On the 5th of August this
friend sent her M. Vianney's answer: "Tell her that she can establish,
as soon as she likes, an order for the souls in Purgatory."
The future foundress never had any personal communication with the Cure
d'Ars, and yet he always used to say, "I know her." On the 30th of
October Mdlle. ---- entreated him to pray on All Souls' Day for her
intention, and on the 11th of November the Abbe T--, his assistant in
his extensive correspondence, wrote to her as follows:
"Your edifying letter reached me at Pont d'Ain, where our worthy
Bishop, Monseigneur Chalandon, was preaching a retreat. This seemed
expressly arranged by Providence, in order that I should speak to him
of you and your pious projects. On my return to Ars, on All Souls' Day,
I mentioned your wishes to my holy _cure_, begging him to meditate
on the subject in prayer before he gave me an answer. Three or four
times since I have put to him the same question, and always received
the same answer. 'He thinks that it is God who has inspired you with
the thought of a heroic self-devotion, and that you will do well to
found an order in behalf of the souls in Purgatory.' Whether the good
_cure_ speaks in consequence of a divine enlightenment, or whether
he only expresses his own opinion and his own wishes, which his tender
devotion to the souls in Purgatory would naturally incline in favor of
your design, neither I nor any of those most intimately acquainted with
him can presume to say.
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