this, or that?" then I was surprised to find that
there was nothing left in me which could desire or choose. I was as if
everything, of smaller matters, quite disappeared, a higher power
having taken up and filled all their place. I even perceived no more
that soul which He had formerly conducted by His crook and His staff,
because now He alone appeared to me, my soul having given up its place
to Him. It seemed to me, as if it was wholly and altogether passed into
its God, to make but one and the same thing with Him; even as a little
drop of water, cast into the sea, receives the qualities of the sea.
Oh, union of unity, demanded of God by Jesus Chirst for men and merited
by him! How strong is this in a soul that is become lost in its God!
After the consummation of this divine unity, the soul remains hid with
Christ in God. This happy loss is not like those transient ones which
ecstacy operates, which are rather an absorption than union because the
soul afterwards finds itself again with all its own dispositions. Here
she feels that prayer fulfilled--John 17:21: "That they all may be one
as thou Father art in me, and I in thee; that they also may be one in
us."

CHAPTER 28

I was obliged to go to Paris about some business. Having entered into a
church, that was very dark, I went up to the first confessor I found,
whom I did not know, nor have ever seen since. I made a simple and
short confession; but to the confessor himself I said not a word. He
surprised me saying, "I know not who you are whether maid, wife or
widow; but I feel a strong inward motion to exhort you to do what the
Lord has made known to you, that he requires of you. I have nothing
else to say." I answered him, "Father, I am a widow who have little
children. What else could God require of me, but to take due care of
them in their education?" He replied, "I know nothing about this. You
know if God manifests to you that He requires something of you; there
is nothing in the world which ought to hinder you from doing His will.
One may have to leave one's children to do that." This surprised me
much. However, I told him nothing of what I felt about Geneva. I
disposed myself submissively to quit everything, if the Lord required
it of me. I did not look upon it as a good I aspired to, or a virtue I
hoped to acquire, or as anything extraordinary, or as an act that would
merit some return on God's part; but only gave myself up to be led in
the way of my