Letter XXXVI. To a Lady

u We must not be surprised at spiritual coldness, provided we are firm in our resolutions.." — A Servant of God.

Your coldness, my dearest daughter, must not surprise you at all, provided that you do not, on account of it, interrupt the course of your spiritual exercises.

Ah! my dearest child, tell me, was not the sweet Jesus born in the heart of the cold? And why should he not also stay in the cold of the heart I speak of, that cold, of which, I think, you speak; which consists not in any relaxing of our good resolutions, but simply in a certain lassitude and heaviness of spirit which makes us move with difficulty; but still we move in the course in which we have placed ourselves, and from which we will never deviate till we arrive at the port. Is it not so, my child?

I will go, if I can, for your feast, and will give you holy confirmation. Oh! may I share in the spirit of that saint who has called you by his name from your baptism, and who will confirm it in your favour on the very day on which all the church invokes him.

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I will tell you on that day one or two of those divine words which impressed our Saviour so deeply in the heart of his disciples. Meanwhile, live all for God; and for his love bear with yourself and all your miseries.

In fine, to be a good servant of God is not to be always consoled, always in sweetness, always without aversion or repugnance to good, for in that case neither St. Paula, nor St. Angela, nor St. Catharine of Sienna would have served God well. To be a servant of God is to be charitable to our neighbour; to have in the superior part of the soul an inviolable resolution to follow the will of God; to have a very humble humility and simplicity in trusting ourselves to Almighty God, and in getting up as often as we fall; to bear with ourselves in our abjections; and quietly to bear with others in their imperfections. For the rest, you know well how my heart cherishes you; it is, my dearest child, more than you could tell. May God be ever our ail. I am, in him, all your, &c.