Letter (number unidentified)., Avila, September 17, 1581

. TO FATHER GRACIAN

Casilda leaves the Carmelites for the Mitigated Franciscans. Difficulties about her dowry.

Jesus be with your Reverence, my Father.

| HAD already written to you via Toledo, when the enclosed letter reached me to-day from Valladolid. Thé news startled me at first, but then I remembered that thejudgments of God are au gust, that after all, He loves our Order, and that by this means some good is to be done to it or evil averted

' This is translated from the Spanish first published by P. Grégoire, by his kind permission. Lesters 390, znd.ed. The autograph is at Avila,

SS ST Se

TO FATHER GRACIAN 217 which we do not understand. For love of our Lord, do not let the matter grieve you. I am extremely sorry for the poor girl, who is the worst off, for it is absurd to say she left because she was unhappy, considering how cheerful she always was. His Majesty must wish that we should not be honoured for the rank of our members but should take our place with the poor and insignificant such as the Apostles were, so we need not trouble about the affair. As the parents have withdrawn the other daughter from Saint Catharine of Siena’s convent to place her with Casilda, we shall lose nothing — in the eyes of the world I mean, for in the sight of God perhaps it is best and we look to Him only.

God be with her! And may He deliver me from people who can do whatever they wish and who have strange whims! The poor little thing cannot have realized what she was about, butI do not think it would be well to take her back into the Order. If any harm results, it will be through such things taking place in the early days of the Reform. If she had been discontented like the nun here, I should not have been astonished, but in that case I think it would have been impossible for her to dissimulate for so long. I believe the plot must have originated at the time the Subprioress from Palencia began to disagree with the Prioress. The nuns’ confessor, a member of the Society, was a very intimate friend of Dofia Maria de Acuna and I know that he advised the nuns not to vote for the Subprioress

? Casilda, who had been professed as a Carmelite in 1577, was withdrawn by the papal authorisation obtained by her parents to be made abbess of the Mitigated Franciscans at Valladolid. She is said to have repented of the change later on, but only for the Prioress, as Dofia Maria de Acuna was on bad terms with the former because she would not agree to renounce Casilda’s property which the mother wanted for a college Perhaps the relatives were influenced by all these motives, though if they had thought Casilda was contented, I do not believe they would have removed her. God deliver us from such intrigues!

In spite of this, I do not think we should change our behaviour to the members of the Society. It would not be well for many reasons, one of which is that most of the postulants at Valladolid are sent by them and would not enter if they thought they would not see the fathers of the Society again. But it would be a great thing if we could have the Discalced for our convents, $0 that by degrees we could dispense with the others. May God give light to your Paternity: as the messenger will start dire@tly, I will say no more.

Your crucifix is still here and I do not know how to send it without risk of breakage. Will you take one from the nuns of Toledo and we will give them yours. Iam sorry for what the poor Prioress and our Mary of St. Joseph are suffering. Will your Reverence kindly write to them. I do indeed feel your being so far away very keenly: I do not