II. TO THE PRIORESS OF S. BENEDICT'S, COLWICH [A very close and intimate correspondence was kept up between the venerable Prioress of S. Benedict's Priory, Colwich, Mother Francis Magdalen Taunton, and Mother Francis Raphael, a few extracts from which we have been allowed to make. One of the earliest is written towards the close of Mother Margaret's long illness.] "April 26, 1868. "These last days are inexpressibly precious to us. Not that we see her much: indeed, after she spoke to us all together on Friday, and gave us her blessing, we felt it as her last farewell, and hardly dare intrude on the silence of the chamber in which she is passing away to God. She told us in a few words, spoken in a feeble voice, to work for God alone, and that which has been her motto through life remained her teaching to the last. "I am amazed to see how we all bear it, and cannot help feeling that the calm, and if I may so say, the sweetness of this long death week, is the effect of those many prayers offered for us by others: by yourselves, and so many charitable friends. "The last words I heard her saying, in the midst of her pain, were: All goodness, all bounty, all love!' And in the middle of the night, not being able to lay her hand upon her Rosary and Crucifix, she said, 'Where is my Crucified Love?' "The Bishop is here and remains as long as he can. I think he feels it as much as ourselves." "Indeed we do thank God in the midst of our tears, for having given us this great and noble soul, for as long as He saw fit, and now, as we doubt not, having called her to Himself the only reward she ever desired. The sufferings, to witness which have so harrowed our hearts for the last six months, we shall be able now to think of as the worthy crown of her noble life, the means, as we must believe, of hastening her union with her Divine Spouse. I am sure she will be our Mother in heaven, and I own I did invoke her as I saw her parting look, and begged her to obtain for each of us the one grace we all most needed. "As one of our Sisters said, it seems as if we had done with time and got into Eternity. And so it does. I cannot realise that the last week has only had seven days in it." [On her own election as Prioress Provincial, after the death of Mother Imelda Poole.] "Dec. 1, 1881. "You so well understand what the trial of this time must be to me, that I need not say much about it. Every other feeling has been swallowed up in my heart in the one thought of her, whose loss alone has brought on me this immense change. No one can ever imagine what she was to me, and yet this seems a selfish thing to say, when I know how much she was to all her children. But during these last ten years, union in work, union in daily and hourly intercourse, have made up such entire union of soul, as I did not think was possible in this poor world. For somehow (and I thank God for it), it was so entirely in Him, that now she is gone, I do not feel, as some would suppose, desolate and broken, only that she has gone to heaven, and that on earth her place is empty. "My comfort must be in adhering to the Will of God, and accepting my present responsibilities, as the expression of that Will." [On her recovery from a bad illness.] "June 11, 1890. "Oh, how good it has all been for me! It did seem to bring God so near me. I would not have been without those dear, long, sleepless nights for the whole world, and the pain, too, was so very good. . . . "The erysipelas has affected the eyes, so that I cannot read, and ought not to write-so there was nothing left but to sing; and that I did. "Now, my dear Mother, I must say no more, except to ask you to thank God with me for all His goodness, and beg Him that I may begin a new life, and serve Him a little bit better." [Mother Francis Raphael was strongly urged by many persons, and among them the venerable Prioress of S. Benedict's, to write the biography of Bishop Ullathorne after his death. The following letter not only explains the reason of her refusal, but illustrates the spirit in which her literary works were performed.] "Oct. 22, 1890. "You see, I consider the whole matter of a nun employing herself in literary pursuits an exceptional case. I have done it under obedience, and always encouraged rather than discouraged by my Superiors, emphatically by our dear Archbishop, who was my only director. But unless so encouraged, I should have felt doubts as to its suitability. Anyhow the subjects to be written about cannot but enter into the question. Again and again have I been solicited to write on subjects of general literature, and always have refused, and always shall. For writing on such subjects as the Life of S. Catherine, the studies requisite do but necessitate a deeper knowledge and familiarity with authorities of a purely spiritual kind. To study the works of S. Catherine for instance, is to drink of the very fountainhead of Dominican spiritual teaching. So far from one's religious spirit suffering loss from such studies, it is refreshed and invigorated. I may say the same of the Life of S. Dominic, on which I am now engaged. But when you come to writing the biography of a Bishop of our own time, you have to deal with a variety of subjects, political, social, and I know not what. You would have to read correspondences on diocesan matters, and state views about such things, which would commit you to a course of interests, to my thinking, altogether outside the proper sphere of a nun. At least, you must either treat these matters (and contemporary matters are far more difficult to be accurate about, than when you write from historical monuments, or you must leave them out, and if you do, your 'Life' is imperfect. The second is, you have to make "That is one thing. an appreciation of character. of your Father ? "In writing the dear Archbishop's Life, I feel I should have to deal with, study, and pass judgment on a variety of subjects which are altogether foreign to what I consider suitable matters for me as a woman and a religious to concern myself with. I would as soon turn editor of a newspaper. "No, believe me, this is a matter where we may trust a certain instinct, which guides one in things difficult to distinguish in words. I think what I shall content myself with doing, is editing certain portions of the Archbishop's Autobiography, leaving out all that might raise questions and cavillings, and this probably I shall do, and nothing more. I have opened my mind on the subject, to those of my own Sisters whose spiritual instinct I can best trust, and I find them entirely of my mind, and I attach more weight to their judgment on such a matter, than I do to the views of outsiders." [On the receipt of a manuscript on Prayer by Dame Catherine Gascoigne, O.S.B., Abbess of Cambrai about 1660, lent to Mother Francis Raphael from S. Benedict's.] "Nov. 23, 1890. "I feel your kindness in having this copied for me more than I can say, and it will have many a careful reading. It is, indeed, wonderfully beautiful, and one feels how surely such a method of prayer must lead to great interior perfection, as well as peace. "In what she says of the adherence of the will to the Will of God, she is speaking the language of S. Catherine, who places all our perfection in that one exercise. Nothing, surely, can lead a soul more directly to God, while there is a simplicity and humility in it, which must be a safeguard against delusion. At the same time I note with pleasure what you say about the importance of having memory and understanding well stored with the material for meditation in the time of need. "Altogether, dear Mother, your letter is a real help to me, in instructing the novice mistress as to the proper course to take with beginners. I have always pressed the necessity of their mastering a simple method of meditation, even if, later on, they should be attracted to a different kind of mental prayer; lest, for want of this to fall back on, they spend the time of prayer in idleness and vacuity. And, moreover, it seems to me, that to have once acquired the habit of digesting the truths of Faith in meditation must facilitate their eliciting therefrom affections and aspirations. "There is another reason why, with us, a certain employment of the understanding in prayer is very desirable. Those who are engaged in teaching (as many of us are), are obliged to use their understanding on a variety of subjects more or less secular; and so it is doubly necessary to spiritualise that same faculty by exercising it on the life of |