OUR Lord, willing that I should bear him in all his states, from the first to the last, as I shall tell, and willing to make me perfectly simple, gave me in regard to Father La Combe such a miraculous obedience that, in whatever extremity of illness I might be, I grew well when, either by word of mouth or by letter, he ordered it. I believe our Lord did it to make me express Jesus Christ the Child, and also to be a sign and evidence to this good Father, who, having been conducted by evidences, could not leave that way; and in whatever was told him, or which God made him experience, he still kept seeking evidences. It is where he had the greatest trouble to die, and that by which he has made me suffer so much. Our Lord, to make him enter more easily into that which he desired of him and of me, gave him the greatest of all evidences in this miraculous obedience: and to show that it did not depend on me, and that God gave it for him, when he was sufficiently strong to do without any evidence, and God wished to make him enter upon self-annihilation, this obedience was taken away from me, so that, without paying any attention to it, I was unable longer to obey: and this was done to annihilate him the more, and to take from him the support of this evidence; for then all my efforts were useless: I had inwardly to follow him who was my master, and who gave me this repugnance to obeying, which lasted only so long as was necessary to destroy the support he would have found—and perhaps I also—in obedience. I had then so strong an instinct for his perfection and to see him die to himself, that I would have wished him all the ills imaginable, far from pitying him. When he was not faithful, or took things so as to nourish the self-life, I felt myself devoured; and this surprised me not a little after the indifference I had hitherto maintained. I complained of it to our Lord, who with extreme kindness reassured me, and also as to the extreme dependence he gave me, which became such that I was like a child.
My sister had brought me a maid, whom God wished to give me to fashion in his manner, not without crucifying me—a thing that I expect will never be; for when our Lord gives me persons, he always gives them at the same time the means of making me suffer, whether to direct those persons themselves to the interior way, or in order that I should never be without a cross. She was a girl to whom our Lord had given singular grace, and who was so highly reputed in her country that she passed for a saint. Our Lord brought her to me to make her see the difference of sanctity conceived and comprised in gifts—with which she was then endowed—and sanctity which is acquired by our entire destruction, by the loss of those very gifts, and of that which we are. This girl fell seriously ill. Our Lord gave her the same dependence on me as I had on Father La Combe—with some distinction, however. I helped her to the best of my ability, but I found that I had hardly anything to say to her, except to command her ailment and her disposition; and whatever I said was done. Then I learned what it is to command by the Word, and to obey by the same Word. I found in me Jesus Christ commanding and likewise obeying. Our Lord gave power to the Devil to torment this poor girl, as in Job’s case. The Devil, as if he was not strong enough alone, brought with him five, who reduced her to such a state with her disease, that she was at death’s door. These wretches fled when I approached her bed, and I had hardly gone out when they returned with greater fury, and they said to her: “It is to have compensation for the ill she has done us”—speaking of me.
As I saw she was too much crushed, and her weak body could no longer endure the torment they caused her, I forbade their approaching her for a time: they left at once. But the next day at waking I had a strong impulse to allow them to visit her; they returned with so much fury that they reduced her to extremity. After having thus given some relaxation at different intervals, and allowed them to return, I had a strong movement to forbid them to attack her any more. I forbade them: they returned no more. Nevertheless she still continues ill, until one day she had received our Lord in such weakness that she could scarcely swallow the sacred Host. After dinner I had a strong impulse to say to her, “Get up, and be no longer ill.” The nuns were very much astonished, and as they knew nothing of what was going on, and they saw her on foot after having been in the morning at extremity, they attributed her illness to the vapours.
As soon as the devils were withdrawn from this girl, I felt as if by an impression the rage they were in against me. I was in my bed, and I said to them, “Come and torment me if your Master allows it;” but, so far from doing this, they fled from me. I understood at once that the devils fear worse than hell a soul that has been annihilated, and that it is not the souls who are conducted by faith they attack, for the reason I have already given. I felt in myself such an authority over the devils that, far from fearing them, it seemed to me I would make them fly from hell if I was there. It should be known that the soul of whom I speak, in whom Jesus Christ lives and acts, does not perform miracles as those who perform them by a power in them of performing miracles. They are performed by the annihilation of the soul, for as she is no longer anything, nothing of all this can be attributed to her; therefore when the movement urges, she does not say, “Be healed in the name of Jesus Christ,” for this “Be healed in the name of Jesus Christ” is a power in the person of performing miracles in the name of Jesus Christ. Here it is not the same; it is Jesus Christ who performs the miracle, and who says through that person, “Be healed,” and the man is healed; “Let the devils depart,” and they depart. When one says this, one knows not why one says it, nor what causes one to say it; but it is the Word who speaks and operates what he says. “He spoke, and they were made.” One does not utter prayers beforehand, for these miracles are performed without any previous design, and without the soul looking upon it as a miracle. One says quite naturally what is given one to say. Jesus Christ willed to pray at the resurrection of Lazarus, but he said that he did it only for the sake of those who were present, for he says to his Father, “I know that you hear me always, but I say it that these may believe you have sent me.” Other servants of God, honoured with the gift of miracles, pray, and thereby obtain what they desire; but here it is the Word who uses his authority, and who acts by the speech of the person in whom he lives and reigns.
Hereupon I must remark two things: one, that the souls of whom I speak do not ordinarily perform miracles by giving anything, or by simply touching; but it is by the word, although they sometimes accompany it with touching. It is the all-powerful Word. The other thing is that these miracles require the consent, or at least that there should be no opposition, in the person on whom they are performed. Our Lord Jesus Christ asked the good people he healed, “Do you wish to be healed?” Was there a doubt in the matter, that people who came to him for it, or who desired nothing else, wished it? Here is the secret of the operation of the Word, and of the liberty of man. On the dead, or on inanimate substances, it is not the same. He said, and his saying is doing; but here the consent of the soul is required. I have many times experienced it, and I felt in myself how God not only respects the liberty of man, but even how he wishes a free consent; for when I said “Be healed,” or for interior pains “Be delivered from your pains,” if they acquiesced without any answer, they were healed, and the word was efficacious; if they resisted under good pretexts, as saying, “I shall be healed when it will please God,” “I do not wish to be healed but when he wills,” or in despair, “I shall never escape from my pain,” then the word had no effect, and Ifelt it in myself. I felt that the virtue retired into me, and I experienced what our Lord said, when the diseased woman touched him, and he asked, “Who touched me?” The apostles answered, “The crowd surrounds you, and you ask who has touched you.” “It is,” answered our Lord, “that a divine virtue has gone out from me.” In the same way Jesus Christ in me, or rather through me, made this divine virtue to flow out by means of his word; but when this virtue was not received in the subject, owing to want of correspondence, I felt it suspended in its source, and this caused me a kind of pain. I would be in a way vexed with those persons; but when there was no resistance, and a full acquiescence, the divine virtue had its full effect. One cannot conceive the delicacy of this divine virtue; although it is so powerful on inanimate objects, on man the least thing either arrests it altogether or restrains it.
There was a worthy nun afflicted with a violent temptation. She went and told a Sister, whom she believed very spiritual and in a state to help her: but, far from finding help, she was violently repulsed. The other despised her, and even harshly treating her because she had temptations, said to her, “Do not come near me, I pray, since you are of that kind.” This poor girl came to see me in terrible distress, believing herself lost, owing to what the Sister had said to her. I consoled her, and our Lord relieved her at once; but I could not refrain from saying that assuredly the other would be punished, and that she would fall into a worse state. The one who had so used her came to see me, very well satisfied with herself; and she told me what she had answered, adding that she had a horror of persons who are tempted, that for herself she was safe from all this, and that she never had had a bad thought. I said to her, “My Sister, for the friendship I have for you, I wish you the trouble of her who has spoken to you, and even a more violent one.” She answered me proudly enough, “If you ask it of God for me and I ask the contrary, I think I shall be as soon heard as you.” I answered her firmly, “If it is my own interest I regard, I shall not be heard; but if it is the interest of God only and yours, he will do it sooner than you fancy.” I said this without reflection. The same night—it was evening when we were speaking—she entered into such a violent and furious temptation, the like of which was hardly ever seen; it continued with the same strength for a fortnight. It was then she had full opportunity to recognize her weakness, and what we should be without grace. At first she conceived an excessive hatred for me, saying I was the cause of her trouble; but as it served, like the mud which enlightened the man born blind, she saw very well what had brought on her such a terrible state.
I fell exceeding ill. This illness was a means to cover the great mysteries which God desired to operate in me. Never was there a malady more extraordinary or more continued in its intensity. It lasted from Holy Cross Day of September to that of May. I was reduced to the state of a little child, but a state which was apparent only to those who could understand; for as to the others, I appeared in an ordinary condition. I was reduced to the dependence of Jesus Christ, the Child, who wished to communicate himself to me in his state of childhood, and that I should bear him as such. This state was communicated to me almost immediately on my falling ill, and a dependence corresponding to the state. The further I advanced, the more was I set free from this dependence, as children gradually emerge from dependence in proportion to their growth. My illness at first was a continuous fever of forty days. From the Holy Cross of September up to Advent it was a less violent fever, but after Advent it seized me in a more violent manner. In spite of my illness the Master willed I should receive him at Christmas midnight. Christmas Day my childhood became greater, and my illness increased. The fever intensified so that I was delirious; besides, there was an abscess at the corner of the eye, which caused great pain. It opened entirely at this time, and they dressed it, for a long time passing in an iron up to the bottom of the cheek. I had such burning fever and so much weakness that they were obliged to allow it to close again without healing, for my exhausted body could not endure the operations without danger of instantly expiring. I suffered with extreme patience; but it was like a child, who knows not what is done to him. I experienced at the same time both the strength of a God and the weakness of a little child, with a corresponding dependence. This mode of action was so foreign to my natural character that nothing less than the power of a God was needed to make me enter into it. I gave myself up to it, however, for my interior was such and was so powerfully urged by God, that I could not resist him. I was, not to press the comparison, like those who are possessed by the Evil Spirit, who makes them do what he wishes; thus the Spirit of God was so completely the master, that I had to do everything that pleased him. His will was not concealed from me; he led me from within like a child, while he rendered my whole exterior childlike. They often brought me the Eucharist; the Superior of the House having ordered that this consolation should be allowed me, seeing the extremity I was in. As Father La Combe often brought it to me, when the confessor of the House was not there, he remarked, and the nuns who were familiar with me also remarked it, that I had the face of a little child. In his astonishment he several times said to me, “It is not you; it is a little child that I see.” For myself, I saw nothing within but the candour and innocence of a little child. I had its weaknesses; I sometimes wept from pain, but this was not known. I played and laughed in a way that charmed the girl who attended me; and those good nuns, who knew nothing about it, said that I had something which surprised and charmed them at the same time.
Our Lord, however, with the weaknesses of his childhood gave me the power of a God over souls, so that with a word I cast them into trouble or peace, according as was necessary for the good of those souls. I saw that God made himself obeyed in me and through me, as an absolute Sovereign, and I no longer resisted him. I took no part in anything; you might have performed, O my God, in me and through me the greatest miracles, and I should not have been able to reflect upon it. I felt within a candour of soul, without taint, which I cannot express. Moreover, I had to continue telling my thoughts to Father La Combe, or else writing them to him and aiding him, according to the light that was given to me. I often was so weak that I could not raise my head to take food, and when God desired I should write to him, either to aid and encourage him, or to explain what our Lord gave me to know, I had the strength to write. As soon as my letters were finished, I found myself in the same weakness. I was very much surprised to understand by experience that what you had wished of me, O my God, in obliging me thus to tell all my thoughts, had been to perfect me in simplicity, and to make Father La Combe enter into it, rendering me supple to all your wishes; for whatever cross it was to me to tell my thoughts, and although Father La Combe often was offended to the point of disgust at serving me, and he let me know it (while yet through charity he got the better of his repugnance), I never for that ceased from telling them to him.
Our Lord had made us understand that he united us by faith and by the cross, so that it has indeed been a union of the cross in every way; as well from what I have made him suffer himself, and he in turn has made me suffer (which was very much more than anything I can tell), as from the crosses which this has drawn upon us from outside. The sufferings I had in respect of him were such that I was reduced to extremity, and they endured many years; for although I have been longer at a distance from him than near him, this has not relieved my ill, which has continued until he has been perfectly annihilated and reduced to the point God wished for him. This operation has made him suffer pains the more severe in proportion as the designs God had for him were the greater, and he has caused me cruel pains. When I was a hundred leagues away from him, I felt his disposition. If he was faithful in allowing himself to be destroyed, I was in peace and free; if he was unfaithful, in reflection or hesitation, I suffered strange torments until it was over. There was no necessity for him to tell me his state, that I should know it. I was often laid upon the ground the whole day, without being able to move, in agony, and after having for a fortnight in this way endured sufferings which surpassed all I ever suffered in my life, I received letters from him, by which I learned his state to be such as I had felt it. Then suddenly I felt that he had re-entered on the state in which God wished him; and then I experienced that gradually my soul found a peace and a great freedom, which was more or less, according as he gave himself up more or less to our Lord. This was not a voluntary thing in me, but compulsory; for if nature could have shaken off this yoke, more hard and painful than death, it would have done so. I said, O union necessary, and not voluntary, thou art not voluntary only because I am not any more mistress of myself, and I must yield to him who has taken so powerful a possession of me after I have given myself to him freely and without any reserve. My heart had in itself an echo and counter-stroke, which told it all the dispositions this Father was in; but while he resisted God I suffered such horrible torments that I sometimes thought it would tear out my life. I was obliged from time to time to throw myself on the bed, and in that way bear the suffering which seemed to me unbearable; for, in short, to bear a soul, however distant the person may be from us, and to suffer all the rigours that Love makes her suffer, and allher resistance: this is strange.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MADAME GUYON 