Chapter I. THE FEAST OF CHRISTMAS

BEHOLD the dear Infant Jesus, who brings with Him these approaching feasts. And since He is born to come and visit us on the part of His Eternal Father, and since the shepherds and kings will, in their turn, come to visit Him in His cradle, I think you ought to caress Him fondly, shew Him hospitality with all our sisters, sing sweet canticles to Him, and above all, adore Him fervently and sweetly, and in Him His poverty, His humility, His obedience, and His sweetness, in imitation of His most holy Mother and of St. Joseph.

Take from Him one of those dear tears, sweet dew of heaven, and place it on your heart, in order that it may never have any sadness, save such as is pleasing to this sweet Infant. It is marvellous what healing power those tears have over every sort of ill that can befal the heart. I look upon the whole congregation of our sisters as simple shepherdesses watching over their flocks, that is to say, over their affections, who, warned by the Angel, come to do homage to the divine Infant, and as a token of their eternal servitude, offer to Him the finest of their lambs, which is their love, without any reserve or exception.

Let the little Babe of Bethlehem be for ever the delight and love of our heart. Alas, how fair He is! I had a hundred times rather see this dear little Babe in His crib than to see all the kings of the earth on their thrones. O God, I think Him more glorious on this throne, than Solomon was on his throne of ivory. The great St. Joseph makes us share in his consolation; the sovereign Mother in her love; and the divine Infant wills for ever to diffuse His merits over our heart.

Repose near Him as sweetly as you can; He will not fail to love your heart, void as you find it of tenderness and feeling. See you not how He inhales the breath of yon ox and yon ass, which have no feeling or emotion at all? How will He not receive the aspirations of our poor heart, which though not at this moment tenderly, nevertheless steadily and firmly, sacrifices itself at His feet, to be for ever the inviolable servant of Him and of His holy Mother? May the joy and consolation of the Son and of the Mother be for ever the gladness of our soul. Ah, how well it becomes her to dandle that little Babe! but above all I love her charity, which allows whoever will to see, to touch, and to kiss Him. Ask her for Him, she will give Him to you.

O true Jesus, how sweet is this sight! The heavens, as the Church singeth, drop honey on every side; and as for me, I think that those divine angels who make the air resound with their admirable hymns are coming to gather this celestial honey on the lilies where it is found on the breast of the most sweet Virgin and of St. Joseph. How sweet to behold the honey suck the milk!

What shall we give to our little King, which we have not received from Him and from His divine liberality? I will give Him, then, our heart. Ah, Saviour of our souls, make it all of gold in charity, all of myrrh in mortification, and all of frankincense in prayer; and then receive it into the arms of Thy holy protection, and let Thine heart say to it: I am thy salvation for ever and ever. Amen.

Chapter II CONTINUATION OF THE SAME SUBJECT

I fancy I see you around the Babe of Bethlehem, kissing His feet, and supplicating Him to be your King. Abide there, and learn of Him how meek and humble He is, how simple and amiable. Let your heart, like a mystical bee, never abandon this little King; and let it make its honey round about Him, in Him, and for Him; and let it press Him to itself, Him whose lips are all steeped in graces.

Nothing will be wanting to you, since you will be in the presence of that holy Infant. My God, how that Nativity makes holy affections to be born in our soul, but above all, perfect abnegation of the goods, the pomps, the satisfactions of this world!

I know not how it is, but I find no mystery which mingles so sweetly tenderness with austerity, love with rigour, sweetness with sharpness.

Never was seen a poorer or a happier birth; never so noble or so blessed a mother. Certainly she who is the Mother of the Son of God needs not ask the world for exterior consolations.

This is why St. Paula loved better to live a stranger in Bethlehem, than to remain a rich lady in Rome; imagining to herself that day and night she heard in her dear retreat the infantine cries of the Saviour in the crib, or, as St. Francis says, those of the dear Babe of Bethlehem, who incited her to the contempt of worldly grandeurs and affections, and called her to the most holy love of abjection. You are, then, near this holy crib, in which the Saviour of our souls teaches us so many virtues by His silence; for what is there that He saith not in keeping silence? His little heart beating with love for us may well inflame ours.

But see you how lovingly He has written your name in the depth of His divine heart, which beats on that couch of straw from the impassioned zeal it has for our advancement, and heaves not one single sigh unto His Father in which you have not a part, nor a single movement of the spirit except for your happiness.

The magnet attracts iron; amber attracts bits of straw and hay. Whether, then, that we are iron because of our hardness, or straw because of our weakness, we ought to join ourselves to this little Infant King, who truly draws all hearts unto Himself.

Yes, return we no more to the region whence we set out. Leave we for ever Arabia and Chaldsea, and abide we at the feet of this Saviour. Let us say with the heavenly Spouse: I found Him whom my soul loveth; I held Him, and I will not let Him go. (Cant, iii. 4.)

Chapter III. THE END OF THE YEAR

I conclude this year with the satisfaction of being able to present you with the wish I make for you for the year which is coming.

They pass away, then, these temporal years. Their months reduce themselves to weeks, the weeks to days, the days to hours, and the hours to moments, which are all that we possess, but which we only possess in proportion as they perish, and render our duration perishable. And yet that duration ought to be more pleasing to us for that very reason; because this life being full of miseries, we could not have in it any more solid consolation than that of being assured that it is vanishing away, to make room for that holy eternity which is prepared for us in the abundance of the mercy of God, and to which our soul incessantly aspires by the continual thoughts its own nature suggests to it, although it cannot hope for it except by other more elevated thoughts which the Author of its nature diffuses over it.

Certainly I never turn my thoughts to eternity without much sweetness. For, say I, how is it that my soul could extend its thoughts to this infinity, if it had not some sort of proportion with it. But when I feel that my desire runs after my thoughts on this same eternity, my joy takes a new and incomparable increase; for I know that we never entertain a real desire for anything except possibilities. My desire, then, assures me that I can have eternity: what more remains for me than to hope that I shall have it? and this hope is given me by the knowledge of the infinite goodness of Him who would not have created a soul capable of thinking and of aiming at eternity, if He had not willed to give it all the means of attaining thereto.

Let us, then, often say, Every thing passes away; and after the few days of this mortal life which remain for us, will come the infinite eternity. Little matters it, then, to us that we have here comforts or discomforts, provided that for all eternity we are blessed. Let this holy eternity which awaits us be our consolation, and to be Christians, members of Jesus Christ, regenerated in His blood; for in this alone consists all our glory, that this divine Saviour has died for us.

A great soul reaches all its best thoughts, affections, and aims onwards into the infinity of eternity; and since it is eternal, it reckons as too short whatever is not eternal, as too little whatever is not infinite; and raising itself above all the delights, or rather those poor amusements which this life can present to us, it keeps its eyes fixed on the immensity of the goods and of the years of eternity.

O God, wherefore shall we live next year, if it be not to love better this sovereign goodness? Oh, how it takes us from this world, or takes this world from us; how it makes us die, or makes us better love its death than our life!

Now I wish for your dear soul, that this next year may be followed by many others, and they may all be profitably employed in the conquest of eternity.

Live long, holily, happily here below, amid these perishable moments, to live again eternally in that immutable felicity to which we aspire.

But if our Lord hears my prayers, this year will be to you a year of prosperity, of contentment, and of blessings on yourself, in yourself, and on all around you; and you will see a long succession of like years, which at length will terminate in the eternal year, in which you will immortally enjoy the Author of all true prosperity and benediction.

Chapter IV. THE END AND THE BEGINNING OF THE YEAR

Behold the year about to engulf itself in the abyss where all the others up to the present have been annihilated.

Oh, how desirable is eternity at the price of these miserable and perishable vicissitudes! Let us allow time to glide away, whilst we ourselves are gliding away, little by little, to be transformed into the glory of the children of God.

Alas, when I think how I have employed the time of God, I am much troubled that He wills not to give me His eternity; since He wills not to give it, except to those who use His time well.

O God, these years are going away, and run imperceptibly in file one after another; and in winding up their durations, they wind up our mortal life, and in ending they end our days.

Oh, how incomparably more desirable is eternity, since its duration is without end, and its days without night, and its contentments invariable! May you possess this admirable good of the holy eternity in as high a degree as I wish it for you! What happiness for my soul, if God, taking compassion on it, were to make it see this sweetness!

But whilst waiting to see our glorified Saviour, let us see Him with the eyes of faith all humbled in His cradle.

Ought we not to praise God for the many graces that we have received, and to supplicate Him to diffuse the blood of His circumcision over the entrance of the coming year, that in it the destroying angel may have no access over us?

So be it, that through these transitory years we may happily arrive at the permanent year of the most holy eternity!

Let us, then, well employ these little perishable moments in exercising ourselves in the holy sweetness and humility which the circumcised Babe comes to teach us, in order that we may have part in the efFects of His divine Name.

Might we at least for once well pronounce that sacred Name of our heart! Oh, what balm it would diffuse over all the faculties of our soul!

How happy we would be to have in our understanding nought but Jesus, in our memory nought but Jesus, in our will nought but Jesus, nought but Jesus in our imagination! Jesus would be every where in us, and we every where in Him. Let us attempt this, let us pronounce that Name as often as we can. But if as yet we can only say it stammering, at last we shall nevertheless be able to pronounce it well.

But what means it to pronounce this sacred Name well? for you tell me to speak plainly to you. Alas, I know not how, but I only know that to express it well would need a tongue all of fire; that is to say, it must be by divine love only, which, without any other, expresses Jesus in our life, by imprinting Him in the depths of our heart. But courage; doubtless we shall love God, for He loveth us.

Chapter V. THE FEAST OF THE CIRCUMCISION

O Jesus, fill our heart with the sacred balm of Thy divine Name, that the sweetness of its odour may dilate itself over all our senses, and diffuse itself over all our actions. But to make this heart capable of receiving so sweet a dew, circumcise it, Jesus, and retrench from it every thing that would be unpleasing to Thy holy eyes.

O glorious Name, which the mouth of the heavenly Father hath eternally named, be Thou forever graven on our soul, that, as Thou art a Saviour, it may be eternally saved. holy Virgin, who wert the first of the human race to utter this Name of salvation, inspire us with the way of fitly uttering it, so that everything in us may breathe of that salvation which thy womb has borne for us.

I could not but write the first letter of this year to our Lord and to our Lady; and here is the second, in which I wish you a good year, and dedicate our heart to the divine Goodness. May we so live this year, that it may serve as a foundation for the eternal year! At least this morning, on waking, I cried out in your hearing: “Live, Jesus!” and I would that I could diffuse that holy oil over the whole face of the earth.

When balm is closely fastened in a phial, no one can tell what liquid it is, except him who put it there; but when we open the phial, and have sprinkled a few drops, every one says, It is balm. Our dear little Jesus was all full of this balm of salvation; but they knew it not till with that sweetly cruel knife they opened His divine flesh, and then they knew that He is all balm, and balm of salvation. This is why St. Joseph and our Lady, and those all who stood by, began to cry: Jesus, which means Saviour.

May that divine Infant be pleased to steep our hearts in His blood, and to perfume them with His holy love; so that the roses of the good desires which we have conceived may be all empurpled with His dye, and all odoriferous with His balm.

A good and most holy year be given to us, all perfumed with the Name of Jesus, all steeped in His sacred blood; with the abundance of the grace of the Eternal Father, of the peace of the circumcised Son, and of the consolation of the Holy Ghost, to consecrate all the moments thereof, to make an entire circumcision of our heart, and to apply it to receive purely and perfectly the sacred love which the heavenly and divine Name of Jesus proclaims to us, written with His blood on His holy humanity.

A thousand times let us kiss the feet of this Saviour, and let us say to Him: my God, my heart hath said to Thee; my face hath sought Thee xxvi. 8): that is to say, let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus Christ to consider Him, (Ps. our mouth to praise Him, and in fine, let our whole face breathe nought but the desire of pleasing our dear Jesus; Jesus, for whom we must humble ourselves, must endeavour, and labour, and suffer, and, as St. Paul says, be accounted as sheep for the slaughter. (Rom. viii. 36.) May no day of this year, nor even any year, nor any day of many years, pass without being bedewed with the virtue of this blood, and without receiving the sweetness of the sound of this Name, which diffuses the height of all sweetness: may also the drops of the blood of our little Saviour convert themselves into a flame of holiness, to rejoice our hearts and render them fruitful.

Chapter VI. THE FEAST OF EPIPHANY

Our Lord loves you, and loves you tenderly. But if He does not make you feel the sweetness of His holy love, it is to make you more humble and more abject in your own eyes. But do not on that account fail to have recourse with all confidence to His holy goodness, above all now at this time, when we represent Him as He was a little infant in Bethlehem; for, my God, wherefore does he take this sweet and amiable shape of a little infant, unless to engage us to love Him confidently, and lovingly to trust in Him? Abide very near the crib this holy octave. If you love riches, you will there find the gold which the Wise Men have left there; if you love the odour of honours, you will find there that of the frankincense; and if you love the daintiness of the senses, you will find there the sweet-smelling myrrh which perfumes the whole manger. Be rich in love for this dear Saviour, honourable in the familiarity with which you approach Him in prayer, and full of delights in the joy of feeling in your mind the holy inspirations and affections of being His only.

As for your little fits of temper, they will pass away; or if they do not pass away, it will be for your exercise and mortification. Lastly, since without reserve you wish to be all for God, do not keep your heart in any anxiety, but amidst all the drynesses you may feel, be firm in remaining within the arms of the divine mercy. And as for those apprehensions which occur to you, it is the enemy, who seeing you at present altogether resolved to live in our Lord, without reserve and without exception, will make all sorts of efforts to distress you, and to render the way of holy devotion hard to you. Now you ought, on the contrary, to strengthen your heart by frequent repetition of your protest, that you will never relax yourself; that you will persevere in your fidelity; that you love better the hardships of the service of God than the sweetnesses of the service of the world; that you will never abandon your Spouse. Be very careful not to omit holy meditation, for if you did, you would be the sport of your adversary; but continue constantly in that holy exercise, and wait until our Lord speaks to you: for He will one day speak to you words of peace and consolation, and then you will know that your trouble has been well bestowed and your patience profitable. Let it be your glory to be all for God, and often protest that you are all His.

Chapter VII. THE FEAST OF THE PRESENTATION OF OUR LORD

How sweet it was yesterday to consider the holy Virgin, with the little Infant Jesus whom she goes to present at the Temple with that pair of doves, happier, as it seems to me, than the greatest princes of the world, to have been sacrificed for the Saviour! Ah, who will give us the grace that our hearts may be so one day!

But is not yonder Simeon very glorious in being permitted to embrace that divine Infant? Let us embrace Him also; let us live and die in His sweet embraces. Place this sweet Jesus in your heart, like a Solomon on his throne of ivory; make your soul often approach Him, like a queen of Saba, to hear the sacred words which He inspires, and breathes forth perpetually.

But, mark you, this heart must be of ivory, in purity, in firmness, in dryness; with the humours of the world all dried off, firm in its resolutions, pure in its affections.

Let us leave the world yonder in its worthlessness. Ah, may Egypt with its garlic, its onions, and its flesh-pots, be always to us an object of disgust, that we may so much the more enjoy the delicious manna which our Lord will give us in the desert whereinto we have entered: let Jesus, therefore, live and reign.

You desire to avoid falsehood; that is a great secret for attracting the Spirit of God into our hearts. Lord, who shall dwell in Thy tabernacle?

asks David. He answers, He that speaketh truth in his heart. (Ps. xiv. 1, 3.)

I approve much of your speaking little, provided that the little you do speak be spoken graciously and charitably, and not in a melancholy or artificial way. Yes, let your words be few and sweet, few and good, few and simple, few and sincere, few and amiable.

You must from time to time exercise yourself in this abnegation and abjection, and ask it of God in all your exercises; but when any other inspiration of love, of union with God, and of confidence shall occur to you, you must by all means put them in practice, without allowing them to be interfered with by the abnegation, to which you will leave its place at the end of the exercise.

Chapter VIII. THE FEAST OF ST. JOSEPH

Let us keep, I beseech you, at the foot of the cross, quite lowly. Too happy, if any drop of that balm which distils from every part of it fall into our heart, and if we can gather some of those little herbs which grow all around. Oh, gladly would I discourse to you on the greatness of that blessed Saint whom our heart loves, because he nourishes the love of our heart, and the heart of our love, on these words: Do good, O Lord, to those that are good, and to the upright of heart. (Ps. cxxiv. 4.) true God, how good must that Saint have been! how upright of heart, since the Lord did him so much good, having given him the Mother and the Son! For, having these two charges, he might be the envy of the angels, and might defy all heaven to display more good than he possessed. For what is there among the angels comparable to the Queen of Angels, and in God more than God? I supplicate this great Saint, who has so often caressed our Saviour, to bestow on you those interior caresses which are necessary for the advancement of your love towards this Redeemer, and to obtain for you an abundance of interior peace, giving you a thousand benedictions. Live, Jesus; live, Mary; and live too the great St. Joseph, who so long nourished our Life! Be Jesus our crown, Mary our honey, and St. Joseph our sweetness.

Chapter IX. THE FEAST OF THE ASCENSION OF OUR LORD

I give you joy of our Lord s ascending to heaven, where He lives and reigns, and wills that we Jive and reign with Him. Oh, what triumph in heaven, and what sweetness on earth! May our hearts be where their treasure is; and may we live in heaven, since our Life is in heaven!My God, how beautiful is this heaven, now that the Saviour serves for its sun, and His breast for a fountain of love, of which the blessed drink and are satisfied!

Each of them looks within it, and sees there his name written in a character of love, which love alone can read, and which love alone has graven.

Ah, God, shall not our names be there? They will be there doubtless; for though our heart has not love, it has nevertheless the desire of love, and the beginning of love; and is not the holy name of Jesus written on our hearts? And I think that nothing can efface it. We must hope, then, that ours will in turn be written on that of God.

What a blessing, when we shall see those divine characters marked with our eternal happiness!

As for me, I could think of nothing else this morning than that eternity of good which awaits us; but in which all would seem to me little or nothing, if it were not for that love of the great God, which reigns there eternally, inviolable, and active for ever more.

My God, how strange a contrariety is it in me, to have thoughts so pure and actions so defective! for truly it seems to me, that amidst the pains of hell there would be paradise, if the love of God could be there; and if the fire of hell were a fire of love, it seems to me that all its torments would be desirable.

I said, this morning, that all the enjoyments of heaven are a mere nothing compared with this reigning love.

But whence is it that I love not well, since hence forth I have the power of loving well?

Oh, let us pray, let us labour, let us humble our selves, let us invoke this love to come to us.

Never did the earth see the day of eternity in all its splendour until this holy feast, when our Lord, glorifying His body, made, as I think, the angels long to have such bodies, with the beauty of which the heavens and the sun cannot be compared.

Ah, how blessed are our bodies in expecting one day to participate in so much glory, provided that they serve the Spirit well in this mortal life!

Chapter X. THE FEAST OF PENTECOST

Away from hence, O north wind; and come, O south wind; blow through my garden, and let the aromatical spices thereof flow. (Cantic. iv. 16.) Oh, how I long for that gracious wind which comes from the noonday of divine love, that Holy Spirit which gives us the grace to aspire unto Him, and to sigh for Him!

Ah, how glad I should be to give you some present or other; but besides my being poor, it is not convenient that on the day when the Holy Spirit bestows His gifts, we should amuse ourselves with bestowing ours. We ought to attend to nothing but receiving them on the day of this great largess.

My God, what need I have of the spirit of fortitude! For assuredly I am feeble and infirm, in which, nevertheless, I glory: that the power of Christ may dwell in me. (2 Cor. xii. 9.)

May the Eternal Wisdom be for ever in our hearts, that we may taste the treasures of the infinite sweet ness of Jesus Christ crucified.

Tell your daughter that, like me, she should glory in her feebleness, which is the very disposition for receiving strength; for to whom should strength be given but to the feeble? May that sacred fire which changes every thing into itself, be pleased to transform our heart, in order that it may be no more anything but love; and that thus we may be no more lovers, but love.

May it be granted me to receive and to employ well the gift of holy understanding, that I may penetrate more clearly into the holy mysteries of our faith! For this clear comprehension wonderfully subjects the will to the service of Him whom the understanding so vividly perceives to be all good; and in the contemplation of whom it is occupied and busied. So that, as the understanding can no longer imagine anything to be good in comparison with that supreme goodness; in the same way the will can no longer choose to love any goodness in comparison with it. But since, whilst we are in the world, we cannot shew our love except by doing good, because in the world our love must be active rather than contemplative, we have need of counsel, in order to discern what we ought to practise and to do for that love which urges us; for there is nothing which urges one so to the practice of good as celestial love.

And in order that we may know how we ought to do good, what good we ought to prefer, to what object to apply the activity of love, the Holy Spirit gives to us His gift of counsel.

Behold, now our soul well provided with a good share of the sacred gifts of heaven. May the Holy Spirit which favours us be for ever our consolation: my soul and my spirit adore Him eternally.

I pray of Him to be always our wisdom and our understanding, our counsel and our fortitude, our knowledge and our godliness; and to fill us with the spirit of the fear of the eternal Father.

Chapter XI. THE FEAST OF CORPUS CHRISTI

It is true I was a little tired in body; but how could I be so in spirit and heart, after having held on my breast, and close to my heart, the divine Saviour, as I did that morning, all through the procession! Alas! if I had had my heart well hollowed out by humility, and well abased by abjection, I should without doubt have attracted that sacred pledge to myself. It would have hidden itself within me; for such love does It bear for those virtues, that It violently darts itself thither where It sees them.

My God, how much I was moved when they chanted those words: My Beloved to me, and I to Him (Cantic. ii. 16); and those of the Spouse: Put me as a seal upon Thy heart! (viii. 6.) Alas! yes; but having taken away the seal, I do not see the impression of its device upon my heart.

Again, what consolation I felt on hearing them sing: If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever (St. John vi. 52); and they repeated it frequently. O God! yes; we must hope very assuredly that we shall live eternally.

He who receives the most holy Communion, receives Jesus Christ living. This is why His body, His soul, and His divinity are in that divine Sacrament; and inasmuch as His divinity is the very same as that of the Father and of the Holy Ghost, who are but one God with Him, he who receives the most holy Eucharist, receives the body of the Son of

God; and by consequence His blood and His soul, and the holy Trinity. But, nevertheless, this divine Sacrament is primarily instituted that we may receive the body and blood of our Saviour, with His vivifying life; as garments which primarily cover the body, in asmuch as the soul is united to the body, do by consequence cover the soul, the understanding, the memory, and the will.

Go on very simply in this belief, and often salute the heart of this divine Saviour, who, to testify His love for us, has willed to veil Himself under the appearances of bread, in order to abide most familiarly and most intimately within us, and nigh to our heart.

Let us often in spirit behold the holy angels who surround that most holy Sacrament to adore It; and during this holy octave diffuse more abundantly holy inspirations on those who approach thereto with humility, reverence, and love.

Those divine spirits will teach you what to do in order to celebrate these solemn days well; and, above all, interior love will make you know how great is the love of our God, who, the more to give Himself to us, has willed to give Himself as food for the spiritual health of our hearts, to the end that, by receiving that nutrition, they might become more perfect. Thoughts of St. Francis de Sales regarding the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Oh, how I long that this heart of our Saviour may be the King of all our hearts!

His heart is so large, He wills that ours should have a place in it. I hope that you will be like the dove in the clifts of the rock (Cantic. ii.14) , and in the pierced side of our dear Saviour; I will gladly try to be often there with you. God, of His sovereign goodness, grant you this grace. Yesterday I saw you, as I think, when, beholding the side of our Saviour open, you wished to take His heart to place it in your own, as it were a king in his little kingdom; and although His heart is greater than yours, nevertheless it contracted so as to accommodate itself to the straitened room. How good is this Lord! How loving is His heart! Let us remain there in that holy abode. May that Heart live always in our hearts; may that Blood always gush in the veins of our souls.

Let us lift up our heart; let us look on that of God, all good, all love for us. Let us adore and bless His will in every thing; let Him cut and wound us all over as He pleases; for His we are to eternity. O beautiful Sun of hearts, Thou vivifiest all things with the rays of Thy goodness! Behold us half-dead before Thee; we will not depart till we have been warmed by Thy heat, Lord Jesus.

Often salute the heart of this divine Saviour, who, to testify His love for us, has willed to veil Himself under the appearances of bread, in order to abide most familiarly and most intimately within us, and nigh to our heart.

May our Saviour pluck out your heart to give you His own most divine Heart, through which you may live altogether according to His holy love. What happiness if, some day, on coming away from holy Communion, I found my own worthless and miserable heart taken out of my breast, and that in its place was fixed the precious heart of my God! But at least my desire is that our poor hearts may not henceforth live any more except under the obedience and the commandments of the Heart of this Lord; and thus we shall be sweet, humble, and charitable, since the heart of our Saviour has no laws dearer to it than those of sweetness, of humility, and of charity.

Chapter XII. THE FEAST OF ST. JOHN BAPTIST

Alas, why have I not some worthy feeling of joy for this angelic man, or this human angel, whose nativity we are celebrating! My God, would that I might have sweetness to converse with myself upon it! But I declare to you that the greatness of the subject hinders me from attaining that satisfaction.

I find him more than virgin; because he is virgin even in his eyes, with which he never beheld aught save the insensible objects of the desert; more than confessor, for he confessed the Saviour before the Saviour had confessed Himself; more than preacher, for he preaches not only with the tongue, but with the hand and finger, which is the height of perfection; more than doctor, for he preaches without having heard the source of doctrine, and without having learnt from masters, but from trees and stones, as St. Bernard says; more than martyr, for the other martyrs die for Him who died for them; but he dies for Him who is still in life; more than evangelists, for he preached the Gospel before it had been delivered; more than apostle, for he went before Him whom the apostles follow; more than prophet, for he shews Him whom the prophets predict; more than patriarch, for he sees Him in whom they believed; lastly, more than angel and more than man, for the angels are only spirits without bodies; and men have too much body and too little spirit: he has a body, and yet is nothing but spirit.

I delight extremely in looking upon him in that gloomy but blessed desert, every part of which he perfumes with the odour of devotion, and in which he scatters day and night discourses and ecstatic converse before the great object of his heart,—that heart which, seeing itself left alone to enjoy in loneliness the presence of its love, finds in loneliness the multitude of eternal sweetnesses; there where he sucks the celestial honey, which he shall presently go to distribute to .souls about the banks of Jordan.

He is born of a barren mother, he lives in the deserts, he preaches to the barren and stony heart, he dies among the martyrs; and amidst all these sharpnesses, he has a heart all full of grace and benediction.

His food is admirable; for the honey signifies the sweetness of the contemplative life, all collected on the flowers of the holy mysteries. The locusts signify the active life; for the locust never walks on the earth, nor does it ever fly in the air, but strangely mingling both, sometimes it is seen to leap, and sometimes to touch the earth in order to regain the air. For those who lead the active life, as it were, leap into the air and touch the earth alternately. The locust lives on dew, and does nothing but sing. Now although, according to our condition as mortals, we must needs touch the earth, to set in order the affairs of this life, nevertheless our heart ought to taste nothing but the dew of the good pleasure of God in all this, and ought to refer all to the glory of God.

But what means this terrestrial angel by being clothed with camel s hair? The camel, hunch-backed, and fit to carry burdens, signifies the sinner. Alas, good as Christians may be, they should remember nevertheless that they are surrounded with sins. Ah, a vesture how well-fitted to preserve holiness is the robe of humility!

He is buried in solitude by obedience, waiting until he be called to come to the people. He keeps himself aloof from the Saviour, whom he knew and saluted with affection, in order that he may not keep himself aloof from obedience, knowing well that to find the Saviour, apart from obedience, is to lose Him altogether.

His mother is barren, in order to teach us that drynesses and barrenness fail not to produce in us holy grace; for the name John signifies grace. My God! let us eat both of the wild and the garden honey; let us gather this holy love on every occasion; for all things cry out to the hearing of our heart: Love, love! holy love, come then, and do thou alone of all things possess our hearts.

Chapter XIII. THE FEAST OF ST. PETER

Our great St. Peter, awakened from his sleep by the angel, gives us his blessing. How much sweetness there is in the history of his deliverance! For his soul is so amazed at it, that he knows not if it be a dream or if it be not a dream.

May our angel strike us on the side to-day, to awaken our loving attention to God, to deliver us from all the chains of self-love, and to consecrate us forever to that heavenly love, in order that we may be able to say, Now I know in very deed that the Lord hath sent His angel, and hath delivered me. (Acts xii. 11.)

Simon, son of John, lovest thou Me? said that divine Saviour to him. (St. John xxi. 17.) Not that He doubted of it, but for the great pleasure He takes in hearing us often say, and say again, and protest that we love Him. Love we not the sweet Saviour? Ah! He knows well that if we love Him. not, at least we desire to love Him.

But if we do love Him, let us feed His sheep and His lambs; for that is the mark of faithful love.

But on what must we pasture those sheep and those lambs? On love itself; for either they live not, or they live on love. Between their death and love there is no middle course; they must either die or love; for he that loveth not, says St. John, abideth in death. (1 John iii. 14.)

But know you what our Saviour says to His dear St. Peter? When thou wast younger, thou didst gird thyself, and didst walk where thou wouldst; but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and lead thee whither thou wouldst not. (St. John xxi. 18.) The young scholars in the love of God gird themselves; they take their mortifications as seems to them good; they choose their penance, resignation, and devotion, and do their own will in doing the will of God.

But the old masters in that love suffer themselves to be bound and girded by another; and in submitting to the yoke which is imposed upon them, they go by ways they would not choose according to their own inclinations.

It is true that they stretch forth their hands; for inspite of the resistance of their inclinations, they allow themselves to be governed willingly against their will, and they say that obedience is better than sacrifices (1 Kings xv.22) ; and you see how they glorify God, crucifying not only their flesh but their spirit.

O God, may our Saviour be for ever everything to us! Keep the heart on high, in the loving bosom of the divine goodness and providence; for that is the place of its repose.

Chapter XIV. THE FEAST OF THE VISITATION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN

You will see to-morrow the blessed Virgin, bearing within her the Son of God, about sweetly to engage the mind of her dear and holy spouse, to have permission to make that holy visit to her cousin Elizabeth.

You will see how she bids farewell to her dear neighbours for the three months during which she thinks to remain on the mountains. I think they all part from her with tenderness; for she was so sweet and so amiable, that no one could be in her company without love, or part from her without sorrow.

She undertakes her journey somewhat eagerly; for the evangelist tells us that she went with haste. (St. Luke i. 39.) Ah, the first movements of Him whom she has within her womb cannot be made but with fervour! Oh, holy eagerness which troubles not, but which hastens without hurrying us!

The angels make ready to accompany her, and St. Joseph to conduct her affectionately. I would gladly know something of the conversations of those two great souls; for you would take great pleasure in hearing me tell you of it; but I think that the holy Virgin discourses of nothing but of Him whom she bears, and that she breathes not, but of the Saviour. St. Joseph, in like manner, aspires only for the Saviour, who, by secret rays, touches his heart with a thousand marvellous feelings. And as wines stored up in vaults give forth, without being conscious of it, the odour of the nourishing vineyards; so the heart of the holy patriarch gives forth, without being conscious of it, the odour, the vigour, and the strength of the little babe who nourishes in his fair vineyard. God, how beautiful a pilgrimage!

I leave you to think how good an odour this fair lily diffused in the house of Zachary, during the three months she was there; how each one was all occupied with her, and how with few, but very excellent words, she dropped from her sacred lips precious honey and balm; for how could she pour forth aught but that of which she was full? But she was full of Jesus.

My God, how much I wonder at myself for being still so full of myself, after having so often communicated! Ah, dear Jesus, be the child of our womb, that we may breathe of nothing every where but Thee! Alas! Thou art so often in me, wherefore am I so little in Thee? Thou enterest so often within me, wherefore am I so much without Thee? Thou art in my heart, wherefore am I not in Thine, to gather there that great love which inebriates hearts? I am all engaged with that dear visitation, in which our Lord, as it were new wine, makes this loving affection to gush on every side in the heart of His holy Mother.

Chapter XV. THE FEAST OF THE ASSUMPTION

I was meditating this evening, as the weakness of my sight would permit, on this queen dying of a fever sweeter than all health; I mean, the fever of love, which drying up her heart, at last enkindles it, sets it all on fire, consumes it in such sort, that she breathes forth her holy soul, which goes straight to the hands of her Son.

Ah, how fair is this dawn of the eternal day, which, ascending towards heaven, goes on, as it seems to me, increasing more and more in the benedictions of its incomparable glory!

All the elect die in the habit of holy love; but some of them, beyond that, die in the exercise of this holy love; some, for this love, like the martyrs, and others, by this same love. But what belongs to the supreme degree of this love is, that some die of love; and that is when love not only wounds the soul, so as to make it languish, but transfixes it, striking in the midst of the heart, and so strongly, that it drives the soul out of the body.

Such was the death of the holy Virgin, of whom it is impossible to imagine that she died of any other sort of death than that of love; a death the most noble of all, and consequently due to the most noble life which was ever lived among creatures,—a death of which angels themselves would desire to die if they were capable of death.

The holy Virgin having nothing in her which could hinder the operation of the divine love of her Son, united herself with Him in an incomparable union, by sweet ecstasies, peaceful and effortless; so that the death of this holy Virgin was more gentle than we can possibly imagine, her Son sweetly drawing her by the odour of His perfumes, and she gliding off in this odour most gently into the bosom of His goodness; and although that holy soul loved her most holy and most pure and most fair body, nevertheless she quitted it without pain and without resistance, to go to reunite herself to her dear Son. Love having, at the foot of the cross, given this divine mother the supreme dolours of death, it was reasonable that death should give her the sovereign delights of love.

Ah, may it please this holy Virgin to make us live by her prayers in this holy love; may it be forever the singular and only object of our heart. Live Jesus; live Mary, the stay of my life!

Chapter XVI. THE FEAST OF THE NATIVITY OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN

I live in hope that, if my ingratitude excludes me not from Paradise, I shall one day enjoy the eternal glory, in the enjoyment of which you will be blessed, after having in this life holily borne the cross, which the Saviour has imposed on you in the duty of serving Him faithfully in your own person, and in that of those many dear sisters, whom He has willed to be your daughters in Him. I salute them, those most dear daughters, in the love of the most holy Virgin, on whose cradle I invite them to scatter flowers every morning during this holy octave, holy anxieties to imitate her well; thoughts of serving her for ever, and above all, lilies of purity, roses of ardent charity, with the violets of most sacred and most desirable humility and simplicity.

My God, when shall it be that our Lady shall be born in our heart? As for me, I see plainly that I am in nowise worthy of it: you will think the same of yourself. But her Son was indeed born in a manger. Courage, then; let us make an abode for this holy infant. She loves only places deepened by humility, abased by simplicity, enlarged by charity. She is glad to be near the crib, and at the foot of the cross. She is not troubled if she must go into Egypt, away from all refreshment, provided that she has her dear Babe with her. No, let our Lord turn and return us to the right or to the left; let Him wrestle with us as with Jacob; let Him give us a thousand falls; let Him press us sometimes on one side, sometimes on another; nay, let Him inflict on us a thousand ills, never shall we quit Him for that, till He gives us His eternal benediction. And so our good God never abandons us except to keep us more securely; He never leaves us, except to guard us better; He never wrestles with us, except to yield Himself to us and to bless us.

Let us go on, however, and let us travel by these lowly valleys of the humble and little virtues; there shall we see roses among the thorns, charity which shines forth amidst interior and exterior afflictions, the lilies of purity, the violets of mortification, and what more can I say? Above all, I love those three little virtues, sweetness of heart, poverty of spirit, and simplicity of life; and those vulgar exercises, to visit the sick, to attend the poor, to console the afflicted, and such-like; but all of them without excitement, with a true liberty. No, we have not yet arms long enough to reach to the cedars of Libanus; let us content ourselves with the hyssop of the valleys.

Chapter XVII. THE FEAST OF ALL SAINTS AND OF ALL SOULS

As for these good feasts which are drawing near, you have nothing more to do after the offices of the day than to keep your mind in the heavenly Jerusalem, amidst its glorious streets, where on every side you will hear the praises of God resounding.

Look on all that variety of saints, and inform yourself how they have arrived there; and you will learn that the Apostles attained thereto principally by love, the martyrs by constancy, the doctors by meditation, the confessors by mortification, the virgins by purity of heart, and all in general by humility.

Look well on those fair streets of the heavenly Jerusalem, where so many blessed ones dwell, where all are rejoicing around their King, and where the love of God, like a heavenly living fountain, diffuses its waters on all sides, which bedew these glorious souls, and make them bloom, each one according to its condition, with an incomprehensible beauty.

Let our hearts be there, where are these true and desirable pleasures. Live, Jesus! Is not that our watchword? No, nothing shall enter into our hearts which says not in truth, Live, Jesus!

You will also, on All- Souls day, go in spirit into Purgatory, and you will see those souls full of hope, which exhort you to profit the most you can in piety, that at your departure you may be the less retarded from entering heaven.