V To Madame d’Auxerre, Foundress of the Monastery of the Visitation at LyonsA
Vive ✠ Jésus!
Annecy, 1614.
Madame, My most dear and beloved Sister, The grace of Our Lord be in your heart.
He has been pleased to grant you your request and it is He alone who has inspired you with this desire. Again, He alone has put into the hearts of this little Community a feeling of general satisfaction in regard to your undertaking, and for this intention we have communicated and prayed much. As for me I tell you, trustfully, in confidence, that when I was speaking to our Lord about this affair His divine goodness seemed to make manifest to me that He Himself led you here with His own hand. This consoled me and made me resolve to give you what He commands, and this my dearly loved Sister is my answer to what you ask. I give it simply and in all sincerity. O how happy you are to have been thus called by God to this most excellent service. Respond courageously to such abundant graces and remain very humble and faithful to His holy will.
I must say this one word more in answer to what you feel as regards God’s goodness in giving you as guide this great and admirable servant of His.B Know, my dearest Sister, that I also so strongly feel this, that every day I make a special act of thanksgiving to God for it, and the longer we live the more we shall understand what a grace it is. I remember, in reference to it, a Capuchin once telling me that it increased his regard for me to think of the peculiar care and love that God must have for me to have given me this grace.... Remain now full of thanksgiving in peace and certainty, as much as it is possible to have in this life, that you are carrying out God’s holy will.
We pray continually for you. All our Sisters unite with me in saluting you most cordially. I, indeed, look upon your heart, my beloved Sister, as mine own, and because this is the very truth you must look upon my heart as yours in His who is our only Love.
Adieu. May we belong always wholly to God.
I remain with incomparable affection,
Yours, etc.
Notes
A This pious widow together with two other ladies made a journey to Annecy in 1613 in order to place themselves under the direction of St. Francis de Sales. On their return to Lyons all three petitioned the Archbishop, Mgr. de Marquemont, to establish a Monastery of the Visitation in that town. Before, however, acceding to their request he asked St. Francis the object of the new Order. The Saint at once replied: “To give God souls of prayer who will be so interior as to be found worthy to serve and adore His infinite Majesty in spirit and in truth. To the great Orders already established in the Church we leave the praiseworthy exercises and brilliant virtues by which they honour Our Lord. But I wish that the Religious of my Order should have no other ambition than to glorify Him by their lowliness, so that this little Institute of the Visitation may be as a dovecot of innocent doves whose care and employment will be to meditate on the law of the Lord without making itself seen or heard in the world, remaining hidden in the clefts of the Rock and the Hollow places of the wall there to give to their Beloved, as long as life shall last, proofs of sorrow and love by their lowly and humble sighing.”
B St. Francis de Sales.