More than once I have torn my leaves like a disgruntled child biting a bouquet. It is obvious that it was not me who should have claimed this! But being unable to do so made me feel ashamed. And then I went, from right and left, like a pilgrim who is hungry and thirsty, begging to obtain this genius that I need, the prayers of country priests, of illiterate nuns and of the Princes of the Church. So much so that on certain days I was ashamed of it! And I waited for the angel’s breath. And he didn’t come. And I was looking for you in vain, patriarch, in this land of the East where there are so many perfumes and greenery, even where you lived! But it didn’t seem to me that so many of the tables I was sketching would suit you. As soon as I tried to paint them, the flowers and the lawns faded in the sun of the sober Gospel. Ah! I had to go back down into my heart. Joseph! Get closer to all the lonely people whose hearts are close to failing. Adopt them! Receive them into your Holy Family. It is so hard to be abandoned, without a mother, without a wife and without children! It is so humiliating to realize that you are boring others with your suffering! Revive those who are in the desert that selfishness creates around them! Ah! I have not welcomed you into my soul with great enough charity, father of the needy! Happy are your true disciples who, in the humble inn, deprive themselves of a part of their food to give it smilingly to their little ones! You are my witness, Saint Joseph, that the only true joys I have tasted are in the shadows when I feel with you. When one is deprived of honors, how sweet it is to love one’s profession, to say to oneself that we work at your workbench and that our family contemplates our work at least with the benevolent eye of faith. You, beloved Boss, you have placed in the hearts of workers of good will, to whom no favors from the passers-by of this world go, this hidden seed which is called love and which cannot be sold or bought. This seed, you make it bear fruit in me so much, and embalm, that my mouth cannot tell you my rejoice. So be it.”
