LETTER X.--Fear of Making No Progress.
To Sister Marie-Thérèse de Vioménil. On the fear of making
no progress, and of not doing enough penance.
Do not be astonished, my dear Sister, at making apparently
so little progress. One does not ever advance in spiritual as one does in visible works. The business of our sanctification and
perfection ought to be the work of our whole life-time. I notice
that your natural vivacity and eagerness intrude into everything,
and from this proceed anxieties, discouragement, and troubles
which lead you astray in causing you distress. Here is the
remedy! As long as you feel a sincere good-will to belong to
God, a practical appreciation for everything that leads you to
God, and a certain amount of courage to rise after your little
falls, you are doing well in the sight of God. Have patience with
yourself then; learn to bear with your own weaknesses and
miseries gently, as you have to put up with those of your neighbour. Be satisfied to humble yourself quietly before God, and
do not expect to make any progress except through Him. This
hope will not be disappointed, but God will realise probably by
a hidden operation which will take place in the centre of your
soul, and this will cause it to make considerable progress without
your knowledge.
You are uneasy about your penance. Oh! my dear daughter,
how could you perform a better penance, and one in which there
is less of your own will than to bear patiently the crosses that
come from God? Besides, all our crosses come certainly from
Him when they are the necessary, natural, and inevitable consequences of the state in which divine Providence permits us
to be settled. These are the heaviest crosses, but also the most
sanctifying because they all come from God. Crosses from our
heavenly Father, crosses from divine Providence, how much
easier to bear they are than those we fashion for ourselves, and
embrace voluntarily. Then love yours, my dear Sister, since
they have been prepared for you by God alone for each day.
Let Him do this; He alone knows what is suitable for each one
of us. If we remain firm in this, submissive and humbled under
all the crosses sent by God, we shall find in them, at last, rest for
our souls. Thus we shall enjoy an unshaken peace when, by our
submission, we shall have merited from God to be made to feel
that divine unction which belongs to, and is a part of the cross
since Jesus Christ died upon it for us. But you ask how the
spiritual life can be compatible with this state of trouble and
darkness. Ah! my dear daughter, how many are mistaken
about this! Do not you share their delusion. The spiritual
life, gentle, and tranquil as I have always described it to you to
inspire you with a taste for it, is only to be found in two sorts of
persons; first, in those who are entirely separated from the world
and have nothing to do with its affairs; secondly, sometimes,
but more rarely, in persons living in the world, when by dint of
having overcome themselves, and detached themselves from
everything, they live in the world, but are not of it; that is to
say they belong to it outwardly, but not in mind and heart.
But this absence of business and of care if far from constituting
the essential part of the spiritual life, or from forming its merit.
There is another sort of interior life, which, devoid of sweetness,
is on this account all the more meritorious, and it is to this that
you must conform yourself; the other may follow later. This
interior life may also be divided under two heads, first, the
generous fulfilment of the divine will whenever manifested to us
either by the precepts it has itself laid down for us, or by our
Rule, or by the commands or desires of our Superiors; secondly,
to receive everything as coming from the hand of God, whether
business affairs, adversity, illness, difficulties, or annoyances.
Sometimes, however, one forgets oneself. You must expect
this to happen. What is to be done then? You know what,
return quietly to yourself, regain your tranquillity with submissiveness, humble yourself gently before God, never be discouraged
nor disheartened, and above all take good care, according to the
teaching of St. Francis of Sales, not to be grieved at having
been grieved, nor to be angry at having been angry, nor worried
at having been worried, because this would be to go from bad to
worse, and would augment still more the interior trouble. This
is the rock ahead of lively persons.
