Salesian Literature

LETTERS OF SFS

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Angelique Arnauld

Spiritual Directors

Method of Prayer

Desire to belong to God alone

Getting rid of distractions

 

Getting rid of distractions

February 4, 1620[1]

 

O my dear daughter, what can I say to you on the occasion of this death?[2]  Our dear Mother at the Visitation told me about it; at the same time she writes me that she had seen your mother and your sister Catherine brave, determined, and full of courage, and that, moreover, the bishop of Belley had received letters from you which testify to your own steadiness on this occasion.  I had no doubt, my dearest daughter, that God was taking care of your heart at this time and that if He were wounding it with one hand, he was applying His healing balm with the other.  He strikes and heals (cf. Job 5:18), He puts to death and brings life (1 Sam. 2:6), and so long as we can raise our eyes and see God’s Providence, grief cannot overwhelm us.

 

But that’s enough, my very dear daughter; God and your good angel having comforted you, I have nothing  more to add.  Your “most bitter bitterness is transformed into peace”(Is. 38:17).  What need is there to say more?  In the measure that God draws to Himself, piece by piece, the treasure our heart possesses here below, that is, what we love, He draws our heart as well (cf. Mt. 6:21); and since, as St. Francis said, I no longer have a father on earth, I can say more spontaneously “Our Father who art in heaven” (Mt. 6:9).  Courage, my dearest daughter, all is ours and we are God’s (cf. 1 Cor. 3:22-23).

 

I have offered Mass for this soul, and every day at the celebration of Mass remember him very specially before God.  […]

 

Now I shall answer your last two letters, dated November 19 and December 14.  It’s true that I am extraordinarily busy, but your letters are not business – they are refreshment and solace to my soul.  Let this be said once for all.

 

It’s a great thing that exteriorly you are more observant of the Rule.  God formed, first of all, the exterior of man, then “breathed into him the breath of life” and this exterior “became a living being” (Gen. 2:7).  Humiliations, says Our Lord, very often precede and open the way to humility; continue in this exterior observance which is easier, and little by little the interior will adapt itself.

 

Yes, my daughter, I can see you are entangled in these thoughts of vanity; the creativity and subtlety of your mind combine to lend a hand to these suggestions; but why do you let them bother you?  When the birds came down upon the sacrifice of Abraham, what did he do? He drove them away with a branch which he kept waving over the holocaust (Gen. 15:9-11).  My daughter, simply saying a few words like Our Lord’s on the Cross will drive away these thoughts, or at least will remove whatever is bothersome about them.  O Lord, pardon this daughter of the old Adam, for she knows not what she does (cf. Lk. 23:34).  Woman, behold your Father on the Cross.  You must sing very softly: “He has deposed the mighty from their thrones, and has raised the lowly to high places” (Lk. 1:52).  I repeat that this way of dismissing troublesome thoughts must be done very quietly, simply, with the words spoken through love and not for the sake of winning a battle.

 

Accustom yourself to speak rather gently, to walk slowly, to do everything quietly and in moderation; you will see that in three or four years you will have regulated this hasty impetuosity.  And remember to act and speak in this gentle manner on those occasions where you are not pushed by your impetuosity and where there is no apparent reason to fear it, as, for example, when you are going to bed, getting up, sitting down, eating […]; in short, don’t excuse yourself [from this practice] at any time or anywhere.  Now I know perfectly well that you will slip a thousand times a day over all this, and that your very active temperament will always behave impulsively; but that should be no problem, provided that such impulsive movements are not deliberate or willed, and that every time you become aware of them you make an effort to calm them.

 

Be very careful about whatever may offend your neighbour and do not reveal anything secret that could be to his disadvantage; if you happen to do so, repair the injury as far as you can immediately.  Although these slight movements of envy are not serious, they are useful since they make you see clearly your self-love, and they prompt you to do the opposite.

 

But, my daughter, isn’t it a grace that this trait of self-love exists in her whom I have so often recommended to you and who in truth is as dear to me as my own soul?[3]  For what is more delicate than this little aversion she has to being called “daughter” by that dear Mother?  Ask her, I beg you, if she isn’t also averse to my calling her “my daughter” and if she would rather I called her “mother”?  What effort it must have cost her to tell me about this bit of nonsense!  I really don’t know what it cost her, but I wouldn’t for anything in the world have it unsaid because it has given her the occasion to practise so much resignation and such confidence toward me.

 

She is even more pleasing to me when she forbids me to speak of this to the dear Mother.  O my daughter, tell her that these little communications of her soul to mine enter into a place they will never leave without the express permission of her who puts them there.  Besides, my dearest daughter, I don’t know what this daughter has done to me, but I find her weaknesses, which she naively describes to me, so obvious that nothing could be clearer.  So tell her to write to me always very simply; even though she never showed me the letter she wrote to her sisters when I was with her, she would have no difficulty in doing so if I were there now because she knows me much better than she did and knows that I am not give n to making fun of others.

 

As to prayer, my very dear daughter, I think it’s good that you read a little in your Theotimus[4] in order to focus your mind, and that from time to time when you find yourself distracted you speak quietly to Our Lord.  But come now, don’t be surprised at distractions such as “if I were a saint,” “if I were speaking to the Pope,” and the like, for the very silliness of such thoughts make them more completely distractions and there is no other remedy for them than gently to bring back the heart to its object.

 

I think I have answered everything, my dear daughter.  […]

 

May God ever be our all.  Amen.  I am totally yours in Him, in a way that only His Providence can make you understand.  “May the grace, peace, and consolation of the Holy Spirit be with you” (cf. I Cor. 1:3; and Acts 9:31).  Amen.

 

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[1] Oeuvres, XIX, 122-127: Letter MDCIV.

[2] Antoine Arnauld, the father of Angélique, died December 29, 1619.  Mother de Chantal, then in Paris founding the first Visitation community of that city, had written to Francis about the death and also about the family and their mutual friend, Jean-Pierrre Camus, Bishop of Belley, later the author of The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales.

[3] On occasion Francis would soften an admonition by referring to his correspondent as to a third person.  In this case he chides Angélique who was miffed that Jane de Chantal was calling her “daughter.”

[4] Having been chided for addressing the Introduction to a (fictional) woman, Philothea, Francis directed the Treatise to an equally fictional man, Theotimus, with apologies to the good sense of the readers.  (See Oeuvres, IV, 12-13: Preface to the Treatise).  Both names mean “one who loves God,” and both soon became alternate titles for the books.

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