Salesian Literature

15.   The Secret of Inward Peace

 

Dear Francis de Sales,

 

You have often advised me to preserve my peace of soul.  Can you tell me the best way of doing this?  I’m very easily upset, especially when things go wrong and my plans miscarry.  I’m always praying for the virtue of patience.

 

Yours sincerely,

Mrs. A. Christine

 

 

Dear Mrs. Christine,

 

Nothing in this world, to be sure, can give us a greater sense of peace than the frequent thought of all our Lord’s sufferings from his cradle to his grave.

 

We shall realise how wrong we are to describe all the little things that happen to us as sufferings, pains or setbacks in comparison with the scorn, calumnies, poverty and destitution, humiliation, pain, agony, privations, insults and grief in every shape and form that he endured.

 

We shall see our mistake in longing for patience to put up with what are only trifles, when all that is needed to cope with them is just a grain of commonsense or an atom of self-control.

 

I can read your soul like a book.  I seem to be always catching sight of little emotions of sadness, surprise and uneasiness that come troubling you.  These emotions upset you because you have not yet driven deep enough down into your will the foundations of love of the cross and love of lowliness.

 

A heart that is full of love and worship of Jesus Christ crucified will also love the death and the pain, the scourging and the spitting, the mockery and the shame, the hunger and the thirst, the impoverishment which he endured.  If it happens to be granted a passing share in these, it is beside itself with joy and receives them with open arms.

 

Not only in your prayers, but at all times as you go about your business, try to fix your thoughts upon our Lord amid the pains which our redemption cost hi, and realise how fortunate you are to have a share in them.

 

Try to visualise in advance what this may entail; opposition to all your plans, for example, especially those which seem to you quite good and lawful.  Your love for our Lord’s cross and passion should then lead you to exclaim lie St. Andrew: “O good cross, so greatly loved by my Saviour, when will you receive me into your arms?”

 

We are far too sensitive, you see, in complaining that our lot is a sorry one; when we are neither hungry, cold nor downtrodden, but only experience some little setback in our plans.

 

You need curing of your oversensitiveness before anything else, if you are to find peace and quiet.  You need to make the idea of eternity a vivid reality for yourself.  Those who often fix their gaze on what is eternal face the events of a life that is measured in moments with little or no concern.

 

God be with you.  Look upon me as ever yours, for so I am in all sincerity.  God bless you.

 

Francis de Sales

(Source:  Annecy, December 1609.  Annecy Edition, XIV, 232-234)

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