Letter 21 of Saint-Cyran.

My mother, I know what evils you have endured. I have commiserated with them otherwise than by words in the extreme feebleness that I endure still and that has reminded me more than once of the other world. We are very fortunate to belong to Jesus Christ and to participate in his sufferings but my great weakness is nothing like your state which is painful. God gives you sufferings consistent with the interior strengths he had already given you but your sufferings are in truth other than mine which are both from weakness of the body and of the soul. I thank him with all my heart for everything he has given to others more than to me, and particularly to you, because It seems to me that I would not love you at all with the charity I hope for if I did not love a little more your advancement than mine. I believe I understand the level that you have reached and I know that I have certainly not reached it. When I remind myself that  all the good things of the soul have the goodness of God as their source, I love just as much that this source spread over the souls of others as over mine. I think only that by giving back to him my love I give him the honor and the reverence I owe him without thinking of myself or thinking that what I receive from him is less than others. I am only too happy that I belong to God by the least degree of his grace.

Translated from the French by Daniel McNeill.

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