To Sister Marie-Anne-Thérèse de Rosen. To aim at Simplicity.
My dear Sister,
Only a few days ago I answered at some length your last letter but one. If you find that, through me, God does not do much for you, you ought to conclude that my help is not necessary for you, or else that He will Himself provide for your necessities. How well He can do without us when He chooses! One single word uttered by Him to the ear of the soul is more instructive than all the discourses of men. The least little breath of grace wafts our ship more speedily on its course, and makes it arrive more surely and speedily into harbour than all our oars, sails, and sculls. I am delighted to hear that you are beginning to learn this, or rather that you daily have fresh and more touching proofs of it. Keep in this state: the interior silence of respect and submission alone, kept humbly in the presence of God if He does not command us to act, will sanctify our energies, soften our anxieties, and pacify our troubles, and that in one moment. Remain in this state of unity and simplicity; multiplicity throws the mind into trouble and confusion, scatters and disorders our powers without our being able to perceive it. Many desires trouble the soul, says the Holy Spirit. Here is a practice which I advise you to follow in order to reduce all your desires to a single one; take this truth well to heart. "I have been created and put into this world to serve God, to love Him, and to please Him; that is my task here; what does He wish to do with me in this world and the next? to what degree of glory will He raise me? That is for Him to determine; it is His business, it is, so to say, His task; each to his own business, the doing of that is the only thing to think of. Please God I will think of mine as willingly as God thinks of His." I remain in Him and through Him--my dear Sister. Yours, etc.
To Sister Anne-Marguerite Boudet de la Bellière. On the same subject.
My dear Sister,
The way in which you take your little trials is infinitely pleasing
to God, and I do not fear to give you this assurance, because in
so generously renouncing, as you do, all interior sweetness and
consolation for the love of Him, you merit to receive them more
abundantly when the time arrives. The little, you tell me, that
you have remembered of what I have told you, is the essential part,
and that ought to suffice. God sees the heart, and that is all
that He wants. Perfection does not consist in a multiplicity
of acts even though interior; on the contrary the more we advance the
more is God pleased to make it out of our power to
produce many acts, but invites us to remain in His presence in
a state of silence and humble recollection. Follow this attraction
Do not, however, expect to be able to measure the progress you make; that is impossible for this reason, that your progress depends more on the work of God in your soul than on your own acts, and that this work being purely spiritual, on that account is hardly perceptible.
However, I give you some signs by which you may recognise in future the results of the divine action in your change of heart.
1st. A holy indifference which resembles a sort of insensibility to all things of this world.
2nd. A fund of peace from which it follows that you will not trouble yourself about anything, even about your faults and imperfections, and far less about those of your neighbour.
3rd. A certain attraction towards God and the things of God; a sort of hunger and thirst after justice, that is to say, after virtue, piety, and all perfection. This hunger, which is very keen, is, nevertheless, exempt from eagerness and trouble, and leads you to will always what God wills, and nothing more; to bless Him in spiritual poverty as much as in abundance.
Remember always this great saying of Jesus Christ: "If you do not become like little children you shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven." Be on your guard never to infringe, in the slightest degree, this holy simplicity, so little known, so little esteemed, yet so precious in the sight of God. Be always more and more upright and simple in your thoughts, words, opinions, actions, and behaviour. There are people who want to be just the contrary, and who pretend to be, out of vanity. How very far are these people from the Kingdom of God, since they have not even the foundation of it, which is humility. Whenever you go to pray, or leave it with a quiet, recollected, and well-disposed mind, you will always derive some fruit from it one way or another, and all the more when you believe that God is farthest from you, for then He will be nearest. Do not make a number of acts during prayer, but make a few very quietly, with the greatest repose of mind and heart, and in the greatest tranquillity possible. During the day do not force yourself to make so many different acts, and still less to feel fervour and devotion in making them; keep yourself firmly, humbly, and patiently in peace, tranquil and quite resigned m this emptiness of the mind and of the will. It is this emptiness of the spirit which conduces to pure love, and union with God.