"The only observation we dare make in these matters is that women, as a rule, are more passive and less reserved, while men resist more violently the wishes of Heaven."
"That makes me think," said Durtal, "that even in religion there are souls which seem to have mistaken their sex. Saint Francis of Assisi, who was all love, had rather the feminine soul of a nun, and Saint Teresa, who was the most attentive of psychologists, had the virile soul of a monk. We might correctly speak of Saint Francis as a woman and Saint Teresa as a man."
The oblate smiled. "To return to your question," he resumed, "I do not at all believe that illness can be the necessary consequence of phenomena aroused by the impetuous force of mysticism."
"But look at Saint Colette, Lidwine, Saint Aldegonde, Jane-Mary of the Cross, Sister Emmerich and how many more who passed their existence, half paralyzed, upon a bed! They are a small minority. Besides, the Saints or Blessed ones whose names you quote were victims of substitution, expiating the sins of others, a part God had reserved to them; it is not, therefore, surprising that they were bed-ridden and cripples, and were constantly half dead.
"No, the truth is that mysticism can modify the needs of the body, without, for all that, having much effect on, or destroying the health. I know well, you would answer me with that terrible phrase of Saint Hildegarde, a phrase at once just and sinister: 'the Lord dwells not in the bodies of the healthy and vigorous,' and you might add, with Saint Teresa, that evils are more frequent in the last of the castles of the soul. Yes, but these saints hoist themselves on the summit of life and retain God in a permanent manner in their carnal shell. Having reached this point, nature, too feeble to support a perfect state, gives way, but, I assert again, these cases are an exception and not a rule. And, alas, such maladies are not contagious.
"I am quite aware," resumed the oblate, after a pause, "that the very existence of mysticism is resolutely denied by some who in consequence can never admit the possibility of any influence over the bodily organs, but the experience of this supernatural reality is from all time, and proofs abound.