Selected Letters of Saint Jane Frances de ChantalChantal, Jeanne-Françoise de, Saint
Religion
Selected Letters of Saint Jane Frances de Chantal
Chantal, Jeanne-Françoise de, Saint
Chantal, Jeanne-Françoise de, Saint, 1572-1641 -- Correspondence
[A] This letter, which so charmed St. Jane Frances, contained an account
of the intimate feelings of Mother Marie Agnes Le Roy, when she found
herself under the calumny spoken of in the preceding letter to the
Commander de Sillery. To quote from her letter: "It seems to me," she
says, "that it is a particular grace to have been chosen to bear this
humiliation. Our Lord is so good that He gives me very great pleasure
and contentment in it, because it shows His special love for me, and
seeing that it has all happened to imprint in my heart the spirit of
lowliness and humility I am greatly consoled and incited to redouble my
little efforts to procure Him glory....
"Ah, my dear mother, how wise such occurrences make us, and what fruit
they bear!" (History of the Foundation of the Second Monastery of
Paris.)
CII. _To Sister Anne Louise de Marin de Saint Michel, Superior at
Forcalquier._
Vive [+] Jésus!
ANNECY,
_April 5th, 1637._
MY DEAREST DAUGHTER,
May our most gentle Saviour in His goodness fill our souls with the
merits of His holy Passion! Alas! my daughter, if you knew me such as I
really am you would not desire many years of life for me in this valley
of tears, but rather that God in His merciful goodness should soon take
me to Himself. Still less should you think that sanctity was ripe in me,
for truly all I can discover within my soul is very great poverty and
misery. To speak quite in confidence to you and to you alone: it has
pleased the divine Goodness to deprive me of all light and consolation,
and to let me be overwhelmed with darkness and affliction. In a word, I
am she for whom our good Mother has asked you to pray, and I beseech you
to do it with all the compassionate affection and the loving charity
which God has put into your heart for me. For indeed, dearest daughter,
I am in sore need of your prayers; no other desire am I conscious of
save that God may hold me in His blessed hands and so keep me from
offending Him. To do and suffer all, for and according to His good
pleasure, is enough for me. I tell you all quite openly in order that
you may speak of me to the _Heart_ of our divine Saviour, whom I bless
and thank for the graces that He continues to bestow upon you, with the
growth of that intimate realization of His divine presence. Oh, how
precious, how glorious is this grace! Yet this gift of His presence is
not the same as His presence in the divine Sacrament, where His Sacred
Body and Soul and Divinity all in the most real sense dwell with us, and
remain with us in our miserable tabernacles until the species is
consumed. Nevertheless in the gift of the presence of God this eternal
Truth remains in us by essence, by power, and by grace, and to be
conscious of this is an exceptional favour. You will understand this
better by reading the books that treat of it. In the "Treatise of Divine
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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