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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5. Do what you see can be done with love

To a wife having difficulties living with her parents-in-law

 

My dearest child,

 

Once more, my very dear daughter, I have no leisure in which to write to you, although I answer your letter tardily.

 

Well, now, here you are in your establishment, and you cannot alter it; you must be what you are, mother of a family, since you have a husband and children.  And you must be so with good heart, and with love of God, yea, for the love of God (as I say clearly enough to Philothea), without troubling or disquieting yourself any more than you can help.

 

But I see well, my dearest daughter, that it is a little uncomfortable for you to have charge of the housekeeping in a home where there is a father and mother.  For I have never seen that fathers – and still less mothers – leave the entire management of the house to the daughters, although sometimes they should.  For my part, I counsel you to do as gently and nicely as you can that which is recommended, never breaking piece with your father and mother.  It is better that the running of the household be not exactly as you would wish, if this will please those to whom you owe so much.

 

And then, unless I deceive myself, your character is not made for fighting.  Peace is better than a fortune.  You must do what you see can be done with love; in the case of persons so greatly to be respected, you must not do what can only be accomplished with strife.  I have no doubt there will be aversions and repugnances in your spirit.  But, my dearest daughter, these are so many occasions to exercise the true virtue of sweetness; for we must do well and in a holy and loving way what we owe to everyone, although it may be against the grain and without relish…

 

Embrace holy prayer.  Often throw your heart into the hands of God, rest your soul in His love, and put your cares under His protection, whether for the voyage of your dear husband or for your other affairs.

 

Do well what you can, and the rest leave to God, who will do it sooner or later, according to the disposition of His divine Providence…  To sum up, be ever all God’s, my dearest daughter; and I am in Him

 

Your most humble cousin and very affectionate servant,

Francis

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