The Fire That Burns Page #5

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The staff!

What impels you to...

think know!

It's my turn to suffer, is that it'?

Enough! You've gone too far.

Do you accept the sacrifice

deem necessary for you?

Always sacrifice!

Generosity can only exist

through sacrifice!

That's what we learned,

that's what we teach.

Forbid you to go on!

Answer my question.

Accept this sacrifice.

But what does it prove?

Very little, true...

unless one accepts wholeheartedly.

Accept.

I'll never see Souplier again.

Isn't that enough'?

What else do you want'?

Can guess.

You'll ask me not to see him...

one last time.

It would be "too melodramatic",

wouldn't it'?

Like Sevrais,

for the same reasons...

Souplier has just left.

How did he take it'?

Did he cry'?

He said,

"No one will miss me here either."

" Left a bad memory

everywhere went."

told him...

"You're leaving us

a vivid memory."

"A bad memory" and

"a vivid memory" is not the same.

These last Weeks...

when stayed up late...

could see your window lit.

The last light, with mine...

above the sleeping school.

Of what, of whom were

you thinking? Now know.

Was thinking of you then.

However, prayed for you...

a prayer that I'm not sure

you've ever prayed for that child.

Prayed in my own way.

Tenderness too is a prayer.

Also experienced...

early in my priesthood...

too exacting a devotion...

for a soul too frail...

which wearied.

Was told to entrust it to others.

It was very hard for me.

Did it.

Years later, when the confessor

of that soul died...

this soul naturally came back

to me for advice.

Time had passed, Welcomed it.

One day you'll find Souplier again.

It'll be too late.

Too late?

What do you mean?

Are you so far from being Christian?

Too late!

You haven't loved a person...

you've loved a face,

and you admit it!

Ecclesiastes says, "Woe to the land

whose king is a child!"

You tried to catch me out...

by quoting my words on love.

Yes, our religion is founded

on love...

but not the love of faces...

as you very well know.

Our love is another love...

even for man.

When it reaches the Absolute,

with the Self forgotten...

it comes so close to God's love that

man seems to have been conceived...

only to lead us to his Creator.

May you experience such a love...

and may it lead you

in its flowering...

to that final, all-embracing Love...

beside which all else is nothing.

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