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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22. In confidence, lift up your heart to our redeemer

To a woman, on how to conquer the fear of death

 

Madame,

 

On this first opportunity that I have of writing to you, I keep my promise, and present you some means for softening the fear of death that gives you such great terrors in your sicknesses and childbearings.  In this fear there is no sin, but still there is damage to your heart, which cannot, troubled by this passion, in love join itself so well to its God, as it would do if it were not so tormented.

 

I assure you, then, that if you persevere in the exercise of devotion, as I see you do, you will find yourself, little by little, much relieved of this torment; so that your soul, thus exempt from evil affections and uniting itself more and more with God, will find itself less attached to this mortal life and to the empty satisfactions that it gives.

 

Continue, then, the devout life, as you have begun, and go always from well to better in the road in which you are; and you will see that after some time these errors will grow weak and will not trouble you so much.

 

Exercise yourself often in the thoughts of the great sweetness and mercy with which God our Saviour receives souls in their death when they have trusted themselves to Him in their life and when they have tried to serve and love Him, each one in his vocation.  “How great art Thou, Lord, to them that are of a right heart” (cf. Ps. 72:1; RSV Ps. 73:1).

 

Frequently lift up your heart by a holy confidence, mingled with a profound humility toward our Redeemer, saying as you do: “I am miserable, Lord, and You will receive my misery into the bosom of Your mercy, and You will draw me, with Your paternal hand, to the enjoyment of Your eternal inheritance. I am frail, and vile, and abject; nevertheless, You will love me in that day, because I have hoped in You, and have desired to be Yours.”

 

Excite in yourself as much as possible the love of Paradise and of the celestial life, and make some consideration on this subject, which you will find sufficiently marked in the Introduction to the Devout Life, in the meditations on the glory of Heaven and the choice of Paradise[1].  For in proportion as you esteem eternal happiness, you will have less fear of leaving this mortal and perishable life.

 

Read no books or parts of books in which death, judgement, and Hell are spoken of, for, thanks to God, you have quite resolved to live in a Christian manner, and have no need to be driven to it by motives of terror and fear.

 

Often make acts of love towards our Lady, the saints, and the angels.  Make yourself familiar with them, and often address to them words of praise and love; for having close relations with the citizens of the divine, heavenly Jerusalem, it will trouble you less to quit those of the earthly or lower city of the world.

 

Often adore, praise, and bless the most holy death of Our Lord crucified, and place all your trust in His merit, by which your death will be made happy, and often say: “O divine death of my sweet Jesus, Thou shalt bless mine and it shall be blessed; I bless Thee and Thou shalt bless me.  O death more dear than life!  Thus St. Charles[2] in his last illness had placed in his sight the picture of Christ's tomb and of His prayer in the garden, so that he might console himself in his moment of death by the death and Passion of his Redeemer.

 

Reflect, sometimes, that you are a daughter of the Church, and rejoice in this.  For the children of this mother who are willing to live according to Her laws always die happily; and as the blessed St. Teresa says, it is a great consolation at death to have been a child of Holy Church.[3]

 

Finish all your prayers in hope, saying, “O Lord, Thou are my hope (Ps. 141:6; RSV Ps. 142:5); my soul trusteth in Thee” (Ps. 56:2; RSV Ps. 57:1).  Ask: “My God, who has hoped in Thee and been confounded?”(cf. Eccl. 2:11;  RSV Sirach 2:10)  “In Thee, o Lord, have hoped, let me never be confounded” (Ps. 30:1; RSV Ps. 31:1).  In your prayer during the day and in receiving the Blessed Sacrament, always use words of love and hope toward Our Lord, such as: “You are my Father, O Lord!  O God!  You are the Spouse of my soul, the King of my love and the well beloved of my soul!  O good Jesus, you are my dear Master, my aid, my refuge!”

 

Consider often that the persons whom you love most, and from whom separation would trouble you, are the persons with whom you will be eternally in Heaven: for instance, your husband, you little John, and your father.  Oh!  This little boy will be, God helping, one day happy in that eternal life in which he will enjoy my happiness and rejoice over it; and I shall enjoy his and rejoice over it, and we shall never more be separated!  So of your husband, your father, and others.  You will find it all the more easy because all your dearest serve God.  And since you are a little melancholy, see in the Introduction what I say there about sadness and the remedies against it.[4]

 

Here, my dear lady, you have what I can say on this subject for the present.  I say it to you with a heart very affectionate toward yours, which I beg to love me and recommend me often to the divine mercy, as in return I will not cease to beg the divine mercy to bless you.  Live happy and joyous in heavenly love, and I am,

 

Your most humble servant,

Francis

 

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[1] Introduction to the Devout Life, Part 1, Chapter 16 and Chapter 17.

[2] St. Charles Borromeo (1538-1604), one of the leaders of the Catholic Counter-Reformation of the sixteenth century.

[3] Francisco de Ribera (1537-1591), The Life of Mother Teresa, Book 3, chapter 15.

[4] Introduction to the Devout Life, Part 4, Chapter 12.

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