Letter 1576. To Sister Louise Dorothée de Marigny

at Montpellier. [Annecy, 1638.] Vive > Jésus!

My very dear Daughter,—On our arrival [from the second monastery] I received your two long letters. With all my heart I bless Our Lord for having in His most tender goodness permitted the continuance of his Lordship your Bishop’s assistance to you in both spiritual and temporal matters. If God wills these religious 4 to live amicably with you it will be a very good thing. I agree with you that it is best to let them go their own way as God will inspire them, while you, with your usual prudence, give them a helping hand. As to what the said Lord told you would be well to put in the ‘ Book of Customs,’ it is already there:

' The religious here spoken of belonged to a priory which Mgr. Fenouillet had induced to assemble at the Visitation of Montpellier.

for more than a year we have ceased to go into the sanctuary. If you have not yet received the ‘ Book of Customs,’ I think you soon will.

The accident that has occurred to that poor sister has greatly touched me. But, my daughter, you should see the holy will of God in this affliction, humbly submitting to it. Do not think that it has been caused by some unwonted penance or mortification, though it is well to be a little reserved in allowing such things, above all in the country in which you are.

It consoles me to hear what you say of the union that exists between you and my sister the Superior: it is the way to edify your little family and keep it happy. See how the contrary has well-nigh ruined the house of Lyons? —that affair afflicts me beyond words. But, by the grace of God, the trouble is confined to the fact that the sisters are too much attached to my dearest sister Marie Aimée {de Blonay], and this makes so suspicious that she cannot put up with it. [Several lines illegible.| Oh, my daughter, what a terrible affliction this is, and all the more because it is almost universal in the houses where the Superior and the sisters Déposées dwell together:? for the latter will not allow the superiors to act according to the light God gives them, but want to govern everything, and unless they do, it seems to them, all will be ruined. Yet they would profit incomparably more if they kept in their own place and practised what, during their government, they had preached. In the name of God, my dearest daughter, take good care never to allow our sisters to make any complaints to you about their Superior. Encourage them to tell her themselves with humility what they may have remarked defective. And, on your side, continue to say to her as to a trusted friend whatever you consider to be for her good or for that of your house, without minding whether you get satisfaction from it or not. On the other hand, some superiors cannot take a word of advice from their sisters Déposées, not even when to follow it would be very advantageous to them. The control they like to exercise is intolerable. They even resent any manifestation of gratitude on the part of the sisters for her care of them during her term of office. And so I sometimes pass a great part of the night thinking what and govern some new foundation, that, in many cases, awaited her deposition. Only such superiors as had proved themselves inefficient were, as a rule, left in their own monastery, and several of these were evidently not all they ought to have been on the point of which the Saint here complains. The universality spoken of above was, therefore, confined to a very limited number of houses; otherwise the Saint could not have spoken of the Order as a whole in the terms of extreme satisfaction which we see in several letters in this volume, and to which reference is made in the Appendix. Theneedsof the timecalled for this exemption (see Letter 838) from the rule laid down by St. Francis, which rule ordained that the deposed superior should remain in the community she had governed, and there take the last place, even the youngest professed novice taking precedence of her (Constitution XXII, p. 195). She was neither to interfere in nor inquire about the arrangements of the house, spiritual or temporal, unless her advice was solicited by the superior; whilst, on her part, this reigning mother was to treat the Déposée with an affectionate deference, so that their mutual intercourse should be of a cordial, trustful, and interdependent character. If we pause for a moment to consider the virtue required by this Constitution, the slightest deflection from which was never left unreproved by the Saint, we see that the observance of it by those superiors who, from one cause or another, were failures could not have been easy to put into practice.

As soon as the constant demand for foundations somewhat abated— and this was not till many years after the Saint’s death—the said rule, which was never relinquished, became common in the monasteries, and is, with happy results, in full force up to the present time.

remedy to apply to this evil, but I see no other than that of charity on both sides and bearing sweetly with the diversity of humours which must always exist.

You have done me all the good in the world by telling me that both you and my sister the Superior took new heart to profit by the troubles that have taken place in other houses on reading the contents of the letter of dearest sister the Superior of Bourg-en-Bresse. As to the other worry, it is as you have stated.1_ But silence on that subject is better than speech. Our Lord will not, for the present, permit any harm to come of it to our Institute, nor in the future, we must hope. [Several lines unintelligible] There is no occasion to write to my sister the Superior all this that [say to you. Tell her,¹ beg of you, what you think right, for her letter is almost identical with yours, and we have such a heavy correspondence that I have much ado to get through it. You can imagine how, growing older, my strength diminishes, especially my sight, which is very weak, and on this account I cannot, for the present, write to his Lordship, your very worthy Bishop. Offer him, I beg of you, my very humble obedience and assure him that I always regard it as a great honour to be one of his little daughters, and will ever respect his commands.

As to the Foundation of Toulouse, Madame de Montmorency told me that she does not contemplate it, not having the means, and besides, we ought to wait till peace is made. Would to God, my very dear sister, that they exacted everywhere the same condition as you tell me they do at Toulouse: not to receive religious unless their monastery can be properly founded. Were that so we should not have such a number of inadequately founded houses. God grant that too great poverty may not prove injurious to them! Irecommend my sister the Superior to have prayers offered for some affairs regarding the good of the Institute, which I also recommend to our dear sisters.²³

Footnotes

1. Calumnious accusations on the subject of confession. Letter 1777 on page 374 should be read in connection with this letter, ↩

2. After her deposition in 1637, Mother M. A. de Blonay became so seriously ill that she was confined to her bed for several months. As soon as she had gained strength enough to travel, the doctors recommended for her recovery complete change of air, and she was at once ordered to go to the monastery of Antiquaille (the second of Lyons), which she had founded. Immediately upon her receiving the command she prepared for her departure, although she was not ignorant of the motive that had brought about this precipitate order. That same day, April 24, 1638, Mother de Blonay left the monastery of Bellecour, of which she had been the lifeand soul. While absent and unable to justify herself, her behaviour was brought for condemnation to the notice of ecclesiastical superiors: a canonical visitation was ordered, matters were investigated, and the only fault found was too much devotion on the part of the sisters for Mother de Blonay. A little later she left Antiquaille for the monastery of Bourg-en-Bresse, where she had just been elected Superior. ↩

3. This statement requires explanation. The ever-increasing demand throughout France and the neighbouring countries for houses of the Visitation made it an unusual thing for the reigning and the deposed mother to dwell together in the same monastery. No one deplored this constant drain on the new Order more than the holy Foundress, but, owing to external pressure, she was unable to check it. Hence a capable mother upon her deposition was, almost as a matter of course, sent to establish ↩