In a Vision by Night
To love, to be unpretentious, to simplify my life—to go joyfully to God, seeking nothing for myself, in complete abandonment.
Never to lose sight of the intentions for which God wants me to pray, to suffer, and to act. In the midst of exterior activities and my obligations, to keep my inner attention fixed on God, to offer everything for those I love, for those Jesus desires, for the church.
To be always ready to obey the inner call of this gentle Jesus to action or to suffering, or to eternity, too, when he wills, and to reply always with joy and generosity, “Here I am, Lord, ready to do your will.” The day will come, will it not, O God, when it will be your will that I come to you, when the darkness and the sorrows shall vanish, and the burden of the body will no longer weigh on me. . . . When I have been delivered, I will love inexpressibly in you all those I will have rejoined, and those I will have left here below, when the true life will finally begin, to last forever. Blessed dawn of eternity, I greet you, not knowing whether from near or far! I must not hope for you because my only wish is to do God’s will “in life or in death.” I know that I must first climb up to Calvary and hang upon the cross before knowing union with God; I know that I possess, and hope to possess still more here below, this union through the grace of God, in a great spirit of abandonment. I wait and, like the worker who does not know when he or she will receive the final reward, I want in the meantime to fulfill my responsibilities radiantly and peacefully solely for the love of him who has done everything for me.
Elisabeth Leseur (1866–1914) was a devout Catholic who offered her life for the conversion of her husband, a determined atheist. After her death he edited and published her spiritual writings and went on to become a Dominican priest.
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