Beseeching you my Lord, very humbly and with all earnestness to provide help for these good servants of God, and trusting that through your kindness and piety the divine mercy may come to their aid, I pray God to spread in abundance His holy benedictions upon you and your Church.
I remain, with humble reverence, etc.
LVII.
To Sister Anne Marie Rosset, Assistant and Mistress of Novices at Dijon.
Vive ✠ Jésus!
Annecy, 1623.
You know and you can never doubt how truly you are my dearest daughter. Lay claim to this title more and more by your charity in praying for me. Indeed, my daughter, this dear Mother (Favre) is a soul of true virtue. She is all for God, for the Rule, and for me. I hope you will always continue to feel that you have a faithful friend in her. The spirit of religion and even religion itself is destroyed by preoccupation about miserable human affections. If the intelligence of the Sisters be not clouded by them nor by self-love they will see the guidance of God over this soul, and through her over other souls, and will themselves be established in solid virtue. Keep the spirit of your novices at a high level and do it with vigour. Engrave in their hearts this maxim, that the love of their divine Saviour is the only love for them, and that in Him they must love their neighbour according to the order of duty and true charity. Oh God! what should we seek on earth or aspire to in heaven save Thee who art our portion and our eternal inheritance? My daughter, a Religious of the Visitation who should attach herself to anything whatsoever but God is not worthy of her vocation. Make this very clear to our Sisters. Each one must have a holy zeal to attain eternal life by the path which God has marked out for her. If our Sisters really love their holy Founder they will prove it not only by the attention and pleasure with which they read his writings, for all the world delights in them, but also by faithfully carrying out his teachings. That incomparable love and sweetness towards their neighbour, that profound humility and lowliness of which he was so great a lover, and which put him at enmity with all ostentation, should above all be practised by them. Finally, let them make theirs the glorious gift he enjoyed of devout attention to the presence of God.
My daughter, see that the spiritual exercises are held in great esteem by the novices. Bring this about: for prayer, recollection, and frequent ejaculatory prayer are the oil of benediction in monasteries. Give good books to those dear novices to read, so that their minds may be filled with profitable food wherewith to make useful reflection, and to undeceive themselves as to the value of the false maxims of the world. Make them value thoroughly the acts and exercises of their Directory, so that their memory being well stored with spiritual things, and their understanding well enlightened, our divine Master will (as I hope) soon warm their wills with His holy love.
Your devoted.