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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7. Avoid making your devotion troublesome

To a married woman, whose relatives interfere with her devotions

 

Madame my sister,

 

I wrote to you six weeks ago to answer all you asked me, and have no doubt you got my letter, which will make me more brief in this one…

 

Regarding our little sister, I leave her to you, and put myself in no trouble about her.  Only I should not like your father to fear she might become too devout, as he has always had fear of you; for I am certain she will not sin by excess on that side.  My God!  The good father we have, and the good husband you have!  They are a little jealous for their empire and dominion, which seems to them somewhat violated when anything is done without their authority and command.  What can be done?  We must allow them this little bit of human nature.

 

They want to be masters, and is that not right?  Truly it is, regarding the duties that you owe them.  But these good men do not realize that in regard to the good of the soul you must trust spiritual doctors and directors, and that (except where your father and husband have authority over you) you must obtain your interior good by the means judged fitting by those appointed to conduct souls.

 

Buts till, regarding your father and husband, you must condescend greatly to their will, bear with their little fancies, and bend as much as you can without spoiling our good designs.  These condescensions will please Our Lord.  I have told you before: the less we live after our own taste, and the less of choice there is in our actions, the more of solidity and goodness there is in our devotion.  We must sometimes leave Our Lord in order to please others for the love of Him.

 

No, I cannot refrain, my dear child, from telling you my thought.  I know that you will take my advice in a good way, because I speak with sincerity.  Perhaps you have given occasion to your father and good husband to mix themselves up with your devotion, and to be restive about it; I cannot tell how.  Perhaps you are a little too eager and bustling, and you have wanted to bother and restrict them.  If so, that is without doubt the cause that makes them now withdraw.  We must, if possible, avoid making our devotion troublesome.

 

Now, I tell you what you must do.  When you can receive Communion without troubling your two superiors, do so, according to the advice of your confessor.  When you are afraid that it will trouble them, receive Communion in spirit; and believe me this spiritual mortification, this privation of God, will please God extremely, and will advance your heart greatly.  We must sometimes take a step back to get a better spring.

 

I have often admired the extreme resignation of St. John the Baptist, who remained so long in the desert, quite close to Our Lord, without hastening to see Him, to hear Him, and to follow Him.  And I have wondered how, after having seen and baptized Him, he could let Jesus go without attaching himself to Him in body, as he was so closely united to Him in heart.  But he knew that he served this same Lord by this privation of His real pleasure.

 

So I say that God will be served if, for a little, to gain the heart of the two superiors whom He has appointed, you suffer the loss of His real Communion; and it will be to me a great consolation, if I know that these counsels that I give you do not disquiet your heart.  Believe me, this resignation, this abnegation will be very useful to you.

 

You may, however, take advantage of secret opportunities of Communion.  For provided that you can defer and accommodate yourself to the will of these two persons, and do not make them impatient, I give you no other rule for your Communions than that which your confessors may give you; for they see the present state of your interior, and can understand what is required for your good…

 

You are, as far as I see, in the true way to resignation and indifference, since you cannot serve God at your will.  I know a lady, one of the greatest souls I have ever met, who has long remained in such subjection to the humours of her husband, that in the very height of her devotions and ardours, she was obliged to wear a low dress, and was all loaded with vanity outside, and except at Easter could never receive Communion unless secretly and unknown to every one; otherwise she would have excited a thousand storms in her house.  And by this road she rose very high, as I know, having been her father confessor very often.

 

Mortify yourself, then, joyously; and in proportion as you are hindered from doing the good you desire, do the good that you do not desire.  You do not desire these resignations; you would desire others.  But do those that you do not desire, for they are worth more…

 

Keep your heart very wide to receive in it all sorts of crosses and resignation and abnegations, for the love of Him who has received so many of them for us.  May His name be forever blessed and His kingdom be confirmed forever and ever!  I am in Him, and by Him,

 

Your, and more than your, brother and servant,

Francis

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