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Time of Trial
God! if all this happiness is not for Thy greater glory and the good of my
soul, take it from me. I make the sacrifice.
She had — it would seem — since she wrote her prayer on the 20th, seen
and struggled against the temptation to love God only conditionally. Not
separation! her spirit had cried, anything but that. Her prayer for help
was answered when awareness of God’s goodness pressed in on her. It
overwhelmed her with a presence and a knowledge she could only describe
as an ‘intense happiness’, and freed her spirit — she knew not how — to say,
‘IT am yours. Take anything.’ She was not asking for the separation to
happen. No devoted wife and mother could. But she was saying that even
that, the most extreme sacrifice conceivable to her, if it seemed to be for
God’s glory she would not refuse. Now it remained for her to pray (through-
out her life) for fidelity, whatever the circumstances, to the unconditional
love she had offered her good God.
A peaceful time stretched ahead. Mary and Cornelia had not seen each
other since the day after the consecration at New Orleans. During the ten
days after the visitors left Cornelia told Mary about her retreat and prayed
with her every day. They read scripture and talked about Ignatius’ Exercises
and in the end Mary decided to become a Catholic. Bishop Blanc had
arrived and was staying at the cottage, and she asked for instruction. Mary’s
presence at Gracemere and her conversion were part of Cornelia’s total
gratitude to God on that sunny afternoon out with the children, and the
very next day it was probably she, with her ‘almost unvarying cheerfulness
of mind’, who took charge of the mother’s household when an accident
shattered all family joy.
With this accident on 31 January suffering came to Cornelia with sudden
violence and in a way undreamed of. The next entry in her notebook is on
2 February 1840. It briefly records the death of her youngest child. For
details we have to turn again to the early biographers who had them from
Cornelia’s own account. John Henry was two and a half years old, light-
haired and fair-complexioned but with large dark eyes, ‘the delight of my
heart,’ she said. He was playing outside with the Newfoundland dog and
was tumbled into a pan of boiling sugar juice. His mother held him in her
arms for forty-three hours and he died at dawn on 2 February. The note-
book entry is made with deliberate care, words and format significant to
the mother who made it. At the top is the date, boxed in with dark hand-
drawn lines. Beneath comes a simple, very large M, a symbol of Mary. It
floats over all that follows. Then the names of the Holy Family one under
the other. Then John Henry’s name. Finally a two-line description of what
happened: ‘Fell a victim on Friday — Suffered 43 hours & was taken “into
the temple of the Lord” on the Purification.’
73
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