Letter 1620. To M. Noél Brulart, Commander de Siullery

at Paris. {[Annecy, 1639.]

Vive > Jésus!

My most honoured and worthy Father,—The trouble you have taken in writing to me so fully and with your own blessed hand, telling me of the longings of your good heart and all its pious projects, has amply recompensed me for the delay in receiving your very pleasant news. I had no doubt but that it was caused by your many occupations and absence from home.

Not to feel the loss of so much spiritual good as might be expected from the establishment begun at the Temple would be impossible, and one cannot but feel that some day God will raise up pious souls who will accomplish it. However, His divine providence, which made you so prudently undertake this project for His glory, will not leave you unrewarded. He will make your humble acquiescence in His divine will so profitable to you that one day you will see that this act, through His grace, has advanced your soul in perfection and detachment more than can be estimated.

And I believe it was God who inspired you not to follow the advice you received to go on with it. In this, I assure you, you have shown the true spirit of our Blessed Father, for, as you know, he advocated courage in our undertakings and pliability in relinquishing them when God so signified

His good pleasure. Oh, what a treasure for your soul is this disappointment! Do not doubt but that God will give you great grace to enrich yourself thereby. I see that on every side His providence is putting in your way tangible occasions, in which, according to the spirit you so much love and esteem, there is nothing to do save patiently to suffer the pain they give you. Do not reflect on them at all, nor resist them, nor wish to master them, but, diverting your thoughts from them, maintain a tranquil spirit.

So likewise must you act in regard to preoccupation of mind, without worrying; try to remain calm amidst this strife of distractions, and be satisfied, my very dear Father, to spend the appointed time in prayer quietly and peacefully, doing nothing in God’s presence save to content yourself with being there, and that without either desiring devotion or making any act unless you can do so with facility, sitting there in inward and outward tranquillity and reverence, with the conviction that this patience is a powerful prayer before God. Your state of mind ought not to surprise you; it is an inevitable result of your weighty, continual, and varied occupations of the last two or three years. It happens to everyone, and even our Blessed Father suffered from it, as I have already told you. When he came home from his visitations, which lasted only four or five months at a time, he used to find his poor soul so distracted, so poverty-stricken, and in such a deplorable _ condition that he had pity on it. And I assure you he did not set about renovating it by violent measures, but took it in hand gently and without strain. In this way, with great patience, he by degrees brought it back.

The advice I have given you at the end of the preceding page is what he gave on similar occasions. Above all, he recommended the cutting short of reflections, the suppression of eagerness, of the longing to be delivered from such importunities, and patience in bearing with them. In several letters and conferences [of his] you will find this doctrine, and I hope, my dear Father, that acting thus you will, in a short time, be back in your old way. In a word, we must be as content to be impotent, idle, insensible, before God, dried up and barren, when He permits it, as with facility and devotion to be full of life and of the enjoyment of Him, for our union with God consists wholly in loving the one way as much as the other.

I think I can see what your mind is bent on: to renew and remake yourself entirely on the model of our Blessed Father, and in this holy exercise to spend (by the help of these renunciations which you propose to make of all encumbrances of the things of this world) the remainder of your days in great sweetness and true devotion. Your age and constitution no longer admit of an active life, but only of giving yourself up entirely to the love of God, to repose in Him; and, I believe, the greater glory of God, the perfecting of your dear soul, and the edification of your neighbour will be the result. You could not give a more striking example of real piety and absolute contempt of the things the world so much values. God grant you may have many imitators. I wish the Bishop of Bourges would make the same resolution. He is altogether a good soul, and desires retirement in order to serve Our Lord better, but when he withdraws to his abbey he is persecuted and distracted by the world and by visits, and he is so kind and good-natured that he cannot say no to those who wish to see him.

I am about to answer other letters, and I pray God to inspire me to do so according to His good pleasure.

My true, beloved Father, I have been unable to finish this letter sooner or to read (so terribly busy am I) your two last letters, wherein, truly, I find evident signs of the abundance of the holy and divine unction which our good God bestows upon you, for which I ever bless and thank Him. See how this divine Spirit fails not to shed the influences of His grace on a mind distracted, dried up, and impotent, when all this trouble proceeds from difficulties occasioned in undertakings for His sole glory, as have been yours. Hence does His infinite goodness draw great profit for your soul and consolation for my poor-spirited one. For I assure you it consoles me immensely; as do all your dispositions so manifestly inspired by God and regulated by perfect charity. In seeing your alms extended to the needs of these dear good souls I have, thank God, more joy than if it was all spent on us: for so should God’s inspiration be followed and one’s neighbour assisted in the order of charity.

You wish to have my opinion on these words:! ‘ that the daughter of the foundation should be literally poor.’ This might be troublesome to the sisters, for girls of their condition are rarely found to possess the talents and disposition necessary thoroughly to adapt themselves to the spirit of our vocation. But, properly understood, your intention can easily be carried out: for I think it to be that the monasteries should have a choice and can take a girl from the family of some gentleman who is in straitened circumstances or business, or from a family which is poor or which has many children with insufficient means to provide suitably for them according to their station in life —a charity which is usually more for the glory of God than alms given to those who need their daily bread. The remaining conditions that you in your goodness have laid down leave a just liberty. I agree with you that it will be enough to give half the revenue as an alms while the place may be vacant; and during that time it is only right that a sister of the house should keep your intention constantly before God and His holy Mother. As to appointing a comptroller or superintendent to see that the terms of this foundation are observed in integrity, besides that it looks a little mistrustful, not of present persons but of those in the future, it is to be feared that it might occasion unpleasantness to the monastery. But I think this dear daughter ought to be over and above the number, and that will be a safeguard against such counsels as adjust consciences to human prudence, from which may God in His goodness deliver us. And also I think it should be a serious matter

Y of conscience with all the superiors and counsellors that under no pretext could they change your intentions, as, at all times, the carrying them out will be an act of great and needful charity to some good soul.

As to the Mass, which in your kindness you have established here, it is but reasonable that it should be said for your intention. Please arrange this when drawing up the paper. This monastery is under great obligations to you for allowing us to choose the hour for the Mass and the priest to say it. We are educating one here, a nephew of the late M. Michel, our first confessor. He is a pure, innocent soul, and is studying hard. In two years he can, please God, say the Mass. Meanwhile we will have it said by a holy priest, for whom we will write out your intentions until they are put up in the sacristy. But, my very dear Father, they ought to be compressed into a few lines, putting only what is essential, for engraving on copper is extremely expensive in these parts. I am indeed delighted to see the overflowing unction with which our good Saviour replenishes your soul, and that divine Providence makes you the channel for the establishment of such numerous good works that lead others to eternal salvation, and so extend His glory. May the Inspirer of so many pious thoughts be for ever blessed, and may you, my very dear Father, always possess to the full the treasures of the divine goodness.¹

Footnotes

1. The Commander de Sillery at this time founded in several Carmelite and Visitation monasteries two works of great generosity: he secured, first, the reception of a subject without a dowry in honour of the Blessed Virgin; and, secondly, the daily celebration of a Mass in thanksgiving to the adorable Trinity for the graces and prerogatives granted to this august Mother of God. In this latter foundation he even included Canada, and gave a considerable sum of money to assure the perpetuity of these good works. ↩