Letter 69 of Saint-Cyran

   I had no need of the letter that you were kind enough to write me to be reassured of the affection you have for me. Thus I received it as an effect of your charity and not as a compliment. The subject behind why Cardinal Richelieu makes war against me does not just console me but gives  me great confidence. Anyone can hope to be rescued by the grace of God who is attacked only because of how he relates to it. For since it is grace, that is thankfulness, it is impossible that it not return what someone gives it, thanklessness being found only among grace’s enemies, who are called thankless by the Holy Fathers. I know very well that we can give nothing to grace except what we have received from it and that the very services that we pay to it  are new obligations to it that we have because of the virtue that grace makes possible. But that does not in any way prevent that in addition grace remains an obligation for us being an inconceivable marvel of God’s goodness. I pray to him not to allow that this situation slip away from me without picking the fruit that it owes me. I can not doubt that God sent me to prison for a reason, in order to purify me like those plants in the Gospel that God cleans by cutting them to make then more fruitful. I will consider myself only too happy if I can take advantage of my circumstances and if this small test can help purify me of the faults that I committed not by working towards bad but towards good things because of unworthy human inclinations while seeking  a lofty holiness. For as God is not pleased that we take communion if we do not do it in a holy state and with the right perspective, as he demands, so he is not pleased if we act for him if our actions and our works are not as holy in their principle as in their object including all the circumstances deriving from their principle.

   God gave me this thought right at the beginning of this disgrace and I received it as a great grace begging him to imprint it so clearly in my soul that I will never forget it because that is perhaps the only plan he had in this encounter. I know that you will not fail to help me make good usage of it, without which I will be unhappy no matter what resolution and human strength I can bring to bear. I would fear that more than being knocked down and overthrown completely because at least that would not be accompanied by pride which is the thing in the world which God dislikes the most and which is the source of all kinds of vices in individuals and generally in the entire nature of man. I hope that God will deliver me from this misery as I beg him to do it in my heart  and will give me a share of the force of his son who was so strong in his humility and in the lowering of his heart by which he overcame all the persecutions of his enemies and all the forces of hell. Please pray always for me, my mother, and be sure that I will never forget what I owe to your charity and that of those persons about whom you spoke in your letter. I am entirely theirs as I am yours and I desire that they be entirely with God with me, as I desire to be with him myself.

Translated from the French by Daniel McNeill

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Letter 68 of Saint-Cyran

   God hides himself a great deal in himself and in souls. Often he is not where he seems to be and he is where he does not appear to be. That is an idea, if I am not mistaken, from the book of Job.

   I find that the desire of the girl is considerable and especially five or six months after she was sent away.  But we must take note of where she gained knowledge of your religious community. I would give her two months to visit you once a week and I would make her speak with Monsieur S. for fifteen or so days. I would order her to present herself to God in church each time she comes and to station herself every day three times before God in her church, at 9 am, noon, and at 5 pm, to speak to him, saying, “My God, I pray you to lead me towards my goal by the intercession of the Holy Mother”, nothing more, and then to kiss the ground. And every time she will see raised up the Body of the Son of God at mass, she will say the same prayer and kiss the ground in the church even before the eyes of everyone. Every time she comes to see you, she will tell you how she spent the week.

   After the two months, you will give her your answer. But take care to do the same thing yourself on her behalf that you will have prescribed for her to assure yourself of the will of God. That is all the answer that I can give you as well as that you should not hurry to receive girls taking no count of what anyone tells you about them until you yourself have experienced the spirit of Jesus Christ. It is difficult in our times to find girls who have a true vocation for religion.

   You can excuse her from kissing the ground if she finds it distasteful. But her aversion will not be a very good sign if doing it causes her pain. If she turns elsewhere to some other community, all the better, it is a sign that God has not destined her to you. We must receive religious persons to the novitiate as in former times great sinners were given public penance to put them to the test and were tested often, sometimes for months. We must not do anything hurriedly for delays are necessary to test souls and discern a calling from God. Jesus Christ taught us that by his example and by the delays he inserted in all his mysteries.

Translated from the French by Daniel McNeill

The United States of the World, The End of All Beginnings, The Theater of the Impossible, books by Daniel McNeill, are for sale at:

amazon.com/author/graceisall