April proved to be much better reading. Back to the flow of beautiful storytelling and language that is beautiful and felt in your soul.
Highlighted passages for me:
” Yesterday a convict, feel into the sea and was drowned his body could not be found……prisoner number 9430 and his name was Jean Valjean…”
“Fauvette a delicate little song bird is an apt description of Cosette, also carrying suggestions of not being part of human society, fauve meaning wild.”
“The next morning at daybreak Jean Valjean was again at Cosette’s bedside. He waited there, motionless, and he watched her wake up. Something new was entering his soul.”
“This was the second vision of whiteness he had experienced. The bishop had brought the dawn of virtue to his horizon.
Cosette brought the dawn of LOVE.”
“He protected her and she bolstered him. Thanks to him she could make her way in life. Thanks to her he could continue on the path of virtue. He was the child’s support and the child was his stay. Oh, unfathomable and divine mystery of destiny’s counterbalances!”
“A new city had grown up that is it were unknown to him. Needless to say HE LOVES PARIS.”
“These Bernadine Nuns were subject to St Benedict.”
“There is a French Proverb: ‘Quand le Diable devient vieux, il se fait ermite‘ When the devil grown old, he becomes a hermit… In other words, a misspent youth is often followed by a pious old age.”
“Obedience, poverty, chastity and stability-these are their vows, made more onerous by the extreme hardship of their rule.”
“…the nuns to be given warning so as to avoid him, a small bell is attached to his knee”
“There is always a nun kneeling before the Blessed Sacrament. This vigil lasts and hour. The relive each other like soldiers on sentry duty. This is Perpetual Adoration.’
“The women are postulants for two years at least, often four, then four years as novices. It is rare that their final vows can be taken under the age of twenty-three or twenty-four.
As I head into May’s reading schedule I have been advised that it is recommended to skip or skim Book Seven Paranthesis. I intend to try it and then skim if necessary. On I read.
