Annecy, 1616.
My very dear Daughter,
Your letter deeply touches me. May God give us genuine humility, sweetness, and submission, for with these virtues there is truth, but without them usually deception and no sure dependence. No need to consult about this good woman, she must be put out, for a thousand reasons. Unless God give you light to the contrary, beware of acting on any human reasons put forward by her relations. You must drink the chalice, my daughter, and bear with contempt for the sake of exact observance. But act, I pray you, in this matter with gentleness and consideration, saying nothing that might cause any trouble to this poor woman.[A]
As to Mlle. N., we only have knowledge of her in so far as to be able to say that we fear her becoming very dejected from her melancholy and unstable temperament. However, you will have to receive her for a first trial and to tell her frankly that she will be obliged to undergo at least four months' probation in the house before she receives the habit. As to the condition she wishes to lay down of being always with you after her profession, it is not to be heard of. She must not claim to make arrangements on becoming a Religious, as if she was purchasing a farm-house; therefore, should there be no conditions in her contract, and no reserves, the only thing she can reserve to herself is the resolution never to do her own will, and to live peaceably and humbly in the Congregation. I beg of you, my true daughter, maintain a gentle and a humble, a generous and a joyous heart in the midst of the bustle of affairs, for this God requires of you.
You are right in thinking our Sisters de Châtel and de Blonay are two pearls of virtue. They have not a little obliged me in so candidly opening their hearts to you. I never doubted but that they would do so, and I am sure you will always receive consolation and support from them. Gently encourage the dear Cadette[B] to be more expansive and open-hearted with the sisters. She can do it if she look humbly unto God and overcome herself. I beg of her to teach her novices to see the advantage of correction, and to love it. They ought to aspire to great purity of life and become familiar in their communications with their divine Spouse. I shall not write to them now; it suffices that we two, whom God has so intimately united, confer with one another. God bless you, my child, I am very glad to know the state of your heart. Keep it one with God in fidelity to the Rule and a stranger to all unprofitable things; for, my true daughter, God has appointed you for my succour and to carry with me the burden which He Himself has laid upon me. Do not say that you are inconsolable on account of our separation. I assure you that I write much more to you than I tell our sisters here. We do not see one another it is true, but that is all, and I think a little corporal absence renders you more present to the mind than if you were present. In everything else we never make any difference between you and our Sisters here, if it be not that you are more loved and more carefully instructed. Now pity yourself no more, since Jesus Christ is the privileged bond that unites us.
Yours, etc.
[A] Elsewhere St. Jane Frances thus sums up for her daughters the views expressed to her on religious life by their Founder, St. Francis de Sales. "In truth, there are few monasteries which do not possess some one who gives a great example of virtue, but the majority are weak and neither great nor elevated in character. This evil is brought about by persons becoming religious who are not yet really good Christians. Such know indeed their Founder and their constitutions, but they have little knowledge of Jesus Christ and His gospels. They aspire to become perfect in a day, while yet they are unaware of their own miseries and need of justification. They expect to be cured without thoroughly knowing their disease or the physician. They begin with the roof instead of with the foundations, and are eager to offer to the divine Master what He has only recommended as a counsel, without taking the trouble to give Him what He exacts as a debt. From hence come so many dissensions, murmurings, and complaints about trivial things, so much imprudence, so many indiscretions, suspicions, rash judgements, attachments to one's own inclinations and way of thinking, and to trifles; such impatience of contempt, so little fervour in prayer, so little reverence for the holy mysteries, so little fruit from confession and frequent communion, such a poor conception and idea of the life to come, so little gratitude to Jesus Christ, so little solidity and dignity in the practices of devotion. The remedy for all these evils is to employ the time of noviceship in learning truly to know the adorable Master; His precepts, maxims and counsels, by a thorough explanation of His gospel; truly to understand the nobility of man, whom God only can render happy; his fall and his misery, which the Incarnation and the death of a God could alone remedy: the corruption of his heart, of which self-love is master; the inability in himself to do any good without the grace of Jesus Christ: the never-ending danger from that concupiscence which, though conquered, is always within him; the necessity of continual prayer, of solitude, of penance, in order to keep the senses subject to the spirit; truly to understand how terrible God is in His judgements, how heinous are the sins committed after baptism, how differently we shall look upon things after death, and what a heavy responsibility for us will be the life and death of the Redeemer: truly to learn the folly of despising these truths and the sanctity which the grace of the law of this Jesus exacts from us, He who is our Saviour and our Model."
[B] A name given by St. Francis to Mother Marie Aimée de Blonay.