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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14. We must not ask of ourselves what we don’t have

To a pregnant woman suffering lassitude and discouragement

 

My dearest daughter,

 

I am not at all surprised that your heart seems a little heavy and torpid, for you are pregnant, and it is an evident truth that our souls generally share in their inferior part the qualities and conditions of our bodies – and I say in the inferior part, my dearest daughter, because it is this that immediately touches the body, and which is liable to share in the troubles of it.

 

A delicate body that is weighed down by the burden of pregnancy, weakened by the labour of carrying a child, and troubled with many pains, does not allow the heart to be so lively, so active, so ready in its operations; but this in no way injures the acts of that higher part of the soul, which are as agreeable to God as they would be in the midst of all the gladness in the world.  Yea, to God these acts are even more agreeable in truth, for they are done with more labour and struggle; but they are not so agreeable to the person who does them, since – not being in the sensible part of the soul – they are not so much felt, nor are they so pleasant to us.

 

My dearest daughter, we must not be unjust and require from ourselves what is not in ourselves.  When troubled in body and health, we must not exact from our souls anything more than acts of submission and the acceptance of our suffering, and holy unions of our will to the good pleasure of God, which are formed in the highest region of the spirit.  And as for exterior actions, we must manage and do them as well as we can, and be satisfied with doing them, even if without heart, languidly, and heavily.  To raise these languors, heavinesses, and torpors of heart, and to make them serve toward divine love, you must profess, accept, and love holy abjection.  Thus shall you change into gold the lead of your heaviness, and into gold finer than would be the gold of your most lively gladnesses of heart.  Have patience then with yourself.  Let your superior part bear the disorder of the inferior; and often offer to the eternal glory of our Creator the little creature in whose formation He has willed to make you His fellow worker.

 

My dearest daughter, we have here at Annecy a Capuchin painter who, as you may think, only paints for God and His temple.  And although while working he has to pay so close an attention that he cannot pray at the same time, and although this occupies and even fatigues his spirit, still he does this work with good heart for the glory of Our Lord, and with the hope that these pictures will excite many faithful to praise God and to bless His goodness.

 

My dearest daughter, the child who is taking shape in your womb will be a living image of the divine majesty; but while your soul, your strength, and your natural vigour is occupied with this work of pregnancy, it must grow wear and tired, and you cannot at the same time perform your ordinary exercises so actively and so gaily.  But suffer lovingly this lassitude and heaviness, in consideration of the honour that God will receive form your work.  It is your image that will be placed in the eternal temple of the heavenly Jerusalem, and that will be eternally regarded with pleasure by God, by angels, and by men.  The saints will praise God for it, and you also will praise Him when you see it there.

 

And so in the meantime have patience, although feeling your heart a little torpid and sluggish, and with the superior part attach yourself to the holy will of Our Lord, who has so arranged for it according to His eternal wisdom.

 

I do not know of anything that my soul fails to think and to desire for the perfection of yours, which, as God has willed and wills it so, is truly in the midst of mine.  May it please His divine goodness that both your soul and mine may be according to His most holy and good pleasure, and that all your dear family may be filled with His sacred benedictions, and especially your very dear husband, of whom, as of you, I am invariably,

 

Your very humble and most obedient servant,

Francis

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