My very dear and very hon. Brother,
May the sacred love of our divine Saviour be our eternal life! The little preface or pretended excuse in your letter is not quite in keeping with the simple confidence with which we have resolved to treat each other, which I believe God desires and ratifies, and with the profession you make of wishing to live in the entire simplicity and candour of the Visitation spirit, which one certainly cannot but see in you. I bless God for it with all my heart, and know not how to thank Him for His infinite Goodness in having given such a friend to our Congregation, and such a support to the new plant which Providence has set in the garden of the church of Angers. Now I say all this straight out from my heart; will you not receive it, then, in this wise, my very dear brother, and unite with me in praising God, for to Him we owe it all. He is the sole author of all good things, hence should all glory be referred to Him. Your whole bearing with our Sisters is extremely pleasing to me. Sister Mary Euphrasia Turpin has a good heart, a fine intelligence, and loves the Rule, which I advise her closely to follow, above all in the guidance of her Novices. Will you not also give her this advice? You will find her pliant, open, and easy to convince.
We must let Mother Claire Madeleine de Pierre complete her three years,[B] and I hope by that time divine Providence will have provided a successor. It is a very serious matter in a new foundation when a superior is often ill, and cannot follow the common life. By seeking pretexts, without necessity, to dispense herself, however little, from the exercises, she does great harm to herself and her community. She who ought to be a model of good example to her Sisters. How miserable and dangerous is this false liberty. May God preserve us from it! What responsibility have not such superiors on their consciences, and what an account they will have to render, not only for their own faults but for those which have been committed in imitation of them, and for impeding their own perfection and that of those under their care. This is far-reaching, my dear brother, so speak of it occasionally, I beg of you. A true daughter of the Visitation is a great treasure—may God give us all the grace to become such. You do not tell me if the Sisters are still in your house. How good you are to them! I pray God to reward you with the glorious gift of His eternal City. To Him you owe much for having given you the heart and the generous soul you possess, wherein there is but the one desire, to serve Him. Go forward, dear brother, forward, always advancing and increasing in the purity and perfection of divine love, and may God give you the grace faithfully to correspond to the great favours He bestows upon you. This is, I know, your great wish, and I seem to see our Blessed Father looking down upon you as one of His most cherished children. God knows how I esteem you in His sight. But alas! my own poverty and misery are beyond description. May God diminish them for the sake of His glory. I trust to His Goodness and to the prayers that are offered for my needs....
There is no doubt that this difficulty of not being able to make considerations in prayer leads to a more simple form of prayer, and a soul thus led ought to adhere to this way to which God is undoubtedly calling her, however faint may be the call, and although the calm and facility of dwelling reverently before Him which it brings be but slight. Neither ought she to forsake it because of her indigent state nor because of her wanderings of mind, but remain patiently and tranquilly before Our Lord, not giving willing consent to distractions, but when worried by them just say from time to time words of submission, abandonment, confidence, and love of the divine will, and give up discoursing with the understanding; indeed it is useless to split our heads trying to do so, for it will be of no avail. The great secret of prayer is to follow our attraction and to go to it in good faith.
A soul who wishes to live in the presence of God should be very faithful to the practice of virtue, to great purity of heart, and to an unconditional surrender of herself to the divine will. When she sees herself walking in this way she need fear nothing, but if she has great consolations and facilities in prayer without the practice of these virtues, she certainly ought to fear. Truly this manner of prayer has in its simplicity a wonderful power of leading souls to a total despoliation of themselves. Yet they usually enjoy neither relish nor sensible devotion.
Yours, etc.
[A] Guy Lanier Abbé de Vaux not only put his own house at the disposal of the Sisters foundresses of the Visitation at Angers, but continued in after years to give them constant proofs of his paternal affection. He was one of the most virtuous ecclesiastics of the seventeenth century.
[B] Each election in the Visitation Monasteries is for a period of three years.