P.S.—I must add this word. Study meekness and humble gravity. I beg it of you. The Chapter on Religious Modesty, well practised, will give you this grace.
LXV.
To the Sisters of the Visitation.[A]
Vive ✠ Jésus!
Annecy, 1626.
My very dear Sisters,
I present to you, in all the sincerity of my heart, the directions and customs which have been established in this monastery by our late holy Father and Founder, having arranged them in what seemed to me the most convenient form for their preservation. And I have added, following his injunctions, some things which he had written with his own hand, and others, which he had marked, but had not yet written.
The majority of the Sisters who have known him are aware, as I am, that it was his wish that these Directories, Ceremonials, and Customs should, in the future, be for ever observed in all our monasteries of the Visitation, in order, permanently, to keep up the union and conformity which until now has existed between them and the first monastery. To further this end, it has been my desire, by means of the first Sisters of our holy Order and of the entire Chapter here, to make them known, so that with me they may bear witness, to those who succeed us, that they are the same Directories, Ceremonials, Customs, and Ordinances which were established in this monastery of Annecy by our said holy Founder, and that they have been observed by these first Sisters, and by all the Communities which they governed, in as far as they have been communicated to them. But because it has pleased divine Providence to confer on me, though so unworthy, the honour, grace and happiness of being one of the first sisters employed in beginning this most admirable and holy manner of life, our holy Father and Founder has instructed me and them with peculiar care. Therefore, dearest Sisters, I think it will not be distasteful to you if I exhort you to be faithful to the observance of things which have been recommended for the welfare of our souls with such tender love and zeal. Nor do I think you will gainsay my recalling you to some notable points to which I know he specially wished that we should adhere.
This I do in true affection, for, to me they sum up all that is necessary for us and nothing more is needed by us. His great fear, our Blessed Father told me, was lest we should not thoroughly devote ourselves to the practice of the Rule. And I, also fearing this, pray God that our very apprehension may make us all the more faithful to our observance. "The precepts," he said, "of all virtue and perfection are contained in our Rules and Constitutions." Oh, how true this is! For if we have but one heart in God, if we honour Him in the person of one another; if we are simple, humble, chaste, poor, retiring, and all else that is prescribed, shall we not fulfil all perfection? Again, he said that our Institute teaches us sufficiently what to do, and our part is to do it. Let us, then, labour, I beseech you, very dear Sisters, with our whole hearts, whether it be in obeying or in commanding, to become living Rules, not according to our own human wisdom and prudence, but according to what is set down, practising it, exactly and punctually, to the letter, without gloss or comment; and let us rather die than under any pretext whatsoever depart from this holy way.