ess. Several times I saw in dreams Father La Mothe raising
persecutions against me. Our Lord let me know that this would be and
that Father La Combe would forsake me in the time of persecution. I
wrote to him, and it disquieted 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 leagues,
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 madest me
conceive, O divine Word, that as Thou art ever speaking and operating
in a soul, though therein thou appearest in profound silence; so there
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 La Combe entered, that I could speak
no more. There 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 penetrated 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