Letter XXVII. To a Religious Sister

Tenderness in devotion is not in our own power: the spiritual nosegay: it is letter to use the opportunities which we have than to desire new trials of our fidelity: self-renunciation.

No, my dear daughter, I do not find it at all surprising that you desire my letters; for, besides that God wants it (which is the great point of our mutual intercourse), I feel so much consolation from your communication with me that I easily feel that you gain a little from mine; and we need not wait for any other subject, either you or I, beyond that of a holy spiritual conversation between our souls, and the debt which we owe one another of contributing mutual consolations.

I say nothing, my good daughter, about your heart, and your having no tears; no, my daughter, for the poor heart cannot help it, since this does not arise from a want of resolutions or lively desires to love God, but from a want of sensible feelings, which does not depend on our heart, but on certain conditions which we cannot command. For just as, in this world, my dear daughter, we cannot make it rain when we like, nor prevent it from raining when we do not wish it to

LET. XXVIIL] Further Letters Outside Visitation. 341 rain, so is it not in our power to weep when we will through devotion, nor again not to weep when the impetuous tears well up. The lack of tears does not for the most part arise from our own fault, but from the Providence of God, who wants us to make our way by land and by desert, and not by waters, and who wills that we accustom ourselves to labour and hardship.

Hold your nosegay in your hand; and if haply some sweet and salutary perfume arise from it, do not refrain from gratefully smelling it; for it is only gathered in order not to leave you all day without comfort and spiritual pleasure. Keep yourself quite firm in this disposition of making your heart entirely God's, — for there is no better.

On no account desire persecutions for the trial of your fidelity, for it is better to wait for those which God will send than to desire any; and this your fidelity has a thousand other kinds of exercises, in humility, sweetness, charity, the service of your poor sick one — but a hearty, loving, and earnest service. God gives you a little leisure to make ready your provision of patience and vigour, then the time will come to use them.

Oh my daughter, take off all the garments of your captivity by continual renunciation of your earthly affections; and say not that the King does not give you royal ones to draw you to his holy love. Vive Jtfsus I my dear daughter. This is the interior word under which we must live and die, and with which I protest that I am ever wholly yours.