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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12. Never speak evil of your neighbour

To Jane de Chantal, on not judging others

 

My dearest daughter

 

I beg you never to speak evil of your neighbour or say anything, however little, which could offend him.  Nevertheless, one must not approve of the evil, flatter it, or try to cover it up, but – when the welfare of the one of whom one speaks requires it – one must speak with candour and say frankly evil of evil, and blame blamable things; because in doing so, God is glorified.  Above all, blame the vice and spare as much as possible the person to whom the vice belongs, all the more so because the goodness of God is so great that a single moment is sufficient for entreating His grace.  And who can be sure that the one who yesterday was a sinner, and evil, will be so today?

 

When we look upon the actions of our neighbour, let us look on them in the light that is the gentlest; and when we can excuse neither the deed nor the intention of one whom we otherwise know to be good, let us not judge, but remove that [impulse] from our spirit and leave the judgement to God.  When we cannot excuse the sin, let us render it at least worthy of compassion, attributing it to the most tolerable cause, such as ignorance of infirmity….

 

Francis

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