Letter 13. To Mother Magdalen of the Holy Ghost

A Reli Gious of the Same Convent of Cordova

JESUS

Be in your soul, my daughter in Christ. The good resolutions expressed in your letter make me glad. I bless God, who provides for all things ! for they will be greatly needed in the beginnings of foundations that you may bear poverty, straitness, heat, and labours of all kinds, in such a manner that none may perceive whether or not all these things are grievous to you. Consider that for such beginnings God will not have delicate and feeble souls, far less such as are lovers of themselves ; and to this end His Majesty helps us more in our beginnings, that they, with moderate diligence, may advance in all virtues. It is assuredly a great grace, and a sign of the divine favour, that, passing by others, He has led you hither. And though the abandonment may have been painful, it is nothing ; for you must in any case have shortly left it all. In order to have God in all things, we must have nothing at all ; for how can the heart, given to one, be given at all to another ?

I say this also to sister Juana, and beg you to pray to God for me. May He be in your heart. Amen.

FR. JOHN OF THE CROSS.

From SEGOVIA : the 28th of July, 1589.