Letter 15 of Saint-Cyran.

Mother Agnes, I received your letter as if coming from the gates of Paradise and I hope that God will have kept you still alive in order to receive my answer. The peaceful manner with which you wrote it made me see the main difference that there is between you and me which you will know better when you are with God. Even with the sorrow I feel because your condition has you near death, since you write in your letter that I have more in common with the dead than the living, I feel joy because of the foreknowledge your words give me of the grace God will grant me by your prayers when you will be with him. Reading today in the gospel, I came upon the chapter about Lazarus which made you even more present in my spirit so I decided to use some words spoken there as though they were spoken about you. It seemed to me I said to God these words, “Lord, the one you love is sick”. He answered me, “This sickness is not for death but for the glory of God”. Whatever happens to you, it seems to me that this answer will turn out to be true. I also stopped and focused on this other answer that Jesus Christ gives there when his apostles wish to turn him away from going to Jerusalem by making him fear death. “If someone walks while it is light he does not collide with anything because he sees the light of the world. If someone walks during the night he does collide because he has no light". The light of the day was Christ who was like a sun and a light for the apostles who walked with him and his light must have removed from them all fear of death. Those who have received this light in their hearts like you, have still more reason than the apostles to believe in the words of our lord. Say to him as did David, Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for thou art with me.

   I read in the gospel this answer of Saint Thomas to the words of Jesus who was encouraging his apostles to go with him to Jerusalem, Let's go also with him that we may die with him. Let’s go also ourselves away to Jerusalem and die with him. Those are words that have always been a consolation to me and I would like to be able to say them to Christ when I will be in the condition you are in. They were pleasing to him since we can believe that they were very likely to have had the result that Saint Thomas deserved all the grace that he received afterwards.

    I read also about the active charity of Martha and the serene charity of Mary Magdalene which made me recognize that it was apparently she, Mary, who dictated the letter that they both sent to Jesus.  For it seems to me that the words in it could have originated only from a heart peaceful and completely united with Jesus Christ, a heart that asked nothing from him but only put forward for consideration the sickness of someone he loved.  I would not like to propose to God for you anything else. The words that one and the other sister say to Jesus when he arrived make, it seems to me, clear enough what I say, that the words of this letter and that prayer came only from Mary and not from Martha. For Mary asks him for nothing and is content to say that if he had been present her brother would not have died. On the other hand, Martha reveals her desire that her brother revive. Thus one hurries to go ahead and the other does not advance at all until Jesus calls her. Then she hurries as her sister had hurried previously before Jesus Christ had called her. You would do well to imitate the peaceful charity of Mary Magdalene and to wait in the state where you are for Jesus to call you to go to him.

  There is not at all any piety greater for a sick person than to be at peace in bed. You made it clear to me by your letter that such is your piety. It is mine also and it includes the prayers I offer to God for you finding it a great consolation to be able to tell him that a person that he loves is extremely sick. He will do for you what he did for Lazarus either reviving you for this life or for the other according to what he will judge most consistent with our needs and his eternal designs.

Translated from the French by Daniel McNeill.

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