Letter LIII. To a Lady

The consideration of the sufferings of our Saviour ought to console us in our pains.

It is the truth, my dearest daughter, that nothing is more capable of giving us a profound tranquillity in this world than often to behold our Lord in all the afflictions which happened to him from his birth to his death. We shall see there such a sea of contempt, of calumnies, of poverty and indigence, of abjections, of pains, of torments, of nakedness, of injuries, and of all sorts of bitterness, that in comparison with it we shall know that we are wrong when we call our little accidents by the names of afflictions, pains and contradictions; and that we are wrong in desiring patience for such trifles, since a single little drop of modesty is enough for bearing these things well.

I know exactly the state of your soul, and I seem to see it always before me, with all these little emotions of sadness, of surprise and of disquiet that come troubling it. They do so because it his not yet driven deep enough down into the will the foundations of love of the cross and abjection. My dearest daughter, a heart which greatly esteems and loves Jesus Christ crucified, loves his death, his pains, his torments, his being spat on, his insults, his destitutions, his hungers, his thirsts, his ignominies; and when some little participation of these comes to it, it makes a very jubilee (il en jubile) over them for joy, and embraces them amorously.

You must then every day, not in prayer, but out of prayer, when you are moving about, make a study of our Lord amid the pains of our redemption, and consider what a blessedness it will be to you to share in them; you must see in what occasions you may gain this advantage, that is, the contradictions you may perhaps meet in all your desires, but especially in the desires which will seem to you the most just and lawful; and then, with a great love of the cross and passion of our Lord, you must cry out with St. Andrew: 0 good cross, so loved by my Saviour, when will you receive me into your arms f

Look you, my dearest child, we are too delicate when we call poverty a state in which we have not hunger, nor cold, nor ignominy, but simply some little contradiction to our desires. When we see one another again, remind me to speak to you a little about the tenderness and delicateness of your dear heart: you have need for your peace and repose, to be cured of this before all things; and you must form clearly in yourself the idea of eternity; whoever thinks well on this troubles himself little about what happens in these three or four moments of mortal life.

Since you are able to fast half Advent, you can continue to the end; I am quite willing for you to communicate two days together when you have the convenience. You may certainly go, only go with devotion, to Mass after dinner;* it is the old fashion of Christians. Our Lord does not regard these little things: reverence is in the heart, you must not let your spirit feed on these little considerations. Adieu, my dearest daughter, hold me ever as all yours; for in true truth I am so. God bless you. Amen.