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

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4. O good cross, so loved by my Saviour!

To a woman, on bearing the troubles of this life

 

My dearest daughter,

 

It is the truth that nothing is more capable of giving us a more profound tranquillity in this world than often to behold Our Lord in all the afflictions that happened to Him from His birth to His death.  We shall see there such a sea of contempt and insults, of poverty and indigence, of objections, of pains, of torments, of nakedness, of injuries, and of all sorts of bitterness, that in comparison with it we shall know that we are wrong when we call our little mishaps by the names of afflictions, pains, and contradictions; and we shall see that we are wrong in desiring patience for such trifles, since a single little drop of modesty is enough for bearing these things well.

 

I know exactly the state of your soul, and I seem to see it always before me, with all these little emotions of sadness, of surprise, and of disquiet that come troubling it.  They trouble it because it has not yet laid deep enough in the will the foundations of abjection and of love of the Cross.  My dearest daughter, a heart that greatly esteems and loves Jesus Christ crucified, loves His death, His pains, His torments, His being spat on, His insults, His destitutions, His hungers, His thirsts, His ignominies.  And when some small share of these comes to it, it makes a very jubilee over them for joy, and embraces them amorously.

 

You must then every day, not during prayer, but at other times, when you are moving about, make a study of Our Lord amid the pains of our redemption, and consider what a blessing it will be to you to share in them.  You must try to discover the occasions in which you may gain this advantage – that is, in the contradictions you may perhaps meet in all your desires, but especially in those desire that seem to you the most just and lawful.  And then, with a great love of the Cross and of the Passion of Our Lord, you must cry out with St. Andrew, “O good Cross, so loved by my Saviour, when will you receive me into your arms?”

 

Consider, my dearest child, that we are too delicate when we give the name “poverty” to a state in which we have not hunger, nor cold, nor ignominy, but simply some little contradiction to our desires.  When we see one another again, remind me to speak to you a little about the tenderness and delicateness of your dear heart.  For your peace and repose, you must form clearly in yourself the idea of eternity.  Whoever thinks well on this troubles himself little about what happens in these three of four moments of mortal life.

 

Since you are able to fast half of Advent, you can continue to the end; I am quite willing for you to receive Communion two days together on feast days.  You may certainly go to Mass after breakfast, only go with devotion.  It is the old fashion of Christians.  Our Lord does not regard these little things.  Reverence is in the heart; you must not let your spirit feed on these little considerations.

 

Adieu, my dearest daughter.  Hold me ever as all yours; for in truth I am so.  God bless you.  Amen.

 

Francis

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