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

​

9. To change the world, we must change ourselves

To a woman angered by sinfulness in the world

 

Madame,

 

No doubt you would explain yourself much better and more freely by speaking than by writing; but, while waiting for God to will it, we must use the means which offer themselves.  You see, lethargies, languors, and numbness of the senses cannot be without some sort of sensible sadness, but so long as your will and the substance of your spirit is quite resolved to be all to God, there is nothing to fear, for these are natural imperfections, and rather maladies than sins or spiritual faults.  Still you must stir yourself up and excite yourself to courage and spiritual activity as far as possible.

 

Oh!  Death is terrible, my dear daughter, it is very true, but the life which is beyond, and which the mercy of God will give us, is also very desirable indeed; and so we must by no means fall into distrust.  Although we are miserable, we are not nearly so much so as God is merciful to those who want to love Him and who have placed their hopes in Him.  When the blessed Cardinal Borromeo was on the point of death, he had the image of our dead Saviour brought to him, in order to sweeten his death by that of his Saviour.  It is the basis of all remedies against the fear of our death, this thought of Him who is our life: you must never think of the one without adding the thought of the other.

 

My God! Dear daughter, do not examine whether what you do is little or much, good or ill, provided it is not sin, and provided that in good faith you will to do it for God. As much as you can, do perfectly what you do, but when it is done, think of it no more; go simply along the way of our Saviour, and do not torment your spirit.

 

We must hate our faults, but with a tranquil and quite hate, not with an angry and restless hate; and so we must have patience when we see them, and draw from them the profit of a holy abasement of ourselves.  Without this, my child, your imperfections, which you scrutinize so subtly, will trouble you by getting still more subtle, and by this means sustain themselves, as there is nothing that more preserves our weeds than disquietude and eagerness in removing them…

 

To be dissatisfied and fret about the world when we must of necessity be in it, is a great temptation.  God’s Providence is wiser than we.  We fancy that by changing our ships, we shall get on better; yes, if we change ourselves.

 

My God, I am sworn enemy of these useless, dangerous, and bad desires; for although what we desire is good, the desire is bad, because God does not will us this sort of good, but another, in which He wants us to exercise ourselves.  God wishes to speak to us in the thorns and the bush, as He did to Moses (Ex. 3:2), and we want Him to speak in the small wind, gentle and fresh, as He did to Elijah (3 Kings 19:12; RSV 1 Kings 19:12). May His goodness preserve you, my daughter; but be constant, courageous, and rejoice that He gives you the will to be all His.  I am, in this goodness, entirely

 

Yours,

Francis

​

​

Back to Top

​