Letter 1864. To a Community of the Visitation

I wish you also in return, my dear daughters, not the years of this perishable life but those of a blessed eternity; yet not until you have long and holily rendered good service to God by a very faithful practice of the observance. Our Blessed Father used to say that the great means of acquiring the spirit of our vocation is carefully to carry out its teaching: the chief points of which, you know, are humility, self-effacement, and holy simplicity, which cut the feet from every form of vanity and suppress all seeking after self-satisfaction. If you practise thoroughly the holy virtue [of humility], it will be manifest in all your words and actions. But beyond all else it is simplicity that I desire for you; it is the ornament of the daughters of the Visitation. And, by the by, since your goodness of heart gives me confidence, and because I love you and believe you would wish me to tell you, I will say this little word: Your letter is not, to my thinking, simple enough. Its style is correct and flowing, but it is this holy virtue that I would like to see embellishing your thoughts,’words, acts, so that nothing may savour of fine speeches, fine writing, fine conversation, and such-like elegancies. Nay, I desire that we should appear rather wanting than over-cultured in all these things. Be so, I beseech of you, my very dear sisters, and pray to our good God for me, who wish you all to be perfect. Yours, etc.

All the following letters which have no superscriptions are addressed to Superiors or Sisters of the Visitation.