Page:Life and life-work of Mother Theodore Guerin Foundress.djvu/71

Rh Notwithstanding her delicate appearance and frail constitution, she deviated in no particular from the regulations of the Community; on the contrary, she embraced with great fervor the life of abnegation, prayer, and poverty there offered to her.

As early as 1806 the Congregation had a small chapel adjoining the Community house, where the Blessed Sacrament was kept, and where Mass was frequently said on week days, but never on Sunday. The Sisters were compelled to go to the parish church on Sundays and holydays, a distance that made it a very great hardship, especially in bad weather. It was a great happiness to possess under their own roof the King of heaven and earth really present in the most Blessed Sacrament. Their chapel, small and poor, was dedicated to the Holy Family, and over the altar was a picture which still remains, representing the nativity of Our Lord in the stable of Bethlehem. There the spiritual daughters of Father Dujarie went to find encouragement and strength in their life of sacrifice, contemplating Him who, being rich with all the gifts of heaven, deigned to become so lowly for the love of us. There, too, did Mlle. du Roscoät in her novitiate days pour forth her soul in burning love and find in return the consolation needed in the trials which her new manner of life imposed.

While still in the world she had yearned for a life of prayer and abnegation. She had tasted and seen that the Lord is sweet. This she experienced in her life of seclusion; and in her sufferings she had found the strength that lies in the bottom of Our Saviour's chalice. For the sweet and the bitter her soul still cried,