 Volume 2, Chapter 10 of the autobiography of Madame Keon. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The autobiography of Madame Keon by Jean Keon. Volume 2, Chapter 10 My daughter had the small box. They sent for a physician from Geneva who gave her over. Father Lacombe then came in to visit and pray with her. He gave her his blessing. Soon after, she wonderfully recovered. The persecution of the new Catholics against me continued and increased. Yet, for all that, I did not fail to do them all the good in my power. My daughter's mistress came often to converse with me, but much imperfection appeared in her discourses, though they were on religious subjects. Father Lacombe regulated many things in regard to my daughter, which vexed her mistress so much that her former friendship was stir into coldness. She had graves, but suffered nature too frequently to prevail. I told her my thought on her faults as I was inwardly directed to do, but though at that time God enlightened her to see the truth of what I said, and she had been more enlightened since, yet the return of her coldness toward me in suit upon it. The debates between her and my sister grew more tart and violent. My daughter, who was only six and a half years old by her little dexterities, found a way to please them both, choosing to do her exercises twice over, first with the one, then with the other, which continued not long. For as her mistress generally neglected her, doing things at one time and leaving them at another, she was reduced to learn only what my sister and I taught her. Indeed, the changeableness of my sister was so excessive that, without great grace, it was hard to suit oneself to it, yet she appeared to me to be surmount herself in many things. Formally, I could scarce bear her manners, but I have since loved everything in God, who has given me a very great facility to bear the faults of my neighbor, with readiness to please and oblige everyone and such a compassion for their calamities or distresses as I never had before. I have no difficulty to use condescension with imperfect persons. I shall be secretly smitten if I fail therein. But with souls of grace, I cannot bear this human manner of acting, nor suffer long and frequent conversations. It is a thing of which few are capable. Some religious persons say that these conversations are of great service. I believe it may be true for some, but not for all, for there is a period wherein it hurts, especially when it is of our own choice. The human inclination corrupting everything. The same things which will be profitable when God by his spirit draws to them become quite otherwise when we of ourselves enter into them. This appears to me so clear that I prefer being a whole day with the worst of persons in obedience to God before being one hour with the best only from my own choice and inclination. The order of divine providence makes the whole rule and conduct of a soul entirely devoted to God. While it faithfully gives itself up there too, it will do all things right and well and will have everything it wants without its own care because God in whom it confines makes it every moment do what he requires and furnishes the occasions proper for it. God loves what is of his own order and of his own will not according to the idea of the merely rational or even enlightened man, for he hides these persons from the eyes of others in order to preserve them in that hidden purity for himself. But how comes it that such souls commit any faults? It is because they are not faithful in giving themselves up to the present moment, often too eagerly bent on something or wanting to be over-faithful. They slide into many faults which they can neither foresee nor avoid. Does God then leave souls which confined in him? Surely not. Sooner will she work a miracle to hinder them from falling if they were resigned enough to him. They may be resigned as to the general will and yet fail as to the present moment. Being out of the order of God, they fall. They knew such faults as long as they continue out of that divine order. When they return into it, all goes right and well. Most assuredly if such souls were faithful enough not to let any of the moments of the order of God slip over, they will not thus fall. This appears to me as clear as the day, as a dislocated bone out of the place in which the economy of divine wisdom had fixed it, gives continual pain till restored to its proper order. So the many troubles in life come from the soul not abiding in its place and not being content with the order of God and what is afforded therein from moment to moment. If men rightly knew this secret, they will all be fully content and satisfied. But alas, instead of be content with what they have, they are ever wishing for what they have not, while the soul which enters into divine light begins to be in paradise. What is it that makes paradise? It is the order of God which renders all the saints infinitely content, though very unequal in glory. From hence comes it that so many poor, indigent persons are so contented and that princes and potent-dates who abound to profusion a sore edge and unhappy It is because the man who is not content with what he has will never be without grieving desires. He who is the prey of an unsatisfied desire can never be content. All souls have more or less of strong and ardent desires, except those whose will is lost in the will of God. Some have good desires, such to suffer martyrdom for God, others thirst for the salvation of their neighbor, and some punt to see God in glory. All this is excellent, but he who rests in the divine will, although he may be exempt from all these desires, is infinitely more content and glorifies God more. It is written concerning Jesus Christ, when he drove out of the temple those who profane it, the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up. John 2.17 It was in that moment of the order of God that these words had they effect. How many times had Jesus Christ been in the temple without such a conduct? Does not he occasionally say of himself that his hour was not yet come? End of chapter 10 volume 2 Volume 2 chapter 11 of the autobiography of Madame Keon This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org The autobiography of Madame Keon by Jean Keon Volume 2 chapter 11 After Father Lacombe returned from Rome well approved and furnished with testimonials of life and doctrine, he performed his functions of preaching and confessing as usual. I gave him an account of what I had done and suffering his absence and what care God had taken of all my concerns. I saw his providence incessantly extended to the very smallest things. After having been several months without any news of my papers, when some pressed me to write and blame my neglect, an invisible hand held me back. My peace and confidence were great. I received a letter from the ecclesiastic at home, which informed me that she had orders to come and see me and bring me my papers. I had sent to Paris for a pretty considerable bundle of things for my daughter. I heard they were lost on the lake and could learn no further tidings about them. I gave myself no trouble. I always thought they would be found. The man who had taken charge of them made a search after them a whole month in all the environments without hearing any news. At the end of three months they were brought to me having been found in the house of a poor man who had not opened them nor knew who brought them there. Once I had sent for all the money which was to serve me a whole year. The person who had been to receive cash for the bill of exchange having put that money in two bags on horseback forgot that it was there and gave the horse to a little boy to lead. The money fell from the horse in the middle of the market at Geneva. That instant I arrived. Coming on the other side and having alighted from my letter the first thing I found was my money. What was surprising was that the great throng was in this place and no one had perceived it. Many such things have attended me. These accounts may suffice to show the continual protection of God. The bishop of Geneva continued to persecute me. When he wrote it was with politeness and thanks for my charities at Ghex. While at the same time he said to others that I gave nothing to that house. He wrote against me to the Erselins with whom I lived charging them to hinder me from having any conferences with Father Lacombe. The superior of the house, a man of merit, the priors as well as the community were so irritated at this that they could not forbear testifying it to him. He then excused himself with a pretended respect saying he did not mean it that way. They wrote to him that I did not see the Father but at the confessional and not in conference, that they were so much edified by me as to think themselves happy in having me and to esteem it a great favor from God. What they said out of pure charity was not pleasing to the bishop who seeing they loved me in this house said that I won over everybody to myself but he wished I were out of the diocese. Though I knew all this and these good sisters were troubled at it, I could have no trouble by reason of the calm establishment which I was in the will of God rendering everything equal to me. The creatures however unreasonable or passionate they appear not being regarded in themselves but in God. The habitual faith causes everything to be seen in God without distinction but when I see poor souls so awful for discourses in the air so uneasy for explanations I pity them. They have reasons I know which self-love causes to appear very just. To relive myself a little from the fatigue of continual conversation I desire Father Lacombe to allow me a retreat. It was then that I let myself be consumed by love all the day long. Also I perceive the equality of a spiritual mother for the Lord gave me what I cannot express for the perfection of souls. This I could not hide from Father Lacombe. It seemed to me as if I enter into the innmost recesses of his heart. Our Lord show me he was his servant chosen among a thousand singularly to honour him but that he would lead him through total death and the entire destruction of the old man. He would have me contribute there too and be instrumental to cause him to walk in the way in which he had led me first. In order that I might be in a condition to direct others to tell them the way through which I have passed the Lord will have us to be conformed and to become both one in him. Though my soul was more advanced now yet he should one day pass beyond it with a bold and rabid flight. God knows with what joy I will see my spiritual children surpass their mother. In this retreat I fell a strong propensity to write but resisted till I fell sick. I had nothing to write about not one idea to begin with. It was a divine impulse with such a fullness of grace as was hard to contain. I opened this disposition of mine to Father Lacombe. The answer that he had a strong impulse to command me to write but had not dared to do it yet on account of my weakness. I told him that weakness was the effect of my resistance and I believe it would through my writing go off again. He asked, But what is it you all write? I applied. I know nothing of it, no desire to know, leaving it entirely to God to direct me. He ordered me to do so. At my taking the pen I knew not the first word I should write. When I began, suitable matter flow copiously, nay, imbeduously. As I was writing I was relieved and grew better. I wrote an entire treatise on the interior path of faith under the comparison of torrents or of streams and rivers. As the way we're in God now conducted, Father Lacombe was very different from that in which he had formally walked. All right, knowledge, ardent, assurance, sentiment. Now the poor, low, despised path of faith and of nakedness. He found it very hard to submit there too. Who could express what it has cost my heart before he was formed according to the will of God? Meanwhile, the possession which the Lord had of my soul became everyday stronger and so much that I passed whole days without being able to pronounce one word. The Lord was pleased to make me pass wholly into him by an indial, internal transformation. He became more and more the absolute master of my heart to such a decree as not to leave me a movement of my own. This state did not hinder me from condescending to my sister the others in the house. Nevertheless, the useless things with which they were taken up could not interest me. That was what induced me to ask leave to make a retreat to let myself be possessed of him who holds me so closely to himself after an ineffable manner. End of chapter 11, March of 2009, Athens, Greece Volume 2, chapter 12 of the autobiography of Madame Keon. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. I had at that time so ardent desire for the perfection of Adela come and to see him thoroughly die to himself that I could have wished him all the crosses and afflictions imaginable that might conduce to this great and blessed end. Whenever he was unfaithful or looked at things in any other light than the true one to tend to this death of self, I felt myself on the rug which, as I had till then been so indifferent, very much surprised me. To the Lord I made my complain. He graciously encouraged me both on this subject and on that entire dependence on himself which he gave me which was such that I was like a newborn infant. My sister had brought me a maid whom God was willing to give me to fashion according to his will, not without some crucifixion to myself. I believe it never is to fall out that our Lord will give me any persons without giving them wherewith to make me suffer, whether it be for the purpose of drawing them into a spiritual life or never to live me without the cross. She was one on whom the Lord had conferred very singular graces. She was in high reputation of the country where she passed for a saint. Our Lord brought her to me to let her see the difference between the sanctity conceived and comprised in those gifts with which she was endowed and that which is obtained by our entire destruction even by the loss of those very gifts and of all that raised us in the esteem of men. Our Lord had given her the same dependence on me as I had in regard to Father Lacombe. This girl felt grievously sick. I was willing to give her all the assistance in my power but I found I had nothing to do but to command her bodily sickness or the disposition of her mind. All that I said was done. It was then that I learned what it was to command by the word and to obey by the word. It was Jesus Christ in me equally commanding and obeying. She, however, continued sick for some time. One day after dinner I was moved to say to her rise and be no longer sick. She arose and was cured. The nuns were very much astonished. They knew nothing of what had passed but so her walking, who in the morning had appeared to be in the last extremity, they attributed her disorder to a vivid imagination. I had at sundry times experienced and fell in myself how much God respects the freedom of men even demands his free congruence for when I said be healed or be free from your troubles. If such persons acquiescence, the word was efficacious and they were healed if they doubted or resisted. Though under fair pretext saying I shall be healed when it pleases God I will not be healed till he well is healed or in the way of despair I cannot be healed. I will not quit my condition. Then the word had no effect. I felt in myself that the divine virtue retired in me. I experienced what our Lord said when the woman afflicted with the issue of blood touched him. He instantly asked, Who touched me? The Apostle said, Master, the multitude throng thee and press thee and sayest thou who touched me? He replied, It is because virtue had gone out of me. Luke 8 45 46 Jesus Christ had caused that healing that virtue to flow through me by means of his word. When that virtue met not with the correspondence in the subject, I felt it suspended in its source. That gave me some pain. I should be as it were displeased with those persons. But when there was no resistance but a full acquiescence, this divine virtue had its full effect. Healing virtue has so much power over things inanimate, yet the least thing in man either restrains it or stops it entirely. There was a good nun much afflicted and under a violent temptation. She went to declare her case to a sister whom she thought very spiritual and in a condition capable of assisting her. But far from finding Sucker, she was very much discouraged and cast down. The other despised and repulsed her and treating her with contempt and rigor. She said, Don't come near me since you are that way. This poor girl in a frightful distress came to me thinking herself undone on account of what the sister had said to her. I consoled her and our Lord relieved her immediately. But I could not forbear telling her that assuredly the other would be punished and would fall into a state worse than hers. The sister who had used her in such a manner came also to me highly pleased with herself in what she had done saying she abhorred such tempted creatures. As for herself she was proved against such sorts of temptations and she never had a bad thought. I said to her My sister from the friendship I have for you I wish you the pain of her who spoke to you and even one still more violent. She answered hotly If you were to ask it from God for me and I ask of him the contrary I believe I shall be heard at least as soon as you. I answer with great firmness If it be only my own interests which I ask I shall not be heard but if it be those of God only and yours too I shall be heard sooner than you are aware. That very night she fell into so violent a temptation that one equal to it has seldom been known. It was then that she had ample occasion to acknowledge her own weakness and that she would be without grace. She conceived at first a violent hatred for me saying that I was the cause of her pain but it serve her as the clay did to enlighten him who had been born blind. She soon saw very well what had brought on her so terrible a state. I fell sick even to extremity. This sickness proved a means to cover the great mysteries which it pleased God to operate in me. Scarce ever was a disorder more extraordinary or of longer continuance in its excess. Several times I saw in dreams in Father Laman raising persecutions against me. Our Lord let me know that this would be and that Father Lacombe would forsake me in the time of persecution. I wrote to him and he disquited him greatly. He thought his heart was united to the will of God and too desirous of serving me to admit such desertion. Yet it has since been found quite true. He was now to preach during Lent and was so much followed that people came five weeks to pass several days for the benefit of his ministry. I heard he was so sick that he was thought to die. I prayed to the Lord to restore his health and enable him to preach to the people who were longing to hear him. My prayer was heard and he soon recovered and resumed his pious labors. During this extraordinary sickness which continued more than six months the Lord gradually taught me that there was another manner of conversing among souls wholly his than by speech. Thou may test me conceived o divine word that as thou art ever speaking and operating in a soul thou the ring thou appearest in profound silence so that I was also a way of communication in thy creatures in an ineffable silence. I heard then a language which before had been unknown to me. I gradually perceived when Father Lacombe entered that I could speak no more that I was formed in my soul the same kind of silence toward him as was formed in it in regard to God. I comprehended that God was willing to show me that men might in this life learn the language of angels. I was gradually reduced to speak to him only in silence. It was then that we understood each other in God after a manner unutterable and divine. Our hearts spoke to each other communicating a grace which no words can express. It was like a new country both for him and for me but so divine that I cannot describe it. At first this was done in a manner so perceptible that is to say God penetrates us with himself in a manner so pure and so sweet that we passed hours in this profound silence always communicative without being able to utter one word. It was in this that we learned by our own experience the operations of the heavenly word to reduce souls into unity with itself and what purity one may arrive at in this life. It was given me to communicate this way to other good souls but with this difference. I did nothing but communicate to them the grace with which they were filled while near me in this sacred silence which infused into them an extraordinary strength and grace but I received nothing from them whereas with Father Lakom there was a flow and a return of communication of grace which he received from me and I from him in the greatest purity. In this long malady the love of God and of him alone made up my whole occupation. I seemed so entirely lost to him as to have no sight of myself at all. It seemed as if my heart never came out of that divine ocean having been drawn into it through deep humiliations. Oh happy loss which is the communication of bliss though operated through crosses and through deaths. Jesus was then living in me and I lived no more. These words were imprinted in me as a real state in which I must enter. The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nets but the son of man had nowhere to lay his head. Matthew 8 verse 20 this I have since experienced in all its extent having no sure abode nor a huge among friends who were ashamed of me and openly renounced me when universally decried nor among my relations most of whom declare themselves my adversaries and were my greatest persecutors while others looked on me with condemned and indignation. I might as David say for thy sake I have borne reproach shame hath covered my face I am become a stranger to my brethren and an alien unto my mother's children a reproach to man and despised of the people. He showed me all the word in a rage against me without anyone daring to appear for me and assure me in the ineffable silence of his eternal word that he will give me vast numbers of children which I shall bring forth by the cross. I left him to him to do with me whatever he pleased esteeming my whole and soul interest to be placed indirely in his divine will. He gave me to see how the devil was going to steer up an outrageous persecution against prayer yet it shall prove the source of the same prayer or rather the means which God will make use of to establish it. He gave me to see father how he will guide me into the wilderness where he will cause me to be nourished for a time. The Winx which were to bear me thither were the resignation of my whole self to his holy will. I think I am at present in that wilderness separated from the whole world in my imprisonment. I see already accomplished in part what was then shown me. Can I ever express the mercies which my God has bestowed on me? No. They must ever remain in himself. Being of a nature not to be described by reason of their purity and immensity. I was often to all appearance at the point of death. I fell into convosions from violent pains which lasted a long time. Father Lacombe administered the sacrament to me the priors of the excellence having desire him to do it. I was well satisfied to die as was he also in the expectation of my departure for being united in God after a manner so pure and so spiritual death could not separate us. On the contrary, it will have more closely unite us. Father Lacombe who was on his knees at my bedside remarking the change of my countenance and how my ace faded seemed ready to give me up when God inspired him to lift up his hands and with a strong voice which was heard by all who were in my room at that time almost full to command death to relinquish its hold. Instantly it seemed to be stopped. That God was pleased wonderfully to raise me up again yet for a long time I continue extremely weak during all of which our Lord gave me new testimonies of his love. How many times was he pleased to make use of his servant to restore me to life when I was almost on the very point of expiring? As they saw that my sickness and pain did not entirely end they judged that the air of the lake on which the convict was situated was very prejudicial to my constitution. They concluded that it will be necessary for me to remove. During my disposition our Lord put it into the heart of Father Lacombe to establish a hospital in this place for the poor people seized with malities to institute also in a committee or congregation of ladies to furnish such as could not leave their families to go to the hospital with the means of substance during the illness after the manner of France have been yet no institution of this kind in that country. Willingly did I enter into it and without any other fund that providence and some useless rooms which a gentleman of the town gave us we began it. We dedicated it to the Holy Child Jesus and he was pleased to give the first beds to it from my pension. He gave us such a blessing that several other persons join us in this charity. In a short time there were nearly 12 beds in it and 3 persons of great piety gave themselves to this hospital to serve it who, without any salary consecrated themselves to the service of the poor patients. I supplied them with ointments and medicines which were freely given to such of the poor people of the town as had need of them. These good ladies were so hearty in the cause that through their charity and the care of the young women this hospital was very well maintained and served. These ladies joined together also in providing for the sick who could not go to the hospital. I gave them some little regulations such as I had observed when in France which they continue to keep up with tenderness and love. All these little things which caused but little and which own all the success to the blessing which God gave them drew upon us new persecutions. The bishop of Geneva was offended with me more than ever especially in seeing that these small matters rendered me beloved. He said that I won over everybody. He openly declared that you could not bear me his diocese though I had done nothing but good or rather God by me. He extended the persecution to those good religious women who had been my assistants. The priors in particular had her own share to bear though it did not last long. As I was obliged on account of the air to remove after having been there about two years and a half they were there more in peace and quietness. On another side my sister was very wary of this house and as the season for the waters approached they took occasion from Thens to send her away with the maid whom I brought with me who had molested me exceedingly in my late illness. I only kept her whom Providence had sent me by means of my sister. I have ever thought that God had ordered my sister's journey only to bring her to me as one chosen of him and proper for the state which it was his pleasure to cause me to bear. While I was yet indisposed the air silence with the bishop of Versil earnestly requested the father-general of the Barnabites to seek among the religious a man of merit, piety and learning in whom he might place confidence and who might serve him for a prepent and a counselor. At first he cast his eyes on Father Lacombe yet before he absolutely engaged him with the said bishop he wrote to him to know whether he had any objection there too. Father Lacombe replied that he had no other will but that of obeying him that he might command him herein as he should think best in the case. He gave me an account of this and that we were going to be thoroughly separated. I was glad to find that our Lord would employ him under a bishop who knew him and would be likely to do him justice yet it was some time before he went matters not being all arranged. End of Chapter 12 Athens Breeze, March of 2009 The autobiography of Madame Keon by Jean Keon Volume 2 Chapter 13 This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Then went off from the Erselins they sold a house for me at a distance from the lake. There was that one to be found empty which had the look of the greatest poverty. I had no chimney but in the kitchen through which one was obliged to pass. I took my daughter with me and gave up the largest room for her and the maid who was to take care of her. I was lodged in a little hall on straw to which I went up by ladder. As we had no other furniture but our beds quite plain and homely I sold some straw chairs, some Dutch earthen and wooden ware. Never did I enjoy a greater content than in this little hall which appear so very conformable to the state of Jesus Christ. I fancied everything better on wood than on plate. I laid in all my provisions hoping to stay there a long time but the devil did not leave me long in such sweet peace. It would be difficult for me to tell the persecutions which were steered up against me. They threw stones in at my windows which fell at my feet. I had put my little garden in order. They came in the night, tore it all up, broke down the arbor and overturned everything in it as if it had been ravaged by soldiers. They came to abuse me at the door all night long picking such a racket as if they were going to break it open. These persons have since told who the person was that put them on such work. Though from time to time I continue my charities at Yex, I was not the less persecuted for it. They offered one person a warrant to compel Father Lacom to stay at Toonon thinking he would otherwise be a support to me in the persecution but we prevented. I knew not then the designs of God and that he would soon draw me from that poor solitary place in which I enjoyed a sweet and solid satisfaction notwithstanding the abuse. I thought myself happier here than any suffering on earth. It was for me like a nest and a place of repose and Christ was willing that I should be like him. The devil as I have said irritated my persecutors. They sent to desire me to go out of the diocese. All the good which the Lord had caused me to do in it was condemned more than the greatest crimes. Crimes they tolerated but me they could not endure. All these while I never had any uneasiness or repentance for my having left all not that I was assured of having done the will of God therein such an assurance would have been too much for me but I could neither see nor regard anything receiving everything alike from the hand of God who directed and disposed of these crosses for me either in justice or in mercy. The Emartioness of Brunei sister of the Chief Secretary of State to His Royal Highness the Duke of Savoy and His Prime Minister had sent an express from Turin in the time of my illness to invite me to come to reside with her and to let me know that being so persecuted as I was in these dioceses I should find an asylum with her. That during that time things might grow better that when they should be well disposed she would return with me and join me with a friend of mine from Paris who was willing also to come to labor there according to the will of God. I was not at that time in a condition to execute what she desired and expected to continue with the excellence till things should change. She then wrote to me about it no more this lady is one of extraordinary piety who had quitted the splendor and noise of the court for the more silent satisfaction of a retired life and to give herself up to God with an eminent share of natural advantages. She has continued a window 22 years has refused every offer of marriage to consecrate herself to our Lord indirely and without any reserve. When she knew that I had been obliged to leave the Erselins yet without knowing anything of the manner in which I had been treated she procured a letter to oblige Father Lacombe to go to pass some weeks at Turin for her own benefit and to bring me with him tether where I should find a refuge all this she did unknown to us. As she has told us since superior force moved her to do it without knowing the codes if she had been deliberately reflected on it being such a prudent lady she probably would not have done it because the persecutions which the bishop of Geneva procured us in that place cost her more than a little of humiliations. Our Lord permitted him to persume me after a surprising manner into all the places I have been in without giving me any relaxation. I never did him any harm but on the contrary would have let down my life for the good of his diocese. All this fell out without any design on our part we, without hesitation believed it was the will of God and thought it might be the means of his appointment to draw us out of the reproach and persecution we labor under seeing myself chased on the one side desire on the other. It was concluded that Father Lacombe should conduct me to Turin and that he should go from Thence to Versile. Beside him I took with me a religious man of merit who had taught theology for 14 years past to take away from our enemies all codes for slender. I also took with me a boy whom I had brought out to France. They took horses and I hired a carriage for my daughter my chambermaid and myself but all persecutions are useless when it pleases God to permit them to be frustrated. Our adversaries immediately rode to Paris a hundred ridiculous stories were circulated about this journey comedies were acted on it things invented at pleasure and as false as anything in the world could be it was my brother Father Lamant who was so active in uttering all this stuff had he believed to be true he owed out of charity to have concealed it much more being so very false they said that I was gone all alone with Father Lacombe strolling about the country from province to province with many such fables as weak and weak as they were incoherent and badly put together we suffered all with patience without vindicating ourselves or making any complaint scarcely where we arrive at Turin but the bishop of Geneva looked against us as he could pursue us no other way he did it by letters Father Lacombe repaired to Brazil and I stayed at Turin with the machiners of Brunei but what crosses was I assaulted with in my own family from the bishop of Geneva from the Barnabites to the number of persons besides my eldest son came to find me on the death of my mother-in-law which was an augmentation of my troubles after we had heard all his accounts of things and how they had made sales of all the movables chosen guardians and settled every article without consulting me they seemed to be there in direly useless it was judged not proper for me to return considering the rigor of the season the machiners of Brunei who had been so warmly desirous of my company seeing my great crosses and reproaches looked coldly upon me my childlike simplicity it was the state wherein God at that time kept me fast with her for stupidity or when the question was to help anyone or about anything which God required of me he gave me with the weakness of a child the evident tokens of divine strength her heart was quite shut up to me all the time I was there our Lord, however, made me foretell events which should happen which since that time have actually been fulfilled as well to herself as to her daughter and to the virtuous Ecclesiastic who lived at her house she did not fail at least to conceive more friendship for me seeing then that Christ was in me it was the force of self-love and fear of reproach which had closed up her heart moreover, she thought her state more advanced than in reality it was by reason of her being without tests but she soon saw by experience that I had told her the truth she was obliged for family reasons to live Turin and go to live on her own estate she solicited me to go with her but the education of my daughter did not permit to stay at Turin without her seemed improper because having lived very retired in this place I made no acquaintance in it I knew not which way to turn the bishop of Versil, where Father Lacombe was most obligingly wrote to me earnestly in greeting me to come promising me his protection and assuring me of his esteem that he should look upon me as his own sister that he wished extremely to have me there it was his own sister one of my particular friends who had written to him about me as had also a French gentleman an acquaintance of his but a point of honor kept me from it I would not have it said that I had gone after Father Lacombe and that I had come to Turin only for the purpose of going to Versil he had also his reputation to preserve which was the cause that he could not agree to my going in Thither however important the bishop was for it but we believe it to be the will of God we would both of us have passed over this consideration God kept us both in so great a dependence on his orders that he did not let us for know them but the divine moment of his providence determined everything this proved a very great service to Father Lacombe who had long walked in assurances to die to them and to himself God by an effect of his goodness that he might thus die without any reserve took them all from him during the whole time of my residence at Turin our Lord conferred on me very great favors I found myself every day more transformed into him and had continually more knowledge of the state of souls without ever being mistaken or deceived therein though some were willing to persuade me to think the contrary I had used my utmost endeavors to give myself other thoughts which has caused me not a little pain when I told or wrote to Father Lacombe about the state of some souls which appeared to him more perfect and advanced than the knowledge given to me of them he adiputed to pride he was angry with me and prejudiced against my state I had no uneasiness on account of his esteeming me the last for I was not in a condition to reflect whether he esteemed me or not he could not reconcile my willing obedience in most things with so extraordinary firmness which in certain cases he looked upon as criminal he admitted a distrust of my grace he was not yet sufficiently confirmed in this way nor did he duly comprehend that it did not in any ways depended on me to be one way or another if I had any such power I should have suited myself to what he said to spare myself the crosses which my firmness caused me or at least I would have artfully dissembled my real sentiments I could do neither were all too perished by it I was in such a manner constrained that I could not forbear telling him the things just as our Lord directed me to tell them to him in this he had given me an infiable fidelity to the very last no crosses or pain have ever made me fail a moment therein these things then which appear to him to be the strong prejudiced of a conceited opinion set him at variance against me though he did not openly show it on the contrary he tried to conceal it from me yet however far he was from me I could not be ignorant of it my spirit felt it and that more or less as the opposition was stronger or weaker as soon as it abated or ended my pain occasionally thereby ceased he also on his side experienced the same he has told me and written to me many times over when I stand well with God I find I am well with you when I am otherwise with him I then find myself to be so with you also but he saw clearly that when God received him it was always in uniting him to me as if he would accept of nothing from him but in this union while he was at Turin a widow who was a good servant of God all in the brightness of sensibility came to him to confess she uttered wonderful things of her state I was then at the other side of the confessional he told me that he had met with a soul given up to God that it was she who was present that he was very much edified by her that he was far from finding the like in me that I operated nothing but death upon his soul at first I rejoice that his having met with such a holy soul it ever gives me the highest joy to see my God glorified as I was returning the Lord showed me clearly the state of that soul as only a beginning of devotion mixed with affection and a little silence filled with a new sensation this and more as it was said before me I was obliged to write to him on his first reading of my letter he discovered the stunt of the truth in it but soon after letting in again his old reflections he knew all I wrote in the light of pride he still had in his mind the ordinary rules of humility conceived and combines after our manner as to me I let myself to be led as a child who says and does without distinction whatever it is made to say and do I left myself to be led wheresoever my heavenly Father pleased high or low all was alike good to me he wrote to me that at his first reading of my letter there appeared in it something of truth but that on reading it over again he found it to be full of pride and of preference of my own discernments to that of others sometime after he was more enlightened in regard to the state I was in he then said continue to believe as you have done I encourage and exhort you to do it sometime after he sufficiently discovered by that person's manner of acting that she was very far from what she had thought I give this as only one instance I might give many others but this may suffice End of Chapter 13 Athens, Greece, April of 2009 The Autobiography of Madame Keon by Jean Keon Volume 2, Chapter 14 This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org One night in a dream a Lord showed me that he would also purify the maid whom he had given me make her truly enter into death to herself I freely resolved to suffer for her as I did for Father Lacombe as she resisted God much more than he and was much more under the power of self-love she had more to be purified from What I could not tolerate in her was her regard for herself I saw clearly that the devil can hurt us only so far as we retain some fondness for this corrupt self This side was from God He gave me the discerning of spirits which would ever accept what was from him or reject what was not that not from any common methods of judging not from any outward information but by an inward principle which is his gift alone It is needful to mention here that souls which are yet in themselves whatever degree of light and ardor they have attained are unqualified for it They often think they have this discernment when it is nothing else but sympathy or andypathy for nature Our Lord destroyed in me every sort of nature andypathy The soul must be very pure and depending on God alone that all these things may be experiencing him In proportion as this mate became inwardly purified my pain abated till the Lord let me know her state was going to be changed which soon happily ensued In comparison with inward pain for souls outward persecutions though ever so violent scarce gave me any The bishop of Geneva wrote to different persons He wrote in my favor to such as he thought would show me his letters and quite the contrary in the letters which he thought I would never see It was so ordered that these persons having showed each other the letters received from him were struck with indignation to see in him so shameful a duplicity They sent me those letters that I might take proper precautions I kept them two years and there burned them, not to hurt the prelate The strongest battery he raised against me was that he did with the secretary of state who held that post in conjunction with the Martianers of Prune's brother He used all imaginable endeavors to render me odious He employed certain abbots for that purpose And so much that though I appear very little abroad I was well known by the description this bishop had given of me This did not make so much impression as it would have done if he had appeared in a better light at court Some letters of his which her royal highness found after the prince's death written to him against her had effect on the princes that instead of taking any notice of what he now wrote against me she showed me great respect She sent her request to me to come to see her Accordingly I waited on her She assured me of her protection and that she was glad of my being It pleased God here to make use of me to the conversion of two or three ecclesiastics But I had much to suffer from their repugnances and many infidelities One of them had vilified me greatly and even after his conversion turned aside into his old ways God at length graciously restored him As I was undetermined whether I should place my daughter at the visitation of Turin or take some other course I was exceedingly surprised at a time I least expected to see Father Lacombe arrive from Versile He told me that I must return to Paris without any delay It was in the evening and he said Set off the next morning I confess this sudden news started me It was for me a double sacrifice to return to a place where they had cried me down so much Also toward a family which held me condemned and who had represented my journey caused by pure necessity as a voluntary course pursued through human attachments Behold me then disposed to go off with my daughter and my mate without offering a single word in reply without anybody to guide and attendance Father Lacombe was resolved not to accompany me not so much as passing the mountains The Bishop of Geneva had written on all sides that I was going to Turin to run after him But the Father Provincial who was a man of quality and well acquainted with the virtue of Father Lacombe told him that it was improper and unsafe to venture on these mountains without some person of acquaintance the more as I had my little daughter with me he therefore ordered him to accompany me Father Lacombe confessed to me that he had some reluctance to do it and only obedience and the danger to which I should have been exposed made him some mounted he was only to accompany me to Grenoble and from thence to return to Turin I went off then, designing for Paris there to suffer whatever crosses and trials it should please God to inflict What made me go by Grenoble was the desire I had to spend two or three days with a lady who was an eminent servant of God and one of my friends When I was there, Father Lacombe and that lady spoke to me not to go any farther God would glorify himself in me and by me in that place He returned to Brazil and I left myself to be conducted as a child by providence this lady took me to the house of a good widow there not be accommodations at the inn as I was ordered to stop at Grenoble at her house I recited I placed my daughter in a convent and resolved to employ all this time in resigning myself to be possessed in solitude by him who is the absolute suffering of my soul I made not any visit in this place no more had I in any of the others where I was so adjourned I was greatly surprised when a few days after my arrival there came to see me several persons who made profession of a singular devotion to God I perceived immediately a gift which he had given me of administering to each that which suited their states I felt myself invested all of a sudden with the apostolic state I discerned the conditions of the souls of such persons as spoke to me and that with so much facility that they were surprised at it and set one to another that I gave every one of them the very thing they had stood in need of it was thou, oh my God who did all these things some of them sent others to me such excess that generally from six in the morning till eight in the evening I was taken up in speaking of the Lord people flocked on all sides far and near friars, priests, men of the world maids, wives, widows all came one after another the Lord supplied me with what was pertinent and satisfactory to them all after a wonderful manner without any share of my study or meditation therein nothing was hid from me of the interior state nor God passed within them here, oh my God thou made us an infinite number of conquests known to thyself only they were instantly furnished with a wonderful facility of prayer God confer on them His grace plentifully and wrote marvelous changes in them the most advanced of these souls found when with me in silence the grace communicated to them which they could neither comprehend nor cease to admire the others found an action in my words that they were operated in them what I said friars of different orders and priests of Mary came to see me to whom our Lord granted very great favours as indeed He did to all without exception who came in sincerity one thing was surprising I had not a syllable to say to such as came only to watch my words and to criticise them even when I thought to try to speak to them I felt that I could not and that God will not have me do it some of them in return said the people are fools to go to see that lady she cannot speak others of them treated me as if I were only a stupid symbol to me after they left me there came one and said I could not go hither soon enough to apprise you not to speak to those persons they come from such and such to try what they can catch from you to your disadvantage I answered them our Lord has prevented your charity for I was not able to say one word to them I felt that what I spoke flow from the fountain that I was only the instrument of Him who made me speak amid this general applause our Lord made me comprehend what the apostolic state was with which He had honoured me that to give oneself up to the help of souls in the purity of His Spirit was to expose oneself to the most cruel persecutions these very words were imprinted on my heart to resign ourselves to serve our neighbor is to sacrifice ourselves to a cheap it such as now proclaim blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord will soon cry out away with Him crucify Him when one of my friends spoke the general esteem the people had for me I said to her observing what I now tell you that you will hear curses out of the same mouth which at present pronounce blessings our Lord made me comprehend that I must be conformable to Him in all His states and that if He had continued in a private life with His parents He never had been crucified that when He would resign any of His servants to crucifixion He employed such in the ministry service of their neighbors it is certain that all the souls employed you hearing by apostolic destination from God and who are truly in the apostolic state are to suffer extremely I speak not of those who put themselves into it who not being called of God in a singular manner and having nothing of the grace of the Apostleship of none of its crosses but of those only who surrender themselves to God without any reserve and who are willing with a whole hearts to be exposed for His sake to sufferings without any medication and of chapter 14 Athens, Greece April 2009 Volume 2, Chapter 15 of the autobiography of Madame Keon This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The autobiography of Madame Keon by Jean Keon Volume 2, Chapter 15 Among so great number of good souls on whom our Lord wrote much by me some were given me only as plants to cultivate I knew their state but had not that near connection with them or authority over them which I had over others It was then that I comprehended the true maternity beyond what I had done before for those of the latter kind were given me as children of whom some were faithful I knew they would be so they were closely united to me in pure charity others were unfaithful I knew that of this some will never return from their infidelity and they were taken from me some after sleeping aside were recovered both of them cost me much distress and inward pain when for want of courage to die to themselves they gave up the point I felt it from the good beginning they had been favoured with Our Lord, among some multitudes as follow him on earth had few true children wherefore he said to his father those that thou gaveest me I have kept and none of them is lost but the son of partition that he lost not any beside of his apostles or disciples though they sometimes made false steps among the friars who came to see me there was one order which discovered the good effects of grace more than any other some of that very order had before this in a little town where Father Lacombe was in the exercise of his mission being actuated with a false zeal and violent in persecuting all the good souls which had sincerely dedicated themselves to God planking them after such a manner as can scarce be conceived they burned all their books which treated of silence an inward prayer refusing absolution to such as were in the practice of it driving into consternation and almost into despair such as had formally led wicked lives but were now reformed and preserved in grace by means of prayer becoming spotless and blameless in their conduct these friars had proceeded to such an excess of wild zeal as to raise a sedition in that town in which a father of the oratory a person of distinction and merit received strokes with a stick in the open street because he prayed extemporary in the evenings and on Sundays made a short fervent prayer which insensibly habituated these good souls to the use and practice of the like I never had so much consolation as to see in this little town so many pious souls who, with a heavenly emulation gave up their whole hearts to God there were girls of 12 or 13 years of age who industriously followed their work almost all the day long in silence and in their employments enjoyed a communion with God having acquired a fixed habit as these girls were poor they placed themselves two and two together and such as could do it red to the others who could not one saw there the innocence of the primitive Christians revived there was in that town a poor laundry who had five children and a husband paralytic the same in the right arm and yet worse distember in mind than in body he had little strength left for anything else than to beat her this poor woman bore it with all the migness and patience of an angel while she by her labor supported him and his five children she had a wonderful gift of prayer amid her great suffering and extreme poverty preserved the presence of God and tranquility of mind there was also a shopkeeper and one who made locks very much affected with God these were close friends sometimes the one and sometimes the other read to the laundry they were surprised to find that she was instructed by the Lord himself in all they read to her and spoke divinely of it those friars sent for this woman and threatened her much if she did not live of prayer telling her it was only for churchmen to pray that she was very bold to practice it she replied that Christ commanded all to pray and that he had said what I say unto you I say unto all Mark 13 verse 33 and 37 without specifying either priest or friars that without prayer she could not support her crosses and poverty that formally she had lived without it and then was very wicked that since she had been in the exercise of it she had loved God with all her soul so that to live of prayer was to renounce her salvation which she could not do she added that they might take 20 persons who had never practiced prayer and 20 of those who were in the practice of it said she inform yourselves of the lives of both sorts and you will see if you have any reason to cry out against prayer such words as these from such a woman one could think might have fully convinced them but instead of that it only irritated them the more they assure her that she should have no absolution till she promised them to desist from prayer she said that depended not on her and that crisis master of what he communicates to his creatures and of doing with it what he pleases they refused her absolution and after railing at a good tailor who served God his whole heart they order all the books without exception which treated on prayer to be brought to them they burned them with their own hands in the public square they were very much elated with their performance but all the town presently arose in an uproar the principal man to the bishop of Geneva and complained to him of the scandals of these new missionaries so different from the others speaking of Father Lacombe who had been there before them on his mission they said that they seemed as if they were sent to destroy all the good he had done the bishop was forced to come himself to that town to mount the pulpit protesting that he had no share in it and that these fathers had pushed the isle too far the friars on the other side declared they had done all they did pursuant to the orders given them there were also to known young women who had retired together being poor villagers the better to earn their loveliness and to serve God one of them read from time to time while the others were at work and not one went out without asking leave of the eldest they wore ribbons or spun the strong supporting the weak they separated these poor girls beside them in several villages and drove them out of the church it was the friars of that very order whom our Lord made use of to establish prayer in I know not how many places into the places where they went they carried a hundred times more books of prayer than those which they brethren had burned the hand of God appeared to me wonderfully in these things one day when I was sick a brother who had skill in curing diseases came for a charitable collection but hearing I was ill came in to see me and gave me medicines proper for my disorder we enter into a conversation which revived in him the love he had for God which he acknowledged had been too much stifled by his occupations I made him comprehend that there was no employment which should hinder him from loving God and from being occupied within himself he readily believed me as he already had a good share of piety and of an interior disposition our Lord conferred on him many favors and gave him to be one of my true children I saw at this time or rather experienced the ground on which God rejects sinners from his bosom all the cause of God's rejection is in the will of the sinner if that will submits however horrible he be God purifies him in his love and receives him into his grace but while that will rebels the rejection continues for want of ability seconding his inclination he should not commit the sin he is inclined to yet he never can be admitted into grace till the cause ceases which is the strong will rebellious to the divine law if that once submits God then totally removes the effects of sin which stained the soul by washing away the defilements which he had contracted if that sinner dies in the time that his will is rebellious and turn towards sin as death fixes forever the disposition of the soul and the cause of its impurity is ever subsisting such soul can never be received into God its rejection must be eternal as there is such an absolute opposition between essential purity and essential impurity and as this soul from its own nature necessarily tends to its own sender it is continually rejected of the Lord by reason of its impurity subsisting not only in the effects but in the cause it is the same way in this life this cause so long as it subsists absolutely hinders the grace of God from operating in the soul but if the sinner comes to die truly penitent then the cause which is the wrong will being taken away there remains only the effect of impurity caused by it he is then in a condition to be purified God of his infinite mercy has provided a labor of love and of justice a painful labor indeed to purify this soul and as the defilement is greater or less so is the pain but when the cause is utterly taken away the pain entirely ceases souls are received into grace as soon as the cause of sin ceases but they do not pass into the Lord himself till all its effects are washed away if they have no courage to let him in his own way and will thoroughly cleanse and purify them they never enter into the pure divinity in this life the Lord incessantly solicits this will to cease to be rebellious and spares nothing on his side for this good end the will is free yet grace follows it still as soon as the will ceases to rebel it finds grace at the door ready to introduce its unspeakable benefits or the goodness of the Lord and baseness of the sinner each of them amazing when clearly seen before I arrived at Green Oble the lady, my friend saw in a dream that our Lord gave me an infinite number of children all uniformly glad bearing on the habits the marks of candor and innocence she thought I was coming to take care of the children of the hospital but as soon as she taught me I discerned that it was not that which the dream meant but that our Lord would give me by a spiritual fruitfulness a great number of children that they would not be my true children but in symbolicity candor and innocence so great an aversion I have for artifice and disguise end of chapter 15 Athens Greece the 27th of April of 2009