I can't get over the fact that these sermons I'm reading are a couple of centuries old, and they still touch me. Imagine if I were there!
I must tell you--how deeply I have been touched by you. More than once, I have been moved almost to tears in the confessional. When I have urged some of you to patient and offer your suffering to God, you have replied: "O, yes, Father. It is so miserable here, I have suffered so much, but I never allow a day to pass without thanking God for bringing me here. Deep in my heart there is a great joy, since I love him. I would never have believed that one could find such joy in loving. [and when I said], "Do you really love God now?" [you replied,] "Oh yes, father, yes I love him with all my heart." ...
The world, which judges only the surface of things, would find it hard to believe that. But I believe it and I understand. What I see here is not new to me. Only two days ago I told you of the life of Dominican Sisters...They are enclosed as you are, in a silence that is rarely broken. They submit to a rule and obey their Superiors. Like you, they are deprived of the comforts of life. But they are there for life, without any thought or desire of release. You have poor food, so do they -- days of fast and abstinence, too. You have rough clothing; they wear coarse wool all year round. They sleep on planks with three blankets and get up every night at midnight to pray.
And in spite of that they are happy. No, not in spite of it, but rather they find their happiness in all that because it is all seasoned with the love of God. That is why it does not surprise me that you should be happy too, in the midst of your suffering...
It is true that they have freely chosen what you endure by force. But in the sight of God, that which was originally forced becomes voluntary when it is voluntarily accepted. Yes, you are on the right road. You just have to continue. But no matter what you have done, you must never, never again think of yourselves as prisoners, but as individuals given to God like those Dominican Sisters....
Part II, Seventh Sermon
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