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

​

15. We must do all by love and nothing by force

To Jane de Chantal, on temptation and spiritual liberty

 

Madame,

 

May God give me power equal to the will that I have to make myself clearly understood in this letter!  I am sure that I should give you consolation about part of what you want to know from me, and particularly in the doubts that the enemy suggests to you on the choice you have made of me as your spiritual father.  I will do what I can to express in a few words what I think is necessary for you on this subject…

 

Know that, as I have just said, from the beginning of your conferring with me about your interior, God gave me a great love of your soul.  When you opened yourself to me more particularly, it was an obligation on my soul to cherish yours more and more, which made me write to you that God had given me to you.  I do not believe that anything could be added to the affection I felt in my soul, and above all when praying to God for you.

 

But now, my dear child, a certain quality has developed that I seem unable to name.  I can only say its effect is a greater interior sweetness that I feel in wishing you the perfection of the love of God, and other spiritual benedictions.  No, I do not add a single line to the truth.  I speak before the “God of my heart” (Ps. 72:26; RSV Ps. 73:26) and yours: every affection has its particular difference from others; the affection that I have for you has a special quality which immensely consoles me, and which, to sum up, is extremely profitable to me.  Hold that for the truest truth, and doubt it no more.  I did not mean to say so much, but one word brings on another, and besides I think you will apply it properly…

 

You ask me for remedies in the trouble caused you by the wicked one’s temptations against the Faith and the Church; at least so I understand you.  I will say what God gives me to say.

 

In this temptation you must behave as in temptations of the flesh, disputing neither little nor much.  Do as the children of Israel did with the bones of the Paschal lamb, which they did not even try to break, but simply threw into the fire (Ex. 12:10).  You must not reply at all, nor appear to hear what the enemy says.  Let him clamour as he likes at the door; you must not say as much as “Who goes there?”

 

“True,”  you will tell me, “but he worries me, and his noise makes those within unable to hear one another speak.”  It is all the same.  Have patience – we must prostrate ourselves before God, and remain there at His feet.  He will understand by this humble behaviour that you are His, and that you want His help, although you cannot even speak.  But above all keep yourself well shut in, and do not open the doors at all, either to see who it is or to drive the nuisance away.  At last he will get tired of crying out, and will leave you in peace.  “And never too soon,” you will say.

 

I ask that you obtain a book called On Tribulation, composed by Father Ribadenaira, in Spanish, and translated into French[1].  The French Rector will tell you where it is printed; read it carefully.

 

Courage, then; it will come to an end at last.  Provided the Devil enter not, it matters not.  And meanwhile it is an excellent sign when the enemy beats and blusters at the door; for it is a sign that he does not have what he wants.  If he had it, he would not cry out any more; he would enter and stay.  Take note of this, so as not to fall into scruples.

 

After this remedy, I give you another.  Temptations against the Faith go straight to the understanding, to make it parley and think and dream about them.  Do you know what you must do while the enemy is occupied trying to scale the intellect?  Sally out by the gate of the will, and make a good attack against him.

 

That is, when a temptation against the Faith comes to engage you (“How can this be?” “But what if this…?” “But what is that…?), instead of disputing with the enemy by argument, let you affective part rush forth vehemently upon him, and even joining the exterior voice to the interior, cry: “Ah, traitor! Ah, wretch! Thou hast left the Church of the angels, and wishest me to leave the Church of the saints!  Disloyal, faithless, perfidious one, thou didst present to the first woman the apple of perdition, and now thou wantest me to eat of it!  ‘Get thee behind me, Satan! It is written: thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God’ (Mt. 4:10.7).  No, I will not reason or dispute.  Eve wishing to dispute with the Devil was seduced and ruined.  Vive Jesus, in whom I believe!  Vive the Church, to which I cling!”  And similar words of fire.

 

You must also say words to Jesus Christ, and to the Holy Spirit (such as He will suggest to you), and even to the Church: “O mother of the children of God, never will I let myself be separated from you; I will to live and to die in your holy bosom.”

 

I know not if I make myself understood.  I mean to say that we must fight back with affections and not with reasons, with passions of the heart and not with the considerations of the mind.  It is true that in these times of temptation the poor will is quite dry, but so much the better.  Its acts will be so much the more terrible to the enemy, who, seeing that instead of retarding your progress he gives you an opportunity of exercising a thousand virtuous affections, and particularly the protestation of faith, will leave you at last…

 

Finally, these temptations are only afflictions like others; and we must place our reliance on the saying of the Holy Scripture: “Blessed is he that suffers temptation; for when he has been tried he shall receive the crown of glory” (Jas. 1:12).  Know that I have seen few persons make progress without this trial, and we must have patience.  Our God, after the storms, will send the calm…

 

Every day take a good half-hour’s spiritual reading; this is quite enough for each day.  On feasts you can assist at Vespers, and say the office of our Lady.  But if you have a great taste for the prayers you have been used to saying, do not change, I beg.  And if you happen to omit something that I order, do not make a scruple of it; for here is the general rule of our obedience written in great letters: “We must do all by love, and nothing by force; we must love obedience rather than fear disobedience.”

 

I leave you the spirit of liberty: not that which excludes obedience – for this is the liberty of the flesh – but that which excludes constraint, scruple, and worry.  If you very much love obedience and submission, I wish that if some just or charitable necessity requires you to omit your spiritual exercises, you do so, letting this omission be a type of obedience and compensated for by love…

 

About the spirit of liberty, I will tell you what it is.

 

Every good man is free from acts of mortal sin, and does not keep any affection for it.  This is a liberty necessary for salvation.  I do not speak of this.

 

The liberty of which I speak is the liberty of well-beloved children.  And what is it?  It is a detachment of the Christian heart from all things in order to follow the known will of God.  You will easily understand what I mean to say if God gives me now the grace to propose to you the marks, signs, effects, and occasion of this liberty.

 

We ask from God before all things, that His name may be hallowed, His kingdom come, and His will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.  All this is no other thing than the spirit of liberty.  For provided that the name of God is sanctified, that His majesty reigns in you, and that His will is done, then the soul cares for nothing else.

 

The first mark of this spirit of liberty: the soul which has this liberty is not attached to consolations, but receives afflictions with all the sweetness that the flesh can permit.  I do not say that it does not love and desire consolations, but I say that it does not attach its heart to them.

 

The second mark of this spirit of liberty:  it does not at all attach its affection to spiritual exercises, so that, if by sickness or other accident it is kept from them, it feels no grief at it.  Here also I do not say that it does not love them, but I say that it is not attached to them.

 

Such a heart scarcely loses its joyfulness, because no privation makes him sad whose heart is quite unattached.  I do not say he does not lose joyfulness, but that he scarcely loses it then – that is, only for a short time.

​

The effects of this liberty are a great suavity of soul, a great gentleness and condescension in all that is not sin or danger of sin, a temper sweetly pliable to the acts of every virtue and charity.  For example, if you interrupt a soul that is attached to the exercise of meditation, you will see it leave with annoyance, worried and surprised.  A soul that has true liberty will leave its exercise with an equal countenance, and a heart gracious toward the importunate person who has inconvenienced her.  For it is all one to her whether she serves God by meditating or serves Him by bearing with her neighbour: both are the will of God, but the bearing with her neighbour is necessary at that time.

 

The occasions of this liberty are all the things that happen against our inclination, for whoever is not attached to his inclinations is not impatient when they are contradicted.

 

This liberty has two opposite vices, instability and constraint, or dissolution and slavery, instability, or dissolution of spirit, is a certain excess of liberty, by which we change our exercises, our state of life, without proof or knowledge that such change is God’s will.  On the smallest occasion, practices, plan, and rule are changed.  For every little occurrence we leave our rule and laudable custom, and thus the heart is dissipated and ruined, and is like an orchard open on all sides, whose fruits are not for its owners, but for all passers-by.

 

Constraint or slavery is a certain want of liberty which the soul is overwhelmed with either disgust or anger when it cannot do what it has planned, although still able to do better.  For example, I plan to make my meditation every day during the morning.  If I have the spirit of instability or dissolution, on the least occasion in the world I shall put it off until the evening – for a dog that kept me from sleeping, for a letter I have to write, or no urgency at all.  On the other hand, if I have the spirit of constraint or servitude, I shall not leave my meditation at that hour even if a sick person has great need of my help at the time, even if I have a dispatch that is of importance and which cannot well be put off, and so on.

 

It remains for me to give you one or two examples of this liberty that will better make you understand what I cannot properly describe.  But first I must tell you that you are to observe two rules to avoid stumbling in this point.

 

A person should never omit his exercises and the common rules of the virtues unless he sees the will of God on the other side.  Now, the will of God shows itself in two ways, by necessity and charity.  I want to preach this Lent in a small corner of my diocese.  If, however, I get ill or break my leg, I must not be grieved or disquieted because I cannot preach; for it is certainly the will of God that I should serve Him by suffering and not by preaching.  Or if I am not ill, but an occasion presents itself of going to some other place, where, if I do not go, the people will become Huguenots[2] – there is the will of God sufficiently declared to turn me gently from my design.

 

The second rule is that when we are to use liberty for the sake of charity, it must be without scandal and without injustice.  For example, I may know that I could be more useful somewhere very far from my diocese.  I cannot use liberty in this, for I would scandalize and commit injustice by leaving, since I am obliged to be here.  Likewise, it would be a false liberty for married women to separate themselves from their husbands without a legitimate reason, under the pretext of devotion and charity.  Hence, this liberty never interferes with vocations; on the contrary, it makes each one satisfied with his own vocation, since each should know that he is placed in it by the will of God.

 

Now, I want you to look at Cardinal Borromeo, who is going to be canonized in a few days[3].  His spirit was the most exact, rigid, and austere that it is impossible to imagine.  He drank nothing but water and ate nothing but bread; he was so austere that, after he was archbishop, he only entered twice during twenty-four years into the house of his brothers, when ill, and only twice into his garden.  Yet, this rigorous soul, when eating with the Swiss, his neighbours, as he often did to keep a good influence over them, made no difficulty in drinking toasts with them at each meal, besides what he drank for his thirst.  There is a trait of holy liberty in the most austere man of this age.  A dissolute spirit would have done too much; a constrained spirit would have considered it a mortal sin; a person with the spirit of liberty would have done it for charity.

 

Spiridion, an ancient bishop[4], having received a pilgrim almost dead with hunger during Lent, and in a place in which there was nothing but salted meat, had some of this cooked and offered it to the pilgrim.  The pilgrim was unwilling to take it in spite of his great necessity.  Spiridion had no need of it, but ate some first for charity, in order to remove by his example the scruple of the pilgrim.  Here was a charitable liberty in this holy man.

 

Father Ignatius of Loyola[5], who is going to be canonized, ate meat on Wednesday in Holy Week on the simple order or the doctor, who judged it expedient for a little sickness he had.  A spirit of constraint would have had to be begged to do so for three days.

 

But I want now to show you a shining sun of detachment, a spirit truly free and unbound by any engagement, holding only to the will of God.  I have often wondered what was the greatest mortification of all the saints I know, and after many considerations I have found this: St. John the Baptist went into the desert at the age of five years, knowing that our and his Saviour was born quite near him – one day’s journey, or two or three, or so.

 

God knows whether St. John’s heart, touched with the love of his Saviour from the womb of his mother Elizabeth, desired to enjoy His holy presence.  Yet St. John stayed twenty-five years there in the desert, without going even once to see our Saviour.  Then he remains elsewhere to catechise, without going to Our Lord, and waits for Him to come.  Afterward, having baptized Our Lord, he does not follow Him, but stays to do his own work.

 

Oh God!  What a mortification of spirit!  To be so near his Saviour, and not to see Him!  To have Him so near and not to enjoy Him!  And what is this but to have the heart free from all, even from God Himself, to do the will of God and to serve Him?  To love God for God, and not to love God, in order so much the better and more purely to love Him!  This example overwhelms my soul with its grandeur.

 

I forgot to say the will of God is known not only by necessity and charity, but by obedience, so that he who receives a command must believe that it is the will of God for him to obey it.

 

Am I not writing too much?  But my spirit runs quicker than I wish, carried on by the ardent desire of serving you…

​

Remember the day of blessed King St. Louis, the day on which you took again the crown of your kingdom from your own soul to lay it at the feet of the King Jesus; the day on which you renewed your youth, like the eagle (Ps. 102:5; RSV Ps. 103:5), plunging it in the sea of penance; a day, which is the harbinger of the eternal day of your soul.

 

Remember that after you pronounced your grand resolutions declaring yourself to be all God’s – body and heart and soul – I said “Amen” on behalf of the whole Church our Mother; and at the same time, the Holy Virgin with all the saints and the blessed made their great “Amen” and “Alleluia” resound in Heaven.

 

Remember to hold that all the past is nothing, and that every day you must say with David, “Now I have begun” to love my God properly (Ps. 76:11; verse missing from RSV).  Do much for God, and do nothing without love.  Apply all to this love; eat and drink for it.

 

Be devout to St. Louis, and admire in him his great constancy.  He was king at twelve, had nine children, and made war continually against either rebels or the enemies of the Faith.  He was king more than forty years and at the end of them all, his confessor, a holy man, swore that having confessed him all his life, he had never found that he had fallen into mortal sin.  He made two voyages beyond the sea; in both he lost his army, and in the latter he died of pestilence, after having for a long time visited, helped, served, dressed, and cured the plague-stricken of his army – and he died joyous, constant, with a verse of David in his mouth.[6]

 

I give you this saint as your special patron for all the year; have him before your eyes, with the others named above.  in the coming year, if it pleas God, I will give you another, after you have profited well in the school of this one…

 

If I decide for myself, I shall never finish this letter, which is written without other intention than to answer yours.  Still I must finish it, begging the great assistance of your prayers, and declaring my great need of them.  I never pray without mentioning you in part of my supplications.  I never salute my angels without saluting yours; do the same for me, and get Celse-Benigne to do it.  I always pray for him and for all your household!  Be sure that I never forget them, nor their deceased father, your husband, in holy Mass.

 

May God be your heart, your mind, your soul, my dearest sister; and I am in His merciful love,

 

Your very devoted servant,

Francis

​

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] Pedro de Ribadenaira (1526-1611), Spanish Jesuit, historian, and ascetical writer.

[2] Calvinist French Protestants.

[3] St. Charles Borromeo (1538-1604), one of the leaders of the Catholic Counter-Reformation of the sixteenth century.

[4] St. Spiridion (died c. 384), bishop of Tremithus in Cyprus.

[5] St. Ignatius of Loyola (c. 1495-1556), founder of the Society of Jesus, otherwise known as the Jesuits.

[6] “I will enter into your house, O Lord” (Ps. 5:8; RSV Ps. 5:8).

​

​

Back to Top

​