My sister was in no way capable of understanding my state, so that often she was offended at it. She got vexed when one concealed one’s self in the least from her, and she could not appreciate a state that many persons more spiritual than she would have been unable to understand; so that I suffered much from every quarter in this malady. The distress from the great pain was the least; that from the creature was very different. My only consolation was to receive our Lord, and sometimes to see Father La Combe; moreover, I had to suffer much from him, as I have said, bearing all his different dispositions. I was strangely exercised by my sister, by that nun, and by the maid who wanted to return to France. Whatever extremity I might be in, I had to listen to their differences, which they told me, the one after the other; then they quarrelled with me for not taking their side. They did not let me sleep—for as the fever was more intense at night, I could only sleep for an hour, and I would gladly have slept by day: but they would not have it, saying it was only to avoid speaking to them—so that I required very great patience to bear with them. It lasted more than six months. I think this partly was the cause of a revery I had for two days together; for I did not sleep, and I continued to hear a noise, with a terrible headache. I complained of nothing, and I suffered gaily, like a child. Father La Combe commanded them to give me some rest: for some days they did so, but it did not last; they recommenced immediately.
I cannot express the mercies which God showed me in this illness, and the profound lights be gave me on the future. I saw the Devil let loose against prayer and against me, and that he was about to stir up a strange persecution against people of prayer. I wrote all this to Father La Combe, and unless he has burned the letters, they ought to be still in existence. The Devil did not dare attack me myself; he feared me too much. Sometimes I defied him, but he did not venture to appear, and I was for him like a thunderbolt. I understood then what power a self-annihilated soul has. Our Lord made me see all that has since happened, as the letters of that time prove. One day that I was thinking to myself of the nature of a dependence so great, and a union so pure and intimate, twice in a dream I saw Jesus Christ, the Child, of surpassing beauty, and, it seems to me, he united us very closely as he said, “It is I who unite you, and who wish you to be one.” Another time he made me see the Father, as he was wandering away from me through want of fidelity, and he brought him back with extreme kindness, and willed him to aid me in my state of childhood, as I aided him in his state of death; but I did not cause suffering to him. It was only I who had to suffer. He had an extreme charity for me, treating me as a real child, and he often said to me, “When I am near you I am as if I was near a little child.” I was repeatedly reduced to extremity every ninth day, and ready to die, without, however, dying. I had, as it were, the last agony. I was many hours without breathing, except at long intervals; then I came back on a sudden. Death flattered me, for I had for it a great tenderness, but it only appeared as flying away. The Father forbade me to rejoice at dying, and I at once knew that it was imperfect, and did it no more. I remained in supreme indifference. During this illness so many extraordinary things happened that it would be impossible for me to relate them. God continually performed miracles by Father La Combe, as well to relieve me and give me new strength when I was at extremity, as to show to him the care he ought to have of me, and the dependence I should have on him. I was like a little child, without thinking of myself or my illness. I would have gone without food every day for want of thinking of it, and whatever was given I took, though it might be fatal to me. In my illness I was wrongly treated; the remedies increased it, but I could not trouble myself in the matter. I always had a smiling face in my greatest sufferings, so that everyone was astonished. The nuns had extreme compassion for me; it was I alone who had no feeling for myself. Many times in dreams I saw Father La Mothe stirring up persecutions against me. Our Lord made me know that he would greatly torment me, and that Father La Combe would leave me during the time of persecution. I wrote to him, and this hurt him much, because he felt his heart too united to the will of God, and too desirous of serving me in this same will, to act so. He thought that it was through distrust, but it turned out perfectly true; he left me in the persecution, not of his will, but through necessity, having been himself the first persecuted.
The day of the Purification, when I had relapsed into a very severe fever, the Father ordered me to go to the Mass. For twenty-two days I had had continued fever, more violent than ordinary. I did not give a single thought to my state, but I got up and attended at the Mass, and returned to my bed much worse than before.
It was a day of grace for me, or, rather, for the Father. God showed him very great grace in regard to me. Near Lent the Father, without giving attention to the fact that he had to preach at Lent, when he saw me so ill, said to our Lord to relieve me, and that he would bear a part of my disease. He told our maids to ask the same thing, namely, that he might relieve me in the way he meant.
It is true I was a little better, and he fell ill, which caused great alarm in the place, seeing he had to preach. He was so much run after that people used to come from five leagues’ distance and pass several days there to hear him. When I learned he was so ill on Shrove Tuesday that they thought he would die, I offered myself to our Lord to become more ill, and that he would restore health to him, and enable him to preach to his people, who were hungering to hear him. Our Lord heard me, so that he mounted the pulpit on Ash Wednesday.
It was in this illness, my Lord, that by degrees you taught me that there is another way than by speech for conversing with the creatures, who are entirely yours. You made me conceive, O Divine Word, that as you are always speaking and working in a soul, although you there appear in a profound silence, there was also a means of communication in your creatures, and by your creatures in an ineffable silence. I learned then a language unknown to me before. I perceived gradually that when Father La Combe was brought in either to confess me or give me the Communion, I could no longer speak to him, and that there took place in my central depth towards him the same silence which took place towards God. I understood that God wished me to learn that even in this life men might learn the language of the angels. Little by little I was reduced to speaking to him only in silence; it was then that we understood each other in God, in a manner ineffable and quite divine. Our hearts spoke and communicated to each other a grace which cannot be told. It was an altogether new country for him and me, but divine beyond expression. At the commencement this took place in a more perceptible manner, that is to say, that God so powerfully penetrated us with himself, and his divine Word made us so entirely one in him, but in a manner so pure and so sweet, that we passed hours in this profound silence, still communicating, without being able to say a single word. It was there we learned by our experience the communications and operations of the Word, in order to reduce souls into his unity, and to what purity one may attain therein. It was given me to communicate in this way with other good souls, but with this difference, that for the others I alone communicated the grace with which, in this sacred silence, they were filled from me, communicating to them an extraordinary strength and grace; but I received nothing from them. In the case of the Father, I experienced that there was a flux and reflux of communication of graces, which he received from me and I from him; that he gave to me and I to him the same grace in an extreme purity.
It was then I understood the ineffable intercourse of the Holy Trinity communicated to all the Blessed, how there is an outflow from God into all the souls of all the Blessed, and that this same God who communicates himself to them causes in them a flux and reflux of his divine communications; that the Blessed spirits and the saints of a like degree or hierarchy reciprocally give by a flux and reflux of communication these divine outflowings, which then they distribute upon the inferior hierarchies, and that everything is reduced to its first principle, whence all these communications proceed. I saw that we were created to participate during this life in the ineffable happiness of intercourse with the Trinity, and in the flux and reflux of the divine Persons, which end in Unity of principle, and become again Unity without ever for a moment arresting the fruitfulness and communication between them; principle without principle, which incessantly communicates, and receives all it communicates; that it was necessary to be very pure to receive God in simplicity, and to allow him to flow back in himself in that purity; and that it was necessary also to be very pure to receive and communicate the Divine Word, and then to distribute him by a flux and reflux of communication upon the other souls which God gives us. It is this which makes us one in God himself, and perfects us in the divine Unity, where we are made one same thing in him from whom all originates.
I learned by experience then this hierarchic order, and these reciprocal communications between the saints of a similar rank and the angels of a similar order, and this outflow on the inferior saints and spirits, and that with such fulness that they were all filled according to their degree. This communication is God himself, who communicates himself to all the Blessed in a personal flux and reflux; such as he communicates himself from within, such he communicates himself from without, to his saints, and they are all rendered participators of the ineffable commerce of the Holy Trinity. It is to render the soul capable of this communication, that it is necessary for her to be purified so powerfully and so radically; otherwise she would still be self-moved; she would still retain something in her, and by such retention would not be suitable for the ineffable commerce of the Holy Trinity. Further, it is necessary to enlarge her capacity of reception, which, being extremely restricted and limited by sin, can only by fire and hammer-blows be put in a state suitable to the eternal designs of God in her creation. It was shown me how this hierarchic order existed even in this life, and that there were souls who without knowing it communicated with an infinity of others, and to whom grace for the perfection of the others was attached; and that this hierarchy would last through all eternity, where the souls of the Blessed would receive from the same persons through whom grace had been communicated to them; and that those who mutually communicated would be in the same degree. It was then I learned the secret of spiritual fruitfulness and maternity; and how the Holy Spirit renders souls fruitful in himself, giving them to communicate to others the Word which he communicates to them—what St. Paul calls “the formation of Jesus Christ, and begetting in Jesus Christ”—and that it was in this way that children without number would be given to me, as well known as unknown. All those who are my true children have from the first a tendency to remain in silence near me, and I have an instinct to communicate to them in silence what God has given me for them. In this silence I discover their wants and their deficiencies, and I communicate to them in God himself all that is needed for them. They very well feel what they receive and what is communicated to them in abundance. When once they have tasted this manner of communion, all others become troublesome. For myself, when I use speech and pen with souls, it is only owing to their weakness I do it, and because either they are not sufficiently pure for the interior communication, or it is still needful to use condescension, or to settle external matters.
Our Lord made me experience with the saints of heaven the same communication as with the saints on earth; and this is the way of being truly united to the saints in God. I experienced these communications very strong and very intimate, especially with those with whom one has a greater relation of grace, and to whom one will be more closely united in heaven. At the commencement it was more sensible, because our Lord had the kindness to instruct me by experience. It is the way he has always acted with me; he has not enlightened me by illumination and knowledge, but while making me experience the things, he has given me the understanding of what I experienced.
I understood also the maternity of the Holy Virgin, and in what manner we participate in her maternity, and how the saying of Jesus Christ is real, when he says, that he who does the will of his Father, becoming one will with his, is made his mother, his brother, and his sister. They are truly made his mothers, producing him in souls.
It was in this ineffable silence I understood the manner in which Jesus Christ communicated himself to his intimates, and the communication of St. John on the breast of our Lord at the Last Supper. It was not the first time that he had so placed himself, and it was because he was very fit to receive those divine communications that he was the chosen and loved disciple. It was at this great banquet that Jesus Christ, as Word, flowed into John, and discovered to him the most profound secrets, before communicating himself to him in the mastication of his body. And it is then there was communicated to him that wonderful secret of the eternal generation of the Word, because he was rendered a participator in the ineffable intercourse of the Holy Trinity. He knew that therein is the characteristic of the true children of God, and how the silent speech operated; for this speech in silence is the most noble, the most exalted, the most sublime of all operations. It was then he learned the difference of being “born of the flesh, of the will of man, or of the will of God.” The operations of the flesh are those of carnal men, those of the will of man are those which are virtuous, being done by the goodwill of the man; but those of which I speak are those of the will of God, where man has no other part but the consent which he gives to them, as Mary did: “Let it be unto me according to thy word.” She not only gave her consent for herself alone that the Word should become incarnate in her, but she gave it for all men who are her children—that is, for all those who are regenerated in Jesus Christ; she gave, I say, a consent for them that the Word should communicate himself to them and that, as the consent which Eve had given to the Devil for sin, had caused death to enter into all her children, so the consent which Mary would give should communicate the life of the Word to all her children.
It is for this that Jesus Christ is “the way, the truth, and the life,” and that he comes “to enlighten every man who comes into the world.” “He has come unto his own, and his own have not received him.” He is not known in his most intimate communications except to those to whom he has given “to be made children of God,” and to become children. It was this wonderful mystery which was effected at the foot of the cross, when Jesus Christ said to St. John, “Behold your mother,” and to the Holy Virgin, “Behold your son.” He taught St. John that he wished him to receive from the Holy Virgin what he used to receive immediately from himself before his death; and he made known to the Holy Virgin, that he had given to her to communicate herself to St. John as to her son, and through him to all the Church. It was at that moment that those divine communications were given to men through Mary and St. John, and it was for this that he wished that his heart should be opened, to show that he sent his Spirit through his heart, and that it was the spirit of his heart that he communicated. Mary received then the gift of producing the Word in all hearts: and as Jesus Christ gave himself by the mastication of his body to all men, he wished also to communicate himself as the Word to all spirits of which he is the life. It was not only to St. John that this communication was made, but it was for us a sensible example of this kind of communication. Therefore our Lord said of St. John, “If I will that he tarry until I come, what is it to thee?” He did not say that he should not die, but if I will that he continue thus, in this ineffable communication, what is it to thee? I propose to communicate myself also to the men prepared to receive me in that way.
O wonderful communications, those which passed between Mary and St. John! O filiation quite divine, who art willing to extend thyself even to me, all unworthy as I am! O divine Mother, who art willing to communicate your fruitfulness and your altogether divine maternity to this poor nothing! I mean this fecundity of hearts and spirits. In order to instruct me thoroughly in this mystery, for the sake of others, our Lord willed that a maid—she is the one I have spoken of—should have need of this help. I have experienced it in all ways, and when I did not wish her to remain near me in silence, I used to see her interior gradually sink, and even her bodily powers diminish, until she was on the point of falling in a faint. When I had made sufficient experiments of this to understand these ways of communication, her extreme needs passed away, and I commenced to discover, especially with Father La Combe when he was absent, that the interior communication took place at a distance as well as near. Sometimes our Lord made me stop short in the midst of my occupations, and I experienced that there went out an outflow of grace, like that I had experienced when with him—a thing I have also experienced with many others, not altogether in a similar degree, but more or less, feeling their infidelities and infallibly knowing their faults by inconceivable impressions; as I shall tell in the sequel.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MADAME GUYON 