Letter XII. To the Same. on the Feast of Candlemas

You tell me, my very dear daughter, that yonr grief over the great and irrevocable adieux which we have said to the world is past: it is well said, my daughter; IV. 2 D

4 1 let us leave that world on one side, it is worthless. Ah! may this Egypt, with its garlics, its onions, and its gross flesh, be ever disgusting to us, that we may so much the better relish the delicious manna which Our Saviour will give us in the desert which we have entered. May Jesus then live and reign!

You desire not to tell untruths; this is a great secret for drawing the Spirit of God into our interior. Lord, who shall dwell in thy tabernacle? said David: * He who speaks the truth with all his heart, he answers. I quite approve of speaking little, provided that this little which you say is said graciously and charitably, and not morosely or affectedly. Yes, speak little and sweetly, little and well, little and simply, little and sincerely, little and kindly.

My daughter, you must from time to time exercise yourself in this self-renunciation and nakedness of heart, and ask it of God in all your exercises; but when there comes some other movement — of love, of union with God and of confidence — you must follow these without disturbing them by abnegation, for which you will leave a space at the end and in its place.

What sweetness it was yesterday to consider that fair Mother, with the little Babe hanging at her breast, as she goes to offer him in the Temple, and with that pair of doves, more favoured, methinks, than the greatest princes of the world, in being sacrificed for the Saviour. Ah! who will give us the grace that our hearts also may be so one day? But is not this Simeon glorious in thus embracing that divine Infant? Yes; but I cannot be pleased with him for the bad turn he wanted to do us; for being out of himself he wanted * Ps. xiv. i, 3.

LET. xm.] Letters for Various Festivals. 419 to carry him away with him into the other world. Now, he says, dost thou dismiss thy servant in peace* Ah! but we still, my dear daughter, were sadly in need of him. Let us embrace him, let us live and die in these sweet embraces. Put this sweet Jesus on your heart, like a Solomon on his throne of ivory; make your soul often go before him, like a queen of Saba, to hear the sacred words which he continually inspires and breathes out. But take notice, this heart ought to be of ivory in purity, in solidity, in dryness, clear of the humours of the world, firm in its resolutions, pure in its affections.

I am not going, my very dear daughter, to that place which you had been told of, for I still live in obedience, which is imposed upon me not of God, but by the world; still it is permitted by God, and so I acquiesce in it. Live all for him who to be all ours made him self a little Child. I am in him all yours.