Abandonment to Divine Providence

[Stone]

THIRD BOOK - ON THE OBSTACLES TO ABANDONMENT

Letter I – About Vanity and Infidelities

To Sister M. Therese de Viomenil. About feelings of vanity and frequent infidelities.

My dear Sister and very dear daughter in our Lord. The peace of Jesus Christ be always with you. You must know that before curing you of vanity God wills to make you feel all the ugliness of this accursed passion, and to convince you thoroughly of your powerlessness to cure it, so that all the glory of your cure should revert to Him alone. You have, then, in this matter, only two things to do. Firstly to examine peacefully this frightful interior ugliness. Secondly, to hope for and await in peace from God alone the moment fixed for your cure. You will never be at rest till you have learnt to distinguish what is from God from that which is your own; to separate what belongs to Him from what belongs to yourself. You add, “How can you teach me this secret.” You do not understand what you are saying. I can easily teach it to you in a moment, but you cannot learn to practise it until you have been made to feel, in peace, all your miseries. I say, in peace, to give room for the operations of grace.

Remember the words of St. Francis of Sales: “One cannot put on perfection as one does a dress.” The secret you ask for I give you freely; try to understand it so that it may gradually work its way into your soul, which is what you hope.

All that is good in you comes from God, all that is bad, spoiled and corrupt comes from yourself. Therefore put on one side the nothingness, the sin, the evil inclinations, and habits, a whole heap of miseries, and weaknesses, as your share, and it belongs to you in truth. All that remains: the body with all its senses, the soul with its faculties, and the small amount of good performed, this is God’s and belongs to Him so absolutely that you could not appropriate any part by the least act of complacency without committing a theft and robbery from God.

That which you so often repeat interiorly, “Lord, You can do all things, have pity on me,” is a good and a most simple act; nothing more is required to gain His all powerful aid: keep constant to these practices and interior dispositions; God will do the rest without your perceiving it.

I am thoroughly convinced that, without great unfaithfulness on your part, God will work great things in you by His holy operation. Count upon this and do not place any voluntary obstacles in the way; and if, unfortunately, you recognise that you have done so, humble yourself promptly, return to God and to yourself always retaining an absolute confidence in the divine goodness.

3rd. A lively sense of your misery, and the continual need you are in of God’s help is a very great grace and opens the way to all good but especially to the prayer of humility and annihilation before God which is so pleasing to Him.

4th. You do not understand as I do, the effects, and the operations of grace in your soul; if you recognised them you would be too satisfied with them, but your weakness and lack of virtue do not allow you to bear the knowledge. It is necessary that this fruit of grace should remain hidden and, as it were, buried in the abyss of your miseries and beneath a keen sense of your weakness. Under this heap of refuse God preserves the fruits of His grace, for such is the depth of our wretchedness that we compel God to hide from us His gifts as well as the rich ornaments with which He adorns our souls; unless He did so the least little breath of vanity, and of an imperceptible self-satisfaction would destroy or spoil these flowers or fruits. When you are in a state to be able to bear, and to enjoy them without danger, God will open your eyes, and then you will only praise and bless Him without any reverting to yourself, and ascribe all the glory of your deliverance to your divine Redeemer. In the meantime follow the guidance given you now by His Holy Spirit, and do not let fear enter your heart. Understand that in all that you actually experience there is no sin, since you endure it with so much pain and would only be too happy to put an end to these wretched effects of your sensitiveness. Maintain yourself in this holy desire, pray for it patiently, above all, humble yourself before God; it is for Him to complete the work He has begun in you, no one else could succeed in it. Understand that this is the little sacrifice that God demands of you before filling your heart with the ineffable delights of His pure love. You will have no rest till this merciful design of God shall be realised because your heart cannot exist without love. Let us pray, then, that this thirst may be satisfied by the love of God alone, that He and He alone may captivate our hearts, that He may sustain, possess, enlighten, and change them.

5th. The abyss of misery and corruption in which God seems to take pleasure in seeing you plunged is, to my judgment, the chief of graces since it is the true foundation of all self-distrust, and of an entire confidence in God, the two poles of the interior life; at any rate, of all graces it is the one I like best, and that I find most frequently in souls that are far advanced. What you think of yourself, therefore, although terrible, is nevertheless perfectly true and very well founded, for, if God were to leave you to yourself you would be a heap of all that is evil and a monster of iniquity. But God makes this great truth known to very few people, because few are capable of bearing it properly, that is to say, in peace, in confidence, in God only, without anxiety or discouragement.

6th. There is no other remedy for these frequent infidelities than to lament them, peacefully to humble yourself, and to return to God as soon as possible. We shall carry these afflictions and humiliations during the whole of our lives, because we shall always be ungrateful and unfaithful; but, as long as it is so only through the frailty of our nature, without any affection of the heart, that is enough. God knows our weakness, He knows the extent of our misery and how incapable we are of avoiding all infidelity; He sees also that we have need of being reduced to this state of misery without which we could not resist the continual attacks of pride, presumption, and secret self-confidence. Be careful not to get discouraged even when you find that the resolutions so often renewed, of belonging entirely to God, fail. Make use of these constant experiences, to enter more deeply into the profound abyss of your nothingness and corruption. Learn a complete distrust of yourself to depend only on God. Often repeat: “Lord I can do nothing without Your help. Enlightened by sad experience I can depend on nothing but Your all-powerful grace, and the more unworthy I feel, the more do I hope, because my unworthiness will more surely draw down Your mercy.” You cannot carry your confidence in God too far. An infinite goodness and mercy should produce an infinite confidence.

7th. It is a very subtle and imperceptible illusion of self-love to wish to know how you stand with regard to the mystical death, under the pretext of being able to act so as to render this death more complete in you. You will never know it in this life, neither would it be expedient for you to know it, because even supposing a soul to be entirely dead to self; if it became conscious of the fact, it would run a great risk of losing this state; because self-love would be so much pleased, and so satisfied with this assurance that it would rise to life again, and begin a new existence more sensitive and difficult to destroy than the first.

Oh, God! how subtle is this wretched self-love! It turns and twists like a serpent, and is only too successful in preserving its life in the midst of the most fearful deaths. This is of all illusions the most specious. Have a horror of this accursed self-love, but learn that, in spite of all your efforts it will not die completely and radically until the last moment of your life.

8th. The impression of the sanctity of God which throws you into such a state of confusion and pain, without, however, causing you trouble is, I am assured, a great grace, more precious and more certain than the consolation by which it is succeeded. I can, then, only wish for you that it may continue. Do not resist it, let yourself be abased, humiliated, annihilated. Nothing is better calculated to purify your soul, and you could not approach Holy Communion in a disposition more in keeping with a state of annihilation to which Jesus Christ has reduce Himself in this mystery. He will not be able to repulse you if you approach Him in a spirit of humility and as though annihilated in the profound abyss of your misery. If you have not the impulse, nor the facility to discover your interior state after having begged this grace, you must remain in peace and silence. Your discouragement is a sign of a want of purity of intention and is a very dangerous temptation, because you must onIy desire to improve, to please God, and not to please yourself. You must, therefore, be always satisfied with whatever God wills or permits since His will alone should be the rule, and the exact limit of your desires, however holy they may be. Besides, you must never get it into your head that you have arrived at a certain state, or you will become self-satisfied, which would be a grievous misfortune. The most certain sign of our progress is the conviction of our misery. We shall, therefore, be all the more rich the more we think ourselves poor, and the more we humble ourselves, distrust ourselves, and are more disposed to place all our confidence in God alone. And this is just what God has begun to give you, therefore let there be neither anxiety nor discouragement. Each day you must say to yourself, “To-day I am going to begin.” I greatly applaud the practice you have adopted of never upholding your own judgment, and of allowing yourself to be blamed and criticised even in circumstances where you believed you had good reasons to excuse yourself. You sacrifice, you say, the good opinion that you wish others to have of you, and you keep silence although until now you would have thought that it would be better to defend yourself that your conduct might give edification when that which was said against you was untrue. This is my answer: To endure every kind of blame and unjust accusation in silence without uttering a single word in justification under any pretext whatever is according to the spirit of the Gospel, and in conformity with the example of Jesus Christ and of all the saints. Your ideas to the contrary were the result of a pure illusion; therefore, keep firm to your new and holy conduct. You are right in saying that we carry a fund of corruption inseparable from our nature, and that it resembles muddy stagnant water that gives out an intolerable stench when it is stirred. That is an unquestionable truth, and God has given you a great grace in making you feel it so keenly. From this feeling will come, gradually, a holy hatred and complete distrust of yourself in which true humility principally consists.


Letter II – The Defects of Beginners

On the defects of beginners.

I am not surprised at the calmness of the person of whom you speak; it is the fruit of the humility she practised in opening her heart, in spite of her repugnance to doing so; and also the effect of the words that God never fails to inspire, in such a case, to those who are acting in His place. Make her thoroughly understand that God has begun to try her like this to punish her, and to cure her of a subtle hidden pride which she has been nursing without noticing it. The greater has been the trouble, the more it has shown the greatness of the vanity which it has disconcerted, and which rebels at the least humiliation, even that which is interior. This person, therefore, must try to divest herself gradually of that self-complacency which is hidden in the most secret recesses of the heart; whether it be about natural qualities, or about those virtues that she may have, or flatters herself that she possesses. For, without being careful about it, there may be some foolish self-satisfaction in all that; and without allowing it to herself she thinks herself superior to others in many ways. A subtle self-love feeds on these vanities of the spirit, in the way that worldly pride is satisfied with the beauties of the body; and, as the latter finds pleasure in thinking continually of its beauty and in looking in the mirror; so, in the same way the former takes interior delight in all the natural and supernatural gifts which it flatters itself to have received from heaven. The remedy for this diabolical evil (diabolical, because it is the crime of the proud angel) is—1st. To imitate modest women who never contemplate themselves in the mirror, or who drive from their minds all vain thoughts about their appearance, or exterior accomplishments.

2nd. To force this self-love often to look at its defects, miseries, and weakness, to enjoy abjection, and to feed on contempt.

3rd. To consider what we have been, what we are, and what we should become, if God removed His hand from us. When we neglect to apply ourselves to these humiliating reflexions, God, in His fatherly goodness, feels obliged to take other means to destroy the secret vanity of souls whom He desires to lead to a high state of perfection; He allows temptation, or even falls that throw them into the deepest confusion to cure them of this inflation of the mind and heart. When God makes use of this bitter but salutary remedy, we must be on our guard to prevent our hearts rebelling against it, but submit humbly without vexation, and without voluntary agitation.

4th. We ought not to imagine that by dint of reflexions we shall be able to lessen our troubles, but should remain as if motionless in the bosom of the mercy of God, and let the storm pass without struggling against it, and without interior disturbance which would aggravate the evil instead of lessening it.

5th. We should never ask to be delivered from our afflictions since they have been brought about by the favourable action of Providence, but we must pray for patience with ourselves and others, and for an entire resignation.

6th. Instead of becoming strong-minded, we must become like children by a great simplicity, candour, ingenuousness, and openness of heart towards those who have the task of guiding us.

Note.–This letter was addressed in 1731 to Sister Marie-Anne Therese de Rosen by Fr. de Caussade, and was about a person who was making a Retreat. There is every reason to believe that it concerned either Madame or Mademoiselle de Lesen whom God had brought back to Himself by the trial of the loss of her property, and who had vowed to become a Religious, but who was obliged to remain in the world for a long time leading a devout life. She made a retreat in 1731 and another in 1732 in the Convent of the Visitation at Nancy, and had Sister Marie-Anne Therese de Rosen for her directress. Shortly after she entered the Order of the Annunciation at St. Mihiel in 1733.


Letter III – The Illusions of the Devil

To Sister Charlotte-Elizabeth Bourcier de Monthureux (1735). On interior troubles voluntarily entertained and weakness.

My dear Sister,

For several days past I have had so many letters to write, either for this country, or for France, that I have not been able to read your long account. I do not disguise from you that it seemed to me very useless, because God has given me the grace to thoroughly understand your state without my having the trouble to read all this. However, I have read the most essential part, that against which you have put a particular mark, and it has only confirmed the opinion I had formed of you some time ago. Excuse me, my dear Sister, if I insist on the same direction that I have always hitherto given you. Until now you have derived great benefit from having followed it, why then allow yourself to be misguided by the illusions of the devil? I am not speaking to you at random, but with full conviction, do then believe me, and prove, by your docility that the confidence with which you honour me is not a vain pretence. If you really have a good will, if you are sincerely and earnestly resolved to belong to God, you ought to make every effort to maintain yourself in peace in order not to give the lie to the message of the angels, “Peace to men of goodwill.” But you must expect that Satan will exert every effort to prevent you acquiring a peace so desirable. I know that, unfortunately, he has but too well succeeded up to now. The greatest evil in your soul at present is that of anxiety, uneasiness and interior agitation. This malady is, thank God, not incurable, but as long as it remains unhealed it cannot but be even more dangerous than painful to you. Interior disturbance renders the soul incapable of listening to, and following the voice of the divine Spirit, of receiving the sweet and delightful impressions of His grace, and of applying itself to pious exercises, and to exterior duties. It is the same with such sick and afflicted souls as with bodies enfeebled by fever, which cannot accomplish any serious task until delivered from their malady. And as there is a certain analogy between them there is also some resemblance between the remedies to be used. The health of the body can only be restored by three means, obedience to the physician, rest, and good food. These are, likewise, the three means of restoring peace and health to a soul that is agitated, sick, and almost in agony.

The first condition for its cure is obedience, a childlike blind obedience founded on the principle that God, having authorised His priests to guide us cannot allow those souls to be deceived who, on this account, abandon themselves blindly to their guidance. Before all things, therefore, make your virtue consist in the renunciation of your own judgment, and in a humble and generous intention of believing and doing all that your director judges, before God, to be expedient. If you are animated with this spirit of obedience you will never allow yourself voluntarily to entertain thoughts opposed to what has been enjoined you, and you will take good care not to give in to the inclination to examine and scrutinize everything. If, however, in spite of yourself, some thoughts contrary to obedience enter your mind, you must reject them, or better still, despise them as dangerous temptations.

The second remedy for your complaint is rest, and peace for your soul. To acquire this, you must first of all desire it ardently, and pray to God earnestly for it, and then work with all your might to acquire it. If you wish to know how to set about this task I will tell you.

Be very careful not to allow any thoughts which would bring about uneasiness, sadness, or depression to remain in your mind. These thoughts are, in one sense, more dangerous than temptations to impurity; you must, therefore, let them alone, without dwelling on them; despise them, and let them fall like a stone into the sea. Resist them by fixing your mind on contrary ideas, and above all by making aspirations suitable for the occasion, with sighs and interior groanings accompanied by acts of humility. But this struggle while being energetic and generous must also be quiet, tranquil and peaceful, because if it were to be restless, unhappy, ill-humoured and wild, the remedy would be worse than the disease. In the second place avoid in your actions, whether exterior or interior, all eagerness, hurry, and natural activity; accustom yourself on the contrary, to speak, to walk, to pray and to read quietly, slowly, without overexerting yourself no matter for what, not even to repulse the most frightful temptations. You must remember that if these temptations are displeasing to you that is the best sign that you have not consented to them. As long as the free will feels nothing but horror at, and hatred for the objects presented to the imagination in these temptations, it is evident that it does not in any way consent to them. Keep yourself, therefore, in peace in the midst of these temptations as you have done in other trials.

1st. It only remains then to cure the weakness resulting from the fever which torments a soul in trouble. For that a strengthening diet is necessary–that is to say–to read good books, and to get accustomed to read very slowly with frequent pauses more to try and take an interest in what you read than to make use of the intellect in reflexions on it. Remember the wise saying of Fenelon, “The words we read are like the bark of the tree, but the interest we take in them is like the sap which feeds and fattens the soul.” We must act as regards this spiritual nourishment as gluttons and sensualists act with regard to their feasts which they taste in remembrance, and enjoy after having swallowed them.

2nd. We must only speak on useful and edifying subjects, and with those who are most capable of leading us to God by their holy conversation.

3rd. Never seek consolation from creatures by useless intercourse. This is an essential matter for those who are suffering interior trials. God, who sends them for our good, desires that we should bear them without going elsewhere for consolation, but to Him; and He claims the right to settle the moment when such consolation should be given to us.

4th. We must apply ourselves, each according to his or her capacity and attraction to interior prayer, but without intense application or strain, keeping very quietly in the holy presence of God, addressing Him occasionally by some interior act of adoration, repentance, confidence, or love. If, however, it is not possible to make such acts, we must be content with the good desire of doing so; for, whether for good or evil, desire is equivalent to an act in the sight of God. Bossuet, somewhere in his works very truly says: “Desire is, with regard to God, what the voice and words are with regard to men. We ask, and return thanks by the desires we have, which say everything, and make our petitions known to God much more distinctly than any words could do, or even those interior acts which are called particular and formal.” This is what gave rise to the saying that a cry uttered only in the depths of the heart is the same in the sight of Him Who sounds all hearts, as a cry that pierces the heavens.

5th. It is necessary to put this manner of praying into practice, not only at morning devotions, but also during the whole day in a quiet, easy, tender, and affectionate manner by frequently raising the heart to God, or by an interior attention to the divine presence. To gain greater facility you might review in the morning nearly every event both interior and exterior, likely to occur during the day, and ask yourself, “If I find myself in such a circumstance, or such a position, what shall I say to God, what act should I make?” and if, when the time arrives you are prevented from carrying out your good intentions, you can be content to adhere to them, even if only indistinctly, and to lay before God your inability. Finally the best food for the soul consists in willing in all and for all what God wills; or, in other words to adhere to all the designs of divine Providence in every imaginable circumstance whether interior or exterior, health or sickness, aridity, distractions, weariness, disgusts, temptations, etc., and to accept all this very heartily, saying, “Yes, my God, I will everything; I accept all, I sacrifice all to You; or, at any rate I wish to do so, and ask for this grace, help me and strengthen my weakness.” In the most fearful temptations say to Him, “My God, preserve me from sin in this matter; but I willingly accept as much confusion to my pride, and interior abjection and humiliation as You will and long as You will, I unite my will to Yours.”

The most uneasy and enfeebled soul could not fail to recover its lost peace and joy if it adopted these means for regaining them.


Letter III – Interior Troubles

To the same person. Interior troubles (1755).

If my letter distressed you, my dear Sister, I will say to you with St. Paul, that I rejoice not, indeed, at your affliction, but at the good effect it has produced. It is good to recognise that one has been culpable in many ways, not in order to reproach oneself in a hard, bitter, angry, and disturbed manner, but to humble oneself quietly and peacefully without self-contempt or bitterness. You do not consider yourself disobedient, you say, in relating to me quite frankly your fears and doubts. That is not the question, my dear Sister; but what is, is that you continue to cling to your fears and doubts; you study them too much, instead of despising them and abandoning yourself entirely to God, as I have preached to you for a long time past. Without this happy and holy abandonment you will never enjoy a solid peace full of absolute confidence in God alone, through Jesus Christ.

But, I ask you again, what have you to fear in this abandonment, especially after such evident signs of the very great mercy of God towards you? You are endeavouring to find help in yourself and your works, and to satisfy your conscience, as if your works gave your conscience greater security and stronger support than the mercy of God, and the merits of Jesus Christ; and as though they could not deceive you. I pray God to enlighten you, and to give you a change of heart about this matter so essential to you. You say that I should feel distressed and surprised if you laid bare to me all that you experience. This is exactly what people in your state so often say to me, people with whom I am not so well acquainted as with you. Here is my answer to you, and to others like you. The keen perception of faults and imperfections is the grace suitable to this state, and it is a very precious grace. Why? First because this clear view of our miseries keeps us humble, and even sometimes inspires us with a wholesome horror and a holy fear of ourselves. Secondly, because this state, apparently so miserable and so desperate gives occasion to an heroic abandonment into the hands of God. Those who have gauged the depths of their own nothingness can no longer retain any kind of confidence in themselves, nor trust in any way to their works in which they can discover nothing but misery, self-love, and corruption. This absolute distrust and complete disregard of self is the source from which alone flow those delightful consolations of souls wholly abandoned to God, and form their inalterable peace, holy joy and immovable confidence in God only. Oh! if you but knew the gift of God, the value, merit, power, peace and holy assurance of salvation hidden in this state of abandonment, you would soon be delivered from all your fears and anxieties. But you imagine you will be lost directly you think of abandoning yourself; and yet the most efficacious means of salvation is to practise this total and perfect abandonment. I have never yet come across any who have so set themselves against making this act of abandonment to God as you. Nevertheless you will, necessarily, have to come to it, at least at the hour of death; because, without an express revelation and assurance of eternal salvation, no one can be free from fear at the last moment, and therefore, every one is absolutely compelled then to abandon themselves to the very great mercy of God.

“But,” you say, “if I had lived a holy life and performed some good works I might think myself authorised to practise this abandonment, and to divest myself of my fears.” An illusion, my dear Sister. Such language can only have been inspired by your unhappy self-love, which desires to be able to trust entirely to itself, whereas you ought to place your confidence only in God and in the infinite merits of Jesus Christ. You have never really thoroughly fathomed this essential point but have always stopped short to examine into your fears and doubts instead of rising above them, and throwing yourself heart and soul into the hands of God, and upon His fatherly breast. In other words you always want to have a distinct assurance based on yourself, in order to abandon yourself better. Most certainly this is anything but an abandonment to God in complete confidence in Him only, but, rather, a secret desire of being able to depend on yourself before abandoning yourself to His infinite goodness. This is to act like a state criminal who, before abandoning himself to the clemency of the king, wishes to be assured of his pardon. Can this be called depending on God, hoping only in God? Judge for yourself! And God has for so long a time been calling you to this state of abandonment in filial confidence. And you, instead of responding to this loving call allow yourself to be tyrannised over, and martyrised by a slavish fear. I greatly insist on this matter, because experience has taught me that this is the last battle of grace for souls in your state; the last step to take in forsaking self, and the one that costs the most. But it seems to me that no one has ever offered so much resistance as you. This proceeds from a very strongly rooted self-love, from a secret great presumption and confidence in yourself that, possibly, you may never have found out; for, mark well, that directly you are spoken to about this total abandonment to God you feel a certain interior commotion as though all were lost, and as if you had been told to throw yourself, with your eyes shut, into an abyss. It seems a trifle, yet it is very much the contrary, for the greatest assurance of salvation in this life can only be obtained in this total abandonment, and this consists, as Fenelon says, in becoming thoroughly tired of, and driven to despair of oneself, and made to hope only in God. Weigh well the force of these words which at first sight seem too strong and exaggerated.

However, to bring you to this state of total abandonment God has imparted to you two great graces. Firstly, a powerful attraction to induce you to place all your confidence in His very great mercy and goodness; secondly, a great knowledge of, and a very penetrating insight into your miseries, weaknesses, perversity, powerlessness to act well, etc.; as if to say to you: “You see that in this state you neither ought nor can, in any sort of way, depend on yourself, since you are nothing but a heap of corruption. Let Me then, have the care of you, and forsake yourself once for all, to depend only on Me.” “But how shall I work out my salvation?” What! do you not understand that the most certain way of assuring this is to leave the care of it entirely to God, and to occupy yourself only with Him; as a man in the confidence of a great king leaves the question of recompense to him, and thinks only of the service and interests of his master. Do you not think that, in acting in this generous manner he would be doing better for himself than others who, more selfish, would think continually of what they might gain or obtain? But are we not commanded to think of ourselves, to enter into ourselves, to watch over ourselves? Yes, certainly, when beginning to enter the service of God in order to detach ourselves from the world, to forsake exterior objects, to correct the bad habits we have contracted, but, afterwards we must forget ourselves to think only of God, forsake ourselves to belong to God alone. But as for you, you wish to remain always wrapped up in yourself, in your, so-called, spiritual interests; and God, to draw you out of this last resource of self-love, allows you to find nothing in yourself but a source of fears, doubts, uncertainty, trouble, anxiety and depression, as though this God of all goodness said by this, “Forget yourself, and you will find in Me only, peace, spiritual joy, calmness, and an absolute assurance of salvation. I am the God of your salvation, and you can be nothing but the cause of your own destruction.”

But again you say, “In this forgetfulness of self, far from correcting myself of my sins and imperfections, I do not even know them.” An error! an illusion! ignorance! Never can you more clearly detect your faults than in the clear light of the presence of God. This is like an interior sunshine, which, without necessitating a constant self-examination makes us see and understand everything by a simple impression. In this way also, better than in any other, all our defects and imperfections are gradually consumed like straw in a fire. And then how happy is this state at which you should have arrived a long time ago! and of which God has given, and still gives me frequent experience. As the human heart is a bottomless abyss of misery and corruption, the more the light of God penetrates into it the more sad and humiliating are the objects disclosed; but at the same time these fresh disclosures, far from grieving the soul, console it in keeping it in an interior humility which it knows to be the solid foundation of the whole spiritual edifice. Far from disturbing its holy joy, and casting it down they inspire in it a solid confidence which it feels is placed in God alone, and that this confidence, according to Holy Scripture, has never been confounded. I have known, and know now many souls that, following this method, are astonished to find that the more feeble, poor, and miserable they realise themselves to be, the greater becomes their confidence in God. The reason of this is that in proportion to our insight into our own misery and corruption will be our distrust in ourselves and our confidence in God. God then imparts to those souls which have acquired this insight, an absolute self-distrust joined to an entire confidence in Him, from which proceeds total abandonment; these are the two strong springs of the spiritual life, and as long as you are in this state you run no risk of your salvation.

In abandoning all to God, therefore, we regain all in Him alone and with profit to our souls. In this way we are delivered once for all from these foolish self-examinations, fears, troubles, and uneasiness; in one word from these tortures to which those self-engrossed souls condemn themselves who wish to love God only out of self-love, who seek salvation and perfection, not so much to please God and to glorify Him, as for their own interests and eternal happiness.

But, you will say, God commands us to desire our salvation and eternal felicity. Yes, without doubt, but according to, and in submission to the ordaining of His will. Well! this is God’s rule, which it is necessary for you to understand thoroughly; God has created us for His own glory and to do His will, and He could not have created us for any other purpose, for He owes this to Himself, and to His own sovereign dominion; but, as He is also infinitely merciful He has so arranged that His creatures find their own interests and eternal happiness in doing His will. But see how this miserable self-love which seeks itself before all else, reverses the order of things. We want first and principally to provide for our own interests, spiritual and eternal, and as for the glory of God, in our preoccupation we give Him only the second place. God sees this subversion with a jealous eye in souls He has loaded with graces, and by which He desires to be loved with a pure and disinterested affection! and, in order to make them return to this right order of things He sends them troubles, fears and interior agitation, seeking by means of these secret trials to destroy that self-love so harmful to them. He desires to induce them by degrees to think less of themselves and their own interests, and to occupy themselves quietly with Him alone by abandoning to Him the care and management of their salvation; and this is the meaning of those words of Jesus Christ addressed to many holy souls. “My daughter think of me and I will think of you, busy yourself for My glory, and allow Me to occupy Myself with your interests and eternal welfare.”

As for us, what are we doing when we always worry, and are busied about ourselves? It is as though we said, “Lord, what are you saying? I shall be lost if I do not continually think about my own soul, if I am not constantly asking myself how I stand with you, and what is going to become of me. This is what I am obliged to do without ceasing. As for what concerns Your glory and Your good pleasure I can only think of them now and then. I hope I shall be able to occupy myself with them more habitually by the time I have conquered all my faults, and it is proved to me that I shall risk nothing by this constant attention to Your divine interests. But first of all I cannot now decide about it for I should consider myself lost and You wish me before all things to try and provide for the safety of my soul.” To those of His spouses who address such language to Him, this is the very clear and concise reply of our Lord in the Gospel, “Whosoever loveth his life shall lose it, and he that hateth his life in this world, keepeth it unto life eternal.” And, in fact, I have never met with souls which have a greater horror of sin, more strength for the practice of virtue, or which make greater sacrifices for God when occasions arise than those souls which seem never to think of themselves but depend upon Him for everything, including their salvation. It is in this state that salvation is most certain; from which I conclude that not only scruples, but excessive fears, distressing doubts, spiritual trials and bitterness of heart, are caused by selfish feelings, a greater preoccupation about personal interests than about the glory of God and a desire to please Him out of pure love and all that should take the first place in our hearts. Since He is the sovereign good, love of Him should take precedence of the charity we owe ourselves. And since He has promised to love those who love Him, and to love most those who love Him only, we can be assured that in making use of all our powers to love Him for Himself we shall regain with interest by this pure love all that we seem to have sacrificed; therefore, far from losing, we gain all in abandoning ourselves entirely to God by love and confidence. The sight of that confused heap of weaknesses, miseries, unworthiness, and of all corruption should never distress you. It is on this account that I say boldly, all is well, for I have never known a soul endowed with this keen insight, so humiliating to it, to whom it was not a most singular grace of God; nor who has not found in it, combined with a true knowledge of itself, that solid humility which is the foundation of all perfection. I have known, and do know many saintly souls who, for their sole possession have that profound conviction of their misery, and are never so happy as when they feel themselves, as it were, engulfed in it. They then dwell in truth, and consequently in God Who is the sovereign truth. If you but knew how to walk before Him, your head bowed in this spirit of self-effacement, you would find in it all that makes the spiritual life. It only remains to know how to preserve this spirit of peace and abandonment. Would to God that you had the grace to pass all your time of prayer in this holy interior self-humiliation, engulfed in your misery, but in peace, submission, resignation and confidence. Then I should say to you: stay as you are, and all is well; God will do the rest, and perhaps without you knowing, or feeling that He is doing it.

You are trembling over your state, and I am blessing God for it. I only wish you changed in one particular, and that is that your self-humiliation should be mingled with peace, submission, confidence, and abandonment, as I have just said. After that I should have no fear for you not even about the laxness of which you tell me, which makes you walk like a crab. God will prevent great laxness and will allow small relaxations to keep you humble. St. Francis of Sales said it was an heroic virtue to rise again unceasingly without ever losing courage.

God be praised in all, and for all.


Letter V – On the Love of One’s Neighbour

To Sister de Lesen. On the love of one’s neighbour. Nancy, 1735.

I am not at all surprised at the friendship you have for your dear relative, and understand that it is due to her for many reasons. However, because by your own showing this affection disturbs you, and prevents you giving your whole heart to God, there must needs be some irregularity about it. If you wish to sanctify it, and to render it altogether supernatural, this is what God demands of you.

1st. That you will not allow yourself to think about this person too often nor to be engrossed by thoughts of her; there is moderation in all things.

2nd. That in the illnesses and afflictions she has to endure you will submit to them as a sacrifice you must make to God, and abandon yourself to Him so that He may dispose of her, and of you in all things, and about all things according to His most holy will and loving good pleasure. You must know that in abandoning her thus to the will and care of divine Providence you render her, as well as yourself, the greatest possible service, since by this sacrifice you place her in the hands of God Who is infinitely good, and infinitely powerful.

We must certainly make use of our reasoning faculties in our trials; but, as a very holy and learned Christian has well said, we must not depend too much on this feeble faculty which is stronger in opposition to what is good, than in overcoming evil. It is religion, and the grace we obtain through humble prayer which can sustain us. Sadness, depression, interior rebellion when our relatives suffer from various causes, taking rise in a too affectionate disposition, will be a grand occasion of virtue and merit to us, if, endeavouring to raise ourselves by faith above our natural feelings, we understand that all has to be sacrificed to the adorable and most holy will of God. Do we not know that nothing can happen in this world without His permission, and that He has arranged everything for the greater good of those who submit to Him, or, at least who desire to acquire and to practise this submission?

If we could only understand the value of this virtue! Of all the means of salvation this is, together with the fulfilment of the divine precepts, the most universal, and the most infallible. Nothing more is required to sanctify most people and to lighten for them the trials of life. A wise pagan thought in this way when he said, “If one has a sensitive nature, and is accustomed to foster in oneself what the world calls refined and generous sentiments, it is no easy matter to cure oneself of thinking too much about the family honour, and of taking too great an interest in family affairs, and also of being too much moved by every incident affecting those to whom we are most tenderly attached.” It is necessary to pray much about this, and also to reflect how to combat it. Firstly, to reflect on the uselessness of our worries and our feelings, and on the harm they do ourselves, as much to the bodily health, as to the welfare of the soul. Secondly, to combat it by refraining from frequent, lengthy, and earnest thoughts on the subject, and by sacrificing and abandoning it entirely to God in spite of the pangs the heart must endure from the violence of such sacrifices; consider that, after all, there is only one thing necessary, and that provided that this great affair succeeds everything else must be as God pleases. These feelings are quickly overcome, or rather, they are so trifling and paltry that they pass like shadows, to return no more. Let us act like worldly people when they have to attend to business of the utmost importance on which depend their honour, their life, their property, in fact everything, as they think. They have nothing else in their minds day or night but this important business, and neglect everything else as being nothing in comparison. As Jesus Christ has said, we must learn from the children of this world who are “wiser in their generation than the children of light.” Remember that what can help to save us is not exterior solitude, nor retirement, for these can be had even in the world; but an interior withdrawal and solitude of the mind and heart; of the mind, by banishing superfluous cares and thoughts and by endeavouring to make God the absorbing occupation of the heart, by lamenting its defects, by humbling it and frequently sighing after God, and by detaching it gradually from the creature to attach it solely to the Creator. He is the supreme truth, and nothing has any reality apart from Him. Consequently purely temporal interests, the business, the honours, pleasures, or sufferings of this lower world are nought but shadows and phantoms; they appear to exist, but, in reality, are nothing.


Letter VI – On Attachments

To Sister Anne-Marguerite Boudet de la Belliere. On attachment too keenly felt.

My very dear daughter in Jesus Christ. I cannot thank God enough for this great desire of giving yourself to Him without reserve that He has bestowed on you with the courage which inspires you to make so many little sacrifices, and to moderate even the most harmless attachments. Oh! my dear Sister, how thoroughly God has enlightened you about this, and how many dangers you will escape if you are faithful in following this light. We, unhappily, find only too many who, making profession of piety, are caught in this snare, and thus prevented from making any progress. With the excuse that there is no sin in the attachments they allow themselves, they give themselves up to them without scruple, and thus place an impenetrable barrier to the grace, and the communications of God. He desires to fill and inflame their hearts with His pure love, but how can He do so as long as those hearts are distracted by foolish amusements, and filled with a miserable love for some creature? You know what a dangerous snare this was for St. Teresa, and in truth after such an example you cannot be too much on your guard. Go on then, detaching yourself more and more, and I assure you that in proportion as your detachment becomes more complete you will feel more drawn to God, to prayer, recollection and the practice of every virtue; for, when the heart is empty in this way God fills it, and then one can do everything easily and pleasantly, because all is done out of love, and that, you know, makes all things easy, and sweetens all bitterness.


Letter VII – Personal Attachments

My dear Sister,

Allow me to tell you in all sincerity, a fear that makes me anxious about you. It seems to me that your too frequent intercourse with the members of your numerous family, and with other people from outside, raises a serious obstacle to your advancement. Take care that, while trying to do good to others, you do no harm to yourself. Although I am obliged by my vocation to have more communication with the world than you, I assure you nevertheless, that I find it very good for my soul to keep these communications within bounds. Since I came here I have only made necessary visits, and try as much as possible to avoid receiving them. To those who come to me I speak only of God, of salvation, or of eternity. This is the rule laid down by St. Ignatius and one which he declared suited him well. If people like this kind of conversation they will profit by it, and their visit will not have been a waste of time; if they do not care for it they will not come again, or, at any rate not so often, and then I shall have more time left me for my priestly duties. It is useless to expect to make any progress as long as your mind is filled with news from outside, and your heart preoccupied with temporal affairs. The first condition for the interior life is recollection. I cannot urge you too strongly to restrict your communications and, to follow the plan of St. Ignatius about those that you think you ought to retain. This plan is better suited to a Religious, who is obliged by her vocation to keep secluded, than to other people. Far from being surprised, people in the world cannot but be edified at the fidelity with which she conforms her conduct to her vocation. On the contrary, if by these useless communications with people in the world she frequented society too much, she would only scandalise them, and would also lose all those graces which she might have acquired by her communications with God.


Letter VIII – On Natural Activity

To Sister Marie-Henriette de Bousmard. On natural activity.

I wish, my dear Sister, that you were able to understand well all the harm that the excessive activity of your nature, unless completely under the rule and direction of grace, will infallibly cause you. This is one of those defects that the world mistakes for virtues, but which is none the less disastrous to the soul in its progress in the path of sanctity. Natural activity is the enemy of abandonment, without which, as I have often told you, there can be no real perfection. It prevents, obstructs, or spoils all the operations of grace, and substitutes, in the soul which succumbs to it, the impulsion of the human spirit for that of the divine Spirit. In fact there is no doubt that the impetuosity with which we give ourselves up to good works proceeds from a hidden source of self-confidence, and a thoughtless presumption that makes us imagine that we are doing or can do great things. How much more modest and reserved we should be if we were thoroughly penetrated with the undoubted truth that we have nothing of our own, and are utterly powerless to do anything good, but only powerful for evil. To cure, and to tear up by the root an evil so fruitful in imperfections, and even in sins, requires much time and much trouble. These are the means I most recommend to you.

1st. To be thoroughly convinced, by past and present experience, of your own weakness and misery, in order to distrust more and more your own works even to the length of feeling a kind of horror of them.

2nd. To repress your excessive exterior activity by performing all your actions without eagerness or hurry, quite gently and quietly, as St. Francis of Sales advises.

3rd. To do the same in all your spiritual exercises, and always to mortify the initial eagerness with which you start any good work, no matter what it may be; to undertake it only under the influence of the pure Spirit of God, and by the peaceful impulse of grace.

4th. When you pray and hold intercourse with God interiorly, try to avoid all sensible ardour, all that fiery fervour, and excitement of the imagination characteristic of beginners. To effect this, follow the advice of St. Francis of Sales and manage so that all your interior acts shall flow, and be drawn from, and distilled by, the highest point of the mind, so that you hardly feel that you are praying and making acts. Far from these acts being, on this account, less fruitful, they make a deeper impression on the soul and penetrate more deeply and more pleasantly into the heart.

5th. When you feel, however confusedly, that something is acting in your soul, the stronger this impression is, the more necessary it is to keep quiet and still, and as though in a state of inaction, so that you may not spoil all by interfering unseasonably.

6th. When God makes you experience certain consolations, or strong emotions, instead of giving yourself up to them with a sensual avidity, behave with the reserve and modesty of a mortified person invited to a great feast.

7th. During the day let the principal interior occupation be what is called simple interior waiting, silent, peaceful, and entirely resigned; and do not think that this is idleness, waste of time, or in any way useless, because, as a beggar who waits the whole day long at a rich man’s gate, or at the church door, is by no means idle but much occupied interiorly with his own misery, his wants and continual necessities; so, in the same way, a soul in this simple waiting before God is very much occupied interiorly, and in this simple manner is making the following acts; of faith in the presence of God, of adoration before this great God whose infinite power and mercy it acknowledges; of self-distrust; of profound humility in thinking itself incapable of anything; of desire for the holy operations of God, of hope since one does not wait for what one does not expect to receive; and of abandonment to divine Providence in regard to all His gifts or operations. And although these acts may not be accurately performed, specified, nor sensible, yet they are none the less there, at the bottom of the heart; and God, at least, sees them in our desires, and in our state of preparation. Now, as you are aware, our wishes and desires, even if only begun to be formed, are to God what the voice is to our fellow men. He hears them, in fact, far more clearly than men hear our voices, and it is enough for Him that we form these desires; for, as the Psalmist says He knows even the mere intention and disposition of our hearts from the first moment that they begin to turn, and to move towards Him. And this, by the way is very consoling to you in the present state of your soul. But a still more efficacious way than any other is to bear patiently darkness, dryness, coldness and weakness. This sad state is the specific remedy employed by God to suppress natural activity by reducing us to our own nothingness. Without this we should never be able to overcome it, because the inordinate activity of our powers cannot be regulated until, by constantly reiterated efforts, we force them to act only under the influence of the Spirit of God, and by His grace, and never of themselves, or by themselves. You see in this how blindly and unjustly we act when we turn the benefits of God into subjects of affliction and complaint; for they not only tend to extinguish our natural activity but to kill our self-love, and to enable us to live the supernatural life of grace.


Letter IX – On Excessive Fervour

To Sister Marie-Therese de Viomenil. On excessive fervour of good desires.

My very dear Sister,

The desire about which you have consulted me is very good in itself, but I fear lest it may become too strong. If you wish that it may not be hurtful to you under the appearance of good, you must manage to be always submissive and resigned about it, and consequently, peaceful. You know how, in even our best desires, nature and passion get mixed, making them violent, restless, hasty and wild. For this reason, and to preserve us from this danger, and also gradually purify our desires, even those that are most saintly, God defers granting them for a long time. For the wild desires of our natural inclinations do not deserve to be answered, only those desires formed by the Holy Spirit deserve to be heard by God, and these are always quiet, gentle and peaceful. Keep yourself, as much as possible, in a state of peace and even of a holy joy in order to be fit to receive holy impressions. You know that grace more easily makes way in hearts that are calm and free than in those that are full of uneasiness and trouble, for the latter are more exposed to be under the influence of the evil spirit.


Letter X – Restraint of Over-Eagerness

To the same person. On eagerness to read good books.

I send you the book on “Christian Hope” that I promised you. It will prove a real treasure to you, but if you wish to derive from it all the fruit that I expect, you must restrain your eagerness to read, and not allow yourself to be carried away by curiosity to know what is coming. Make use of the time allowed by the Rule to read it, concentrate all your attention on what you are actually reading without troubling about the rest. I advise you above all, to enter into the meaning of the consoling and solid truths that you will find laid down in this book; but more in a practical way than by speculative reflexions, and, from time to time, make short pauses to allow these truths time to flow through all the recesses of the soul and to give occasion for the operation of the Holy Spirit who, during these peaceful pauses, and times of silent attention, engraves and imprints these heavenly truths in the heart. All this, however, without disturbing your attraction, or violent effort to prevent reflexions, but simply and quietly trying to make them enter into your heart more than into your mind.

Take particular notice of certain more important chapters, of which you are in greater need, in order to read them again when next you have time. In general I advise you strongly not to overload your mind with readings and outward practices, it is much better to read little, and to digest what you read. Just now, too, your soul is in need of unity and simplicity, and all your readings and practices should tend to a single end, and that is, to form in you a spirit of recollection. In time God will give you this grace if you aspire to it with confidence quietly, simply, and humbly, without eagerness, trouble, or uneasiness. Frequently ask God to detach you absolutely from all things, so at you may love and enjoy Him only, in Jesus Christ, and through Jesus Christ, in fine, that He may take full possession of your heart and make it altogether His. “My God I abandon myself to You, grant that I may desire only You.”