Ash Wednesday
by Sister Susan Marie | Mar 4, 2025 | LENT, Salesian Spirituality, Spiritual Directory, Visitation Outreach
Today we begin to meditate on the Spiritual Directory’s Third Article with the guidance of the writings of Mother Jeanne de Chantal Jouzel. to grow in union with the Lord during this holy season.
First Day, Ash Wednesday
“The sisters who wish.”
The question is then to acquire the perfection of my vocation to its fullest extent. Do I will this perfection with the same will that fashions Saints?
Before no matter what act costly to nature, I must say to myself, I cannot let this opportunity pass. I have given my will to God.
And in order to make this more forceful, I wish today to let it flow into the divine will, so as to will by the will of God, with the will of God, and in the will of God from all eternity, He has decreed my sanctification.
At the Visitation and by means of this third article, which He himself inspired Holy Founder with, I will therefore to use it. I want to arrive at that degree of perfection that He has desired of me.
Therefore I must often repeat to myself today, I will it, O my God. And I shall lose my will forever in Your adorable will.
Thursday
To prosper.
“It has been decided I will to attain all the Visitandine perfection that the Divine will desires of me. Our blessed Father has said that this perfection is very high. Therefore, I must not remain stationary or languid, but rather fervent and progressing.
Such a state is the result of the third article, well understood and well practiced. Little by little I shall meditate on these marvels, but I foresee already where this way to which grace attracts one leads to love without interruption, where the only anxiety of the soul is to place no obstacle before the inundation of this love into herself, but rather to change these obstacles by bearing them with peace and sweetness into means of meriting always a greater abundance of love.
By this offering, then, these merits re ascend toward the divine goodness to be to be reflected down upon souls.
These are incalculable treasures. It depends only on me whether I shall possess this wealth.”
Friday
and make progress.
“To possess a means of not losing an instant of one’s life, of ascending always, of progressing, of acquiring merits which double themselves with each act, what a secret. And the third article reveals it to me. I am not astonished then that the Sacred Heart of our Lord revealed to one of our sisters that a Visitandine is destined for the rank of the Seraphim.
By a way where one progresses continually,one can reach the summit of sanctity. What is it that retards the progress of a soul? It is that one puts too much of the human of self in what one does, and this failing diminishes the value of everything.
Now by the third article, each act becomes supernatural because of its principle, which flows from God even to its end, which reascends towards Him. Nature is again destroyed by bearing the pain and mortification encountered well.
In truth, by asking for the grace and by the offering, self no longer has a place, and the bearing of whatever suffering occurs prevents self from returning. In this way, the life of Jesus can develop in me and one can really progress in the way of our Lord.”
Saturday
in the way of our Lord.
“Our holy Founder has not said make progress in Visitandine perfection, but in the way of our Lord, because the two things are identical. Our road. is truly the road of our Lord which is to be followed on earth. Simple and ordinary in its exterior, but how supernatural and sublime.
In the eyes of his Heavenly Father to be on the way of our Lord means then to follow Him step by step, in order to grow with Him in all the virtues.
But it is more than that. And here, my soul, it is necessary to recollect yourself, for a divine horizon is about to be unveiled before you. Jesus has said I am the way. It is therefore necessary to arrive at living in him of His very life, and to let him live in uS.
Now on earth He lived of the love of the Holy Spirit, who led him, as it is said, to the desert. Then He lived according to the will, the glory of His Father, which was nourishment to Him. If at each request for grace I make Love, the Holy Spirit descend upon me, if at each offering I occupy myself with the divine glory, I shall be living the life of Jesus. And I shall need no more than to increase this life unceasingly by bearing the suffering he sends.”
Sunday
The simple practice of the Third Article is leading me to a life of union with the Three Divine Persons. Devotion to the Holy Trinity is very special at the Visitation Order, for in the life of the Holy Founder St Francis de Sales one is struck by his entreaties for this devotion.
Besides, devotion to the Most holy Trinity goes with devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which is proper to the Visitandines, above all as the Third Article envisages it.
The Sacred Heart is Love, which needs to bestow or diffuse itself. By asking for grace, I allow the Spirit of Love to inundate me at His pleasure. By endurance I fathom new depths and my love becomes a repairing love, uniting itself to the sufferings of Jesus.
By the offering, it re-ascends towards God the Father in order to merit grace for souls. These are all the desires of the Sacred Heart realized.
Yes it is the way He wishes me to follow; it is His own way.
Monday
I must learn on what this sublime and profound doctrine rests. The Third Article(above) is the proof of my love for God. It brings about the habitation of the Holy Trinity in my soul. St Paul said I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ to be strengthened by his spirit with might unto the inward man (request for grace) that Christ may dwell by faith in your hearts (charity) that you may be filled unto all the fullness of God(offer all to Him).
All rests on the Gospel and the teaching of the Church so that I can without fear aspire to this way.
Tuesday
“MUST”
I have meditated on the ideal to which I aspire.
I have stirred my will to desire it, giving my will the strength of the Divine Will into which I let it flow.
There remains for me now to take the means to attain my end.
The means are serious because the goal is great. I shall be seized in every fiber of my being, but I do not wish to draw back, my ideal is there to encourage me. I must allow Jesus to live in me by his Holy Spirit in order to glorify his Father. Yes I wish it.
Wednesday
“At the beginning”
In the beginning God said “Let us make man to our image and likeness” Is it not just that the imprint of the Trinity be made at the beginning of each act?
“in the beginning was the Word” therefore each action must be done by Jesus. He must act in me.
In the beginning God poured out His Love. I must respond by abandoning my soul to this outpouring of Love. The request for grace initiates this abandonment but it must be made from the beginning of each act.
Thursday
“of all”
This word ALL so vigorous in its brevity, is repeated 4 times in the above Third Article. I must reserve nothing in my giving, it is the Holy Spirit who reveals this through St Francis de Sales.
And he accentuates it by repeating it in the request the offering and the endurance ;it is useless for me to have any illusions there is no longer to be anything for me everything is for him. Alas have I done this up to now I wish to exclaim with Saint Therese but by completing her words with our third article “dear Lord you are asking for everything yes and I Feel Your Divine pressure in every action but I too shall ask you for everything in order to give you everything. Dearest Lord you deserve everything how true that is and by your might and above all by your love and your merits as Savior but I shall take these merits and add to them my own. By enduring everything I shall offer you all that the Holy Spirit has given me all that Jesus will do in me for that alone oh Eternal Father is truly worthy of you.
Friday
their actions
My life is composed of Acts which succeed each other without interruption now as a whole as well as in each detail at their beginning and at their end they must be done for God even more important is it pursuing always the noble thought that I have been meditating on for several days to realize the words of Saint Paul it is no longer I who live but Jesus who lives who acts in me and it is true that he wishes it so that our Lord is seeking souls in whom he can reproduce a new his life of Savior. Mother Mary Desales has spoken of a time to come that will proceed the bestowal of great Graces on the world and then one shall see as it were the Savior return to the Earth when certain Souls shall live who will serve him as a second humanity and who will act as he did. Now Visitandines are well fitted for being chosen for this Redemptive mission and if among the five or 6,000 of us many would determine to fill this role the reign of the Sacred Heart would be near this fact is food for thought to call me
Saturday
both interior
The question is to transform my life and our blessed Father with his precise instructions shows me to what details he wished to go. The third article gives me more than one light on this subject. My life is composed of actions sometimes interior and sometime and both interior and exterior at the same time. The request for Grace as well as the offering can embrace all our actions. None of our works should be allowed to escape this asking and offering. What a precious method this is which if I had known how to profit more by it would have made me advance in Perfection with the steps of a giant. By interior actions I must understand above all those which are addressed directly to God those which take in the most intimate part those which take place in the most intimate parts of my soul. All my exercises of piety alas how many omissions distractions and failures in generosity they have been all because I did not surround my actions sufficiently with the three points of my third article which are like dams that would have prevented all that is human from invading me; now that I shall employ these seriously in order to draw into my soul the Divine Life.
Sunday
and exterior
My exterior actions, that is those relating to the persons with whom I come in contact and those which are most materialistic, must also like my interior actions be vivified by the life of Jesus. He came upon Earth; He acted in order that I might see and use His merits and His example. I must do as He did or rather leave Him always free to direct all my movements.
This will come about in proportion as my personal life will diminish both interiorly and exteriorly
Yesterday I saw the three points of the third article as three dams keeping back what is human in me. How true is this aspect. The request for grace dams my natural useless and proud thoughts. This effort actually to breathe love as it were captivates my spirit and imagination.
The offering is a supernatural motive to all my actions. I will no longer act for my own sake not even in doing exterior things for everything is to be for the Divine glory and for Souls.
Finally sweet and peaceful endurance will arrest all complaints and unmortified movements; the self will be destroyed and Jesus will live on its ruins.
Monday
ask for the grace
We have now reached one of the most important points in the third article; it is necessary to let myself be crucified by this nail that is going to take away the self In me little by little . It is necessary that this nail should make me suffer .
This suffering is essential for death to self ; I have obtained a glimpse of a Sublime ideal.
I understand that is necessary to base this ideal on a firm foundation and I rejoice in the thought that the request for Grace places me above All in the state of profound sincere and frank humility; profound, because it is based on the intimate conviction of my misery of my nothingness and of my other incapacity for good .
Then like a pauper I beg for that which I lack and the very beginning of the action is impregnated with humility .
This humility is sincere also because this Grace descending upon me destroys the purely human and natural and reveals All things to me In truth, which is humility .
If I am blamed I know that the evil comes from me and I shall accept what I deserve with the aid of Grace ;if I am praised frankly I shall not attribute any glory to myself for it does not belong to me .
Thus little by little humility will take root in me
Tuesday
Together with true humility the request for Grace enables me to practice perfect obedience and to live in a state of continual dependence on the action of the Holy Spirit. This dependence gives to my entire life the Seal of reparation as it were for at the present moment together with pride there is a spirit of Independence throughout.
Who then listens to the Holy Spirit ? Who responds to his impulses of spirit of love?
I feel that you are asking it of me and I perceive more and more the beauty of my third article which makes me respond to your often despised desires. Yes I shall ask you for this Grace which you long to give and each action I shall follow not my personal impulse but yours.
I shall listen to your Inspirations which I shall discover in all the Divine commands in the words of my Superior who is your mouthpiece and in each word of my rule which was dictated by you.
My life will be no longer my own but yours and you shall form Jesus in me.
Wednesday
I could meditate at length on all the advantages that the request for Grace procures for me. Does it not place me in a state of Prayer? this asking makes me realize the words of the master it is necessary to bear it is necessary to pray always
It obliges me to remain attentive to the present moment placing me there at the beginning of each action; it launches me into what is exclusively Supernatural , for all that would be natural in an action is stopped at the beginning.
Finally and above all I must restrain myself and this final word contains everything; it makes me pursue the perfection of divine love .It is an ardent desire which can become almost uninterrupted of that infinite love who is God and who empties himself into the soul for the sake ofthe soul who asks for him.
How shall we make this request? For our most important actions we can pronounce some words but often a glance or a sigh will suffice ;it is more profitable to repeat this request several times at the different changes in our movements. This repetition ends by becoming a state, a habit and indispensable need of the soul thus to seek ardently for love.
Thursday
” and offer”
The request for Grace makes me thirst after love; the offering makes me return this love to God and these two heart beats are indeed those which Jesus desires in order to live in my soul and which the Sacred Heart felt while on Earth .
It is indeed the Perfection of love that I am pursuing for I am no longer aiming at anything but the Divine Glory.Both the beginning and end of my actions must be for God .
Since I no longer have myself in view am I really practicing these two points in the deepest sense? The highest point of Love is union and adoration and it is hither that the offering conducts me.
I am rendering to God that which is His due. I am participating as far as I am permitted in the function of a priest by making a continual offering.
To what heights does an act as simple and practice conduct me ? Just a few words: ” for thee my God I am offering this to thee” or perhaps a simple look , a movement of the heart will lift my actions to the Divine Heart .
This offering augments God’s accidental glory and moreover merits Grace for Souls as I shall see tomorrow.
Friday
I foresee more and more how the third article comprises the whole of our Visitandine Perfection and leads me to the end for which I was made a religious . The Third Article unites me to God .
Now what is Union ? It is a pouring of oneself into the Beloved by the request for Grace. God pours into my soul something of himself. By the offering it is I who dare to pour myself into him. Besides this is Union of Wills for I no longer desire anything but his glory and the welfare of Souls .
The offering enables me to respond to my Apostolic mission; at each moment I am making offerings for Souls, making as Mother Mary De sales said :continual discharges in order to make room for fresh charges of love .
By total forgetfulness of myself I shall arrive at heroic love.
It is necessary now to stop a moment to glance at the virtues already surveyed and at those that a continual practice of the third article will keep in store for me – the request for Grace forms the base: humility ,obedience , prayer , the offering, attains the summit : adoration, love , Union, apostolate .
To maintain me at the summit holy endurance will place me in a state of mortification, peace and abandonment. Verily all is contained herein.
Saturday
” to His Divine Goodness”
Our holy founder St Francis de Sales has said that there is not a word in our constitutions and directory that was not inspired by the Holy Spirit but certainly this fact must be particularly true of the words on which I am now meditating.
Did our blessed father have a presentiment then that one day his little Institute would receive by the gift of the Sacred Heart a seal of approbation, as it were ,on what he was doing then? He always placed us from our origin in the presence of that adorable vision of the Divine goodness.
It is with love not with Justice that we are concerned.Oh how this Declaration should fill me with joy and at the same time with generosity! My vocation is oriented entirely by love. The words love ,dilection and charity recur 58 times in the Constitution’s and directory.
Since love is stronger than fear how far will it enable me to climb ? This view of Love urging me on unceasingly to make offerings to Him, to give to him, is irresistible. It is an arrow that inflicts on the heart a wound that cannot healed.
This third article contains a secret from which one cannot escape .I feel that I shall be taken entirely captive.
Sunday
whatever good they may do
I must become entirely captive and verily can it be otherwise when one is confronted with this view of the Divine goodness of infinite charity urging me to give to him?
In what measure am I to give? Has this Divine charity ever made any reserves? There was still a few drops of blood in the adorable heart and love invented the Lance of Longinus to make all, even to the last drop, flow and shall I not offer everything before this renunciation and His sufferings?
Shall I complain? In this pain can there be in me a return of self love? Before His prayer can I be occupied with myself? No it is no longer possible. I have not understood well enough that it is to love that my offering is made; love who asked me to love Him and to make Him loved.
Therefore it is necessary to respond with the word all. Only that word is suitable. And there is yet another strategy of love. Blessed Father did not say all that they have done but all that they will do. The offering is made at the beginning of an action so that there is no way of recalling it without my failing to keep to my word and that would be an indelicacy that cannot be classified.
Behold now how I am made always more captive in this blessed net whose meshes close me in on all sides
Monday
Let us offer God who is infinite perfection that which is good, well done and worthy of him all that is offered . A prince should manifest respectful care yet for my Lord I permit myself to be negligent and to offer things that are carelessly done.. No both in whole and in part each of my exercises must be done well and since I feel my powerlessness to practice Perfection I shall employ the great method of letting Jesus act in me and for me and God the Father, seeing no longer anything but the actions of his Divine Son ,will be glorified as he deserves to be glorified .
Therefore I must ask for the movement of the Holy Spirit, the principle of all our Savior’s actions ,at the beginning of each task and offer each thing I do to our Heavenly Father for his glory and for Souls .
Then during the action I must remain in peace and sweetness of spirit ,a condition that Jesus requires in order to do his work Necessarily since sin has destroyed in me the tendency toward good it will be necessary to re-establish this inclination to good by suffering and mortification.
These I shall endure as means that will aid me to adorn my soul to do good and to merit the fullness of the life of Jesus.
Tuesday
thus preparing themselves
All that has proceeded has been just a preparation, for I am only at the beginning of the action . What follows must indeed be serious and profound since it is preceded by such a beginning !
Yet how much do I feel that this preparation must be made well, without routine, almost without thinking of it ? It is necessary that I ask and receive all the grace that I shall need that I offer my action in order to be forced ,as it were, to do it well and that I place myself in the divine presence, an inspiration that I cannot resist.
Then I shall be ready to fulfill the essential point of my third article which is no other ,we must admit, than the death of self.
In addition if each of my actions is prepared thus by the request for grace and the offering I need make no other preparation for death . When that Supreme act presents itself I shall accompany it by my third article and at the moment that the soul is recommended to God ,hearing the great words ,she has denied neither the father nor the son or the Holy Spirit I shall be able to die in peace for I shall have lived in Union with the Holy Trinity.
Wednesday
to endure
Recollect yourself oh my soul for you are approaching today the decisive word .Are you ready ? It is not enough to meditate on this word , it is necessary to live it !
Until now you have had in mind a Sublime ideal but do not deceive yourself -you are far from having attained it .This ideal shall be attained in the measure that you will practice this important word which will conduct you to death to self in order to merit the life of Jesus .
Behold !at the moment of climbing Calvary a sweet light appears. The question is not to carry my cross but to support or endure it, to hold it from below .
Who then will carry the heaviest part? It will be Jesus and more clearly than ever does my life of union with him appear to me now at this moment when all must be consummated.
Then if at certain times I have failed in courage it is because I have wanted to carry my cross alone and I have not had the strength .my role as a Visitandine is to support the cross .This role may appear easier but in truth it is more crucifying for the sight of Jesus stirs one up to follow in his footsteps to the very end .
What lessons are contained in this word! I am far from having seen all that is contained therein.
Thursday
I must penetrate this profound mystery of suffering but with Jesus under his Divine Light since the fall it is suffering that repairs ,purifies, regenerates and makes us arrive at disengagement from self. I must therefore try to love this fruitful suffering not particularly for itself but Above All Because of Jesus, my spouse, who has endured it for me who bears it with me so that I shall have only to endure it; who wishes a new to live in me His life of Redeemer of Souls.
This is the great secret of the third article ,to arrive at no longer removing suffering from my life ,no longer letting it abate when this would involve only a slight insubordination to the rule. If I do not observe this practice I am not supporting all the mortification that is encountered .
Alas what have I done until now! Are not all my faults against myself due to failure to endure suffering?
The Saints did not act as I do for they did not meet the cross they made themselves suffer voluntarily.
What a change there will be in my life if I understand the kind of endurance that will suffice for me.
Friday
“all”
here again and for the third time does this word all appear which really wishes to slay my self-love .It is necessary that I understand this word well for it alone can give me this death
As soon as I make my Reserves I Simply Nourish nature which will not be destroyed except by blows endured without interruption .All the humiliation and the suffering that is encountered in each action all my thoughts all my words none useless ,none of excuse ,none of complaint; all my actions and their smallest details servile and mortifying even to a useless movement :how frightening for nature .
No I did not realize that the third article went that far.Shall I withdraw? But then it would be Jesus whom I would leave alone to carry his cross.
I would be refusing to endure it by his side .How can I leave him thus when it is necessary to go to the very end ?Besides He has borne for me all the suffering possible to bear.
I am vanquished! may this all seize upon my will therefore.Henceforth only human Frailty will be able to take me away from this ideal.
Saturday
the trouble
I must bear my cross which is composed of two parts :pain- interior suffering ,suffering of Heart ,of spirit and of soul and humiliations and all their forms and mortification, exterior and physical suffering .
Today I shall take the heaviest part and near Jesus who has carried it for me .I wish to walk resolutely -this pain or Trouble comes sometimes directly from God , Temptation, dryness, aversions (in Gethsemane our Lord endured the most bitter part of these so that I should be able to drink of them as he did )sometimes from one’s neighbor, being forgotten ,misunderstood reproved.
Should I complain or excuse myself when this occurs? At each excuse I am simply letting my cross fall and Jesus himself continues to carry it for me .He was accused without ever being to blame.
Shall I not lighten his cross ?
Now by enduring the fact of being always to blame- fundamentally is it not true that I am capable of nothing but evil and that the greatest weight of pain or trouble that I have to bear comes from myself with all my miseries ,weakness and temperament Jesus bears me up- He has to endure me and not let me fall by discouragement and sadness .
Come my soul let us understand how far endurance goes!
Sunday
and mortification
Our holy mother, St Jane de Chantal, has said that there are few souls in religion who receive extraordinary graces because there are few souls who are extraordinarily mortified. I wish to arrive at more than ordinary perfection at all the Perfection of my vocation in the measure that the good God wishes for me and this is certainly a great deal .
I wish therefore to be a mortified soul in the full sense of the word which is far reaching namely, to subject the body and the senses to the spirit .
It is said that the rule of the Visitation is not austere, nevertheless in its mortifications it possesses all that is necessary for destroying nature .Only if I do not know how to endure the blows of the rule I shall not attain my end .Besides the good God continually sends small mortifications; fatigues, sicknesses ,disappointments and so on.
Do I Endure all with love ?do I love to suffer vexation and not have my comforts ?
If I do this I can dare to say that I am enduring the cross of Jesus ,that I am placing my steps in his bloody ones.
If I truly love I shall continually need to give and it is mortification that makes one give of oneself.
Monday
that they may meet with there
In these words are among the most important of the third article for they give an exact idea of the kind of mortification and at the same time of perfection that belongs to the Visitation. Here Liberty is voluntarily and completely abdicated .
The will is captured with the last things it withheld and total abandonment of the Soul becomes the sole occupation and certainly I need not fear to lose by this regime for the paternal hand of the Eternal Father will send me occasions that I would never have known how to find by myself and that will advance the destruction of Self in me much more surely.
The important thing is to be attentive ,to let no opportunity escape and since I do not have to be occupied with searching for means I can have if I wish to Great Liberty of spirit . I can concentrate on the present moment and, adorable mystery, the paternal hand has prepared all.
I seized upon his Divine intention. I Endure and understand his strategies of love.
At the following action I begin over again and so from opportunity to opportunity I shall pass my life in this game of Love which will end rapturously in heaven!
Tuesday
with peace
Our holy founder St Francis De sales said that when everything should be turned upside down he would not lose his peace. This was because he had understood the Divine Game of Love on which I meditated yesterday so that no matter what happened it left him calm. He wished that this peace should be the characteristic of his daughters and here I have arrived at the central point of the third article :when I shall have understood and practiced this peace I shall have made a great step forward in perfection.
Peace is the result of order . I am in order when I take my place of sinful creature to whom suffering is necessary in order to be purified and who instead of becoming troubled by suffering receives it as a means to admitting the abundance of love .
When one has arrived at this point she lives on abandonment and the fruit of Abandonment is peace .
The thought of the paternal hand will help me to progress along this way, this hand which is always calm and which lives and acts peacefully in an eternal tranquility .
Peace is the great means of imitating God and receiving and preserving his grace .It is always in the third article that I find these precious and fruitful lights.
Wednesday
and gentleness
We were instituted in order to imitate the gentleness and humility of the Heart of Jesus. Therefore it is necessary that the fragrance of these two virtues be found again in the third article which accompanies each of my actions.
I have already met humility when treating of the request for Grace which requires a profound conviction of my misery, of endurance of trouble which is above all humiliation and I shall meet it again in the word peace ,for a soul that is peaceful in suffering is by force a humble soul whose self-love has been weakened .
Now let us consider gentleness or sweetness ,this special characteristic of a daughter of Saint Francis de Sales who is at the right school to learn just how far to practice it. It is necessary therefore that each meeting with suffering should provoke in me a movement of gentleness but often until now the contrary was the case and I thought that I was practicing the third article well!
No I had not understood the game of divine love . I did not penetrate the rough skin which hides a fruit of such savour that after having tasted of it at each opportunity I shall necessarily become gentle.
The thing to do is to try.
Thursday
of mind(spirit)
It is not merely exterior gentleness that is demanded of me but gentleness of spirit,that is, the state of calmness and abandon that one possesses on all occasions and which led by the spirit of sweetness arise and effect at producing nothing but sweetness or gentleness of spirit .
Here in order to bring out my point I must return for a moment to the road already covered since the beginning of the third article and what do I see ? the Soul by the request for grace breeds love in order to offer it to the Divine goodness and spend all its activity in the Divine Game of Love which consists in discovering this infinite love in every circumstance .
In truth it is no longer difficult to understand that sweetness should flow from such a manner of acting. It is a way all of love, it is the way of Our Lord whose name is charity and I am no longer astonished that he should choose Visitandines in order to relive again on earth in them his life of Savior .
Of them as of Him when he was at Nazareth it is necessary to say: let us be gentle .
How much progress I must make but I need only let Jesus act by living the third article.
Friday
as coming
It is not a sentimental life that the third article demands of me but a true life of faith ,of that living and active faith that makes the soul breathe in a supernatural atmosphere where nothing is any longer an obstacle. This faith means to believe that God Alone is the Supreme Being and absolute principle or beginning of everything and that all things proceed from him and him alone.
Then one no longer regards secondary causes but always this Divine principle which conducts all things for the greatest good of the Soul to see all things as coming from God and through all things to go to him.
This was one of the greatest maxims of our blessed father, St Francis de Sales, which is one of the sources of his unalterable gentleness. It is necessary that this Maxim become my own and more and more now that I understand his doctrine better.
Behold my soul ! let nothing trouble you any longer here below ;let all things procure gentleness for you . I is God who gives all things ,there is no longer anyone but he and thee in the universe.
All things are instruments that He uses for your benefit but you must not look at them. Behold Him his own self- Him alone nothing can come but from Him.
Saturday
“from the fatherly hand”
It is therefore this sweet Vision that I have been presenting for a long time that appears to me today. This hand,Divine and adorable , which stretches itself toward me like that of a father leading his little child guides me from moment to moment, giving me all that I need.
This vision is also that of the Holy Trinity ,the arm of the paternal Providence, the hand of the savior ,the Divine finger who is the Holy Spirit. The three Divine persons are present occupying themselves with me in the most minute details . Did not Jesus say in the gospel that not a hair of our head should fall without the permission of his Heavenly Father and can I still trouble myself about things?
No it is impossible as long as I shall see this paternal hand near me, and be it the left hand which chastises or the right hand which Embraces me it is always the hand of the Father which is taking care of me .
My father loves me dearly and I am all His . I shall Fix My Eyes Upon This hand and no longer fear anything .I shall Repose in the Divine arms.
Sunday
of our good God
It is quite clear and I must understand more and more that my life is that of love and that it must result in peace and sweetness . It is not between the Arms of an irritated God that the third article places me but before the paternal hand of our good God .
This word good has something so touching about it that my soul cannot help melting away in tenderness and love . The good God is so good, once said a saintly religious ,many bestow on him this gentle appellation but how few act in keeping with this word .
It would seem that our holy founder St Francis is asking here of Visitandines a sort of reparation.
Yes we shall say the good God and thus finding good all that he sends them there shall issue forth from their hearts, their spirit and their lips only peace and gentleness ,the inhaling and exhaling of love.
Oh good God the heart overflowing with charity you have seen this and it is for this reason that you has come by preference to our little Institute.
Oh may I not deceive you.
Monday
and Savior
The third article is indeed complete for it responds to all the needs of the Soul. It is truly the Divine Spirit who inspired it.
The paternal hand is very attractive coming as it does from our good God; nevertheless a father who has never suffered and who asks his child to carry the cross does not have the same Force as he who has tried the cross before us and for us . Now with the fatherly hand the hand of the Savior also stretches itself toward me, this adorable hand which took human form in order to resemble me ,this little Hand of Jesus in the stable chilled through and through with the cold ,his workman’s hand hardened by the plane, his pierced hand as Redeemer on the cross .
Received from this hand shall not poverty ,labor and suffering appear quite supportable ? Besides there is still another mystery of Love through this gaping wound in the hand of the Savior.
I can see all his merits as Redeemer . I have only to take them to enrich myself with them and to use them for myself and for those who do not understand so that another mission of reparation reveals itself to me here.
Tuesday
Whose most holy intention
God never does anything by chance still less out of Caprice. In all that he does he always has a most holy and adorable intention, all of love, tending always toward my greater good
Have I always understood this Most Holy intention ? Alas ,often occupied with my own intention I have not seized upon the Divine intention . The Divine Hearts bending toward me has looked anxiously to see whether as a spouse I would be able to understand him .He has been disappointed.
In this word of the third article there is still another powerful means of destroying my occupation with myself to substitute for it a life given over to listening to the Divine intention . It is absolutely necessary that I let myself be captured ,the traps are set up on all sides how can I now let my cross fal, how can I fail to carry it with peace and sweetness ?
The most holy intention of God is in this cross and is so provoking that I shall surrender without any longer wishing to dream of my personal desires .
What a life will now result composed entirely of the most delicate manifestations of love. These words truly render the soul a spouse . May I understand them completely.
Wednesday
to make them merit
I have understood that it is not my desires that I must follow but those of God. My intention will naturally always tend towards some enjoyment or other( even if I intend to mortify myself it is for the purpose of sanctifying myself in order to enjoy more from God ). The original Divine intention in creating us was to create us for happiness and actually the Divine intention still wishes to lead us to happiness only the means are no longer the same
I am often mistaken about the means whereas I must convince myself that in following the most holy intention of God which always tends toward my end all my actions will be meritorious and worthy of a reward above all if I unite these tiny merits to the infinite merits of Jesus .
Whereas if I wish to act without following the Divine intention I am working only for myself and I’m performing poor actions without any Merit which fall to the ground if they are not indeed occasions of blame and diminution of Grace .
Eve misunderstood the Divine intention which wished to make her merit; she followed her own desires; she wished to become as a god. Alas if I wish to follow the Divine intention I shall participate in the divine nature by the three means that will enable me to merit it.