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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5. WE MUST BEAR OURSELVES UNTIL GOD BEARS US TO HEAVEN

To a woman struggling with spiritual problems

 

Madame,

 

Your letter of January 2 has given me an extreme satisfaction, because in the midst of the miseries that you describe to me, I note (I think) some progress and profit that you have made in the spiritual life.  I shall be briefer in answering you than I could wish, because I have less leisure and more hindrance than I expected.  I will, however, say quite enough for this time, awaiting another chance of writing to you at full length.

 

You say that you are afflicted because you do not reveal yourself to me perfectly enough, as you think.  And I say to you that although I do not know what you do in my absence, for I am no prophet, I think all the same, that in spite of the little time I have seen and heard you, it is not possible to know your inclinations and their sources better than I do… However little you open to me the door of your spirit, I seem to see in quite openly.  It is a great advantage for you, since you wish to use me for your salvation.

 

You complain that many imperfections and defects occur in your life, in opposition to the desire you have for the perfection and purity of love for our God.  I answer you that we cannot quit ourselves altogether while we are here on earth; we must always bear ourselves until God bears us to Heaven; and as long as we bear ourselves we shall bear nothing of any worth.  So we must have patience, and not expect to be able to cure in a day so many bad habits, which we have contracted by the little care we have had of our spiritual health.

 

God has cured some souls suddenly, without leaving any trace of their former maladies, as He did in the case of Magdalene, who in an instant from a sewer of the water of corruption was changed into a spring of the water of perfections, and was never muddied from that moment.

 

But also has this same God left in some of His dear disciples many marks of their bad inclinations fro some time after their conversion, and all for their greater profit.  Witness the blessed St. Peter, who after his first calling stumbled several times into imperfections, and once fell down altogether, and very miserably, by his denial.

 

Solomon says that the handmaid who suddenly becomes mistress is a very insolent animal (Prov. 30:23).  There would be great danger that the soul  that had long served its own passions might become proud and vain, if in a moment she became entirely mistress of them.  It is necessary that little by little and foot by foot we obtain this dominion, which has cost the saints many decades of years.  The soul needs, if you please, to have patience with all the world, but first with itself.

 

You do nothing, you say, in prayer.  But what would you do, except what you do, which is to present and represent to God your nothingness and your misery?  Beggars harangue us best when they expose to our sight their ulcers and needs.

 

But sometimes again you do nothing of all this, as you tell me, but remain there like a phantom or a statue.  Well, and that is not a little thing. In the palaces of princes and kings, statues are put that are only of use to gratify the price’s eyes.  Be satisfied, then, with serving for that purpose in the presence of God; He will give life to this statue when He likes.

 

The trees only fructify through the presence of the sun – some sooner, other later, some every year, others every three years, and not always equally.  Let us be very happy to be able to stay in the presence of God, and let us be satisfied that He will make us bear our fruit, sooner or later, always or sometimes, according to His good pleasure, to which we must entirely resign ourselves.

 

The word that you said to me contains wonders: “Let God put me in what sauce He likes, provided that I serve Him.”  But take care to masticate it again and again in your spirit; make it melt in your mouth and do not swallow it in a lump.  St. Teresa of Avila, whom you so love (for which I am glad), says somewhere that very often we say such words by habit, and with a slight attention.[1]  We think we say them from the bottom of our soul, but it is not so at all, as we discover afterward in practice.

 

Well! You say that in whatever sauce God puts you, it is all one.  Now you know well in what sauce He has put you, in what state and condition; and tell me, is it all one?  You know also that He wants you to satisfy this daily obligation of which you write to me, and yet it is not all one to you.  My God!  How subtly self-love insinuates itself into our affections, however devout they seem to appear.

 

This is the grand truth: we must look at what God wants, and when we know it we must try to do it joyfully or at least courageously.  And not only that, but we must love this will of God, and the obligation that comes from it, were it that we must keep pigs all our life and do the most abject things in the world.  For in what sauce God puts us, it should be all one.  It is the bull’s-eye of perfection at which all of us must aim; and he who gets nearest gets the prize.

 

But courage, I beseech you.  Accustom your will little by little to follow that of God, wherever He leads you.  Make your will very sensitive to the voice of conscience saying: “God wills it”; and little by little these repugnances that you feel so strongly will grow weaker, and soon will cease altogether.  But particularly you ought to struggle to hinder the exterior manifestations of the interior repugnance you have, or at least to make them gentler.  Among those who are angry or discontented some show their displeasure only by saying, “My God, what is this?  And others say words that show more irritation and not only a simple discontent, but a certain pride and spleen.  What I mean to say is that we must little by little amend these demonstrations, making them less every day.

 

As to the desire you have to see your friends very far advanced in the service of God and the desire of Christian perfection, I praise it infinitely; and as you wish, I will add my weak prayers to the supplications you make about it to God.  But, Madame, I must tell you the truth; I ever fear in such desires that are not of the essence of our salvation and perfection, that there may mingle some suspicion of self-love and our own will.  For instance, I fear that we may so much occupy ourselves in these desires that are not necessary to us, as not to leave room enough in our soul for desires that are more necessary and useful, as of our own humility, resignation, sweetness of heart, and the like.  Or again I fear that we may have so much ardour in these desires as to make them bring us disquiet and eagerness, or finally, I fear that we may not submit them so perfectly to the will of God as is expedient.

 

Such things do I fear in such desires.  For this reason, I pray you to take good care of yourself that you fall not into them, as also I pray you to pursue this desire quietly and sweetly, that is, without importuning those whom you want to persuade to this perfection, and even without showing your desire.  For, believe me, this would impede the affair instead of advancing it.  You must then by example and words sow among them very quietly the things that may induce them to your design, and, without making appearance of wishing to instruct or gain them, you must throw little by little holy inspirations and thoughts into their minds.  Thus will you gain much more than in any other way, above all if you add prayer…

 

Francis

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[1] St. Teresa of Avila, The Way of Perfection, chapter 38.

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