Chapter 14October 19, 195520

Otherwise, Mother, there is this block before me that is obscuring all the rest and taking away my taste for everything. I would like to leave, Mother, but not in revolt; may it be an experience to go through that receives your approval. I would not like to be cut off from you by your displeasure or your condemnation, for this would seem to me terrible and leave me no other recourse but to plunge into the worst excesses in order to forget.

Mother, I would like you to forgive me, to understand me and, above all, not to deprive me of your Love. I would like you to tell me if I may leave for a few weeks and how you feel about it. It seems to me that I am profoundly your child, in spite of all this??

Signed: Bernard The three images of total self-giving to the Divine:

1. To prostrate oneself at His feet in a surrender of all pride, with a perfect HUMILITY. 2. To unfold one’s being before Him, to open entirely one’s body from head to toe, as one

opens a book, spreading open one’s centers so as to make all their movements visible in a total SINCERITY that allows nothing to remain hidden.

3. To nestle in His arms, to melt in Him in a tender and absolute CONFIDENCE. These movements may be accompanied by three formulas, or any one of them, depending upon the case:

1. May Your Will be done and not mine. 2. As You will, as You will ...

3. I am Yours for eternity. Generally, when these movements are made in the right way, they are followed by a perfect identification, a dissolution of the ego, bringing about a sublime felicity.