Letter 123

From Quebec. To her son. 22 Oct. 1649. 
She answers some difficulties he had about preceding letters and some questions he asked about spiritual matters and some remarkable circumstances concerning the martyrdom of the Jesuit Fathers. 

My very dear son,

When I got your letter two ships had already left and those remaining were on the point of sailing. Still I was ready to write to you to console myself since I got no consolation from you. But your letter gives me material to write at greater length more than I had intended. I can’t answer all you ask on account of the imminent departure of the vessels. I’ll do so at my leisure and send it next year.

Let us begin then, my dear son. Don’t be surprised that there are souls such as you describe that are inhibited and reserved when one tries to discuss with them some words of God. I don’t know what you have experienced but it’s true there are dispositions in which it is not possible to say what we feel interiorly, not even in general terms and here are two reasons why I am so sure. The first is that one’s spiritual state does not consist in sensible devotion or in ardent feelings that make it easy for us to describe what we feel; those who have already made some progress in the spiritual life and who receive new and frequent lights are glad to meet someone to whom they can tell what they can’t be silent about. Their senses trouble them because they are not yet spiritualised and their feelings are so great that if they don’t give vent to their fervour in words or sighs they’ll drop dead, nature not being able to support the violence. I know a person, whom you know well, who was at one time obliged to seek an out of the way place where she could give vent to her feelings for fear of being stifled. That happens indeliberately without forethought by a rapture of spirit which nature is not able to support. Apart from these raptures these persons can speak eloquently of God but during the rapture if they try to speak their senses would fail them.

The second reason is that there are interior dispositions so simple and so spiritual that we can’t talk about them, cannot find words in which to express them. The interior sweetness that we possess or is possessed by us is so sublime that all we would want to say about Him of whom we want to speak seems completely unworthy of Him. So we feel incapable of speaking of Him. We like to listen to those who are speaking about Him and yet, without saying a word, we enjoy interiorly His embraces and His familiar conversation.

There is a third reason for this powerlessness, the mind being so occupied we cannot speak. There are many others but besides my incapacity I am overwhelmed with business that does not permit me to write at greater length. I am in danger of spending the night trying to write at peace the little that I am saying. But what would I not do for you, not that I would undertake to give you instructions, my sex and my ignorance would not permit it in view of your status. But I find it impossible to refuse you anything. I am simply following my inclination by satisfying yours, for the love of God binds me to you, beyond the bonds of nature, in a way I would find it difficult to express.

Let this spiritual exchange prevail over the natural. Let us both live in the Sacred Heart of Jesus and there learn the fruits of faithful practice of the maxims you know. They draw us gently into that state you say is unknown to you. I’ll answer that question when we come to it. It is true that immoderate fervour has the effect you say but when Our Lord gives a talent for that, which He usually does for a while, the spirit is able to bear it and draws nature after it. I mean to say nothing happens except by the direction of the Holy Spirit. This direction removes all impetuosity so that the soul is completely subject to Him who moves it and by letting itself be led by such a powerful master it remains in a state of peace and tranquillity that we can feel and experience but cannot put into words. There are souls that God leads gently without these powerful attractions but they are led by the same spirit. In this state they do not commit voluntary imperfections, their imperfections come from surprise or human frailty and this ends only with life.

We do not always remain in the same state, each has his own weakness and discovers it only as God gives the light and this He does gradually except for those He leads in extraordinary ways and to whom He gives a very special gift of wisdom and instantaneously reveals His secrets, to place them in a state of actual love and light and fervour all at once. But still it is true that though in this extraordinary state we see the slightest imperfections all at once and without reflecting on it we see there is always a self to be overcome. It is born with us and without it we would already enjoy the state of the blessed. We fall and we get up again. It is as if little clouds float in front of the sun and pass so quickly that they hardly cast a shadow. We fall and rise again and in falling we are talking to God about this miserable life that makes us do what we do not wish as St. Paul said. But let us go back to your letter.

It is true that the soul goes through the states you mention. You describe the first. This self of which we have spoken corresponds to the second, but provided we are not attached to it and do not willingly follow its inclinations it cannot injure us. If we are faithful to God, He will let us see gradually the deformities and ugliness that will make us turn away from it. It is true that nature has hidden resources but we discover them according as we advance in the ways of God and go through the different stages of the spiritual life. It is an effect of God’s goodness to hide them from us, because if we saw them all at once our weakness could not bear it without losing courage for the practice of virtue; but seeing them gradually, nature is less frightened. We must try to do the right thing when we know it and to stifle the inclinations of this miserable self when we discover them, and with persevering fidelity we arrive at the kingdom of peace and interior tranquillity where we taste and savour God and truly die to the world and to self where nature having been mortified doesn’t rise again in its original strength. There, a pure and right intention will serve as a rampart against corruption and attachments where nature uses all the artifices of self-love and where it becomes easy to distinguish the true from the false.

Yes, my dear son, I like the maxims you mention. They lead to purity of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. I could not, though I am so weak, relish any airy devotion founded on the imagination. Our Divine Saviour and Master has become our model and so that we can more easily imitate Him, He has taken a body and a nature like ours, so no matter what state we are in we can follow him with his grace. He will show us gently what we should suppress because the beauty of the Spirit will make us see the impurity of ours and the deformity of our activity, interior and exterior. So we always find holy maxims to practise, not with effort and vexation of spirit but by gentle attention to Him who occupies our soul and calls us to follow His law. That is the devotion that sustains me, without it I would be building on sinking sand. God is purity and He wants souls that resemble him by trying to imitate His adorable Son by the practise of the Divine maxims. As I have said, all this done gently for if nature is not disturbed and anxious, Gospel maxims are not difficult; for when the soul wants something, if it is courageous, it is half done; God operates, the soul savours the call and then comes peace. When it is a question of working at it, by foreseen acts, resolutions and reflections to take a short cut it seems that the suppression of reflections on things that could give pain is absolutely necessary. The more the imagination is activated, the mind, if it isn’t careful is also moved and then there is no peace or tranquillity. To tell the truth during the thirty years that God has given me the grace to draw me to a more interior life, I have found no more powerful way of making progress than to cut out all reflection on the difficulties we meet and especially what does not tend to God or the practise of virtue.

You mustn’t be surprised at this great activity of the understanding. People who are studying are subject to this on account of the many questions they deal with, if they haven’t the will entirely fixed on God, because then if the will is the master it can force the understanding to follow after it. At one time I found myself in this difficulty. Having to teach the mysteries of faith to people far advanced in the spiritual life, I just glanced at the little catechism of the Council of Trent and immediately my mind was possessed by the truth. My understanding became so active and I spoke so coherently that I could not continue. But as my interior activity is not normally centred in the understanding, the will imposed silence on it, so that both powers together could enjoy in simple loving contemplation the fruits hidden in the mysteries. So the three powers of the soul remain at their centre, without distinction of operation and as one power, knowing loving and belonging to God, who is Being, pure and simple. When, as I say the will is fixed on God and does not turn voluntarily from the way His Divine Majesty is calling, which is usually the way of active love and familiar converse, the understanding can do no harm, because the will is in command and leads where it wishes, aided by a secret interior strength that always tends to God as sole master of all.

You notice that there are people with volatile understanding, running from one thing to another, whose prayer time goes by without their having made a single act of the will. It is a weakness of nature, to be treated with humility and patience, to get upset about it would give rein to the imagination and make things worse. By practising virtue we gain what we thought was lost Good will and perseverance win the heart of God, who then gives what we cannot get by our own efforts.

You are right is saying that there are states of union of understanding and will and that these states are transient. It seems to me that they are efforts God uses to lure the soul and win it for himself. If the soul is faithful at such times, it will advance far in the ways of God. It would seem that promises made in such states of prayer are like contracts to be kept inviolably, as far as human weakness aided by grace can. Even when we do not notice it, we are advancing; but God knows we are weak and he hides our progress from us, and he bides even the grace he gives us as we are not sufficiently convinced of our nothingness and our powerlessness and would attribute to ourselves what is due to our benefactor.

What I call union of understandmg occurs when that faculty is directly occupied with God by a specific or a general notion. It is a loving thought and draws the whole soul with it; but it is the understanding that commands the will to love without the will being aware that it is making such acts. It is an infusion of graces that cannot be described. All that can be said is that the soul wants nothing for itself but all for God and so it receives the effects of immense goodness. The union of understanding and will is an attraction of God which produces both light and love and places the soul in intimate familiarity with God. The results are precious, above all it gives the facility to speak intimately to His Divine Majesty in any circumstances and produces a state of actual peace that is like a savoury meal for the soul where the senses have no part. The heart is never despondent, always very much alive when speaking to God. When obliged to converse with creatures, conversation with God is interrupted, this inaction is repose and a simple attention to Him by whom she is possessed, is enough, without this attention distracting from external business, if such business is in the order of obedience and charity.

In fact, my dear son, I admire your remarks on what I write to you. Be sure I never stop to make these distinctions. Here however, are a few words in answer to your Third Degree. Following that intimacy of which I spoke, the soul cannot reflect on different “points” however spiritual, not even during free times. It can think of them only by a simple look. The will is actively engaged in loving, in full liberty to speak, not a long discourse, but simple continual aspirations. The soul has its own abbreviated language which sustains it marvelously, as if it said: “My Life, my All, my Love!” The supernatural aspiration continues to keep pace with the natural respiration. When the demands of charity or duty interrupt the language, the heart remains attentive to the Object.

But the most precious gift of all is the Spirit of the Word Incarnate, when He gives it in a sublime way, as He does to some souls I know in this new Church and as He did to our holy martyrs, Fathers de Brébeuf, Daniel, Jogues and Lalemant, who showed by their generous courage that their hearts were filled with the Spirit and the love of their good Master’s Cross. It is this Spirit that sends Gospel labourers out by land and sea, living martyrs before being consumed by fire and iron. The inconceivable labours they endure are greater miracles than raising the dead to life.

To come to details: I say the Spirit of Jesus is a gift. It is not acquired in a meditation. God may give it to a soul that has been faithful on an occasion involving His Glory in a big way, or in something very small done with perfect love of God and complete self-rejection. Normally He gives it after much labour and sweat in his service and much fidelity to grace. It is an intellectual grasp of the spirit of the Gospel and of what our adorable Lord and Master did, said and suffered, with a corresponding love in the will. Take any incident in the hidden life of the Son of God, it contains a holiness that the highest Seraphim adore, and they recognise that they are atoms and mere nothings in comparison with the sublime interior occupations of the Divine Saviour. Consider the three years of His conversation with people, His private talks, His preaching, His sufferings and His Passion, His death. You would say these three years have brought all that is most Divine, have given us or procured for us, the gifts of grace and glory. By distinguishing the states of this adorable Master, we get to know our own observing due proportion, for God forbid that we make a comparison between ourselves and Him. Taking this for granted, the familiar companionship one has with God surpasses what I said above, and gives a generosity of a different stamp. That excellent Sermon on the Mount and the discourse after the Last Supper are the strength and baptism of souls to whom God gives this gift. Do not think that the imagination or the senses are involved in this occupation, no, it is purely spiritual, the result of an infusion of spiritual grace. In this state one practises not only the maxims you mention, but all in the Gospel that conform to one’s state or the duties obedience imposes. The soul in this disposition makes more progress in a day than it would otherwise in a month.

This loving approach of the loving Incarnate Word brings the soul an indescribable interior unction, and a sincerity, a frankness, a rectitude, a simplicity, an avoidance of all that is devious in external activity; it imposes on the heart a love of the Cross and of persecutions; it makes it feel and experience the effects of the eight Beatitudes in a way that God knows and that I cannot express. All these effects and more come from the unction and the continual attraction with which the Spirit of Jesus draws the soul. This Spirit persuades, convinces attracts so gently that it is impossible to refuse Him anything; besides he behaves in the soul as in a house that belongs entirely to Him. This gentle persuasion in His language, the response of the soul is to let herself be carried away by yielding lovingly. There are mutual looks and pure communications that words cannot express.

The soul, without doing violence to nature, which she draws after her easily, is tranquil amid painful and difficult situations. If nature through weakness or infirmity is surprised by some wrong or insult it has received, the soul notices it immediately, and nature becomes powerless; peace and interior unction even make her love those who injure her. It is the same with everything else. The soul is humbly courageous without human respect in the defence of justice and equity, with of course entire submission to the judgement of directors. In this state the soul no longer commits indiscretions for it is united to God in a way that makes her free; she sees clearly in all her operations, being no longer in transports of desire or love as formerly. It is the liberty of the children of God who introduces them to holy familiarity with Him by the confidence and the free access He gives them. In former states the soul was intoxicated and transported and forgetful of self, but now she belongs to her Well Beloved and He to her, sharing interests and possessions, if I dare put it like that. She risks everything for His Glory and despite crosses she clings to the law of self-annihilation, so that she may be nothing and He alone be glorified. It is not that she does not encounter times when the cross presses more heavily and she even commits imperfections, but these pass quickly, the soul humbles herself, and regains peace by accepting the humiliation. Notice that the nearer the soul approaches to God, the more she recognises her own nothingness, and though she may be raised to a high degree of love, she still abases herself to a profound degree of humility. These two dispositions accord perfectly, which shows the truth of Our Lord’s Words: He that humbles himself will be exalted.

It seems to me that all I have just written answers your questions sufficiently, though I write hurriedly, and it is all badly arranged. I beg you to supply for my defects, for I am a poor creature loaded with business transactions for France as well as for this House. For three months, those who have business with France have no rest, and as I have care of all the temporalities of this community, and must send to France for everything we need and must pay by promissory note as there is no money in this country and must deal with it for our provisions and must see to and do a thousand things that it would be useless to mention, so that every moment of my time is filled with some occupation and I cannot answer you at leisure. Be sure to write to me as usual, but write early so that I can take plenty of time to answer.

You console me by telling me your dispositions. Take courage. With holy obstinacy keep close to God in the way He is drawing you. Bind yourself to His Goodness in that state of tranquillity and repose, humbly keep your rules, submit to your superiors with simplicity, do not let knowledge puff you up, learn nothing for your own sake but for God. In preaching to others preach to yourself too, by a holy intention of practising what you preach. If you do all that, you will see what God will operate in your soul. You ask if I offer you to His Divine Majesty in my prayers: Yes, I do, with all my heart, for I want you to belong to Him in the way He desires. You are too dear to me in His presence for me to forget you there, and I believe that you do not forget me there either; that is why I beg you to ask Him that I may be more faithful to Him than hitherto, for fear my infidelities would frustrate His designs on me, to whom in His goodness He has been so merciful.

As for our business, I am grateful to you for speaking as you do. We have no Bishop yet, as a result I think of the troubles in France. Nevertheless pressure for our Bull continues in Rome. In the meantime the Father Superior of the mission performs all ecclesiastical functions like marriage and baptisms. He has special faculties where we are concerned and he acts validly as ecclesiastical Superior, giving the veil, receiving to profession and holding visitation, until a Bishop comes. We have taken these precautions here since Dom Raymond gave me the same advice as you give me. Even though the Fathers working in the Indies and other distant lands, spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ, have all these privileges, those on the Mission here do not want to avail of them. That is where we are for the present. Next year if we are alive, I’ll let you know what we have achieved in Rome. But why were you not able to obtain Bulls for the union of your Congregation with Cluny? I beg you to tell me briefly about it, the example of what happened in your case has made me think of ours. The Bishop of La Rochelle, an uncle of Sr. St. Joseph, has sent her word that he is our Bishop, for according to law, newly converted lands belong to the nearest Bishop. Here they say Rome wants him to incorporate the infant Church here into his new Bishopric, but he does not want to accept, fearing he would be obliged to visit it. Time will tell what God has ordained for it in his Eternity.

By an early vessel which should by the grace of our Lord have arrived in France by this, I asked our Mothers in Tours to send you a copy of the letter I sent them about the martyrdom and glorious death of three Jesuits Fathers. I told them eighteen hundred people had been baptised, but I was mistaken. There have been two thousand seven hundred baptisms since their death. Their blood has been a blessed seed that has produced this great harvest for Our Lord. I could not find time to send you the news of the country, but I hope you will excuse me as I am making up for it otherwise. You will see by the letter to Tours that the country is extremely persecuted, towns and villages sacked Churches and Altars overturned, Christian leaders put to death. Our foundress is sending you relics of the holy martyrs, on the quiet. The Fathers would not give us any, for fear we would send them to France but she is free. The very persons who collected the relics gave some to her in secret, and I asked her to send you some, which she did with great affection she has such respect for you.

Revd Fr. Poncet, your good friend, risked being cut to pieces like the other Fathers. It was his wish but God willed to dispose of him otherwise. He had been three whole months alone on the Mission to the Standing Hair where no French man before him had set foot. He cast the first seeds of the Gospel and baptised several infants. He is going back to continue his work with so much zeal and fervour that he did not even take time to write to his mother, who with his grandmother, has become a Carmelite. You will see from the Relation that what I wrote to you last year was an indication of what has happened. Revd Father de Brébeuf, first apostle of the Hurons, had several visions of what was to happen at his death and that of his companions, and of what would happen to the Church. All that was found in his writings. Our Lord let him see his face, all disfigured as it was later, according to over a hundred witnesses. In the same vision he saw his hands unscathed. As things happened, his body was all mutilated, his bones laid bare, his flesh eaten while he was still alive, but not the slightest injury was done to his hands. This is contrary to barbarian method of torture. They begin with the hands, pluck off the nail and saw off the fingers to “caress the patient”, as they say. Now Father could be recognised only by his precious hands. Our Lord revealed to him the time of his martyrdom three days beforehand. He went joyfully to tell the other Fathers. Seeing him all radiant, they had him bled; a Divine inspiration, then the surgeon having a presentment of what was to come, dried the blood, fearing that he, like Fr. Daniel eight months before, would be totally reduced to ashes and leave no relics. We heard of many other marvels from eyewitnesses. Two days ago captives who escaped from the enemy told us that the barbarians cut off Fr. de Brébeufs mouth because he would not stop preaching and praying to God even when they had his toes off, and eaten his flesh. They are as skilled at skinning people as wild beasts and leave the veins and arteries on the bones to prolong life and torture. It is truly for God and the Faith that these apostolic men have suffered their horrible torments. They are the effects of the gift of the Spirit of Jesus Christ that I spoke of at the beginning of this letter. Reading the account of this in the Relation you will see them as miracles of patience. As for me I am dust, unworthy of such a holy death. Pray God to have mercy on me.

From Quebec. 22 Oct. 1649.
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