Salesian Literature

Letters on:

Bearing Your Cross

Love God crucified, even amid darkness   ::   Do not desire mortifications  ::   Practise the mortifications that are given to you

O good Cross, so loved by my Saviour  ::   You only want to bear the crosses that you choose

​

1. Love God crucified, even amid darkness

To Jane de Chantal, on bearing abjection, and even loving it

 

My dearest daughter,

 

May God assist me to answer properly your letter of the ninth of July.  I greatly desire to do so, but I foresee clearly is shall not have leisure enough to arrange my thoughts; it will be much if I can express them.

 

You are right, my child; speak with me frankly, as if you were with me – that is, with a soul that God, of His sovereign authority, has made all yours.

 

You begin to put your hand to the work a little, you tell me.  Ah! My God, what a great consolation for me!  Do this always; always put your hadn’t to he work a little.  Spin every day some little, either in the day, by the light of the interior influences and brightness, or in the night, by the light of the lamp, in helplessness and sterility.

 

The wise man in the book of Proverbs praises the valiant woman because, he says, “her fingers have taken hold of the spindle” (Prov. 31:19).  I willingly say to your something on this word.  Your distaff is the heap of your desires; spin each day a little, draw out your plans into execution, and you will certainly do well.  But beware of eager haste; for you will twist your thread into knots and stop your spindle.  Let us always be moving; however slowly we advance, we shall make plenty of way.

 

Your powerlessness hurts you greatly, for, you say, it keeps you from entering into yourself and approaching God.  This is wrong, without doubt; God leaves this powerlessness in us for His glory and for our great benefit.  He wants our misery to be the throne of His mercy, and our powerlessness the seat of His omnipotence.  Where did God place the divine strength that He gave to Samson but in his hair, the weakest place in him? (Judg. 16:17). Let me no more hear the words form a daughter who would serve her God according to His divine pleasure, and not according to her sensible taste and attraction.  “Although He should kill me,” says Job, “yet will I trust in Him” (Job 13:15).  No, my child, this powerlessness does not hinder you from entering into yourself, although it does hinder you from growing complacent about yourself.

 

We are always wanting this and that, and although we may have our sweet Jesus on our breast, we are not content.  Yet this is all we can desire.  One thing is necessary for us, which is to be with Him.

 

Tell me, my dearest child, you know very well that at the birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ the shepherds heard the angelic and divine hymns of those heavenly spirits – Scripture says so (Lk. 2:13-14).  Yet it is not said that our Lady and St. Joseph, who were the closest to the child, heard the voice of the angels, or saw that miraculous light.  On the contrary, instead of hearing these angels sing, they heard the child weep, and saw, by a little light borrowed from some wretched lamp, the eyes of this divine child all filled with tears, and faint under the rigour of the cold.

 

I ask you in truth, would you not have chosen to be in the stable, dark and filled with the cries of the little baby, rather than to be with the shepherd, thrilling with joy and delight in the sweetness of this heavenly music and the beauty of this admirable light?

 

“Lord,” said St. Peter, “it is good for us to be here” (Mt. 17:4), to see the Transfiguration; and today is the day on which it is celebrated in the Church, the sixth of August.  But your Abbess is not there, but only on Mount Calvary, where she sees nothing but the dead, but nails, thorns, helplessness, darkness, abandonment, and dereliction.

 

I have said enough, my child, and more than I wished, on a subject that has already been so much discussed between us.  No more, I beg you.

 

Love God crucified amid darkness; stay near Him.  Say, “It is good for me to be here: let us make here three tabernacles” – one to Our Lord, another to our Lady, the other to St. John.  Three crosses, and no more.  Take your stand by that of the Son, or that of the Mother, your Abbess, or that of the disciple.   Everywhere you will be well received with the other daughters of your order, who are there all round about.

 

Love your abjection.  But, you will say, “what does this mean, ‘love your abjection?’ My understanding is dark and powerless for any good.”  Well, my child, that is just the thing: if you remain humble, tranquil, gentle, and confiding amid this darkness and powerlessness; if you do not grow impatient, do not excite yourself, do not distress yourself on this account, but with good heart (I do not say gaily, but I do say sincerely and firmly) embrace this cross, and stay in this darkness, then you love your own abjection.  For what else is it to be abject, than to be amid darkness and powerless?  Love to be such as this for the love of Him who wishes you to be so, and you will love your own abjection.

 

My child, in Latin abjection is called humility and humility abjection, so that when our Lady says, “Because He hath had regard to the humility of His handmaid” (Lk. 1:48), she means, “Because He hath had regard to my abjection and vileness.”  Still there is some difference between humility and abjection, in that humility is the acknowledgement of one’s abjection.  Now the highest point of humility is not only to know one’s abjection, but to love it; and it is this to which I have exhorted you.

 

In order that I may make myself better understood, know that among the evils that we suffer, there are evils abject and evils honourable; many accept the honourable ones, few the abject.  For example, look at the Capuchin, in rags and starved with cold; everybody honours his torn habit, and has compassion on his suffering.  Look at a poor artisan, a poor scholar, a poor widow, who is in the same state; they are laughed at, and their poverty is abject.

 

A religious suffers patiently rebuke from his superior; everybody calls this mortification and obedience.  A gentleman will suffer such for the love of God; it will be called cowardice.  Here is an abject virtue, suffering despised.  One man has a cancer on his arm, another on his face.  The first hides, it, and only has the evil; the other cannot hide it, and with the evil he has contempt and abjection.  Now, I am saying that we must love not only the evil, but also the abjection.

 

Further, there are abject virtues and honourable virtues.  Ordinarily patience, gentleness, mortification, and simplicity are, among seculars, abject virtues; to give alms, to be courteous, to be prudent, are honourable virtues.

 

Of the actions of one and the same virtue, some may be abject, others honourable.  To give alms and to pardon injuries are actions of charity; the first is honourable, and the other is abject in the eyes of the world.

 

Suppose I am ill among people who make it a burden to them: here is abjection joined with the evil.  Young married ladies of the world, seeing me in the dress of a true widow, say that I play the saint, and seeing me laugh, although modestly, they say that I still wish to be sought after.  They cannot believe that I do not want more honour and rank than I have, that I love my vocation without regret: all these are points of abjection.  Here are some of another kind.

 

We go, my sisters and I, to visit the sick.  My sisters send me off to visit the more miserable; this is an abjection, according to the world.  They send me to visit the less miserable; this is an abjection, according to God.  For the latter is the less worthy before God, and the other before the world.  Now, I will love the one and the other as the occasion comes.  Going to the more miserable, I will say it is quite true that I am worthless.  Going to the less miserable, I will say it is very right, for I am not sufficiently worthy to make the holier visit.

 

I commit some folly; it makes me abject.  Good.  I slip down, and get into a violent passion; I am grieved at the offence to God, and very glad that this should show me vile, abject, and wretched.

 

At the same time, my child, take good heed of what I am going to say to you.  Although we may love the abjection that follows from the evil, still we must not neglect to remedy the evil.  I will do what I can not to have cancer in the face; but if I have it, I will love the abjection of it.  And in matter of sin again, we must keep to this rule.  I have committed some fault; I am grieved at it, although I embrace with good heart the abjection that follows from it.  And if one could be separated from the other, I would dearly cherish the abjection, and would take away the evil and sin.

 

Again, we must have regard to charity, which requires sometimes that we remove the abjection for the edification of our neighbour.  But in that case, we must take it away from the eyes of our neighbour (who would take scandal at it), but not from our own heart, which is edified by it.  “I have chosen,” says the prophet, “to be abject in the house of God, rather than to dwell in the tents of sinners” (Ps. 83:12; RSV Ps. 84:10).

 

Lastly, my child, you want to know which are the best abjections.  I will tell you that those are best which we have not chosen, and which are less agreeable to us, or (to say better) those to which we have not much inclination, or (to speak frankly) those of our vocation and profession.

 

For example, this married woman would choose every sort of abjection rather than those of the married state; this religious would obey anybody but her superior; and you – you would much rather be chided by a superior in religion than by a father-in-law at home![1]

 

I say that toe ach one his own abjection is the best, and our choosing takes from us a greater part of our virtues.  Who will grant me the grace greatly to love our abjection, my dear child?  Only He, who so loved His that He willed to die to preserve it.  I have said enough…

 

I can say no more to you concerning the apprehension you have of your troubles, nor the fear you have of impatiences in suffering them.  Did I not say to you, the first time I spoke to you of your soul, that you applied your consideration too much to any trouble or temptation that may arise; that you must look at it only in a large way; that women, and men also, sometimes reflect too much on their troubles and that this entangles their thoughts, fears, and desires in one another, until the soul finds itself so knotted up tat it cannot get free from them?

 

Do you remember Monsieur N., how his soul was entangled and mazed with vain fears at the end of Lent, and how hurtful it was to him?  I beseech you for the honour of God, my child, do not be afraid of God, for He does not wish to do you any harm.  Love Him strongly, for He wishes to do you much good.  Walk quite simply in the shelter of our resolutions, and reject as cruel temptations the reflections that you make on your troubles.

 

What can I say to stop this flow of thoughts in your heart?  Do not give way to anxiety about healing it, for this anxiety makes it worse.  Do not force yourself to conquer your temptations, for these efforts will strengthen them.  Despise them; do not occupy yourself with them.  Represent to your imagination Jesus Christ crucified, in your arms and on your breast, and say a hundred times, kissing His side, “Here is my hope; here is the living fountain of my happiness; this is the heart of my soul, the soul of my heart.  Never shall anything separate me from His love.  I hold Him, and will not let Him God (Cant. 3:4), until He has put me in a state of safety.”  Say to Him very often, “What do I have upon earth, and what do I desire in Heaven, but You, o my Jesus?”  “You are the God of my heart and my portion forever” (Ps. 72:25-26; RSV Ps. 73:25-26).

 

What do you fear, my child?  Hear Our Lord, who cries to Abraham, and to you also, “Fear not; I am thy helper” (Gen. 15:1).  What do you seek upon earth, save God?  And you have Him.  Remain firm in your resolutions.  Keep yourself in the bark where I have placed you, and the storm may come.  As Jesus lives, you shall not perish; He will sleep, but in time and place He will awaken to restore calm to you.  St. Peter, says the Scripture, seeing the storm, which was very fierce, was afraid; and as soon as he became afraid, he began to sink and drown, at which he cried, “O Lord, save me.”  And Our Lord took him by the hand, and said to him, “Man of little faith, why didst thou doubt?” (Mt. 14:24-31).  Regard this holy Apostle.  He walks dry-footed on the waters; the waves and the wind could not make him sink, but the fear of the wind and the waves makes him perish if his Master does not rescue him.

 

Fear is a greater evil than the evil itself.  O daughter of little faith, what do you fear?  No, fear not’ you walk on the sea, amid the winds and the waves, but it is with Jesus.  What is there to fear?  But if fear seizes you, cry loudly, “O Lord, save me.”  He will give you His hand; clasp it tight, and go joyously on.  To sum up, do not philosophise about your trouble, do not turn in upon yourself; go straight on. No, God cannot lose you, so long as you live in your resolution not to lose him.  Let the world turn upside down, let everything be in darkness, in smoke, in uproar – God is with us.  And if God dwelleth in darkness and on Mount Sinai, all smoking and covered with the thunders, with lightnings and noises (Ex. 19:16, 18), shall we not be well near Him?

 

Live, live, my dear child, live all in God, and fear not death, the good Jesus is all ours; let us be entirely His.  Our most honoured Lady, our Abbess, has given Him to us; let us keep Him well.  Courage, my child.  I am entirely

 

Yours, and more than yours,

Francis

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] St. Francis is gently teasing Jane de Chantal with this remark about her father-in-law, with whom she lived and whose moods often caused her distress.

​

​

Back to Top

​