Letter 1969

LETTER 1969 [No date.] Vive > Jésus!

Oh God! my dearest daughter, what a dangerous thing it is for sisters to allow themselves to be taken up with their own views! They become incapable of the innocent simplicity and good faith of those who think only of God and the good of souls, and act in that spirit.

My daughter, if their Lordships, our prelates, desire something of us that is not an essential matter, after having humbly made known to them our customs we must submit, for to have their goodwill is a great blessing for us. During the lifetime of our Blessed Father and of the late Bishop, his successor, we did not venture to do anything of importance without acquainting them, because they were not only our bishops but our true Fathers. The spiritual Fathers have not much to do for those who have such bishops, although we must always have one and be on friendly terms with him. But our good Bishop should be the pivot of our guidance.

AP EN DIX I,

A RECENT Life of Saint Jane Frances de Chantal, entitled ‘Sainte Chantal, a Study in Vocation,’ by E. K. Sanders,} calls for protest on account of certain inaccuracies and misstatements.

The talented authoress handles her subject with as great a degree of sympathetic understanding as can fairly be looked for in one outside the Church, to whom the vision of mystic and Catholic saintliness must needs be blurred and defective. Catholic conventual life cannot be justly estimated, any more than family or national life, save by those within the fold. A mind, however well balanced, is unable to see with true discernment from without. Judged by the inside vision, it is rare indeed, if ever, that its verdict is not at fault. Be it a hierarchy of angels or a tribe of savages, a just proportion cannot form itself in the mind of a stranger.

Three opinions bearing on the Order of the Visitation emphasised by Miss Sanders require readjustment. Upon these opinions we hope to throw such light as will prove how little foundation the authoress has for adopting them.

The letters quoted by her in support of her statements have sometimes, by clerical error, been wrongly numbered, and it has not always been easy in a collection of over two thousand letters to find the one from which the writer has taken her extract. For instance: ‘ We should never take any notice of it,’ wrote la Mére de Chantal, ‘ when we find a soul dismayed by the difficulties of our way of life. For indeed I have never known one so well schooled as not to be disturbed by the outward aspect of its absolute submission.’?

We refer the reader to this letter (Letter 355), given in full on page 97. We by no means deny the possibility of the quotation, but after a good deal of research have failed to find it.¹

Footnotes

1. London, S.P.C.K., 68 Haymarket, S.W. 1; New York, The Macmillan Company. 1918. 2 Sanders, Sainte Chantal, xiv, 203. ↩