Seventh Page
July 16, 1881
Our Divine Lord has made me feel that it is with this special devotion as with
the mustard seeds, that, although so little known and less practised it will be
the great devotion of the Church in time to come, for in it the whole of the
Sacred Humanity is honoured-the holy Soul and intellectual Faculties, which have
not hitherto been specially venerated and which are nevertheless the noblest
part of the human being, and the Sacred Head-Sacred Heart, in fact the whole of
His Sacred Body. I mean that the members of His adorable Body and five senses
were ruled and governed by the intellectual and spiritual powers, and we
venerate each act they suggested and the Body performed; for if we move only our
hands we must use the powers of the soul if it be only the will to do it or
anything else; but in each action of the God Man we see an infinite degree of
wisdom,power,knowledge and love, and in the motive of each act we see the
perfect fulfillment of the Law, loving God above all things and our neighbor as
ourselves. In other words the honor and glory of His Eternal Father and love and
zeal for the salvation of man. And who can speak of that Love?
He urged me to pray for true light, faith and wisdom for all especially heretics
and all poor sinners and made me feel that the people of our dear land should
shine in the brightness of this true light and bring back more souls through
this devotion than they had scattered through the darkness of their infidelity.
And it seemed to me that Mary prayed with me and reminded Him her Divine Son
that this England is called her Dower and He filled Her hands with graces and
blessings for us and a new glory as it were shone around Her the reflection of
the glory that surrounds the Seat of Divine Wisdom. And our Blessed Lord renewed
all the promises He has made to bless, ect all who practice or further this
devotion in any way."
On the Feast of the Epiphany, 1882, she was filled with consolation when our
Lady came and placed the Divine Infant in her arms.
And as I beheld Him the eternal Son of God and Mary's Son, our dear little
Infant Jesus, that instant I perceived these words infused into every centre of
my soul: "Take courage my loved One for the Seat of Divine Wisdom will be
known, praised and adored as I wish and I will glorify My Name in thee."
And again He showed her the great things that would come to pass in the church
of St. Alexander which she loved so well:
He brought very clearly and distinctly before me how in this church He would be
honored and how it would be filled with worshippers from far and near and loving
hearts will gather together and praise and glorify and thank Him, making
reparation to the Seat of Divine Wisdom, and holy souls will comfort and condole
with Him honoring His Divine Soul and here souls would be drawn to His Soul and
they would be instructed by Him in this Wisdom of His Sacred Head and burnt with
the desire of His Loving Heart. Here in the sacrament of His Wisdom and Love
they will see things as they really are, and He will bless them and all who
truly adore Him and honor Him as He desires with an ever lasting benediction.
Ardently she longed to see that day and prayed incessantly that she might be
allowed to know clearly what it was Our Lord was asking of her, but still she
was content to await His good pleasure in disclosing it.
May, 1883
On Saturday I was so overpowered and annihilated, crushed almost out of
existence, and when I got to my room and was about to prepare my meditation a
deep recollection came upon me and our dear blessed Lord drew me entirely into
Himself. The powers of the soul were not able to act. The eye of the soul was
wide open in God drinking in knowledge and strength love and confidence, yet the
faculties of the mind I think are overpowered with God's infinite beauty, power
and awful purity; and the love God has for Himself and the work of His hand
which is felt and understood very forcibly in the soul is too great for the
human heart to bear, and this I think caused a kind of death to the body while
the soul reposes in God; a sweet though agonizing death which gives a new life-I
felt (though I did not see any form of a dove or any sensible representation)
that the Holy Spirit of God hovered over me, or rather saturated me through and
through and showed me that the gifts He had entrusted to me were for His glory
and that of the Father and the Son. And He gave me a fortitude to act and
instructed me that I had to do His work and that I must not shrink from the
duties He would impose on me in reference to the Devotion to the Seat of Wisdom
and His holy Soul, yet He did not tell me what that work was and I did not ask.
I feel it is much more perfect to wait though it seems so long, yet I know what
He says must be, and though He urges me earnestly yet I know all time is nothing
in His sight and if it pleases Him that I should not do anything but be consumed
with this desire then His Holy Will be done. I am all Thine do with me what Thou
wilt! And when I find myself saying to Him: 'How long O Lord will Thou delay? I
check myself and say: 'not my will but Thine be done.
During the month of June our Lord again impressed upon her the infinite love of
His Sacred Heart and how He suffered from the neglect and cruel ingratitude of
His children.
There is no pang like this loving in vain as it were which Jesus suffers so
intensely. No spear can pierce so acutely as coldness from the the souls He has
love unto death.He taught me a little of that by allowing me to enter as it were
into that Divine and loving Heart and so participate in some way in this pang of
His Sacred Heart.
He gave me Holy Communion twice on Friday once before you and once after,
towards two or three o' clock in the afternoon. It seems as though a sword of
fire and light pierced me through and through my soul and body saturating it in
its flame. Then on Sunday He seemed to bathe me in His most Precious Blood and
showed me how the devotion to His Holy Soul sorrowful unto death and to the Seat
of Divine Wisdom was only another means which His love urged to draw us more
closely to that Sacred Heart. It is not in any way intended to take the place of
the devotion to His Sacred Heart, only to complete and further it.
And He again impressed upon me that all the promises that He made concerning the
practice and devotions of love to His Sacred Heart should be bestowed a hundred
fold upon those who practice devotion to the Seat of Divine Wisdom. And I
understand that His time is at hand and we will not have to wait long as you
have given me to understand.
Although to the end of her life Teresa recurred again and again to this
all-absorbing subject, and though she never ceased to pray and do all she could
for the spread of the devotion, the following letter dated just before Dr
O'Reilly bade her cease writing, is the last in which she enters in any detail
into its meaning. It gives a most striking diagnosis of the pride of the
intellect and the rebellion against authority which are the crying evils of the
day, and in it she again describes the favored soul which was once more shown to
her, but now more beautiful than ever-so beautiful in fact that at first she
mistook it for Our Lady. How far was she in her humility from thinking that this
glorious soul could by any possibility be her own!