Letter XXVII. To a Superioress of the Visitation

A Superior must be weak with the weak: consolation to be drawn from the thought of God's providence and of heavenly rewards.

igth February 1618.

I SEE you, my dear daughter, quite ill and suffering over the illnesses and pains of your daughters. One cannot be a mother without pangs. Who is weak, says the Apostle,* and I am not weak with him? And our ancient Fathers say upon this, that hens are always in distress while they are rearing their chickens, and

• 2 Cor. xi. 29.

that it is this which makes them continually utter their cries, and that it was so with the Apostle.

My dear daughter, who are also my grand- daughter, the Apostle also said * that when he was weak then he was strong, for that the poiver of God is made perfect in infirmity. And you then, my daughter, be very strong amid the afflictions of your house. These long maladies are good schools of charity for those who help in them, and of loving patience for those who have them; for the first are at the foot of the cross with Our Lady and St. John, whose compassion they imitate, and the others are on the cross with Our Lord, whose Passion they imitate.

As to the sister of whom you write to me, God will make you take the proper course. This sweetness in suffering is a sort of presage of future abundant favours of Our Lord in this soul, wherever she may go or dwell. Salute, I beg you, these two daughters tenderly from me, for it is so I love them.

Meanwhile, if it is found proper to send back this novice, it must be done with all the charity possible, and God will bring everything to his glory. God keeps t and blesses the goings out as well as the com ings in of those who do all things for him, and who do not occasion their own goings out by their ill conduct. His Providence thus makes us will the sacrifice which it afterwards does not let us make, as we see in Abraham. And methinks I say something about this in the book of " The Love of God," but I do not call to mind where, t

So enlarge your heart, my dear daughter, amid tribulations; increase your courage, and see the great Saviour bending down from high heaven towards you,

• II Cor. xii. 9, 10. t Ps. cxx. 8. % Bk. ix. 6. [Tr.]

LET. xxxn.] Earlier Letters to Visitation. 157 watching how you walk in these tempests, and by a thread of his invisible Providence holding your heart and steadying it, so that he may ever keep it to him self. My dear daughter, you are a spouse, not as yet of Jesus Christ glorified, but of Jesus Christ crucified; for which cause the rings, the rich chains and the ornaments which he gives you, and which he wants you to wear, are crosses, nails, and thorns, and the marriage-feast is gall, hyssop, and vinegar. In heaven above we shall have the rubies, diamonds, and emeralds, the wine, manna, and honey. I do not say this, no indeed, my dear granddaughter, as if I thought you to be discouraged, but because I think you are suffering, and I feel I ought to mingle my sighs with yours, as I feel my soul to be mingled with yours. Do not tell me that you abuse my kindness when you write me long letters; for truly I always love them and find them sweet.

This good Father says that I am a flower, a vase of flowers, and a phoenix; but in reality I am but a corruptible man, a crow, a dunghill. And still love me well, my dear daughter, for God ceases not to love me or to give me extraordinary desires of serving and loving him purely and holily. In fact, after all, we are too blessed in being able to aspire to an eternity of glory by the merits of the Passion of Our Lord, who makes a trophy of our misery to convert it into his mercy, to which be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen. I am yours, my dear daughter, you know it well; I say yours, after an incomparable manner.