Letter XXXIX. To a Superioress of the Visitation, his Cousin

On the excellence of helping souls to advance in divine charity.

ANNECY, 2nd November 1622.

I BLESS with all my heart the sacred name of Our Lord, for the consolation which his divine Providence gives to your soul in the place where you are, and for the constancy which it establishes in your affection. Doubtless, my dearest cousin, my daughter, he who wills to please only this heavenly lover, is everywhere IV. Q

well, for he has what he wants. Oh how happy you are, and will be ever more and more, if you persevere in walking in this path! And how perfectly agree able will you make yourself to the Beloved of those souls whom he draws into your bosom to make them his spouses, if you teach them to look only into the eyes of their Saviour, to lose little by little the thoughts which nature of itself would suggest to them, making them think altogether of him.

0 my dear cousin! what blessings for your soul that God has destined you to cultivate and manage his sacred seed-plot. You are the mother, the nurse, and the waiting-woman of these daughters and spouses of the King. What a dignity! For that dignity what a reward, if you carry this out with the love and the breasts of a mother! Keep your courage strong and firm in this undertaking, and believe very unchange ably that I cherish and love you without condition or reserve as my dearest cousin and well-beloved daughter.

1 saw, only a month ago, our Sister N., but I saw very little of her; and yet I saw within her soul, and found that she was all full of good affections. Oh how well situated are the daughters of St. Marie of the Visitation, amid so many means and occasions of greatly loving and serving Our Lord! It is grievous to see the good sisters in these monasteries, exposed to so many distractions of arrivals and visits.' My dearest cousin, my daughter, praised be God. Amen. And I am, yours, &c.

LET. XL.] Later Letters to Visitation. 243