Letters to Persons in Religion

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BOOK I: Letters Previous to the Founding of the Visitation

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I/1. To the Filles-Dieu at Paris: Exhortation and instruction on reforming their practice of poverty.

[These were Benedictine nuns of the order of Fontevrault. They succeeded (1485) certain sisters, who, having been established there by St. Louis to serve a hospital or hôtel-Dieu, were hence called “Filles-Dieu,” a title which the new inmates of the house inherited. They were also called “Ladies of the Mother of Mercy.” The Saint had made their acquaintance when at Paris, and wrote to them immediately after his return to Savoy, during his retreat before consecration.]

From Sales, 22d November 1602.

My very Reverend Ladies and dear Sisters—I have conceived so great a confidence in your charity that I seem no longer to require a preface or introduction when I speak to you, whether absent, as I am now obliged to do, or present, in case God should ever so dispose as to give me the blessing of seeing you again. In everything I love simplicity and candour; I believe that you love them too; and I beseech you to continue to do so, because this is very becoming to your profession. I consider that the white tunics you wear are a sign thereof. I will say simply to you, then, what has led me to write to you all together.

I beg you to be assured that I am greatly urged by the extreme affection which I have for the good of your house; for even here, where I can render you but slight service, it ceases not to suggest to me a multitude of desires which are useless to you and to me. Still, I dare not reject these inclinations, because they are good and sincere, and above all because I firmly believe that it is God who has given them to me. If they tend to make me suffer some disquiet, it is not from their own nature, but through the weakness of my spirit, still subject to the movement of the winds and tide. Now there is a wind which agitates my spirit in the affection which it bears you, and I cannot restrain myself from telling you of it; for it is the only subject which has made me steal leisure to write to you from amidst the pressing business which surrounds me in this beginning of my office.

I quitted Paris with the satisfaction of having in some sort manifested to you the esteem in which I held the virtue of your house, the thought of which gave me much consolation and interior profit, animating me to the desire of my own perfection. The sacred Word says[1] that Jonas found the shade of the ivy exceeding grateful, but that a hot and burning wind withered it up in an instant. A wind had almost the same effect on the consolation which I had in you; but be assured, I beseech you, that it was the south wind of charity.

It was a report which I was forced to believe when I considered all the circumstances. God knows how grieved I was, both for what was said to me and because it only became known to me at a time when I had not leisure to treat of it with you; for, unless my affection deceives me, I think that you would have given me a favourable hearing, and would not have been displeased with any remonstrance I might have made, since you would never have discovered in my soul or in any of its movements aught save full and pure affection for your spiritual progress and the good of your monastery.

But, as it was my duty not to stop for this, being called here for a greater good, I have decided to write to you on this subject, although I debated some time with myself whether this would be good or no. On the one hand, it almost seemed to me that it would be useless, seeing that my letter would give occasion to replies from you, and would require others from me; that it would perhaps arrive unseasonably; that it would not exactly represent either my aim or my affection; that you are where you will have counsels by word of mouth from a multitude of persons who deserve to be in greater esteem with you than I am, and that if you do not believe Moses and the Prophets who speak to you, you will hardly believe this poor sinner who can but write to you; and, further, seeing that, as I hear, certain other preachers, better and more experienced in the conduct of souls than I am, have spoken to you on this subject without effect.

But, on the other hand, all these reasons had to give way to my affection, and to the duty which my extreme desire of your good imposes on me. God oftentimes employs the weakest instruments for the greatest purposes. How do I know but that he may will to convey his inspiration into your heart through the words which he will give me to write to you? I have prayed; I might say much more and only say the truth; but this shall suffice,—I have wetted my lips with the blood of Jesus Christ in the Mass to be able to send you suitable and fruitful words. These, then, I will here place on this paper: may God graciously introduce and adapt them to your spirits to advance his glory therein.

My dear sisters, I am told that there exist in your house private pensions and allowances which cause differences in the treatment of the sick; that those in health have particular indulgences in food and dress without necessity; and that your conversations and recreations are not entirely edifying. I have heard all this, and much more which follows from it. And I upon it have many things to say; but have patience, I beg you; do me the honour of reading attentively and calmly what I am going to represent to you about it; favour in this my zeal to serve you.

My good ladies, you should correct your house of all these defects, which are without doubt contrary to the perfection of the religious life. The paschal lamb had to be without stain; you are lambs of the Pasch, that is, of the passage, for you have passed from the Egypt of the world into the desert of Religion, on your way to the Land of Promise. Without doubt you must be free from all appearance of stain or blemish. But are these not very dark and manifest stains, these faults and grave irregularities which I have noted above, particularly in such a house? They must be corrected, then. You must, it seems to me, correct them because they are, apparently, little, and therefore must be opposed while they are so; for if you wait till they grow, you will not easily be able to mend them. It is easy to divert rivers at their source, when they are as yet weak; but farther on they get beyond our power. Catch us, say the Canticles,[2] the little foxes which destroy the vines. They are little; do not wait till they become great; for if you wait it will not only not be easy to catch them, but by the time you would catch them they will already have spoilt everything. The children of Israel say in one of the Psalms:[3] O daughter of Babylon miserable. . . . Blessed he that shall take and dash thy little ones against the rock! The disorder, the irregularity, of religious bodies is truly a daughter of Babylon and of confusion. Ah! how blessed are those souls who suffer no more than the commencement of these things, or rather, who dash and shiver them on the rock of reformation! The asp of relaxation and irregularity is not yet within the enclosure of your monastery, but take good heed to yourselves, these faults are its eggs; if you warm them in your bosoms, they will break out some day unto your loss and perdition when you are least expecting it.

But if these defects are small, as some may fancy, are you not much less excusable for not correcting them? How sad, said St. Chrysostom to-day, in his homily on the Gospel of this feast of St. Cecilia which we are celebrating,—how sad to see these virgins, who have put down and triumphed over the most powerful enemy of all, which is the ardour of the flesh, let themselves be overcome by that puny enemy, Mammon, god of riches! And certainly proprietorships, that is, enjoyment of private means, in religion, come under the head of Mammon of iniquity. That is why, said he, these poor virgins are all called foolish,—because after having conquered the stronger they yield to the feebler.

Your house excels in many other points of perfection, and in them is beyond comparison with all others; will it not be a sad reproach to let its glory be tarnished by these miserable imperfections? You are called, by an ancient glory and prerogative of your house, Filles de Dieu, Daughters of God; would you lose this honour by failing to reform these little defects?— will you for a mess of lentils lose the birthright which your name would seem to have given you with the consent of entire France?

It is, surely, a mark of very great imperfection in the lion and the elephant, that after having conquered tigers, oxen, rhinoceroses, they quail, grow terrified, and tremble, the one before a little fowl, the other before a rat, the mere sight of which makes them lose courage. That is a great flaw in their nobleness, and similarly it is a great tare (which signifies deduction) off the goodness of your house, that in it there are particular pensions, and the like weak points, while it is seen to deserve praise in so many other things. Be faithful, then, in the reformation of these little imperfections, in order that your Spouse may place you over many perfections, and bring you one day to his glory.

Now, however, I beg you to let me tell you my opinion concerning these defects. It is true they are small if put in comparison with greater ones; for they are only beginnings, and a beginning, whether in evil or in good, is always small. But if you consider them in comparison with the true and entire religious perfection to which you ought to aspire, they are undoubtedly very great and very dangerous. Is that, I ask you, a small evil which affects and injures a noble part of your body, namely, the vow of poverty? One can be a good religious without reciting in choir, without wearing this or that particular habit, without abstinence from such or such things; but without poverty and community of goods no one can be so.

The worm which gnawed the gourd-tree of Jonas seemed to be little; but its venom was so strong that the tree died from it. The defects of your house seem very slight; but their effect is so evil that it spoils your vow of poverty.

Ismael was a little child, but as soon as he began to vex and trouble Isaac, the wise Sara made him depart, with Agar his mother, from out of the house of Abraham, that is, of the great heavenly Father. Here have been a Sara and an Agar; the superior, and in a certain way superhuman, part, and the other lower and human; the spirit and the interior, the body and exterior.

The spirit brought forth the good Isaac—the vow which you have offered on the mountain of Religion; as Isaac, on the mountain of Vision, voluntarily offered himself in sacrifice. The flesh and corporal part only brings forth Ismael, that is, the care and the desire of exterior and temporal things. So long as this Ismael, this care and desire, attacks not your Isaac, that is, your vow and profession, although he remain with you and in your house, I am satisfied, and, which is the chief thing, God is not offended; but when he troubles your vow, your poverty, your profession, I beg you, nay, I conjure you—send him off, drive him away. Be he little as you will, as merely a child as you please, let him be no bigger than an ant, still he is evil, he is mischievous, he will ruin you, he will subvert your house.

Moreover, I consider this evil very great in your house because it is maintained there, because it is in repose and dwells there as an ordinary resident. It is the chief evil I see in the case that these proprietorships are already citizens. Dying flies, says the Wise Man,[4] spoil the sweetness of balm and ointment. If all they did were to pass over the ointment and suck it as they passed, they would not spoil it; but staying in it dead and as it were buried, they corrupt it. I will grant that the shortcomings and defects of your house are only flies; but the evil is that they stay upon your ointment, they stay and are buried therein with your approval. However small the evil may be, it easily increases when it is cherished and maintained. No enemy, say soldiers, is little when he is despised.

Such are the reasons which God has given me for beseeching you to resolve to reform your house in these little or great faults which I am told are in it; and I cannot assuage my desires on this point.

Then I have turned to consider what impediments might be making the holy work difficult, and to tell you my opinion about them. I suspect that you therefore consider there is no proprietorship contrary to your vow, because perchance all is done under the permission and license of the superior. This word, permission, or license, has already a bad sound by the side of spirit of perfection. It would be better to live under laws and ordinances than to introduce exemptions, licenses, and permissions. Here you have already a subject for reformation.

Moses had given a permission and license concerning the integrity of marriage. Our Lord, reforming this holy sacrament and restoring it to its purity, declared that Moses had only given the permission under force and compulsion—for the hardness of your hearts.[5] Often enough superiors bend what they cannot break, and allow what they cannot hinder: and the permission has afterwards this artfulness and malice, that having lasted some time it extends itself, and, unlike other things that get old, it gets stronger, and seems little by little to lose its ugliness and its deformity. Permissions enter into monasteries only by favour; but having got foothold they stay on by force, and never leave but by severity.

Besides, I say that there is nothing so like as two drops of water—yet the one may be from roses, the other from hemlock; one cures, and the other kills. There are permissions which may be to a certain extent good; but the present one is not; for at last it is a proprietorship, though veiled and hidden; it is the idol which Rachel had hidden under her garments. Persons say: the superior allows this, and it is by her good pleasure—this is Rachel speaking; but this pension belongs to one certain sister and not to another— there is the idol of proprietorship. If it be not proprietorship for one to have more necessity without the means of supplying it, and the other less necessity with more means, how comes it that while you are all sisters your pensions are not sisters? One suffers, and the other suffers not; one is hungry, I will almost say, with St. Paul,[6] and another abounds.

There is no community of Our Lord’s there. Call it what you like, but it is a pure proprietorship; for where there is no proprietorship there is no mine and thine—the two words which have produced the misery of the world. The religious who has a penny is not worth a penny, said the Ancients.

The love and tender affection you bear to your house may also be a great hindrance to the reformation of it; because this passion cannot permit you to think ill of it, nor to listen in a good spirit to reprehensions which may be given you about it. But take care, I pray you; for self-love is cunning; it pushes and insinuates itself into everything, while making us believe it is not there at all. The true love of our houses makes us jealous of their real perfections, and not of their reputation merely. The wife of good Tobias took offence at a caution of her husband’s, because it seemed to imply a doubt as to the honour of his family. She was too touchy; if there was no fault in the matter she should have praised God; if there was, she should have amended it, We must eat butter and honey, like Our Saviour, make our spirits meek and humble, choose the good and refuse the evil.[7] Bees love their hives, which are, as it were, their convents; I said to you once that they were like nature’s nuns in the animal creation; and they fail not to keep a jealous watch over all that is in their hives, and to clean them out at certain periods.

Nothing is so constant under heaven but it tends to dissolution; nothing is so clean but it contracts some dust. It is good not to mention without reason the defects one may see in a house, nor to show them to others; but to be unwilling to acknowledge them, or to confess them to those who may be of use in mending them, is an ill-regulated love. The spouse in the Canticles[8] confesses her imperfection: I am black, she says, but beautiful, . . . do not consider me that I am brown, because the sun hath altered my colour. I think you can say the same of your house; it is fair and virtuous indeed, but the course of time and the long years have altered its colours. Why will you not restore them by a holy reformation? When there is some little passing fault in a house, one may take no notice; but when it is permanent and customary, then it must be driven out, those being called in who can help to do so. It was an ill-regulated love in David to be unwilling to have Absalom put to death, in spite of his wickedness and rebellion. Whoever loves his house procures its soundness, purity, and reformation.

I think there is another obstacle to the reform of your house; viz., that you perchance consider it could not maintain itself without these pensions, because it is poor. On the contrary, I think that this monastery is poor because it has these pensions. There are in Italy two noble republics, Venice and Genoa. In Venice the private individuals are not so rich as at Genoa. The wealth of private persons hinders that of the public. If once you were really poor in particular, you would afterwards be rich in common.

God will have us trust in him, each according to his vocation. It is not required for a layman and ordinary man to depend upon the Providence of God in the way that we must, who are churchmen; for to us it is forbidden to amass wealth by engaging in trade, whereas to persons in the world it is not forbidden: the secular clergy, again, are not bound to trust in this same Providence as much as religious are; for religious must trust in it so strongly as to have no care whatever, individually, about their means of subsistence: and amongst religious those of S. Francis excel in this point, viz., the confidence and resignation they have towards Divine Providence, having no means of support either in particular or in common, but perfectly fulfilling that of the Psalmist:[9] Cast thy care upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee.

Each one ought to cast all his care on God, who indeed sustains the whole world; but each one does not cast it on God with the same degree of resignation: some cast it on him through the labour and occupation which God has given them, and through which God sustains them; others aim at it more simply, without any intermediate way of getting their living: They sow not, neither do they reap, and your heavenly Father feeds them.[10] Now your condition as religious obliges you to resign yourselves to God’s Providence without the help or favour of any private pensions or proprietorships; which, therefore, you should give up.

David is in admiration of the way in which God giveth the young ravens their food:[11] and indeed it is a thing most admirable. But does he not feed the rest of the animal creation? Of course; yet not in that way, nor immediately; the others are helped by their fathers and mothers, and have some means of working. But those our Lord feeds almost miraculously, and so does he ever feed those, his devout servants and creatures, who by the condition of their state and profession have devoted themselves to common life with individual poverty, using no intermediate means contrary to their condition.

The Cordeliers considered that they could not live in that strict poverty which their primitive rule required; the Capuchins have clearly shown them that they could. So long as St. Peter trusted in him who called him he was safe; when he began to doubt and to lose confidence he sank in the waters: let us do what we ought, each in his condition and profession, and God will not fail us. Whilst the children of Israel were in Egypt he fed them by the food which the Egyptians furnished; when they were in the desert, where there was no food, he gave them the manna, a food common to all and particular to none, and which, if I am not mistaken, represents a certain common life. You have come out of the world of Egypt, you are in the desert of religion; seek worldly means no longer; firmly hope in God; he will sustain you, undoubtedly, even if he have to rain down manna for you.

Then I doubt whether there may not be another hindrance to your reformation. Perhaps those who have proposed it to you have handled the sore somewhat roughly; but would you therefore reject your cure? Surgeons are sometimes obliged to enlarge the wound in order to lessen the mischief, when under a small sore the flesh is much bruised and crushed: perhaps that was why they sent the lancet somewhat deeply into the living flesh. I praise their method, although it is not mine, particularly with noble and well-trained souls, as yours are. I think it is better simply to show them the mischief, and to put the knife into their hands to make the incision themselves. Do not, however, on that account cease to reform yourselves. I am wont to say that we should receive the bread of correction with great respect, even though he who brings it may be disagreeable and unacceptable. Just as Elias ate the bread brought by ravens, so must he be welcome to us who procures our good, though he may be in every other respect disagreeable and unwelcome. Job scraped off the corruption of his sores with a potsherd; this was a hard humiliation, but it was a useful one. Good advice ought to be well received whether steeped in gall or preserved in honey.

Let not all these hindrances be powerful enough, I beseech you, to keep you back from undertaking this your most necessary reformation. I pray God to send his Angels to bear you up in their hands, lest perhaps you dash your feet against the stones[12] of stumbling. It remains for me to tell you my opinion concerning the order you should follow.

Ask God, by common and express prayers, to let you see the defects of your house, and the means of remedying them and of receiving grace. Since he is the God of peace, pacify your spirits, put them in repose; do not let the spirit of contention, which may have possessed your souls with regard to those who have up to this time tried to correct you, form any obstacle to the celestial light; cling no longer to your own cause, or to that of your house; do just as you would if you wanted to institute a new Congregation. According to your order and your rule, treat one another in this matter with a spirit of gentleness and of charity. Then will your Beloved, with his Angels, regard you as we do the bees when they are sweetly busy with the making of their honey, and I doubt not that this holy Lord will speak to your heart, saying to you what he said to his servant Abraham, Walk before me and be perfect.[13] Go farther into the desert of perfection: you have already made the first day’s journey by chastity, and the second by obedience, and a part of the third by some sort of poverty and common life; but why do you stop in so excellent a path, and for so slight a cause as private pensions? Go farther; finish the journey; have all in common; renounce private proprietorship, so that, according to the sacred Word, you may make a holy immolation and entire sacrifice in spirit and in goods.

After you have treated of your affair with your Spouse and with one another, call to your assistance and direction some of the more spiritual persons who are round about you; they will not fail you. I would name some of them; but you will name them better than I, and I dare say the very ones whom I should wish to name: they are persons extremely good for this purpose, gentle and gracious souls, indulgent when it comes to the point, though their rebukes may seem a little harsh and bitter. To these should you entrust this your affair, that they may decide what may seem most suitable; for your sex is subject, since the creation, to the condition of obedience, and never succeeds before God save by submitting itself to direction and instruction. Look at all the estimable Ladies of the Mother of Mercy up till this present, and you will find that I say the truth. In everything, however, I am presupposing that the authority of Madame de Fontevrault holds its place.

I am perhaps speaking and writing too much on a subject which you very likely have already had too much dinned into your ears; but God, in whose presence I write to you, knows that I have much more affection than I use words in this matter. I am unworthy to be heard, but I think your charity to be so great that you will not despise my advice, and I believe that the good Jesus has not given me so much love and confidence towards you without giving you a reciprocal affection, in order to take in good part what I propose to you for the service of your house, which I esteem and honour equally with any other, and think one of the best I have seen. This it is which has made me desire that it should be better, and perfect. It grieves me to see such grand qualities as those of your house subject to such paltry imperfections, and, as the Scripture says,[14] to see your strength delivered into captivity, and your beauty into the hands of the enemy. It is sad to see a precious liquor lose its worth through the presence of a little dirt, and an exquisite wine by the admixture of water: thy wine, says the prophet, is mingled with water.[15]

I will speak to you as did your holy Patron St. John, who was ordered to write to the Bishops of the East:[16] I know your works, which are almost all good—you are almost such, good religious—but I have a few things against you: something is wanting to you. I praise you on the whole, said St. Paul to his Corinthians, but in this I praise you not.[17] I pray and beseech you by the charity which is between us, take from your house what is in excess, and add to it what is wanting. Give me, I humbly beg of you, this consolation, to read my letter in repose and tranquillity of mind, and to weigh it not in the ordinary balance, but in the scales of the sanctuary and of charity; and I beseech God to give you the resolution necessary for your good, for the greater sanctification of his holy name amongst you, in order that you may be in name and in fact his true daughters. I promise myself the help of your prayers for my whole life, and more particularly for this entrance which I am making into the laborious and dangerous office of bishop, in order that while preaching to others I may not myself become a castaway.[18]

May God be our peace and consolation.

I am, and will be throughout my whole life, Reverend Ladies and most dear sisters in Jesus Christ, yours, &c.

B-I/2. To a Novice-Sister: The signs by which we may know whether what we feel comes from God or from the evil one: the way of tending to perfection.

Annecy, 16th January 1603.

My very dear and beloved Sister and Daughter in Jesus Christ—May God be your repose and your consolation.

I have received your two letters by the President Favre, a little later than you expected and I desired, but soon enough to give me consolation, in that I see therein some evidence that your mind is more at ease. May God be eternally blest for it!

In answer, I will first say that I do not want you to use any phrase of ceremony or of excuse with me, since by the will of God I bear you all the affection you could desire, and I cannot help it. I love your soul with a strong love, because I think God so wills, and tenderly, because I see it still weak and young. Use all confidence, then, and liberty in writing to me, and ask what you may think proper for your good. Let this be said once for all.

I see in your letter a contradiction which you have put in without noticing it; for you tell me that you are delivered from your disquiet, and yet I see you thoroughly disquieted by seeking to acquire perfection all in a moment. Have patience; I will tell you by-and-by what to do.

You ask me if you are to receive and yield to feelings [of devotion]. You say that without them your spirit languishes, and that still you cannot receive them without suspicion; and it seems to you that you ought to reject them. Another time that you write to me on such a subject as this, give me an example of the matter which you ask my advice about; that is to say, of some one of those feelings which has given you the most reason for doubting whether it should be received; for I shall much better understand your meaning. In the meantime here is some advice on your question.

Feeling and sweetness may come from the friend or from the enemy, that is, from the evil spirit or from the good one. Now, we can tell whence they come by certain signs, all of which I cannot well name to you; but here are some of them which will suffice.

When we do not stay in them, but simply use them by way of recreation, to enable us afterwards to fulfil our duties, and the work with which God has charged us, more courageously, it is a good sign; for God gives them sometimes for this purpose. He bends down to our weakness; he sees that our spiritual taste is out of order; he gives us a little sauce, not that we may eat the sauce only, but that he may tempt us to eat the solid meat. It is, therefore, a good sign when we do not stop at feelings; for the evil one, when it is he who gives the feelings, desires that we should stay in them, and that eating only the sauce our spiritual appetite should be weakened, and, little by little, ruined.

Secondly, good feelings do not inspire thoughts of pride, but, on the contrary, they strengthen us to reject those which the evil one may take occasion from them to whisper to us, so that the superior part ever remains entirely humble and lowly. It understands that Caleb and Josue would never have brought back the grapes from the Promised Land, to entice the Israelites to conquer it, unless they had considered their spirits to be weak and in need of stimulating; and so, instead of thinking itself to be something on account of these feelings, it argues and acknowledges its weakness, and humbles itself lovingly before its Beloved, who pours out his balm and his perfume that the young maidens and weak souls like itself may perceive, love, and run after it. But when they are evil feelings that possess us, instead of making us think of our weakness, they make us think we are getting them as a reward and prize.

Good feelings, when they depart, do not leave us weakened, but strengthened, not afflicted, but cheered; evil ones, on the contrary, when they arrive, give us some joy, and departing, leave us full of distress. Good feelings, when they go away, recommend that during their absence we should cherish, serve, and follow virtue, for the increase of which they had been given to us; evil ones make us believe that with them virtue goes away, and that we are unable to observe it as we should.

In short, good feelings do not want us to love them, but to love him who gives them (not that they are unworthy to be loved, but that is not what they seek); whereas evil ones would have themselves loved above all things. Hence the good ones do not make us eagerly seek them or cherish them; but bad feelings encourage us ever to seek virtue with eagerness and disquiet.

By these four or five marks you will be able to tell whence your feelings come from; and if they come from God you must not reject them, but, acknowledging that you are as yet but a poor little infant, take the milk of your Father’s breasts, who, from the pity which he feels for you, fulfils also to you the office of mother. Thy breasts, says the spouse to her Beloved,[19] are better than wine, smelling sweet of the best ointments. They are compared to wine, because they rejoice, invigorate, and put in good order the spirit, which without these little consolations would sometimes be unable to digest the travails which it must receive. Receive them, then, in God’s name, with this sole condition, that you be ready not to receive them; and do not love them, but reject them, when you know by the decision of your superiors that they are not good and not for the glory of God; and be ready to live without them, when God shall consider you worthy and able. Receive them, then, I say, my dear sister, thinking yourself weak as to your spirit, since the doctor gives you wine, in spite of the fevers of imperfections which are in you. If St. Paul recommends wine to his disciple for his corporal weakness, I may well advise you to take spiritual wine for your spiritual weakness.

Such is my answer, clear enough, I think; to which I add that you must never make a difficulty as to receiving what God sends you on the right or on the left, with the preparation and resignation that I have said: and if you were the most perfect being in the world, you ought not to refuse what God gives you, provided that you are ready to refuse it if such were his pleasure. At the same time you must believe that when God sends you these feelings it is for your imperfection, and it is this you must fight against, not the feelings which tend against it.

As for me, I have only one scruple—that you tell me these feelings are from the creature. I believe you meant to say that they come to you through the creature and yet from God; for in the rest of your letter you give me reasons to think thus. But even if they were from the creature they would not therefore have to be rejected, since they lead to God, or at least they are led to God; you have only to take care not to let yourself be taken by surprise, according to the general rules for using creatures. I will now tell you what I promised. I seem to see you agitated and restlessly anxious in your seeking after perfection; for this it is which has made you afraid of these little consolations and these feelings of devotion. But I tell you in truth, as is written in the Book of Kings,[20] God is not in the strong wind, nor in the earthquake, nor in those fires, but in the soft and tranquil breathing of a wind that can scarce be felt.

Let yourself be governed by God; think not so much for yourself. If you desire me to command you, since your mistress wishes it, I will do so willingly, and will first order that, having a general and universal resolution to serve God in the best fashion you can, you do not busy yourself with examining and minutely analysing what is the best fashion. This is a drawback incident to the nature of your spirit, which seeks to tyrannise over your will, and to guide it by lower and narrow rules.

You know that God wills in general that we should serve him by loving him above all things and our neighbour as ourselves. In particular he wills that you should keep a rule; that is enough. You must do it in good faith, without narrowness and subtlety; the whole after the way of this lower world, in which perfection resides not; in human way, and according to time, waiting for a day on which to do it after divine and angelic manner, and according to eternity.

Eagerness, agitation, does not help on an undertaking at all. Here the desire is good, but let it be without agitation. It is this eagerness which I expressly forbid you as the mother-imperfection of all imperfections.

And therefore do not examine so anxiously whether you are in perfection or not. For this I give you two reasons: the one, that our inquiry will be useless, because if we were the most perfect people in the world we ought never to know or recognise it, but ever esteem ourselves imperfect; our examination should never aim at learning whether we are imperfect or not, for we must never have a doubt about it. Whence it follows that we must not be astonished to see ourselves imperfect, since we must never see ourselves otherwise in this life; nor must we vex ourselves about it, for there is no help for it; but we must humble ourselves for it, for by this we shall repair our defects; and we must quietly correct ourselves, because this is the discipline for which our imperfections are left us; and though we are not excusable if we do not strive to correct them, yet we are excusable if we do not entirely succeed—the case of imperfections being different from that of sins.

The other reason is, that this examination, when it is made with anxiety and perplexity, is but a waste of time; and those who make it resemble soldiers who in training for battle should have so many encounters and bouts among themselves that when it came to right down earnest they would find themselves tired and spent; or they are like musicians who should get hoarse with practising to sing a motet; for the spirit wearies itself over such a searching and continual examination; and when it comes to the moment of execution it can no more. Such is my first commandment.

The second, following the first: If thine eye be simple thy whole body will be lightsome, says our Saviour.[21] Have a simple judgment; make not so many reflections and returns on self, but walk simply and with confidence. For you, there are but God and yourself in this world; all the rest ought to touch you not, save in so far as God commands, and in the way he commands. I beg you, do not look about you so much; keep your gaze fixed on God and on yourself; you will never see God without goodness, nor yourself without misery; you will see his goodness favourable to your misery, and your misery the object of his goodness and mercy. So do not look at anything except this,—I mean with fixed, settled, and deliberate gaze; only glance at all the rest.

Wherefore, study but little what others do, or what will happen to them; but regard them with a simple, kind, gentle, and affectionate eye. Do not require more perfection from them than from yourself, and do not be surprised at the diversity of imperfections; for imperfection is not more imperfection for being extravagant and odd. Do as the bees do; suck honey from all flowers and herbs.

My third commandment is, that you do as little children do; whilst they feel their mothers holding them by the sleeve they go boldly and run about, and do not alarm themselves when the weakness of their legs makes them slip a little to one side; in the same way, as long as you perceive that God holds you by the goodwill to serve him which he has given you, walk boldly, and do not alarm yourself about those little baulks and stumbles you make, and do not distress yourself about them, provided that at certain intervals you throw yourself into his arms, and kiss him with the kiss of charity. Walk joyously and open-heartedly as far as you can; and if you do not walk joyously, at least walk courageously and faithfully.

Do not give up the company of the sisters, although it may not be according to your taste; rather give up your taste when it may not be according to the general way of the sisters. Love the holy virtue of forbearance and self-adapting; for thus, says St. Paul,[22] you will fulfil the law of Christ.

Lastly, God has given you a temporal father, from whom you may receive much spiritual consolation. Love your spirit better than your body; follow out his advice as that of God; for God will give you many blessings by his instrumentality. He has sent me his translation of Blosius’s Institution; I have had it read at table, and have enjoyed it exceedingly: read it, I beg you, and dwell upon it, for it deserves it.

For the rest, when there occur to you doubts in this life which you have undertaken to lead, I admonish you not to let yourself wait for me; for I am too far off you to help you, and this would make you delay too much. There is no want of spiritual fathers to help you; employ them with confidence. I do not say this from any wish not to have your letters, for they give me consolation, and I wish to have them, yea, with all the details of the movements of your spirit, and the length of this letter will testify sufficiently that I do not grow weary of writing to you; but I say it in order that you may not lose time, and that whilst awaiting help from such a distance you may not be overcome and injured by the enemy.

As to my sacrifices, doubt not that you have part in them continually. Every day I offer you on the altar with the Son of God; I trust that God will deign to be pleased thereat.

Assure our Sister Anne Seguier, my very dear daughter in Jesus Christ, of the same, and madame your mistress, whose salutations I have presented to good M. Nouvelet, who was much gratified. If you knew the great multitudinousness of my affairs, and the embarrassment which this charge causes me, you would take pity on me, and would sometimes pray to God for me; and He would be greatly pleased. I beg of you and of Sister Anne Seguier that you often say to God, like the Psalmist, I am thine, save me;[23] and, like Magdalen, when at his feet, Rabboni—Ah! my Master!— and then let him act as he pleases. He will make of you, in you, without you, and yet by you and for you, the sanctification of his name, to which be honour and glory.—Your affectionate servant in Jesus Christ,

B-I/3. To M. Antoine Revel, Named to the See of Dol: On the virtues necessary for the episcopal office, and the way to acquire them.

Annecy, end of 1603.

Sir,—I have received two of your letters, but I have not yet answered them because when they arrived I was not here, but in Piedmont, whither I was obliged to go on account of the temporal revenues of this see. Now, sir, I send you the document from Rome which you desire. I have opened it to see whether it contains all you want, and I see all is there, and something more which does not concern you, and does not affect the document as to what is required for you. So there is my promise fulfilled in that particular. If any difficulty remain, please use the same confidence with me about it. I assure you, sir, that I shall never weary of doing services for your pleasure and for your soul, which I hope God will employ for the service of many others.

The other part of my promise is harder for me to put into effect, on account of the incessant occupations which overwhelm me; for I think I am in an office more burdensome than any other of its kind. But still I give you here an outline of what I have to put before you.

You are entering upon the ecclesiastical state, and at the same time you mount to the very summit of that state. I will say to you what was said to a shepherd who was chosen to be king over Israel: Thou shalt be changed into another man.[24] You must be other, in your interior and in your exterior; and to make this great and solemn change you must revolutionise your spirit and alter it throughout. Would to God that our charges, more tempestuous than the sea, had also that property which the sea has of making those who embark upon it cast up and vomit forth all their evil humours! But it is not so here; for very often we embark and spread our sails to the wind in very sickly state, and the farther we sail and voyage over the high seas, the more evil humours we beget. Well, praised be God, who has given you the desire not to do thus! I hope that he will also give you the power not to do it, that his work may be perfect in you.

To help you in this alteration you must use the living and the dead. The living, because you must find one or two thoroughly spiritual men of whose conversation you may be able to avail yourself. It is an extreme benefit to have those to whom we can give our spiritual confidence. I pass over M. du Val, who is good at all things and universally fitted for such offices. I tell you another—M. Galemant, curé of Aumale. If by chance he were at Paris, I know that he would help you much. I mention to you a third, a man to whom God has given much, and whom it is impossible to approach without great profit—M. de Berulle. He is entirely such as I would wish to be myself. I have hardly seen a soul which pleases me as his does; in fact, I have not seen one nor come across one; but there is this drawback, that he is extremely occupied. You may make use with as much confidence of him as of any one, but with some regard for his engagements. I have a great friend whom M. Raubon knows, M. de Soulfour; he is very capable in these matters. I should like you to know him, as I consider you would get much benefit from him.

As to the dead, you must have a little library of spiritual books of two kinds—the one for you as an ecclesiastic, the other for you as bishop. Of the first sort you should have some before entering on your charge, and should read them and reduce them to practice; for we must begin with the private (monastique) life before coming to the active and public life. I beg you to have the entire works of Granada, and to make them your second breviary. Cardinal [St. Charles] Borromeo had no other theology to preach with, and yet he preached excellently. But that is not its chief utility: the chief is, that it will train your soul to the love of true devotion, and to all the spiritual exercises which are necessary for you. My advice is, that you begin to read him in his large Guide to Sinners, then that you proceed to the Memorial, and then read him all; but to read him with fruit you must not simply hasten to get him down; you must weigh him and see his value, and, chapter after chapter, you must ruminate him, and apply him to your soul with many considerations and prayers to God. You must read him with reverence and devotion, as a book containing the most useful inspirations which the soul can receive from on high; and in this way must you restore all the powers of your soul, purging them by the detestation of all their bad inclinations, and applying them to their true end by firm and high resolutions.

After Granada, I strongly recommend to you the works of Stella, particularly on the vanity of the world, and all the works of Francis Arias, a Jesuit. The Confessions of St. Augustine will be extremely useful to you, and if you follow my advice you will take them in French, in the translation of M. Hennequin, bishop of Rennes. Bellintani, a Capuchin, is also very good for expressing with clearness many excellent considerations on all the mysteries of our faith, and it is the same with the works of Costerus, a Jesuit. And at the last moment I remember to recommend to you the Spiritual Letters of John of Avila, in which I am certain you will find many useful considerations for yourself and others; and at the same time I recommend to you the Epistles of St. Jerome, in his excellent Latin.

As bishop, to help you in the management of affairs, have Cardinal Toletus’s book of Cases of Conscience, and study it well; it is short, easy, and safe; you will find it enough for the beginning. Read the Morals of St. Gregory, and his Pastoral Care; St. Bernard in his letters, and in his books On Consideration. Or if you choose to have an abridgment of both, get the book entitled Stimulus Pastorum, by the Archbishop of Braga, in Latin, printed by Kerner. The Decreta of the Church of Milan is necessary for you; but I do not know whether it is printed at Paris. Also I want you to have the life of the Blessed Cardinal Borromeo, written by Charles a Basilica Petri, in Latin, for therein will you see the model of a true pastor; but, above all, have always in hand the Council of Trent and its Catechism.

I do not think that will be too little for you during the first year, for which alone I speak; afterwards you will be better instructed, and this from the very fact of having made progress in the first year, if you confine yourself within the simple limits I propose. But please excuse me for treating so confidently with you; for I cannot act in any other way on account of my high opinion of your goodness and friendliness.

I will yet add these two words: the one is, that it is of immense importance for you to receive consecration with a great reverence and devotion, and with a thorough appreciation of the greatness of your ministry. If you were able to get the discourse of Stanislaus Scolonius upon it, entitled, at least according to my copy, De sacr â episcoporum consecratione et inauguratione, it would help you much; for in truth it is an excellent piece. You know that the commencement in all things is very important; and one can truly say, the first in each kind is the measure of the rest.

The other point is, that I earnestly wish you much confidence and a particular devotion with regard to the holy Angel, guardian and protector of your diocese; for it is a great consolation to have recourse to him in all the difficulties of one’s charge. All the Fathers and theologians agree that bishops, besides their own particular Angel, have the assistance of another, who is deputed for their office and charge. You must have much confidence in the one and the other, and by frequently invoking them contract a certain familiarity with them, and specially, for affairs, with the one of the diocese, as also with the holy patron of your cathedral. For the rest, sir, you will gratify me if you love me intimately, and give me the consolation of writing to me familiarly; and be assured that you have in me a servant and brother in vocation as faithful as any one.

I forgot to say to you that you should by all means take the resolution of preaching to your people. The most holy Council of Trent, after all the Ancients, has decreed that a bishop’s first and chiefest office is to preach, and let no consideration divert you from this. Do not do it in order to become a great preacher, but simply because it is your duty and God’s will. The paternal sermon of a bishop is worth more than all the art of the elaborate discourses of other kinds of preachers. There is needed very little for good preaching, in a bishop; for his sermons should be on necessary and useful, not on curious or recondite, things; his words simple, not studied; his manner paternal and natural without art or effort; and short as he may be, or little as he may say, it is always a great thing.

Take all I have said as the beginning, for the beginning will afterwards teach you the rest. I see that you write your letters so well and fluently, that, in my opinion, you will, with but a little determination, make good sermons; still, sir, I say that you must have no little resolution, but much, and of a good and invincible kind. I beseech you to recommend me to God; I will return you an equivalent, and will all my life be, sir, your, &c.

B-I/4. To Madame Rose Bourgeois, Abbess of Puits d’Orbe: On the devotion proper to a religious, and the means to obtain it: also on the method to be observed by a religious superior in reforming her community.

[This was a Benedictine Abbey in Burgundy, ten miles from Châtillon-sur-Seine. The Abbess, on whose name, Rose, the Saint frequently plays, was daughter to M. Bourgeois de Crépy, president of the parliament of Burgundy. One of her sisters was married to M. Brulard, another was prioress in the same Abbey. Madame de Chantal also called them sister, and they her. St. Francis, who made the acquaintance of them all when he preached the Lent of 1604 at Dijon, adopted the same style, and calls them all, indifferently, sisters.

Many of these letters are wrongly dated and arranged by the French editors. The dates are here restored, as far as possible, by the internal evidence of the letters themselves, resting on the following ascertained facts. The first could not have been earlier than May 1604, the date of the Saint’s return to Annecy. An interview at Saint-Claude which is mentioned took place on 24th August 1604. Jeanne de Sales went to Burgundy with Madame de Chantal in May 1605. The Saint was commissioned to reform the Abbey in August 1608.]

May 1604.[25]

You have two sets of duties, Madame my dear daughter; for you are a religious and you are an abbess; you must serve God in each capacity, and to this end must be directed all your aims and exercises and affections.

Remember that there is nothing so blessed as a devout religious, nothing so miserable as a religious without devotion.

Devotion is simply the promptitude, fervour, affection, and agility which we have in the service of God: and there is a difference between a good man and a devout man; for he is a good man who keeps the commandments of God, although it be without great promptitude or fervour; but he is devout who not only observes them, but does so willingly, promptly, and with a good heart.

The true religious ought to be devout, and to aim at acquiring a great promptitude and fervour. To do this, it is necessary, first, to have the conscience uncharged with any sin; for sin is a heavy burden, which makes its bearer unable to walk uphill. On which account it is necessary to confess often, and never to let sin sleep in our bosom.

Secondly, we must take away all that can tie the feet of our soul, which are the affections. These must be unfastened and withdrawn from every object which is, I do not say bad, but not entirely good; for a horse that is shackled or tethered cannot run.

Further, we must beg this promptitude from our Lord, and for this purpose exercise ourselves in prayer and meditation, letting no day pass without making it during the space of a short hour. And as regards prayer, I remind you (1) that you must never omit the ordinary Office which is prescribed by the Church; you must rather omit every other prayer: (2) after the Office you must prefer meditation to all other prayers, for it will be more profitable to you and more pleasing to God: (3) make it a practice to use ejaculatory prayers, which are sighs of love breathed out before God to ask his help and protection. It will greatly help you in this to keep before your imagination that point of your meditation which you have most relished, in order to ruminate over it throughout the day, as one uses lozenges for physical benefit. You will find the same help from a cross, or from a pious image suspended from your neck, or your Rosary, if you often touch and kiss it in honour of the person represented, or from saying, when the clock strikes, a little word with your heart or your lips, such as, Vive Jesus! or, Now is the hour to arise from sleep, or, My hour approaches, and the like. (4) Pass no day, as far as possible, without reading a little in some spiritual book, and the same before meditation, to put yourself into a spiritual frame of mind.

Make it a custom to put yourself in the presence of God in the evening before you go to sleep, thanking him for having preserved you, and making the examen of conscience, as spiritual books direct. Do the same in the morning, preparing yourself to serve God all the day long, offering yourself to his love, and offering to him your own.

I wish that your meditation should be made in the morning, and that on the day before you should read the point that you intend to meditate on in Granada, Bellintani, or a similar author.

In order to acquire a holy promptitude in the practice of virtue, let no day pass without some particular act of it with this intention; for practice serves marvellously to facilitate our performance of all sorts of operations.

Never fail, at this commencement, to communicate every first Sunday of the month, besides the chief feasts; go to confession the night before, and excite in yourself a holy reverence and spiritual joy, as being about to have the happiness of receiving your sweet Saviour; and then make a new resolution of serving him fervently, confirming this, when you have received him, not by vow, but by a good and firm resolution.

On the day of your Communion, keep yourself as devout as ever you can, sighing after him who will then be yours and in you; and with the interior eye perpetually regard him lying in your heart, or seated in it as on his throne; and make your senses and your powers come one after another to hear his commandments and to promise him fidelity. This should be done after Communion by a short half-hour’s meditation.

Take care not to let yourself be moody and out of humour with those about you, lest, attributing this to devotion, they despise devotion; on the contrary, give them the greatest pleasure and satisfaction you can, in order that they may thus be brought to honour and esteem devotion, and to desire it.

Have in you the spirit of sweetness, joy, and humility, which most befit devotion; as also tranquillity, not disturbing yourself either for this or for that, but going your way of devotion with an entire confidence in the mercy of God, who will lead you by the hand into the heavenly country, and by this means keep yourself from vexations and from contentions.

As regards your quality of abbess, that is, of mother of a monastery, it obliges you to procure the good of all your religious in the perfection of their souls, and consequently to reform their manners and the whole house.

1. The method of doing it, at this beginning, ought to be sweet, attractive, and cheerful. You must not commence with the reprehension of things which have been tolerated up to now, but you yourself, without saying a word to them, must show the exact contrary in your life and conversation, employing yourself before them in holy exercises, such as saying prayers sometimes in the church, or possibly making your meditation there, saying the Rosary, having some spiritual work read to you while working with your needle; exhibiting to them meanwhile a more sweet and unaffected love than ever, with special marks of friendship for those who are giving themselves to devotion, yet not failing also to show every sign of affection to the others, in order to attract and lead them into the same path.

2. Be chary as to worldly conversations, and do not allow them in your own room further than you

3. can possibly help, so that little by little you may get the sisters’ dormitory entirely cleared of them;—that is most requisite, and your example is a great means towards it.

4. At table, have some good spiritual book read; such as Granada On the Vanity of the World, Gerson, Bellintani, and others of the kind; and make this a custom for every day.

5. At Office your own devout behaviour must set the law of modesty and reverence to all the religious. This you will easily do if you put yourself in the presence of God each time you begin the Office. I think that to introduce the Breviary of the Council of Trent will be a useful and profitable thing.

6. Do not adopt too austere an air at the outset, but be amiable with every one save very worldly persons; with these you must be short-spoken and reserved.

7. It will be good to employ one of your religious to help you in the management of temporal affairs, in order that you may have so much the more opportunity of giving yourself to the spiritual and to duties of charity.

8. Lastly, do not be in a hurry at this commencement, but do all that you will do so cheerfully and with such sweetness that all your daughters may come gradually to desire to embrace devotion; and when you see they have entered upon this you must treat more thoroughly of the re-establishment of the perfection of your Rule, which will be the greatest service you can do Our Saviour. But all must proceed not so much from your authority as from your example and gentle leading.

9. God calls you to all these holy works; hear him and obey. Consider that you can never take too much pains nor practise too much patience in the pursuit of so great a good. How happy will you be if at the end of your days you can say with Our Lord:[26] I have finished and perfected the work thou gavest me to do! Desire it, effect it; think of this, pray for this; and God, who has given you the will to desire it, will give you strength to execute it.

B-I/5. To the Same: Same Subject.

Annecy, between May and end of August 1604.[27]

Madame—I have sent to President Brulart’s wife, your sister, a writing which I wish to be communicated to you; not that the one I have given you is no longer of use for you and for the present time, but that you may ever have more and more illumination in your soul, to the advancement of which I feel myself so much bound that there is nothing in the world I desire more, not only on account of the great confidence God has given you in my regard, but also on account of that which he gives me, that you will greatly serve for his glory: have no doubt of this, madame, and have good courage. I am extremely consoled by the pleasure you take in reading the life of St. Teresa, for you will see the great courage which she had in reforming her Order; and this will doubtless aid you to reform your monastery, which will be much easier for you than she found it, since you are perpetual superior. But keep to the method I recommended to you, of commencing by example; and though it may seem to help you but little at first, yet have patience, and you will see what God will do. I recommend to you above all the spirit of sweetness, which is what ravishes hearts and gains souls. Hold tightly and resolutely, in this beginning, to the good performance of all your exercises, and prepare yourself for temptations and contradictions. The evil spirit will excite innumerable such, to hinder the good which he sees is about to come from your resolution; but God will be your protector, as I beseech him to be with all my heart, and will beseech him all the days of my life. I beg you to recommend me to his mercy, and to believe that I am, as greatly as you can desire and as I can be,—Madame, yours, &c.

My companion told me on the journey that you wished to come to Saint-Claude, and that I shall then have the advantage of seeing you. I beg you in that case to let me know beforehand, that I may be able to be in a place and in a state of leisure suitable for your consolation.

B-I/6. To the Same (The Abbess of Puits d’Orbe): Advice on her own conduct, on the introduction of certain community exercises, and the general reformation of the Abbey.

Autumn of 1604.[28]

Madame—I have kept your messenger, Philibert, a long time, but it is because I have never had a single day to myself, although I have been in the country; for the charge which I hold carries its martyrdom with it everywhere, and I cannot say that any single hour of my time is my own, except my hours of Office; so much the more earnestly do I desire to be recommended to your prayers.

I send to you, my dear daughter (such is the name that you desire and that my heart dictates), a paper on what seems to me the easiest and most profitable method of making mental prayer. I have inserted for you some exercises and ejaculatory prayers. This will amply suffice to teach the form which you must follow for spending the day. I want you to communicate it to Madame the wife of the President, your sister, and to Madame de Chantal; for I think it will be useful to them.

As to the matter of your meditations, I should like it to be, as a rule, on the life and death of Our Lord; for these are the most simple and most useful.

The books which I recommend you are Bruno, a Jesuit; Capiglia, a Carthusian;

Bellintani, a Capuchin; but above all Granada in the True Way —to begin with. Bruno and Capiglia may serve you for feasts and Sundays, the other two for the common days of the year. But although you may look at these authors, who are excellent, do not depart from the form which I have sent you.

Always enter upon prayer by putting yourself in the presence of God, invoking him, and proposing to yourself the mystery; and after the considerations always make acts of the affections, not of all, but of some, and the resolutions; after that the thanksgivings, the offering, the prayer; lastly, read carefully the little memorial which I send you, and put it in practice.

As to meditation on death, judgment, and hell, it will be very useful to you, and you will find materials for it in Granada at great length. Only, my daughter, I beg you to let all these meditations on the four last things end always with hope and confidence in God, and not with fear and terror; for when they end with fear they are dangerous, particularly those on death and hell.

Therefore, after having considered the greatness of the torments and their eternity, and after having excited yourself to the fear of them, and made a resolution of serving God better, you must represent to yourself the Saviour on the cross, and running to him with outstretched arms, you must go and take hold of his feet, with interior exclamations full of hope: O, harbour of refuge, ah! your blood shall be my safety; I am yours, Lord, and you will save me: and leave off in this affection, thanking Our Lord for his blood, offering it to his Father for your deliverance, and beseeching him to apply it to you. But never at any time fail to finish by hope, otherwise you would draw no profit from such meditations; and ever keep to this rule of finishing your prayer with confidence; for it is the virtue which is most required for gaining God’s help, and the one which honours him the most. So you may make these meditations on the four last things once every three months, during four days.

Touching the order of prayer for the day, I think I have given you sufficient instruction in this little paper which I send you. I will, however, tell it you here a little more particularly.

Knowing that you are a very early riser, I say that in the morning after you rise you ought to make your meditation and the morning exercise which I have called preparation, with the proviso that the whole shall not last longer than three-quarters of an hour at most, as I do not want the meditation and exercise to take an hour. After this you can proceed with the day’s business until Office, if there is any time.

At the Mass, I advise you to say your chaplet rather than any other vocal prayer; and while saying it you can break off when you have to observe the points I have marked—the Gospel, the Credo, the Elevation,—and then take it up where you left off, and have no fear but that it will be the better said for these interruptions; and if you cannot finish it at the Mass, it will do at some other time of the day, but you need only go on from where you stopped.

At dinner, I should approve of your arranging to have the Benedicite said, and the ecclesiastical grace which is at the end of the Breviary. This you can introduce at the same time that you introduce the Tridentine Breviary, or before, if you think well; and little by little get each sister to take her turn in saying it, for the Church has not given the order except for us to observe it. When at Annecy I always observe it.

A little before supper it would be very useful for you to take a quarter of an hour’s recollection to ruminate the morning’s meditation, unless at that time they are saying Compline in the monastery.

In the evening, before going to rest, I recommend that if the church be not too far removed from your rooms, and if not inconvenient, you should all go there together, and that when you get there, and are on your knees and in the presence of God, the one whose week it is should make the examination of conscience thus: Paternoster, and the rest said secretly; Ave Maria and Credo, and at the end Carnis, resurrectionem, vitam æternam, Amen. Then all together the Confiteor, up to meâ culpâ, and stop for about half a quarter of an hour to make the examen; then finish the meâ culpâ and the rest, Misereatur and Indulgentiam. After that the Litany of the Blessed Virgin, and the prayer of Our Lady, or that which follows: Visita quoesumus Domine, habitationem istam, &c. The others answer: Dormiam et requiescam. V. Benedicamus Domino. R. Deo Gratias. V. Requiescant in pace. And from that time let each one retire to her cell, after all have saluted one another together.

For the rest, dear madame, it is above all necessary that yourself first should keep a fixed order, not only for the Offices, but also as to rising and retiring; otherwise you cannot continue in health: and it is so arranged in all communities. Night vigils are dangerous for head and stomach. I should advise that dinner should not be later than ten, nor supper than six, nor bedtime than nine to ten, and getting up from four to five, unless some constitutions require more time for sleep, or cannot take so much. But for not sleeping so much the cause must be well approved; because for young women it seems that six hours are almost required, and if they do not take it they are without energy the whole of the day.

Do not make mental prayer after dinner, at least not for four hours after, and never after supper. On fast-days collation may be taken at seven; and as to fasting, for yourself it will suffice to begin with Friday, and to be satisfied with this for some time, particularly because you must be with the rest, and must lead them on little by little.

When you are ill make only ejaculatory prayer. Take care of yourself, obeying the doctor scrupulously, and be sure that this is a mortification agreeable to God; and when your sisters are ill be very affectionate in visiting them, assisting them, getting them served and comforted. Similarly, if some of them are sickly, show to them a tender compassion, easily dispensing them from their duty, from Office, according as you judge fitting; for this will gain their hearts wonderfully.

As to Communion and confession, I approve that it should be every week, and that on the evening of the Saturday you should add to the Visita the prayer of the Blessed Sacrament.

I sent you a little formula for confession, which I have prepared expressly for you. I do not put everything into it, but only what I have thought suitable for your instruction. You can communicate it to Mesdames Brulart and de Chantal, and to the religious whom you may see disposed to profit by it. I have not here the books which treat of it, and perhaps they say it better than I do; but it matters not, if you find it elsewhere so much the better.

As to the reformation of your house, my dear daughter, you must have a great and durable courage, and you will succeed without doubt, if God gives you his grace and some years of life. You are the one who will be employed on this sacred business, and without great trouble. I am glad that you are but few sisters; multitude breeds confusion. But how are you to begin? My idea is this.

The exact reformation of a monastery of women consists in obedience well kept, poverty, and chastity, You must be closely on your guard to give no alarm, either loud or low, of your intention of making a reform; for that would cause all the hasty and busyminded people to take up arms and set themselves against you. Do you know what must be done? It is necessary that the sisters should reform themselves under your guidance, and bind themselves to obedience and poverty. But how? Walk very little at a time; gain those young plants which are there; inspire into them the spirit of obedience; and to do this use three or four artifices.

The first is to give them commands often, but in things very little, pleasant, and light, and this before others; and then gracefully to praise them about it, and to call them to obedience with expressions of love,—my dear sister, or child, and the like; and just before doing this to say: If I ask you to do this or that, will you not do it well for the love of God?

The second is to put before them some books which will help them, and amongst others there are three admirable ones which I counsel you to have, and to read the most suitable points from, sometimes to them by themselves. These are Platus, On the Advantages of the Religious State, which is printed in French at Paris; The Gerson of Religious, composed by Père Pinel, printed at Lyons and at Paris; The Desiring [soul], or Treasure of Devotion, printed at Paris and Lyons. Also, to speak often of obedience, not as if wanting it from them, but as wanting to render it to some one. For example: Ah! how much happier are those abbesses who have superiors to command them! They are not afraid of erring; all their actions are much more agreeable to God; and the like little baits.

The third is to command, so sweetly and amiably, as to make obedience an object of love, and after they have obeyed you to add: May God reward you for this obedience—and so to make yourself very humble.

The fourth is to make profession yourself of wishing to do nothing save by the advice and counsel of your spiritual father, to whom, however, you must attribute no right at all of commanding, just as you must not give to what you do under his direction any title of obedience, for fear of exciting contradictions, and of making unkind people raise jealousy in the minds of those who are superiors of your monastery. That would spoil all; and I have had my experience in such accidents through having seen them happen in France, in monasteries wherein there was no little difficulty in appeasing these tempests.

I say the same of poverty. It is necessary to lead them to it step by step in such way, that, inspired after this sweet fashion, after some time all their pensions may be placed together in one purse, from which they will draw all that is necessary, equally and as required, according to each one’s need, as is done in many monasteries of France which I know. But above all you must not in any way give the alarm about all this, but lead them to it by gentle and sweet inspirations, towards which, also, the above-named books will assist.

As to chastity, you must begin thus. Declare that you yourself are never so content as when you are alone with them; that it seems to you the greatest of pleasures to be thus in your private sisterly society amongst yourselves; that you like every one to be in his or her place, people of the world by themselves, and you with the sisters; or that worldly people only come to a religious house to get something to carry away and spread about here and there, and such-like little words to influence their minds—which, however, must be so said as to seem to be only your own personal ideas. You will see that, little by little, they will be very glad to give up going out into the world, and letting the world come in to them; and at last some day (it may well be after a year, or even two) you will get this passed into a constitution and rule; for, after all, enclosure is the guardian of chastity.

I am pleased to know that almost all of you are young, for this age is suited to receive impressions. At the monastery of Montmartre, near Paris, the young, with their abbess still younger, have effected a reformation.

When you encounter difficulties and contradictions, do not try to break them, but prudently let them pass, and bend them with sweetness and time: if all do not show themselves disposed, have patience, and advance as far as you can with the rest. Do not show any desire to conquer; excuse in the one her infirmity, in the other her age; and say as little as you possibly can that there is a want of obedience.

But tell me—do you think it little that you have done already for the Office, the veil, and the like? Good heavens! Our Saviour was three and a half years forming the college of his twelve apostles, and there was, after all, a traitor and much imperfection when he died. We must possess our heart in longanimity; great designs are not effected save by virtue of patience and duration of time. Things which grow in one day decay in another. Courage, then, my good daughter! God will be with you.

My daughter, I approve the charity you are willing to show to this poor misguided creature, provided that she return with a spirit of gratefulness and penitence; and if she come in this way she will find it sweet as sugar and honey to be placed in the lowest rank, and to have no part in the honours of the house, until the virtues she may display to balance her past faults may raise her back into new honours—except her order, which it is reasonable for her to lose absolutely. In particular, I am thoroughly of opinion that you should lift up her heart by gentleness, and that you invite all the other sisters to do likewise; for the Apostle says[29] quite plainly that those who are spiritual must lift up those who have been overtaken in any fault in the spirit of mildness, when they come in dispositions of penitence. Thus are we to mingle justice with kindness, after the manner of our good God, in order that charity may be practised and discipline observed.

I should approve that the exercise of the examen of conscience should not be made till a good half-hour or three-quarters after supper, and that during this three-quarters of an hour there should be recreation in innocent conversation, or even in singing spiritual songs, at any rate in this beginning.

Your children ought to receive Communion at eleven, at latest, supposing that they have the discretion which is ordinarily had at that age. And the first time they go to Communion it is well that you should yourself take pains to instruct them as to the reverence they ought to have, and to make them mark the day and year in their prayer-book, to thank God for it each following year.

And now, it seems to me, I have answered all you asked me, madame my dear sister. I have only to say that I am, without ceremony, entirely yours and your abbey’s, throughout which I hope one day to see holy devotion flourishing; in what I can, I will contribute both, what God will give me of his Spirit, and my feeble prayers. I never fail to make good room for you all in the Memento of holy Mass; and be sure that if you desire to be near me, I also greatly desire to be near you. But we are near enough, since God unites us in the desire to serve him. Let us live in God, and we shall be together. I beseech him with all my heart to strengthen you more and more in his love, with all the ladies your religious, whom I salute and beg not to forget me in their prayers, but to bestow on me some of the breathings of devotion which they direct towards heaven, where their hope is. Amen.

Meditation for the Beginning of each Month

Place yourself in the presence of God; beseech him to inspire you. Imagine that you are a poor servant of Our Lord, and that he has placed you in this world as in his house.

1. Ask him with humility why he has placed you there; and consider that it is not for any need he may have of you, but in order to exercise his goodness and liberality upon you, for it is to give you his Paradise; and in order that you may have it, he has given you an understanding to know him, a memory to be mindful of him, a will and a heart to love him and your neighbour, an imagination to represent to yourself him and his benefits, all your senses to serve him, your ears to hear his praises, your tongue to praise him, your eyes to contemplate his wonders, and so of the rest.

2. Consider that, being created for this end, all actions contrary to it ought to be utterly avoided, and those which do not conduce to it ought to be held in no esteem.

3. Consider what an evil thing it is to see in the world that men for the most part think not of this, but suppose they are in the world to build houses, lay out gardens, possess vineyards, amass gold, and the like transitory things.

4. Represent to yourself your misery, which was so great at such time as you were of this number. Alas! must you say, what was I thinking of when I was not thinking of thee, O Lord? Of what was 1 mindful when I was forgetting thee? What did I love when I loved not thee? Was I not unhappy in serving vanity instead of truth? Alas! the world, which was only made to serve me, ruled me, and was mistress over my affections! I renounce you, vain thoughts, useless memories, faithless friendships, lost and miserable services.

Make your resolutions, and a firm purpose of henceforward applying yourself faithfully to what God wants from you, saying to him: Thou shalt henceforth be my only light in my understanding; thou shalt be the object of my memory, which shall occupy itself solely in representing to itself the greatness of thy goodness, so sweetly exercised in my regard; thou shalt be the sole delight of my heart, and the only well-beloved of my soul.

Particular Application

Ah! Lord, I have such and such thoughts; I will refrain from them in future: I have too keen a memory of injuries and slights; I will give it up from this time: I have my heart still attached to such or such a thing which is useless or hurtful to thy service, and to the perfection of love which I owe thee; I will entirely withdraw and disengage it, by the help of thy grace, that I may be able to give it all to thy love.

Fervently beseech God to give you this grace, and practise what you can in something which concerns this point.

Often repeat the saying of S. Bernard; and in imitation of him, stirring up your heart, say often: Rose, what hast thou come into this world to do? What art thou doing? Do that which thy Master hath charged thee to do, that for which he has put thee into this world and preserves thee in it. No one shall be crowned with roses who has not first been crowned with thorns by Our Lord.

One who desires your perfection in God, in whose tender mercies he is yours, &c.

B-I/7. To the Same: Further instructions on the same subjects. Announces the death of (Ven.) Ancina, and the intention of the Saint’s mother to send her youngest daughter to be educated at Puits d’Orbe.

13th October 1604.

Madame, my very dear Sister and Daughter in Our Lord—I want to mention some points to you privately, and I wish you to keep them to yourself.

I beg you by the words of our Lord to believe, without any doubt whatever, that I am entirely and irrevocably at the service of your soul, and that I will apply myself therein to the whole extent of my powers, with all the fidelity that you could ever wish. God wills it, as I know full well; more I could not say. On this good foundation I will employ my spirit and my prayers in thinking out all that will be useful and necessary for making a thorough reformation of all your monastery; only have a great courage, full of hope. This is all we need at present; for you will undoubtedly be attacked; but with a spirit of gentle bravery we shall achieve this good design, God helping. And for the present you must firmly establish the interior of your hearts, your own above all, for this is the true and solid method; and after some time we will establish the exterior to the edification of many souls. Be sure that I will think of this in good earnest. As to your desire to make your vows again in my hands, and to give me a writing to this effect, since you think this will give you so much repose, I am willing, provided that you add to the writing this condition, in that part where you speak of me—“saving the authority of lawful superiors”—and you must not let anything of this be known.

I am writing to your and my honoured father a letter calculated, in my opinion, to gain over his spirit to our design, which I am not making out to him so great as it is, because it would turn him against it to propose it all at once, whereas little by little he will undoubtedly approve it. I use some liberty about you in that letter, but you well know that all this is for nothing but the glory of God and your advantage, which alone I regard herein. I know that you hold me too much yours to interpret anything coming from me otherwise than as well and kindly meant.

We must have patience over his wanting his opinions to be followed, for he does all in excess of loving-kindness; and I hope that in the way that I am writing we shall greatly gain him over. I am writing a word to madame your sister, whom I cannot help loving extremely, being what she is. Your honoured father seems to desire it, by the letter which he has written to me.

I am much afraid that the writing of the Meditation is so badly done that you will not be able to read it. You must please take the trouble to get it copied out clearly, so as to be able to use it with more fruit. I was so much indisposed when I had it written that I could not use my hand to write it, and contented myself with dictating it.

There is no human likelihood that I shall ever have the consolation of seeing Puits d’Orbe; but the great desire with which I am moved towards your spiritual service makes me hope that Our Lord will conduct me thither by his Providence when the time requires, if my poor co-operation is required for your good design.

Persevere in having reading at table, and likewise sometimes in your room in company with your sisters. You must, little by little, dispose the matter of the entire reformation; and the chiefest preparation is to render hearts gentle, tractable, and desirous of perfection.

Take advantage of the help of the good Father de Villars, who writes to me, in answer to the note which I gave you at Saint-Claude, that he will take particular pains to help you. You will do well to keep to the devout practices which I have given you, and not to vary them without letting me know. God will be pleased with your humility towards me, and will make them fruitful to you.

My Lord the Bishop of Saluces [Ancina] has lately died. He was one of the greatest servants of God there has been in this age, and one of my most intimate friends: he was made bishop the same day as myself. I ask you for a Rosary for him; for I know that if I had died before him he would have done me the like charity wherever he had credit. If I had had time to myself I would have written to you in better order; but all that I am writing is only in morsels, according to the leisure I can get. Believe that I greatly need your prayers.

The books which you might have for the present are: Platus On the Excellence of the Religious State; The Gerson of Religious, by Luce Pinel; Paul Morigie On the Institution and Commencement of Religious Orders; the works of Granada, newly printed at Paris; Bellintani On Mental Prayer; the Meditations of Capiglia, a Carthusian; those of St. Bonaventure; The Desiring Soul; the works of Francis Arias, and particularly The Imitation of Our Lady; the works of the Mother [St.] Teresa; the Spiritual Catechism of Cacciaguerra, and his other works. This, or a part of it, will suffice you, with those which I know you have already. May God, our dear sister, be your guide, protector, and preserver, your aim and your confidence. Amen. —Yours, &c.

Madame, I was almost forgetting to tell you that my mother and I have formed the plan of sending to you, after this next winter, my young sister, whom you saw at Saint-Claude, with the intention that, if God favour her with the inspiration of being a religious, she may be so in due time, with your favour and help; and too happy will she be to arrive in this house at the same time that devotion will be kindled there. Or, if she be not worthy of this place, nor I of this satisfaction, at least she will have this happiness, wherever she may go, of having been in

so good a place. And it will all be, with God’s help, without any inconvenience to any one save what may arise from her own disposition. See, madame my dear sister, whether or no we want to bind ourselves strongly to your service. I say it without ceremony.

B-I/8. To the Same (the Abbey of Puits d’Orbe): How to sanctify corporal suffering: Instructions on peace and humility.

1605, about April[30]

My very dear Sister—The great word which makes me so absolutely yours is this: God it is who wills it, and I have no doubt thereof. There is no better title than this in all the world. You will already have known all the news about my cure, which is so complete that I have preached the Lent right through. Indeed my illness was nothing much, as I think; but the doctors, who thought I had been poisoned, caused so much fear to those who love me that it seemed to them I was going to slip out of their hands. As soon as ever I was up I wrote to you, and I feel sure you had the letter. Again since then I have written to you, but amid the press of a world of affairs which prevented me from giving you much time, as I should much have wished to do; subject never failing me, on account of the extreme satisfaction which I find in it.

Not only your messenger, but also our good and dear father, has informed me how many evils you suffer, and the compassion which they cause him for you. May Our Lord be blessed for it! Here is the safest and most royal way of heaven for you; and, from what I understand, you have to stay in it some time, since, according to what our good father writes to me, you are still in the hands of the doctors and surgeons. I have certainly an extreme compassion for your sufferings, and recommend them often to Our Lord, that he may make them useful to you, and that when you come out of them it may be able to be said of you as of the holy man Job: In all these things Job sinned not,[31] but hoped in God.

Courage, my good sister, my good daughter! Look at your Beloved, your King, how he is crowned with thorns, and all torn to pieces on the cross, so that they could number all his bones.[32]

Consider how the crown of the bride ought not to be better than that of the Bridegroom; and if they so tore away his flesh that all his bones might be counted, it is reasonable indeed that one of yours may be seen. As the rose among thorns so is my love among the daughters.[33] It is the natural place of that flower, and it is also the most suitable to your Bridegroom. Accept this cross a thousand times a day, and kiss it willingly for love of him who sends it to you. There is no doubt that he sends it to you from love, and as a rich present. Often represent to yourself your Saviour crucified just before you, and think which of the two suffers the more, and you will find your trouble much less. Oh! how happy will you be eternally if you suffer for God this trifling evil which he sends you!

You will not err in fancying that I am near you in these tribulations. I am so in heart and affection, and often I declare before your Beloved your sufferings and trouble,[34] and feel in this a great consolation. But, my dear daughter, have confidence, be strong: If you believe, you shall see the glory of God.[35] What do you think the bed of tribulation is? It is simply the school of humility: thereon we learn our miseries and weaknesses, and how vain, delicate, and infirm we are. And truly, my dear daughter, on that bed have you discovered the imperfections of your soul. And why, I pray you, rather there than elsewhere, save because elsewhere they stay within the soul, and there they come outside? The agitation of the sea so upsets the humours, that those who enter upon it thinking they have none, after sailing a little find by the convulsions and retchings which this irregular tossing excites that they are full of them. It is one of the great benefits of affliction to see the depths of our nothingness, and to make the scum of our bad inclinations float to the top. But still, are we for this to be troubled, my dear daughter? Certainly not; it is then that we must yet more cleanse and purify our spirit, and make more earnest acknowledgment of them than ever.

This important trouble, and the other troubles with which you have been beset, do not alarm me, so long as there is nothing worse. Do you, then, not disquiet yourself, my well-beloved daughter. Are we to let ourselves be swept away by current and by whirlwind? Let the enemy rage at the gate, let him knock, let him push, let him cry, let him howl, let him do his worst; we know for certain that he cannot enter save by the door of our consent. Let us keep this shut up, often looking to see that it is quite close; and about all the rest let us not trouble ourselves, for there is nothing to fear.

You ask me to send you something touching peace of soul and humility; I would do so willingly, my dearest daughter, but I do not know whether I shall be able to do it in the little space of leisure which I have for writing to you; but here are four or five words about it, my well-beloved daughter. It is by divine inspiration that you ask me about peace of soul and humility both together; for it is indeed the truth that the one cannot be without the other.

Nothing troubles us except self-love, and the esteem in which we hold ourselves. If we have not feelings of tenderness in our heart, relish and sensible feeling in prayer, interior sweetnesses in meditation, we fall into sadness; if we find some difficulties in doing well, if some obstacle crosses our good designs, at once we anxiously hasten to overcome it all, and with disquieted minds to free ourselves from it. Why is all this?

There is no doubt it is because we love our own consolation, our own pleasure, our own comfort. We want our prayer to be steeped in orange-flower water, and we would be virtuous in eating sugar; and we do not regard our sweet Jesus, who, prostrate on the earth, sweats blood and water in agony over the deadly conflict which he feels within him, between the affections of the inferior part of his soul and the resolutions of the superior.

Self-love, then, is one of the sources of our troubles; the other is the esteem in which we hold ourselves. What is the meaning of our being disappointed, troubled, and impatient when we fall into some imperfection or sin? Without doubt it is because we were thinking ourselves to be good for something, resolute, steady; and therefore, when we see that in reality it is all a mistake, and that we have fallen flat down, we find ourselves deceived, and consequently are troubled, vexed, and disquieted. If we only knew what we were, instead of being astonished at finding ourselves on the ground, we should marvel how we can remain standing up. And there is this other source of our disquiet; we want consolations only, and we are taken aback when we lay our finger on our misery, our nothingness, and our weakness.

Let us do three things, my dear daughter, and we shall have peace. Let us have a thoroughly pure intention of willing, in all things, the honour of God and his glory; let us do the little we can for that end, according to the advice of our spiritual father; and let us leave to God the care of all the rest. He who has God for the object of his intentions, and who does what he can— why does he torment himself? Why does he trouble himself? What has he to fear? No, no; God is not so terrible to those whom he loves; he is content with little, for he well knows we have not much.

And know, my dear daughter, that our Lord is called Prince of Peace in the Scriptures,[36] and that, therefore, wherever he is absolute master he holds all in peace. Though it is true that before placing peace anywhere he causes war there, separating the heart and the soul from its most cherished, familiar, and ordinary affections, such as an inordinate love of self, confidence in self, complacency in self, and the like affections. Now when Our Lord separates us from affections so fondly and passionately cherished, he seems to be flaying the heart alive, and the acutest pains are felt; we can scarcely help resisting with the whole soul, because this separation is most sensibly felt. But yet all this resistance of the spirit is not without peace, even if we are at last overwhelmed with this distress, so long as we fail not on this account to hold our will resigned to that of Our Lord, and keep it there nailed to his divine good pleasure, and in no wise let go our obligations or the fulfilment of them, but execute them courageously. Of this Our Lord gave us an example in the Garden; for, all overcome with interior and exterior anguish, his whole heart was calmly resigned to his Father and the divine will, saying: Yet not my will but thine be done;—and, for all his agony, he did not omit going three times to see and admonish his disciples. It is to be “Prince of Peace” indeed, to be in peace amid wars, and to live in sweetness amid bitternesses. from this I want you to draw these conclusions. The first, that very often we think we have lost peace because we are in bitterness, and yet we have not lost it all; as we know if on account of bitterness we cease not to renounce ourselves, and to keep our will dependent on the good pleasure of God, and fail not to fulfil the duties of the charge in which we are.

The second, that of necessity we must suffer interior pain, when God tears away the last skin from the old man to renew him in the new man who is created according to God[37]² Wherefore we must not be disquieted about this, nor think that we are in disfavour with God.

The third, that no thoughts which cause us disquiet and agitation of spirit are from God, who is Prince of Peace, but are temptations of the enemy, and therefore we are to reject them, and take no notice of them.

We must in all things and everywhere live peacefully. If trouble, exterior or interior, come upon us, we must receive it peacefully. If joy come, we must receive it peacefully and without throbbings of heart. Have we to avoid evil?—we must do so peacefully, without disquieting ourselves; for otherwise we may fall as we run away, and give time to our enemy to kill us. Is there some good to be done?—we must do it peacefully; otherwise we should commit many faults in our hurry. Even our repentance itself must be made peacefully: Behold in peace is my bitterness most bitter,[38] said the penitent.

Read, my good daughter, chapters 15, 16, and 17 of the Spiritual Combat, and add them to what I have said, and for the present this will suffice. If I had my papers here I would send you a treatise on this subject which I made at Paris for a spiritual daughter, a religious of a good monastery, who needed it both for herself and for others. If I find it I will send it you on the first opportunity.

As to humility, I can say little more than that your dear sister De N. must show you what I have written to her about it. Read carefully what Mother [St.] Teresa says of it in the Way of Perfection. Humility causes us to avoid troubling ourselves about our own imperfections by remembering those of others: for why should we be more perfect than others?—and in the same way to avoid troubling ourselves over those of others when we remember our own: for why should we think it extraordinary for others to have imperfections since we have plenty? Humility makes our hearts gentle towards the perfect and the imperfect; towards those from reverence, towards these from compassion. Humility makes us receive painful things sweetly, knowing that we deserve them, and good things with lowliness, knowing that we do not deserve them. As to the exterior, I should recommend you to make every day some act of humility, either in words or in deed—I speak of words that come from the heart; in word, as by humbling yourself to an inferior; in deed, as by doing some lower work or service, either for the house or for some particular person.

Do not distress yourself about staying in bed without meditation; for to endure the scourges of Our Lord is not a less good than meditating. No, undoubtedly; for it is better to be on the cross with Our Lord than to look at him only. But I know well that there, on your bed, you cast your heart a thousand times a day into the hands of God, and it is enough. Obey the doctors exactly; and when they forbid you some exercise, whether fasting, or mental or vocal prayer, or even Office, or any prayer beyond ejaculatory, I beseech you as earnestly as I can, both by the respect and by the love you are good enough to bear me, to be very obedient; for God has so ordained it. When you are cured and have got back your strength, resume your journey quietly, and you will see that we shall advance far, with God’s help; for we shall go where the world cannot reach, beyond its limits and confines.

My dear daughter, you write me that you are in every respect the last, but you are mistaken; the fruits I expect from you are greater than from any of the others. Believe, I beg you, that I have nothing more at heart than your advancement before God, and if my blood would further this you would soon see in what rank I hold you. I leave on one side the extreme confidence you have in me, which obliges me to an extreme zeal for your welfare. You say you would like to send me your heart. Be sure that I should see it with satisfaction, for I love it tenderly, and it seems to me that it must be good because it is vowed to Our Lord. But you know the spot where our hearts meet; there they can see one another in spite of the distance of places.

Speak to this good father whom I mentioned about your interior: he will have enough in common with me, and I with him, not to distract your soul by a diversity of paths, which indeed would be very hurtful to it. In a word, receive him as another myself. But at the same time I ask you so to manage that, that other good father who wanted to help you, may not recognise that you do not wish his direction, because in the future he will be of service in the work that you and I desire, by obtaining something from the Holy Father.

But let not this last word excite you, for above all things it is necessary to go quietly and step by step; the edifice will be all the firmer for it. And you must give no alarm whatever about anything which takes place, so that the blessings of heaven may come upon earth like the dew upon the grass, which one sees on the ground without seeing it fall; and thus imperceptibly must you conduct your whole design up to the very height of its perfection. And courage, my dear and well-beloved daughter; God will give us this grace. As to that other good father, I approve of your listening to him and hearing him, and also of your making use of his advice by putting it in practice, but not when it is contrary to the design we have formed of following in everything and everywhere the spirit of sweetness and of mildness, and of thinking more about the interior of souls than the exterior. But in everything you ought to communicate with me, as I am your poor father.

No, my dear daughter, I have never thought it fitting for religious to have anything of their own if it could be helped; though I may have said that, in so far as superiors permit, individuals may use this liberty, so long as they are ready to leave all and put it in common should superiors order it. It is expedient, then, to take away private possession, and to make necessaries and conveniences common and equal among the sisters, and so to let the corn of Egypt fail before the manna which falls in your desert.

My mother, who offers you her own service and that of all who belong to her, continues in her desire of the honour of seeing my sister with you. It is one of our ardent desires: God grant that it may be with as willing consent on your part!

There was, indeed, no necessity for making excuses to me about the open letter; for my very heart would like to be open before your eyes, if its imperfections and weaknesses would not give you too much distress. Be ever quite safe, I beseech you, as far as I am concerned; and be certain that I desire nothing so greatly as to see you with a soul quite full of charity, which is totally frank and holily free. And why do I say this? Because I seem to see that you have some fear of offending me. I am by no means tender or sensitive in that direction, and particularly in cases where my friendship is rooted on the Mount of Calvary, by the cross of our Lord.

I am writing to that daughter of yours whom you ask me to write to, in a way as suitable to her trouble as I can. Oh how divinely does our St. Bernard say, that the exercise of the charge of souls has not to do with strong souls!—for those go by their own feet; but it is concerned with feeble and fainting souls, who have to be borne and supported on the shoulders of charity which is all-strong. This poor little one is of the latter sort, languishing under the depression and difficulties of various weaknesses, which seem to overwhelm her virtue. We must help her as much as we can, and leave the rest to God. I should never finish writing to you if I followed my inclination; it is full of affection. But enough; Mass calls me, in which I am going to present Our Lord to his Father for you, my dear daughter, and for all your house, in order to obtain from his divine goodness his Holy Spirit, to direct all your actions and affections to his glory and for your own salvation. I beseech him to preserve you from vain sadness and disquietude, and to repose in your heart that your heart may repose in him. Amen.

B-I/9. To the Same: Advice on meditation, on sleep, on having Mass in bedrooms: further advice on the way to sanctify corporal sufferings.

April or May 1605.[39]

My very dear Sister—May Our Lord grant you his Holy Spirit, to do and to suffer all things according to his will! Your messenger urges me so strongly to despatch him that I do not know whether I shall be able to answer you fully. At any rate I will say something to you, according as God shall give me the grace. I was glad that N. arrived so opportunely with my letters. All your repugnances do not alarm me; they will cease one day, God helping: and if it is true that you have given little satisfaction to this good father, I feel certain that he will not be vexed about it; for I esteem him capable of understanding the different accidents of a soul which is beginning to walk in the ways of God. As for me, my dear sister and daughter, you could not be troublesome to me: and if Our Lord had given me as much liberty and convenience for assisting you as I have desire and affection, you would never find me tired of serving you unto the glory of God; for I am completely yours, and you cannot be too fully convinced of this.

Touching meditation, I pray you not to distress yourself, if sometimes, and even very often, you do not find consolation in it; go quietly on, with humility and patience, not on this account doing violence to your spirit. Use your books when you find your soul weary, that is to say, read a little and then meditate, then read again a little and meditate, till the end of your half-hour. Mother [St.] Teresa thus acted in the beginning, and said that she found it a very good plan for herself. And since we are speaking in confidence, I will add that I have also tried it myself and found it good for me. Take it as a rule that the grace of meditation cannot be gained by any effort of the mind; but there must be a gentle and earnest perseverance full of humility. Continue all your other exercises in the manner I have marked them out for you.

With regard to going to bed, I will not change my opinion, if you please; but still, if you do not like bed, and cannot stay in it as long as the rest do, I will permit you to rise an hour earlier; for, my dear sister, it is incredible how dangerous long night vigils are, and how much they weaken the brain. It is not felt during youth; but it comes to be felt so much the more afterwards, and many persons have rendered themselves useless in this way.

I come to the question of the lancing of that poor limb. This will not be without extreme pain, but, my God! what an occasion does his goodness here give you of exercise in his commandments! Courage, my dear sister; we belong to Jesus Christ: see how he sends us his livery; take care that the iron which will open your leg be one of the nails which pierced Our Saviour’s feet. What an honour! He has chosen this sort of favours for himself, and has loved them so greatly that he has carried them into Paradise, and behold he shares them with you; and you say that you leave me to think how you can serve God during the time that you will be in bed. And I am glad to think of it, my good daughter. Do you know what I think? In your opinion, my dear sister, when was it that Our Saviour chiefly served his Father? Without doubt it was when lying on the tree of the cross, with his hands and feet pierced. And how did he serve him? In suffering and in offering; his sufferings were an odour of sweetness to his Father. And here, then, behold the service which you are to do to God while on your bed of pain; you will suffer, and will offer your sufferings to his Majesty. He will certainly be with you in this tribulation, and will console you.

Here is your cross come to you; embrace it and love it for the love of him who sends it to you. David in his affliction said to Our Lord:[40] I have been silent and have not opened my mouth, because it is thou, O my God, who hast done me this evil that I suffer. As if he said: If any other but thou, O my God, had sent me this affliction, I should not love it, I should reject it; but since it is thou, I say no word more, I receive it, I honour it.

Have no doubt but that I will earnestly pray to Our Lord for you, that he may give you a share of his patience, since he pleases to give you a share of his sufferings. I ought to do this, I will do it, and I will be near you in spirit during all your illness; no, I will not abandon you.

And here is a precious balm to soften your pains. Take every day a drop or two of the blood which distils from the wounds of the feet of Our Lord, making it flow by your meditation; and in imagination reverently dip your finger in this liquid and spread it over your sore place, with the invocation of the holy name of Jesus, which is oil poured out, said the spouse in the Canticles,[41] and you will find that your pain will lessen.

During this time, my dear daughter, give up saying your Office for as many days as the doctors advise, although you may seem not to have need to do so. I ordain it thus for you, in God’s name.

If these letters reach you before the painful moment, get them to look everywhere for the treatise of Cacciaguerra On Tribulation, and read it to prepare yourself, or have it read quietly to you by one of your more pious daughters while you are in bed. Never have I been so much touched by any book as I was by that during a very painful malady which I had in Italy.

The obedience which you will pay to the doctor will be extremely agreeable to God, and will be placed to your advantage at the day of judgment.

I cannot send you the writing on Communion just now, because your man presses me too much. I will send it you soon, for I shall have an opportunity; but meantime you will find in Granada all that you require, and in the Spiritual Exercises.

How pleased I was to see that you have overcome all difficulties in doing all that I wrote to you touching your vows and confession! My dear sister, you must always act so, and God will be glorified in you. You shall have letters from me very often and by every opportunity.

Whilst I think of you suffering in bed, I shall have for you—and, indeed, I speak in good earnest—I shall have for you a particular reverence, and shall greatly honour you as a creature visited by God, clad in his livery, and as his special spouse. When Our Lord was on the cross he was declared King, even by his enemies, and souls which are on the cross are declared queens.

You do not know what the angels envy us in? Truly in this only, that we can suffer for Our Lord, while they have never suffered anything for him.

St. Paul, who had been in heaven, and amid the beatitudes of Paradise, gloried in nothing save his infirmities, and in the cross of our Lord.[42] When the lancing is over, say to your enemies the words of the same Apostle:[43] From henceforth let no man be troublesome to me; for I bear the marks and signs of the Lord Jesus in my body. O leg, which, being well used, will carry you higher in heaven than if it were the soundest in the world! Paradise is a mountain whose summit one reaches better with broken and wounded legs than with whole and healthy ones.

It is not good to have Masses said in bedrooms. Adore from your bed Our Lord on the Altar, and be satisfied. Daniel, being unable to go to the Temple, turned towards it to adore God:[44] do you the same. But I certainly consider that you should communicate in bed on all Sundays and chief feasts, so far as the doctors permit. Our Lord will willingly visit you on the bed of affliction.

I have received the note which was attached to your letter. Be very sure that it was quite pleasing to me. I accept it with all my heart, and promise you that I will take the care of you that you desire, as far as God will give me the strength and ability. I beseech his divine Majesty to load you with his graces and benedictions, and all your house. May God be eternally blessed and glorified about you, in you, and by you! Amen. I am, my very dear daughter, your most affectionate servant in our Lord, &c.

I beg you to please to get a good work which I want to see done recommended to God, and, above all, to recommend it yourself during your sufferings; for at such time your prayers, though short and only in the heart, will be extremely well received. Ask from God at this time the virtues which are most necessary to you.

B-I/10. To the Same (the Abbess of Puits d’Orbe): Encouragement and consolation in bodily sufferings, and in the difficulties she finds in reforming her Abbey.

16th November 1605.

My Sister and very dear Daughter—Oppressed and overwhelmed with affairs in this Visitation of my diocese which I am making, I yet fail not to beseech our good God or to offer the Holy Sacrifice every day to the end that you may not be overwhelmed by the sufferings which your leg causes you, nor by the difficulties which our holy enterprises meet with, and must meet with, in these beginnings.

Our good respected father often writes me news of you: and nothing more desirable can reach me when it is good news, as it always is according to God—on whom I know your interior gaze is entirely fixed, into whose good pleasure all your designs and all your desires come to merge. Courage, my dear daughter; God will without doubt be propitious to you provided that you are faithful to him. What a happiness that his divine Majesty deigns to make use of you in his service, not only acting but suffering!

Take care to preserve the peace and tranquillity of your heart: let the waves growl and roar all round about your back, and fear not; for God is there, and by consequence, safety. I know, my dear sister, that little troubles are more distressing, on account of their multitude and their importunity, than great ones, and troubles at home than those abroad; but, at the same time, I know that victory over them is oftentimes more agreeable to God than over many others which in the eyes of the world seem to be of greater merit.

Adieu, my dear sister: they are seizing my letters to carry them off, and I have only time to sign myself, Your brother and servant, very affectionate and still more faithful, &c.

B-I/11. To the Same: On religious enclosure and on charity towards her sister the Prioress.

About 1606.[45]

I was pleased to have news of you (after so much time without receiving any), my very dear daughter, from yourself: for what can anybody else tell me for certain of you or of your affairs? And so, my dear daughter, all human remedies have been found ineffectual for the cure of this poor limb, which gives you a pain which must wisely be converted into a perpetual penance. In truth, I have always had the impression that all these applications would succeed very ill, and that this was a blow which heavenly Providence has given you in order to furnish you a subject of patience and mortification. What treasures can you amass by this means! Henceforth you must do so, and live as a true Rose amongst thorns.

But I am told that you were at Puits d’Orbe, with some of your daughters, and that the rest had stayed at Chastillon; that is true, for I should have guessed it. But this was for a short time, you tell me, and for a good and legitimate cause; I believe it; but believe me also, my dear daughter, that as women who have left the world ought to wish never to see it again, so the world which has left them never wants to see them again, and every little it sees of them it gets vexed and grumbles. It is the truth also that one ever loses something by going out whenever it can (even with some temporal loss) be avoided. Wherefore, if you listen to my advice, you will go out as little as possible, even to hear sermons, since you have every right to have sometimes a preacher in your chapel, who will say things entirely appropriate to your congregation. It certainly behoves to pay attention to common report, and to do things in order to avoid the talk of the children of the world. Wherefore, said that great exemplar of religion and devotion, St. Paul,[46] if meat scandalize my brother, I will never eat flesh, lest I should scandalize my brother. Content in this your honoured relatives, and I think that then you can with confidence ask their assistance to provide you good accommodation; for it seems to me I hear some of them saying, Why make a comfortable dwelling for persons who go out and about in the world? And their dislike for this going abroad leads them to make out the worst of its quantity and its quality. It is the ancient custom of the world to judge it lawful to talk of ecclesiastics as much as ever they like; and it thinks that, provided it has something to say about them, there will no longer be anything to say about its own associates.

Well, now, is there no way of finding the side by which to take and to preserve the heart of Madame the Prioress, our sister?—for although, according to the world, it is for inferiors to seek the goodwill of superiors, yet according to God and the Apostles it is for superiors to go after inferiors, and to gain them. For so acted Our Redeemer, so did the Apostles, so do and will ever do all prelates who are zealous in the love of their Master. I own that I do not at all wonder that your relatives are scandalised to see what coolness of friendship there is between two sisters by nature, two spiritual sisters, two sisters in religion. It is necessary to remedy this, my dearest daughter, and not to let this temptation subsist. It may be that the wrong is on her side; but at any rate there is this on yours, that you do not win her back to your love by the continual and irresistible manifestation of that which you owe her according to God and the world.

You see what liberty I take in telling you my sentiments, my dear daughter, whom I wish to be totally victorious with the victory which the Apostle announces:[47] Be not overcome by evil, but overcome evil by good. If I spoke otherwise to you, I should betray you; and I neither can nor will love you save altogether paternally, my dear daughter, whom I beg Our Lord to deign to load with his graces and consolations. I salute very humbly all your dear company.—Yours, &c.

B-I/12. To the Same (the Abbess of Puits d’Orbe): The Saint’s extreme solicitude for her, and for the success of her efforts to reform her Abbey.

About 1607.[48]

My very dear Daughter—I am impatiently expecting better news of your health than I have received up to the present; it will be when Our Lord pleases, of whom I earnestly ask it, believing that it will be employed to his glory and to the advance and perfection of the work begun in your monastery.

I am always in trouble to know whether you have not yet found some person proper for the guidance of this flock of souls, who otherwise doubtless cannot be without much disturbance and disquiet, which are the plants which grow readily in ill-cultivated monasteries, and principally in those of women. But before all, I should greatly like to understand what progress you hope for the enclosure, whether it will be possible to keep the door shut to men, at least in that moderate way which I wrote to you about, which was only too easy, I think, and such as your respected father could not find objectionable. Certainly you must work very quietly, my dear daughter, but very earnestly; for on this depends the good order of all the rest.

Courage, my dear daughter; I know how many troubles, how many contradictions there are in such affairs, but it is because they are great and full of fruit. Take care of your health, that it may serve you to serve God. Be painstaking, but keep from eager solicitude. Present to God your little cooperation, and be certain that he will accept it and will bless it with his holy hand.

Adieu, my dear daughter; I beseech his holy goodness to help you always, and I am extremely, and with all my heart, all yours, and more than yours.

B-I/13. To the Same: The evil of pride amongst religious: method to be used by superiors in introducing reforms: care in admitting subjects.

[This letter seems to have been formed, by M. Maupas, from various letters.]

About 25th August 1608.

Would you like to know what I think on the matter, madame? Humility, simplicity of heart and affection, and submission of mind, are the solid foundations of the religious life. I would rather cloisters were filled with all vices than with the sin of pride and vanity; because in other offences one can repent and get pardon, but the proud soul has in itself the principle of all vices, and never does penance, considering itself to be in a good state, and despising all the advice which is given to it. Nothing can be done with a soul that is vain and full of self-conceit; it is no good either to self or others.

To make government good it is further needed that superiors should resemble shepherds feeding their flocks, and should not neglect the smallest chance of giving edifying example to their neighbour, because, as there is no little stream which does not run to the sea, so there is no deed which does not lead the soul to that great ocean of the wonders of God’s goodness.

Madame, your leading of your daughters in this holy work should be sweet, gracious, compassionate, simple, and persuasive; and, believe me, the most perfect guiding is that which most closely follows God’s ordering of us, which is full of tranquillity, quietude, and repose, and which, even in its greatest activity, has no emotion, and makes itself all to all things.

Moreover, the diligence of superiors ought to be great in applying a remedy to the very lightest murmurings of the community. For as great storms are formed from invisible vapours, so in religion great troubles come from very light causes.

Again, nothing is so destructive to Orders as the want of care which is used in examining the spirit of those who throw themselves into the cloister. People say, he is of a good house, he has a good head; but they forget that he will with great difficulty submit to religious discipline.

Before admitting them one should represent to them the true mortification and submission which religion demands, and not dwell so temptingly on the numerous spiritual consolations. For just as a stone though thrown upwards returns downwards by its own movement, so the more a soul whom God wants in his service is repelled, the more it will be urged to what God wants from it. Besides, those who choose this path as it were disappointed because they have high aspirations with low fortune, ordinarily bring more disorder than good order into the cloister.

B-I/14. To the Same: Directions on enclosure, extraordinary confessors, administration of revenues: how to behave to a disobedient subject: advice as to her own perfection.

1608 or 1609.[49]

Yes, my daughter, I say it in writing as well as by word of mouth, be joyful as far as possible in well-doing, for it is a double grace of good works to be well done and to be cheerfully done. And when I say in well-doing, I do not mean to say that if some defect happen you are to give yourself to sadness on that account; for God’s sake, no! for this would be to add fault to fault; but I mean that you must persevere in wishing to do what is good, and must always return to good as soon as you realise that you have left it, and in general that you must live joyfully by virtue of this fidelity.

I have to tell you that, besides the former writing which I send you, you must keep the cloister and the dormitory closed to men; thus will the enclosure be established gradually.

The Council of Trent commands all superiors and superioresses of monasteries that at least three times a year they should make all who are under their charge go to confession to extraordinary confessors, as is strongly required for a thousand good reasons. Wherefore you must observe it, getting some good monk or very devout priest, to whom all must on that occasion confess. I have told you the reason why all must confess, but this will be a grievance to no one; for those who like need only confess the faults of a day or two, going to confession previously, and those who like can act otherwise.

It must be your place, my dear daughter, to administer the pensions, but depute one of the sisters to the office of keeping account of what may be used.

It will be good, in your little chapters, to recommend the mutual and tender love of one another, and to testify that you have it towards them, but particularly towards her of whom you write to me, whom you must by charity recall to a good understanding and sweet confidence with the rest. I write her a little word.

You will no doubt find the first instructions I gave you, five years ago, on the way by which you must gently bring all these souls to your good design. You will see there many things which for the sake of brevity I will not say now.

As to her who is absent, you must write to her or her brother, that for the greater glory of God, the salvation of your souls, the edification of your neighbour, and the honour of your monastery, you have resolved, with all your religious sisters, to live more retiredly within your house than you have done hitherto; that, this thing being so reasonable and becoming, you have no doubt she will agree to it; that you request and summon her to do this by the obedience which she has vowed to you, outside of which she cannot effect her salvation; promising her that she will find nothing in yourself or in others except a sweet and very loving mutual intercourse, which alone, besides her duty, would invite her to a holy retreat, and the like. If upon this she return not, you must cite her twice more with intervals of three weeks. But if after all she return not, you will say to her that she determines then not to be received again and to be shut out from her place. I think, however, that her friends will make her return, and when she does, you will treat her sweetly and with great patience.

If I forget anything I will say it to our sister, who will infallibly go to see you, and she loves you very strongly. As for your private self, do not fail to make mental prayer every day, at the same time as it is being made in choir, if you cannot attend there; and this for half an hour. Do not torment yourself when you cannot have feelings as strong as you would desire, for it is the goodwill which God wants. Read spiritual books for a quarter of an hour each day before going to Vespers, or before saying them when you cannot go to them.

You will go to bed every day at ten, and rise at six. When you are obliged to be in bed, get some one to read from time to time as suits you. Often kiss the cross which you wear; renew the good purposes which you have made of being all God’s, immediately before going to rest, or while you are going, or in your oratory, or elsewhere; and make one fuller renewal by half a dozen aspirations and humiliations before God.

I give you for your special patron of this year the glorious St. Joseph, and for your patroness St. Scholastica, sister of St. Benedict, in whose life you will find many actions, as in that of St. Benedict, worthy of being imitated.

See now, my very dear and good daughter, undertake to gain for yourself a great courage in the service of Our Lord; for assuredly his goodness has chosen you to make use of you, provided that you will it, for the true reestablishment of his own glory and that of souls. In your house you could not hold a safer path than that of holy obedience; wherefore I greatly rejoice that you are attached to it, for the reason you tell me. Remember well, then, what I have recommended to you on the part of Our Lord, to whom I commend you, beseeching him, by his death and passion, to crown you with his holy love, and to make you more and more entirely his own.

As for me, my dear sister, my well-beloved daughter, I have a very entire will to love, honour, and serve you; and nothing will ever take away from me this affection, since it is in this same Saviour and for him that I have taken it up, being ever your humble brother and servant, &c.

B-I/15. To a Young Lady: Counsels relating to a vow of chastity.

Annecy, 18th May 1608.

Mademoiselle—I consider that the desire which you have of vowing your chastity to God has not been conceived in your heart without your having first and for a long time considered its importance: for this reason I approve your making it, and making it on Whit Sunday itself. Now to make it well, use your leisure time during the three days beforehand to prepare your vow properly by prayer, which you can form on these considerations.

Consider how agreeable a virtue holy chastity is to God and the angels, he having willed that it shall be eternally observed in heaven, where an end is put to every sort of carnal pleasure and to marriage. Shall you not be very happy to begin in this world the life which you will continue eternally in the other? Bless God, then, who has given you this holy inspiration.

Consider how noble is this virtue, which makes our souls white as the lily, pure as the sun; which makes our bodies consecrated, and gives us the advantage of belonging wholly and entirely to his divine Majesty, heart, body, spirit, and feelings. Is it not a great delight to be able to say to Our Lord: My heart and my flesh have rejoiced[50] in your goodness, for the love of which I give up all love, and for the pleasure of which I renounce all other pleasures? What a happiness to have reserved no earthly delights for this body, in order to give our heart entirely to Our God!

Consider that the Blessed Virgin was the first to vow her virginity to God, and after her so many virgins, men and women. But with what ardour, with what love, with what affection, was this their virginity, this chastity, vowed! Ah! it cannot be described. Humble yourself greatly before this heavenly band of virgins, and by humble prayer beseech them to receive you amongst them, not indeed as professing to equal them in purity, but at least that you may be acknowledged as their unworthy servant, imitating them as nearly as you can. Beseech them to offer with you your vow to Jesus Christ, King of virgins, and by the merit of their chastity to make yours acceptable. Above all, recommend your intention to Our Lady; and then to your good Angel, that it may please him thenceforward to preserve with a particular care your heart and your body pure from everything contrary to your vow.

Then on Whit Sunday, when the priest is elevating the sacred Host, offer with him to God the eternal Father the precious body of his dear child Jesus, and together with this your body, which you will vow to keep in chastity all the days of your life. The form of making the vow might be such as this: “O eternal God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, I, N., thy unworthy creature, here in thy presence and in that of all thy heavenly court, promise to thy divine Majesty, and vow, to keep and observe, all the time of mortal life which it shall please thee to give me, an entire chastity and continence, through the favour and grace of thy Holy Spirit. Vouchsafe to accept this my irrevocable vow as a holocaust of sweetness, and since it has pleased thee to inspire me to make it, give me the strength to perfect it, to thy honour, for ever and ever.”

Some persons write this vow, or get it written and sign it, then hand it to some spiritual father, in order that he may be, as it were, the protector and sponsor of it; but this, though useful, is in no way necessary.

Then you will communicate, and you will be able to say to Our Lord that he is indeed your Spouse.

But speak of this to your confessor; for if he tell you not to do it you must believe him, since he, knowing the present state of your soul, will be able to judge better than I what is expedient.

But, my good daughter, when this vow is made, it is necessary that you never permit any one to solicit your heart with any proposal of love or marriage, and you must have a great respect for your body, not now as your own body, but as a most sacred body, a most holy relic. And as one dares no longer to touch or profane a chalice after the Bishop has consecrated it, so when the Holy Spirit has consecrated your heart and your body by this vow, you must show it a great reverence.

For the rest, I will recommend all this to God, who knows that I love you very affectionately in him; and on the same day of Pentecost I will offer him your heart and what may proceed from it unto his glory. May Jesus be for ever your love, and his holy Mother your guide!

Amen.

Your servant in Jesus Christ, &c.

B-I/16. To F. Claude de Coex, Prior of the Benedictine Monastery of Talloires: Instructions for the beginnings of a reform in his community.

Annecy, 10th July 1609.

Sir—Since God has chosen a very small number of persons, and, moreover, from amongst the least of the house in age and standing, it is needful that all be undertaken with a very great humility and simplicity, and that this little number do not reprehend or censure the others in words or in exterior gestures, but simply edify them by good example and conversation.

The beginning being so small, great longanimity is needed in the execution, and a remembrance how that Our Lord after thirty-three years left only six-score disciples really collected together, amongst whom also there were many hard of teaching. The palm-tree, queen of trees, only produces its fruit a hundred years after it is planted. It is well, then, to be furnished with a generous and persevering heart in a work of such great importance. God has made reformations with less beginnings, and you must aim at nothing short of perfection.

And, to come to particulars, my advice is, that your holy band be careful to communicate devoutly at the very least once each week. Let them be taught to examine their consciences well and duly every night; let them be shown how to make mental prayer suitably, according to the disposition of the subject, and, above all, let them be instructed to obey their director very willingly, very closely, and very perseveringly.

As to the habit, I do not think that it will be well to change it till after the year has expired, although I should like it to be in all things as uniform as it can be, both in shape and in material, and that the tunic should be wide, after the fashion of the reformed Benedictines. I think that the shirt should be kept to, for cleanliness, provided always that the collar be not extravagantly lengthened, but cut low and in a uniform manner. Each one, also, will wear a belt and hood of the same fashion, the whole to be very neat.

As regards the beds, the more simple they are the better. Let each have his own, and let them be so arranged that in getting up or retiring to rest persons may not see one another, so that even the eyes also be clean and modest. I should greatly approve that those who have a beard should be well shaved on head and chin, according to the ancient custom of Benedictines, and that, as far as possible, they should no longer go out by themselves, but always with a companion.

It will be expedient that at the Divine Office the little flock enter, remain, and go out all together, with uniform behaviour and ceremony, inasmuch as the exterior comportment, whether at the Office, at table, or in public, is a powerful incentive to good.

In this beginning it is not necessary to add any abstinence to that of Fridays and Saturdays, unless it be that of Wednesdays, according to the old custom and mitigation observed in the monastery.

Such is my modest advice for this commencement; the end arrived at will be a very different thing, please God; for, as you know, the first thing in intention is the last in execution. But to work well in this business, there is needed an unconquerable courage and to await the fruit in patience. I know and see your Rule, which speaks wonders; but it is not expedient to pass from one extremity to the other without a mean.

Plant deep down in your heart, sir, this affection—to build up again the walls of Jerusalem: God will help you with his hand. Above all, take care to use milk and honey, because meat cannot yet be masticated by the weak teeth of your guests. Adieu! Have good hope of being one of those by whom salvation will be made in Israel.

B-I/17. To Madame de Chantal: Praise of a future lay-sister of the Visitation: spirit of that Order.

November 1609.

Your Anne Jacqueline pleases me more and more. The last time she went to confession she asked leave, in order to prepare herself to be a religious, to fast on bread and water in Advent, and to go barefoot all the winter. O my daughter! I must tell you what I answered her, for I consider it as good for the mistress as for the servant,—that I should like the daughters of our congregation to have the feet well shod, but the heart bare and naked of terrestrial affections; to have their heads properly covered, and their soul all uncovered by a perfect simplicity and an offstripping of their own will.

B-I/18. To a Person of Piety: On humility, resignation, and simplicity: remedies against drowsiness at prayer.

5th January 1610.

You tell me three good things, my very dear daughter, in the letter which I have received from you,—that you do yourself great violence to keep down the swellings of your heart and to practise love of abjection; that this is what you are striving after now; and that you have your desires more accommodated to the divine will than formerly. You must be sure always to act so, my dear daughter; for, as Our Lord says: The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away.[51] The more pains holy humility costs you, the more graces it will give you. Continue, then, courageously to bring down your heart by humility, and to exalt it by charity; for so you will ascend and descend like the angels on the holy ladder of Jacob. Study this lesson deeply, for it is the one lesson of our sovereign Master: Learn of me, because I am meek and humble of heart.[52] How happy will you be, my dear daughter, if you resign yourself fully to the will of Our Lord! Yes; for this holy willing is all good, and its disposing all good. Better can we not walk than under its providence and guidance. But do you know what pleases me? Your saying that you speak to me with open heart. For, my dear daughter, it is a good condition, if we want to advance according to the Spirit, to be open-hearted, and so to make the communication which must be between us faithful and simple. As also Our Lord, who is so greatly pleased to communicate his Spirit to his servants, is, moreover, greatly pleased to see that our spirits communicate themselves one to another, for mutual aid and solace. Walk then so, my dear daughter.

And do not distress yourself about your fits of drowsiness, against which you must do two things. One is, often to change your position in prayer; as, to keep the hands sometimes crossed, sometimes clasped, sometimes folded; sometimes to stand, sometimes to go on your knees, now on one knee, now on the other, when the drowsiness attacks you. The other thing is, frequently to utter words out loud, interjected more or less amidst your prayer, according as you find yourself more or less beset by these inclinations to doze. May God be ever favourable to you, my dear daughter, in order that you may advance very far forward in his love, for the sake of which I will love you all my life; and recommending myself more and more to your prayers, I am, your humble servant, &c.

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[1] Jonas 4. Precisely speaking, it was “the worm” which destroyed the ivy or gourd, as the Saint himself says further on. [Tr.]

[2] 2:15.

[3] 136.

[4] Eccles. 10:1.

[5] Matt. 19:8.

[6] 1. Cor. 11:21.

[7] Isa. 7:15.

[8] 1:4, 5.

[9] Ps. 54:23.

[10] Matt. 6:26.

[11] Ps. 146:9.

[12] Ps. 90:11.

[13] Gen. 17:1.

[14] Ps. 77:61.

[15] Isa. 1:22.

[16] Apoc. 2.

[17] Cor. 11:22.

[18] Ib. 9:27.

[19] Cant. 1:1. , 2.

[20] 3. Kings 19.

[21] Matt. 6:22.

[22] Gal. 6:2.

[23] Ps. 118:94.

[24] 1. Kings 10:6.

[25] The French says, “Before 3^rd May 1604.” [Tr.]

[26] John 17:4.

[27] The French says, “3^rd May 1604.”

[28] The French says, “9^th October 1604.”

[29] Gal. 6:1.

[30] The French says, “After 18^th April 1604. [Tr.]

[31] Job 1:22.

[32] Ps. 21:18.

[33] Cant. 2.:2

[34] Ps. 141:3.

[35] John 11:40.

[36] Isa. 9:6.

[37] Ephes. 4:24.

[38] Isa. 38:17.

[39] The French says, “Before 9^th October 1604. .” [Tr.]

[40] Ps. 38:10.

[41] 1:2.

[42] Gal. 6:14.

[43] Ibid, 17.

[44] Dan. 6:10.

[45] The French says, “6^th November 1604. .” [Tr.]

[46] 1. Cor. 8:13.

[47] Rom. 12:21.

[48] The French says, “December 1608. .” [Tr.]

[49] 1524 The French says, “1^st May 1606..” [Tr.]

[50] Ps. 83:3.

[51] Matt. 11:12.

[52] Ibid. 29.