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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7. We must attain holy indifference

To a woman, on struggling against self-love

 

Madame,

 

God, our Saviour, knows well that among the affections He has placed in my soul, that of cherishing you extremely and honouring you most perfectly, is one of the strongest, and entirely invariable, exempt from change and from forgetfulness.  Well now, since this protestation has been made very religiously, I will say this little word of liberty and candour, and will begin again to call you by the cordial name of “my dearest daughter,” since in truth I feel that I am cordially your father by affection.

 

My dearest daughter, then, I have not written to you; but tell me, I pray, have you written to me since my return into this country? No? Even so, you have not forgotten me.  Surely, neither have I forgotten you; for I say to you with all fidelity and certainty that what God wants me to be to you, that I am; I quite feel that I shall be such forever, most constantly and most thoroughly, and I have in this a singular satisfaction, which is accompanied by a great deal of consolation and profit for my soul.

 

I was waiting for you to write, not from thinking you should write, but never doubting that you would; then I could write more at large.  But if you had waited longer, believe me, my very dear daughter, I could not have, any more than I could ever leave out your very dear self and all your dear family in the offering that I make daily to God the Father on the altar, where you hold, in the commemoration that I make of the living, quite a special rank; and indeed you are quite especially dear to me.

 

Oh! I see, my dearest child, in your letter, a great reason to bless God for your soul, which keeps holy indifference in fact, although not in feelings.  My dearest child, all this you tell me of your little faults is nothing.  These little surprises of the passions are inevitable in this mortal life.  On this account does the holy Apostle cry to Heaven: “Alas! Miserable man that I am! I perceive two men in me, the old and the new; two laws, the law of the flesh, and the law of the spirit; two operations, nature and grace.  Ah! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Rom. 7:21-24).

 

My daughter, self-love dies only with our body; we must always feel its open attacks or its secret attempts while we are in this exile.  It is enough that we do not consent with a willed, deliberate, fixed, and entertained consent.  And this virtue of indifference is so excellent that our old man, in the sensible part, and human nature according to its natural faculties, is not capable of it.  As a child of Adam (although exempt from all sin and all the appearances thereof), even Our Lord was, in His sensible part and His human faculties, by no means indifferent, but desired not to die on the Cross.  The indifference was all reserved, with its exercise, to the spirit, to the superior portion, to the faculties inflamed by grace, and in general to Himself as the new man.

 

So then, remain in peace.  When we happen to break the laws of indifference in indifferent things, or by the sudden sallies of self-love and our passions, let us at once, as soon as we can, prostrate our heart before God, and say, in a spirit of confidence and humility, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am weak” (Ps. 6:3; RSV Ps. 6:2).  Let us arise in peace and tranquillity, knot again the thread of our indifference, and then continue our work.  We must not break the strings nor throw up the lute when we find a discord; we must bend our ear to find whence the disorder comes, and gently tighten or relax the string as the evil requires.

 

Be in peace, my dearest child, and write to me in confidence when you think it will be for your consolation.  I will answer faithfully and with a particular pleasure, your soul being dear to me, like my own.

 

We have had these past eight days our good Monsignor de Belley, who has favoured us with his visit and has given us excellent sermons.  Guess if we have often spoken of you and yours!  But what joy when Monsieur Jantet told me that my dearest little godson was nice, so gentle, so handsome, and even already in some sense so devout.  I assure you, in truth, my dearest daughter, that I feel this with an incomparable love, and I recollect the grace and sweet little look with which he received, as with infantile respect, the sonship of Our Lord from my hands.  If I am heard, he will be a saint, this dear little Francis; he will be the consolation of his father and mother, and will have so many sacred favours from God, that he will obtain me pardon of my sins, if I live until he can love me actually.  In short, my dearest daughter, I am very perfectly and without any condition or exception,

 

Your very humble and very faithful brother, companion, and servant,

Francis

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