Letters 96–107

Letter 96. To One in Retirement

You will never take effectual care of M. ... so well as by continuing constant in prayer. Our own spirit, however wise it may seem, spoils everything; only that of God insensibly works out the hardest things. The troubles of life overpower us; our crosses overwhelm us; we fail in patience and gentleness, or in quiet, even firmness, and so we cannot persuade others. Only God holds the hearts of men. He sustains ours, and opens that of our neighbour. Pray then continually and heartily, if you want to lead your flock safely. " Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain." We can only win the Guiding Spirit by prayer, and time which seems wasted in it is our best spent time. You will gain more for the advancement of your outward duties by leaning in complete dependence upon the Spirit of Grace than by any amount of restless, over-anxious toil. If your meat is to do the Will of your Heavenly Father,1 you will often feed by seeking that Will at its Source.

As to meditation, you can make it at different times during the day, because you have plenty of free time, and can often keep silence. Only avoid any exhaustion of 1 John iv. 34.

.forbearance 175 brain in meditation. I thank God that you are weary of self. Nothing is more wearisome than that false stay, even to him who leans on it! Happy they who have gro\vn weary of it, and who seek real rest in the spirit of detachment and of self-renunciation!

If you were to return to an ordinary worldly life, after having drawn so near God in retirement, you would fall greatly, and deserve to do so by corresponding so ill to grace. I hope such a misfortune will not occur. God loves you dearly, inasmuch as He refuses you any glimpse of peace half-way between the world and Himself. He calls us all to perfection, and leads us on thereto by the drawings of His Grace. " Be ye perfect, as your Father Which is in Heaven is perfect;" and therefore it is that He taught us the prayer, " Thy Will be done in earth as in Heaven." All men are called on to seek this perfection, but the greater part draw back in terror. Do not you be of those who, having tasted the manna of the desert, hanker after the leeks of Egypt. Perseverance wins the crown.

Letter 97. Forbearance to Others and to Self

I HAVE always been warmly attached to you, but now my heart is touched by knowing that you have been blamed, and that you have borne remonstrance meekly. It is true that your morbid and somewhat austere disposition makes you rather too quick to perceive the faults of ethers, and you are apt to be impatient if they are not speedily corrected. I have for long wished you had such a forbearing, tolerant spirit as that with which M. M. adapts herself to every one's infirmities. She knows how to wait, to be pitiful, to open her heart; and she exacts nothing save what God may grant by degrees.

There are some external faults on which it would be very unwise to found one's judgment as to the interior; it would be the mistake of inexperience. I have often told you that M. . . . with all her visible imperfections, is much more advanced than some of those who are free from the like, and ready to find fault with her for them. It often happens that eager fault-finding, even with one's self, is but an untimely zeal, while God is carrying things on altogether differently; for sometimes He leaves people with certain unconquerable imperfections, in order to deprive them of all inward self-satisfaction. It would be far less real mortification to them to be corrected of certain involuntary failings than to feel that their weaknesses got the uppermost. Everything in its own time. Self-reliance even in the matter of curing one's faults fosters a hidden conceit.

Bear with your neighbours, then, and tolerate our

Help in (Trouble 177 infirmities. Sometimes your heart shrinks when you are shocked by certain faults, and you may fancy that it is a repugnance arising from grace, while perhaps it is only your natural impetuosity which causes it. I think you need more forbearance, but I also think that your faults, like those of others, must be corrected, not by force or severity, but by dint of simply yielding to God and letting Him do as He will to enlarge your heart and supple it. Do you acquiesce in all He does, without anxiously inquiring how He will do it.

Letter 98. On Seeking Help in Interior Trouble

I AM not at all surprised at your trouble, — it is natural you should feel it; only it should make you feel your helplessness, and lead you to have humble recourse to God. When you feel that your heart is sinking under trouble, be simple and frank in saying so. Do not be ashamed to let your weakness be seen, or to ask help in your urgent need. So doing you will advance in simplicity, in humility, and trustfulness, — you will go far to root out self-love, which keeps up a perpetual disguise in order to seem cheerful when it is really in despair. Furthermore, try to amuse yourself with whatever may

178 £ptntual Better* lighten your solitude and keep off ennui, without exciting or dissipating yourself with worldly pleasures. If you nurse your troubles in silence they will wax stronger and finally overpower you, and the unreal courage which selflove creates will cause you a world of harm. The poison which goes into the system is mortal; that which comes forth does no great mischief. You must not be ashamed of seeing a free discharge from the sore in your heart. I take no heed whatever of certain expressions which escape you, and which are merely the utterance of suffering in spite of your real self. Enough if such sallies teach you that you are weak, and if you learn not to cherish your weakness, but bring it to the light that it may be cured.

Letter 99. On Openness and Candour

. . . NOTHING is more useful than speaking out freely. Open your heart • we heal our woes by not hugging them; we learn simplicity and yieldingness (for people are only reserved about things in which they do not mean to yield); and finally, we humble ourselves, for nothing is more humbling than to open one's heart and lay bare all one's weakness, yet nothing draws down a greater blessing.

I do not mean that you should make a systematic rule to yourself of always telling all you may be thinking with scrupulous exactness; this would be endless, and you would for ever be uneasy for fear of having forgotten something. Enough, so long as you keep back nothing out of untruthfulness or the false shame of self-love, which would never willingly show anything but its fair side; if you never intend to keep back anything; — grant thus much, and you may safely say less or more, as occasion and inclination serve. Although I am very busy, and perhaps often very dry, such simple truthfulness will never weary me; on the contrary, it will increase my readiness and zeal. It is not a question of the feelings, but of the will. Often our feeling does not depend at all upon ourselves. God takes it away purposely that we may feel our poverty, that we may learn to accept the cross of inner dryness, and that we may undergo the purification of clinging to Him without any sensible consolation; and then He restores us the comfort of warm feelings from time to time out of pity for our weakness.

Try to take an attitude towards God, not of forced intercourse, such as you maintain with persons towards whom you stand on ceremony and address in a mere complimentary fashion, but such as you observe towards a dear friend with whom you are under no restraint, and who is under none with you. Such friends meet and talk and i8o Spiritual listen, or are silent, content to be together saying nothing; — their two hearts rest in one another — each seems reflected in the other, — they are but as one, they do not weigh what they shall say, they insinuate nothing, bring about nothing — all comes forth in truth and love, regardless of arrangement; nothing is held back or perverted or dressed up; they are just as well satisfied one day when little has been said as another when there was plenty to say. Yet we can never be thus real with our best earthly friends as fully as we could wish, but we can be so to any extent with God, if only we will not hedge ourselves in with our own self-love. It will not do to pay Him visits, as we discharge a debt due to society; we must abide with Him in the privacy of servants, or better still, of children. Be with Him as your daughter is with you, and then you will never weary.

Letter 100. Self-Love

WHAT I said to you hurt you so much only because I touched the most lively and sensitive point in your heart. It was the wound of your self-love which I caused to bleed. You have not dealt truthfully in what God required of you. If you had simply acquiesced in everything without listening to the pleadings of self; and if you had gone to communion in order to find that strength in our Dear Lord which you have not in yourself, you would have found real peace and benefit from your acquiescence. But that which has not been done yet may still be done, and I intreat you to lose no time in doing it.

TO A LADY, COXCERXIXG CERTAIN FAMILY DIFFICULTIES.

IT is true that you are too much self-absorbed, too keenly perceptive through a touchy fastidiousness, too ready to be wounded; but you must bear this inward cross as you would bear external crosses. It is much harder than they are. We suffer far more willingly from the unreasonableness of others than from our own. Pride becomes desperate; it is wounded at being wounded, and the double sting is a double evil. There is but one remedy, namely, to turn our imperfections to account in using them to our own shame and humiliation, to undeceiving ourselves, and to mistrust of self.

You ought to thank God for making you feel that the necessary work of winning M - is one of your first duties. Renounce all your own repugnances, so as to enable yourself to teach him how to renounce his sin.

You are not mistaken in looking upon me as a sincere and unfailing friend; but you will raise a hindrance to that grace which should be your one effectual help if you do not give good heed only to seek God in me, only to see His Light as we see the sun's rays reflected through a dusky fragile glass. You will not find peace either in society or in solitude if you seek for indulgence and consolation to your irritated self-love. At such times, the sulky solitude of pride is even worse than society. If you are truthful and lowly, society will neither constrain nor irritate you, and you will seek solitude for God's Sake only.

Letter 102. To a Lady Who Was Anxious About Her Son

As to N, it is only weakness and dissipation. He was dissipated by the war, and other temptations found him weak and a ready prey; but I hope that experience of his own weakness will be useful to him. Let your patience with him know no bounds. Speak to him when God gives you something to say, but don't speak your own words to him. Never press him with impetuosity and worldly wisdom; never forbear out of mere diplomacy or policy. When you speak as from God your words will be full of authority, and will find a hearing.

One may speak forcibly, and yet wait patiently at the same time: his very weakness will strengthen your authority. It ought to make him feel howj much he needs to mistrust himself, and so to be docile. Be firm in essential matters, on which all else depends.

I love him dearly still, and I hope that God will have only shown him the edge of the precipice, in order to cure him of his dissipation, of his love of the world, and his self-confidence. He would fall very greatly if he refused to be truthful and humble amid so much experience of his frailty and weakness. When we refuse to humble ourselves amid the humiliations which God sends on purpose to bring us to a state of lowliness and docility, we force Him to deal us heavier blows, and inflict more humbling trials. But lowliness and meekness in trial draw God's Heart to us. We can say trustfully to Him, " A broken and contrite heart Thou wilt not despise." He is moved, and cannot resist such pleadings from His children. Speak, then, according as He gives you " a mouth and wisdom." Hold the child by tender leading-strings: do not let it drop. Take care of your health, about which what I hear causes me some anxiety; take as much rest and relief as you can. The more you accept your continual crosses as daily bread, calmly and simply, the less they will damage your frail, delicate health; but forebodings and frettings would j&pirttttal |Lettcrg soon kill you. Do you wish to govern as God does, Who reaches from one end of the world to the other by gentleness and strength? If so, let no human considerations intermingle, and especially no self-interested plans for your family reputation.

GOD TO BE SERVED IN ORDINARY WAYS.

WE must think how to repair the interior derangement of which you complain. The too earthly conduct of others excites all that is too earthly in ourselves, and draws us from our Abiding Centre in the life of grace; the only thing to be done is to return there with simplicity and mistrust of self. We often discover harshness, injustice, falseness, in our feelings, when brought into contact with persons who pique our self-love; but it is enough that the will does not consent to these tendencies. We ought to turn our failings to account by learning absolutely to mistrust our own heart.

I am very glad that you find yourself incapable of continuing the manner of life you have attempted. I should be greatly afraid for you if you felt so stedfast in well-doing that you were confident of perseverance; but I hope everything when I see that you honestly despair of yourself. Oh, how weak we are when we

(Soil in ©rfcirtarp EBagiS 185 think ourselves strong! how strong in God when we feel our own weakness!

Feeling does not depend upon yourself, and love does not depend upon feeling. Your will depends upon yourself, and that is what God requires of you. Of course action must follow upon the will, but God does not often require great things of us. If you regulate your household, keep your affairs in good order, bring up your children, bear your crosses, dispense with the empty pleasures of the world, indulge your pride in nothing, repress your natural haughtiness, strive to become true, naive, lowly — to be silent, recollected, given to the life which is hid with Christ in God, — these are the works which please God.

You say that you would fain bear crosses in expiation of your sins, and in token of your love of God. Be content with your actual crosses, and before seeking others try to bear them well; give no heed to your likes and dislikings, keep up a general tone of unreserved dependence upon God's Will. This is continual " death unto self." Refuse nothing to God, and do not go beforehand as to things in which you do not yet see His Will clearly. Every day will bring its own trials and sacrifices: when God wills you to pass into another state of things He will prepare you unconsciously to yourself.

i86 Spiritual

Letter 104. How to Accept All God's Dealings Thankfully

GOD loves you, since He is so jealous over you and so watchful in bringing home to you even your smallest faults. When you perceive any fault which indisposes you for prayer, be content to humble yourself under God's Hand, and accept this interruption of sensible grace as a deserved penance, and then be at rest. Do not seek the pleasure which you get in the society of worthy people who esteem you out of mere self-indulgence, but on the other hand do not give way to scruples about accepting such consolation when Providence sends it. Throw off the excessive keenness with which you hail all such consolations. It will suffice if your will does not yield, and if you are sincerely purposed to do without them all when they are withheld. You want to know what God requires of you in this matter? I reply, God would have you take what comes, and not run after what does not come. Accept what is given you with simplicity, looking only to God, Who thus upholds you in your weakness, and bear in faith the privation of whatever He takes away to teach you detachment. When you have learnt thus tranquilly to accept all the variable-

^Thankfulness 187 ness of others towards you, as permitted by God on purpose to mould you, you will find that what pleases you will be no disturbance to your prayers, and that privations will not lead to vexation or depression.

Do not give up your fixed times for meditation, morning and evening. They are brief: you will spend them easily, half in weariness and involuntary distractions, half in return to thoughts of God. During the rest of the day let yourself go with the spirit of recollection as you are able, only observing two restrictions — one not to let it interfere with your devotional duties, and the other to take care not to tire your head and injure your very fragile health.

Go on trustfully and without fear. Fear narrows the heart, trust expands it: fear is the portion of slaves, trust of children. As to your petty weaknesses, you must accustom yourself to look at them with hearty condemnation, but without impatience or depression. And with a view to their correction, bring back your heart as often as may be through the day to the calming influences of prayer, and the familiar Presence of God

Letter 105. Self-Consciousness

I QUITE understand that all your troubles come from excessive self-consciousness, and from letting yourself be too much guided by feeling. Directly that you do not find prayer a downright solace to you, you are depressed. Would you be at rest? then try to be less occupied with yourself, and more with God. Do not dissect and judge yourself, but leave yourself to be judged by the spiritual guide you have chosen. Of course we are sometimes engrossed with ourselves without meaning it, and imagination causes many relapses into this unprofitable occupation; but I do not ask what is impossible, — I shall be content if you are not voluntarily absorbed in self and do not deliberately aim at judging yourself by your own lights. Directly that you find yourself beginning to do this, turn away as from a temptation, and do not let that become intentional which was at first unconscious.

Nevertheless, do not suppose that this course which I advise is intended anywise to interfere with that vigilance over yourself which Jesus Christ teaches in the Gospel. The best possible vigilance is to watch as in God's Sight against the delusions of self-love. Now, one of the most dangerous ot all these delusions is when we grow sentimental over ourselves, are perpetually self-engrossed, and feed upon ourselves with a restless, anxious care which withers and disables the heart, keeps us from realising God's Presence, and ends by hopelessly depressing and discouraging us. Say with S. Paul, " Yea, I judge not mine own self: " ' you will watch all the better for the real correction of your faults, and the fulfilment of your duties, because of the absence of all this restless selfwilled fidgetiness. Then it will be out of love of God that you will simply and quietly repress whatever you see by that clear penetrating light to be faulty and unworthy of the Beloved; you will work at conquering your failings without impatience or pettishness; you will tolerate yourself without flattery; you will accept reproof and be ready to obey. Such a line of conduct tends far more to seif-renunciation than yielding to all the impatience and vexation and fancies of your own wilfulness. Moreover, when we attempt to judge ourselves by our own feelings, we take an altogether wrong standard. God only requires that which it is in our power to give, and that happens to be our will. Feeling is not in our own power — we can neither win nor lose it as we please. The most hardened sinners have at times better feelings in spite of themselves, and the greatest saints have been horribly tempted by evil feelings which they abhorred, but such feelings have tended to humble, mortify, and 1 I Cor. iv. 3.

i9° $>pirttttat ^Letter* purify them. S. Paul tells us that our strength is made perfect in weakness.1 So it is not feeling but consent 3 which makes us guilty.

Why should you suppose God is afar off because you cannot perceive Him? He is always, you may be sure, near to those whose hearts are blank and sorrowful. No pains of yours will win the conscious sweetness of His Presence. What do you seek to love? your own pleasure or the Beloved One? If the first only, then it is yourself, not God, that you seek. People often deceive themselves as to the hidden life, fancying that they are aiming at God, when self-pleasing is their real aim; and when they cease to find delight or consolation in their religious exercises, they turn from Him in disappointment. Assuredly it is never right to sacrifice that highest delight for the sake of mere earthly pleasures; but if it fails you, go on in love, and serve God in spite of weariness and disappointment. Love is of the purest when not stimulated by reward, and we often make most progress just when we think all is lost! Love suffering on Calvary is far higher than love glowing with excitement on Mount Tabor.

I don't care about seeing you a very great or very wise and good woman. I want everything on a small scale. Be a good little child.

1 2 Cor. xii. 9. * " Pas le sentir, mais le consentir.'

TEARFULNESS.

Do not be afraid; you insult God by mistrusting His Goodness; He knows better than you what you want and are able to bear; He will never try you beyond your strength. So I repeat it; fear nothing, O you of little faith! The experience of your own weakness shows you how little you can reckon on yourself or your best resolutions. Sometimes one might suppose, to see the warmth of one's feelings, that nothing could throw one back, and.then, after having exclaimed, like S. Peter, " Though I should die with Thee, yet will I not deny Thee! " one ends like him by being frightened at a servant maid, and denying our Lord! Weak indeed we are! but while such weakness is deplorable, the realisation thereof is most useful if it strips us of all selfreliance. A weakness which we know and which humbles us is worth more than the most angelic goodness complacently self-appropriated! So be weak and depressed if God permits it; but at all events be humble, frank, and docile in your depression. Some day you will laugh at all your present fears, and will thank God for all that I say so harshly to drive you out of your timid prudence.

Letter 107. To a Lady in Sickness

I HEAR, my dear daughter, that you are ill, and I grieve for it, though I will nothing but what God wills, either for you or for myself. I am certain that you submit readily, and that when unable to give Him anything, you let Him take what He will. We can only give that which is our own, and you do not wish to call anything in this world yours; but a servant lets his master take back whatever that master had intrusted to him. Do this with your bodily life. " My soul is alway in my hand;"1 let it pass into God's Hand as seems best to Him. We never live so truly " the life that is hid with Christ in God " as when we die to the unreal life of this world.

The true life is unknown, unintelligible, to the foolish world. Even many would-be wise and half-devout people go no farther than looking at death with a kind of abstract submission, without yielding themselves to be really detached from life by God's Hand. It is only by dying to other things that we are fitted for physical death. Some people often dwell upon the thought of death without accepting the " death unto self," whereas that makes " Ps. cxix. 109.

<To ©ne in £icknc$j» 193 makes people indifferent to bodily death, even when they are not specially thinking of it S. Augustine tell us how his mother, S. Monica, said to him, " Son, for mine own part I have no further delight in anything in this life. What I do here any longer, and to what end I am here, I know not." ' This is the mental attitude in which it is not hard to die. Self-love is unreal life; the love of God is our only true life: so soon as the last expels the first all is safe. There is no life save in this blessed death. This is the " inward man, which is renewed day by day, though the outward man perish."2 "Do this and ye shall live," the dear Lord says.3 Let God reign alone in your heart — let Him smash that idol "I": be as entirely absorbed by God as you have been by "I." Sacrifice that " I " to Him, and then you will find peace, liberty and life, in spite of pain, weakness, and death itself.

1 Conf. Lib. Fathers, Bk. IX. x. 26. S. Monica goes on to say, "Xow my wishes are accomplished. One thing there was, for which I desired to linger for a while in this life, that I might see thee a Catholic Christian before I died. My God hath done this for me abundantly, that I should now see thee withal despising earthly happiness and become His servant: what do I here?"