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SECOND BOOK - ON THE EXERCISE OF THE VIRTUE OF ABANDONMENT
Letter XI – The Impressions of the Holy Spirit
To Mother Louise-Francoise de Rosen (1735), on the practice of abandonment in the different states of the soul.
My dear Sister,
Peace in our Saviour Jesus Christ. When we are attentive and docile to the interior spirit, it guides us so surely that we very rarely make false steps. I commend, however, the wise precaution of occasionally explaining oneself to the priests of Jesus Christ in a spirit of self-distrust. God has so greatly blessed this humility in you that I was almost inclined to write only, “All is well, go on as you are doing.” However, for your consolation I will add what God may inspire after a re-perusal of your letter. I admire what you say–”I do not care to speak, nor to write, nor to read much.” This alone indicates a spirit usually well occupied interiorly; and a good spiritual writer has said of such a one that without working it is well occupied. Another calls this happy disposition, holy leisure, a holy idleness, in which although apparently doing nothing, everything is done, in saying nothing, all is said.
1st. I find nothing but what is good in the three dispositions you experience alternately; firstly of faith, secondly of tastes and feelings, thirdly of subversion and suffering; but their value differs. The first is the most simple, the most certain, and is less favourable to the growth of self-love; the second is more pleasant and requires a great detachment from all taste and feeling even from that which is divine, so as to attach yourself solely and purely to God, as Fenelon expresses it. The third is painful, and often very crucifying, but then it is also the best, because all that mortifies the interior purifies it, and consequently disposes it for a more intimate union with the God of all purity, and of all sanctity.
2nd. Thanks to the goodness of God you behave very well in all these states, and have only to go on in the same way; but you explain yourself in a manner that might be misunderstood by those who have no experience of this state of prayer. You say that you do nothing; yet you must all the time be at work, otherwise your state would be one of mere laziness; but your soul acts so quietly that you do not perceive your own interior acts of assent and adhesion to the impressions of the Holy Spirit. The stronger these impressions are, the less is it necessary to act; you must only follow your attraction and allow yourself to be led quite calmly, as you so well express it.
3rd. Your way of acting in times of trouble and distress, gives me great pleasure. To be submissive, to abandon yourself entirely without reserve, to be content with being discontented for as long as God wills or permits will make you advance more in one day than you would in a hundred spent in sweetness and consolation. It is a good, beautiful and solid practice. Teach it to all, and especially to poor Sister N. Properly speaking she only requires this one point–and this constantly practised by her will sanctify her, and sweeten all her spiritual trials: with this single practice she will become a different being, as if she had been remodelled and transformed.
4th. Your total abandonment to God, constant and universal as it is, and practised in a spirit of confidence, and of union with Jesus Christ doing always the will of His Father, is, of all practices the most divine and the most certain to succeed: try to instil it into everyone, especially the good Sister of whom I have just spoken.
5th. The grace and light which enable you to combat and to stifle the feelings of nature on every occasion of which you have told me, deserve to be especially retained. Care and fidelity in corresponding fully with these graces even on the smallest occasions will serve to increase them; but never expect to be free from feeling the first movements, they will help to keep alive interior humility which is the foundation and guardian of every virtue.
6th. As to your ordinary faults you must know that directly our imperfections are really displeasing to us, and that we are sincere resolved to combat them without exception, from that moment there is no longer any affection for them in the heart; and consequently no obstacle to our union with God. Therefore what we ought to work at with all our strength is, to diminish the number of these faults and imperfections. If, however, we fall again through frailty, surprise, or otherwise, we should at once courageously rise again and return to God with the same confidence as if nothing had happened, and having humbled ourselves in His presence, beg His forgiveness without feelings of vexation, anxiety, or agitation. Humility will supply for the want of fidelity, and often makes good our faults with advantage to ourselves. Finally should there be, with regard to your neighbour, any little reparation to be made, never omit the opportunity of generously overcoming pride and human respect by making it.
7th. When you experience, involuntarily, the first irregular movements of any passion, give yourself time, before they are stifled by the help of grace, to thoroughly recognise to what lengths pride and passion would have carried you without such help. In this way you will acquire by personal experience a complete knowledge of that deep abyss of perversity into which you, like so many others, would fall if God did not uphold you. It is by this practical knowledge, these oft-repeated feelings, and frequent personal experiences, that all the saints learnt that profound and heartfelt humility, self-contempt and holy hatred of themselves of which we find so many proofs in the history of their lives and which formed the most solid foundation of their perfection.
8th. With regard to your trials and temptations, I understand from all that you tell me, that the Holy Spirit has so well regulated your thoughts, feelings and conduct in these matters, both exteriorly and interiorly, that I have nothing further to add. In the marks of esteem and friendship that are shown to you without your own seeking, if they cause you annoyance instead of pleasure, then the pain and trouble will prove their own antidote. There could not be anything but great merit in suffering patiently in conformity to God’s will and the arrangements of His providence and following the example of Jesus Christ, suspicions, rash judgments, envy, jealousy, etc., without attempting to clear yourself, except in so far as the edification of your neighbour enjoins. When you are exposed to all sorts of criticism and unjust accusations go on in your own way without making any change in your conduct, according to the pleasure of divine providence and keeping pace with His plans; this is truly to live by faith alone with God in the midst of the bustle and confusion of creatures. In such a condition exterior things can never penetrate to the interior, and neither flattery nor contempt can disturb the peace that you enjoy. This is to live a truly interior life. As long as this state of independence has not been acquired, virtues that have a most attractive appearance are not really solid, but very superficial, and liable to be overthrown by the faintest breath of inconstancy or contradiction.
9th. Be well on your guard against all these illusions which aim at making you follow your own ideas, and prefer yourself to others. The spirit of self-sufficiency and criticism of one’s neighbour seems to many persons a mere trifle; but it is nevertheless undeniable that this spirit is much opposed to religious simplicity, and that it hinders a great many souls from attempting an interior life. It is not possible, in fact, to begin this life without the help of the Holy Spirit, who only communicates Himself to the humble, the simple, and those who are little in their own eyes.
10th. Your way of resisting all sorts of temptation; profound, gentle, simple, and almost imperceptible as it is, is a pure grace from God: keep to it; that simple look at God is worth infinitely more than any other sort of act. The peaceful doubts you experience after the temptation has ceased are caused by a chaste fear which you must never lay aside; as for anxious doubts born of self-love, they must be despised and driven away. With regard to the rest, there is nothing easier to recognise, and discover, than the deceits and illusions incident to the prayer of faith, and of simple recollection; and that by the infallible rule of Jesus Christ; the tree is known by its fruits. Therefore all prayer that produces reformation of the heart, amendment of life, the avoidance of vice, the practice of the evangelical virtues and the duties of one’s state, is a good prayer. Also all prayer which does not produce these fruits, or which produces their opposite, is a false prayer and produces the fruit of a bad tree, even were it accompanied by raptures, ecstasies and miracles. The paths that lead us to God are those of faith, charity and humility, therefore all that makes its walk in these paths is useful to us, and whatever leads us away from them is dangerous and hurtful. This is the safest and most infallible rule to prevent and reform all that is evil, all that is illusory, and it is within everyone’s power.
I greet, very cordially, your good Sister. Please tell her from me to allow herself to be always guided by the interior spirit, and thus to be ready, as she is, to abandon herself completely into the hands of God, equally content when He gives, or when He takes away, and with that apparent nothing that He leaves her; as it pleases Him. In this is all perfection and the true progress of a faithful soul. How pleasing you must be to God in recommending so unceasingly to His spouses this holy abandonment which alone can unite them entirely to Him.
Letter XII – Peace and Submission
On the practice of abandonment and the peace of the soul.
My very dear Sister,
May the peace of Jesus Christ be always with us, and in us, since God does not act freely except in peaceful hearts. I rejoice, and congratulate you on the peace that our Lord gives you in the practice of an entire conformity of your will to the designs of His good providence. This peace, as you know, is the foundation of the interior life for many reasons, but principally because it is the health and strength of the soul; as trouble produces languor and weakness, acting on the soul in the same way that fever acts on the body. In the second place, because agitation and anxiety in the soul are an obstacle to the hearing of the gentle voice and soft breathing of the Holy Spirit. To keep yourself in this peace which will, I hope, continually increase, there is no better way than always to practise total abandonment, and that absolute resignation of which I have already spoken to you. You will, without doubt, succeed, if you never lose sight of the great and consoling truth that nothing happens in this world but by the command of God, or at least, with His divine permission; and that, whatever He wills, or permits turns infallibly to the advantage of those who are submissive and resigned. Even that which most disturbs our spiritual plans changes into something better for us. Keep firmly by this great principle and the most violent tempests will not be able to trouble the depth of your soul, even though they map ruffle the surface by disquieting the feelings.
When, in prayer, you experience certain inclinations and a sweet repose of soul and heart in God, receive these gifts with humility and gratitude, but without attaching yourself to them. If you liked these consolations for themselves you would compel God to deprive you of them, for, when He calls us to pray it is not to flatter our self-love, or to cause us to feel complacency in ourselves, but to dispose us to do His holy will, and to teach us to conform ourselves always more perfectly and in all things to it. When distractions and dryness follow consolations, you know how you ought to bear them, I mean, in peace, submission, and abandonment for as long as it pleases God to permit them to continue. You know, also, that the only hurtful distractions are those that are voluntary, therefore, all those that are displeasing do not prevent the prayer of the heart, and the desire. Do not ever force yourself to fight against these obstinate distractions, it is better and safer to let them alone, as one takes no notice of the various follies and extravagancies that, in spite of ourselves pass through the mind and imagination. What has happened to you before will happen again; God will cause you to experience after prayer what He has refused you at the time in order to make you understand that it is the effect of His grace alone and not of any effort or industry of yours. Nothing serves better to keep us in dependence on grace, and in a state of abjection in our own eyes: and this produces humility of heart and mind. During the day try to keep yourself united to God, either by frequent aspirations towards Him, or by the simple glance of pure faith; or better still, by a certain calm in the depths of your soul and of your whole being in God, accompanied by a complete detachment from all the exterior objects of this world. God Himself will show you which of these three ways will best suit you to unite yourself to Him, by the attraction to it, the taste for it, and the facility in the practice of it which He will give you, for this union is in proportion to the degree of to which the soul is raised. Each of these states has its special attraction; one must learn to know one’s own, and then follow it with simplicity and fidelity, but without anxiety, uneasiness, or haste; always sweetly and peacefully as St. Francis of Sales says.
Letter XIII – Peace and Confidence
On the same subject.
What you tell me about the peace and tranquillity you experience has given me great pleasure. You must remember all your life that one of the principal reasons why certain souls do not advance is, because the devil continually throws them into a state of uneasiness, perplexity, and anxiety which makes them incapable of applying themselves seriously, quietly, and with constancy to the practice of virtue. The great principle of the interior life is the peace of the soul, and it must be preserved with such care that the moment it is attacked all else must be put aside and every effort made to try and regain this holy peace, just as, in an outbreak of fire everything else is neglected to hasten to extinguish the flames. Read, from time to time, the treatise on the peace of the soul which is to be found at the end of the little book called “The Spiritual Combat,” and which the ancient fathers very truly called “the road to Paradise,” to make us understand that the high road to Heaven is this happy peace of the soul. The reason of this is that peace and tranquillity of mind alone give great strength to the soul, to enable it to do all that God wises, while, on the other hand, anxiety and uneasiness make the soul feeble and languid, and as though sick. Then one feels neither taste for, nor attraction to virtue, but, on the contrary, disgust and discouragement of which the devil does not fail to take advantage. For this reason he uses all his cunning to deprive us of peace, and under a thousand specious pretexts, at one time about self-examination, or sorrow for sin, at another about the way we continually neglect grace, or that by our own fault we make no progress; that God will, at last, forsake us, and a hundred other devices from which very few people can defend themselves. This is why masters of the spiritual life lay down this great principle to distinguish the true inspirations of God from those that emanate from the devil; that the former are always sweet and peaceful inducing to confidence and humility, while the latter are intense, restless, and violent, leading to discouragement and mistrust, or else to presumption and self-will. We must, therefore, constantly reject all that does not show signs of peace, submission, sweetness and confidence, all of which bear, as it were, the impression of the seal of God; this point is a very important one for the whole of our life. You ask me for some rules by which to regulate the thoughts of the mind during the day–to which I answer:
1st. That it is better to approach God and virtue by the affections of the heart than by the thoughts of the mind, and it is an important counsel to nourish the heart and make the mind fast; that is to say, to desire God, sigh after God, long for the holy love of God, for an intimate union with God, without amusing yourself with so many thoughts and reflexions. Therefore it is more useful to occupy yourself with the affair of belonging to God without reserve; with the desire to lead an interior life, with a profound humility, fervour, the gift of prayer, the love of God, the true spirit of Jesus Christ, and with the practice of those virtues which He taught by word, and His divine example, than to make a thousand useless reflexions about them. If you do not feel any of these desires the mere wish to have them, the mere raising of the heart is sufficient to keep your soul recollected and united to God. Therefore, once more, the mere raising of the heart to God, or towards certain virtues in order to please God, will do more to help you on than all your reflexions and grand reasoning.
This is called being led to God by inclination, attraction and affection; and this way is gentler, surer, and more efficacious than all those beautiful lights, unless, indeed, God infuses them by His grace and special favour; and even then, unless these lights are united to a certain taste and an interior attraction which touches and charms the heart, we usually make no progress.
2nd. God often permits souls to suffer from that emptiness of the mind of which I have spoken before, and in such cases it would be useless to wish to have distinct thoughts since God has deprived us of them. It would even be hurtful to make efforts to think or to reflect much; from which I conclude that, in any state it is better to remain before God peacefully, acquiescing heartily in His will as to what He gives or takes away without doing more than retaining in the depths of the soul a sincere desire to belong entirely to God; to love Him ardently and to be ultimately united to Him, or else, as I have explained, to wish to have these desires.
3rd. As God gives lights and thoughts when He pleases, either in prayer, or at other times; if you find that these lights and thoughts come quietly and gently, you can dwell upon them for as long a time as you feel any attraction or repose, content to let them go whenever God pleases, without making any effort to retain them; otherwise it would seem as if they were your own, and would act against that perpetual dependence in which God wills to keep those souls which He calls to the interior life. And it is especially to keep them in this continual dependence that, sometimes, God does nothing but give and take away in turns, almost unceasingly; and this produces in those souls perpetual changes. It is through these different changes and constant vicissitudes that God Himself exercises these souls in a perfect submission of mind and heart in which consists true perfection. The conduct of God in the interior of the souls He loves and wishes to raise to a perfect and solid virtue somewhat resembles that of a wise and firm mother who, to overcome the obstinacy and self-will of her child, and to make him perfectly submissive and obedient, gives, and takes away again what he likes best, and continues to do so until she has overcome his rebellious spirit. Oh! if we could only understand the loving conduct of God, what peace would be ours, and what submission we should practise in the midst of these spiritual vicissitudes and changes of the interior state. From this I draw the conclusion which I have often explained to you before that, in certain circumstances, the most efficacious way of making spiritual progress is the simple one of acquiescing in the will of God. “I agree to all, Lord, I wish what You wish, I resign myself entirely to Your will.” This is called desiring nothing and being prepared for everything; nothing for oneself, and everything by resignation: it is called walking before God in the greatest simplicity. This method, in a certain sense has nothing disturbing about it, because this simple adhesion of our will to the will of God comes almost spontaneously as a drawing and attraction, and finally as a sweet habit.
You are surprised that having heartily made certain sacrifices for God, temptations about them should return, most violently, so as to cause you anxiety. It is necessary that this should happen, to prevent self-complacency and self-love which would spoil all. Be satisfied, then, that God has inclined you in the first place by His grace to make these sacrifices for Him, and firmly resist the temptations to retract them. God intends through them to keep you humble; the mind is naturally so inclined to vaunt itself and to be puffed up about everything and to appropriate to itself all that is good and virtuous by self-complacency, that without the help of these oft-repeated trials of our misery and feebleness we should flatter ourselves to have had a great share in the victory, and should thus lose all the fruit we might have gained. In withdrawing from the truth of our own nothingness we go on in vanity and lies which are so opposed to God who is essential truth.
Thus it is that the actual and almost unintermittent experience of our own weakness becomes the protection of those virtues that faith makes us practise. From this it happens that according to the progress we make God gives us corresponding light, and a more lively realisation of our misery and poverty, to retain in us the treasures of grace and virtue of which our enemies would deprive us if God did not bury them in an abyss of misery well known to ourselves, and keenly apprehended by us. This will enable you to understand how it happens that the most saintly persons are always the most humble, and have the poorest opinion of themselves. It is because, by our great inclination to vanity we compel God to hide from our own eyes the small amount of good that we do by the help of His grace, and all our spiritual progress and the virtues He bestows upon us without our knowledge. This is a very touching proof, not only of our own misery, but also of the wisdom and goodness of our God, who is reduced, so to speak, to hiding from us His greatest benefits for fear that we should love them and appropriate them by vanity and scarcely perceptible self-satisfaction. From this great rule it follows that our wretchedness, thoroughly well recognised and experienced, is worth more to us than an angelic virtue the merit of which we unjustly attribute to ourselves. This rule, deeply engraved in the soul, keeps it always in peace in the midst of a lively realisation of its misery, since it regards these feelings as very great graces from God, as indeed they are.
Letter XIV – Singular Favours of God
To Sister Anne-Marguerite Boudet de la Belliere (1734). On the practice of abandonment during consolations.
My dear Sister,
What you tell me about the extraordinary circumstances attending your vocation is more useful than you imagine, because a director who recognises a call of Providence in a vocation has the right to conclude that God has special designs on the soul so singularly chosen, and that He desires to find in it a devotion proportioned to the predilection He has shown it. I thank God for the first grace, and still more for the second which consists in making you know and appreciate this singular favour. I conclude from these favours that you are of the fortunate number of those from whom God expects a particular fidelity, and who would run a great risk if they failed to correspond to the loving kindness of their heavenly Spouse, or if they wounded the divine jealousy of His love. It is true that in the interior life you must be prepared for continual vicissitudes. This is the law to which all the transitory things of this life are subjected by God, and this law is so universal that to remain always in the same state must be looked upon with suspicion. What must you do now, then, that God is overwhelming you with lights and caresses?
1st. You must wait, and prepare yourself for the distressing absences of your Spouse: also in His absence you must look forward to His return, and sustain yourself with the hope of it.
2nd. You must not give yourself up too completely to these affections and consolations for fear of becoming attached to them. You should use the same moderation and the same sobriety with regard to them as a mortified person does with regard to the dishes at a feast.
3rd. Your present method of prayer is more a gift of grace than your own. Therefore let grace act, and remain in a position of humble docility, keeping with calmness and simplicity your interior glance fixed lovingly on God, and on your own nothingness. God will then effect great things in your soul without your knowledge either as to what they are, or how He works. Be careful not to give way to curiosity; be content to know and to feel that it is a divine operation, trust Him who works in you and abandon yourself entirely to Him so that He may form and fashion you interiorly as best pleases Him. Is it not enough that you should be to His liking and taste?
4th. During these happy moments have no other fear than that of becoming more attached to these gifts and graces than to the Giver and Benefactor. Do not value nor enjoy these graces and favours except in so far as they serve to inflame your soul with divine love, and are useful to help you in acquiring those solid virtues which please your heavenly Lover: self-abnegation, humility, mortification, patience, sweetness, obedience, charity, and gentle forbearance with your neighbour. Know that the devil is not the author of favours such as these, and that he can never deceive you if you only make use of these tastes and attractions for the acquisition of those solid virtues which faith and the Gospel teach and prescribe for us. Let God act; do not by your natural activity place obstacles in the way of His holy operations, and be faithful to Him in the smallest things for fear of exciting or provoking His divine jealousy.
5th. The most simple thoughts, and those that lead more directly to a filial confidence are the best in prayer. How pleasing to God are those prayers that are, at the same time, simple, familiar, and respectful, and how irresistible they are to Him. I wish you, with all my heart, a continuation of this simple and humble gift of prayer which is the greatest treasure of the spiritual life.
6th. You say that you cannot understand how the strong antipathy that you formerly entertained for your present state of life should have given place to such a perfect love of it. It is, my dear Sister, because, by different interior operations, your soul has, so to say, been re-modelled, somewhat in the way that an old metal or silver pot is re-cast to make an entirely new one, shining and bright. There will be many other remouldings in your soul if you become quite detached from consolations, faithful to grace, and completely resigned to God’s good pleasure in aridity, trouble and desolation.
7th. I feel, as you do, that it is God’s will that, little by little, you should die to all things, in order to live only in Him, for Him, and by Him; that is to say, to have neither thoughts, desires, plans, views, ambitions, affections, joys, fears, hope, nor love but for Him. But before arriving at this entire detachment, which is what is called a mystical death, you will have to endure cruel agonies. From henceforth you must prepare yourself for this, as, in bygone times the virgins, and the rest of the faithful prepared themselves for martyrdom, because this is in reality a true martyrdom beginning in love, and tending to the consummation of love. But be of good courage; God will uphold you and will give you now and then, breathing-space for the enjoyment of heavenly graces and of a delightful sweetness with which He will fill your soul as with a heavenly manna to nourish and fortify it during its sojourn in the desert of this world.
8th. What a fortunate attraction it is which unceasingly recalls you interiorly! What a holy dwelling, and blessed retreat has the heavenly Spouse made for Himself in your soul, where He makes Himself known to you and speaks to your heart in the most profound and loving silence, without sound of words, or confusion of fugitive thoughts! This should be your permanent dwelling and when you perceive yourself on the point of quitting it, try very gently to return, and to re-enter this divine trysting-place. It is in this that it is most necessary for you to be faithful.
9th. As concerns your extreme weakness and misery during times of aridity, and in the absence of the heavenly Bridegroom, you need not be in the least surprised at it and still less excessively afflicted or troubled. All good souls suffer in the same way, and God acts thus to remind us, by a hundred personal experiences, that we are nothing without Him, so that we shall attribute to Him alone all the glory of the little good that we perform by the help of His grace, and appropriate nothing to ourselves but evil.
10th. During this time that immediately follows the entrance of a soul into the state of recollection, you would hardly believe how necessary it is, not only to deny itself every useless pleasure and natural satisfaction, but also conversations, even pious ones, that are too long. It is often a device of the devil to feed pride, self-love, and foolish self-esteem, and to draw us gradually away till we forget God even in speaking about Him and about our own souls. We escape this danger when by continual efforts we have acquired a habit of living an interior life, and become accustomed to let the heart speak, rather than the intellect.
11th. Preserve most jealously a great taste for silence and solitude: the desire of it is enough for the present, and later, the time will come to put it into practice.
12th. It is certain, also, that familiar correspondence by letter, even in the most harmless way, is an obstacle to perfection, especially in youth. One of your former directors has already given you this advice and you did well in obeying him. This little sacrifice was very pleasing to God, and will have obtained for you the grace to make a second which I judge necessary. I see that it is incumbent on you to make continual progress in the way of detachment, and also that the special graces bestowed on you by God give Him the right to expect a corresponding fidelity on your part. After weighing the matter well in the sight of God, and in the interests of your soul this is what I think; I wish you to tell the person quite simply, that your director, whose advice you wish to follow, tells you that this letter-writing, though of the most innocent description, must be given up, as a little sacrifice which he desires and exacts, although he knows quite well that there is no danger either on your side or the other, as you have declared that the correspondence is with an upright man, a good Religious who is a relative: and that in spite of knowing all this the director is firm, and will maintain his prohibition, under the penalty of refusing any longer to undertake the care of your soul and that you neither wish nor dare to disobey him. I believe that this declaration, made with quiet energy will suffice to give your soul its full liberty.
13th. I thoroughly understand the miserable self-love of which you speak, and its natural result in the instinctive and indeliberate seeking after your own ease and comfort. This self-love is so deeply rooted in us, that only its opposite, divine love, can cause its death. It is enough, at present, to grieve about it, and to humble yourself before God. The prayer He gives you is a sacred fire which will insensibly consume all these evil inclinations, as fire consumes straw; so, have confidence in God, and wait patiently till this wretched straw is completely consumed.
Letter XV – Heartfelt Prayer
To Mother Louise-Franc,oise de Rosen on the same subject.
My dear Sister,
I see no cause for anxiety in the state of your soul as you describe it in your letter.
1st. The feelings of gratitude, of joy, and of self-effacement which keep you in union with God for entire days without any relaxation are the effects of one of those operations which you have already experienced. You have but to accept this gift with humble gratitude, and I can only congratulate you on the grace God has bestowed on you.
2nd. There is a language of the heart which only God can understand, and which is expressed by desires and other interior movements, as men converse with the void and articulate words. This is called heartfelt prayer altogether interior and spiritual. In this the Holy Spirit, in the inmost sanctuary of the soul, listens, speaks, instructs, silences, turns and forms it according to His pleasure. It is the work of the divine Spirit on the created spirit of which the soul hardly understands anything, apparently, and yet, nevertheless, is completely revived by the impressions made upon it. In this also, it only remains to receive in all simplicity the gift of God, and since it pleases Him to communicate Himself to the soul in secret, and as it were, “incognito,” it should carefully abstain from opposing His designs by eager investigations or indiscreet curiosity.
3rd. Your thoughts and feelings about the happiness of the saints are founded on truth, for it is of faith that the essence of that sovereign happiness is but the ebbing and flowing of the very happiness of God. A small share of this happiness He imparts to certain souls here on earth, to attract them to Himself, and to inspire them with a distaste for all else; so transitory impressions have their good effect, for which reason we are permitted to desire, and to enjoy them with interior moderation and sobriety.
4th. The comparison of the stone which has to be cut with blows of the hammer on the chisel, and afterwards to be polished, is very just. You have only to allow yourself to be shaped and modelled, and to be careful not to destroy the form and shape given by the divine Workman, by thoughts and actions that obviate His industry.
Letter XVI – The Operations of Grace
To Sister Marie-Anne-Therese de Rosen (1734). The operations of grace.
My dear Sister,
I have read your letter with much consolation and spiritual joy. I bless God from my heart for having been pleased to glorify Himself in your weakness and poverty. We celebrate to-day the feast of St. Agatha, and in her collect we pray that as He has chosen the weaker sex to show forth His mighty power, so we might by her intercession be brought nearer to Him. I have applied this thought to you.
1st. Your great attraction towards simplicity is a grace that can have no other effect than to unite you more closely with God, for simplicity tends to unity, and this can be obtained, first, by a simple and loving interior looking to God in pure faith, whether this interior looking is perceptible by its sweetness, as at present, or becomes almost unknown to the senses by being in the depths of the soul, or in the apex, or point of the spirit. Secondly, by keeping guard over all your interior senses in a profound silence. Thirdly, by only making repeated acts and reflections according as God gives you the thought, attraction, and impulsion.
2nd. This indistinct knowledge, or rather, this strong impression that you have of the immensity of God is the work of grace, which produces, and leaves in the depth of the soul very salutary effects that no one has ever been able to explain, and on which it is best not to reason nor even to dwell unless God, Himself, impels us. Do not interfere with this impression, nor distress yourself when it pleases God to take it away. The soul will thus be prevented from becoming more attached to the gifts of God than to God Himself, and from ruining all the operations of grace by attributing the good effects they produce to itself.
3rd. The holy Scripture says that God dwells in inaccessible darkness to the spirit of man, but when He introduces a soul into that darkness it becomes luminous to it. Then can it see all without seeing anything, it can hear all without hearing, and gain knowledge without knowing anything. This is called wise ignorance, or, as St. Denis explains it, the darkness of the light of faith. All that is necessary to know about it is that it is an operation of grace; allow yourself to be immersed in it with joy, let yourself be engulfed and lost in it as much as God pleases.
4th. This attraction to and taste for mental prayer, and this profound peace and silence full of admiration and love are marked effects of the prayer of recollection. But to remain in a kind of inactivity, like an empty space, or a mere instrument waiting for the master-hand of the worker, is another operation of grace. In this state you have only to follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Wait patiently in silence and resignation, as the holy king, David, said, “Like a servant waits with her eyes fixed on her mistress to forestall and accomplish her commands at the least sign from her”; if nothing is said, still wait in the same interior spirit of submission and abandonment. Should grace inspire particular and formal acts, perform them quietly, following step by step the impulse given for that purpose, and stop directly it ceases, to resume once more the same silent attention.
5th. This spirit of total abandonment, with the fervent and reiterated petition to accomplish all that God wills frequently prognosticates a transition to an interior state of trial extremely hard and crucifying. All that can be done is to prepare yourself generally, before God, by a complete self-distrust and a great confidence in Him; and by a general abandonment to all without particularising anything unless God makes it clear to you. On this subject I say to you that if for want of tyrants there are no longer martyrs for the faith to the shedding of blood; Jesus Christ will continue to have martyrs of grace. The torments of the body give place with advantage to the different interior sufferings which souls have to endure to purify them more and more and to render them better fitted for a more strict and intimate union with the God of all purity and holiness. The feeling of confusion and of interior annihilation is caused by the action of the Spirit of God; all the graces He gives us should always bear the sign-manual of humility, and all that has not this sign must be regarded with suspicion, and likewise everything that has the slightest shadow of pride, presumption, or vain self-satisfaction.
6th. Having once experienced the sweetness, efficacy, and purity of the divine operations, I am not surprised at the sort of horror you entertain for your own efforts which are nearly always hurried, wild, uneasy, and followed by a thousand fruitless self-examinations. It is not a bad thing to remain inactive when you do not think yourself to be actuated by the Spirit of God; as long as one of these two conditions can be found in this state–that this inaction does not last long, or else that it is a peaceful waiting which is not idleness, since there is in it that interior and loving attention to God, with faith, desire, and hope of His holy operation, which are so many acts, and so many movements of the mind and heart, forming the essence of true interior prayer.
You must not scrutinise spiritual things so much, but follow God with simplicity, as St. Francis of Sales says: “To do otherwise is to oppose the holy simplicity that pertains to candid and innocent souls.”
All that is caused by, or proceeds from the love of God, says your saintly Father, is sweet and gentle, like this very holy love itself; and the signs of a self-seeking nature are the confusion, haste, and anxiety of a self-love that is perpetually eager, anxious and impetuous.
7th. I understand that your attraction has always been the knowledge and love of God in, and through Jesus Christ. The simple perception, or consideration of these mysteries, accompanied by holy affections, is already a very good method of prayer. When all the contemplation of the mind, and the affections of the heart are gathered into one point, for instance–-the Deity, the prayer is much simplified, is better and more divine; but you must not imagine that this method will always continue: usually it is not a permanent state, but a fugitive grace. When it has passed, you must return to the simple contemplation of the mystery with some affections of the heart, gentle, peaceful, without effort or too much examination.
8th. Be careful, during the time of prayer, not to reflect on yourself, or your method of prayer, because to examine closely in this way, one often leaves off looking at God to look at oneself, to reflect and, as it were, to turn back on oneself simply out of self-love which, not having been entirely given up, falls back naturally on itself. When divine repose begins, do not think of its sweetness but only of God in whose heart your soul should rather seek charity and the infusion of those virtues which fill the soul during that happy sleep, than its own repose. For the rest you could not hear Mass nor recite the Office in a more worthy manner than with these interior dispositions, but you must prepare to be weaned from the milk of spiritual infancy, and to eat the bread of the strong. May God be praised for this beforehand.
9th. Certainly the more annihilated and empty of created things a soul becomes the greater will be its capacity for divine love, and the more abundantly will this love be infused into it. Then the soul drinks long draughts of love with a delicious satiety, and an insatiable thirst. One must then be content to drink at the source, and not make unseasonable commotion. Formal acts of charity would be greatly out of place when one feels that the heart is entirely submerged in charity. God wills that by dint of plunging and replunging your soul in this ocean of charity your heart may become inebriated with this holy love, and set on fire with these pure and divine flames. To attain this you must think of two things only–first to detach your mind and heart more and more from all created things, secondly to allow God to act, for He alone produced these effects in your soul. Still you can, and ought to desire, and to ask for a greater love of God, when you feel inclined, and impelled to do so; but this you will do almost without thinking and without being able to help yourself.
10th. God carries out His work with any tools He pleases, and sometimes effects wonderful things with very weak instruments. Therefore do not deny yourself to those souls whom He has inspired to appeal to you: say quite simply what you think and give them what God has given you for their benefit, and rest assured that He will give His blessing to your simplicity, and to the humility of these good souls. When God sends someone to us in whatever way it may be, it is not meddling to help others, but the best way of showing our love and gratitude to Him. Even when they seem to repel you, stand your ground, and endure all for the glory of your great Master.
Letter XVII – Attraction to the Interior Life
To Mother Marie-Anne-Sophie de Rottembourg (1738). On docility to the interior impressions of the Holy Spirit: and peaceful waiting.
Reverend Mother,
All that you tell me about the interior attraction of many of your daughters to holy recollection, and the measures you take to turn aside the obstacles, specious and well-disguised as they are, by which the devil tries to prevent them, can only come from the Holy Spirit. I have nothing further to remark about it. Follow quietly and step by step, the light that God gives you. What a consolation and joy for me it is to learn that all those good sisters whom I know best, and am most interested in, are just those that are most attracted to and have the greatest desire for the interior life. I beg you to congratulate them from me for this gift of God, and to greet them all, particularly your dear Sister Marie-Anne-Therese de Viomenil. How delighted I am to hear that she is persevering in this work. The seven you mention, with whom you have formed a holy league for the renewal of an interior spirit in your community, will gradually make proselytes, and before long will win over the whole house. As to yourself, profit by your experiences and never forsake the plain path of pure faith which God has made you enter upon for any reason whatever. Do not forget that in this path the operations of God are almost imperceptible. The work of grace is accomplished in the innermost recess of the spirit, that which is the furthest from the senses, and from all that can be felt. To confirm you in this way you must remember first that this is what Jesus Christ meant when He said that we must worship the Father in spirit and in truth; secondly, that what is evident to the senses is, so to say, only a mark of grace; as Fr. Louis Lallement says; thirdly, that Mother de Chantal has very justly said that the more simple, deep and imperceptible are the workings of God, the more spiritual, solid, pure and perfect they are. That spirit of peace in yourself and in the others is one of the greatest gifts of God. Follow this spirit and all that it inspires; it will work wonders in yourself and in your neighbour. When we have learnt to remain in interior peace, God will teach others by our example without the sound of words to be peaceable and obedient, so that directors will only have to say to us, “Listen attentively to the voice of the Spirit of God,” or, better still, “Be faithful in following the interior impressions of His grace.” This is what St. John said to the first Christians, “You have no need that any man teach you, but as His unction teacheth you all things, and is truth, and is no lie. And as it has taught you, abide in Him.” Follow faithfully and obediently, when you feel it, this divine unction; wait for it peacefully and with confidence when its impression becomes indistinct; this is the best way of making rapid progress in the way of perfection without danger of going astray. Why do we always wish to substitute our own action for that of the divine Worker who labours in us without ceasing to make us perfect? How much more progress should we not make if we took more care not to interfere with His action, but to abandon ourselves to Him, and to wait for Him? The Holy Scriptures frequently recommend us to “wait on the Lord” and there is hardly any means better calculated to make us holy. There is nothing to which souls already sufficiently exercised in the active life and the fulfilment of the precepts should more earnestly apply themselves, than to these peaceful waitings. It is the way to acquire the spirit of prayer, of holy recollection, and of a most intimate union with God. Our God is infinitely liberal, and His hands are always full of graces which He only desires to pour out on us. To receive abundantly of these graces all that is necessary is, to prepare our hearts and to remain always in readiness. But the dryness and weariness of this waiting tire those souls that are impatient and impetuous, and dishearten those who think only of their own interests instead of allowing themselves to be led by the pure love of God which consists in conforming our will always with His. There is no treasure in the world to be compared to this. But people are always rushing after all sorts of chimerical perfections and lose sight of the only true perfection, which is the fulfilment of the divine will; this infinitely wise and sweet will, which, if we allow it to guide us will show us close at hand and at every moment what we are so laboriously and uselessly hunting for elsewhere.
Letter XVIII – Desires to be Moderated
To Sister Marie-Anne-Therese de Viomenil. Advising her to moderate her desires and fears.
Salutary fear causes neither disturbance, uneasiness, nor discouragement. If fear produce contrary effects you must drive it away, and not allow it to take possession of you, as in this case it comes either from the devil, or your own self-love. We must always remain in the presence of God, waiting His pleasure even about our most lawful desires, and the projects that seem most saintly; and must be always submissive and resigned to His holy will. Why? Firstly, because the desires of God should be the only rule of all our desires. The most certain way of arriving at perfection is to submit, and to persevere in adhering to all the interior and exterior circumstances in which we find ourselves by the permission of that divine Providence who rules everything, and disposes everything, even to the fall of a leaf from the tree, or a hair from our heads. Secondly, because the giving up of our own will is a necessary and important condition of our sanctification.
Nothing is so calculated to make us acquire this abnegation than the delays we meet with in the execution of our good purposes. It is on this account that God often delays their accomplishment for entire years. Then, indeed, do we require faith, abandonment and confidence. But what makes this trial all the more bitter is that sometimes we do not feel that we have any of these virtues, because we are deprived of the power of making formal acts. What is to be done in this case? We must sustain ourselves by the simple light of bare faith, and by frequent recourse to God interiorly to implore His divine assistance, humbly confessing our impotence and misery. In this way we shall take part in the designs of God who seems occasionally to leave us to our own devices, to make us understand how little we can do when left to ourselves. What a great favour! and what an important virtue we shall have acquired in learning by repeated personal experiences the depths of our weakness, misery and poverty, and the continual need we have of the sustaining power of God to raise, enlighten and animate us by the interior influence of His grace.
The deep impression that God has given you of a keen desire to divest yourself of your own will to follow His is a most precious grace; to guard and increase it you must, with all your heart and soul, make every effort, as often and for as long a time as you can, especially at prayer. I could wish that you were able to spend your whole life in this exercise alone, in great interior silence allowing the Holy Spirit to work in you by His grace; but all without violence or effort; gently, tranquilly, peacefully, because God only dwells in peaceful souls in which He takes His delight.
Letter XIX – To Aim at Simplicity
To Sister Marie-Anne-Therese de Rosen. To aim at Simplicity.
My dear Sister,
Only a few days ago I answered at some length your last letter but one. If you find that, through me, God does not do much for you, you ought to conclude that my help is not necessary for you, or else that He will Himself provide for your necessities. How well He can do without us when He chooses! One single word uttered by Him to the ear of the soul is more instructive than all the discourses of men. The least little breath of grace wafts our ship more speedily on its course, and makes it arrive more surely and speedily into harbour than all our oars, sails, and sculls. I am delighted to hear that you are beginning to learn this, or rather that you daily have fresh and more touching proofs of it. Keep in this state: the interior silence of respect and submission alone, kept humbly in the presence of God if He does not command us to act, will sanctify our energies, soften our anxieties, and pacify our troubles, and that in one moment. Remain in this state of unity and simplicity; multiplicity throws the mind into trouble and confusion, scatters and disorders our powers without our being able to perceive it. Many desires trouble the soul, says the Holy Spirit. Here is a practice which I advise you to follow in order to reduce all your desires to a single one; take this truth well to heart. “I have been created and put into this world to serve God, to love Him, and to please Him; that is my task here; what does He wish to do with me in this world and the next? to what degree of glory will He raise me? That is for Him to determine; it is His business, it is, so to say, His task; each to his own business, the doing of that is the only thing to think of. Please God I will think of mine as willingly as God thinks of His.” I remain in Him and through Him–my dear Sister. Yours, etc.
Letter XX – Holy Simplicity
To Sister Anne-Marguerite Boudet de la Belliere. On the same subject.
My dear Sister,
The way in which you take your little trials is infinitely pleasing to God, and I do not fear to give you this assurance, because in so generously renouncing, as you do, all interior sweetness and consolation for the love of Him, you merit to receive them more abundantly when the time arrives. The little, you tell me, that you have remembered of what I have told you, is the essential part, and that ought to suffice. God sees the heart, and that is all that He wants. Perfection does not consist in a multiplicity of acts even though interior; on the contrary the more we advance the more is God pleased to make it out of our power to produce many acts, but invites us to remain in His presence in a state of silence and humble recollection. Follow this attraction of grace. Be content to renew from time to time a simple act of faith and of charity, accompanied by total resignation and filial confidence. In all the different changes both interior and exterior, say always from the depths of your heart, “My God, I wish what you wish, I refuse nothing from Your fatherly hand, I accept all, and submit to all.” In this simple act, continued, or rather habitual, consists our whole perfection. Also in this the heart and soul are kept in peace at their centre even when agitated on the surface by different trials and emotions that war against it. The better you understand how to maintain this holy interior simplicity the greater will be your progress, or to speak more correctly, the more God will help you to advance.
Do not, however, expect to be able to measure the progress you make; that is impossible for this reason, that your progress depends more on the work of God in your soul than on your own acts, and that this work being purely spiritual, on that account is hardly perceptible.
However, I give you some signs by which you may recognise in future the results of the divine action in your change of heart.
1st. A holy indifference which resembles a sort of insensibility to all things of this world.
2nd. A fund of peace from which it follows that you will not trouble yourself about anything, even about your faults and imperfections, and far less about those of your neighbour.
3rd. A certain attraction towards God and the things of God; a sort of hunger and thirst after justice, that is to say, after virtue, piety, and all perfection. This hunger, which is very keen, is, nevertheless, exempt from eagerness and trouble, and leads you to will always what God wills, and nothing more; to bless Him in spiritual poverty as much as in abundance.
Remember always this great saying of Jesus Christ: “If you do not become like little children you shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.” Be on your guard never to infringe, in the slightest degree, this holy simplicity, so little known, so little esteemed, yet so precious in the sight of God. Be always more and more upright and simple in your thoughts, words, opinions, actions, and behaviour. There are people who want to be just the contrary, and who pretend to be, out of vanity. How very far are these people from the Kingdom of God, since they have not even the foundation of it, which is humility. Whenever you go to pray, or leave it with a quiet, recollected, and well-disposed mind, you will always derive some fruit from it one way or another, and all the more when you believe that God is farthest from you, for then He will be nearest. Do not make a number of acts during prayer, but make a few very quietly, with the greatest repose of mind and heart, and in the greatest tranquillity possible. During the day do not force yourself to make so many different acts, and still less to feel fervour and devotion in making them; keep yourself firmly, humbly, and patiently in peace, tranquil and quite resigned in this emptiness of the mind and of the will. It is this emptiness of the spirit which conduces to pure love, and union with God.
"So let us be confident, let us not be unprepared, let us not be outflanked, let us be wise, vigilant, fighting against those who are trying to tear the faith out of our souls and morality out of our hearts, so that we may remain Catholics, remain united to the Blessed Virgin Mary, remain united to the Roman Catholic Church, remain faithful children of the Church."- Abp. Lefebvre
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SECOND BOOK - ON THE EXERCISE OF THE VIRTUE OF ABANDONMENT
Letter XXI – Different Attractions of Grace
To Mother Therese Franc,oise de Rosen. On the different attractions of grace.
My dear Sister,
The tendencies, on the subject of which you consult me, are not rare among souls who, like you, have been called by God to unite themselves with Him by a loving abandonment. Sometimes, you say, you feel yourself drawn to adore the divine Majesty with humility mixed with love, and by very distinct acts which arise of their own accord apparently, and are very delightful, filling the soul with a great contentment. At other times you are inclined to remain in complete repose with a clear apprehension of the presence of God, and without the power of forming distinct acts, unless with violent efforts, even during holy Mass, and then you feel obliged to take a book, and to do violence to yourself to escape from this apparent inaction which occasions your uneasiness: this is as near as possible to the two states, the principal traits of which you have depicted in your letter, and on the subject of which you desire my counsel. This is what I think about it. In the first place it is certain that each of these two states is a gift of God, but the second seems to be the best; first because it is more simple, more profound, more spiritual, and further removed from the senses, consequently more worthy of God Who is a pure spirit, and Whom we must worship in spirit and in truth; secondly, because it is an exercise of pure faith, which is less satisfying to the soul, less reassuring, and consequently, in which there is more of sacrifice and of perfect abandonment to God. Thirdly, because in this state it is the Holy Spirit that acts with the approval and consent of the soul, while in the first state, it is the soul that acts with the grace of God and this is more like ordinary effective prayer. Well! you must understand that those operations in which God has the greatest share, and the creature the least must be the most perfect. From this it follows that in this second state there is no serious danger of wasting time nor consequently any reason to fear that you do not fulfil the precept to hear Mass. You may adhere to this decision without the slightest scruple. And if, further, you wish to have my advice as to how to behave with regard to these two states when you experience them, I will give it to you. First, whenever the second attraction is strongly experienced, and absorbs you, in some measure, in spite of yourself, you ought to allow yourself to be gently drawn on, otherwise you would be resisting the inspiration and secret operations of the Holy Spirit within you, and thus would be acting according to your own ideas, out of self-love and in order to become satisfied and reassured. Now you must seek, in all things, not your own satisfaction however spiritual it may be, but the perfect satisfaction of God.
If this attraction should not be very strong nor very urgent, you ought, nevertheless, to second it by keeping yourself in a profound silence to give more opportunity for the inmost operations of the Holy Spirit. This, at any rate, is the advice I give you for long hours of prayer; because, when you have only a short time for prayer, as in short visits to the Blessed Sacrament morning and evening, it would be more useful to cultivate the first attraction you mentioned. You could then make formal acts of adoration and love of God. But I will remind you of the counsel St. Francis of Sales gave to a person who followed the same method: I should wish these particular acts to be made without much feeling or effort, so that they may flow and be distilled from the highest point of the mind, as the same saint expresses it; because it is a received opinion that the more simple and above the senses these operations are, so much the more profoundly spiritual, and, consequently, perfect do they become. To pray according to your first method is to pray by formal, successive and perceptible acts; to pray according to the second method is to pray by implicit acts, experienced, but in no way expressed nor perceptible except confusedly. Or, in other words it is to pray by a simple but actual inclination of the heart; now this simple and real inclination of the heart contains all, and says all to God without, however, express words. The different names that are given to this method of prayer will make you understand it perfectly; it is called a loving waiting on God, a simple looking, or pure faith and simplicity tending to God; the prayer of surrender and abandonment to God, arising from the love of God, and producing an ever increasing love of God. By these examples you will see that this method is of more value than the other; you must, therefore, make it your principal exercise, without, however, neglecting the first at certain times as I told you above. Yours in our Lord.
Letter XXII – Fidelity to the Call of God
To a Postulant. On abandonment in the trials to which vocation is subject.
All that you have told me, and written to me, makes me convinced that God calls you to religion, and, in particular to the Order of the Visitation. Your interior attraction to this Order, and the reasons you allege for it do not leave a doubt of this double vocation; for, as there is one for religion in general, there is also one for this or that community in particular. It only remains for you to be faithful to the call of God and thus to make sure your predestination.
Now, this fidelity requires three things of you; first you must endeavour to preserve in your heart in spite of every obstacle both exterior and interior, this attraction towards God with the sincere desire to follow it when He Who has given it to you will Himself provide the means by which you will be able to concentrate yourself to His service in reality, as you have already done beforehand in your mind and heart. Your second duty is to hope against hope as Abraham did; that is, to believe firmly that, as God is all-powerful and that nothing in the world can resist Him, He will know how to overcome all the obstacles and oppositions of men in His own time. All minds and hearts are in His hands and He can turn them as He will without effort. It was by His simple “Fiat” that He created all things out of nothing. Therefore, when the time arrives, He has but to say “Fiat” and all the obstacles to your vocation will be removed. At present He allows these obstacles to try your patience, your faith in Him, and your firm reliance on His powerful succour. Therefore, do not be alarmed, but continue to trust firmly in God. Do not trouble yourself nor torment yourself at all, but submit to God generously; accept all the trials He sends you, saying to Him without ceasing, “Lord may all that You will be accomplished in me, at the time, and in the way that pleases you; I accept all and sacrifice my own interests, my wishes, and all the desires of my heart to have none other than to obey and please You in all things.” Your third duty is a great fidelity to all your exercises of piety; prayers, readings, meditations, masses, confessions, Communions, examens, and interior recollection; frequent raising of the heart to God without ever giving up in the slightest degree any of these practices, either through grief, trouble, disgust, weariness, dryness, or for any other reason whatever. These trials are necessary to detach you from everything and to keep you united to God Who alone should be your light, your support, your consolation and your strength.
Apparently it is to make you practise this abandonment better that God has permitted you to be forbidden to enter the Visitation, so that, receiving no consolation except from Him directly, you should attach yourself purely and solely to Him and thus gain great merit.
You must, therefore, obey His orders in obeying those who have the right from Him to command you. If the command should prejudice the welfare of your soul God will not allow it to persist. He can easily put aside the obstacle when it is necessary, therefore rest quietly and without the slightest anxiety in the arms of His merciful providence as a little child rests on the breast of its mother.
Letter XXIII – The Value of Good Desires
To the same person. On the value of good desires.
The increase of the desire to consecrate yourself to God is an additional grace of His mercy. To suffer all the pain of being unable to accomplish these ardent desires is, insomuch as you bear it with resignation, to correspond well with this grace, and to merit its continuance. The interior effort to maintain yourself in this state of resignation is a sort of martyrdom that will, sooner or later, be rewarded. God will carry out the pious design with which He has inspired you, the delay is intend to try your fidelity. If, in the meantime, you are getting on in years, you need not consider that, because you already possess the best part of what you wish for, which is, the strong desire to consecrate yourself to God. This desire is, in the sight of God, the best part of the sacrifice, or, to speak correctly, it is the entire sacrifice since you have already given yourself to Him, in heart and soul, and are now sacrificing your most earnest desires in awaiting patiently the time chosen by His providence. Possibly this last sacrifice is of more value than the first, since by it you renounce more entirely your own will. Therefore be at peace and quite tranquil in the presence of Him who sees to the bottom of our hearts and who takes all your good desires for performance. He has no need of anything that you could give Him; but He loves a heart that is ready and willing to sacrifice all. The fear of death and of the judgments of God is a good thing as long as it does not go so far as to cause you trouble and anxiety; then it would be an illusion of the devil. For, what is it that makes you afraid? Is it because you have not yet done what you have not been able to do? Does God require what is impossible? Is it, as you add, because you have, as yet, done nothing for heaven? Be careful again in this; it is a delicate subject for it seems as if you wanted to acquire merit for your own assurance.This is not real confidence which can only be founded on the mercy of God, and the infinite merits of Jesus Christ. Any other confidence would be vain and presumptuous, since it would rest on your own nothingness, and I know not what wretched works which have no value in the sight of God. Without depending in any way on ourselves let us try and accomplish, with the help of God’s grace, all that He demands of us, and hope only in His goodness and in the merits of Jesus Christ, His Son.
You are right in saying that more grace is required to save us in the world than in religion. From this I form the opinion that, evidently, a much more distinct vocation is necessary for those who have to remain in the world, than for the religious state; but, at the same time there are particular graces given to those who, against their will, have to remain in the world. God is then, as it were, obliged to take care of them. Therefore fear nothing, you are already a Religious in heart and soul. Try to subject your mind, feelings, and actions to the spirit of the rules of this holy state, by a humble resignation and a perfect confidence in the fatherly goodness and power of that heavenly Spouse whom you have chosen. He, also, regards you as His beloved Spouse.
Letter XXIV – The Call of God a Sign of Predestination
To the same person.
You are quite right to consider the design with which God has inspired you as one of the greatest graces. It is the surest sign of the predestination of a soul by God when He calls it to His divine service. On this, not only its eternal salvation depends, but even temporal happiness, since experience proves that peace and true contentment in this world can only be found in the service of God. Besides, the depravity of the times is so great, that it is very difficult to serve God perfectly out of religion. It costs so much to serve God in the world, that people often lose courage and give up their good intentions. You must, therefore, thank our Lord without ceasing for the gratuitous grace He has given you, in preference to so many others who are lost in the world while leading in it a life full of sorrow and disappointment. In the second place you must trust in the goodness of God, and firmly hope that the design with which He has inspired you, He will bring to a successful conclusion. It is often for our greater advantage that He defers the accomplishment of our most holy desires. His providence can by hidden, but infallible means, cause things to succeed in spite of every obstacle, even when success seems absolutely impossible. God often allows His work to be thwarted in order to make the exercise of His power more striking, and to show us that He is absolute master of all, and that, as without Him we can do nothing, so with His assistance we shall be able to accomplish what appears impossible in our eyes. In the third place you must resign yourself entirely to whatever is the will of God, telling Him frequently that you wish to depend on Him for everything, and that you will have no other will but His. In this way when anything happens to cross your, apparently, most just desires you must, before all, make the sacrifice of them, and then remain in peace, for nothing is so opposed to the Spirit of God and to the marks of His grace, than interior distress, produced by a too great eagerness for even the best and holiest things. Moderate this indiscreet zeal, this too impetuous impulsiveness, and direct all your efforts to the fulfilment of the holy will of God in all things, renouncing your own will however holy and reasonable it may appear to you. There is, truly, no solid virtue nor true sanctity apart from an entire resignation to, and acquiescence in the will of God. If you feel an occasional repugnance to submit yourself to what God ordains, you should go to Him at once interiorly by prayer, and implore Him to subject your will to His in all things, and to give you strength to overcome your repugnance and your self-love which desires its own satisfaction in even the holiest things. Nevertheless, as it is God’s rule that we should do all in our power to cause the good desires with which He has inspired us to succeed, this is what you ought to do.
1st. Frequent the Sacraments as often and as well as you can.
2nd. Live in a great purity of conscience by avoiding the slightest fault that might keep God at a distance from you.
3rd. Every day, at your convenience, spend some time in spiritual reading which will take the place of meditation when you are unable to make it.
4th. During the course of the day raise your mind and heart to God as often as possible, especially when you experience pain, weariness, disappointment, or any repugnance. Offer them to Him as a continual sacrifice. In this way you will obtain constant fresh graces and heavenly inspirations, to which it is of infinite importance that you should be faithful, because it is particularly to this fidelity that God usually imparts His greatest gifts, and above all, that of perseverance.
Letter XXV – God Only Desires What We are Able to Give
To the same person.
The sort of martyrdom you are suffering will, if you endure it with patience and perfect resignation, be very pleasing to God, for all perfection consists in conforming your will entirely to the will of God in all things; that is to say, that you must never will anything else but what God wills. Now, it is of faith that God wills everything that happens to us, except sin, because with the exception of sin nothing happens in this world but by the hidden dispensations of Providence. This taken for granted, I cannot understand why you should suffer so much at the postponement of your sacrifice, since it is God who puts obstacles to it, and thus shows you that He only requires of you the desire to make it until such time as He, Himself, gives you the means and power to do so. But beware lest, since we always try to gratify our own will in all things, this inability should wound your self-love, make you lose interior peace, and cause all sorts of troubles. It is a sure sign that we are seeking rather to indulge our own self-love than to please God when we prefer our own will to His. For if we only desired to do His holy will we should always be content and tranquil with this thought, God only requires of me what I am able to give Him, and that is, the desire to consummate my sacrifice; and, according to His will this desire should be quiet, peaceful, and submissive to all the designs of His divine providence: but suppose I should never be able to accomplish my holy desires? Very well! that would prove to me that God does not require it, and I should be satisfied to do His holy will; because it would then be obvious that God did not wish for the sacrifice itself, but only that I should be willing to make it.
It was thus that God acted with regard to Abraham, whose generous readiness to sacrifice his son Isaac He rewarded as though the sacrifice had been consummated. It has been the same with many of the saints who had a very strong desire for martyrdom without being able to carry it out. God, not permitting nor desiring the actual sacrifice, is satisfied with the sacrifice of desire, which, in His sight, is the same thing.
But, suppose that in consequence of this I am obliged to live in the world, what will become of me? These are vain fears put into your mind by the devil to make you lose the peace of your soul. You must abandon yourself entirely to God, and put your whole trust in Him. He is powerful enough to make you stand firm in the world, and good enough to sustain you when it is by the arrangements of His providence that you live in it.
You could not do better, therefore, than to practise recollection and abnegation in renouncing your own will in everything, but particularly in your too eager desires, however holy they may be; for this excessive vehemence, and these restless struggles show much imperfection and self-love. These defects are still more clearly shown in the vexation and distress to which you give way after falling into certain faults; for these feelings are never produced by the love of God, which, on the contrary, conduces to peace; but by a discontented self-love, and a secret pride stung by the sight of your own imperfections. A soul that is truly humble, instead of entertaining these useless and dangerous feelings, will, after a fall, humble itself gently and tranquilly before God without any uneasiness on account of it. It will feel sorry without anxiety and beg forgiveness without disturbance, and even thank Him for preventing it falling into greater sins.
Letter XXVI – Abandonment as to Employments and Undertakings
To Sister Marie-Therese de Viomenil.
My dear Sister,
If you could but understand, once for all, that everything that God wills must succeed, because He knows how to make even difficulties and the opposition of men conduce to the fulfilment of His designs. Believe me, if it be for your greater advantage, in vain will men try to prevent its success; but if, on the contrary, it will not be advantageous to you, what better can God do than to prevent it? Now God alone can look into the future and see all its consequences; as for us, we are poor blind creatures, who have to fear all sorts of danger even in the events that appear to have the best promise of success. What better could we do than to place the whole matter in God’s care? Could our future be more secure than in the all-powerful hands of that adorable Master, of that good and loving Father? who loves us more than we love ourselves? Where could we find a safer refuge than in the arms of divine Providence? This is the blissful centre in which our hearts should find their repose. Withdrawn from this there is no solid peace, nor comfort, nothing but discomfort, anxiety, and bitterness of heart, miseries in the present life, and danger to eternal salvation.
Letter XXVII – Acceptance of Duties
To Mother Marie-Anne-Sophie de Rottembourg (1738). On abandonment in the acceptance of duties.
May the peace of Jesus Christ reign always in your heart, and may the most holy will of God be ever accomplished in, and by you. I already knew of your election, Rev. Mother, and rejoiced at it at once in God, because I did not doubt that it would be pleasing to all the community and for their spiritual profit.
As long as you retain your present dispositions your office, however calculated it may seem to relax your spirit, will not be at all injurious to you, for I remember to have read that our duties and employments do not hurt us so much as the eagerness, anxiety and trouble that arise from the activity of our nature, and the desire to succeed in everything before the world.
The celebrated M. de Renti said that it made no difference to him, nor did he experience any difficulty in keeping recollected whether he was at prayer in his oratory, or working, or in any other occupation done for the love of God, or the good of his neighbour. We should be able to say the same, if we were as detached as he and as free from all self-seeking.
You do not do well, therefore, in so strenuously opposing the office that Providence had allotted to you. God forgive you, but do not go on with it. To desire nothing, and to refuse nothing, was the maxim of St. Francis of Sales. I advise you to make it yours. Any fresh proof that you are likely to receive of the visible succour of heaven, will render you without excuse if you do not ground yourself in an unreserved abandonment, and an unlimited confidence. Sister N. has committed the same kind of fault, but she is less excusable, as she would not yield to the entreaties that were made to her. Please tell her how little edified I was at her conduct. The hope of being better able to preserve recollection has made her lose the occasion for practising a host of virtues. If she had had the simplicity to submit, she would have practised at the same time the virtues of obedience, charity and zeal. I do not speak of abnegation which she would also have practised so excellently in overcoming her antipathy, and in giving her services so generously to the community in the duty that was offered her. Even the want of capacity that she believed she recognised in herself should have been a greater incentive to its acceptance, for the harm which might have resulted to the community through her incapacity, was no business of hers, as she did not try in any way to obtain this office, and therefore it could have had no other result for her than merit. To how many little acts of humility, patience, and endurance of inconveniences, and constraint; how much vigilance, and charity would not this incapacity have given occasion for? But she had not the courage to face these sacrifices, and has given in to her self-love while she imagined she was following the dictates of humility. At least let her humble herself profoundly before God, let her learn to become very little in her own eyes, and omit nothing that could repair the disedification she has given her Sisters.
Letter XXVIII – To Will Only What God Wills
Everything that tends to lessen the strength of our passions or to hold them in check is a singular grace of God. Give yourself up, therefore, to the attraction which this holy repose has for you, and allow no free entrance either in your mind or heart to anything like desire, fear, hope, sadness, joy, or voluntary despondency, so that, in this way, the peace of God will dwell within you, and the less sensible it is the more is it to be prized as it can come only from God. When one does not interfere in anything that does not concern one, a delightful solitude can be found everywhere; however, those difficulties and importunities with which divine Providence allows us to be afflicted are preferable to this solitude. It is true that the former condition is pleasanter, and more consoling, but the latter being more painful, is also more meritorious when it is arranged by God without our own choice. From this I conclude that there are many ways that lead to God but that each person should follow her own without envying that of her neighbour. Not to will to be otherwise than God wills–in this is contained all present happiness with the hope of eternal joy. Let us always distrust our eagerness, especially for good works; let us put up patiently with what God puts up with, and after having done all that, in reason, we could do, or thought we ought to do according to the light God gave us, let us remain quiet and peaceful, abandoning ourselves in all things to His adorable will.
Letter XXIX – To Leave All to God
To the same person. Only God knows what is expedient for us.
My dear Sister,
You say you wish to know the time of my return. To tell you the truth I do not know myself, and do not wish to know; I give and abandon myself entirely to divine Providence in everything, and for everything from day to day. Do the same as far as you can, nothing could be better.
Oh! my dear Sister, how much I desire you to taste the sweetness of this hidden manna, which to the true Israelite has the flavour of the most delicious food. Let us desire only God, and God will satisfy all our desires. Let us blindly abandon ourselves to His holy will in all things, and by doing so we shall be delivered from all our cares. We shall then find, that, to advance in the ways of salvation and perfection there is, after all, very little to do, and that it suffices without so much examination about the past, and reflexion as to the future, to place our confidence in God at the present moment, and to regard Him as our good Father who is leading us by the hand.
God forbid, then, that I should make any attempt whatever to throw light on the complete ignorance in which to I am as my destination. I much prefer to remain in this ignorance, abandoned to God, with no cares nor anxieties, like a little child reposing on the breast of a good and loving mother; willing only what God wills, and desiring nothing contrary to His wishes. In this happy state of abandonment I find peace and a complete rest for the heart and mind, and this protects me from a thousand useless thoughts and from all uneasy desires and anxieties about the future. God has made me pass through many places, conditions and duties, and in all of them were mingled so much that was good and also so many hardships that, had I to pass through them again, I should not be able of myself to make a choice. Only God knows what is expedient for us, He loves us more than we love ourselves; what better can we do then, than to leave all to His will to choose for us? If we could but realise that the only great and important affair in this world is that of our eternal salvation. Provided we succeed in this, all will be well, and we need trouble about nothing else. Besides, if I sought my own pleasure I do not see where I could find any better than to be like a bird on a branch, without any certainty about my stay. This uncertainty leads to a more complete abandonment, and this again forms my peace. It delivers me from the care of guiding myself and gives me the assurance of arriving safely at my journey’s end supported by God, and following the steps of His divine Providence. From whom else could I receive such a consoling assurance? There is no one capable of giving it to me however perfect his friendship.
Letter XXX – Resignation in Sickness
To the same person. On abandonment in sickness.
Your incurable complaints would affect me with a very great compassion did I not know that they form a great treasure for you in eternity. It is a sort of martyrdom, a kind of purgatory, and an inexhaustible source of every species of sacrifice, and of acts of continued resignation. I assure you that all this, borne as you are doing it, without complaint, or murmuring, is very likely to sanctify you. Even if you only practised the patience of ordinary good Christians you would gain a great deal of merit; but, from what you say I gather that you are doing more than this, and the involuntary rebellion of nature and occasional little signs of impatience which escape you in spite of yourself will not impede your union with God which remains in the centre of your heart. Your life may well be called a hard and laborious one, a life of pain and trial, it will, therefore be your purgatory in this world and deliver you from that of the next or at any rate shorten it considerably. This is why I do not dare to ask God to deliver you from a trouble that must soon end, and for which you will have to thank Him for all eternity as a special sign of His mercy. The only request I could make Him for you is an increase of His love, and the virtues of submission, patience, and resignation which will greatly add to the merit of your sufferings. To feel no fear at the thought of death is a grace from God. As for your sufferings and the outward annoyances you have to endure, bear them as you do your physical ills. God does not require more; just a daily “fiat” applied to all your exterior sufferings ought to work your salvation as well as your perfection. All that books or directors can say may be reduced to this one word, “Fiat, fiat,” at all times and for everything, but especially in the penitential and crucified life to which it has pleased Providence to reduce you. Tobias in his blindness, Job on his dung-hill, and so many other saints prostrate on beds of suffering did no more than this. It is true that they did it more perfectly, and with greater love. Let us try to imitate their virtues as we share their trials, and one day we shall assuredly share their glory.
"So let us be confident, let us not be unprepared, let us not be outflanked, let us be wise, vigilant, fighting against those who are trying to tear the faith out of our souls and morality out of our hearts, so that we may remain Catholics, remain united to the Blessed Virgin Mary, remain united to the Roman Catholic Church, remain faithful children of the Church."- Abp. Lefebvre
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SECOND BOOK - ON THE EXERCISE OF THE VIRTUE OF ABANDONMENT
Letter XXXI – Conduct in Sickness
To Sister Marie-Antoinette de Mahuet (1735).
Although your illness is not serious I am sure you act like those generous souls, who, in their least discomforts go on till the worst comes to the worst, in order to have occasion to make greater sacrifices for God. But, it is usually said, in order to offer the sacrifice of one’s life to God ought one not to feel better prepared for death! and I am so unprepared! To these fears I urge you to reply in the following manner. Whether ready and prepared to die or not, I am always ready, always disposed to do the will of God. Your blessed Father St. Francis of Sales said a very remarkable and consoling thing on this subject that would suit all sorts of people: “I believe,” said he, “that God would not condemn the greatest sinner on earth, however great his crimes, who at his last moments made a generous offering of his life, abandoning himself entirely to His divine will and loving Providence.” And I truly believe it, since such an act is one of perfect love capable of blotting out all sin even without confession, like baptism and martyrdom. Often let us make these acts of love, then, by placing in the hands of God all that He has lent us, because He could not give us anything absolutely. And since, according to the words of Jesus Christ we must become little children again, let us imitate those little ones whose father, to try their dispositions makes them return some of the playthings and sweets he has given them. They would be very silly and very selfish if they did not at once say, “Dear father, take what you like, you can have them all.” After all, what do these poor children give, and to whom does it really belong? All the same the father’s heart is touched by these little signs of a good disposition. “Oh you good children, you dear children!” and he kisses them and is always more generous towards them in future. This is how our good God will act towards us, whenever He gives us occasion to offer Him some sacrifice.
Letter XXXII – Patience with the Faults of Others
To Sister Marie-Therese de Viomenil. On bearing with your neighbour and yourself.
My dear Sister,
It is a great grace to see others behaving badly without feeling bitterness, indignation, impatience, or even disturbance. If, for good reasons, you speak about it, watch over your heart and your tongue, so that nothing may escape you that would not be approved by God: and have good motives for whatever you say. Humble yourself quietly and lament in peace those faults that may have crept in during such talks. Often ask God to give you great charity and circumspection, and then remain tranquil. Keep yourself in the holy desire to belong entirely to God; pray with faith, confidence and resignation, and above all humble yourself profoundly before His divine Majesty. It is for Him to finish the work He has begun in you; no one else would be able to succeed in it, but know that there are many sacrifices to be made before God can take possession of our hearts by the ineffable delights of His pure love. Let us sigh for this happiness, and let us never weary of begging for it; let us purchase it by generous sacrifices, we shall never be able to pay too much for it. As our hearts cannot exist without love, shall we not go to the Heart of our God to derive from it the sustenance that alone can appease our hunger? May this divine love come then, and take possession of our hearts, may it sustain them, set them on fire and transform them into itself. Let us abandon ourselves without reserve to God and not interfere with His loving providence but think only of keeping straight in the road that God has marked out for us from all eternity, and in which we find ourselves at the present moment. One can dispute unendingly about predestination, and such arguments can only serve to make salvation seem more difficult; what is, however, undeniable is that there is no better expedient to ensure predestination than the actual and continual accomplishment of the will of God.
Letter XXXIII – Patience with Oneself
To the same person. On bearing with herself.
My dear Sister,
We must submit to God in all things and about all things; as to the state and condition in which He has placed us, the good or evil circumstances that He has allotted us, and even as to the character, mind, nature, temperament, and inclinations with which He has endowed us. Practise yourself, therefore, in being patient with regard to yourself and in this perfect submission to the divine will. When you have acquired this you will enjoy great peace, and not distress yourself about anything, nor get out of humour with yourself, but put up with yourself with the same gentleness which you should use towards your neighbour. This is a more important matter than you would imagine, and just at present is most essential to your sanctification. Keep it, therefore, always before your eyes, and make frequent acts of submission to the holy will of God, of charity, of endurance, and of gentleness towards yourself even more than towards your neighbour. You will never attain to this without great efforts.
A soul to whom God makes known its defects is much more burdensome to itself than its neighbour ever could be to it, because the latter, however near to us, is not always with us; at any rate is not within us, whereas we carry ourselves about with us, and cannot leave ourselves for a single moment, nor completely cease to behold ourselves, to feel ourselves, and to carry about with us everywhere our imperfections, and our faults. But see wherein the infinite goodness of our God shines forth; for the sorrow and shame that our faults cause us are their own remedy, provided that this shame never turns into defiance, and that the sorrow is inspired by the love of God, and not by self-love. Sorrow born of self-love is full of vexation and bitterness; far from healing the wounds of our soul, it only serves to poison them. On the other hand, sorrow produced by the love of God is calm and full of resignation; while detecting the fault it delights in the humiliation which follows, and from this it results that much merit is gained, and thus even from losses we make profit. Cease then from tormenting yourself on account of your defects and of the imperfection of your works. Offer to God the sorrow they occasion you, and allow His divine Providence to make good these slight infidelities by many little crosses and sufferings of all kinds. Arm yourself only with patience, raise yourself again as soon as possible and deplore your falls with a sweet, tranquil humility. God wishes you to act thus, and by this indefatigable patience you will render Him more glory and will make more progress than the most violent efforts would have enabled you to do.
Letter XXXIV – Preparation for the Sacraments
To the same person. On preparation for the Sacraments, prayer, reading and conduct.
Believe me, my dear Sister, that peace of mind, confidence, and abandonment to God, with the desire of being united to Jesus Christ are the best preparation for the Sacraments. But the devil tries to deceive people, and leaves nothing undone to disturb the interior peace of the soul, for he well knows that once this divine peace is firmly established in the heart, all will be easy to us, and we shall fly, as it were, in the ways of perfection. Do not let us be deluded, then, by any pretexts of which he may make use, however specious they may be, and let us go to God humbly with the simplicity and confidence that St. Francis of Sales advises, in the uprightness of a heart that sincerely seeks Him. As to prayer you well know what I have so much recommended to you; do not allow yourself to be discouraged nor vexed at your distractions. Manage, however, that your interior turning to God and the raising of your heart to Him during the day may become so frequent that that alone, in case of need will take the place of prayer, without, however, leaving off making it as well as you can. Apply yourself especially to reading the letters of St. Francis of Sales, you will find them so well suited to your present state and condition that you could read them as though the saint had written them to yourself from heaven, and as though the Holy Spirit had dictated them to him for you.
You wish to know what it is that I ask of God for you in particular. It is this, and for such easy things that their very facility will charm you.
1st. The moderation of your exterior conduct, which will be a wonderful help to you in gradually overcoming your passions; in other words, to speak gently, to act quietly, without any vehemence or impetuosity just as though you were of a phlegmatic temperament.
2nd. Interior gentleness towards yourself and others, at least of the kind that nothing contrary to this virtue may show in your exterior conduct; or that, if for a moment you should forget yourself you will not fail to make reparation and to rise without delay.
3rd. An entire abandonment to divine Providence as to the success of everything, without excepting your own advancement in virtue; not wishing to be better than God wishes you to be, and saying always, “I wish only what God wills.”
4th. A peace of heart that nothing can disturb, not even your own faults and sins, and which will make you return to God with a peaceful and quiet humility, as though you had not had the misfortune to offend His divine Majesty or that you were assured of pardon. Follow this advice with simplicity, and you will see how God will help you.
Letter XXXV – Conduct in a Time of Rest
To a secular. On conduct during a time passed in the country.
This is what you should do during the time you spend in the country. If you faithfully follow my counsels, they will sanctify this time of rest and make it bear fruit.
1st. Approach the Sacraments as often as you are allowed to do so.
2nd. Offer to God each morning the recreations of the day and with them the different pains both exterior and interior with which He is pleased in His goodness to season them, and say from time to time: “Blessed be God in all things and for all things; Lord may Your holy will be done.”
3rd. As you are less busy than others, employ more of your time in reading good books, and in order to make this more efficacious, set about it in this way. Begin by placing yourself in the presence of God, and by begging His help. Read quietly, slowly, word for word to enter into the subject more with the heart than the mind. At the end of each paragraph that contains a complete meaning, stop for the time it would take you to recite a “Pater” or even a little longer, to assimilate what you have read, or to rest and remain peacefully before God. Should this peace and rest last for a longer time it will be all the better; but when you find that your mind wanders resume your reading, and continue thus, frequently renewing these same pauses.
4th. Nothing need prevent you continuing the same method, if you find it useful to your soul, during the time you have fixed for meditation.
5th. In the course of the day, occupy yourself about things that are necessary, and that obedience requires of you, and which divine Providence has marked out for you.
6th. Be careful to drop vain and useless thoughts directly you are conscious of them, but quietly, without effort or violence.
7th. Above all drop all anxious thoughts, abandoning to divine Providence all that might become a subject of preoccupation for you.
8th. In raising your heart to God, often say to Him, “Lord deliver me from so many reflexions which, however good in appearance, might keep me in my own way, and in a dangerous confidence in myself. Substitute Your divine Spirit for mine, transform and remodel all the powers of my soul by this holy Spirit and by His holy operations.” At other times say, “When will it please you, oh my God, to teach me the great secret of understanding how to keep myself in interior peace and silence, to allow of Your effecting in my soul all the changes You know to be necessary? Lord, this I desire with all my heart, and ask it of You with the greatest earnestness through Jesus Christ Your Son, in order that You may be able to establish gradually within me the reign of Your ineffable peace, of Your grace and of Your divine love. And since for this You require the cooperation of Your poor unworthy creature, I will prepare myself with the help of Your grace, by being faithful to all the little practices that have been recommended to me; I hope that You will bless and second this blind submission, and I offer You beforehand all the pains of my mind, and rebellions of heart which You may permit in order to try me; I resign myself to them and from henceforth offer them to You in sacrifice.”
Letter XXXVI – On Life and Death
To Sister M. Antoinette de Mahuet (1742). On life and death, consolations and trials.
Here I am again at Albi, in a very agreeable climate, and among sociable people in whom the only fault I find is that of being too kind to me who always prefer solitude. The frequent invitations I receive are, to me, a veritable cross, and God will without doubt send me many others to temper the pleasure I feel in finding myself for the fourth time in a country that I have always loved so much. Blessed be God for all. He sows crosses everywhere! but I have already made a sacrifice of all, have accepted and offered in advance all the afflictions He is pleased to send me. This intention made beforehand renders trials much easier to bear when they come and makes them seem much lighter than imagination depicted them. Therefore I am overjoyed to find myself where God wishes me to be by the arrangements of His loving providence which always leads me as though by the hand. This paternal solicitude of which I am continually the object, redoubles my confidence. Although I am always in perfect health I feel that the years, so rapidly passing, will soon bring me to that eternal goal to which we are all hastening. True! this thought is bitter to nature but by dint of considering it as salutary it becomes almost agreeable as a disgusting remedy gradually ceases to appear so when its good effects have been experienced. One of my friends said the other day that in getting old it seemed to him that time passed with increasing rapidity, and that weeks seemed to him as short as days used to be, months like weeks, and years like months. As for that, what do a few years more or less signify to us who have to live and continue as long as God Himself? Those who have gone before us twenty or thirty years ago or even a century, or those who will follow us twenty or thirty years hence will neither be behindhand nor before others in that vast eternity, but it will seem to all of us as though we began it together. Oh! what power does not this thought contain to soften the rigours of our short and miserable life which, patiently endured, will be to our advantage. A longer or a shorter life, a little more, or a little less pain, what is it in comparison with the eternal life that awaits us? for which we are making rapidly, incessantly, and which is almost in sight, for me especially who am as it were on the brink, and on the point of embarking. It is therefore time, I ought to say with St. Francis of Sales and Fr. Surin to prepare my small equipment for eternity. Now the best equipment is that which appeared for us in the crosses which we bear lovingly, and the great sacrifices we make for God in doing His holy will. Nothing will console us more at the hour of death than our humble submission to the different arrangements of divine Providence in spite of the subtle imaginations of self-love often hidden under the most spiritual disguise and the most specious pretexts.
Do not be surprised then, my dear Sister, at being placed by God in this necessity of practising abandonment. The vicissitudes of good and evil, of illness and cure through which He makes you pass are well calculated to keep you in a state of continual dependence upon Him and to impel you to make acts of confidence of the most meritorious kind. To make a holy use of sufferings mitigates them considerably, and renders them extremely profitable. To bear them well is to make a great sacrifice comparable to that of those generous Christians who formerly confessed their faith at the stake; because the sufferings of life and the sorrows attached to the different states make martyrs of Providence, as the tortures inflicted by tyrants made martyrs of faith and of religion. I find, too, that the comparison of which you make use is very just. Yes, our life is like the journey of the Israelites across the desert amidst a thousand trials and followed by the too just judgments of God. Let us imitate the faithful Jews in recognising the divine equity in the chastisements He inflicts on us, and in regarding all our afflictions both visible and hidden as the work of God and not that of man’s injustice. God, says St. Augustine, would not allow any evil to happen, if He were not sufficiently powerful and good to turn it all to the greater good of His elect. Let us make use of our present evils, to escape those that are eternal, and to merit the rewards promised to faith and patience. The time will come, and it is at hand, when we shall say with David, “We have rejoiced for the days in which Thou hast humbled us for the years in which we have seen evils” (Ps. 89, v. 15).
Letter XXXVI – Not to Desire Consolations
To the same person. Nancy, 21st February 1735. Desire for consolations a mistake.
My dear Sister,
I have seen the card announcing the death of dear Sister Anne-Catherine de Prudhomme (see note). I could in no way regret the departed whose fate is rather to be envied. At the sight of death fear should be united to confidence, but confidence ought to predominate.
Abandonment is what the Sister you mention should aim at. I refer her on this subject to the letter of B. Paul, who says she is no longer uneasy, as formerly, about the graces necessary during life, and at the hour of death, because she will be encouraged by God whose name of “Father” gives her confidence with resignation. If it is not possible to feel this, even then one must abandon oneself to God, and this abandonment when not felt is of more value since it involves a greater sacrifice.
This letter of B. Paul I use as spiritual reading. After having answered it, it seemed to me that I had understood better from it, and more enjoyed certain very interior things that were both delicate and profound. I do not at all approve of an anxious pursuit after consolations either in spiritual or physical wretchedness and misery. That comes of too much care of oneself. Would that there were souls strong and courageous enough to endure the apparent absences of the heavenly Spouse, who never absents Himself in reality, but only in appearance, to detach us from what is sensible even in the most spiritual things, because the gifts of God are not God Himself. He alone is all, and should be all in all to us. Excessive fear arises from a want of confidence and abandonment: it is on this account that I referred Sister. . . . to this letter of B. Paul. God wills that she, and you too, should remain in such absolute poverty that He has given me nothing for either of you; but I hope that you will both profit by a good long letter written to someone of whom I asked a copy. Will you return me the original as I want to send it to another person, who is precisely Sister. . . . of whom God made me think. I greet most heartily all the Sisters, and particularly Marie-Anne-Therese, and with especial respect your Rev. Mother, L. F. de Rosen.
Note.–This Sister came of a very noble family of Lorraine, and was professed in the Convent of the Visitation, Sister Marie de Nancy, in the year 1666, at the age of 21. Her principal attraction was that of abandonment to divine Providence. She was perfectly submissive to the will of God by a continual “fiat” for every event, saying on all occasions, “If you, my divine King, my great Monarch, will, or do not will such, or such a thing, that suffices me. May You be praised and blessed for all and in all.” Her great confidence in God drew down abundant graces upon her soul. In her last illness she remained always in a state of constant adoration, contrition, faith, confidence, and union with Jesus Christ crucified, of love of God, and abandonment to His fatherly goodness, and always wore a look of peace, joy, and thanksgiving. Her union with God continuing up to her last breath, she quietly expired of simple weakness at the age of 90, with all her intellectual faculties unimpaired. (This extract is from the life of this good Sister, by Rev. Mother L. F. de Rosen.)
"So let us be confident, let us not be unprepared, let us not be outflanked, let us be wise, vigilant, fighting against those who are trying to tear the faith out of our souls and morality out of our hearts, so that we may remain Catholics, remain united to the Blessed Virgin Mary, remain united to the Roman Catholic Church, remain faithful children of the Church."- Abp. Lefebvre
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THIRD BOOK - ON THE OBSTACLES TO ABANDONMENT
Letter I – About Vanity and Infidelities
To Sister M. Therese de Viomenil. About feelings of vanity and frequent infidelities.
My dear Sister and very dear daughter in our Lord. The peace of Jesus Christ be always with you. You must know that before curing you of vanity God wills to make you feel all the ugliness of this accursed passion, and to convince you thoroughly of your powerlessness to cure it, so that all the glory of your cure should revert to Him alone. You have, then, in this matter, only two things to do. Firstly to examine peacefully this frightful interior ugliness. Secondly, to hope for and await in peace from God alone the moment fixed for your cure. You will never be at rest till you have learnt to distinguish what is from God from that which is your own; to separate what belongs to Him from what belongs to yourself. You add, “How can you teach me this secret.” You do not understand what you are saying. I can easily teach it to you in a moment, but you cannot learn to practise it until you have been made to feel, in peace, all your miseries. I say, in peace, to give room for the operations of grace.
Remember the words of St. Francis of Sales: “One cannot put on perfection as one does a dress.” The secret you ask for I give you freely; try to understand it so that it may gradually work its way into your soul, which is what you hope.
All that is good in you comes from God, all that is bad, spoiled and corrupt comes from yourself. Therefore put on one side the nothingness, the sin, the evil inclinations, and habits, a whole heap of miseries, and weaknesses, as your share, and it belongs to you in truth. All that remains: the body with all its senses, the soul with its faculties, and the small amount of good performed, this is God’s and belongs to Him so absolutely that you could not appropriate any part by the least act of complacency without committing a theft and robbery from God.
That which you so often repeat interiorly, “Lord, You can do all things, have pity on me,” is a good and a most simple act; nothing more is required to gain His all powerful aid: keep constant to these practices and interior dispositions; God will do the rest without your perceiving it.
I am thoroughly convinced that, without great unfaithfulness on your part, God will work great things in you by His holy operation. Count upon this and do not place any voluntary obstacles in the way; and if, unfortunately, you recognise that you have done so, humble yourself promptly, return to God and to yourself always retaining an absolute confidence in the divine goodness.
3rd. A lively sense of your misery, and the continual need you are in of God’s help is a very great grace and opens the way to all good but especially to the prayer of humility and annihilation before God which is so pleasing to Him.
4th. You do not understand as I do, the effects, and the operations of grace in your soul; if you recognised them you would be too satisfied with them, but your weakness and lack of virtue do not allow you to bear the knowledge. It is necessary that this fruit of grace should remain hidden and, as it were, buried in the abyss of your miseries and beneath a keen sense of your weakness. Under this heap of refuse God preserves the fruits of His grace, for such is the depth of our wretchedness that we compel God to hide from us His gifts as well as the rich ornaments with which He adorns our souls; unless He did so the least little breath of vanity, and of an imperceptible self-satisfaction would destroy or spoil these flowers or fruits. When you are in a state to be able to bear, and to enjoy them without danger, God will open your eyes, and then you will only praise and bless Him without any reverting to yourself, and ascribe all the glory of your deliverance to your divine Redeemer. In the meantime follow the guidance given you now by His Holy Spirit, and do not let fear enter your heart. Understand that in all that you actually experience there is no sin, since you endure it with so much pain and would only be too happy to put an end to these wretched effects of your sensitiveness. Maintain yourself in this holy desire, pray for it patiently, above all, humble yourself before God; it is for Him to complete the work He has begun in you, no one else could succeed in it. Understand that this is the little sacrifice that God demands of you before filling your heart with the ineffable delights of His pure love. You will have no rest till this merciful design of God shall be realised because your heart cannot exist without love. Let us pray, then, that this thirst may be satisfied by the love of God alone, that He and He alone may captivate our hearts, that He may sustain, possess, enlighten, and change them.
5th. The abyss of misery and corruption in which God seems to take pleasure in seeing you plunged is, to my judgment, the chief of graces since it is the true foundation of all self-distrust, and of an entire confidence in God, the two poles of the interior life; at any rate, of all graces it is the one I like best, and that I find most frequently in souls that are far advanced. What you think of yourself, therefore, although terrible, is nevertheless perfectly true and very well founded, for, if God were to leave you to yourself you would be a heap of all that is evil and a monster of iniquity. But God makes this great truth known to very few people, because few are capable of bearing it properly, that is to say, in peace, in confidence, in God only, without anxiety or discouragement.
6th. There is no other remedy for these frequent infidelities than to lament them, peacefully to humble yourself, and to return to God as soon as possible. We shall carry these afflictions and humiliations during the whole of our lives, because we shall always be ungrateful and unfaithful; but, as long as it is so only through the frailty of our nature, without any affection of the heart, that is enough. God knows our weakness, He knows the extent of our misery and how incapable we are of avoiding all infidelity; He sees also that we have need of being reduced to this state of misery without which we could not resist the continual attacks of pride, presumption, and secret self-confidence. Be careful not to get discouraged even when you find that the resolutions so often renewed, of belonging entirely to God, fail. Make use of these constant experiences, to enter more deeply into the profound abyss of your nothingness and corruption. Learn a complete distrust of yourself to depend only on God. Often repeat: “Lord I can do nothing without Your help. Enlightened by sad experience I can depend on nothing but Your all-powerful grace, and the more unworthy I feel, the more do I hope, because my unworthiness will more surely draw down Your mercy.” You cannot carry your confidence in God too far. An infinite goodness and mercy should produce an infinite confidence.
7th. It is a very subtle and imperceptible illusion of self-love to wish to know how you stand with regard to the mystical death, under the pretext of being able to act so as to render this death more complete in you. You will never know it in this life, neither would it be expedient for you to know it, because even supposing a soul to be entirely dead to self; if it became conscious of the fact, it would run a great risk of losing this state; because self-love would be so much pleased, and so satisfied with this assurance that it would rise to life again, and begin a new existence more sensitive and difficult to destroy than the first.
Oh, God! how subtle is this wretched self-love! It turns and twists like a serpent, and is only too successful in preserving its life in the midst of the most fearful deaths. This is of all illusions the most specious. Have a horror of this accursed self-love, but learn that, in spite of all your efforts it will not die completely and radically until the last moment of your life.
8th. The impression of the sanctity of God which throws you into such a state of confusion and pain, without, however, causing you trouble is, I am assured, a great grace, more precious and more certain than the consolation by which it is succeeded. I can, then, only wish for you that it may continue. Do not resist it, let yourself be abased, humiliated, annihilated. Nothing is better calculated to purify your soul, and you could not approach Holy Communion in a disposition more in keeping with a state of annihilation to which Jesus Christ has reduce Himself in this mystery. He will not be able to repulse you if you approach Him in a spirit of humility and as though annihilated in the profound abyss of your misery. If you have not the impulse, nor the facility to discover your interior state after having begged this grace, you must remain in peace and silence. Your discouragement is a sign of a want of purity of intention and is a very dangerous temptation, because you must onIy desire to improve, to please God, and not to please yourself. You must, therefore, be always satisfied with whatever God wills or permits since His will alone should be the rule, and the exact limit of your desires, however holy they may be. Besides, you must never get it into your head that you have arrived at a certain state, or you will become self-satisfied, which would be a grievous misfortune. The most certain sign of our progress is the conviction of our misery. We shall, therefore, be all the more rich the more we think ourselves poor, and the more we humble ourselves, distrust ourselves, and are more disposed to place all our confidence in God alone. And this is just what God has begun to give you, therefore let there be neither anxiety nor discouragement. Each day you must say to yourself, “To-day I am going to begin.” I greatly applaud the practice you have adopted of never upholding your own judgment, and of allowing yourself to be blamed and criticised even in circumstances where you believed you had good reasons to excuse yourself. You sacrifice, you say, the good opinion that you wish others to have of you, and you keep silence although until now you would have thought that it would be better to defend yourself that your conduct might give edification when that which was said against you was untrue. This is my answer: To endure every kind of blame and unjust accusation in silence without uttering a single word in justification under any pretext whatever is according to the spirit of the Gospel, and in conformity with the example of Jesus Christ and of all the saints. Your ideas to the contrary were the result of a pure illusion; therefore, keep firm to your new and holy conduct. You are right in saying that we carry a fund of corruption inseparable from our nature, and that it resembles muddy stagnant water that gives out an intolerable stench when it is stirred. That is an unquestionable truth, and God has given you a great grace in making you feel it so keenly. From this feeling will come, gradually, a holy hatred and complete distrust of yourself in which true humility principally consists.
Letter II – The Defects of Beginners
On the defects of beginners.
I am not surprised at the calmness of the person of whom you speak; it is the fruit of the humility she practised in opening her heart, in spite of her repugnance to doing so; and also the effect of the words that God never fails to inspire, in such a case, to those who are acting in His place. Make her thoroughly understand that God has begun to try her like this to punish her, and to cure her of a subtle hidden pride which she has been nursing without noticing it. The greater has been the trouble, the more it has shown the greatness of the vanity which it has disconcerted, and which rebels at the least humiliation, even that which is interior. This person, therefore, must try to divest herself gradually of that self-complacency which is hidden in the most secret recesses of the heart; whether it be about natural qualities, or about those virtues that she may have, or flatters herself that she possesses. For, without being careful about it, there may be some foolish self-satisfaction in all that; and without allowing it to herself she thinks herself superior to others in many ways. A subtle self-love feeds on these vanities of the spirit, in the way that worldly pride is satisfied with the beauties of the body; and, as the latter finds pleasure in thinking continually of its beauty and in looking in the mirror; so, in the same way the former takes interior delight in all the natural and supernatural gifts which it flatters itself to have received from heaven. The remedy for this diabolical evil (diabolical, because it is the crime of the proud angel) is—1st. To imitate modest women who never contemplate themselves in the mirror, or who drive from their minds all vain thoughts about their appearance, or exterior accomplishments.
2nd. To force this self-love often to look at its defects, miseries, and weakness, to enjoy abjection, and to feed on contempt.
3rd. To consider what we have been, what we are, and what we should become, if God removed His hand from us. When we neglect to apply ourselves to these humiliating reflexions, God, in His fatherly goodness, feels obliged to take other means to destroy the secret vanity of souls whom He desires to lead to a high state of perfection; He allows temptation, or even falls that throw them into the deepest confusion to cure them of this inflation of the mind and heart. When God makes use of this bitter but salutary remedy, we must be on our guard to prevent our hearts rebelling against it, but submit humbly without vexation, and without voluntary agitation.
4th. We ought not to imagine that by dint of reflexions we shall be able to lessen our troubles, but should remain as if motionless in the bosom of the mercy of God, and let the storm pass without struggling against it, and without interior disturbance which would aggravate the evil instead of lessening it.
5th. We should never ask to be delivered from our afflictions since they have been brought about by the favourable action of Providence, but we must pray for patience with ourselves and others, and for an entire resignation.
6th. Instead of becoming strong-minded, we must become like children by a great simplicity, candour, ingenuousness, and openness of heart towards those who have the task of guiding us.
Note.–This letter was addressed in 1731 to Sister Marie-Anne Therese de Rosen by Fr. de Caussade, and was about a person who was making a Retreat. There is every reason to believe that it concerned either Madame or Mademoiselle de Lesen whom God had brought back to Himself by the trial of the loss of her property, and who had vowed to become a Religious, but who was obliged to remain in the world for a long time leading a devout life. She made a retreat in 1731 and another in 1732 in the Convent of the Visitation at Nancy, and had Sister Marie-Anne Therese de Rosen for her directress. Shortly after she entered the Order of the Annunciation at St. Mihiel in 1733.
Letter III – The Illusions of the Devil
To Sister Charlotte-Elizabeth Bourcier de Monthureux (1735). On interior troubles voluntarily entertained and weakness.
My dear Sister,
For several days past I have had so many letters to write, either for this country, or for France, that I have not been able to read your long account. I do not disguise from you that it seemed to me very useless, because God has given me the grace to thoroughly understand your state without my having the trouble to read all this. However, I have read the most essential part, that against which you have put a particular mark, and it has only confirmed the opinion I had formed of you some time ago. Excuse me, my dear Sister, if I insist on the same direction that I have always hitherto given you. Until now you have derived great benefit from having followed it, why then allow yourself to be misguided by the illusions of the devil? I am not speaking to you at random, but with full conviction, do then believe me, and prove, by your docility that the confidence with which you honour me is not a vain pretence. If you really have a good will, if you are sincerely and earnestly resolved to belong to God, you ought to make every effort to maintain yourself in peace in order not to give the lie to the message of the angels, “Peace to men of goodwill.” But you must expect that Satan will exert every effort to prevent you acquiring a peace so desirable. I know that, unfortunately, he has but too well succeeded up to now. The greatest evil in your soul at present is that of anxiety, uneasiness and interior agitation. This malady is, thank God, not incurable, but as long as it remains unhealed it cannot but be even more dangerous than painful to you. Interior disturbance renders the soul incapable of listening to, and following the voice of the divine Spirit, of receiving the sweet and delightful impressions of His grace, and of applying itself to pious exercises, and to exterior duties. It is the same with such sick and afflicted souls as with bodies enfeebled by fever, which cannot accomplish any serious task until delivered from their malady. And as there is a certain analogy between them there is also some resemblance between the remedies to be used. The health of the body can only be restored by three means, obedience to the physician, rest, and good food. These are, likewise, the three means of restoring peace and health to a soul that is agitated, sick, and almost in agony.
The first condition for its cure is obedience, a childlike blind obedience founded on the principle that God, having authorised His priests to guide us cannot allow those souls to be deceived who, on this account, abandon themselves blindly to their guidance. Before all things, therefore, make your virtue consist in the renunciation of your own judgment, and in a humble and generous intention of believing and doing all that your director judges, before God, to be expedient. If you are animated with this spirit of obedience you will never allow yourself voluntarily to entertain thoughts opposed to what has been enjoined you, and you will take good care not to give in to the inclination to examine and scrutinize everything. If, however, in spite of yourself, some thoughts contrary to obedience enter your mind, you must reject them, or better still, despise them as dangerous temptations.
The second remedy for your complaint is rest, and peace for your soul. To acquire this, you must first of all desire it ardently, and pray to God earnestly for it, and then work with all your might to acquire it. If you wish to know how to set about this task I will tell you.
Be very careful not to allow any thoughts which would bring about uneasiness, sadness, or depression to remain in your mind. These thoughts are, in one sense, more dangerous than temptations to impurity; you must, therefore, let them alone, without dwelling on them; despise them, and let them fall like a stone into the sea. Resist them by fixing your mind on contrary ideas, and above all by making aspirations suitable for the occasion, with sighs and interior groanings accompanied by acts of humility. But this struggle while being energetic and generous must also be quiet, tranquil and peaceful, because if it were to be restless, unhappy, ill-humoured and wild, the remedy would be worse than the disease. In the second place avoid in your actions, whether exterior or interior, all eagerness, hurry, and natural activity; accustom yourself on the contrary, to speak, to walk, to pray and to read quietly, slowly, without overexerting yourself no matter for what, not even to repulse the most frightful temptations. You must remember that if these temptations are displeasing to you that is the best sign that you have not consented to them. As long as the free will feels nothing but horror at, and hatred for the objects presented to the imagination in these temptations, it is evident that it does not in any way consent to them. Keep yourself, therefore, in peace in the midst of these temptations as you have done in other trials.
1st. It only remains then to cure the weakness resulting from the fever which torments a soul in trouble. For that a strengthening diet is necessary–that is to say–to read good books, and to get accustomed to read very slowly with frequent pauses more to try and take an interest in what you read than to make use of the intellect in reflexions on it. Remember the wise saying of Fenelon, “The words we read are like the bark of the tree, but the interest we take in them is like the sap which feeds and fattens the soul.” We must act as regards this spiritual nourishment as gluttons and sensualists act with regard to their feasts which they taste in remembrance, and enjoy after having swallowed them.
2nd. We must only speak on useful and edifying subjects, and with those who are most capable of leading us to God by their holy conversation.
3rd. Never seek consolation from creatures by useless intercourse. This is an essential matter for those who are suffering interior trials. God, who sends them for our good, desires that we should bear them without going elsewhere for consolation, but to Him; and He claims the right to settle the moment when such consolation should be given to us.
4th. We must apply ourselves, each according to his or her capacity and attraction to interior prayer, but without intense application or strain, keeping very quietly in the holy presence of God, addressing Him occasionally by some interior act of adoration, repentance, confidence, or love. If, however, it is not possible to make such acts, we must be content with the good desire of doing so; for, whether for good or evil, desire is equivalent to an act in the sight of God. Bossuet, somewhere in his works very truly says: “Desire is, with regard to God, what the voice and words are with regard to men. We ask, and return thanks by the desires we have, which say everything, and make our petitions known to God much more distinctly than any words could do, or even those interior acts which are called particular and formal.” This is what gave rise to the saying that a cry uttered only in the depths of the heart is the same in the sight of Him Who sounds all hearts, as a cry that pierces the heavens.
5th. It is necessary to put this manner of praying into practice, not only at morning devotions, but also during the whole day in a quiet, easy, tender, and affectionate manner by frequently raising the heart to God, or by an interior attention to the divine presence. To gain greater facility you might review in the morning nearly every event both interior and exterior, likely to occur during the day, and ask yourself, “If I find myself in such a circumstance, or such a position, what shall I say to God, what act should I make?” and if, when the time arrives you are prevented from carrying out your good intentions, you can be content to adhere to them, even if only indistinctly, and to lay before God your inability. Finally the best food for the soul consists in willing in all and for all what God wills; or, in other words to adhere to all the designs of divine Providence in every imaginable circumstance whether interior or exterior, health or sickness, aridity, distractions, weariness, disgusts, temptations, etc., and to accept all this very heartily, saying, “Yes, my God, I will everything; I accept all, I sacrifice all to You; or, at any rate I wish to do so, and ask for this grace, help me and strengthen my weakness.” In the most fearful temptations say to Him, “My God, preserve me from sin in this matter; but I willingly accept as much confusion to my pride, and interior abjection and humiliation as You will and long as You will, I unite my will to Yours.”
The most uneasy and enfeebled soul could not fail to recover its lost peace and joy if it adopted these means for regaining them.
Letter III – Interior Troubles
To the same person. Interior troubles (1755).
If my letter distressed you, my dear Sister, I will say to you with St. Paul, that I rejoice not, indeed, at your affliction, but at the good effect it has produced. It is good to recognise that one has been culpable in many ways, not in order to reproach oneself in a hard, bitter, angry, and disturbed manner, but to humble oneself quietly and peacefully without self-contempt or bitterness. You do not consider yourself disobedient, you say, in relating to me quite frankly your fears and doubts. That is not the question, my dear Sister; but what is, is that you continue to cling to your fears and doubts; you study them too much, instead of despising them and abandoning yourself entirely to God, as I have preached to you for a long time past. Without this happy and holy abandonment you will never enjoy a solid peace full of absolute confidence in God alone, through Jesus Christ.
But, I ask you again, what have you to fear in this abandonment, especially after such evident signs of the very great mercy of God towards you? You are endeavouring to find help in yourself and your works, and to satisfy your conscience, as if your works gave your conscience greater security and stronger support than the mercy of God, and the merits of Jesus Christ; and as though they could not deceive you. I pray God to enlighten you, and to give you a change of heart about this matter so essential to you. You say that I should feel distressed and surprised if you laid bare to me all that you experience. This is exactly what people in your state so often say to me, people with whom I am not so well acquainted as with you. Here is my answer to you, and to others like you. The keen perception of faults and imperfections is the grace suitable to this state, and it is a very precious grace. Why? First because this clear view of our miseries keeps us humble, and even sometimes inspires us with a wholesome horror and a holy fear of ourselves. Secondly, because this state, apparently so miserable and so desperate gives occasion to an heroic abandonment into the hands of God. Those who have gauged the depths of their own nothingness can no longer retain any kind of confidence in themselves, nor trust in any way to their works in which they can discover nothing but misery, self-love, and corruption. This absolute distrust and complete disregard of self is the source from which alone flow those delightful consolations of souls wholly abandoned to God, and form their inalterable peace, holy joy and immovable confidence in God only. Oh! if you but knew the gift of God, the value, merit, power, peace and holy assurance of salvation hidden in this state of abandonment, you would soon be delivered from all your fears and anxieties. But you imagine you will be lost directly you think of abandoning yourself; and yet the most efficacious means of salvation is to practise this total and perfect abandonment. I have never yet come across any who have so set themselves against making this act of abandonment to God as you. Nevertheless you will, necessarily, have to come to it, at least at the hour of death; because, without an express revelation and assurance of eternal salvation, no one can be free from fear at the last moment, and therefore, every one is absolutely compelled then to abandon themselves to the very great mercy of God.
“But,” you say, “if I had lived a holy life and performed some good works I might think myself authorised to practise this abandonment, and to divest myself of my fears.” An illusion, my dear Sister. Such language can only have been inspired by your unhappy self-love, which desires to be able to trust entirely to itself, whereas you ought to place your confidence only in God and in the infinite merits of Jesus Christ. You have never really thoroughly fathomed this essential point but have always stopped short to examine into your fears and doubts instead of rising above them, and throwing yourself heart and soul into the hands of God, and upon His fatherly breast. In other words you always want to have a distinct assurance based on yourself, in order to abandon yourself better. Most certainly this is anything but an abandonment to God in complete confidence in Him only, but, rather, a secret desire of being able to depend on yourself before abandoning yourself to His infinite goodness. This is to act like a state criminal who, before abandoning himself to the clemency of the king, wishes to be assured of his pardon. Can this be called depending on God, hoping only in God? Judge for yourself! And God has for so long a time been calling you to this state of abandonment in filial confidence. And you, instead of responding to this loving call allow yourself to be tyrannised over, and martyrised by a slavish fear. I greatly insist on this matter, because experience has taught me that this is the last battle of grace for souls in your state; the last step to take in forsaking self, and the one that costs the most. But it seems to me that no one has ever offered so much resistance as you. This proceeds from a very strongly rooted self-love, from a secret great presumption and confidence in yourself that, possibly, you may never have found out; for, mark well, that directly you are spoken to about this total abandonment to God you feel a certain interior commotion as though all were lost, and as if you had been told to throw yourself, with your eyes shut, into an abyss. It seems a trifle, yet it is very much the contrary, for the greatest assurance of salvation in this life can only be obtained in this total abandonment, and this consists, as Fenelon says, in becoming thoroughly tired of, and driven to despair of oneself, and made to hope only in God. Weigh well the force of these words which at first sight seem too strong and exaggerated.
However, to bring you to this state of total abandonment God has imparted to you two great graces. Firstly, a powerful attraction to induce you to place all your confidence in His very great mercy and goodness; secondly, a great knowledge of, and a very penetrating insight into your miseries, weaknesses, perversity, powerlessness to act well, etc.; as if to say to you: “You see that in this state you neither ought nor can, in any sort of way, depend on yourself, since you are nothing but a heap of corruption. Let Me then, have the care of you, and forsake yourself once for all, to depend only on Me.” “But how shall I work out my salvation?” What! do you not understand that the most certain way of assuring this is to leave the care of it entirely to God, and to occupy yourself only with Him; as a man in the confidence of a great king leaves the question of recompense to him, and thinks only of the service and interests of his master. Do you not think that, in acting in this generous manner he would be doing better for himself than others who, more selfish, would think continually of what they might gain or obtain? But are we not commanded to think of ourselves, to enter into ourselves, to watch over ourselves? Yes, certainly, when beginning to enter the service of God in order to detach ourselves from the world, to forsake exterior objects, to correct the bad habits we have contracted, but, afterwards we must forget ourselves to think only of God, forsake ourselves to belong to God alone. But as for you, you wish to remain always wrapped up in yourself, in your, so-called, spiritual interests; and God, to draw you out of this last resource of self-love, allows you to find nothing in yourself but a source of fears, doubts, uncertainty, trouble, anxiety and depression, as though this God of all goodness said by this, “Forget yourself, and you will find in Me only, peace, spiritual joy, calmness, and an absolute assurance of salvation. I am the God of your salvation, and you can be nothing but the cause of your own destruction.”
But again you say, “In this forgetfulness of self, far from correcting myself of my sins and imperfections, I do not even know them.” An error! an illusion! ignorance! Never can you more clearly detect your faults than in the clear light of the presence of God. This is like an interior sunshine, which, without necessitating a constant self-examination makes us see and understand everything by a simple impression. In this way also, better than in any other, all our defects and imperfections are gradually consumed like straw in a fire. And then how happy is this state at which you should have arrived a long time ago! and of which God has given, and still gives me frequent experience. As the human heart is a bottomless abyss of misery and corruption, the more the light of God penetrates into it the more sad and humiliating are the objects disclosed; but at the same time these fresh disclosures, far from grieving the soul, console it in keeping it in an interior humility which it knows to be the solid foundation of the whole spiritual edifice. Far from disturbing its holy joy, and casting it down they inspire in it a solid confidence which it feels is placed in God alone, and that this confidence, according to Holy Scripture, has never been confounded. I have known, and know now many souls that, following this method, are astonished to find that the more feeble, poor, and miserable they realise themselves to be, the greater becomes their confidence in God. The reason of this is that in proportion to our insight into our own misery and corruption will be our distrust in ourselves and our confidence in God. God then imparts to those souls which have acquired this insight, an absolute self-distrust joined to an entire confidence in Him, from which proceeds total abandonment; these are the two strong springs of the spiritual life, and as long as you are in this state you run no risk of your salvation.
In abandoning all to God, therefore, we regain all in Him alone and with profit to our souls. In this way we are delivered once for all from these foolish self-examinations, fears, troubles, and uneasiness; in one word from these tortures to which those self-engrossed souls condemn themselves who wish to love God only out of self-love, who seek salvation and perfection, not so much to please God and to glorify Him, as for their own interests and eternal happiness.
But, you will say, God commands us to desire our salvation and eternal felicity. Yes, without doubt, but according to, and in submission to the ordaining of His will. Well! this is God’s rule, which it is necessary for you to understand thoroughly; God has created us for His own glory and to do His will, and He could not have created us for any other purpose, for He owes this to Himself, and to His own sovereign dominion; but, as He is also infinitely merciful He has so arranged that His creatures find their own interests and eternal happiness in doing His will. But see how this miserable self-love which seeks itself before all else, reverses the order of things. We want first and principally to provide for our own interests, spiritual and eternal, and as for the glory of God, in our preoccupation we give Him only the second place. God sees this subversion with a jealous eye in souls He has loaded with graces, and by which He desires to be loved with a pure and disinterested affection! and, in order to make them return to this right order of things He sends them troubles, fears and interior agitation, seeking by means of these secret trials to destroy that self-love so harmful to them. He desires to induce them by degrees to think less of themselves and their own interests, and to occupy themselves quietly with Him alone by abandoning to Him the care and management of their salvation; and this is the meaning of those words of Jesus Christ addressed to many holy souls. “My daughter think of me and I will think of you, busy yourself for My glory, and allow Me to occupy Myself with your interests and eternal welfare.”
As for us, what are we doing when we always worry, and are busied about ourselves? It is as though we said, “Lord, what are you saying? I shall be lost if I do not continually think about my own soul, if I am not constantly asking myself how I stand with you, and what is going to become of me. This is what I am obliged to do without ceasing. As for what concerns Your glory and Your good pleasure I can only think of them now and then. I hope I shall be able to occupy myself with them more habitually by the time I have conquered all my faults, and it is proved to me that I shall risk nothing by this constant attention to Your divine interests. But first of all I cannot now decide about it for I should consider myself lost and You wish me before all things to try and provide for the safety of my soul.” To those of His spouses who address such language to Him, this is the very clear and concise reply of our Lord in the Gospel, “Whosoever loveth his life shall lose it, and he that hateth his life in this world, keepeth it unto life eternal.” And, in fact, I have never met with souls which have a greater horror of sin, more strength for the practice of virtue, or which make greater sacrifices for God when occasions arise than those souls which seem never to think of themselves but depend upon Him for everything, including their salvation. It is in this state that salvation is most certain; from which I conclude that not only scruples, but excessive fears, distressing doubts, spiritual trials and bitterness of heart, are caused by selfish feelings, a greater preoccupation about personal interests than about the glory of God and a desire to please Him out of pure love and all that should take the first place in our hearts. Since He is the sovereign good, love of Him should take precedence of the charity we owe ourselves. And since He has promised to love those who love Him, and to love most those who love Him only, we can be assured that in making use of all our powers to love Him for Himself we shall regain with interest by this pure love all that we seem to have sacrificed; therefore, far from losing, we gain all in abandoning ourselves entirely to God by love and confidence. The sight of that confused heap of weaknesses, miseries, unworthiness, and of all corruption should never distress you. It is on this account that I say boldly, all is well, for I have never known a soul endowed with this keen insight, so humiliating to it, to whom it was not a most singular grace of God; nor who has not found in it, combined with a true knowledge of itself, that solid humility which is the foundation of all perfection. I have known, and do know many saintly souls who, for their sole possession have that profound conviction of their misery, and are never so happy as when they feel themselves, as it were, engulfed in it. They then dwell in truth, and consequently in God Who is the sovereign truth. If you but knew how to walk before Him, your head bowed in this spirit of self-effacement, you would find in it all that makes the spiritual life. It only remains to know how to preserve this spirit of peace and abandonment. Would to God that you had the grace to pass all your time of prayer in this holy interior self-humiliation, engulfed in your misery, but in peace, submission, resignation and confidence. Then I should say to you: stay as you are, and all is well; God will do the rest, and perhaps without you knowing, or feeling that He is doing it.
You are trembling over your state, and I am blessing God for it. I only wish you changed in one particular, and that is that your self-humiliation should be mingled with peace, submission, confidence, and abandonment, as I have just said. After that I should have no fear for you not even about the laxness of which you tell me, which makes you walk like a crab. God will prevent great laxness and will allow small relaxations to keep you humble. St. Francis of Sales said it was an heroic virtue to rise again unceasingly without ever losing courage.
God be praised in all, and for all.
Letter V – On the Love of One’s Neighbour
To Sister de Lesen. On the love of one’s neighbour. Nancy, 1735.
I am not at all surprised at the friendship you have for your dear relative, and understand that it is due to her for many reasons. However, because by your own showing this affection disturbs you, and prevents you giving your whole heart to God, there must needs be some irregularity about it. If you wish to sanctify it, and to render it altogether supernatural, this is what God demands of you.
1st. That you will not allow yourself to think about this person too often nor to be engrossed by thoughts of her; there is moderation in all things.
2nd. That in the illnesses and afflictions she has to endure you will submit to them as a sacrifice you must make to God, and abandon yourself to Him so that He may dispose of her, and of you in all things, and about all things according to His most holy will and loving good pleasure. You must know that in abandoning her thus to the will and care of divine Providence you render her, as well as yourself, the greatest possible service, since by this sacrifice you place her in the hands of God Who is infinitely good, and infinitely powerful.
We must certainly make use of our reasoning faculties in our trials; but, as a very holy and learned Christian has well said, we must not depend too much on this feeble faculty which is stronger in opposition to what is good, than in overcoming evil. It is religion, and the grace we obtain through humble prayer which can sustain us. Sadness, depression, interior rebellion when our relatives suffer from various causes, taking rise in a too affectionate disposition, will be a grand occasion of virtue and merit to us, if, endeavouring to raise ourselves by faith above our natural feelings, we understand that all has to be sacrificed to the adorable and most holy will of God. Do we not know that nothing can happen in this world without His permission, and that He has arranged everything for the greater good of those who submit to Him, or, at least who desire to acquire and to practise this submission?
If we could only understand the value of this virtue! Of all the means of salvation this is, together with the fulfilment of the divine precepts, the most universal, and the most infallible. Nothing more is required to sanctify most people and to lighten for them the trials of life. A wise pagan thought in this way when he said, “If one has a sensitive nature, and is accustomed to foster in oneself what the world calls refined and generous sentiments, it is no easy matter to cure oneself of thinking too much about the family honour, and of taking too great an interest in family affairs, and also of being too much moved by every incident affecting those to whom we are most tenderly attached.” It is necessary to pray much about this, and also to reflect how to combat it. Firstly, to reflect on the uselessness of our worries and our feelings, and on the harm they do ourselves, as much to the bodily health, as to the welfare of the soul. Secondly, to combat it by refraining from frequent, lengthy, and earnest thoughts on the subject, and by sacrificing and abandoning it entirely to God in spite of the pangs the heart must endure from the violence of such sacrifices; consider that, after all, there is only one thing necessary, and that provided that this great affair succeeds everything else must be as God pleases. These feelings are quickly overcome, or rather, they are so trifling and paltry that they pass like shadows, to return no more. Let us act like worldly people when they have to attend to business of the utmost importance on which depend their honour, their life, their property, in fact everything, as they think. They have nothing else in their minds day or night but this important business, and neglect everything else as being nothing in comparison. As Jesus Christ has said, we must learn from the children of this world who are “wiser in their generation than the children of light.” Remember that what can help to save us is not exterior solitude, nor retirement, for these can be had even in the world; but an interior withdrawal and solitude of the mind and heart; of the mind, by banishing superfluous cares and thoughts and by endeavouring to make God the absorbing occupation of the heart, by lamenting its defects, by humbling it and frequently sighing after God, and by detaching it gradually from the creature to attach it solely to the Creator. He is the supreme truth, and nothing has any reality apart from Him. Consequently purely temporal interests, the business, the honours, pleasures, or sufferings of this lower world are nought but shadows and phantoms; they appear to exist, but, in reality, are nothing.
Letter VI – On Attachments
To Sister Anne-Marguerite Boudet de la Belliere. On attachment too keenly felt.
My very dear daughter in Jesus Christ. I cannot thank God enough for this great desire of giving yourself to Him without reserve that He has bestowed on you with the courage which inspires you to make so many little sacrifices, and to moderate even the most harmless attachments. Oh! my dear Sister, how thoroughly God has enlightened you about this, and how many dangers you will escape if you are faithful in following this light. We, unhappily, find only too many who, making profession of piety, are caught in this snare, and thus prevented from making any progress. With the excuse that there is no sin in the attachments they allow themselves, they give themselves up to them without scruple, and thus place an impenetrable barrier to the grace, and the communications of God. He desires to fill and inflame their hearts with His pure love, but how can He do so as long as those hearts are distracted by foolish amusements, and filled with a miserable love for some creature? You know what a dangerous snare this was for St. Teresa, and in truth after such an example you cannot be too much on your guard. Go on then, detaching yourself more and more, and I assure you that in proportion as your detachment becomes more complete you will feel more drawn to God, to prayer, recollection and the practice of every virtue; for, when the heart is empty in this way God fills it, and then one can do everything easily and pleasantly, because all is done out of love, and that, you know, makes all things easy, and sweetens all bitterness.
Letter VII – Personal Attachments
My dear Sister,
Allow me to tell you in all sincerity, a fear that makes me anxious about you. It seems to me that your too frequent intercourse with the members of your numerous family, and with other people from outside, raises a serious obstacle to your advancement. Take care that, while trying to do good to others, you do no harm to yourself. Although I am obliged by my vocation to have more communication with the world than you, I assure you nevertheless, that I find it very good for my soul to keep these communications within bounds. Since I came here I have only made necessary visits, and try as much as possible to avoid receiving them. To those who come to me I speak only of God, of salvation, or of eternity. This is the rule laid down by St. Ignatius and one which he declared suited him well. If people like this kind of conversation they will profit by it, and their visit will not have been a waste of time; if they do not care for it they will not come again, or, at any rate not so often, and then I shall have more time left me for my priestly duties. It is useless to expect to make any progress as long as your mind is filled with news from outside, and your heart preoccupied with temporal affairs. The first condition for the interior life is recollection. I cannot urge you too strongly to restrict your communications and, to follow the plan of St. Ignatius about those that you think you ought to retain. This plan is better suited to a Religious, who is obliged by her vocation to keep secluded, than to other people. Far from being surprised, people in the world cannot but be edified at the fidelity with which she conforms her conduct to her vocation. On the contrary, if by these useless communications with people in the world she frequented society too much, she would only scandalise them, and would also lose all those graces which she might have acquired by her communications with God.
Letter VIII – On Natural Activity
To Sister Marie-Henriette de Bousmard. On natural activity.
I wish, my dear Sister, that you were able to understand well all the harm that the excessive activity of your nature, unless completely under the rule and direction of grace, will infallibly cause you. This is one of those defects that the world mistakes for virtues, but which is none the less disastrous to the soul in its progress in the path of sanctity. Natural activity is the enemy of abandonment, without which, as I have often told you, there can be no real perfection. It prevents, obstructs, or spoils all the operations of grace, and substitutes, in the soul which succumbs to it, the impulsion of the human spirit for that of the divine Spirit. In fact there is no doubt that the impetuosity with which we give ourselves up to good works proceeds from a hidden source of self-confidence, and a thoughtless presumption that makes us imagine that we are doing or can do great things. How much more modest and reserved we should be if we were thoroughly penetrated with the undoubted truth that we have nothing of our own, and are utterly powerless to do anything good, but only powerful for evil. To cure, and to tear up by the root an evil so fruitful in imperfections, and even in sins, requires much time and much trouble. These are the means I most recommend to you.
1st. To be thoroughly convinced, by past and present experience, of your own weakness and misery, in order to distrust more and more your own works even to the length of feeling a kind of horror of them.
2nd. To repress your excessive exterior activity by performing all your actions without eagerness or hurry, quite gently and quietly, as St. Francis of Sales advises.
3rd. To do the same in all your spiritual exercises, and always to mortify the initial eagerness with which you start any good work, no matter what it may be; to undertake it only under the influence of the pure Spirit of God, and by the peaceful impulse of grace.
4th. When you pray and hold intercourse with God interiorly, try to avoid all sensible ardour, all that fiery fervour, and excitement of the imagination characteristic of beginners. To effect this, follow the advice of St. Francis of Sales and manage so that all your interior acts shall flow, and be drawn from, and distilled by, the highest point of the mind, so that you hardly feel that you are praying and making acts. Far from these acts being, on this account, less fruitful, they make a deeper impression on the soul and penetrate more deeply and more pleasantly into the heart.
5th. When you feel, however confusedly, that something is acting in your soul, the stronger this impression is, the more necessary it is to keep quiet and still, and as though in a state of inaction, so that you may not spoil all by interfering unseasonably.
6th. When God makes you experience certain consolations, or strong emotions, instead of giving yourself up to them with a sensual avidity, behave with the reserve and modesty of a mortified person invited to a great feast.
7th. During the day let the principal interior occupation be what is called simple interior waiting, silent, peaceful, and entirely resigned; and do not think that this is idleness, waste of time, or in any way useless, because, as a beggar who waits the whole day long at a rich man’s gate, or at the church door, is by no means idle but much occupied interiorly with his own misery, his wants and continual necessities; so, in the same way, a soul in this simple waiting before God is very much occupied interiorly, and in this simple manner is making the following acts; of faith in the presence of God, of adoration before this great God whose infinite power and mercy it acknowledges; of self-distrust; of profound humility in thinking itself incapable of anything; of desire for the holy operations of God, of hope since one does not wait for what one does not expect to receive; and of abandonment to divine Providence in regard to all His gifts or operations. And although these acts may not be accurately performed, specified, nor sensible, yet they are none the less there, at the bottom of the heart; and God, at least, sees them in our desires, and in our state of preparation. Now, as you are aware, our wishes and desires, even if only begun to be formed, are to God what the voice is to our fellow men. He hears them, in fact, far more clearly than men hear our voices, and it is enough for Him that we form these desires; for, as the Psalmist says He knows even the mere intention and disposition of our hearts from the first moment that they begin to turn, and to move towards Him. And this, by the way is very consoling to you in the present state of your soul. But a still more efficacious way than any other is to bear patiently darkness, dryness, coldness and weakness. This sad state is the specific remedy employed by God to suppress natural activity by reducing us to our own nothingness. Without this we should never be able to overcome it, because the inordinate activity of our powers cannot be regulated until, by constantly reiterated efforts, we force them to act only under the influence of the Spirit of God, and by His grace, and never of themselves, or by themselves. You see in this how blindly and unjustly we act when we turn the benefits of God into subjects of affliction and complaint; for they not only tend to extinguish our natural activity but to kill our self-love, and to enable us to live the supernatural life of grace.
Letter IX – On Excessive Fervour
To Sister Marie-Therese de Viomenil. On excessive fervour of good desires.
My very dear Sister,
The desire about which you have consulted me is very good in itself, but I fear lest it may become too strong. If you wish that it may not be hurtful to you under the appearance of good, you must manage to be always submissive and resigned about it, and consequently, peaceful. You know how, in even our best desires, nature and passion get mixed, making them violent, restless, hasty and wild. For this reason, and to preserve us from this danger, and also gradually purify our desires, even those that are most saintly, God defers granting them for a long time. For the wild desires of our natural inclinations do not deserve to be answered, only those desires formed by the Holy Spirit deserve to be heard by God, and these are always quiet, gentle and peaceful. Keep yourself, as much as possible, in a state of peace and even of a holy joy in order to be fit to receive holy impressions. You know that grace more easily makes way in hearts that are calm and free than in those that are full of uneasiness and trouble, for the latter are more exposed to be under the influence of the evil spirit.
Letter X – Restraint of Over-Eagerness
To the same person. On eagerness to read good books.
I send you the book on “Christian Hope” that I promised you. It will prove a real treasure to you, but if you wish to derive from it all the fruit that I expect, you must restrain your eagerness to read, and not allow yourself to be carried away by curiosity to know what is coming. Make use of the time allowed by the Rule to read it, concentrate all your attention on what you are actually reading without troubling about the rest. I advise you above all, to enter into the meaning of the consoling and solid truths that you will find laid down in this book; but more in a practical way than by speculative reflexions, and, from time to time, make short pauses to allow these truths time to flow through all the recesses of the soul and to give occasion for the operation of the Holy Spirit who, during these peaceful pauses, and times of silent attention, engraves and imprints these heavenly truths in the heart. All this, however, without disturbing your attraction, or violent effort to prevent reflexions, but simply and quietly trying to make them enter into your heart more than into your mind.
Take particular notice of certain more important chapters, of which you are in greater need, in order to read them again when next you have time. In general I advise you strongly not to overload your mind with readings and outward practices, it is much better to read little, and to digest what you read. Just now, too, your soul is in need of unity and simplicity, and all your readings and practices should tend to a single end, and that is, to form in you a spirit of recollection. In time God will give you this grace if you aspire to it with confidence quietly, simply, and humbly, without eagerness, trouble, or uneasiness. Frequently ask God to detach you absolutely from all things, so at you may love and enjoy Him only, in Jesus Christ, and through Jesus Christ, in fine, that He may take full possession of your heart and make it altogether His. “My God I abandon myself to You, grant that I may desire only You.”
"So let us be confident, let us not be unprepared, let us not be outflanked, let us be wise, vigilant, fighting against those who are trying to tear the faith out of our souls and morality out of our hearts, so that we may remain Catholics, remain united to the Blessed Virgin Mary, remain united to the Roman Catholic Church, remain faithful children of the Church."- Abp. Lefebvre
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THIRD BOOK - ON THE OBSTACLES TO ABANDONMENT
Letter XI – Intemperate Zeal
To the same person. On intemperate and indiscreet zeal.
I see, my dear Sister, that a mistaken zeal exposes you to dangers all the more serious because they are hidden under the most insidious appearances. Desire for the perfection of our neighbour is, doubtless, very good; the pain that is felt interiorly at the sight of his defects is good also, provided it proceeds from a pure desire for his perfection, But with all this there must needs be mingled much secret self-complacency, confidence in one’s own superior light, and severity towards one’s neighbour. Zeal such as this cannot, you must well understand, come from God; it is an illusion of the devil, hurtful to yourself and to others. However, the evil can be easily cured provided you are sincere enough, and submissive enough to recognise the gravity of it, and to apply the remedy. That which I am about to offer you has already produced a very happy result in a soul which was subject to the same illusion. Let us hope it will not be less efficacious in your case.
I advise you, therefore, and command you in the most sacred name of Jesus Christ, and that of His divine Mother, never more to think of practising the virtue of zeal as long as this prohibition is not expressly removed. I exculpate you before God absolutely, and I take upon myself the responsibility of all the ill consequences that may result from this prohibition. If you should get scruples about it, and the devil should put in your mind that you could do some good or avert some evil, say to God, “My God, although charity is the queen of virtues, I may not practise this zeal until You have made me able to do so without detriment to the charity I owe to others and to myself. When I am found to be sufficiently strong, or rather sufficiently humble, to exercise zeal without disturbing the peace of my soul, and with all possible sweetness, compassion, and thoughtfulness for my neighbour, and a helpfulness, kindness and charity which nothing can embitter, a charity which is scandalised at nothing but its own shortcomings; with all that patience and long-suffering which enables one tranquilly to endure the defects of others, and for as long as You will suffer them, Oh, my God; and when I am neither troubled, nor uneasy, nor astonished that others are incorrigible, then this prohibition will be removed, and I shall be able to think that I can glorify You in my neighbour. But until then, Oh, my God, I must exercise my zeal on myself, in the correction of my numerous defects.”
In fact, my very dear Sister, when humility has dug that deep foundation indispensable to every virtue, I shall be the first to urge you to resume the practice of zeal; until then think only of yourself. Remember that God, to punish those who have practised this indiscreet zeal, and to correct them, has often allowed them to fall into much graver faults than those which has scandalised them in others.
In the second place I command you never to speak of God, or of anything good, unless in a spirit of humility and meekness, in an amiable and gracious manner, with moderation and encouragement, and never with bitterness and severity, or in a way to wound and repel those who hear you, because, although you may only say what is in the Gospel and in the best books, I believe that in your present state of mind you might say it very badly and in such a way as only to do harm. Did not Satan make use of the words of Holy Scripture to tempt our Lord? Truth is the proper relation of things. It is changed when pushed to extremes, or wrongly applied. Your peevish temper is like a smoked glass, which, if you do not take care will prevent you seeing things in their true light, or showing them to others. Keep always on your guard against this fatal influence, and feed your mind on thoughts and feelings that are contrary to those inspired by temper. Entertain yourself and others with conversations on the infinite goodness of God, and on the confidence we ought to have in Him. Compel yourself to offer an example in your whole conduct, of a virtue that has no bounds, and which imposes no restraint on others. If you have nothing kind to say keep silent, and leave the care of deciding to others. They can avoid better than you too much laxness, and will be exact without being severe. If exactitude be praiseworthy, severity is blamable, it does nothing but revolt people instead of convincing them, and embitter their souls instead of gaining them. As much as true meekness, with the help of God, has power to repel evil and to win to good, so much has an excessive harshness power to make goodness difficult and evil incurable. The first is edifying, the latter, destructive.
Letter XII – On Obedience
On disinclination to accept the comforts enjoined.
Be careful never to leave off the practice of obedience under the pretext of mortifying yourself; and never forget these words of the Holy Spirit, “I will have obedience and not sacrifice.” Do not, therefore, hesitate to take those little comforts that the doctors, the superiors, and infirmarians prescribe for you; at any rate, you should have much scruple about refusing them. In this way you will practise a more meritorious self-denial than any bodily mortification–that which consists in the renunciation of your own ideas, of your own judgment, and of your own will. Through ignorance or forgetfulness of this truth certain devout persons, who are strongly attached to their own ideas, commit many faults in being obstinately determined in their pretended self-denial, and extremely unmortified in their mortifications. How can they delude themselves so far as not to understand that self-love spoils and corrupts even the most holy practices? Those who renounce their own will, their own judgment, and their own ideas for the love of God will make great progress in the path of true and solid perfection. Henceforth, do not make any other use of your mind and of your reason than to know what you are ordered to do, and to do it promptly, joyfully, with a great confidence in God, and an absolute abandonment to His mercy. It will be all the easier to practise this confidence when you no longer have any other ambition than to do His holy will. And in fact, could there be a pleasanter task? Does not this divine Will sanctify all Its decrees? Follow It then in all things, as much in what gives you pleasure, as in that which costs you most; in consolations, as well as privations; working and resting; in mental and vocal prayer, in the Office, at Mass, in confession and Communion; in all things. Blind obedience, makes no exception, it generally sacrifices its own thoughts, ideas, judgments, inclinations, repugnances, aversions, tempers, in one word all its own will. On this account is this sacrifice more pleasing to God than any other that could possibly be made, and without this sacrifice all else is of little value, and cannot fail to be harmful. The divine Spirit also assures us in Holy Scripture, that the obedient man will gain many victories.
Letter XIII – On being Self-Opinionated
On attachment to one’s own judgment.
My dear Sister,
At last you are freed from your ties and released from all those engagements by which the world expected to keep you always captive. I do not doubt that you understand the full value of the inestimable grace of a religious vocation, and that you are disposed to accomplish generously all its duties. The longer you have waited for this grace, the greater is the gratitude you owe to Him Who has, at last, bestowed it on you. You must, however, be prepared to encounter many difficulties in your new life, difficulties not felt by those who embrace it earlier; but humility, renunciation, simplicity, and the holy spiritual infancy of the Gospel will diminish these difficulties considerably and will finish by making them disappear altogether. With the help of these virtues you will be preserved from a very subtle illusion of pride, to which many novices yield, and which is all the more dangerous because it is almost imperceptible. With the excuse of trying themselves better, they always want to do a little more than the rest, or to deprive themselves of those little comforts that the charity of the Superiors offers them. All this is nothing else but a refined self-love, and a disguised vanity. As for you, my dear Sister, never, I implore you, have any other ambition than to follow the ordinary course in all things; not one iota beyond that. Accept with simplicity and humility the little comforts and alleviations that the weak are allowed, rejoice at seeing yourself reduced to the level of a small child and treated like one and take good care not to seem strong and courageous. What profound and meritorious humility will you not thus exercise! delightful in the eyes of God, and more pleasing to His heart than the most austere life chosen by yourself. What an amount of pride and vanity may be concealed in conduct contrary to this! I do not wish to hide from you what a good long experience has taught me; that those who were most devout in the world before entering the religious state, have generally given the most trouble to their Superiors and Mistresses. This comes of their having formed certain ideas of virtue for themselves which they will not relinquish. Accustomed to be admired by all who surrounded them, and to be, usually, approved of by their directors, they cling to their own ideas and their own spirit without suspecting that this attachment is the very antipodes of all true sanctity. Therefore it is far more difficult to make those persons practise humility and renunciation, to give up their notions and self-will than in the case of young people of unformed character; or even of worldly people who have become converted. Nevertheless if we do not become as little children we shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. I hope, therefore, that you are treated exactly as if you were a young person of fifteen or sixteen years of age, equally unformed physically and mentally, and who is told: “Sister, you must rest to-morrow; you are dispensed from such or such a thing; you must take some recreation in the garden,” or “My dear Sister, that work is too hard for you, the Mother Superior will dispense you from it,” while you, a formed character, formerly most devout, should, without replying by a single word or frowning, carry out all you are told to do, to the letter, in a spirit of humility and simplicity, satisfied to be treated thus, as if you were the weakest and the least of all. Look upon yourself as such, and even rejoice at it, or at least, do your best to do so. Admire the loving charity of the Rev. Mother and the Sisters, and bless God for it. This is what a true interior spirit, and a spirituality that is real and good should teach you, and inspire you with. But, it must be admitted it is a most difficult matter to reduce these pretended devotees to this. Poor souls! blinded and deceived, the less they know how to humble themselves the further they are from real greatness. If they would but go to Bethlehem, and there contemplate the God of Heaven become a little Infant in swaddling clothes, in a manger, handled, carried, and taken from place to place, turned and touched by everyone, it might effect their cure. Let this example, my dear Sister, be that which you propose to follow during your novitiate; and it is by becoming like this little Child that you will merit to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.
Letter XIV – On Reserve with a Director
To Sister Marie-Therese de Viomenil. On a difficulty in and a dislike to opening one’s mind to a director.
Believe me, my dear Sister, it is necessary to struggle with all your power against the repugnance you feel to open your mind, and to regard as a most dangerous temptation the jealous susceptibility you experience when you imagine that someone has revealed your fault. It is the devil who inspires such fear and pain at having your interior miseries made known, because he knows by countless experiences that those souls that have sufficient courage and humility to disclose themselves thus, simply and straightforwardly, are speedily cured, or at least very greatly consoled. He knows, too, that those wounds of the soul most frequently healed by such a disclosure, can become poisoned and inflamed if not shown to the physician. In fact nothing is more evident than that, as long as we are full of self-love, which only dies when we die, we shall be exposed to deceive ourselves as to what concerns us, and to make to ourselves a false conscience. This consideration is calculated to make us tremble, whoever we are. To avoid this danger there is only one means; not to trust to our own light in what regards ourselves, but to allow our directors to guide our conscience, and to them we must make known with great frankness all that might serve to enlighten them. The misfortune is that even in these revelations we risk being deceived by our self-love, and also to mislead those of whom we ask advice. What is to be done to guarantee ourselves against this fresh danger? Well! those who guide us must be enlightened by others about us; and this is just what is so difficult to put up with. There are plenty of people very much inclined to exercise zeal with regard to others, who find it very unpleasant when they are subject to it themselves. This ought not to be. True zeal should say to itself “Think of yourself, and do not trouble about others who are not under your care, and be very thankful that some charitable person has made known to your director what is thought about you, so that he will be better able to guide you in future.” This two-fold feeling is only to be found in the most perfect souls, and, perhaps, in some persons of an extraordinary natural sincerity if but of moderate virtue. Usually a zeal for instructing others is accompanied by a great sensitiveness with regard to the persons who desire to render us the same good office by instructing our director thoroughly as to what is thought and said about us. Here again we have that two-fold illusion of all ordinary devotees in the world, and also in the cloister. Examine yourself without any flattery as to this two-fold matter, and enlighten yourself with the considerations I have just given you.
Letter XIV – On Discouragement
To the same person. On discouragement.
My dear Sister,
At this moment you are suffering from one of the most dangerous temptations that could assail any soul of good will; the temptation to discouragement. I conjure you to resist it with all your might. Have confidence in God, and be convinced that He will finish the work He has begun in you. Your foolish fears about the future come from the devil. Think only of the present, abandon the future to Providence. It is the good use of the present that assures the future. Apply yourself to obtaining attachment and conformity to the will of God in all things and everywhere, even to the smallest things, for in this consist all virtue and perfection. For the rest, God only allows our daily faults to keep us humble. If you know how to gain this fruit, and to remain in peace and confidence, then you will be in a better state than if you had not committed any apparent fault, which would only have greatly flattered your self-love, and have exposed you to the extreme danger of being satisfied with yourself. Nothing, on the contrary, can be more easy than to make use of your faults to acquire a fresh degree of humility, and thus to dig more deeply in yourself the foundation necessary for building up true sanctity. Ought we not to admire, and to bless the infinite goodness of God who knows how to make our very faults serve for our greater good? For this it suffices to dislike them, to humble ourselves quietly about them, and to raise ourselves again with an untiring perseverance after each fall, and to work peacefully to correct ourselves. Submit to the will of God as to your employments, but do not be uneasy or eager about them. Do amiably all that you know you ought to do, and depend on divine Providence for success, without solicitude or anxiety, in order to have a free mind and a tranquil heart in so far as it is possible. If you are faithful in this practice, you will be able to live in peace even in the midst of disturbances, and the involuntary trouble these may occasion you will but increase the merit that is grounded on the conformity of your will to the will of God. May He be blessed by all and in all, now and for ever.
Letter XVI – Fear of Singularity
To the same person. On the fear of being deceived, and of appearing singular.
When one begins to wish to belong to God entirely and unreservedly, He increases, by the interior operations of His grace this holy desire which He has Himself inspired; but the more vehement this desire becomes, the more does the soul feel seized and penetrated with fear lest it should be deceived. This fear is a fresh gift of God, and provided the soul knows how to make good use of it, she will derive great benefit, become more humble, more self-distrustful, vigilant, and eager to obtain the help of God. But precisely because it is a gift of God, the spirit of darkness does not fail to make use of his ordinary tactics, and if he cannot prevent these gifts of God, he sets to work to spoil and corrupt them by every kind of stratagem. This is what he does with regard to the salutary fear of which I speak; and for this he makes use of two kinds of deception. At first he attempts to make this fear immoderate, excessive, uneasy and vexatious, to unsettle and weaken the soul, and having effected this, to cast it into a state of pusillanimity, and depression. For this, the only remedy is, to turn the laugh against the tempter, and to address him thus: “He who has begun the work will finish it, and since of His own goodness He has chosen me even when I shunned Him, He will take care not to abandon me when I seek Him with my whole heart.” Remember, besides, that a good beginning is the best guarantee of perseverance. It is very much easier to continue in the same way than to change it. There never would have been any conversions if attention had been paid to foolish fears. These are the first temptations of beginners. But, another and more dangerous stratagem still is this; the tempter seeks accomplices, and too frequently finds them amongst good people. In the way of our good resolutions he throws people not wanting in a sort of wisdom, nor in good intention, who find something to carp at in everything that grace inspires in our souls to take them out of the ordinary groove. To listen to these counsellors, who are the more eager to offer their advice the less they are asked for it, one would think that to aim at perfection is to make yourself remarkable in a dreadful way.
We ought never, say they, to exaggerate, nor to undertake a course of life contrary to nature; what is out of the common never lasts, and exaggeration is blamable in everything. I do not hesitate to say that this is one of the greatest obstacles to divine grace that souls called to perfection can encounter. It is human respect in the cloister, which in its way, is as dangerous as that in the world, and no less prevents the conversion of souls from imperfection to sanctity, than the latter prevents the conversion from bad to good.
By what means can these dangers be avoided? By these. We must overcome, courageously, for the love of Jesus Christ, the impressions made on us by a false human respect, and make a generous sacrifice of them to our Lord, begging Him to help and sustain us that we may despise all these foolish remarks. It is enough to compare the maxims of the Gospel with the captious sophisms to which they are opposed, to convince ourselves that they cannot possibly proceed from the Spirit of God but only from human reasons, and that carnal spirit which is reprobated by God. “But those who talk like this are pious people.” That may be, but it only proves that some pious people do not always judge things by the pure light of the Gospel, but allow themselves to be deceived by false prejudices, and natural considerations, by interested self-love, error, blindness, or ignorance. They must, in fact, of necessity, be very ignorant and very blind not to perceive that there never has been a true conversion nor real change of heart that escaped notice either in the world or in religion. And why are these conversions noticeable when they are real? It is because they, necessarily, extend to the regulation of outward conduct, and even if there were nothing in the outward conduct that required regulating, the perfect order and heavenly peace restore to the soul would be manifested by infallible signs by which the good would be edified, but which, perhaps, would irritate the jealous self-love of others. One must needs be voluntarily blind not to see that at the beginning of a new life one’s conduct may seem constrained and uneasy, for this reason; because neither the person who is changed, nor others, are accustomed to an altered way of acting. In all things ease comes with habitude. Besides, how can a soul which is entirely employed in keeping recollected, in fighting against itself, in compelling itself to do violence in a hundred different ways, both interior and exterior, be expected to appear gay, free, happy, agreeable, and amusing? Truly, if I saw it like this I should have strong doubts as to any interior change whatever. However there are some people who are very interior, and at the same time appear very gracious outwardly. This is when a sufficiently long experience has made the exercise of interior recollection, in a sort of way, natural to them. But when they began they were just like you, my dear Sister, and the same things that are said of you, were said of them. They went their way without taking any notice of the talk, and God at last placed them in a state that is called the liberty of the children of God. Like them you also will attain to this, be assured: the day will come when your recollection will be without compulsion, constant, sweet, agreeable and good-humoured; then you also will be able to add to the pleasure of others by reflecting exteriorly that abounding peace and joy which is caused in the soul by the pure love of God, and of your neighbour. But no one can arrive at this suddenly, or at once; it is the result of a sufficiently long practice of virtue and of an interior life, which, at the beginning, seems of necessity uncomfortable and rather constrained; but in the end it will become natural. Then you will be able to resume your light-heartedness and gaiety, for both will be reformed and spiritualised by the holy operations of grace. In the beginning, however, it is impossible to do this without spoiling something.
You see the ignorance of these clever reasoners? Their judgments and remarks are to be pitied because it is precisely in this way that the world judges and reasons when God by His grace effects one of those great changes that are visible to all. Can it be possible that Religious talk in this way? It must be the work of the father of lies, who alone could make them speak and reason in such a wrong way. God be praised in all things! He will procure glory from it in some way or other. As for you, think only of bearing this trial bravely, and encourage yourself with the teaching of faith and the evangelical counsels which these grand reasoners seem to have lost sight of. Rejoice interiorly at this appearance of folly and stupidity which exposes you to their mockery; for it is a most sure sign of the change that has taken place in you. Say to our Lord with the Psalmist: “I am become like a beast of burden in Your presence, Oh my God; no one can separate me from You again.” In the service of so great a Master can any position be without honour? Act the part that He has given you at present, of seeming silly and awkward, as well as you can, and with a joyful heart wait patiently for the moment when another change will take place quite different to that which you are going through now. Then your faculties which now seem in bonds will regain their freedom of action; ease will succeed restraint and the holy liberty of the children of God will drive away excessive fear. The sight of the imperfection of all your works is a great grace of God Who by this, wishes to keep you humble, and with a poor opinion of yourself, but the excessive severity you are tempted to exercise towards yourself about it, the sadness, low spirits, and the idea that you will be lost, are suggestions of Satan who tries in this way to spoil the gift of God in you, and to turn it into poison. Cast them away therefore as diabolical imaginations. For a certain time such thoughts will return again and again without ceasing and will be matter for combats, for victories, and for merit; but, have a little patience, perfection is not the work of a day. At first do not attempt what is the most perfect; that would be trying to fly before you have got your wings, as St. Teresa says. Be content with what God gives you, and what He does for you at present, without desiring anything more until He judges fit to give it to you. In this way you will avoid interior agitation by which the devil succeeds too well in upsetting those souls who seek in the practice of virtue, more the satisfaction of their own self-love than the glory of God. In fact, it is impossible not to recognise the vexation of injured pride in the impatience with which they behold their imperfections and in the pain they feel in finding themselves at the foot of the ladder of sanctity when they wished to persuade themselves that they had arrived at the top. Do you, Sister, behave in a totally different manner. Love your abjection, allow the good God to carry out peacefully His work in you. Allow Him to place there a solid foundation of humility, and to cement it with frequent experiences of your misery and weakness. We should run too great a risk of losing everything by our vain imaginations if God were to give us, at once, all the perfection we desired. The inordinate love of our own excellence would carry us to as high a flight as Lucifer, but only like him, to fall into the abyss of pride. God, who knows our weakness in this respect, allows us to grovel like worms in the mud of our imperfections, until He finds us capable of being raised without feeling any foolish self-satisfaction, or any contempt of others.
This conduct of God, full of wisdom and goodness, fills with admiration those who have the guidance of souls, but they cannot help feeling sad when they see souls who refuse to understand the object of these merciful trials, getting out of temper when the ineffable ways of divine Providence are explained to them.
"So let us be confident, let us not be unprepared, let us not be outflanked, let us be wise, vigilant, fighting against those who are trying to tear the faith out of our souls and morality out of our hearts, so that we may remain Catholics, remain united to the Blessed Virgin Mary, remain united to the Roman Catholic Church, remain faithful children of the Church."- Abp. Lefebvre
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FOURTH BOOK - THE FIRST TRIALS OF SOULS CALLED TO THE STATE OF ABANDONMENT
ARIDITIES, WEAKNESSES AND WEARINESS
Letter I – Aridity and Weakness
There is reason to think that this letter was addressed by Fr. de Caussade to Sister Marie-Therese de Viomenil, who, to enable her holy director to understand her better, had given him an account of her vocation, and of her spiritual state from the time she had embraced the religious life.
On the trials above-mentioned. General direction.
God has indeed granted you what you told me you had asked of Him, my dear Sister; for, in reading your letter I seemed to be reading your soul, and it appeared to me that I understood your spiritual state as well as if I had been your confessor and director for a long time. Oh! what consoling and instructive things I have to tell you! I hope that the Holy Spirit will enable you to understand and to enjoy them; and that God will deign by the merits of Jesus Christ, and the intercession of His most Holy Mother, of St. Joseph, St. Francis of Sales, and of all the saints of your Order who are now in Heaven, to grant them His holy blessing.
1st. Your vocation seems to me to have the marks of the seal of God; I see in it manifest signs of His divine will, proofs of His gratuitous predilection of your soul, and a solid guarantee of your eternal predestination.
2nd. The attraction you feel to give yourself entirely to Him, and live a wholly interior life in spite of the dissipation of your mind, and the rebellion of nature, is a grace the value of which I would that it pleased God to show you as He has me. It is all the more real in being less accessible to the senses and more completely hidden under contrary appearances.
3rd. Why is it, then, that in spite of this attraction, and of all your pious reading, you seem to remain always at the entrance of the interior life without the power of entering? I will tell you the reason, my dear Sister, for I see it very distinctly; it is because you have misused this attraction by inordinate desires, by over-eagerness, and a natural activity, thus displeasing God, and stifling the gentle action of grace. Also, because in your conduct there has been a secret and imperceptible presumption which has made you rely on your own industry, and your own efforts. God wishes to humiliate and to confound you by your own experiences, and in this way to moderate that natural ardour that carries you beyond the impressions of grace. Without noticing it you have acted as if you aspired to do all the work by your own industry, and even to do more than God desired. You who would have taken yourself to task for any worldly ambition, have, without scruple, allowed yourself to be carried away by a still more subtle ambition, and by a desire for a high position in the spiritual life. But, be comforted; thanks to the merciful severity of God’s dealings with you, so far there is nothing lost; on the contrary you have gained greatly. God punished you for these imperfections like a good father, with tenderness; and enables you to find a remedy for the evil in the chastisement He inflicts on you. To avenge these infidelities He sends you the sort of trials He is accustomed to make use of to purify and detach those chosen souls called to pure love and divine union.
If you understood this fatherly conduct in your regard, and looked at your trials from the right point of view all your fears would disappear of their own accord. You would not be surprised, for example, that your aridity and interior trouble have increased since you entered religion. I am not by any means surprised, and should have been very sorry on your account had it been otherwise. Has it not been since then, in fact, that you have belonged more entirely to God, and that this divine Spouse has laboured more energetically to purify your soul, and to render it capable of being perfectly united to Him?
4th. As for that state of dissipation of which you complain so much, I agree with you in thinking that it is partly the result of your natural character, of the liveliness of your imagination and above all, of habit. However, God has only allowed this result to humble and confound you more completely; and the keen pain you suffer is not the least part of the merit of this trial. You see I am very far from believing, as you do, that there is no remedy for this evil or that it is caused by some secret sins.
The fear that this dissipation of mind causes you when you go to prayer, is a temptation, or else simply imagination, and God gives you a great grace in giving you courage to take no notice of it, but to approach Him with confidence in spite of this misleading fear.
5th. In your distaste for your outward occupations and duties I see only another side of your trials and one which can be very meritorious in the sight of God provided that you overcome it instead of allowing yourself to be overcome by it.
The acts that you make in opposition to this feeling, and of sacrifice and self-abnegation are very solid and very good. The merit of these acts is much increased by the renewal of the interior rebellions by which you are crucified; this is another part of the trial.
6th. That which you add about your powerlessness and apparent idleness in prayer, is a consequence of this trial, and naturally follows it; I should have been greatly surprised had it been otherwise.
Be reassured, therefore, for you will have to continue to waste your time in prayer, my dear Sister, and although you might do it more quietly, and this, please God, you will eventually achieve, you will never make any prayer that would be better, more useful, or more meritorious; because the prayer of abnegation and suffering being more crucifying is also more purifying for the soul, and makes it die to self more quickly in order to live henceforth in God and for God. Oh! how much I love such prayer during which you stand before God like a beast of burden feeling nothing and bowed down under the weight of all sorts of temptations! What could be more calculated to humble, confound, and annihilate a soul before God? This is what the soul requires, and to what its apparent miseries lead. Ah! if you only knew how to remain with respect and submission in this humiliating condition, abandoning yourself so entirely to the divine will as to take pleasure in your abjection and annihilation for the love of God, you would become much more pleasing to Him in your inaction and silence than by making the most explicit and energetic acts! No! there is no sacrifice more acceptable to God than a broken and humble heart, this is truly a holocaust full of sweet odours. Prayers that are full of fervour and devotion, or voluntary mortifications, bear no comparison because they cannot come near it.
7th. Your terrors about confession and communion are to be rejected and despised as temptations and imaginations; they are another part of your trial. However, should they continue to trouble you, in spite of your resistance, take no notice, and be patient in this state as in other things. As to the wish to get rid of this trying state, it is not the direct, but the natural result of the trial, and the effect of self love which cries out, and struggles rebelliously when it finds itself on the point of being pitilessly exterminated. You must not be daunted, nor terrified, but struggle bravely with your free-will against these desires, and persevere with an unshaken constancy in choosing always to accomplish the holy will of God. This point is of the first importance, not only to gather the fruit of the trial, but also to soften its bitterness and to shorten its duration. If, in your case, it has lasted a long time, I have grounds for attributing this to the fact that you have not had sufficient courage to make the entire sacrifice that God demanded of you. Hasten then to make it, and say to Him, “Yes, my God, I accept all, I submit to all without reserve, and for as long as You please.”
From all I have just said you will conclude without difficulty that there is but one thing for you to do, which is to let God dispose of you as He pleases, and to keep yourself quietly and interiorly tranquil as far as you can, but nevertheless without effort. Abandonment to God is for you just now the one thing necessary. To effect this thoroughly I give you the following rules:
1st. When you go to prayer you must be resigned to suffer at it, to be tormented and afflicted exactly as God pleases. When distractions, aridity, temptations, and weariness overwhelm you, say, “You are welcome, Cross of my God; I embrace you with a resigned will; made me suffer until my self-love becomes crucified and dead.” Then remain in God’s presence like a beast of burden weighed down with its load, and almost ready to perish, but expecting succour and help from its Master. If you could but throw yourself in spirit at the foot of the Cross of Jesus Christ, humbly kiss His sacred wounds, and remain there at His divine feet steadfast and motionless, and do nothing else but wait patiently in silence and peace as a poor beggar waits for hours at a time at the gates of a great king, or of a generous and rich benefactor, hoping to receive an alms. But before all things do not dream of making any more efforts, either in prayer, or in anything else, trying to be more recollected than God wishes you to be.
2nd. Do not therefore, make any violent efforts to preserve recollection during the day, or to drive away the continual distractions that make you uneasy; be satisfied to know that this state of dissipation displeases you, and that you have a great desire to be recollected; but only when it pleases God, and as much as it pleases Him, neither more nor less.
3rd. If the dissipation of mind should sometimes be so trying, and the aridity, troubles, fears, and other vexatious feelings so overwhelming that you cannot make a single interior act, nor even entertain a good thought, do not be cast down. You have nothing to fear, but rather, much to gain if, in this deplorable condition you understand how to remain in the simple interior silence of respect, submission, and adoration of which I have already spoken, and to bury yourself in the abyss of your own nothingness. This nothingness, accepted and loved for the love of God, is your safe refuge in the midst of these storms. It is there that you must remain, and it is from thence that you must take pleasure in beholding the fulfilment within you of the will of God. You must love to see Him, in imagination, raining down from the heights of Heaven, distractions, aridity, fears, anguish, and every species of trouble and humiliation on your soul; as if He would make of you the plaything of His pleasure and of His divine love; just as one sees sometimes, how great princes will amuse themselves with splashing one of their favourites with mud.
4th. As to the sacraments take good care never to omit receiving them. “But,” you say to me, “how can I prepare for confession and communion when my mind is obsessed with all sorts of fears and difficulties?” You must despise them, take no notice, and go straight to God without ever disputing or reasoning with them either for or against, and having done the little you could, or knew how to do, quietly, and without effort, remain tranquil in the perfect interior silence of faith, respect, submission and confidence often saying, but without words: “May my sovereign Lord and Master do with me whatever He pleases. Amen! Amen!”
5th. As in all that you tell me there is no sin, or at any rate, nothing voluntary although it often seems otherwise to you, keep yourself in a constant state of calmness and tranquillity. I do not speak of the lower part of the soul, which is all in trouble and desolation: but of the superior part, of that profound depth of your soul, which, with God’s help, can remain tranquil and peaceful in the midst of these storms and commotions. Agitation is, so to speak, only outside the soul in the exterior senses, to mortify them and cause them to die, as they must in order to be able to attain to pure love and union with God. It is for you to prevent this trouble from penetrating to the interior; and it is in this, that, up to now, you have not been sufficiently enlightened, nor faithful enough.
6th. In fact, although I can discover no particular sin in your conduct, yet I perceive a whole host of defects and imperfections in it which might do you great harm if you did not apply a strong remedy. These are uneasiness, foolish fears, depression, weariness, and a discouragement not quite free from deliberation, or at least not combated with sufficient energy, all of which tend to diminish that interior peace the necessity for which I am endeavouring to inculcate. “But what can I do to prevent them?” This: first, never retain them wilfully; secondly, never parley with them, nor yet combat them with effort, or violence, because that would make them doubly hurtful; but drop them, like one drops a stone into the water; think of something else, speak to God of other things, as St. Francis of Sales advises, then take refuge in the interior silence of respect, submission, confidence, and a total abandonment. “But,” you say, supposing that in these, or in other matters I commit faults, how ought I to behave?” Well! then you must bear in mind the advice of St. Francis of Sales; do not trouble yourself about your troubles, do not be uneasy about your uneasiness, do not be discouraged because you are discouraged, but return immediately to God without violence but humbling yourself quietly and tranquilly, even thanking Him for having prevented you from falling into greater faults. This sweet and gentle humility united to confidence in the divine goodness will tranquillize and pacify your soul, and this is, at present, your greatest spiritual need. I forgot to tell you that your great desire of divine love in spite of what you undergo afterwards, is certainly not an imagination, nor a chimera, on the contrary it is very real, very solid and most excellent, and must be preserved, but quietly and gently without giving way to those feelings of fervour, to those transports of the imagination, or to that natural activity that spoils everything. That which you experience, after having been all on fire with these ardent desires, when you try to return to yourself, need not surprise you. I will try and make clear by a comparison what then takes place within you. When you throw a very dry piece of wood that will burn easily, on the fire, the flame seizes it at once and consumes it quietly and noiselessly; but if you throw green wood on the fire the flame does not affect it except for a moment, and then the heat of the fire acting on the green wet wood makes it exude moisture and emit sighing sounds, and twists and turns it in a hundred different ways with great noise, until it has been made dry enough for the fire to take hold of it; then the flame spreads and consumes it without any effort or noise, but quietly.
This is an image of the action of divine love on souls that are still full of imperfections and the evil inclinations of self-love. These must be purified, refined, and cleared away and this cannot be achieved without trouble and suffering. Look upon yourself then, as this green wood acted on by divine love before it is able to enkindle it, and to consume it with its flames. Or else as a statue under the hands of a sculptor, or like a stone which is chipped and cut with the chisel and hammer to make it the right shape to take its place in a beautiful building. If this stone could feel, and if, while it thus suffered it asked you what it should do in so much pain, you would, without doubt, reply, “Keep perfectly quiet in the hands of the workman and let him proceed with his work, otherwise you will always remain a rough common piece of stone.” Take this advice yourself, have patience and let God do the work because there is really nothing else for you to do, only say, “I adore and I submit. Fiat!”
Letter II – Different States of the Soul
To Sister Marie-Therese de Viomenil. On interior vicissitudes.
My dear Sister,
The different states that you depict in your letter to me are nothing more than interior vicissitudes to which we are all subject. These perpetual alternations of light and darkness, of consolation and desolation, are as useful, I should say, as indispensable for the growth and ripening of virtue in our souls, as the atmospheric changes are necessary for the growth and ripening of the harvests. Let us learn, therefore, to resign ourselves to them, and to accept with equal love trials and consolations, for all trials, even the most painful are equally just, holy and beneficial, whether they proceed from the justice, or the mercy of God. Often they are sent to us both by justice and mercy, but while we are on earth justice is never exercised without mercy. I am delighted to hear that your usual occupation during prayer is the contemplation of your weakness, and the realisation of your nothingness; this is the way to acquire, by degrees, an entire distrust of self, and a perfect confidence in God only; also in this way you will become perfectly grounded in interior humility, which is the firm and solid foundation of the spiritual edifice, and the principal source of all the graces of God in the soul. You need neither be surprised nor pained at the destruction of all that is dear to self-love; it would not be self-love if it did not fear this. Only those souls that are already detached from self are free from the fear of this death; and not only do they not fear it, but they desire and beg it of God without ceasing. For us it is enough if we endure in peace, and with patience the successive blows that are effecting it. It often happens that during the day we experience certain feelings and desires for God or divine things, which do not occur during prayer. God arranges it thus so that we may recognise that He is absolute Master of all His gifts and graces; that He bestows them when and where it pleases Him. In receiving them thus, at times when we least expect them and in being disappointed at other times when we expect them, we shall no longer be able to persuade ourselves that they are the result of our own disposition, work, or industry; this is what God intends to prove to us. Therefore if He is prodigal of His gifts He expects to receive all the glory of them, and would be compelled to withdraw them if He found that we appropriated any part of them through self-satisfaction.
Letter III – Abandonment During Trials
To Mlle. de Serre who afterwards became Sister Catharine Angelique. On the same subject. Abandonment during trials.
Keep steadfast my dear daughter, in the midst of your violent interior afflictions, and never relinquish the practice of entire abandonment to God, and of perfect confidence in His goodness. Encourage yourself with these two obvious and invariable principles: first, that God will never abandon any who have abandoned themselves entirely to Him, and who trust completely in His infinite mercy. Secondly, that nothing happens in this world that is not according to the decrees of Providence who turns all things to the advantage and greater profit of souls that are submissive and resigned. Contrary thoughts and interior combats will only serve, if you remain faithful, to strengthen in your mind, and to root more firmly in your heart, the truths and feelings so necessary for your sanctification. The perfection of the state to which God calls you is, no doubt, beyond your power to attain, neither can you depend on yourself in the very slightest degree for its attainment; on the contrary you must beware of doing so, and rely on God only, grounding yourself on His succour and the power of His grace, with the help of which so many others weaker than yourself have been able, and are still able to do what seems to you so difficult. You ought, therefore, to repeat continually, “Yes! considering my weakness and misery, this would be as impossible as flying in the air. But that which is impossible to man becomes possible, pleasant and easy with the assistance of the all-powerful grace of Jesus Christ, and I hope to obtain this grace from His goodness, and through His infinite merits.” In this way have many young people, who were naturally feeble and timid, triumphed over cruel tyrants, and braved the most terrible sufferings and outrages and shed their blood in imitation and love of a crucified God.
The weariness, distaste, and dryness from which you frequently suffer are the usual vicissitudes through which all those souls, aiming at union with God, are accustomed to pass. What merit should we gain, and how should we prove our fidelity to God if we were always supported, helped, and consoled in a sensible manner by interior grace? What is essential is to be faithful in the fulfilment of all our duties, and of those interior and exterior practices that belong to our state, as much during dryness and distaste as in sweetness and sensible devotion. Although then we do nothing without effort and repugnance, the merit is none the less great. In this way only is our love of God completely free from that unhappy self-love which thrusts itself everywhere, mixes with everything, and spoils everything, as St. Francis of Sales says. As there is a sweet and delightful peace to be felt during prayer, so also is there a dry, bitter, and sometimes a suffering peace by which God operates more freely in the soul than by the former which is more subject to the inroads of self-love. Therefore one must abandon oneself to God in this as in all other things. We must allow Him to work, because He knows better than we do what is good for us. Let us fear only one thing, and that is to allow our self-will to lead us astray. To avoid this danger it only needs to will exactly what God wills, always, at every moment and for everything. This is the safest, the shortest, I even dare to say the only road to perfection; any other is subject to illusion, pride and self-love. For the rest, drop gradually but quietly the lengthy reasonings which absorb your mind during prayer, and aim, rather, at affections, aspirations, desires for God, and a simple repose in Him. This will not prevent you, however, from pausing a little over good thoughts, if they are simple, quiet and peaceful, and seem to come and go of their own accord.
Letter IV – Darkness and Doubts
To a Postulant. On obscurity and weakness.
Note: “This Postulant is Madame de Lesen, about whom Rev. Mother Marie-Anne-Therese de Rosen had consulted Fr. de Caussade, and had undertaken to place in direct communication with him. She entered the Convent of the Annunciation at St. Mihiel.”
My dear Sister,
All that you describe to me in your letter appears to me so easy to decide, that God must have kept you in very great darkness if you have not been able, with the help of His grace, to find a clue for yourself. Besides, as you tell me, God does, occasionally, send you some rays of light to illuminate your soul, and disperse the darkness of your doubts. These gleams of light which enkindle your heart, filling it with a sweet peace and great courage in the service of God, can come only from Heaven. Therefore you can follow these lights without fear, and the recollection of them will suffice to sustain and guide you in moments of darkness. However, since God has inspired you to apply to me again, it will be quite easy to satisfy you in each particular.
1st. The snares and subtleties of self-love render you, you say, incapable of seeing things in their proper light. Then why do you attempt to do so? Have you not, in holy obedience, an infallible guide, and in humility and docility sure guarantees that you are not misled in following the decisions laid down for you.
2nd. After having consulted your Superior or your Mistress with the simplicity of a little child, remain in peace, for this is your security. If you do not submit to this rule, you will be much to be pitied, and it will be your own fault.
3rd. To feel so keenly your weakness, and need of sensible support, and as it were, always on the edge of a precipice is, in truth, a very humiliating trial, but a very salutary one, since it leads infallibly to a total distrust of self, and to the most perfect confidence in God. This is the only way to leave the region of the senses, and to enter the life of pure faith and love which is wholly spiritual.
4th. The dark dungeon in which you find yourself is a prison into which, I will not say the justice of God, but His very great mercy throws you from time to time to purify you like gold in a crucible. You have only to stay there as quietly as you can. “But how then shall I practise virtue?” In this case virtue consists in suffering, in silent endurance and abandonment, and in humble and loving submission. You know the great maxim that more progress is made during suffering than in action. “But,” you will say, “I commit sin while in this state.” No, there is no sin, the Master of the prison will prevent that. “But it seems to me that I look upon hell with indifference.” This is a strong way of expressing yourself, but, thank God, I can understand the meaning of it better than you do. It only expresses the result of that interior operation by which God weakens your self-love. Take courage, the day will come, and perhaps soon, when you will be able to realise the great good effected in this dark prison; for the present you must live in this hope without other light than that of faith.
5th. No doubt, there occur, in your state of interior fever, paroxysms which seem to devour and consume you. These are caused by what is impure and earthly in the depths of the soul, which is thus consumed and devoured, like the evil humours of the body during the paroxysms of certain fevers. This is a symptom of cure not of illness. “But at these times I can neither pray, nor have recourse to God.” No, perhaps not, at any rate not in a perceptible manner; but the heart prays without ceasing by hidden desires known only to God. Your conclusion really made me laugh; “judge therefore,” you say, “how I acquit myself of the obligation of reciting the Office, assisting at Mass and the rest.” Very willingly, my dear Sister, would I take upon myself all the evil you commit in these circumstances, if you would concede me all the good that God is effecting in you. That little word, “therefore,” has given me an insight into a certain temptation which the subtlety of the evil spirit tries to introduce into your soul. But let us follow your letter, and the thread of my reply. You begin to think, say you, that you were very rash in making a vow to become a Religious, and that the observances of the religious life are far beyond your powers. If I had not had a long experience of the progress made by even the most manifest temptations, when they are given the least encouragement under pretext of examining them, I should never have imagined you capable of succumbing so foolishly to this one. To cut it short I must tell you firstly, that I knew by the drift of your letter that this was the temptation the devil aimed at by all the changes he has rung in your soul. If he can only make you relinquish your prize, what a victory he will gain! what a triumph for all hell! Secondly, I forbid you in the Name of God and by all the authority He has given me over you, either to listen to, or examine into this subject in any way; and I command you to act about it in the same way as if the devil suggested that you should throw yourself into a well or poison all the Religious. Thirdly, God wills you to embrace the religious life; this then ought to take place, and will take place in spite of all hell let loose to prevent it. “But the spiritual afflictions! the bodily infirmities!” If necessary God will perform miracles about them, and you must expect these miracles when they are required. Now humble yourself, my dear Sister, annihilate yourself profoundly before God, confess to Him that you are weakness and inconstancy itself. This experience should serve for the future to make you feel how necessary it is to distrust self in our boasted courage and apparent firmness in good resolutions which come to nothing without God’s ceaseless support. How poor, weak and miserable beyond all expression are we not, and liable to go wrong in every imaginable way, and in things we should never have thought possible!
6th. The sensitiveness you feel when being corrected, in this state of trouble, ought to be a subject of humiliation, but not of discouragement; because it is true that at such times sensitiveness is so keen that St. Teresa herself was obliged to be on her guard against a spiteful and fretful temper which she was tempted to vent on the Sisters. It would take too long to tell you the great good God produces in our souls by these feelings and rebellions, provided they are borne patiently.
7th. God makes you feel that Satan is laying traps for you, and that, at the same time His invisible hand bears you up, and holds you back; what could be more encouraging? Keep firm, all this will turn to your very great good, and above all will serve to make you thoroughly convinced of your own weakness which you have never hitherto understood such as it is. You require all these temptations and trials to convince you of it, and to tear from your heart every fibre of foolish self-confidence. It is only when we begin to be cured that we recognize the evil.
I finish by repeating that your state, although, in truth, very crucifying, is nevertheless, and indeed on that account, very safe, very purifying and very sanctifying. You need fear no danger, as long as you hold by Fenelon’s great rule: despair entirely of yourself, and put not an atom of confidence in anything but God alone, Who, from the very stones can raise up children to Abraham.
Letter V – Distractions in Prayer
To Sister Marie-Henriette de Bousmard. On weakness and distractions (1734).
My dear Sister,
1st. Do not regret the consolations and sensible devotion that God gave you formerly, and has now taken away. With the consolations that you experienced were mingled a thousand imperfections. It is true that by the very fact that these consolations were felt they were extremely pleasant to nature which always desires to see, know, and feel; but the more according to nature is the state, the less is it adapted for the requirements of divine love. This is the reason that God quickly withdraws a soul from this state; and the more quickly, the more faithfully it responds to His grace. If He did not act towards us, in this respect, with a fatherly strictness, we should always remain feeble, subject to all sorts of defects, and incapable of protecting ourselves against the allurements and illusions of self-love. The soul that has not been enlightened and set free by trials, indulges, almost without perceiving it, in continual self-examinations, and makes its satisfaction and peace depend on feelings, the most unstable things in the world; if it loves God, it is not only for Himself but much more on account of the consolations it expects from Him, and it remains in a vain self-satisfaction occasioned by the spiritual riches it supposes itself to possess, and God grant that it may not end by worshipping its own imaginary excellence. However, even if the soul avoids this criminal excess, it is to be greatly feared, that being full of itself it remains empty of God. Rather than expose the souls that He loves with a love of predilection to such a fearful misfortune, God sends them all sorts of trials. He strikes them, humiliates them and makes them contemptible in their own eyes. But how superabundantly does He not compensate those who remain faithful during trials, for the privations they have endured! When, by a complete destruction of one’s whole spiritual fortune, one finds oneself reduced to nothing, then one suddenly discovers that one has neither vanity, presumption, nor self-esteem, but is filled with distrust, humility, confidence in God and love for Him; and this love is then absolutely pure because self-love has nothing to lean upon, and, consequently, nothing to become attached to, or to corrupt. Therefore I set more value on your present poverty than on all those former beautiful feelings that seemed to you so perfectly pure, but of which your self-love secretly made its most delicious pasture.
2nd. It seems, sometimes, as if one had neither faith, hope, nor charity, and as if one were without religion, without any virtue, as if one had lost all knowledge of God. This happens when He is pleased to withdraw all delight, all unction, and all that is sensible to make it reside in the essence of the soul, and to enable it to advance by the practice of pure faith. Then it is that God is served and adored in spirit and in truth, as Jesus Christ said to the woman of Samaria. This state is even further removed from the senses, and is, therefore, more valuable, higher, more purified and more solid. In it can the pure delights of the spirit be enjoyed; but this is only to be attained by the privation of all sensible pleasure, a sensible devotion can only be enjoyed by the privation of sensual and earthly pleasure. In this state, however, there is always peace, because the soul is then established in God and feels just as you feel; I mean a secret and hidden power proceeding from the inmost presence of God, and this support, imperceptible though it is, makes a soul stronger than when it believed itself ready to endure martyrdom. So remain in peace, and bless God.
3rd. As for the innumerable acts of offering, resignation, etc., without doubt they are suitable for beginners to form a habit of making them; but in your present state they are made by, and in your heart, and almost without your thinking of it. Does not God see all your intentions, even the most secret, without having them explained to Him by what are called formal and express acts? When, in the midst of your good works some secret intention of self-love, pride, or human respect insinuates itself into your heart, far from making express acts you would endeavour to hide from yourself these perverse intentions, convinced that God sees, and will punish them; do you not believe then that He also sees your secret good intentions and that He is as liberal in rewarding as He is strict in punishing?
4th. The wandering of your thoughts is but another trial from God, an occasion of suffering, of humiliation, and an exercise of patience and of merit, and the anxiety it causes you is a proof of the desire you have of being always occupied with God. Besides, God sees this desire, and, in His sight, desires are equal to acts, whether for good or evil. Suffer, therefore, humbly and patiently all the involuntary wanderings of your mind, and take care not to trouble about them, nor to examine anxiously what could have caused them; this would be a simple curiosity of self-love which God would punish with still greater darkness. Remember what St. Teresa said on this subject, “Let the clapper make a noise, provided the mill grinds the corn.” She compares the wandering mind to the clapper, and the will tending to God to the mill that grinds the corn. A will fixed on God is what we should hope for above all things. What do you think takes place in the heart of a worldly woman during a fine sermon? Doubtless a hundred good thoughts pass through her mind and imagination while her will and her heart are fixed on the object of her passion; is she any holier for that? With you it is exactly the contrary; why then do you distress yourself? Otherwise what signifies this tranquillity and peace of the soul in the midst of these attacks, these pains, and this torment, and the little desire you have to refer to them? Is not this a great gift of God, and an evident sign that it is He Who, so delicately, and so peacefully wounds the heart? Remain then tranquilly in your state of total abandonment to God, and do not trouble yourself to find out how you form acts; they are formed by the secret and imperceptible movements of your heart that God touches interiorly, and which He moves as He pleases.
5th. I am not surprised at the fatigue and emptiness you experience in making efforts to multiply and reiterate your interior acts. This is because in this way you withdraw yourself from the operation of God to act for yourself, as if you wanted to anticipate grace and to do more than God wished. This is indeed natural activity! Be content to remain at peace in your soul, and keep yourself there as in a prison where God is pleased to immure you, without bethinking yourself of making unseasonable escapes. Thus you will be in that state of holy and fruitful idleness that the saints describe, and thus also you will have many and great occupations without labour. It is self-love only that complains and is in despair at having nothing to do, to see, to feel, nor to hear; but let it groan as much as it likes, by dint of worrying and despairing it will rid you finally of its presence. By cutting off supplies we shall starve it out. Oh! what a fortunate release! I wish it for you as for myself with all my heart.
6th. The way in which you keep in the presence of God by a simple glance of faith without mental images, figures, or any kind of representation, in a total surrender of your whole self, is the most pure and most perfect way of treating with God. It is the true prayer of the heart, a quite interior prayer, the sincere prayer of spirit to spirit, and the more simple, free, imperceptible, and removed it is, from all that can be felt so much the more solid, sublime, penetrating and efficacious it becomes, says the holy Mother de Chantal.
Letter VI – Fear of Wasting Time
To Sister Marie-Henriette de Mahuet. On the same subject, and interior rebellion and spiritual poverty. Alby, 1732.
My dear Sister,
Nothing is more common with souls who have not yet acquired much experience in the ways of the spiritual life, than the fear about which you have consulted me; I mean the fear of wasting time in the prayer of the simple presence of God. But it is easy to reassure such souls, and to reassure you also. For this it suffices to recall to your mind the principle laid down by the divine Master: “the tree is known by its fruits.” That which produces only good effects cannot but be good. Besides, your own experience teaches you, that since you applied yourself to this kind of prayer you have become, interiorly, greatly changed for the better. You have, then, only to thank God for the favour He has granted you in substituting as He has, the peaceful action of His grace for the agitation of your natural activity. I wish you could accustom yourself always to judge of your progress and the state of your soul by the infallible rules of faith and the counsels of the Gospel. When you find that your ways, your ideas, and your conduct agree with the teachings of faith, and with the practice of the saints, you may hold them to be good, and perfectly safe. In this no illusion is possible, as it is when one judges oneself by sensible impressions, which are always deceptive. To guide one’s conduct by these impressions is to take a weathervane, which turns with every wind, for a mariner’s compass. It is impossible to navigate safely unless guided by the sure and infallible rules of faith which make us turn away from sin, love God and our neighbour, detach us from creatures, and lead us to obedience, self-forgetfulness, complete submission to the will of God, abnegation and mortification. The kind of prayer which produces these effects is, without doubt, the best.
2nd. As those spiritual books which treat of prayer might fall into the hands of all sorts of persons, and consequently not be well understood, authors and preachers do wisely in making use of general terms and in laying down only general rules, in order to avoid giving any handle for illusion; but directors, in speaking to persons they are well acquainted with, make use of a different method to reassure those under their direction who, without cause, would be terrified in reading or listening to sermons. It is because of my knowledge of your state and of God’s designs on your behalf that I do not hesitate to reassure you. Go forward without a shadow of fear. No one can experience the fruit of the blessing of God, unless he follow the attraction of God. The deceptions and illusions of the spirit of darkness are made known by their effects and fruits which are contrary to those produced by grace. If I saw you exposed to these illusions I should not fail to tell you of it; and in default of me there are others who would render you this service on condition that you laid bare your mind to them with sincerity.
3rd. The rule of faith must be also taken, by which to form a judgment about the stupidity you have experienced for some time past. If it be only a question of being stupid, dull, and slow, and even insensible to all the things of this world, faith teaches us that this stupidity is true wisdom. But even if this same stupidity should seem to extend, sometimes to things of salvation, that is no proof that it is a sign of your being at a distance from God if it does not prevent you from fulfilling your duties, keeping the Rule, and carrying out your exercises of piety. You should, therefore, regard it as a trial from God which you have in common with nearly all the saints. Be faithful, and while accepting this apparent stupidity you will find in it a very meritorious exercise of patience, submission, and interior humility. It can only be prejudicial to self-love, which dies gradually and is thus destroyed and annihilated more efficaciously than by any exterior mortification.
4th. When we have to make great sacrifices, nature and self-love, reluctant to do so, excite rebellions in the heart which seem to overthrow the whole soul. Did not Jesus Christ Himself experience the same in the Garden of Olives? It is enough therefore for the superior part of the soul to remain firm and to say with Jesus Christ, “Fiat voluntas tua.” These are the interior combats of which St. Paul speaks, and after him all the masters of the spiritual life: this is how the just man truly lives by faith and escapes from the rule of the senses: these are the great victories which will be crowned in this world by peace, and the submission of the lower nature; in the next by the possession of a God.
5th. The last and most efficacious of all the remedies I have to offer you is an entire and total abandonment into the hands of this God of goodness, Who has not ceased for a long time in being beforehand with the blessings of His very great mercy. You must throw yourself into this abandonment with the same courage with which you would cast yourself into the sea if God asked this sacrifice of you; in the same way as, in times past, a holy martyr by a particular attraction, and an especial inspiration threw herself into the midst of the flames without waiting for the executioners. It is this courage, and this holy abandonment founded on faith and love which charms the heart of God, and establishes in the soul a peace that nothing can disturb.
6th. Your conduct in avoiding useless visits, waste of time, and distractions, seems to me excellent. Know that exterior solitude is the rampart of that which is interior which, without it, can with difficulty be preserved. I advise you to add, with regard to the people in the house, the greatest possible silence, never speaking without a reason, nor without some holy motive–such as for a necessary recreation, to refresh yourself a little, for the sake of charity, or religious condescension; or to overcome yourself about certain persons towards whom you may feel some antipathy. Finally I recall to your mind a maxim that I wish I could engrave on every heart, and especially on the hearts of Religious, and devout persons who are stressed and uneasy at seeing how poor, miserable and destitute they are; as they say with sighs and groans. This maxim alone can make them tranquil, contented, and even exceedingly rich in their spiritual poverty. You understand what I mean beforehand, that true perfection and consequently the real wealth of the soul consists in conforming our will to the will of God. Consequently every time that, overcome by the sense of your weakness and interior misery, you think that, while avoiding by the grace of God, everything that could offend Him, you are, at the same time very devoid of those gifts and graces by which the saints were enriched, you can and ought to say: “My God, I will all that You will and for as long as it pleases You.” “But,” you will say, “what resource shall I have if God takes me at my word, and keeps me always in this state of spiritual poverty?” You will have, my dear sister, only the Will of God, and this resource will take the place of every other. This divine and adorable Will will supply you with all the gifts in which you are wanting, it will become your treasure, and will constitute a spiritual fortune in the very midst of your poverty; for how can anyone be more rich in the sight of God than by conforming in all things to His most holy will even in those things that are most afflicting? Can anyone be more certain of possessing pure love, than those who resign themselves willingly to all that is most mortifying to that most sensitive form of self-love, spiritual self-love? Believe me, my dear Sister, the soul that regards its poverty in this light need not envy even those souls which are most greatly enriched with the gifts of God.
Letter VII – On Darkness and Want of Feeling
To Sister Marie-Therese de Viomenil. On darkness and want of feeling.
My dear Sister and very dear daughter in our Lord.
May the peace of our Lord be always with you. By what you tell me I understand that you are in a state of obscurity but far from sharing the alarms that this state–a very ordinary one in persons of your sex–causes you; I believe it to be, unquestionably, the most safe because it is less exposed to the delusions of self-love, to attacks of vanity, and therefore, even this obscurity is a grace of God; for, during this life the way that leads most directly to God is the way of bare faith which is always obscure. In spite of this obscurity you are able to understand your state and to explain it clearly enough to enable any director with a little experience to guide you. I will tell you what I think about your general state and take your difficulties one by one.
1st. You say you do not know how to pray. Experience has taught me that persons of good will who speak in this way know better than others how to pray, because their prayer is more simple and humble, but, on account of its simplicity it escapes their observation. To pray like this is to remain by faith in the presence of God, with a hidden, but constant desire to receive His grace according to our needs. As God sees all our desires, and as, according to St. Augustine, to desire always is to pray always, so in this consists our great prayer. Follow the leading of simplicity in prayer, there can never be excess of it, for God loves to see us like little children in His presence.
2nd. As to Holy Communion, the increasing hunger that is felt for this divine Food, and the strength it imparts are great reasons for receiving It frequently. Therefore fear nothing, but rest on the assurance I give you.
3rd. Insensibility towards all created things, and detachment even from relations, are greater graces than you imagine; it only remains to become detached from self by renouncing all interior self-seeking. Frequent union with Jesus Christ and prayer will gradually achieve this task, provided you do your share of the work in forgetting yourself to think only of God, abandoning to Him all your interests, both spiritual and temporal.
4th. It is right that you should realise that all God requires of you is submission and resignation. Ah! my dear daughter, in that is comprised all perfection. To look for it elsewhere would be only error and illusion. Therefore a spiritual person inclined to an interior life, has, truly, but one thing to do, which is to submit with hearty concurrence, to all imaginable circumstances, whether interior or exterior, in which God wills to place him. Therefore when you are ill say “God wills it, very well, I will it also as He wills it and for as long a time.” “But what if it should incapacitate me from fulfilling my duties and being of use to the community?” Well, if God wills it, will it also, and accept beforehand, with the pain you suffer, the holy abjection and humiliation which accompany it. “But in this state, perhaps, I give in to myself a little, and do not make all the efforts that I could and should make.” If, even so after having consulted your superior and your confessor you follow their judgment blindly you are then doing the will of God which is also your will. Then rest satisfied in having acquiesced in the divine will in all this, and preserve that interior peace in which God dwells and works. This, my dear Sister, is a clear and safe way; follow it faithfully, and constantly reject all contrary thoughts and ideas as suggestions of the devil, who desires at least to disturb the interior peace in which your soul should be settled, and which forms the solid foundation of the spiritual life.
5th. You have committed a grave fault of disobedience and imprudence in exposing yourself to three months of fever. Hold for certain that to reuse a dispensation in such circumstances is, by no means, an act of virtue, but stubbornness, and an obstinate attachment to your own judgment, and your own will under a pretext of piety. Many devotees and spiritual persons are to be pitied when they act in this manner, and great patience is required to put up with them. Their blindness and illusion are sometimes so strong that an angel from heaven would find a difficulty in making them see clearly. As for you, submit to everything, listen to every advice, suffer with all peace, gentleness, and patience, and do the will of God in all things, in the same spirit, this will be of great benefit to you.
6th. They were quite right to forbid you to think of giving up your post, or of even wishing to do so. I, also, forbid you most strictly. Be very careful not to attempt to escape from the commands of God. “But I am not strong enough.” God can very easily make you strong enough. “I am not clever enough.” Well! the power of making you clever enough is not wanting to God, and He has already given you the principal qualification, which is, a distrust of your own powers. To know, and to feel one’s incapacity is the essential thing, because then one depends entirely on God, applies to Him for everything, and attributes nothing to oneself, but all to God alone; and these graces will by themselves make everything prosper. In fine be at peace, and place your confidence in the God of all goodness; after that you can despair of yourself as much as you like. This humble feeling of your incapacity, weakness, and imbecility is exactly the instrument made use of by God to exalt His glory, and to make it shine forth more visibly.
To have no feeling about the truths of religion is not a bad sign in certain souls; on the contrary, it is often a sign that God desires to lead them by the safest way, that of simple, bare faith without those feelings of devotion that He can give when He pleases. In the ways of God the only violent efforts to be used must be employed against sin, but with regard to everything else there must only be peace and tranquillity. When you find you cannot succeed in making acts say to yourself: “Very well! they are all made in the sight of God since He has seen my desire; He will enable me to make them when He pleases, He is Master. His most holy will shall always be my rule; to accomplish it is the reason I am in the world. It is my wealth, my treasure. May God grant to others all the light, talent, grace, gifts and sensible and spiritual sweetness that are pleasing to Him. As for me I desire nothing but to do His holy will. That is my wealth.” This, my dear daughter, is your path, walk in it continually in peace, confidence, and abandonment of your whole self; you are in perfect safety.
7th. In order to advance, endeavour to suffer peacefully all that God wills or permits to happen to you, without going to creatures to complain, or to seek consolation; neither try to find distraction in useless conversations, nor amusement in frivolous thoughts and idle projects for the future, as all this would withdraw you from God, and prevent the operations of His grace in you; so take great care.
8th. To help you to occupy yourself with God easily and uninterruptedly according to your wishes and requirements this is what you ought to do. Firstly, love solitude and silence, for this will do much towards forming an interior spirit of recollection. Secondly, read only choice books that are solid, and full of piety, and read them slowly, with frequent pauses, trying more to enjoy, than to understand or remember them. Thirdly, during the day make frequent aspirations after God, especially those that occur to you in sufferings, temptations, weariness, disgust, sadness of heart, contradictions; etc.
9th. The prayers you make to God for detachment from all things, are inspired by grace; continue them, and be assured that sooner or later they will be answered. It is but just that we should wait God’s time, since we have kept Him waiting so long, and the great graces we ask of Him deserve to be desired and waited for with patience and perseverance.
Letter VIII – On Dryness and Distractions
To Sister Jeanne-Elizabeth Gaury (1735). On dryness and distractions during prayer.
My dear Sister,
1st. Your method is very simple, and that which is simple is always best. It goes straight to God, and you must continue it; but do so quietly, without effort, and without eagerness either to preserve it, or to regain it when the perception of it has been lost; that would be to wish to appropriate to yourself the gift of God. In this method of prayer distractions and dryness are pretty frequent, but all the same if these are endured patiently and with abandonment to the will of God, it is an excellent prayer. Besides, although these distractions and this aridity are painful, they do not prevent the constant desire to pray which remains in the depths of the heart, and it is in this desire that heartfelt prayer consists.
If you have been praying in this excellent manner for a considerable time, say for two or three years, it would serve no purpose to take a book; but if these times of powerlessness and aridity have lasted only for seven or eight consecutive days, then make use of a book, but read with frequent pauses; and should you find that this reading distracts you still more, or troubles your soul, leave it off, and try as well as you can to remain peacefully and silently in the presence of God.
You need not be surprised, nor still less troubled that the very same things that used to touch you deeply, at one time, should now make not the slightest impression on you; this is one of the vicissitudes that have to be put up with interiorly just as the exterior vicissitudes of weather and seasons have to be borne; and it is only the very inexperienced who do not expect this.
2nd. In this method of prayer resolutions are seldom made, but virtue is practised much more easily than when resolutions were made in meditation; because by the previous operation of the Holy Spirit the heart is disposed to do so when the occasion arises. The interior dispositions of persons following this method might be expressed in the following manner which would be of more value than any resolutions. “Lord make me do good and avoid evil on such occasions, or in such circumstances, otherwise I know by personal experience that I shall do exactly the reverse of what I ought.”
The sweetness and efficacy of holy recollection are often the prize and recompense of former sacrifices; but this sensible pleasure does not, at first, take away all repugnance and interior rebellion, though it gradually diminishes them until, in time, a sensible joy is felt even in the most bitter trials.
3rd. God permits your slight infidelities to give you a deeper conviction of your weakness, and gradually to destroy in you that unhappy self-esteem, presumption and secret self-confidence which would never otherwise allow you to acquire true humility of heart. As you know nothing pleases God more than a complete contempt of self, accompanied by an absolute confidence in Him alone. This God of all goodness, therefore, does you a great favour in compelling you, often against your will, to drink from this chalice so much dreaded by your self-love and corrupt nature. And to know how to appreciate this favour at its proper value, and to realise your own happiness, are feelings so supernatural that they can only be attributed to the operation of the Holy Spirit. Another operation of grace is to feel happy in bearing some resemblance to Jesus Christ, but this feeling is not to be greatly depended on, have a fear of meeting with difficult circumstances, and distrust your own weakness.
4th. There are never any illusions to be feared in repugnance and involuntary rebellion, as they are incompatible with holy prayer by which they are vanquished and overcome. You are wrong in persuading yourself that you will never be able to acquire true humility nor perfect mortification on account of feeling in yourself such a strong opposition to these virtues. If you had only your own powers to rely upon it would indeed be impossible, but as you very justly add yourself, with the help of God’s grace merited for you by Jesus Christ, all becomes easy. It might happen that even this truth should make no impression on you and I should not be surprised if such were the case, but your remark to me on the subject proves plainly that like all beginners, you attach much too much importance to feelings of devotion. Nevertheless, it is an understood fact that in the order of supernatural operations of grace what is most sensible is least perfect and least safe, while that which is most spiritual and most hidden is by far the best. When God deprives you of His sensible presence, and of devotion in recollection, content yourself with having a holy desire and wish to retain it; this will suffice, as it is most pleasing to God and very meritorious.
5th. Any disquiet is an injury to the soul, therefore you should exert all your energy to repel that which you experience on the subject of the divine Office, especially as there is no reason for it, the desire to say it well and the will to do so always remaining in spite of involuntary distractions, and yours are all of this kind. The proof of this is manifest, which is, that you feel a real pain at heart whenever you notice this wandering of the mind. What more certain, or better sign could you have that you have not consented? If you are afraid of distractions, it shows that they are not voluntary in their origin, and especially if you try to practice recollection during the day. Therefore be at peace and accept submissively these involuntary miseries.
6th. You have shown me another subject of uneasiness; one which is of no consequence, and which has its foundation in various illusions, and of which you must cure yourself. The first is the great desire you have of sensible pleasure in Communion, and is an effect of spiritual self-love. The second is the belief that this sensible pleasure is a necessary condition of a good Communion. Alas! my dear daughter what would become of so many holy souls who usually feel nothing but dryness, callousness, and often distaste? In all our spiritual exercises we must approach God by pure faith which is scarcely felt. The less feeling you have in your communions and prayers the more likely they are to be purer and more pleasing to God. This is the way of bare faith and pure love which is never self-seeking. St. Francis of Sales used to say, “Our miserable satisfactions do not satisfy God.” Pure love consists in being content with all that pleases God, and will not permit us to will anything contrary to the will of God, even as to our holiest desires and actions; nor, consequently, to act against His holy permissions; even should the cause of certain occurrences be the result of our own fault. This principle is either ignored, or, at least, obscured by the subtlety of our self-love, so ingenious in making out everything that satisfies it, or gives it pleasure to be good and holy. A good Religious speaking on this subject said that God had gradually taken away all her pleasure, and all the spiritual attractions and feelings in whatever she did, to purify her love, which the first sweetness had left so imperfect and impure.
For communion and the spiritual exercises of the morning and evening follow the method that most attracts you. One short act of your own is worth more than all the long prayers you read. The indifference you feel as to what is thought or said about you is an effect of the operation of the Holy Spirit. Continue as you are doing, never excusing nor justifying yourself, unless you are ordered to do so; it is the most perfect way of acting. God be praised for all, and in all. Amen.
Letter IX – Passive Recollection
To Mother Louise-Franc,oise de Rosen. On distractions, weariness, and impulses.
My dear Sister. To all the anxieties you express in your letter to me, and to all the doubts you lay before me, I have but one answer. I will say to you in the words of our good Master: “Peace be with you, fear not.” What troubles you, ought, on the contrary, to be a subject of joy. Where you believe you see symptoms of laxness I see undoubted signs of solid progress.
1st. This inattention, almost perpetual, this weariness and distaste that you experience at prayer, at the Office, at Confession and Communion, etc., are nothing else but the natural effect of the apparent absence of God. The divine Spouse of your soul, in order to put it to the test and to purify it, withdraws His sensible presence, and then the poor soul suffers acute grief which sometimes affects the bodily health. In this way it is a martyr of grace, and of the Holy Spirit; for, now that there are no longer any tyrants to make the blood of the martyrs flow in testimony of their faith, the Holy Spirit knows how to make martyrs of divine love by the suffering caused by His apparent absences, and by many kinds of crucifying operations. Those who submit to this spiritual torture do so by practising resignation, blind abandonment, and the same unwearied patience that the martyrs of old practised in the midst of their torments. The same Holy Spirit who filled the souls of the martyrs with divine peace and joy, while their bodies were suffering the most frightful torments, will in the same way preserve the peace of your soul in spite of all the agitation of your mind and senses. But you must, faithfully, co-operate with His action by giving no voluntary consent to the anxieties which assail you. To regain recollection when you think you have, to some extent, lost it, make no violent efforts. Resign yourself with a good grace to being deprived of sensible and active recollection, and be content with passive recollection which subsists at the bottom of your heart, even when the mind seems all astray, for this is the inalienable right of souls that are free from all inordinate love for the things of this world. It is true that in this state God is not always the distinct object of our thoughts, but He is the principle of our life, and the rule of our actions. There is a kind of abstraction during which it seems to us that we do not think of anything, because, on the one hand visible objects do not occupy us, and on the other we have such a general idea of God, a notion so dim and obscure, that the mind cannot grasp it, and loses itself, seeming to have no consciousness, and to escape control. In this state all that has to be done, being suggested by the Spirit of God gently, is carried out in peace, without eagerness or uneasiness. But, directly the activity of self-love begins to meddle, the Holy Spirit, jealously desirous of being the only guide of the soul He has raised to this state, puts a limit to its action, and then there is nothing to be done but to drop this activity, and to resume and re-enter the state of passive recollection. This recollection, you must know, is nothing else but the fruit and the extension of the prayer of quiet and of silence, which consists in holding one’s peace interiorly, and in leaving off all thoughts rather than in combating those that come, or in seeking for those that do not present themselves.
2nd. The occasional outbursts to which you give vent, sometimes lasting for a lengthy period are trials that should prove equally fruitful. While causing you interior suffering they bring you infinite riches, purifying, humiliating and diminishing you so much in your own eyes that you will gradually become like those little children whom Jesus Christ desires us to resemble if we wish to enter into His kingdom. You are quite right in saying that we have a great need of patience and gentleness in bearing with ourselves; perhaps more than in putting up with others, following out the thought of St. Francis of Sales.
3rd. The continual vicissitudes that take place in the soul are a good sign. By them the Holy Spirit renders us pliant to all His movements; for, by dint of these constant changes nothing of self remains, and we are prepared to take any shape that is pleasing to this divine Spirit who breathes where He will and as He pleases. It is, as Fenelon says, like a continual melting and recasting of the soul, which, in this process, becomes liquid like water having neither form nor shape but taking any form or shape according to that of the vessel into which it is poured.
4th. It will be quite easy for you to guide yourself in these different situations. You have but one thing to do, and that is quite simple, it is to notice in what direction the deepest bias of your heart inclines you, without consulting the mental attitude which would spoil all. Always act with the same simplicity, in good faith and uprightness of heart, without looking back or about you, but straight in front at the present time and moment, and I will answer for everything. Do you not see that such a way of acting is to die to self perpetually by the most complete abnegation, and a true sacrifice of abandonment to God in the darkness of faith.
5th. You say that you do not experience any interior reproach, nor any feeling either for good or evil, and that this silence seems to you terrible. It is part of your state. All feeling ought to be taken from you: it is so in the state of pure faith. Again, fear nothing, go on in peace, in simplicity, in total abandonment, without self-examination or particular reflexions: when any should be made God will give them to you, or supply the want of them by an interior feeling or a hidden attraction which will guide you in everything more surely than your own miserable reflexions. Are these, then, so precious that you need regret their loss and the deprivation of them? Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven. Love this spiritual poverty which strips us interiorly of self, as exterior poverty strips us of goods. It is thus that the kingdom of God is formed within us.
Letter X – The Use of Faults
To the same person. On weariness and idleness.
My dear Sister,
I see nothing in your present state that should alarm you. This weariness, idleness, and indolence that we experience occasionally in spite of ourselves has no culpability about it, provided we suffer it with resignation, and do not curtail any of our exercises of piety in spite of the disinclination we feel to perform them. If, with this want of feeling about everything else we experience a strong desire for the Sacraments and a great contrition for our faults, it is a sensible effect of the mercy of God Who makes use even of our faults to make us increase in fervour and humility.
There are two kinds of interior peace; one is sensible, sweet and delightful, and this kind does not, in any way, depend on ourselves, and is not at all necessary. And there is another which is almost imperceptible, which dwells in the depths of the heart in the most hidden recesses of the soul. It is usually dry and unfelt, and can be retained in the midst of the greatest tribulations. To recognise it would require the most profound recollection, you would say it was hidden in a deep abyss. It is there that God dwells, and He fashions it Himself in order to dwell there as in an atmosphere of His own in the inner chamber of our hearts from whence He works marvellous but inscrutable things. These can only be recognised by their effects, as, when, by His beneficent influence you feel yourself capable of remaining firm in the midst of trials, violent shocks, great pain, and unforeseen misfortunes. If you find that you possess this dry peace and a sort of quiet sadness, you ought to thank God for it; this is all that is necessary for your spiritual progress. Guard it as a most precious gift. As it gradually increases it will one day become your greatest treasure, but this will not be till after many battles and many victories.
I congratulate you on having adopted my favourite motto, “God wills it! God be praised in all things.” Oh! what consolation there is in these few words! St. Francis of Sales said it was a tonic for the heart by virtue of which it would never give way; a strong potion which would enable us to digest iron, steel, and any other hard or revolting object that we were obliged to swallow, a balsam that could soothe and heal the most poisonous wounds. Oh! my dear daughter! let us make use of this remedy against the weakness of nature which opposes everything that is contrary to our inclination. By the use of this simple recipe you will find bitter things become sweet and everything will seem good and pleasant; nothing could better cheer the heart.
"So let us be confident, let us not be unprepared, let us not be outflanked, let us be wise, vigilant, fighting against those who are trying to tear the faith out of our souls and morality out of our hearts, so that we may remain Catholics, remain united to the Blessed Virgin Mary, remain united to the Roman Catholic Church, remain faithful children of the Church."- Abp. Lefebvre
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FOURTH BOOK - THE FIRST TRIALS OF SOULS CALLED TO THE STATE OF ABANDONMENT
ARIDITIES, WEAKNESSES AND WEARINESS
Letter XI – Remembrance of Past Sins
To Sister Marie-Antoinette de Bousmard. On weakness remembrance of past sins, fatigue, and fears. Nancy, 1734.
My dear Sister,
1st. The calmness you enjoy in solitude, and the peace of mind and heart which, emptied of all created things, is no longer occupied with them in any way, are signs of true interior recollection. God deprives you of feelings of devotion during prayer, to prevent the desires and eagerness they give rise to. While you are at prayer remain exactly as you are in solitude. I do not exact from you an atom more of application or attention. Continue in this thoughtful pensive state without allowing your thoughts to dwell on created things and then you will be in God without understanding how, without feeling His presence, nor even knowing how this can be. This is a mystery which you will only be able to recognise by its happy effects which are–death to self, and unconsciousness of the things of this world.
2nd. To believe that you do nothing for God, and that the little you try to do is spoilt by an admixture of self-love, is nothing but the truth, and a truth so self-evident that it is extraordinary that it is not seen by everyone, and that we are not all trembling and annihilated before God. On the other hand, however, this truth is so shrouded in darkness for us, so completely hidden in the folds of our self-love, that we cannot be too grateful to God when He is pleased to allow us to grasp it.
When it pleases God to grant us by His holy grace, this clear knowledge of ourselves, accompanied by feelings of humility; then we no longer expect anything more from self, but everything from Him alone. No longer do we count on our good works, but solely on the mercy of God and the infinite merits of Jesus Christ; this is that true Christian hope which will be our salvation. Every other state, every other spiritual condition is full of risks to our salvation; but, to hope only in God, to depend only on God, in and through Jesus Christ, is that solid and immovable foundation that neither illusion, self-love, nor temptation can affect.
Oh! how I congratulate you on having arrived at this state! Hold to it firmly, it is the anchor of the vessel in the harbour of salvation.
3rd. I am glad to find, by your letter, how completely the good God in His mercy is keeping you in the dark. You attribute to your wickedness the recollections of the past which fill you with horror of yourself; but it is as clear as day that this is one of the most salutary impressions that grace can produce in you; there is, in fact, nothing better calculated to sanctify you than this holy hatred of yourself occasioned by these recollections, and the deep humiliation in which they keep you before God. These feelings are given you suddenly when you least expect them or are thinking of them, to make you understand that they are an effect of grace. “But why used you formerly to experience exactly contrary feelings when recalling the past?” It is because formerly you would not have been able to endure the sight of your imperfections without great despondency. It was necessary then that hope should predominate in you, but now you require a holy horror of yourself which is a true change of heart. When God gives you these feelings, receive them quietly and with gratitude and thanksgiving, and allow them to pass away when God pleases, abandoning yourself entirely to all He wishes to effect in you, and do not attach yourself to any of the interior conditions in which He places you, nor regret any of which He deprives you.
4th. I understand the difficulties of the duty about which you speak, and the strain to tired lungs of sustaining the chant, especially on great feast days. All this is very painful it is true, but what is also true and extremely consoling is that such is the will of God, and permitted by Him that you may overcome your own will. In a few words I will suggest to you how to act in this, and in any similar case. Prayers, frankness, sacrifice, abandonment. I will explain my meaning. Having implored light from God, go and explain clearly to your Superior how you feel, and in what state you are, then wait to hear from her mouth what God is pleased to arrange for you, being resolved to sacrifice to Him by perfect abandonment your dislikes, your health, and even your life, never doubting that, God Who has never been known to forsake those who abandon themselves to Him, will inspire her who is charged to manifest to you His will, to tell you what is necessary. One of three things will infallibly happen; either you will be relieved of your office, or God will sustain and preserve you in it, or else He will allow you to succumb and will take you to Himself out of this wretched life. Then, I ask you, my good Sister, if you could end your life in a better manner than by a sacrifice so generous, and an act of abandonment so perfect? Whatever happens, then, keep firm after making your attempt. Live or die in peace. We will not speak about it any more, it is God’s affair, and no longer yours. He well knows how to make everything turn to your advantage, and to His own greater glory. Oh! my dear Sister! in what a saintly, happy, and generous manner you will be able to act! How good it is to have chosen, once for all, the part of obedience and abandonment in all things! What peace! what a sacrifice! what a grace! what certainty of salvation! and above all, what merit in the eyes of God! What a consolation for me, in such a case, to learn that you have died a martyr to holy abandonment, and that God has permitted you to immolate yourself as a holocaust on the altar of His most holy, most adorable, and divine Will.
5th. Make yourself, therefore, a partaker of the contentment of God; place your happiness in the knowledge that His good pleasure is always accomplished in you; in this way even when you have occasion to be dissatisfied with yourself, you will reflect the satisfaction of God who, as St. Augustine remarks, is never so pleased with us as when we are displeased with ourselves. In this way it is that we constantly practise without even adverting to it the virtue of pure charity which consists in loving, in satisfying, and in willing in all things the good pleasure of God, preferring His holy will to everything that we could possibly wish, however holy our wishes might appear to be. You have chiefly two ways of exercising this meritorious abandonment. The first is, to say to God, “Lord I hate and detest my sins and imperfections, and I will make every effort to correct myself with the help of Your divine grace; as for the pain and abjection they bring me I accept this with all my heart for the love of You.” The second way is to say, “My God, I desire to please You, I desire my own salvation and sanctification, the gift of prayer, of mortification, and of all virtues. I ask them of You, and I will exert all my powers to acquire them, whenever You show me an occasion of doing so; nevertheless in this as in all other things I prefer Your holy will to my own wishes, I only desire to possess that degree of grace and virtue that You are pleased to bestow on me, and at the time appointed by Your divine wisdom even should that be the last moment of my life; for Your most holy will is the rule and measure of my desires, even of those that are most holy and lawful.” These acts, made with the whole heart, are the fruit of that pure charity which, according to the Doctors of the Church, is as efficacious as baptism and martyrdom for blotting out all our sins; as Jesus Christ said about Mary Magdalen, “Many sins are forgiven her because she has loved much.” Could anything be more consoling, fortifying and encouraging? You say that you live in a mean and poor way. “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” By this is intended interior humility and a holy self-contempt. You live without assistance, that is to say that you live in spirit, and in pure faith. Oh! what a happy state! Yes, happy indeed although this happiness is hidden from the soul. You go on blindly from day to day. This is perfect abandonment, you do not feel it, and hardly realise it, but if you felt and understood it, it would no longer be abandonment, but the strongest assurance of your salvation that you could possibly desire. For, what assurance could you have more satisfactory than the knowledge of being completely abandoned to God both for time and eternity? Abandonment is a virtue the entire merit of which cannot be acquired, unless the possession of it is unrealised. Go on in peace, then, in the midst of your fears, pains, and obscurities, and put your whole trust in God above all knowledge, and all feeling, in, and through Jesus Christ. May He be with you for ever.
Letter XII – How to make use of trials
On the use of trials and how to act about them.
Before anything else, my dear Sister, I think I had better explain what thought was suggested to me by your anxious doubts, and eagerness to consult me about your soul. I cannot help thinking that, if we were more attentive to the light given us by the Holy Spirit, better disposed to receive His holy impressions, and more faithful in following the impulsion of His grace, nothing more would be required to enable us to attain that perfection to which we are called; for I have noticed that even in the midst of the most profound spiritual darkness, there is ever in the centre of the soul a certain light of pure faith which is a most safe guide. Besides this, there are certain moments when the Holy Spirit makes known to us by a brighter, but very rapid light, that we are in the right way. Add to this a certain settled peace, even during interior storms, a right way of acting, and a regularity in the performance of duties, which, in spite of the frailty of nature, we never deliberately set aside, but follow with perseverance the maxims of the Gospel and the rules of perfection. An obedient and faithful soul ought to find in this a sufficient guarantee for confidently trusting herself with entire abandonment to this interior Spirit who guides her so well. It is often a sign of weakness, and an effect of the workings of self-love that we hanker after more complete assurance. However, there are exceptions to be made, such as the beginning of the spiritual life when the Holy Spirit has not yet acquired full dominion over us, and some extraordinary occasions when the tumult of the storm prevents us hearing His voice. I might content myself with this general reply but will, however, answer you in detail.
1st. This fresh condition of obscurity, dryness and distaste, into which God has permitted you to enter does not surprise me. This good Master always begins by making Himself known and loved in sensible devotion, and afterwards deprives the soul of these consolations to withdraw it from the earthliness of the senses, in order to unite it to Himself in a far more excellent way, more intimate and solid, by pure faith entirely spiritual. To make this purification complete, suffering has to be added to privation, at least interior suffering, interior rebellion, diabolical temptations, anguish, weakness, and repugnance for all that is good which sometimes rises to a sort of agony. All this serves marvellously to deliver the soul from self-love and to give it some trace of resemblance to its crucified Spouse. All these trials are so many blows that are inflicted on us by God to make us die to self. The more strongly self-love struggles against these blows the harder they seem and the more cruel the agony. Divine love is a two-edged sword, and strikes self-love until it is killed and destroyed. Great sorrow in these trials proceeds from the strong resistance of our cursed love of self which is loth to relinquish the empire it has gained over our hearts, and to allow the love of God to reign in its stead. This love produces only sweetness and delight as long as it finds no obstacles to its divine influence, nor any enemy to resist it.
Do not regret, then, in any way those days that you pronounce happy because you enjoyed sensible devotion in prayer and communion, and because your union with your Beloved was so charming and delightful. How much more precious and of inestimable value are your present days of agony and martyrdom! These are days of the purest love, since in them you are loving God at your own cost, and for Himself alone. You need not fear any mixture of self-love in your intercourse with Him, since there is nothing in this intercourse but what is crucifying to self-love. In such a state our will is united to the will of God, and it is this that we love, and with a love so pure that the senses have no share in it. It is most difficult indeed to love God in happiness without any admixture of self, or of vain self-complacency, but in the time of crosses, and of interior spiritual privations, all that is needful in order to be certain of the purity of our love, is to endure them patiently, and to abandon ourselves sincerely. How truly consoling and encouraging is this certainty for those who understand the value and advantages of pure love. When God makes you understand this you will also understand why so many of the saints preferred privations and sufferings to consolations and joys, how they so passionately loved the former that they could hardly put up with the latter. God may possibly allow you to think that this painful state is going to last you your life-time, in order to give you an opportunity of making Him a more complete sacrifice. Do not waver, do not hesitate for a single moment, sacrifice all! abandon yourself without reserve, without limitation to Him, by Whom you imagine yourself abandoned, and keep yourself always in this interior state which is, at present, the most essential for you. I would almost say it is the only one for you during prayer, at Holy Communion, at Mass, during the Office, and all the day long; but attend to this quietly without effort, and do not even attach yourself to the frequent repetition of formal acts, it will suffice to keep your soul in this habitual condition of total abandonment without any reserve. I forbid you, therefore, voluntarily to desire anything but the accomplishment of the most holy will of God. Ask neither for more nor less pain, God knows better than we do the right measure that is necessary for us. It is very often nothing but presumption and illusion that makes us wish to imitate certain saints who, in their sufferings were especially inspired to say, “More, Lord, more!” We are too little and too weak to dare to speak thus unless we have a moral conviction that God requires it of us. I forbid you also, all voluntary scruples, troubles, or doubts on the subject of the Office, of Holy Mass, etc. To act with a pure intention, and in simple good faith is enough; in this respect God asks no more of us, and I daresay you would not be able to do more at present.
2nd. Oh! how glad I am to hear you say that you are insupportable to yourself, that at every moment you are on the point of falling into a state of despondency and trouble, without, by God’s grace actually doing so. That is to say that God, in making you understand all your weakness upholds you invisibly, thus giving you the victory, while at the same time preserving you in humility. You might very likely lose this virtue, either entirely, or to some extent, if you found yourself possessed of courage, or felt some spiritual strength. Learn from this a most important lesson inculcated by Fenelon. It is a pure grace from God, and one of the greatest to suffer in a petty way, to conquer in a feeble manner, that is to say with a sort of spiritual feebleness, humbly and with self-contempt, and to be so discontented with ourselves that we do not believe that we ever do anything well. This discontent with ourselves is very pleasing to God, and His content should be the basis of our own. Nothing could give us any further anxiety if we found our sole satisfaction in pleasing and satisfying God.
3rd. God gives you a great grace also in enabling you while in your present state to faithfully fulfil all your duties and rules. I greatly commend you for having sought no consolation from creatures and for having made no mention of your troubles to anyone even in confidence. Your silence will sanctify you more than any conversation or advice.
4th. Another great grace is to feel neither trouble, nor fear nor anxiety about your present state, nor about the future, just as though you had become callous about everything. This is the fruit and happy effect of your entire abandonment. As you have abandoned all to God, He takes charge of everything, banishing all trouble, fear, and anxiety from your soul. He takes from it all feelings of self-interest, and leaves it alive only to His interests. This disposition is the solid foundation of the most absolute security that a soul could possibly enjoy, it is the greatest happiness this life contains for us, and a sure sign of the friendship of God.
5th. The words that were spoken to you interiorly, and that you heard so distinctly were assuredly from God. I recognise this by the good and immediate effects they produced in you. Only God can impress souls to such a profound extent with whatever He pleases. You see that the divine goodness does not refuse you occasional scraps of comfort and strength to fortify you during the journey He makes you take through the desert.
6th. There is no reason to be surprised that your spiritual afflictions have no influence with regard to your conduct towards your neighbour, nor deprive you of your patience and equable temper, and kindness. As a rule while in this state of trial one is generally more able to help, to console, to comfort, and to serve others.
Letter XIII – The Use of Trials continued
To Sister Anne-Marguerite Boudet de la Belliere (1734). The use of trials continued.
My dear Sister,
1st. Your present state of obscurity is a real grace from God, Who desires to accustom you to walk in the darkness of pure faith which is the most meritorious way, and the most certain road to sanctity.
2nd. Dryness and powerlessness are graces equally precious, and make you participate very meritoriously in the sufferings of Jesus Christ. “But,” say you, “this powerlessness prevents me asking God for necessary helps.” At any rate, it does not prevent you wishing to ask for them, and you ought to know that with God, our desires are real prayers, according to St. Augustine. This made Bossuet say that a cry pent up in the depths of the heart was of the same value as a cry that reached the skies, because God sees our most secret desires, and even the first simple movement of the heart. Apply these principles to your own case, whether at prayer, or before and after Communion. Nothing more is required to make our intercourse with God safe, easy and efficacious in spite of aridity, involuntary distractions and powerlessness, because none of these things prevent the desire to pray well, or to sigh and lament before God. His all-seeing eye detects the pure intention and preparation of heart, with all those acts that we should wish to have made; as He sees the fruits of the trees before the buds of springtime have formed on the branches; this is the beautiful comparison made by the Bishop of Meaux.
In God’s name, my dear Sister, try to enter into this maxim and to make it your own; it will console and sustain you on a thousand occasions when you feel that you are doing nothing, are incapable of making any effort. The good will is always there, and that is everything in the sight of God even when you imagine it to be absolutely idle.
3rd. Acquiescence in and submission to the will of God and the union of our will with His are so essential to perfection that it may be said to consist entirely in adhering firmly to them in all things, everywhere, and for everything. To do this is to do all, and without this, prayers, austerities, and works of even the most heroic nature, and all our sufferings, are nothing in the sight of God, because the only way in which we can please Him is by conforming our wills to His. The more involuntary opposition to this complete resignation we feel in ourselves, the more merit shall we gain on account of the greater effort required, and of the more complete sacrifice exacted.
4th. The knowledge and fear of the traps that are laid for us in all quarters both outside and within our own souls is exactly the grace that will enable us to avoid them, especially if, with this humble fear a great confidence in God is united; then we can rely on being always victorious, except perhaps in matters of minor importance where God permits us to fall for our greater good. These lesser falls are very salutary for us, in keeping us always lowly and humbled in the presence of God, distrustful of our own powers, and as it were, nothing in our own eyes.
5th. You must accustom yourself to seek, and to find the peace of your soul in the higher part, that which is furthest removed from the senses; and disregard the troubles, revolts, and uneasiness of the lower and animal part which should be accounted of no importance because God pays no attention to what takes place there. St. Teresa says that it is like the courtyard of the castle of the soul. Take advantage of this teaching which is that of the saints, and behave as a person who, finding the courtyard of her castle full of unclean animals and hideous reptiles does not stop there a moment, but mounts at once to the upper rooms which are well furnished and filled with an honourable company. Do you also mount into the sanctuary of the soul, and endeavour always to remain there, because it is there that God makes His permanent dwelling.
6th. Yes, you were right to abandon yourself to God in all things, and to cease disturbing your mind voluntarily with the recollection of the frequent experiences you have had of your misery and weakness; in this way the foundation of true humility and a complete self-distrust is laid and consolidated. These valuable dispositions draw down upon us all the graces of God and bring them to us clothed with His power; especially if He finds us convinced of our own powerlessness to do any good. This it was that made St. Paul exclaim, “When I am weak, then am I powerful.”
7th. I assure you on the part of God, that usually, indeed nearly always, when you think you are praying your worst, that is the very time when you are praying best. Why? Because on the one hand the will, and the firm desire to pray is a real prayer of the heart; and because, on the other hand, you pray then without any self-complacency, without any of those vain reflexions which spoil everything; you pray by your patience, your silence, your self-effacement, your submission and abandonment to God; and you leave off praying greatly humiliated and cast down, and without any of those sensible feelings of satisfaction to your self-love that made St. Francis of Sales say that our own miserable satisfactions were not those of God. You may judge by this with what contempt you ought to repulse the fears by which the enemy tries to disgust, and to weary you, or at least to throw you into a state of anxiety.
8th. The great and sincere desire you have to be all for God without reserve, and whatever it may cost, St. Francis of Sales calls the firm pillar of spiritual spiritual edifice. This pillar ought to sustain the whole weight. Fear nothing as long as it remains, and it will remain, by the grace of God, in the superior part of the soul; as for the inferior or sensitive part, think nothing about it.
9th. It is quite true that we can conquer self-love, but not without great trouble, and remember that this is far more the work of God than our own. Take advantage of little occasions for combats and victories, and be well assured that when God sees that, in good earnest, you are doing the little that is in your power with the help of ordinary graces, He will at last set His own hand to the task, and finish and perfect the work you could not accomplish. It is on this account that I advise you always to beg of God without ceasing the gift of His divine Spirit with all His holy operations, without which it is possible to spend a life-time in great defects and considerable imperfections from which there is great risk of never rising, but rather of falling ever lower, and even of being lost.
10th. Holy Communion is the true daily bread of our souls. In it alone can we find subsistence, power, remedy, and support. What a difference there is between those who communicate frequently, and those who do so but rarely! Oh! how little do the latter realise the riches, and the treasures of grace of which they deprive themselves!
Letter XIV – Remedies for Troubles
To Sister Marie-Therese de Viomenil (1734). The use of trials continued.
My dear Sister,
To apply a remedy to the trouble that makes you so unhappy, it will suffice for me to indicate the causes of it, in order to oppose it with the contrary principles. The origin of the evil is first an ignorance of your attraction. It seems to me that you have forgotten that divine grace makes different souls experience different attractions, some sweet, and some exceedingly crucifying. Among people in the world there are those whom God conducts by the way of prosperity; but a far greater number whom He compels to walk in the thorny path of the Cross, of afflictions and difficulties. Thus He apportions, according to His wisdom, spiritual joys and tribulations to those who lead a spiritual life. The work of salvation and perfection consists in following faithfully the path allotted to us according to the attraction God has given us, whatever this may be.
1st. You seem equally ignorant of this great principle, that usually more progress is made by suffering than by acting, and that to take things patiently is to do a great deal, and especially to be patient with oneself.
2nd. You forget, at any rate in practice, this other incontestable truth, that perfection does not consist in receiving great gifts from God such as recollection, prayer and the spiritual taste for divine things, but simply in fulfilling the will of God in every possible circumstance whether exterior or interior, and in whatever situation Providence may be pleased to place you.
3rd. Your troubles proceed from this ignorance and forgetfulness together with those anxieties and that interior depression which have embittered and doubled your pains, and have deprived you of the peace of your soul which is the foundation of the spiritual life, and have often led you to seek consolation in creatures by confiding your troubles to them when it was God’s will that you should have no consolation but that which He was pleased to give you Himself. You must correct this by other rules of conduct and a totally different way of acting.
1st Principle. Often say to yourself, “My way is painful, it is true; it is hard and bitter, but as it is the will of God I must submit, no matter what it costs; firstly, because God is my sovereign Master who has a right to dispose of me absolutely as He pleases. Secondly, because He is my father, and so tender, good, and merciful a Father that He can will nothing that is not for the benefit of the children whom He loves, and makes all things turn to the benefit of those who are submissive to Him. Thirdly, because I shall never find peace, calm, nor repose of heart, nor any solid consolation except in resigning myself humbly and patiently to all that He is pleased to ordain. Fourthly, because I cannot take a single step in the spiritual life unless I follow the path marked out, and decided for me in the eternal decree of my predestination. Can I mark out a path for myself? And if I could, would it not be like the path of a blind man, leading to destruction?
2nd Principle. “I ought to desire only that progress and perfection which God wills for me, and to wish to attain them only by those means He wills me to employ.” Such a desire can only be calm and peaceful, although at the same time, full of power and energy. There is, however, another kind of desire for perfection, born of pride, and of an inordinate love of one’s own excellence. This does not rely upon God for support, and besides, is restless and always in a state of turmoil. The more we have to give ourselves up to the first of these desires, the more strenuously we must resist the second. Therefore every desire for our progress, however holy it may seem, must be suppressed directly it shows signs of eagerness, disquiet or anxiety. These effects can only proceed from the devil, while everything that comes from God leaves the soul tranquil. Why then, my dear Sister, do you desire with such fiery eagerness those lights of the soul, those feelings, interior joys, and that facility of recollection and prayer, and other gifts of God, if it does not please Him to bestow them on you yet? Would not this be to make yourself perfect for your own pleasure, and not for His? To follow your own and not the divine will, to have more regard for your own inclination than for that of God, to wish to serve Him according to your own caprice, and not according to His good pleasure! “Ought I then to be resigned to spending my whole life in this state of poverty, weakness and misery?” Certainly, if such is the will of God. Your poverty, weakness and misery ought from henceforth to be pleasant to you, and preferable to any other state since it is willed for you by God. Henceforth this poverty will be converted into wealth, for to be exactly what God wills is to be very rich indeed, and all perfection consists in this alone. Moreover are you not aware that there is heroic virtue in the patient endurance of misery, weakness, spiritual poverty, darkness and callousness, of fickleness, folly, and extravagance of mind and imagination? It was this that made St. Francis of Sales say that those who aspired to perfection required to exercise as much patience, kindness, and endurance towards themselves as towards others. Let us then bear our own burdens of misery, imperfection, and defects in the same way that God wills us to bear one another’s burdens. It often happens however that, in this spiritual tumult the will endures strange commotions, and is on the point of giving way out of all patience. Let us keep firm for in this new battlefield fighting for patience and making fresh sacrifices we shall find fresh subjects for merit and triumph. And if during the first moments the poor will should escape, it must be made to try to regain possession of itself in humbling itself quietly and peacefully before the infinite mercy of God.
“But all these spiritual vicissitudes take off my attention from prayer, Holy Mass, the Office, and Holy Communion, and my spiritual exercises seem useless.” No! No! none of them are useless, because merely the will to acquit yourself well of these duties, which you formed at the beginning will be valid throughout, unless nullified by long continued and altogether voluntary distractions, in a word, by deliberate venial sin. Far from losing anything, you will have gained doubly, because combined with the merit gained by your spiritual exercises will be that of having made them in a most penitential and crucifying manner, and also with much humiliation; in this way, very far from having spoilt these holy exercises by foolish self-examination, and a thousand satisfactions of self-love, to which you would have been exposed in making them with feelings of devotion, you will have fulfilled these duties well by the practice of holy humility which is the foundation and guardian of every virtue. “But this will prevent me from feeling contrite.” The efficacy of contrition is not in the feeling of it, it is entirely in the higher part of the soul–in the will. Sensible contrition very frequently serves only as food for self-love and can never be reassuring, since it is not what God requires.”But supposing I have no contrition of the will?” You should believe and hope firmly that God has given it to you; but if you should only have had contrition once after having already confessed your sins it would be enough to remit them all, both past and present sins, so great is the mercy of God.
My dear Sister, I will conclude with this consoling assurance; if it had pleased God to make your state known to you as it is to me, you would be thanking Him for it instead of afflicting yourself about it. Remain in peace then in whatever condition you may possibly find yourself: when you have achieved that you will have done all that is necessary. Repeat constantly “Blessed be God for all and in all. I wish only what He wills and nothing more. May His holy will be done in me, and by me. May none of my wishes be accomplished; they are all blind and perverse. I shall be lost if they are accomplished.”
Letter XV – Trials to be Endured Peacefully
To the same person. Trials to be endured peacefully.
1st. We are entirely of one mind, my dear Sister, now that you admit with me that your activity and eagerness are defects. Strive against them with all your strength, that is all that I ask. You say that I want you to be faultless and quite perfect. That is true, and has always been the object I had in view for you. At the same time I do not consider it a crime that you have not yet attained this perfection. I realise that this can only be achieved gradually by a great confidence in God, and a great fidelity to His grace. He alone can accomplish in you the work He has begun; what you have to do is simply to abandon yourself to Him, and to allow Him to act. Do not be one of those of whom Jesus Christ said, speaking to St. Catherine of Siena, that they made hardly any progress in perfection because they talked so much themselves, that they could not listen to Him, and would act themselves, and gave Him no opportunity of acting in them.
2nd. I am delighted to hear that you feel that God supports you in your afflictions; continue to endure them as peacefully as you can, and in a perfect interior silence. This practice alone will cause you to advance in a calm and peaceful way. God has given you courage and energy; these are talents that you must profit by. This divine Master asks that, for the present, you will make your courage consist in patient endurance and resignation; but it is in the depths of your soul, not in feeling, that He wishes to find this abandonment, and, in His infinite goodness, at the same time that He requires it of you, He bestows it upon you. For this grace unite with me in returning thanks to Him, for He could not have bestowed upon you a more precious gift. Perhaps a day will come when this resignation will become sensible, and then it will be as sweet, as now it is bitter, and you will enjoy that heavenly unction which Jesus Christ has attached to His Cross. This is what makes the peace and joy of the saints unchangeable, and it is what those experience who follow generously the path of perfection and a spiritual life, in sacrificing everything for God. You tell me that with your character and temperament it seems to you impossible to acquire a taste for the interior life. So it is, truly; but what is impossible to man is easy to God, and it is on Him alone, and on His grace through Jesus Christ, that you have to depend. In order to compel you to lay a foundation of humility in your soul this God of goodness begins by making you feel most keenly your own weakness; but, when this feeling depresses you, encourage yourself to hope, for God, as you know, is pleased to make His grace triumph most in our greatest weaknesses.
3rd. The petition you so often make interiorly, “Lord, have pity on me, You can do all things,” is the best and most simple prayer that you could possibly make. Nothing more is required to draw down His powerful aid. Keep steadfastly to this practice and to the habit of never expecting anything from yourself but of hoping to obtain all from God. He will do the rest, without your perceiving it, and I feel assured that this will be visibly shown by the result. I am interiorly convinced that unless prevented by great infidelity on your part, God, by His holy operation will perform great things in pour soul. You may count upon this, if you do not voluntarily oppose any obstacle. If you become aware of having unfortunately done so, humble yourself immediately and return to God and to yourself with a perfect confidence in the divine goodness.
4th. We must only attach ourselves to God and to His holy will by acquiescing in all His arrangements which cannot fail to be for our happiness and profit. If, on our part, there should be nothing else but this blind submission to His good pleasure, we ought to be contented, because in this alone consists all perfection, and the true love of God.
5th. It is a great grace to realise the folly and extravagance of the pleasures that worldly people pursue so eagerly. From this you will derive great good for your soul which, in this contempt for the world will find a powerful motive for giving itself entirely to a spiritual life. Perhaps you will say that you are still but a novice in this life. I acknowledge that, but you admire it, desire it, ask for it, and are tending towards it; here are so many different degrees of grace; the rest will follow in due time. Meanwhile moderate your spiritual vehemence, and your holy ambition.
6th. You are beginning, you say, to be indifferent as to whether people behave well or badly towards you. This is a greater grace than you imagine. But there are times, you say, when sadness and discouragement seem to overwhelm you. This you must put up with as well as you can, and accept the annoyance of finding yourself so weak, for this is most irritating to our spiritual self-love. This is the most meritorious of all the sacrifices by which we must immolate it, as it is the most humiliating. It is quite permissible to expect some sensible help and support in the spiritual life, but we must hope for it with moderation, seek it without excitement, and make use of it without becoming too much attached to it, and lose it when God wishes to deprive us of it, I do not say, without pain, but without being voluntarily cast down and troubled. Above all it is necessary to make God our principal help, to count on Him in default of others, to trust in Him unreservedly, to have recourse to Him in all dangers and for everything, as little children do with their loving mothers. This holy simplicity, this humble and childlike conduct towards God will touch and move His paternal heart, and obtain sooner or later all that we ask, or something else better for us, which is often given us even without our knowledge.
7th. The complaints made by our Lord to St. Catherine of Siena of the exaggerated activity of those souls in saying and doing so much themselves, that they left Him not one moment in which to effect anything, should be understood in this sense; that in working and accomplishing our duties, we should do so without excitement, and natural impetuosity, and that, during the day we should listen to the voice of divine Wisdom to hear Him who speaks in the centre of our hearts without sound of words, because His operation is His word. Moreover, that in all our prayers, readings, examens, and thoughts of God we should act quietly, gently, without confusion or effort, seeking only the union of our hearts with God, and for that making use of frequent pauses to give the Holy Spirit of God time to work in us what He pleases, and as He pleases.
8th. All that you tell me about your fear of your faults being rendered greater on account of your realisation of the presence of God is an illusion of the devil who, in this way tries to withdraw our attention from this divine Presence, and to diminish our devotion while we are before the most Holy Sacrament. Continue to follow this exercise without fear; I see the fruits of it, and they will become so sensible that you will see them yourself in course of time.
9th. I congratulate you that God has taken away some of your natural vivacity. The loss of your gaiety will only be temporary. It will return, but completely changed, or rather transformed into spiritual joy, quiet, tranquil and peaceful, because it will be like that of the saints, in God and coming only from God.
10th. I greatly approve of your method of prayer; continue the same, and make acts when you feel inclined. When, during pauses, or interior silence some good thought or inclination should be suggested to you, receive it quietly; and do the same with interior repose, whether sometimes greater or less, as God pleases. In a word, tend always towards that sovereign Lord, more by the affections and desires than by the mind and intellect; and no matter what He gives you be always satisfied. God knows better than we do what is necessary for us; let Him act, but let us be absolutely convinced that the least repose of heart we enjoy in His holy presence is worth more than anything we could say or think ourselves. May this conviction impel you ever more strongly to tend with all your heart towards this holy repose; and when God gives it to you do not interrupt it, for these are the precious moments when the King of kings admits those souls Whom He honours with His predilection to a friendly audience.
Letter XVI – Sensitiveness about Defects
To Sister Charlotte-Elizabeth Bourcier de Monthureux. Sensitiveness about defects a sign of self-love.
My very dear Sister,
1st. I thank you for your good wishes, and above all for your prayers. I also pray for you every day at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. I thank our Lord for the good effect produced in your soul by my letters, but you must allow me to remark that I find you still very sensitive about the state of misery, poverty, and spiritual weakness to which you find yourself reduced. This can only come from a great amount of self-love which cannot endure a state of nothingness, and abhors the necessity of self-effacement. Nevertheless you must necessarily pass through this trial because your mind has to be emptied of self before it can be filled by the Spirit of God, and He will make you die to your old life, before you are able to begin a new one. What you want is to acquire the one without losing the other; this cannot be: have patience and preserve a certain peace in the centre of your soul during these interior tempests. Your state of obscurity and callousness, to whatever degree it may attain, need not alarm you; all that is necessary is to submit, and to abandon yourself entirely to God. Do not worry yourself to try and feel submissive; feeling has nothing to do with this business; it is enough if you are willing to submit, for this is practised by the higher part of the soul.
2nd. You are wrong in finding your weakness a subject for anxiety. As long as you have confidence in God, He will sustain you as He has done hitherto on the brink of the precipice. Possibly it will be by an imperceptible thread, but, in the hand of God, this slight thread is like a thick rope.
3rd. In the painful positions of which you speak there are only two things to be done; either to throw yourself in spirit at the feet of Jesus Christ, and to kiss those sacred feet, or, if you cannot do that, keep an interior silence of submission and adoration, and content yourself with an exterior sign, such as, raising your eyes to heaven, and then lowering them and bowing your head, remaining thus for a little while in union with Jesus Christ in the Garden of Olives. If possible, remain ever there, by the side of Jesus Christ humiliated, cast down, and annihilated before His Father. I love to see you in prayer taking the position of a beggar, of a beast of burden; but still more do I love that indescribable something which inwardly draws you on without any distinct aim, but with a certain dry repose full of aridity. When you get so far, hold on to this state contenting yourself with waiting in that peaceful expectation of which I have so frequently spoken to you. Again at other times try to make some acts, or to read something as quietly as possible and with frequent pauses to give room for the interior attraction to act. But always remember that you ought to follow the least attraction that draws you interiorly, and to retain it peacefully without too much exertion, and without seeking out distinct thoughts. This repose in the presence of God, this slight recollectedness is of even greater value, and will cause you to make more progress than the most sublime thoughts.
4th. I congratulate you in having, by the help of the grace of God, overcome the rebellion and repugnance you felt with respect to your office. It is by these difficult victories that solid virtue is acquired. All the details you give me about your painful feelings and distastes make me see the goodness of God Who desires to destroy in the centre of your heart that presumption of which you could never be cured without this bitter medicine. These truly diabolical feelings that God allows the devil to produce in your soul are an antidote to that much more diabolical feeling of pride. Learn from this to allow God to act, and to abandon yourself, if it so please Him, to much greater miseries and interior humiliations. If He should condemn you to these, He knows well how to draw you out of them, with great profit to your soul, provided always that you are faithful in calling upon Him with confidence out of the depths of your nothingness.
5th. I think that what you say is true; God wills your humiliation; love this state for yourself because it forms some resemblance between you and your divine Spouse. This love for and desire of humiliations will make you progress more in the ways of God than all the other practices together. Try, therefore, to profit by every little occasion, and feed your mind on the thought and desire of abjection, just as worldly people feed their minds on thoughts and desires of vanity. The profound peace that you have begun to experience in the midst of humiliations, contempt, and rebuffs, is one of the greatest graces of which you have ever spoken to me. If you continue thus a great change will be effected in your soul by this means alone.
6th. As to what regards exterior mortification, follow in everything the rules of moderation, discretion and obedience, but make up for what they refuse to allow you to do, by interior abnegation in refusing yourself the least little desire, the least little pleasure, and the least thought which is not of God and for God, rejecting all that is useless in order to occupy yourself exclusively with Him. Oh! what a joy and triumph for me when I shall see my dear daughters abject like Jesus Christ, humbled and annihilated! Do you, therefore, follow the grace of this attraction; it will lead you on. I cannot repeat often enough that I will never cease praying that God may give you this holy love of abjection. About evening devotions; I have neither time nor inclination to enter into the subject. Believe me you already have too many practices, and must try to simplify matters that relate to the soul. Just the presence of God, abandonment to God; just the desire to love God, and to be united to Him. These are the most simple exercises, and more definite for souls a little advanced in spiritual matters, and of far greater importance than any exterior practices.
Letter XVII – Confidence in God
To Sister Marie-Therese de Viomenil. Confidence in God is the cure of self-love.
My dear Sister,
When you have neither time nor inclination to read, try to keep yourself simply in peace in the presence of God, and do not trouble to practise works of supererogation unless by His special intimation and impulse, and if they are done with facility. If you seem to be wanting in courage for many things, compel yourself at any rate to retain in your heart a determination to be all for God. Humble yourself with the consideration of the inefficacy of your own resolutions, and look upon yourself as having so far done nothing. The less confidence you place in yourself, the more easy will it become to have entire confidence in the mercy of God alone, through the merits of Jesus Christ. This is that solid and perfect confidence which completely annihilates self-love by withdrawing all those resources upon which it was accustomed to rely. There could be nothing more salutary for some souls than this kind of martyrdom.
You say that some sort of sacrifices lead to God while others do not, but rather lead to revolts against Him. This idea is a mistaken one, caused by judging of good and evil in matters of devotion, by the senses. Some sacrifices which do not touch the heart in a vulnerable spot, always afford consolation, and thus lead us sensibly to God; but those that wound the heart, poignantly cause so much pain that we are greatly troubled, and inclined to break down completely. To the sorrow these sacrifices entail is joined another very painful suffering; namely, the fear of being unable to bear it, and of gaining nothing by it. This it is that produces the false idea that these sacrifices turn us away from God. Nevertheless it is an assured principle that the more these sacrifices touch us to the quick, and the more they make us die to ourselves, and detach us from all consolation, and sensible support, the closer they draw us to God and unite us to Him. This union is all the more meritorious in being hidden and further out of the range of the senses. Self-love, therefore, has no share in it, since it cannot feed on what it can neither know nor feel. May God deign to convince you of the truth of this consoling assurance, which is the teaching of all the Doctors of the Church, and is confirmed by every experience. In order to understand it thoroughly you must remember that in almost everyone there is such a depth of self-love, weakness and misery, that it would be impossible for us to recognise any gift of God in ourselves without being exposed to spoil and corrupt it by imperceptible feelings of self-complacency. In this way we appropriate as our own the graces of God, and are pleased with ourselves for being in such or such a state. We attribute the merit to ourselves, not, perhaps, by distinct and studied thought, but by the secret feelings of the heart. Therefore, God, seeing the innermost recesses of the heart, and being infinitely jealous of His glory, is obliged, in order to maintain it, and to protect Himself against these secret thefts, to convince us, by our own experience, of our utter weakness. It is for this purpose that He conceals from us nearly all His gifts and graces. There are hardly more than two exceptions to this rule; on the one hand beginners who require to be attracted and captured through their senses, and on the other hand great saints who, on account of having been purified of self-love by innumerable interior trials are able to recognise in themselves the gifts of God without the least feeling of self-complacency, nor even a glance at themselves. For my part I can bear witness to this constant action of divine Providence. God has so completely hidden from those who have appealed to me, the gifts and graces with which he has loaded them, that they cannot see their own progress, nor their patience, humility and abandonment, nor even their love of God. Then, too, they can hardly help weeping at the supposed absence of these virtues and at their want of generosity in their sufferings. However, the more afflicted and full of fear are their souls, the less need have their directors to fear and to be afflicted on their account. This ought to cure you of making so many difficulties for yourself. You would understand this still better, perhaps, if you were to consider what Fenelon said on this subject, “There is not a single gift so exalted but that after having been a means of advancement, cannot become, in the sequel, a snare and an obstacle to the soul, by the instinct of possession, which sullies it.” On this account God withdraws what He had given, but He does not take it away to deprive us of it absolutely. He withdraws it to give it back in a better way, after it has been purified from this malicious appropriation made by us without our perceiving it. The loss of the gift prevents this feeling of proprietorship, and this gone, the gift is returned a hundredfold. All this seems to me to be of such great importance for you that I think you would do well to read it over often although it is rather lengthy. By dint of impressing it on your mind you will, I hope relinquish those false prejudices, and the many errors that so frequently disturb and destroy the peace of your soul. Without this peace, as you know, it is impossible to make any progress in the spiritual life.
I am acquainted with a spiritual person who is so convinced of the truth of this rule that I have heard her say many times, that after having prayed for certain spiritual favours for a very long time, and after having had innumerable novenas and prayers offered for the same intention she often said to God, “Lord, I consent to be for ever deprived of the knowledge as to whether it has pleased You to grant me these graces, because I am such a miserable creature that when I know I possess a particular grace I immediately convert it into a poison. It is not that I wish to do this, Lord, but such is the corruption of my heart that this accursed self-complacency spoils all my works almost without my knowledge and almost against my will. I feel that it is I who tie Your hands, Oh my God! and who oblige You to hide from me in Your goodness those graces that Your mercy induces You to bestow upon me.
You, my dear daughter, have more need than anyone else to understand these feelings, for I have never hitherto met with anyone who depended so much on what is called the sensible help of direction under the specious pretext of spiritual need. I have always thought, without mentioning it to you, that the time would come when God, desiring to be the only support of your soul, would withdraw from you these sensible props without even allowing you to learn in what way He could supply all that of which He had deprived you. This state I must own is terrible to nature, but in this terrible state, one simple “Fiat,” uttered very earnestly in spite of the repugnance experienced in the soul, is an assurance of real and solid progress. Then there remains nothing but bare faith in God, that is to say, an obscure faith despoiled of all sensible devotion, and residing in the will, as St. Francis of Sales says. Then it is, also, that are accomplished to their utmost extent the words of St. Paul when he said, “We draw near to God by faith,” and “The just man lives by faith.” All this ought to convince you that it is not in anger but in mercy and in very great mercy that God deprives you more than others. It is because He is more jealous of the possession of your whole heart and all your confidence, and for this reason He is obliged to take away everything and to leave nothing sensible either exterior or interior. Therefore, my dear Sister, a truce to reflexions on present or future evils. Abandonment! Submission! Love! Confidence!
Letter XVIII – Sacrifice and Fidelity
To Madame de Lesen after she had become a Religious in the Order of the Annunciation. Sacrifice and fidelity are the death of self-love.
My dear Sister,
You ask me several questions, but what can I say in answer that holy books, meditations, preachers, directors, and above all the interior spirit have not told you hundreds and hundreds of times?
1st. Do you not know that it is only very gradually that self-love dies, and that we learn to live only in God and for God? This is effected by a constant fidelity in carrying out those sacrifices demanded by the interior spirit; sacrifices of the mind, of the will, of every passion and caprice, of every feeling and affection, in fine and above all, the sacrifice of an entire submission in every trial, in the perpetual vicissitudes of the soul, and in those sometimes very painful states through which we have to pass in order to be entirely united to God.
2nd. Do you know that the state of pure faith excludes all that can be sensibly felt? In this state of deprivation progress is made without assistance from anything created, but the bare light of faith remains always in the highest point of the soul, and by this light we can not only see what we ought to do, and what to avoid, but we know also that, by the grace of God, we live in horror of evil and fly from it, and in the love and practice of virtue. Therefore it is well to say, “I am living in perfect confidence, and am not risking my eternity.” “But suppose I am mistaken, and deceiving others without knowing it?” If you do not know it, then you are in good faith, and this will excuse you in the sight of God Who is as merciful as He is just. “But in spite of all this I still feel very much alarmed.” Yes, that cannot be helped; our condition in this life is one of fear, because no one can be perfectly sure. God wills that we should glorify Him by an abandonment full of love and confidence. This is the tribute He most particularly exacts, and as He gives us the means of offering it with greater merit, why should we be alarmed? We should have more reason to be afraid if we had ceased to fear. There is no state that is more suspect than that which is devoid of fear, even if it should be accompanied by love and confidence. When, on the contrary the fear of offending God is the prevailing sentiment, the considerations I have explained ought to be sufficient reassurance. They are perfectly solid, because they rest on the immutable principles of faith. In default of sensible devotion we should attach ourselves to this bare faith preserved by God always in the centre of the soul, or the higher point of the spirit.
3rd. Do you not know that the sensible presence of God is often by its sweetness an occasion of satisfying our self-love, and that in order to prevent it being dangerous to us God deprives us of it leaving us only bare faith devoid of sweetness, or any kind of mental images, figures, or representations? “But,” you say, “I do not know if I have this faith.” Well! at any rate you know that you aspire to it continually. This desire is, in fact, perhaps too vehement in you, since you are so prone to get excited and vexed when you are disappointed. Therefore you have, at least, the continual and habitual desire of this divine presence. This desire is known to God Who sees the slightest movement of the heart. That ought to be enough for you. Remain then in peace, confidence, submission, and abandonment, and in grateful love.
4th. Do you not know that the best preparation for Holy Communion is that operated in the soul by God Himself? Approach then with confidence, with complete abandonment to the state of poverty and deprivation in which it has pleased God to place you. Remain in it as though sacrificed, annihilated and unseen like Jesus Christ in His Sacrament, because He is there in a kind of annihilation. Unite yours to His. Where there is nothing left that is created, or human, there is God. The more destitute of all things, and divested of self you become, the more will you be possessed by God. Make for yourself a spiritual treasure of this very poverty by a continual adherence to the will of God. From the time you begin this practice you will become richer than any of those who possess the greatest gifts of joy and consolation. You will possess the riches of the holy will of God without fear of self-complacency, since this holy will is bitter to nature and humiliating to pride. Sweet and salutary bitterness which serves as an antidote to the poison of self-love and the sting of the serpent of pride!
Letter XIX – Glorified by Sufferings
To Mother Louise-Franc,oise de Rosen. On the use of trials even if they be punishments.
Reverend Mother,
I do not presume to find excuses for the imperfections of the good Sister about whom you ask my advice, and since God has taken upon Himself the punishment of them by sending her the most cruel trials, she seems to me more to be envied on this account than to be blamed for her faults. There is much in these faults that deserves the verdict of the church on the sin of Adam. “Happy fault which merited so glorious a Redeemer!” This good Sister, you tell me, has acknowledged her faults, and now, overwhelmed by the weight of her trials, is much more inclined to depression than to obstinacy. Therefore you only have to revive her courage and to console her gently. Tell her that she has lost nothing, and that far from being abandoned by God she is much nearer to Him than when all was prosperous with her, and she seemed to succeed in everything. I authorise you to tell her from me that I consider her more happy than before in consequence of her sufferings by which God is purifying her more and more, like gold in the crucible, to unite her more closely to Himself. For you must both take into consideration this great principle: the extent to which the soul is purified in its most secret recesses, is the measure of its union with the God of all holiness. By this you can judge if this poor Sister should not be considered the happiest of all, if she could be persuaded to look upon her state of suffering from this point of view. However, if the violence of this trial prevents her seeing clearly the value and use of it, let her rely on her faith, and let her glorify God by patience and an unreserved submission, abandoning herself entirely to His adorable permissions without relaxing in the least degree any of her spiritual exercises, especially as regards prayer and Holy Communion; and without giving way to a secret desire suggested by self-love, to shake off the yoke of the cross of God. “But,” she will answer, “this comfort would be just if my state were a trial only, but I have every reason to believe that it is a punishment inflicted by God.” I acknowledge this, but in this life no punishment is inflicted by divine justice without a loving intention of divine mercy. This is particularly the case with those souls whom God most loves. God often permits their faults in order to be enabled to derive glory from them, and to make them serve for the salvation of these souls. The chastisements He inflicts sanctify while humiliating them, and dispose them to unite themselves more closely to God, at the same time as they become more detached from self. Therefore they are chastisements as well as trials; chastisements inasmuch as they atone for the past evil and satisfy divine justice; and trials because divine mercy makes use of them to prevent future danger, and for the exercise of many very meritorious virtues. You cannot insist too strongly on these truths with souls in trouble and affliction no matter what may be the cause of their anguish. Let all such remember that nothing happens except by the ruling of divine Providence, and by His adorable permission. Give this dear Sister who is so full of pain the most deeply spiritual reading; this is the only means she has to soften and relieve her continual torment, and to make it bearable; to convert her pain into profit, and to recover from it at the time arranged by divine Providence. God has given me in her behalf, all the interest and charity of a spiritual father, and the thought never leaves me that the day will come when she will be my joy and my crown in the presence of God, and even now visibly before men by a most edifying life. I hope she will always keep before her mind the memory of the past in order to humble herself before God, and thus to establish firmly a solid foundation for the spiritual life in which even her faults may prove a guarantee of her perseverance and progress.
The Religious in question seems to be Sister Anne-Marguerite de la Belliere to whom Fr. de Caussade had written several times. For having taken too much time and pains to prepare a little oratory where she made her Retreat she became deprived of all that light and consolation that God usually lavished upon her during prayer.
Letter XX – The Fruit of Trials
To the same person on the fruit of trials, Profound Peace.
1st. The deep calm you experience, the profound inner peace with which you are filled and which you find so sweet, is not an illusion but a true operation of the Holy Spirit Who speaks in the centre of your soul. Peace and love, says St. John of the Cross, are one and the same. Peace can be felt, but love cannot be perceived in the same manner, but is very real, nevertheless. I am not surprised that when God deigns to bestow these precious gifts upon you, you no longer feel your usual infirmities. The interior grace in your soul reflects itself in your body, and causes your pains to cease. I know many who find no more efficacious means for the cure of their maladies than this quiet recollection in God, when He is pleased to bestow it upon them; for, as you truly say, it does not proceed from ourselves.
2nd. To remain simply in the presence of God, quite abandoned to His love and mercy is also an effect of the Holy Spirit in the soul. You have but to remain humbly and simply in the hands of God, adhering to Him, and giving yourself up to His love, so that He may do with you, and in you all that He pleases. But never make this sweet repose your object; always go further and aim at the possession of Him Who bestows it upon you; and value it only as a means of uniting you more closely to God Who is your centre, your life, and your all. Never forget that you may, possibly, find yourself bereft of everything in the most complete spiritual poverty, and left to the simple practice of bare faith for the extinction of self-love. This death of self hardly ever occurs without a deprivation of all things, and at the mere thought of this one’s very nature shudders. It is then that one seems lost indeed, without any support, and left in the most cruel abandonment.
3rd. I am glad that God has lessened the fear of reprobation by which you were tormented. Now you can, without so much difficulty, abandon yourself, by making the following act. “May God do with me whatever He pleases, I wish to belong entirely to Him by loving and serving Him as well as I can. He is the God of my heart, the God of my salvation, and my salvation cannot be left in more secure keeping. I abandon it to Him with the greatest confidence.” Abandonment by itself can give us an assurance of security that self-love seeks unsuccessfully from creatures or from self. Our weakness and blindness are much more calculated to make us tremble; and, when we enter into ourselves we find what would cause us to despair unless we remembered with confidence the infinite goodness of God. Therefore we can only be reassured through Jesus Christ, in Him; and we find Him proportionately to the measure in which we abandon ourselves.
4th. The simple “Fiat” you pronounce comprises everything, and the feeling of your continual dependence is one of the greatest of God’s graces. The thought of His paternal love and all-powerful aid is the reward of it. When the heart is animated by filial confidence it becomes easy to receive no matter what from the hands of this most merciful Father.
5th. Pure love without any admixture of interest or self-love can only come to you from God, but to acquire a gift of such infinite value the soul is obliged to endure many deprivations and trials. These are so many operations necessary for its purification, because we are always prone to become attached to the pleasure that God allows us unless taught by sad experience to love Him even in the most terrible state of privation. I am delighted to hear that the interior spirit reigns in your community. If holy recollection does not comprise everything it is, at any rate, the way to acquire all. You are quite right to leave out all those compliments and ordinary good wishes for the New Year as far as I am concerned. God sees that they are in your heart where they form a continual prayer on my behalf, just as my wishes for your welfare are as a prayer in the sight of God. “Our desires,” says St. Augustine, “are as regards God, what our speech and words are with regard to men.” He hears them, and, we may hope, will answer them.
"So let us be confident, let us not be unprepared, let us not be outflanked, let us be wise, vigilant, fighting against those who are trying to tear the faith out of our souls and morality out of our hearts, so that we may remain Catholics, remain united to the Blessed Virgin Mary, remain united to the Roman Catholic Church, remain faithful children of the Church."- Abp. Lefebvre
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FIFTH BOOK - FRESH TRIALS, SUFFERINGS AND PRIVATIONS
Letter I – Rules to be Observed in Illness
On illness and its uses. Rules to be observed. To Sister Marie-Therese de Viomenil.
My dear Sister and very dear daughter in our Lord,
The peace of Jesus Christ be always with you. Do not fear that your illness will be a danger to your soul, but, on the contrary, be reassured that you will derive great profit from it, because:—1st. To suffer peacefully and patiently without any resistance is to suffer well, although you may not make any express and energetic acts of acceptance. The heart by submitting, and by a humble and simple acquiescence offers them passively.
2nd. Also, my dear Sister, you ought to thank God as for a grace, in that you suffer in a feeble and small way; that is to say without feeling much courage and as if you were overwhelmed by your illness and on the point of losing patience, of complaining, and giving way to the revolts of nature. Yes, it is a grace and a signal grace, because to suffer thus is to suffer with humility and lowliness of spirit; whereas, if one felt a distinct courage and strength, a conscious resignation, the heart would swell with satisfaction, and one would become filled with self-confidence and spiritual pride and presumption. In your state, on the contrary, you feel weak before God, humbled and confounded at suffering in so feeble a manner. This is a certain truth, very consoling, very spiritual, and very little recognised. Remember it, then, on all occasions when, feeling more keenly the weight of the Cross and of your sufferings you feel at the same time your weakness, and submit in peace and simplicity in the centre of your soul to all that God wills. This way of suffering is most sanctifying, and is what Fenelon calls becoming little in your own eyes and humbling yourself with the knowledge of how wanting you are in courage to suffer. If all people of good will understood this truth they would be able to suffer in peace and simplicity, without being distressed and wounded in their self-love by finding themselves so helpless and with so little courage to bear their sufferings. You should apply this rule to all your afflicting trials, and especially to those daily annoyances you experience from the person who worries you, and also when you have feelings of antipathy towards anyone else.
3rd. As regards the alleviations you might find beneficial; certainly those officious persons who imagine they cannot do better to show their charity to the sick than by raising in their minds all sorts of longings are, as you remark, not to be accounted charitable; their flattering conversations are so many snares; at the same time you ought to take, without scruple, humbly and in holy simplicity, all that the doctors, superiors, and infirmarians order. Obedience and giving up our own will which we practise in acting thus are much more agreeable to God than any bodily mortification. This is another truth that many devout persons lose sight of, and are consequently very unmortified even in their mortifications. Do not forget this, because self-love and following your own will would spoil everything, corrupt everything, even in practices that are very holy in themselves. Oh! how happy should we be if we could once for all renounce our own will, judgment and ideas for the love of God!
Letter II – Different Sufferings
On sufferings of different kinds.
My dear Sister,
The sufferings about which you ask my direction are of different kinds. There are great trials, and the vexations of daily occurrence. These, on account of their multiplicity form the chief part of our treasure if we only know how to take advantage of them. Believe me, inasmuch as it depends on our own efforts it is necessary to bear the little crosses we encounter every day, for by them God will enable us to destroy our self-love. Oh! how happy should we be if we could but get rid of this accursed vanity which embitters us and irritates us about every trifle, makes us commit a thousand faults, and do ourselves great harm by the constant annoyance and interior trouble it causes us. Even should the occasion present itself of having to endure still greater sufferings, remember that they will pass like everything else, and that when they are over we can have no consolation in having borne them badly, and in having derived no advantage from them. On the other hand what a great satisfaction it will be to have made a virtue of necessity. To do this do not speak more than is necessary about them, and then in as few words as possible; do not make a fuss about them, or about the pain they cause you; abandon all to divine Providence who will make everything conduce to your profit if you live by faith. I pray God to make you well understand the great spiritual fruit, and the temporal blessings derived from the holy practice of entire resignation to the holy will of God in all things, and from total abandonment to all that He permits, recognising that without this divine permission not a hair can fall from our heads, nor a leaf in Autumn from all the innumerable trees of the forests. This is of faith. Could Jesus Christ have more clearly expressed than by these words, that there is no event, great or small, in the world which has not been expressly arranged by the sovereign providence of God? Oh my God! how consoling this is, and how easily we could cast off all our cares if, according to Your own words we could learn to look upon You as a loving Father, and upon ourselves as Your children, and to remember that You never show us more love than when You make us take bitter remedies for our cure! Have pity, Father of infinite goodness, on those who are sick, who, in their delirium turn against You, their good Physician, and refuse the medicine which is intended to procure them health and life.
Oh my God! how many blind and senseless people there are in the world who will not even listen to these truths although You have revealed them in the sacred Scriptures for our present consolation and our future salvation!
Letter III – On Public Calamities
To Sister Marie-Therese de Viomenil. On public calamities and disasters.
The disaster of which you speak is, as you say, a most visible scourge of God; happy will they be who take advantage of it to save their souls. These punishments, borne well, as from the hands of God, are of more value than all worldly prosperity. At the same time they may be made, by a bad use, the occasion to some of eternal reprobation. This will be, however, entirely by their own fault, and their very great fault, for what could be more reasonable, or easier in a sense than to make, as I said before, a virtue of necessity? Why make a useless and criminal resistance to the chastisements of God, Who is our Father and Who strikes us only to detach us from the miserable pleasures of this world? Could He do us a greater favour than to deliver us from attaching ourselves to that which would cause us to lose eternal happiness and our own souls! On such occasions it is well to think often and attentively of this passage in the writings of one of the Fathers of the Church. “Such is the goodness of our heavenly Father that even His anger proceeds from His mercy, since He only strikes us to withdraw us from sin, and to save us.” Like a wise surgeon He cuts the mortified flesh away from that which is sound to save the life of the patient, and to prevent the infection from spreading. We should accustom ourselves to see everything in the light of faith; and then no event of this life, nor desires, nor fears will have any effect on us. Those strong hopes that so frequently upset the peace of the soul and the tranquil course of life, even those will make very little impression on us. How blind men are! and how much attached to their own ideas! How rarely one meets with anyone who will own that he has been obliged to seek and to take good advice! St. Francis of Sales had good reason to say that we are all wanting in sense. At least let us understand the depth of the misery and blindness into which sin has caused us to fall. Let us learn from this to be always distrustful of ourselves, and to guard against our own judgments and perverse ideas. St. Catherine of Siena was so convinced of the truth of this that she wished she could cry out constantly in a way to be heard by everyone: “Lord help me, come to my assistance and have pity on me!” Do not forget in future that a simple “Fiat” with regard to your present pains, and to those which you fear in the future either for yourself, or for others, will suffice to amass for you a treasure of peace even on earth. If this practice does not bring perfect peace immediately, it will, at least, fill your soul with joy and enable you to taste a solid consolation in all your pains and fears.
Letter IV – Opportunities for Practising Charity
On contradictory tastes and characters.
Far from pitying you I consider that you are more to be congratulated on having, at last, an opportunity of practising true charity. The antipathy you feel towards the person with whom you have such continual intercourse, the difference in your ideas and tastes, the offence she causes you by her manners and conversation are so many infallible signs that the charity you show her is purely supernatural and without any admixture of human feeling. This will be a way of amassing pure gold, and it depends entirely on yourself whether or not you will heap up an immense treasure. Be grateful, therefore, to the good God and in order to lose nothing of the inestimable advantages of your present position follow out exactly the rules that I will now give you.
1st. Bear patiently the involuntary feelings of disgust that this Sister’s behaviour causes you, just as you would bear a sudden attack of fever or megrim. Your antipathy is really, in fact, an interior fever, with its shivering and paroxysms. This is very crucifying, humiliating and painful, consequently is more meritorious and sanctifying.
2nd. Never speak, as perhaps the others do, about this Sister unless to speak kindly about her, remembering that she has her good qualities. And which of us is without bad ones? Who is perfect in this world? It is possible that without your will or knowledge you are as great a trial to her as God allows her to be to you. God often polishes one diamond by friction with another, says Fenelon.
3rd. When you have committed some fault in this matter do not distress yourself but humble yourself quietly without voluntary vexation either with her or yourself, without anxiety, annoyance or uneasiness. If we treat our faults in this way they will be to our profit and advantage. God keeps us in a state of true humility by these miseries, and the daily faults by which we discover our own pettiness.
4th. For the rest, unless your duty obliges you, do not meddle in anything that is said or done, let everything go on without speaking or thinking about it. Abandon all to divine Providence. What does it matter if everything goes, if everything perishes, provided that we belong to God and save our souls? But, I almost hear you say, if such or such a thing should happen what shall I do? This! I will take no notice, I will have nothing to do with it, because I should be sorry to lose this happy state of abandonment which makes me live in complete and absolute dependence on God from day to day, hour to hour, moment to moment, without a thought of the future, nor even of to-morrow. To-morrow will take care of itself. He who sustains us to-day with His invisible hand, will sustain us tomorrow. The manna in the desert was only given from day to day, and whoever, through want of confidence, or a false wisdom, gathered it up for the next day, found it spoilt. Let us not in our anxious and ignorant foresight make unnecessary provision for ourselves, when God in His wisdom and foreknowledge provides for us. Let us depend entirely on His fatherly care and abandon ourselves to it utterly both for our temporal concerns and our spiritual and eternal interests. This is true and total abandonment which binds God to take all under His care with respect to those who abandon all and thus pay that honour to His sovereign dominion, His power, wisdom, goodness and mercy that is due to all His infinite perfections. Amen.
Letter V – Profit to be gained by Patient Endurance
You have reason to bless God, my dear Sister, for having preserved in your heart peace, gentleness, and charity for the person whose place it is to wait upon you. He has given you a great grace. Perhaps He may still allow that, either through ignorance, thoughtlessness, or even, if you will, out of caprice, or bad temper, she may give you occasion to practise patience. Then, Sister, try to profit well by these precious occasions which are so adapted to gain the heart of God. Alas! we offend this God of all goodness not only through ignorance and thoughtlessness, but deliberately and maliciously. We want Him to forgive us, and this He most mercifully does, and then we will not forgive others like ourselves. And we recite every day the prayer our Lord taught us, “Forgive us, Lord, as we forgive.” We must remember also the words of our God, telling us that He would act towards us as we act towards our neighbour; therefore we ought to bear with our neighbour, and to show him consideration, charity, gentleness and condescension; and God Who is faithful to His promises will treat us in like manner. I am enlarging on this subject a little because it will give you occasion to practise the greatest and most solid virtue every day; charity, patience, meekness, and humility of heart, benignity and the renunciation of your own ideas; and these little daily virtues faithfully practised will procure you a rich harvest of graces and merits for eternity. It is in this way better than in any other that you will be able to obtain the great gift of interior prayer, peace of mind, recollection, the continual presence of God, and His pure and perfect love. This simple cross borne patiently will draw down upon you an infinitude of graces, and will enable you more efficaciously to become detached from self than trials, in appearance much more grievous, and to attach yourself unreservedly to God.
Letter VI – Difficulties
To Sister Marie-Therese de Viomenil. On different kinds of difficulties.
My dear Sister,
How can you still feel surprised at that of which your experience ought to have convinced you for a long time past? As long as we live upon earth, and do not live among saints we shall always require patience to put up with each other. It is a good thing for us that such is the case, so that we may have more frequent opportunities of practising the most meritorious virtues; charity, humility, and self-renunciation. Let us then resign ourselves with a good grace to this necessity, let us try to profit by the faults of our neighbour and be indulgent towards them, and by our own faults and rise speedily from them. This is the only way to keep peace. I acknowledge that your habitual position is extremely hard, but then what a fund of merits for Heaven! what a magnificent opportunity of doing penance, and of practising heroic virtue! You can hardly fail, if it lasts, to attain in a short time, the grace of an interior life, if you continue to practise abnegation, and self-renunciation by charity, humility, resignation and abandonment to God. These acts of virtue will soon make your heart ready to receive the sweet infusion of divine love; and therefore I should feel very much disappointed on your account if you were given an easier and more agreeable post. These trials of which you complain were valued and sought for by the saints with eagerness, because they understood their worth and advantages for the reformation of the soul, and far arriving at true union with God. You have, for a long time past, been attacked by a temptation all the more dangerous the less you suspected its danger. This comes from never having rightly understood this truth, which is an article of faith, that everything that happens in the world, with the sole exception of sin, comes directly from God, and the ordinance of His will. Also further, although it is certain that God never wills sin, nor consequently the calumnies, persecutions and injustices of which His elect are the victims; He wills the consequences, nevertheless; that is to say, that He wills that His elect should endure calumny, persecutions, humiliations, and often martyrdom in a thousand different ways. I say the same of the consequences of our own sins. A man, by his own imprudence, or even by more culpable means, falls into poverty, illness, and all sorts of severe afflictions. God, while detesting the sin, wills its consequences, such as poverty, illness and misfortune. This man then can, and ought to say, “Lord, I have thoroughly deserved this, You have permitted it, it happens by Your will, may Your holy will be done, I acquiesce in all. I adore and submit.”
It was the knowledge of this great principle which made holy Job say, “The Lord hath given, and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the Name of the Lord.” He did not say, “The Lord hath given, and the devil hath taken away,” because the devil has no power to do so without the permission of God, and it was from this principle that he drew his perfect submission, constancy, and peace of mind.
For want of being thoroughly imbued with this great principle, you have never known how to submit to certain conditions and events, nor, consequently to remain in them firmly and tranquilly according to the will of God. The devil has always tempted you, made you uneasy and deceived you by a hundred illusions and false arguments about them. Try then, I beg of you in the interests of your salvation and peace of mind, to put an end to such a mistake; you will, at the same time put an end to the vexations you feel, and to all the rebellious feelings of your nature. For this end accustom yourself to make acts of faith and submission about every event that happens either through the agency of men or the malice of the devil or your own fault, and even your sins. God has permitted it thus. He is Master, may He be blessed in all, and may His holy will be accomplished in all things. Fiat! Fiat!
Your situation is very painful, it is true, but on that account it is very sanctifying and is the best penance you could possibly perform, being assured that it is imposed on you by God Himself. All that the evil presents to your mind to the contrary is an evident illusion to deprive you of the peace of God, to make you sad, uneasy and vexed; always discontented with your present state, and sighing for some other. This is why so many in the world are as unhappy as they are culpable, for want of being able to understand this truth, so important and so consoling, of which I have just reminded you. How many torments would they not spare themselves, and how much merit would they not amass in the midst of their trials if they could but persuade themselves that God makes use of all things for His glory and for the benefit of His creatures; and that it remains for them to derive profit from all by a blind submission which must be total, general, without exceptions and without contrary arguments, at any rate, none that are deliberate. If I could but inscribe this truth on your mind and heart even with my blood! But God will do so Himself gradually I am sure, if you will but co-operate with His grace by rejecting at once all thoughts contrary to it. Once more I entreat you to submit in spite of all repugnance and disgust to the secret decrees of this adorable Providence, and you will become holy and pleasing to God.
Letter VII – Rules for Difficult Circumstances
To the same person. On the same subject. Rules to be followed.
I own, my dear Sister, that there is nothing more difficult than to keep a perfect evenness of temper and an immovable patience amid domestic difficulties and intercourse with those persons of different character by whom we are surrounded. The constant friction makes it almost impossible for us not to forget ourselves occasionally; but if one falls one moment, one can rise immediately. To fall is a weakness, to rise, a virtue. If one loses hold on oneself it is but to gain a firmer hold without feeling annoyed, and little by little God gives all to those who know how to wait patiently. But you want everything with impetuosity and imagine you are going to become perfect at once. You must try to moderate by degrees the turbulence and agitation of these desires which clash with each other at the risk of being broken. However, if you cannot altogether prevent this collision you must try to endure it quietly and humbly, and not increase the misery uselessly by tormenting yourself because you are tormented. The difficulties that are caused you, and the injustice of certain people towards you are, I own, the most revolting thing in the world, my heart is troubled with only reading about it; but what other remedy is there than the one we have already made use of for the cure of many other ills?–to raise our eyes to heaven and to say, “Lord, it is Your will, You permit this to happen, I adore and I submit. May Your holy will be done. Your divine permission will help me to carry this cross in expiation of my sins, and to make me merit heaven. Fiat! fiat!”
If I knew a better remedy I would impart it to you, but as I am certain that this is the most efficacious you must excuse me trying to find others. I own that it is next to impossible not to give way on such occasions to some slight movements of impatience, revolt, and bitterness, at any rate, interiorly; but you must return as quickly as you can to God and to yourself by humbling yourself quietly without too much trouble, and asking earnestly of God the necessary patience.
Letter VIII – Annoyances caused by Good People
To the same person. On annoyances caused by good people.
1st. The annoyances you have experienced must have been all the more painful as coming from people from whom you would least expect them; but be assured that you will have gained great merit for heaven by them. Men’s ideas are so different; they vary according to their interests or temper, and each is convinced of his own sense, and that he has right on his side. Oh men! men! To what have we come? What an abyss of humiliation for the whole human race! It is a good thing to have arrived at the bottom of this abyss, for it will be more easy to place all one’s confidence in God. The mind, enlightened by faith, disposes the heart to submit to the decrees of divine Providence who permits good people to make each other suffer to detach them from each other. On occasions such as these we can only resign ourselves, and abandon ourselves to God who will support us. These dispositions will enable us to turn a deaf ear to arguments that might tend to disturb us. Whether we consider ourselves, or the conduct of others towards us there will never be wanting specious reasons for becoming vexed and uneasy. But there is never any reason for depression and worry. These irregular emotions are always contrary to reason as well as to religion; and the peace of which they deprive us is of incalculably more value than that for which we sacrifice it.
2nd. For the rest it is always allowable to speak in confidence to a director, to obtain consolation, strength, and instruction, but always do so with charity and discretion. Nevertheless it is better and more perfect to keep silence. It is to God alone that we should confide our vexations, and tell all as to a friend, or director worthy of our entire confidence. This is an excellent and easy way of praying, and is called the prayer of confidence, and the outpouring of the heart before God. By it is gained great spiritual fortitude, and from it proceeds consolation, peace and courage. If you continue to live as you are doing now, very imperfectly no doubt, but with a sincere desire to improve, and with efforts proportioned to your weakness, our salvation is certain. Even the fear you feel about it is a gift of God provided it does not go so far as to trouble you, and to prevent you frequenting the Sacraments, practising virtue, or continuing your spiritual exercises. As for the hardness of heart and want of feeling that you complain about, be patient and offer this affliction to God in a spirit of penance as you offer Him your illnesses and bodily infirmities. Those of the soul are much harder to bear and consequently more meritorious.
Letter IX – How to Bear these Trials
To the same Sister.
I feel keenly, my dear Sister, the painful nature of the trial to which God has subjected you, and the sadness of your heart at receiving these daily wounds. It is true, I own, that it is necessary to be very holy to be able to let such things pass unnoticed, without feeling any kind of resentment; but, if you cannot attain such perfection yet, try at least during these times of trial, first to dismiss as far as you are able, all those thoughts, feelings and that language likely to embitter your mind; secondly if you cannot succeed in doing this, at any rate, say interiorly in the superior part of your soul, “My God, You have permitted this, may Your adorable will and divine decrees be accomplished in all things. I sacrifice to You this affliction and its consequences according to what pleases You. You are the Master, may You be blessed by all and in all things.” Then add, “I forgive, Lord, from the bottom of my heart for the love of You the persons who cause my sufferings, and to show the sincerity of my feelings about them I ask for them all sorts of graces and blessings, and every happiness.” When the heart is inclined to resist say, “My God, You see my misery, but at least I desire to have all these feelings and I beg this grace of You.” Having done this think no more about it, and if uncharitable feelings still molest you be resigned to endure this torment in conformity to the divine Will which permits it, contenting yourself with renewing the offering in the higher part of the soul. This is one of the ways by which we can share the chalice of Jesus Christ, our good Master.
Letter X – To see God in our Trials
To the same Sister. On seeing God in our trials.
I am surprised, my dear Sister, that with the help of the rules I have so often given you, you are not even yet able to recognise the hand of God in the misunderstandings that arise among people with the best intentions. “God,” you say, “does not inspire anything that brings trouble.” That, in one sense, is true, but is it not also true that God has permitted, and often permits His servants to be given to mistakes and illusions which are intended to try them, to exercise them, and, in this way to sanctify them by the trouble they cause each other? We see hundreds of examples of this in the lives of the saints, and again quite recently in the lives of St. Francis Regis, and the venerable Sister Marguerite-Marie Alacoque [Canonised in 1921.]. Try to judge, not by human judgment, weak, narrow, and blind as it is, but by divine judgment which alone is upright, sure, and infallible. In this way you will improve, and not have the peace of your mind and heart disturbed.
"So let us be confident, let us not be unprepared, let us not be outflanked, let us be wise, vigilant, fighting against those who are trying to tear the faith out of our souls and morality out of our hearts, so that we may remain Catholics, remain united to the Blessed Virgin Mary, remain united to the Roman Catholic Church, remain faithful children of the Church."- Abp. Lefebvre
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FIFTH BOOK - FRESH TRIALS, SUFFERINGS AND PRIVATIONS
Letter XI – To Seek God’s Help Alone
To the same Sister. On the deprivation of human assistance.
You think yourself greatly to be pitied, my dear Sister, because God has deprived you of the helps that up to now He has contrived for you. You are indeed to be pitied, but only on account of your want of resignation to the arrangements of divine Providence. Is it not deplorable that a soul chosen by God, and which He had taken into His service and overwhelmed with graces, instead of being contented with Him, ardently sighs after the little helps it receives from fellow creatures? These helps are all very well if God allows them, but when He takes them away, how much better it would be to rely upon Him alone! With what joy a soul that truly loved Him would repeat over and over again, “My God, You are my all! Lord! I have only You, but You are enough for me, and I desire nothing but what You give me.” The almighty hand of God will then take the place of a weak and worthless reed in regard to this soul. With this certainty how can you possibly consider yourself unhappy and abandoned? That which terrifies you is, that in future you can have no advice until too late. For my part I must say that, after so much advice and so many letters from the most enlightened directors you ought to be able to advise others. Besides, even though in certain circumstances you should have a serious doubt, is that any reason to despair? Raise your heart to God and He will not refuse to guide you when all other guidance is taken away from you; and then choose, unhesitatingly, what you believe, in good faith, to be the most suitable, the most useful to souls, and the most in conformity with the Will of God. Whatever may be the result, you must believe that you have acted rightly because, under the circumstances, you could not have done better. Do you really think that God demands impossibilities? No! God, Who is infinitely good, loves straightforwardness and simplicity, and is satisfied when we have done all in our power after having asked with confidence for His divine light.
You tell me that in your isolated condition you can see nothing that is not a subject of trouble and affliction. Oh! what a grace is this! It should have produced, or will necessarily produce in you, a complete detachment from all created things. Does not God give such a grace only to those souls He most loves? Oh! daughter of little faith, but daughter beloved of God, complain after this if you dare! “Only God,” you say again, “can know all that I suffer.” If you are not exaggerating, I congratulate you with all my heart. It was thus that the blessed Mother St. Teresa spoke during her great spiritual difficulties. It is a good sign to find life sad and bitter. Death is terrifying because of the judgment that follows: but unless this terror causes disquiet, it comes from the Holy Spirit. I should fear much for anyone who did not feel this salutary dread.
Letter XII – God Alone
To the same Sister. On the absence of a director.
My dear Sister, I am neither angry nor surprised at what you feel about the departure of your director. If, instead of allowing yourself to be cast down by this feeling, you could master it, it would be the occasion of the most meritorious acts of abandonment to God. Thus you would gradually become detached from creatures, and unite yourself to Him, Who alone is your sovereign good. Oh! what a joy! what safety as to the future life and unchangeable peace for the present to be in God alone, to have no other treasure, no other support, no other help or hope but God alone! I wish I could send you a beautiful letter that one of your Sisters has written to me on the subject. She says that, for a whole month this thought, “God alone, I have only God,” gave her so much consolation and support, that instead of regret, she felt full of peace and an inexplicable joy. It seemed to her that God took the place of director, and that in future He would correct and instruct her Himself. It was to Him I recommended you when I left, and continue to do so. This is the farewell that Mother–[The Religious of whom Fr. Caussade speaks here seems to have been the Superior of the Refuge at Nancy, founded by Mdme. de Ranfaing.] bid me on the eve of my departure, “Father, I bid you farewell as this is the will of God.” That same evening she went to console the other Sisters, and the next day held the conference as usual. Since then she has had much to suffer, but has done so with a resignation that was worth more than any gratification, even spiritual.
Letter XIII – Reliance on God Alone
To the same Sister.
I acknowledge that a visible guide endowed with all the requisite qualities for so difficult a position, is a grace of God, and a powerful help to the soul. But if Divine Providence should refuse us this assistance, or should take it away from us, if we could say with our whole heart, “My God, I have only You, You are all that I desire,” what we should obtain by doing so, would be worth all that we could obtain by means of a director. It is an undoubted fact that God often deprives us of all outside help in order that we may give Him our sole confidence. Oh! if we would but give it entirely to Him without sharing an atom of it with anyone, whoever it might be! how well repaid we should find ourselves! For the want of any help from creatures, we should experience a great liberty of spirit. If, however, you have such contrary feelings it is because you are still very far from having that purity of love which makes us seek God for Himself alone. In fact this is evident, because the extreme sorrow and trouble to which a soul deprived of exterior help abandons itself, can only proceed from an immediate attachment to these human helps.
This attachment excites the jealousy of God, particularly if souls that have been favoured behave in this way, as He desires all their confidence and affection. But take courage! as God has made you endure the severe trial arising from such an attachment, He wishes in this way and by means of this very pain to moderate it gradually, until finally you are freed from it altogether. Allow Him to effect in you this desirable purification, and compel yourself to fulfil His designs faithfully. This will be an operation of grace as salutary as it is painful. You must endure it patiently as you would endure the suffering of some painful remedy intended to cure certain serious complaints. However, if you cannot at once succeed in becoming completely detached, at least desire with all your strength to become so, and moderate as much as you possibly can, the sorrow of which you cannot entirely rid yourself. God will do the rest when He thinks fit. Offer yourself to Him to do with you as best pleases Him, and show Him simply and humbly all your misery and weakness; that will suffice; this good Master asks no more at present, because this is all that you can do. Rise quickly from your frequent falls, which, as far as this matter is concerned are not sins but merely imperfections. For the rest, be satisfied to go to confession for the sake of absolution, then go to Communion as usual; in other respects your only help will be God. The rules which have been given you on former occasions will suffice to guide you, provided that you allow God to animate them with His spiritual unction. The more you wish for something fresh, the more tormented will you become, and to no purpose; and you will also commit many imperfections which will impede your spiritual progress just as much as real sins prevent others entering the way of salvation. The fear of not knowing, or of passing over many interior sins is another temptation of the enemy to deprive you of peace, and to disturb you. I command you for God’s sake to make yourself quite easy in this respect, contenting yourself with mentioning in confession that which your conscience tells you is the most important. Leave all the rest to the very great mercy of God without worrying yourself at all about it. Thus your confessions will be unconstrained and peaceful, and in this way will also be very fruitful. If we give way to trouble, we derive hardly any fruit from our confessions, and this the devil knows very well. If you have any difficulty in finding positive sins that you know to be such, just mention some particular sin of your past life, and after be at peace. This is the usual practice of well-intentioned persons, and you will lose nothing by following it.
Letter XIV – Abandonment in Trials
To the same person. On abandonment in trials of this nature.
My dear Sister,
1st. I always exhort you to be patient and to abandon yourself to God because you have need of these virtues. God alone is all, everything else is nothing. Attach yourself to Him therefore strongly, entirely and resolutely. He has intentions and designs which are not for us to fathom. For all our ills there is no other remedy; for all our sufferings no other consolation than submission, and complete abandonment. This is the most certain way of amassing a fortune for eternity and of gaining that true life which will never end.
2nd. Look upon your ills and infirmities as a very advantageous exchange for purgatory where you would have to suffer much more severely in the next life, if you did not pay your debts while here on earth.
One simple “fiat” during your exterior and interior pains will be enough to make you acquire true sanctity. Remind yourself of what St. Francis of Sales said to one of his penitents, “My daughter, repeat often during the day, Yes, my heavenly Father, yes, and always yes.’” It is a very short and easy practice; nothing further is required to attain perfection. We need not go far to attain it, since we can easily do so without seeking it outside our own souls.
3rd. I am much edified by your holy reflexions about the very small amount of consolation you find in creatures, and I strongly approve of your taking this as a merciful punishment for your over great tenderness and excessive affection for your relations and friends. A trial endured in such a manner cannot fail to contribute powerfully to recall your affections to Him for Whom alone we are created, and apart from Whom we can find no repose.
4th. But I perceive that now, as formerly, the most afflicting trial you have to endure is the deprivation of all outward help for your soul. I have often told you, and again repeat, that although it is true that this help is a grace from God, yet, I maintain that, with regard to some people and certain characters, the withdrawal of this support is in the end a still greater grace, and a most efficacious means of sanctification. Listen to me without interruption. When God honours a soul by being jealous of its love, the greatest favour He can confer upon it is to gradually deprive it of everything that could turn its love away from Him; because never would it have sufficient courage and strength to detach itself. Now, God has seen that for a long time past, after having become detached from all other creatures, you still kept an attachment for and a confidence in your spiritual guide. This attachment was in no way wrong, most certainly, but it was the same sort of feeling that the Apostles had for their divine Master before His Resurrection. This jealous God Who aims at being loved purely and solely for Himself, cannot endure this sort of division, and therefore He has taken away from you the one who shared with Him the affection of your heart. This is truly your heaviest cross, because by it you have been attacked in that most sensitive spot, your heart, which formerly discovered so many ingenious pretexts to render its sorrow justifiable. I can hear you say to yourself that you do not regret this deprivation on account of the consolation of which it has robbed you, but because of the assistance it has given you for your spiritual progress and which is now taken from you. A mistake! an illusion of self-love! One “fiat” uttered in this sort of privation gains more merit in the sight of God than could be acquired by the most beautiful, the most worthy, the most consoling direction in the world. “But,” say you, “if one were guided by a connected course of advice one would not committ so many faults.” I answer that these faults are less displeasing to God than the smallest little attachment, however pure and innocent it may seem, and really be fundamentally. Therefore, I cannot sufficiently admire the goodness of God Who for many years past has led you by this sort of privation to break off in you all, even the least attachment. At present He is attacking your body by illness to detach you from yourself. He attacks the soul by weariness, disgust, callousness, and other troubles to detach you interiorly from all sensible help and consolation. If you will but allow Him to act freely in you, you will come at last to adhere only to Him by pure faith and in spirit, or, as St. Francis of Sales puts it, by the higher faculties of the soul. Let this God of all goodness act then, for He desires all your confidence. I cannot help adding that the longer I live, the more clearly I see and understand that everything depends solely on God, and that if everything is left to Him, all will go well. No sooner do I make the sacrifice of everything to Him, than all goes perfectly.
5th. You do well to think that there are others who have much heavier crosses than yours, but be careful that the thought of the weight of yours does not prevent you being resigned to God. We might very likely be deprived of a sensible and consoling submission, but that which comes from pure faith and is simply spiritual can never be wanting to us. That which is not spoilt by any sort of vain self-complacency is very much more meritorious. This is why God gives only this last sort of submission to most people, leaving the soul groaning and humbled under the weight of its afflictions. God’s gifts are according to our requirements. He bestows especial graces to enable us to bear extraordinary troubles. What we cannot help, patience makes bearable. This is what a pagan philosopher said, enlightened only by human reason; what then, may not faith and religion make us think and say when we look at the crucifix and think of the eternal happiness in store for us?
Letter XV – The Use of Afflictions
On the usefulness of those afflictions.
My dear Sister,
When I consider the infinite value of your present trials I dare not wish them to cease; what I do wish is that you should keep yourself in a perpetual state of sacrifice and abandonment, or at least to tend that way, and to desire and implore it incessantly of God. With this disposition, and by making good use of crosses and afflictions, you will advance your eternal interests much more rapidly than you would by consolations and success. In a short time everything will have an end for us, and we shall have a boundless eternity in which to rejoice and to return thanks. This thought should completely console us for all our pains both interior and exterior, for these will procure us the joys of paradise. Let us remember that we have but little time to attain to this infinite happiness! and let us try to render ourselves worthy of it, at no matter what cost.
To continue, my dear Sister, I have already pointed out the fruit obtained by your soul in the great trial through which God has made you pass. In spite of the violent tempests it raised in your soul, I have no doubt that it greatly contributed to your spiritual progress. You learnt by it how to remain interiorly crucified, to be wearied of everything earthly, to make many painful and frequent sacrifices to God, to overcome yourself in many ways, to be patient and submissive and to abandon yourself to God. “But how,” you will ask, “has all this been done?” It has been done by means of troubles, reverses, and feelings of utter repugnance; by the higher faculties of the soul, and often without your knowledge, and without your being able to understand how you had this submission which you possessed without being aware of it. At other times you were persuaded that you did not possess it, and hardly desired to have it, while all the time there it was at the bottom of your heart! Oh! how admirable are the ways of God! If you had known as I did, the depths of your soul, you might, perchance, have spoilt all by secret reflexions and vain self-complacency. Let God do His work. It is through our ignorance, blindness, and obscurity that He can act as He pleases, without having His work spoilt by us. We acknowledge this, even by our humiliation when we believe that all is going wrong, that all is lost! but it ought to suffice for you to know that I see clearly enough the progress you have made to re-assure you, to answer for you, and to encourage you! Oh! how I wish that you would have more confidence in God, more complete abandonment to His all-wise and divine Providence which arranges even the smallest events of our lives! He turns them all to the advantage of those who confide themselves to Him, and who abandon themselves unreservedly to His fatherly care. What peace does not this confidence and entire abandonment produce in the soul! and from what uneasy and vexatious cares without end does it not deliver us? But as we cannot attain to this all at once, but gradually and by imperceptible degrees, we must aspire after it without ceasing, ask it of God and make frequent act of it. Occasions for doing so will not be wanting; let us avail ourselves of them, and repeat constantly, “Yes, my God, since it is Your will and You permit it thus to be, I also will it for love of You, help and strengthen me.” All this quietly, without effort, with the higher powers of your soul, and in spite of interior repugnance of which you need take no notice, except to bear it patiently and so make a sacrifice of it. Let us even wish to make these acts in the midst of these repugnances and revolts, since God wills or permits it thus to happen. If we should fail in this respect, let us act as we should after any other fault, try to regain what we have lost by interior humility, but a humility that is sweet and tranquil, without self-contempt, or annoyance with ourselves or others. I repeat, without despondency or voluntary vexation, for the first involuntary movements do not depend upon ourselves, and provided that we do not give our consent to them, they will make us exercise more meritoriously the virtues of patience, meekness and humility. In this miserable exile we find everywhere continual and unavoidable dangers and there is no other way of safe-guarding oneself, than to take quietly, and without over-eagerness, those precautions that prudence suggests, and then to trust everything to divine Providence. Throw yourself into the arms of God and remain there peacefully and without care, like a little child in the arms of a good and loving mother. Whoever knows how to make use of this practice will find in it a treasure of peace and of merit. Try to act thus about everything and at all times, and to adopt somewhat of this interior spirit. Nothing could be more calculated to pacify and to moderate impulsiveness and natural impetuosity; nothing could better prevent or soften a thousand bitter annoyances, and a thousand uneasy forebodings. The state of P.F. is to be lamented. God wills to sanctify her indeed, since He afflicts her so grievously at the end of her life. At that time it is doubly hard to nature to be neglected, but what a consolation to be able to suffer so much for God before going to appear before Him. Consolations are in truth a great blessing, but not to be compared to sufferings and trials. God preserve me from that sort of blessing. I have no doubt I should like it and find comfort in it. A middling virtue could make good use of the first grace, but it would require heroic virtue to practise, with God’s help, the second. I remain yours in our Lord until death and even after, if God will do me this favour. I sincerely hope that He will.
Letter XVI – Detachment
To Sister Marie-Therese de Viomenil. Bitterness mingled with pleasure to detach the soul.
1st. I am not surprised, my dear Sister, at the trouble which the grievous trial to which our Lord has subjected you, has caused. This sort of event affects us all the more keenly in that they wound us in our most intimate affections. But if I am not surprised at this involuntary trouble, at the same time I urge you to supersede it in your heart by an entire resignation to the will of God. How great will be the treasures of grace, of merit, and of peace which such an act will bring to you! It is on this account that I have so constantly inculcated the virtue of perfect abandonment, and still preach it incessantly, wishing you to become as tranquil and as happy as I wish you to be holy. You have not yet attained to this, but with God’s help you will.
2nd. God allows my sick relation to remain in the same state, to prove, and to convert the whole family. If they avail themselves of this opportunity, as I have every reason to believe they will, I shall bless God from the bottom of my heart for this happy occurrence which is worth more than all the fortunes in the world.
3rd. I am about to lose the best and dearest friend I had left, one whom I most esteemed, and on whom I could thoroughly rely. God has willed it thus. His holy will be done! Fiat! I commend him to your prayers.
4th. Blessed be God in all, and for all, but especially in this, that He knows so well how to make everything serve for the sanctification of His elect by one another. On this subject the holy Archbishop of Cambray has well said that God makes use of one diamond to polish another. What a useful thought for our consolation! and one that will prevent us ever being scandalised at the little persecutions of one another that good people are given to.
5th. Hail and rain have caused great havoc in many provinces as well as in your neighbourhood. May God grant us grace to derive profit from all these disasters for the expiation of our sins. A simple and sincere “fiat” is worth more than all the superfluities that we desire, because it adds to our treasure for eternity. Once filled with these high thoughts and hopes, we shall feel much less the occurrences of this short and miserable life.
6th. By dint of constantly thinking of death, we shall gradually come to contemplate it without shrinking. Fr. Bourdaloue has very well expressed this when he said, “the thought of death is indeed a sad one, but by dint of considering it as salutary, it will at last appear almost pleasant”; and a Jesuit theologian, Fr. Francis Suarez, said when his last moment came, “I did not know it was so sweet to die.”
7th. Sometimes one hears it said, “I have no longer either help to fortify me, or instruction to encourage me.” This is an occasion for sacrifice, “fiat, fiat.” All instruction, however much it may strengthen us, does not equal in value what we gain by one simple “fiat” uttered in the lack of all extraneous help. The high road to all perfection is pointed out in the “Our Father.” “Fiat voluntas tua.” Say this with your lips as well as you can; and still more perfectly in your heart, and be assured that, with this interior disposition nothing is wanting to you, nor ever will be. Learn by this to find repose in no matter what difficulties and troubles, because all will come right when God pleases, and according to our desires, if He should will it so, or permit it. Crosses and afflictions are such great graces that the wicked are rarely converted without them, and good people are only made perfect by the same means.
8th. God can easily make up for all, and really does so if we wish for nothing but Him, and expect to receive all from Him alone. It is in order to lead us gradually and by a happy necessity to this beautiful and desirable condition that He frequently deprives us of all human aid and consolation, and in the same way He mingles bitterness with worldly pleasures to disgust and detach the souls of worldly people from them, in order to save them. Fortunate disappointments! happy privations! which come from the goodness of God rather than from His justice. It is thus that we ought to regard them.
Letter XVII – Conduct during Trials
To the same Sister. On conduct during trials.
My dear Sister,
Ought you not to be able to overcome your fears, and to check your tears after all the experience you have had of the way in which your mind creates phantoms when anything affects it keenly, making you indulge in idle terrors? If it is impossible to prevent these tiresome wanderings of the imagination, at least endeavour to gain some profit by them, and to make of them matter for interior sacrifice, and an occasion for the exercise of a complete abandonment to all the decrees of divine Providence whatever they may be. I am of your opinion, and have never desired, and still less, prayed for pains and contradictions. Those sent by Providence are quite enough without wishing for more, or inflicting them on oneself. We must wait and prepare ourselves for these; that is the best way to gain strength and courage to receive them, and to bear them properly when God sends them. This is one of my favourite practices, and suits me both for this life and the next. I offer to God, beforehand, all the sacrifices that occur to my mind without any effort of my own. It is to enable us to acquire the merit of this offering that God tries us by these ideas, and these fears of future evil that He does not intend to send us. When, on the other hand, He sends us consolations whether spiritual or temporal, we ought to accept them simply, with gratitude and thanksgiving, but without clinging to them or taking too much pleasure in them, because all joy that is not in God only serves to feed our self-love. Your solitude in the absence of the person on whom you could most rely, in spite of her having been very tiresome, cannot fail to be very good for you. How many acts of resignation will you not have made in your illness and weakness! How often will you not have raised your heart to God! How many holy affections and good resolutions will you not have made! You will be saved by the good will which God sees in your heart. Each of us has a particular path to follow, according to his light. Try to make use of your present circumstances and of your sadness, to place your whole confidence in God, both for time and eternity. The present calamities of which you paint so sad a picture, will, if only for the sake of your own peace, place you under the necessity of making incessantly, very meritorious sacrifices to God. Public misfortunes are great, but the part you can take about them is great also. The lives of sinful men, and that we all are, ought to be passed entirely in works of penance and mortification, and God shows His mercy by giving us this remedy with His own hand. The chalice is bitter, it is true, but how infinitely more bitter would be the pains of hell, or of purgatory; and since we must drink this chalice whether we like it or not, let us, as the proverb says, make a virtue of necessity. In this way all our difficulties will be smoothed away. As you say, interior sufferings are much harder to bear, but they are also more meritorious and purifying, and after having been made to endure these purifications and detachments, everything else seems easy. Then it will be much more easy to give oneself up to a perfect abandonment and a filial confidence in God through Jesus Christ. The reflexions you make on this subject are reasonable and true, but too human. We should always revert to abandonment and hope in divine Providence, for what can man do, exposed as he is to continual vicissitudes? Let us depend then on God alone, for He never changes, and knows better than we do what is necessary for us, and, like a good father, is always ready to give it. But He has to do with children who are often so blind that they do not see for what they are asking. Even in their prayers, that to them seem so sensible and just, they deceive themselves by desiring to arrange the future which belongs to God alone. When He takes away from us what we consider necessary, He knows how to supply its place imperceptibly, in a thousand different ways unknown to us. This is so true that bitterness and heaviness of heart borne with patience and interior silence, make the soul advance more than would the presence and instruction of the holiest and cleverest director. I have had a hundred experiences of this, and am convinced that, at present, this is your path, and the only things that God asks of you are submission, abandonment, confidence, sacrifice, and silence. Practice these virtues as well as you can without too violent efforts.
Letter XVIII –Will of God to be Preferred
To the same Sister.
Believe me, my dear Sister, and put an end to all your fears and entrust all to divine Providence who makes use of hidden but infallible means of bringing everything to serve His ends. Whatever men may say or do, they can only act by God’s will or permission, and everything they do He makes serve for the accomplishment of His merciful designs. He is able to attain His purposes by means apparently most contrary, as to refresh His servants in the midst of a fiery furnace, or to make them walk on the waters. We shall experience more sensibly this fatherly protection of Providence if we abandon ourselves to Him with filial confidence. Quite recently I have had experience of this, therefore I have prayed to God with greater fervour than ever to grant me the grace never to have my own will which is always blind, and often dangerous, but always that His which is just, holy, loving, and beneficent may be accomplished. Ah! if you only knew what a pleasure it is to find no peace or contentment except in accomplishing the will of God which is as good as it is powerful, you would not be able to desire anything else. Never look upon any pain, no matter of what kind, as a sign of being far from God; because crosses and sufferings are, on the contrary, effects of His goodness and love. “But,” say you, “what will become of me if . . . ?” This is indeed a temptation of the enemy. Why should you be so ingenious in tormenting yourself beforehand about something which perhaps will never happen? Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. Uneasy forebodings do us much harm; why do you so readily give way to them? We make our own troubles, and what do we gain by it? but lose, instead, so much both for time and eternity. When we are obsessed in spite of ourselves by these worrying revisions let us be faithful in making a continual sacrifice of them to the sovereign Master. I conjure you to do this, as in this way you will induce God to deal favourably with you and to help you in every way. You will acquire a treasure of virtue and merit for Heaven, and a submission and abandonment which will enable you to make more progress in the ways of God than any other practice of piety. It is, possibly, with this view that God permits all these troublesome and trying imaginations. Profit by them then, and God will bless you. By your submission to His good pleasure you will make greater progress than you could by hearing beautiful sermons, or reading pious books. If you only understood this great truth thoroughly, you would enjoy great peace of mind, and advance rapidly in the ways of God. Without this submission to His good pleasure no spirituality counts for much. As long as people restrict themselves to exterior practices, they can but have a very thin veneer of true and solid piety which consists essentially, and in reality, in willing in everything what God wills, and in the manner in which He wills it. When you have attained to this, the Spirit of God will reign absolutely in your heart, will supply for all else, and will never fail you in your need if you call with humble confidence for His help. This is of faith, but is known to very few souls who are otherwise pious. Thus, for the want of this disposition we see them kept back and obstructed in the ways of God. What a pitiful blindness! All the business and complicated affairs in which we are immersed by God’s will and by the decrees of His divine Providence, are equal to the most delightful contemplation, if one says from the bottom of one’s heart, “My God, this is Your will, and, therefore, also mine.” Although this is said only in the higher part of the soul without the will seeming to take any share in it, still the sacrifice is no less agreeable to God, and meritorious for oneself. Keep with a firm determination to this practice and you will soon experience its excellent results. If you could also combine with it a certain peace and quietness of mind, a certain gentleness of manner towards others and also towards yourself, without ever showing signs of annoyance, worry, or vexation, what great and meritorious sacrifices you will have made! At least humble yourself gently after all your faults, and return to God with confidence as if nothing had happened, as the “Spiritual Combat” teaches. As we can never enjoy happiness or peace in this miserable world except in proportion as we blindly submit to the decrees of divine Providence, I shall continue to speak to you about it untiringly. Believe me and rely on divine Providence alone, and abandon everything to His care absolutely and without reserve. Do with simplicity what you believe you ought to do under the circumstances, so as not to tempt God, but do it gently, quietly, and without effort, trouble, excitement, or eagerness; as St. Francis of Sales advises. Of how many anxieties, disappointments and forebodings should we not rid ourselves, if we could only act in this reasonable and Christian manner.
Letter XIX – The Happiness of Resignation
On the happiness of souls that abandon themselves to God in their afflictions.
It does not astonish me, my dear Sister, that you find it difficult to understand the ways of divine Providence. Neither do I understand them any better than you, but what I know and what you know as well as I, is that God arranges and disposes of all things as He pleases, and makes use of whom He will to carry out His designs at the time and moment He has decided upon. Let us learn then to resign ourselves in all and everything with submission and confidence in Him Who can do all things, and Who disposes of all things according to His own plans. If we could only attain to this state of holy submission we should wait patiently for things to happen at the appointed time, instead of at the time that, in our impatience, we expect them. Abandonment to God’s holy providence binds Him, in a way, to find a remedy for everything, and to provide for and console us in all our needs. Remind yourself of this great saying, “Everything passes away, God alone remains.” Abandon yourself and all who are dear to you, therefore, to His loving care. In public disasters as in all others we should, by our confidence, glorify His infinite goodness, and then we shall be able to say with David, “We have rejoiced for the days in which thou hast humbled us; for the years in which we have seen evils.” Suffering patiently endured, is the lot and the seal of the elect; let us say also with the same prophet, “I was dumb, and I opened not my mouth, because thou hast done it.” There is no greater consolation in our trials than a lively faith in the goodness of Him Who sends them, an expectation of that eternal happiness these trials have merited for us, the remembrance of our sins that they help to expiate, and the contemplation of the sufferings that Jesus Christ underwent for love of us. Impatience would only serve to aggravate the evil, while patience has the great power of lightening them. God has different chastisements for each country and these are like so many different rods with which He threatens us and punishes our sins, but always with a fatherly love, since He only threatens and punishes us in this world in order to be able to save us with greater certainty. May He be blessed for ever!
"So let us be confident, let us not be unprepared, let us not be outflanked, let us be wise, vigilant, fighting against those who are trying to tear the faith out of our souls and morality out of our hearts, so that we may remain Catholics, remain united to the Blessed Virgin Mary, remain united to the Roman Catholic Church, remain faithful children of the Church."- Abp. Lefebvre
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SIXTH BOOK - ON THE CONTINUATION OF TRIALS, AND FEAR OF THE ANGER OF GOD
Letter I – On Temptations
On temptations and the fear of giving way to them.
I acknowledge, my dear Sister, that the trial to which our Lord is subjecting you at this moment, is worse than any through which you have hitherto passed. To a soul that loves God, the fear of offending Him is worse than any other. Nothing is more frightful than to have the mind filled with bad thoughts, and to feel the heart carried away to some extent, against one’s will, by the violence of the temptation; but that which is, to you, a subject of cruel anguish is, to your directors, a subject for satisfaction. The stronger are your fears, and the greater the horror these temptations cause you, the more evident is it that your will has given no consent to them, and that, far from doing you harm they only serve to increase your merit. In this even more than in other things you ought blindly to follow the advice of those who direct you. Besides, and I say it without the least hesitation, all these fearful temptations, these interior revolts which agitate you, the discouragement which makes you despond, that kind of despair which seems to separate you from God irreparably; all this takes place in the inferior part of your soul without any express and formal consent of the superior part. The latter also, it is true, is often so troubled, and so blinded that it cannot discern what it has, or has not, done; or whether or not it has consented. It is this that makes this trial so painful; but take courage! it is then that you must cast yourself, as well as you can, at the feet of Jesus Christ crucified, humbling yourself and being overcome at the extent of your weakness, but quietly and without vexation, imploring the help of God through His divine Son our Saviour and our Advocate, through the intercession of Mary our sweet mother, and firmly believe that He Who pursues us when we flee from Him will never permit us to be separated from Him against our will.
Letter II – The Fear of Temptation
To Sister de Lesen, a Religious of the Annunciation. On the fear of temptations.
My dear Sister,
It is an illusion to have too great a fear of combats. Never shrink from the occasions afforded you by God of acquiring merit, and of practising virtue, under the pitiful pretext of avoiding the danger of committing sin by avoiding the struggle. Do soldiers who fight for their king act in this way! and do we not know that we are soldiers of Jesus Christ and that our whole life is nothing but a continual struggle, and that only he who has fought valiantly will win the crown. Blush for your cowardice, and when you find yourself contradicted or humiliated say that now is the time to prove to your God the sincerity of your love. Put your trust in His goodness and the power of His grace, and this confidence will ensure you the victory. And even should it happen that you should occasionally commit some fault, the harm it will do you will be very easily repaired. This harm, besides, is almost nothing compared to the great good that will accrue to your soul either by your effort to resist, or the merit resulting from victory, or even by the humiliation these slight defects occasion you. And if your temptations are altogether interior; if you fear to be carried away by your thoughts and ideas, get rid of that fear also. Do not resist these interior temptations directly; let them fall, and resist them indirectly by recollection and the thought of God; and if you are not able to get rid of them in this way, endure them patiently. The distrust that makes you try to avoid temptations that are sent to you by God, will cause others more dangerous of which you have no suspicion, for, what temptation could be more evident and plain than the thought which you express when you say that you will never succeed in the spiritual life. What! are not all Religious called to this life and you in particular? Even this weakness so clearly revealed to you by your trial, and your inability to make any serious progress in perfection, or of enjoying any peace except in this way of life, is not this a magnificent sign that God calls you to it more especially than others? Open your eyes then and recognise the fact that all these thoughts that discourage, trouble, and weaken you, can only emanate from the devil. He wishes to deprive you of that spiritual strength of which you have need in order to overcome the repugnance that nature feels. I implore you not to fall into this trap, and not to continue to look upon the revolt of the passions as a sign of being at a distance from God. No, my dear daughter, it is, on the contrary, a greater grace then you can imagine. Becoming persuaded of your own feebleness and perversity, you will expect nothing from anyone but God and will learn to depend upon Him entirely. God alone ought to suffice to the soul who knows Him.
Letter III – The State of One Tempted
An explanation of the state of a soul in temptation and of the designs of God in regard to it.
One would imagine, my good Sister, that you had never meditated on those numerous texts of holy Scripture in which the Holy Spirit makes us understand the necessity of temptation, and the good fruit derived from it by souls who do not allow themselves to become disheartened. Do you not know that it has been compared to a furnace in which clay acquires hardness, and gold is made brilliant; that it has been put before us as a subject of rejoicing, and a sign of the friendship of God; an indispensable lesson for the acquirement of the science of the saints? If you were to recall to mind these consoling truths you would not be able to give way to sadness. I declare to you in the name of our Saviour that you have no reason to fear. If you liked you could unite yourself to God as much or more than at the times of your greatest fervour. For this you have but one thing to do in your painful state, and this is to suffer in peace, in silence, with an unshaken patience, and an entire resignation, just as you would endure a fever or any other bodily ailment. Say to yourself now and then what you would say to a sick person to induce him to bear his pain with patience. You would represent to him that by giving way to impatience, or by murmuring he would only aggravate the evil and make it last the longer. Well! this is what you ought to say to yourself. I greatly approve of the order you have received to go to Holy Communion without taking any notice of your temptations. Your confessor is right, and would have made a great mistake if he had listened to what you said on the subject. “But,” you will say, “if I have consented to the temptation, and have committed a mortal sin, what a misfortune!” It is not for you to judge about it, but to obey blindly; and this opinion is founded on the great principle that even should the confessor be mistaken, the penitent cannot be misled in obeying in good faith in the sight of God, those who are in the position of guides. “But,” you say again, “I should like to know how my confessor can understand better than I what takes place in my soul during temptation?” Useless curiosity! It is not a question of knowing how this or that but it is so, and you must obey without reasoning or replying. Nevertheless, as I wish to be kind and gentle towards souls but little accustomed to the spiritual warfare, I will reply to your unexpressed question, and this reply will teach you some important things. You must know first that in each of us there are, as it were, two souls, or two persons; one, animal, sensitive, and earthly which is called the inferior part, the other spiritual, in which the free will resides, and this is called the superior part. Secondly, that all that takes place in the inferior and animal part, such as imaginations, feelings, disorderly movements, are in us, but not of us, and by their own nature are indeliberate and involuntary. All these can tempt us, but cannot compel the will to give free and voluntary consent without which there can be no sin. When the temptation is not strong it is easy to recognise for oneself and to feel that, far from giving consent to it, one rejects it; but when God permits the temptation to become strong and violent then, on account of the great involuntary agitation taking place in the inferior part, the superior has great difficulty in discerning its own movements, and remains in great perplexity and fear of having consented. Nothing more is wanting to occasion in these good souls the most terrible trouble and remorse which is a further trial permitted by God to prove their fidelity. Confessors who judge calmly and without difficulty, easily discern the truth; and the great distress the poor soul experiences, and its excessive fear of having consented, are to the confessor proof positive that there has been no full and deliberate consent. In fact we know by experience, that those who consent and give way to temptation do not suffer from these troubles and fears. The greater the temptation and the pain and fear that result, the more certain is the verdict in favour of the person tempted. I join therefore in the opinion of your confessor, and this is the rule I lay down.
1st. Neither examine, nor accuse yourself as a rule about these things.
2nd. Bear peacefully your humiliation and interior martyrdom which, I assure you, is a great grace from God, but a grace which you will not be able to understand properly till after the trial is over.
3rd. This is the interior petition which you ought to make incessantly to God. “Lord, deign to preserve me from all sin, especially in this matter; but, as for the pain which mortifies, and ought to cure my self-love, and the humiliation and holy abjection which gall my pride and ought to destroy it, I accept them for as long as You please, and I thank You for them as for a grace. Grant, Lord, that these bitter remedies may take effect and that they may cure my self-love and vanity, and help me to acquire holy humility and a low opinion of myself which will form a solid foundation for the spiritual life, and for all perfection.” I find you very ignorant on the subject of temptation. It is true that it does not come from God, Who does not tempt anyone, as St. James says. It comes, therefore, either from the devil, or our own temperament and imagination; but since God permits it for our good, we ought to adore His holy permission in all things except sin which He detests, and which we also ought to detest for love of Him. Be careful, then, not to allow yourself to get troubled and harassed by these temptations, for this trouble is much more to be feared than the temptations themselves.
You tell me that you are travelling along the path that is very dark. That is exactly what is meant by “the way of pure faith.” It is always obscure, and necessitates a complete abandonment to God. What could be more natural or more easy than to abandon yourself to so good and merciful a Father Who desires our welfare more than we do ourselves? “But,” you add, “I am always in trouble and extremely afraid of having sinned; this makes life very miserable, and prevents me possessing the peace of the children of God.” It is so for the present, I know, but I also know that by these continual terrors the salutary fear of God takes root in the soul, and is followed by love of Him. It is thus that God endeavours to make us disgusted with this life and with its false goods in order to attach us to Himself alone. Know that none can enjoy the peace of the children of God who have not shared their trials. Peace is only purchased by war, and is only enjoyed after victory. If you could only see as I do the advantages and good to be derived from the state in which God has permitted you to be; instead of repining as you do about it you would be making continual acts of thanksgiving. You are, you say, as deeply involved as the greatest sinners. Oh! my dear daughter, this is just what galls your pride. And what are we in truth but great sinners? Do we not carry about with us an amount of misery and corruption, which, without God’s grace, would lead us into the gravest disorders? This is what God wishes to make us understand by personal experience without which we might live and die without ever attaining to a knowledge of our nothingness, the foundation of humility. Let us thank God for having solidly laid this foundation, necessary for the salvation of our souls, and also for the perfection of our state.
The thought and fear of the justice of the judgments of God is a great grace, but do not spoil it by carrying this fear so far as to be troubled and rendered uneasy by it; because the true and right fear of God is always peaceful, quiet, and accompanied with confidence. When contrary effects are produced, reject them as coming from the devil who is the author of trouble and despair. “If I had made myself,” you say, “I would have done it in such a way that–-” Oh! what are you saying here? One must never wish to be other than what God wills. Do you not know that to be able to bear one’s miseries, weaknesses, caprices, spiritual defects, follies, and extravagancies of the imagination, is the effect of heroic virtue? What treasures have not these same miseries enabled a crowd of saints of both sexes to acquire! In using them as subjects and matter for interior combats they have served for victories and for the final triumph of grace. You say again, “Of what use can it be to me for my heart to be emptied of one object if it becomes filled by another, and God has no place in it?” Know, daughter, that the heart is so full that it cannot be emptied all at once. It is a work of time, and as the space is enlarged God fills it gradually; but we shall not experience what St. Paul calls the plenitude of God until we are completely empty of all else. This will take a long time, and will require many trials to accomplish the work. Be patient and faithful. Have confidence and you will see the gift of God, and will experience His mercy.
Letter IV – Different Temptations
To Sister Marie-Therese de Viomenil. On different temptations.
I see clearly by your letter, my dear Sister, that in the midst of your interior troubles and trials, you have made unknowingly very solid progress.
1st. To understand the value of the interior life, and of peace of mind, and to endeavour to acquire them through all your perplexities and drawbacks, is a good step in advance, the rest will follow in time and will be the result of your gentleness towards yourself and others. Let us accustom ourselves to accept everything in a right spirit from the hand of divine Providence, and to bless Him in all things, and for all things, whatever they may be. If we do this we shall find that what causes us most grief will, in the end, be most advantageous to us. Let us trust God and never be wanting in confidence; if necessary let us make more sacrifices, and thus we shall obtain continually fresh graces from Him, and shall increase our riches in Heaven.
2nd. Thoughts and feelings against our neighbour, if not consented to interiorly, nor shown outwardly, are matter for merit, and are not sinful. Guard carefully the virtue of charity and gradually all this will subside and come to an end. If some interior or exterior fault should escape you, be content to humble yourself before God without trouble, but peacefully, and generously repair whatever pain you may have caused, or bad example you may have given. You will gain more by this apology than you have lost by the fault.
3rd. Hardness and want of feeling in the reception of the Sacraments is certainly very painful; bear it with patience and humility; do what is in pour power gently in the spirit of pure faith; it is the greatest penance that God allots to any soul to purify it from self-seeking and the satisfactions of self-love.
4th. Try during the day to make of everything a help for raising the heart to God, but without effort or eagerness. Observe the most filial submission to the different arrangements of divine Providence about everything; you will gain more by doing so than by all the spiritual exercises that you perform to please yourself. Above all make your perfection consist in willing exactly what pleases God, and in the way it pleases Him. His good pleasure is, in fact, the rule of all good will, and the principle of all perfection whether in Heaven or on earth.
Letter V – The Fear of Being Wanting in Submission
To Sister Charlotte-Elizabeth Bourcier de Monthureus (1734). On the fear of being wanting in submission to God.
God grant me sufficient grace, I do not say, to cure you, but to help you to make your trouble salutary; and may He give me the necessary light to properly understand it. This trouble is not a fresh one, and I do not perceive any particular change in the state of your soul. Also I have no new remedy to give you. All that I can do is to repeat in a different way what I have said to you before. I have reduced my advice to rules and practices, and I beg of you in the name of Jesus Christ to read this letter, from time to time, in the presence of God and in a spirit of recollection. The most suitable time for reading it will be when you are a prey to darkness and mental agitation; for, during the time when the storm rages, no other reading can be of any use. An angel from Heaven himself could not succeed in giving you either light or consolation. There is no intelligence nor power in the world capable of wresting from the hand of God a soul He has seized in the rigour of His mercy to purify it by suffering.
First rule. Be convinced that all the trials that God sends us in this life are sent in mercy more than in justice; this is why the prophet says that God remembers His mercy even when He is angry with us.
Second rule. Even as God, for the conversion and sanctification of people in the world often sends them purely temporal afflictions such as illness, loss of goods, reverses of fortune, etc., so, likewise, for the purification and sanctification of the souls that belong to Him more entirely, especially in the Religious life, He sends spiritual trials and purely interior afflictions. It is thus that He acts with regard to you, for, although you are suffering from a bodily illness, your principal sufferings arise from the tortures of your mind which react on your body, and redouble and augment your illness, rendering it more painful.
Third rule. As we help people in the world to sanctify themselves in temporal adversities by preaching patience, submission, and continual resignation, so also to souls in pain and interiorly crucified we preach nothing else but abandonment into the hands of God.
Fourth rule. It is a certain and known fact that when one no longer commits either mortal or deliberate venial sin one makes more progress in the ways of God by suffering than by action; from which I conclude that all you need do to ensure your salvation, and even to attain perfection is to endure as patiently as you can, and with peace and interior resignation, the painful state in which you are, imploring the aid of divine grace with an unshaken confidence in the merits of Jesus Christ. This is your principal difficulty, you say. I admit it, but I have no doubt that this practice will become easy enough in time if you try to accustom yourself to it, and follow the rules I will give you.
1st. To take, as you already do, the word “fiat” for your favourite act, and constant exercise.
2nd. To despise and treat as nothing the continual rebellions you feel in your heart during your troubles, and not to attempt to resist them directly but to content yourself with pronouncing the word “fiat”; or, better still, simply to form an interior act. “But,” you will say to me, “how can I despise or count as nothing these rebellions of the heart which prove to me that my submission to the will of God is neither interior nor real?” Listen to me, I beg of you, to the end. I feel that God inspires me for your good, and possibly for your consolation. You deceive yourself, Sister, and it is, no doubt, the most cruel of your trials to think that because of these violent, and to all appearances, voluntary rebellions of the heart, your submission is not real. In this respect you are by the divine permission rather like persons in the world with violent temptations to impurity, hatred, aversion, vengeance, or any other unruly impulse, that makes a strong impression but is indeliberate and involuntary. In these poor souls temptation is sometimes so violent, the accursed pleasure which is called precedent and involuntary seizes them so strongly, the tempter raises such a disturbance and causes so much trouble in the sensitive and inferior part, that it becomes impossible for them to discern if they have consented or not in the superior part. Only the confessor can know and discern by certain signs that they have not consented. In the same way God, for your greater trial does not allow you to distinguish that true submission which resides almost unknown to yourself, in the higher part of the soul as in a hiding place. But, thank God, I recognise, see, and feel that you have this true submission which is purely intellectual, spiritual, and well-nigh imperceptible. “But,” you say, “how can you recognise, see, and feel in the depths of my soul what I cannot perceive in the slightest degree myself?” I will tell you, but possibly God may not allow you to understand it, or else only for a single moment so that the knowledge of it may not diminish in any way the pain by which He wishes to purify you by crucifying you.
Let us return to the comparison of the other temptations. A person will tell me of the great interior trouble that these temptations to hatred, impurity, etc., cause her, and will add that the fear of having given way to them makes her feel troubled, saddened, and downcast. Here, I say to myself, is proof positive of a great fear of God, of a great horror of sin, and of a great wish to resist. Besides, theology as well as a knowledge of the human heart teaches me that a soul in this interior condition could not give a free, whole, entire and what is called deliberate consent; that if it did, it would immediately lose that interior state and habitual condition in which it is, and which I recognise in it. At the same time it might happen that on account of the violence and frequency of the temptations there may have been some negligence, some momentary surprise. For example: some slight desire for revenge begins, some feeling of pleasure half voluntary, as theology teaches, but, in this condition of the soul, full, entire and deliberate consent is not possible. Also we find by experience that those who really consent to sin are very far from feeling these pains and troubles, this despondency and fear; they feel no uneasiness whatever. You have only to apply this reasoning to your own state and you will see, as I do, when your soul has regained its calm, that the more you fear and are in trouble about your want of interior submission the more certain it is that you possess it in the depths of your soul. But God does not allow you to see it as I do, because the assurance of this submission, by consoling you and delivering you from your greatest trouble, would put an end to the state of trial in which God wishes you to remain for a certain time, the better to purify your soul in the crucible of affliction. From this I deduce a third rule; you must say the same “fiat” about the apparent absence of this submission that you so much desire, as you do about your other trials, because it is probably the most useful of all. You have perhaps some reason to fear lest this keen desire may be a seeking of self-love, which would find consolation for feeling convinced of having endured them well. Do not be surprised then that God, wishing to purify your soul from all the ingenuities of self-love, refuses you this consolation; and doubt not that by so doing He confers upon you a great grace. Therefore when you feel the greatest sadness on account of your supposed want of submission or the greatest terror at the idea of the judgments of God, the only thing to do is to say “Lord, You do not even wish me to know in what state I am, whether I have the submission I ought to have or am deprived of it. As You will, fiat, I submit to this also.” You can then, with the intention of regaining interior peace, and to encourage yourself, say, “At least I feel that by the grace of my God I desire this submission with a desire that is, perhaps, only too great and too strong since the fear of not possessing it throws me into a state of agitation and despondency, and distresses me more than anything else. Therefore, as I have a sincere desire for it, I must have all the effect and the fruit of it, because a sincere desire is of equal value to the thing desired and makes the merit or demerit of our good works.”
When nature and the inferior part are thus distressed and despair of any remedy, or of any consolation for its interior miseries, then it is that self-love is in its agony and on the point of expiring. Ah! let it die, then, this wretched love of self, let it be crucified! this domestic enemy of our poor souls, this enemy of God and of all good! I add some advice which will form the fourth rule. Practise a blind submission to those who guide you, and beware in future of omitting a single communion you have been ordered to make. “But,” say you, “what about this frightful indifference towards God?” This, Sister, is only superficial and in the inferior part. The superior part desires God, and He is satisfied, but does not wish you to know it. An evident sign that I am right is that you acknowledge to being upset and saddened during all your exercises to feel that you do not love God, and that you can only pity yourself and tell Him, “My God, I do not love You!” Oh! how violent must be that profoundly interior desire if you are so deeply afflicted at the mere idea of not loving Him! This is a sure sign that in the midst of your apparent coldness, insensibility and indifference God has enkindled in your soul the fire of a great love which will go on increasing and becoming stronger and more fervent even by the fears themselves of not loving Him. “But,” you say, “why does He remain so hidden that I can neither feel His presence, nor know that He is there.” This, Sister, is the simple effect of God’s goodness to purify you and to make you merit a more perfect love. If you understand it at present you would be so satisfied with your love of God as to think more of this love than of God Himself Who ought to be its sovereign and sole object. It would happen to you to the injury of this love what Fenelon said about the sensible presence of God, that often by its sweetness it makes us forget God Himself; that is to say that we attach ourselves to the sweetness and enjoyment more than to God until we actually forget the object of it, which is, God realised by faith. You cry out and exclaim, “What, must I then abstain from asking for this love?” Your heart asks for it without your knowledge; your fears, troubles and alarms about it are petitions and prayers most powerful with God Who beholds to what these fears and your most secret desires tend, and even sees the most hidden recesses of your heart. Remain, therefore, in peace and fear nothing. If you are in need of a director God Himself will direct you, or will find you a suitable person. Sacrifice, abandonment, peace and confidence in all things! In the meanwhile leave everything to God. He will care for and provide for all. Amen! Amen!
Letter VI – Fear Caused by Self-Love
To Sister Marie-Henriette de Mahuet (1731). How the fear of displeasing God may be caused by self-love.
My dear Sister,
On re-reading your letter to which I have not been able to reply sooner, I remarked two things in it: many graces of God, and many very evident marks of self-love. Your pain and distress are, you say, made worse by your uneasiness. Pain and distress are graces from God which serve to purify and to elevate the soul; uneasiness is an effect of self-love which is agitated and complaining under this interior cross by which God desires to put an end to it in order that you may live a new life in Him. You experience a miserable inability to make your mind act, so that all reasoning and reflexion are a weariness to you. Another sign that God would have you feel that He wishes to do away with your own petty and miserable operations and to substitute the divine operation without which your progress would be very slow and painful. But, at the same time you are very much afraid of wasting time. Another effect of self-love always seeking for certainty on which to place reliance, while God wills you to rely entirely upon Him. Books and directors say enough to reassure you completely as concerns those foolish fears of wasting time, suggested by self-love or the devil, in the position you hold. You always feel confused and in a state of abstraction that makes you seem stupid, and on account of this you believe yourself to be under an illusion. God grant that it may not be a mistake to believe that you are in that state of abstraction which is one of the greatest graces that God could bestow on a soul. If you are actually, as you say, in this state I congratulate you; far from being an illusion, what you call abstraction can be nothing else but a profound recollection leading to everything good by the constant feeling of the presence of God, and by an intimate union already formed, or about to be formed in your soul. You are in great peace: another grace; but you do not dare to think so: another effect of self-love. Do you not know that the solid peace established by God in a soul subject to trials, is always without sensible sweetness? and besides, does not God necessarily deprive a soul of sensible sweetness when it would only make use of it to nourish its self-love? Could He do us a greater favour than to kill this domestic enemy by depriving it of its most essential sustenance, such as sensible spiritual sweetness. It would indeed be very unjust to complain of this God of infinite mercy, Who alone knows how to purify your soul, a thing you would never have been able to do yourself. Your very complaints prove that you would never have had the courage to put an end to your self-love which alone impedes the reign of divine love in your heart. Bless our Lord then for sparing you the trouble and because He only asks you to allow Him a free hand to accomplish this work in you. You fear, you say, that your past unfaithfulness may prevent the operations of God in your soul. No, my dear Sister, neither your past infidelities, nor yet your present miseries, darkness, and weakness ought to terrify you. The only obstacles to the divine operations are your want of submission and your voluntary annoyance in times of spiritual poverty, obscurity and weakness. Poverty, darkness and weakness patiently endured without anxiety would, on the contrary, only facilitate the divine action. You have nothing to fear but your own fears. However, if you wish to know how you ought to act during these interior trials I will tell you. You ought to keep an attitude of peaceful silent waiting, submissive, and entirely abandoned to the divine will, as one would wait under shelter until the storm had passed, leaving to God the task of calming the elements let loose. The difference between outward and inward storms is that patience in the former case could not prevent the greatest disasters resulting, while in the latter case it would produce the greatest good in the soul.
Your excessive fears about your past confessions are another result of self-love which desires certainty about everything. God, on the contrary, wills that we should be deprived of the absolute certitude so pleasing to our self-love. We must then make a sacrifice of it to our sovereign Master Who has willed it so to keep us in humiliation and complete dependence. When you do violence to yourself you imagine that it does not please God on account of the imperfection of your interior dispositions. Another very dangerous illusion of the devil by which he hopes either to prevent you from doing good, or else to throw you into a state of uneasiness and trouble after having done so. In the one case, as in the other, he would deprive you of a great deal of your merit. Do not, I beg of you, be trapped in such a palpable snare.
What causes me pleasure is, that in spite of mistakes caused by your inexperience I find in your soul, by the grace of God, the two dispositions most essential to the divine operations, namely, a firm resolution to belong to God without reserve whatever it may cost you, and a firm and constant will to avoid the smallest deliberate fault. Persevere in these dispositions, keep more on your guard than you have done hitherto against the secret seekings of self-love, and you will find that the reign of God will be re-established within you.
Letter VII – The Want of Good-Will
To Sister Marie-Therese de Viomenil (1738). On the fear of being deficient in good-will.
Yes, my dear Sister, in spite of the fears which haunt you and cause you ceaseless agitation you should apply yourself with all the energy of which you are capable to the practice of an entire and filial abandonment into the hands of God.
1st. Your greatest mistake as well as your deepest affliction is the conviction that you are wanting in that good-will which is the essential condition of the friendship of God. Yes, doubtless you are wanting in a good-will that you can feel and know that you possess; but there is a certain settled will that God preserves in the centre of your soul, and which I clearly perceive in you in spite of your contrary opinion. Therefore let my decision tranquillize you. Return thanks to God that in depriving you of those gifts which are sensible, and which would only serve as food for self-love, He preserves in you, by a singular effect of His grace the far more precious gifts of the Spirit. Your abandonment in the midst of the apparent absence of good-will should serve in a powerful way to purify and to augment this imperceptible good-will which is in your soul. This is quite certain. Keep firmly to this belief and in the end you will be convinced of its truth by your own experience.
2nd. What I have just said about the absence of good-will I say also about the lack of power which forms the other subject of your fears. What is this want of power about? It prevents you from making recognized acts in turning towards God. These acts would give you pleasure; but, from the moment that God does not require them you would do wrong to force yourself to make them. This is an infidelity for which you pay dearly by a great increase of lassitude and desolation. What then is to be done? What you can do, and for which you will never lack power. This is to form a simple desire of good, for God sees all the actions you would wish to perform in this sincere disposition to act rightly. Cease then to distress yourself and to lament over your weakness. Rather say “Fiat, fiat.” This will be of infinitely more value than anything that you could say or do according to your own ideas, or to please yourself. I allow you, however, on account of your weakness, to say to yourself from time to time, “I know that usually I must wish to turn to God, but I am not able to do so. I know also that God sees this desire, and that this desire is all that He requires of me even though it be at once arrested, and as it were, stifled. I ought then to remain in peace and to depend on His love.” “But,” I hear you say to me, “sometimes it seems as if I had lost this desire,” and my answer to this is, “why do you experience so much anxiety about this supposed deficiency?” The privation of an object causes pain only in proportion to the affection you entertain for it; if you had no desire for it you would experience no pain at being deprived of it. Are you in great distress about the want of riches, honours, beauty, etc.? No, because these things do not affect you, and you simply do not think about them. It would be the same about the desire for God if the desire itself were, in truth, absent from your mind. If then this apparent absence afflicts you it shows plainly that it is not a real absence. You are only suffering from this dearth of strength and grace because at present God requires no more from you; but you do not experience any want of good desires, since you feel so much sorrow at being unable to form them. Remain therefore in peace in your great spiritual poverty. It is a real treasure if you know how to accept it for the love of God. I see plainly that you have never understood in what true poverty and the nudity of the spirit consists, by which God succeeds in detaching us from ourselves and from our own operations to purify us more completely, and to simplify us. This complete deprivation which reduces us to acts of bare faith and of pure love alone, is the final disposition necessary for perfect union. It is a true death to self; a death very inward, very crucifying, very difficult to bear, but it is soon rewarded by a resurrection, after which one lives only for God and of God through and with Jesus Christ. Understand then your blindness in grieving for what is the surest guarantee of your spiritual progress. After the soul has mounted the first steps in the ladder of perfection, it can scarcely make any progress except by the way of privation and nudity of spirit, of annihilation and death of all created things, even of those that are spiritual. Only on this condition can it be perfectly united to God Who can neither be felt, known or seen. Oh! daughter of little faith, of little intelligence, and of little courage, who afflict yourself and are in despair about what ought to console and rejoice you! Despise your self-love, tell it that it may despair as much as if it found itself struck to the heart, but that your soul will rejoice in God over its despair, even should it be torn with vexation.
3rd. As to the violent desire you sometimes feel to belong entirely to God, and as to what you feel directly after, as though you were being repulsed by an invisible hand, assuredly you have no reason to conclude from this that you are cast away. These spiritual vicissitudes ought to inspire you with an absolutely contrary conviction because this two-fold feeling is an infallible sign of the action of the Holy Spirit who works in us by this inward crucifixion the death of self. But what am I saying! if God allowed you to understand it as I do this would cease to be a trial, but would be changed into an ineffable joy. Happy daughter that you are without knowing it, cease to increase your distress by reflexions quite contrary to the truth of God.
4th. But what can be done you ask when you can no longer make an act of abandonment? Abandon then even this abandonment by a simple “fiat” which then becomes the most perfect abandonment. Oh! grand idea! how it will charm the heart of God, and what an act of the most perfect love it contains! Earthly lovers sometimes come to this through the excess of their insane love. It is your state of privation and sacrifice which has gradually led you to this holy excess of despairing love, and is precisely what God intends to effect by these privations, sufferings and interior weaknesses.
5th. God almost always allows a soul to imagine that this sort of affliction will never end. Why? In order to give occasion for a more complete abandonment without end, without limit, without measure; it is in this that pure and perfect love consists.
6th. Once more; you are only powerless to do those things that God does not wish you to do and that it would not be expedient for you to do if you were able. God effects then within you something so excellent that if you could understand it you would fall prostrate in thanksgiving. Fortunate weakness which prevents you interfering by your wretched and petty operations with those which the Holy Spirit effects in you almost invisibly, but which I can plainly perceive, and for which I return thanks to God for you, poor blind creature that you are.
7th. It is quite unnecessary to explain your troubles and doubts; they are not sins, but simply spiritual crosses, which it is only necessary to bear with unlimited submission. It is on this account that God has made it impossible for you to speak about them, or even to have distinct ideas about them because nothing sanctifies pain so much as silence both exterior and interior. What a great sacrifice the “fiat” becomes then, especially if it is hidden in a simple desire that can scarcely be discerned! God, however, sees all the greatness and extent of this sacrifice. This desire tells Him all that we wish Him to know without allowing us to enjoy the least consolation, nor giving us any certainty. From this there results a terrible agony which drives self-love to despair and assures in us at the same time the triumph of divine charity.
Letter VIII – The Love of Creatures and of God
To the same Sister. On the fear of loving creatures more than God.
I am delighted, my dear Sister, that God has made use of my letter to reassure you and to make you understand the reason of the difference between the love that we have for God and that which we feel for creatures, about which you have been so terrified. It is true that if we were more holy our love for God would be more ardent, and more tender. The want of this sensible tenderness is well calculated to humiliate us but ought not to trouble us. It is another misery in addition to so many others which will become for us a source of grace and merit when we understand how to endure it in peace without any vexed feelings of self-love and pride. For, to regard all these miseries in peace and humility, trying all the time to diminish them with the help of God’s grace by perpetual vigilance and tranquil prayer is, so to say, no longer to have them, in the sight of God. Allow yourself to become thoroughly imbued with this truth, as certain as it is but little known. But I add, this coldness we feel towards God ought not to trouble us, because it by no means proves that we are deficient in real love. Recall the words of our Lord to St. Catherine of Siena: “My daughter, I leave to you and all creatures the love which is tender and sensible, and reserve for myself the love of preference which is purely spiritual.” This love resides in the apex of the soul; that impregnable citadel, the key of which is held by free will which governs the whole. As long as charity has not been driven from this citadel, even if the greatest indifference invades the feelings, nothing is yet lost; and should this sensible coldness be only a painful trial and not an effect of your own negligence, it will help to increase the merit of this genuine love. As an instance a Christian mother would weep and be inconsolable at the death of her beloved children; but how great soever her sorrow she would not have them return to life at the price of one single venial sin; do you not see that for this mother the horror of sin is the more heroic in being in opposition to a love that is more sensibly felt? It is the same with contrition, and all acts of the love of God. These acts are produced in the higher faculties of the soul, and are spiritually accomplished as if without our knowledge, and it is a great advantage to us that it should be so. During this life we are such miserable creatures that every gift that we recognize is changed into poison by our self-love. This is what in a measure compels God to hide the graces He bestows upon us. If we understood our own interests properly we should look upon this salutary blindness as the most precious of all graces, and like holy job we should never kiss His hand more lovingly than when it seems to weigh most heavily upon us.
Letter IX – The Love of Creatures and of God
To Sister Marie-Antoinette de Mahuet. On the fear of displeasing God, and deceiving others.
Madame and very dear Sister,
I can only bless God for prolonging your trial, and for renewing those interior sufferings that you experienced in prayer because I find you are acquiring so much profit therefrom and practising so well the virtues I recommended to you, namely, the complete sacrifice of everything, and a total abandonment to the good pleasure of God.
Far from wishing to see you lose these occasions of amassing invaluable merit, I can only congratulate you and exhort you to persevere. Prayer made under such circumstances is indeed very painful, but at the same time it is the most fruitful and meritorious. If this great fear of displeasing God were anything else but a trial I could very easily dispel it. It will suffice to ask you from whence comes this fear, as your conscience is free from any serious matter, and as you feel and even know that usually to please God you would not hesitate to undertake things that are hardest to nature. You clearly perceive that your terrors are nothing but idle imaginations. Therefore if God does not wish you to be entirely delivered from them, you have nothing to do but to drop them like a stone in the water. Take no more notice of them than flies that pass backwards and forwards buzzing in your ears. Despise them and have patience. It is very surprising that after all I have said to you, and all that you have read you still recur to the interior changes and vicissitudes that you experience. It is just as if you imagined yourself obliged to note down all the variations of the atmosphere, and to make known to me that after a few fine days the weather had become stormy and that a hard winter had followed a very beautiful autumn. It is the rule established by God, and these are merely the vicissitudes of a life in which nothing is stable; it is what all the saints have experienced. In fine weather you must prepare for bad times, and when they come as they infallibly will, you must bear them patiently and let the storms blow over and wait for the return of better weather. Instead of all the violent and forced acts you compel yourself to make it would be much better, as I have already told you, to keep yourself in the presence of God in an interior silence of respect, humility, submission, and abandonment. But self-love is always anxious to feel and to enjoy; this cannot be, however, God does not wish it, so you must give in with a good grace. It occurs to your mind, I am aware, that you are deceiving everybody, but you know perfectly well yourself that you do not intend to deceive, and that ought to be enough for you. If it came into your head to kill yourself or to throw yourself from a height you would say at once, “What folly! I know well that I shall not do it.” Put a stop then in the same way to the follies and absurdities of the human mind and particularly of the imagination. These thoughts are like tiresome flies; put up with them patiently. When these have gone others will come and must be endured in the same spirit of patience and resignation.
I bless God for the holy interior dispositions of sacrifice, abandonment, death to self, and complete annihilation with which He inspires you. How can you for one moment imagine that God, Who is so good, would abandon you, when by such a singular change He accomplishes in you such wonderful operations, and favours you as He favours the saints? Indeed, what could He give you more in conformity with the holy Gospel, more sanctifying, or in any way better. Ecstasies and revelations are nothing compared to these interior dispositions of abjection, because it is precisely in these that sanctity and perfection consist. I can only urge you to let nothing be lost of these precious gifts by contrary acts, but when God is pleased to deprive you, apparently, of them, in taking away all these feelings, allow Him to do it. Let Him give, take away, and give again. Is He not Master of His gifts? His holy name be always equally praised.
Letter X – Fear of Making No Progress
To Sister Marie-Therese de Viomenil. On the fear of making no progress, and of not doing enough penance.
Do not be astonished, my dear Sister, at making apparently so little progress. One does not ever advance in spiritual as one does in visible works. The business of our sanctification and perfection ought to be the work of our whole life-time. I notice that your natural vivacity and eagerness intrude into everything, and from this proceed anxieties, discouragement, and troubles which lead you astray in causing you distress. Here is the remedy! As long as you feel a sincere good-will to belong to God, a practical appreciation for everything that leads you to God, and a certain amount of courage to rise after your little falls, you are doing well in the sight of God. Have patience with yourself then; learn to bear with your own weaknesses and miseries gently, as you have to put up with those of your neighbour. Be satisfied to humble yourself quietly before God, and do not expect to make any progress except through Him. This hope will not be disappointed, but God will realise probably by a hidden operation which will take place in the centre of your soul, and this will cause it to make considerable progress without your knowledge.
You are uneasy about your penance. Oh! my dear daughter, how could you perform a better penance, and one in which there is less of your own will than to bear patiently the crosses that come from God? Besides, all our crosses come certainly from Him when they are the necessary, natural, and inevitable consequences of the state in which divine Providence permits us to be settled. These are the heaviest crosses, but also the most sanctifying because they all come from God. Crosses from our heavenly Father, crosses from divine Providence, how much easier to bear they are than those we fashion for ourselves, and embrace voluntarily. Then love yours, my dear Sister, since they have been prepared for you by God alone for each day. Let Him do this; He alone knows what is suitable for each one of us. If we remain firm in this, submissive and humbled under all the crosses sent by God, we shall find in them, at last, rest for our souls. Thus we shall enjoy an unshaken peace when, by our submission, we shall have merited from God to be made to feel that divine unction which belongs to, and is a part of the cross since Jesus Christ died upon it for us. But you ask how the spiritual life can be compatible with this state of trouble and darkness. Ah! my dear daughter, how many are mistaken about this! Do not you share their delusion. The spiritual life, gentle, and tranquil as I have always described it to you to inspire you with a taste for it, is only to be found in two sorts of persons; first, in those who are entirely separated from the world and have nothing to do with its affairs; secondly, sometimes, but more rarely, in persons living in the world, when by dint of having overcome themselves, and detached themselves from everything, they live in the world, but are not of it; that is to say they belong to it outwardly, but not in mind and heart. But this absence of business and of care if far from constituting the essential part of the spiritual life, or from forming its merit. There is another sort of interior life, which, devoid of sweetness, is on this account all the more meritorious, and it is to this that you must conform yourself; the other may follow later. This interior life may also be divided under two heads, first, the generous fulfilment of the divine will whenever manifested to us either by the precepts it has itself laid down for us, or by our Rule, or by the commands or desires of our Superiors; secondly, to receive everything as coming from the hand of God, whether business affairs, adversity, illness, difficulties, or annoyances. Sometimes, however, one forgets oneself. You must expect this to happen. What is to be done then? You know what, return quietly to yourself, regain your tranquillity with submissiveness, humble yourself gently before God, never be discouraged nor disheartened, and above all take good care, according to the teaching of St. Francis of Sales, not to be grieved at having been grieved, nor to be angry at having been angry, nor worried at having been worried, because this would be to go from bad to worse, and would augment still more the interior trouble. This is the rock ahead of lively persons.
"So let us be confident, let us not be unprepared, let us not be outflanked, let us be wise, vigilant, fighting against those who are trying to tear the faith out of our souls and morality out of our hearts, so that we may remain Catholics, remain united to the Blessed Virgin Mary, remain united to the Roman Catholic Church, remain faithful children of the Church."- Abp. Lefebvre
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