"
With her confessor's permission, she also had an iron girdle made, with
spikes, and wore this day and night for nearly six months until the spikes
so entered her flesh that the girdle could only be removed with
difficulty. By means of these austerities she succeeded in almost
exorcising the demons of unchastity, and a little later, after a severe
illness, of which she believed that she was miraculously cured by St.
Joseph, she appeared before the world almost as a saint, herself
possessing a miraculous power of healing; she traveled through France,
bringing healing wherever she went; the king, the queen, and Cardinal
Richelieu were at her feet, and so great became the fame of her holiness
that her tomb was a shrine for pilgrims for more than a century after her
death. It was not until late in life, and after her autobiography
terminates, that sexual desire in Soeur Jeanne (though its sting seems
never to have quite disappeared) became transformed into passionate love
of Jesus, and it is only in her later letters that we catch glimpses of
the complete transmutation. Thus, in one of her later letters we read: "I
cried with ardor, 'Lord! join me to Thyself, transform Thyself into me!'
It seemed to me that that lovable Spouse was reposing in my heart as on
His throne. What makes me almost swoon with love and admiration is a
certain pleasure which it seems to me that He takes when all my being
flows into His, restoring to Him with respect and love all that He has
given to me.
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