Flora Cantábrica

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Saint Therese of Lisieux and the Last Disease.

Last illness of the saint Saint Therese of Lisieux 0

The last years that the Servant of God spent on earth were the echo of her life; She did not renounce for a single moment her tender abandonment to God, her patience, her humility, her countenance had an expression of indefinable peace. It was seen that her soul had arrived where her lifelong desires had led it, directed toward a single goal, now achieved. Like Our Lord before dying, she told me on the eve of her death with a grave intonation of voice: «Everything is fine, everything has been fulfilled, the only thing that counts is love.»

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The physical suffering that she endured in recent months was atrocious, since intestinal tuberculosis was added to the chest illness, which produced gangrene, while ulcers formed due to her extreme weakness: evils that we could not in any way alleviate. . I was very close to my dear Little Sister during her illness, because as a second nurse, she entrusted me with taking care of her.

 I slept in an adjoining cell and only left it for the hours of the Divine Office and to provide some care to other sick people. During this time I was replaced by Mother Inés de Jesús, who wrote down all of our Little Sister’s words on loose sheets as she pronounced them. Thanks to these certain documents we have preserved the memory of the events, which are as vivid today as the first day.

 Strength in physical suffering 2 After her first hemoptysis on Good Friday 1896, Sister Teresa of the Child Jesus was holy joyful in obtaining permission to finish Lent in all its rigor, that day and the next. Seeing her follow all her exercises like that, I had no idea what had happened to her. I later learned that she had suffered greatly because of the fast that year, but according to her custom she had not complained.

Likewise, she did not claim any relief from the extreme fatigue she experienced every day in the recitation of the Divine Office, which coincided precisely with the hour when the fever was at its most ardent. She was careful not to tell us, at the right moment, that certain jobs made her suffer more, for example washing and hanging her clothes. 3 And what courage to endure painful cures! I still see her suffering from more than five hundred fire buttons on her back (I even counted them).

 While the doctor operated, the angelic patient, without stopping talking to our Mother about indifferent things, was standing, leaning against a table. She offered – she told me later – her sufferings for souls. and she thought of the martyrs. After the session, she would go up to her cell, without waiting for a word of compassion to be addressed to her; She would sit, all trembling, on the edge of her poor pallet, and, there, she would endure the effect of the painful treatment alone.

 When night came, not having permission to put a mattress on her, I had no other recourse than to fold the blanket in four and pass it over the pallet, which my poor little Sister gratefully accepted, without a single word of complaint escaping her lips. criticism about the primitive way in which the sick were cared for at that time. It is true that in the midst of the most acute pain she maintained great serenity and joy. As I internally admired myself, thinking that it was because she was not suffering as much as we thought, I wanted to surprise her in a moment of crisis. A short time later I saw her smile with an angelic air, and I asked her the cause of it. She told me: «It’s because I feel a very sharp pain in my side: I have gotten into the habit of putting a brave face on suffering.»

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