Summary: Blessed Anne of St. Bartholomew Chapter II (p22) "Scarcely had I passed a few days in the Monastery of t. Joseph than it pleased our Lord to hid Himself from me and leave me in darkness. My desolation was great. I said to this Adorable Master: "how is this? Why have you abandoned me? If I did not know you, I would think you had deceived me, and if I had known you would go away I would not have come to the monastery." This abandonment lasted ruing the entire year of novitiate. At the end of the year I entered one day the hermitage of Christ at the Pillar to pray. Scarcely had I knelt down than I became supernaturally recollected, and our Lord appeared to me fastened to the cross. The first words He addressed to me were in reply to a desire I had to know whether the thirst He experienced on the cross was a natural thirst. He said to me: "my thirst was only a thirst for souls. From henceforth you must apply yourself to the consideration of this truth, and you must walk in a different path from that you have followed until now." As if He has said to me, "Child, no longer seek Me." He then caused me to see all virtues in their perfection; they were exquisitely beautiful. I was the more impressed when I realized how far I was from their beauty and perfection. After having favored me with this light, the Divine Master disappeared, leaving my heart deeply wounded with His love, as well as by seeing Him on the cross so deeply wounded with the love of souls. This grace remained so indelibly impressed in my souls that it was with me day and night; my heart was with my Adorable Master, and my Adorable Master was in my heart; this was my usual state. Wherever I might be I experienced a zeal beyond expression for the salvation of souls and for the acquisition of those virtues that the Divine Master had shown me in the vision I have just related. He told me that it was by the way of the cross I would acquire them." TIME 4:30 Autobiography of the Blessed Mother Anne of Saint Bartholomew Inseparable Companion of Saint Teresa of Avila and Foundress of the Carmels of Pontoise, Tours and Antwerp: French Translation of the Unpublished Autograph of the Vernerable Servant of God, Preserved by the Carmelites of Antwerp, with Commentary and Historical Notes. By Reverend Marcel Bouis, S.J.: Trnaslated from the French by a Religious of the Carmel of St. Louis, MO., U.S.A. Imprimatur: Joannes Josephus, Archiepiscopus, Sti. Ludovici. 20 December, 1916
