. Joseph. Standing between St. Peter and the angel, St. John. I don’t know if he noticed when I smiled at the pale St. Francis, who was concealing himself so humbly almost in the corner next to the door. I felt cared for. To such a degree. But what suffering! When my friends come, though, Satan goes away.
I am dying, Father. Sister Saviane103 is right. The crown is almost finished, and most of my sufferings are over. But who am I suffering so much for? I have offered my sufferings for a mother, Sister Saviane, Sister Gabriella,104 the “separated brethren,” the young man staying at my house,105 and also you, Marta, and my relatives. But I don’t have to suffer this way for any of them. Who for, then? I also applied this intention to the forgiveness granted to Giuseppe.106 Forgiveness, I said. What existed before – esteem - is lost. But I want to depart without resentment towards anyone. I am happy to have specified everything regarding the house. When you are in agony, everything comes to mind and brings disturbance. Now Marta is provided for. Everything is in order on earth. And in my soul is everything in order in such fashion that I will be at peace at the end of my life?
The doctor grumbles because I write. He surely thinks my writing amounts to the “romanticism of an old maid.” And that serves to divert him from a proper diagnosis. He will end up leaning towards hysteria, in his mind designating my writing with the terms “memory-related mania,” “outbursts of a deluded woman” who wants at least to dream of what life has denied her and tells herself a lovely story. He says I go on consuming my brain.... In reality, it is Jesus who consumes his brain.... I do nothing but make marks on the paper to mark his “brain.” But how can one say this to a doctor and set him on the right path? Can you tell me what we should do?
Meanwhile I am resting today. And life is thus coming to its close, and I have so much to correct and hear....
I have written these pages because I think it is good to have written them. Do you see how beautiful the handwriting is...?107
103 See The Notebooks. 1944, note 540.
104 See note 4.
105 See the entry for September 2.
106 See note 45.
107 The two pages referred to in fact show the signs of a shaky hand. The next twenty-one handwritten pages are passed over (October 6-7, 1945), containing two episodes from The Second Year of the Public Life, as well as the beginning of the episode entitled “Mary and Matthias.”