Letter 1965. To Mother Frangoise Angélique Garin}

Superior at Arles.

[No date.] Vive > Jésus!

My true Daughter,—I praise God who maintains you and makes you progress in the good, pleasant, and very safe road of lovable simplicity and confidence in His heavenly providence. Continue faithfully to dwell therein. As regards this warmth and pressure of heart which you sometimes feel at prayer, it seems to me evident that it proceeds from the ardour of love, which usually ignites in the happy furnace of holy prayer, for it is not surprising that our soul, finding itself so near to its God, who is all love and all fire, should participate therein. Welcome this ardent heat and pressure in your simple way, my dearest daughter, without seeking of yourself to increase it. Be content to remain an empty vessel, simply receiving whatever the holy charity of the Saviour may wish to pour in.

The dissatisfaction that you feel in regard to your way of government comes from your humility and from the grace God has given you to grow in perfection by hiding from you the gifts He has bestowed upon you. Live in serenity and peace, I beseech of you, and let it be enough for you that God and your poor old Mother are satisfied. This is a very bold thing for me to say, but God urges me to say it for your good.¹

Footnotes

1. Mother Garin, who, according to the old Mémoires, bore witness to her name of Angélique in her whole bearing and conduct, outward and inward, was received in the First Monastery of Annecy in 1627. Three years later she was sent to Arles, where she was made Mistress of Novices and afterwards Superior. Recalled to Annecy in 1641, Mother de Chantal said on her return: ‘ This lovable daughter has come back to us even more angelic than when she left; she has made very remarkable progress in the detached, simple, and faithful way in which God established her in her novitiate.’ The same year in which she returned to Annecy she was elected Superior of the monastery of Paray-le-Monial. Mother Francoise Angélique died on September 14, 1645, having never relaxed in her progress in the perfect way. ↩