The Portal of the Mystery of the Second Virtue

Le porche du mystère de la deuxième vertu

the portal

‌

of the mystery

‌

of the second virtue

‌

NON SOLUM IN MEMORIAM SED IN INTENTIONEM

‌

Not only to the memory but to the intention of our friend and of our brother Eddy Marix Eltville on the Rhine, 2 August 1880 Eltville on the Rhine, 31 August 1908

‌

notably in memory of that cahier which he made for Palm Sunday and for Easter Sunday of the year 1905.

‌

cahier for All Saints’ and for the day of the Dead of the thirteenth series; second preparatory cahier for the five hundredth anniversary of the birth of Joan of Arc, which will fall on Epiphany of the year 1912.

‌

Madame Gervaise returns Madame Gervaise

The faith that I love best, says God, is hope.

Faith does not astonish me.
That is not astonishing.
I burst forth so in my creation.
In the sun and in the moon and in the stars.
In all my creatures.
In the heavenly bodies of the firmament and in the fishes
of the sea.
In the universe of my creatures.
On the face of the sea and on the face of the waters.

In the motion of the heavenly bodies that are in the sky.
In the wind that blows on the sea and in the wind that
blows in the valley.
In the calm valley.
In the sheltered valley.
In the plants and in the beasts and in the beasts of the
forests.
And in man.
My creature.
In peoples and in men and in kings and
in peoples.
In man and in woman his companion.
And above all in children.
My creatures.
In the gaze and in the voice of children.
For children are more my creatures.
Than men
They have not yet been undone by life.
Of the earth.
And among all they are my servants.
Before all.
And the voice of children is purer than the voice of the wind
in the calm of the valley.
In the sheltered valley.

And the gaze of children is purer than the blue of the sky, than the milkiness of the sky, and than a ray of starlight in the calm of the night.

Now I burst forth so in my creation.
On the face of the mountains and on the face of the plain.

In the bread and in the wine and in the man who plows and in the man who sows and in the harvest and in the vintage.

In the light and in the darkness.
And in the heart of man, which is what there is
most deep in the world.
Created.
So deep that it is impenetrable to every gaze.
Except to my gaze.
In the tempest that makes the waves leap and in the
tempest that makes the leaves leap.
Of the trees in the forest.
And on the contrary in the calm of a fair evening.
In the sands of the sea and in the stars that are
a sand in the sky.
In the stone of the threshold and in the stone of the hearth and
in the stone of the altar.
In prayer and in the sacraments.
In the houses of men and in the church which
is my house upon the earth.
In the eagle my creature who flies upon the summits.
The royal eagle who has at least two meters of wingspan
and perhaps three meters.
And in the ant my creature who crawls and who heaps up
pettily.
In the earth.
In the ant my servant
And even unto the serpent.
In the ant my servant, my lowliest servant, who
heaps up painstakingly, the parsimonious one.
Who labors like an unhappy creature and who has no
cease and has no rest.
But death and but the long sleep of winter

shrugging her shoulders at so much evidence.
before so much evidence.

I burst forth so in all my creation.

In the lowliest, in my lowliest creature, in my lowliest servant, in the lowliest ant.

Who hoards pettily, like man.
Like lowly man.
And who digs galleries in the earth.
In the underground of the earth.
To heap up there meanly treasures.
Temporal.
Poorly.
And even unto the serpent.
Who deceived woman and crawls for that upon
his belly.
And who is my creature and who is my servant.
The serpent who deceived the woman.
My servant.
Who deceived the man my servant.
I burst forth so in my creation.
In all that happens to men and to peoples, and
to the poor.
And even to the rich.
Who do not wish to be my creatures.
And who put themselves under shelter.
From being my servants.
In all that man does and undoes of evil and
of good.

(And I pass over it, because I am the master and I do what he has undone and I undo what he has done.)

And even unto the temptation of sin.
Even.
And in what happened to my son.

Because of man.
My creature.
Whom I had created.

In the incorporation, in the rebirth and in the life and in the death of my son.

And in the holy sacrifice of the Mass.

In every birth and in every life.
And in every death.
And in the eternal life which shall not end.
Which shall vanquish every death.

I burst forth so in my creation.

That in order not to see me truly these poor people would have to be blind.

Charity, says God, does not astonish me.
That is not astonishing.

These poor creatures are so unhappy that unless they have a heart of stone, how could they not have charity one for another.

How could they not have charity for their brothers.

How could they not draw the bread from their own mouth, the daily bread, to give it to unhappy children who pass by.

And my son had for them so great a charity.

My son their brother.
So great a charity.

But hope, says God, that is what astonishes me.
Myself.
That is astonishing.

That these poor children see how all this goes and that they believe that tomorrow it will go better.
That they see how it goes today and that they believe it will go better tomorrow morning.

That is astonishing and it is indeed the greatest marvel
of our grace.
And I am astonished at it myself.
And my grace must indeed be of an incredible
strength.
And must flow from a source and like a river
inexhaustible.
Since the first time it flowed and since
always it has flowed.
In my natural and supernatural creation.
In my spiritual and carnal creation and again
spiritual.
In my eternal and temporal creation and again
eternal.
Mortal and immortal.

And this time, oh this time, since this time it flowed, like a river of blood, from the pierced side of my son.
What must indeed be my grace and the force of my grace, that this little hope, flickering in the breath of sin, trembling at every wind, anxious at the least breath,
should be so unchanging, should hold itself so faithful, so straight, so pure; and so invincible, and immortal, and impossible to extinguish; as that little flame of the sanctuary.

Which burns eternally in the faithful lamp.
A flickering flame has traversed the thickness of the worlds.
A wavering flame has traversed the thickness of the ages.
An anxious flame has traversed the thickness of the nights.
Since that first time when my grace flowed for
the creation of the world.
Since always my grace has flowed for the conservation
of the world.
Since that time when the blood of my son flowed for
the salvation of the world.

A flame impossible to attain, impossible to extinguish
in the breath of death.

What astonishes me, says God, is hope.
And I cannot get over it.
This little hope which looks like nothing at all.
This little girl hope.
Immortal.

For my three virtues, says God.
The three virtues my creatures.
My daughters my children.
Are themselves like my other creatures.
Of the race of men.
Faith is a faithful Spouse.
Charity is a Mother.
An ardent mother, full of heart.
Or an elder sister who is like a mother.
Hope is a little girl of nothing at all.
Who came into the world on Christmas day of last
year.
Who still plays with old Father January.
With her little fir trees of German wood covered with
painted hoar-frost.
And with her ox and her ass of German wood.
Painted.
And with her manger full of straw that the beasts do not
eat.
Since they are of wood.
It is this little girl, nevertheless, who shall traverse the
worlds.
This little girl of nothing at all.
She alone, bearing the others, who shall traverse the
vanished worlds.

As the star led the three kings from the farthest depth
of the East.
Toward the cradle of my son.

So a trembling flame.
She alone shall lead the Virtues and the Worlds.

A flame shall pierce the eternal darknesses.

The priest says.
Minister of God the priest says:

What are the three theological virtues?

The child answers:

The three theological virtues are Faith, Hope and Charity.

— Why are Faith, Hope and Charity called theological virtues?

— Faith, Hope and Charity are called theological virtues because they refer immediately to God.

— What is Hope?

— Hope is a supernatural virtue by which we await from God, with confidence, his grace in this world and eternal glory in the next.

— Make an act of Hope.

— My God, I hope, with firm confidence, that you will give me, by the merits of Jesus Christ, your grace in this world, and, if I keep your commandments, your glory in the next, because you have promised it to me, and you are sovereignly faithful in your promises. One forgets too much, my child, that hope is a virtue, that it is a theological virtue, and that of all the virtues, and of the three theological virtues, it is perhaps the most pleasing to God. That it is assuredly the most difficult, that it is perhaps the only difficult one, and that doubtless it is the most pleasing to God. Faith goes of itself. Faith walks all alone. To believe one need only let oneself go, one need only look. In order not to believe one would have to do violence to oneself, to torture oneself, to torment oneself, to thwart oneself. To stiffen. To take oneself backwards, to set oneself backwards, to wind oneself up. Faith is altogether natural, altogether going, altogether simple, altogether coming. Altogether well coming. Altogether fair going. It is a goodwife whom one knows, an old goodwife, a good old parishioner, a goodwife of the parish, an old grandmother, a good parishioner. She tells us the stories of the olden time, that came to pass in the olden time. In order not to believe, my child, one would have to stop up one’s eyes and one’s ears. In order not to see, in order not to believe. Charity unhappily goes of itself. Charity walks all alone. To love one’s neighbor one need only let oneself go, one need only look at so much distress. In order not to love one’s neighbor one would have to do violence to oneself, to torture oneself, to torment oneself, to thwart oneself. To stiffen. To hurt oneself. To denature oneself, to take oneself backwards, to set oneself backwards. To wind oneself up. Charity is altogether natural, altogether welling up, altogether simple, altogether well coming. It is the first movement of the heart. It is the first movement which is the good one. Charity is a mother and a sister. In order not to love one’s neighbor, my child, one would have to stop up one’s eyes and one’s ears.

To so many cries of distress.

But hope does not go of itself. Hope does not walk all alone. To hope, my child, one must be very happy, one must have obtained, received a great grace. It is faith that is easy and not to believe that would be impossible. It is charity that is easy and not to love that would be impossible. But it is hope that is difficult. in a low voice and shamefully. And the easy way and the slope is to despair and that is the great temptation. The little hope advances between her two big sisters and they do not even pay attention to her.
On the road of salvation, on the carnal road, on the rough road of salvation, on the interminable road, on the road between her two sisters the little hope

Advances.
Between her two big sisters.
The one who is married.
And the one who is a mother.

And the Christian people pays no attention, has no attention except for the two big sisters.

The first and the last.
Who go to the most pressing.
To present time.
To the momentary instant which passes.

The Christian people sees only the two big sisters, has eyes only for the two big sisters.

The one who is on the right and the one who is on the left.
And it scarcely sees the one who is in the middle.
The little one, the one who still goes to school.
And who walks.
Lost between the skirts of her sisters.

And it readily believes that it is the two big ones who drag the little one by the hand.

In the middle.
Between the two.
To make her walk this rough road of salvation.
The blind ones who do not see, on the contrary.
That it is she in the middle who draws her big sisters along.
And that without her they would be nothing.
But two women already aged.
Two women of a certain age.
Worn by life.

It is she, this little one, who draws everything along.
For Faith sees only what is.
And she she sees what shall be.
Charity loves only what is.
And she she loves what shall be.

Faith sees what is.
In Time and in Eternity.
Hope sees what shall be.
In time and in eternity.

So to speak the future of eternity itself.

Charity loves what is.
In Time and in Eternity.
God and the neighbor.
As Faith sees.
God and creation.
But Hope loves what shall be.
In time and in eternity.

So to speak in the future of eternity.

Hope sees what is not yet and what shall be.
She loves what is not yet and what shall be

In the future of time and of eternity.

On the mounting, sandy, uneasy road.
On the mounting road.
Dragged, hanging from the arms of her two big sisters,

Who hold her by the hand,
The little hope
Advances.
And in the middle between her two big sisters she looks
as if she were letting herself be dragged.
Like a child who would not have the strength to walk.
And whom one would drag along this road against her will.
And in reality it is she who makes the other two walk.
And who drags them.
And who makes everyone walk.
And who drags them.
For one never works except for the children.

And the two big ones walk only for the little one.

My three virtues, says God.
Master of the Three Virtues.

My three virtues are not otherwise than men and women in a house of men.

It is not the children who work.
But one never works except for the children.

It is not the child who goes to the fields, who plows and who sows, and who reaps and who gathers the vintage and who prunes the vine and who fells the trees and who saws the wood.

For the winter.
To warm the house in winter.
But would the father have the heart to work
if it were not for his children.

If it were not for his children.
And in winter when he works hard.
In the forest.
When he works the hardest.
With the bill-hook and with the saw and with the felling-axe and with the axe.
In the frozen forest.
In winter when the vipers sleep in the wood
because they are frozen.
And when there blows a bitter wind.
That pierces him to the bones.
That passes through all his limbs.
And he is all numb and his teeth would chatter.
And the hoar-frost makes icicles for him in his beard.
All at once he thinks of his wife who has stayed at home.
Of his wife who is so good a housekeeper.
Of whom he is the husband before God.
And of his children who are quite quiet at home.
Who play and who amuse themselves at this hour at the corner of the fire.
And who perhaps are fighting.
Together.
For amusement.

They pass before his eyes, in a flash before the eyes of his memory, before the eyes of his soul.

They inhabit his memory and his heart and his soul and the eyes of his soul.
They inhabit his gaze.
In a flash he sees his three children who play and who laugh at the corner of the fire.
His three children, two boys and a girl.
Of whom he is the father before God.
His eldest, his boy who turned twelve in the month of September.

His daughter who turned nine in the month of September.
And his youngest who turned seven in the month of June.
Thus the girl is in the middle.
As is fitting.
So that she may be defended by her two brothers.
In existence.
One before and the other after.
His three children who will succeed him and who will outlive him.
On earth.
Who will have his house and his lands.
And if he has neither house nor lands at least they will have his tools.
(If he has neither house nor lands they will not have any either.
That is all.)
(He has done quite well without to live.
They will do as he did. They will work.)
His felling-axe and his axe and his bill-hook and his saw.
And his hammer and his file.
And his shovel and his pickaxe.
And his spade for spading the earth.
And if he has no house and no land.
If they do not inherit his house and his land.
At least they will inherit his tools.
His good tools.
Which have served him so many times.
Which are shaped to his hand.
Which have so many times spaded the same earth.
His tools, by dint of being used, have made his hand
all callous and shining.
But he, by dint also of using them, has made polished and shining
the handle of his tools.

And by dint of working he has skin as hard and as tanned
as the handle of his tools.
On the handle of his tools his sons will find again, his sons will inherit
the hardness of his hands.
But also their skill, their great skill.
For he is a good plowman and a good woodcutter.
And a good vinedresser.
And with his tools his sons will inherit, his children will inherit.
What he has given them, what none could take from them.
(Almost not even God).
(So much has God given to man).
The strength of his race, the strength of his blood.
For they have come forth from him.
And they are French and Lorrainers.
Sons of good race and of good house.
Now good race cannot lie.
Sons of good mother.

And above all that which is above all with his tools and with his race and with his blood his children will inherit.

What is worth more than a house and a piece of land
to leave to one’s children.
For the house and the land are perishable and shall perish.
And the house and the land are exposed to the winter wind.
To this bitter wind that blows in this forest.
But the blessing of God is not blown by any wind.
What is worth more than the tools, what is more laborious,
more workmanlike than the tools.
What does more work than the tools.

And tools after all end by wearing out.
Like man.
What is worth more, what is more durable than the race
and the blood.
Even.
For race itself and blood are perishable and shall perish.
Except the blood of Jesus.
Which shall be poured out in the ages of ages.
And race itself and blood are exposed to the winter wind.
And there may be a winter of races.
With his house perhaps if he has one and his land.
With his tools surely and his race and his blood his children
will inherit.
That which is above all.
The blessing of God which is upon his house and upon his race.
The grace of God which is worth more than all.
He knows it well.
Which is upon the poor and upon him who works.
And who brings up his children well.
He knows it well.
Because he has promised it.
And he is sovereignly faithful in his promises.

His three children who are growing so much.
Provided that they are not ill.
And who will certainly be taller than he.
(How proud he is of it in his heart).
And his two boys will be roughly strong.
His two boys will replace him, his children will hold his place
on the earth.

When he is no longer here.
His place in the parish and his place in the forest.
His place in the church and his place in the house.
His place in the village and his place in the vineyard.
And on the plain and on the hillside and in the valley.
His place in Christendom. In short. Well.
His place as man and as Christian.
His place as parishioner, his place as plowman.
His place as peasant.
His place as father.
His place as Lorrainer and as Frenchman.
For these are places, great God, that must be held.
And all this must continue.
When he is no longer here as at present.
If not better.
Peasantry must continue.
And the vine and the wheat and the harvest and the vintage.
And the plowing of the earth.
And the pasturing of the beasts.
When he is no longer here as at present.
If not better.
Christendom must continue.
The Church militant.
And for that there must be Christians.
Always.
The parish must continue.
France and Lorraine must continue.
Long after he is no longer here.
As well as at present.
If not better.
He thinks with tenderness of that time when he will no longer be and

when his children will hold his place.
On earth.
Before God.
Of that time when he will no longer be and when his children will be.

And when his name is spoken in the village, when one speaks of him, when his name comes out, at random in talk, it will no longer be of him that one speaks but of his sons.
At once it will be of him and it will not be of him, since it will be of his sons.
It will be his name and it will no longer and it will not be his name, since it will be (have become) the name of his sons.

And he is proud of it in his heart and how he thinks of it with tenderness.
That he himself will no longer be himself but his sons.
And that his name will no longer be his name but the name of his sons.
That his name will no longer be in his service but in the service of his sons.
Who will bear the name honestly before God.
Loftily and proudly.
Like him.
Better than him.
And when his name is spoken, it is his son who will be called,
it is of his son that one will speak.
He will have been for a long time in the cemetery.
Around the church.
He, that is to say his body.
Side by side with his fathers and the fathers of his fathers.
Aligned with them.
With his father and his grandfather whom he knew.
And with all the others, all those whom he did not know.

All the men and all the women of his race.
All the ancient men and all the ancient women.
His forebears and his ancestors.
And his ancestresses.
As many as there have been since the parish was founded.
By some saintly founder.
Come from Jesus.
His body, for as for his soul, it is a long while.
That he has commended it to God.
Placing it under the protection of his patron saints.

He will sleep, his body thus shall rest.
Among his own, (awaiting his own).
Awaiting the resurrection of the bodies.
Until the resurrection of the bodies his body shall thus rest.

He thinks with tenderness of that time when one will not need him.
And when things will go on all the same.
Because there will be others.
Who will bear the same burden.
And who perhaps, and who doubtless will bear it better.

He thinks with tenderness of that time when he will no longer be.
Because, after all, one cannot be forever.
One cannot be and have been.
And when everything will go on all the same.
When nothing will go any the worse for it.
On the contrary.
When everything will only go better for it.
On the contrary.

Because his children will be there, for one stroke.

His children will do better than he, surely.
And the world will go better.
Later on.
He is not jealous of it.
On the contrary.
Neither of having come into the world himself in a thankless time.
And of having doubtless prepared for his sons perhaps a less thankless time.
What madman would be jealous of his sons and of the sons of his sons.

Does he not work uniquely for his children.

He thinks with tenderness of the time when one will scarcely think of him any longer
except on account of his children.
(If only one thinks of him sometimes. Rarely.)
When his name shall ring out (cordially) in the village,
It will be because someone is calling his son Marcel or his son Pierre.
It will be because someone needs his son Marcel or his son Pierre.
And will call them, glad to see them. And will look for them.
For it is they who will reign then and who will bear the name.
For it is they who will reign with the men of their age and of their time.
It is they who will reign upon the face of the earth.
Perhaps for some time still an old man who will remember.

Will say.
The two Sévin boys are fine lads.
That is not astonishing.
They have whom to take after.
The father was such a fine man.
And for some time the young will repeat on faith.
The old man was such a fine man.
But already they will know nothing of it.
Then they will no longer know and even that, even that talk will fall silent.
He thinks with tenderness of the time when he will no longer be even
a piece of talk.

That is for that, that is for that that he works, for is it not for his children that one works.

He will no longer be anything but a body in six feet of earth under six feet of earth under a cross.

But his children will be.
He salutes with tenderness the new time when he will no longer be.
When he will not be.
When his children will be.
The reign of his children.

He thinks with tenderness of that time which will no longer be his time.
But the time of his children.
The reign (of time) of his children upon the earth.
In that time when one says the Sévins it will not be him
but them.
With no more, no explanation.

His children will bear that name of the Sévins.

(Or that name of the Chénins, or that name of the Jouffins, or Damrémont, or any other name of Lorraine)

Any other name Christian, French, Lorrainer.

At the thought of his children who will have become men and woman.
At the thought of the time of his children, of the reign of his children.
Upon the earth,
In their turn,
A tenderness, a warmth, a pride rises in him.
(My God might it not be a pride.
But God will pardon him.)
How brave his sons will be in the forest, just
God.
And solid lads like oaks.
In the forest when the winter wind shall blow.
The bitter wind.
That will pierce their bones.
And will make icicles in their beard.

He laughs to think of the face they will make.
He laughs to himself and perhaps even on the surface.
On the outside.

When he thinks of the face they will make when they have beards.

And he thinks with tenderness of his daughter who will be such a good housekeeper.
Because surely she will be like her mother.

He will no longer be, he, that is settled, he will no longer be.
He will have lost the taste for bread.
But there will be others, just God there will be others,
One must hope it,

Who already have the taste for bread and who will know how to bite into a good loaf of bread.

Who will eat with good appetite.
Their daily bread.

Who will eat with good appetite their daily bread and their eternal bread.
(One will get along very well without him, and he will no longer be at (the) table, for one must push oneself at table when the newcomers come and push).
Others, his children, who will live and who will die after him if all goes in order.

And whom he will find again in paradise.

There will be others, thank God:
France must continue.
Neither shall France be idle, nor Christendom nor Lorraine.
And the parish shall not be idle.
Nor shall the vine be idle, nor the wheat.

It is the order that the father die before the children.
He thinks of them, by a grace of God, immediately the blood rushes back
to his heart.
And warms him so.
And flows back into all his limbs to the tips of his fingers.

So much so that if he had drunk a good glass of Meuse wine.
From the hillsides above Cepoy.

And that finger-chill he had in his fingers, (and in vain did he blow upon his fingers).

Disappears as if by enchantment.
And he has nothing left but a trembling of warmth at the tips of his fingers.
And the bitter wind.
That still blows.
Because it has no children.
Because it is an inanimate creature.
And it does not know all these stories.
The bitter wind in the forest.

Comes now to freeze for him two great tears that descend stupidly upon his cheeks.
In the hollowed furrows of his two cheeks and which come to lose themselves in the brambles of his beard.

Like two icicles.
Then he, laughing and ashamed.
Laughing inside and ashamed inside and on the surface.
And laughing even out loud.
For it is sweet and it is shameful to weep.
For a man.
Then the poor man wants to play the clever one.
The one who has not wept.
One always wants to play the clever one.

He looks around himself without seeming to look whether he is being looked at.

Whether he has not been seen.
Just in case.

Laughing within himself and in his beard, on the sly.

He hurries to wipe these two tears from his cheek.
And to efface them.
He drinks and licks with his tongue upon his lips.
At the corner of his lips the salt water of his tears.
Which passes for him across his beard.
And also with his hand awkwardly.
Clumsily.
Obliquely.
Sidelong, downward.

With the back of the stump of his thumb he hurries to efface his tears and the trace of his tears.

So that one may not perceive it.
So that one may not see that he has wept.
And lest one go mocking him in the village.
Because a man must not weep.

And his wife who today has stayed at home.
But who at other times habitually goes also to the fields.
Who is such a good housewife.
And such a good Christian.
Would she have so much courage at work.
And to do her housekeeping.
If she did not work for her children.

Thus, not otherwise, everyone works for the little hope.

All that one does, one does for the children.
And it is the children who make everyone do everything.

All that one does.
As if they took us by the hand.

Thus all that one does, all that everyone does, one does for the little hope.

All that there is of small is all that there is of most beautiful and most great.
All that there is of new is all that there is of most beautiful and great.

And baptism is the sacrament of the little ones.
And baptism is the newest sacrament.
And baptism is the feeling that begins.
All that begins has a virtue that is never found again.
A force, a newness, a freshness like the dawn.
A youth, an ardor.
An impulse.
A naïveté.
A birth that is never found again.
The first day is the most beautiful day.
The first day is perhaps the only beautiful day.
And baptism is the sacrament of the first day.
And baptism is all that there is of beautiful and great.
If there were not the sacrifice.
And the consummation of the body of Our Lord.

There is in what begins a source, a race that does not return.

A departure, a childhood that one does not find again, that is never found again.

Now the little hope
Is she who always begins.

This birth
Perpetual.
This childhood

Perpetual. What would one do, what would one be, my God, without children. What would one become.
And her two big sisters know well that without her they would be only servants of a day.

Old maids in a cottage.
In a ramshackle hut that grows more dilapidated every day.
That wears out little by little.

Old women who grow old all alone and who are bored in a hovel.

Women without children.
A race that goes out.

But by her on the contrary they know well that they are two generous women.

Two women of the future.
Two women who have something to do in existence.

And that by this little girl whom they bring up they hold all time and eternity itself in the hollow of their hands.

Thus it is the children who do nothing.
Ah the rascals, they pretend to do nothing,
The young dogs,
They know well what they do,
The innocents.
To the innocents, hands full.
The case to say it.
They know well that they do everything; and more than everything;
With their innocent air;
With their air of knowing nothing;
Of not knowing;
Since it is for them that one works.
In reality.
Since one works only for them.
And nothing is done save for them.

And all that is done in the world is done only for them.
From this comes to them that assured look they have.
So agreeable to see.

That frank gaze, that unbearable gaze to see and which bears up under all gazes.

So sweet, so agreeable to look at.
That gaze unbearable to bear up under.

That frank gaze, that straight gaze they have, that sweet gaze, which comes straight from paradise.

So sweet to see, and to receive, that gaze of paradise.
From this comes to them that brow they have.
That assured brow.
That straight brow, that arched brow, that square brow, that lifted brow.
That assurance they have.
And which is assurance itself.
Of hope.

Their arched brow, still all washed and all clean from baptism.
From the waters of baptism.

And that speech they have, that voice so sweet, and together so assured.
So sweet to hear, so young.
That voice of paradise.
For it has a promise, a secret interior assurance.

As their young gaze has a promise, a secret interior assurance, and their brow, and all their person.

Their little, their august, their so reverent and reverend person.

Happy children; happy father.
Happy hope.

Happy childhood. All their little body, all their little person, all their little gestures, is full, streams, overflows with a hope.

Resplends, overflows with an innocence.
Which is the innocence itself of hope.

Assurance, unique innocence.
Assurance, inimitable innocence.

Ignorance of the child, innocence beside which sanctity itself, the purity of the saint is only filth and decrepitude.

Assurance, ignorance, innocence of the heart.
Youth of the heart.
Hope; childhood of the heart.
Sweet children, inimitable children, children brothers of Jesus.
Young children.

Children beside whom the greatest saints are only old age and decrepitude.

Children, it is for that that you are the masters and that you command in the houses.

We know well why.
A look, a word from you bends the hardest heads.
You are the masters and we know it well.
We know well why.
You are all children Jesus.

And what man, what madman, what blasphemer would dare call himself a man Jesus.

What saint, the greatest saint, would dare even think of it.

And you too you know well that you are the masters in the houses.

Your voice says it, your gaze says it, and your locks of hair, and your mutinous head.
And when you ask for something, you ask for it like one who laughs because he is quite sure of having it.

You know well that you will have it.

Of the imitation of Jesus. You children you imitate Jesus.
You do not imitate him. You are children Jesus.
Without perceiving it, without knowing it, without seeing it.
And you know it well.

And man, what man, the greatest saint, what saint does not know that he is infinitely far from Jesus.

In his imitation.

Irreparable loss, descent, fall, inevitable wastage of life.
And which is existence and life and the very aging.
To our childhoods we join Jesus.

And growing up we are disjoined from him, we disjoin ourselves from him for all our life.

Children, your ignorance, your assurance, your innocence is the very ignorance and the same innocence of Jesus, of the child Jesus.

And his timid assurance.

You are hopes as the child Jesus was a hope.

Really you are children Jesus.

It is for that, children, that we are so happy that you are the masters and that you command in the houses.

It is the commandment itself of hope.
Your reign is the proper reign of hope.

For we other men, what are we,
In our poor imitation.

And your commandment is the commandment itself of Jesus.

Singular fate, singular destiny, destination of man.

When we are children, we are children Jesus, we join Jesus the child.

And when we are men, disjoined, what are we.

Fair children, your gaze is the very gaze of Jesus.
Your blue gaze.
Of Jesus child.
Your fair gaze.
Your brow is the very brow of Jesus.
Your voice is the very voice of Jesus.

And we, what are we.
With our veiled gaze.
Our veiled brow.
Our veiled voice.
And at the corner of the lips the fold of bitternesses.

And at best the very fold of contrition.
We are never anything but innocences recovered.
And they they are first innocence.

We, what do we become.
What have we become.
What do we know.
What can we.
What do we do.
What have we.
We have never anything but innocences repaired.
And they they have first innocence.

And supposing the best, going to the best, putting everything for the best we should never be anything but innocences preserved.

But they they are first innocence.

And as much as ripe fruit, just ripe, taken from the tree, surpasses preserved fruit.

Fresh is worth more than preserved fruit.

So much does the innocence of the child surpass the innocence of the man.
Is worth more than what man no longer even dares to call his innocence.

He thinks of his three children who at this very moment are playing at the corner of the fire.

Do they play, do they work, one does not know.
With children.

Do they work with their mother.
One never knows.
Children are not like men.

For children, to play, to work, to rest, to stop, to run, it is all one.

Together.
It is the same. They do not even make the difference.
They are happy.

They amuse themselves all the time. As much when they work, as much when they amuse themselves.

They do not even perceive it.
They are very happy.
So their commandment is the commandment itself of Jesus.
Of Jesus the child.
Hope too is she who amuses herself all the time.

He thinks of his three children who are playing at this hour at the corner of the fire.

Provided only that they be happy.
Is it not all that a father asks.

One lives for them, one asks only that one’s children be happy.

He thinks of his children whom he has placed particularly under the protection of the Holy Virgin.

One day when they were ill.

And when he had been very afraid.
He still thinks shuddering of that day.
When he had been so afraid.
For them and for him.
Because they were ill.
He had trembled in his skin from it.
At the mere idea that they were ill.
He had well understood that he could not live like that.
With sick children.
And his wife who was so afraid.
So frightfully.

That she had her gaze fixed inward and her brow furrowed and she no longer said a word.

Like a beast that is hurting.
That keeps silent.
For her heart was tight.
Her throat strangled like a woman being strangled.
The heart in a vise.
The throat in fingers; in the jaws of a vise.
His wife who clenched her teeth, who clenched her lips.
And who spoke rarely and in another voice.
In a voice which was not hers.
So frightfully afraid was she.
And would not say so.

But he, by God, he was a man. He was not afraid to speak.

He had perfectly understood that it could not go on like that.

It could not last.
Like that.
He could not live with sick children

So he had pulled off a stroke (a stroke of daring), he laughed at it still when he thought of it.
He even admired himself a little for it. And there was indeed a little something for it. And he still shuddered at it.
It must be said that he had been right boldly hardy and that it was a hardy stroke.

And yet all Christians can do as much.
One even wonders why they do not do it.
As one takes three children from the ground and as one puts them all three.
Together. At the same time.
For amusement. By way of game.
In the arms of their mother and of their nurse who laughs.
And cries out.
Because one is putting too many on her.
And she will not have the strength to carry them.
He, bold as a man.
He had taken, by prayer he had taken.
(France must, Christendom must continue.)
His three children in the sickness, in the misery where they lay.
And quietly he had put them for you.
By prayer he had put them for you.

Quite quietly into the arms of her who is charged with all the sorrows of the world.

And who has her arms already so charged.
For the Son has taken all the sins.
But the Mother has taken all the sorrows.

He had said, by prayer he had said: I can do no more.

I no longer understand anything of it. I have it up over the head.
I no longer want to know anything.
It is not my concern.
(France must, Christendom must continue.)
Take them. I give them to you. Do with them what you will.
I have had enough.

She who was the mother of Jesus Christ can well also be the mother of these two little boys and of this little girl.

Who are the brothers of Jesus Christ.
And for whom Jesus Christ came into the world.
What is that to you. You have so many others.
What is that to you, one more, one less.
You had the little Jesus. You have had so many others.

(He meant in the ages of ages, all the children of men, all the brothers of Jesus, the little brothers, and she will have so many in the ages of ages).

Men must have some nerve, to speak like that.
To the Holy Virgin.

Tears on the edge of the eyelids, words on the edge of the lips, he spoke thus, by prayer he spoke thus.

Within.

He was in a great anger, God forgive him, he still shudders at it (but he is roughly happy to have thought of that).

(The fool, as if it was he who had thought of it, the poor man.)

He spoke in a great anger (God keep him) and in that great violence and, within, within that great anger and that great violence with a great devotion.
You see them, he said, I give them to you. And I am turning back and saving myself so that you do not give them back to me.

I no longer want them. You see it well.
How he applauded himself for having had the courage to pull off that stroke.
Not everyone would have dared.
He was happy, he congratulated himself laughing and trembling.
(He had not spoken of it to his wife.
He had not dared. Women are perhaps jealous.
It is better not to make trouble in one’s household.
And to have peace.
He had arranged that all alone.
It is safer. And one is more at peace.)
Since that time everything went well.
Naturally.
How could you expect it to go otherwise—
Than well.
Since it was the Holy Virgin who was meddling in it.
Who had taken charge of it.
She knows better than we.

And She, who had taken them, yet she had some before these three.
(He had pulled off a unique stroke.
Why do not all Christians do it?)

He had been right boldly hardy.
But who risks nothing has nothing.
Only the most ashamed lose.
It is even curious that all Christians do not do as much.
It is so simple.
One never thinks of what is simple.

One searches, one searches, one gives oneself trouble, one never thinks of what is most simple.

In the end one is a fool, better to say it at once.

And She, who had taken them, yet she did not lack them.
She had some before these three, she would have some, she had some after.
She had had, she would have some in the ages of ages.

And She, who had taken them, he knew well that she would take them.
She would not have the heart to leave them orphans.
(How cowardly he had been, all the same).
She could not leave them at the corner of a milestone.
(That is indeed what he had counted on,
the rascal).
She was indeed forced to take them,
She who had taken them.
He congratulated himself for it still.

And yet one is so proud of having children.
(But men are not jealous).
And of seeing them eat and of seeing them grow.
And in the evening of seeing them sleep like angels.
And of kissing them morning and evening, and at noon.
Right in the middle of the hair.

When they bow their heads innocently like a colt that bows its head.

As supple as a colt, playing like a colt.
As supple in the neck and in the nape. And in all the body and the back.
Like a stem all supple and all mounting of a vigorous plant.
Of a young plant.
Like the very stem of mounting hope.

They curve the back laughing like a young, like a beautiful colt, and the neck, and the nape, and all the head.

To present to the father, to the father’s kiss, just the middle of the head.

The middle of the hair, the birth, the origin, the point of origin of the hair.
That point, just in the middle of the head, that center from which all the hair starts, turning, in a circle, in a spiral.

That amuses them so.
(They amuse themselves all the time).
They make a game of it. They make a game of everything.

They hum, they sing songs of which one has no idea at all and which they invent as they go, they sing all the time. And in the same movement they come back without having almost stopped.
Like a young stem that sways in the wind and which comes back of its natural movement.

For them the father’s kiss is a game, an amusement, a ceremony.
A welcome.
A thing that goes of itself, very good, of no importance.
A naïveté.
To which they do not even pay attention.
So to speak.
It is so much the custom.
It is so much owed to them.
They have a pure heart.
They receive it like a piece of bread.
They play, they amuse themselves with it as with a piece of bread.

The father’s kiss. It is the daily bread. If they suspected what it is for the father.

The poor little things. But that is not their concern.
They have plenty of time to know it later.

They find only, when their eyes meet the gaze of the father.

That he does not look as if he is amusing himself enough.
In life.

And children when they cry.
It is infinitely better than when we laugh.
For they cry in hope.
And we laugh only in faith and in charity.

He has therefore placed his children in a safe place and he is content and he laughs within himself and he laughs even out loud and he rubs his hands.

At the good trick he has played.
I mean at the great invention he has had. That he has made.
(For also he could no longer endure it).
He has put his children back, set down between the arms of the Holy Virgin.
And he has gone off with arms swinging.

He has gone off with empty hands.
He who had handed them over.
Like a man who was carrying a basket.
And who could no longer endure it and whose shoulders ached.
And who has set his basket on the ground.
Or who has handed it over to a person.

It is the opposite of a man who has hired his children out on a farm.
For he who has hired his children out on a farm.
He remains the owner of his children.
And it is the farmer who becomes the tenant of them. The farmer.
He on the contrary no longer wants to be anything but the tenant of his children.

He has only the usufruct of them.
And it is the good God who has the bare (and the full) ownership.
But the good God is a good owner.

Admire how wise this man is.
This man who no longer wants to be anything but the farmer of his children.
This man who goes off, who turns back with empty hands.
For God is not jealous, nor the Holy Virgin.
They will leave him peaceably all the enjoyment of his children.
It is agreeable to have God as owner.

He is clever, this man, he has handed his children over into the arms of the Holy Virgin, into the hands of God.

Of God their creator.
And their owner.
Is not all creation in the hands of God.
Is not all creation the property of God.

Children when they cry are happier than we when we laugh.

And when they are ill they are unhappier than anything in the world.

And more touching.
Because we feel and they feel well that it is already
A diminution of their childhood.
And the first mark of their aging.
Toward death.
Temporal.

And she, who had taken them, she was

So touching and so beautiful. (While he went off with a light heart).

And she, who had taken them, she was
So touching and so pure.
Not only altogether in faith and in charity.
But altogether in hope itself.

Pure and young like hope. (While he went off with arms swinging.)

And she, who had taken them, she was

In her tender youth. (While he went off with both hands empty).

And she, who had taken them, she was
In her eternal youth.

There are days in existence when one feels that one can no longer content oneself with patron saints.

Be it said without offending anyone.
(And she, who had taken them, she was
So charged with family).
One feels that the patron saints no longer suffice.
(Be it said without offending them).
There is a great danger and one must mount higher.
Better to deal with the good God than with his saints.
(And she, who had taken them, she was
So touching and so pure.
Mater Dei, mother of God,
Mother of Jesus and of all men his brothers.
The brothers of Jesus.)
One must mount directly to the good God and to the Holy Virgin.
(And she, who had taken them, she had
So many children on her arms.
All the children of men.
Since that little first whom she had carried in her arms.
That little man who laughed like a jewel.
And who has since caused her so much torment.
Because he died for the salvation of the world.)
And she, who had taken them, she was

So ardent and so pure. There are days when one feels well that one can no longer content oneself with ordinary saints.
That ordinary saints no longer suffice. And she, who had taken them, she was

So young and so powerful.
So powerful with God.
So powerful with the Almighty.

And she, who had taken them, she was
So charged with sorrows.
And she had seen so many since that little fellow.
Who laughed while suckling.
For it is a long time since she has been only the Mother of the Seven Sorrows.
The seven sorrows were for a beginning.
And it is a long time since she has been and since we have made her
The Mother of seventy and of seventy times seventy sorrows.

But who is also all hope.
And this is seven times more difficult.
As it is also seven times more gracious.
Thus she she has taken in charge and in tutelage.
And in commendation for eternity.
The young virtue Hope.

One must tell the truth. He is nevertheless a very great saint, that saint Marcel.
And a very great patron.

(Although one does not know exactly what he did. But one must not say so.

And there may even perhaps have been several of him.

But in the end he was a great saint, let us say even a saint, that is already a great deal).

But there are days when one must go higher.

One must not be afraid to tell the truth. She is nevertheless a very great saint, that saint Germaine.

And a very great patroness. And who must be very powerful.

(Although one does not know exactly what she did. But one must not say so.) But what does it matter, she did at least the thing that she was a saint and a great saint. And that is already a great deal.

That is already everything.
To be only a saint, that is already everything.

And there is her fellow saint Germain, who can serve, born at Auxerre, bishop of Auxerre, who shall have this eternal glory
Of having consecrated to God our great saint and our great patroness and our great friend.

Saint Geneviève
who was a simple shepherdess.

Saint Germain, called the Auxerrois, born at Auxerre, bishop of Auxerre,
Bishop and saint of the time of the barbarian armies,
And of the pushing back of the barbarian armies,
Bishop and saint of France,
And who can serve as a patron.
As a very great patron.

And this saint Geneviève, born at Nanterre.
A Parisian, patroness of Paris.

Patroness and saint of France there are great patrons and great saints.

Saint Marcel, saint Germain, saint Geneviève.
Yet there are days when the greatest friendships are not enough.
Neither Marcel nor Geneviève,
Geneviève our great friend.
Neither the greatest patronages nor the greatest sanctities.
There are days when patrons and saints are not enough.

The greatest patrons and the greatest saints.
The ordinary patrons, the ordinary saints.

And when one must climb, climb still, climb always; always higher, go yet further.

Up to the last sanctity, the last purity, the last beauty, the last patronage.

One must have the courage to tell the truth. Saint Peter is a great saint and a great patron among all patrons.
(One knows very well what he did, that one, but it is perhaps better not to speak of it too much).

But he is indeed a very great patron.
For he was the cornerstone.
And the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against her.
Tu es Petrus, et super hanc petram.
And eternally he is Peter and upon this rock.

And for him who wishes to enter Paradise he is indeed the greatest patron that one could invent.
For he is at the gate and he has the gate and he is the “porter and he has the keys.

He is the eternal Porter and the eternal Key-bearer.
He bears at his belt the great ring of keys.
And yet I swear to you that he is not a prison guard.
For he is the guardian of eternal Liberty.

And in a prison, from a prison the prisoners would gladly escape. But in paradise on the contrary those who are in paradise are nowhere near going away.

There is no danger that they will ask to go away.
One would have to pay them dearly to make them go.
They would not wish to give their place to others.

Consequently one could not find a better patron than saint Peter.

But there comes a day, there comes an hour.
There comes a moment when saint Marcel and saint Germaine.

And saint Germain himself and our great friend that great saint Geneviève.

And even that great saint Peter himself is no longer enough.
And when one must resolutely do what must be done.

Then one must take one’s courage in both hands.
And address oneself directly to her who is above all.

Be bold. For once. Address oneself boldly to her who is infinitely beautiful.

Because also she is infinitely good.

To her who intercedes.
The only one who can speak with the authority of a mother.

Address oneself boldly to her who is infinitely pure.
Because also she is infinitely sweet.

To her who is infinitely noble.
Because also she is infinitely courteous.
Infinitely welcoming.

Welcoming like the priest who at the threshold of the church goes out to meet the newborn child as far as the threshold.

On the day of his baptism.
To introduce him into the house of God.

To her who is infinitely rich.
Because also she is infinitely poor.

To her who is infinitely high.
Because also she is infinitely descending.

To her who is infinitely great.
Because also she is infinitely small.
Infinitely humble.
A young mother.

To her who is infinitely young.
Because also she is infinitely mother.

To her who is infinitely upright.
Because also she is infinitely bent.

To her who is infinitely joyful.
Because also she is infinitely sorrowful.

Seventy and seven times seventy times sorrowful.
To her who is infinitely touching.
Because also she is infinitely touched.

To her who is all Grandeur and all Faith.
Because also she is all Charity.

To her who is all Faith and all Charity.
Because also she is all Hope.

Happily the saints are not jealous of one another.

That would be the last straw.
That would be a little too much.

And together happily they are not jealous of the holy Virgin.

That is even what is called the communion of saints.

They know well who she is, and that as much as the child surpasses the man in purity.

Just so much and seventy times as much she surpasses them in purity.

Just as much as the child surpasses the man in youth.

Just so much and seventy times as much she surpasses the saints, (even the greatest saints), in youth and in childhood.

Just as much as the child surpasses the man in hope.

Just so much and seventy times as much she surpasses the saints, (even the greatest saints), in faith, in charity, in hope.

Man is nothing beside the child in purity, in youth, in hope.

In childhood.
In innocence.
In ignorance.
In powerlessness.
In newness.

So, just so much and seventy times as much, the saint men and saint women, the greatest saint women and the greatest saint men

Are nothing beside her in childhood and in purity.
In innocence and in youth.
In ignorance, in powerlessness, in newness.
In faith, in charity, in hope.

Geneviève, my child, was a simple shepherdess.
Jesus too was a simple shepherd.
But what a shepherd, my child.
Shepherd of what flock. Pastor of what sheep.
In what country of the world.

Pastor of the hundred sheep that have remained in the fold, pastor of the lost sheep, pastor of the sheep who returns,
And who, to help her to return, for her legs can no longer carry her,

Her broken-down legs,

Gently takes her up and himself carries her back upon his shoulders,
Upon his two shoulders,
Gently bent in a half-crown around his neck,
The head of the sheep gently leaned thus upon his right shoulder,
Which is the good side,
Upon the right shoulder of Jesus,
Which is the side of the good,

And the body half rolled all around about the neck and around the nape,

About the neck in a half-crown,
Like a woollen scarf that keeps warm.
So the sheep herself keeps warm her own pastor,
The woollen sheep.
The two forefeet duly and properly held in the right hand,
Which is the good side,
Held and clasped,
Gently but firmly,

The two hindfeet duly and properly held in the left hand,

Gently but firmly,
As one holds a child when one plays at carrying him astride
On the two shoulders,

The right leg in the right hand, the left leg in the left hand.

Thus the Saviour, thus the good pastor, which means the good shepherd
Carries back astride this sheep that had been lost,

that was about to be lost

So that the stones of the road may no longer bruise her bruised feet.
Because there will be more joy in heaven for this sinner who returns,

Than for a hundred just men who shall not have departed.
For the hundred just men who shall not have departed shall have remained.
They shall have remained only in faith and in charity.
But this sinner who departed and who almost lost himself
By his very departure and because he was about to fail at the evening call

He gave birth to fear and thus he made hope itself spring up

In the very heart of God,
In the heart of Jesus
The trembling of fear and the shudder,
The quivering of hope.

Through this lost sheep Jesus knew fear in love.

And what divine hope puts of trembling into charity itself.

And God was afraid of having to condemn her.

Through this sheep and because she was not returning to the fold and because she was about to fail at the evening call,

Jesus as a man knew human anxiety,
Jesus made man,
He knew what anxiety is at the very heart of charity,
The gnawing anxiety at the heart of a charity thus worm-eaten,

But thus also he knew what the very first point is of the thrust of hope.

When the young virtue hope begins to push at the heart of man,
Under the rough bark,
Like a first bud of April.

Thus Geneviève was a shepherdess but Mary
Is the mother of the shepherd himself
And so long as there shall be a fold,
That is to say a sheepfold,
She is the mother of the eternal shepherd.

So therefore one must some day, once, go back up
To her who intercedes.
After Marcel and Germaine and Germain,
Geneviève and saint Peter.
After the patrons, the patronesses, the saints,
After the eternal patroness of Paris.

And even after the eternal patron of Rome
One must climb
To her who is the most imposing.
Because also she is the most maternal.

To her who is infinitely white.
Because also she is the mother of the Good Pastor,
of the Man who hoped.

(And he was quite right to hope, since he succeeded in bringing back the sheep).

To her who is infinitely celestial.
Because also she is infinitely terrestrial.

To her who is infinitely eternal.
Because also she is infinitely temporal.

To her who is infinitely above us.
Because also she is infinitely among us.

To her who is the mother and the queen of angels.
Because also she is the mother and the queen of men.
Queen of the heavens, earthly regent.

(Empress of the infernal marshes).

To her who is Mary.
Because she is full of grace.

To her who is full of grace
Because she is with us.

To her who is with us.
Because the Lord is with her.

To her who intercedes.
Because she is blessed among all women.
And because Jesus, the fruit of her womb, is blessed.

To her who is full of grace.
Because she is full of grace.

She who is infinitely queen
Because she is the most humble of creatures.

Because she was a poor woman, a wretched woman, a poor Jewess of Judea.

To her who is infinitely far
Because she is infinitely near.

To her who is the highest princess

Because she is the most humble woman.

To her who is the closest to God
Because she is the closest to men.

To her who is infinitely saved
Because in her turn she saves infinitely.

To her who is the most agreeable to God.

To her who is full of grace
Because also she is full of efficacy
Now.

And because she is full of grace and full of efficacy
And at the hour of our death so be it.

For having conceived and for having brought forth,
For having nourished and for having borne
The Man who feared,
The Man who hoped.

(And he was quite right to hope, since he succeeded in saving so many saint women and so many saint men. At least to begin with. In sum after all he succeeded all the same).

To her who is the sole Queen
Because she is the most humble subject.

To her who is the first after God
Because she is the first before man.

The first before men and women.
The first before sinners.

The first before saint women and saint men.
The first before carnal man.

And as well the first before the angels themselves.

Listen, my child, I shall explain to you, listen to me well,
I shall explain to you why,
how, in what
the holy Virgin is a creature unique, rare,
Of an infinite rareness,
Above all preeminent,
Unique among all creatures.
Follow me well. I do not know whether you will understand me well.
The whole of creation was pure. Follow me well.
(In sum Jesus succeeded, one must not be too difficult.
One must not be too demanding.
With life.

Since he was able all the same to bring back, to gather this sheaf of saints.
That ascending he cast at the feet of his father.
And the souls of the just whom he had perfumed with his virtues).
So the whole of creation was pure.

As it had come forth, as it had sprung up pure and young and new from the hands of its Creator.

But the sin of Satan seduced, corrupted the half of the angels.

And the sin of Adam seduced, corrupted in the blood the totality of men.

So that there was no longer anything pure but the half of the angels.
And nothing of men,
No one of men,
In all of creation,

Of native purity, of young purity, of first purity, of created purity, of child purity, of the purity of creation itself.

When was created that unique creature.
Blessed among all women,

Infinitely unique, infinitely rare,
Now.

Infinitely agreeable to God.
And at the hour of our death so be it,
Preeminent among all.

When at last, when one day of the times was created for eternity,
For the salvation of the world that unique creature.
To be the Mother of God.
To be a woman and yet to be pure.

Listen to me well, my child, follow me well, it is difficult to explain to you.
In what she is to that point a unique creature. But follow me well.

To every creature something is lacking.
Not only that they are not the Creator,
God their creator.
(This is in order.
It is order itself).
That they are not their own Creator.
But moreover something is always lacking to them.

To those who are carnal precisely it is lacking to be pure.

We know it.
But to those who are pure precisely it is lacking to be carnal.

It must be known.

And to her on the contrary nothing is lacking.
Unless truly to be God himself.
To be her Creator.
But this is order).

For being carnal she is pure.
But, being pure, she is also carnal.

And it is thus that she is not only a woman unique among all women.

But that she is a creature unique among all creatures.

Literally the first after God. After the Creator.
Immediately after.
She whom one finds in descending, as soon as one descends from God
In the celestial hierarchy.

In this disaster. In this defect. In this lack.

In this disaster of the half of the angels and of the totality of men there was no longer anything carnal that was pure,

Of the purity of birth.
When one day this woman was born of the tribe of Judah
For the salvation of the world
Because she was full of grace.

And moreover Joseph was of the house of David
Which was the house of Jacob.

When she was born quite full of her first innocence.
As pure as Eve before the first sin.

See that ye despise not one of these little ones: for I say unto you, that their angels in the heavens do always behold the face of my Father, who is in heaven.

For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost.

What think ye? If a man have a hundred sheep, and one of them be lost on the way;

(Gone astray of the road);

doth he not leave the ninety and nine in the mountains, and goeth to seek that which is lost?

And if so be that he find it: Verily I say unto you, that he rejoiceth more over it than over the ninety and nine which went not astray.

Even so it is not the will before your Father, who is in the heavens, that one of these little ones should perish.

The Good Pastor that is to say the good shepherd.
Through her he knew anxiety.
Through her, this one who had not remained with the ninety-nine others.
The mortal anxiety.
(The devouring anxiety in the heart of Jesus).
The anxiety of not finding her again. Of not knowing.
Of never finding her again. The human anxiety.
The mortal anxiety of having to condemn her.
But finally he is saved.
He himself the saviour he is saved.
He is saved from having to condemn her.
As he breathes again.
That is always one saved.
He shall not have to condemn this soul.

Through this little sheep who had only mistaken the road,
(It can happen to anybody),

et erraverit una ex eis,

and it has happened to the greatest saints
To take the road of sin

Through this little sheep of soul man, made man, he knew the anxiety of man.
But through this silly little sheep of soul (who gave him such a great fright) man, made man, he knew the hope of man.

Through this little sheep of nothing at all who had gone astray, through this creature sheep

Man, made man, he knew budding hope,

The budding of hope which springs in the heart sweeter than the fine bud of April.

To every creature something is lacking, and not only being not Creator.

To those who are carnal, we know it, it is lacking to be pure.

But to those who are pure, it must be known, it is lacking to be carnal.

One alone is pure being carnal.
One alone is carnal together being pure.

That is why the holy Virgin is not only the greatest benediction that has fallen upon the earth.
But the greatest benediction itself that has descended into all creation.

She is not only the first among all women,

Blessed among all women,

She is not only the first among all creatures,
She is a unique creature, infinitely unique, infinitely rare.

One alone and no other together carnal and pure. For on the side of the angels
The angels would be quite pure, but they are pure spirits, they are not carnal.
They do not know what it is to have a body, to be a body.

They do not know what it is to be this poor creature.
Carnal.
A body kneaded from the clay of this earth.
Carnal.
They do not know this mysterious bond, this created bond,

Infinitely mysterious,
Of the soul and of the body.
For God did not create only the soul and the body.
The immortal soul and the mortal body but which shall be resurrected.
But he created also, by a third creation he created
This mysterious link, this created link,
This attachment, this binding of the body and of the soul,
Of a spirit and of a matter,
Of the immortal and of the mortal but which shall be resurrected
And the soul is bound to the mud and to the ashes.
To the mud when it rains and to the ashes when it is dry.
And yet bound thus the soul must make her salvation.

Like a good plough-horse, like a loyal and vigorous beast, like a big Lorraine beast that draws the plough.
By her vigour and her strength it is not only that she must move herself, draw herself, drag herself along.

That she must carry herself on her four feet.

But by this same vigour and strength she must also move and draw and drag the inert plough.
Inert without her, which cannot move itself alone, draw itself, drag itself alone,

Move itself, drag itself, draw itself without her.

Inert without her but laborious with her, working through her, acting through her.

That plough which behind her ploughs the Lorraine earth.
(But which ploughs it on one condition, which is that one draw it).

Like the plough-horse, the good beast must not only carry itself and move itself,

On its four legs, on its four feet,

But together drag this plough which, thus animated, behind it ploughs the earth,

Thus the soul, that beast of labour, and of a terrestrial labour,
Of a carnal labour,

Not only must the soul move and carry herself on the four virtues,

Draw and drag herself.
But she must move and carry,
Still she must draw and drag

This body sunk in the earth which behind her ploughs the glebe of the earth.

This inert body, without her inanimate.
Inert without her, laborious through her,
Which animated by her working can plough this earth,
Succeeds in ploughing it.

It is not only that she must make her salvation, she for herself, she for self.
She must also make her salvation for him, her salvation, hers the soul, for him the body.

And she must make together his salvation, of him who shall be resurrected.

Their common salvation, together their double salvation that after the last judgment,

Immediately after,
Together they may share in the common eternal felicity,
She the immortal, and he the mortal and the dead but the resurrected,
He having only become a glorious body.
As the two hands are joined in prayer,
And the one is not more unjust than the other,
Thus the body and the soul are like two hands joined.

And the one and the other together they shall enter together into eternal life.
And they shall be two hands joined, together, for that which is infinitely more than prayer.

And infinitely more than the sacrament.
Or both together they shall fall back like two wrists bound
For an eternal captivity.

Like a good ploughman to plough this heavy earth,
Which sticks to the share of the plough,
Yokes to the vigorous horse the plough (itself vigorous,
But in itself inert),
(And he does not put the plough before the oxen),
Thus the Lord God to plough this carnal earth,
This fat earth which sticks to the body and the heart of man,
This heavy earth,
This earthly earth,
And of-the-earth,

(Queen of the heavens, earthly regent),

Thus the Lord God has yoked the body to the soul.

And as the plough-horse must draw for itself and for the plough,

So the soul must draw also for herself and for the body,
That she may make her salvation, their salvation, for herself and for the body.
For neither of the two, neither the one nor the other shall be saved without the other.

We have no choice. We must be two hands joined or two wrists bound.

Two hands joined which rise joined for felicity.
Two wrists bound which fall back bound for captivity.
Neither shall the hands be disjoined nor the wrists be unbound.
For God himself has bound the immortal to the mortal.
And to the dead but which shall be resurrected.

There, my child, is what the angels do not know.
I mean there is what they have not experienced.

What it is to have this body; to have this bond with this body; to be this body.
To have this bond with the earth, with this earth, to be this earth, the clay and the dust, the ashes and the mud of the earth,

The very body of Jesus.

Thus the soul must not make only for herself, she must not make only for self.

But she must make also for her servant the body.
Like a rich man who comes to wish to pass over a bridge.
He pays the toll-keeper who has a little sentry-box at the entrance of the bridge.

He pays a sou for himself and together a sou also for his servant who follows him.
Thus the soul must pay for the soul and the body, the soul must make for the soul and the body.

For it is always she, the soul, who is a rich man,

And he the poor body, do what he will, say what he will, with all his pride he will never be more than a poor creature

And it is always he who is in the wrong.
(Even when he is in the right).
Especially when he is in the right.

There, my child, is what the angels do not know, I mean what they have not experienced.

The sins of the flesh and the unique remissions of the flesh.

The sins which are of the flesh and which are only of the flesh.

And which every creature ignores who is not carnal.

The sins of the flesh and of the earthly earth which the angels know only for having heard tell of them.

Like a story of another world.
And almost so to speak of another creation.

The carnal sins which the angels do not know.
I mean which they have not experienced.

The sins of the body and of the earthly heart.
(Redeemed by the body and by the heart).

The sins of the flesh and of the blood.
(Redeemed by the flesh and by the Blood).

The earthly sins.
The sins of-the-earth.
The sins of-the-soil.
The sins of the glebe.
And of the earthly earth.

The first carnal sin, when in a sudden blow the blood rises in you and beats at your temples, in a stroke of anger.

In a movement of anger.
The sin of anger.

The second carnal sin, my child, the greatest sin that has ever fallen into the world.

When the blood sinks in the heart, the sin of despair.

And on the road of despair, my child, the greatest temptation that has ever passed in the world.

When the blood trembles and panics in the heart.
The greatest carnal temptation.
But is it really a temptation.
The temptation of mortal anxiety.
When the Pastor himself was afraid and trembled in his heart

Of having to condemn her, to lose her, I mean to leave her lost.
The mortal fear, the mortal anxiety of having to condemn to death.

Precisely I mean of having to leave condemned to death.

In montibus, in the mountains, when he was afraid of never finding her again.

Of being forced
To leave her lost in the night of a death
Eternal.

The sins of the flesh, but the remissions of the flesh,
They do not know either the carnal remissions.
That infinite remission, eternal and at one stroke.
And together inseparably temporal and carnal.
When all the sin of the world together and at one stroke

Was redeemed by the setting upon the cross of a man’s body.

When the thorns of the crown of thorns made fall in drops from the brow upon the face the drops of a man’s blood.
When the four nails of the limbs made fall in drops upon the earth and on the wood of the cross a man’s blood.
When the Roman lance, piercing a man’s side, made flow upon the side a man’s blood.

And preceding even this total remission
And global

As the dauphin in the cortège of the king precedes the globe of the empire and of the earth,
And as a child in a procession precedes the very Body and the Holy Sacrament,
Preceding every remission they do not know that which is almost sweeter than remission itself.

So to speak.
When the blood announces itself and begins to rise slowly to the heart,
The young hope,
The movement of hope.
When a young blood begins to flow back toward the heart.

As the young sap of April begins to drip, to point under the hard bark.

What commandment, what authority, what brutality, what crushing of hope.

See that ye despise not one of these little ones:

A single one:
for I say unto you,
that their angels in the heavens
do always behold the face of my Father, who is in heaven.

As one sees, as one feels the sap in the month of May
Spring up under the hard bark,
So one feels, so one sees in the month of Easter
A new blood rise and spring up
Under the hard bark of the heart,
Under the bark of anger, under the bark of despair,
Under the hard bark of sin.

There is what they do not know, neither the greatest carnal sin.

When the blood rises and swells and tumefies in the heart and in the head.
When in a sudden movement, in an enormous movement the blood rises and swells and boils.

In a movement of pride.
When the blood, like a beast, leaps, in a blow.
Like a bird of prey, like a beast of prey
In a stroke of pride.
Pride, the greatest sin that ever fell upon the earth
And into all creation.
The pride of the body, the pride of the blood, the pride of the flesh.

Which swells and buzzes in all the body like a tempest of buzzing.

And which beats at the temples like a roll of drums.
The ancient pride, old as the race, old as the flesh,
and as the sap of the birch.
Like the sap and the blood of pride, like the sap and the blood of the oak
Carnal pride, there is what they do not know,
What they have in no wise experienced.
They too had their pride, I mean those who were lost
Through pride, Lucifer, Satan. Their pride of perdition.
But it was a pale pride, a bloodless pride,
A pride of spirit, a pride of head,
In no wise a pride of heart and of blood,
In no wise a pride of body,
In no wise a pride of this earthly
Earth.

It was a pride of thought, a poor pride of idea.
A pale pride, a vain pride all gone up to the head.
A smoke.
In no wise a fat and gross pride nourished on fat and on blood.
All bursting with health.
The skin shining.
And which also could not be redeemed except by the flesh and the blood.

A pride all bloated with blood
Which buzzes in the ears
By the buzzing of the blood,
A pride which injects the eyes with blood,
And which beats the drum in the temples,
There is what they do not know.

They do not know therefore that there is an Easter
An Easter day, an Easter Sunday
An Easter week
A month of Easter
For the rising, for the rising-again of carnal hope
As there is for the sap of the oak and of the birch
A month of April, a month of May.

They do not know all this carnal pride, this full carnal pride, this hot carnal pride,

Of a boiling blood.
They do not know therefore the carnal remission
Of the blood shed.

They do not know the gross pride of man,
All full of self.
All fat.
All bloated, all nourished on self.
They do not know so much fat, so much guzzling
Which could be compensated

Only by the frightful, only by the dreadful gauntness,
Only by the unfleshing
Of Jesus on his cross.

They do not know the old royal pride, they do not know the ancient pride,
The sanguine pride, bursting from self, the pride which bursts in its own skin, they do not know therefore

That the young, that the carnal, that the timid hope
Walks at the head of the cortège,
Innocent advances
Because she is dauphin of France.

What brutality, my child, what imposition, what violence of God.

What crushing, what commandment of hope.
See that ye despise not a single one of these little ones:
For I say unto you,
That their angels in the heavens do always behold the face of my Father,
Who is in heaven.

Jesus Christ, my child, did not come to tell us nonsense.
You understand, he did not make the journey of coming upon the earth,

A great journey, between us,
(And he was so well where he was).
(Before coming.
He had not all our cares).
He did not make the journey of descending upon earth
To come to tell us little amusements
And jokes.
One has not the time to amuse oneself.
He did not put, he did not employ, he did not spend
The thirty-three years of his terrestrial life,
Of his carnal life,
The thirty years of his private life,
The three years of his public life,
The three days of his passion and his death,
(And in the limbo the three days of his sepulchre),
He did not put, he did not employ, he did not spend all that,

His thirty years of work and his three years of preaching and his three days of passion and of death.

His thirty-three years of prayer,
His incarnation, which is properly his in-fleshing,

His setting in flesh and in carnal, his setting in man and his setting on the cross and his setting in the tomb,

His enfleshment and his torture,

His life of man and his life of workman and his life of priest and his life of saint and his life of martyr,

His life of faithful,
His life of Jesus,
To come afterwards (at the same time) to peddle silliness to us.
He did not put, he did not employ, he did not spend all that,

He did not make all this expense
Considerable
To come to give us, to give us afterwards
Riddles
To guess
Like a sorcerer.
Playing the sly one.

No, no, my child, and Jesus no more gave us dead words

That we should have to enclose in little boxes
(Or in great ones),
And that we should have to preserve in rancid oil
Like the mummies of Egypt.

Jesus Christ, my child, has not given us preserves of words

To keep,
But he gave us living words
To nourish.
Ego sum via, veritas et vita,
I am the way, the truth and the life.

The words of life, the living words can only be preserved living,

Nourished living,
Nourished, borne, warmed, warm in a living heart.

Not at all preserved mouldy in little boxes of wood or of cardboard.

As Jesus took, was forced to take a body, to put on flesh
To pronounce these (carnal) words and to make them heard,
To be able to pronounce them,

So we, in like manner we, in imitation of Jesus,
So we, who are flesh, must profit from it,

Profit from the fact that we are carnal to preserve them, to warm them again, to nourish them in us living and carnal,
(There, my child, is what the angels themselves do not know, there is what they have not experienced).
As a carnal mother nourishes, and fosters upon her heart her last-born,

Her carnal nursling, upon her breast,
Well laid in the fold of her arm,
So, profiting from the fact that we are carnal,
We must nourish, we have to nourish in our heart,
Of our flesh and of our blood,
Of our heart,
The carnal Words,
The eternal Words, temporally, carnally pronounced.
Miracle of miracles, my child, mystery of mysteries.
Because Jesus Christ has become our carnal brother

Because he pronounced temporally and carnally the eternal words,

In monte, on the mountain,
It is to us, infirm, that it has been given,
It is upon us that it depends, infirm and carnal,
To make live and to nourish and to keep living in time
These words pronounced living in time.
Mystery of mysteries, this privilege has been given us,
This incredible, exorbitant privilege,
To preserve living the words of life,

To nourish from our blood, from our flesh, from our heart
Words which without us would fall back unfleshed.

To assure, (it is incredible), to assure to the eternal words
Besides as a second eternity,

A temporal and carnal eternity, an eternity of flesh and of blood,

A nourishment, an eternity of body,
An earthly eternity.

Thus the words of Jesus, the eternal words are the nurslings, the living nurslings of our blood and of our heart

Of us who live in time.

As the last of the peasant-women, if the queen in her palace cannot nurse the dauphin

Because she lacks milk,

Then the last peasant-woman of the last parish may be summoned to the palace,

Provided she be a good nurse,
And she may be summoned to nurse a son of France,
So we all daughters of all the parishes
We are summoned to nurse the word of the son of God.

O misery, O misfortune, it is to us that it falls,
It is to us that it belongs, it is upon us that it depends
To make it heard in the centuries of centuries,

To make it resound.

O misery, O happiness, it is upon us that it depends,
Trembling of happiness,

We who are nothing, we who pass upon earth a few years of nothing,

A few poor miserable years,
(We immortal souls),
O danger, peril of death, it is we who are charged,

We who can do nothing, who are nothing, who are not assured of the morrow,
Nor of the very day, who are born and who die like creatures of a day,

Who pass like hired hands,
It is still we who are charged,
We who in the morning are not sure of the evening,
Nor even of noon,
And who in the evening are not sure of the morning,
Of the next morning,

It is senseless, it is still we who are charged, it is uniquely upon us that it depends

To assure to the Words a second eternity
Eternal.
A singular perpetuity.

It is to us that it belongs, it is upon us that it depends to assure to the words

A perpetuity eternal, a perpetuity carnal,
A perpetuity nourished on meat, on fat and on blood.

We who are nothing, who do not last,
Who last so to say nothing
(Upon earth)

It is senseless, it is still we who are charged with preserving and nourishing eternal

Upon earth
The spoken words, the word of God.

Mystery, danger, happiness, misfortune, grace of God,
unique choice,
frightful responsibility, misery, greatness of our life,
we ephemeral creatures that is to say who pass only a day,
who last only a day,
poor life-tenant women who work like hired hands,

who stop in a country only to make the harvest only or the vintage,
who hire themselves for a wage for a fortnight three weeks only,

and who immediately afterwards set out again upon the road,
on the way,
turn at the corner of the poplars,
we simple travellers, poor travellers, fragile travellers,
precarious travellers,
eternal tramps,
who enter into life and immediately go out,
like tramps who enter a farm for a meal only,
for a loaf of bread and for a glass of wine,

we feeble, we fragile, we precarious, we unworthy, we infirm,
we other shepherdesses, we light, we passing, we life-tenant,

(but not at all, in no wise foreign),
unique grace, (risk of what disgrace?),
Fragile it is upon us that it depends whether the eternal word
Shall resound or shall not resound.

In carnal hearts, there, my child, is what the angels do not know.

Otherwise than by hearsay,
But they themselves have not experienced it,

In carnal hearts, in precarious hearts, in life-tenant hearts,

In hearts that break
A word is preserved, is nourished
Which shall not break eternally,

In fragile hearts a word which shall always be found again.

That is why, my child, for that very reason,
(You recognize yourself in this, you find yourself in this),
That is why France, why Christendom must continue;
So that the eternal word may not fall back dead in a silence,
In a carnal void.

It is therefore for that very reason,
(We come back to it, my child, you recognize the road),
It is precisely for that,
It is for that very reason, it is just for that,
That nothing of all that,
And even nothing of all,
(Thus, in this, through this, by the play of this),
That absolutely nothing of all
Holds except through young
Hope,
Through her who always begins again and who always promises,
Who guarantees everything.
Who guarantees tomorrow to today and this evening and this noon to this morning,
And life to life and eternity itself to time.

Through her who guarantees, through her who promises to the morning the day
Entire,
To the spring the year
Entire,
To childhood life
Entire,
To time eternity
Entire,
To creation God himself
Entire.

To the harvest the wheat
Entire,
To the vine the wine
Entire.

To the kingdom the king and to the king the kingdom and thus the entire world, and the eternal and the temporal, and the spiritual and the carnal,

And creation and God
Holds (easily) in his little hands.

To assure this carnal perpetuity God
(Miracle, it is the vase that breaks,
Which even breaks perpetually,
And not a drop of the liquor is lost),
So that the word may not fall back inert
Like a dead bird God must
One after the other create these perishable creatures,
These men and these women,
(Who shall become sinners and saints),
One after the other the parishes and in the parishes

(Miracle of miracles the imperishable is saved from perishing only by the perishable)

(And the eternal is maintained, is nourished eternal only by the temporal)
And in the parishes once founded, once created,

(Lorraine must, Toul must, Vaucouleurs must, Domremy must continue),

In the parishes one after the other these perishable creatures,
One after the other these (immortal) perishable souls,

And these perishable bodies and these hearts
To nourish living the imperishable word.

God must create them, one after the other God must create some. There must be some born.

That is his affair, it is his office, one is sure that it is well done.
He provides for it, he shall provide for it eternally.
But what is our affair, alas, and our office,
We perishable created, perishable creatures,
Once created, once born, once baptized,
Once women and Christians,
What unhappily depends on us, happily,
One after the other is to nourish the living word,
Is to nourish for a time the eternal word.
After so many others, before so many others.
Since it was spoken.
Until the threshold of the Judgment.

In saecula saeculorum.
In the centuries of centuries.
From generation to generation.
Since the beginning of the centuries.
Until the consummation of the centuries
Of the earth.

As at the threshold of the church on Sundays and feast days,
When one goes to the mass,

Or at burials,
One passes, one gives one another the holy water from hand to hand,
From near to near, one after the other.

Directly from hand to hand or a piece of blessed boxwood dipped in the holy water.
To make the sign of the cross either upon oneself living, upon ourselves, or upon the coffin of him who is dead,
So that the same sign of the cross is as if borne from near to near by the same water,

By the ministry, by the administration of the same water,
One after the other upon the same breasts and upon the same hearts,
And upon the same brows,
And even upon the coffins of the same departed bodies,
So from hand to hand, from finger to finger,
From the tip of the finger to the tip of the finger the eternal generations,
Who eternally go to the mass,

In the same breasts, in the same hearts until the burial of the world,

Relaying one another,
In the same hope they pass to one another the word of God.

By the ministry, by the administration of the same hope.

Through her who guarantees, through her who promises, through her who contains in advance.

Through her who promises to eternity
A time.

To the spirit
A flesh.
To Jesus
A Church.
To God himself
A creation, (his creation, the creation),
Reversal, singular reversal, reversal
senseless,
Through her who promises to the eternal
A temporal.
To the spiritual
A carnal.
To Nourishment
A nourishment.
To Life
A life.
Reversal it is as if
she promised
to life childhood,
to the year springtime,
to the day morning.

As the faithful pass to one another from hand to hand the holy water,

So we faithful must pass to one another from heart to heart the word of God.

From hand to hand, from heart to heart we must pass to one another the divine
Hope.

It is not enough that we have been created, that we have been born, that we have been made faithful.

It is necessary, it depends upon us that women and faithful,
It depends upon us Christians
That the eternal lack not the temporal,
(Singular reversal),
That the spiritual lack not the carnal,

One must say everything, it is incredible: that eternity lack not a time,

Of time, of a certain time.
That the spirit lack not flesh.
That the soul so to say lack not body.
That Jesus lack not Church,
His Church.
One must go to the end: That God lack not his creation.

That is to say it depends on us
That hope may not lie in the world.

That is to say, it must be said, it depends on us
That the more lack not the less,
That the infinitely more lack not the infinitely less,
That the infinitely all lack not the infinitely nothing.

It depends upon us that the infinite lack not the finite.
That the perfect lack not the imperfect.

It is a wager, we are lacking, it depends on us
That the great lack not the small,
That the whole lack not a part,
That the infinitely great lack not the infinitely small.
That the eternal lack not the perishable.

It is lacking through us, (it is a derision), it is lacking through us that the Creator

Lack not his creature.

And as on the last day there shall be a great sign of the cross upon the coffin of the world.

Because it shall be the last burial.
So on the last day there shall be a great sign of the cross of benediction.
Because it shall be the accomplishment,
The crowning of hope.

Unique grace, an infirm one, an infirm creature bears God.
And God can lack this creature.
She can be missing in his count and in his census,

When he counts his sheep, missing to his love and to his being itself,
Making his hope lie.

For there is the crowning of thorns but there is
The crowning of hope

Which is the crowning of the branches of a tree without thorns.

Jesus Christ, my child, did not come to tell us nonsense,

During the little time he had.
What are three years in the life of a world.
In the eternity of this world.

He had no time to lose, he did not lose his time telling us nonsense and giving us charades to guess.

Very witty charades.
Very ingenious.
The riddles of a sorcerer.

With words of double meaning and malicious tricks and miserable subtleties of wiliness.

No, he did not lose his time and his pain,
He had not the time,
His pains, his great, his very great pain.

He did not lose, he did not spend all that, all his being, all.

He did not spend himself, all, himself, he did not make this enormous, this dreadful expense

Of self, of his being, (of) all,
To come afterwards, with that, by means of that, at that price,
To come at that price to give us puzzlement
To decipher.

Malices, poor silliness, quid pro quos, witty cunnings like a village soothsayer.

Like a country mountebank.
Like a wandering tumbler, a charlatan in his wagon.
Like the sly one of the town, like the slyest lad at the tavern.

But when the Son of God, my child, took the trouble to leave Heaven and the right hand of his Father.

When he took the trouble to leave being seated at the right hand.
He did not make, he did not furnish this great expense.

He did not make this great upheaval to come and tell us trifles

Worth four cents.
Idle words.
And tangled twistings that one can make nothing of.
But, at that price, he came to tell us what he had to tell us.
Is that not so.
Quite quietly.
Quite simply, quite honestly.

Quite directly. Quite firstly.
Quite ordinarily.
As an honest man speaks to an honest man.
From man to men.
He did not amuse himself by tangling all that up.

He had something to tell us, he told us what he had to tell us.

He did not tell us anything else.
And he did not tell it to us otherwise than he had to tell it to us.
As he had to say, he spoke.
It is fools who play the clever one.
And who always look for noon at two o’clock in the afternoon.
You, when your mother sends you on an errand to the baker’s,
When you go to the baker’s,

You do not all at once set about telling the baker extraordinary things.

You do your errand and then you come back.
You take your bread, you pay, and you go away.
He, it is the same thing, he came to do us an errand.
He had an errand to do for us on behalf of his father.
He did his errand for us and he went back.
He came, he paid, (what a price!), and he goes away.
He did not set about telling us extraordinary things.
Nothing is as simple as the word of God.
He told us only quite ordinary things.
Very ordinary.
The incarnation, salvation, redemption, the word of God.

Three or four mysteries.
Prayer, the seven sacraments.
Nothing is as simple as the grandeur of God.
He spoke to us without circumlocutions or muddled-up sayings.
He did not put on airs, did not muddle things up.

He spoke quite plainly, like a simple man, quite bluntly, like a man in the town,

A man in the village.

Like a man in the street who does not search for his words and who does not put on airs.

In order to talk.
Likewise, whether he spoke to us and has spoken to us directly,
Or whether he spoke to us by parables,
Which we name in Latin similitudes,
Since he had not come to tell us idle tales,
Since always he has spoken to us directly and fully
At the foot of the letter,
Flush with the wall,

Always also in response we too must listen to him and hear him at the foot of the letter.

Directly and fully at the foot of the wall.

Our brother, our great Brother did not deceive us for the pleasure of playing the clever one.

We must not deceive him for the pleasure of playing the fool.

And it is to deceive him to look for slynesses where he has put none.
To hear, to seek, to wish to hear; to imagine;

To labor;

To hear his word otherwise than he said it.
To listen even otherwise than he spoke.

It is even the gravest deception we could practice upon him.

To receive him otherwise, contrarily to how he gave himself.

It is the gravest insult, perhaps the only insult we could offer him.

A crown was made once: it was a crown of thorns.
And the brow and the head bled beneath that crown of derision.
And the blood beaded in drops and the blood stuck in the hair.

But a crown also was made, a mysterious crown.
A crown, an eternal crowning.
All made, my child, all made of supple boughs without thorns.
Of budding boughs, of boughs of late March.
Of boughs of April and of May.
Of boughs flexible and which weave well into a crown.
Without a thorn.
Quite obedient, quite well led under the finger.
A crown was made of buds and of blossoms.

Of flower-buds like a fine apple tree, of leaf-buds, of branch-buds.

Of bough-buds.

Of flower-buds for the flowers and for the fruits.
All budding, all blossoming a crown was made
Mysterious.
All eternal, all in advance, all swollen with sap.
All fragrant, all fresh on the temples, all tender and balsamic.
All made for today, for ahead, for tomorrow.
For eternally, for the day after tomorrow.

All made of tiny points, of tender points, of beginnings of points.

Leafy, flowered in advance,
Which are the points of the buds, tender, fresh,
And which have the scent and which have the taste of the leaf and of the flower.
The taste of the shoot, the taste of the earth.
The taste of the tree.
And in advance the taste of the fruit.
Of autumn.
To soothe the poor brow throbbing with fever, laden with fever,
In order to make up, in order to make recompense for the crowning of derision,

To soften, to appease, to soothe, in order to refresh the throbbing temples,

The feverish temples.
The burning brow, the feverish brow,

Heavy with fever, the hot temples, the migraine and the insult, and the headache and to soothe the very derision.
To appease, to perfume, to staunch the blood that was sticking in the hair. A crown also was made, a crown of sap, an eternal crown,

And it is the crown, the crowning of hope.

As a mother makes a diadem from her elongated fingers, the joined and opposed fingers of her two fresh hands

Around the burning brow of her child
To soothe that burning brow, that fever,

So an eternal crown was woven to soothe the burning brow.

And it was a crown of verdure.
A crown of foliage.

One must have confidence in God, my child.
One must have hope in God.
One must trust in God.
One must give credit to God.

One must have this confidence in God of having hope in him.
One must give this trust to God of having hope in him.
One must give this credit to God of having hope in him.

One must give hope to God.

One must hope in God, one must have faith in God, it is all one, it is all the same.

One must have this faith in God of hoping in him.
One must believe in him, which is to hope.

One must have confidence in God, he has indeed had confidence in us.
One must give trust to God, he gave it well to us.
One must give hope to God, he gave hope well to us.
One must give credit to God, he gave credit well to us.
What credit.
All credits.
One must give faith to God, he gave faith well to us.

Singular mystery, the most mysterious,
God has taken the lead.

Or rather it is not a mystery, properly speaking, it is not a particular mystery, it is a mystery that bears upon all the mysteries.
It is a doubling, it is an infinite enlargement of all the mysteries.
It is a miracle. A perpetual miracle, a miracle in advance, God has taken the lead, a mystery of all the mysteries, God has begun. A miracle of all the mysteries, a singular, mysterious reversal of all the mysteries.
All the feelings, all the movements that we must have toward God,

God has had them toward us, he has begun to have them toward us.
Singular reversal which runs the length of all the mysteries,
And doubles them, and enlarges them to infinity,

One must have confidence in God, my child, he has indeed had confidence in us.
He gave us this confidence of giving to us, of entrusting to us his only son.

(Alas alas for what we have done with him).
Reversal of all, it is God who has begun.
It is God who gave us credit, who gave us his trust.
Who gave us credence, who had faith in us.

Will this confidence have been misplaced, will it be said that this confidence will have been misplaced.

God gave us hope. He has begun. He has hoped that the last of sinners,
That the lowest of sinners would at least labor a little for his salvation,

So little, so poorly though it might be.
That he would concern himself a little with it.
He has hoped in us, will it be said that we will not hope in him.

God has placed his hope, his poor hope in each one of us, in the lowest of sinners. Will it be said that we, lowly, that we, sinners, it will be we who would not place our hope in him.

God entrusted his son to us, alas alas, God entrusted our salvation to us, the care of our salvation. He made his Son depend on us, and our salvation, and thus his very hope; and we would not place our hope in him.

Mystery of mysteries, bearing upon the mysteries themselves,
He has placed in our hands, in our weak hands, his eternal hope,
In our passing hands.
In our sinful hands.
And we, we sinners, we would not place our weak hope
In his eternal hands.

The word of God is not a tangled skein.
It is a fine thread of wool that winds itself around the spindle.
As he has spoken to us, so we must listen to him.
As he spoke to Moses.
As he spoke to us through Jesus.

As he has spoken to us, just so we must hear him.

Now, my child, if it is so, if it is thus that we must hear Jesus.

That we must hear God.
Literally.
At the foot of the letter.
Rigorously, simply, fully, exactly, soundly.
Flush with the wall.
Then, my child, what trembling, what command of hope.

What opening, what seizure of hope. What overwhelming. The words are there.

There is no need to ratiocinate, what an opening upon the thought of God.
Upon the will of God.
Upon the (ultimate) intentions of God.

Abyss of hope, what an opening, what a flash, what a thunderbolt, what an avenue.

What an entry.
Irrevocable words, what an opening upon the very Hope of God.
God has deigned to hope in us. To hope that we.
Revelation, what incredible revelation. Sic non est,
Thus is not
Incredible hope, unhoped-for hope Thus is not
Voluntas ante Patrem vestrum, the will before your Father,
Qui in cœlis est. Who is in the heavens.

Ut pereat. That should perish
Unus. One alone
Of these little ones. De pusillis istis.

And he spoke this parable to them, saying:
What man of you, who has a hundred sheep;
(This is according to Saint Luke);
And if he lose one of them,

Does he not leave behind, (does he not leave), the ninety-nine in the desert,

And go to that one,

Quae perierat, which was perished, which had perished,

It was done.

Until he find it?

And when he has found it,
He places it upon his shoulders rejoicing;

(He sets it) upon his shoulders.

And coming home, he calls together, (he summons), his friends and his neighbors, saying to them:

Rejoice, (congratulate yourselves), with me, because I have found my sheep which had perished?

I tell you,
That there shall be as much joy in heaven
Over one sinner doing penance,

As over ninety-nine just men who have no need of penance.

Now what is penance, my child, what then is there in penance. What then is this secret virtue of penance.

My child it is singular, it is strange, it is disquieting.
What then is there of the extraordinary in this penance.
How disquieting it is.

What is this virtue, this secret, what then must there be that is so extraordinary,

In penance,
that this sinner,
That one should be worth a hundred, or rather ninety-nine,
(To count exactly),
That this sinner should be worth as much,

That this sinner, this single sinner who does penance, should be worth as much, rejoice, make as much joy in heaven as ninety-nine just men who have no need of penance.

And that this stray sheep should make so much joy for the shepherd,
For the good shepherd,
That he leaves in the desert, in deserto, in a forsaken place,
The ninety-nine who had not strayed.

In what, what then is this mystery,
In what can one be worth ninety-nine.

Are we not all children of God. Equally on the same footing.
In what, how, why is one sheep worth ninety-nine sheep.
And above all why is it precisely the one who has strayed, who had perished, who is worth precisely the ninety-nine others, the ninety-nine who had not strayed.
Why, what is this mystery, what is this secret, it is suspect, how, why, in what way would one soul be worth ninety-nine souls, it is a bit much.

It is all the same a bit much, when one thinks of it.
What is this contrivance.

It is precisely this soul which was lost, which had perished, which is worth as much, which makes as much joy in heaven as those ninety-nine others.

As those ninety-nine who had not
strayed.
Ever.
Who had not been lost, who had not perished.
Ever.
Who had remained firm.
It is unjust. What is this invention, this new invention.

It is unjust. Here is a soul, (and it is precisely the one that had been lost), which is worth as much, which counts for as much, which gives as much joy as those ninety-nine unfortunates who had remained constant.
Why; in what; how. Here is one that weighs as much in the balance of God as ninety-nine. That weighs as much? Perhaps that weighs more. In secret. One never knows. I am very afraid. Secretly one has the impression that it weighs more, when one reads this parable.
So here is a sinner, let us say it, who weighs at least as much as ninety-nine just men.
Who even perhaps weighs more. One never knows. Once one has entered into injustice.

One no longer knows where one is going.

Let us say the word: here is an unbeliever, it must be said, one must not be afraid of the word.
Who is worth more than a hundred, than ninety-nine faithful. What is this mystery.

What then would be this extraordinary virtue of penance.
Which would surpass a hundred times even fidelity itself.

We are not to be told tales. We know very well what penance is.

A penitent is a gentleman who is not very proud of himself.
Who is not very proud of what he has done.
Because what he has done, it must be said, is sin.
A penitent is a gentleman who is ashamed of himself and of his sin.
Of what he has done.
Who would like to bury himself.
Especially who would like not to have done it.
Ever.
To hide himself, to escape from the face of God.

And what too is this drachma which is worth nine drachmas, all by itself.

What is it doing here.

And yet it is that one, no other, it is this sheep, it is this sinner, it is this penitent, it is this soul

That God, that Jesus brings back upon his shoulders, abandoning the others.

In short I mean (only) leaving them during that time to themselves.

Penance, we know it, is already not so brilliant as that.
It is not so shining.
(It is true that God never leaves anyone).
It is a shameful feeling, I mean a feeling of a shame.
Of a shame legitimate and due.
In short it is a shameful act.
Penance is already not so clever as that. So what.

Not only is this penitent worth one other, not only is he worth a just man, which would already be a bit stiff.
But he is worth ninety-nine, he is worth a hundred, he is worth the whole flock.

So to speak.
In need one feels that he would be worth more and that he
would be loved more
In the secret of the heart.
In the secret of the eternal heart. So what.
My child, my child, you know it, what. It is precisely that.
It is that she had perished; and that she has been found.
It is that she was dead; and that she has lived again.
It is that she was dead and that she is risen.

Since one must take everything at the foot of the letter, my child,
Literally as Jesus was dead and is risen from the dead,

So this sheep was lost, so this sheep was dead,

So this soul was dead and from her own death she is risen from among the dead.

She made the very heart of God tremble.
With the trembling of fear and with the trembling of hope.
With the very trembling of dread.
With the trembling of a disquiet
Mortal.
And in sequence, and so, and also
With that which is bound to fear, to dread, to disquiet.
With that which follows fear, dread, disquiet.

With that which walks with them, with that which is bound to fear, to dread, to disquiet

By an unbindable bond, by an undoable bond,
Temporal, eternal, by an undoable bond
She made the heart of God tremble
With the very trembling of hope,
She introduced into the very heart of God the theological
Hope.

There, my child, is what secret. There is what mystery.

There is what greatness, (hidden), what incredible source of greatness there is in this penance. In this shameful penance. Secretly, publicly shameful and really

Perhaps the most glorious of all. It is that a penance of man
Is a crowning of a hope of God.

This shameful penance, ashamed of itself, and which does not know where to hide,
Where to hide its head, ashamed, its head red with shame, purple with shame,
Its head covered with ashes and earth,
In sign of shame and of repentance,
Where to hide its shame and its sin.
But God is not ashamed of her.
For the awaiting of this penance,
The anxious awaiting, the hope of this penance
Set hope playing in the heart of God,
Made a new feeling well up,
Almost unknown, as if unknown, I know well what I mean,

Made a feeling as if unknown spring up, made it beat at the very heart of God.

In the heart as if new.
Of a God as if new. I understand myself, I know what I mean.
Of a God eternally new.

And this very penance
Was for him, in him, the crowning of a hope

For all the others God loves them in love.
But this sheep Jesus loved her also in hope.
And all the others, the whole world God loves us in charity.
But the sinner there was a day when God loved him in hope.

One must take everything at the foot of the letter, my child.
God has hoped, God has awaited from him.

God, who is all, had something to hope, from him, from this sinner. From this nothing. From us. He was placed, to this point, he placed himself to this point, on this footing of having to hope, to await from this wretched sinner.

Such is the life-force of hope, my child,

The life-force, the promise, the life, the force of life and of promise which springs at the heart of hope

And which gushes back into penance itself,
Into low penance.

Such the unique force of sap at the heart of an oak.

We are all children of God, my child, equally; on the same footing.
One must hear everything at the foot of the letter, my child, literally this soul who set the hope of God playing, who crowned the hope of God
As Jesus dead (more dead than Jesus) of her own death is risen from among the dead.

(More dead than Jesus, infinitely more dead, eternally more dead, for she was dead with the eternal death).

Like Jesus she is risen from among the dead.

And as we ring our Easter bells in full peal to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus,

Christ is risen!

So God for each soul that is saved rings out for us eternal Easters.

And he says: I had said so.

Singular reversal, singular overturning, it is the world upside down.

Virtue of hope.
All the feelings that we should have toward God,
It is God who has begun to have them toward us.

It is he who placed himself to this point, on this footing, who was placed there, who suffered to be placed there, to this point, on this footing, of beginning to have them toward us.
Singular virtue of hope, singular mystery, she is not a virtue like the others, she is a virtue against the others.
She takes the contrary stand to all the others. She braces herself so to speak against the others, against all the others.

And she holds her ground. Against all the virtues. Against all the mysteries.
She goes back upstream of them so to speak, she goes against the current.
She goes back up the current of the others.
She is not a slave, this child is a strong head.

She replies so to speak to her sisters; to all the virtues, to all the mysteries.

When they descend she goes back up, (it is very well made),

When all descends she alone goes back up and so she doubles them, she multiplies them tenfold, she enlarges them to infinity.

It is she who made this reversal, this overturning the strongest of all,

(It is perhaps the strongest thing she has done),

(Who would have thought that so much power, that a supreme power was given to that little

Hope)
This reversal that everything we must do for God,
It is God who takes the lead, who begins to do it for us.
Everything we must say to him, do for him, do toward him.
And everything we must have toward God.
It is God who begins by having it toward us.

He who loves places himself, by that very fact,
By that alone, by that henceforward in dependence,

He who loves falls into the servitude of the one who is loved.
It is the habit, it is the common law.
It is fated.

He who loves falls, places himself under servitude, under a yoke of servitude.

He depends on the one he loves.

It is nevertheless this situation, my child, that God has made for himself, in loving us.
God has deigned to hope in us, since he has willed to hope from us, to await from us.

Wretched situation, (as) reward of what love,
Pledge, ransom of what love.

Singular reward. And which was in the condition, in the very order, in the nature of that love.
He placed himself in this singular situation, reversed, in this wretched situation that it is he who awaits from us, from the most wretched sinner.

Who hopes from the most wretched sinner.
Who thus depends on the most wretched sinner.
And on us.

This is where he let himself be led, by his great love, this is where he placed himself, where he was placed, where at last he let himself be placed.

This is where he stands, where he is.
Where we should be, it is he who has placed himself.
To this point, on this footing.
That he has to fear, to hope, finally to await from the last of men.
That he is in the hands of the last of sinners.

(But the body of Jesus, in every church, is it not in the hands of the last of sinners.

At the mercy of the last of soldiers)
That he has to dread, everything, from us.
(That he should have to dread, it is already too much, it is already everything),
(However little it might be, and here it is everything)
(However little it might be, were it almost nothing, nothing so to speak)
Such is the situation in which God, by the virtue of hope,
In order to play the game of hope,
Has let himself be placed
Face to face with the sinner.
He fears from him, since he fears for him.

You understand, I say: God fears from the sinner, since he fears for the sinner

When one fears for someone, one fears from that someone.
It is to this common law that God let himself be placed.
And subjected.
To this common level.
It is to this common law that he has suffered to be placed.
He must await the good pleasure of the sinner.
He has placed himself on this footing.
He must hope in the sinner, in us.
He must, it is mad, he must hope that we will save ourselves.
He can do nothing without us.
He must listen to our caprices.

He must await that Monsieur the sinner deign to think a little about his salvation.

This is the situation God has made for himself.

He who loves falls under the servitude of the one who is loved.
By that very fact.
He who loves falls under the servitude of the one he loves.
God did not wish to escape this common law.
And by his love he has fallen into the servitude of the sinner.

Reversal of creation, it is creation upside down.
The Creator now depends upon his creature.

He who is all has placed himself, has suffered to be placed, has let himself be placed on this level.

He who is all depends on, awaits, hopes from that which is nothing.
He who can do all depends on, awaits, hopes from that which can do nothing,
(And which can do all, alas, for everything has been handed over to it,
Everything has been entrusted to it,
Everything has been given to it,
Everything has been handed over to it, into its hands, into its sinful hands,
In confidence,
In hope,
Everything has been permitted to it.
In all trust.

It has been handed over, it has been permitted its own salvation, the body of Jesus, the hope of God.
God has placed himself on this footing. As the most wretched creature has been able freely

To strike freely the face of Jesus,

So the last of creatures can make God lie
Or make him say true.
Frightful surrender.
Frightful privilege, frightful responsibility.
As Jesus down the ages of ages has handed over his body
In the poor churches
To the discretion of the last of soldiers,
So God down the ages of ages has handed over his hope
To the discretion of the last of sinners.
As the victim surrenders into the hands of the executioner,
So Jesus has delivered himself into our hands.
As the victim delivers himself to the executioner,
So Jesus has delivered himself to us.
And as the prisoner delivers himself to the prison guard,
So God has delivered himself to us.
As the last of wretches was able to strike Jesus,
And it had to be so,
So the last of sinners, an unfortunate cripple,
The lowest of sinners can make miscarry, can
make come to fruition
A hope of God;
The lowest of sinners can uncrown, can
crown
A hope of God.

And it is from us that God awaits
The crowning or the uncrowning of
a hope of his.

Frightful love, frightful charity,
Frightful hope, responsibility truly frightful,
The Creator has need of his creature, has placed himself in the position of having need of his creature.
He can do nothing without her.
He is a king who would have abdicated into the hands of each of his subjects
Simply the supreme power.
God has need of us, God has need of his creature.
He has so to speak condemned himself thus, condemned himself to that.
He misses us, he lacks his creature.
He who is all has need of that which is nothing.
He who can do all has need of that which can do nothing,
He has handed over his full powers.
He who is all is nothing without him who is nothing.
He who can do all can do nothing without him who can do nothing.
Thus the young hope
Takes up again, climbs back up, remakes,
Sets right again all the mysteries
As she sets right all the virtues.

We can fail him.
Not respond to his call.
Not respond to his hope. Be wanting. Fail. Not be there.
Frightful power.
God’s calculations through us can fail to come out right.

The forecasts, the foreseeings, the providings of God
Through us can fail to come out right,
By the fault of sinful man.
The counsels of God through us can fail.
The wisdom of God through us can falter.
Frightful liberty of man.
We can make everything fail.
We can be absent.
Not be there the day when we are called.
We can fail to answer the call
(Except in the valley of Judgment)
Frightful favor.
We can be wanting to God.
Such is the case in which he has placed himself,
The bad case.
He has placed himself in the case of having need of us.
What imprudence. What confidence.
Well, ill placed, that depends on us.
What hope, what stubbornness, what set will,
what incurable force of hope.
In us.
What stripping, of self, of his power.
What imprudence.
What unforesight, what improvidence,
What unprovidence
of God.
We can be wanting.
We can be at fault.

We can be defaulting.
Frightful favor, frightful grace.
He who does all addresses himself to him who can do nothing
.
He who does all has need of him who does nothing.
And as we ring out our Easters in full peal,
At full peal,
In our poor, in our triumphant churches,
In the sun and the fine weather of Easter Day,
So God for each soul that is saved
Rings at full peal eternal Easters.
And says: Eh, I was not mistaken.
I was right to have confidence in that lad there.
He was of a good nature. He was of good stock.
Son of a good mother. He was a Frenchman.
I was right to give him my confidence.
And we, we have our Sundays,
Our fine Sunday, the Sunday of Easter,
And Easter Monday,
And even Easter Tuesday, which is also a feast,
So great is the feast.
(It is the feast of Saint Loup).
But God too has his Sundays in heaven.
His Easter Sunday.
And he too has bells, when he wishes.

And what too are these ten drachmas.
Which is so to speak ten livres parisis.
What is this business of the ten drachmas about.

What is it doing here, this drachma which is worth nine others.
Strange reckoning, so to speak one livre parisis worth nine other livres parisis,

Nine others of the same. What strange arithmetic.
It is nevertheless thus, my child, that God’s accounts are kept.

So were kept, my child, the accounts of Jesus. It is undeniable; it is beyond doubt that there are two races of saints in heaven.

Two sorts of saints.
(Happily they get along well together).
Just as the king’s soldiers and the captains
Are of one race or another but are all Frenchmen.
And they all the same make a single army.
And they are all soldiers (of the army) of the king, and the captains.
But after all they come from one province or another.
Or from a marchland. Some from the one, others from the other.
Or from beyond the Loire or from this side of the Loire.

So, (and otherwise), it must be said there are, the word must be said there are two races of saints in heaven.

Two temporal races.
Two sorts of saints.
Everyone is a sinner. Every man is a sinner.
But after all there are two great races, there are two
recruitings.
There is a double recruitment of the saints who are in heaven.

There are those who come, there are those who issue from the just.
And there are those who issue from the sinners.
And it is a difficult enterprise.
It is an enterprise impossible to man.
To know which are the greatest saints.
They are so great, the ones and the others.

There are two extractions (and yet all, together, equally they are saints in heaven. On the same footing) (Saints of God)
There are two extractions, those who come from the just and those who come from the sinners.

Those who have never inspired serious uneasiness
And those who have inspired a disquiet
Mortal.

Those who did not set hope playing and those who did set hope playing.
Those of whom one has never feared anything, dreaded nothing serious, and those of whom one all but despaired, God keep us from it.

What a great combat.

Those of whom one has never heard anything said.
And those of whom one has heard the saying of
The word
Mortal.

There are two formations, there are two extractions, there are two races of saints in heaven.

The saints of God come from two schools.
From the school of the just and from the school of the sinner.
From the wavering school of sin.
Happily it is always God who is the schoolmaster.

There are those who come from the just and there are those who come from the sinners.

And it is recognizable.
Happily there is no jealousy in heaven.
On the contrary.
Since there is the communion of saints.

Happily they are not jealous of one another. But all together on the contrary they are bound like the fingers of the hand.
For all together they pass all their time, all their holy day, together plotting against God.

Before God.
That step by step Justice
Foot by foot give place to Mercy.

They do violence to God. Like good soldiers they struggle foot by foot,

(They wage war on justice

(They are quite forced to)
For the salvation of imperiled souls.
They hold firm. All moved, all animated by hope,
Bold against God,
(But they also have a support, a patronage, a high protection.
What a patron, my children, and what a patroness.
What (other) plot above them, covering their great plot,
Patronizing their great plot.
What advocate before God.
Advocata nostra).
For our patrons and our saints, our patrons the saints
Themselves have a patron and a patroness.
A saint and a saintess.
Who is as much
(And seventy times as much) above them as they are above us
Themselves.

Who is to them what they are to us, and seventy times what they are to us.

Such is the folly of hope.
And covered, encouraged by this high plot,
By the protection of this high plot,
All nourished with hope they hold firm like good soldiers.
They struggle foot by foot, they defend the ground foot by foot.
One cannot imagine all they do, all they invent
For the salvation of imperiled souls,
Shred by shred they tear for you
From the kingdom of perdition

A soul in danger.

Thus God did not will,
It did not please him,
That in the concert there should be only one voice.
It did not please his wisdom.
And his contentment.
He did not wish to be praised with a single voice.
By a single chorus
And combated.
But as in a country church there are several voices
Which praise God.
For instance the men and the women.
Or even the men and the children.
So in heaven it pleased, it was agreeable to his wisdom.
And to his contentment.
To be praised, to be sung, to be combated by two voices.
By two languages, by two choruses.
By the ancient just and by the ancient sinners.
That step by step Justice should give way
Before Mercy.
And that Mercy should advance.
And that Mercy should win.
For if there were only Justice and if Mercy did not
mingle therein,
Who would be saved.

Or what woman having ten drachmas,
(It is again according to Saint Luke, my child,
If she has lost a drachma,
If she loses one,
Does she not light her candle,
And sweep her house,
And seek diligently,
Until she find it?

And when she has found it,
She calls together her women friends and her women neighbors,

(They are calling together their friends and their neighbors all the time, in these parables),

Saying:
Rejoice with me,
Because I have found the drachma I had lost.

Thus I tell you,
There shall be joy before the angels of God,
Over one sinner doing penance.

There was a great procession; at the head advanced
the three Similitudes;
the parable of the stray sheep;

the parable of the lost drachma;
the parable of the lost child.

Now as much as a child is dearer than a sheep,
And infinitely dearer than a drachma,
As much as a child is dearer to the heart of the father,

(Of his father who is at the same time, who is already, first, who is firstly his shepherd),

Than even a sheep is dear to the heart of the (good) shepherd,
By that much the third Similitude,
By that much the parable of the lost child
Is still more beautiful if possible and dearer,
Is still greater than the two antecedent Similitudes,
Than the parable of the stray sheep,
And than the parable of the lost drachma.

All the parables are beautiful, my child, all the parables are great, all the parables are dear.

All the parables are the word and the Word,
The word of God, the word of Jesus.
They are all equally, they are all together
The word of God, the word of Jesus.
On the same footing.
(God has placed himself in this case, my child,
In this bad case,

Of having need of us)
All of them come from the heart, equally, and they go to the heart,
They speak to the heart.
But among them all the three parables of hope
Come forward,

And among them all they are great and faithful, among them all they are pious and affectionate, among them all they are beautiful, among them all they are dear and close to the heart.
Among them all they are close to the heart of man, among them all they are dear to the heart of man.

They have one knows not what place apart.

They have perhaps in them one knows not what that is not, that would not be in the others.
It is perhaps that they have in them as it were a youthfulness, as it were an unknown childhood.

Unsuspected elsewhere.

Among them all they are young, among them all they are fresh, among them all they are children, among them all they are unworn.

Unaged.
Not used up, not aged.

For the thirteen and fourteen centuries that they have been in use, and for the two thousand years, and down the ages of ages young as on the first day.

Fresh, innocent, ignorant,
Children as on the first day.
And for the thirteen hundred years that there have been Christians and the fourteen hundred years,
These three parables, (God forgive us),
Have a secret place in the heart.

And may God forgive us as long as there shall be Christians,
As long that is to say eternally,
Down the ages of ages there will be for these three parables
A secret place in the heart.

And all three of them are the parables of hope.
Together.
Equally young, equally dear.
Among themselves.
Sisters among themselves like three children all young.
Equally dear, equally secret.
Secretly loved. Equally loved.
And as if more inward than all the others.
Answering as if to a deeper inward voice.

But among them all; among the three of them, here is the third parable that comes forward.

And this one, my child, this third parable of hope,
Not only is she new as on the first day.
Like the two others
Her sisters.
And down the ages she shall be new,
As new until the last day.
But for the fourteen hundred, for the two thousand years that she has been in use,
And that she was told to innumerable men,
(Since that first time she was told),

To innumerable Christians,

Unless one has a heart of stone, my child, who would hear her without weeping.
For the fourteen hundred, for the two thousand years she has made innumerable men weep.

Down the ages and down the ages.
Innumerable Christians.

She has touched in the heart of man a unique point, a secret point, a mysterious point.

(She has touched the heart).
A point inaccessible to the others.
One knows not what point as if more inward and more deep.

Innumerable men, since she has been in use, innumerable Christians have wept over her.

(Unless one has a heart of stone).
Have wept by her.
Down the ages men shall weep.
Just to think of her, just to see her: who could.
Who could hold back his tears.

Down the ages, in eternity men shall weep over her; by her,

Faithful, unfaithful.
In eternity until the judgment.
At the judgment itself, in the judgment. And
It is the word of Jesus that has carried farthest, my child.
It is the one that has had the highest fortune
Temporal. Eternal.
She has awakened in the heart one knows not what point of resonance
Unique.

Also she has had a fortune
Unique.
She is famous even among the impious.
She has found there, even there, a point of entry.
She alone perhaps has remained planted at the heart of the impious
Like a nail of tenderness.
Now he said: A man had two sons:
And he who hears her for the hundredth time,
It is as if it were the first time.
That he heard her.
A man had two sons. She is beautiful in Luke. She is beautiful everywhere.
She is only in Luke, she is everywhere.
She is beautiful on the earth and in heaven. She is beautiful everywhere.
Just to think of her, a sob rises in your throat.
It is the word of Jesus that has had the greatest resonance
In the world.
Which found the deepest resonance
In the world and in man.
At the heart of man.

At the faithful heart, at the unfaithful heart.

What sensitive point has she found
That none had found before her,
That none has found, (as much), since.
What unique point,

Still unsuspected,
Unattained since.
Point of pain, point of distress, point of hope.
Painful point, point of disquiet.
Point of bruise in the heart of man.

Point where one must not press, point of scar, point of suture and of cicatrization.

Where one must not press.

Unique point, unique fortune, unique force of attachment.
Unique attachment, binding of the faithful heart.
And of the unfaithful heart.

All the parables are beautiful, my child, all the parables are great.

And notably the three parables of hope.

And all three parables of hope moreover are young, my child.

But over this one hundreds and thousands of men have wept.
Hundreds of thousands of men.
By this one.
Shaken by the same sobs, wept the same tears.
Faithful, unfaithful.
Beginning each other over.
The same.
Rolled by the same sobs
In a communion of tears.
Lying down, bowed, lifted up by the same sobs, wept the same tears.
Faithful, unfaithful.

Shaken by the same sobs.
Wept like children.

A man had two sons. Of all the words of God
It is the one that has awakened the deepest echo.
The most ancient.
The oldest, the newest.
The most new.
Faithful, unfaithful.
Known, unknown.
A point of echo unique.
It is the only one that the sinner has never silenced in his heart.
Once this word has bitten in the heart
The unfaithful heart and the faithful heart,
No voluptuousness will ever efface
The trace of its teeth.
Such is this word. It is a word that accompanies.
It follows like a dog
That one beats, but that stays.
Like a mistreated dog, that keeps coming back.
Faithful she stays, she comes back like a faithful dog.
You may give her kicks and blows with a stick.
Faithful herself with a fidelity
Unique,
So she accompanies man in his greatest
Excesses.
It is she who teaches that all is not lost.
It does not enter into the will of God
That a single one of these little ones perish.

It is a faithful dog
Who bites and who licks
And both hold back
The inconstant heart.
When the sinner withdraws from God, my child,

As he withdraws, as he sinks into the lands, as he loses himself

He throws to the side of the road, into the brambles and into the stones

As useless and embarrassing and bothersome to him the most precious goods. The most sacred goods.

The word of God, the purest treasures.
But there is a word of God that he will not throw away.
Over which every man has wept so many times.
Over which, by the virtue of which. By which
And he is like the others, he has wept too.
She is a treasure of God, when the sinner withdraws
Into the growing darkness.
When
Growing
shadows

Veil his eyes she is a treasure of God that he will not throw into the brambles of the road

For it is a mystery that follows, it is a word that follows
Into the greatest
Withdrawings.
One has no need to busy oneself with her, and to carry her. It is she
Who busies herself with you and with bearing herself and with having herself borne.

It is she who follows, it is a word that follows along, it is a treasure that accompanies.

The other words of God do not dare to accompany man

Into his greatest
Excesses.
But in truth this one is a brazen one.
She holds man by the heart, at a point she knows, and does not let him go.
She is not afraid. She is not ashamed.
And however far man goes, this man who is losing himself,
Into whatever land,
Into whatever obscurity,
Far from the hearth, far from the heart,
And whatever the shadows into which he sinks,
The shadows that veil his eyes,

Always a gleam watches, always a flame watches, a point of flame.
Always a light watches that shall never be set under the bushel. Always a lamp.
Always a point of pain smarts. A man had two sons. A point he knows well.
In the false quietude a point of disquiet, a point of hope. All the other words of God are modest. They dare not accompany man into the shames of sin.

They do not go far enough in.
Into the heart, into the shames of the heart.
But this one in truth is not ashamed.
One may say of her that she does not turn pale at trifles.

She is a little sister of the poor who is not afraid to handle a sick man and a poor man.

She has so to speak
And even really thrown down a challenge to the sinner.
She has said to him: Wherever you go, I shall go.
We shall indeed see.

With me you shall not have peace.
I shall not leave you peace.
And it is true, and he knows it well. And at bottom he loves his persecutor.
Quite at bottom, very secretly.

For quite at bottom, at the bottom of his shame and of his sin he loves (better) not to have peace. It reassures him a little.

A painful point remains, a point of thought, a point of disquiet. A bud of hope.

A gleam shall not be put out and it is
the third Parable,
the third parable of hope. A man had two sons.

There was a great procession. At the head the three Similitudes
were advancing. Faith, says God, that is not clever.
Everyone believes. I would like to see how they would do otherwise.
Yes I would like to know how they would manage not to believe.
How they would set about it.
I burst forth so in my creation.
Even into the gulfs of the sea and into the salt abysses.
Into the depths of the gulfs.

Into the lightnings and into the thunderbolt of a stormy sky,
When the sky is heavily laden,
Which are like a rending of the sky.
In zig-zag.
And into the crash of thunder which is a rending of the sky.
And into the rolling of a distant thunder.
Into the rolling and the unrolling of a thunder
And into the days so beautiful when there is not a breath of wind
In May.

Unless they are blind how would they manage not to see me.
Charity, says God, that is not clever. That does not surprise me either.

These poor children are so unhappy that unless they have a heart of stone

How would they not have charity toward their brothers.
How would they not have charity for one another.

But hope, says God, (a man had two sons),
that these poor children see every day how things go.
And that every day they believe it will go better tomorrow morning.
Precisely tomorrow morning.
Every day since there have been days.

And that a sun will rise better.
That every morning on rising they believe the day will be good.
This day.
And that every evening on going to bed they believe that the morrow.
That precisely the morrow, that the day of the morrow
Shall be, shall make a good day.
For so long as there have been days.
And that it begins again.

That all the denials count for nothing, so many denials as they receive precisely every day.
That denials should be as nothing, should not stop them, that the denials of every day,

Innumerable as the days,
Innumerable in the innumerable days that the denials
Do not disabuse them of this idea, of this absurd conviction
That today’s day shall be a better day,
Another day, a new day, a fresh day, a new-made day.
A day rising,
Well washed,
A day at last, a good day,
At last,
A day not like the others,
After so many others that were all the one like the other,
That he has even forgotten.
Forgotten as soon as passed.
Forgotten as soon as touched.

Forgotten as soon as had.
That they believe that this morning, well, things are going to work.
That it is going to go.
That they believe all the same that this morning things are going well.
That confounds me.
That is beyond me.
And I myself cannot get over it.
And my grace must be so very great.

And that they instantly forget the bad days.
As they come. At once.
Almost before. Almost in advance.

That they smother so to speak as if in advance in their memory the bad days
That they absorb the bad days almost before they have passed.

Before they have flowed away.
Before they have come due.
Before they have fallen.
Like a burning earth that would absorb the ingratitudes of the sky.

That they drink the bad days so to speak faster than the bad days rain down.

Sooner.
The bad days that rain down like an autumn rain.
Like a gray rain, like an indefatigable rain,
Pitiless,
Falling, descending from a streaked sky.
More than from a gray sky.

Like an oblique rain indefatigable.
That they absorb all that falls like a good earth of Lorraine,
Like a generous and healthy earth,
Quite right, quite at the point, quite friable,
drinks all that falls and does not let itself be invaded
into marsh and into swamp.
And into ponds and into low ground and into swamps full of
mud and of mire,
And of the silt of the soul and of sticky
And miry plants.
And of viscous beasts. Slimy.

But that on the contrary out of all that falls and out of the innumerable rains and the innumerable bad days

At once, instantly, almost beforehand they make a running water.
A living water, a clear water, a sweet water.
A beautiful transparent water.
A pure water that springs up and that flows in those meadows
On the banks of the Meuse.

A beautiful Lorraine water, a soul of a fine water and the very source of hope.
That it is precisely with this matter, with these innumerable bad days that rain and rain
That they make, that they cause to spring up, that they cause to issue, that they cause to gush this very source of hope.

This innumerable source and this innumerable river.
This river the greatest of all my rivers.
The only great one.
There is what I admire, I, who know my business after all.
And who know my creation. And the work of the Six Days.
And the rest of the Seventh.

There is what astonishes me. And yet I am not easy to astonish.
I am so old. I have seen so much. I have done so much.
There is what is beyond me and I myself cannot get over it.
And my grace must be so very great.

The bad days rain down; without hurrying; without tiring; hour after hour, day after day.

The bad days rain down.

And out of all this water that slips untiringly from the sky, (from a sky they might call bad),
Out of all this water that slips along the ground, out of all this oblique rain,
Others would make marshes and swamps full of fevers and all peopled with foul disgusting beasts).

But they, the good earth, my friable and well-cultivated earth.
Well laid out.

My good earth of souls, well plowed by my Son for ages and ages,
My good healthy earth of Lorraine they gather all this water that falls.

And wonder they do not make of it marshes and muds and mires.
And algae and centipedes and bizarre plants.

But wonder it is this very water that they gather and they are not embarrassed by it.

For wonder it is from this very water that they cause the source to spring.

It is this water, it is the same water that runs flush with the meadows.
It is the same healthy water that rises into the stalks of the wheat for the Bread.
It is the same healthy water that rises into the vine-branches for the Wine.

It is the same healthy water that rises into the one and the other bud, into the one and the other budding.

Into the one and the other Law.

It is the same water, gathered, it is the same water, healthy, made healthy, that goes around the world.

That comes back, that reappears, that has gone all around my creation.
It is the same gathered water that springs back up, that re-sources.
In the new fountain, in the young springing-back.
In the source and the re-sourcing of hope.

Truly, says God, my Son has made me very good gardeners
For the fourteen centuries that he has been making this earth of souls friable.
For the fourteen centuries that my Son has been plowing and cultivating this earth.
He has made me very good plowmen and cultivators.

And reapers and vine-growers. Fine vine-growers.

These bad days that rain and rain and that everywhere else would poison whole countries.

Nations, peoples whole, whole creations.
These rains and these rains that everywhere else would invade,
Would silt up with a filthy slime the vegetable earth,
Would drown every shoot and budding
Under the seaweed and the mire-worms.
All these bad days that rain and rain
Everywhere else would inundate, would drown, with smirches, with stains,
The good vegetable earth,
Would mire down, would cover with pestilences
All my creation.
But here, says God, in this sweet France, my noblest creation,
In this healthy Lorraine,
Here they are good gardeners.

They are old finished gardeners, fine gardeners for the fourteen centuries that they have been following the lessons of my Son.

They have channeled everything, made everything friable in the gardens of the soul.

Of water that serves to inundate, to poison (laughing) they themselves use it to water with.
People of my Son, people full of grace, eternally full of youth and of grace.

The very waters of the sky, you divert; for your marvelous gardens.

My very anger, you divert; for your mysterious, for your marvelous gardens. The very pestilences you divert and they do not reach you and they serve you only as manure

For your mysterious, for your marvelous gardens.
O people you have well learned the lessons of my Son.
Who was a great Gardener.
People secretly loved, it is you who have succeeded best.
People of gardeners always a healthy water shall water your lands.
Peoples; people who recoil before no pestilences.

O my French people, O my Lorraine people. Pure people, healthy people, gardener people.

Plowman and cultivator people.
People who plow most deeply
The lands and the souls.
Always your waters shall be living waters.
And your sources always springing fountains.
Always your rivers shall be running waters and your streams.
And your secret sources in your mysterious.
In your marvelous, in your painful gardens.
Always a running water, a healthy water shall water your meadows.
Always a healthy water shall rise into your Wheat.

Always a healthy water, rare, abundant, a precious water, always a healthy water shall rise into your Vine.

People who make the Bread, people who make the Wine.
O my Lorraine earth, O my French earth,
People who follow best, who have best taken the lessons of my son.
People akin to that little Hope.
Which springs up everywhere in this earth.

And in the mysterious.
In the marvelous, in the very painful gardens of souls
People of gardeners who have made grow the most beautiful flowers
Of holiness
By the grace of that little Hope.

People who make the pestilences recoil
By order. By cleanliness, by probity; by clarity.

By a virtue that is in you, by a virtue proper, by a unique virtue.

Gardener people, who plough and who harrow,

Who digs and who rakes,
Who tills creation itself.

And I tell you, says God, I declare it: Nothing is so deep as a tilled field.

And nothing is so beautiful, I know what I am talking about,
Nothing is so great in my creation

As those beautiful gardens of souls well ordered such as the French make.
All the savageries of the world, you may believe me, I know it perhaps,
All the savageries of the world are not worth a beautiful French-style garden.

For it is there that there is most soul and most creation.
It is there that there is soul.
Mysterious gardens, marvelous gardens,
Most sorrowful gardens of French souls.
All the savageries of the world are not worth a beautiful French garden.

Honest, modest, ordered.
It is there that I have gathered my most beautiful souls.
All the savageries of the world are not worth a beautiful ordering.

Honest people, people of gardeners, it is they who make grow the most beautiful souls

Of sanctity.
Most sorrowful gardens of souls have grown there
Who have suffered without breaking the alignment
The hardest martyrdom
And that is what is difficult; that is what is rare
The most deepened martyrdom
Without breaking the ordering.
And that I know what that costs.
Most sorrowful gardens of souls have grown there which I have gathered
Sorrowful.

All the savageries of the world are not worth a good presbytery garden.

With its sunflowers.
Which the children call suns.
And they are suns, if I will it.
A good curé’s garden.
Well at rest; well at peace.
It is there that I have gathered my most beautiful souls
Silent.

The savages will say that this garden is not great and that it is not deep.
But I, I know, (says God), that nothing is great like order and that nothing is deep like the tilled field

French.

Honest people, full of youth,
Full of my youth and of my grace.
The waters of heaven, you are not intimidated by them.
You are not embarrassed by them, the waters of heaven you divert them.
The bad days rain and rain, they do not corrupt you.
On the contrary, people who make everything wholesome.
France my eldest daughter.
The bad days you do not make of them corruptions and pestilences.
Corrupted waters, dead waters.
The bad days you do not make of them dead waters.
All slimy.

But gardener, gardener people you make of them those beautiful brooks of living water

Which water the most beautiful gardens
That there ever were in the world.
Which water the gardens of my grace, the eternal gardens.
I know, says God, how far a Frenchman can keep silent.
Without breaking the alignment,
I know how far a Frenchman can refrain from breaking an ordering.
And what they suffer within, and how far,
What trials they bear, without budging a line,
Like a beautiful bridge, like a beautiful vault perfectly true.

What sacrifices they bring me, (in secret), no sacrifice is so deep

As a French tilled field.

A pure water, a wholesome water, a running water rises
In the stalks of the law of Bread.
A wholesome water, a running water rises, a rare water
In the shoots of the law of Wine.
A Lorraine water, a French water rises in the budding
Of the one and the other law.

Frenchmen, says God, it is you who have invented these beautiful gardens of souls.
I know what marvelous flowers grow in your mysterious gardens.

I know what trials
Untiring you bear.
I know what flowers and what fruits you bring me in secret.
It is you who have invented the garden.
The others make only horrors.
You are the one who designs the King’s garden.

Therefore I tell you in truth it is you who will be my gardeners before God.

It is you who will design my gardens of Paradise.

There must have been something, says God, between our Frenchmen and this little Hope.

They succeed at it so marvelously.

Laborious people, people of the deepest labor.

It is not they who stagnate and grow stagnant in the marshes of sloth.
In the stagnant pools, in the ditches, in the stagnating pools.

In the stagnations and in the mires of sloth.
In the stagnations of despair.
In the stagnations and in the mires of sin.
Alert people, gardener people on bad days
They do not settle, in them they do not overflow
Into stagnating pools but market-gardener people
Of the very marshes they make the most beautiful gardens.
They make grow the most beautiful vegetables, the most beautiful fruits.
And their soul is always a running water and a living water.
And their work is always a running water.
And their prayer, I know it, is always a running water.

Singular people, there must, says God, have been some acquaintance.
Some acquaintanceship.

There must have come about some acquaintance between this people and this little Hope.

They succeed at it too well.
And there are none but they who succeed at it.
They must have made between themselves a kind of adoption.
They have adopted Hope and Hope has adopted them.

Not at all certainly as a father a daughter and as a daughter a father.

But more familiarly.
With an acquaintance, with a more familiar adoption.
They are with her, (I know the families
Of men), as an uncle with his niece.
In houses where there is an uncle he has with the children
And together the children have with him
A liberty, a particular familiarity
That the father will never have.
A connivance, a secret understanding, undeclared.
But they have no need to declare it.
They have no need to declare it to themselves.
To see it.
It is there.

The father is the direct ascendant, he has the furrowed brow, the knitted eyes, he is wholly laden with a direct responsibility.

And the children feel it well.
He is above.
And the children feel it well.
The bond from father to son is a sacred bond, which weighs, a direct bond.
And the children feel it well.

The uncle has a liberty, (and age at the same time, and experience), he does what he wants, he is for the children

All the amusement of life.

The children know it. With him alone with him from him the talk is amusing, from him with him alone with him the games are amusing.

He alone is familiar.
That is how these Frenchmen have set themselves with this little Hope.
She is at ease only with them.
She listens to all their talk. There is nothing but for them.
All that they say is good. She recognizes herself in them.

There are only their stories that are good. She does not leave their knees. She has them told to her twenty times.

That is how these Frenchmen have set themselves with this child Hope.

Singular people, every water is to them a living spring.
Every water that falls becomes to them a running water.
By the ministry of Hope.
Every water, every bad water becomes to them a drinking water.
The bad waters often make them sick.
The bad waters never poison them.
They drink with impunity of everything.
By this acquaintance which they have with this little Hope.

One wonders, one says: But how does it happen
That this fountain Hope eternally flows
That she eternally gushes, that she eternally springs,
That she eternally flows,

Eternally young, eternally pure.
Eternally fresh, eternally running.
Eternally living.
Where does this child take so much pure water and so much clear water.
So much gushing and so much resourcing.
Does she create it? As needed?
— No, says God, there is none but I who creates.
— Then where does she take all this water.
For this gushing fountain.
How does it happen that this eternal fountain
Eternally gushes.
That this eternal spring
Eternally springs.
There must be a secret in this.
Some mystery.

In order that this spring may eternally not be troubled by the heavy, the thick autumn rains.
In order that eternally she may not run dry in the burning ardors of July.

— Good people, says God, that is not difficult.
Her mystery is not difficult.
And her secret is not hard.

If it were with pure water that she wished to make pure springs,

Springs of pure water,
Never would she find enough, in (all) my creation.
For there is not much of it.

But it is precisely with bad waters that she makes her springs of pure water.

And that is why she never lacks it.

But also that is why she is Hope.

Now how she goes about making pure water with bad water,

Young water with old water.

Young days with old days.
New water with worn water.

Springs with old water.
Fresh souls with old souls.

Springs of soul with old soul.
Fresh water with lukewarm water.

Woe to him who is lukewarm.

Young mornings with old evenings.
Clear souls with troubled souls.

Clear water with troubled water.
Water, child souls with worn souls.

Rising souls with setting souls.
Running souls with stagnating souls.

How she succeeds at it, how she goes about it,
That, my children, is my secret.
Because I am her Father.

New souls with souls which have already served.
New days with days which have already served.

Transparent souls with troubled souls.
Rising souls with souls laid down.
Transparent days with troubled days.

If it were with transparent days that she made transparent days.

If it were with souls, with clear water that she made springs.
With clear water that she made clear water.
If it were with pure soul that she made pure soul,

Good Lord, that would not be difficult. Anybody could do as much. And there would be no secret in it.

But it is with a soiled water, an aged water, a stale water.

But it is from an impure soul that she makes a pure soul and it is the most beautiful secret that there is in the garden of the world.

If it were with pure water that she made pure water, she knows well what she is doing, she is cunning.
If it were with pure water, if it were pure water that she made gush up in a spring of pure water,

She would lack it at once.

She is not so foolish, she knows well that she would lack it at once.

But it is from bad waters that she makes an eternal spring.
She knows well that she will never lack it.
The eternal spring of my grace itself.
She knows well that she will never lack it.
And my grace must be so great.
It is from a bad water that she makes her fountains.
So she will never lack it.
Her perfectly pure fountains.
It is from the impure day that she makes the pure day.
She will never lack it.
It is from the impure soul that she makes the pure soul.
She will never lack it.

There was a great procession. It was the procession of Corpus Christi. They were carrying the Blessed Sacrament. So at the head the three Theological

Virtues were walking. See, says God, this little one, how she walks.
Just look at her a moment.

The others, the two others walk like grown-up persons, her two big sisters. They know where they are. They are decent. They know that they are in a procession.

Especially a procession of Corpus Christi.
Where the Blessed Sacrament is carried.

They know what a procession is.
And that they are at the procession, at the head of the procession.

They go to the procession. They carry themselves well. They advance like grown-up persons.

Serious. Who are always a little tired.
But she she is never tired. Just look a moment.
How she walks.

She goes ahead twenty times, like a little dog, she comes back, she sets off again, she does the road twenty times.

She amuses herself with the garlands of the procession.
She plays with the flowers and the leaves
As if they were not sacred garlands.
She would play at jumping over the leafage
Freshly cut, freshly gathered. Strewn.
She listens to nothing. She does not stay in place at the altars of repose.
She would walk all the time. Go forward.
Jump. Dance. She is so happy.
(O people, gardener people, who for the processions
Make the roses of France grow.
Gardener of the king, gardener of flowers and of fruits, gardener of souls
People you are my gardener.

Gardener in the orchard, gardener in the kitchen-garden, gardener in the garden.

Gardener in the very field.
Gardener people, honest people, clean people.
Upright people.
Your forests are cleaner than the very park of the king.
Your woods (the most savage) are cleaner than the orchard of the king.

Your fields and your valleys are cleaner than the garden of the king.

In your widest fields I do not see a single weed.
Laborious people though I look hard your fields are pure as a beautiful garden.

And your valleys far off curving softly.

Full of fecundity. Well swelling beneath the hand. With hollows of secret.
Diligent people, the plow and the harrow and the roller, the spade and the rake and the pickaxe and the hoe and the dibble and the line

Do not grow bored in your hands.
Are not idle in your hands.

You are not afraid to touch them. You do not regard them from afar with ceremonies.
But the plow and the harrow and the roller and the shovel and the pickaxe and the spade and the hoe.

You make of them good honest workers, tools of an honest man.
You are not afraid to approach them.

The palm of your hand polishes the handle of the tool, gives it a beautiful luster of wood.
The handle of the tool polishes the palm of your hand, gives it a beautiful luster of leather.

Yellow.

Your tools you make of them alert tools. Diligent tools. Honest tools.

Tools that go fast. And they are well handled.
First people, you are the first in the kitchen-garden.
The first in the orchard. The first in the garden.
The first in the field.

You are the only one in all that.
You make the most beautiful vegetables and the most beautiful fruits grow.
You gather the most beautiful vegetables, you gather the most beautiful fruits.
You gather even the most beautiful leaves.
It is you who lay down the most beautiful strewings of leafage.
At the feet of the three Theological Virtues.

At the grave feet of my daughter Faith you lay down the most beautiful, the most serious leafage

Strewn, laid down.

At the bleeding feet of my ardent daughter, of my daughter Charity you lay down the most beautiful, the most tender leafage

Strewn, laid down
The freshest at the foot.

So fresh that the freshness of them rises again to your heart and to your dry

Lips. Fresh leafage
And which are like a balm to the heart in pain.
For they are like a balm to the foot in pain

To the bleeding foot, to the bloodied foot. At the Cinderella feet of this child my little Hope

People you cast the most gushing leafage

Strewn, laid down. Leafage filling the streets. And at the feet of the great Processions,

People, and at the feet of the great Blessed Sacrament,
At the feet of the Most High people you sow the roses of France.
People who lay down at the feet of the great Processions
The greatest Flowers, the greatest Leaves.

The most beautiful, the greatest flowers of the carnal earth.
The greatest flowers of the world
Terrestrial.
The greatest flowers of earth and of soul.
The greatest flowers of race and of earth.
Nourished with water.
And with earth.
People who have made of your kingdom a garden.
Gardener of the king. Kingdom of the king.
People who have made of your fields a garden.
People who without counting at the feet of the Most High
Cast the flowers, cast the souls,
Knowing that there will always grow more.
That you will always make grow more.
People, people, the only one who never reckons with me.
People of the king, king people, I tell you, I will take you from the king.
I too am king I will take you from the king for my kingdom.
Gardener of the king I will take you from the king
On the day of the Coronation
To design my gardens
In my kingdom of Paradise.
People I will make of you my gardener people.
People friend of the line and of the dibble.
And you will make me of those beautiful roses of France.
And of those beautiful white lilies of France
Which bear an unbowed neck.

People of nurserymen, country of rose-gardens, scrupulous people.
Patient people, who have the patience (and the taste) for weeding.

People who do not cease to weed. Faster and more constant and more untiring than nature itself.
More bent over the earth, more bowed, more bent on weeding, you who go faster and who are more constant and more untiring at weeding

Than the weed at growing (and that is no small thing to say)
Than evil nature itself at making the weed grow

People who suffice more to tear up the weed than evil nature to make it grow.

(And that is no small thing to say. If anyone knows it, it is I).

People more stubborn, more patient, more recommencing than evil nature itself.
When I look at your fields though I look hard I see no weed in them.
Neither a thistle for the asses. Nor that tares which my Son called the cockle
And which served him much for his similitudes. A certain man had two sons.

And which you others call darnel and couch-grass.
Laborious people when I look at your fields.
Nor in your harvests that frightful disease.
When the wheats have the disease. And above all the ryes.
That ergot, that caries of the rye, that frightful

Dry rot that poisons
That dares to poison the very bread.

When I look at your fields, Frenchmen,
May you weed thus
Your souls also
Of all that bad weed of sin.
Of that caries, of that hateful thing which gnaws
The Eternal Bread

People who cast by armfuls
The beautiful lilies of France with unbowed neck,
Laid down,
Strewn,
Mowed,
At the feet of the Most Holy and of the Immaculate.

See this little one, says God, how she walks.
She would skip rope in a procession.

She would walk, she would advance skipping rope, on some wager.

So happy is she
Alone of all
And so sure is she of never tiring.
Children walk just like little dogs.
(Besides they also play like little dogs)

When a little dog walks with his masters
He goes, he comes. He sets off again, he comes back. He goes forward, he comes back.
He does the road twenty times.
Twenty times the journey.
It is in fact that he is not going somewhere.
It is the masters who are going somewhere.
He, he is going nowhere.
And what interests him is precisely to do the road.

Likewise the children. When you run an errand with your children

A commission
Or when you go to mass or to vespers with your children
Or to benediction

Or between mass and vespers when you go for a walk with your children
They trot before you like little dogs. They advance, they go back. They go, they come. They amuse themselves. They jump.

They do the journey twenty times.
It is in fact that they are not going somewhere.
It does not interest them to go somewhere.
They are going nowhere.
It is the grown-up persons who are going somewhere
The grown-up persons, Faith, Charity.
It is the parents who are going somewhere.
To mass, to vespers, to benediction.
To the river, to the forest.
To the fields, to the wood, to work.
Who strive, who labor to go somewhere

Or even who go for a walk somewhere.

But children what interests them is only to do the road.

To go and to come and to jump. To wear out the road with their legs.
Never to have enough of it. And to feel their legs growing.

They drink the road. They are thirsty for the road. They never have enough of it.
They are stronger than the road. They are stronger than fatigue.
They never have enough of it (Such is Hope) They run faster than the road.
They go not, they run not to arrive. They arrive in order to run. They arrive in order to go. Such is Hope. They do not spare their steps. The idea would not even come to them

To spare anything whatsoever.
It is the grown-up persons who spare.
Alas they are quite forced to. But the child Hope
Never spares anything.

It is the parents who spare. Sad virtue, alas let them not make a virtue of it.

They are quite forced to. However solid my daughter Faith may be,
Firm as a rock she is quite forced to spare.
However ardent my daughter Charity may be
Burning like a beautiful wood-fire
That warms the poor man in the hearth
The poor man and the child and the one dying of hunger.
She is quite forced to spare.
The only child Hope
Is the only one who never spares anything.

She does not spare her steps, the little rascal, she does not spare ours.
As she does not spare the flowers and the leaves at the great Processions,

And the roses of France and the beautiful lilies of France
With unbowed neck,

So in the little, in the long procession, in the hard procession of life she spares nothing

Neither her steps nor ours
In the ordinary, in the grey, in the common procession
Of every day
(For it is not every day Corpus Christi).
She does not spare her steps, and as she treats us like herself
She does not spare ours either.

She does not spare herself; and likewise, together she does not spare the others either.

She makes us start the same thing over twenty times.
She makes us go twenty times to the same place.
Which is generally a place of disappointment
(Terrestrial).
It is all the same to her. She is like a child. She is a child.
It is all the same to her to make the grown-up persons walk.
Terrestrial wisdom is none of her affair.
She does not reckon as we do.

She reckons, or rather she does not reckon, she counts (without noticing) like a child.

Like one who has all life before her.
It is all the same to her to make us walk.

She believes, she counts that we are like her.
She does not spare our pains. And our labors. She counts
That we have all life before us.
How she is mistaken. How she is right
For have we not all the Life before us.
The only one that counts. All eternal life.

And does not the old man have as much life before him as the child in the cradle.

If not more. For for the child in the cradle eternal Life,
The only one that counts is masked by this miserable life

That he has before him. First. Which is in front. By this miserable terrestrial life.
He will have to cross. He will have to pass through all this miserable terrestrial life

Before arriving, before reaching, in order to reach the Life
The only life that counts. But the old man he is lucky.
Prudent he has put behind him this miserable life
Which masked from him eternal Life

At present he is rid of it. He has put behind him what was before.
He sees clearly. He is full of life. Between life and him there is nothing more. He is at the edge of the light.
He is on the very shore. He is at the brim. He is at the edge of eternal life.

People are quite right to say that old men are prudent.
Thus as that child was right to count
That we are like her.

That we have all life before us.
We have it as much as she. What does it matter to her
To make us do twenty times the same journey.
She is right. What matters
(And to make us go twenty times to the same place
Which is generally a place of disappointment
Terrestrial) what matters
Is not to go here or there, is not to go somewhere
To arrive somewhere

Terrestrial. It is to go, to go always, and (on the contrary) not to arrive.
It is to go humbly in the little procession of ordinary days,

Great for salvation. The days go in procession
And we go in procession through the days. What matters
Is to go. To go always. What counts. And how one goes.

It is the road one makes. It is the journey itself. And how one makes it.
You make twenty times the same terrestrial road. To end up twenty times.

And twenty times you end up, you arrive, you reach
Painfully, laboriously, with difficulty,
Trouble-takingly
At the same point of disappointment
Terrestrial.
And you say: This little Hope has deceived me again.
I ought to have mistrusted. It is the twentieth time she has deceived me.

Terrestrial wisdom is none of her doing.

I will never believe her again. (You will believe her again, you will believe her always).

I will never be caught at it again. — Fools that you are.
What matter this place where you wanted to go.
Where you thought you were going.
Come now, you are not children, you knew well
That this point where you were going would be a point of disappointment

Terrestrial. That it was one in advance. Then why did you go to it.

Because you understand very well the maneuver of this little
Hope.
Why do you always follow this child of disappointment.
Why do you give your hands to the maneuver of this little one.
Always, and the twentieth time more readily than the first.
Why do you go to it of your own accord.
Always, and the twentieth time more habitually than the first.
It is that at bottom you know very well what she is.
What she does. And that she deceives us.
Twenty times.
Because she is the only one who does not deceive us.
And that she disappoints us
Twenty times
All life long
Because she is the only one who does not disappoint
For Life.
And it is thus that she is the only one not to disappoint us.
For these twenty times that she makes us do the same road

On earth for human wisdom are twenty times that redouble

That recommence, that are the same
That are twenty times in vain, that superpose themselves
Because they led by the same road
To the same place, because it was the same road.
But for the wisdom of God
Nothing is ever nothing. All is new. All is other.
All is different.
In God’s regard nothing recommences.

These twenty times she has made us do the same road to arrive at the same point

Of vanity.

For the human gaze it is the same point, it is the same road, they are the same twenty times.

But it is that which deceives.
That which is the false reckoning and the false count
Being the human count.

And here is what does not disappoint: These twenty times are not the same. If these twenty times are twenty times of trial(s) and if this road is a road of sanctity

On the same road the second time makes double the first
And the third makes the triple of it and the twentieth makes the twenty-fold.
What matter to arrive here or there, and always at the same place
Which is a place of disappointment
Terrestrial.

It is the road that matters, and what road one makes, and being what one makes it

How one makes it.
It is the journey alone that matters.
If the road is a road of sanctity
In God’s regard, a road of trials
He who has done it twice is twice more holy
In God’s regard and he who has done it three times
Three times more holy and he who has done it
Twenty times twenty times more holy. That is how God reckons.
That is how God sees.
The same road, the second is no longer the same.
Every day, you say, all your days are the same
On earth, are the same.
Setting out from the same mornings lead you toward the same evenings.
But they do not lead you to the same eternal evenings.

Every day, you say, resembles the others. — Yes, every terrestrial day.

But rest assured, my children, they do not resemble
The last day, the one which resembles no other.
Every day, you say, recommences. — No they add themselves
To the eternal treasure of days.
The bread of each day to the bread of yesterday.
The suffering of each day
(Even should it recommence yesterday’s suffering)
To the eternal treasure of sufferings.
The prayer of each day

(Even should it recommence yesterday’s prayer)
To the eternal treasure of prayers.
The merit of each day
(Even should it recommence yesterday’s merit)
To the eternal treasure of merits.
On earth everything recommences. In the same matter.
But in heaven everything counts
And everything adds up. The grace of each day
(Even should it recommence yesterday’s grace)
To the eternal treasure of graces. And that is why the young Hope
Alone spares nothing. When Jesus worked at his father’s
Every day he did the same day’s work.
He had not a single story
Except once.
It is nevertheless the tissue, in these same days,
It is the network of these same days
Which constitutes, which eternally constitutes
The admirable Life of Jesus before his preaching
His private life
His perfect life, his model life.
The one he offers as an example, as an inimitable Model to be imitated

By all the world, without any exception, leaving only to a few
To a few rare elect (and even that is in addition and not on the contrary)

The examples of his public life to be imitated
The inimitable models of his Preaching
And of his Passion and of his Death.
(And of his Resurrection).

Likewise, together with him, in imitation of him
On earth, on our roads of earth our steps efface our steps.

For the roads of earth cannot keep several layers of traces.
But the roads of heaven keep eternally all layers of traces

All traces of steps.

On our roads of earth there is only one matter, the earth,

Our roads of earth are never made except of the same earth,

And it is she that serves all the time, and she can serve only once

At a time.
It is the same earth that serves all the time.
She keeps never more than one layer of traces at a time.
To receive one she must sacrifice another.
The preceding. Always the preceding.

One trace effaces the other. One step effaces a step. One foot effaces a foot.
That is why we say that we do the same road.
It is that this same road is a road, a same road of the same earth.

In the same earth.
But the roads of heaven receive eternally
New

Imprints.

And he who passes at the eleventh hour on the roads of heaven (A certain man had two sons)

To go to his work and he who returns from his work

Imprints in the soil a new imprint
Eternal
Which is his own imprint and eternally he leaves
Intact the imprints of all those

Who have passed before him. Who have passed since the first hour.

And even and likewise
Intact his own imprints
Who has passed before him.

It is the very miracle of heaven, the miracle of every day of heaven, but on earth

He who follows effaces the traces of him who precedes.
Steps efface steps
In the same sand.

He who walks behind effaces the steps of him who walks in front.

And we ourselves when we do,
When we recommence twenty times the same road,
When twenty times we walk behind ourselves,
We ourselves efface the trace of our (own) steps.
Of our former steps.
That is however what Jesus did
For thirty years.

In imitation of him it is however what Jesus, what God asks of us

Of those who have not received their own
Public
Vocations.
And even of the others.
Of us who have not received our own
Extraordinary,
Public
Vocations,
All life long.
And even of those who have received their own
Extraordinary
Public
Vocations
During all their private life, and even elsewhere, and even after
During the thirty years of their private life, and even at other times
For in the public life itself the days resemble the days.
Setting out from the same mornings toward the makings-ready of the same evenings.

For in every life there are very few days which do not resemble all the days.
But all these days count. In the very life of Jesus, in the public life itself

In the preaching how many days were not the same.

How many preachings were not the same and temporally did they not recommence themselves.
There was but one day of the Institution of the Last Supper. And one day of the Crucifixion. And one day of the Resurrection.

(And there will be but one day of the Judgment).

For thirty and for three years all the other days resembled one another.
But all these days count. For on earth twenty times we efface our own traces

And we make twenty roads which superpose themselves the same.

But in heaven they do not superpose themselves. They place themselves end to end. And they make the bridge

Which makes us arrive on the other side.

A single one was too short. A single road. But twenty end to end

(Although each of the twenty is the same as the other)

Are long enough. Thus when we say that Hope deceives us.
And when at the same time secretly in our heart we make ourselves her accomplices

So that she may deceive us,
At bottom we know very well what all that means.
And that this muffled complicity which we have with her
That she may deceive us
Is what we have in us
Most agreeable to God.
Now she treats us like herself.
As she treats herself.
As if we were like her.
That is to say as if we were untiring.
And she makes us do twenty times this road.
Which is not the same.
As if we were untiring.
The children do not even think of fatigue.
They run like little dogs. They do the road twenty times.
And consequently twenty times more road than is necessary.
What does it matter to them. They know well that in the evening
(But they do not think of it)
They will fall asleep
In their bed or even at the table
And that sleep is the end of everything.

There is their secret, there is the secret of being untiring.
Untiring like the children.
Untiring like the child Hope.
And of starting always over again on the morrow.

The children cannot walk, but they know very well how to run.

The child does not even think, does not know that he will sleep in the evening.
That in the evening he will fall asleep. It is nevertheless this sleep
Always ready, always available, always present,
Always underneath, like a good reserve,

That of yesterday and that of tomorrow, like a good nourishment of being,

Like a reinforcement of being, like a reserve of being,
Inexhaustible. Always present.
That of this morning and that of this evening
Which puts that strength in his hams.
That sleep before, that sleep after
It is that same bottomless sleep
Continuous like being itself

Which passes from one night to a night, from one night to another, which continues from one night to another

Passing over the days
Leaving the days only as days, as openings.
It is that same sleep where the children bury their being

Which maintains for them, which makes for them every day those new hams,

Those new hams.

And what there is in new hams: those new souls.
Those new souls, those fresh souls.
Fresh in the morning, fresh at noon, fresh in the evening.
Fresh as the roses of France.
Those souls with unbowed neck. There is the secret of being untiring.
It is to sleep. Why do men not avail themselves of it.

I have given this secret to all the world, says God. I have not sold it.

He who sleeps well, lives well. He who sleeps, prays.

(So too he who works, prays. But there is a time for everything. And sleep and work
And work and sleep are the two brothers. And they get on very well together.
And sleep leads to work and work leads to sleep.
He who works well sleeps well, he who sleeps well works well.

There must, says God, be an acquaintance,
There must have come about something
Between this kingdom of France and this little Hope.
There is a secret in it. They succeed at it too well. Yet I am told
That there are men who do not sleep.
I do not love him who does not sleep, says God.
Sleep is the friend of man.
Sleep is the friend of God.

Sleep is perhaps my most beautiful creation.
And I myself rested on the seventh day.
He who has a pure heart, sleeps. And he who sleeps has a pure heart.
It is the great secret of being untiring like a child.
Of having like a child that strength in the hams.
Those new hams, those new souls
And of starting again every morning, always new,
Like the young, like the new
Hope. Now I am told that there are men
Who work well and who sleep badly.
Who do not sleep. What lack of confidence in me.

It is almost more serious than if they worked badly but slept well.

Than if they did not work but slept, for sloth
Is not a greater sin than disquiet
And even it is a lesser sin than disquiet
And than despair and than the lack of confidence in me.
I am not speaking, says God, of those men
Who do not work and who do not sleep.

Those are sinners, that is understood. It serves them right. Great sinners. They have only to work.

I am speaking of those who work and who do not sleep.
I pity them. I am speaking of those who work, and who thus
In this follow my commandment, poor children.

And who on the other hand have not the courage, have not the confidence, do not sleep. I pity them. I have a grudge against them. A little. They do not trust me.
As the child lies down innocent in his mother’s arms thus they do not lie down

Innocent in the arms of my Providence.

They have the courage to work. They have not the courage to do nothing.
They have the virtue of working. They have not the virtue of doing nothing.

Of relaxing. Of resting. Of sleeping.
The unhappy ones, they do not know what is good.
They govern their affairs very well during the day.

But they will not entrust to me the governance of them during the night.
As if I were not capable of ensuring their governance during one night.

He who does not sleep is unfaithful to Hope.
And it is the greatest infidelity.
Because it is the infidelity to the greatest Faith.

Poor children, they administer in the daytime their affairs with wisdom.

But when evening is come they do not resolve themselves.

They do not resign themselves to entrust the governance to my wisdom

For the space of a night to entrust me with the governance.
And the administration and the whole government.
As if I were not capable, perhaps, of attending to it a little.
Of watching over it.
Of governing and of administering and the whole shebang.

I administer many others, poor people, I govern creation, that is perhaps more difficult. You could perhaps without great damage(s) leave your affairs in my hands, wise men.

I am perhaps as wise as you.
You could perhaps hand them over to me for the space of a night.
The space of your sleeping
At last

And the next morning you would perhaps find them not too much spoiled.

The next morning they would perhaps be no worse.
I am perhaps still capable of conducting them a little,
I am speaking of those who work
And who thus in this follow my commandment.
And who do not sleep, and who thus in this
Refuse all that is good in my creation,
Sleep, all that I have created good,
And also refuse all the same here my very commandment.
Poor children what ingratitude toward me
To refuse so good,
So beautiful a commandment.
Poor children they follow human wisdom.
Human wisdom says Do not put off till the morrow
What you can do the same day.
And I tell you He who knows how to put off till the morrow
Is the most agreeable to God.
He who sleeps like a child
Is also the one who sleeps like my dear Hope.
And I tell you Put off till tomorrow
Those cares and those pains which today gnaw at you

And today might devour you.
Put off till tomorrow those sobs that choke you
When you see today’s misfortune.
Those sobs that rise up in you and that strangle you.
Put off till tomorrow those tears that fill your eyes and your head.
That flood you. That fall on you. Those tears that run from you.
Because between now and tomorrow, I, God, may perhaps have passed.
Human wisdom says: Wretched is he who puts off till tomorrow.
And I say Blessed, blessed is he who puts off till tomorrow.
Blessed is he who puts off. That is to say Blessed is he who hopes. And who sleeps.
And on the contrary I say Wretched.
Wretched he who watches and does not trust me.
What distrust of me. Wretched he who watches. And lingers.
Wretched he who lingers over the evenings and over his nights.
Over the advances of evening and over the fallings of night.
Like a snail’s trail over those beautiful advances.
My creatures.
Like a slug’s trail over those beautiful fallings.
My creatures, my creation.
The slow remembrances of daily cares.
The smartings, the bitings.
The dirty traces of cares, of bitternesses and of disquiets.
Of pains.
Slug’s traces. Over the flowers of my night.
In truth I tell you that one gives offense

To my dear Hope.
He who will not entrust me with the governance of his life.
While he sleeps.
The fool.
He who will not entrust me with the governance of his night.
As if I had not made my proofs.
He who will not entrust me with the governance of one night of him.
As if more than one.
Who had left his affairs very bad on going to bed.
Had not found them very good on getting up.
Because perhaps I had passed that way.

The nights follow one another and hold together and for the child the nights are continuous and they are the very foundation of his being.

It is there that he falls back. They are the very foundation of his life.

They are his very being. The night is the place, the night is the being where he bathes himself, where he nourishes himself, where he creates himself, where he makes himself.

Where he makes his being.
Where he remakes himself.

The night is the place, the night is the being where he rests himself, where he withdraws, where he recollects himself.

Where he goes within. And he comes out of it fresh. The night is my most beautiful creation.

Now why does man not avail himself of it. I am told that there are men who do not sleep at night.

The night is for the children and for my young

Hope what she really is. It is the children who see and who know. It is my young Hope

Who sees and who knows. What being is.
What this being the night is. It is the night that is continuous.
The children know very well. The children see very well.

And it is the days which are discontinuous. It is the days which pierce, which break the night

And in no way the nights which interrupt the day.
It is the day which makes noise to the night.
Otherwise she would be sleeping.
And the solitude, and the silence of the night is so beautiful and so great
That it surrounds, that it encircles, that it buries the days themselves.
That it makes an august border to the agitations of the days.
The children are right, my little Hope is right.
All the nights together.

Rejoin one another, join one another like a beautiful round, like a beautiful dance

Of nights that hold one another by the hand and the lean days
Make only a procession that does not hold by the hand.
The children are right, my little Hope is right.
The nights all together

Rejoin one another, join one another over the edges of the days, hold out a hand to one another

Over the days, make a chain and more than a chain,

A round, a dance, the nights take one another by the hand
Over the day, from morning to evening
From the edge of the morning to that of the evening, leaning toward one another.
The one that descends from the preceding day leans backward
The one that rises
From the following day
Leans forward
And the two join one another, join their hands,
Join their silence and their shadow
And their piety and their august solitude
Over the difficult edges
Over the edges of the laborious day.
And all together, thus holding one another’s hand,
Overflowing the edges, wrists bound
To wrists all the nights one after another
Together form the night and the days one after another

Together do not form the day. For they are never more than lean days

That do not give one another the hand. Now just as life
Terrestrial
On the large scale (if I may say so) is only a passage between two edges
An opening between the night before and the night after
A day
Between the night of darkness and the night of light
Thus on the small scale each day is only an opening.
A day.
Not only between the night before and the night after.
Between the two edges.

But as the children see it, as the children feel it, and my young Hope, as the children know it,

In the night, in one single and same,
In the only and same night
Where being is tempered anew.
In full in the night.

It is the night that is continuous, where being is tempered anew, it is the night that makes a long continuous tissue,

A continuous endless tissue where the days are only days.
Open only as days.
That is to say as holes, in a fabric where there are openings.
In a fabric, in an openwork tissue.
It is the night that is my great black wall
Where the days open only as windows
Of a restless and of a flickering
And perhaps of a false light.
Where the days open only as days.
Where the days open only as skylights.
For one must not say that the chain of times
Would be an endless chain
Where link follows link, where ring follows ring,

Where days and nights would follow each other equal in one same chain.
A white link, a black link, the night hooking the day, the day hooking the night.
But they are not equal, they have not the same dignity in this chain.

It is the night that is continuous. It is the night that is the tissue

Of time, the reserve of being

And the day opens upon it only by mean windows and posterns.

It is the day that breaks and the day opens upon it
Only by poor days

Of suffering. It is the day that bursts forth and the days are like islands in the sea.

Like interrupted islands which interrupt the sea.
But the sea is continuous and it is the islands that are wrong.

Thus it is the days that are wrong and interrupted they interrupt the night.

But however they may try and themselves
They bathe in the night.

As the sea is the reserve of water thus the night is the reserve of being.
It is the time that I have reserved for myself. All these feverish days may do as they will.
As in the open sea, in full in the night they bathe in full night.

It is they that are dispersed, it is they that are broken.
The days are Sporades and the night is the open sea
Where Saint Paul sailed
And the edge that descends from night toward day
Is always an edge that rises
A steep edge and the edge that rises from day toward night
Is always an edge that descends. Into the full night.

O night, my most beautiful invention, my creation august among all.

My most beautiful creature. Creature of the greatest
Hope.

Who givest most matter to Hope.

Who art the instrument, who art the very matter and the residence of Hope.

And also, (and thus), at bottom creature of the greatest Charity.
For it is thou that rockest all Creation
In a restoring Sleep.
As one lays a child in his little bed,
As his mother lays him down and as his mother tucks him in
And kisses him (She is not afraid of waking him.
He sleeps so well).
As his mother tucks him in and laughs and kisses him on the forehead
Playfully.
And he too laughs, laughs back at her sleeping.
Thus, O night, dark-eyed mother, universal mother,
No longer only mother of the children (that is so easy)

But mother of men themselves and of women, which is so difficult,

It is thou, night, who layest down and makest all Creation lie down
In a bed of a few hours.
(While waiting). In a bed of a few hours

Image, weak image, and promise and foreshadowing of the bed of all the hours.

Anticipated realization. Promise kept in advance
While awaiting the bed of all the hours.
Where I, the Father, will lay down my creation.
Night thou art the night. And all these days together
Are never the day, they are never more than days.
Scattered. These days are never more than glimmers.
Doubtful, and thou, the night, thou art my great dark light.

I applaud myself for having made the night. The days are islets and islands
Which pierce and which burst the sea.

But they must indeed rest in the deep sea. They are quite forced to.

Thus you others days you are quite forced.
You must indeed rest in the deep night.
And thou night thou art the deep sea
Where Saint Paul sailed, no longer that little lake of Tiberias.
All these days are never more than members

Dismembered. It is the days that emerge, but they must indeed be seated in the open water.
In the full night. Night my most beautiful invention it is thou that calmest, it is thou that soothest, it is thou that makest rest

The aching members
All unhinged from the work of the day.
It is thou that calmest, it is thou that soothest, it is thou that makest rest
The aching hearts

The bruised bodies, the bruised members from labor, the bruised hearts from labor

And from pain and from daily care.
Night, O my daughter the Night, the most religious of my daughters
The most pious.

Of my daughters, of my creatures the most in my hands, the most surrendered.
Thou glorifiest me in Sleep still more than thy Brother the Day glorifies me in Work.

For man in work glorifies me only by his work.

And in sleep it is I who glorify myself by the surrender of man.

And it is more sure, I know better how to go about it.

Night thou art for man a nourishment more nourishing than bread and wine.
For he who eats and drinks, if he does not sleep, his nourishment does not profit him.

And turns sour in him, and turns over on his heart.
But if he sleeps the bread and the wine become his flesh and his blood.
To work. To pray. To sleep.
Night thou art the only one that bandages the wounds.
The aching hearts. All unhinged. All dismembered.

O my dark-eyed daughter, the only one of my daughters who art, who canst call thyself my accomplice.

Who art an accomplice with me, for thou and I, I through thee
Together we make man fall into the trap of my arms
And we take him a little by surprise.
But one takes him as one can. If anyone knows it, it is I.
Night thou art a beautiful invention
Of my wisdom.
Night O my daughter the Night O my silent daughter
At Rebecca’s well, at the well of the Samaritan woman
It is thou that drawest the deepest water
From the deepest well
O night that rockest all the creatures
In a restoring sleep.
O night that washest all the wounds
In the only fresh water and in the only deep water
At Rebecca’s well drawn from the deepest well.

Friend of children, friend and sister of the young Hope
O night that bandagest all the wounds
At the Samaritan woman’s well thou that drawest from the deepest well
The deepest prayer.

O night, O my daughter the Night, thou who knowest how to keep silent, O my daughter of the beautiful mantle.
Thou who pourest forth rest and forgetfulness. Thou who pourest forth the balm, and the silence, and the shadow

O my starry Night I created thee the first.
Thou who puttest to sleep, thou who already buriest in an eternal Shadow
All my creatures
The most restless, the spirited horse, the laborious ant,
And man that monster of disquiet.
Night who succeedest in putting man to sleep
That well of disquiet.
By himself alone more disquiet than all creation together.
Man, that well of disquiet.
As thou puttest to sleep the water of the well.
O my night with the great robe
Who takest the children and the young Hope
Into the fold of thy robe
But men do not let themselves be taken.
O my beautiful night I created thee the first.
And almost before the first
Silent with long veils
Thou by whom there descends upon the earth a foretaste
Thou who spreadest from thy hands, thou who pourest upon the earth
A first peace
Forerunner of eternal peace.

A first rest
Forerunner of eternal rest.
A first balm, so fresh, a first beatitude
Forerunner of eternal beatitude.
Thou who soothest, thou who embalmest, thou who consolest.
Thou who bindest the wounds and the bruised members.
Thou who puttest hearts to sleep, thou who puttest bodies to sleep
The aching hearts, the aching bodies,
Aching all over,
The broken members, the broken loins
From fatigue, from cares, from disquiets
Mortal,
From pains,
Thou who pourest the balm into throats torn with bitterness
So fresh
O my great-hearted daughter I created thee the first
Almost before the first, my daughter with the immense bosom
And I knew well what I was doing.
I knew perhaps what I was doing.
Thou who layest the child in the arms of his mother
The child all lit up with a shadow of sleep
All laughing within, all secretly laughing with a confidence in his mother.
And in me,
All secretly laughing with a serious fold of the lips
Thou who layest the child all within swollen, overflowing with innocence
And with confidence
In the arms of his mother.
Thou who laidst the child Jesus every evening
In the arms of the Most Holy and of the Immaculate.

Thou who art the tourière sister of Hope.
O my daughter first among all. Thou who succeedest even,
Thou who succeedest sometimes
Thou who layest man in the arms of my Providence
Maternal
O my sparkling and dark daughter I salute thee
Thou who restorest, thou who nourishest, thou who givest rest
O silence of the shadow
Such a silence reigned before the creation of disquiet.
Before the beginning of the reign of disquiet.
Such a silence will reign, but a silence of light
When all this disquiet is consumed,
When all this disquiet is exhausted.
When they have drawn all the water from the well.

After the consummation, after the exhaustion of all this disquiet

Of man.
Thus my daughter thou art ancient and thou art late

For in this reign of disquiet thou recallest, thou commemoratest, thou almost reestablishest,

Thou makest almost recommence the prior Quietude
When my spirit hovered upon the waters.

But also my starred daughter, my daughter with the dark mantle, thou art very much in advance, thou art very precocious.
For thou announcest, for thou representest, for thou makest almost begin in advance every evening

My great Quietude of light
Eternal.
Night thou art holy, Night thou art great, Night thou art beautiful.
Night of the great mantle.

Night I love thee and I salute thee and I glorify thee and thou art my great daughter and my creature

O beautiful night, night of the great mantle, my daughter of the starred mantle

Thou recallest, to me myself thou recallest that great silence which there was

Before I had opened the sluices of ingratitude.

And thou announcest, to me myself thou announcest that great silence which there will be

When I shall have closed them.

O sweet, O great, O holy, O beautiful night, perhaps the most holy of my daughters, night of the great robe, of the starred robe

Thou recallest to me that great silence which there was in the world
Before the beginning of the reign of man.
Thou announcest to me that great silence which there will be
After the end of the reign of man, when I shall have taken up my sceptre again.

And I think of it sometimes in advance, for this man truly makes much noise.

But above all, Night, thou recallest to me that night.
And I shall remember it eternally.

The ninth hour had sounded. It was in the country of my people of Israel.

All was consummated. That enormous adventure.

Since the sixth hour there had been darkness over all the land, until the ninth hour.

All was consummated. Let us speak of it no more. It hurts me.
That incredible descent of my son among men.
Among men.
For what they made of it.
Those thirty years that he was a carpenter among men.

Those three years that he was a kind of preacher among men.
A priest.
Those three days when he was a victim among men.
Among men.
Those three nights when he was a dead one among men.
Among the men who are dead.
Those centuries and centuries when he is a host among men.
All was consummated, that incredible adventure
By which, I, God, have my arms bound for my eternity.
That adventure by which my Son has bound my arms.

For eternally binding the arms of my justice, for eternally unbinding the arms of my mercy.

And against my justice inventing a very justice.
A justice of love. A justice of Hope. All was consummated.

What had to be. As it had had to be. As my prophets had foretold it. The veil of the temple had been rent in twain, from the top to the bottom.

The earth had trembled; rocks had split.

Sepulchres had opened, and many bodies of the saints who were dead had risen again.

And about the ninth hour my Son had uttered

The cry that shall not be effaced. All was consummated. The soldiers had returned to their barracks.

Laughing and joking because it was a duty done.
A guard-turn that they would not take again.
Only a centurion remained, and a few men.

A very small post to guard this gibbet of no importance.
The gallows where my Son hung.
Only a few women had remained.
The Mother was there.

And perhaps also a few disciples, and even of that one is not quite sure.

Now every man has the right to bury his son.
Every man on earth, if he has this great misfortune
Of not being dead before his son. And I alone, I God,
My arms bound by this adventure,
I alone at this minute father after so many fathers,
I alone I could not bury my son.
It was then, O night, that thou camest.

O my daughter dear among all and I see it still and I shall see it in my eternity
It was then O Night that thou camest and in a great shroud thou didst bury

The Centurion and his Roman men,
The Virgin and the holy women,
And that mountain and that valley, upon which evening was descending,

And my people of Israel and the sinners and together him who was dying, who had died for them

And the men of Joseph of Arimathea who already were drawing near

Bearing the white shroud.