Abbé Maurice Bellière was a fresh twenty-three years old when his one-year-older Thérèse frankly told him that she was dying. He replied to her with this letter:
Oh, my poor Sister, what a blow to my poor heart! It was so little prepared – do not ask it for the joy you feel as you approach bliss. It remains bound by its heavy chain, nailed more tightly to the cross. You will leave, dear Sister, and it will remain alone again. (…) This is harsh, this is painful for the soul, little anchored in God! And yet, fiat, fiat! When you are forever happy, my dear Sister – yes, it is just – I am selfish, go, Sister, do not keep Jesus waiting, He cannot wait to take you, let me fight, carry the cross, fall under it and die on the tortures. You will be with me, you promise me that and I count on it, that is my last hope for the present and for the future. You will be with me, with me, your soul will guide my soul, it will speak to it, it will comfort it, unless Jesus, angered by my lamentations, does not want it. But you, Sister, are His cherished child, you have become His bride, His queen, you will win my case and draw me to Him on the last day, you know the way, the shortest way, martyrdom, if He wills it. Nevertheless, I thank the Master, He teaches me a new lesson to detach myself from everything transient and to look only to Him.
So go, dear Sister of God, and also my Sister. Tell Jesus that I would like to love Him, a lot, with all my being, teach me to do it as you do; tell Mary that I love her with all my soul; to my saints that you know, also tell of my love and you, who will become my dearest saint, you, my Sister, bless me, save me …
(P. Maurice Bellière /1874–1907/, letter to Thérèse of the Child Jesus, KT 189, July 17, 1897)
