Letter 170

My very dear son,

The holiness and the purity of Jesus be our sanctification. I got only the letter in which you told me you would write to me by another way. Now five ships have arrived at our port and I got no other letter from you. I must accuse you of a touch of laziness and say to you that even though I know your good dispositions both from you and from others and that will do me for the present you should not be satisfied by sending it by one route, otherwise you would risk me not hearing from you.

Fr Jerome Lalemant our good and charitable Father is returning to France both because he is recalled and to accompany M. Lozon our Governor who is returning too. We’ll miss him sorely. Besides being a general loss to the whole country he is a still greater loss to our community. He drew up our constitutions and regulations and everything we need to live in perfect regularity. Dom Raymond and he are the two people in the world to whom Our Lord has bound me most closely for the direction of my soul and I am infinitely obliged to him for the great help he gave me in my necessities. I beg you to show your gratitude to him and give him a reception such as he deserves for he is a man of distinction for his doctrine, his integrity and his sanctity to say nothing of his birth. We flatter ourselves in the hope that he will return but his age can be an obstacle. He loves and cherishes you and this without the other reasons will oblige you to reciprocate both for you and for me.

I thank you for your present and ask Our Lord to be your recompense. I beg you do not go to any expense for me. I know the goodness of your heart but I know too that Religious persons do not do all their generosity suggests because of their profession of poverty. If you belonged to an Order that had dealings with the world as spiritual directors or otherwise I would ask you to procure friends for us in Heaven among the angels and Saints whose help is more necessary for us than human aid. I am grateful to you for telling me why, though your religious wear black, your monastery is called ‘White Mantles’. The house was founded as a Monastery of the Servites of the B.V.M. who were dressed in white. When your order was being reformed it would have been difficult to change the name of the house so there is no mystery. As for me I am glad you approve now of our staying in Canada. It is true it is a country of crosses for the servants of God. The cross is the heritage of the saints and we are glad to be in a place where they abound and bring blessings.

The manner of prayer of which you speak, where the soul remains united to God without thinking of anything else, is very good provided it leads to the practice of solid virtue. Though in the prayer itself you do not reflect on this or that virtue, when it is of God it is effective. When the occasion arises, God leaves in the soul a movement or inclination towards good, stronger than that which comes from ordinary prayer. You will see something like it in the writing that I am sending you. Fr Lalemant has graciously agreed to be the bearer in order to deliver it into your own hands.

In a separate letter I am sending you the news of the country. As for me my health is good thanks to Our Lord. I use it, after the care of the community in supervising the building of a little church that our Foundress is giving us and she wants me to take charge of the building. This work gives me plenty to do because everything must go through her, and the workmen had to be fed and the expense is great although the buildings are small and poor.

The offering you make of me every morning is very precious to me. In it I find my happiness for being offered to the Eternal Father with his Well Beloved Son I hope not to be rejected. Take courage in spiritual matters. Our Good Jesus loves you. This is the first letter I am writing to France, the ships five in number came unusually early at the end of May or the beginning of June and will leave early so I am hastening to write to my friends and you are the dearest of all.

From Quebec, 24 June 1656.
p. 217-218.