Letter 1932

LETTER 1932 [No date.] Vive »& Jésus!

My very dear Daughter,—A sister in whom I have confidence has read your letter to me, as my eyes are not strong enough to read it myself. I answer with the utmost sincerity the principal points you propose to me.

If, as you say, dearest daughter, you so distinctly see three forces battling in you, and the superior powers of the soul hold the mastery without surprising or disquieting you, so far so good: but be on your guard about the bad things in you having their effect, as you tell me, notwithstanding that this superior power curbs them. My daughter, you must be clear about this. If their effect is only to give you trouble and suffering, that does not matter; but if they take effect in you, and through you, inciting you to actions and words, that is not good and should be corrected. Nevertheless you ought not to worry over these feelings of self-esteem, and this desire that others should think well of you and employ you; but still, disregarding such sentiments, do nothing of what they suggest, and recognise them as shoots from the great root of pride within you, which has to be uprooted by the practice of most holy humility, and by keeping yourself very low in your own esteem. Rejoice in humiliation, and in mean employments. Rejoice, I say, not by feelings of joy, but by a true affection for humiliation. The same applies to confidence in God, to whom we must say in our very heart, and though we do not feel it: ‘My God, I wish to trust wholly to Thee.’

I observe, my dear daughter, that in another part of your letter you say that you are so much in God that you are no longer in yourself, and that you tell Him that you no longer have need of anything, not even of Himself. Oh Jesu! my daughter, I must confess I do not like this way of speaking of yours. Alas! He never needs us, but we have always need of Him, and if for one second this good God left us we should fall into an abyss of nothingness. Take my word for it, daughter, there is no good in idling away your time with these subtleties of spirituality which are anything but true spirituality. Follow rather the simple way of your Blessed Founder. Live indeed without care of yourself, but in dependence on God by the loving acceptation of each event permitted by His goodness, in humble submission to those who in your regard hold His place. Bevery gentle, amiable, and obliging to all the sisters, and very distrustful of yourself—therein lies the sum and substance of all true, genuine spirituality. And the words which you so distinctly hear in your head in my opinion are only in your imagination. No need to dwell on them; but gently turn away from them. As for this knowledge that you say you receive after Communion, of the deified transformation of the Blessed, and of all the grandeur of the Divinity, oh, good God! my daughter, but you do fly high! All the grandeur of the Divinity! All heaven cannot understand it, not even the Blessed Virgin. God is comprehensible to Himself alone. Our becoming attitude is to adore Him in awe and reverence, contenting ourselves with the simple and holy light of faith.

Finding your letter somewhat subtle and singular, I return it to you, and beg of you to show it to some good and learned servant of God, and show him also my answer, for, as I am not up to these fine things, it is possible that I am not quite capable of understanding you—or perchance he may find something out of the common in all this.

At all events, dear daughter, it seems to me that you are a little too subtle, and you want to see and to know too much about what passes within you. My daughter, in order to follow the guidance of grace faithfully, we must walk in a spirit of most profound humility, ever making head, doing good without reflections on ourselves or those around us. This is the straight road by which so many of our mothers and sisters who are now in the other world reached heaven. This was the path of the dear deceased whom you regret, and whom I also with good reason regret; and realise, my daughter, in the great weariness that this separation causes you, that such feelings are often all for the creature and for self, when we think them to be all for God. You must then work very humbly and simply at your perfection, and God will bless you.