UPON THE ODOUR OF SANCTITY.
Our Blessed Father held in the very highest esteem the odour of sanctity, and revered those who by their good example shed it abroad through the world, not for their own glory, but for the glory of God.
On another occasion when some morose and captious person was finding fault with the Visitation Order, and after taking exception to it because of its newness, wound up by saying to Blessed Francis, "And then of what use will it be to the Church?" The holy Prelate answered pleasantly: "To play the part of the Queen of Sheba." "And what part is that?" returned the man, "To render homage to Him who is greater than Solomon, and to fill the whole militant Jerusalem with perfumes and sweet odours."
In one of his Conferences he expresses the same thought as follows: "In my opinion the divine Majesty has made choice of you to go forth as perfume-bearers, seeing that He has commissioned you to go and scatter far and wide the sweet odours of the virtues of your Institute. And as young maidens love sweet odours (for the Bride in the Canticle of Canticles says that the name of her Beloved is as oil, or balm, shedding on all sides the sweetest perfumes, and therefore, she adds, the young maidens have followed Him, attracted by His divine perfumes), so do you, my dear sisters, as perfume-bearers of the Divine Goodness, go forth, shedding all around the incomparable sweetness of sincere humility, gentleness, and charity, so that many young maidens may be attracted thereby, and may embrace your manner of life, and that they may even in this world enjoy, like you, a holy loving peace and tranquillity of soul, and in the world to come eternal happiness."