In the School

 Let us continue with Dina.

 She had a great aptitude for music and when she was eight, began to study the piano. She made good progress and when she was eleven received her first diploma. It would not be long before she would become a concert pianist.

First Holy Communion was, in those days, usually received at the age of ten.  Dina had so longed for this that, when she was nine, in spite of her timidity and accompanied by her mother, she asked the Parish Priest if she could make her First Communion.  The request was not granted – what a disappointment! However she made the most of it in order to grow in her desire and to prepare herself better.

So, as everything in this world passes, at last the much longed-for encounter took place on 2 May 1907. If at times you have ardently longed for something, what happens when the time actually comes? Can you imagine what it was like for her? She said that external things did not distract her, that all that mattered was Jesus and she begins to let herself be completely possessed by Him.  This day marked an important stage in her life; each day she feels more in love with Jesus. Maybe you know or can imagine what it means to be in love; everything is seen in relation with the beloved; one thinks, dreams, wants to please, seeks greater intimacy.

This is how Dina felt with Jesus and, it was exactly on the following 25^thMarch  that Our Lord communicated with her directly after communion.  She writes: “It was the first time I heard his voice, clearly, inside me of course, a soft melodious voice that filled me with joy”.

This loving relationship grows. Dina begins to feel a greater desire to love, love ever more intensely. Outwardly she lives an ordinary life, nobody knows what is taking place within her. It is “The King’s secret”.  However, her exemplary behaviour attracts the attention of her companions, who tease her, calling her “Saint Dina”. What suffering! She does not consider herself to be a saint.

When Dina was twelve she moved to another school, one nearer her home which had been opened by the same religious as the previous one. There too, nobody would suspect the work of grace growing in her interior life. Her academic achievements also continued to be excellent and a brilliant future opened before her.

When Dina was fourteen, in spite of the great affection that she felt for her parents, she asked to become a boarder at the school at Bellevue. Her parents agreed. Dina, who was still so sensitive, wept continuously on the first day that her parents visited her. They offered to take her home, but Dina said “No, I will get used to it”. Nevertheless she wept  for fourteen nights … until at last her strong will prevailed and she was consoled. The life in common with the other students was difficult for her, as was to feel so far from her parents, but she was ready to strengthen her character, to forget herself. What an undertaking!

Mischievous and determined

Would you like us to carry on with Dina?

Even before that famous tantrum, her mother had already taught her to pray and sometimes Dina, who could still hardly walk, knelt down beside her. When her parents said the Angelus, Dina hurried so as to be able to shout the final Amen!

She accompanied her mother on her visits to poor families, those in need of help and the sick. It is best to learn from early childhood how to share, to give, to be unselfish. Soon Dina began to go to church with her mother, but the sermons seemed to be both long and boring. She found a solution, which was to carry a small doll in her pocket and take it out just as the preacher went up to the pulpit.  Her mother noticed this and said “Put that away”. Unwillingly Dina restored it to her pocket, but a few minutes later Valeda’s head appears again, and, to end the story, her mother put the doll in her bag and Dina resigned herself to await the inevitable scolding when they got home. To avoid further scenes, her mother hid the doll. Dina searched for it and, what joy, found it! But the victory was short lived; her mother took it again and this time the lesson was learned.

So as you can see, Dina was a handful.  Her strong-willed and tenacious character will eventually enable her to carry something through with determination in order to reach the goal. Thanks to her constant correspondence with grace, this was expressed through the obedience and humility which she lived throughout her life and which was remarkable to the very end. It is true that Dina soon advanced on an upward path, but she was not born a saint. Like any other child she was naughty and grew up with defects and pranks that she would have to overcome.

When she was six years old she went to Primary School in St Roche. Before leaving home she was afraid that she might be bored, but, as she herself tells us, she committed herself “not only enthusiastically but even passionately”. She wanted to be the first – and this she achieved. As she was shy and very sensitive, she did not enjoy noisy games, but neither did she want to be different from the others.  She had wavy hair which could be simply tied back with a ribbon, but she asked her mother to plait it in order to obey the school rules.

Her school years were also years of progress in character formation. Although outwardly like all the other children, inside she was already feeling a strong attraction for the person of Jesus and a nostalgia for God which she maintained throughout her life.

A girl with character

Once again with Dina. I told you that I was going to tell you the reason for her tantrums.  Here we go.

Her mother had told her to do something, but Dina, who was not yet four years old, did not want to obey.  Her mother repeated her order but the reply was “no, no, no”   and the refusal was accompanied by kicking and screaming. Her father, who witnessed the scene from a distance, got up and, taking Dina by the hand, told her that he wanted to help her to cry and to dance in order to finish it sooner and, lo and behold, he achieved it. The two of them began to dance together and Dina’s tears stopped immediately and her feet paralysed, but her father did not give in and continued to jump…  Later on Dina wrote: “I have never forgotten that lesson; it cured me forever of the desire to stamp when I was annoyed”.

I’ve said that Dina wrote this but “where?” and “when?”  Of course, I did not tell you earlier that when she was 24 years old Dina decided that she wanted to be a religious sister and entered “Jesus and Mary”.  I will tell you about this later on because there is still a lot to say.

When Dina had become a religious, her Superior, who in conversation with her, perceived the depth of her interior spiritual life, asked her to write an account of her life. Thanks to this, we have today the Autobiography in which she relates all that she experienced and what Our Lord communicated to her, and so we too can penetrate the mystery of Dina. She herself said that having to write it was the thing that cost her most in all her life.  She had to reveal what was happening with in her and, above all, what she heard from Jesus, for ever since she had been a small child she had felt that she heard Him speaking to her. If it costs us all to reveal our most intimate secrets, we can imagine what it meant for her to have open her heart to others. Yet, what was so difficult, she did with the utmost simplicity, as she did everything. When the Superior said to her, “Sister, you are going to write your life” she replied, “Is that what you want Mother?”  “Yes, I do“.  “Very well, I will do what you ask of me”. And so she began to write, and turned the account into a ”Hymn of Thanksgiving”, thus revealing God’s goodness in such an insignificant person as herself.

Well, I am not, for now, going to get ahead of events.  I only told you all this so that you would know where what I have already told you about, can be found.  Let us now follow Dina because, from the episode of the kicking tantrum to this moment, there is a long path of discovery to follow.