Mademoiselle de Soulfour
Mlle de Soulfour, whose father was an acquaintance of Francis de Sales through the “Cercle Acarie,” was a novice in a religious community in Paris at the time Francis wrote her the following letters. Young, fervent, with high ideals of perfection, she had difficulty in accepting human frailty in herself and in the nuns with whom she lived. She had confided her disillusionment and uncertainties to Francis and told him of her wish to enter the more strict Carmelite Order. While respecting her youthful idealism and her desire for the absolute, Francis directs the troubled young woman to a more realistic appreciation of her own limitations and the imperfections of others, and to greater trust in God’s providence. She did enter the Carmelite monastery at the rue Saint-Jacques in Paris and persevered in her vocation until her death in 1633.
July 22, 1603
Mademoiselle,
My brother has just brought me one of your letters, a letter that makes me praise God for the bit of spiritual light He has given you. And if the clouds have not yet completely disappeared, don’t be surprised. Spiritual fevers, like physical fevers, are ordinarily followed by after-effects which are useful to the one who is recovering, for several reasons, but especially because these reactions destroy other infections which had caused the illness. They remind us of our recent illness and make us fear a relapse, which could easily happen if we allowed ourselves too much freedom. They hold us in check, warning us to take care of ourselves until we have completely regained our health.
But, my dear daughter, since you have already half escaped from the terrible path which you were following, it seems to me that now you ought to try to get a little rest, and take time to think about the vanity of the human mind and how easily it becomes confused and wrapped up in itself. I’m sure you can readily see how the interior trials you have experienced were caused by the multiplicity of reflections and desires that came about in your great hurry to attain some imaginary perfection. By this I mean that your imagination had formed an ideal of absolute perfection which your will wanted to reach, but, frightened by the huge difficulty, or rather, impossibility of attaining it, remained, as it were, heavy with child, unable to give birth. On this occasion your will multiplied futile desires which, like bumblebees and hornets, devoured the honey in the hive, while the true and good desires remained starved of all consolation. Therefore, slow down, take a few deep breaths, and by reflecting on the dangers you escaped, avert those that might come your way. Treat as suspect all those desires which, in the common opinion of wise persons, cannot be followed up by good effects. Such would be, for example, the desire for a certain kind of Christian perfection that can be imagined but not carried out, one that many people can talk about but that no one puts into practice.
Know that patience is the one virtue which gives greatest assurance of our reaching perfection, and, while we must have patience with others, we must also have it with ourselves. Those who aspire to the pure love of God need to be more patient with themselves than with others. We have to endure our own imperfections in order to attain perfection; I say ‘endure patiently’ not ‘love’ or ‘embrace’: humility is nurtured through such endurance.
In truth, we have to admit that we are weak creatures who scarcely do anything well; but God, who is infinitely kind, is satisfied with our small achievements and is very pleased with the preparation of our heart. And what do I mean by ‘the preparation of our heart’? According to Scripture, “God is greater than our heart,” and our heart is greater than the whole world. When our heart, by itself, in its meditation, prepares the service it should render God, that is to say, when it makes plans to serve God, to honor Him, to serve the neighbor, to mortify our exterior and interior senses, and similar good projects, at such times it performs marvels; it prepares and plans its action so that it may reach a high degree of admirable perfection. All this preparation is still not at all in proportion to the grandeur of God—which is infinitely greater than our heart—yet it is ordinarily greater than the world, greater than our strength and our exterior actions.
On the one hand, anyone who reflects on the grandeur of God and the immensity of His goodness and dignity can never go to excess in making grand and glorious preparations of the heart for Him. It prepares for Him a body that is mortified and not rebellious, an attention to prayer that is not distracted, gentle conversation free of rancor, and a humility in which there are no bursts of vanity. All this is very good; these are fine preparations, but there is still more that we must do to serve God as we should. When all this preparation is done, it remains to be seen who will carry it out, for when it comes to putting all this into practice, we fall short and realize that these perfections can be neither so grand nor so absolute in us. We can mortify the flesh, but not so perfectly that it doesn’t rebel; in prayer, our attention will be often interrupted by distractions; and so with the other things I have mentioned.
Must we, for that reason, be worried, anxious, pressured, distressed? Certainly not. Is it necessary to think up volumes of desires in order to stimulate ourselves to reach this indication of perfection? Of course not. All we need to do is express simple wishes which witness to our gratitude. I can say, “Well, well, so I can’t serve and praise God as fervently as the seraphim!” but I mustn’t waste time making wishes as if I were going to reach such exquisite perfection in this world, and say, “I want this, I’m going to make every effort to get it, and if I don’t, I’m going to be furious!” I don’t mean that we shouldn’t head in the direction of perfection, but that we mustn’t try to get there in a day, that is, a mortal day, for such a desire would upset us, and for no purpose. In order to journey steadily, we must apply ourselves to doing well the stretch of road immediately before us on the first day of the journey, and not waste time wanting to do the last lap of the way while we still have to make it through the first.
I have one thing to tell you, so remember it well: we are sometimes so busy being good angels that we neglect to be good men and women. Our imperfections are going to accompany us to the grave. We can’t go anywhere without having our feet on the ground, yet we don’t just lie there, sprawled [in the dust]. On the other hand, we mustn’t think we can fly, for we are like little chicks who don’t have wings yet. We die little by little; so our imperfections must die with us, a little each day. Dear imperfections, they force us to acknowledge our misery, give us practice in humility, selflessness, patience, and watchfulness; yet, notwithstanding, God looks at the preparation of our heart and sees that it is perfect.
I don’t know if I am writing you to the point, but it came to my heart to say this to you, since I figured that part of your recent pain came about because you had made such grandiose preparations; then when you discovered that the results were very small and your strength insufficient to put all these desires and projects into practice, you felt a kind of let-down and a measure of impatience and anxiety. These feelings were followed by a lack of self-confidence, weariness, and moments of weakness and depression. If this is what happened, learn from the experience and from now on be very careful.
Let us go by land since the high sea is overwhelming and makes us seasick. Let us stay at our Lord’s feet, like Mary Magdalene whose feast we are celebrating, and practice those ordinary virtues suited to our littleness—little peddler, little pack—these are the virtues which are better practiced in going downhill than in climbing, and suit our legs better: patience, forbearance toward our neighbor, service of others, humility, gentleness of heart, affability, tolerance of our own imperfections, and similar little virtues. I do not say that we are not to ascend by prayer, but that we do so one step at a time.
I recommend to you holy simplicity. Look straight in front of you and not at those dangers you see in the distance. As you say, to you they look like armies, but they are only willow branches; and while you are looking at them you may take a false step. Let us be firmly resolved to serve God with our whole heart and life. Beyond that, let us have no care about tomorrow. Let us think only of living today well, and when tomorrow comes, it also will be today and we can think about it then. In all this we must have great trust and resignation to God’s providence. We must make provision for enough manna for the day, and no more. Let us not doubt that God will provide more for us tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow, and all the days of our pilgrimage.
I heartily agree with Father N.’s advice that you find a director into whose care you may place your soul. You would love to have no other director than our gentle Jesus, but He does not want us to disregard the direction given us by His servants when it is available; when it is lacking, He can make up for all we need; but it is only if you are reduced to such an extremity that you will experience this.
What I wrote you was not by way of keeping you from writing to me and speaking to me of your soul which is very dear to me, but simply to lessen the intensity of the confidence you are placing in me, which, considering my inadequacy and the distance that separates us, cannot be of much use to you, even if I am affectionately devoted to you in Jesus Christ. So write to me in all confidence and have no doubt that I shall answer you faithfully. I have added what you want at the bottom of this letter so that it will be for you only.
Pray hard for me, please. It’s unbelievable how busy and overwhelmed I am by this great and difficult charge. You owe me this charity by the very nature of our friendship, and by the fact that, in return, I remember you continually at the altar and in my feeble prayers. Blessed be our Lord. I beg Him to be your heart, your soul, your life.…
[1605–1608]
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