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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19. You are being crowned with his crown of thorns

To a woman suffering great physical pain

 

My dear daughter,

 

Let us leave meditation for a short time (it is only to spring better that we step back) and let us practise well that holy resignation and that pure love of Our Lord that is never entirely practised save in troubles.  To love God in sugar – little children would do as much.  But to love Him in wormwood, that is the test of our amorous fidelity.  To say Vive Jesus on the mountain of Tabor, St. Peter, while still carnal, has courage enough; but to say Vive Jesus on Mount Calvary – this belongs only to the Mother, and to the beloved disciple who was left to her as her son.

 

So then, my daughter, behold I commend you to God, to obtain for you that sacred patience; and I cannot ask Him anything for you except that He would fashion your heart in total accordance with His will, in order to lodge and reign therein eternally.  Whether He do it with the hammer, or with the chisel, or with the brush, it is for Him to act according to His pleasure.  Is it not so, my dear daughter?  Is it not necessary that He do this?

 

I know that your pains have been increased lately, and in the same measure has my sorrow for them increased, although I praise and bless Our Lord with you for His good pleasure exercised in you, making you share His holy Cross and crowning you with His crown of thorns.

 

But, you will say, you can hardly keep your thoughts on the pains Our Lord has suffered for you, while your own pangs oppress you.  Well, my dearest child, you are not obliged to do so, provided that you quite simply offer up your heart as frequently as you are able to this Saviour, and make the following acts:

 

First, accept the pain form His hand, as if you saw Him Himself putting and pressing it on your head.

Second, offer yourself to suffer more.

Third, beg our Saviour by the merit of His torments to accept these little distresses in union with the pains He suffered on the Cross.

Next, protest that you wish not only to suffer, but to love and cherish these sufferings since they are sent from so good and so sweet a hand.

Lastly, invoke the martyrs and the many servants of God, who enjoy Heaven as a result of their having been afflicted in this world.

 

It is not dangerous to desire a cure.  Indeed you must carefully seek one; for God, who has given you the evil, is also author of its cure.  You must then apply it, yet with such resignation that, if His divine majesty wishes the evil to conquer, you will acquiesce, and if He wishes the remedy to succeed, you will bless Him for it.

 

There is no harm, while performing your spiritual exercises, in being seated.  None at all, my daughter; nor would there be for difficulties much less than those you suffer.

 

How happy you will be, my daughter, if you continue to keep yourself under the hand of God, humbly, sweetly, and pliantly!  Ah! I hope this headache will much profit your heart – your heart, which mine cherishes with quite a special love.  Now, my daughter, it is that you may, more than ever, and by very good signs, prove to our sweet Saviour that it is with all your affection that you have said and will say Vive Jesus! Vive Jesus!  my child, and may He reign amid your pains, since we ourselves can neither reign nor live save by the pain of His death.

 

I am in Him entirely

Yours,

Francis

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