- This event has passed.
Vigils Reading – St Alice
June 12
ST ALICE
DEAREST DAUGHTER OF THE LORD
By Arnold of Villiers4
Alice was a nun of La Cambre in Brussels. She left her home when she was seven years old. From the beginning she endeavored to embrace a genuine love for God, such as would equip and train her to take a wise stand against any onslaught of the devil. Compared with this love, every transitory thing cheapened for her. For the sake of this love she spurned all things visible, except as required for bodily needs, and she patiently endured any adversity. As Alice grew, her virtues increased with her years and her skill in applying those virtues advanced even beyond her years. God in turn wanted her to become his vessel of election. He wished her to be thoroughly purged of all temporal din, all defilement from this secular world. God longed that his Bride be free, be at leisure for him alone. To this end He struck her a heavy blow, struck her down with an incurable disease of leprosy.
The contagious nature of her disease demanded sequestration from the community. Due to this her heart was severely crushed and bruised. Yet she remembered God and was consoled. And the loving Lord gazed with eyes of mercy upon this handmaid’s humility and deigned to warm her heart with His Love, to the extent that Alice preferred to linger in this situation of hers, with God as her only visitor. She learned from many experiences that the surest thing for her to do in every trouble and anguish was to take refuge in God’s own haven. She ever applied this against all weariness and all emptiness.
Alice lodged in one hut for the first four years, but after that another hut was built in view of her unique infirmity. When this had been completed and she had moved in, the Lord appeared to her, right inside and on the very first day. With open arms He embraced her, saying: “Welcome, dearest daughter! Long have I desired to welcome you into this tabernacle of my covenant. For your whole remaining sojourn in this body, I will abide with you and be, as it were, your cellarer, ministering to you in every need.”
Once on the feast of St Ursula and her companions, at the time of Matins, Alice stepped across the threshold of her hut to face towards the church and hearken awhile to the voices of the nuns praising God. she became disturbed in mind that she could not keep company with the others at the psalmody in choir. But she turned to the Lord, saying, “This I ask of you, holy Father, I cannot now join the others in praising these holy Virgins as I would like, since the special gift you have given me does not allow me to be in community for now. But this at least I ask: after this life’s misery if over, do not allow me to be separated from their companionship!” And the Lord answered her: “Sweetest daughter, it shall not be merely as you desire; in my Kingdom I shall set you in a place loftier yet!”
Wholly deprived of the use of her body and of any of its members, she was committed to her bed. She breathed her last breath on the 11th day of June, at sunrise, in the year of the Lord 1250.
4 Alice the Leper: Life of St Alice of Schaerbeck by Arnold II of Villers – Translated by Martinus Cawley, ocso – Guadalupe Translations – 2000.