Letter III. To the Same. (Madame de Chantal.)

Patience in interior troubles. — Looking at God. — Not to be precipitate in the choice of a state. — Advice on Confession.

iSth February, 1605. I praise God for the constancy with which you support your tribulations. I still see in it, however, some little disquiet and eagerness, which hinders the final effect of your patience. In your patience, said the Son of God, you shall possess your souls."* To fully possess our souls is then the effect of patience; and in proportion as patience is perfect, the possession of the soul becomes more entire and excellent. Now, patience is more perfect as it is less mixed with disquiet and eagerness. May God then deign to deliver you from these two troubles, and soon afterwards you will be free altogether.

Good courage, I beseech you, my dear sister; you have only suffered the fatigue of the road three years, and you crave repose; but remember two things: the * Luke xxi. 19.

s one, that the children of Israel were forty years in the desert before arriving in the country of rest which was promised them, and yet six weeks might easily have sufficed for all this journey; and it was not lawful for them to inquire why God made them take so many turns, and led them by ways so rough, and all those who murmured died before their arrival. The other thing is, that Moses, the greatest friend of God in all that multitude, died on the borders of the land of repose, seeing it with his eyes, and not able to have the enjoyment of it.

O might it please God that we should little regard the course of the way we tread, and have our eyes fixed on him who conducts us, and on the blessed country to which it leads! What should it matter to us whether it is by the deserts or by the meadows we go, if God is with us and we go into Paradise? Trust me, I pray you, cheat your trouble all you can; and if you feel it, at least regard it not, for the sight will give you more fear of it, than the feeling will give you pain. Thus are covered the eyes of those who are going to suffer some painful application of the iron. I think you dwell a little too much on the consideration of your trouble.

And as for what you say, that it is a great burden to will and to be unable, I will not say to you that we must will what we can do, but I do say it is a great power before God to be able to will. Go further, I beg you, and think of that great dereliction, which our Master suffered in the Garden of Olives;

and see how this dear Son, having asked consolation from his good Father, and knowing that he willed not to give it him, thinks of it no more, strives after it no more, seeks it no more; bnt, as if he had never thought of it, executes valiantly and courageously the work of our redemption.

After you have prayed the Father to console you, if it does not please him to do it, think of it no more, and stiffen your courage to do the work of your salvation on the Cross, as if you were never to descend from it, and as if you would never more see the sky of your life clear and serene. What would you? You must see and speak to God amid the thunders and the whirlwinds; you must see him in the bush, and amid the thorns; and to do this, the truth is that we must take off our shoes, and make a great abnegation of our wills and affections. But the Divine goodness has not called you to the state in which you are, without strengthening you for all this. It is for him to perfect his work. True, it is a little long, because the matter requires it; but patience.

In short, for the honour of God, acquiesce entirely in his will, and by no means believe that you can serve him otherwise; for he is never well served save when he is served as he wills.

Well, he wants you to serve him without relish, without sentiment, with repugnances and convulsions of spirit. This service gives you no satisfaction, but it contents him: it is not to your pleasure, but it is his pleasure.

Suppose you were never to be delivered from your troubles, what would you do? You would say to God: I am yours; if my miseries are agreeable to you, increase their number and duration. I have confidence in God that you would say this, and think no more of them; at least you would no longer excite yourself. Do the same about them now, and grow familiar with your burden, as if you and it were always to live together: you will find that when you are no longer thinking of deliverance, God will think of it; and when you are no longer disquieted, God will be there.

Enough for this point, till God gives me the opportunity of declaring it to you at leisure; when upon it we will establish the assurance of our joy; this will be when God lets us see one another again in person.

This good soul, whom you and I cherish so much, gets you to ask me if she may wait for the presence of her spiritual father to accuse herself of some point which she did not remember in her general confession, and as far as I see she would strongly desire it. But tell her, I beg you, that this can in no way be: I should betray her soul if I allowed her this abuse. She must at the very first confession she makes, quite at the beginning, accuse herself of this forgotten sin (I say the same if there are many), purely and simply, though she need not repeat any other thing of her general confession; this was quite good, and therefore, in spite of things forgotten, this soul must not trouble herself at all.

Vat ious Letters. 261

And take from her the hurtful fear which may distress her iu this matter; for the truth is, that the first and principal point of Christian simplicity lies in this frankness in accusing ourselves of our sins, when necessary, purely and nakedly, without dread of our confessor's ear which is held ready only to hear sins, not virtues, and sins of all kinds. Let her then bravely and courageously fulfil this duty, with great humility and contempt of self, not fearing to show her misery to him by whose agency God wills to cure her.

But if her ordinary confessor causes her too much shame or fear, she may indeed go elsewhere; but I would wish in this all simplicity, and I think all she has to say is in fact a very little matter, and it is fear makes it seem great.

But tell her all this with a great charity, and assure her that if in this matter I could condescend to her inclination, I would do it very willingly, according to the service I have vowed for her to most holy Christian liberty.

But if, after this, in the first meeting she may have with her spiritual father, she expects to get some consolation and profit by manifesting to him the same fault, she may do it, though it is not necessary. Indeed, from what I have learnt by her last letter, she desires, and I hope even it will be useful to her, to make a general confession again, with a great preparation; this, however, she should not begin till a little before her departure, for fear of hampering herself.

Tell her also, T beg you, that I have seen the desire she begins to have of finding herself one day in the place where she can serve God with body and voice. Check her at this beginning; let her know that this desire is of so great consequence, that she ought not either to continue it or allow it to grow, except after she has fully communicated with her spiritual father, and they have listened together to what God will say about it. I fear lest she should commit herself further, and afterwards it might be hard to bring her back to the indifference with which the counsels of God are to be heard. I am willing for her to keep it alive, but not for it to grow; for, trust me, it will always be better to hear our Lord with indifference, and in a spirit of liberty, which cannot be if this desire grows strong; it will subject all the interior faculties, and will tyrannize over the reason in its choice.

I give you a great deal of trouble, making you the messenger of these answers; but since you have kindly taken the trouble to propose to me the questions on her part, your charity will still take it to let her know my opinion.

Courage, I beseech you; let nothing move you. It is still night, but the day approaches; yes, it will not delay. But, meantime, let us put in practice the saying of David: Lift up your hands to the holy places in the night, and bless the Lord* Let us bless

• Ps. cxxxiii. 2.

him with all our heart, and pray him to be our guide, our bark, and our port.

I do not mean to answer your last letter in detail, save in certain points which seem to me more pressing.

You cannot believe, my dearest child, that temptations against faith and the Church come from God: but whoever told you that God was the author of them? Much darkness, much powerlessness, much tying to the perch, much dereliction and depriving of vigour, much disorder of the spiritual stomach, much bitterness in the interior mouth, which makes bitter the sweetest wine in the world — but suggestions of blasphemy, infidelity, disbelief — Ah! no, they cannot come from our good God: his bosom is too pure to conceive such objects.

Do you know how God acts in this? He allows the evil maker (forger on) of such wares to come and offer them for sale, in order that by our contempt of them we may testify our affection for Divine things. And for this, my dear sister, my dearest child, are we to become disquieted, are we to change our attitude? O God, no, no (nenni)! It is the devil who goes all round our soul, raging and fuming, to see if he can find some gate open. He did so with Job, with St. Anthony, with St. Catherine of Sienna, and with an infinity of good souls that I know, and with mine, which is good for nothing, and which I know not. And what! for all this, my good daughter, must we get troubled? Let him rage; keep all the entrances closely shut: he will tire at last, or if he does not tire, God will make him raise the siege.

Remember what I told yon, I think, once before. It is a good sign when he makes so much noise and tempest round about the will; it is a sign that he is not within. And courage, my dear soul; I say this word with great feeling and in Jesus Christ; my dear soul, courage, I say. So long as we can say with resolution, though without feeling, Vive Jesus I we must not fear.

And do not tell me that you say it with cowardice, without force or courage, but as if by a violence which you do yourself. O God! there it is then, the holy violence which bears heaven away. Look, my child, it is a sign that all is taken, that the enemy has gained everything in our fortress, except the keep, which is impregnable, unseizable, and which cannot be ruined except by itself. It is, in fine, that free will, which, quite naked before God, resides in the supreme and most spiritual part of the soul, depends on no other than its God and itself; and when all the other faculties of the soul are lost and subject to the enemy, it alone remains mistress of itself so as not to consent.

Now do you see souls afflicted because the enemy, occupying all the other faculties, makes in them his clamour and extremest hubbub. Scarcely can one hear what is said and done in this spiritual will. It has indeed a voice more clear and telling than the inferior will; but this latter has a voice so harsh and so noisy that it drowns the clearness of the other.

In fine, note this; while the temptation displeases you there is nothing to fear: for why does it displease you, save because you do not will it? In a word, these importunate temptations come from the malice of the devil; but the pain and suffering which we feel come from the mercy of God, against the will of the enemy, draws from his malice holy tribulation, by which he refines the gold which he would put into his treasures. I sum up thus: your temptations are from the devil and from hell, but your pains and afflictions are from God and Paradise: the mothers are from Babylon, but the daughters from Jerusalem. Despise the temptations, embrace the tribulations.

I will tell you, one day, when I have plenty of leisure, what evil it is that causes these obstructions of spirit: it cannot be written in a few words.

Have no fear, I beg you, of giving me trouble; for I protest that it is an extreme consolation to be pressed to do you any service. Write to me then, and often, and without order, and in the most simple way you can; I shall always have an extreme contentment in it.

I am going in an hour to the little hamlet where I am to preach, God willing to employ me. Both in suffering and in preaching, be his name for ever blessed!

Nothing of the tempest I spoke of has yet happened, but the clouds are still full, dark, and charged, above my head.

You cannot have too much confidence in me, who am perfectly and irrevocably yours in Jesus Christ, whose dearest graces and benedictions I wish you a thousand and a thousand times a day Let us live in him and for him. Amen. Your, &c.