 |
| Fr. Lataste |
This is from the Confidences of Fr. Lataste at the moment of his death.
In the past, I had a very filial devotion for the Virgin Mary. I would put in her hands all my actions of piety, my religious life, all obedience and charity, for her to administer according to her wisdom and predilections, and for me to obtain all the merits of the grace of God. Little by little, this devotion was eclipsed a bit by another one, more radiant and more productive. During my years of novitiate and ministry that God gave me, it was the Love of Our Lord that fed and filled my soul.
Now, all is erased by a unique thought that dominates my soul and which imposes itself with force; the thought only of God. I see him, I feel him in my soul although in a confused and unconscious way, but I see him and feel him with an unshakable and burning certainty. My soul is also going toward him by a continued act of love. A bit vague, and a bit deaf, it is true, but stronger than myself. There is in me a perpetual adoration of God, by a simple act from my soul, always the same, always new, without beginning, without middle, without ending. It is like a reflection a glow from eternity. It seems to me that God brings me down, and annihilates me before him to elevate me later and to hold me within himself by an infinite adherence, all power, all light, all love; and, by an absolute detachment of all that is not him. I cannot anymore conceive a precise thought of him, not produce some acts of determined love as in the past; I have none but one thought that understands everything and which exhausts all the strengths of my soul: God. None but a single act of love, so intense and so constant that I cannot anymore without a great effort, either increase its ardor or let it cease to make it begin again. It seems to me that my soul and all that is within it, is thrown in the midst of God and that there is nothing left in it but God himself, penetrating it, vivifying it, illuminating it, embracing it, and divinizing it.
