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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