VII LETTER TO MÈRE AGNÈS DE JÉSUS
IF you only knew to what a degree I wish to be indifferent to the things of the earth! What matters to me all created beauty? I should be truly unfortunate were I to possess it. Oh! how great, how noble, seems my heart when I look at it in relation to this world's goods, since all of them put together could never satisfy it; but when I consider it with reference to Jesus, how small it then appears to me.
II LETTER TO MÈRE AGNÈS DE JÉSUS
YES, I now am able to say I have received the grace of being no more attached to the goods of mind and heart than to those of earth. If it happens that I repeat to my Sisters some thought of mine which pleases them, I think it quite natural that they should look on it as their own; this thought belongs to the Holy Ghost not to me, seeing that St. Paul tells us that without the Spirit of Love we cannot give to God the name of Father. [5] The Holy Spirit assuredly is free to use me as the means of conveying a good thought to a soul and I may not consider this thought as my property.
HIST. D'UNE AME, CH. X
[5] Cf. Rom., viii, 15.
"THERE is one only means of constraining the good God not to judge us at all, it is to appear before Him with our hands empty."
"But how?" they asked her.
"It is quite simple: keep nothing whatever in reserve, give away your gains according as you earn. As for me, if I live to be eighty I shall be always poor; I know not how to save up, all that I have goes immediately to ransom souls."
COUNSELS AND REMINISCENCES