The suffering
Therese's pain was excruciating, as the disease of breast tuberculosis was added to the intestines, which brought with him the gangrene, and wounds were formed, caused by its extreme thinness, the evils that were not in any way alleviate so and announced days more dark.
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Suffering in St. Therese.
She was to accompany the sisters into the mystery of his passion that is expected to be particularly unbearable. "Do not grieve, my sisters, if I suffer a lot and if at the time of death will not see in me, as I said before, no sign of happiness. Our Lord is far died as a victim of love, and see what was her agony".
(QC 4.6.1)
When the agony of Therese arrived was terrible and very long. Told her sister Celine (Sister Genevieve), "mid-afternoon, she felt herself seized by strange pains in every limb. Then the arm resting on the shoulders of Mother Agnes of Jesus, she stretched the other to me to get support, and remained so for a while. At that moment the clock struck three hours ... and we felt taken by a certain emotion. What she thought at that time? We drew the shocking image of Jesus on the Cross, and the coincidence seemed full of mystery".
(OP 310)
At five they realized that the end was imminent: "For more than two hours a rattle terribly damaged his chest. His face was flushed, his hands purple, his feet were cold and shivering in every limb. The profuse sweat beaded his brow and dripping with huge drops on her cheeks. Was under the oppressive weight of a growing, sometimes throwing small involuntary scream. At six, when the Angelus rang, looking down the statue of S. Virgin ...".
(QG 30.9)
Therese uttered the last words on earth, watching the crucifixion just before dying, have struck the hearts of countless Christians: "Oh, I love her! My God.. I love you ...». Words of love in a death of love, but too often forgotten by what terrible cross they are raised to the Heavenly Father.
The last moment before he died was a very sweet ecstasy that lasted as long as the space of a creed, he witnessed the whole community kneeling beside the bed. It seemed that someone talked and she made little movements as if to answer in his eyes was indescribable happiness. Infinite astonishment, as if his hopes were all infinitely exceeded. But the surprise was maximum by what transpired from his face in those supreme moments it seemed that the acceptance by God riservatale was a tenderness and mercy such that even she, Therese, had been able to imagine.
He said one day, to explain the tenderness with which he prepared to reach out to God: "If he scold me even a little bit, I will not cry. But if he does not scold me just about anything, if I greet you with a smile, then cry".
(QC 21.7.2)
For a few hours his face acquired a moving beauty, her hands shook so hard to Therese that the crucifix could not get, and the delicate strips sounded like a girl of 12-13 years. Just as Jesus on the Cross, Therese had revealed to the whole world his eternal branches, abandoned in the hands of his Abba.
What is striking in the story of the passion of the young Carmelite and his call to return a child, even to the very substance of his being that is spirit, soul and even in the body?.
I am "a poor little nothing," Therese said, contemplating with stirrings of passion and sweetness of the Love that fell irresistibly to her. On the bed of pain that poor anything, crushed by suffering, he knew that all his hope is to leave love.
What Therese wanted to communicate at all, while reduced to this state of annihilation, it was his feeling summed up in a paper: "O God, you look sweet for the little victim of Your Love".
