Letter VI. To Mother Claudine de Blonay, Abbess of the Order of St. Clare

On having all in common: on the necessity of having extra ordinary Confessors; on the advantage of freedom in spiritual communications.

THONON, 1 2th September 1615.

NEVER think, my clear sister, that I can forget your person or the temporal necessities of your monastery; these latter, indeed, I have found even greater than I had been told. Only, I see we must wait till these suspicions of contagion cease before we can profitably make our collection; and meantime I will have the letters got ready. For the rest, my heart, which loves the sanctity of your community, though I have only seen it in passing, and rather had a glimpse than a sight of it, does not permit me to leave without exhorting you in Our Lord to pursue with constancy the execution of the sacred inspiration which God has given you, viz., to make more and more perfect this virtuous company, by a pure and simple abandonment of all private possessing, by the exercise of holy mental prayer, and by a fervent frequenting of the Divine Sacraments.

And do not doubt, my dear sister, that Father Garinus will be favourable to you, if you represent to him, simply and humbly, your praiseworthy inten tions; for he is a doctor of great judgment and long experience, and very zealous for the constitutions of the Church, and for working out the decisions of the Council of Trent, as are all good men. You can then tell him with confidence that you have hinted to me a word or two about the state of things with you; for I know well that he will not take this amiss, being, as he is, one of my best friends, and one who well knows that it is not my way to spoil anything, and that I am not an underminer of authority, but a man who causes no disturbance. And you can further tell him all that I have told you, of which, to refresh your memory, I will now make a repetition.

I. The renouncement of all private possessing and the exact community of all things is a point of great perfection, which should be desired in all monasteries and observed wherever superiors so will. For although those religious women, who have not this use in their houses, do not cease to be holy, custom dispensing them, they are all the same in extreme danger of ceas ing to be holy, when they oppose the introduction of so holy an observance, so deserving of love and so much re commended by Father Saint Francis and Mother Saint Clare; which makes Orders rich in their poverty and perfectly poor in their riches, since mine and thine are the two words which, as the Saints say, have ruined charity. Nor is it any use to say our veil, our dress, our tunic or our linen, if in fact the use of them is not in different and common to all the sisters; words are little if acts do not correspond. And how can a thing be called common which no one uses but myself? Now I have seen in a monastery in which I had a very near relative that all the difficulty of this point lay in the over-niceness of some sisters as regards linen. I won dered that washing was not enough for the daughters of him who tenderly kissed the lepers, and of her who kissed the feet of the sisters when they returned from outside.

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Truly when a person is particular about wearing washed linen or cloth because it was worn previously to washing by his Christian brother, I do not see how he dares to say that he loves his brother as himself; and it must be a strong self-love that he has, to make him think himself so clean in comparison with others.

Now the method of putting everything in common is very easy when all is kept together in a box or wardrobe, and a person distributes indifferently to all, according to their necessities, what is wanted; having regard to nothing except necessity and the superior's will. In some congregations they even change the beads and all the little objects of devotion, by lot, at the beginning of each year.

2. As to prayer and frequenting the Sacraments, there is no difficulty, I think, except that for the latter one must get the father Confessor not to be tired of doing the sisters the charity of hearing them in confession when required by the superior.

But there is a point of importance, of which I said a word to you, which you should for the benefit of your family ask from your superiors, and which they can not in good conscience refuse you; it is that twice or thrice each year they must offer other and extra ordinary Confessors (according to the command of the sacred Council of Trent) who must hear the confessions of all the sisters. And the Congregation of Cardinals has declared that if the superiors are negligent in this point the Bishops are to act themselves, and that this must be done several other times in the year if re quired. And it is required when the superior sees that some sisters are very much troubled, and find it very hard or repugnant to confess to the ordinary Confessor — provided that this is not constantly the case, but at times only and without abuse. But as to this last point it would seem unbecoming to ask it, because the directions of the Council suffice for the satisfaction of your congregation.

And you must receive no statements to the contrary, for nothing in this world is done which is not contra dicted by petty and captious souls; and from every thing, however good it may be, one can draw awkward consequences if one choose to cavil at them. We must stay on what God ordains, and his Church, and on what the Saints teach. Nor may it be said that your Order is exempt from the constitutions of the sacred Council; for besides that the Council is above all the Orders, if there is one Order which should obey the Councils and the Church of Rome it is yours, sinca Father St. Francis has so often inculcated this.

But, it may be said, it might be that a sister knowing she could have an extraordinary Confessor would keep back her sins till he comes, when if she had no hope of another Confessor she would not keep them back.

It is true that this might happen; but it is also true that a sister who would be so unhappy as to make bad confessions and communions while waiting for the Extraordinary will make no great scruple of making many bad ones while waiting for a change of Confessors or the coming of the superior. And in any case this drawback is not to be compared with the thousands of losses of souls which the fact of never being able to confess save to one only may cause, as experience clearly shows; and at last it is intolerable presumption in any one, whoever he may be, to think that he better understands the spiritual needs of the faithful, and is wiser, than the Council. So you must hold firmly to this point, and not let yourself be led away by con siderations belonging to the human spirit.

3. There remains the question of spiritual communi cations, which also I tell you are very useful if properly made. And to begin with, no one, as I think, can forbid them to you; for as far as I can see in the Rule of St. Francis and St. Clare there is nothing to prevent them; what is said simply prevents any kind of abuse. And I will tell you how they are conducted amongst the daughters of Mother (St.) Teresa, who are in my opinion the most retired of all. Thus then are they made:

The sister who desires a conference says so to her superior; the superior considers whether the person with whom she desires to communicate is the proper kind of person to give her benefit and consolation; and the person, if such, is to be asked to come, and when he arrives the sister who wants to hold communication is taken to the grille, the blind remaining on the grille; and then free opportunity is given to communicate, every one retiring to a distance at which they cannot hear the one who is speaking but simply are able to see her. If they find a sister who wants to confer too often with the same person, beyond three times, it is not permitted, unless there is a strong appearance of great fruit, and the persons are beyond suspicion of vanity, are of mature age and practised in virtue.

You have seen, I am sure, what the Blessed Mother Teresa says on the point, and that will suffice to answer all the objections which might be alleged. And never was it the intention of the Saints to deprive souls of such conferences, which are extremely advantageous for many virtues, and are free from danger when properly arranged. This is an important matter, and a subtle temptation; we want to keep the liberty of private possession which is contrary to perfection, and will not accept the liberty of communications which well understood helps us to perfection. We find drawbacks where the Saints find none, and find none where the Saints find so many.

Further, these communications are not to be made in order to learn the different ways of living in a monastery, but to learn to practise better and more perfectly that to which one is bound; and far from injuring the public conferences they serve the better to direct and apply each conference to the particular case.

I had forgotten to say that when the Confessor Extraordinary comes, all the sisters must confess to him, in order that those who require it may not be discovered, and the evil one may not sow a crop of unkind remarks throughout the house. But those who do not want to give their confidence to the Extra ordinary can before going to him make their confession to the ordinary one, and afterwards only mention to the Extraordinary some sins already confessed, to serve as matter of absolution.

I have been very long, my dear sister, but I wanted in this to declare my sentiments fully, that you may know them more distinctly. Hold firm with good courage in order to introduce into your house a holy and truly religious liberty of spirit, and to banish therefrom false and superstitious earthly liberty. Bring back these blessed souls to the observance of the holy Councils, and you will be blessed. Our Master Garinus, and all your higher superiors, discreet and reasonable persons, will help you, I do not doubt; as also will your good Confessor, who is a very virtuous and wise religious as I can tell, and one who will readily listen to reason when it is clearly pointed out to him.

I salute you a thousand thousand times in the bowels of the mercy of Our Lord, to whom I beseech you with all your dear and virtuous company, to recommend me continually. Your most humble in Our Lord, &c.