Letter 321. To Dona Maria Henriquez, Duchess of Alba, Toledo, May 8, 1580

The Saint's ill-health. Imprisonment of the Duke of Alba. Persecution of the Fesuits at Pampelona.

JESUS!

May the grace of the Holy Spirit ever be with your Excellency.

HAVE been longing to write to your Grace ever since I heard that you had returned home, but my health has been so bad that I have not been free trom fever since Maundy Thursday until a week ago, yet I count that as the least of my ailments in comparison with the rest. The do¢tors said that I had an abscess in the liver: however, God has been pleased that their repeated bleedings and purgatives should keep me in this ocean of sufferings. May His divine Majesty be pleased to send these trials to me alone, and not to those whose crosses I should feel more keenly than my own.

Your Excellency’s affairs seem to have come to a happy termination. I do not know what to say except that our Lord wishes all our joys to be tempered by sorrow, for I think that you must be grieved at being separated from him you love dearly, but God will help the Duke to gain great merit in His sight, and your joy will be unalloyed at last. May His Majesty direct matters as I beg of Him and as all the nuns of our convents fervently entreat. I have asked them to take the success of the expedition specially to heart, and I, wicked though I am, keep it before my mind, as we shall all do until we hear the longed for news.

I have been thinking about the pilgrimages and prayers you will make and that it will often seem that while the Duke was in prison his life was far more peaceful. Oh, God help me! What vanities: are all the things of this world! How far better it is to wish neither for rest nor any earthly thing, but to put all that concerns us into the hands of God who knows better what is good for us than we know how to ask!

I am very anxious to know about your Grace’s health and other matters and beg you to tell some one to answer this. Do not trouble about writing yourself, for it is so long since I received a letter from you that I have contented myself with the message you sent by the Father Master Gracian. I will say nothing now about where I shall go when I leave here and my other doings, for I think Fray Antonio de Jesus is going to Alba and will let you know all about it. In any case your Grace must do me the kindness I am about to ask, for it is important that people should recognize how you always favour me,

TO DONA MARIA HENRIQUEZ 34

The fac is that the Society of Jesus have recently founded a house at Pamplona, in Navarre. They entered it peacefully, but since then a severe persecution has arisen against them, and people want to drive them away from the place. The fathers appealed for protection to the Lord High Constable? who has spoken kindly to them and donethem great service. What I ask is that you should write to him, thanking him for what he has done and requesting him to continue to protect the fathers, and todefend them in all their future difficulties.

As, for my sins, I have experienced the grief felt by religious at being persecuted, I was sorry for these fathers. I believe that whoever befriends and helps them will gain great merit before God, and I should like your Grace to be the person who earns it. Indeed, the service thus rendered to His Majesty appears to me so great that I should have ventured to make the same petition to the Duke, had he been at home.

The citizens allege that what’is given to the Jesuits will be taken from themselves. But the Society’s house has been built for them by a gentleman who endows it with a very good income, so that the fathers will not live on alms. But, even if they should, it shows great want of faith to suppose that so powerful a God could not supply food for his servants.

May His Majesty have your Excellency in His keeping and give you such love for Him that you may bear your husband’s absence patiently, though you cannot but feel grieved at it. I beg of you to let the bearer of your answer also bring the letter to the Lord High Constable for which I ask. It ought not to seem merely an ordinary letter of recommendation, but your Excellency’s personal desire. How importunate I am! Yet considering what I suffer for you now, and have suffered in the past on your account, it is not much to ask that you should suffer my extreme audacity. To-day is April 8. Written at the convent of St. Joseph, Toledo. (I meant to say that to-day is May 8.) Your Grace’s unworthy servant and subje@, Teresa de Jesus.