Source: I Have Secrets to Share with You, illustration by Virginia Parent
My First Supernatural Breath,
1911, Mother Julienne was baptized on Ascension Day
Before Our Lord, I can say that my first supernatural breath was a Eucharistic breath. That is how I see it today, or rather since yesterday morning. You know I was baptized on Ascension Day. The Ascension: the Mystery that closes the cycle of the Mysteries of Christ..., the Mystery that places us in front of Christ in glory and also in front of our one ascension.... Christ ascending slowly, slowly in his glory as the Risen One, ascending to heaven, ascending to his Father... He told us on Holy Thursday that he was going to prepare us a place (cf. Jn 14: 2).
When I was very small, perhaps around four years old, thanks to a mother like the one you all had, one of those Christian mothers who introduce their children early in life to the Mysteries of our religion... Thanks to this mother I learned that the mystery of the Ascension, which had shone forth on the first day of my life in the Church, was the Mystery of Jesus ascending into heaven. Mother described this in terms adapted to the mind of a child of my age. In my little imagination, I saw myself as a baby, in the arms of the Master, carried through space and ascending to heaven. It seems to me that an assurance was given me that I would go to heaven.
Source: I Have Secrets to Share with You, illustration by Virginia Parent
In the Ascension, I see the Mystery of the Eucharist
Source: I Have Secrets to Share with You, illustration by Virginia Parent
Today I see this again ... Yesterday morning I way this scene once more, my first souvenir, and I said to myself: was it not the manifestation of the life of a little soul destined by God to indicate to others a path, not a new one, but a special path towards perfection? And this Jesus who, from m forth years until... Yesterday, I simply saw Christ carrying a soul cuddles up, a soul that was there, nestled tenderly in his arms and ascending to heaven. I see in this the Mystery of the Eucharist. It may perhaps seem a bit unsuited, but you will see ... These arms, this body, is the glorious body of the Savior. The child who nestles in his arms to make his way up, is the baptized soul that snuggles up in the Heart of Christ, that penetrates it in some way. It is in this Heart that this soul makes its ascension.
The flesh of the risen, glorious Christ, his Heart opening to receive the baptized ... where is this flesh found, where is this Heart found? In the Eucharist. Only the Eucharist will unite us so closely to Christ and it is through the Eucharist that our ascent continues. It is going from one ascension to another, thanks to this sacrament which nourishes us, strengthens us, divinizes us, transforms us: "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day" (Jn 6:54), “remains in me and I in him » (Jn 6.56). It is through this sacrament of love, this Eucharistic Heart, this Heart of flesh, which is alive in the midst of us and is constantly gives itself to us, who in his act of love takes us and carries us away..., it is thanks to this Eucharistic Heart that we make our own ascension.
It seems to me that already in my young life, at the age of four, I unknowingly foresaw the mystery that I would be called to unveil... not to reveal, since Christ revealed Himself and the great St. Paul has spoken so much about it, but to make it known a little bit more on earth. This first memory, I speak of it in a simple way. We have no merit for the graces we receive because everything has been earned by Christ and afterwards, by so many members of the Mystical body. We do not know to whom we owe our graces: first to Christ, then to the Virgin Mother and then to how many people who, in our lives, played a role... to our mothers when we had holy ones. This initial grace of our vocation, I see it there.
Mother Julienne du Rosaire, June 5, 1967