Letter 79. To a Superior of the Visitation

Oh, my dear child, God has been very good to you in recalling your heart to a loving patience towards your neighbour, and in having so mercifully mingled the balm of gentleness with the wine of your zeal 1

• Alluding to Jacob, when the angel touched him, and he “ went halting.”

You see I am answering, though somewhat tardily, the letter you wrote, after I had passed through N.

I write briefly but lovingly to my dear child, whom I have loved, so God willed it, from her cradle.

This was all you needed, my dear child; your zeal was admirable, but it had the fault of being rather sharp, rather bitter, rather excessive. But now all that is purged away, and henceforth it will be a gentle, benignant, gracious, patient, enduring zeal. Contemplate the Holy Babe of Bethlehem, in all His incomparable zeal, how humble, how meek, how loving He is!

Be brave, and be joyful, my dear child, and that in the very depth of your soul, for the angels who announce our Saviour^s Birth tell us in their song that there is joy, peace, blessedness, to “ all men of good will,” in order that all may know that we need nothing to receive Him save good-will, and that even although our good-will has as yet borne no fruit. He came to shower blessmgs on that good-will, and by degrees He will render it fruitful, so long as we give it up freely to His guidance, as I hope you and I mean to do, my child. So be it Always wholly yours.

1:494.] LXXXII.