My heart will be able to love even while writing
Marie Petyt has a similar experience while writing as an artist in his creative moments: a musician, in whom music seems to begin to echo on its own; a painter, whose hand seems to be guided by someone else. Marie describes the experience of the Other's presence in such moments with the following words:
When I write, I operate more passively than actively, as if I am listening to someone who inspires or dictates the words to me. I do not feel tired then, even when I write for several hours in a row. In contrast, writing about other things quickly exhausts my energy. It seems to me that I can truly believe it was true when the Beloved and Mother promised me that they would help me maintain this obedience in action, without it distracting me before or after, and that my heart will be able to love even while writing, which I have always sensed.
What Marie writes does not arise from strenuous thinking and laborious ordering of old memories. Rather, it seems that what arises within her naturally connects with the words when she is united with God. Writing is for her a gift through which she can perceive and receive God's touch particularly well. Michael's task (1) is to protect this source within Marie or to revive it when it sometimes seems exhausted. Just as artists know phases of emptiness and inability to create, Marie has also experienced periods when she could not write:
Until this moment, I have not been able to write anything. The struggle and aversion to writing began anew. Even when I wanted to pick up the pen, it seemed that my nature was turning upside down. My limbs trembled, and I felt completely changed and as if afflicted... But today, April 24, 1662, after Holy Communion, I felt a little inspired, drawn, and moved to write about my way of praying and to do it in God. At the same time, I was instructed on how to do it, and all aversion, all struggle, and all changes in my body ceased immediately. My prayer then consisted only of gazing at the divine Good, to which I clung firmly, without images, with joy, yet not alone within myself...
(1) Michael from St. Augustine is Marie's spiritual director who accompanies her through letters.
Taken from the book: Grundkurs Spiritualität des Karmel
Editor: Michael Plattig and Elisabeth Hense, 2006
Translated and edited by: Norbert Žuška, OCarm.
