Salesian Literature

Letters on:

Loving and Serving God in Your Daily Life

1. Marriage is an exercise in mortification   ::   2. As far as possible, make your devotion attractive  ::   3. Have patience with everyone, including yourself

4. Keep yourself gentle amid household troubles  ::   5. Do what you see can be done with love  ::   6. Parents can demand more than God Himself

7. Avoid making your devotion troublesome  ::   8. Have contempt for contempt  ::   9. Lord, what would You have me to do?  ::   10. Take Jesus as your patron

11. Remain innocent among the hissing of serpents  ::   12. Never speak evil of your neighbour  ::   13. Extravagant recreations may be blameworthy

14. We must not ask of ourselves what we don't have  ::   15. If you get tired of kneeling, sit down  ::   16. You will not lack mortification

17. We must always walk faithfully  ::   18. Illness can make you agreeable to God  ::   19. You are being crowned with His crown of thorns

20. Often the world calls evil what is good  ::   21. Rest in the arms of Providence  ::   22. In confidence, lift up your heart to our Redeemer

23. We must slowly withdraw from the world  ::   24. This dear child was more God's than yours  ::   25. Think of no other place than Paradise or Purgatory

26. How tenderly I loved her!  ::   27. Calm your mind, lift up your heart  ::   28. Miserable beggars receive the greatest mercy

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2. As far as possible, make your devotion attractive

To a married woman, on harmonizing family and devotion

 

Madame,

 

I cannot give you all at once what I promised, because I do not have sufficient time to put together all that I have to tell you on the subject you want me to explain.  I will therefore tell it to you in several letters.  Besides the convenience to me, you will have the advantage of having time to ruminate on my advice properly.

 

You have a great desire for Christian perfection.  It is the most generous desire you could have: feed it and make it grow everyday.  The means of gaining perfection are various according to the variety of vocations: religious, widows, and married persons must all seek after this perfection, but not all by the same means.

 

For you, Madame, who are married, the means of gaining perfection are to unite yourself closely to God and to your neighbour, and to what belongs to them.  The means to unite yourself to God are, chiefly, the use of the sacraments and prayer.  As to the use of the sacraments, you should let no month go without receiving Communion.  After some time, and under the advice of your spiritual fathers, you will be able to receive Communion more often.

 

As to confession, I advise you to frequent it even more, especially if you fall into some imperfection by which your conscience is troubled, as often happens at the beginning of the spiritual life.  Still, if you have not the opportunity for confession, contrition and repentance will do. 

 

As to prayer, you should apply yourself to it much, and especially to meditation, for which you are, I think, well suited.  Make, then, a short hour every day in the morning before going out, or else before the evening meal; and be very careful not to make it either after dinner or after supper, for that would hurt your health.

 

And to help yourself to do it well, you must previously know the point on which you are to meditate, so that in beginning your prayer you may have your matter ready.   For this purpose you may use books by the authors who have treated the points of meditation on the life and death of Our Lord, such as Granada[1], Bellintani, Capiglia[2], and Bruno.  Choose the meditation you wish to make and read it attentively, so as to remember it at the time of prayer, and not to have anything more to do except to recall the points, always following the method that I gave you on Holy Thursday.

 

Besides this, often make spontaneous prayers to Our Lord, at every moment you can, and in all companies, always seeing God in your heart and your heart in God.

 

Take pleasure in reading Granada’s books on prayer and meditation[3], for none teach you better, nor with more stirring power.  I should like you to let no day pass without giving half an hour to the reading of some spiritual book, for this would serve as a sermon.

 

These are the chief means to unite yourself closely to God.  those to unite yourself properly with your neighbour are in great number; but I will only mention some of them.

 

We must regard our neighbour in God, who wills that we should love and cherish him.  It is the counsel of St. Paul, who orders servants to serve God in their masters and to serve their masters in God (Eph. 6:5-7).  We must exercise ourselves in this love of our neighbour, expressing it externally.  And although it may seem at first against our will, we must not give up on that account; our repugnance will at last be conquered by habit and good inclination, which will be produced by repetition of acts.  We must refer our prayers and meditations to this end: for after having prayed to love God, we must always pray to love our neighbour, and especially those to whom our will is not attracted.

 

I advise you to take care sometimes to visit hospitals, comfort the sick, pity their infirmities, soften your heart toward them, and pray for them, at the same time giving them some help.

 

But in all this take particular care that your husband, your servants, and your parents do not suffer by your too long stayings in the Church, by your too great retirement, or by your failing to care for your household.  And do not become, as often happens, manager of other’s affairs, or too contemptuous of conversations in which the rules of devotion are not quite exactly observed.  In all this charity must rule and enlighten us, to make us condescend to the wishes of our neighbour in what is not against the commandments of God.

 

You must not only be devout, and love devotion, but you must make it lovable to everyone.  Well, you will render it lovable if you render it useful and agreeable.  The sick will love your devotion if they are charitably consoled by it; your family will love it if they find you more careful of their welfare, more gentle in little accidents that happen, more kind in correcting, and so on; your husband, if he sees that as your devotion increases you are more devoted in his regard, and sweet in your love to him; your parents and friends if they perceive in you more generosity, tolerance, and condescension toward their wills, when not against the will of God.  In short, you must, as far as possible, make your devotion attractive…

 

I beg you to give me some part in your prayers and Communions, as I assure you I will give you, all my life, a share in mine, and will be without end, Madame,

 

Your most affectionate servant in Jesus Christ,

Francis

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[1] The Memorial of the Christian Life (1565, 1574.

[2] Andre Capilglia (died 1610), Spanish Carthusian, author of a book of Meditations on the Gospels.

[3] Louis de Granada, On Prayer and Discernment, 1554

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