Letter 146. To a Young Lady, Living in the World

In answer to your last letter, my child, I say that fervent expressions of love in prayer are good, if they leave good results behind them, and do not tend to occupy you with yourself, rather than with God and His Holy Will. Strive to love and seek after that which can never be sufficiently loved and sought May God give you grace, my child, really to despise that evil world which is ready to crucify us, if we reject it. But mental renunciations of vanity and

^Letters, t worldly pleasures are easily made, — ^the reality when practised is a very different thing. You are now in a position thoroughly to practise this virtue, inasmuch as your privations are accompanied by contempt; and though it is you who do and suffer, it is still more God, in, for, and with you.

I am not satisfied, as I told you the other day, with these worldly repartees, and this vivacity, which so often leads you on. My child, let it be your special study to mortify this tendency; make the sign of the Cross often upon your mouth, that it may only be opened as God would have it

It is true that readiness of wit often fosters vanity, and we are even more apt to turn up our noses mentally than literally! You may faire les doux yeiix in words as well as in glances. It is never well to walk on tiptoe, either in mind or body; if you fall so doing, it will be heavily. Well now, my child, take pains to prune your superfluities gradually, and keep a lowly heart, laying it often in silence at the foot of the Cross. Go on telling me all about that little heart frankly and often; I love it very truly for His Sake, Who died that we might live.