ever be Thou! Though I have forsaken Thee, Thou hast not
forsaken me so utterly but that Thou hast come again and raised
me up, giving me Thy hand always. Very often, O Lord, I would
not take it: very often I would not listen when Thou wert calling
me again, as I am going to show.


1. March 25, 1537.

2. Ch. v. section 17. The Saint left her monastery in 1535; and
in the spring of 1536 went from her sister's house to Bezadas;
and in July of that year was brought back to her father's house
in Avila, wherein she remained till Palm Sunday, 1537, when she
returned to the Monastery of the Incarnation. She had been
seized with paralysis there, and laboured under it nearly three
years, from 1536 to 1539, when she was miraculously healed
through the intercession of St. Joseph (Bolland, n. 100, 101).
The dates of the Chronicler are different from these.

3. Of the devotion to St. Joseph, F. Faber (The Blessed
Sacrament, bk. ii. p. 199, 3rd ed.) says that it took its rise in
the West, in a confraternity in Avignon. "Then it spread over
the church. Gerson was raised up to be its doctor and theologian,
and St. Teresa to be its Saint, and St. Francis of Sales to be
its popular teacher and missionary. The houses of Carmel were
like the holy house of Nazareth to it; and the colleges of the
Jesuits, its peaceful sojourns in dark Egypt."

4. Galat. ii. 20: "Vivo autem, jam non ego; vivit vero in
me Christus."