Letter VIII. To a Sister of the Visitation

Abnegation of self -will is the. best austerity.

1st January 1620.

I HAVE seen the suggestions which the enemy of your progress makes to your heart, my dear daughter, and I see likewise the grace which the most holy Spirit of God gives you to keep you strong and firm in the pursuit of the way in which he has placed you. My dear daughter, this evil one does not mind our wounding the body provided that he can make us always do our own will: he does not fear austerity but obedience. What greater austerity can there be than to keep one's will in subjection and continual obedience? Remain in peace; you are a lover of these voluntary pen ances, if, indeed, the works of self-love can be called penances.

When you took the habit, after many prayers and much consideration, it was decided that you should enter into the school of obedience and of abnegation of your own will, rather than remain given up to your own judgment and to yourself. Do not then let your self be shaken, but remain where Our Lord has put you. It is true that you have there great mortifica tions of the heart, seeing yourself so imperfect and so worthy of being often corrected and reproved: but is not this what you ought to be seeking, this mortification of the heart and continual knowledge of your own abjection?

But, say you, you cannot do such penance as you would. Oh tell me, my dearest daughter, what better penance can a heart do which commits faults than to submit to a continual cross and abnegation of self-will? But I say too much; God himself will uphold you with the same hand with which he placed you in this vocation; and the enemy shall have no victory over you, who, as the first daughter of that country, ought to be well proved by temptation and excellently crowned by perseverance. I am all yours, my dear daughter, &c.