Whispers from the wings : a sequel to "Doubling for the Mother of God."


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A Sequel to

"Doubling lor the Mother of God"

For Nuns Only



libraries

Yake University Archives



Qiued

WHISPERS
FROM

THE WINGS

A

Sequel to

"DOUBLING FOR THE MOTHER

OF GOD"

For Nuns Only



NIHIL OBSTAT:

Fr. M. Albericus Wulf, O.C.S.O.
Fr. M. Maurice Malloy, O.C.S.O.

Censores

IMPRIMI POTEST:

E* Fredericus M. Dunne, O.C.S.O.
Abbas B, M. de Gethsemani

IMPRIMATUR:

Joseph E. Ritter, D.D.
Episcopus Indianapolitanus

First Printing 10M
Second Printing 20M
Third Printing 20M

DeaticSfied copyright 1943
by

THE ABBEY OF GETHSEMANI, INC.



TO

MOTHER MARY LOUISE

Mother General

of

The Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul

of

Halifax, N. S.

Praying That

All Her Daughters Satisfy

The Needs

of

JESUS CHRIST





Whispers From The Wings 5

FOREWORD

I never knew you were so many.

I never realized you were so kind.

I never appreciated your flaming zeal.

That, my dear Sisters, is my honest reaction
to your reception of DOUBLING FOR THE
MOTHER OF GOD. For edition followed
edition in bewildering fashion; your compli-
ments and comments flattered; and now you
demand WHISPERS FROM THE WINGS.
Indeed that is flaming zeal.

I conclude, then, that you now view your
vocation as an “annunciation,” in which you
were told that you were to be the “Mother”
to the Mystical Christ. That is excellent. It
means that you look upon life for what it
really is—The Great Drama of the Redeem-
ing; upon the world as a stage; and upon
yourself as a double for Mary Immaculate.
Now that you find yourself in the center of
the sfage, you turn to me and ask for
WHISPERS FROM THE WINGS.

I promised them, Sister, (you allowed me
to address you all under that one title be-
fore, so I continue)

;
I promised to be your

prompter; and you have not allowed me to
forget that promise. So listen well as I fulfill
it ! Here are my whispers ....

Feast of Mary’s Purification

and Jesus’ Presentation

February 2, 1942.





Whispers From The Wings 7

“Thank You!”

Yes, Sister, that is my first whisper. For
as I stand in the wings and see you in the
center of the stage essaying the role of

Mystical Mother my heart leaps to my lips
and I whisper, “Thank you! Thank you!
Thank you!”

Do you ask, “Why?”

—

If so, I answer by saying: Because of what
you are doing to God! Because of what you
mean to the Omnipotent One! Because of
what you are being to Jesus Christ!

Ah, Sister, I have not forgotten the world
from which I cloistered myself. No, indeed.
And every now and then, from a line in this
letter and a line in that, I get an upsettingly
clear picture of what the peoples of that world
are now doing to the God we love. So I say
to you what I often say to Mary Immaculate.
I say: “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
for saying ‘Fiat’ to the Angel of the Annun-
ciation and thus becoming Madonna to Jesus
Christ.”

Do you see the perfect parallel, Sister? Two
thousand years ago the Trinity looked down on
lovelessness; today It looks down on hate.
Two thousand years ago the people of the
world (even the Chosen People) were cold and
indifferent

;
today they are defiant. Two

thousand years ago they did not care about
the first coming of Christ; today they seem
not to care even about His second coming. But
now, as then, a “Fiat” saves the whole hideous
situation; and now, as then, it is spoken by a
woman whose name is “Mary.” Isn’t that
your name, Sister?

Let me say here what I said at the outset
of the first booklet—What looks like fancy



8 Whispers From The Wings

is sternest fact ! The parallel is perfect.
Mary, by becoming the Madonna, changed the
Drama of Creation, which was lapsing into
tragedy, into the Eomance of the Redemption.
Today, you, and all others like you who have
become mystical Madonnas, save that Romance
from becoming tragic. Indeed it is- sternest
fact!

Both Mary and you mean much to men,
Sister; but I am fully convinced that you
mean more to God. And that is the whole
point of this booklet. God looked for a Ma-
donna then; He looks for her “double” now.
When He finds one, the work of the redemp-
tion can go on according to plan. If He lacks
one—how can Christ live and die and thus
satisfy? How can the Heart of God be com-
forted?

To understand that, Sister, we only have to
look at one word in an early chapter of Gene-
sis. It is one of the most startling words in
all Scripture. It is the word “Poenituit”; and
it is predicated of God! It means that God
grieved, Sister! Think of it! The great heart
of God ached! He suffered anguish! And
why?—“Because He had created man!” Yes,
that is the awful story of how the Drama of
Creation was lapsing into tragedy. Love’s
labor seemed lost; for Love’s lavishness was
unappreciated.

You’ve read that Drama, Sister; you know
how God said, “Fiat.” “Fiat.” “Fiat.” “Fiat.”
and heaven, earth, water and light leaped into
being. And you know why He said it; for
you well know that the motif of the Drama of
Creation is—Love! That is why we may say
that the simplest, shortest and truest transla-
tion of those “Fiats” is: “I, the Eternal One,

love, love, love!”



Whispers From The Wings 9

But what return did Love receive?—Lucifer
and his legions rebelled. Eve listened to the
serpent. And Adam took from the woman’s
hand the fruit that was forbidden. What a
heart-break to God!

Then what happened?—Though Love prom-
ised a Redeemer, the beloved ones went out
and lived not only as if there would be no
Promised One, but as if there was no One who
had promised! The world became so hideous
that it had to be ^washed by a Deluge. Indeed
God grieved. Then what?—Then Babel, Sodom
and Gomorrha! What a disappointment the
race of men was proving to God. They would
not allow His Drama of Love to be a drama of
love. Despite Patriarch, Prophet and Prom-
ised Land, God’s Chosen People sighed for the
flesh-pots of Egypt and fashioned for them-
selves the golden calf. Then as we run down
through the Judges and the Kings we find page
after page in our family history blotted and
besmirched with wanderings from God and
revels in sin. Poor, poor God! what a re-
turn He received for His creation!

But then came Mary; and she said, “Fiat.”
That was enough. Love had found one who
did love, and He was willing to forget four
thousand years of lovelessness. He had found
a heart that was empty enough of self and sin
to form a hollow from which Creation’s won-
drous word might echo back; and tragedy was
turned into Romance.

God’s “Fiat” made light leap out of dark-
ness, and the Drama of Creation was on;
“Mary’s ‘Fiat’ ” made the Light of the world
leap into darkness, and the Romance of Re-
demption began. Divinity took flesh in the
dark womb of a little Jewish maid and the
great heart of God was glad. That is why I



10 Whispers From The Wings

say “Thank you!” to Mary at every Angelus
bell; not for what she means to me, but for
what she meant to God!
Do you understand my first whisper, Sister?

I say to you what I say to Mary, because you
are the Immaculate One’s double. You glad-
den a Heart that needs to be gladdened. You
gladden a Heart that is mightily saddened.
You gladden the Heart of God.
History does repeat itself, Sister; but

always with greater emphasis. Two thousand
years after the “Fiat” of Mary and two thou-
sand years after the “Fiat” of Christ finds
the world worse than it was four thousand
years after the “Fiat” of God. God the Crea-
tor looked down on the men He had made and
cried, “Poenitet me fecisse eos.—I am sorry
that I made them.” What a heart-breaking
echo that is to His original “Fiat”! And to-
day, God the Redeemer looks down on the
race of men for whom He bled and what can
He say but, “Quae utilitas in sanguine meo?

—

Has my Passion been in vain? I am the Vine
but where are My branches? I am the Head
but where are My members? I am the first-
born but where are my brethren?”
And what answer comes back from Russia

where millions shake brutal fists into the face
of heaven, defying the God who loved them
enough to breathe into their bodies His breath
of life and stamp on their souls His own in-
delible image?

What answer comes back from a Germany
that has taken Christ from the Cross, the
symbol of love; and made of it a Swastika,
which has given the world nothing but hate.

What answer comes back from a Mexico
who some years ago set her people wandering
as was Magdalene that first Easter mom



Whispers From The Wings 11

saying, “They have taken away my Lord and
I know not where they have laid Him;” a
Mexico who, by her outrageous laws, had left
about as much of Christ as the Apostles found
that same Easter morn—“a winding sheet and
some folded napkins”?

But why enumerate? What answer comes
back from a world that is apostate; a world
that is red with Communism, black with Fas-
cism and brown with Naziism; a world en-
crimsoned with the blood of murdered millions
and sooted with the heinous smokes of our
suicidal wars? Poor, poor Jesus! No wonder
He cries, “Quae utilitas in sanguine meo?
Was I bled white in vain? I flung Myself on
the wide-spread trellis of the Cross as a blood-
soaked Vine that branches might bud and bear
Me fruit; I dropped My thorn-helmeted head
in death that all men might live as my mem-
bers; in love’s passionate prodigality I had
My side spear-dug and My Heart opened that
all men might find a home therein—but now?
Quae utilitas?” Poor, poor Jesus!

But you have healed the Heart-break, Sister,
by the use of one wondrous word. You have
kept Eomance from going into tragedy by
saying what God said before the world was,
what Mary said before Jesus became man, and
what Christ said before the Mystical Body was
bom and Heaven was reopened. You have
said, “Fiat;” and that is why I whisper,
“Thank you! You mean much to the God I
love.”

Realize This

Burn that truth into the depths of your
being, Sister. It is a truth, and you need it!

The religious life is hard. Whoever says
differently is either a very young novice or a
very inexperienced nun. We need something



12 Whispers From The Wings

to sustain us for “the road winds up hill all
the way.” We become lonely, love-hungry and
lost. We don’t understand others and they
don’t understand us. Why, we don’t even
understand ourselves. The struggle for per-
fection is endless and the garner of the years
seems small; and this endlessness and the
seeming emptiness saps the courage of the
bravest and kills the daring of the bold. Our
days grow grey, then blue and even black. The
lights of our little world all go out! What are
you to do then?—Sing “Magnificat” for you
mean much to God!

Realize that, Sister! It means your sanc-
tification. Ascetical writers have complicated
the simplest thing in the world. Many have
divorced the natural from the supernatural
and instead of harmony give us discord. They
forget that God the Creator and God the Re-
deemer are one and the same God; that what
the Father made, the Son came to re-make,
not to un-make; and that when Christ said,
“Come, follow Me” He did not mean that you
were to cease being a woman, but that you
were to become a Madonna!

Christ would not destroy your nature; He
would perfect it. Hence, when He selected
you to be a nun it was not that you should
become a nonentity, but that you should be-
come yourself, your nobler self, your greater,
grander, most womanly self! He did not
dower you with tenderness and thoughtfulness
and rich, warm, motherly love that you should
bury them. Never! He wants you to double
them. That is why He calls you to “mother”
the Mystical Christ. The whimple and the veil
make not a napkin to keep talents hid; they
form a headdress to reveal the face of a real
Madonna. The Angel of your “annunciation”



Whispers From The Wings 13

did not ask you to die, but to live; not to deny
your womanliness, but to express it most
nobly; not become an ascetic alone, but the
Mystical Mother of God. And that is why he
could say to you, “Blessed art* thou amongst
women !”

Simplify the spiritual life, Sister, by synthe-
sizing it in this one idea; then make of this
idea your ideal. You are doubling fo§ the
Mother of God, therefore, you mean much to
Christ. That truth will make the sun shine
through your blackest day; that realization
will sustain you in dryness, dullness, drabness
and desolation; that will buoy you up in what
looks like dereliction.

Why have I seen sour-faced men in the robes
of monks? Why have I met cranky old maids
in the garb of nuns? Why?—Because they
did not realize that they meant much to God!
I have heard and read many reasons for the
embittered, the disgruntled, the cynical and the
soured in religion. There was some truth in
every reason assigned; but there was not the
real truth in all of them; for all together are
inadequate. The real truth and the adequate
explanation is that they have forgotten their
dignity! Who could be dissatisfied in playing
Mother to the Mystical Christ? Who could be
unhappy in helping God? Who could be
cynical while carrying on The Great Drama
of the Redeeming? Who?—No one but the
devil and those whom he has made unmindful
of their roles!

Now don’t mistake me, Sister. My purpose
is not to make you proud, but to make you
truly humble; and when I say that, I mean
that my purpose is to exalt you! For the only
real exaltation on earth is the exaltation given
by true humility; just as the only real de-
gradation on earth comes from pride. Hu-



14 Whispers From The Wings

mility is truth, Sister; and it shows us the
truth. It shows us what we are—members of
a Body whose Head is God! And since the
dignity of a body lies in its head, ours is a
dignity divine! Pride is a lie, always a lie;
whether it take the form of self-exaltation, or
that worse form of self-depreciation. We are
God’s; and we were made to be like unto
God!*

Yes, the religious life is hard, very hard;
but when we realize what we are and what we
are doing, then it is very, very happy!

I Am Not Forgetting
No, I am not forgetting the ascetical writers

who insist that “I am nothing.” “I can do
nothing.” “I am worth nothing.” But I am
remembering my Catholic Philosophy and
Theology; and I say that if these writers
mean their dicta to be taken literally—and very
many of them seem to mean them literally!

—

they are in error. Because Theology tells me
that God created you and me; and God does
not create “nothing”! Theology also tells me
that Jesus Christ died for you and me; and
again it is plain that Christ did not die for
“nothings.” Of course they say they are talk-
ing about me “of myself”; that can only mean
me “apart from God.” But then Catholic
Philosophy tells me that they are talking about
some blank that never did and never could
exist! And to talk about such a nonentity ob-
viously is the sheerest nonsense.

I think the point is clear to any, even those
who haven’t studied formal Philosophy; for
“man apart from God” can only mean un-
created man ! Inane to talk about an uncreated
creature, isn’t it? Yet these writers want me



Whispers From The Wings 15

to take the predicates that belong to that un-
created nothing and apply them to this created,
individual, very alive something—me! Now,
to me, that seems the clumsiest, queerest and
crudest distortion of logic and language that
can be imagined.

In short, Sister, there is no such being as
“I, of myself”! There never was and there
never will be a being “apart from God,” a
being “of itself.” Why, Sister, before time
began you had existence in the mind of the
Sempiternal God; and when time is no more
you will have existence with the same Sempi-
ternal God if you are truly humble and ever
mindful of your dignity.

We may be first cousins to nothing on our
mother’s side, Sister; for we are children of
Eve; but on our Father’s side what are we?
—Children of God! We are not mere human
beings, Sister. Never. We are divine-human
beings! And since humility is truth, it is an
exaltation. We are breaths of God in vessels
of clay; but let us always remember we are
breaths of God! Our bodies are dust, it is
true; but as Raoul Plus, S.J. titles his latest
book, so I say to you: “Dust, Remember Thou
Art Splendor!”

That is true humility, Sister—remembering
what we are. Sinners striving to be saints.
Prodigals being hugged by our Father.
Magdalenes at the feet of the Master. Mem-
bers of a Body of which the Son of God is
Head! That is humility as expounded by St.
Thomas, St. Ignatius and St. Benedict. It is
truth that makes us blush for what we have
been, but not for what we are! It exalts! Yes,
and it makes us exult.

St. Paul is often misquoted in this regard.
“What have you that you have not received?”



16 Whispers From The Wings

he asks. Of course the answer is, “Nothing.”
But note well that in his next line he does not
forbid us to glory in our gifts. Never! What
he forbids is to “glory as if we had not re-
ceived” those gifts from God. And everyone
with any common sense will second his prohi-
bition.

I grow angry at many ascetical writers and
speakers on this question of humility, Sister.
It is the most beautiful of the virtues, but they
have succeeded in making it the most distorted,
grotesque, repellant and detestable thing.
Someone once remarked, “There must be some-
thing inherently rotten with Education itself
when so many people have such wonderful chil-
dren, yet all grown-ups are such duds.” I un-
derstand him. And I think many you will
understand me when I paraphrase him by say-
ing: “There must be something fundamentally
wrong in the teaching of Asceticism when
postulants and novices are burning with so
much wonderful good will, glowing with
genuine enthusiasm and alive with soul-deep
energy and zeal; yet old professed are so far
from being anything like Mary or Christ.”
Find me one passage in the New Testament

where Jesus or Mary say of themselves: “I
am nothing. I can do nothing. I am the last,
lowest and least of all God’s creatures,” and
Fll surrender. But until you do, I’ll hold that
we are to imitate the humility of Jesus and
Mary and not that of these ascetical writers.
We are to remember what we are , not what
we have been. St. Paul spoke very wisely once
in favor of a poor memory. He said, “I for-
get those things that are behind.” Let us imi-
tate him in that. Let us remember not what
we have been, but what we are!—You are a
double for the Mother of God, and because of
that you mean much to Jesus Christ.



Whispers From The Wings 17

The Physical Christ needed Mary; the
Mystical Christ needs you. If Mary had not
said, “Fiat” how would we ever have heard of
the Good Samaritan, the Good Shepherd and
the Father of the Prodigal Son? If Mary had
not said, “Fiat” how could Magdalene ever
have washed His feet with her penetential
tears? or the woman taken in adultery been
saved from death? Yes, and if Mary had not
said, “Fiat” how could little children ever have
climbed upon His knees, twined His tresses
on their tiny fingers, and had the hand of
Omnipotence laid upon their heads? Indeed
the Physical Jesus needed Mary; and in just
the same way the Mystical Jesus needs you!
For if Mystical Marys had not said, “Fiat”
how could Jesus bring His parables to life and
play the Good Shepherd, the Good Samaritan
and the kind Father to our wayward, wounded,
wilful race of prodigal daughters

, as well as

sons? If he is to pour oil and wine into gap-
ing wounds there must be hospitals and homes
with nursing nuns. If He is to carry back
the sheep that were lost there must be sheep-
folds with Good Shepherd nuns. If he is to
say, and say again, “Suffer the little children
to come unto Me” there must be asylums,
academies and schools conducted by the nuns!

You saw in the first booklet what you mean
to man. I told you there that the whole world
was crying, “Mother! Mother! I want my
Mother!” And I told you it was the cry of
the child of God lost in the maze of the mad
material world. You know that that was not
fancy. I want you now to look at a sterner
fact. I want you to see just what you mean
to Christ.

Not so long ago Father Leen put out a little
book titled “Christ Before Pilate.” It was



18 Whispers From The Wings

true at the time; but it is not true now. No!
His “Judgment” is over. He is now on the
Cross. Hate is having its awful hour, and
godlessness crucifies the Mystical Christ. But
there stands by the Cross of the Mystical Jesus
—the nuns!
Do you hear my first whisper, Sister? I

say, “Thank you!” and I mean it from the
bottom of my heart. You can translate it into:
“Let me be mindful of my dignity. Jesus
Christ, Head of the Body, true God and true
man, needs ME in this awful hour.” If that
truth does not sustain you through every trial
and temptation, what will?

“Be Confident!”

That is my second whisper and I make it
almost a shout. I am prompting you in your
first few lines; and if you fail to understand
me, you have memorized the words without
learning their meaning.

Mary’s first line was: “How is this to be?”
Yes I almost shout from the wings, “Be con-
fident! Be utterly and unshakably confident,”
and claim that I am prompting you perfectly.
Let me explain.
Why is the world filled with unfinished

saints? Why are convents crowded with
women who are good but not great, holy but
not heroically so, of some spiritual stature but
not giants? Why?—I say: False humility
cloaking real discouragement.

I can well imagine many a nun closing that
first booklet DOUBLING FOR THE MOTHER
OF GOD and saying, “Beautiful! but not for
me. The ideal is too lofty. Mary’s purity and
Mary’s humility are admirable, but not imi-
table. At least not by me. And as for her



Whispers From The Wings 19

obedience—how can I, born and brought up in
an atmosphere saturated and surcharged with
unqualified independence; how can I, who
have lived my formative years with people who
always thought for themselves, spoke for
themselves, acted for themselves; how can I,
a child of this highly individualistic Twentieth
Century bend my will and bow my intellect
to the word and will of another without a
moment’s hesitation? How can I live like,
and love like, and be like Mary? It is im-
possible! And God never asks the impossible.
It is not for me.”

If you haven’t said that already, Sister;
take care! The temptation will soon come.
But recognize it for what it is. It is not
humility. It is the devil. Yes, he would fill
you with stage-fright and have you ruin your
part. He knows what life is and he knows
what you are. He fully realizes that life is
The Great Drama of the Redeeming and that
you have been selected to play the leading
feminine role; so from the very outset he
would fill you with a paralyzing stage-fright
and thus bring you to a lowering of your ideal
through discouragement.
He was a liar from the beginning, Sister;

and leopards do not change their spots. He
would have you strike an attitude of “humility”
and say, “Life is The Great Drama of the Re-
deeming, but in it I’m too little to play the
leading part. I’ll be just a supernumerary.
That’s all little actresses can ever be.”

Don’t say, it* Sister; don’t say it! For
strange as it may seem there are no super-
numeraries in this great Drama of love. No.
Either you play the role of the Mother to the
Mystical Body of Christ or you’ll play the role
of mother to the mystical body of antichrist.
That’s the startling truth that leaps at us from



20 Whispers From The Wings

the doctrine of our absolute solidarity in
Jesus. “He who is not with Me is against
Me.” She who will not double for the Mother
of God will double for the devil. Either you
sow with Christ or you scatter. So don’t let
the devil deceive you. Learn your lines; not
only the words but their meanings!

What was Mary’s answer to the Angel of
her Annunciation? When Gabriel told her that
she was to be the Mother of God did she look
into herself and say, “Oh, no! I can’t do that!
I’m too small. I’m only a little girl. I’m just
a simple Nazarene. Don’t ask the impossible!
I’ll keep the Law. I’ll love God as others do.
But don’t ask me to be His Mother. I’m only a
tiny, tiny creature.” Did she? Ah, no! She
looked up and quietly asked, “How is this to
be ... ”

Have you caught the full force of those
words, Sister? Mary admits that it is to be;
she only questions its mode. She does not say
“This is not to be.” What she implicitly says
is, “I’ll play the part; just tell me how”
Do the same, Sister! That’s what I mean by
my whisper. Tell the devil that you are going
to double for the Mother of God, and if he
should tauntingly ask you, “How?” give him
in substance the words Gabriel gave Mary, say,
“The Holy Ghost shall come upon me and the
Power of the Most High shall overshadow
me. . . ” In other words, GOD is with you!
That is why I almost shout, “Be confident!”

Because you are not alone! You can play this
part and play it perfectly, else God be not God

!

Look, Sister. Motherhood connotes a
trinity, doesn’t it? Then realize that you are
never, never alone! And thrice a day as you
hear the Angelus ring, let it remind you of
my whisper: “Be confident! Be confident!



Whispers From The Wings 21

Be confident! You can play this part!” Then
as you say the prayer remember that what was
true of Mary in the physical order will be
true of you, in its own degree, in the mystical—“She conceived by the Holy Ghost.” The
same Holy Ghost will aid you. What confidence
that should give you. Omnipotence is with
you!
What is the greatest lack in the religious

world, Sister? Is not courage and confidence?
Of course, fundamentally, these two come down
to Faith and Humility; but for the moment,
let us stay on the surface and look at the
flowers before we go down to the roots.

Isn't the whole situation summed up by
saying: Our ideals paralyze? Yes, that is the
word—they paralyze. Here I am a frail,
faulty, ever failing creature, yet called upon
to double for Jesus Christ. What an impos-
sibility! And you?—with all your womanish
weaknesses, with a mind that was darkened
from the beginning, a will that ever wants to
be wayward, a body that is instinct with re-
bellion and a soul that was wounded from the
start, you are called upon to walk like, talk
like, think like, act like, live like, BE like
Mary the Immaculate Mother of God. No
wonder you faint. No wonder the devil can
fill you with stage-fright. The very ideal para-
lyzes.

Oh, we may make a start, it is true; and
carry on for some little time. But the very
length of the struggle wearies us. Every day
we have to begin anew. The pressure is re-
lentless. The price is staggeringly high. Com-
plete success is ever wanting. So we give in!
We lower our ideals for want of courage and
confidence.

That, Sister, is the brief outline of the oft
told tale of how countless saints get cracked



22 Whispers From The Wings

in the moulding, how countless souls are blight-
ed before they bloom, how loves grow cold and
lives become bleak, barren and boring. No
courage. No confidence. No knowledge of God
and His grace.

That is it, Sister—No knowledge of God
and His grace. Look! God chose you to be a
Mystical mother, didn’t He? Don’t you see
then, that He has abligated Himself to help
you play your part? God never does things
by halves, Sister. He is not a Pharoah who
commands bricks to be made, then denies the
straw with which to make them. No! Hav-
ing chosen you to be Mystical Mother, He
must furnish you the means. “Nihil frustra
dedit Deus,” say the theologians; meaning,
“God has a purpose in His every gift.” He
prepares no wedding for a bride without pre-
paring a bridegroom. He did not send the
“angel” of your “annunciation” without giving
him the full message He gave Gabriel. Since
you are to be a Mystical Mother there will be
the Holy Ghost

!

So to the discouraging devil who says, “You
can’t double for the Mother of God,” speak a
triumphant and defiant, “POSSUMUS!”
meaning, “We can!” When he asks, “Why the
plural?” say, “Because I am two! God is with
me!”

A Practical Warning
But now a practical warning. You are a

double for Mary Immaculate, but you are not
Mary Immaculate! No, Sister, you are a
Sister, you are a daughter of Eve, and you
came into this world burdened with the “con-
cupiscience of the eyes, concupiscience of the

flesh, and the pride of life.” You may be
angelic, but yoh are not an angel. Therefore,



Whispers From The Wings 23

expect to feel impatient with this superior
and that inferior; expect to feel the stirrings
of resentment against this command and that
suggestion; expect to feel the surges of pride,
vanity and conceit rise within you; and don’t
be surprised to be made conscious of the fact
that you have a body of flesh! You were not
conceived immaculately and you have not been
confirmed in grace. Neither your clothing nor
profession won for you the preternatural gifts.
Therefore, you’re going to be tempted!
But let it also be said that you did not lay

aside all common sense or all Catholic sense
with your secular clothes! Being a woman,
you can expect temptations* to all the womanly
vices; being human you will fall into imper-
fections, indeliberate and semideliberate venial
sins; but that does not mean that you can-
not double for the Mother of God. Never!
Sanctity does not consist in freedom from
temptations; else Jesus Christ is not a saint!
He was tempted! Nor does it consist in free-
dom from imperfections or even from sin;

—

Peter denied Our Lord, the Apostles all fled,
Mary Magdalene was a public sinner! Yet I
say Mass in their honor every year.

In what does it consist, then?

—

In repeated-
ly beginning over again! In the spirit of
“Never-say-die!” That is the common sense
of sanctity. There is only one failure in the
religious life, Sister—that of giving in! As
long as we are ready to pick ourselves up after
every fall, pick our cross up, and stagger on,
we are making progress! Remember that in
the spiritual life it is not the success that
counts, but the striving. That is why we are
not to worry about the effects; but we are to
look to the efforts. For we are not vowed to
the attainment of perfection; but we are
vowed to the striving after it!



24 Whispers From The Wings

It is really heart-breaking to hear old re-
ligious grumble and say, “Oh, I get nothing out
of meditation,” or “I get nothing out of
spiritual reading,” or “I get nothing out of this
devotion and that.” What a horribly false
concept of the spiritual life! The question is
never, “What do I get out of it?” but always,
“What do I put into it?” It is efforts that
count, and only efforts; not effects! So as
long as you can sincerely say, “I am trying,”
you are safe, you are saintly. And let me add
that the more you put into things, the more
you will get out of them!

Therefore, remember, Sister, shadows do not
prove that the sun is set, but that it is shin-
ing; trial and tribulation do not mean that
God has left you, but that He loves you;
temptation is not a sign of failure, but of suc-
cess. Lucifer does not tempt his own! Re-
member also that Our Lord fell on the way to
Calvary. That is significant. So courage and
confidence; on and up; you are not one but
two!

It was one of your own who said something
to the effect that if I can keep an ever ready
“NUNC COEPI” on my lips and in my heart
until the Compline bell rings for me to say,
“NUNC DIMITTIS,” all will be well. Indeed,
all will be very, very well!

So say what Mary said when stage-fright
tends to ruin your role. Say, “Ecce ancilla
Domini.” Can you paraphrase that, Sister?
Have you caught its full significance? It is a
cry of confidence and perfect humility. It
means: “Here I am, Lord. We two will make
a success of this. Do with me what you will.
I am the clay, You the Potter; fashion me to
your own design.” That is humility, Sister,
true humility; for it is a recognition of God’s



Whispers From The Wings 25

sovereignty and an admission of our own
utter subjection to Him who is supreme.
With real humility always comes unfaltering

confidence; for it gives us a realization that
we are never alone; that our lives are a co-
operative affair. We cannot do without God;
and, due to His condescending decree, as things
now stand, He cannot do without us ! Isn’t
that enough to “screw your courage to the
sticking point?”—God depends on you! Who
is there, then, who would not laugh in the
devil’s face and say, “Ecce ancilla Domini.
Possumus!”

That “Ecce” is very like your “Fiat”; for
it is a word God has said and a word God loves.
Through His Psalmist, Christ said, “Ecce
venio” and the salvation of the world was a
promise. Mary said, “Ecce ancilla” and the
Savior of the world took flesh. Pilate said,
“Ecce homo” and the Lamb of God was led to
the slaughter. I say, “Ecce Agnus Dei” and
commemorate Calvary. You say, “Ecce an-
cilla” and The Great Drama of the Redeeming
goes on!

What an exaltation is yours! You have been
made a co-redemptrix of the world. Accent
that prefix, Sister; it is essential! God is
with you in this wondrous work. You can do
it—you two!

Theologians tell us, “Facienti quod in se est,
Deus non denegat gratiam.” Which can be
freely translated as “God is faithful to the
faithful,” or “God greatly helps those who
really help themselves!” That is the point,
Sister. If we do our part, God will do His.
He has never yet left any earnest soul in the
lurch; and it is too late for Him to begin
now. I think St. Ignatius has settled this
whole puzzling question of our part and God’s



26 Whispers From The Wings

part, by saying, “Work as if it all depended
on you; pray as if it all depended on God.”
Which is only an amplification and clarifica-
tion of St. Benedict's “Ora et labora”; and I
can never stress that conjunction too much!

I do not know, nor do I claim to know, how
much is man's part and how much is God's in
a meritorious act. But I do know that man's
part is essential! May it not be well illus-
trated by the consecration of the bread and
wine in a Mass? It most certainly is God who
works that miracle of transubstantiation

;

but it would never be worked at my Mass
unless I pronounced the words and meant
them ! That's how essential I am to the
Sacrifice. And your “Eoce,” your “Fiat,” your
“Possumus,” said and meant are just as essen-
tial to the miracle of transforming a woman
from the world into a Madonna, a Mystical
Mother of Christ.

You have said them, I know; and you meant
them. But, because “some days must be dark
and dreary,” because you are still a woman
in the flesh, because in the secret depths of
every soul there lurks a trace of cowardice,
and most especially because the devil is not
dead, I whisper loudly, “Be confident! Be
confident! You can play the part and play
it perfectly; for God is God and you are not
one but two!”

“Move Into The Light”

My next whisper is a stage direction, Sis-
ter. For just as an actress will lose the force
of many of her lines and mar the perfection
of her whole performance unless she avoids the
deep shadows, so you will fail in your por-
trayal of the Mother of God unless you move



Whispers From The Wings 27

into the light. I go further and say you will
not perform at all unless you live in the light;
and I expect you to know that I am talking
about the Light of Faith.

There is an antiphon in the Office of the
Blessed Mother which I love. Sister. It runs
“Beata es Maria

,
quae credidisti. . . ” “Blessed

art thou, Mary, because thou hast believed.”

I love it because it tells us so much of Mary’s
life and is so true to our life and way of liv-
ing. You know, Sister, there are some people
who write and talk as if Mary had the Beatific
Vision all her days; they seem to make her
actually omniscient. If these people are right,

the Gospels, of course, are wrong. For as you
remember from your third line Mary sought
Jesus and finding Him, spoke a motherly re-
buke. When He replied Mary did not under-
stand. That is what St. Luke tells us: “And
they (Mary and Joseph) understood not the
word that He spoke unto them.” So you can
see why I am going to go on loving my anti-
phon; it is taken from the Gospel!

Mary did not see, she believed! When she
bent over the Babe of Bethlehem do you think
for a moment that her eyes pierced humanity
and rested on divinity? When she bathed and
clothed and fed her little Boy do you think
that her eyes penetrated the body and rested
on the Godhead? When she saw the sweat
stand out on the young Carpenter’s brow do
you think that Mary was seeing the All pure
Spirit? Yes, she was! As much as you and 1,
with our mortal eyes, penetrate the species of
Bread and Wine and see the Body and Blood
of Him who was her Boy! Of course not, Sis-
ter! Mary saw a Baby at Bethlehem, a Boy
at Nazareth and a Blood-soaked Man on Cal-
vary! but Mary believed! And when I whis-



28 Whispers From The Wings

per, “Move into the light,” I am saying, “Be
like Mary.”

The religious life is a life of Faith, or it is
utter folly. Oh, the superficial may say, “Not
so. It is an easy life. Look at the security
one has. No worries about rents, work or
wages; no worry about clothing, food or bills;
no worry about dentists, doctors or old age.
One has all that any woman works for; and
much more than many a woman gets. She has
a roof over her head. There is always a meal
for the table. She is always respectably
clothed and has the homage of all who know
her. And who dares deny it?”

I don’t know what you would say to such a
one, Sister. But I know what I would say.
Looking at things materialistically, this one is
right. We have all she says. We don’t have
to worry as many of our brothers and sisters
do, and as some of our mothers and fathers
did. We don’t have to count our pennies so
that we will have enough for the rent; nor
wonder where the next meal is coming from.
No. And there never was, and never will be,
a Social Security Act or an Old Age Pension
to provide for the down going years equal to
our Beligious profession. Materialistically

speaking she is right; but life is not material-

istic! And a woman has deeper longings than
for a roof over her head, a meal on the table
and a dress on her back; for she is a woman!
That is, a being of body and soul with a deep,
deep instinct for motherhood. Finally, security

is not happiness; and happiness is what we
all long for.

Oh, I know that there are some few who
lead materialistic lives in convents; but they

are not nuns! They are souls who do not live
in the light. They are women of the world



Whispers From The Wings 29

garbed in the robes of religious. And in their
heart of hearts they are far from happy. A
prisoner sentenced for life has security; but
who would call him a blessed being? Well, a
religious who does not live by Faith, is a
prisoner sentenced for life.

No, there is too much confinement physical-
ly, mentally and morally; too much restraint
of liberty; too great a demand for control;
too much repression of our ever assertive self
required in religious life for anyone to be
happy without living in the light. Then look
at the emptiness of it all! If we are not
working to build up the Mystical Body of
Christ on earth and our own Eternal Man-
sions in Heaven, what in the name of reason
are we doing? What can we show for the
years?

What folly it would be, Sister, to lock your-
self away, cut your hair, robe yourself in
medieval garb and deny yourself all that is
dearest and deepest to your womanly heart,
unless you meant to be more than a person who
was socially and economically secure. Oh,
don’t be a fool! Move out of the shadows.
Be a Mystical Mary, and see all things and
all persons in the light. Be a modern Madonna
of radiant and radiating Faith!

Yes, I said all things and all persons. For
I think that many of us save our Faith for
meditation and the Mass. We actually try to
live our religious lives by halves; and the re-
sults are pitiable. We see God in the Host
and hold converse with Him in our prayer

;
but

then turn around and see only women in our
superiors, inferiors and equals, and only what
is human in all other people. We see the hand
of God in the happenings of History, but only
the hand of man in the happenings of the



30 Whispers From The Wings

present moment. We see the divine in the sin-
ners who have already been canonized, but only
the human in the sinners by our side who are
striving to be saints. We admit the virtue of
those who are dead; grant the goodliness and
the godliness of our founders and foundresses,
and the heroic holiness of their immediate com-
panions; but what do we concede to those who
are alive and who are carrying on the same
work, urged on by the same love, and anxious
for the same ends? What do we grant to our
present superiors as they slave for the glory
of God and the good of our own individual
souls? What do we admit of the courage and
the passionate love of those noble hearts that
are throbbing beneath the cloaks of those be-
side us? Indeed we can all move out into the
light! It will help us see things as they really
are! God’s chosen ones are at our elbow and
we see only mortals whom we do not like.
What a shame!

The spirit of Faith is not indigenous to our
times, Sister. The Twentieth Century, and
very especially the Twentieth Century in
America, has not charged the atmosphere in
which we move with ever ready belief. Far
from it! In very truth the cast of mind given
to the generations of the day is not the cast
of credence. Unbelief is all around us. A cer-
tain cynicism and unwillingness to credit any-
thing but what comes under the senses is the
trend of the times. And, Sister, you and I
were brought up in that atmosphere! We
must remember that no one is immune to en-
vironment. We must also remember that in
every act of Faith an exercise of the will is
called for. So we must go to work!

Yes, I said, “work,” Sister; for I want you
to become an artist, and that calls for work.



Whispers From The Wings 31

How does one acquire the art of playing the
piano? Isn’t it a case of practise? And if
one will become expert with the brush, must
she not practise? How did you acquire your
skill in teaching, nursing, talking, thinking,
cooking, sewing, or whatever else you are adept
at? Was it not practise! practise! practise!
Well, the same holds true for Faith. If you
would be a perfect double, if you would live in
the light, if you would be a Madonna, you
must practise Faith.

Yes, I said “practise Faith.” You know.
Sister, there are more fallacies flying around
in the ascetic realm than there are dust-
particles dancing in a sunbeam. I can almost
hear many saying with that incredulous, and
supposedly withering, lift of the voice, “Prac-
tise Faith?—Why, Faith is a gift!” And so
it is. Just like life to a baby. But if we don’t
feed that baby we know what will happen to
that gift of life ! Faith is a gift like the power
to think, the power to will, or the power to
remember. But you know what happens to
those powers if we do not exercise and de-
velop them. Faith is a gift, but not a gift like
a dead diamond (precious and priceless though
it is!) but a gift more on the order of a rare
and delicate plant that must be watered and
watched and carefully cultivated. And just
as a plant needs the energy of the sun if it is
to live, so your Faith needs the energy of your
constant exercise if it is not to die.

Do We Believe What We Profess To
Believe?

Come, Sister, let us be practical. Do we be-
lieve what we profess to believe? We say
the “Credo” but do we live it? Is there a dis-



32 Whispers From The Wings

crepancy between our Act of Faith and our
Lives of Faith? Let us see. . . .

What does the doctrine of the Mystical
Body say about your Sisters in religion?—All
of them, both those in office and those not.
Do you think of them, and speak of them, and
act towards them as sacred individuals, mem-
bers of that Body of which God is Head? Does
the sparkle in every human eye say the same
thing to you as does the flickering of the sanc-
tuary lamp? Does it say, “Christ is here?”
It should! Do you actually believe that you
yourself are a member of that Body? Have
you a vibrant conviction that whatever you do,
be it good or bad, big or small, in public or in
private, affects God who is your Head? Have
you the persuasion in the very core of your
being that your life and the way you live it
means much to everyone who has been Bap-
tized and even more to Him who instituted
Baptism?

Does this consciousness of your incorpora-
tion in Christ affect your whole outlook on life
and on all things in life? Is this doctrine just
a lifeless bit of dogma or is it a dynamic driv-
ing force motivating your every action, per-
meating your every thought and dominating
your whole existence? It is only by answering
such questions honestly that you will ever be
able to answer the abqve question adequately:
Is there a discrepancy between what you
actually believe and what you profess to be-
lieve?

Test yourself, Sister. As you stand in the
class-room, the hospital, asylum, home or con-
vent, is it humanity that you see before you
and around you—just boys and girls, men and
women, mere mortals—or do you look more
deeply and see members of Christ? I know



Whispers From The Wings 33

that I am giving you a searching test, Sister;
but I also know that very few of us realize
that there is only ONE Christ—the WHOLE
Christ! I want you to realize that we don't
believe in real earnest what we profess to be-
lieve; and I want that realization to energize
you and stimulate you to real action!

God gave us the gift of Faith; but that
only gives us the ‘posse/ as the theologians
say. It gives us the power, the ability, the
possibility; we have to reduce that possibility
to actuality; we have to do the believing.
God gave us the ‘posse’; but what we want is
the ‘facile posse/ the ease, the agility, the
expertness of the professional, the perfection
of the artist. And the only way we will ever
acquire it is by doing with the gift of Faith
what we did with the power to walk. We
learned to walk, Sister, by walking! We crept
along on all fours at first, later when we stood
up on our own two feet and essayed a few
steps, we fell; but we kept on getting up and
trying again. Today we can walk with ease
and grace. Today we are stable on our feet.
Why? Because we kept on trying! The appli-
cation is obvious, Sister: Let us start creep-
ing today, in this matter of Faith, creeping
along on all fours; tomorrow we may be able
to stand! Let us move out into the light and
do away with the humiliating discrepancy that
exists between our Act of Faith and our lives
of Faith.

It Brings Peace

Acquire that art, Sister; and you have won
peace! Yes, true and interminable peace. For
that light makes all people lovable, life very
livable, and all things bearable.

I have a passion for plain speaking and



34 Whispers From The Wings

utter honesty, Sister. Let us indulge it by
saying that the second Commandment of the
Law is the harder Commandment to fulfill.
People are not lovable in themselves; yet we
are commanded to love them as ourselves.
Don’t you see the impossibility? How can we
love an inconsiderate, unappreciative, ever
fault-finding superior? How can we love a
disagreeable, destructively critical, small-mind-
ed and suspicious inferior? How can we love
the envious, the jealous, the ever irritable?
How the haughty or the hypocritical? How
the smooth-tongued, ever-smiling, ambitious
sycophant? How love the soured and shriv-
elled-souled? It can’t be done! Such people
are not only psychological incompatibilities,
they are perpetual irritants. Looked at in the
light of day, they are impossible. But there
stands the second Commandment! What are
we to do?—Turn on the light! The light of
Faith!

Will that light change the people I have
just described? Not a bit! They are all that
I have called them, and most likely will remain
the same; but we will have changed! We will
see them differently. We will see them as
members of the Body of Christ. We will re-
member that God made them and that God
died for them. That will be enough. That will
make them most lovable, even though they re-
main not the least bit likable!

As you see, Sister, this is not a process of
going blind; it is simply the practice of open-
ing our eyes! Anyone can see the faults and
defects and glaring humanness in people; it
takes doubles for Mary to see their divine-
ness! But I must insist that it takes practice!

And as for things—How can we say, “Domi-
nus est” when Injustice levels us to the dust?



Whispers From The Wings 35

How can we say, “It is the Lord” when
Treachery and Deceit rob us of hard won
honors? How can we say, “Fiat” when Failure
dogs our every day and ruins our every effort?
We won’t; for we can’t; unless we live in
the Light! and see all things through His
eyes

!

Emile Mersch, S.J., who has written the
classic on the Mystical Body, titling it, THE
WHOLE CHBIST, says that we never read
History aright unless we see in its very event
a “coming of Christ.” How true that is! And
how it again shows us the discrepancy that
exists between our actual belief and our pro-
fession. How many of us look at the big and
the little events in our ordinary everyday
lives as “comings of Christ?” How many?
Yet we say we believe in Divine Providence!
How many of us have vision keen enough to
see in a reprimand or a removal, in a mis-
understanding, a misinterpretation, or even a
misrepresentation, a “coming of Christ”? When
disappointment comes, and all our hopes are
blighted and all our world goes black, do we
see these as gifts held out to us by One whose
palms are pierced?

Don’t let me discourage you, Sister. For
that would be doing the devil’s work; and I
don’t want to do that! I have been bald, per-
haps even a bit brutal in my bluntness, but
until we are persuaded persuaded’ I say,
not ‘convinced’; for I want action!) that we
must creep on all fours in this matter of Faith,
and keep on creeping until we are able to
stand up and walk, I’m afraid the well founded
lament of many an experienced Superior will
grow louder. They say, “The Spirit of Faith
is dying”; and they are talking about their
own subjects!



36 Whispers From The Wings

It is for you and me to keep it alive. And
oh! what a Model you have! Look at Mary’s
Faith. She brought forth a tiny Babe; and
you know where! Yet she looked into human
eyes and adored God. She had to hold that
tiny Body close to her breast, hurry out across
that sea of sand, called “the Wilderness of
Shur,” and ride into the exile of Egypt;—and
it took more Faith to say “Dominus est” to
that event than it took to look into eyes that
had been lit from her own and say, “This is
God!” Some thirty years later she had to
scuff through blood-stained dust and follow a
rabble up a skull-shaped hill to see her Boy
nailed between two thieves;—and to repeat
the “Fiat” of the Annunciation to the words
of her Jesus as He made her Mother of the
Mystical Body took the greatest Faith of all.
How could she do it?—Only by looking at
things in the Light!

Your Greatest Tribute

Sister, we are living only to give glory to
God; and let me tell you that you can give
Him no greater tribute than to look up when
things are blackest and say, “I believe! I be-
lieve! I believe! Thou art my God.” You
cannot touch the Heart of Christ more tenderly
or more deeply than by saying, “I believe!”
when you do not and cannot understand. We
are surrounded by the incomprehensible, Sister
but we are also immersed in God. And what
He longs for is a profession of belief.

Oh, how our Jesus loves Faith! Don’t you
remember His words to Thomas? Thomas
saw and then adored ; our Christ did not
bless his adoration. No indeed. Instead He
said that we were the blessed ones; we who
do not see, and yet, believe! Read your Gos-



Whispers From The Wings 37

pels, Sister, and see how He was touched by
every profession of real Faith. “If I can but
touch the hem of His garments” said one;
“Lord I am not worthy,” said another, “Say
but the word and my servant shall be healed.”
“Lord, if thou wilt, Thou canst make me
clean,” said a third. And all three called
forth miracles. Why?—Because Faith is a
tribute of trust! It shows that we believe,
not in an argument, but in a Person! A Per-
son we know and love.

Let it be said of her double, then, what we
say of the Original: “Beata es, Maria, quae
credidisti. . . .” Blessed art thou, Mary, because
thou hast believed. . . . And let it be said espe-
cially when things are blackest. It can be
done, Sister, if you will work. So start creep-
ing today; tomorrow you may be able to walk!
Move out into the light and you will save your-
self much misery as you give God great glory!

In the first booklet we insisted most on what
you mean to men; in this we are insisting
more on what you mean to God. But I cannot
drop this fundamental matter of Faith with-
out telling you that by moving into the light
you reflect, radiate and diffuse that light all
about you, and thus help men.

The world today, Sister, has gone cynical on
virtue. It does not believe it exists. And when
we find corruption in every stratum of
society, we can understand the cynicism. How-
ever, I have always thrilled to the hush, the
awe and the reverential respect that comes
over a group whenever two Sisters walk by.
What a tribute. Your humble comportment
is one sermon to which the cynical world gives
ear. It sneers at the very idea of poverty
purity and humility until you walk by, ther
the sneer vanishes and silence speaks its tri-



38 Whispers From The Wings

bute to something it clearly recognizes but
does not fully understand. The world admits
that you are poor, pure and humble, Sister;
and it is moved to soul-deep reverence by your
very passing. It realizes that abnegation, dis-
cipline, self-control and self-denial are not
vanished from the earth; and it is forced to
admit that Jesus Christ did not die in vain.

Keep on preaching that sermon, Sister, for
our sorry, sin-sodden world needs it. It needs
the sight of the Madonna! The sight of one
who is pure virgin and loving mother, of one
who combines in her person the adorable chas-
tity of a solitary star with the winning warmth
of the earth’s best flowers, blending what we
admire with what we love, uniting what is of
Heaven with what is of earth, giving us what
the shepherds saw, the Magi reverenced and
what Egypt, Nazareth and even the rough
Roman soldiery respected—the Madonna—the
pure, poor, sweet, lowly, lovely and lovable
Mother of God. Give us that same sight, Sis-
ter, and show us that virtue is the crown of
character, that humans are more than human,
that they are partly divine. Prove with a
proof irrefutable that Christ still lives and
His Mystical Body grows. And thus give our
blackly pessimistic world what it has not got,
but what it badly needs ;—give it HOPE ! For
Faith, you know, is “the substance of things
to be hoped for.” Walk the earth, then, Sister,
show us the Madonna and give us hope for
heaven. For by showing yourself a Mother
you show us the Son! And He is the One our
sorry world needs to see.

“Don’t Be So Self-Conscious!”

No, Sister, I am not repeating myself when
I whisper, “Don’t be so self-conscious.” I am



Whispers From The Wings 39

not now guarding you against shyness and
stage-fright. That is finished. I am warning
you against something worse

—

One time I described a double as a person
without a personality; an individual without
individuality; an ego completely clouded so
that the Star might shine. Most of you will
catch my meaning immediately for most of you
have some knowledge of the stage and screen.
You know that a double can never think of
self! She must study the Original assiduous-
ly, and reproduce her without a flaw. She
must be so perfect in her protrayal that people
seeing her will think they are looking at the
Star. You see what that means, Sister; it
means that everything that is distinctively you
must be submerged; everything that specifies,
differentiates and characterizes you as you
must go; everything that is utterly personal,
and peculiarly yours must be denied, so that
Mary may be seen! In short, you must be un-
conscious of self if you would Mother the
Mystical Christ.

At a rehearsal of Handel's masterpiece, that
moving, majestic oratorio, “Messiah,” a con-
tralto soloist began the well known passage, “I
know that my Redeemer liveth.” Her voice
was rich, warm and true, her technique fault-
less, her range extensive and her timber good;
but despite all these excellences, something was
lacking.

She brought the solo to its dramatic close.
The orchestra came to rest. And our contralto
stood in the center of the stage sure of her-
self, satisfied with herself and very conscious
of self. She looked toward the concert master
confidently, expectantly, awaiting his praise.
But instead, with face flushed with angry ex-
citement, he rushed over to her and shaking a



40 Whispers From The Wings

finger accusingly in her face while lightning
flashed from his eyes, he almost shrieked, “You
don’t know that your Redeemer liveth! You
are not thinking of Him at all! You are
thinking of self! Now do it all over again
and tell me about your Redeemer; I don’t
want to hear about you.”

The music began again. This time the solo-
ist did not sing from her throat

;
but her heart

and mind opened and found expression in song,
telling the concert master and all who listened,
in tones that were vibrant with faith and hope
and triumph that “her Redeemer indeed was
living!” When she finished this second time,
she stood as if entranced; and the master
held out both hands in tribute, and in a voice
choked with emotion said, “You’re a soloist
when your’re not self-conscious!”

Sister, I am somewhat slow in stating my
precise point, for I am puzzled; and for long,
long years have been puzzled by the frighten-
ing paradox of those who, with a generosity
that appalls, will fling down their whole lives
in one grand gesture of loyalty and love to
God, then become so miserly and mean as to
seek their tiny selves in trifles! An actress
that does not forget herself ruins her acting;
a double who seeks herself will not double
long; then how can a nun claim to be a nun
and yet be selfish?

They tell me that nothing is small in the re-
ligious life. I think they are totally wrong. I
think everything is small. And if you ask me
just what is the agony of life—not only of the
religious life, but of all life—I would say: The
crushing fact that nothing is big!

What do you or I do 1;hat is not trifling?
What can we do that could ever justily be
called ‘big’? If you have never felt this small-



Whispers From The Wings 41

ness, Sister, then read History, both Eccle-

siastical and Secular, and learn that of the
billions on billions who have labored and loved
and lived and died, who have sweated and
strained and broken their very hearts in an
effort to achieve immortality, there remain on
the record of the professional historian a paltry

5000 names; and about these few only the
professional knows or cares!

Of course we are small, and our whole world
is small. What is this madness, then, that
seizes us and fills us with ambitions to get
ahead, stand high, be a favorite, gain recogni-
tion, win the approval of those in authority
and the applause of those who are not? What
is the fever that runs through our veins
making us so sensitive to slight, so hungry
for praise, so positively gluttonous for notice
and appreciation? Why are we, who are con-
secrated to the glory of God, so anxious for
self-aggrandizement? Why is it that we, who
have tossed everything worth while aside, now
stoop to pick up the worthless plaudits of this
little group or that?

I tell you, Sister, it is a perplexing, para-
doxical puzzle. To say that Adam lives in me
and that Eve is not dead in you is humiliating-
ly true, but it is not a solution to the puzzle.
For I want to know why they are not dead!
Is it all a part of the fact that our Act of
Faith differs from our life of Faith? Is it that
we have memorized our lines without learning
their meaning? Or is it that we do not live
in the Light?

We must remember that the difference be-
tween the doubles on the stage or screen and
ourselves is that we have signed a life’s con-
tract, while they only double in spots. Yes,
we have obligated ourselves to double twenty-



42 Whispers From The Wings

four hours a day, seven day a week, fifty-two
weeks a year, till death do us part! Or rather
“till death do us unite” to the Ones for whom
we double! Now, Sister,, can you imagine Mary
being Mother of Jesus for a few hours every
day and then being her own selfish self the rest
of the times? Can you picture her at any time
doing anything but seeking the good of her
Boy? Doesn’t the very idea of Mary doing
things just for Mary, of Mary thinking only
of Mary, of Mary seeking her own comfort,
convenience and self-advancement seem gro-
tesque? Why, it grates on our very sensibili-
ties and shocks our nerves. Well, you are her
double! And the only big thing in your life
is He who was her whole life!

To put the puzzle another way, let me ask
you why it is that we who are capable of the
big virtues seem utterly incapable of the little
ones? Why is it that we who would die for a
dogma, cannot keep our temper in a theological
discussion? Why is it that you who astound the
world with your initial sacrifices, cannot bear
the slightest reflection on your capabilities?
Why is that we who have given up self in the
courageous prodigality of our religious pro-
fessions, seek self in the little group in which
we live and move? It is beyond me. Can you
account for it?

I know that if we live the doctrine of the
Mystical Body, this will not be! I know that
if we become Christ-conscious and Mary-con-
scious we will cease being self-conscious. Look,
Sister! You left home to become a saint; no
other reason will justify your act. Now a
saint is one who dies to self that Christ might
live in him or her; a saint is one who thinks
only of the Master and His interests, entirely
forgetting self and all self-interests; a saint



Whispers From The Wings 43

is one who has fallen so deeply in love that
life ceases to be something and becomes Some
One! Are you achieving the end for which
you left home?

Before you answer that question ask your-
self how you use the events, the ordinary hap-
penings, pleasant and unpleasant, expected
and unexpected, exciting and unexciting, of
your every day. What do you see in them?
Is it an opportunity to become more and more
like the Mother of God? If you say, “Yes”
you have answered the original question af-
firmatively. If you cannot say “Yes,” then
let me tell you that unless you use these little
things to sanctify your soul and glorify God,
you will never become big

!

Yes, Sister, I repeat: There are little
things in the religious life; and it is only in
them and through them and with them that
we can achieve the only big thing in life-
sanctity! And I must add with sadness that
there are little persons and little poisons in the
religious life. There are jealousies and angers
and envies

;
there are tale-bearings, and

criticisms and idle curiosities; there are the
falsely ambitious, the social climbers and the
sycophants; there are the dilettantes in asce-
ticism, mysticism and love of God. But why
go on? sum it all up by saying: There are
the self-conscious

!

Know well, Sister, that the self-conscious
never become great actresses. Is the Great
Drama of the Redeeming going to be ruined
because of your self-consciousness? You are
face to face with a sublime challenge, Sister;
do not turn your back! God needs YOU! So
let self die and be everlastingly buried.

Look again at your Model. Did she think
of self when she hurried into the hill country,



44 Whispers From The Wings

despite the fact that she had just conceived
God by God! Did she think of self when
Elizabeth greeted her with “Blessed art thou
amongst woman”? You know she didn't! The
answer that leaped to her lips was, “Mag-
nificat anima mea Dominum." Did she think
of self when she set out for Bethlehem despite
the fact that the birth of Him who had created
Bethlehem, Juda and all the world was only
a matter of hours off? Did she think of self
when she hurried into Egypt, flying from a
petty king, even though the King of kings was
in her arms? Did she think of self when she
stood 'neath the Cross of Christ and became
the co-redemptrix of the race of men and
Mother of the Mystical Body? Did she ever
think of self?

And now that she is in Heaven of whom
does she think? Is it of self? No. Never!
It is of you and me and all the other millions
who are or should he His! Yes, of you and
me; for we are her Christ! She thought only
and always of her Christ while she was on
earth; she thinks only and always of Him
now that she is in Heaven; and since there
is only One Christ—the Whole Christ—she,
the Queen of Angels and Saints, is thinking
of you and me! Sister, Sister, don't be self-
conscious or you'll never be like Mary!

Mary's solo was the Magnificat. She sang
it from the Annunciation to the Assumption;
and she goes on singing it in Heaven. That is
your solo, too, Sister. Magnify the Lord.
Make Him great! Greatly known, greatly
loved, greatly served! Sing that solo well!
And let me echo the concert master of the
“Messiah" by saying: “You'll be a great soloist
if you're not self-conscious!"



Whispers From The Wings 45

“Your Gestures Must Be Generous!”

I think you will see that my whispers have
had connection with the words that you were
to learn. I whispered, “Thank you” for your
“Fiat”; “Be confident” so that you can say,
“Ecce ancilla”; “Move into the Light” and
“Don’t be so self-conscious” to aid you with
your “Magnificat.” And I could go on with
other whispers to help you with your other
lines, but Mary was more magnificent in her
silence than she was in her speech; so I must
help you reproduce that magnificence. I do
so by whispering, “Your gestures must be
generous”; and by that I mean you must
sacrifice.

There is no silence in all the world like unto
the silence of Mary on Calvary. Never was
she more magnificent, never more the valiant
woman, never more “Madonna mia” than when
she was Mater Dolorosa. “A woman crushed
in silence” became your Mother and mine that
awful afternoon as she offered her heart as
sheath for the seventh sword. In that third
dread hour she ceased being just the Mother
of “the Nazarene” and became the Mother of
all men; for His death was our birth, and
the corpse of the Physical Jesus was the cradle
of the Mystical Christ. Mary was indeed “A
Woman Wrapped in Silence” but a silence that
was pregnant with salvation. She was not of
the audience on Calvary. No! She was the
co-redemptrix with her Christ. She was enact-
ing the leading feminine role in the Drama of
Redemption. Her gestures that day were not
merely generous, they were generosity!
And that Drama, Sister, was the prelude to

the one in which you act. The Great Drama
of the Redeeming goes on because Christ, the
Vine, engrafted us, the wild branches, in Him-



46 Whispers From The Wings

self when He so generously stretched Himself
on Calvary’s cross-beamed trellis. And it is the
Whole Christ who now redeems! He, the Head
by the merits of strict justice; we, the mem-
bers, by the merits of His condescending Mer-
cy. He has willed that we be His Body; and
it was the Blood of His Body that originally
saved the world; so it is the blood of His
Mystical Body that goes on saving it! That is
the truest of true theology, Sister, and it means
that if the world is not saved, the fault will
not lie with Jesus or His Mother; they played
their parts to perfection. The fault will lie
with you and me and all their doubles for not
making our gestures generous; for not being
willing to bleed!

Isn’t it the paradox of paradoxes and the
glory of all glories that “something is wanting
to the Passion of Christ” who satisfied “super-
abundantly”; and that we can “fill up what is
wanting”? That’s what your life means. That’s
what life is for. We are here to redeem the
world. I, by doubling for Jesus, and you, by
being like the Woman crushed in magnificent
silence. In that sense, and in that sense alone,
there is nothing small in the religious life.
In that sense, and in that sense alone, we are
great. In that sense, and in that sense alone,
life is lovable! Generosity and Sacrifice are
our body and soul. We died to the world to
live to Christ; we now die as Christ that the
world might live. What a romance, then, is
The Great Drama of the Eedeeming! Nothing
but love, love, love! Love for God and love for
our fellow man.

God is immutable, Sister; and here is your
proof: The motif of Creation’s Drama was
love. The motif of the Drama of Redemption
was the same. And the motif of The Great



Whispers From The Wings 47

Drama of the Redeeming is identical. It is
LOVE!
And how are we to show that love?—As

Mary did! As Jesus did! How are we to
redeem the world?—As Mary did! As Jesus
did! How are we to enact the Drama?—You
by sheathing seven swords in your soul; I by
having my heart lance-pierced. Jesus and
Mary chose the sacrifice of suffering to
redeem the world, Sister; we can choose no
other.

Once again we have to face the humiliating
paradox that we, who are capable of really
great sacrifices—and have made them!—are
seemingly incapable of the little ones. Is it
not because we have failed to cultivate the
spirit of sacrifice? How few of us have
acquired a readiness to suffer ! How very, very
few have developed a Calvary keenness that
makes of the myriad little irritations of the
day drops of blood to fill the Chalice of Re-
demption to overflowing! Something is want-
ing to that Chalice, Sister. St. Paul tells us
so. You must help to fill it. With what

—

big, dramatic sacrifices?—No! but with tiny
drops of self-control

;
an impatient gesture

checked, a cutting remark choked back, a word
of criticism swallowed, a rising of envy quelled,
a thought of pride, self-complacency or vanity
smothered, a yielding to the ways and the
wishes of another. These are the sacrifices
that count; not because they are big, but pre-
cisely because they are small

!

Nothing but
straws; but they show the way the wind is
blowing, and they tell that the soul has con-
quered self and won the spirit of sacrifice! It
is the spirit we lack, Sister, not the sacrifices!

Women are such wantons in the question
of sacrifice they shame heroic men. So true is



48 Whispers From The Wings

that that if you ask me to sum up a mother
in one word I would say, “Sacrifice.” Mary
has lately been called “The woman Wrapped
in Silence,” she could more justly be styled
“The Lady Lost in Sacrifice.” And if you are
to double perfectly, you must be the same!

Ah, Sister, who can equal our initial sacri-
fices?—No one. Who can die and yet live?

—

No one but you and me and our partners in
the Service of Love. That is what our en-
trance meant—a living death! That is what
our professions meant. Unquestionably our
initial sacrifices were complete. We gave up
all; and gave it up willingly. We set out for
religious life expecting hard things; and we
found them! In the early days we greeted
them with a smile; but what has come over
us in these later years? Why is it that they
can say: “Scratch a monk and you’ll find a
man; scratch him twice and you’ll find a
beast”? And why can it be perfectly paral-
leled with: “Scratch a nun and you’ll find a
female; scratch her twice and you’ll find a
feline?” Why are we so seemingly incapable
of little sacrifices? Why do we so often for-
get our roles and step out of character when
touched? Where are our generous gestures

—

arms flung wide like Him who hung on the
Cross or like her who received Him from that
Cross?

There are our Models! And they teach us
the startling truth that the world is saved by
those who do nothing! What did Jesus do on
Calvary?—Nothing but hang on a Cross and
pray. And what did Mary do but simply stand
beneath it? That is why we say that the
world’s salvation in this dark moment of
history lies with Poor Clares and Discalced
Carmelites more than with Dictators and



Whispers From The Wings 49

Presidents. That is why Mercy will be won
for men by Little Sisters of the Poor and Sis-
ters of Providence more than by bombs and
battleships. That is why redemption will come
through women garbed in white, black, brown
and blue, rather than through men uniformed
as soldiers, sailors or marines. The world will
be saved today in just the same way that it
was saved two thousand years ago—by those
who do nothing but suffer and sacrifice.

Oh, Sister, what an opportunity is yours!
You can be a Victim for a victimized world.
You can be a woman by a blood-drenched
Cross. You can be a Madonna to whom the
agonizing Christ can say: “Woman, behold thy
son.” Christ needs you, Sister—the Whole
Christ, God and man. Hor He is on the Cross

!

Won’t you be His “Madonna mia”? Won’t
you cultivate the spirit of sacrifice? Won’t you
show the world a woman who bleeds? That is
the kind of a woman Jesus needs—one who
will be co-redemptrix

;
“et sine sanguinis effu-

sione nulla fit remissio!”

What am I asking—that you go to martyr-
dom?—Yes, Sister, exactly! The martyrdom
endured by Mary, the martyrdom of the
“Ordinary Way.” And that is my last whis-
per. I say

:

“Carry Yourself Majestically!”

I whisper ‘majestically’ for Mary is a Queen.
I say it also because the way you are to walk
is El Camino Real—The King’s Highway

—

trodden by Jesus, Mary and Joseph, The Royal
Road of Nazareth. The Beaten Path of ordin-
ary everyday routine! That is the one way
to martyrdom for the vast majority of us
who have said, “Voveo.”



50 Whispers From The Wings

I return to an idea I touched in the early
pages as I say that if you would he a real co-
redemptrix, a true Madonna, a perfect double,
you’ve got to be a saint. I know you realize
this and I know you have already said, “Para-
tum cor meum, Deus

,
paratum cor meum”

—

“My heart is ready, 0 Lord, my heart is
ready. Yes, ready for the seven swords that
won for Mary her diadem of Queen; ready to
sheathe every blade You see fit to plunge into
this breast of mine; ready to become Your co-
redemptrix.” But like most of us who have
risen to the challenge, you want to know
HOW! You want some one to show you the
WAY. And I tell you that He and She have
already shown it! Jesus said, “I am the
WAY”; and where Jesus walked, Mary fol-
lowed !

Stripped of all allegory, what does that
mean?—It means Sister, that sanctity does
NOT consist in the extraordinary! It means
that if you and I earnestly strive to keep our
Rule, make a real effort to be unflinchingly
loyal to our Constitution, faithful to the cus-
toms of the house and obedient to our Supe-
riors, we have arrived! It means that sanc-
tity lies in sweeping floors, washing dishes,
making beds, answering bells for this, that and
the other duty of the day, in living the hum-
drum, unexciting, uninviting, dull, drab, dread-
ening routine of everyday religious life!

I never tire on this theme, Sister. I’ve put
it in books and booklets, in sermons, con-
ferences and conversations; and I would that
I could enlist a whole army of preachers to
say nothing but: “Sanctity for the ordinary
run of mortals lies in the ordinary

!”

Why is it so necessary to shout this?—Be-
cause our libraries are filled with “Lives of



Whispers From The Wings 51

Saints” by hagiographers who shout the oppo-
site. May God be merciful to such authors!
They have done the devil’s work by discourag-
ing hordes of wholesome people; they have
led countless souls into illusion.

Look at the Gospels. There we have “Lives
of Saints” written by the Holy Ghost, the
Spirit of Truth, He who is Substantial Sanc-
tity! What does He tell us of Jesus, Mary and
Joseph at Nazareth? Why, their lives were so
ordinary that Joseph was known as “the vil-
lage carpenter,” Jesus as “the carpenter’s
son” and Mary as “Mother of Jesus.”

What a revelation that is! The three most
saintly souls in all God’s great creation led
normal

,
human lives! What a comfort and an

inspiration! For almost two decades now we
have heard very much about “the little way”
of St. Theresa of the Child Jesus. Many have
written and spoken on it as if it were a new
revelation. It is not. It could not be.
Theresa came nineteen hundred years too late
to give us that. “The little way for little
souls” was walked first by the little Child
whom little Theresa loved. It was Jesus
Christ and His Mother Mary along with that
giant of genuine holiness, the good and gentle
St. Joseph, who made the revelation that you
and I must win our sanctity not by heroics ,
but by being heroic enough to be ordinary
always and in all ways. It is not ecstasies,
private revelation and miracles; not by being
lifted off the ground in prayer, but by praying
and working with your two feet on the ground
with your heart and mind with Christ—the
Whole Christ, Head and members—that you
will become “Madonna mia,” a saint!

Go in spirit to Nazareth and stand by
Miriam’s Well; it is there this moment. The



52 Whispers From The Wings

same to which she came twice a day to fetch
water for “the carpenter and his son.” Stand
there and see her come through the mists of
twenty centuries and learn the way to be a
co-redemptrix

!

The Madonna of art is one thing; the
Mother in real life quite another. Our Mary
carried water, washed, mended, got meals,
swept floors, tidied rooms, made beds, cleaned
house just as your mother did and mine. She
lived the ordinary life of ordinary mortals and
she lived it in an ordinary way. That is the
lesson of Nazareth. It clearly states that the
only rungs for a Jacob’s ladder are formed
from the duties of one’s state in life!

Grace means sanctity, Sister; and very
particularly the “grace of state”; the grace
given you this day, this hour, this moment for
your particular task. Father Caussade, S.J.,
coined a significant phrase in that golden little
book of his on Abandonment. When he speaks
of “The Sacrament of the present moment” he
is speaking of richest reality. When he ex-
horts you to receive it fruitfully, he is giving
you the truest secret to sanctity. Cooperation
with the grace of state given us from moment
to moment in our ordinary lives means our
own sanctification and the salvation of the
world. And if anyone doubt it, let him or her
read the Gospels!

When Jesus began to work wonders and to
preach, what did the Nazarenes say? They
looked at one another in puzzlement and asked,
“How came this man by his wisdom and
miracles? Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is
not his mother called Mary?” Catch the full
force of those questions, Sister. Eemember
Nazareth was a small town. Everybody knew
everybody else and everybody else’s business!



Whispers From The Wings 53

Yet, after approximately a quarter of a cen-
tury of this shoulder to shoulder and eye to eye
living, Jesus and Mary appeared so ordinary
because of their ordinary lives, that their
townsfolk were puzzled by Jesus’ learning.
Our Christ spent twenty to thirty years teach-
ing us how to live. He gave eighteen hours
to His Passion and Death! Hear the voices
from Miriam’s Well, Sister; they say: “We
are the WAY—the Royal Way—the way of
ordinary routine!”

Not In The Extraordinary

Tread the Beaten Path, Sister, with courage,
confidence and consistency. Do your ordinary
every day duties with Faith, fidelity and for-
titude. Look not for, and aspire not to, the
extraordinary.

I am not denying that some saints had the
extraordinary. No. But I am insisting that
sanctity is NOT in the extraordinary. Francis
of Assisi without the stigmata would still
be St. Francis of Assisi; Bernard of Clair-
vaux without his ecstasies, miracles and divine
visitations would still he St. Bernard of Clair-
vaux. These gifts are not absolute signs of
sanctity. Indeed no! Judas most likely
worked miracles. Mary Immaculate did not.
Look, Sister, I don’t think there is any question
as to the reality of the apparitions of Our
Lady at La Salette. I think it is true that
Melaine and Maximin saw Mary Immaculate
and heard her speak. What a gift! But you
can be sure that there will be no Postulator
for the cause of poor Maximin; nor will any
Devil’s Advocate ever have to work against the
cause of Melaine. No. The gifts and sanctity
are separable. The extraordinary may be
supernatural; it may also be, and often has



54 Whispers From The Wings

been, preternatural!—the work of the devil.
Simon Magus did some marvelous things, you
must remember; but he’ll never be canonized!

Ah, who can tell the number of those who
have been deceived or discouraged by this kill-
ing fallacy? Say what we will, we ourselves
are not great saints today because we have
lacked a certain courage; and this lack was
caused by a loose grip on the fundamental prin-
ciples concerning sanctity. There is many a
broken heart beneath a religious habit today
because people have not realized that sanctity
does not consist in flawlessness, faultlessness,
or even sinlessness; and secondly, that sanctity
is not a mushroom growth!

Take faultlessness

:

—Sister, don’t you know
the lives of the two great pillars of the
Church, Saints Peter and Paul? Were they
faultless? The blustering, blundering, bragging
Peter faultless?—Why he denied Our Lord!
The fire-eating, St. Paul without a fault?

—

Kead his own confessions in his epistles. Why
he was a sinner—just as from 98 to 99y2% of
all the saints in Heaven today! People look-
ing for human beings without faults are look-
ing for shadows without light, hills without
valleys, smoke without fire. They are looking
for the impossible! They expect to find virtue
where there has been no trial or temptation.
If sanctity consisted in absolute sinlessness,

there would be only one human person in
Heaven today—she for whom you double; for
she alone was conceived immaculate.

As for growth :—As I said before we are
vowed not to sanctity, but to the striving for
sanctity. Hence, there is never any one mo-
ment in our lives, no, not even the last, where-
in we are bound to have arrived! to have at-
tained perfection! to have acquired absolute



Whispers From The Wings 55

holiness! But we must also remember that
there is never a moment, no, not even our last,
in which we are not bound to strive for sanc-
tity. That only means, Sister, that we must
put forth an honest effort persistently and
consistently. That only means that sanctity is
a growth, but a gradual one! “Natura non
fit per saltus,” say the philosophers ; and
ascetical writers should add: “Neque super-
natural” Nature does not do things by leaps
and bounds—neither does supernature! Sanc-
tity is not an overnight growth; there is noth-
ing of the toadstool about it, but there is much
of the oak.

In one of her most charming and most con-
soling letters, Mother Janet Stuart wrote:
“Don’t be impatient with self! One is so
tempted in the beginning to want to be a saint
all at once! and to scold one’s soul for not
being saintly. It would be just as sensible to
overwhelm a baby with reproaches for not
being a six-footer. He will be six foot high, if
one gives him time. But it takes one-third of
his life to do it; and if the growth is hurried
it is spoiled.” You understand that language,
Sister. It is the language of a very saintly
soul on sanctity! Apply it to yourself.

What then, would I have you, the co-redemp-
trix in The Great Drama of the Redeeming,
hold regarding sanctity?—What St. Augustine
held! namely, that “sanctity consists in hatred
of sin, humbling oneself after a fall, and hope
in the Omnipotence of God.” Hold on to that
trinity, Sister; live it, and all will be well.
Hold further that sanctity is a character, the
resultant of long years of patient striving, of
persistent effort along definite lines. It is a
life dominated by principle . Then in action I
would have you blot out the mistakes of the



56 Whispers From The Wings

morning by a valiant woman’s effort this after-
noon; and then tonight, when you kneel, say
in all sincerity: “God, my love, I slipped here
and there today, but tomorrow, with Your help,
I’ll begin again and strive to do better.” Do
that day in and day out, and I’ll find you in
the long Day of Eternity up close to the throne
of her for whom you doubled and close to Him
with whom you played co-redemptrix.

Sister dear, you’ll find faults in every exa-
men of conscience; but that does not mean
that you are not growing in sanctity. No!
Sanctity is perfectly compatible with faults
and failings. Our greatest saints were not
flawless. Some of them went to confession
twice a day and gave their confessors sufficient
matter for absolution! They humbled them-
selves after the falls, they hated themselves
for them, but then picked themselves up and
started on again. That’s how they became
saints! And that is exactly what you and I
must do if we want to arrive.

And for your own consolation I would have
you remember that some of the saints battled
one fault all their life and yet, took it to the
grave with them. It is my own humble con-
viction that each of us has one particular fault
which breaks our heart as we strive all our
lives to overcome it; and yet, I am sure it will
rear its hydra-head even as we die. But that
means nothing except that God is kind! We
need humility! And we have to hold tenacious-
ly to the hand of Christ! Perfection is com-
patible with faults, failings, and even with an
occasional serious sin as the lives of Peter,

Paul, Thomas, Augustine, Magdalene and a
whole host of others tell you. The only thing
it is incompatible with is being listless! or
apathetic! or giving up!



Whispers From The Wings 57

There is your doctrine as briefly as I dare
put it, Sister. Know well that we have a pas-
sion for sanctity. Our souls long to burst forth
in bud, flower and fruit of beautiful virtue,
to become holy; to become God-like. But re-
member that passion is like a seed. Now a
seed is most anxious to break forth, to shoot
up into stem, flower and fruit; but it is
weighed down beneath heavy soil and pon-
derous rocks. It can only work itself out
gradually. So, too, our sanctity—it will be the
flower of a very, very gradual growth, the
fruit of long years of patient and persistent
effort along the beaten path of ordinary duty!
Walk that path majestically, Sister; for
Christ needs a Madonna.

To end this whisper let me make two con-
soling and very profound remarks: “A life’s
work is done only in a life’s time! So, be
patient.” And secondly, “Squandering yourself
on God and your neighbor is an excellent way
to prepare for death!”

Now to summarize and concretize and bring
all this into the realm of everyday tangibility,
I bluntly say:

“MAKE THE MASS YOUR LIFE;
AND YOUR LIFE A MASS!”

Mary was most Madonna when she was
Mater Dolorosa. It was at the First Mass of
Her Boy that she became the Mother of the
Mystical Body and climaxed Her work as co-
redemptrix. And I dare say that it was on
Calvary that she meant most to Christ. In
that awful moment when

“She heard Him sob
In jagged pain, as if He had lost His soul



58 Whispers From The Wings

And cried in anguish from the rims of hell,”
in that dark hour crowded and crushed full
with agony, when He
“Was hanging stripped and bleeding and

alone,” He looked down and found beneath His
Cross His Mother—“Madonna mia” ! Ah, what
a consolation!

“Beyond the thieves, the crowd, the hill, beyond
The bite of thorns and past the stretched,

consuming

Burn of nails, beyond the laboring
And swell of breath, the heat, the sweat, the

stench,

Beyond the shattering and reel of pain,
John says He found her; that He strained

in sight

And saw her there.”
Indeed I do say that Mary meant most to

Christ on Calvary; for it was through her, in
that gathered gloom, that He closed the Drama
of Redemption and opened The Great Drama
of the Redeeming—“Woman, behold thy son”
was climax to His Physical life and inception
of His Mystical. That is why I think that of
all the hallowed spots of earth that Mary and
Jesus love, none can compare with Golgotha’s
skull-shaped mound

;
for there was marked

the end and the beginning of all that matters

—

there Mass, which shall be said unendingly,
was first completed!

Yes, what Jesus and Mary love most in all
creation is—the Mass. Her “Fiat” to the
Angel of the Annunciation and His “Fiat”
just before Gethsemani’s Angel of Consolation
made possible Calvary’s consecration and the
separation of Body and Blood. And today, at
every mystical mactation, at every symbolic

separation of that same Body and Blood, at
the double consecration of every Mass, Mother



Whispers From The Wings 59

must look at Son, and Son at Mother and say:
“It is the Mass that matters!”

Sister, have you ever realized that it is the
Mass that matters? Look! You and I were
born to know, love and serve God, weren’t we?
But we can never love one we do not know,
nor can we unselfishly serve one we do not
love. Therefore, in all practicality, the three-

fold end of our existence comes down to the
first. It is knowledge of God that we want

—

love and service necessarily follow; for to
know God is to love Him, and to love Him
is to serve!

But how are we to acquire this knowledge?

—

Only by a prayerful study of the character of
Jesus Christ; for He is the clearest mani-
festation of God to man! I say “prayerful
study” and I think you know what I mean

—

a study made in the Light of Faith, a light
that enables us to pierce to the heart of this
marvel and mystery of God—the character of
Jesus Christ. That is why your meditation
is so all important!

But the character of Christ has very many
facets; it can bewilder one. Hence, the only
sensible, scientific study is made by looking
for the pivotal-point of Christ’s whole being;
by looking for the dominant trait in His char-
acter; by searching for the ruling passion
of His life. And that is easily found. It is
H umilit y—the acknowledgment of crea-
tureship, the surrender of His own will to the
Will of the Heavenly Father. That surrender
was made manifest in His perfect Ob e-
dienc e—“I came to do the will of him who
sent me” and “I do always the things that
please him.” And the most eloquent expression
He ever made of His Obedience was His
Passion.



60 Whispers From The Wings

There is your pivotal-point, Sister; and I
might say the crystallization of Chrises char-
acter—humility expressed in obedience. There
too, you have the pivotal-point and the crys-
tallization of Mary’s life and character

—

humility expressed in an ever ready, “Fiat”

—

perfect obedience. And there you have the
depths, the heart and soul of your religious
life—humility expressed in perfect obedience.
That’s what your Eule means. That’s what
your Constitutions say. That’s what you really
promised by your vows. Hence, the focal point
of all your study is the Humility, the Obe-
dience, and the Passion of Jesus Christ.

That is why I make bold enough to say: The
Mass should be your life; and your life
should be a Mass; for just as His humility
was made articulate in obedience, and the most
eloquent expression of that obedience is found
in the Sacrifice of the Cross, so your humility
and mine, your obedience and mine will find
their most eloquent expression in the Sacrifice
of the Mass. For the Mass is the White
Christ, His bloodless Passion, the white heart-
break of a Host. It is the Mystical Body’s
most eloquent action. It is the heart and soul
of all Christian life. That is why the Mass
must be your very life, Sister. Offer every
Mass with the priest just as Mary offered the
First Mass with Her Christ. Be the Madonna
during that moving mystery; for in that
miracle of miracles and marvel of all marvels
you must play your part.

But I need not tell you how to participate
in the Holy Sacrifice; you know that. But
what you may not realize is why you must
make that Sacrifice your life. Fundamentally,
Sister, it is because we are creatures. Look
at me. What are my prayers, my penances,



Whispers From The Wings 61

my sacrifices as an individual worth to Al-
mighty God?—They are of such infinitesimal
value as to be practically worthless. I, as an
individual, what am I?—A microcosm, yes.
But the accent is on the ‘micro.’ I am so small,
so utterly insignificant as to be practically
non-existant. And the same is true for any
other creature!

No, Sister, your prayers and sacrifices, as an
individual are next to worthless. Infinitesimal
is the word. Ah, but when you join them to
the Individual of all individuals, when you
join them to the prayer and Sacrifice of
Christ, then they become infinite!

You see, we are all parts of the Mystical
Body. Hence, every one of our efforts or
endeavors is only a part-effort and a part-en
deavor. And parts, as parts, are pretty use-
less things! It is only when they are fitted
into the whole that they are practical and
produce results. Now what is true of any
machine is even more true of that marvel we
know as the Mystical Body. By myself I am
infinitesimal

;
and so are you. But when joined

to Christ we become infinite and all our actions
taken on an infinite value. Why?—Because
“Actiones sunt suppositorum”—The actions
belong to the Person! And we have lost our
personalities when we merged ourselves in
Christ. Our actions, prayers, sacrifices, pen-
ances are no longer ours; they are those of
our Head. For we do everything “per Ipsum,
et cum Ipso, et in Ipso!”

That is why we must make the Mass our
life, Sister; and that is also why we must
make our lives a Mass. Bring all your
sacrifices to the one great Sacrifice

;
come with

all your crosses to the one great Cross; go
through your Gethsemanies, stagger and stum-



62 Whispers From The Wings

ble up to the one only Golgotha, and there
merge all that you are and all that you have
in the One Great Redeemer, and thus help
save the world ! That’s what Mary did. That’s
what you must do.

Do you ask, “How?”
I answer by saying: Make your life what

the Mass is—A Drama of Three Great Acts!
In the Mass the first great act is the Offer-

tory—and you must be on the paten with the
bread, you must be in the chalice with the
wine! Symbolically, of course, but truly. We
are the wheat of Christ. We are His grapes.
He Himself has said so. But wheat becomes
bread only on the condition that it go through
the Calvary of a mill; and grapes become
wine only on the condition that they pass
through the Gethsemani of a wine-press.
Hence, Sister, you must suffer! You become
worthy of the paten and the golden cup, you
become worthy to be co-victim with Christ only
on the condition that you “Move out into the
Light,” “Make your gestures generous,” “Be
less self-conscious,” and “Walk majestically”;
only on the condition that you grind down all
selfishness and crush out all pride, only on the
condition that you make valiant, even violent,
efforts, that you strain and suffer and strive,
and then, in all humility, bring yourself and
all the fruits of your endeavors to the altar, to
be sanctified unto God! There is the secret,
Sister. Make everything you do part of the
Sacrifice

;
connect everything you undergo

with the Offertory of the Mass. Remember
there is no moment of the day or night in
which you cannot unite your offering with an
actual Offertory of a White Calvary. In some
part of the world a priest is lifting a white
Host and offering a ruby cup. Join him!



Whispers From The Wings 63

The second great act in the Drama of Gol-
gotha Prolonged is the Consecration—and that
must be the essential act of your life! An act
that goes on “from the rising of the sun to the
going down of the same.” An act that is a
total surrender, a complete incorporation, a
real transubstantiation of self into a co-re-
demptrix. It is an act in which you ask God
to take you with all your womanly weaknesses,
all your good points and all your bad, all your
head-aches and heart-aches and back-aches, all
your smiles and sorrows and tears, all your
toils and successes, your triumphs and defeats,
your miseries and glories, which you have
placed on the paten and in the chalice’s cup, all
that you have offered in the symbols of bread
and wine, to take your very self and transub-
stantiate you into a Madonna, a co-victim with
Christ, a co-redemptrix of the world.

That is why you live, Sister.—To be tran-
substantiated! So every day, and many times
a day, hold yourself out on a mystical paten,
lift yourself up to the Merciful God and speak
those meaningful words of Consecration; say,
“This is my body. This is my blood. Take it.
Take it and all that goes with it. Take it;
for it is Yours. Take it and transubstantiate
me! Transubstantiate me so that, like the
bread and wine, I may no longer live unto my-
self, but only unto Thee; and like the bread
and wine nothing will remain of me but the
accidents or species. Let these remain, Lord,
for they mean little—but the substance change!
Transform it so that it will be no longer mine,
but Thine. Transform it so that nothing
remain but the appearance, let the substance
me YOU!

Such an Oblation and Consecration will
bring you to the third great act of the Mass,



64 Whispers From The Wings

and the crowning act of your life. They will
bring you to Holy Communion! Communion
—when two become One

;
when creature is lost

in the Creator; when Victor and vanquished
are merged; when the God-centered, God-sur-
rendered, God-saturated soul tastes love's
satiety, in a unity not of the flesh but of the
spirit! That's why we are living, Sister; to
be lost in God! To be merged into Jesus
Christ! And oh! how He longs for you.

—

Don't keep Him waiting.
Make your life a Mass after that manner,

Sister, and I promise that it will end as did
the First Mass. Not with, Ite, missa est;" but
with, “It is consummated!" Do it and Jesus
will greet you with the words He undoubtedly
spoke to the one on whom you model. Un-
questionably, on the day of the Assumption,
Jesus said what any real child would say;
He said, “Madonna mia!"
Earn that greeting, Sister, by living these

whispers.

Sfc Sf! Sfc

I closed tjie first booklet by asking you to
“Use Doors." It was, a practical suggestion.
You were to ask yourself: “Am I a Gate to
Heaven for all with whom I come in contact?"
—I now advise the same: “USE DOORS" but
ask yourself: “Am I being a Gateway of Grace
to the whole Mystical Body?" That is your
role!

May I now ask a favor? I belong to the
Mystical Body, too, Sister. I have a part in
The Great Drama of the Redeeming. But I,
like you, am human

;
too human, when I

should be divine. So be a Madonna to me and
win from the Gateway of all Grace, Our
Mother Mary, the power to live to the hilt all
that I have whispered to you. Please!



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