Find­ing the Hid­den Jesus

There was … a cer­tain nun who man­aged to irri­tate me in every­thing she did. The dev­il had a part in it, for it was cer­tain­ly he who made me see all her bad points. Not wish­ing to give way to nat­ur­al antipa­thy, I remind­ed myself that sen­ti­ments of char­i­ty were not enough; they must find expres­sion, and I set myself to treat her as if I loved her best of all. 

I prayed for her when­ev­er we met, and offered all her virtues and mer­its to God. I was sure that Jesus would be delight­ed at this, for artists always like to have their work praised, and it pleas­es the Divine Artist of souls when, not stop­ping at the exte­ri­or, we pen­e­trate the inner sanc­tu­ary where He dwells, to admire its beau­ty. I prayed earnest­ly for this Sis­ter who had caused me so much strug­gle, but this was not enough for me. 

I tried to do every­thing I pos­si­bly could for her, and when tempt­ed to answer her sharply, I has­tened to give her a friend­ly smile and talk about some­thing else, for, as it says in The Imi­ta­tion, ​“It is bet­ter to leave every­one to his own way of think­ing than begin an argu­ment.” (Imit., III, xliv, 1). Some­times, when the dev­il made a par­tic­u­lar­ly vio­lent attack, if I could slip away with­out let­ting her sus­pect my inward strug­gle, I would run away from the bat­tle like a desert­er; and what was the result? 

She said to me one day, her face radi­ant: ​“What do you find so attrac­tive in me? When­ev­er we meet, you give me such a gra­cious smile.” 

What attract­ed me? It was Jesus hid­den in the depths of her soul; Jesus who makes attrac­tive even what is most bitter.