This cost me very much at the beginning, especially because of the obediences that the confessor would give me. I don’t know why, he wanted me to take quinine, and I was given the obedience that as many times as I would throw up, so many times was I to take food again. Now, quinine would whet my appetite, and sometimes I would feel quite a bit hungry. I would take food, and immediately after taking it, and at times in the very act of taking it, I would be forced to bring it up because of the continuous retching; and so I would remain with the same hunger as before. The word “poor” which Jesus had spoken to me, would not allow me to dare to ask for anything; and I myself would feel ashamed to ask, thinking to myself: ‘What will the family say: she has just vomited, and now she wants to eat?’ So I would remain content with being able to offer something to my dear Jesus.
However, this did not last for a long time, but only four months. One day the Lord told me: “Repeat to him the request for the obedience not to take quinine and not to take food so many times, for I will give him light.” So the confessor came and I told him. And he said to me: “So as not to show uniqueness, from now on I want you to take food only once a day”; and he suspended the quinine also. In this way, I remained more quiet and hunger went away; but the vomiting did not cease – that one time in which I would take food, I was forced to bring it up. Sometimes the Lord told me to ask for the obedience not to eat, but the confessor has never given me this obedience. He would say to me: “It doesn’t matter if you throw up – it is another mortification.”
But I would say this to Jesus, and He would tell me: “I want you to ask the question, but with holy indifference I want you to go along with whatever the obedience tells you.” And so I continued to do.
When about forty days had passed – which I had taken as such from those words that the Lord had said (“for a certain given time”), and which I had related to the confessor in this way – the sufferings continued to surprise me every day, and he was forced to come every day. The confessor began to give me the obedience no longer to be in that state, and he added that if I fell into sufferings, he would come no more.
On my part, I felt absolutely ready to do the obedience. My nature especially wanted to be freed of that being in bed continuously, because as beautiful as it was, it was always bed… having to be subjected to everyone, even in the most repugnant and necessary things of nature, and being forced to tell them to others, is a true sacrifice. So, nature did its office, and felt all consoled in receiving this obedience; while my soul was ready to do the obedience, and ready to remain in bed if the Lord wanted it so, because I had began to experience how good He had been with me, and that true resignation can change the nature of things, turning bitter into sweet.