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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21. Rest in the arms of providence

To a woman facing the death of her child

 

My very dear mother,

 

We must await the result of this sickness as quietly as we can, with a perfect resolution to conform ourselves to the divine will in this loss – if absence for such a little time can be called loss, which, God helping, will be made up by an eternal presence.

 

Oh! How happy is the heart that loves and cherishes the divine will in all events!

 

Oh! If only we have our hearts closely united to that holy and happy eternity! “Go” – we shall say to all our friends – “go, dear friends, go into that eternal existence at the time fixed by the king of eternity; we shall follow after you.”  And as this time on earth is only given us for that purpose, and as this world is only peopled to people Heaven, when we go there we do all that we have to do.  This is the reason why, my mother, our ancestors have so much admired the sacrifice of Abraham (Gen. 22:1-12).  What a father’s heart!  They admired, too, you holy countrywoman, the mother of St. Symphorian, with whose holy act I finished my book![1]  Oh God, my mother, let us lave our children to the mercy of God, who has left His Son to our mercy.  Let us offer to Him the life of our child, as He has given for us the life of His.  In general, we should keep our eyes fixed on heavenly Providence, in whose dispensations we ought to acquiesce with all the humility of our heart.

 

God bless you, and mark your heart with the eternal sign of His pure love!  Very humbly, we must become saints, and spread everywhere the God and sweet odour of our charity.  May God make us burn with His holy love and despise all for that!  May Our Lord be the repose of our heart and of our body!  Every day I learn not to do my own will and to do what I do not want.  Rest in peace in the two arms of divine Providence, and in the bosom of the protection of our Lady.

 

Francis

 

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[1] Introduction to the Devout Life, Part 5, Chapter 18.

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