Letter 1376. To Mother Marie Marguerite Balland

Superior at Grasse. [Annecy, 1635.] Vive > Jésus!

My very dear Daughter,—With all my heart I bless the divine mercy for your restoration to health and for the

1 Born at Chambéry, October 7, 161, the Feast of Our Lady of Victories, which that year fell on Rosary Sunday, Marie Marguerite Balland looked upon herself as doubly dedicated to Our Lady. Her loving disposition showed itself on the death of her father when she had hardly yet attained the age of reason. When brought to his bedside to receive his blessing and a last good-bye, such was her child-grief that it was deemed expedient forcibly and promptly to carry her away. From that time she was entrusted to the care of her grandmother, a spiritual daughter of St. Francis de Sales. At fifteen she received the habit, Mother Péronne Marie de Chatel being her Mistress of Novices. When but twenty-two she was chosen Superior for the foundation of Grasse. Here a painful duty awaited her. A convent of Ursulines needed reformation, and the Bishop told these nuns that they must either disperse or live henceforth according to the Rule of the Visitation. Not only were the Ursulines averse from receiving the young reformer, but their families supported them in their opposition. Suffice it to say that in six years she had so successfully achieved her mission that of the nine relaxed nuns six became edifying Visitation sisters, and for the three others she provided a pension to enable them to return to the world. The inhabitants of the town thanked God on seeing the reform of this house which had so lately been a public scandal. The above letter was written by St. Jane Frances de Chantal on the recovery of Mother Marie Marguerite from an illness brought on by the anxieties of this reform. In later years she governed the monasteries of Gray, Chambéry, and Aix, and in 1669, with the assistance of the Duchess Laura Martinozzi, niece of Cardinal Mazarin, founded the monastery of Modena. Her spiritual influence soon breathed throughout this town. From her enclosure she directed, instructed, and encouraged a great number of souls. Chosen subjects flocked to the novitiate and formed a numerous and fervent community from which interior and exterior graces that God has been pleased to confer upon you. They are a sacred unction to sweeten your burden and to enable you to support it lovingly, to the great profit of your soul. Oh, my daughter, how good and sweet God is! His mercy surpasses all His other works. I beseech Him to give it to you that you may live according to His most holy will and glorify Him eternally. Certainly, humanly speaking, the burden of superiority has been placed too early upon your shoulders, and I was very much averse from it; but she who settled it} had an upright and simple intention, and by your happily successful government God has shown that it was His will. If you had not been employed therein, all these good souls who surround you and those whom God will lead to your house would perhaps else never have entered the path of perfection. So we must glorify Him who knows how to achieve great and beautiful things with the poorest instruments. His goodness has upholden your youth, enlightened it, and guided it for the good of many—and even for your own good, notwithstanding all the defects of which you tell me. They are repaired by your acknowledgment of them and by the particular resolution you have made to emancipate yourself from them and to advance in pure love. Henceforth, in a perfect surrender of your whole self and of everything to the care of the sovereign providence of God, you will make your way. Therein alone you desire to repose, and in its goodness to place your trust, faithfully following the good inspirations God will give you.

As to your prayer, remain absolutely in peace, and follow rose each day the incense of prayer and sacrifice. The Princess Beatrice d’Este was amongst the applicants to enter the novitiate, but, yielding to the authority of Clement X, she, as he bade her, accepted instead the hand of the Duke of York, afterwards JamesII. As Queen of England, in her subsequent fall and her exile, Mother Balland was a true and tender mother to this young Queen. Later other royalties sought consolation from the humble Mother, who it was said became truly the guardian angel of the Court of Modena. She ended her holy life on October 15, 1709, at the advanced age of ninety-five years, seventy-eight of which were spent in religion.— Unpublished History of the Foundation of Modena; Année Sainte, vol. x. 1 Mother Marie Francoise de Monceau, the attraction you have received to repose on the sacred breast of our merciful Saviour, as His dear child, beloved by Him. Thus will you bear your burden sweetly for the love of God, with the certainty that it is He and none other who leads you by His holy hand and who works in you and for you. Pray for your unworthy Mother, SISTER JEANNE FRANCOISE FREMYOT.