Salesian Literature

Letters on:

Overcoming Fear, Temptation, Failure and Discouragement

1. We must be patient as we seek perfection    ::    2. Have courage, for you have only just begun   ::    3. Be gentle and charitable to your soul

4. God loves greater infirmity with greater tenderness   ::    5. We must bear ourselves until God bears us to Heaven   

6. Self-love can be mortified, but never dies   ::    7. We must attain holy indifference   ::    8. Lean on the mercy of God

9. To change the world, we must change ourselves   ::    10. In patience shall you possess your soul   ::    11. Do not worry yourself about temptations  

12. We must not be fearful of fear   ::    13. Constrain yourself only to your serving God well   ::    14. True simplicity is always good and agreeable to God

15. We must do all by love and nothing by force   ::    16. Be then all for God

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2. Have courage, for you have only just begun

To a young woman, on how to benefit from affliction

 

Mademoiselle,

 

I will gladly keep the copy of your vow, and God will keep the fulfilment of it.  He was its author, and He will be its keeper.  I will often make for this end St. Augustine’s prayer: “Alas! Lord, here is a little chicken hidden under the wings of your grace. If it gets out of the shadow of its mother, the hawk will seize it.  Let it then live by the help and protection of the grace that brought it forth.”[1]

 

But look, my sister, your must not even think whether this resolution will be lasting; this must be held as so certain and settled that there can no longer be any doubt of it.

 

You do me a great favour in telling me a word about your inclinations.  Regarding them I tell you that our affections, however slight they may be, injure our soul, when they are ill regulated.  Keep them in check, and do not think them of small account; for they are of much weight in the scales of the sanctuary…

 

So then, my good daughter, here you are afflicted, in just the proper way to serve God.  Afflictions without abjection often puff the heart up instead of humbling it; but when we suffer evil without honour, or when contempt, abjection, and even dishonour are our evil, what occasions have we of exercising patience, humility, modesty, and sweetness of heart!

 

With a holy and glorious humility, St. Paul rejoiced that he and his companions were esteemed as the sweepings and rakings of the world (1 Cor. 4:13).  You have still, you tell me, a very lively sense of injuries; but, my dear daughter, this word “still,” to what does it refer?  Have you already done much in conquering those enemies?  I mean by this to remind you tat we must have good courage and a good heart to do better in the future, since we are only beginning, even though we have a good desire to do well.

 

In order to become fervent in prayer, desire very much to be so, and willingly read the praises of prayer that are given in many books (for example, in Granada, the beginning of Bellintani, and elsewhere), because the appetite for food makes us very pleased to eat it.

 

You are very happy, my child, in having devoted yourself to God.  Do your remember what St. Francis said when his father stripped him before the Bishop of Assisi: “Now, therefore, I can well say: ’Our Father, who art in Heaven.’”[2]  David says, “My father and mother have left me, but the Lord has taken me up” (Ps. 26:10; RSV Ps. 27:10).  Make no apology for writing to me; there is no need, since I am so willingly devoted to your soul.  May God bless it with His great blessings and make it all His!  Amen.

 

Francis

 

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[1] St. Augustine, Confessions, Book 12, Chapter 27.

[2] St. Bonaventure. The Life of St. Francis, chapter 2.

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