desire: that people should know our aches and pains; but in giving way to it we play the coward." Accordingly she concealed her sufferings beneath a smile, so much so that she was thought insensible to pain. And I…?
(3) Vocational Crosses.—The most important duty of every person is to fulfil faithfully the obligations of his or her state of life, and this usually involves much unsought suffering. St. Therese was a religious and prized the suffering connected with the perfect interior and exterior fidelity to her Rule above all others. She kept her vows with a delicacy and refinement that may well be called heroic.
The degree to which she carried the practice of poverty would have won the admiration of St. Francis of Assisi, for she was not content with choosing deliberately what was oldest, worst, and most worn, but took a positive delight in being deprived of even that which was most necessary in food, clothing, etc.
By God's special grace she was preserved from temptations against bodily chastity, but her chastity of heart—purity of the affections—which cost her so dearly, was so exalted that her own sisters complained that she was neglectful of, nay, even cold toward, them. But with her superior light she saw that the religious life was not to be a means of indulging in the delights of family life, but rather the sacrifice thereof.
In her obedience she was a perfect copy of Him who "was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross"; conducting herself as one "whom everyone had the right to command," she obeyed all without distinction—her fellow religious, the portress, the infirmarian, etc., as she would God Himself, and this in the most trying and unreasonable commands or even mere wishes not expressed in words. Her principles were: "Even though everyone should break the Rule, it is no excuse for me," and: "Each one ought to behave as if the perfection of the entire Order depended on her personal conduct."
When the perfect fulfilment of the Rule or one's duty involves some slight inconvenience or embarrassment it is so easy to presume, or at least to seek, a legitimate dispensation; St. Therese
