Letter 50. To Father Domingo Bañez, Valladolid, Salamanca, January, 1574

T/zt' Saint's health. She regrets not hearing Father Domingo s sermons. Casilda de Padilla s vocation. The Princess of Eboli and the Pastrana nuns.

JESUS !

May the Holy Spirit be with your Reverence and in my soul !

IDO not know why you have not received the very long letter I wrote you while I was ill and forwarded via Medina, telling you of my joys and sorrows. Now I should like to write to you at length again, but I must send several other letters and I am shivering, for I have the quartan ague again to-day. I have escaped, or almost escaped it twice, but unless the former pain returns the fever matters little.

Thank God for the good news about your sermon which I would give anything to hear. Now that you are superior of that house, I long to be there. But did you ever cease to be my superior? Yet, knowing what your position is now, I think that I should feel additional pleasure in being near you. However, as I deserve nothing but the cross, I praise Him Who always sends it to me.

I am charmed with the letters from the Father Visitor to my Father. Not only is your friend a saint, but he knows how to show it, and when his words do not contradict his aótions, he behaves very prudently. Although the report about a certain person is true, he will not fail to admit her, for people of rank vary very much from one another. The nun brought by the Princess of Eboli was deplorable, while this angel may do great good to souls, and all the more because of the commotion caused by her entrance. I see no reason for refusing her. The only harm that could happen would be that she might have to leave the convent, but God would bring good out of it in other ways, and it might afFeft some soul which would otherwise have been lost. The judgments of God are wonderful, and since she seeks Him so earnestly amidst the dangers of the world to which people of her rank are exposed it is not for us to denv her or even to refrain from risking trouble and inconvenience for the sake of so great a gain. It seems to me that to put her off would be to aót merely from human motives and to please the world, and we should increase her distress, for it is certain that, even should she repent of her decision during the month's delay, she would not own it. However, if her relatives must be pacified and her cause justified, it rests with your Reverence to defer her entrance, although, as I say, it would be but for a few days. God be with her! She gives up so much that He cannot but reward her richly, considering what He bestows on us who have left nothing for His sake. It is a great comfort to know that you are on the spot to advise the Prioress. Blessed be He Who has thus overruled matters! I trust in His Majesty that all will go well.

Pedro de Vanda's affair seems unending. I shall probably be obliged to go to Alba first in order to lose no time. The matter is a difficult one as he and his wife disagree about it.

I deeply commiserate the nuns of Pastrana/

The princess has returned home yet the nuns are treated like prisoners, so that although the Prior of Atocha was in the town, he was afraid to visit them. She is just as angry with the friars. I do not know why such slavery should be endured.

I get on well with Father Medina and think that if I had several interviews with him he would soon be pacified. He is so busy that I see little of him. . . Doña Maria Cosneza told me that she did not like him as well as she likes you. . . Doña Beatriz is well. I was much concerned last Friday as to what she would do; now, thank God, I need not trouble myself about it. She told me of your kindness to her. A love for God endures much; had there been a question of anything else, all would now have been over.

It seems as dithcult for me to write a short letter as for your Reverence to write a long one. However, your brevity is a mercy to me, as I am not so disappointed at finding nothing from you when I look through my batch of letters. Mav God protect you ! It seems as though I should never stop writing . . . God grant that your answer may not be shorter!

Your Reverence's subjed: and daughter,

Teresa de Jesus.

retired to her palace. Out of resentment, she stopped the building of the church and deprived the community of the maintenance she had provided for them as well as of her husband's legacy. St. Teresa was forced to remove the nuns to Segovia in January, 157+. {Found, xvii, 14, 15, and notes; also Father Julian's account.)