Letter XVI. To a Superior of the Visitation

TJic Saint tells her how to distinguish true revelations from false.

Annccy.

As I could not sooner, my dearest child, I will now answer the two chief points about which you wrote to me.

In all that I have seen of this daughter, I find nothing to prevent my thinking her a very good girl, and therefore she must be loved and cherished with very good heart; but as to her revelations and predictions, they are entirely suspicious to me, as useless, vain, and unworthy of consideration. On the one side, they are so frequent that the frequency and multitude of them alone makes them merit suspicion; on the other hand, they manifest certain things which God declares very rarely, such as the assurance of eternal salvation, confirmation in grace, the degree of sanctity of several persons, and a hundred other similar things which are useful for nothing. St. Gregory, having been asked by a lady of honour to the empress, called Gregoria, about her future state, answered her: " Your benignity, my child, asks me for a thing equally hard and useless.-" And to say that in the future it will be known why these revelations are made, is a pretext which is used to avoid the reproach of the uselessness of such things.

Further: when God wishes to use the revelations he gives to creatures, he generally sends before them either true miracles, or a very special sanctity in those who receive them. So the evil spirit, when he wants notably to deceive any one, before making him give out false revelations, makes him utter false predictions, and makes him observe a method of life falsely holy.

There was in the time of the blessed Sister Mary of the Incarnation a young person of low position, who was possessed by the most extraordinary delusion that can be imagined. The enemy, under the form of our Lord, said for a long time his office with her, with a chant so melodious that it kept her in a state of perpetual ravishment. He gave her communion very often under the appearance of a silvery and resplendent cloud, within which he made a false host come into her mouth; he made her live without eating anything. When she took alms to the gate, he multiplied the bread in her apron, so that if she only carried bread for three poor, and there were thirty, she had enough to give to all very abundantly, and most delicious bread, some of which even her confessor, who was of a very reformed order, sent about among his spiritual friends from devotion.

This girl had so many revelations that at last it made her suspected by people of sense.. She had one extremely dangerous, by which it was thought good to try the sanctity of this poor creature, and for this she was placed with the blessed Sister Mary of the Incarnation, then still in the married state. She was chambermaid, and being treated a little severely by Mons. Acarie, now deceased, it was found that this girl was no saint at all, and that her gentleness and exterior humility were nothing but an external gilding which the enemy used to get the pills of his illusion swallowed, and at last it was found that there was nothing in the world in her but a heap of false visions. As for her, it became well known that not only did she not maliciously deceive the world, but that she was first deceived, there being on her side no other sort of fault except the complacency she took in imagining she was a saint, and contributing a few pretences and deceitfulnesses to keep up the reputation of her vain sanctity. And all this was told me by the blessed Sister Mary of the Incarnation.

Consider, I pray you, my dearest child, the shrewdness and cunning of the enemy, and how deserving of suspicion these extraordinary things are. Still, as I have said, you must not treat this poor girl amiss, who, I think, has no other fault in this affair than that of the vain amusement she takes in her vain imaginations.

Only, my dearest sister, you must show a total neglect and a perfect contempt of all her revelations and visions, just as if she were relating the dreams or reveries of a high fever; not occupying yourself iu refuting or combating them; but, on the contrary, when she wishes to speak of them, you must change the subject. You must talk to her of the solid virtues and perfections of the religious state, and particularly of the simplicity of faith, in which the saints have walked, without any visions or private revelations, content to believe firmly in the revelation of the Holy Scripture, and of the Apostolic and Church doctrine; very often impress on her the sentence of our Lord, that there will be many workers of miracles and many prophets to whom he will say at the end of the world: Depart from me, workers of iniquity; I know you not* But commonly you must say to this girl: Let us talk of our lesson which our Lord has ordered us to learn, saying: Learn of me, for I am meek and humble of heart.f And, in fine, you must show an absolute contempt for all these revelations.

And as to the good father who seems to approve them, you must not rebuff him or dispute with him, but simply say that to test all this affair of revelations it seems good to despise them and take no account of them. This then is my opinion for the present on this point.

I had forgotten to say that the visions and revelations of this girl must not be found strange, because the facility and tenderness of the imagination of young women makes them much more susceptible of these illusions than men; on which account their sex is more * Mat. vii. 22, 23. f Mat. xi. 29, given to faith in dreams, the fear about sins, and credulity in superstitions. They often fancy they see what they see not, hear what they hear not, and feel what they feel not.

You must then treat this spirit by contempt of these fancies, but a gentle and serious contempt, and not a mocking or disdainful one. It may well be that the evil spirit has some part in these deceits, but I think rather that he lets the imagination act, without co-operating with it by simple suggestions. The similitude brought forward to explain the mystery of the Holy Trinity is very pretty, but is not beyond the capacity of a soul which takes complacency in its own imaginations.