IT was this happy Day of the Magdalen that my soul was perfectly delivered from all her troubles. She already commenced after the first letter from Father La Combe, to recover a new life, yet she was like a dead man brought back to life, not yet released from his grave-clothes; but on this day I was as if in perfect life. I found myself as much elevated above nature as I had been rigorously captive under its load. I was astonished at this new liberty, and to see returned, but with as much magnificence as purity, him whom I thought I had lost for ever. What I possessed was so simple, so immense, that I cannot express it. It was then, O my God, that I found again in you ineffably all that I had lost. You restored it to me with fresh advantages. My trouble and my pain were changed into a peace such that, the better to explain, I call it God-Peace. The peace I possessed before this time was indeed the peace of God—peace, the gift of God; but it was not God-Peace—peace which he possesses in himself, and which is found only in him.
Although my joy was extremely great, it was not then allowed me to give way to it. The recollection of my past abjectness hindered me from rejoicing, or letting nature have a part in anything whatsoever. As soon as it wished to see or taste anything, the spirit made it pass beyond all. I could not better explain the empire the spirit had then over nature than as a famous conqueror, who might himself have been kept prisoner by the enemy he has conquered. He would with authority make him do what he pleased, and there would be in him no longer resistance. I was very far then from exalting myself, or attributing to myself anything of this new state; for my experience made me see and feel what I was. I saw, indeed, it was a change of state which would last with me some time, but I did not believe my happiness as great and as immovable as it was. If a blessing is judged by the toil that has preceded it, I leave you to judge mine by the toils I had to bear before possessing it. O Paul, you say that the toils of this life are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is prepared for us. It is true even in this life, where I can say from actual experience, that all the toils one suffers here would not be anything compared with the happiness of possessing you in yourself in the way my soul did. One day of this happiness would be indeed the recompense with usury for many years of suffering. Although then only in its rising dawn, it was nevertheless such as I describe it. Every facility for good was restored to me far greater than before; but in a manner so free, so spontaneous, that it seemed to have become natural to me.
At the commencement this liberty had less extent, but the more I advanced, the more great the liberty became. I had occasion to see M. Bertot for some moments. I told him I believed my state much changed, without telling him the details, nor what I experienced, nor that which had preceded it. I had very little time to speak to him, and further, he was attending to something else. You, O my God, permitted that he said to me, “No,” perhaps without thinking of it. I believed him, for grace made me believe what was said to me, in spite of my lights and my experiences; so that when I was told the contrary of what I thought, every other thought was banished from my mind, which remained so submissive to what was said to it that it had not even a contrary thought or reflection. This caused me no trouble, for every state was indifferent to me. Every day, however, I felt increasing within me a species of beatitude. I was entirely delivered from all pain, and from all tendencies I thought I had to sin.
It seems to me I then performed all kinds of good, freed from self-hood or self-regard, and if a self-regard presented itself, it was at once dissipated. It seemed to me as if a curtain was drawn, which covered that thought, and made it no longer appear. My imagination was entirely fixed, so I had no longer trouble with it. I was astonished at the clearness of my mind and purity of my heart. I received a letter from Father La Combe, who wrote me that God had made him know he had great designs for me; whether they be of justice, or of mercy, all is alike to me. It had been said to him, “You shall both dwell in the same place.” He knew no more, and God did not then let him know anything more particular. I had still Geneva in the bottom of my heart, without mentioning it to anyone. I did not stop even to think of it, or of what Father La Combe had told me of the designs of God for my soul. I received all this with an entire indifference, without wishing either to occupy myself with it or to think of it; awaiting all, O my God, from your all-powerful will. As my abjectness was still so near, I feared even it might be a trick of the Devil, who, by amusing me with the thought of a good I had not, would make me lose that I possessed, by withdrawing me from my state. This fear was gentle, peaceable, animated with confidence and hope. The more miserable I saw myself, the more suitable for your designs, O God, I saw myself; and it seemed to me my abjectness, my incapacity, and my nothingness, not being able to rob God of anything he did, he alone would have all the glory of his works. I said to you, “O my Lord, take the miserable and the stupid to perform your works in order that all the glory may be given to you, and that man may claim nothing of it. If you took a person of great virtue, and enriched with talents, something might be ascribed to him, but if you take me it will be well seen you alone are the author of all that you shall do.” I remained thus, without thinking any more of it, nor occupying myself with it in the very least, convinced, as I was, that if you wished anything from me, my God, you would furnish me with the means. I, however, kept myself in expectancy, with a firm will to execute your orders at the expense of my own life when you should make them known. You removed all crosses, and you gave me so great a facility for everything, I was surprised at it. I took again to dressing wounds, and you caused me to heal the most incurable. When the surgeons would no longer attend to them or wanted to cut off the diseased limbs, it was then you caused me to cure them. I became so free, I could have remained all day in church, although I had nothing of the sensible; and also I was no way distressed at not being there, finding everywhere, in a very great immensity and vastness, him whom I no longer possessed, but who had swallowed me up in himself.
Oh, how truly have I experienced what you say in your Gospel, which is repeated in the four Gospels not without reason, and even said twice in one Gospel, that whoever will lose his life shall find it, and whoever will save it, shall lose it. O happy loss, which a happy necessity forced me to make. When I believed myself lost without resource, it was then I found myself saved. When I no longer hoped anything from myself, I found all in my God. When I had lost every good, I found in him all kinds of good. When I had lost all created and even divine supports, I found myself under the happy necessity of falling into the Divine itself, and of falling into it through everything I thought separated me the further from it. In losing all the gifts I found the Giver. In losing you, my God, in me, I found you in yourself, in the immovable, to lose you no more. O poor creatures, who pass all your life in tasting the gifts of God, and who think thereby you are the most favoured and the most happy; how I yet pity you, if you do not go to my God through the loss of those same gifts! How many souls pass all their life in this way, and believe themselves prodigies! There are other persons who, being destined by God to die to themselves, pass all their life in a dying life and in strange agonies, without ever entering into God through total death and loss, because they still wish under good pretexts to retain something, and never lose themselves in all the extent of the designs of God. For this reason they never enjoy God in fullness, which is a loss that will only be perfectly known in the other life.
O my Lord, what happiness did I not taste in my little solitude, and my little household, where nothing interrupted my repose! As I was a long time in the country, and the tender age of my children did not require too much of my attention, besides that they were in good hands, I withdrew all day into the wood, where I passed as many happy days as I had had there months of grief. For it was there I previously gave free course to grief to destroy me. It was also where in the commencement I gave place to love to consume me, and it was where now I let myself be more lost in an infinite and incomprehensible abyss. I can tell nothing of what took place in me, as it was too pure, too simple and too outside of me.
You treated me, O my God, like your servant Job, restoring to me double what you had taken from me, and delivering me from my crosses. You gave me a wonderful facility to please everybody, and what is more surprising, my mother-in-law, who up to that had always complained of me, whatever care I might have taken to satisfy her, declared that it was impossible to be more pleased with me than she was. Persons who had most decried me expressed sorrow at it, and became my panegyrists. My reputation was the more firmly established as it appeared the more lost. I continued in an entire peace both outward and inward. You did that, O my God, to render the sacrifice you were preparing to cause me to make both more painful and more perfect; for had I been obliged to break away during the time of persecution, it would have been a relief, and not a sacrifice; perhaps, also, I should never have been able to resolve to leave during the time of my troubles. I would always, doubtless, have been apprehensive of descending from the cross of myself and being unfaithful to it. It seems to me that one could not be more content and more happy than I was. As the cross had always been my faithful companion and friend, there awoke from time to time little pains at no longer suffering; but they were immediately absorbed in a central depth which could not admit any desires. Although the body suffered great pains, there was no longer pain, but a central depth which beatified everything. It seems to me that my soul was become like that New Jerusalem which is spoken of in the Apocalypse, where there is no more either crying or pain. The indifference in me was perfect, and the union to the good pleasure of God so great, that I did not find in myself any desire or tendency. What appeared then most lost in me was the will, for I did not find it for anything whatever. My soul could not incline herself more to one side than to another. All she could do was to nourish herself from the daily providences. She found another will had taken the place of her own—a will all divine, which yet was so her own and so natural, that she found herself infinitely more free in this will than she had been in her own.
These dispositions, which I describe as of a time past to avoid confusion, have ever since subsisted, and have even continually grown more strong and perfect up to the present hour. I could desire neither one thing nor the other; but I was content with all that happened without paying attention to or reflecting on it, unless some one said to me, “Do you wish this or that?” and then I was astonished at no longer finding in me that which could wish. It was as if everything had disappeared from within me, and a greater power had taken its place. I had indeed experienced in the times preceding my trouble that a more powerful than I conducted me and made me act. I had not then, it seems to me, a will except to submit myself with acquiescence to all he did in me and through me; but here it was no longer the same. I had no more a will to submit; it had, as it were, disappeared, or, rather, passed into another will. It seems to me that this powerful and strong One did all that pleased him; and I no more found that soul which he formerly conducted by his crook and his staff with an extreme love. He appeared to me alone, and as if this soul had given place to him, or, rather, had passed into him, henceforth to become only one same thing with him.
O union of unity, asked from God by Jesus Christ for men, and earned by the same Jesus Christ, how powerful art thou in a soul that thou dost thus annihilate in her God! It is here, then, after the consummation of this divine unity, that the soul remains hidden with Jesus Christ in God. O happy loss, and so much the more happy as it is not one of those transitory losses that ecstasy produces, which are rather absorptions than losses, since the soul finds herself immediately after; but one of those permanent durable losses, which go on continually losing themselves in an immense sea, as a little fish would go continually sinking down into an infinite sea. But the comparison does not appear to me sufficiently accurate. It is rather like a little drop of water cast into the sea, which continually acquires more the qualities of the same sea. This soul was receiving, without power to incline herself or to choose. When I speak of power, I do not understand it of absolute power, but of that of a soul which has still elections and desires. She received in perfect indifference what was given or done to her. At the commencement she still committed some faults of precipitancy; but this was as if outside of her, without, however, her knowing her state.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MADAME GUYON 