Letter 96. To a Superior of the Visitation

ON SUPPOSED VISIONS AND REVELATIONS.

I HAVE not been able to answer your questions sooner, my dear daughter. So far as I have seen, I have no reason to think other than well of this girl, and she deserves to be loved and cared for; but as to her visions, revelations, and predictions, I hold them in the greatest suspicion, as useless, senseless, and unworthy of any attention. Their very frequency would be suspicious, and moreover they touch upon personal subjects, concerning which God very rarely vouchsafes us any manifestion, such as assurance of eternal salvation, confirmation in grace, the measure

Google of individual holiness, and a hundred similar things which are of no possible use. It reminds me of S. Gregory, when a lady-in-waiting of the Empress asked him some such questions concerning the future, and he replied, “My daughter, you ask to be told that which is equally difficult and useless.” Nor is it any answer to say that hereafter we shall know why such revelations were made, — this is a mere evasion.

Further; when God intends to make use of special revelations for His creatures' benefit. He generally prepares the way for them, either by undoubted miracles or by a very extraordinary saintliness in those who receive them. Accordingly, when the evil one wants to deceive any one with false revelations, he often begins by prompting idle presages and a sham holiness.

The evil one is very crafty in all this, and depend upon it, all these marvels must be treated with suspicion; nevertheless, as I said, you must deal very kindly with this poor girl, who, I take it, is no further blamable in the matter, than inasmuch as she takes a vain delight in her foolish imaginations. Only, my dear Sister, you must treat all her revelations and visions with utter contempt, just as if she were narrating the dreams and fancies of feverish delirium. Do not either refute or argue about them, but when she begins to talk about such things, change the subject, and talk to her of solid virtue and the real perfection of the religious life, especially of the simplicity of true faith, in which the Saints lived, without any visions or special revelations, content to believe fervently in the revelation of Holy Scripture, and in the Church’s apostolic doctrine.

Remind her sometimes of our Lord’s announcement that “ many will say unto the Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy Name, and in Thy Name have cast out devils, and in Thy Name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you, depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”* But generally I should call her thoughts to His blessed words, “Learn of Me, for 1 am meek and lowly in heart” * In short, testify an absolute indiflference to all her revelations.

... • As to the vocation of Mademoiselle N. I think it is a true vocation, although mixed up with sundry infirmities and intellectual hindrances, and it would be better if she had turned to God solely for His Sake, and in order to be wholly His. But God does not draw all His servants to Himself after precisely the same fashion; indeed, there are but few who come to Him with a sole and undivided intention of serving Him. Of all those women whose conversion is related in the Gospel, only Magdalene * Matt viL 22, 23. * Matt xL 2^

Google came out of pure love; — ^the woman taken in adultery was brought to Christ through her public shame; the Samaritan through personal conviction of sin; the Canaanitish woman came to Him seeking temporal relief. So the first hermit, Paul, withdrew from the world when only fifteen to avoid persecution; S. Ignatius Loyola sought the Lord by reason of his tribulations, and so on of a hundred others.

We must not expect every one to make a perfect beginning; it matters little how we begin, if we are firmly resolved to go on earnestly, and persevere to the end.

We ought not to wish for extraordinary things; as for instance, that God should do for us as for S. Catharine of Sienna, whose heart was replaced by His Heart Rather we should wish that our poor hearts may henceforth be wholly obedient to that of our Dear Lord, a way of imitating S. Catharine which will make us gentle, humble, and charitable. And inasmuch as there is nothing nearer to the Saviour's Heart than gentleness, humility, and charity, we must diligently cultivate these graces, — ^love to our neighbour, humility towards God. True sanctity consists in a capacity for the enjoyment of God, not in foolish imaginations and raptures, which only foster self-conceit, and drive out obedience and humility. It is a mere abuse to aim at extasy. Let us practise true hearty meekness and submission, self-renunciation, love of abjection, kindness to others, and we shall have attained the best and safest kind of extasy granted to God's servants.

When you see a person go into raptures and extasies in prayer, who at the same time knows no extasy in his life — mean whose life is not lifted up and raised to God by renunciation of worldly desires, and the natural inclination and will; who is devoid of interior gentleness, simplicity, and humility, above all of continual charity — ^you may be sure that all his raptures are very questionable and dangerous; they are raptures which may excite the wonder of others, but which will never sanctify those who experience them. What gain is there to a soul in being rapt and ravished in prayer, if his ordinary life and conversation are wrapped up in low earthly things? Surely to live above oneself in prayer, and yet to be very low in life and action; to be angelic in meditation, and earthly in conversation, is to swear both by God and Baal; nor can there be any reasonable doubt that all such raptures and extasies are mere deceits and delusions of Satan.

Blessed indeed are they who live a supernatural extatic life, raised altogether above themselves, although they have never been carried away with any raptures in prayer. There is many a saint in Paradise who never tasted any rapture or extasy in contemplation: many who never knew any greater privilege in prayer than that of devotion and fervour! But there was never yet a saint whose life was devoid of those active raptures which consist in victory over self and natural disposition.

C68a.] C