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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3. Have patience with everyone, including yourself

To a woman beset by many tasks

 

My dear daughter,

 

I remember you telling me how much the multiplicity of your affairs weighs on you; and I said to you that it is a good opportunity for acquiring the true and solid virtues.  The multiplicity of affairs is a continual martyrdom, for just as flies cause more pain and irritation to those who travel in summer than the travelling itself does, just so the diversity and the multitude of affairs causes more pain than the weight of these affairs itself.

 

You need patience, and I hope that God will give it to you (if you ask if of Him carefully) and that you will try to practise it faithfully, preparing yourself for it every morning by a special application of some point in your meditation, and resolving to restore yourself to patience throughout the day as many times as you sense yourself becoming distracted.

 

Do not lose any occasion, however small it may be, for exercising gentleness of heart toward everyone.  Do not think that you will be able to succeed in your affairs by your own efforts, but only by the assistance of God; and on setting out, consign yourself to His care, believing that He will do that which will be best for you, provided that, on your part, you employ a gentle diligence.  I say “gentle diligence,” because violent diligence spoils the heart and affairs, and is not diligence, but haste and trouble.

 

My God, Madame, we will soon be in eternity, and then we will see how all the affairs of this world are such little things and how little it matters whether they turn out or not.  At this time, nevertheless, we apply ourselves to them as if they were great things.  When we were little children, with what eagerness did we put together little bits of tile, wood, and mud, to make houses and small buildings!  And if someone destroyed them, we were very grieved and tearful at it; but now we know well that it all mattered very little.  One day it will be the same with us in Heaven, when we will see that our concerns in this world were truly only child’s play.

 

I do not want to take away the care that we must have regarding these little trifles, because God has entrusted them to us in this world for exercise; but I would indeed like to take away the passion and anxiety of this care.  Let us do our child’s play, because we are children; but also, let us not trouble ourselves to death in playing it.  And if someone destroys our little houses and little designs, let us not torment ourselves greatly at this; because also, when this night comes in which it will be necessary for us to take shelter – I mean to say, death – all these little houses will be of no use to us; we will have to take our shelter in the house of our Father.  Faithfully attend to your obligations, but know that you have no greater obligation than that of your salvation and of the saving progress of your soul on the way to true devotion.

 

Have patience with everyone, but chiefly with yourself; I mean to say, do not trouble yourself about your imperfections, and always have the courage to lift yourself out of them.  I am well content that you begin again everyday: there is no better way to perfect the spiritual life than always to begin again and never to think you have done enough.

 

Recommend me to the mercy of God, which I ask to make you abound in His holy love. Amen.  I am,

 

Your most humble servant,

Francis

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