Letter to Louis B. James: November 21, 1883
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Kansas City -To-day is to me the feast of all the year, full of sweetest memories, next to a day in the month of May, for on this day when I was going on sixteen years of age, I resolved to become a priest. And it was so sudden. At Benediction of the Holy Sacrament, the resolve came like a flash from Heaven to my heart, and after Benediction I had my name put into a hollow silver heart, that hung round the neck of the Sweet Virgin's Statue, in testimony of my resolve which rose up into a vow. I never had a regret for that resolve. I have lived a strangely checquered life; in fact, I have been a "gypsy" all my life-a waif, a wanderer; but to-day I look back to that long-gone 21st of November, and my heart says: "I am glad." Of course I have had sorrows, eclipses; trials, troubles, temptations from within and without; much of calm and somewhat of storm in my days; but I look across the days and nights to that evening Benediction, with a feeling of calmest joy. How different at times is the inner from the outer life! What unknown realms, strange mysteries, shadowy places there are in every heart ! And I think, most of all, in consecrated hearts. What unwritten romances-what lofty reveries--what wordless histories-what unsung songs-what memories-what vague dreamings, vague and beautiful as golden sunset-clouds-what strange imaginings as to the "might-have-beens" of this uncertain life-more as stars and suns and shadows-across the changeful horizons of every heart that clings to a vow! Next Sunday in the Cathedral of St. Joseph, Mo., I am going to lecture on this subject: "Unknown Realms, or the Lands of Mystery." How treat it ? -the nun's veil and habit--the nun's lost name-the nun's new name-the cell-the convent-hushes and the convent sounds- the nun's heart the mystic espousals-so of the nun and sister-so of the monk and priest. The lecture will be an analysis of a "wonder life" unknown to the world Such subjects have a spell for me. Did you ever have this feeling? I always do. You look at the face of one you love. It is a veil, the face is; it hides more than it reveals. Then a great yearning stirs your heart, to know what is back of that veil. In vain. Our eyes are in our head; not in our heart. So we see so little, I reckon it is better. It is the unknown in each of us which most stirs the heart. The known (by the fact of being known) descends into the common place. The most beautiful, the most human, most pathetic, and deepest fact in Christian History is the pedestal without the statue on Mars Hill at Athens, and its inscription, "The Unknown God." That is the basis of a glorious poem. Divine Faith down here looks through a veil, and veiled Faith is going to save us by our works. Some day I am going (if I have time) to find reasons for this in human nature. We can know anything in this world-but a person. How mysterious is personality! One's history is not one's personality. The road that leads from place to place is neither place, though it unites place with place ; yet uniting them, it separates them. So words, actions, looks, etc., between two persons, are like the road,--they unite them and yet they separate them. And words, actions, etc., are not personalities. I want you to think over these mere suggestions of mine, and write me the result of those thoughts. For a subject of meditation I give you this : All Eternity rests on the word Now. Is not Now, then, the equation of Eternity? Souls can come so close together as to be virtually one. God bless you!
Kind regards to all. |
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