Letter I. To the Filles-dleu at Paris

[These were Benedictine nuns of the order of Fontevrault. They succeeded (1485) certain sisters, who, having been established there by St. Louis to serve a hospital or hdtel-Dieu, were hence called " Filles-Dieu," a title which the new inmates of the house inherited. They were also called " Ladies of the Mother of Mercy. " The Saint had made their acquaintance when at Paris, and wrote to them immediately after his return to Savoy, during his retreat before consecration.]

Exhortation and instruction on reforming their practice 01

From Sales, 22d November 1602.

MY VERY REVEREND LADIES AND DEAR SISTERS — I have conceived so great a confidence in your charity that I seem no longer to require a preface or introduction when I speak to you, whether absent, as I am now obliged to do, or present, in case God should ever so dispose as to give me the blessing of seeing you again. In everything I love simplicity and can dour; I believe that you love them too; and I beseech you to continue to do so, because this is very becoming

IV. A to your profession. I consider that the white tunics you wear are a sign thereof. I will say simply to you, then, what has led me to write to you all together.

I beg you to be assured that I am greatly urged by the extreme affection which I have for the good of your house; for even here, where I can render you but slight service, it ceases not to suggest to me a multitude of desires which are useless to you and to me. Still, I dare not reject these inclinations, because they are good and sincere, and above all because I firmly believe that it is God who has given them to me. If they tend to make me suffer some disquiet, it is not from their own nature, but through the weakness of my spirit, still subject to the movement of the winds and tide. Now there is a wind which agitates my spirit in the affection which it bears you, and I cannot restrain myself from telling you of it; for it is the only subject which has made me steal leisure to write to you from amidst the pressing business which sur rounds me in this beginning of my office.

I quitted Paris with the satisfaction of having in some sort manifested to you the esteem in which I held the virtue of your house, the thought of which gave me much consolation and interior profit, animating me to the desire of my own perfection. The sacred Word says * that Jonas found the shade of the ivy exceeding grateful, but that a hot and burning wind withered it up in an instant. A wind had almost the same effect on the consolation which I had in you; but be assured, I beseech you, that it was the south wind of charity.

• Jonas iv. Precisely speaking, it was " the worm " which destroyed the ivy or gourd, as the Saint himself says further on. [Tr.]

It was a report which I was forced to believe when I considered all the circumstances. God knows how grieved I was, both for what was said to me and because it only became known to me at a time when I had not leisure to treat of it with you; for, unless my affection deceives me, I think that you would have given me a favourable hearing, and would not have been displeased with any remonstrance I might have made, since you would never have discovered in my soul or in any of its movements aught save full and pure affection for your spiritual progress and the good of your monastery.

But, as it was my duty not to stop for this, being called here for a greater good, I have decided to write to you on this subject, although I debated some time with myself whether this would be good or no. On the one hand, it almost seemed to me that it would be useless, seeing that my letter would give occasion to replies from you, and would require others from me; that it would perhaps arrive unseasonably; that it would not exactly represent either my aim or my affection; that you are where you will have counsels by word of mouth from a multitude of persons who deserve to be in greater esteem with you than I am, and that if you do not believe Moses and the Prophets who speak to you, you will hardly believe this poor sinner who can but write to you; and, further, seeing that, as I hear, certain other preachers, better and more experienced in the conduct of souls than I am, have spoken to you on this subject without effect.

But, on the other hand, all these reasons had to give way to my affection, and to the duty which my extreme desire of your good imposes on me. God oftentimes employs the weakest instruments for the greatest purposes. How do I know but that he may will to convey his inspiration into your heart through the words which he will give me to write to you? I have prayed; I might say much more and only say the truth; but this shall suffice, — I have wetted my lips with the blood of Jesus Christ in the Mass to be able to send you suitable and fruitful words. These, then, I will here place on this paper: may God graciously introduce and adapt them to your spirits to advance his glory therein.

My dear sisters, I am told that there exist in your house private pensions and allowances which cause differences in the treatment of the sick; that those in health have particular indulgences in food and dress without necessity; and that your conversations and recreations are not entirely edifying. I have heard all this, and much more which follows from it. And I upon it have many things to say; but have patience, I beg you; do me the honour of reading attentively and calmly what I am going to represent to you about it; favour in this my zeal to serve you.

My good ladies, you should correct your house of all these defects, which are without doubt contrary to the perfection of the religious life. The paschal lamb had to be without stain; you are lambs of the Pasch, that is, of the passage, for you have passed from the Egypt of the world into the desert of Eeligion, on your way to the Land of Promise. Without doubt you must be free from all appearance of stain or blemish. But are these not very dark and manifest stains, these faults and grave irregularities which I have noted above, particularly in such a house? They

LET. L] Previous to Founding of Visitation. 5 must be corrected, then. You must, it seems to me, correct them because they are, apparently, little, and therefore must be opposed while they are so; for if you wait till they grow, you will not easily be able to mend them. It is easy to divert rivers at their source, when they are as yet weak; but farther on they get beyond our power. Catch us, say the Canticles,'55' the little foxes which destroy the vines. They are little; do not wait till they become great; for if you wait it will not only not be easy to catch them, but by the time you would catch them they will already have spoilt everything. The children of Israel say in one of the Psalms:t 0 daughter of Babylon miserable.... Messed he that shall take and dash thy little ones against the rock! The disorder, the irregularity, of religious bodies is truly a daughter of Babylon and of confusion. Ah! how blessed are those souls who suffer no more than the commencement of these things, or rather, who dash and shiver them on the rock of re formation! The asp of relaxation and irregularity is not yet within the enclosure of your monastery, but take good heed to yourselves, these faults are its eggs; if you warm them in your bosoms, they will break out some day unto your loss and perdition when you are least expecting it.

But if these defects are small, as some may fancy, are you not much less excusable for not correcting them? How sad, said St. Chrysostom to-day, in his homily on the Gospel of this feast of St. Cecilia which we are celebrating, — how sad to see these virgins, who have put down and triumphed over the most powerful enemy of all, which is the ardour of the flesh, let * ii. 15. t cxxxvi.

themselves be overcome by that puny enemy, Mammon, god of riches! And certainly proprietorships, that is, enjoyment of private means, in religion, come under the head of Mammon of iniquity. That is why, said he, these poor virgins are all called foolish, — because after having conquered the stronger they yield to the feebler.

Your house excels in many other points of perfection, and in them is beyond comparison with all others; will it not be a sad reproach to let its glory be tar nished by these miserable imperfections? You are called, by an ancient glory and prerogative of your house, Miles de Dieu, Daughters of God; would you lose this honour by failing to reform these little defects? — will you for a mess of lentils lose the birth right which your name would seem to have given you with the consent of entire France?

It is, surely, a mark of very great imperfection in the lion and the elephant, that after having conquered tigers, oxen, rhinoceroses, they quail, grow terrified, and tremble, the one before a little fowl, the other before a rat, the mere sight of which makes them lose courage. That is a great flaw in their nobleness, and similarly it is a great tare (which signifies deduction) off the goodness of your house, that in it there are particular pensions, and the like weak points, while it is seen to deserve praise in so many other things.. Be faithful, then, in the reformation of these little imperfections, in order that your Spouse may place you over many perfections, and bring you one day to his glory.

Now, however, I beg you to let me tell you my opinion concerning these defects. It is true they are small if put in comparison with greater ones; for they are only beginnings, and a beginning, whether urn. i.] Previous to Founding of Visitation. 7 in evil or in good, is always small. But if you consider them in comparison with the true and entire religious perfection to which you ought to aspire, they are undoubtedly very great and very dangerous. Is that, I ask you, a small evil which affects and injures a noble part of your body, namely, the vow of poverty? One can be a good religious without reciting in choir, without wearing this or that particular habit, without abstinence from such or such things; but without poverty and community of goods no one can be so.

The worm which gnawed the gourd-tree of Jonas seemed to be little; but its venom was so strong that the tree died from it. The defects of your house seem very slight; but their effect is so evil that it spoils your vow of poverty.

Ismael was a little child, but as soon as he began to vex and trouble Isaac, the wise Sara made him depart, with Agar his mother, from out of the house of Abraham, that is, of the great heavenly Father. Here have been a Sara and an Agar; the superior, and in a certain way superhuman, part, and the other lower and human; the spirit and the interior, the body and exterior. The spirit brought forth the good Isaac — the vow which you have offered on the mountain of Religion; as Isaac, on the mountain of Vision, voluntarily offered himself in sacrifice. The flesh and corporal part only brings forth Ismael, that is, the care and the desire of exterior and temporal things. So long as this Ismael, this care and desire, attacks not your Isaac, that is, your vow and profession, although he remain with you and in your house, I am satisfied, and, which is the chief thing, God is not offended;

but when he troubles your vow, your poverty, your profession, I beg you, nay, I conjure you — send him off, drive him away. Be he little as you will, as merely a child as you please, let him be no bigger than an ant, still he is evil, he is mischievous, he will ruin you, he will subvert your house.

Moreover, I consider this evil very great in your house because it is maintained there, because it is in repose and dwells there as an ordinary resident. It is the chief evil I see in the case that these proprietor ships are already citizens. Dying flies, says the Wise Man,"5'5" spoil the sweetness of balm and ointment. If all they did were to pass over the ointment and suck it as they passed, they would not spoil it; but staying in it dead and as it were buried, they corrupt it. I will grant that the shortcomings and defects of your house are only flies; but the evil is that they stay upon your ointment, they stay and are buried therein with your approval. However small the evil may be, it easily increases when it is cherished and maintained. No enemy, say soldiers, is little when he is despised.

Such are the reasons which God has given me for beseeching you to resolve to reform your house in these little or great faults which I am told are in it; and I cannot assuage my desires on this point.

Then I have turned to consider what impediments might be making the holy work difficult, and to tell you my opinion about them. I suspect that you there fore consider there is no proprietorship contrary to your vow, because perchance all is done under the permission and license of the superior. This word, permission, or license, has already a bad sound by the * Eccles. x. i.

side of spirit of perfection. It would be better to live under laws and ordinances than to introduce exemptions, licenses, and permissions. Here you have already a subject for reformation.

Moses had given a permission and license concerning the integrity of marriage. Our Lord, reforming this holy sacrament and restoring it to its purity, declared that Moses had only given the permission under force and compulsion — for the hardness of your hearts* Often enough superiors bend what they cannot break, and allow what they cannot hinder: and the permission has afterwards this artfulness and malice, that having lasted some time it extends itself, and, unlike other things that get old, it gets stronger, and seems little by little to lose its ugliness and its deformity. Permissions enter into monasteries only by favour; but having got foothold they stay on by force, and never leave but by severity.

Besides, I say that there is nothing so like as two drops of water — yet the one may be from roses, the other from hemlock; one cures, and the other kills. There are permissions which may be to a certain extent good; but the present one is not; for at last it is a proprietorship, though veiled and hidden; it is the idol which Rachel had hidden under her garments. Persons say: the superior allows this, and it is by her good pleasure — this is Rachel speaking; but this pen sion belongs to one certain sister and not to another — there is the idol of proprietorship. If it be not proprietor ship for one to have more necessity without the means of supplying it, and the other less necessity with more means, how comes it that while you are all sisters your

• Matt. xix. 8.

pensions are not sisters? One suffers, and the other suffers not; one is hungry, I will almost say, with St. Paul,* and another abounds. There is no community of Our Lord's there. Call it what you like, but it is a pure proprietorship; for where there is no proprietor ship there is no mine and thine — the two words which have produced the misery of the world. The religious who has a penny is not worth a penny, said the Ancients.

The love and tender affection you bear to your house may also be a great hindrance to the reformation of it; because this passion cannot permit you to think ill of it, nor to listen in a good spirit to reprehensions which may be given you about it. But take care, I pray you; for self-love is cunning; it pushes and insinuates itself into everything, while making us be lieve it is not there at all. The true love of our houses makes us jealous of their real perfections, and not of their reputation merely. The wife of good Tobias took offence at a caution of her husband's, be cause it seemed to imply a doubt as to the honour of his family. She was too touchy; if there was no fault in the matter she should have praised God; if there was, she should have amended it, We must eat butter and honey, like Our Saviour, make our spirits meek and humble, choose the good and refuse the eml.\ Bees love their hives, which are, as it were, their con vents; I said to you once that they were like nature's nuns in the animal creation; and they fail not to keep a jealous watch over all that is in their hives, and to clean them out at certain periods.

Nothing is so constant under heaven but it tends to * I Cor. xi. 21. t Isa. vii. 15.

LETT, i.] Previous to Founding of Visitation. 1 1 dissolution; nothing is so clean but it contracts some dust. It is good not to mention without reason the defects one may see in a house, nor to show them to others; but to be unwilling to acknowledge them, or to confess them to those who may be of use in mending them, is an ill-regulated love. The spouse in the Canticles * confesses her imperfection: / am black, she says, but beautiful,... do not consider me that I am brown, because the sun hath altered my colour. I think you can say the same of your house; it is fair and virtuous indeed, but the course of time and the long years have altered its colours. Why will you not restore them by a holy reformation? When there is some little passing fault in a house, one may take no notice; but when it is permanent and customary, then it must be driven out, those being called in who can help to do so. It was an ill-regulated love in David to be unwilling to have Absalom put to death, in spite of his wickedness and rebellion. Whoever loves his house procures its soundness, purity, and reformation.

I think there is another obstacle to the reform of your house; viz., that you perchance consider it could not maintain itself without these pensions, because it is poor. On the contrary, I think that this monastery is poor because it has these pensions. There are in Italy two noble republics, Venice and Genoa. In Venice the private individuals are not so rich as at Genoa. The wealth of private persons hinders that of the public. If once you were really poor in particular, you would afterwards be rich in common.

God will have us trust in him, each according to his vocation. It is not required for a layman and

• i. 4, 5- ordinary man to depend upon the Providence of God in the way that we must, who are churchmen; for to us it is forbidden to amass wealth by engaging in trade, whereas to persons in the world it is not forbidden: the secular clergy, again, are not bound to trust in this same Providence as much as religious are; for religious must trust in it so strongly as to have no care whatever, individually, about their means of subsistence: and amongst religious those of S. Francis excel in this point, viz., the confidence and re signation they have towards Divine Providence, having no means of support either in particular or in common, but perfectly fulfilling that of the Psalmist: * Cast thy care upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee.

Each one ought to cast all his care on God, who indeed sustains the whole world; but each one does not cast it on God with the same degree of resignation: some cast it on him through the labour and occupation which God has given them, and through which God sustains them; others aim at it more simply, without any intermediate way of getting their living: They sow not, neither do they reap, and your heavenly Father feeds them.^ Now your condition as religious obliges you to resign yourselves to God's Providence without the help or favour of any private pensions or proprietor ships; which, therefore, you should give up.

David is in admiration of the way in which God giveth the young ravens their food: J and indeed it is a thing most admirable. But does he not feed the rest of the animal creation? Of course; yet not in that way, nor immediately; the others are helped by their fathers and mothers, and have some means of working. * Pa. liv. 23, f Matt. vi. 26. $ Ps. cxlvi. 9.

urr. i.] Previous to Founding of Visitation. \ 3

But those our Lord feeds almost miraculously, and so does he ever feed those, his devout servants and crea tures, who by the condition of their state and profession have devoted themselves to common life with individual poverty, using no intermediate means contrary to their condition.

The Cordeliers considered that they could not live in that strict poverty which their primitive rule required; the Capuchins have clearly shown them that they could. So long as St. Peter trusted in him who called him he was safe; when he began to doubt and to lose confidence he sank in the waters: let us do what we ought, each in his condition and profession, and God will not fail us. Whilst the children of Israel were in Egypt he fed them by the food which the Egyptians furnished; when they were in the desert, where there was no food, he gave them the manna, a food common to all and particular to none, and which, if I am not mistaken, represents a certain common life. You have come out of the world of Egypt, you are in the desert of religion; seek worldly means no longer; firmly hope in God; he will sustain you, undoubtedly, even if he have to rain down manna for you.

Then I doubt whether there may not be another hindrance to your reformation. Perhaps those who have proposed it to you have handled the sore some what roughly; but would you therefore reject your cure? Surgeons are sometimes obliged to enlarge the wound in order to lessen the mischief, when under a small sore the flesh is much bruised and crushed: perhaps that was why they sent the lancet somewhat deeply into the living flesh. I praise their method, although it is not mine, particularly with noble and well-trained souls, as yours are. I think it is better simply to show them the mischief, and to put the knife into their hands to make the incision themselves. Do not, however, on that account cease to reform yourselves. I am wont to say that we should receive the bread of correction with great respect, even though he who brings it may be disagreeable and unacceptable. Just as Elias ate the bread brought by ravens, so must he be welcome to us who procures our good, though he may be in every other respect disagreeable and unwelcome. Job scraped off the corruption of his sores with a potsherd; this was a hard humiliation, but it was a useful one. Good advice ought to be well received whether steeped in gall or preserved in honey.

Let not all these hindrances be powerful enough, I beseech you, to keep you back from undertaking this your most necessary reformation. I pray God to send his Angels to bear you up in their hands, lest perhaps you dash your feet against the stones * of stumbling. It remains for me to tell you my opinion concerning the order you should follow.

Ask God, by common and express prayers, to let you see the defects of your house, and the means of remedying them and of receiving grace. Since he is the God of peace, pacify your spirits, put them in repose; do not let the spirit of contention, which may have possessed your souls with regard to those who have up to this time tried to correct you, form any obstacle to the celestial light; cling no longer to your own cause, or to that of your house; do just as you would if you wanted to institute a new Congregation. According to your order and your rule, treat one

• Ps. xc. II, another in this matter with a spirit of gentleness and of charity. Then will your Beloved, with his Angels, regard you as we do the bees when they are sweetly busy with the making of their honey, and I doubt not that this holy Lord will speak to your heart, saying to you what he said to his servant Abraham, Walk before me and be perfect* Go farther into the desert of perfection: you have already made the first day's journey by chastity, and the second by obedience, and a part of the third by some sort of poverty and common life; but why do you stop in so excellent a path, and for so slight a cause as private pensions? Go farther; finish the journey; have all in common; renounce private proprietorship, so that, according to the sacred Word, you may make a holy immolation and entire sacrifice in spirit and in goods.

After you have treated of your affair with your Spouse and with one another, call to your assistance and direction some of the more spiritual persons who are round about you; they will not fail you. I would name some of them; but you will name them better than I, and I dare say the very ones whom I should wish to name: they are persons extremely good for this purpose, gentle and gracious souls, indulgent when it comes to the point, though their rebukes may seem a little harsh and bitter. To these should you entrust this your affair, that they may decide what may seem most suitable; for your sex is subject, since the creation, to the condition of obedience, and never succeeds before God save by submitting itself to direction and instruction. Look at all the estimable Ladies of the Mother of Mercy up till this present, and you will * Gen. xvii. I.

find that I say the truth. In everything, however, I am presupposing that the authority of Madame de Fontevrault holds its place.

I am perhaps speaking and writing too much on a subject which you very likely have already had too much dinned into your ears; but God, in whose presence I write to you, knows that I have much more affection than I use words in this matter. I am un worthy to be heard, but I think your charity to be so great that you will not despise my advice, and I believe that the good Jesus has not given me so much love and confidence towards you without giving you a reciprocal affection, in order to take in good part what I propose to you for the service of your house, which I esteem and honour equally with any other, and think one of the best I have seen. This it is which has made me desire that it should be better, and perfect. It grieves me to see such grand qualities as those of your house subject to such paltry imperfections, and, as the Scripture says,* to see your strength delivered into captivity, and your beauty into the hands of the enemy. It is sad to see a precious liquor lose its worth through the presence of a little dirt, and an exquisite wine by the admixture of water: thy wine, says the prophet, is mingled with water.,t

I will speak to you as did your holy Patron St. John, who was ordered to write to the Bishops of the East: { I know your works, which are almost all good — you are almost such, good religious — but I have a few things against you: something is wanting to you. I praise you on the whole, said St. Paul to his Corin thians, but in this I praise you not§ I pray and * Ps. Ixxvii. 61. f Isa. i. 22. J Apoc. ii. § I Cor. xi. 22.

beseech you by the charity which is between us, take from your house what is in excess, and add to it what is wanting. Give me, I humbly beg of you, this consolation, to read my letter in repose and tranquillity of mind, and to weigh it not in the ordinary balance, bat in the scales of the sanctuary and of charity; and I beseech God to give you the resolution necessary for your good, for the greater sanctification of his holy name amongst you, in order that you may be in name and in fact his true daughters. I promise myself the help of your prayers for my whole life, and more particularly for this entrance which I am making into the laborious and dangerous office of bishop, in order that while preaching to others I may not myself become a castaway*

May God be our peace and consolation.

I am, and will be throughout my whole life, Reverend Ladies and most dear sisters in Jesus Christ, yours, &c.