Chapter XI

Continues to treat of mortification and explains how to gain it during illness. How little this life should be valued by one who truly loves God.¹

1. How a religious should behave during illness. 2. Sufferings endured by those living in the world. 3. How to master our bodies. 4. Strong resolution needed.

1. To be continually bewailing our slight ailments appears to me, sisters, to be a very great imperfection. Say nothing about them if you can help it. When the illness is severe it is self-evident — this is quite another sort of complaining, which at once makes itself known. Remember, you are few in number, and if any of you has this habit she will weary all the rest if love and charity reign among you. If the indisposition is real, speak about it and take the necessary remedies²: if you have lost self-love, you will so dislike indulgence that there will be no fear of your wanting more than necessary, nor of your complaining without good cause. When there is a genuine reason you do right in mentioning it: this is far better than taking anything extra without leave and it would be very wrong of your sisters not to pity you. I am confident that, wherever prayer and charity prevail in however small a degree, the nuns will notice each other's wants and the needful remedies and care will never be wanting.³ As for the little indispositions women may suffer from — do not think of complaining of them: very often they are only fancies suggested by the devil, which come and go, and if you do not get rid of the habit of speaking about them (except to God), there will never be an end to them.⁴

2. I insist on this because I think it very important for us, and one of the things which greatly tend to relax discipline in monasteries. The body possesses this defect — the more you give it, the more it requires. It is wonderful how fond it is of comfort, and what pretexts it will offer to obtain it, however little needed; it deceives the unfortunate soul, and prevents its making progress. Remember how many poor people are ill and have no one to complain to — poverty and ease do not go together. Think, too, what a number of married women there are, many of them, as I know, of good position in life, who, lest they should annoy their husbands, dare not speak of the serious maladies and poignant trials from which they suffer. Sinner as I am, no! we did not come here to be better treated than they are. How free you are from the great troubles of the world; learn, then, to suffer some little thing for the love of God without every one's knowing it. When a woman has made an unhappy marriage she does not say so, nor lament about it for fear her husband should know: she is very wretched but confides in no one: shall not we, then, keep secret between God and ourselves some of the ills He sends us for our sins? all the more because speaking of it does not lighten our load.

3. What I have said does not apply to serious illness attended with high fever, although, even then, I beg of you to be reasonable and patient;⁵ but I allude to slight ailments with which we can go about without troubling other people concerning them. But what will happen if this is read by any one outside the convent? What will all the nuns say of me? How willingly I would bear this if I could help any one to improve! If a nun constantly complains, at last her sisters will not believe any one else who says she is really ill, even though the doctor may confirm her words. However, as I am only speaking to my daughters they will forgive me for what I have written. Let us remember our holy Fathers, the ancient hermits, whose lives we profess to imitate: what sufferings they bore, what solitude, what cold and hunger, what scorching sunshine and heat, with no one to complain to but God. Do you think they were made of iron?⁶ They were made of flesh and blood like ourselves. Believe me, daughters, when once we begin to subdue our wretched bodies, they do not trouble us so much. It is enough for you to see to what is needful. Do not desire anything extra, unless it is absolutely necessary.

4. Unless we resolve, once for all, to resign ourselves to death and ill-health, we shall never do anything. Endeavour to lose all fear of them and to leave everything in God's hands, come what may. What does it matter if we die? How many times have not our bodies mocked us! Let us mock them for once. Trust me, this resolution is more important than can be realised, for by keeping faithfully to it and practising it little by little until it becomes a habit, with the grace of God we shall vanquish the flesh, and you will experience the truth of what I say. Victory over such an enemy goes far to carry us through the battle of life. May God grant it to us, since He has the power, and we need His grace in all things: may He bring it to pass for His own sake! I am certain that only those who rejoice in this conquest can estimate its value which is so great that I believe no one will regret any sufferings that have been endured in order to gain such peace and self-command.