THIS poor girl came to see me one day quite distressed. She said to me, “O my mother, what strange things I have seen!” I asked her what it was. “Alas!” she cried, “I saw you like a lamb in the midst of a pack of furious wolves. I have seen a terrible gang of people of all kinds, of every age, sex, and condition—priests, monks, married people, maids, wives—with pikes, halberts, naked swords, who were trying to stab you. You let them do so without stirring, or showing astonishment, or defending yourself. I looked on all sides if anyone would come to assist or defend you, but I have not seen anyone.” Some days after those who through envy were preparing a secret battery against me suddenly broke out like a thunderbolt. Libels commenced to circulate everywhere, and letters were shown me of the most dreadful character, which, without knowing me, envious persons had written. They said that I was a sorceress; that it was by magic I attracted souls; that whatever was in me was diabolic; that if I bestowed charities, it was with false money I did so; and a thousand other crimes they accused me of, which were as false and as ill founded the one as the other. As the tempest each day increased, and they in truth said “Crucify!” exactly as our Lord had at the first let me know, some of my friends advised me to withdraw for a time. The Almoner of the Bishop of Grenoble told me to go to St. Baume and to Marseilles, to spend some time; that they wished for me there, where were some very spiritually minded persons; that he would accompany me, together with a worthy maid and another ecclesiastic, and meantime the tempest would pass off. But before speaking of my departure from Grenoble, I must say something more of the state which I bore in that country.
I was in such a great plenitude of God that I was often either lying down or entirely confined to bed, without being able to speak; and when I had no means of pouring out this plenitude, our Lord did not permit it to be so violent, for in that violence I could no longer live. My soul only wished to pour out into other hearts her superabundance. I had the same union and the same communication with Father La Combe (although so far away) as if he was near. Jesus Christ was communicated to me in all his states. It was then his Apostolic state, which was most marked. All the operations of God in me were shown me in Jesus Christ, and explained by the Holy Scripture; so that I bore in myself the experience of what was there written. When I could not write or communicate myself in another manner, I was then quite languishing, and I experienced what our Lord said to his disciples: “I desired with ardour to eat this Passover with you.” That was the communication of himself through the Last Supper, and through his Passion, when he said, “All is consummated, and bowing the head, gave up the ghost” (because he communicated his spirit to all men capable of receiving him), “and returned it into the hands of his Father” and his God, as well as his kingdom; as if he had said to his Father, “My Father, my kingdom is to reign through you, and you through me, over men. This can only be by the pouring out of my Spirit upon them. Let, then, my Spirit be communicated to them through my death.” And herein is the consummation of all things. Often a too great plenitude took from me the capacity to write, and I could do nothing except lie down without speech. I used, notwithstanding, to have nothing for myself; everything was for the others, like those nurses who are full of milk, and who for this reason are not the more supported—not that anything was wanting to me, for since my new life I have not had one moment of emptiness.
Before writing on the Book of Kings of all that refers to David, I was put into such a close union with this holy patriarch that I communicated with him as if he had been present, not in images, species, or figures—my soul was far removed from these things—but in a divine manner, in an ineffable silence, and in perfect reality. I understood what this holy patriarch was; the greatness of his grace, the conduct of God with him, and all the circumstances of the states through which he had passed; that he was a living figure of Jesus Christ, and a shepherd chosen for Israel. It seemed to me that all our Lord made me, or would make me, do for souls, would be in union with this holy patriarch, and with those to whom I was at the same time united in a manner similar to what I had been with David, my dear King. O Love, did you not make me know that the wonderful and real union between this holy patriarch and me would never be understood by anyone? for none was in a state to understand it. It was then you taught me, O my Love, that by this admirable union it was given me to carry Jesus Christ, Word-God, into souls. Jesus Christ is born of David according to the flesh. Oh, how many conquests did you cause me to make in this quite ineffable union! My words were efficacious, and produced effects in hearts. It was the formation of Jesus Christ in souls. I was in no way the mistress of speaking or saying things; he who led me made me speak them as he wished, and for as long as was pleasing to him. There were souls to whom he did not let me say a word, and others for whom there were deluges of grace. But that pure love did not suffer any superfluity nor trifling. Sometimes there were souls who asked several times the same things, and when they were answered according to their need, and it was only a desire of speaking, without my paying any attention to it, I could not answer them. They then said to me, “You said this last; must we hold to this?” I used to say to them, “Yes,” and then I was enlightened that because the answer would have been useless, it was not given to me. It was exactly the same with those whom our Lord was leading through the death of themselves, and who came to seek for human consolation. I had for them merely the strictly necessary, after which I was unable to speak. I would rather have spoken of a hundred indifferent matters (because that is what comes of myself, which God allows, that I may be all things to all, and not vex my neighbour), but as for his Word, he himself is the dispenser of it. Oh, if preachers spoke in this spirit, what fruit would they not have! There were others, as I have said, to whom I could communicate myself only in silence, but a silence as ineffable as efficacious. These last are the most rare, and it is the special characteristic of my true children. It is (as perhaps I have already said) the communication of the Blessed Spirits.
It was then that I learned the true manner of treating with the Saints of heaven in God himself, and also with Saints on earth. O communication so pure, who will be able to comprehend thee, save he who experiences thee? If men were spirit, we would speak in spirit, but because of weakness we must have recourse to words. I had the consolation some time ago to hear this read from St. Augustine in a spiritual conversation he had with his mother. He complains that he must have recourse to words, owing to our feebleness. I used sometimes to say, “O Love, give me hearts large enough to contain such a great plenitude.” It seemed to me that a thousand hearts would be too small. I had intelligence of the communication between Jesus Christ and St. John during the Last Supper. My intelligences were not lights, but intelligences of experience. How did I truly experience, O well-beloved disciple, the communication of my divine Master to your heart, and the manner in which you learned ineffable secrets, and how you continued a like commerce with the Holy Virgin! Oh, how one may well call that communication a wonderful intercourse! It was given me to understand that herein was the language of the cradle, and how the Holy Child communicated himself to the kings and shepherds, and gave them the knowledge of his Divinity.
It was also (as I have said somewhere) in this way that when the Holy Virgin came to Elizabeth, a wonderful intercourse took place between Jesus Christ and St. John—intercourse which communicated to him the spirit of the Word, and the holiness which was so efficacious that it always continued. It is for this reason St. John Baptist showed no eagerness to come and see Jesus Christ after this communication, for they used to communicate at a distance as well as if near; and in order to receive these communications with more plenitude, he retired into the desert. So when he preached penitence, what did he say of himself? He did not say he was the Word, for he knew quite well that was Jesus Christ, Eternal Word, but he only said he was a voice. The voice serves as passage to the word, and emits it; so that after being filled with the communication of the divine Word, he was made the expression of that same Word, propelling by his voice that divine Word into souls. He knew it from the first: he had no need anyone should tell him who he was; and if he sent his disciples to him, it was not for himself, but for them, to make them disciples of Jesus Christ. He baptized only with water, to let it be seen what was his function, for as the water in flowing away leaves nothing, so the voice leaves nothing. It is only the Word who impresses himself. He was made, then, to carry the Word, but he was not the Word ; and he who was the Word baptized with the Holy Spirit, because he had the gift to impress himself on souls, and to communicate himself to them by the Holy Spirit. I understood that Joseph and Mary mutually communicated through Jesus. Jesus was the principle and the end of their communications. O adorable intercourse! It is not observable that Jesus Christ said anything during his obscure life, although it is true that none of his words will be lost. O Love, if all you have said and operated in silence were written, I do not believe that all the world could contain all the books which should be written. All that I experienced was shown me in the Holy Scripture, and I saw with wonder that nothing passed in the soul which is not in Jesus Christ and in the Holy Scripture. When I communicated with narrow hearts I experienced a very great torment. It was like an impetuous stream of water, which, not finding an issue, returns upon itself, and I was sometimes ready to die. O God, could I describe or make to be understood all I suffered in that place, and the mercies you showed me there? I must pass over many things in silence, as well because they cannot be expressed as that they would not be understood. What caused me the most suffering was Father La Combe; as he was not yet established firmly in his state, and that God exercised him in crosses and overthrows, his doubts and his hesitations gave me strange blows. However far distant from me he was, I felt his pains and his dispositions. He was bearing a state of interior death and alternations the most cruel and terrible that ever were. According to the knowledge which God has given me of it, he is therefore of all his servants now on earth the most agreeable to him. It was impressed upon me that he is a vessel of election, whom God had chosen to carry his Name among the Gentiles; but that he would show him how much he must suffer for that very Name.
When in those trials he found himself, as it were, rejected by God, he found himself at the same time separated from me. He doubted of my state, and had great griefs against me; and as soon as God received him into himself, he found himself more powerfully united to me than ever, and he found himself enlightened on my state in a wonderful manner, God giving him an esteem which went as far as veneration: so that he could not conceal his sentiments, and he often repeated to me, “I cannot be united to you out of God, for as soon as I am rejected by God, I am the same by you, and I feel myself divided from you, in continual doubt and hesitation as to what concerns you; and as soon as I am well with God, I am well with you. I know the grace he bestows on me in uniting me to you, and how dear you are to him, and the central depth he has put into you.”
O God, who will ever comprehend the pure and holy unions which you form among your creatures! The carnal world only judges of them carnally, attributing to a natural attachment that which is the highest grace. You alone, O God, know what I have suffered on this head. All the other crosses, although very hard, appeared to me shadows beside that. Our Lord made me one time understand that when Father La Combe should be established in him in a permanent state, and he should have no more interior vicissitudes, he would have none also in regard to me, and that he would remain for ever united to me in God. That is so at present. I saw that he felt the union and the division only owing to his weakness, and that his state was not yet permanent. I felt it only because he divided himself, and that I had to bear all this; but ever since the union has been without contrariety, without hindrance and in its perfection, he has no longer felt it, no more than I; except by an awakening in interior conversation in the manner of the Blessed.
The union of the soul with God is felt only because it is not entirely perfect; but as soon as it is consummated in unity, it is no more felt: it becomes, as it were, natural. One does not feel the union of the soul and the body. The body lives and operates in this union without one thinking, or paying attention to the union. It exists—we know it; and all the functions of life which the body performs do not allow us to be ignorant of it—yet one acts without attention to that. It is the same for the union with God and with certain creatures in him, for what shows the purity and eminence of this union is that it follows that with God; and it is so much the more perfect as that of the soul to God and in him is more perfected. Yet were it necessary to break this pure and holy union, one would feel it the more, in proportion as it is more pure, perfect, and insensible; as one very well feels when the soul is about to separate from the body by death, although one does not feel the union.
As I was in the state of childhood of which I have spoken, and Father La Combe got offended, and separated himself from me, I used to weep like a child, and my body became quite languishing; and what is surprising is that I found myself at the same time weaker than a little child and strong as God. I found myself quite divine, enlightened on everything, and firm for the severest crosses; and yet the weakness of the smallest child. O God, I can say that I am perhaps the creature in all the world from whom you have desired the greatest dependence. You placed me in all kinds of states and in different positions, and my soul neither wished to, nor had the power to resist. I was so utterly yours that there was nothing in the world that you could have exacted of me, to which I would not have submitted with pleasure. I had no interest for myself, and if I could have perceived that “myself,” I would have torn it into a thousand pieces; but I no longer perceived it.
Ordinarily I do not know or recognize my state, but when God wishes anything from this miserable nothing, I feel that he is absolute master, and that nothing, not to say, resists him, but even objects to his wishes, however rigorous they may seem. O Love, if there is a heart in the world over which you are fully victorious, I can say that it is this poor nothing. You know it, O Love, and that your most rigorous volitions are its life and its pleasure; for it subsists no more but in you. I have wandered; that is a common thing with me, as well owing to interruptions and that I have had two severe illnesses since I commenced to write, as that I give myself up to what carries me away.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MADAME GUYON 