Letter 1131. To Sister Marie Thérése de Labeau,s

Vive > Jésus!

My very dear Daughter,—You have so ingenuously portrayed to me your inward state of soul that I seem to hold it between my very hands. God be blessed for giving me this consolation, and may He be blessed a thousand and a thousand times for the graces He confers upon you, which I can see are great. You ought to correspond to them faithfully, not only by strict observance in exterior things, but by following with a careful, loving attention the inward attraction, for this is the characteristic and the special spirit of the daughters of the Visitation. Walk then resolutely with very humble security in this holy path of loving simplicity. This unique outlook of the spirit unto God by the complete relinquishing of self to His most holy will compasses all that can be desired for union with Him, which should be our only aim. Return then, my daughter, with humility and sweetness

She governed successively the monasteries of Arles, Folcalquier, and Avignon, and in 166¹ gave up her heroic soul to God.— A nnée Sainte, vol. vii.

to this happy state, and remain there steadfastly and constantly, without ever again allowing yourself to be diverted from it. For the spirit of God is tender and subtle; and from souls that He favours with familiarity, and to whom He gives His holy presence, it demands a great purity, a complete sweeping away of all that is not He Himself or for Him. I beseech Him to lead you to the highest point of the perfection of His love. Remember in your prayers her who offers you her strongest and tenderest affection, and who is, etc.

Footnotes

1. The contemporaries of Sister Marie Thérése de Labeau, one of the first professed of the monastery of Avignon, tell us that from the time she entered the novitiate she had but one end: to aim at the bull’s-eye of perfection. She experienced the truth of St. Jane Frances de Chantal’s words on the ways of divine love. ‘ Divine love,’ she said, ‘is a true priest of sacrifice that each day cuts and strikes off something from the faithful soul who puts no let or hindrance to its operations.’ More than all others, Sister Marie Thérése could say: ‘ The sufferings inseparable from this fidelity are unimaginable, for the sword of divine love penetrates to the very marrow of our being.’ This blessed suffering led the generous soul of Sister de Labeau to a state of union by which, as St. Francis de Sales says: ‘ One ray of illumination destroys all the multiplicity of acts and aspirations that tend not directly to God, whose purity cannot tolerate the regard of anything save this most holy union and oneness of spirit.’ ↩