LXXXV.
To Mother Anne Marguerite Clément, Superior at Montargis.
Vive ✠ Jésus!
Annecy, 1631.
I am very well satisfied, my dearest daughter, with the favourable opinion of your Bishop as to your dealings with God. Blessed for ever be He who is so infinitely good as to deign to communicate Himself in such plenitude to His poor and unworthy creature.
My daughter, there is nothing for me to say on this head. Do faithfully whatever your worthy Bishop desires you to do. You have only to look at God and to let Him work, completely forgetting yourself in Him. Since He in His love permits you to speak to Him so lovingly and familiarly I pray you, dearest daughter, present to Him sometimes my miserable little heart, humbly beseeching Him to make it entirely His, to strip it of all that does not find favour in His sight, and to give it the grace to do and suffer all things whatsoever that His good pleasure wills.
Earnestly recommend to Him our poor little Congregation, that His spirit may reign therein, and commend me often to His most holy love. Do this so heartily that I may feel the effects in as full a measure as His adorable will permits. Give me always your sweet affection in that holy love. I have read the two pages of your letter regarding your interior state, upon which I say nothing, save to praise God for the graces and lights that He vouchsafes to you. It is not for the creature to use empty and insipid words when the Creator Himself deigns to speak.