Letter 782. To the same
What do you say, my dearest daughter—that the Archbishop threatens to impose new laws? upon you? Icannot believe that he will carry them out. He has too much piety and prudence to allow of it. But should he do so, you and your community can in all humility beg of him not to change your manner of life nor your customs, under which the little Congregation has increased so holily and lived in such peace and perfection; and this is an infallible mark of the presence of the Holy Spirit. Ask him not to lay fresh obligations upon you, for the doing so would constrain minds and give scruples to those who now live sweetly and tranquilly in the observance of those to which God has been pleased to call them and [in which they] have been educated, or such like words: for do not doubt but that God will inspire and support you.
All that is needed to ensure this protection is faithfully to observe our Rules and Constitutions and to nourish your daughters with a cordial love and esteem for their manner of life, never inclining to the right or to the left, otherwise opinions will be divided and all will go to pieces; in which case we should ourselves leave without delay. But God and His holy Mother will never permit this to happen. I feel persuaded that when the Archbishop has brought in these new laws he will afterwards repeal them and not wish them to be put in practice. In any case, however, remain in peace.
If he makes the canonical visitation I shall be very glad, and I hope he will make it every year, for we must put everything in force. Be sure to lock up the letters you receive, if you do not wish him to see them, especially Sister M. Jacqueline’s [Favre], for he will look at them all. Be of good courage, my daughter, and beg of your spiritual father to maintain your Institute even in the most trifling things, but, above all, in all that is of the Rules and Constitutions.1
Footnotes
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With the energy of new power, Mgr. de Miron appears to have at once introduced drastic changes. Amongst others the curés in his diocese were henceforth to act as spiritual fathers to the religious houses in their respective parishes. Upon hearing this, Mother de Blonay lost no time in sending her representative to point out to the Archbishop that the Visitation had, in accordance with its Rule, always chosen its own spiritual father, and she respectfully declined to recognise the new appointment. Upon this followed, immediately, a threat of dismissal from her office of superior. Nothing daunted, the young Mother replied that the loss of her charge would be to her a gain, for thereby she would secure repose and leisure to occupy herself with God; but the loss of a point of the Rule would be a loss to her Order and to herself, whereby she might jeopardise her eternal salvation. This answer was accompanied with so much humility and deference for authority that the Archbishop not only withdrew the new spiritual father, but conceived a great esteem for the good Mother, and was often afterwards heard to say that in Mother de Blonay alone had he seen combined unbending firmness with unalterable gentleness, and that she exercised the latter with such a charm as to make it easy for right-minded persons to submit to the wisdom of her arguments. (Taken from the Unpublished History of the Foundation of the First Monastery of Lyons, and from Vie de la Méve M. A. de Blonay (Charles Auguste de Sales. Nancy: 1873), chap. x.) Needless to say, he did not depose the good Mother, and Miss Sanders errs in telling us that he did. (Sainte Chantal, Sanders, p. 246.) ↩
Chapter 79 of 252