On disinclination to accept the comforts enjoined.
Be careful never to leave off the practice of obedience under
the pretext of mortifying yourself; and never forget these words
of the Holy Spirit, "I will have obedience and not sacrifice."
Do not, therefore, hesitate to take those little comforts that the
doctors, the superiors, and infirmarians prescribe for you;
at any rate, you should have much scruple about refusing them.
In this way you will practise a more meritorious self-denial than
any bodily mortification-that which consists in the renunciation
of your own ideas, of your own judgment, and of your own will.
Through ignorance or forgetfulness of this truth certain devout
persons, who are strongly attached to their own ideas, commit
many faults in being obstinately determined in their pretended
self-denial, and extremely unmortified in their mortifications.
How can they delude themselves so far as not to understand
On attachment to one's own judgment.
My dear Sister,
At last you are freed from your ties and released from all
those engagements by which the world expected to keep you
always captive. I do not doubt that you understand the full
value of the inestimable grace of a religious vocation, and that you are disposed to accomplish generously all its duties. The
longer you have waited for this grace, the greater is the gratitude
you owe to Him Who has, at last, bestowed it on you. You
must, however, be prepared to encounter many difficulties in your new life, difficulties not felt by those who embrace it earlier;
but humility, renunciation, simplicity, and the holy spiritual
infancy of the Gospel will diminish these difficulties considerably
and will finish by making them disappear altogether. With the
help of these virtues you will be preserved from a very subtle
illusion of pride, to which many novices yield, and which is all
the more dangerous because it is almost imperceptible. With
the excuse of trying themselves better, they always want to do a
little more than the rest, or to deprive themselves of those little
comforts that the charity of the Superiors offers them. All this is nothing else but a refined self-love, and a disguised vanity.
As for you, my dear Sister, never, I implore you, have any other
ambition than to follow the ordinary course in all things; not
one iota beyond that. Accept with simplicity and humility the
little comforts and alleviations that the weak are allowed,
rejoice at seeing yourself reduced to the level of a small child
and treated like one and take good care not to seem strong and
courageous. What profound and meritorious humility will you
not thus exercise! delightful in the eyes of God, and more
pleasing to His heart than the most austere life chosen by yourself:
What an amount of pride and vanity may be concealed in conduct
contrary to this! I do not wish to hide from you what a good
long experience has taught me; that those who were most devout
in the world before entering the religious state, have generally
given the most trouble to their Superiors and Mistresses. This
comes of their having formed certain ideas of virtue for themselves which they will not relinquish. Accustomed to be admired
by all who surrounded them, and to be, usually, approved of by
their directors, they cling to their own ideas and their own
spirit without suspecting that this attachment is the very antipodes of all true sanctity. Therefore it is far more difficult to
make those persons practise humility and renunciation, to give
up their notions and self-will than in the case of young people of
unformed character; or even of worldly people who have
become converted. Nevertheless if we do not become as little
children we shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. I
hope, therefore, that you are treated exactly as if you were a
young person of fifteen or sixteen years of age, equally unformed
physically and mentally, and who is told: "Sister, you must
rest to-morrow; you are dispensed from such or such a thing;
you must take some recreation in the garden," or "My dear
Sister, that work is too hard for you, the Mother Superior will
dispense you from it," while you, a formed character, formerly
most devout, should, without replying by a single word or
frowning, carry out all you are told to do, to the letter, in a spirit
of humility and simplicity, satisfied to be treated thus, as if
you were the weakest and the least of all. Look upon yourself
as such, and even rejoice at it, or at least, do your best to do so.
Admire the loving charity of the Rev. Mother and the Sisters,
and bless God for it. This is what a true interior spirit, and
a spirituality that is real and good should teach you, and inspire you with. But, it must be admitted it is a most difficult
matter to reduce these pretended devotees to this. Poor
souls! blinded and deceived, the less they know how to humble
themselves the further they are from real greatness. If they
would but go to Bethlehem, and there contemplate the God