By way of daily sufferings and joys, without anything special attracting attention to her life as a widow, entirely devoted to the education of her children God carried on in this elite soul His work of purification and union, He was preparing in her a model for Christian homes.  Her husband's death had crushed her: "I felt the divine scalpel in my soul cutting away all that attached me to the world."  She understood right away that she must come close to God. It is there the true meaning of life is found."  A powerful grace impels me to undertake, in my new state of life, a new way of perfection, of sacrifice, of solitude, of hidden life… I understand that the Lord wants to purify me that I may be more His" (Diary, Sept. 27, 1901)

"All at once, I felt my existence change.  A page had definitively been turned in the book of my life" (Diary, Oct. 9, 1901).  "Now I realize how much my heart was attached to the world, how much I loved my husband, with a truly pure and holy love, but never measuring its extent, with not the slightest thought of its intensity until the moment I lost him… In my life as a child, my family life, had so many imperfections!  And in my life as a wife, how many regrets. I could neither be a daughter nor a wife.  Let us see whether as a widow, I am going to seek my perfection and become a saint on carrying out the sacred duties of a mother" (Diary, Oct. 9, 1901).

The path of perfection for her was not that of a nun but of a mother, in the full sense of the word.  By that path God was to bring her up rapidly to the highest summits of holiness.