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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8. Lean on the mercy of God

To a woman wondering whether she has done her duty

 

My dearest daughter,

 

I received your two letters and see clearly that all the trouble you have had is truly nothing more than a spiritual encumbrance that has come from two desires that have not been satisfied in you: one, the desire to serve God in the situation that presents itself to you; the other, the desire to know whether you have faithfully done your duty.  And in the one and the other you have suffered a distress that has troubled and disquieted you, and has finally weighed you down.

 

Well, without a doubt you have done your duty well.  Your spirit, which always tends a bit toward indignation, lets you discern little of what you have done; and the same spirit, greatly desiring to fulfil its obligation and not being able to convince itself that it has done it, has fallen into sadness and discouragement or disgust.

 

Well, my dear daughter, know that you must in this case cheer yourself up, forget all that, and humble yourself before Our Lord.  Remember that your sex and your vocation only allows you to stop the evil that take place outside of your home by your good inspirations and intentions, by simple, humble, and loving reproaches when someone has committed a wrong, and by notification of the authorities when that is possible – I will talk about that another time.

 

To this I add, as general advice, that when we cannot discern whether we have done our duty well in some matter and are in doubt whether we have offended God, we must then humble ourselves, ask God to forgive us, request more light for another time, and then forget all about what has happened and get back to our ordinary business.  A curious and anxious search to determine whether we have acted well comes undoubtedly from the self-love that makes us want to know whether we are brave – just at that point where pure love of God tells us: “Whether you were truant or coward, humble yourself, lean upon the mercy of God, always ask for pardon, and with a renewed confession of fidelity, go back to the pursuit of your perfection.”

 

… May God be always our only love and goal, my dearest daughter, and I am in Him entirely

 

Yours,

Francis

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